#which was a plot that happened on this very show!!

[catras-breakup-song]

I think that’s black leather all over Catra in Season 4?

it's not super relevant but yes i also was/am under the impression that s4/s5 catra’s uniform is comprised of mostly leather. in fact, i used to think way back when i was new to the fandom that it was hard armor, sort of like the old version of she-ra had.

But it’s with Catra and Adora that the gazing escalates the most, and it’s with them that it’s most important to the plot. Because as I said before, She-Ra is a queer love story at its heart, and the desire that Adora and Catra feel for each other shapes the story throughout. These two women wanting each other is baked into the very structure of the show.

i really appreciate you acknowledging that the story centers around catradora and it’s impossible to enjoy the show without acknowledging their romantic relationship unless you engage with a fanon version instead. i wrote a post about that a few months back (though the quote additions are much more recent), which i also linked in my reblog of your first essay post.

Catra and Adora’s desire for one another is shown in a variety of ways, mostly indirect. There are a lot of glances - until season 5, not the kind of open leering at one another that we’d seen between other characters. Mostly it’s fairly playful - wiggled or cocked eyebrows, glances at each other while smirking, that kind of thing, or really intense and somewhat angry glares when they’re fighting.

it's really bothering me that i can't recall where i read this from before, but someone analyzed before how, growing up, catra & adora didn't have a good sense of how to label their relationship with accurate terminology despite being subconsciously aware that they, whether they knew the other reciprocated or not, loved each other "like that." unfortunately, they couldn't further explore it because such love & affection was seen as a punishable weakness in the horde, so they resorted to the only safe option they seemed to have, which was subtle body language and play-fighting as the OP described above.

[Nate] Stevenson literally saved two scripts for "Save the Cat" and in his words, "we got the gay version."

it may be worth mentioning that although we definitely got the gayer sucker-punch version of the STC script, the other one that was released to the public had a section from horde prime that mentioned how catra only ever wanted adora. i posted about the hype when that happened here (with a screenshot), and here is someone else's meta piece about it.

Prime is among the most important and the most twisted Catradora shippers in the show, in his own way, since while he’s not as all knowing as he claims, he can recognize Catra’s feelings, and Adora’s as well. He tries to use them against Catra and Adora since like Shadow Weaver he believes that love is a weakness, but ironically his prodding only make Catra and Adora stronger (because there is strength and power in lesbianism).

prime knows all — except love. the magic discovered to be his weakness on krytis in 5x08 is a metaphor for love. (also, entrapta’s speech in heart pt 1 also covers this pretty well.) of course, i have to quote five by five takes's video from 10:51 - 11:51 discussing exactly this:

then, on krytis, it’s very deliberately revealed that his one weakness is magic. magic is natural, a part of the planet; and then magic is thematically linked to love. shadow weaver describes she-ra as a “being of pure magic”, and then we see she-ra’s pure form activated by care for others. so, prime’s weakness to magic might as well be a weakness to love — something he apparently tries to overcompensate for with this “etherians are so predictable with their emotions” and “i see all” routine. but neither love nor magic can be quantified, constructed or controlled; like nature, they’re living things that grow on their own. so love saves the world, magic envelops the planet, and the natural supplants the industrial. prime’s ship is engulfed by a tree. it’s even fitting that perfuma, with her plant power, makes the most compelling case for vulnerability to catra, a product of the machine-like horde upbringing.

i will quote them again in this very same post when i link back to another one i remade in the past.

Then there’s Heart Parts 1 and 2, where it becomes clear that [Nate] is very much Going There. If you didn’t have the kiss spoiled, Heart Part 1 may have been the time when you said to yourself "[Nate] Stevenson you magnificent bastard, you’re actually going to do it."

i am one of the people who technically got the kiss spoiled back in may/june of 2020 when i was a much more casual & carefree fan of the show, but i never really cared. i think even despite being a traumatized voltron watcher before, i always knew they would become an official couple. it just felt much more like an openly queer show where the writers & crew actually cared about their characters and telling a heartfelt story that would be satisfactory representation to the audience... unlike the other one.

that being said, with the explicit queer love that saves the day as well as all the previous body language & flirtatious subtext that you described is why i will never understand how people can still claim they were “supposed to be” or “should have been” sisters, or even worse, that they are and the kiss is contradictory by having both a sisterly and romantic context to the duo, therefore the show “promotes incest.” media comprehension is at an all-time low when it comes to critics consuming SPOP.

Adora’s transformation into She-Ra from Beast Island onwards has always been about her connection to other people, often a desire to save them or help them.

huh… i mean, i must’ve been subconsciously aware, but i never truly outright realized that adora’s authentic she-ra, or at least her motivation behind her, kinda started on “beast island” rather than STC or even “stranded.” it makes perfect sense as a build-up; it's not quite her true form, which she probably never could have found without breaking the sword due to how it contradicts when the first ones' version of her stood for as a weapon rather than a celebration of connection, but it's the cracks in the dam of adora beginning to realize what her actual real purpose in the rebellion is.

This means that while mild and non explicit depictions of straight sexuality are considered ‘appropriate for children’ similarly innocent displays of queer sexuality are considered intrinsically explicit or even obscene, something that lives on for higher age ratings for queer content in many countries. The message of this is clear - queer desire is dirty, and wrong, and shameful in a way that straight desire isn’t. Only by openly showing and owning our desires can queer people strike back against stigma (hence the PDA and sometimes risque clothing at Pride).

i think the whole essay, but especially this paragraph, aligns perfectly with the intention & meaning behind the display of the hot pink stripe of gilbert baker’s flag, which symbolizes sex, as well as the middle pink of the lesbian flag, representing love & sex. it was a fighting response to society's disgust towards queer people's proud presentation of their sexualities.

But beyond this, I think Catra and Adora’s experience of desire reflects so many of our experiences. How many of us, like Catra, have assumed that other people never wanted us like we wanted them? [...] By the same token, how many of us have, like Adora, struggled to understand or articulate or act on our own desires when they weren’t what we were taught we should want? [...] I think Adora’s struggle to want what she so desperately wants is something a lot of us have felt, but so is the power she finds in finally owning her own desires and acting on them.

as promised, here is that extra 5X5T quote!

“She doesn’t want me - not like I want her.” - Catra, Heart Pt 1.

There’s a lot of things that make the themes and emotional arcs of She-Ra impressively, even staggeringly mature for a kid’s cartoon. There’s the themes of religious trauma and oppression, of self-determination, how love can be both the best thing in your life and something that utterly guts you and twists you, how it can bring people together or tear them apart, and also other themes like the conflict of loyalty versus finding your own path, etc. But one of the craziest and gutsiest things about the show is that it’s a kid’s cartoon that hinges on queer desire. Catra and Adora’s love story is not desexualized or abstracted. It’s very explicitly a story of two women who don’t just love each other, but who want each other. This is pretty clear throughout the show (though especially in season 5), and established really thoroughly at every level of their interaction with each other. Catra and Adora have better sexual chemistry than most straight rom com couples (okay, bad example, that’s not saying much), no matter how much said rom coms may try to make that attraction explicit rather than implicit with steamy make out scenes or characters hopping into bed. 

The thing is, you can show desire without even mentioning sex - it’s literally how Hollywood did this for years to get around the Hayes Code. Even today the sexiest movie I’ve ever seen is Jane Champion’s “Bright Star”, where the most explicit reference to sex is a somewhat elipitcal proposition from the heroine that is very gently declined by the hero*. She-Ra, kids show that it is, is a masterclass in showing desire without making anything explicit, and showing desire (directly or indirectly) is so important in a queer love story, especially, since queer love is so often desexualized as a way of defanging its challenges to heteronormativity. This is going to be a three part essay. First of all, I’ll talk about how the show in general portrays sexuality and desire without being explicit and especially without inviting straight dudes to oggle its characters, then I’ll touch on portrayal and role of desire in Catra and Adora’s relationship, and finally I’ll talk about what the show’s portrayal of desire is telling us and why it's important. Because this is a show about desire, about wanting - it starts with Shadow Weaver’s rhetorical framing of ‘isn’t this what you’ve always wanted, since you could want anything?’ and ends with Catra’s cutting ‘What do you want?’ and Adora’s explosive answer (Catra. Our girl wants Catra) two episodes later. 

So let’s drive in.

First, I’m going to use the term ‘sexual desire’ and variations to refer to sexual attraction as depicted in the show, even though it is never named as such and instead is shown by (very clear) implication. When I talk about say, an outfit or a pose or a situation being sexualized, I refer to commonly understood social coding that something should be read sexually. I use these terms to make what the show is doing implicitly explicit. Because make no mistake, the show is very much doing these things very deliberately.

In hindsight, it's not only creepy but ironic and ultimately telling that the initial online tempest in a teapot about the show was over how She-Ra’s outfit wasn’t sexy enough, or whatever. Because the outfits in this show...I wouldn’t describe them as dowdy. There are so many crop tops. So many boob windows (on both male and female characters). There are thigh highs and open backs and I’m pretty sure Double Trouble has a garter belt and I think that’s black leather all over Catra in Season 4? Noelle Stevenson’s  philosophy toward costume design can as always be summarized by a tweet (there is always a tweet...or two):

https://twitter.com/gingerhazing/status/1258874007253729280?lang=en

In addition to this, there’s an apparently deleted tweet where Noelle talks about characters getting crop tops and boob windows ‘as a treat.’ (Some dude on Twitter got in a huff about that, perhaps? Because that site is joyless.)

Of course, creepy neckbeards on YouTube didn’t have distressingly attractive (male) alien overlords in open-fronted gowns and platform heels or nonbinary shapeshifting lizards in mind when they complained about the new She-Ra not being sexy enough. They wanted drawings of conventionally attractive (white) women in skimpy clothing, and they wanted an art style that was tailored to their gaze - detailed, if not realistic, in its depiction of certain parts of women. She Ra’s gleeful celebration of all kinds of people’s bodies - men, women, nonbinary people, butch women, thin women, and perhaps especially muscular women - isn’t what they have in mind. Nor is the art style of the show catering to them, and I think it’s the art style that’s important to the rest of this essay. The show’s style draws the characters so that even when they are dressed in a fairly sexualized fashion (like Catra in season 4), the actual animation doesn’t sexualize them - not in the perspective, not in the details shown (there’s no cleavage drawn, no matter how low cut the top), nothing. So even when every character on screen is dressed in thigh highs and low cut tops with boob windows etc, the show never feels weird or gross or leering. Instead, it feels like it’s celebrating its characters bodies, not objectifying them and especially not objectifying them for the benefit of straight men. And that’s important because this is a kids show, but also because let’s be honest, cartoons that objectify their characters for the benefit of a presumed straight male audience are pretty fucking irritating and even some great shows would be better off if they didn’t do it.

But there’s another thing that the combination of the costuming and art style does. I think it’s important that these characters are often dressed in a sexualized way because even while the audience isn’t invited to check them out, they are definitely checking each other out. This is a show where queer people, mostly queer women, are constantly looking at each other. I’m sure they are Looking Respecfully. Mostly.

Adora checks out Huntara (or at least her muscles), and the Buff Butterfly chick in Elberon. Bow checks out Sea Hawk, (as does Mermista, probably the most explicit opposite-sex attraction on the show). So many characters check out She-Ra. I could go on. These expressions of queer sexuality (appropriate for the target viewership, since they’re not explicit) form a kind of constant background that models a respectful and healthy form of desire that isn’t constrained by shame or twisted by power or control. The art style, and the way the show is animated, thus move the focus away from reader’s reactions to the character’s bodies, and put the focus on how the characters feel about each other. The characters of She-Ra aren’t here to cater to the desires of the viewer (especially not straight men), the show is here to celebrate their desires for each other. Also, this whole thing very accurately captures the vibe of an early 20’s friend group who are probably all hooking up with each other much better than a couple of contrived love triangles could. 

But it’s with Catra and Adora that the gazing escalates the most, and it’s with them that it’s most important to the plot. Because as I said before, She-Ra is a queer love story at its heart, and the desire that Adora and Catra feel for each other shapes the story throughout. These two women wanting each other is baked into the very structure of the show.

Catra and Adora’s desire for one another is shown in a variety of ways, mostly indirect. There are a lot of glances - until season 5, not the kind of open leering at one another that we’d seen between other characters. Mostly it’s fairly playful - wiggled or cocked eyebrows, glances at each other while smirking, that kind of thing, or really intense and somewhat angry glares when they’re fighting. By season 5, we get Catra staring open-mouthed at Adora’s new transformation and blushing. Another major way that the show establishes the sexual tension between Catra and Adora is by their body positions. This is clearest with the dance and fight sequences in Princess prom, which can get pretty risque for a kid’s show - I’m not the first person in this fandom to point out where Adora’s knee is here:

Seriously, there is no heterosexual explanation for this. Then there’s Adora and Catra in the portal reality - they are basically constantly entwined around each other - shoving, wrestling, reaching out for each other. It’s friendly rough housing that is also a lot more. This kind of ‘blocking’ of Catra and Adora continues in different ways for much of the show. As someone on Discord mentioned, you can’t even count how many times Catra ends up straddling Adora over the show’s run. It’s a lot. And yeah, the way Catra and Adora fight is not...it’s not without its share of ambiguity (and let’s be honest, isn’t that part of the fun of enemies-to-lovers? People that say it doesn’t have to involve violence just hate fun). It’s in the way they wrestle and eagerly launch themselves at each other, ‘like am'rous birds of prey,.... rolling all their Strength, and all their sweetness, up into one Ball: And tear their Pleasures with rough strife.’**

Of course, there is a very dark side to this - the implication that Catra, frustrated by her perception that her friend rejected her, is channeling her frustrated desire for Adora in increasingly violent directions, becoming a sadist in the most literal sense of the word and perhaps trying to destroy what (who) she can’t have. This is pretty intense for a kids show, but it’s all (very clear, very deliberate) subtext. Moreover, it’s thematically important - it shows how everything good in Catra is being twisted by her resentments, her fears and her desire to dominate as the only means of keeping herself safe. She mauls Adora in a parody of a lover’s embrace (twice, though once under control by Horde Prime, who mostly wants to torture both of them).

Probably the biggest thing that establishes the sexual undertones of Catra and Adora’s relationship is the voice acting, however. AJ’s purred or snarled ‘Hey Adora’s are fan favorites for a reason - they convey so much of the ambiguity of Adora and Catra’s relationship, but they are also flirtatious as all hell. And as I mentioned in my previous post, Aimee Carrero’s line delivery of ‘Hey Catra’ in the first episode of Season 2 is just about as flirtatious as any line Catra delivers. There’s an edge of playfulness and teasing to both of them that is intensely flirty, and a guardedness that speaks to their own discomfort with how much they want the other person. My friend billypilgrim has pointed out to me that there are actually distinct phases of this kind of verbal (and non-verbal) flirting:

1. Pre sword, pretty organic, tinged with some issues with showing vulnerability etc, but overall pretty natural wholesome and obviously reciprocal 

2. Post sword, pre promise, mostly confused feelings or strong feelings, usually mixed with anger/ or an attempt to get a rise out of the other. Mix of adversarial and reciprocated exchanges 

3. Promise, prompted by memories they kinda swing back into a more guarded, but still mutual back and forth that isn't quite pre sword, but feels more organic than others. 

4. Post promise -portal, mostly one sided offensive digs or angry comments that reveal desire. Not a lot of back and forth that I remember. Primarily  adversarial 

4. Portal reality- see above, very mutual, very reciprocated 

5.  Post portal -pre corridors, limited interaction, one sided digs that give way to just no contact. Very adversarial no reciprocation..

6 post save the cat. Lots of mutual reciprocated flirting with angst imposed by history /circumstance, wholesome but with some of the undercurrents of trying to figure each other out again

So the flirtation mirrors where their relationship is as a whole.

Then there’s the other stuff. Catra shredding the bed she shared with Adora is hard to read as anything other than romantic (or indeed, sexual), and it conveys Catra’s frustration, longing, grief and rage.

The way these two interact in Season 5 is a subject all its own, though. Noelle Stevenson literally saved two scripts for Save the Cat and in his words, ‘we got the gay version.’ Under Prime’s control Catra torments Adora by caressing her face, speaking sweetly to her, and acknowledging her own desire for Adora (‘you broke my heart’) - Prime is among the most important and the most twisted Catradora shippers in the show, in his own way, since while he’s not as all knowing as he claims, he can recognize Catra’s feelings, and Adora’s as well. He tries to use them against Catra and Adora since like Shadow Weaver he believes that love is a weakness, but ironically his prodding only make Catra and Adora stronger (because there is strength and power in lesbianism). The way that Adora is so gentle with Catra even when they fight, the way they reach out to each other, the way Adora cradles Catra after she falls...yeah, we definitely got the gay version of the script.

As the season continues we see this attraction develop and grow. The strained arguments (full of unspoken desires) in Taking Control give way to an easy teasing that is more explicitly sexual and romantic than anything we saw before (except perhaps in the portal reality). This reflects where their relationship is - as Catra and Adora know themselves better and also understand the other a bit better, they are starting to tease apart the muddled feelings they once had for each other, and have already started to discard the more unhealthy aspects of their dynamic. They still wrestle and tease, but now they’re laughing and smiling and grinning at each other. And they can’t keep their hands off one another. It’s hard to find a scene in Season 5 when they’re not touching, until Shadow Weaver shows up (and even then, we still get Catra jumping into fire for Adora and Adora transforming into She-Ra to save Catra in the Failsafe chamber).

Then there’s Heart Parts 1 and 2, where it becomes clear that Noelle is very much Going There. If you didn’t have the kiss spoiled, Heart Part 1 may have been the time when you said to yourself ‘Noelle Stevenson you magnificent bastard, you’re actually going to do it.’ Here’s where the -problem- that desire poses for Adora and Catra is posed so explicitly. This actually begins with the end of Failsafe, where Catra’s anguished ‘what do you want?’ and Adora’s non-answer set up the central conflict of the final two part episode - Adora becoming comfortable with her own desires. In her line ‘Adora doesn’t want me...not like I want her’, Catra expresses what she thinks is her unrequited desire for her best friend (a woman who is about to sacrifice herself for the world). For Catra, Adora wanting her is inconceivable, because Catra thinks that she is unlovable. Meanwhile in Adora’s own hallucinatory journey toward her own death we see that montage of Catra -showing- Adora what she wants most in the whole world, and then disappearing. For Adora, her desires are half-formed, on the tip of her tongue, but quickly shoved aside to focus on her duty and her mission, to save her friends rather than grasp at what Adora wants for herself.

And then there’s the Heart. It’s easy to say the power of love saves the day, but that’s not specific enough. It’s romantic love, erotic love, queer love that saves the day when Adora is confronted with what she wants and finally reaches out for it rather than turning aside in favor of what she’s supposed to do. She tries to do it again and avoid the question of what she wants, but she doesn’t have ‘world enough, or time’ and so the situation, and more importantly Catra’s declaration, forces her hand. Adora’s transformation into She-Ra from Beast Island onwards has always been about her connection to other people, often a desire to save them or help them. But here it isn’t just the prospect of saving Catra, but ~wanting~ Catra that enables Adora to transform, take the power of the heart and murder Prime with the power of friendship. And so lesbianism saves the universe.

So that’s a bit of how the show conveys the (pretty intense) desires of two women for each other without ever mentioning the word ‘sex’ and how that plays out in the show. Stepping back and looking at the whole of Adora and Catra’s arcs, before the show it is implied that neither character can fully accept the nature of their attraction - either how they feel, or that the other returns their feelings. After the pilot, they are both denying their sexuality in some way in Season 1 - Adora is suppressing her desire for Catra and focusing on duty, and Catra is denying her desire for Adora and twisting it into a desire to hurt Adora and make her suffer, while also shoving it aside in favor of her quest for power. Yet for both of them the underlying attraction is simmering under the surface. Often they use it to get under the other’s skin (Catra does this more than Adora, but Adora definitely has her moments), but it’s there in so many of their glances, their lines, and even their blows. Catra is the first to admit that she wants the other (perhaps as early as the end of Season 4, it’s hard to say) but she continues to assume that Adora doesn’t return her desire. Meanwhile Adora continues to dodge confronting what she wants, a question that gets brought up again and again through the show. Adora has grown so much over the series - she’s twice walked away from everything she knew and twice turned away from her closest friend to do what is right, she’s twice walked away from her destiny, she’s saved the world repeatedly by sheer force of will and a strategic amount of ass kicking. But she’s always avoided the question of what she wants, thinking that what she wants is selfish, or a distraction, just like Shadow Weaver taught her. Here she is a counterpoint to the way Catra internalizes Shadow Weaver’s view that love is a weakness and that Catra is unworthy of love anyway. Adora is convinced by Shadow Weaver (not just in Failsafe, really through her entire life) that what she wants distracts her from what is really important, that it weakens She-Ra, when in fact it is only by embracing her desires that Adora can be her true self, and really be the hero she deserves. Again, this isn’t just an abstract self-acceptance, this is an explicit embrace of her sexual desire for another woman that gives Adora her power.

So other than celebrating how lesbianism saves the universe, how should we take the central role that queer desire plays in the show? How does it reflect the queer experience and why does it matter?

First off, I think any celebration of queer sexuality is fucking great. One that introduces these ideas in an age appropriate ways to kids is particularly impressive. Because one thing about queer relationships is that their depiction is often desexualized. In kids shows, this is clearest with the fade to white at the end of Korra (which was the best they could do at the time, it was 2014, it was great), but also through all kinds of pop-cultural ‘family friendly’ depictions of same sex love that consisted of hand holding while straight couples were shown making out in the same shows (insert a 2000’s sitcom here). This means that while mild and non explicit depictions of straight sexuality are considered ‘appropriate for children’ similarly innocent displays of queer sexuality are considered intrinsically explicit or even obscene, something that lives on for higher age ratings for queer content in many countries. The message of this is clear - queer desire is dirty, and wrong, and shameful in a way that straight desire isn’t. Only by openly showing and owning our desires can queer people strike back against stigma (hence the PDA and sometimes risque clothing at Pride).

But beyond this, I think Catra and Adora’s experience of desire reflects so many of our experiences. How many of us, like Catra, have assumed that other people never wanted us like we wanted them? This is perhaps a universal experience, but I think it can be particularly poignant for people attracted to the same sex, when it is easy to assume that of course they wouldn’t like you ‘like that’, especially when we’re dealing with internalized homophobia. By the same token, how many of us have, like Adora, struggled to understand or articulate or act on our own desires when they weren’t what we were taught we -should- want (as I mentioned in my last post)? Noelle Stevenson didn’t come out to herself and the world as a lesbian until he was 24. I didn’t realize I was bi until I was...significantly older than that. I think Adora’s struggle to -want- what she so desperately wants is something a lot of us have felt, but so is the power she finds in finally owning her own desires and acting on them.

So She-Ra isn’t just a depiction of queer relationships or queer people. It’s a celebration of queer desire, packaged in a show that is totally appropriate for elementary aged kids. It’s kind of amazing.

Anyway, just a reminder that this is a series and if you like this here are the other ones. Part 4 will be coming, maybe next week, and will focus on how She Ra thematically and dramatically pulls off a power of love ending. I am also going to explicitly talk about why this ending works when other power of love endings fall flat.

*If you are attracted to guys at all, see this movie, the camera itself is very into John Keats and if you like dudes you will be too. Even if you aren’t, it’s a great movie and a perfect antidote to the both too-reverently ‘historical’ and not-at-all actually historical conventions of costume dramas.

**If you get this reference, yes I made it for you, specifically. Yes you. You know who you are.

[lurkingshan]

Another week, another struggle to wrangle my complicated thoughts about this beautiful show. In a way it feels fitting that we ended up watching and discussing this at a time when there was just so much happening around us in the real world that we are struggling to cope with. This story is, after all, mostly a meditation on grief and failure and finding small bits of hope among some truly bleak realities.

I've been thinking a lot this week about the pretty significant changes to this part of the story in the TV adaptation. This part departed the most from the novel, which makes sense since in the novel it was largely Young sitting in quiet introspection about his choices and regrets and where things went wrong. Not only was it emotionally dense, it was very interior in nature, necessitating some changes for the screen. Back when I first read it, I found hope in the fact that Young was finally processing his emotions rather than hiding from them despite the gut wrenching nature of this thoughts. The TV version doubled down on that bit of hope and amplified it.

The inclusion of the T-aras throughout continues to be the most consequential change to this story, and this week went even further in giving one of them, Eun Su, his own story. I've noodled quite a bit on Sang Young Park's purpose in adding this subplot about Eun Su's doomed engagement (and many indicators of his general disdain for marriage as a means to find happiness and security). The best interpretation I can offer is that, given the overall message in these final episodes that we can only find hope and true happiness by living wholly as ourselves, he wanted a parallel story that was about getting out of a relationship alongside Yeong wanting to be in one, to make it clear that his message is not about romance fixing anyone.

I also really enjoyed the Eun Su plot for keying into a very real dynamic of long term friendship group dynamics: those times when you suddenly grow closer to one person in your friend group because you are having a similar experience, or because you're the only ones in the group who can empathize with each other about a specific situation. Eun Su knew that among his friends, Yeong was the one who would understand his unhappiness in this relationship and not judge him for it, and for this period of time, their shared discontent and regrets brought them closer.

The way this thread came together with Yeong's regrets over Gyu-ho to prompt his reflections on what went wrong worked really well, and I liked the choice to end the show on a more explicitly hopeful note than the novel, as it felt fitting for its lighter tone throughout. Instead of leaving Yeong on a moment of deep regret as he thinks back to the lantern with Gyu-ho's name on it falling from the sky (Gyu-ho. My only wish.), we end with him celebrating with his friends on a rooftop, gazing up at fireworks in the sky, thinking of Gyu-ho with sadness but also naming his enduring wish for love with a smile.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

You know, Zoe's comment about Adrien's lack of reaction to Lila slandering Ladybug and your comment on Lila's potential to be a rival to both protagonists led me thinking of Lila going "Hel hath no fury like a Rossi scorned", and going on trying to destroy Adrien's reputation first (He rejected me when I was so great! How dare he?), and Ladybug second (Oh, he likes her so much that he wouldn't even let me say she's not that great? Well, no nobody will like her!).

Marinette in this case? More of an afterthought. A tool, another target to turn against Adrien and Ladybug (poor Lila, she doesn't know how hard she's gonna fail).

Pros:

+ gives Adrien a rival

+ a rival for LB, too, but not for Marinette. Marinette has enough rivals already.

+ greater freedom for Lila while still allowing for episodic format: she's not deceiving the class, she's deceiving Adrien's fans. Online communities can be VERY fickle, so "Adrien's fans turn against him because of an outrageous claim, but this gets resolved during the same episode, Lila gets away with it because of anonimity and gossip spread" is actually believable

+ a wealth of lessons for the kids about dealing with gossip, popularity and notoriety, lies, personal boundaries, dealing with rejection, etc.

Cons:

— May be a bit too dark/mature for a kids' show (that said, Gravity Falls pulled off the Gideon plot without it getting too dark, so this one may work as well)

— Another case of a girl falling for Adrien and not taking rejection well. That said, 1) this time it is at least "girl vs Adrien" instead of "girls vs each other" and 2) I personally think Chloe's crush on Adrien is redundant and she works well enough as a needy, toxic friend. But that's a story for another time.

What do you think of this idea?

Once again, thanks a lot for all your work! I learned a lot about writing because of your blog, it is really enlightening!

(Post this ask is referring to)

I don't think that's too dark for a kids show. Kids deal with the rumor mill all the time! You just have to keep the rumors TV-kid-friendly (which will be much nicer than real kids).

Beyond that, I like this approach. Lila's hatred of Marinette never made much sense. It's too extreme! Until Marinette starts dating Adrien, Lila shouldn't care about Marinette. There's nothing Marinette can give Lila and Marinette has done nothing to effectively stop Lila's power or mess with her plans. Lila's Marinette hatred would only makes sense if Lila knew that Marinette was Ladybug, but she doesn't.

Meanwhile, Lila actively wants to be close with Adrien because he's a rich popular guy who can give her access to power (I do not think she has ever had any actual feelings for him). His denials of her approach are actually messing with her plans! Just look at the two conversations we get in Chameleon. This is what happens with Adrien:

Adrien: Hey, Lila. Lila: Adrien, we'll have to figure when you're gonna help me catch up on all the schoolwork I missed. I also heard you play piano, my uncle's the great pianist Chuch Boroughchuck. He wanted to teach me when I was little, but I had to stop playing because of arthritis. But when my wrist gets better, I'd love for you to give me some lessons. Adrien: Lila, I'm perfectly happy being friends with you, and I'll gladly help you catch on your schoolwork, but please don't lie to me like you did last time with Ladybug. Adrien: (in flashback) So I'm guessing you're not a descendant of a superhero, either. Ladybug: (in flashback) She's more like a super liar. Lila: Ladybug's the liar. Adrien: I'm not judging you, Lila, but instead of making friends you're going to turn everyone against you. You can tell me if there's something bothering you. I can help. But you need to be honest with me. Lila: Are you trying to be some superhero lecturing me just like Ladybug did? Well thanks, but no thanks. Ugh. (storms off)

Meanwhile this is what happens with Marinette:

Lila: Don't tell me it's because of this new seating arrangement in class! (Marinette turns away from Lila) It is! Of course, you're jealous because I'm sitting next to Adrien, because you would've given anything to sit there yourself. You know what? It's really not worth fighting over a boy. You and I could be friends, and who knows, I might even be able to help you with Adrien. Marinette: You and I will only be friends the day you stop lying, Lila! (Lila gasps) I can't prove it, but I know for a fact that you don't have tinnitus, that your wrist is just fine, that you don't know Prince Ali because you've never even stepped foot in Achu, and despite what you got Alya to write on her Ladyblog, Ladybug has never saved your life! Lila: I only tell people what they want to hear. Marinette: It's called lying! Lila: (Unconcerned) There's nothing you can do about it, anyway. People can't resist when they hear what they like to hear. If you don't want to be my friend, fine! But soon you won't have any friends left at all. And trust me, I'll make sure you never get close to Adrien in class or anywhere. You seem a little less dumb than the others, so I'll give you one last chance: You are either with me or against me. You don't have to answer right away. I'll give you 'till the end of class today.

One of these conversations angers Lila, the other barely phases her. If there's a character that she should be out to punish, it's Adrien. He's the one who keeps denying her in ways that actually matter. For her Marinette hate to make sense, Marinette needs to actually have someone believe her when she points out Lila's lies or she needs to actually stop Lila from getting what she wants. That never happens in canon. The way their relationship is written in canon, Lila should see Marinette as pathetic and no real threat. Basically just nothing but this moment from Oni-chan:

Outside the Agreste mansion. Lila spots Marinette inside a pile of trash bins. Lila: I could take a photo right now and post it online, but that would be too easy. (walks away. After she leaves, Marinette becomes furious and jealousy that Lila kissed Adrien.)

How does Lila go from this to a hate campaign? Why does she care? It seems like a massive waste of her time, especially now that we know the kind of grand plans she has going on! Someone who is making multiple identities does not have time to hyper focus on petty school drama. Her season five actions would actually make more sense if she was going after Marinette to punish Adrien for picking the "wrong" girl.

Don't get me wrong, Lila should enjoy tormenting Marinette right from the start, it should just be a bonus thing and not something she does without a larger benefit because the show totally failed to make Marinette feel like a real threat to Lila. Why risk exposure for no real benefit but the removal of a non-threat? Getting Marinette expelled in Ladybug would make so much more sense if it was a calculated move to make Adrien do something. Like Lila would only undo the lie if he took her to a gala or went on a date with her. As-is, Lila had no grand plan. She just wanted Marinette expelled for the crime of not believing the lies and that's it. How boring and petty.

The Adrien antagonist route could also make Lila feel like she belongs in the story. As-is, she's just a bigger, badder Chloe who has no business being on screen while Chloe is still around in her petty bully form. Story wise, they are the same character with the same goals (antagonizing Marinette for no good reason).

Making Lila into Adrien's Chloe would at least somewhat fix that issue by changing her target and giving her an actual motivation. As-is, even if Lila properly replaced Chloe, there's still the issue that Lila is nothing more than another petty mean girl. Lila really should be more than that if you want her to feel different from Chloe or even just work as a character. Like I said above, petty mean girls generally don't have multiple identities. It's a total mismatch that makes the character hard to buy. Chloe is well designed. Lila is a disaster on ever level.

And thank you for the kind words! I'm honored that the blog has been useful to you. That is the goal, after all!

[generally-proven]

To add on to this, the thing about perfect 360-day calendars that always annoys me is that they're too perfect. The calendar couldn't possibly work in-universe when the heavens are almost unpredictable—the difficulty of predicting a solar eclipse is literally a plot point in the show! Fortunately, there's historical solution that can help us here: it's not really a 360-day calendar.

Enter the administrative calendar of the Babylonians. It is an actual calendar which was used for close to 3 millennia, and on paper it has 12 months of 30 days each. It was heavily used by astronomers to predict phases of the moon, solstices, and eclipses. Furthermore, they made sure solstices occurred on the same days of the administrative calendar every year... but a summer solstice happens every 365.25 days! What gives?

The trick is that they would stretch the lengths of intervening days in order to ensure that the solstices fall on the same calendar day every year. This was done through a mix of consistent observations and codified practices, most famously in the MUL.APIN tablet.

This tablet details how to stretch each month so that the moons and solstices line up. The method is one of linear interpolation, which is laborious to do by hand... but not so hard for a clockwork mechanism to pull off.

So, in Wan Shi Tong's library there's a gear-based mechanism that can accurately track the positions of stars, planets, and moons, and that displays the time according to an astronomical calendar very much like the Babylonian administrative calendar. This astronomical calendar is nominally 360 days in length, but in practice would slightly stretch or squish the lengths of these days so that, say, the new moons (mostly) always fell on the first of each month and the solstices fell on the same days of the calendar. And all the worldbuilders can breathe a sigh of satisfaction at the complexity reintroduced.

This makes me expect that the calendar, much like in Babylonian times, is only used in administrative/mathematical contexts and not day-to-day reckoning which would like all days to be the same length, thank you very much. The Babylonians did have a whole different calendar which is much more famous and historically relevant, after all.

how do you think the calendar is organized in the atla universe? they have a twelve-month system like we do but what would those months each be called? do you think they have leap years?

Right off the bat, let me just say that hypothetical calendars and alternative timekeeping is one of my favorite topics to talk about so this reply is going to be lengthy.

First off, everything we know about the calendar system in Avatar comes from the planetary calendar room in Wan Shi Tong's library.

The innermost ring indicates the number of months in a year (12), the second ring indicates number of days in a month (30), the third ring indicates the different Avatar eras (16 shown), and the outermost ring showcases all of the animals of the zodiac cycle (12). For this reply, we're only going to be focusing on the innermost and second rings.

According to the episode, the ATLAverse appears to have only 12-month years, so no leap year 13th month like the East Asian lunar calendar. There also doesn't appear to be any months with more than 30 days, judging by the number of days shown on the calendar. This means that the maximum number of possible days for an Avatar year is 360. So it's safe to say that there are probably no leap years like ours in the ATLAverse. I guess their Earth's orbit is slightly shorter and more suited for timekeeping than ours.

As for what each month would be called in the ATLAverse, there's a couple of options. One option is to simply call the months by order: First month, second month, third month, etc. This actually ties back to Avatar's primary cultural influence of China, as that's literally how months are named in Mandarin. This is straightforward, practical, and doesn't require any complex etymology or extensive worldbuilding.

However, I also think it would be fun to weave motifs into the calendar. Since there's so much emphasis on balance and cycles, why not divide the twelve months between the four elements? I imagine these months would be referred to as:

The 1st, 2nd, & 3rd Water Month

The 1st, 2nd & 3rd Earth Month

The 1st, 2nd, & 3rd Fire Month

The 1st, 2nd, & 3rd Air Month

For example, a person might say "I was born in the first water month, in the year of the rabbit." Naturally, there would be plenty of superstitions and horoscopes related to the combination of birth month and birth year.

The show also canonically mentions weeks passing by, although they never specify the number of days in their weeks. In a previous post, I mentioned that government officials during the Qin & Han Dynasty were given a day off every five days to bathe themselves. I think this would be a good basis for a week in the ATLAverse, four days of work and one day of rest. Each working day would be named after a cardinal direction (East-day, North-day, West-day, South-day) and the resting day would be called "Center-day", paralleling a compass.

In short, an ATLA month would be comprised of 6 five-day weeks and a year would be made up of 12 thirty-day months; the days would be themed around the cardinal directions and the months would be themed around the four elements. I think this would be a good way of adding texture to the world of Avatar, without weighing the setting down with too much worldbuilding or cultural baggage.

...And that would just be the default "world" calendar that magical libraries and travelers and international organizations would use. I think each nation would probably have their own unique calendar tailored to suit their own cultural and seasonal needs.

I might make a few posts on what each nation's calendar system might be, if anyone would like to read that.

[pinkandpurple360]

Do you think the next helluva boss episode will have even less views? I personally reach a point where i don't want anymore episodes to come out because they're becoming worse episode by episode, i see other people getting tired and quitting this show but maybe there are more people interest than what i see 🤷🏼‍♂️

Now that’s a great question.

I don’t know what exact factors go in to view count but here are some i have surmised. The hype is at an all time low, it is doubling down on its flawed aspects, past episodes failed to entertain the audience.

Excitement - the hype from full moon was the maximum, it is all pretty dim now. The stolitz fandom have 100% of the plot dedicated to their desires, yet only represent a little under 50% of the viewers. Even they aren’t all that excited anymore, throwing tantrums saying unless sinsmas is the ending they want they quit. Looking online, almost nobody is talking about HB except a couple hundred fans.

Fan service - HB has been serving and catering exclusively to stolas x Blitzø shippers, who are clearly not a representative sample of who is watching this. That has caused viewer decline because most people aren’t shippers. Especially casual viewers. But even the shippers are starting to get bored.

Hype - Full Moon is an experiment in how fandom hype reflects views, and that went very wrong. It is by far the most hyped up episode, but only performed 50% as well as the previous episode did. It was universally a disappointment.

Promotion - A date and time used to always be announced online to create intrigue. There is a schedule now that wasn’t always there before. That could be a positive. Hazbin hotel caused a spike in views, but since it has concluded, that aspect can no longer be counted on.

“Reputation is everything” and that of HB and Vivienne medrano is frankly, in the toilet. It is disliked for the infantile cussing, abandonment of the original show premise, the ridiculous melodrama of the creators pet bird character, and the unbearable toxic discourse in the analysis community and right from the creator herself. People say it feels embarrassing to recommend this show to people, and it’s a guilty pleasure. Fans dogpile on content creators who discuss it, which only winds up silencing them, and reducing traffic talking about the show.

The biggest factor: People who are choosing to stick around, aside from very entitled and hopelessly obsessed shippers, are bored. Medrano has already told us how this story ends. Clearly from the merchandise all the current ships are endgame, there is some love triangles to drag out runtime that nobody will bother getting emotionally invested in since we know the ending, none of the characters fall out permanently or have a lasting conflict, we know none of the main characters will die so that creates plot armour and no tension. They said the ending is a happy one.

I hate to see this happening, it used to be a fun popular show with a decent reputation, without so much drama and discourse around it. It was well liked. Fandom being catered to way too much, and barriers being broken between fans animators and the show runner, just ruins everything.

[nariyahcore]

Sonic and Nine make a toxic duo/“sibling” relationship

And why Silver could easily fit into that dynamic instead

I have mentioned this before not too long ago, but never got the chance to elaborate on why I personally do not like Sonic and Nine as “brothers”. So!!! I’ll take advantage and explain why Silver and Nine are a much better duo :]]

BUT FIRST!!! I want to credit my pookie @abs9lution who came up with this duo in the first place! i have their thread that elaborates further on silver and nine’s dynamic at the end of this post if you’d like to check it out! it also includes a thread on what’ll happen to silver and blaze’s dynamic, and why Blaze’s character was downgraded throughout the years

the end of this post also includes a tldr for those who don’t have the patience to read all this yapping (it’s okay me too 😭)

Table of Contents:

i. sonic and nine’s toxic relationship

ii. explaining how silver’s addition would’ve mattered in sonic prime

iii. why silver and nine would make a better duo as brothers

I. Sonic and Nine, and why their dynamic does not work out.

I feel like I could go on for AGES as to why i genuinely dislike Sonic and Nine as a duo, because there’s just so many things wrong with these two 😭

If you’ve watched Sonic Prime then you’d know Sonic’s goal was to simply bring back Green Hills, with the help of the friends he made along the way.

This also includes Nine (momentarily) before his (EXTREMELY VALID AND JUSTIFIED) villain arc.

Throughout the show it is extremely obvious Sonic only saw Nine as Tails “but angsty”. He didn’t take time to realize that Nine was NOT Tails and never will be. Whilst his main concern was to bring back his friends, I feel like no one talks about how demeaning this was 😭

The poor kid has absolutely no idea what a friendship is like, so having Sonic rely on him for even a little bit was bound to become a heavily over attached and almost obsessive-one sided dynamic.

So no, it’s not meant to be “toxic brothers!!!” core, it is sooo downgrading to not only Nine’s trauma imho, but also the whole plot of S3 in Sonic Prime. They CANNOT be brothers 😭

This is often dismissed just for the fact of “lol sonic and tails brother ship in all universes”

Do not get my wrong, I adore the Unbreakable Bond stuff, I think they’re the brothers ever!! HOWEVER, this should not apply with Sonic and Nine for obvious reasons.

I can yap more about this but the main purpose of this post is about Silver and Nine, so I’ll keep this section short!!

II. Silver should’ve been in Sonic Prime and I will die on this hill 

LIKE??? ITS LITERALLY ABOUT THE MULTIVERSE WHY WOULDN’T HE (and Blaze) BE IN THIS SHOW???

Silver in general needs to be in more official media but that’s a rant for another post 😭

His addition to this show would’ve been sooo important, it actually would’ve changed a lot of the plot and even the ending of S3 (which was absolute shit imo 😭)

I don’t have a lot to say about this part of the post, apart from the fact his inclusion would have made the show more interesting, and his background is very similar to Nine!! (Which I’ll explain in the next section)

III. Why Silver and Nine would make a better bond than with Sonic.

they have similar backgrounds and interests! both come from a dystopian city with the want for change; one wants to leave and make a new world, while the other wants to help fix his.

They both balance each other nicely! And YES I KNOW THE SAME IS FOR SONIC. THE DIFFERENCE IS THAT THERES NO TRAUMA INVOLVED BETWEEN THE TWO 😭 and it’s not a complete copy of sonic and tails but with an angsty version of the fox

silver wouldn’t see nine as “tails but angsty” or just another version of tails, I think he’d see nine as his own person!! they could keep each other company and be the sillies ever

Something I like about this is the fact it’s not EXACTLY like sonic and tails, and they can still have that brother bond!! They have tons of potential, which is why I ignore canon and follow my delusions in fanon 😁

TLDR: sonic and nine booooo silver and nine yippee!!! /hj

okay in a serious note, sonic and nine just wouldn’t have a healthy friendship that wouldn’t have one-sided obsession and lots of toxicity, while silver, a character that albeit random, still has enough similarities to fit into that role!!

Please read the thread behind the mastermind of this headcanon!! They explain the details I’ve put in this post, but I’d like for you guys to read it too. It includes a separate thread by another person based on Blaze and Silver’s odd dynamic and why it’s often brushed off!!

sorry for any spelling errors I did NOT proofread this

art by BREADBURNE86414 on twt!!

[sassydefendorflower]

Okay. It's been a hot second since I watched FMA and I've been meaning to revisit. BUT. Something that always got to me, watching it, was Ed and Al's youth and their relationship to the military and power? Does that... that might be too vague. But is that something you can work with?

Ohhhhhh, that is SUCH a juicy topic and I probably can't even begin to touch up on all of it... but let's get started, shall we?

Sometimes that I always deeply loved (and found horribly frustrating) is how convincing Ed and Al are written as teenagers. Genius teenagers, maybe, but teenagers nonetheless. We see this wonderfully in the very first episode of the anime, when Isaac McDougal (what a delightful name) tells them that there's something wrong with the country, that the military is involved in that, and Ed literally tells him "I don't care. You have a philosopher's stone, right?".

Like.

WOW.

Plot of the whole show could be over right then and there if Ed had only stopped to listen. But, of course, that's not what a teenager would do, especially one so guiltridden he can only see his incredibly selfish goal right in front of him.

We are at the beginning of the story, after all, and there needs to be some room for character development.

But Ed and Al never quite lose that selfish, teenage viewpoint even as they grow (Ed comparing the bombing of Resembool with the genocide of Ishval to Major Miles' face, Ed throwing a hissy fit when they join forces with Scar even though Winry has made peace with it, Al sounding all of five years old when he repeats "Hughes moved to the countryside" like a child whose favorite animal just "ran away") but they do grow. Considerably.

They were always good kids. They always had an inane sense of fairness. But by the end of it, that sense of fairness has grown beyond them and their immediate surroundings. They can see farther than just themselves and Winry and the handful of people they call friends.

By the end of if their good deeds changed enough in the hearts of the Amestrian people to allow a certain degree of unity.

But how does that relate to power and the military?

Now, you see, Amestris is presented to us as a military state and we quite often get the sense that the military is the most common career path available to most of the country. At least if you want to eat. Somehow the Amestrian military has to feed all these endless wars after all, and that only happens if people join up voluntarily.

And it only happens if the benefits are good enough.

Which is exactly how Roy gets them. He dangles hope in front of their small, traumatized faces and makes it quite clear that the military is the only way to get what they want.

They need research materials, power, and the oversight of the state. They get all that by Ed joining up with the State Alchemists programme. As a civilian, all of that would be restricted and inaccessible to him.

But -- even in the beginning -- Ed never really identifies with his identity as a Dog of the Military beyond his title. He, in odds to all other State Alchemists, is known as Hero of the People, because while the rest of the Amestrian military exploits and the State Alchemists break with their promise of "be thou for the people" Ed and Al do give back. They do help. They do free towns from corrupt military officials, they do fight terrorists on trains, they do fix a street vendor's broken radio.

Ed is uncomfortable with the power he theoretically holds. When Maria Ross and Danny Brosh call him "sir" and use his official rank, Ed asks them to just call him Ed, saying that he's nothing special. We never once see him lever his status as "major" over any of the lower ranking officers. Later, we see him desert with no regards to his future career, and by the end we know he quit because the military was only ever a means to an end. And he reached that end. He reached his goal.

Ed never shows respect for authority figures (but he does salute Hughes once, so he must have had some formal training on how to behave), he doesn't claim the power he is theoretically owed beyond the independence it allows him, he has no invested interest in the politics of it all (even though he is aware of them), and he actively fights the corruption within the military when personally affected by it (even if he is way too selfish in the beginning to see the bigger question).

And both he and Al hate killing. They seem to accept it as a part of a soldier's job -- their problem isn't death, I don't think, considering how unbothered they are by dead bodies throughout the show - but the act itself is so abhorrent to them, that they try to stop even tangentially related murder plots simply because they want no part in it. It is naive -- the show tells us so. Many of its characters tell us so.

But.

But it is also a reclamation of Ed's agency. And it is hope for the future. Because Ed knows that he has become a Dog of the Military, he knows -- on some level -- that he's just sold his soul to a monster far bigger than him, but he will keep this one part of his innocence for himself. He will not kill in the name of the Amestrian government.

And you know what? Riza Hawkeye is impressed with him for that. Because she pulled the trigger when ordered to, and Ed is her hope for the future. Because he is the next generation. And he refuses to do what she once did.

(I think it is interesting to investigate under which circumstances Ed would kill and how that would influence his character and what would be the consequences of that, but for the sake of the show itself, I think it is a wonderful visualization of the world healing beyond what Riza and Roy and Armstrong and Marcoh and Kimblee did to it)

Now, how does that all tie together?

Well, I think it is Ed's youth that allows him to disregard much of the military's power over his life, and it is his stubborn teenage-ness that allows both him and Al to hold so steadfast to their ideals, be that the selfish goal of self-realization or the refusal to kill. Not once does either character strive for power, and even at the end of the series, once they're all grown up, we see them long for a simple life. For interesting travels, good food, family, and a future worth living.

The military is a tool, for Ed and Al - because the military state ensured that they would have to use it.

It is interesting, really, because Roy joined up because he believed the propaganda, and once he recruits the Elrics he's been firmly broken by that belief -- and the Elrics join up even though they distrust the military (the Rockbells seem firmly anti-military all things considered) simply because it offers the resources they need.

If Ed was any other protagonist this would be a very different story, because they handed a twelve-year old a whole lot of power and a pretty high-up rank and the worst he did was blow up a few buildings and buy ugly clothes.

This is probably not at all what you expected, but... well, you successfully activated my rambling button! AND MANY THANKS FOR THAT!!! <3 <3 <3

[chaifootsteps]

if Vassago is in the next episode that means Mastermind is the one where Stolas is summoned to presumably face consequences for lending out the book

this is one of Viv's last chances to show she actually meant it when she was doing the 'both sides have made mistakes' routine

how Stolas losing everything is framed is one

how he and Blitzo probably get together for real is the other

but honestly I'm not confident. the obvious writing choice for making Stolas actually change is to have someone in the courtroom say something along the lines of 'he leant out his precious book in order to get sex out of an imp when he could have given him a crystal from the start, taking advantage of him and hurting both his heir and his reputation'. then Stolas has an epiphany where he realizes he did a little more than 'come on too strong' or 'read things wrong' or whatever the song tried to minimize it as

and have him pay that off when he and Blitzo get together

but what I think is going to happen is this:

the episode is called mastermind because Stella & Andre are the masterminds behind oh-so-evilly using the fact that *checks notes* Stolas is terrible at his job and objectively broke demon law to get him stripped of his titles. this is portrayed as very tragic and totally not something Stolas could and should have foreseen if he hadn't been spending all his time getting drunk and being gaslighting Blitzo. only silver lining is Satan himself will call Stolas an embarassment or whatever the line was in the trailer, but if he has a celebrity VA he probably won't be too harsh

anyway, losing his power results in him getting the Gabriella stripe for real in his hair (it's symbolism for the fact he is indistinguishable from his telenovela heroine and needs a hero to save him, something the audience should root for and not find pathetic and weird) and Andre taking over his palace, turning it to ice. He tries to call Via but can't get through and in either this episode or sinsmas decides to go over there in person

Andre/Stella try to attack him and Blitzo, who has been given one last push either offscreen or onscreen to accept his fate as Stolas' romantic object, goes to save him, risking his life and his employee's lives once again to do so. He doesn't thank them but presumably gets all shoujo romance filter when Blitzo protects him with a sword, clinging to him like a helpless baby who can't be expected to even bother trying to defend himself (this is no different than how he was as a royal when he got nerfed just so the show could have another fanfic torture and rescue plot in western energy)

Via may or may not have to end the battle by killing Andre/Stella. she's understandably a bit upset about having to kill her uncle but this is written like she's just mad he and Blitzo are together (something Blitzo but not Stolas is made to feel responsible for) and being upset about Stolas' antidepressants so she can look unreasonable. the fact he let her down by breaking demon law, got caught, is still fantasizing about having Blitzo rescue him even when it hurts everyone around him, goes totally unmentioned. she cuts him off. it's portrayed as very tragic...for Stolas. he lost everything but got Blitzo as a consolation prize (something which he won't show much appreciation or even love for him onscreen but offscreen they'll totally have cute date nights and Blitzo will never be happier)

old timey title card 'that's all folks!' comes up (just kidding, there's two more seasons of this to get through)

The ride never ends, folks!

[achillvs]

arcane act2 spoilers as i finished literally 10 min ago

some thoughts i have of act 2 are less generous than i'd like and i think it mostly stems from the fact that time skips are hard to do. the balance between 'show dont tell' and the necessary exposition of what's happened when the audience wasn't there, is hard. i can see arcane struggle with this, esp in ep4. it feels like the dialogue and world's storytelling are trying very hard to find the perfect middle and i'm not sure they succeed. while we had a big jump in time in s1, i think it worked better bc it was so obvious. now it looks like a couple months passed which is both realistically enough time for a lot of change to happen in the world, and not enough for it to be obvious and clear to the audience. especially because we spent the last week wondering about the immediate fallout of ep3 and it feels like thrust into the future without getting it.

act 2 felt sudden to me, untethered to the previously established story. while i usually can appreciate having my expectations subverted, i'm not sure that these subversions were earned or justified. i feel like i missed a few steps and i don't have enough elements to see where the end result comes from. i can figure out that cait's change comes from exhaustion of the fight, but it's not where i thought she would go after the display of hatred in ep3. i'm afraid i fully don't understand ambessa or jayce. i have no idea what they want and why. and i think that's a problem. viktor... i'm willing to see if viktor's plot goes anywhere further before i judge that one.

also where's ekko??

[drinkabletoxicdishsoap]

Fairly oddparents a new wish x gravity falls au where Marcus gets an assignment or something from AJ to investigate the strange happenings at Gravity Falls. Marcus accepts and invites his family and they all go to gravity falls for the summer so he can investigate for the Galax Institute and they can have a little family summer vacation :3

It would take place after the season 1 finale so Antony knows about Cosmo and Wanda. Also ofc for this to make sense, Gravity Falls is in the same timeline!! I would say this takes place after Ford comes out of the portal. Marcus probably hangs out with Ford a LOT to learn more about Gravity Falls.

Mabel and Dipper probably meet them at the Mystery Shack while Hazel probably looks around. Dipper is like, “there’s something off about her..” and Mabel does not believe him because she believes Hazel is super sweet (she is) 😭 they probably have a sleepover together as soon as Mabel finds out about her. We get some silly interactions with Mabel and Hazel! Hazel does a wish at the sleepover which could end up badly and dipper and Antony come to save the day and save their sisters!! We could also get some dipper and Antony interactions as well.

Maybe after the sort the wish stuff out, dipper tells them about the weirdness of gravity falls and shows them the journal (imagine their, Cosmo, and Wanda’s reaction to barf fairies 😭💀) and then after that, all 4 of these siblings go on silly adventures together around Gravity Falls!!

I’d like to think they somehow found about Cosmo and Wanda. Mabel is super excited and thinks it’s so cool! Meanwhile Dipper is just in shock!! Bro asks them a million questions about fairy world, why are their different kinds of fairies, how does wishing work, etc.

Antony would either get along with Wendy and her friends, or just not hang out with them and find them too extreme. No in between. I could see him getting maybe?? along with Soos.

I feel a main plot point would either be Hazel’s parents or Stanley and Ford or just the mystery shack crew almost finding out about her fairies. Or even hazel or Antony getting possessed by Bill.

Thank you for coming to another VERY long yap session <3 I hope you have a great day/night! Remember to stay safe, healthy, and hydrated!

[glisten-inthedark]

I think the most exciting thing about Byler for s5 is that by episode 1 any Byler doubts for Byler fans should be assuaged

The moment Mike shows romantic interest in Will, we know.

I truly believe that the Duffer Bros will not kill either of them off. For one thing, they are well aware that that will be the bury your gays trope and will look and be extremely bad. Especially if they were to reveal Mike as having feelings for Will and then kill him off, that would be extremely egregious. Then they’ve said that s5 is a Will-centric season, that the show is going to come full circle, we know Noah cried during the final episode table reading and both David and Charlie framed it as a heartwarming thing not as a sad thing when talking about it so I think it bodes very well. Also, like I think you’ve said (?) Hopper’s speech in s4 about everyone he loves gets hurt essentially gives the Byers + El plot armor, because any of them dying now after that would be like confirmation of this in Hopper’s eyes and potentially push him away from the Byers “for their safety” and make him feel like he’s the black hole in their lives.

So, the second that we see Mike harboring feelings for Will or pining after him or any 👀👀👀 interaction where Mike is being weird, or flirty, or suspiciously shy, or flustered, or any obvious or even fairly subtle but notable instance of him behaving like he’s pining after Will,

We know. Byler doubters out there, we’ll know! And I’m so excited for that moment to happen!

[additional staving off the Byler Doubt note]

It would also be incredibly stupid and make absolutely no sense if they were to reveal Mike as having feelings for Will, and then pair both of them with some random person or put Mike back with Eleven after making it clear that he does actually have feelings for Will. Like them deciding to stay friends or Will going “actually never mind I moved on you and even though you, my best friend, and the previous love of my life are now confessing to me or pining after me, I’m going to set all my sights on this new random dude”

The moment we see Mike pine for Will in s5 it’s all over

Hello!

Ok, Tumblr has something against me because I spent like 5 minutes writing a response and this little shit just refreshed and I lost the entire thing.

Firstly, oh yes! The moment we see Mike pining for Will, it'll all be over. I understand some people might be concerned over logistics or timing or the love speech or how people might perceive the time and all of that, but I know the writers can use so many things to their advantage to show that the story was always meant to be this one.

Truthfully, I can't imagine a world where they'd kill either of them, not only because they know about the bury your gays trope, but because of how deeply they made Will feel towards Mike - which is also why I can't conceive them giving him some random dude to fall for when they could have done this last season and it'd be much more feasible -.

Because at its core, Stranger Things is and always will be a love letter for all of those who were outcasts, for those who were treated differently for things outside of their control - whether it was their race, their gender, their appearance, or their sexuality -. And we know what some people claim, what they say about being in the 80's and blablabla.

But imagine the message it'd send: "You know that boy who believed he'd never fall in love? Well, he was wrong. And you know that boy who thought he was a mistake? He is wrong - he is not a mistake for liking other boys -. And you know that boy who tore his heart out because he didn't believe he could ever be loved back? He was also wrong, he was loved back. He is loved back. You know that boy that didn't think he'd get a happy ending? He was wrong, he has it now".

This isn't just a message for those who grew up in the 80's, is a message for general audiences and for anyone else who tries to tell LGTBQP+ children and teenagers that happy endings aren't meant for them.

I could go on and on about how the UD might signify the Shadow (Jung) or even ourselves as a society about how the monsters besides representing puppetry are representations of things within ourselves we refuse to touch on but that's another story for another post lmao.

My point is, that killing either of them would just further solidify things that I truly feel they are trying not to cement in their own show.

And the crazy thing about the whole "another random love interest" is that it makes no sense with the story even they set up. From the scripts, is safe to assume Will has had feelings for Mike since he was at least 13 years old (probably even before then), and we don't even have to look at the scripts to know that. We can assume so due to how far he was willing to go to make Mike happy.

I was talking to my friend about it and I realized that the van scene is Will's "Little Mermaid" moment. To clarify: Little Mermaid was written by Hans Christian Andersen and was supposedly meant as an allegory for the feelings he harbored for another man who by that point was married to another woman. Is Will sacrificing his own voice, his own fin, and his own feelings - turning into sea foam - just so that Mike could be happy.

I said it before and I feel like a broken record for reinstating it, but the writers themselves made it clear that Will truly loves Mike. Is not an infatuation, is not a crush, is not limerence, it is unconditional love. He said it himself, that he'd always need Mike aka he'd always love him. He was willing to sacrifice himself and his feelings for him - and sure, we could argue that he could stand to learn to be a little bit more selfish - but the essence of what makes love true is that it isn't selfish, is that is willing to let the other go.

So presenting someone else - especially when they could have done that already and not have Will be this deeply in love with someone he feels he can't have - would be so shallow and frankly stupid after everything they have set up.

I always joke that if Byler is queerbaiting, is the stupidest case I've ever seen because why would they put so much detail, thought, care passion, into it if it'll amount to Mike going right back to where he was before and for Will to end up with someone he can't love as much as he already loves Mike. How is that fair to him?

Anyway, I get passionate about this - as if you couldn't tell already lmao - so I'm sorry if I got sidetracked.

I hope you have a great day and (:

[gayofthefae]

You can tell when they wanted to Buddie. Because Buck and Eddie synched up being single for a season a half. Their only plots were about each other, it's when they had the lawsuit angst, it's when Eddie was said to have put Buck in his will if they planned that, which I don't find it farfetched that they did - especially given they were renewed by that point, it's when the technophobe cute domestic plot happened, and it's during that time that Buck got closure with Abby.

Ana was briefly introduced but Eddie's interest seemed to be more a setup for his disappointment by her and they did not start dating for about another season. It was a seed but not one that was required to develop.

They were setting up in season 3. I always thought it was abnormal, now that I know they're really doing it, I get why. In every other section but 3x01-4x08, they have both been dating. Buck wasn't over Abby then in the episode he got over her, Eddie got back with Shannon, then while Eddie was with Shannon, Buck got with Ali - but Ali was off screen and took up 0 plot focus away from his relationship with Eddie. It was the classic bad timing.

Then they were both single for TWENTY SIX EPISODES. Within which, their plots had consistent build, processing of their love lives, and focus on one another with casual screentime being spent together with Chris. That was buildup.

Then Ana comes back into Eddie's life and Taylor is introduced only two episodes later and in the same episode that Eddie and Ana are officially dating. Eddie breaks up with Ana in 5A but Buck is still with Taylor through the end of the season. The episode they both are single again, Buck defines true love to Maddie in a description of Buck and Eddie's season 5 plot and Ravi describes romance by directly referencing a previous season's line between Buck and Eddie.

Then, they are single simultaneously again for 15 episodes during which time they - also abnormally - have very minimal plot focus on each other.

They switch networks. Buck is immediately single from an off screen breakup that does not affect him at all. He kisses a man in episode 4. In episode 5, the seeds of destruction for Eddie's relationship begin being planted. By the end of the season, Eddie is single, but Buck is not. Now, as of season 8 episode 6, they are both single again.

It is also notable that prior to season 4, their relationships did not hog screen time in the way they did in seasons 4, 5, and 6. Ali was seen once or twice. Shannon only had any romantic and not familial focus for Eddie bookending her time on the show, not throughout. But Ana was a repeated topic of conversation and Taylor became a series regular for a full season.

The entire timeline of it all shows itself to be:

1. Moving on from past relationships

2. Romantic buildup

3. Fox says no

4. They can't date because...uh- they aren't single!

5. Break them up in hopes Fox will say yes

6. Fox says no

7. They're both single so just don't have them interact and hope people don't notice until it's been long enough to make them date people again

8. Make them date people again

9. ABC says yes!

[quotidian-oblivion]

*ahem*

I'mNotGonnaTurnThisIntoARantI'mNotGonnaTurnThisIntoARant-

So, as a fan who loves analyzing the fuck our of everything and anything, I have obviously peeked at some of Joker's stuff.

What I generally do with my fics is that I take every version of Joker I've been exposed to so far and mush them all together, taking the aspects which are useful to the plot (as one does). But when I think of Joker, generally, it changes. I find him to be very malleable in terms of plot and character and writing him is very easy because he cooperates with the plot really well

Unlike the fucking Wayne family

Anyways, under the cut, here is my personal interpretation and choice of portrayal for Joker!

ShitITurnedThisIntoARant.

To understand the Joker, we gotta understand Batman first. Not Bruce, I'm pretty sure we all understand Bruce well, I mean Batman.

Because the Joker was created by comic writers to rival Batman in every way! Joker is Batman's commensalistic parasite. Commensalism is when an organism attaches itself to the other, and it benefits while the other organism is unaffected. Joker needs Batman to be the Joker. Batman doesn't need Joker to be Batman. It's a very interesting thing I've observed and I believe that this is one of the key motivations for Joker to do the things he does.

Joker knows he can't operate without Batman. An example of this is clearly in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part I and II. In the movie, Bruce gives up being Batman cuz he got too old for it and a lot of the villains were sent to rehabilitation. And Joker was shown to be catatonic, unresponsive, a vegetable, dead except for his lungs expanding and heart beating.

Until... Batman came back (cuz plot happened) and he saw that he came back on TV. His mind spurred back to life and in a blink, Joker became himself again. All because Batman came back and gave him a purpose.

As for the motivation of "its fun", yes, the Joker does want to have fun. But his kind of fun is wildly different to a normal person's. He doesn't think riding a roller coaster is fun. But his sense of fun is always directed at something or someone. And almost all the time, it's Batman. But during times it's not, it's always to show the dark side of humanity (which I'll be speaking about more later).

Besides motivation, here is how I've broken down his character:

Morality

Born to be the opposite side

Symbolism of humanity

Thoughts and feelings on Robin

How his mind works

How comic writers (unsurprisingly) failed to portray his real character

Morality

Not all of my sources will be from comics and movies. I'm going to quote soms fanfics and my own thoughts too becauss Joker's character is so vast and open.

In terms of morality, the best way I've seen someone portray this was the fic Christened by StoriesAreMagic. I haven't finished reading it 😅 but the first few chapters include Joler Junior Tim and his thought process behind what his dad (Joker) taught him.

He repeatedly goes through what is good-good, bad-good, bad-bad, good-bad. Good-good and bad-bad are things like murder and stealing which is generally unacceptable by society. Bad-good and good-bad are what is deemed "right" or "wrong" by Joker.

Now this was interesting because it implies that Joker knows what the right and wrong things to do are (which kinda throws away his insanity plea a little bit). And because he knows them, he knows exactly what to do.

But, he doesn't just kill people for fun. And one thing you'll see me repeatedly coming back to is his motivations - Joker cannot exist without Batman.

If we want to write a good Joker, then he can't be killing people and tormenting them willy-nilly. That's not how Joker's mind works. He can't have fun that way. His sense of fun needs to cause someone pain. Someone who he likes. He won't kill a random person cuz he wants to watch their SO suffer. He will kill a random person because he wants to watch Batman or Robin or Red Hood or Nightwing or someone writhe in pain with the knowledge that they failed to save someone.

It's the reason he killed Jason. He had fun tormenting him by watching the boy writhe in pain. Then he had fun killing himby watching Batman writhe in pain at losing his son.

So Joker's moral compass will always be targetted towards his sense of fun - how much he can torture Gotham's vigilantes/Commissioner.

To write a good Joker, would be to have him strike at Batman's insecurities through murder or torture or other things.

Opposites

I googles why comic writers created Joker and the answer was that Robinson (the writer) loved the psychological aspect of Batman's character and created villains to oppose that. And the biggest thing we know about Batman is that he's not fun, he doesn't have fun, he doesn't laugh, is stoic, is organized, precise, planned, and in grief. That is always who Batman is going to be. So Joker opposes Batman in every way of that. He is "fun", he is always looking to have "fun", he always laughs, is silly, is chaotic, wild, unpredictable, and always "happy". The biggest opposite here is obviously that Batman, the darkness, is the good guy while Joker, the light, is the bad guy.

A while ago, I ranted to a couple friends on discord about this exact seperation, let me see if I can find it.

I really go off about it lol

But the short thing is, Joker and Batman are like the yin and yang. There is light in darkness (Batman) and there is darkness in light (Joker).

To write a good Joker would be to make all the things that are deemed "fun" and light, twisted into darkness and horror. Not always blood, but always horror.

Symbolism

I've already talked about this in tje screenshots so I'm gonna keep this short.

Especially taking the moment from Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. The scene with the two ships.

What Batman and Joker, when they're shown together, represent is the goodness and evil in humanity.

The reason why Joker wins as much as he does is because of how humanity is. I believe that through Joker's character, the writers were sending a message. A message about how evil humans can be. And whenever Joker wins, it's always because of humanity's dark, twisted, horrifying, sick nature.

Whenever Batman wins though, it's always because of humanity's good, gentle, nurturing, protective, kind nature.

The scene with the two boats proves it. If humans had given in to their evil nature, Joker would have won. But no, humans chose goodness, and so Joker lost.

It's a message to us. We hate the Joker so much becaus eof the disgusting being he is, because he represents the dark parts of us. The impulsive twisted thoughts that sometimes enter your head. But we also have a goodness in us, a Batman that is born of the evil. Take a trauma survivor for example, they could either become a Joker and continue the cycle of abuse, or they can become a Batman and stop it (don't come at me for this example, you don't know me, you don't know my past, and this is a simple, mere harmless example). Fiction is an echo of reality but reality is also often an echo of fiction and hwavily influenced by it (take the example of the creator of Alexa or Siri or whoever building an AI because they saw it in Star Trek. Or Star Wars. Idk), so the tale of Batman and Joker encourages viewers to make the right choice and choose the goodness of humanity.

Much like how children's shows and movies have a moral, this also has a moral but for more mature audiences.

So to write a good Joker would be to make him completely dependent om the idea that humanity's dark side will always win out. To write a good Joker would be to make his wins related to the twisted nature of humanity and his losses related to the kindness of humanity. (In a way).

Robins

I've said a lot about this topic in the screenshots too, so there isn't much to add to this section.

But I will reference this one comic - Robin #85. And yes, comic writers suck etc etc, but I do like the theme of this issue. That Joker is smart.

Like- c'mon. He wins against Batman. Makes plans with failsafes and contingencies and stuff so he can get away. He is able to escape from jail multiple times (something which normal inmates of Arkham can't, the ones with powers can, but Joker doesn't have powers). He is smart. Intelligent. Conniving. How else is he able to manipulate Harley so badly and turn Tim into Joker Junior?

To write a good characterization of Joker would be to write him as smart and clecer, not dumb and overlooking. Everything he does has a purpose and if he has run out of moves, even then he makes plans on the fly to escape.

So, the issue also gives some insight to his thoughts on the Robins. He loves the Robins because they're such a "fun" and easy way to win against Batman. But at the same time, he hates the Robins because they distract Batman and he won't be able to get his back-and-forth with them present. Remember, his primary motivation is to rival Batman because he cannot function without his attention on him.

He was figuring out his relationship with Robin during Dick's time. He found a perfect way to get back at Batman while reverting things back to the way it used to be by killing Robin during Jason's time. Tim's time as Robin threw a wrench in his plans and surprised him immensely because he was not expecting that, but he had Batman's attention anyway because of the stunt with the last Robin. So even though he hated Tim's Robin because he wasn't expecting him, he didn't mind too much. I haven't read much about Damian encountering Joker and I know Steph's stint didn't include an encounter with him, but I'm sure he has the same love-hate relationship with them.

To write a good Joker would be to include his conflicting feelings about the sidekicks. I'd say he would try to get them out of the way somehow so he can have his time with Batman (yeah, he's a sick twisted fucker alright).

The Psychology

How his brain works.

In short: his brain only works when Batman is involved.

Imagine the most obssessed person you've ever met.

Joker is ten times more obsessed than that.

This man- monster eats solely for the reason to torment Batman. He breathes solely for Batman. He does everything he does for Batman. To oppose him.

Its the old battle of good vs evil. And Joker is hell-bent on proving that evil triumphs.

So all the things he has done, it's pure evil. Pure darkness. Pure gore and grotesqueness.

Here's the thing: goodness has limits. Evil doesn't.

So the things Joker does, peel off his face then wear it, skewer people like a butcher, cut forced smiles, create a gas that makes someone laugh and laugh until they die-

It's all to defeat the force of good that is Batman. That is all that's in his head. Batman. Batman Batman Batman.

He doesn't even want to kill Batman. I am 100% sure that if he does manage to, he has plans to off himself after he has shown Gotham city and the world that humans are evil no matter what they do.

So, personally, I am in full support of Batman's no killing rule. Yes, I do understand people who like Jason's anti-hero morals, and I have my own thoughts on why Bruce is so particilar about that (most of those thoughts are in the form of my Lazarus Pit Tim Drake AU which is still in the works). Because if Batman kills, especially the Joker, he turns all of that symbolism - all of that goodness that the people have learmed to trust - into evil.

And if that happens, what about Superman? An alien who has the powers to raze the planet? What about Flash? Wonder Woman? Martian Manhuntet?

If Batman - stoic, unshakeable Batman - can turn to the dark side. No one will trust superheroes ever again. No ond will trust safe people, the people seeking to protect them ever again.

When they say "Joker wins", it isn't just a philosophical idea. For the DC universe, for its citizens, the phrase "Joker wins" means that the entire world is plunged into darkness.

It's a painful burden for one man, and Joker is determined to break him.

The Unsurprising But Still Disappointing Misportrayal of Joker

AKA, the conclusion.

I hate how so many writers have thrown away the key aspect of Joker's characterization. I hate that they've molded and made him into this weird guy who wants to kill Jason Todd again or kill Tim. I hate that they made him into a simple killer. I hate that they took away his purpose and are only making him do shit for the sake of drama than the key message and significance of the ancient battle between Batman and Joker.

Batman and Joker are iconic for a reason. When you think of rivals, you think of Batman and Joker because their characters are such polar opposites in a way that effectivrly sums up the key message of humanity's polar opposites.

If you took what the comics and media are doing now - taking Joker and making him do shit like sing songs, kill people cuz he likes it, peel off his own face and wear it, give him a daughter, make him really "love" Harley, make him a little too focused on Harley (because Harley was always a tool to him, a tool to complete his mission with Batman, it's why she was so severely fucked in the head cuz of him), make him get revenge against OCs and nobodies which aren't related to Batman in any way - and all the other stupid shit. If you took all that, and just that. And tried to make that rivalry as iconic. It wouldn't work.

If Batman and Joker didn't have such a clear, established fame as enemies in the world of media and comic books, if their rivalry wasn't so famous. Then the rivalry between Batman and Joker we have now would fade and dissipate. It would be nowhere near as iconic and well-known as it is.

Another thing about Joker is the Batman Beyond movie where Tim gets turned into Joker Junior. The writers mentioned the reason they created Joker as they did.

They wanted to make a cruel, jarring image for Joker but since they were a sort of kids' animation studio, they weren't allowed to do gory stuff or stuff like murder a child. But they still wanted something Utterly Messed Up for Joker to do to Tim in order to get back at Batman.

And so came the idea of the smile.

The creepy iconic Joker smile and laugh we know. They messed up the smile and laugh as much as they were allowed to so they could still show the crazy, messed up side of Joker. And I agree, a smile like that during completely inappropriate times is jarring.

Anyways, in conclusion:

If you want a good Joker character in you story, you have to remember that Joker, despite how messed up he is, is not some weird monster. His actions make him so, but really, the fact is that he's a man. And so, he has human emotions. He is smart, conniving. He feels happiness, he feels sadness, he feels anger, he feels tired, he feels pain just like any other human. Completely detaching Joker from his humanity tears his character because his character represents a part of humanity. How can we show human nature without a human present?

~~~~~~~

I love analyzing characterizations and plot and literary devices and stuff, and I love pulling my own interpretations of things, and I usually go in depth a lot of the time.

But the fact is, this is just my interpretation. It's how I choose to see and write a character. To be clear, I'm not ordering anyone to subscribe to this train of thought, I'm putting my train out there for people to have an option and see if they like it. You can interpret it all however you wish! You can change your character however you wish! No one can truly write a completely canon character because each writer is different and has gone through different things.

I like making all my characters human, even the monsters. But that doesn't mean everyone else likes seeing it that way.

And if you did like this train of thought, and you used it for something, I would bery much appreciate a tag linking me so I can see it and enjoy it and discuss it with you!

Whew, that was long. Happy writing!

Do you have any tips on writing Joker? I despise him but he’s a useful villain to make everyone’s life harder

I need some tips too. I’m about to start writing the ASOH sequel which will heavily feature Joker and I’m desperately trying to psych myself up haha.

He’s a very useful villain like you said, he’s into chaos and making things awful for other people, in ways that are unpredictable even to him. He’s a hedonist of sorts, in my mind.

I think despising him helps when writing him. The disgust helps me at least — that’s how I write Homelander. Gritting my teeth the whole time.

[eddiegettingshot]

This discourse is driving me crazy and outside of some bitter bt shippers I literally have no idea where its coming from. Like as establish by s1-s6 buck is not someone who has his sexuality figured out like hen/michael/karen/josh/david/s7 tommy. And it is not biphobic for buck to figure out what he wants and equally its very clear from what we’ve seen that buck has not considered his sexuality much past I like tommy and he makes me comfortable 😭 and now he gets to consider his sexuality like thats literally the plot 😭 and have we considered the reason buck has not called himself bisexual yet is that it is important to the writers/oliver to clearly say in the show buck’s bisexuality is separate from who he is dating … like oliver has said in interviews many times… its almost like there might be a reason they are writing it this way … and while he could have figured it out while dating tommy they would rather say buck is bisexual. Period. In a separate story from buck is dating tommy and buck has feelings for eddie …. Which is why it is happening this way… it just seems odd he has not said it because the tommy story got dragged out for 6-7 extra episodes because tim went crazyinsane in 7b and abc wanted a halloween episode …

this is extremely difficult for many to grasp… huge if true…

[yanderes-galore]

oooooo last time requests were open i meant to ask for Daenerys general headcanons but ended up forgotting about it, so i'd like to request them now!

Sure! I did what research I could so this is a more of a general look at behavior rather than any specific plot.

Yandere! Daenerys Targaryen Concept

Pairing: Platonic -> Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Manipulation, Violence, Slavery mention, Delusional behavior, Isolation, Oblivious yandere, Protective/Possessive behavior, Forced companionship/relationship.

Daenerys, while I have not finished GOT, would actually be an intimidating yandere without meaning it at times.

After all, she's a Targaryen who is the daughter of The Mad King.

Targaryen madness is no doubt dormant within her and may show up later in her obsession.

Not only that, but she has three dragons.

Three.

At this point, dragons were thought to have been extinct.

But here's Daenerys with not one, but three.

While she is polite and well-spoken, she knows how to use violence to get others to listen to her.

In fact it seems her only knowledge of politics happens to be rather naive.

Not everyone's going to like her, and her response to that is dragons.

Which... Isn't far off from her heritage.

It would be easy for Daenerys to keep her obsession by her side.

While Drogon is her most loyal dragon... She still has Viserion and Rhaegal.

Poor you, a person either from Essos or Westeros, has never seen a dragon.

Drogon is the dragon who seems to reflect Daenerys' feelings the most.

He's her chosen mount and is often her protector.

I imagine Daenerys met you after freeing you in Essos or even just meeting you in Westeros.

Although, the Essos scenario makes more sense as Daenerys cared deeply for slaves.

That was why her main goal was to free slaves in Essos... but since Westeros has no slaves, gaining their favor is difficult.

Daenerys could view her obsession as a friend... or maybe even a lover later.

Despite her intimidating appearance, she's oddly caring.

Her obsession may trust her somewhat... but her dragons are a glaring reminder of how much power she wields.

She's still ruthless and narrow minded.

She's naive and views things in black and white.

So while she's kind with you... You've no doubt seen what she does to those who disobey her.

Unintentionally, Daenerys would make you scared of her and only compliant since you're fearful.

Which she then takes as acceptance, since I can see her as a delusional yandere.

After all, you act so nice around her!

You seem to care for her well-being, which she isn't used to.

Daenerys has never known a true home...

But with her obsession, she feels a sense of stability.

Meanwhile you either respect her as just a leader or are scared of her.

Targaryens are infamous, after all.

Daenerys would want to keep her darling by her side all the time, often asking for advice from them.

She really wants to relate to and understand her obsession.

I can see a lot of her toxic behavior as being 'accidental'.

Like... She's oblivious to the fact that what she's doing is wrong.

She thinks she's considering your feelings, but isn't.

She really is oblivious.

She thinks you being beside her will bring you freedom.

In reality, she's just caging you and not knowing it.

She doesn't understand when she hugs you, vents to you, or even makes moves on her obsession...

That you might be fearful of her.

To her it just means you love her.

She feels you and her belong with one another, often confiding in you.

If we assume dragons reflect a Targaryen's feelings... Drogon, at the very least, may also be attached.

The black dragon often views you fondly, seeing how you're always close to Daenerys.

If Daenerys felt threatened or upset about someone around you...

There's a dragon who will be upset.

Rhaegal and Viserion may not be as attached... but will still step in if Daenerys expresses distress.

Daenerys expresses protective behavior.

In fact, she's also possessive as a Targaryen, due to their bonds with the beasts.

She may also be scared to lose you since she's used to losing people.

She's lost lovers, friends, and those she thought she could trust.

Betrayal is common in her life.

So even in her affection, be it on purpose or not, you can notice her being tense.

Like it's a subtle threat or claiming of you.

Daenerys wants loyalty and tries to strengthen your bond.

She may even insist on you calling her 'Dany'

She has you as a servant but doesn't view it as treating you less than her.

Especially when she begins to feel more fond of you, seeing you like a crush.

Daenerys would not understand if you tried to flee or distanced yourself.

She wouldn't think she's the issue.

She'd assume someone else is lying to you, trying to make you leave her.

Which she'd then promptly have them burned like they did some act of treason.

Even if said person did nothing wrong.

Daenerys seems manipulative since she's so delusional.

She only gets worse once she gets to Westeros and becomes more involved with battle.

You can imagine she would be a complete tyrant when he begins to lose dragons.

Yet the entire time, she doesn't see her actions as wrong both politically and with you.

She doesn't think she's holding you hostage.

Yet she also refuses to see you go with anyone else.

She wants you to be loyal to only her.

You can't express many concerns either, as her dragons are always nearby.

She's delusional and wouldn't understand why you want to leave her.

Would you rather be with the Lannisters? The Starks? The people who want her dead?

No, she won't let that happen.

If she deems you a traitor, I imagine she'll just lock you away.

You can have your freedom once you accept her.

She isn't going to give up on you.

You're one of her only friends, only companions...

She loves you.

If anyone tries to take you from her, she'll prevent it.

Anyone you know and love that isn't her will be burned if it means you'll stay hers.

Selfish? Yes.

Yet she promises if you stay by her, she'll give you anything, you'll be free...

But Daenerys was always a hypocrite trying to defy her true innate nature, wasn't she?

[aihoshiino]

Idk but onk is such a let down for me. In the beginning I liked story because it was about ai. Her kids getting in entertainment industry and the revenge thingy were main plot from the starting so ultimately it is suppose to be about Ai, directly or indirectly.

By the end the story got less about ai and more about people around ai. There is SO MUCH about ai yet to explore but because of the writing I can't even enjoy ai as much as i used to. The "i love you" to aqua ruby kind of lost his full essence after the ai's dvd was shown, and that dvd later lost its essence due to last chs.

Onk showed the issues with entertainment industry well. The main issue is that onk never tackles problems with its character. Like Ai's true self, Hikaru (still not sure what to think of him), hikai, ruby and aqua relation (after the damn kiss), miyako and ichigo, ruby's dvd left by ai and etc. which i still feel are alien and mysterious to us. And we surely won't get answers in one last ch. Hikaru had potential to be a great character but everything is just all over the place.

Idk man i just feel very disappointed that aka's build up had so much potential yet we didn't get anything satisfactory in the end.

TBH, to a degree, I actually think this is a natural progression & if the series had stuck the landing, it could have been a really good and poignant way to resolve Aqua and Ruby's shared arc in relation to Ai. Because the thing is, like... as much as I like Ai, Aqua and Ruby's arc SHOULD ultimately have been about them being able to move on and start expanding the scope of their lives until it contained things beyond her. The story should never have stopped centering her because she is, ultimately, the heart of the story and its titular character, but OnK hammers in this idea of 'moving towards the future' and not letting your past trauma control your life to the extent that it robs you of the ability to have one. So I do think that in a more well-realized version of the story, that growing distance from Ai would be bittersweet but necessary for Aqua and Ruby to reclaim their futures.

BUT... Obviously, that's not the ending we got and the result is an ending that weirdly simultaneously deifies her while also not really involving or centering her at all? Like I've pointed out, so much of Ruby's resolution revolves around shallow parallels to Ai's general imagery and vibes but the actual resolution to the story isn't really about Ai at all aside from her being Kamiki's motivation and even then, that's all so poorly explained that it doesn't really have any weight.

That said, I actually feel as an Ai fan that she was ultimately done really well by the manga and I don't really feel like there was a whole lot about her left unexamined? Like yeah, as an Ai Wife Guy I'd love to hear more about stuff like how she felt about her pregnancy and how all that just went down in general and maybe some more stuff about her time in gen 1 B-Komachi but otherwise I feel really satisfied with the stuff we got. 136-7 especially were SO fucking cathartic for me because they put into undeniable, explicit text the thing I'd been saying all along; that there was no 'real' Ai hidden under the one that we knew and the secret part of herself that Ai was so desperately trying to hide was just that she was a normal, fragile girl who was struggling and hurt and that her tragedy was the result of everyone in her life either failing or actively refusing to accept her as she was.

My only real complaint is that I don't like how the manga ultimately (accidentally?) makes her totally irrelevant to the answer of why GRSR were reincarnated as her children and the result is that it kind of turns her into just a convenient uterus who happened to come pre-installed with babies - that's kind of gross, especially in comparison to just how she's treated as an equally important part of the puzzle but that's what my "Ai is the entertainment god's beloved chosen maiden" headcanon comes in and all is right with the world again <3