#who also are intended to be seen as having a romantic dynamic in the actual canon

[sapphire-weapon]

Just wanna thank you for being nice to new fans and leading me away from some fanon bullshit.

Also, didn't expect to be more into Eagleone bit here I am. I was indifferent to it before (definitely didn't see it as sibling coded, that's weird) but now I see the appeal.

New fans are the lifeblood of this fandom. Any old guard who don't understand that are people who are actively working towards their own extinction.

Real shit, anon, the reason why I started to get loud and obnoxious and aggressive for a bit was because I learned how new fans were being treated and fed lies and fanon bullshit from the actual goddamn wiki, of all places, and that just felt so fucking wrong to me.

RE is, by fandom standards, an ancient series of labyrinthine proportions. It'd be so easy for someone in the old guard to just tell all the newbs that their own headcanons/personal interpretations were actually what the real canon said, because there's no way for new fans to have the ability to reasonably fact-check every little thing -- and that's exactly what ended up happening.

It's not fair to you guys, and it's so wrong. And I know that nothing that I do/say can undo the damage that's already been done and continues to be dealt, because I don't have anywhere near the reach that the wiki does, but like. Man. I couldn't just say/do nothing.

You new fans keep this fandom alive. We old guard should be grateful. We owe you far more than you owe us. And to engage with you in bad faith like the way some people in this fandom do is just...

I just wish I could do more.

[theofficialpresidentofmars]

zuko and katara have genuinely SUCH an interesting dynamic and relationship to explore when you don’t have a bitch in your ear trying to tell you they should kiss.

like there’s nothing objectively wrong with shipping zut4ra but i CANNOT find any proper duo content of them that isn’t romantic or romantically implied and it annoys me. no i don’t think they would work. no i don’t think Katara would give up her man for that guy of all people. no I don’t think Zuko would be romantically interested in Katara. yes i do think that reducing all of their feelings towards each other into ‘romance’ oversimplifies and undermines the depth of the platonic relationship that they actually do have in established canon. yes whatever I’m sure there’s something sweet about a boy trying to get a girl to forgive him by helping her get revenge on the guy that killed her mom but don’t you think that it’s actually much more profound if there are no romantic ulterior motives whatsoever and it’s actually just a demonstration of the lengths Zuko will go to because he cares deeply about his friends and their feelings and what they think about him and he wants Katara to like him and he’s genuinely sorry that he broke her trust by warming up to her slightly before betraying them and to make sure she knows that he was being sincere and he actually was touched by what she said he tries to find a way for her to heal a wound that he knows tears her apart and it’s a wound he wishes he could heal in himself. and he does it because he’s trying to earn her forgiveness, not her love. he’s trying to earn himself the right to look her in the eye, not to hold her hand. he’s trying to amend for the mistakes of his people for nothing but the better of others.

and when Katara offers to heal him in the cave, it’s not because she’s fallen head over heels at all, or even in the slightest. she’s the first to see the light in him, and she sees a boy who’s been hurt by the fire nation in a similar way to her. she recognises that if she can convince him to come with her now, the gaang is up by a firebending teacher and a friend at best, and down an enemy at least at worst. for a moment she sees him for who he is and what he’s been through and it’s not because she likes him. the thought doesn’t even cross her mind, it’s just in her nature as a person to be caring and understanding and she has the help she can tell he needs, so she extends a hand.

and when they face Azula together? Katara was the first to reach out when it was almost the right time, and she’s the one who’ll be there to help him see it through. When he takes a bolt for her, isn’t it more profound that he jumps in front of the bolt not out of romantic love, but because Zuko is the kind of person who would put himself in mortal danger for anyone he cared about? Because his heart’s too big and because he’s seen those he love get hurt too many times to stand there and let them take it?

anyway I’ve spent too much of this post refuting romance but not actually expressing what it is i do like about their platonic dynamic but it’s late and i don’t have the words. so i’ll just say it’s such in that it would be really funny if Zuko instead dated Katara’s brother. and they yap together and she gives him a list of interests and he tells her embarrassing date stories. they also yap a lot about Aang because like. Zuko’s bff and Katara’s bf he’d probably come up a lot. also Maiko’s platonic shit-talking exes/close friends dynamic solos their romantic dynamic but that’s a discussion for another day ^-^

ship name censored because I don’t intend for any negativity to actually intrude upon certain shipping spaces lmao. i’m rarely opinionated but i don’t really care tbh i just wish there was more platonic stuff out there or i saw less romantic stuff el oh el

[antianakin]

i saw that you put finnrey as your “most potential” ship and i was just wondering what makes you see them as more romantic over a platonic relationship? especially considering the finnpoe presence lol

and to be clear, definitely not judging you or saying everyone has to prefer finnpoe, i just haven’t seen very many people talk about finnrey as a romantic pair, or at least i haven’t interacted with it, so i’m curious for your take :)

I'm going to start this with a disclaimer: I do not dislike Finnpoe at all, I actually quite enjoy Finnpoe as a ship, I think that Finn and Poe's dynamic in the movies is (mostly) enjoyable, and I do think there is an obvious foundation for the interpretation of them as romantic based on what we see in the films.

Finnrey are pretty obviously set up as a future romantic couple in TFA, to the point that the person who wrote the novelization has said that that is how he wrote them because it seemed REALLY REALLY OBVIOUS that that's where they were going with that relationship with what he had seen of it and he was pretty surprised when future films didn't follow up on that. There is arguably more explicit set-up for Finnrey in the first film of their trilogy than there was for Han/Leia (and also Luke/Leia since their sibling relationship wasn't established yet when ANH came out) and even for Anidala in their respective first films together.

It's Rey that Finn goes back for, fulfilling a place in her life that she's been waiting on for literal years, becoming the first person Rey feels like she can trust. Finn gets jealous when he thinks that Rey is going back to a boyfriend on Jakku. There's an entire running gag that is about the two of them holding hands, something usually pretty connected to romantic couples. Finn only joins the Rebellion because he cares enough about Rey to want to go back to save her (and he also answers his call of destiny by doing so, as visualized by him being given and then using Anakin's lightsaber as part of that decision). Rey answers her own call to destiny when she calls Anakin's lightsaber to her, something she only does in order to save Finn after Kylo has injured him. The two of them impact each other's storylines in a way that NO ONE ELSE DOES.

I also personally feel like Finn and Rey were originally built as CO-LEADS in TFA, neither one was supposed to be "the main character" over the other. They were BOTH intended to be Force sensitive, BOTH intended to become Jedi, BOTH intended to be the awakening in the Force. Their connection was the whole heart of the story in TFA. Allowing them to be love interests for each other just helps cement that. Finnrey being allowed to remain love interests throughout the Sequel trilogy could've helped keep Finn from being sidelined, it could've helped keep REY from being sidelined, it could've allowed Kylo Ren to remain a villain, it could've helped keep some of the more interesting themes of TFA from being completely and utterly dropped.

By comparison, Poe was supposed to die in TFA. He and Finn share maybe 2-3 scenes total with each other, which are split up between the very beginning and the end of the second act of the film, leaving a LOT of time in-between where neither we as the audience nor Finn in universe even SEE Poe (and he mostly disappears when the third act on Starkiller Base starts up, too). Giving Finn a love interest that isn't Rey also opens the door for him to be sidelined in favor of Rey. This is something we can actually see done intentionally in TLJ with Finn and Rose. It pulls focus from what was set up as the focal point and heart of the narrative in TFA (Finn and Rey's relationship) and provides an excuse for why Finn isn't taking part in the bigger storylines with Rey.

And last but not least, I don't personally believe that there was ever a snowball's chance in hell that Finn and Poe were ever going to become an canon couple in a Disney Star Wars movie (it wouldn't have happened in a Lucas-run Sequel Trilogy either, but that's not really the point here). Finnrey could've. You can even argue that it SHOULD'VE happened and that it WOULD'VE happened (if Rian Johnson hadn't come in and decided to ignore everything that was set up in TFA). And Finnrey theoretically still HAS a shot at being made canon. It seems a LOT more likely that if they continue to explore the characters in the future that we'll see Finn and Rey get together romantically than that we would see Finn and Poe get together romantically.

So while I like Finn and Poe, I don't feel like there was real potential that actually got squandered in the films when they didn't happen, whereas there was ACRES of potential for Finn and Rey that got completely thrown away, and doing so really hurt both of their characters and the trilogy as a whole.

[the-rollerchloster]

Parasocial relationships are strange. Parasocial relationships in a fandom like this one can be even stranger.

I want to preface this by saying that everyone is entitled to their feelings, and feelings are sometimes completely irrational. I am also aware that sometimes our feelings are driven by incomplete thoughts, and have a tendency to overwhelm us and those around us before we can process them. In saying that, I have seen a lot of conflicting emotions and reactions to the reveal that Misha Collins has a "serious" girlfriend (and a large cock apparently, but that is a whole other thing), and I know I shouldn't be surprised by it, but part of me is.

There was a conversation in my discord server over the complicated feelings people have about this news. As a cockles-friendly space this was to be expected, as any new development in the lives of either half of JenMish often spurs these kinds of conversations, but as it started to get emotional I was thanked for bringing some perspective. I hope that I can help anyone who also needs a different way of viewing this situation by making this post, while also helping myself to organise my own chaotic and complicated thoughts.

As I understand it, during the It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time event at this weekend's Burbank convention, Misha told a fun anecdote about gift-giving with his new girlfriend and her daughter, wherein Misha got some things delivered to said girlfriend directly from Amazon, and girlfriend wrapped them for the daughter including what she thought was a microphone but was actually another similarly shaped item not intended for children at all. He continued to say that this "microphone" was for his girlfriend so she wouldn't need to go searching elsewhere for intimacy, as they are currently living in separate states. Now, I was not at the event, and the lack of recordings (recording was strictly prohibited, so if you've got one shame on you, I don't want to know about it!) means that everything I will ever know about this story and the way it was told to the small audience who were lucky enough to be able to attend this event comes as a form of the Telephone game, and therefore lacks a whole lot of body language, tone and context. We, as a fandom, have been severely burnt by this kind of missing nuance before - think DenverCon'21 - and it's these kinds of kneejerk reactions that have the potential to spiral out of control and limit the things we get told at future events - think bishagate.

Think for a second about your personal perception of Misha Collins. He's chaotic, he can be a little self-deprecating or self-effacing, he likes to turn serious anecdotes into jokes. He is also a passionate and caring man, who has a lot of respect and appreciation for his fans. Think about the way he tells anecdotes at standard con panels - it's often a bit tongue-in-cheek, a bit sarcastic, a bit exaggerated - so why would his behaviour at this event, which was specifically set up for Misha to tell stories he wouldn't normally have the space to do in a convention setting, be any different?

I am going to go through my thoughts on some of the things I have seen mentioned about what this all means…

First off, the elephant in the room, what does this mean for Cockles? To me, absolutely nothing. Whatever Jensen and Misha have going on completely transcends a standard sexual and/or romantic relationship. Misha was in his relationship with Vicki for the majority of his life, including when he met Jensen, and we all know she literally wrote a book on polyamory; his perception of relationships is literally shaped and moulded by this, and it's not something he's going to just switch off. Danneel has been a permanent fixture in the cockles dynamic this entire time as well. The JenMish panel at Burbank this weekend will hopefully alleviate any of the doubt anyone is having here, and give us some knowledge that regardless of how Misha defines his relationship status, things will continue in the same chaotic, loving and ridiculous nature we've become accustomed to.

Which segues nicely into the implication that the vibrator was purchased so she wouldn't stray, and therefore their relationship is monogamous. See above thoughts about tongue-in-cheek, exaggerated and self-effacing - when I imagine him telling this story, I see that cheeky, gummy grin going the whole time. Without the nuance of watching this unfold, I think we are all safest to assume that this was a joke, not a firm declaration that he has left his polyamorous attitudes behind.

On thoughts of him "moving on too soon" from his marriage and subsequent divorce, this is where my own feelings get complicated as well, but also where we need to remember that the key feature of a parasocial relationship is that we only see and know what he wants us to. We don't actually know what the trigger for that dissolution was, so in terms of the actual calendar timing it might seem soon, but emotional development and change doesn't run on a standard calendar. We don't know how long the process was before the decision was made to separate. I am currently working through a messy separation, and while I can pinpoint the decision to somewhere in the past 6-12 months, my marriage has realistically been dead for 3+ years, and we're a (supposedly) monogamous couple. As a poly couple, I can imagine that Misha and Vicki worked through every alternative option possible before landing on the decision to formally separate, and had probably well and truly been through the mourning period before it was even all over. Adult relationships are complex at the best of times, and no one ever truly knows what is happening in them except the people involved. I also think that as a man who is nearing 50 and just come out of very long term relationship, that he doesn't actually know how to be "alone", nor does he want to…

Lastly, for some of us, this is someone important in our lives who has found happiness in another person when perhaps we don't have that for ourselves. When those feelings hit, they can be extremely disheartening, and I want to send all my loving thoughts to anyone who falls into this category. It's difficult when the envy turns your stomach in knots and then your thoughts spiral into all the things wrong that mean that no matter how much you want to you can't just be happy for someone. Love and life are complicated, human beings are complicated, society is complicated. There is this hugely widespread and toxic mentality that we are all raised on that says we are halves of something that is destined to find our other half in order to feel whole, and it's utter bullshit. We shouldn't need one singular significant other to feel complete, and sometimes we get so determined to find that someone that we end up sacrificing ourselves to make them fit. (see also; Daniel Sloss' thoughts on this subject in his stand-up special Jigsaw)

There are many different kinds of love, many different kinds of relationships, and many different kinds of people. If anyone proves that to us, it's Misha Collins. He is walking evidence that human life is chaotic and unpredictable and indeterminate and we can make our own fucking rules. I hope that we can collectively be respectful of him, no matter what (or who) he chooses, and feel grateful for everything he trusts us enough to share.

[monstersandmaw]

First time romancing Astarion, and I'm all aboard the ace-spec interpretation of Astarion that I've seen floating around. As someone who's ace, I definitely resonated with him in this scene anyway. That hug reaction from Astarion. Oof.

And the fact that if you also romance Halsin, one of the dialogue options Astarion can give you is to say something like: 'it's not because... we haven't... in a while... is it?'... My heart cracked painfully at that, I'm not going to lie. I have spoken almost exactly that sentence before, worrying that just kissing and physical affection is not enough for someone who's not ace. To have that validated by Astarion was really special for me.

(aka, I really didn't get to know Astarion very well in my first playthrough because he didn't approve of my absolute doormat of a Tav (Kaerlyn the drow) and I didn't spend much time with him, but now with my sassy monk...? I get it. I totally get why you all love Astarion so much).

EDIT: additional dialogue from Raphael talking about Cazador indicates that it might be linked to vampirism (my own headcanon for vampires anyway is they can't get aroused without having fed recently, not just BG3 vamps, but in general)

[some poly-ace-astarion thoughts under the cut too]

I'm not 100% convinced that Astarion is really ok with the consensual poly situation in-game, because he famously doesn't say what he actually wants and is the king of manipulating others, especially in sexual situations (e.g. what Cazador sent him out to do, and how). I'm not sure if I'll reload a save and just have Halsin as a friend...

The dialogue when you check in with Astarion before the Halsin scene is... strained? Odd??? Maybe it's just me over-analysing it. He sounded strained though - his tone high pitched and more grandiose than he'd been in previous cut-scenes, where he was more softly-spoken. It sounded more like early-game Astarion to me...

Also, my dialogue options may have been totally randomised the next time I approached Astarion after a steamy night with Halsin, but they sounded kind of strained there too, and I got the 'I can never say no to you' one, which set my ace people-pleaser alarm bells ringing...

As someone who's poly-romantic but asexual, I can project/imagine here that Astarion has come to care for Tav a lot (more than he ever expected, for sure), and he genuinely wants Tav to be happy. He trusts Tav enough to know that Tav respects his autonomy and right to decide things for himself, and values Astarion for who he is, so Astarion is intellectually/conceptually happy for Tav to get something from Halsin that Astarion is not providing (sex), but perhaps emotionally that additional fact and dynamic is harder to deal with.

That could totally be me projecting though, because that's how I'd react if my husband (not ace) and I (ace) were in that situation (we've discussed it between us, actually XD). Feelings of guilt and inadequacy around sex itself are apparently very common with us ace folks, even in very healthy and happy relationships.

Anyway, that turned into a ramble I didn't intend on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I'm not looking to start any discourse about this though. If you don't see Astarion that way, or had a different experience and interpretation, that's all totally valid and I'm not trying to invalidate it in anyway.

[ovenproofowl]

a lot of people have said it, but I’m throwing in my two cents just to get it off my chest.

Picard season 3 was . Bad . For a LOT of reasons . It felt like - as many before me have expressed - a self-insert fanfic with the dullest self-insert in history.

Jack Crusher wasn’t much of a character but he could have had some promise if they hadn’t spent an aggravating amount of time having him decree how different he always felt, you guys. Did you get that part? He’d always felt different. That sort of dialogue might have flown if we were dealing with Picard’s adolescent son, but instead we’re dealing with a 24 year old played by a 35 year old who looks every bit his age. (It was a hard 24 years, we must assume.)

The reason that Jack Crusher didn’t work for me personally, though, wasn’t because of how cliché his character was. I would have let that pass much easier if it wasn’t for the big ol’ elephant in the room. And that is simply that :

JACK CRUSHER WAS NEVER NECESSARY

Jack may have served a purpose to the storyline that was presented if only because he was the sole reason there was a Big Bad to be defeated in the first place. Everyone wanted to kidnap him, he brought the old gang back together just to protect him and then later save him from said Big Bad which was also actually .. him. Everything Was About Jack. But I’m not talking about the main plot. I Really Don’t Want to Talk About the Main Plot. Ever. What I want to talk about is what Jack represented that made him so unnecessary:

He was intended to represent Jean-Luc Picard’s only reason to start living.

Personally, that really, really offended me. Picard didn’t need to have a biological kid to have a purpose. In fact, it’s been established time and time again that he wasn’t ever really dad material. More of a... weirdly intense uncle. For a while, he wasn’t a fan of kids at all. Eventually, though, Picard is seen to warm to the idea of letting children within his general vicinity. This starts in TNG and continues on in season 1 of Picard. The Only Categorically Good Season of this whole. show.

In season 1, we see flashbacks of Jean-Luc’s relationship with a young Elnor, how he would read him stories and have sword fights with him. He was an absent father to an adopted child he hadn’t even realised he’d adopted and yet Elnor still fought for his hopeless cause. In much the same way, Picard meets Dahj and then later, Soji. He feels a kinship with these androids because of their connection to Data. He wants to protect Soji becase he couldn’t protect Dahj and Soji even canonically questions whether she should allow Picard to act as her father figure before she begins to remember where she came from. Both of these dynamics were infinitely more interesting and a lot deeper rooted. Soji and Elnor were both young twenty-somethings without parental guidance but found that guidance through Picard. Soji had her connection to Jurati, too, and Elnor had his with Seven and Raffi and that’s what made the whole group so intriguing to follow. They all had interesting connections to each other that had so many avenues to explore.

Unfortunately, the show decided to more or less write Soji and Elnor out of the story come season 2. Elnor was killed off for the majority of the season and only brought back by Q intervention in the last episode. Soji wasn’t even a part of the story at all. And do you know what’s sad about that? What’s really sad? Season 2 was trying to sell us the exact same message as season 3. That Picard needed a reason to live. But, like, not that reason. Not the reasons he’d already been given in the form of his found family with his Romulan and android adopted children, or even the rest of the La Sirena crew. No no no, we can’t have that, better get rid of them. This time, Laris is the focal point. Picard had been avoiding a romantic relationship with her because of a never before mentioned dark history surrounding his mother’s suicide. Because, sure, at this point, why not? While we’re at it, let’s also kill off Rios in the most slap-in-the-face out of character way possible and fling Jurati at the Borg for good measure just so she won’t be around for season 3. Her character development into the Borg Queen was pretty intriguing, but we’ll totally ignore that they even exist post her departure, just for funsies. Oh, and Soji and Elnor? Best not mention them at all come that third and final season. Otherwise, people might get the crazy notion that Picard already had a reason not to hunker down and die at the vinyard at the tender age of 104.

Season 3 picks up where season 2 leaves off in that Picard is now in that aforementioned romantic relationship with Laris. Except, no he isn’t because he immediately gets an emergency call from his ex and literally never sees or talks to Laris ever again. There wasn’t even a throw-away line or implied reference to her, but by now I’m sure you know the reason for that.

That’s right, folks. Because if we were allowed to remember Laris and what she meant to Picard, then we might just remember that other thing. Say it with me now!!

JACK CRUSHER WAS NEVER NECESSARY!!

In summary, there were so many brilliant options to give Picard for signficant found family dynamics, but the show just wasn’t interested in any of them. Season 3 wanted a Picard who had given it all up, who was ready to die because he’d never had a family to pass on his legacy. They wanted him at his lowest so that we’d all rejoice to see him return to the TNG crew. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a massive TNG fan and I could rave about the fan service and nostalgia porn for hours on end. If season 3 had stood alone as a singular unconnected event, it might even have been passable as a warm hug from old and beloved characters with some fun new spins to their stories along the way, juust so long as you didn’t squint too hard at the actual attempt at plot writing going on in the background.

But the fact of the matter is, Picard season 3 came far too late into the game. Season 1 held the building blocks to something new and interesting. By the end of season 2, it was becoming clear we were never going to see those blocks stand. By season 3, those blocks were just scattered headstones in a graveyard.

They teased us with the potential new show of Captain Seven and her Number One Raffi Musiker and that might have just been okay. . .

. . .If the La Sirena Crew had been allowed to be a part of that future.

In closing: Picard season 3? Too little, too late, mate. 👎🏻

[andreal831]

I found it so absolutely crazy that the Mikaelsons (especially Klaus and Elijah) were constantly throwing Marcel’s background back in his face and just the fact that they lived in/on the same plantation that he was a slave on was absolutely wild. Marcel was so blatantly “othered” by the Mikaelsons, even though they said he was family, they always reminded him that he wasn’t ever one of them/a mikaelson and Klaus would always remind him that he was a slave before. Someone made the analogy that it’s like when a racist white family adopts a black child and make it clear that he’s not one of them and that’s quite LITERALLY what happened.

I would go as far as to say that Marbekah is not just weird because Rebekah knew him as a child, but also because of that strange power dynamic of her being a rich white woman and him being a black slave boy and that subtext there and it just doesn’t feel right (and this is a feeling I don’t get from normal interracial relationships, just THOSE TWO). And if you like Marbekah, that’s great! I just don’t lol.

And the fandom always says that “it’s just Klaus’ personality that he does and says these things to Marcel, etc” like… ugh.

And there’s other poc in TO that deal with the racism like Vincent and Inadu, etc

I love the Mikaelsons but they were so problematic to the point that I have to retcon certain things or at least insert headcanons to make me not hate them. Because you are absolutely right. It was literally a racist family playing white savior. People try to give Klaus props for killing an enslaver and freeing Marcel, but we see him kill one enslaver and free one person who was enslaved. He didn't do it because he was morally opposed to slavery. He did it for his own selfish reasons. Otherwise we would have seen more of this. People using the excuse that "oh it's just x's character to make racists comments" is very telling. It means the character is racist. They are literally saying it is part of that character. The Mikaelsons thinking it was fine to live on an actual plantation both when it was functioning and after is proof of this.

I personally do like Marbekah but they are not necessarily in my top favorite ships. I love both of the characters but I also hate how they began (same with Freelin, but I'll go into that in a moment). But again, you're absolutely right. There is not only the inappropriate dynamic that she helped raise him, to some extent, but yes, that he grew up being treated as a second class citizen, not only when he was enslaved but also when he was taken in by the Mikaelsons. There is also the bad dynamic of how possessive Klaus is over Rebekah and her romantic life. People love to say Klaus daggered Rebekah when he found out about Rebekah and Marcel because he was protecting Marcel, but let's be honest, he wouldn't have cared if it was anyone else but Rebekah. Klaus didn't have any issues going after teenagers, why would he care that Marcel was being groomed by an older woman? Klaus always treated Marcel as more of a friend than a son and we all know Klaus is not a good friend. I, once again, have to insert my own headcanon that Rebekah was not heavily invovled in Marcel's upbringing. I pretend Klaus was just as possessive of Marcel with Rebekah as he was with Elijah. We only see the one scene of Rebekah training him so I just pretend that was a one time thing and they hardly interacted outside of that. This not at all what the writers intended. They loved creepy, grooming relationships so it is completely understandable to not like them.

Marcel was treated as more of a possession than anything. I'm biased so I like to believe Elijah saw Marcel as a child at first and wanted to mentor him before Klaus got in the way. You mention Elijah throwing Marcel's history in his face, do you have an example? I am genuinely asking. I've seen people make this comment before and make comments of Elijah calling him "boy" but I for the life of me can't remember when he does, because yes, that is obviously racist. I am trying to think past my Elijah blinders, but welcome any help. Elijah is definitely condescending to him and it would be foolish of me to assume part of it isn't racism. Again, I insert my own headcanon that it is more to do with his elitism and how he speaks to everyone (i.e. the scene where he calls Klaus and Hayley "chiiillldddreeen" for bickering). But I also acknowledge that my headcanons are my own and we still need to call out the characters for their problematic behavior. The fact that Elijah doesn't lift a finger to help a single person who is being enslaved or to even condemn the slavery when he very much had the power and privilege to do something about it shows his racism, if not overt racism than at the very least covert.

I personally headcanon that Celeste set Elijah straight while they were together and got him more invovled in the abolitionist movements, because I refuse to believe Celeste was fine being with a man who was fine with slavery. I also love Elijah and refuse to love a racist so I have to insert my own head canons to fix the racist writing. I would also be remiss to point out how problematic it is that Elijah is constantly given partners who are women of color but the show only emphasizes his white counterparts. There is more love for Eelijah, a crack ship, in the fandom than Celijah, one of the two people Elijah loved by his own admission. I love haylijah, but how the women of color he dated were treated by his family, the writers, and his family, even by him, speaks volumes to their racism.

But back to Marcel. It would have made sense for Rebekah to be a mother figure to him since she is always talking about wanting kids, but the show makes it clear that there is a distinction between biological children and adopted. Here the Mikaelsons have a chance to be parents and they all squander it. It's hard to not talk about Marcel's race in that discussion. Rebekah loves her time taking care of Hope, who, while her blood, is still not her biological daughter. Why wouldn't she jump at the chance to raise a frightened boy who lost his mother at such a young age? Why wasn't he given a mother figure? Hope has like five. Marcel isn't even given a father figure. Again, Hope has like five. Because Marcel was never viewed as a child. This is a common trope where black characters, especially boys, are not seen as kids. Rather they are forced to be more mature and treated as adults, while their white counter parts are allowed immaturity. Marcel was never allowed to be a kid because the Mikaelsons didn't want a kid. They all had their own selfish desires for Marcel and they were all terrible.

I do think the Mikaelsons are also just a toxic, dysfunctional family. Literally none of them treat the others well. I love certain relationships over others, but it would be lying to say they weren't all toxic to each other. So it's no wonder all of their relationships with Marcel were toxic. Klaus undaggers Kol and instead of being angry at Klaus for keeping him in a box, he turns his anger and frustration on a literal child. You would think this resentment would fade when Kol starts dating his nephew's daughter (sorry, couldn't help myself), but it doesn't. Marcel and Kol still harbor so much animosity for each other and Kol's is merely based on Marcel being more included in the family, which is sad considering how little Marcel is included in the family. But even that extent was too much for Kol.

The writers had a fresh slate with The Originals. There was no book to attempt to follow or even to dictate character relationships. They could have done anything with Marcel, but they chose to make a black slave from the 1800s that Klaus "saved" in order to play into the idea that Klaus was a good guy underneath it all. So instead of focusing on Marcel's trauma, the story is told through the Mikaelson's perspective, the white perspective. It reminds me of so many movies, The Blind Side comes to mind. Media loves to focus on the white saviors and praise them without mentioning the trauma they actually caused while playing savior. In these stories, the white families aren't adopting a "child" they are "investing" in what that child can do for them.

I mentioned Freelin earlier and I don't think it is a coincidence that the only two instances where a white Mikaelson's endgame invovled a person of color there is a massive power imbalance. I want to love Freelin so much because I like both the characters but I struggle to get past how they met and how quickly it changed. Freya never even felt guilty or apologized for literally kidnapping and torturing her. The show loves to match up characters, especially women and especially woman of color, with their abusers with no repercussions to the abuse.

I could write forever about the blatant racism in this show.

Thanks for the ask! I hope I answered everything. As always, please let me know what you think or if you disagree with anything I said.

[putnamcapital]

s1 ep 6 rewatch notes

[yeah i am still doing these essays, everyone copes differently OKAY]

I wish i had the words to convey my love for the Simon-Rosh-Ayub dynamic when they’re sitting on his bed trying to talk about his video, not the Kim K. video. it’s an instance of one of the things i ADORE about YR, namely, the importance of the love and support of friends - “the gang is back together”. contra a lot of the teenage and adult movies that put romantic love on a pedestal and everything else goes to the dogs.

That shot of Wille set against the sky when the Queen leaves = is it the apocalypse or is it heartbreak and i'm not the only one seeing the religious imagery right?

“we haven’t done anything wrong.” Simon’s moral clarity, his unbreakable backbone - it’s a moment where it’s obvious the Court has no idea who they are dealing with. I’m not sure Wille even knows then.

Frida doesn’t get enough praise for her acting. that side eye of August as they cross in front of him loafing on the picnic table: sublime.

Another parallel I hadn’t seen before: Sara dresses up before dinner; she likes the image she sees of herself in the mirror. She is “someone she is not”, according to Simon (later that night), but she wants that false countenance. In S2, that same move will devastate Wille. But we have another Sara-mirror scene, in S2. Leaning on the Wille-Sara parallel, there’s something being done here about becoming who you are through artifice (dressing up ‘in costume’) or through love (revealing your true self). August (as opposed to Simon, i think …) ends up being a false or traitorous ‘coming into self through love’ for Sara.

Related … when Sara went to see August to confront him about the video, i have retrospectively imagined her as having planned what happened. But if you look at the scene as it happens, both Sara and August seem to just be playing the situation as it arises. Sara starts off by not even intending to tell August, I think that was honest. When she then confronted him about the video, she first asks why did you do this to Wille and then, how do you have the right, you destroyed Simon? none of it is about her. it’s when August asks her ‘what do you want’ - that i think the idea comes to her. And i think that explains her face after she kisses August - her revulsion at herself. it seems like a situation that spiralled out of control very fast.

i can’t really talk about the Sara-Simon fight scene because it’s my Point of No Return in terms of “This is a nice program to watch of an evening” and “These characters have become my entire waking and sleeping existence, is there treatment for this.”

in the scene that starts with them sitting on the floor in Wille’s room, there is that tender moment by the door, and one of the top two kisses and hugs in the whole of season 1 and 2 combined, punctuated with the forehead tap. and i’ve always thought it so lovely until this time i saw the “red flag” - the towel hanging on the hook - and it reminded me of the red ‘flag’ we see in the locker room every other time things go south.

the scene with kristina and wille in the car starts simply with him saying, “WHAT?” which a) comes straight out of fanfic; b) is hyper-realistic adolescent approach to dialogue but also c) actually shows that they are really close. as in, Wille might loathe his mother by the end of this episode, but also he knows exactly what she’s thinking and they can just skip all the usual staging aspects of conversation. it links, i now see, to the book scene, where wille admits that he can’t just throw out everything he’s been taught, b/c he’s internalized it so well

when K is lecturing W about all the public attention he’s going to get now, and how it will be even worse, it’s the same shot of him looking out the car window wishing he could be literally anyone else as in the first few minutes of s1ep1, after the club fight. and we see his reflection in the window, so we get him 'in double' - who he is IRL, and who he is seen to be by the viewer. very clever. very clever.

[variousqueerthings]

watching a thing that's going through why someone enjoys doctor who, and it's gone on a little tangent about why romance on doctor who doesn't work (in their opinion, and in mine), and how it made s2 and s7b the creator's least favourite -- and while I would need to rewatch s7b to remember that, I do think that the-doctor-and-rose at least doesn't have to be read as romantic if one doesn't want to

which isn't to say it wasn't intended as such, and also that it was somewhat based in dtennant and billie piper and jenna coleman and (to some) matt smith being hot (sorry matt smith, he looks like a teenage boy, the dichotomy is not hot or ugly, it's does-or-does-not-look-like-a-teenager), which is kind of *sigh yeah okay you're appealing to the people who think people are hot so they wanted a bit of that sexy sexy romance (I guess)*

however I don't think that things that are romance-coded need to be engaged with on that level, as someone who's had to make that translation many many times, and I think especially with the doctor-as-character, including and especially ten when one reads ten as being projected onto, it's actually incredibly fun not to/not even really a translation so much as a textually supported read

what's especially good about the doctor and rose dynamic is specifically that the doctor never gives rose the exact thing she's looking for, and that part of the doctor's heartbreak is that he can't -- take that as a "because I'm immortal and you're not," if you want (and that's also a textually supported read), but it's also very very easily read as "because what you want and what I can give is not compatible so that I will always end up letting you down like I do everyone, and I would rather you be happy than assert what I might want, and in the end everyone leaves for one reason or another"

which... the doctor basically says to wilf. they leave. they find someone else and fall in love. they forget. they break the doctor's heart. not just rose, but everyone. rose is simply the first to remind the doctor of this fact after bringing him back after a massive traumatic event

and I think it elevates s2, which I've now seen a couple of people go "oh because of the romance it's one of my least favourite seasons," which is so fascinating to me, because s2 isn't at all about a romance through my eyes. it is for rose, because she's in love with the doctor, romantically, and that's part of her tragedy, as a mortal, as someone who's in love with her doctor and doesn't want that doctor to go or to change or to... be alien, perhaps (now I do reach, but it's open to reaching) -- and who is growing up throughout, as the first person one sees grow up in nu!who

and the doctor is constantly struggling for words: tell rose... oh she knows. and i suppose. if it's my last chance to say it. rose tyler...

rose tyler essentially brought the doctor back, made the doctor fall in love with the universe again, and brought back a childlike wonder that the doctor had had before the timewar, and how do you encompass that into simple human concepts of "romantic" or "platonic" and know

that this person is romantically in love with you in a very human way

that there is an end-point to this, which is something this person will never fully grasp until it's happened (or that person is dead)

that you do not age. that you change. that you are aliene

that you are fundamentally, always, left on your own in the end

that you have put all of your sense of your new self onto this person and it will eventually fuck everything up

so yeah, there's some heavy-duty emotional subtext in s2, but because of the deliberate lack of clarity given to that subtext, it's very very easy to take it in various kinds of directions. of course rose and the doctor are Like That in s2, they're living a little fairytale life that's about to fall to pieces (something the doctor knows, but won't admit, and rose doesn't fully understand or believe)

when rose asks the doctor how long they'll travel and the doctor says "forever," it's absolutely 100% a lie, and that is... very tragic... thinking back to their first scenes together, which were incredibly simply sweet, and you know it's stretching thinner and thinner in ways I don't think you see with any other companion

the thing is I do personally think that rose as the romantic arc makes rose less interesting than she is, and that's a flaw in the show, but I think giving hers and the doctor's run a slightly different eye, that is absolutely supported by the canon, also opens up all of her other traits, that make her so iconic -- only seeing rose through the lens of romance does her a disservice, there is a bunch more going on there in s2...

but like yeah, I get that there was some david tennant so-called sex appeal, which, yeah whatever, and billie piper was a former famous popstar, and people also do ship them romantically (and that's fine), but I think to focus on that aspect in order to say why rose isn't appealing kind of ignores everything else she is and represents on the show for something you can just read in another way easily and more interestingly and supported by the text

like people will throw around "asexual doctor" but I don't think they know enough about aromanticism (which is what they really mean) to understand how to read that in a text. deeply symbiotic relationships can be aromantic, can be platonic, and can be one-sided or messed up or or...

embrace the symbiosis of the doctor and rose in s2 that is inherently also kind of fucked up and doomed because of their deliberate blinkered perspective of the future even after the sarah-jane episode and the madame du pompadour episode which are screaming at them that things are ending soon!!! It's compelling stuff. it's not necessary to read it as romantic

give rose tyler her due as the ghost that haunts the narrative

[alcalexandria]

The Case for Dani X Grace.

This is a post to lay out the reasons viewers might have to think that, at some point in the development of Terminator: Dark Fate, Dani & Grace were actually meant to be a romantic couple.

Or else, at the very least, that a decision was made to rework the movie specifically to prevent that reading.

We know it was reworked, because we know a lot about the minor tweaks after initial test screenings; in itself that’s not uncommon. But we're specifically looking at how these two and their dynamic changed in the process, and whether that was the whole intention.

Only the purpose of the changes is up for debate - and we'll get to that - but the main effect was definitely to change how Dani & Grace’s relationship can be interpreted.

You can find a more detailed breakdown of Dani & Grace related cuts/changes we’re aware of here, but we'll talk about the key ones below. A bunch of these minor cuts, shot swaps and reshoots add up to take them from a dynamic that might be interpreted as romantic, to something familial; sealing the deal with the last-minute addition of a single scene and line inserted to retcon Dani into a parent figure.

We’ll probably never know the whole story for sure one way or the other, but I think we know enough to speculate that I think would be of interest to franchise fans from a Behind-The-Scenes perspective as well as to would-be shippers.

So I’ll try to go through what we actually know for sure as much as possible first, and how we know it, before getting into my own theories about the whys, so hopefully even if you don’t agree with my conclusions you might find it a worthwhile read.

We'll look at three questions -

i) First, whether Dani & Grace could reasonably be interpreted as a romance in at least one version of the movie, regardless of whether they were meant to be or not,

ii) Whether the late-stage overhaul was done specifically to block that possible reading, regardless of whether it had been an intentional or reasonable one, and lastly,

iii) Whether it was actually initially intended to have a lesbian romantic subtext – and subtext at least - rather than simply an accident of some clueless Action Movie Dudes who didn’t know how it would read, before they panicked and rowed back as seen in ii)

Much of it won't be new to anyone likely to care, but maybe some of it is, and I figure it doesn’t hurt to compile it all in one place for my own purposes as much as anything. There will be some necessary duplication of older posts that I hope you’ll forgive.

Also, I guess some of us didn’t get enough of Book Reports as kids.

Come join the nerd party under the cut.

i) Could Dani & Grace reasonably be interpreted as a romantic couple in at least one version of the movie?

So firstly, let’s think about whether Dani & Grace could reasonably be interpreted as a romantic couple even if only by happy accident, rather than solely imagined in feverish f/f shipper brains like mine.

Well, a good litmus test for that question is always “How would we read these characters if we were looking at a man and a woman?” Regardless of where we’re all coming from, we all learn to view media through the heteronormative lens. We may learn it as a second language, but we learn it.

So the question is just as much “How would we be expected to read these characters, if we were looking at a man and a woman?

Usually, that’s kind of an abstract thought experiment - you have to find other kinda similar stories to try to compare, but they’re never quite exact, so there’s always a level of subjectivity and plausible deniability.

That’s not the case here though, because we have a direct, like-for-like comparison; Grace & Dani are very explicitly and purposefully cast in roles to mirror a man & woman in a preceding movie, and I’ve gone into lots more detail about that here.

Not just any preceding movie, neither - the first one, and the foundation of all the lore after.

The fact Kyle & Sarah were lovers isn’t simply incidental to Terminator, it is the basis of the whole mythology – if they weren’t in love and didn’t have sex, their son would never have been conceived or raised by Sarah to be the lynchpin of that first loop.

In other words - the central pillar of the whole franchise very much depends on the fact those two boned down.

So, we know that if they were a guy + girl, we would be meant to see them as romantic - because when they were, we had to. This whole storytelling universe depends on it.

And pretty much all of the same cues used to tell us Kyle & Sarah were in love are used to tell us what Grace & Dani are to each other too. Most obviously, that Kyle and Grace both came across time for this bodyguard job, and we're told for sure why Kyle did it for Sarah at least - because, he simply says, he is in love with her, and has always been.

We know how we’re meant to read Sarah’s plea not to confront the cops, too – she doesn’t want to see him get killed. Just as Dani, fully aware that capture is likely a death sentence for both her and the human race in turn, surrenders to the CBP sooner than watch Grace die fighting them.

We may not get the same explanatory statements in each of the parallel incidents with Grace & Dani, but it seems pretty natural to infer them. And ultimately, Sarah summarises her relationship with Kyle by saying that, in the even shorter time they spent together, they “loved a lifetime’s worth”.

Almost the only major divergence is that Grace & Dani never have sex - but even then, one of their earliest scenes involves Dani watching over the crashed-out Grace in a motel room, a motel room that’s deliberately identical to the one where Sarah and Kyle did. So we’re still asked to see them in that parallel anyway.

And we could interpret them the same way even if we’d never seen T1 at all, because the same language of action movie romance is applied to both cases. Not only can you interpret Grace’s protectiveness towards Dani (and Dani’s tenderness towards her in return) as an intentional reference to that famous, previous love affair, it also comes across as romantic in itself, because that's just the established vocabulary of this kind of movie.

There are plenty of other parallels in the post linked above if you want them. But the point is – if all the stuff T1 used to tell us that Kyle & Sarah are in love is also used to tell us what's going on with Grace & Dani, then it’s both reasonable and predictable that people will interpret them the same way.

And they go further than the stuff in common. Think of Grace dropping to her knees to beg that she be let go back to her death, and Dani openly weeping over the prospect - I think we can take it for granted this is not how John and Kyle’s corresponding interaction played out, even offscreen or in some deleted sequence somewhere.

Think of Dani tearfully apologizing to Grace as she cuts into her. Think of her setting out to change the whole future just to save her. Think of Grace choosing to die with her eyes on Dani, too, something Kyle didn’t get to do with Sarah.

In fact, just think of this scene –

Now, how would you interpret this scene if this was a male and female duo?

More importantly, how would you think you were expected to interpret their relationship, if you saw this play out onscreen?

Over to you, Nick from The New Girl –

"Anytime a man shows a woman how to do something from behind, it's just an excuse for him to get really close and breathe on her neck. Watch any sports movie."

And you, Bridgerton –

In fact, this is such well-established shorthand, it’s got a TV Tropes page.

There is of course a big complication here - the maternal framing they’re given in the last act. But as noted above, we already know this was only inserted after the test screening stage, and at the expense of a very particular deleted scene (more on that below).

We happen to know for a fact it's a reshoot now from Director’s Commentary and such, but the scene in question was so out of synch with the movie as it is that plenty of folks had already taken it for granted before it was confirmed anyway - not only does that future flashback look and feel entirely different to the rest of the movie, it's seated in a scene riddled with weird giveaway continuity issues.

So it just plain feels like it was plugged in at the last minute, as indeed we now know it was. And in that basis, I do think folks can feel justified in simply disregarding it as a “no homo�� disclaimer.

It’s not hard then to imagine how differently this movie would play without that line, and to read their dynamic accordingly.

Grace would be a character that we only ever see interact with Dani as an adult, one who devotes both her life and death to her, because…

Because they’re friends? Because Dani’s her heroine?

Because she saved her?

In what way?

I mean, “You saved me” is a pretty powerful figurative line to just toss out there, as the million romance novels with that title can attest. But in the original cut of the movie, without the reshoot, we would never have seen any literal Dani-saving-Grace at all.

So, yeah. In sub-conclusion, I believe it is completely reasonable for a viewer to interpret Dani & Grace's dynamic as romantic.

To do so does require consciously rejecting the idea there’s a foster relationship in play, but the fact that’s so easily done – by mentally nixing one jarringly ADR’d line and scene retcon - kind of speaks for itself, doesn’t it?

ii) Was it specifically changed to stop people interpreting them as romantic?

The next question is whether some or all the changes we know of were specifically to try to head off shippy interpretations – regardless of whether they were an accident – rather than for any other reason we’ve been given.

I’m going to save you scrolling and say I think yes.

I absolutely think this movie was re-edited because somebody panicked that it was going to be interpreted as orbiting an opti-tragic lesbian love story spanning time and space.

The main reason I believe this is that the rationale given for the anti-“tactile” edit pass and cuts makes no fucking sense, so quite frankly I think it’s a lie, and I’ll explain why.

In the commentary, Director and Editor tell us they did an entire editing pass - essentially revising the movie from top to bottom, no small task - relatively late in production, to make cuts and swap takes, purely so that Dani & Grace would look less "tactile", less physically close. They say these changes were important to prevent the audience working out that Grace knows Dani, at all. That surprise was apparently so important it was worth the considerable extra time and money it would take to rearrange and recut scenes that had already cost time and money to film. This in a movie that was already going way over budget, due to flood-damaged sets, a production shift from Mexico to Spain/ Hungary, multiple forced location changes mid shoot, and asbestos being discovered in a studio (!).

And yet, in the flashback - we are straight up shown Dani on the rescue stretcher, after very pointedly seeing Grace personally attend to her, the VIP, during the rescue flight, even though this adds nothing to the reveal we’ve been told was all-important to preserve.

How is this less of a giveaway than Grace & Dani standing too close sometimes or whatever?

And we would also have been shown “The Commander” again, in the alternate version of the volunteering scene –

The sight of her is what directly prompts Grace to volunteer for surgery - this shot is literally her POV, looking at Dani, and it makes her insist on the surgery to her reluctant medic. If we're supposed to think the Commander is just some rando, this scene would have a really strange emphasis.

And if we're not supposed to know or guess it's Dani, why risk this at all?

We know from Miller that the Future War battle was cut short; the longer original version showed us Hadrell/Quinn having a glorious last stand against the Rev-7s until they killed him. This presumably influences Grace’s decision to be Augmented, because she wants to be able to do what she saw Hadrell do, for Dani. And according to confirmed test screening reviews on Reddit, the scene was still intact by the time they saw it.

These Future War scenes all need a ton of VFX, bespoke sets, props and wardrobe that can’t be bought off the rack or recycled anywhere else in the movie’s main storyline, so they’re very expensive. Whatever else you might do as a just-in-case, you would not shoot more of this than you had to.

Given she’s bundled up on a stretcher, it would have been trivial to conceal the identity of the injured VIP completely – simply by not shooting her clearly or covering her head. Natalia Reyes wouldn’t even need to be on set.

But she was - they went to the lengths of having her, having her face visible, putting her in injury makeup, and showing us Grace is uniquely, personally affected by her condition.

Why bother with any of that if were never meant to be able to infer that it’s her? If it was in fact important for us not to know that it’s her? Considering how innocuous some of the scenes they supposedly cut for that reason, isn’t this a pretty glaring contradiction?

I don’t believe these scenes are shot as if it’s a secret Grace knows Dani, or that Dani is the Commander. But I do believe they’re edited to try to make it a secret Grace knows Dani.

I think it was shot as if we could take it for granted Dani’s the Commander, and then after the fact, someone chose to cut it down as much as they could afford to. The fact Dani’s face is plainly visible is because there was only so much they could cut without losing coherence completely.

But let’s take them at their word for now to have a look at another scene change.

There’s a notable swap from the version of this sequence we see in early trailers –

Source: Booasaur

- to what we actually see in the movie:

In the commentary, the guys explain this scene (what’s left of it) and Sarah’s reaction is intended to show us she knows that, quote, "Grace is not telling the whole truth, there's something more to their relationship that Grace is not telling her".

But… hold on.

That makes no sense at all in light of their explanation for the rest of the cuts, which were supposedly to prevent us inferring precisely that. And if this is the moment we are supposed to be clued in after all, then why is even this swapped out for a less touchy shot?

Why spend money recutting the whole movie, and even reshooting some of it so that we won’t speculate Grace might know her, while also incorporating this scene to… tell us Grace might know her?

And why change the shot used in all the initial trailers to the one we see above if this scene is meant to flag they’re close anyway?

For this to be true would mean they’re both doing an entire editing pass to prevent the audience knowing Grace knows Dani more than she’s letting on, but also including this scene with the specific intention of suggesting Grace knows Dani more than she’s letting on… but still also making them less tactile... even though we’re now allowed to suspect they’re close anyway?

Which is it?

I think there’s a fib somewhere.

Some of the “anti-tactile” cuts harm the movie in general, too. Cuts around the motel, border wall and cockpit in particular create significant continuity errors, and a huge amount of the movie’s exposition has to come from what are clearly late overdubs pasted onto generic reaction shots.

The cuts in the motel and the CBP centre make the scenes they’re in choppy as hell. The cuts when Dani sees Grace alive again after the drone attack actively hurt the coherence of the scene, and even the story as a whole, IMHO. What made it worthwhile to do that?

Now, to be fair - some of the cuts to the motel room bit were apparently because the audience didn’t respond well to seeing Dani crying again. That makes sense.

But it doesn’t really explain this -

Source: Booasaur

This picture from the tie in card game's "FIRST AID KIT" card shows Dani caring for Grace when she’s unconscious, in a motel room that – as noted – is a recreation of the one where Kyle & Sarah slept together.

Images for the card game are promotional shots that would have been approved for release by the studio, but the manufacturer would have needed to have them as early as possible to design and produce their material in time.

This card's image – and only this one – has no corresponding scene in the movie we see. Dani never gets anywhere near this close to Grace here. And that’s not in itself strange for press shots, okay, but what stands out is that I have searched all over, and nothing like it appears in any of the subsequent press material either, while all the other card images, or at least some from the same scenes, do.

That includes this promo shot, which was widely circulated even though it also comes from a cut scene, and one I'll discuss at length later -

From this we can draw two conclusions.

Firstly, that a scene existed where Dani physically tended to Grace like that while she was out, in a room that Terminator fans will know was the backdrop to Sarah & Kyle’s romance - and that it was cut.

Secondly, that at the relatively early stage in production, when the cards were being designed, the image was approved for promotional use - but that at a later one, when the time came to release promo material to the general press, no longer was - and that it was, curiously, the only such image that happened to.

Once we were all good with it, now we’re not. The scene was important enough to shoot, and the image was approved at one point in the early stages – but then suddenly then it wasn’t.

Then there’s the drone attack itself. Like the truck, this is another change that was made in between the early trailers and the movie itself, and it’s another one that damages the editing and story for no clear reason.

In the movie, Dani, knowing that Grace will be killed fighting the CBP, gives herself up rather than see her die. The Rev-9 then uses the chance to drop a drone on them.

Grace realizes what’s happening, easily breaks her restraints, and then takes the brunt of the blast to save Dani from it.

In other words, having just surrendered to save Grace’s life, Dani has to see her being – for all she knows - killed after all, and we see her look on at Grace’s lifeless body in despair.

Incidentally, doesn’t this echo the shot of Grace seeing the Commander in the stretcher after the Rev 7 attack?

This pays off – or would have – later, in a shot seen in the trailers when Grace finds Dani again, and we see Dani’s clear relief that she’s alive.

YMMV, but to me it also looks like she’s showing concern for Grace’s very conspicuous burns, too.

A subsequent trailer shot, also cut, has Grace & Dani fleeing the Rev-9 hand in hand, in dreamy blockbuster slow motion -

All of these moments are gone from the movie.

From what I’m pretty sure was a rehearsal – but again, check out Dani’s expression.

Leaving aside for a moment the obvious recurring question of how this stuff would be interpreted if they were a straight pairing - it’s still very hard to explain cutting it.

In its place, we get this absolute... mess of cuts, ADR, cuts, Davis barely being in frame, more cuts, and… at any point in this how confident are you of what direction anyone’s facing?

I haven’t recut this, to be clear - this is exactly how this sequence plays out onscreen. It’s a salad of jumbled editing and weird shot choices that make the CBP centre seem about the size of a bus stop, has dialogue dubbed in where people clearly aren’t speaking, suggests a floor plan that somehow overlaps, and struggles to keep the 5’11 Davis in frame with the 5’2 Reyes for more than a second at a time.

Scroll up again to those deleted shots, and compare how much clearer and better composed they are than any of this.

In fact, this is so disjointed you’d be forgiven for thinking Dani & Grace are in an identical but totally separate building from Rev here, because there’s no sense of where he is in relation to them or how far away. It’s not even implausible this is another (very expensive!) reshoot, at least in part.

And in the middle of all this, that’s Dani’s cousin getting killed. Did you even notice that when you saw it first? I don’t blame you if you didn’t – our heroines aren’t framed, lit or seen clearly enough to know if Dani herself even knows he’s dead.

Let’s look the effect of these cuts solely from a storytelling perspective though.

The original sequence would have been -

Dani is terrified she’ll get Grace killed so surrenders for that specific reason.

Is devastated to see Grace apparently killed anyway.

Is more relieved to see that Grace is alive than she cares about the attack.

Dramatic slo-mo escape to the chopper

Grace’s deferred freak out that Dani would risk her life like that for her or Sarah.

Besides being shot noticeably better, these little moments also make for a much more coherent little A-to-B journey that shades both characters in significantly.

With the cuts, and Dani's new non-reaction, the drone stuff is just a very dramatic splash of fireworks – narratively, it might as well not have happened. And Grace’s tantrum in the chopper, about Dani’s life being the only one that matters, comes from almost nowhere without that full mini-arc of Dani having endangered herself sooner than put Grace in danger, Grace being an apparent casualty anyway, and how glad Dani is to see she’s alive after all.

These bits seem to me then to have been very deliberately filmed – and then even more deliberately, cut.

But that’s not nearly as dramatic a change as cutting the absurdly angstoromantic “Send Me Back” scene.

And for real, do stop and watch this before carrying on -

This moment explains just about everything you need to know about Grace and her motivations, absolves Dani of sending her back to her doom, and ties directly into a climactic exchange of dialogue later on - the Theatrical cut still even has that now orphaned follow up line, when Grace repeats her plea to "our" Dani, to let her save her, before she dies. Commander Dani is shown shedding a tear when Grace asks to save her here, presumably because she remembers they will be some of Grace’s last words to her own younger self, later/before.

All that, and that clever little internal loop, is totally lost without this pivotal little scene. We even lose the visual parallel of Grace on her knees to Dani in the present day cockpit, just as she is in her memory from the future here, just as the two versions of Dani converge.

The suggestion Dani raised Grace from childhood is solely from cutting this scene and overwriting it - at the cost of all that continuity and connective tissue mentioned above - with another that looks aesthetically out of whack with the rest of the movie, feels cheap, and was written by monkeys.

Without the swap, without any suggestion of Grace ever meeting Dani as a child, and with this scene back in place as in the original cut, I’m not sure how else could you possibly interpret Grace’s devotion to Dani instead.

But it’s important even regardless of that - it’s laying down all the emotional groundwork for Grace’s death, and the underlying Bootstrap cycle's structure. Cutting it robs Grace and Dani of big chunks of their characterisation and personal arcs, undermining Grace’s dying dialogue and Dani’s vengeful fury after it, and it can’t be explained by saying some subtle reveal needed to be preserved, since both scenes make it apparent Dani’s the Commander even if it isn’t already.

And it's worth highlighting too - @beneaththethunders confirms that the English subtitling of Dani's screams after Grace's death is wrong. She doesn't say he "took everything she had", she says "Mataste todo lo que quería, cabrón!" - "You killed everything I loved". Big difference!

Which all feels a little... coincidental, one might think. Check out how differently it plays out with the corrected translation here.

So it's safe to say that firstly, you would need an excellent reason to shell out for a replacement scene for this one at the last minute, and secondly, that the only explanation we've been offered to date is nonsense.

That's compounded by the fact the reshot and rearranged bits of the movie are almost objectively weaker than the original ones, the deleted scenes were still in place as late as the advance screenings, and even the existing cut of the movie calls back to parts that are now missing as if they’re still there.

And... say, how did those screenings go?

Well -

What the totality of all this suggests to me, and very strongly, is that there is in fact no good “internal” reason for a particular thought-line of these cuts.

They don’t make the story better. They don’t make the movie look better. They damage continuity, they cost a bunch of extra money, and nobody had a problem with them until the public started providing feedback.

To me that means the only reason can be external to the movie – for some reason apart from the good of the plotting, the continuity, the aesthetics or the budget, these changes were applied to the story, and they were applied after the public gave their takes.

In other words, that the point of the changes weren’t to help tell the story better, but to change the story being told.

So my conclusion, in the end, is yes.

Yes, I think the cuts were made because test audiences reported that these bitches looked gay. No other reason I can think of would explain all of these decisions.

That brings us to the last question.

iii) Was it initially intended to have a lesbian romantic subtext?

So this is the big one. At some point in the production of this movie, did somebody want us to see Grace & Dani as a love story?

I’ve talked about making weird cuts to make them less “tactile” and why the supposed reasoning for that doesn’t hold up. I’ve also talked about the allusions to another, canonical love affair in stuff like the truck scene, and I want to come back to that.

Source: Scumlow

In the commentary, Miller mentions this was actually unscripted – it was simply something he realised he could easily do once he got to the location for Dani’s uncle’s place. Unlike the Future War stuff, they already had the truck, the cast and the location ready to shoot with, so it was only an extension of what they were already doing.

If that makes it sound thoughtless, it’s not.

The commentary also makes it clear that Miller has a real fluency with Terminator lore; he even talks about some very longstanding Terminator geek debates like the age old “terminator bomb” argument, stuff that makes it obvious he knows both his canon and fandom discourse inside out.

He absolutely knows what this scene means, and we’re meant to too. We’re meant to recognise it, and I’ll bet a thousand dollars that we’re being shown that Sarah does too.

Miller isn’t the only one aware of the parallel neither –

Source: Youtube, around :045

Mackenzie Davis herself is also very much aware of her character’s relationship to Kyle Reese, and his role in the franchise, and acknowledges and goofs around with the implication.

So the above scene may be unscripted, but there is absolutely no way it’s an accidental echo of T1’s own – there is no way Miller just “accidentally” had Dani & Grace re-enact a moment from Sarah and Kyle’s romance, when the fact they became lovers is the single most important event of the whole franchise. He knows it. The cast knows it.

T1 is often described as a love story first and a scifi/ horror second because of scenes like above, but even aside from Kyle, we get details about Sarah’s love life as an aspect of her characterisation. At one point we even hear a boyfriend – voiced by James Cameron, incidentally – leave her a message to cancel their upcoming date.

Curiously, there’s nothing at all like that in T:DF as we see it. There’s never any suggestion of either Dani or Grace’s romantic inclinations, in any direction, at all. Which may not seem unusual for a modern action movie, to be sexless and romance free, but the complete lack of that element in the story is glaring when we’re being asked to directly compare it to T1 in so many ways otherwise.

It will be no secret to Tumblr that Grace is quite the lesbian thirst icon, and much has been made of her being lesbian – sorry for the discourse word – “coded” in her character design and demeanour.

But… let’s talk about Dani here too, while we’re at it.

Are we supposed to take it for granted she’s to be read as straight?

I’m not actually so sure.

(Natalia Reyes doesn’t seem to mind us wondering either, incidentally)

As the eagle eyed @yorkieeightyseven copped, for some reason wardrobe went to the rounds of customising her shoes with rainbow laces for the scene we're first introduced to her, which is a minor but eye catching choice to make -

Source: Prop Auction Store

A far more more interesting one though was made for her introduction to Sarah. If you wondered why this guy in the Pharmacy got so much focus, only to disappear -

It’s because, per Miller, he originally asks Dani out in the midst of all this and gets instantly rebuffed.

I mean, sure, she wouldn’t be looking for a date just now - but why even write and shoot this? Why was it worth making time and space to ever show us Dani dismissing him while she’s attending to Grace?

And then why was it cut, along with all the other stuff we know about?

The only potentially romantic context we know we might ever have been given for either Grace or Dani is to have Dani reject this man. Otherwise, they never show anything you can even infer as interest in any characters. Well... apart from each other, at least.

This is even starker in light of the audition script used for would-be Danis, but before we get into that, again, I want to be really clear what this is.

An audition “side” is a very rough placeholder script used to test chemistry and emotion. A side’s dialogue will tend from rough to terrible, and sometimes the scene is deliberately misleading, as sides regularly leak via actors who don’t get the part (that’s why we have this one).

The general mood of a side though, is key. It's usually right on the money, because that’s what you’re trying to test your actor for. The side is designed to showcase the particular vibe the Director needs most – so however clumsy or misleading the dialogue is, it represents something that matters so much for a character that they’ll be cast solely on the basis of it.

This side was used to audition actresses for Dani. It takes place on the train to the border, with a Grace who does not know, or claims not to know, Dani or what’s so important about her.

It’s a tentative bonding moment between the two, where Dani shows concern for a shoulder wound Grace is tending to –

(Dani scoots closer, eyes the wound critically.)

DANI (CONT'D)

That scar's gonna be sick. But I got it beat.

(She pulls up her sleeve to reveal a scar of her own on her shoulder.)

DANI (CONT'D)

Like it? Bus accident. The big one in Puebla. I was fourteen when they pulled me out from under. It made the news, even in the States. They gave me obleas to calm me. Like candy can make you forget the pain. The bodies. The weight of twisted steel bearing down—

(She touches [her own] scar, gently with her fingers.)

DANI (CONT'D)

I'll never eat obleas again.

(Grace studies Dani as she traces the line of the scar with her finger.)

GRACE

You wanted to understand where I come from? You already do.

(Dani's eyes meet Grace's for a moment.)

DANI

My mother told me scars make the skin stronger.

(Dani covers her scar with her shirt, then looks out again as the train slows, approaching Nogales.)

Now uh… I don’t think I even have to ask the fanfictionally inclined, but please picture this scene actually playing out on screen, actors and all.

Bearing in mind that the point of a side is the mood - what is the mood you imagine as described here? Because it was so important for Dani’s actress to play that she was to be cast based on it alone. Not her bravery, her sensitivity, her comedy, her action chops, or anything else - but the mood when she and Grace bond over the marks on their bodies.

Sure, we can just about imagine cuts to make them less close were down to some Action Movie Bros suddenly realising they'd accidentally made the gayest ass Terminator imaginable. But it is greatly straining credulity to suggest they were oblivious to the implications of a directions like “Grace studies Dani as she traces the line of the scar with her finger” or “Dani’s eyes meet Grace’s for a moment”.

Let's be real - this scene here reads like Dani is hitting on Grace with a two by four.

And how well this particular scene was performed was the one that decided who got the job.

It’s classic action movie romance stuff. And again, if there could be any question what you were being told if you'd been presented with a guy & girl playing it out, have no fear - Kyle & Sarah are here to clarify, because their corresponding scene in T1 was straight up foreplay. Their scar examination is used to allow for a closer level of intimacy with Kyle, a slightly awkward virgin who thinks entirely in Military radio protocol. Stuff like "affirmative", and "standard operating procedure". And yes, it is immediately followed by sex in a motel room, and yes, the very one they painstakingly replicated for that lost scene of Dani watching over Grace in the bed. I don't really feel like we're having to work too hard for inferences here.

It's just not plausible that someone with Tim Miller’s fluency in Terminator-ese doesn’t know what he’s asking us to think of when we see that motel room or that scene in the pickup. To Terminator nerds, those Sarah/Kyle scenes are so iconic it’s the equivalent of having them mime out the “I’m flying” scene from Titanic, there's not a whole lot of room to miss the implication.

Similarly, it’s not plausible to think that stuff like the “teaching Dani to shoot” scene was done in blissful ignorance. It’s such a well-known visual shorthand it’s its own sitcom punchline by now, and Miller is as well versed in action movie tropes as he is in geek lore – several Love, Death + Robots eps he wrote for are explicit genre spoofs.

The train scene we see in the movie is, of course, very different to the side above. Sarah doesn’t even seem to be in that scene at all, whereas she’s the central speaker in the final version. The one we do see is odd for a whole other reason of its own though - it’s actually pretty much the only scene which really engages with the idea we’re supposed to expect Dani to be the mother of the Commander, rather than she, herself, the Commander.

Isn’t that a little strange?

Given that’s key to what's supposed to be the big reveal?

Shouldn’t that be a much bigger deal for her, too, given there isn’t a single surviving human male in her orbit? And that our Kyle proxy here is very much a woman? And she’s got to have a kid in the next like… 24 months for them to be an adult in time for any of this to work? And even that’s a stretch given Grace says she’s from 2042?

But it’s never mentioned again; not until the reveal it won’t be her hypothetical kid after all. Nobody, Dani included, even seems to think idly about her impending destiny-altering-messiah-pregnancy after this, not until the very heavily ADR’d and continuity-messy cockpit scene, when, incidentally, the foster mom stuff is also introduced, for the first and only time.

Keep that in mind, because I don’t think the weirdness of both plot strands is unrelated.

Recasting Dani as Grace’s parent is a weird choice that doesn’t really serve any purpose except to create an alternate explanation for their bond. But it doesn’t even do that very well, even if we take it as a given they’re not in love, because nothing at all about their relationship otherwise reads as maternal.

Let's, for the sake of argument, accept their dynamic was never supposed to be romantic, and try to imagine how else we were supposed to understand them originally, ie before the maternal stuff was introduced either.

Think about the deleted border gunfight - Grace takes orders from Dani about wounding the Federales and surrendering to the CBP, yes, but not without friction. Okay, they are technically Officer/Subordinate - but evidently they have a personal working relationship that puts them on more equal terms than that suggests, if Grace is openly contesting orders from someone about two dozen ranks over her. This happens again at Carl’s place, when she point blank rejects the killbox plan. And even in 2042, it is Grace, not Dani, who outlines what’s going to be done about the TDE.

Ultimately she does almost always defer to Dani, yes - but not without making her own case first. She sure as hell does not simply accept what Dani says as the kind of sacred, inviolable Commandment set down by a mother figure, but forgetting that for now; it’s not how a suicidally loyal footsoldier would behave, either.

So how were we supposed to think of this?

As somebody (I'm incredibly sorry I've forgetten who) once very neatly put it, the movie finds itself in the bizarre position of having to convince us its two leads are not in love despite itself - even though the implication of their alternatives create a bunch of other weird problems.

Primarily, that without the scene which tells us that Grace, with full agency, actively opted into this suicide mission, and with one that instead casts her as her kid, the movie is asking us to root for a leader who ordered her own child to die for her. She found and raised her, just to sacrifice her to save... herself, apparently? And we’re not given any mitigation like Grace having plead with her to do it, or the tears Dani sheds in response.

You might think that’s a weird choice to make for a heroine - and Tim Miller agrees.

In a panel discussion with about directing in 2022, he says this -

"We shot a scene on 'Terminator' that I didn't believe in, but I had to shoot it. I got up in front of the crew, and I said, 'So I hate this scene. I don't believe in it. I don't think it's going to work and I don't think it'll ever be in the movie, but I'm going to do the best I can to shoot it.' [M]y rationale there was I've been working with these people and if they know it's s*** too, and if I don't say it's s***, then they question my judgment. They don't believe in you. You got to say it. You got to be honest."

He doesn’t specify which scene he means here, but I think we can safely guess it’s the one that looks absolutely nothing like the rest of the movie, was shot after everything else, blows a hole in a dialogue callback later on, and creates a plot element he had a “problem” with. From another interview with io9 -

“I always have a little bit of a problem with Dani sending Grace to die,”[Miller] said. “We set up this whole [story] where Grace is kind of Dani’s surrogate child and a mother sending her child to die for her is just...yeah, I had a different scene in mind.”

I think the scenes he means here are one and the same.

So… if the Director of the damn movie didn’t like the scene's implication, why is it there…? If the original "Send me Back" scene was his preference, which seems to be the case, where is it gone?

In the commentary, he mentions that his idea of Dani’s Resistance depends on the fact a time traveller died for her; it is foundational to her gospel as a leader, because the fact that somebody came back for her proved that the past can be changed, and thus the war avoided. And separately, Davis has let slip that she would have been back for sequels, implying that Dani would/will successfully rewrite the immediate future, and generate a new iteration of Future Grace in the process.

That makes the cut “Send Me Back” scene seem integral, I think, to Miller’s concept of the whole story, and I think there are hints of how he communicated that to the folks he worked on it with.

Here, for example, is how legendary make up and prosthetic artist Bill Corso contextualizes his work for the scene –

“In which Grace tells her beloved Commander” that she wants to go back.

Not her like… mighty, respected, esteemed or adored Commander. Not her beloved foster mom, parent, or mentor either. Her beloved Commander.

Huh.

The core tragedy of Miller’s story then is that Dani & Grace are locked into a cycle of heroism and sacrifice that fate keeps demanding of them. But without that key scene you’ve lost the axis of that, and again, you'd need a really compelling reason to replace it with one that both costs more money to reshoot but looks cheaper, doesn’t cohere with the rest of the movie, and weakens the emotional punch of a character’s upcoming death.

And since we know Miller didn’t want it, it has to be worth overruling him as Director to do it, by someone with the authority to do so.

Miller has repeatedly said there were serious conflicts with Cameron during post-production – describing debates over the final cut as leaving “blood on the walls” of the edit suite - but he’s fairly vague about what the major arguments were about (worth noting - Mackenzie Davis mentioned she had a beefy NDA when backing off a question about the by-then already scrubbed sequels).

Miller has mentioned one scene - Sarah confronting Carl in the cabin – in passing, where there was a disagreement over the tone. He handled that by shooting everything Cameron wanted to keep him happy, plus what he wanted, with a view to editing it down to only the stuff he hoped to keep.

In that case, he mostly won out, and the comedy elements JC wanted were scaled back.

But he didn’t win them all – he also mentions he very strongly wanted to suggest the humans are losing the Future War this time, where Cameron insisted the opposite. Here, the compromise was not to make it clear either way, so we’re left to guess (though I still think it hints more towards Miller’s version than Cameron’s).

The “Send me back/You raised me” swap though is much bigger than either of those. The Future War winning/losing stuff is just background lore geek wrestling; the comedy stuff in the cabin is a drag but not a gamechanger.

But framing Grace and Dani as a love story vs a half assed familial thing changes the whole timbre of the story. It changes the movie’s genre even, from a straightforward actioner to a romantic tragedy in an action costume, something far more in the vein of T1 than what we saw.

So… is that what Miller was alluding to?

Was Miller’s frustration that he made a movie about two lovers trying to save each other across time, and then watched it get retconned into a much more confused story about, I dunno, really intense work colleagues?

My conclusion, in the end, is yes.

I’m 90% sure that at some point Dani and Grace were intended to be interpreted romantically. Not 100% - but 90%. More sure it was than it wasn’t.

Here’s an oversimplified summary -

Deliberate, overt parallels to iconic scenes from mythology’s core romance, by a Director who is extremely well versed in both the movies and fandom, with a cast who are well aware of same.

How physically close Dani & Grace are, to such an extent they couldn’t hide all of it even with an entire extra edit pass.

Innocuous justification for those cuts is a blatant fib.

The one single No-Homo disclaimer having to be imposed against the Director’s wishes, and at the cost of continuity and storytelling issues.

Swoony romantic clichés like tending to wounds, teaching to shoot, courtly kneeling.

Odd little details like Dani’s costuming.

Just how much more sense their dynamic, and indeed the plot, makes if they’re in love.

Dani losing her shit at Rev 9 for killing what she querías in response to Grace’s death, and the strange subtitling discrepancy around this.

So what to make of that?

Well, here's my working theory of what might have happened to explain it all.

Let’s imagine that Tim Miller, fresh off directing Deadpool 2 ft Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and knowing his Terminator lore like gospel, wants to push the franchise forward a bit with DF. He wants to make a movie structured around an operatic love-and-sacrifice-and-love bootstrap tragedy where, instead of creating the next warrior-messiah by fathering him, Grace drives Dani to create that person from herself; Dani, in turn, creates the Grace we know.

This idea both honors the original lore and puts a fresh and maybe genuinely surprising twist on it (and incidentally, is very much in the LD+R flavor of scifi)

Miller still has to answer though to James Cameron, Producer and IP stakeholder, who we know was vetoing some of his ideas, like the losing war, and adding some of his own, like the plane crash sequence.

No worries. As Director, it’s him, Tim Miller, who’s going on set every day, and that means he can do stuff like guerrilla shoot the truckbed scene or collect alternate takes to have options later on. There’s nobody on the set to stop him, at least.

But we know Cameron reared his head later, in the editing stage. Miller describes serious conflict with him in this phase, while skirting around the main bone of contention.

I say - what if it’s this?

What if the question of whether Dani & Grace can be a romance was the problem, the big conflict between Miller and Cameron?

I suggest it is plausible that Miller intended and shot Grace & Dani as a love story on set (and sometimes off-script) where he could. I think he got it past Cameron & Co in the initial test screenings, either without them picking up on it or simply not caring enough to intervene yet - but then when they started getting notes like… well, “lesbian” from the audience, or saw the backlash to the early promo images of THREE WHOLE WOMEN, panic kicked in among higher ups.

It's now, at this point, in the editing and reshoots, that the romance stuff gets nuked, at a considerable expense.

But it's not that easy, because doing that creates a big new storytelling problem - by neutralizing the whole tragic cycle drama and its climax, it’s pulling the structure out of the story as Miller had built it.

Realizing this, that now the third act has just lost its bones, Cameron, or the studio, try to have the movie restructured around an improvised new twist, the “reveal” that Dani herself is the Commander.

It has to be done by cutting, overdubbing, and reshooting chunks of what they've got, sometimes resorting to sub optimal alternate takes, and even then there are still awkward artifacts that can’t be avoided, like Dani in the stretcher.

The train scene, which was already being totally reworked, was further repurposed to plant setup for the new twist too - but since the rest of the movie still proceeds as if we all already know it’s her anyway, it feels very much like the afterthought it is. The efforts can only be a limited success, simply because Miller did the shooting taking it as a matter of fact that Dani was Grace's Commander.

That’s also, ultimately, why the twist surprised literally no one – because the movie wasn’t shot for it to be surprising.

The real surprise, the point, the heart of the whole thing, was supposed to be that this, too, is a lover's loop just as T1 was – that while Dani may not be the mother of the next messiah, both she and Grace are the Resistance’s parents, albeit in a new and unconventional way.

And that Grace came across time for just the same reason Kyle did.

...Now all that's just a theory. But it’s my theory, and it's the only way I can make sense of the whole picture we've got. I’m all ears for any better ones, or elaborations or corrections, but by now I'd need convincing it is not what happened.

But don’t get me wrong - oddities and all, I really do love this freaking movie.

I'd just love to see the one hidden under it too, wouldn’t you?

***

Hopefully, you found something of interest in there. And if you’ve made it this far, holy shit, well done and thank you for joining me on this protracted Crazy Wall of a post.

Please go check out Station Eleven, it's gorgeous, and write more fanfic everyone, the T:DF Ao3 tag is starving out here.

Shout out to @booasaur, @evocatiio and @scumlow, I hope they don't mind me using their gifsets and posts as I have above, @yorkieeightyseven for catching that little detail about Dani's shoes, and @beneaththethunders for the legit translation of that line the subtitles LIED to me about.

[youreyesdontglow]

So. I just watched the school for good and evil movie. As someone who has been a fan of the book series for nearly ten years, here are my thoughts on it:

Pros:

Agatha and Sophie have great chemistry, as do Agatha and Tedros. Sophie and Tedros... Don't! Which is also good!

Lady lesso and Dovey are amazing. 10/10 casting

I actually liked most of the changes to the plot. The second book was never my favorite so I'm sort of glad they skipped over it and completely omitted the Sophie/Tedros. In the movie it's clear Sophie was never really into him besides the idea of him as a prince.

In the same vein, I liked how they changed Rafal. I never liked him very much as a character and making him a whole ass creepy adult instead of a blonde twilight-esque immortal teen was for the better.

The soundtrack and costuming was so campy. I love it. Got Jumpscared by the Eurovision song at the end though

Hort was perfect in every way. He's such a loser I want to study him under a microscope

Cons:

Really could have used more world building. I get it, it's a movie and there's only so much things you can fit into two and a half hours (in fact I'm a bit impressed they fit as much as they did in) but a lot of the charm of the books is from the world outside of the school and the magic system! It's what separates it from stuff like ever after high or Disney's descendants.

The actress they cast for Agatha, while perfect for the role in every other way, was simply not ugly. She could not sell me on her otherness. Visually she fit right in with all the other princesses at the good school.

While I loved a lot about Lesso and Dovey, I don't like that their friendship was removed. They're my Baby's First Lesbian Ship and I love their dynamic in the books, which the movie didn't even try to match.

If I'm remembering the books correctly, it seems like they gave Agatha's mom's backstory to Lesso instead. Bit of an odd choice, but it gives me hope for the retconning of the sisters thing. Speaking of...

The sisters thing

Yes, they're sisters in the books. Disappointing, I know. I've been reading posts of people experiencing what I like to call "sister reveal syndrome" all day.

I've seen a lot of people complain about the movie being queerbaiting. I totally understand where they're coming from. The movie didn't delve into the whole romance vs friendship plotline that the books had, which makes the true love's kiss at the end really seem like it was meant to be romantic.

In the books, one of the biggest themes is that platonic or familial love is just as important, if not more so, than romantic love. My personal feelings about it aside, the kiss at the end of the book made sense and was clearly not intended as romantic. The movie just didn't hit the same mark so it's completely understandable that people would be disappointed in Agatha and Sophie's relationship.

But like I mentioned earlier, it really does seem like the movies are planning on retconning the sisters plotline. Due to the casting Agatha doesn't look a lot like Sophie's dad or her mom (unless when Sophie's mom turned herself prettier for stephen she also... No, they wouldn't.) And they implied Lesso fills the role Agatha's mom is meant to. And no mention was made of Galvadon being related to the fairy tale world in any way.

Overall, I did enjoy the movie a lot. It isn't like the books, but I don't think that's a bad thing.

[lunar-years]

Ngl when I see ppl shipping Jamie and Dr. O'Sullivan I think they're at least a little homophobic and very straight.

well, i disagree with a blanket accusation of homophobia, but I do think it's an opinion that holds a very ~straight appeal~, definitely, lol.

there are honestly a boat load of reasons i hate it but they boil down to:

i kind of get why people (esp. a segment of the general audience) might be attracted to it because it's soooo something (bad) shows/sitcoms would do. Like, my god is it TRITE. Predictable, formulaic...boring as all hell! Of course he's going to get with the nameless sister who has less than five minutes total of screen time, just for a little added spice and drama, sure. That's what happens in (bad) shows. But luckily for the rest of us, Ted Lasso even at its worst is not that brand of bad, lol.

it's completely baseless? Nothing wrong with a baseless ship i guess, but at the same time...literally why this one? lol. Like, Jamie and Roy's sister share one scene together in which I don't believe they even say anything to one another directly? There is no chemistry, no...anything? The entire premise for the ship seems to be Jamie telling Roy his sister is hot. Which was very clearly intended as a way for Jamie to get under Roy's skin. Nothing about the scene makes me want to see those two dating.

the big proponents of it i've seen (often, definitely not always) seem to fit into one of two categories 1) people who don't really like Jamie and/or are upset Jamie "got in the way" of their ship, and thus want him to be written into a corner that pulls him away from their preferred couple/inherently shuffles up their dynamic. they don't actually care to watch a plot between Jamie & Roy's sister, they just want Jamie firmly categorized as Taken and thus Not Interested in Roy and/or Keeley, and this is a convenient and predictable(y stupid) way to do it. lol.

OR 2) people who DO really like Jamie and in fact really like Roy & Jamie, but in a very "no homo" way, who want to see more of their dynamic and have a way to define/further explore their closeness, whilst also justifying their own enjoyment of it, that's well set apart from "they have homoerotic tension." Jamie & Roy's sister dating holds an appeal because it more explicitly puts their relationship into firm "brotherly" territory. And I unabashedly loathe that for the same reason i loathe "Roy is Jamie's father figure!" ...foremost because no really, they can just be best friends!! Even if you do not want to ship roy-jamie romantically, you do not need to slap different familial labels on them (or put them into random other pairings) to make their relationship "more." Their relationship is already "more"...they are canonically best friends!! idk if I'm explaining this in the best way but the mindset behind it often feels very rooted in ~the nuclear family is the most important relationship a person can achieve~ and thus a need to fit everyone into traditional family roles (and in some cases that PLUS blatant homophobia) and it gives me a personal ick. Ew.

If you want to see quirky jamie & phoebe antics or roy and jamie bickering, Jamie x Roy's sister getting it on is in fact not actually necessary for any of that? (and imo doesn't add anything to anyone's arc) Going back to point one...using that pairing to get there feels TO ME very boring and sitcom cartoony.

(i also obviously dislike it for my personal shippy reasons and must acknowledge my bias. 🫡 Jamie dating his best friend's sister when he clearly has a crush on said best friend is a relationship-based mental low point/cry for help i do not actually want him to go through as my fav character, LOL.)

(disclaimer: people can of course feel differently and are entitled to ship whoever they want without even needing a clear reason or explanation! that's totally valid! i want to reiterate I don't think it's inherently problematic as a ship. I just personally think it's a rotten tomato of a plot point and i'm so beyond glad the show didn't waste time entertaining it.)

[crossedwithblue]

You're a Mansfield Park fan?

Yes!

IDK if you intended it as such but I am going to take this as a license to ramble about MP on main.

I think the thing about MP is that people (especially people who aren't as quite intense about JA than I am lmao, or who have only read P&P before) often come to it expecting a light-bright-and-sparkling romance like P&P, and are surprised when that isn't the case. Hell, I felt like that too on the first read, because the pop-culture perception of JA is that she was a romance writer first and foremost - but the romantic happy-ever-after is shoehorned into a few paragraphs on the last page or two, and not even shown on the page. MP isn't a romance novel at all - I have minimal English lit knowledge outside of JA, but I'd class it as more of a bildungsroman, maybe? Or a predecessor to those modern Literary Novels all about objectively nasty people being nasty to each other? (More on this in a min) I would very much welcome corrections from people who do know what they're talking about, though!

To me, JA isn't actually a romance writer most of the time. She wrote really good romances because she was really good at characterisation and at understanding and describing how personalities interact to form relationships, and romance is just one type of relationship. It's just the one that pop culture tends to focus on when it comes to JA (I mostly blame Georgette Heyer but of course there's an essay to be written on that too). The only JA novels I'd describe as true romances are P&P, of course, and Persuasion - the rest have romance as just one among many other dynamics as a supporting or side plot, or a tool to reveal characterisation, rather than being the main focus.

Fanny is also a very passive narrator who tends to be acted upon rather than acting herself, which tends to irritate people, but MUCH more on that in a minute.

I think MP is in some ways sort of... cruel. It's certainly the most openly incisive and potentially upsetting, with depictions of complex abusive/toxic family dynamics that could probably come straight out of a domestic/familial abuse/neglect resource. The point where I started to enjoy MP was when someone told me to embrace the schadenfreude - everyone besides Fanny and Edmund (possibly - both points very much up for debate, but they are at least trying their best in the middle of a family that doesn't give a fuck, really) is either an actively terrible person or at least a pretty bad enabler. That did help me find the humour in it, but personally I certainly find it a bit hard to read at times, especially the Mrs Norris scenes. It's not usually my first choice when I want to be cheered up.

This also tends to surprise people, I think, because the pop-culture image of JA, (probably in large part due to her Victorian relatives wanting to protect her posthumous image) is of a twinkly, proper, sweet-natured spinster lady.

Which she was not. Anyone who's seen extracts of her surviving letters knows that she had a biting, frequently uncharitable sense of humour (miscarriage jokes aren't a great look, Jane!) - and we know Cassandra destroyed the really juicy stuff, so that's got to be the tip of the iceberg. This is certainly apparent in all of her books, but can be ignored much of the time - but not in MP, where uncharitable descriptions of awful people are pretty much the core of the book.

Finally, we come to Fanny, the extremely divisive heroine (not least because of that name lol). Personally I tend to imprint on pathetic small girls who need looking after, but Fanny is a massive turnoff (lolol) for many people. I think that's just a personal thing but I enjoy the effect of her frequently becoming another layer through which the narrative filters - JA was a master of free indirect speech, of course, often with deliberate ambiguity about whose POV is being reported - omniscient narrator or character or both in agreement - and if it's a character, then which one? Fanny usually says and does little, but observes very keenly and astutely, which interacts in a really interesting way with the narration.

Also, I'd just like to point out that Fanny is Like That because she is an abuse victim. She may not be the most compelling heroine for everyone, but she isn't going to "just stand up for herself". The one time she does, the Bertrams punish her for it pretty harshly by sending her back to an environment that they know will be bad for her physical health (!)

Bit of a tangent but I am also a huge fan of Jane Eyre and I think there are interesting parallels to be drawn between Fanny and Jane. Jane Eyre is a fiery, independent character who manages to get out of bad situations one way or another, mostly through sheer dumb luck (don't get me wrong I love my girl Jane but How did she leave that parcel on the coach...). If she'd stayed at Gateshead, I could see her gradually getting beaten down until she became a lot more like Fanny - because other than Jane's innate temper, they have quite a bit in common - they both do, when it comes down it, have a very strong sense of self (yes, even Fanny) and the ability to reject things that they know are morally wrong, no matter the potential cost.

That turned into a bit of a defense of MP because I usually hear people dissing it and so that's what I end up thinking about. Lots more to be said on the Crawfords and the Bertrams, of course.

[dragonprincequotesimadeup]

Question and answers from the Offical Q&A's in The Dragon Prince Discord Server: Character Questions

Q: "Was Callum's in episode 9: "I'm so glad that you're come back!" Actually, the reaction to her coming back a second time now (meaning how she left again in episode 9). So the reaction to her second comeback?"

DG: Yes, it was written this way to have a double meaning! Great catch. This was an opportunity for Callum to say and do the thing he should have done the first time he saw Rayla in Episode 402 (“Fallen Stars”): Hug her and tell her he's glad she came back!

Q: "Callum and Rayla are understandably awkward in season 4, and Callum is understandably angry with her; however, his behavior in particular often seems intended to antagonize her. To what extent is he just so mad around her that he can't think straight, or is his behavior calculated to get back at her for hurting him?"

DG: In Season 4, we get to see Callum struggling with a lotof difficult feelings. This is in part because he’s a teenager—and that on its own is ROUGH—but it’s also because someone who hurt him deeply (a person whom he still loves deeply) has now come back into his life. He expresses some of this struggle to Ezran—that he's both angry and happy that Rayla has returned, and that it’s hard to sort out. Callum definitely does intentionally antagonize Rayla a little, which is obviously not the healthiest response to everything that's happened between them. I wouldn't call it calculated, though, just him emotionally lashing out. By the end of the season, though, Callum does come to realize that his happiness in having Rayla back in his life very easily wins over his anger at her—which we get to see with the "I'm so glad you're back" hug reunion at the season's end.

Q: "will we get a longer callum & rayla conversation and apology about how much she hurt him by only saying goodbye through letter, leaving for 2 years, and suddenly coming back?"

DG: This kind of growth and healing between Callum and Rayla happens gradually. In future seasons, they'll have some discussions about trust—and what to share with each other vs. what they keep to themselves. It's an important part of the dynamic of their relationship going forward. They have so much to work through!

Q: "Obviously you can't spoil too much, but can you give any hints about what Callum and Rayla's relationship dynamic will be like going forward?"

DG: The line between deep friendship and romantic love is a complicated one, isn't it?

Q: "We’ve seen that Callum is definitely upset with Rayla for leaving, but are others upset too? Are they holding back their emotions for the sake of her and Callums feelings?"

DG: Of course they’re upset, but in a very different way than Callum. I think it was a little easier for Soren, for example, to reconnect to Rayla after so much time had passed—even though he was probably at least a little bummed out to learn she’d left, especially because they’d only just started to become friends. When she returns, Soren sees it as a happy occasion: another chance to connect with this strong, respectable elf he’d only just gotten to know before! Another chance for Team Good Guys! Ezran is an almost endless well of empathy. He was also hurt by Rayla’s leaving, but did his best to understand her reasons, and is the type of person who can put hurt aside and express his joy at Rayla’s return up front. (It takes Callum all season to do this, in contrast.)

Q: "Rayla's gift speech heavily implies that she is still ghosted and hasn't been in Silvergrove. If this is correct, is this because she still technically abandoned her assassination mission or because they are unaware or willfully ignorant that it was her who returned Zym?"

DG: Unfortunately, yes. The Ghosting spell still stands. Returning Zym to the Dragon Queen does not erase or make amends for what is considered by the Silvergrove to be the reason for the Ghosting in the first place: The fact that Rayla betrayed her oath and abandoned her mission, and that these choices led to the deaths of Ram, Skor, Callisto, Andromeda, and (presumably) Runaan—elves who all had friends and family who cared about them. One grand, sweeping gesture of goodness and progress does not resolve the very real pain in the lives of the Moonshadow elves who are still suffering. While Ethari may have forgiven Rayla, others in the Silvergrove have not.

Q: "Now that Rayla has the coins containing Runaan, Tiadrin and Lain will she go on a quest to release them or will someone else break them free?"

JR: That’s the question, isn’t it? The fate of the entire world on one side vs. the very real chance to potentially see your parents and mentor/adoptive father again. Rayla has a lot to think about!

Q: “Did Callum know that Earthblood Elves say “Trees to meet you.” or was that just coincidence?"

DG: He’s a nerd, and he read it in a book somewhere. He’s lucky it was a real greeting in the book and not a joke he absolutely beefed.

Q: "In season 4 Ezran called Callum “the first human primal mage in centuries.” Does this mean there have been others?"

JR: There have been a (very) few other human primal mages in the ancient past, but they are exceedingly rare and far between. So rare, in fact, that nearly all information about them has been lost to history. Callum is alone in trying to figure out his path through magic.

Q: “This is concerning Callum and his quest in learning how to use magic. What all spells has he learned since we see him use a few new spells in the new season, has he learned a few or all the available Wind spells? And will he learn spells from the other elements?”

DG: Callum has learned a TON of Sky spells, both practical (his lil’ umbrella spell) and powerful (blanketing the forest in fog to slow down the Drakeriders was no simple feat). There’s still plenty he doesn’t know, though. He’s definitely interested in learning magic from some of the other primal sources, and HAS spent some time studying them, but—as we saw before—cracking an arcanum isn’t something you can just pick up out of a book. For Callum to master another type of primal magic will require challenges and experiences and realizations about himself that don’t come easily.

AE: Yes, I would add that with Rayla gone the past two years, Callum has obsessively dived into studying magic as a coping mechanism… not the greatest emotional tactic, but side effect is he has leveled up A LOT.

Q: "How did aaravos feel during and after he was locked away? Was it a painful experience for him, emotionally and physically?"

DG: I think the experience of being imprisoned has been more painful for Aaravos emotionally than physically. His pride was wounded, his plans interrupted and delayed, and he was cut off from the world entirely…or so was the intent. (You can see some of his resentment and the deep churn of his loathing in the short story "Patience", as well as the little birthday note we wrote for him a few years ago.) Aaravos has had a long, long time for all of his anger to fester into something even more dangerous than it was before he was imprisoned.

Q: "Aaravos shatters the mirror after possesing Callum which i assume means that they can no longer spy on aaravos through the mirror and vice versa. My question is why did he choose to shatter it then? (assuming he could shatter it whenever he wanted to). Personally my theory is that it has something to do with his startouch elf powers and "seeing into the beyond", so maybe he had all of this planned from the very beggining. even before he was put in jail."

DG: In some ways, Aaravos is very arrogant. He’s extremely confident that the things he’s set in motion—perhaps more than what is immediately obvious to us, the viewers—will all play out in his favor. He does not need the mirror anymore; thus, he shatters it. Now, Aaravos is waiting for all of his puppets to play their parts.

AE: Aaravos is showing them he will not be contained—and letting them know his power can reach them. It’s a warning, a threat, and a flourish…

Q: "I’ve been really curious about this - was Aaravos able to posess Callum because he’s used dark magic before or simply because he’s a mage?”

R: Mages, especially human ones, do seem to be drawn to Aaravos across history. However, simply being a mage isn't enough. Callum was indeed able to be possessed because he used Dark Magic before. (Dark Magic, Not Even Once.) Aaravos is very specific about what he does and what he chooses not to do. Simply because he can do something, doesn't mean he always will. For him, everything is according to keikaku plan.

Q: "When Claudia tells Soren that the elves and dragons are taking advantage of him, and that "to them, you'll always be just a human" — how does she reconcile that belief with the relationship she has with Terry? Does she think he thinks less of her? Does she see their relationship one of mutual use rather than love?"

DG: Personally, I think Claudia is just so taken with Terry as a person and not an elf that she hasn’t quite begun to apply how she feels about him regarding “dragons and elves” as a whole. He’s different—so much so that, by her measure, he almost “doesn’t count” towards her deeply hostile and hateful feelings towards the rest of Xadia. She sort of sees him as an exception to the rule: “Dragons and elves are my enemy, except THIS one, who is unique and special in a way that only I could possibly understand.”

AE: I think Terry agrees with Claudia that the elves and dragons were wrong to divide Xadia and drive the humans out. This doesn’t mean either of them universally hate all elves and dragons, but it means they have a belief about history and how humans were treated in the past.

Q: "How is Terry so cool with the idea of dark magic? So far all the elves and dragons we've seen are superbly against it, but Terry just rolls with it, even though it involves killing creatures from his homeland."

DG: In the same way that humans in the real world are comfortable with various degrees of, say, eating meat or consuming natural resources, Xadia has layers of complexity, too. Terry sees a bigger picture than the black and white of "it is inherently evil to do dark magic," especially in regards to Claudia, who does a lot of what she does out of love for her father—which Terry finds beautiful and admirable. He has a line, though: he won’t stand for it when Claudia does something to just be cruel instead of as a means to an end.

Q: "In the upcoming seasons, will there be more emotional scenes regarding relationships and things that happened in seasons 1-3? Especially involving Viren’s family, it felt like all of the betrayal and conflict were ignored and not payed attention to at all this season. For example, Viren gaslit and manipulated Soren constantly in previous seasons, Soren actually KILLED the illusion of Viren IN FRONT of Claudia last season, and it felt like all of that tension and weight of the situation was discarded this season."

DG: Yes, we will absolutely revisit this. Trauma, its impact, and the different ways we deal with it is a central theme for “Mystery of Aaravos,” and the relationship Viren has and has had with his children—as well as the relationship Claudia and Soren have with each other— is one of the core journeys we’ll take across the next three seasons. It’s something we want to unpack bit by bit, though, not at all once. AE: I think Terry agrees with Claudia that the elves and dragons were wrong to divide Xadia and drive the humans out. This doesn’t mean either of them universally hate all elves and dragons, but it means they have a belief about history and how humans were treated in the past.

Q: “Will Viren ever have a moment to really think about the things he's caused? Over his son turning against him and his friend being killed (other than about Claudia being used by Aaravos). Or maybe not in the show but in another graphic novel? I would get that in a heartbeat.”

AE: When Viren fell from the Storm Spire to his death, many of his life choices raced through his mind. And, in Season 4, as he grapples with his second chance at life, we see more self-reflection. Now, he’s been swept away on a quest with Claudia to find Aaravos and, in doing so, save his own life. At the end of Season 4, after hesitating and avoiding it the entire season, Viren uses dark magic once again… Do you think he will return to his old ways, full force now? Or is this a bump on his inner journey?

Q: "Why was there no reunion scene or any dialog between Soren and Viren ? Will there be any flash-back on this?"

AE: I think it's fair to want to know what happened after Soren and Viren reunite in Episode 407, but the truth is: It's not a very visually satisfying moment. Viren is too caught up in his own head to say much to his now-estranged son, and Soren is (both uncharacteristically and understandably) relatively silent as well. What I think you may be asking is: Do Soren and Viren have an opportunity to confront each other, after what happened between them at the Battle for the Storm Spire? And the answer is yes. We will see more of their relationship play out in the future. I think their most meaningful interactions are yet to come.

Q: "How does Viren feel about Soren at the moment?"

DG: Distant. Cold. Viren is very much trying to shut down the swell of regrets and doubts he felt upon his resurrection to follow Claudia and help her complete the spell by finding Aaravos. Soren’s presence introduces a lot of complicated feelings that he just can’t stomach right now as he’s tunnel-visioning on trusting Claudia and Aaravos to keep him alive. I think, in his mind, “there will be time for Soren later”—whether that means reconciliation or further estrangement, though, well… he can’t think about that yet. It’s a well so deep he’ll drown in it.

Q: "i loved janai & amaya in season 4, but is there any chance that they'll join our main heroes?"

DG: If you recall how the journey of Amaya and Janai eventually collided with the journey of Rayla, Callum, and Ezran in Season 3 for the Battle of the Storm Spire, I think you’ll have a good idea of what we’re aiming for here (“here” being Seasons 4-7) structurally. Everyone will have their parts to play, and yes! They will all meet again.

Q: "What can we expect for Ezran moving forward? Will he ever learn how to fight? Will we ever explore a darker side of Ezran? Can we expect him to participate in fight scenes in future seasons?"

DG: Ezran is well-intentioned, but ultimately…his good heart still has a lot of naivety in it. We started to see some of this in Season 4: his good-feelings visit from Zubeia didn’t go exactly as planned, and his attempt to make a heartfelt speech at Rex Igneous didn’t really land, either. Maybe good feelings and heartfelt speeches aren’t going to be enough to break the complicated cycles of hatred and violence that have dominated Xadia for hundreds of years? Ezran has a lot to grow into, and it won’t all be easy.

Q: "How does ezran and Zym communicate also how does ezran understand zym?"

JR: Ezran connects to animals on an instinctual, mind-to-mind level. This is much deeper with Zym, and the longer they spend together the more connected they become. It’s a true mind meld, where they aren’t talking; they are directly sharing feelings and emotions. They are able to intuit what the other’s state is, even if they aren’t next to one another—and this includes Ez being able to see “through” Zym’s eyes.

Q: "Will Zym get a voice like the other dragons as he grows or will he stay like his adorable puppy-self?"

AE: Archdragons eventually talk… when they are a bit older!

Q: "Why is Bait primary with Callum instead of Ezran now?"

DG: Bait's a great friend to both Callum and Ezran! But he definitely bonded with Callum over the first three seasons—like on Villads' boat, specifically, while Ezran was busy taking care of Zym—so now he splits his time a little bit more evenly between the two brothers.

Q: "That big door only started moving when Bait helped. Is Bait confirmed as the strongest and most powerful character in the whole show?"

JR: Bait is the most powerful creature in Xadia…in his own mind. While Bait is strong, in this case he’s the straw that broke the camel’s back, giving the final bit of effort needed to push open the door and get everyone to safety. That being said, you don’t want to arm-wrestle with Bait—glow toads pack a mean punch for their size.

Q: “Will we see how rayla and Stella met? If not do you guys have any funny stories/head canons regarding them?”

DG: I can’t say much about how Rayla and Stella met right now, but as a funny story: Our storyboard artists and animators decided to start putting in these little background details where Stella just… steals stuff. She’s unrepentant. An absolutely shameless criminal. Please keep an eye out for her heinous crimes in upcoming seasons.

Q: “Can we get official birthdays for some of the newer characters like Stella and Terry? Also one for Zym I don’t think he has one yet!"

SJ: We absolutely love that you love celebrating our characters’ birthdays! Canonical birth dates for more characters are coming (including Terry, Stella, and Zym), and we’ll be sure to include them in our official party posts starting next year.

Q: “Why does the creature that guides Claudia Viren and Terry know that they have to go to Umber Tor? I understood that Aaravos doesn't know where he is locked up, and the creature that is guiding them was the one that came out of the mirror so that Aaravos could communicate with Viren, therefore he shouldn't know that Rex Ignious can help them or know something about where he is Aaravos prison.”

DG: Aaravos does not know WHERE he is imprisoned—or even the very nature of his prison—but he does know WHO imprisoned him. He also knows that Avizandum is dead. So, the creature born from the chrysalis (which is infused with at least some of Aaravos’ will, I’d say) guides Claudia, Terry, and Viren to Rex Igneous as a functional first step in seeking out answers.

Q: “Will we get to see more about the key of Aaravos and how it works?”

DG: Yes, you will learn more about the Key of Aaravos! But, it may not be what you think it is…

Q: “As far as we know, there are four coins with people in them, and we know who's in 3 of them. Are we eventually going to see who's in the last coin? Is it a character we've already met? I'm sure you can't, but could you give us a hint about who it is?”

DG: Will you eventually find out who’s in the fourth coin? Absolutely yes. Is it a character you’ve already met? Technically, no. Will we give you a hint about who it is? Absolutely no. For now, you’ll just have to speculate. (Got any good theories?)

Q: "What happened to the rest of the dragonguard?"

DG: We know some of them fled – but did they all flee? Or did Viren do something so horrible to some of the Dragonguard on the front lines of the Storm Spire that most of the others could only run in terror, abandoning their posts? We at least know that Rayla’s parents, Tiadrin and Lain, stayed behind to fight and, well…we now know how well that turned out.

“Who is this?"

AE: Justin and I just talked about her recently in an interview with Cartoon Universe! We call her The Jailer. She is a human mage who is a sort of mastermind of prisons and puzzles.

[whoredmode]

for the ask game 002 for troy

Send me one of three prompts

let’s smoke cigarettes. together.

How I feel about this character: 

i love him. when i first got into sr1 i definitely enjoyed him just fine, but over time just thinking about his role and development and his general character it really turned into a very deep love for him. he’s such an interesting character to me and he plays an important role in my canon for a reason. one of the characters i’ve enjoyed developing and using for stuff the most bc he has a unique position in the context of the story that has a lot of potential places to go, and since the actual games just kinda. ignored him. it’s fun to give him an actual role and arc.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: 

troyteros is the most obvious. i didn’t even intend for it to happen, but it did and now their relationship and history is super important to both his and anteros’ respective developments. i think this just goes for troy/boss in general. i think it’s a fascinating relationship even just on a surface level. as far as others, none immediately come to mind? troy’s a loner.

i’ve seen troy/johnny before and i’ll say i’m mildly intrigued by the idea but that would have to be a dynamic that would take like. decades.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: 

does dex and troy count? bc i could talk about their dynamic for HOURS. i love bitches who hate each other and go through hell together and still come out the other side hating. i love it so much. i love how painfully connected they are, how their dynamic is based on the cyclical nature of the relationships in sr1. it’s like they’re both aware they’re trapped in a time loop w a person they can’t stand. it’s so compelling to me. way more than it ever could be romantically, imo.

also! from my own canon. shaundi and troy. they have a minor subplot that starts in saints in hell/GooH side story where shaundi is helping troy become sober. this goes into sriv where she’s still helping him w it. i think they’d end up having a really interesting friendship all things considered. it’s a dynamic i think about A LOT!!

My unpopular opinion about this character: 

he’s an important member of the cast?? maybe more targeted towards the how the games ended up treating characters like him and dex. i guess that kinda plays into the next prompt.

ig as an actual answer to the question. i think he was more than happy to quit his job in srtt. excited even. i don’t think he ever had any friends in the SPD, and i genuinely think a lot of ppl actively disliked him. it’s why it was so easy for ultor to convince several cops to be on their payroll and work against him.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

i wish he got an actual conclusion. like he doesn’t have to appear in every game, but holy shit i hate how sr2 handles him. he should’ve had an actual confrontation w the boss, not just relegated to homie you get after completing an activity. where is their reunion? where is their conversation? there’s a million things left we deserve to see w him and the saints and we get none of it.

also a bit of a nitpick but. like i have him do in my canon, i think in sr2 if you call him for help he should be disguised or in normal clothes. like be serious. no way in hell he or the boss should be fine w him all dressed up like that while they go commit crimes

My OTP:

for him? troyteros. like hands down. no contest. there’s a reason they seem to get together in like all my AUs.

My crossover ship:

not really a crossover person….does santo ileso blues count as a crossover bc it features the reboot….can i count it in this case so i have an answer and say him and jimrob have a vague friendship. like the one friend he’s made in santo ileso after 10 years.

A headcanon fact:

like all my family lore for him. he’s the youngest of his family. has an older brother and sister. anteros saw a picture of his brother once and was like oh i could’ve had this bradshaw……..

[dandydanthelion]

Hii i love your apprentices :00 can you tell me more about them if you don't mind? Or link me to somewhere where you've talked about them ? :]

oh god i am not good at writing but i'll try my best

i have 3 apprentices and not all of them are equally fleshed out and the ref sheets are old, sorry about that

First up is Zaire! i use him mainly for julian's route (and muriel too sometimes). he grew up as the eldest brother to his 3 siblings. he was the golden child and he never really grew out of his need to be "perfect" and great at everything. so he sometimes overwork himself. his father is a magician, mainly uses his magic in culinary (like mazelinka), and thats where zaire learned his magic from. his mother was a merchant and both of his parents weren't home for much so zaire had to take care of his siblings. and that made him a great cook and an even better caretaker.

he has a journal and has a beautiful way with words so he occasionally write poems here and there. his sense of fashion is anything that is black gold and red, refuses to wear other than those colors. hes quite high maintenance and spends way too much money hoarding jewelleries.

for his overall personality, he could be quite the intimidating one at first glance because he has a resting bitch face but he's actually pretty good at socializing and he's pretty charming once you actually get to talk to him. once you know him well enough, you'll find out that he can be snarky and smug. hes pretty confident in what he does and how he carries himself.

like asra, he mainly uses water magic. his fursona is a wolf (the Alexander archipelago wolf to be exact) and his familiar is a flying fox. this is not in his reference sheet but hes an ENFJ.

heres a lil bonus design i made for julian's reversed ending

next up is Aries!

TW: mentions of SA and abuse!!! (in the indented paragraph)

they were actually my first apprentice back in 2020 and i originally used them for julian's route. tho i basically changed their whole personality from their 2020 version. i love to switch up my apprentices for different routes but aries is mainly for lucio's route for now.

in my previous post of their dynamic with lucio, as much as a shitpost that was, its still pretty much accurate for their personality. they can be quite dense but yk thats okay. they're optimistic and easy-going. everyone assumes theyre a cinnamon roll and could never do anything wrong but theyre that knife cat meme. kinda like asra but more chaotic and just a lil morally grey (be gay do crime). also theyre unhinged when theyre seriously pissed off.

now im gonna talk about heavier topics (that i mentioned in the tw) in this next paragraph.

growing up, they didnt really have the best childhood. when they were a child, they had to witness their adoptive parents fight and it was because of their mother. in their previous life, they had a (supposedly) romantic relationship but their (ex) boyfriend was abusive and aries had a hard time learning that those abusive behaviors werent normal (they did grew up with a mother who was an abusive wife). unfortunately, those abuse led up to SA and much worse.

even in those first 3 years after being resurrected and them not having their memories from their previous life, traces of their insecurities that were caused by their past can still be seen.

they were originally a gardener that also sold their plants, and one magic plant after another is what got them interested in magic. though their magic is actually fire related. their hobby is tailoring and they actually embroidered the flower pattern on their white shirt.

i didn't write it on the ref sheet, but i do intend on making them arospec! lucio (or any other m6, depending on the route u choose) is actually their first love.

their fursona is a rabbit (the lop rabbit to be exact) and their familiar is a draco aka the flying lizard.

i havent drawn their Lucio's upright ending design and their devil design yet but i'll do it... eventually.

and lastly, is dahlia!

now im so sorry for this but i dont use her that often (you can probably tell) because lucio refuses to leave my head and julian doesnt know how to get out so they're both stuck there. i use her for asra, nadia, and portia's route.

i havent really thought much about its bg story but anw here's what i got

out of the three apprentices, dahlia had the best childhood. it used to travel a lot in its early 20s, occasionally performing in taverns. she plays the lute and has a low and beautiful, warm voice which she only uses sometimes because shes shy. she doesnt perform in her first 3 years after being resurrected because of her social anxiety which the whole resurrection and amnesia thing dont help.

it is very smart and quick-witted but oblivious social cues. she keeps accidentally getting herself into trouble which she has no struggle getting out of. in her previous life, she got interested with magic from all of the magicians she met during her travels then she ended up dating one but thats another story. her magic is mainly water related.

her middle name means "full moon" and her moon earrings actually match up with the current phase of the moon. she doesn't really know how to... fashion so she just tends to wear a lot of black. its quite messy and unorganized so basically that combined with asra's messiness is just not good. overall shes very sweet, quite reserved, so easy to fluster gal. shes gremlin coded but has the opposite personality of a gremlin.

i didnt put its mbti there, but its an INFP. both her fursona and her familiar is a rat.

okay i think im done, i hope this isnt too much but

@sasha-is-annoying, tysm for the ask!!