#Tarn's just one of those characters like that

[transingthoseformers]

Thinkimg about Tarn joining the lost Light through hilarious shenanigans in general

#maccadam #transformers #mtmte tarn #in general #the concept of Tarn being forced to choose between loyalty to Megatron and loyality to the Cause is a choice we see in canon and fics often #and we usually see him choose the decepticon cause like in canon #but it's always intriguing to see him choice Megatron over the decepticons instead #especially since I've been thinking about it mostly in a sillygoofy crack au mindset #Tarn's just one of those characters like that

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - 2 GREAT Shows but everything else is kinda blah

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top. Happy new year, BLabies!

Jan 2024 Wk 1

Ongoing Series - Thai

Last Twilight (Fri YT) ep 9 of 12 - This show is really earning its chops, and these actors are executing beautifully. I think this is a great BL, and it reminds me quite a bit of ATOTS, only the physical comfort between the actors is more genuine and easy to watch. Unfortunately a guitar came out. Nice communication tho.

That was a very lovely romantic sex scene. Very prettily done. Classy boys, very classy.

Gah what a beautiful final scene with Day saying the last thing he wants to see is Mhork. Pure unadulterated romance of the highest order.

The Sign (Sat YT) ep 7 of 12 - If killer, why hot? Poor Tarn compelled to try to rescue everyone else from their fate, because he cannot save himself from his.

Meanwhile Phaya is finally learning that you catch more water snakes with honey lube than vinegar.

Stellar confession from Phaya brutally honest and very fated mates.

And another lovely sex scene, so I guess that was a vision and not a fantasy Tharn had.

Lets be clear those two shows were GREAT everything else this week was kinda blah.  

For Him (Thurs iQIYI) ep 6 of 12 - I find the backstory very odd. Are they twins? What happened to Blue? Am I meant to care? Do I care? 

Twins the series (Fri GaGa) ep 10 of 12 - I mostly just feel sorry for First. He’s so rightfully confused. Zee/Sprite keeps blowing hot and cold because they two different people! The after sex cuddle was cute. 

Pit Babe (Fri iQIYI) ep 8 of 14 - Love getting more JeffAlan. Also I switch favorite character allegiances in the trash watch happening here.

Cooking Crush (Sun YT) ep 6 of 12 - Didn’t air this week and I hardly noticed. 

You and My Stars YT 1 of 2(?) - school kids, love triangle, it’s cute enough.

My Universe (Sun iQIYI) 1626 ep 20 of 24 - Just so boring. 3/10 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

VIP Only (Taiwan Fri Gaga) ep 8 of 10 - I’m not into the love triangle. Although I kind of like the new suitor, he’s honest and a good communicator. I appreciate these things in a BL boy. But I begin to wonder if triangles should be left for KBL. Also, this should have been an 8 epper, 10 is too long.

Sahara-sensei to Toki-kun (Japan Fri Gaga) ep 5 of 8 - No ep until Jan 12 

I Became the Main Role of a BL (Japan Sun Gaga) ep 1-3 - AKA BL Drama no Shuen ni Narimashita: Crank Up Hen - A rising star is paired with an (older) former child actor (doesn’t think he’s good enough) in a BL series. It’s fun, built on a dynamic of off screen paralleling the on screen, so near constantly meta. All the tropes are there but are as a result of the filming process. The star turns out to be obsessed with the former actor and very dorky about it. In fact, everyone in this show is a little gremlin weirdo (affectionate). There’s tons of scenery chewing miscommunication drama, slapstick, voice over head hopping, and eccentric sides characters. “And he comes with feathers” applies to a number of my friends. You know I don’t like stories around fan obsession, but otherwise this was enjoyable. 8/10

A nice start to the JBL year. Keep em coming, Japan.  

It's done I Need to Catch up

What Did You Eat Yesterday Season 2 AKA Kinou Nani Tabeta? Season 2 (Japan Gaga) 10 eps - will binge when I have a spare day.

It's Airing But...

[INTERNATIONAL] Cherry Magic (Sat YouTube) ep 3 of 12 - yeah Japan put the smack down on our boys. Sadness. You can use a VPN if you like. Read all about it here.

Playboyy (Thurs Gaga) 14 eps - Dear Playboyy, it's not you, it’s me… I hate you. You’re about as deep (and as palatable) as a shot glass of cum. While I'm sure you’re someone’s kink, you're my weakest link. Goodbye. I DNFed this at ep 5. Frankly I'm impressed with myself for getting that far.

Night Dream (Sat YT) 6 eps - It’s a pain to track down and I really didn’t like the first episode so… DNF  

The Whisperer (Sun ????) 10 eps - Thai horror BL that ALSO involves cheating (what joy is mine). I don't think even the perfect single dimple can motivate me to watch. Word is... it's terrible.

7 Days Before Valentine (Weds WeTV) 10 eps - Giving me Luminous Solution vibes. I'm waiting to binge if safe.

Dead Friend Forever (Thai Sat iQIYI) - horror, meh, tell me if it's worth my time?

In Case You Missed it

All my year end round ups (so far) are as follows:

TOP 10 BL Trends of 2023

Top 10 BL Secondary Pairs of 2023

2023 BLs Best Trope Execution Awards! TOP 10

Best Back Hugs Thailand & Elsewhere

BL 2023 - Cute Bits of Domesticity

BL 2023 - Boys Feeding Boys

BL 2023 - BOOP!

All the BLs Announced for 2023 that didn't happen

Next Week Looks Like This

Starting This Week:

1/9 Time the series (Thai Gaga, WeTV, Channel 3) 10 eps - MFlow Entertainment brings us yet another "fix the past" narrative. After witnessing the gunning down of his beloved, a heartbroken actor uses a magic pocket watch to go back in time and discover the truth and maybe fix it.

1/11 Although I Love You and You AKA Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka (Japan Gaga) - Soga, who, after a divorce and relocation to Osaka, seeks solace in dining at 26-year-old Sakae's restaurant. Unbeknownst to Soga, Sakae sees him as more than just a regular customer.

More Coming Jan 2024

Beside You (Thai YouTube)

Love For Love's Sake (Korea ????)- based on the Manhwa ‘Love Supremacy Zone’ by Hwacha. A young man is dropped into a game based off a novel he loves. His mission is to make another player, YeoWoon happy. But then the game starts unfolding completely different from the novel.

Ossans Love Season 2 (Japan ????) - five years later, will anything have changed? This is Japan so... probubly not. I won't be watching this.

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Yes, you SHOULD apologize!

This was a FANTASTIC moment! Last Twilight

Night Dream referencing the Shrimp Trope.

Some didn't like this bit BUT I love a claiming moment, even in a briefing room... especially there.

I ALSO love a good Grandma Moment in a BL.

Such a good sex scene. The Sign

(Last week)

#two great sex scenes this week! #both from thailand #thai bl #Last Twilight #The Sign #this week in bl #bl updates #the sign the series #for him the series #Twins the series #I Became the Main Role of a BL #Japanese BL #BL Drama no Shuen ni Narimashita: Crank Up Hen #BL series review #taiwanese bl #PitBabe #Night Dream

[hybrid-battle]

Do you have a Blorbo that’s not completely Human? A Scrunkly that consists of two different half’s? Well then, I have some good news for you! We got a tournament for that now!

Returning from my little tournament break I, Mod Tarn(he/him), am back and ready for my third tournament, with an idea that I’m 97.4% sure hasn’t been done before.

You can probably guess what this tournament is gonna be based on my url and the introduction, but let me say it again:

This is gonna be a Tournament for all those Characters who are half that and half this. Simple enough. Still, here are some rules you should probably read before submitting anyone/anything:

- Character must consist of two or more different species

- No real people (I don’t even know how that would work but just to be safe)

- No Harry Potter or Dsmp Characters.

- feel free to submit as many characters as you want, but please don’t submit the same character multiple times.

- if you're unsure if a character qualifies, as long as you can say "they are half x and half y" that's good enough for me.

- that’s it. Now go wild:

Just three more things:

- Propaganda is allowed and always encouraged

- that being said don’t get overly rude with it. I’m fine with some light teasing and stuff like that as long as it all stays in good fun but don’t get too mean about all this. It’s just a tumblr poll.

- like in the @thief-throwdown and the @time-traveler-tourney, one of these characters has been submitted by me and is already in no matter what. I won’t tell you which character it is until the end.

That’s all folks, Submissions stay open for one week. If I made anything unclear always feel free to ask me to clarify something!

#and so it begins #words of the mod

[icyrambles]

i typically have two forms of analysis when i talk about certain characters. i call them meta analysis and canon analysis.

meta analysis is when i take into account author, fan, and personal interpretation and intention when writing a character. this can be things like biases on the author's part (intentional or not), fandom headcanons and general opinions that are widespread, and finally my own personal opinions and beliefs on the character or media

canon analysis is when i ignore everything above. it's when i take things that are said exclusively through the text and conveyed to me as a reader. these are analysis formed exclusively (or at least as much as i try) through what is told to me via the text

like take pharma as an example. i personally hate how his character is treated both in canon and in fandom. within canon he's reduced to the crazy doctor who harvested his patients organs and in fandom i've noticed he either gets babied to all hell (typically by shifting the blame of his actions onto tarn) or just demonising him. i dislike this from all angles because pharma for me is a multifaceted character who, while causing a lot of harm, was forced into a situation where he really did not have a choice if he wanted to keep his staff and himself alive.

like yeah, i think pharma should punished in some way for the deaths he caused, but i also think that he should be viewed through the lens of someone who was essentially being blackmailed into killing his patients less himself and his staff (one of whom was a defected decepticon) be serious harmed or just outright killed. and that these actions caused massive damage to his mental wellbeing which caused him to spiral into madness.

or like take ratchet. he's got this thing in fandom where he'll throw wrenches at people and he's a fucking rebel who hates the government. but he doesn't do either of those things ever, in any of the continuities i've read/watched. like he's not even remotely violent unless he's actively being threatened? and even then he's more liable to go for verbal assaults rather than physical ones. where are you people getting these interpretations from?

he's a snarky ass who enjoys arguing with people sure, but ratchet would not fucking destroy the government. he fucking threatens to dismantle megatron on several occasions throughout the comics. there was a tweet from alex milne a while back that basically called ratchet an abusive partner and like, listen, fandom interpretations are always going to be a little off, but i'm sorry mr. milne, but ratchet is not an abuser in any sense of the word. there is nowhere, and i mean nowhere in the comics that proves that he would do that.

idw starscream is also a character who i have complex feelings about when i try to write about him.

because on the one hand i despise the way that idw starscream is treated by the fanbase. he's not a good person, that is the whole point of him. he's a terrible person, who has done terrible things, and i think he should be treated as just as bad as megatron. and i think the fandom constantly babying him because of what megatron did to him is stupid.

he's a genuinely cunning, manipulative, and overall shitty asshole who is more than willing to doublecross and backstab to get what he wants.

but he's also a victim. megatron's treatment of him throughout the war is inexcusable. under no circumstances do i think that starscream deserved to be kept around as a punching bag to keep the other decepticons in line and i also am of the belief that megatron should've gotten more flack for what he did to starscream.

like pharma, starscream is a character who has a lot of different layers. he fucks up and relapses into more toxic behaviour because it's quite literally the only thing he can rely on. he's expected by the people around him to be a backstabber and a liar, so why on earth would he act any differently?

it's not until bumblebee appears that he actually starts to change. and i think it's very important when discussing bee and starscream's relationship that people remember that starscream does not think of bumblebee as a ghost. he views bee as a literal manifestation of his guilt and consciousness. he did genuinely seem to view bumblebee as a good leader and a good person before his death in dark cybertron, so when bee shows up as a ghost and starts encouraging starscream to do better for his people and his planet, starscream listens because he did trust bee.

the point of starscream's character, is that people can only change if they truly want to. bumblebee wants starscream to change for the better but starscream only starts to change when he actually believes he can. and even then he often relapses into more negative behaviours because he's not perfect. the fact that he does this honestly makes him even more believable to me.

if you were treated as nothing more than a liar, coward, and manipulative asshole for 4 million years you'd probably fuck up on the road to recovery too.

it's why megatron's redemption at least works for me within a canon lens. he only starts to change his behaviour when he actually begins to understand that his actions and ideology were wrong. that's why it works. the lost light as a ship is about new beginnings and fresh starts for everyone, so having megatron, literally the most hated guy every join the crew works to further that theme of rebirth.

out of canon analysis though, starscream and megatron in my opinion were done very poorly in terms of writing. they were very clearly meant to be cartoonishly evil characters with no redeemable qualities during phase 1 of the comics. so when phases 2 + 3 roll around and try to develop these characters as more than just evil assholes, it falls flat because you have to sweep all of the terrible shit they've done under the rug.

and it doesn't work well from a narrative perspective to have murder mcgee megatron and his former second in command be the leaders of not only the planet they fucking destroyed and the ship that legally doesn't belong to them. and this is coming from someone who loves idw's portrayals of megatron and starscream. i think they're some of the best versions out there beyond maybe the originals.

i also think that fandom falls into a weird zone when it comes to these characters. i call it fandom flanderization; where fandom will take a certain character trait (like starscream being a liar) and conflate that trait to be their whole character. like is starscream a liar? yeah he absolutely is. but he's also a genuinely caring individual when he actually trusts someone.

it's a shame because i think that idw, despite having relatively weak writing in terms of overall storytelling, actually has some really interesting interpretations of the characters.

[ if you liked my work, please feel free to give it a reblog and leave your thoughts in the tags, reblog box itself, or replies. i adore seeing what other people have to say about my thoughts ]

#icy's writing #transformers #meta analysis #megatron #starscream #ratchet #pharma #transformers idw #i have so many thoughts about how characters get treated by the fandom #mostly can be boiled down to #HE WOULD NOT FUCKING SAY THAT???? #where did you get this interpretation from good lord #something something every 3 months or so people should be required to reread the source material #because if you wanna break canon #you gotta understand it so it doesn't fucking feel like left field when someone makes a random ass headcanon #that's not even remotely based in canon in any way

[shortpplfedup]

Of course I have fallen down an ITSAY/IPYTM rewatch rabbit hole the moment I have things to do. Instead of spamming @bengiyo lemme liveblog...

On Viki the new subs are chef's kiss. Grammar, tone, readability, idiom usage, much improved. I also FINALLY know what MoRaoYuLok means!

Man the fight they have at the temple after this middle school play is the EXACT same fight they have in the bathtub in IPYTM. Like the dialogue is almost word for word. I love that the same fight bookends the beginning and end of the acting dream for Oh Aew. HOW IS THIS SHOW STILL GIVING ME NEW TEAS YEARS LATER?

'I think someone like you will quit eventually' - cut to him quitting in IPYTM and them having this exact same fight. And people say Teh changed...HE NEVER DID.

If I could ask Boss one question I would ask him when Teh's dad died. Like...it haunts me. I feel like so much of Teh is explained by his dad's death. Like, does he die before or after the middle school play? Was it illness or incident? It's the last key to completely unlocking the character and I WANT IT.

I have so much more of an ear for Thai now than I did when I first watched this, and the difference in that plus the difference in the subs is making this a whole new experience.

I also now know what 'Saleng' means thanks to the subs. MLC's Leng's parents really named him after a sidecar motorcycle? Jail.

Man now that I know a smattering of Thai, Teh and Tarn were really basically dating. Like she had expectations, he'd made promises. He really just abandoned her to run after this boy he swore up and down he hated.

I always forget Oh Aew had 90 thousand Instagram followers. And he wasn't even showing feet. You know his DMs were wet. Oh Aew's influencer status needed to be explored more.

They actually translated some of these thirsty Instagram comments 🤣 'I want to be the red bean up there' referring to the red beans topping the oh aew dessert. HORNY JAIL FOR OH AEW'S INSTA FOLLOWERS.

Teh literally got under the covers and stared at this man's picture for WHO KNOWS HOW LONG.

WHY DID I START THIS?!

Hoon really treats Teh like an annoying little brother.

Teh and this pomade 🤣 THE RITUALS ARE INTRICATE AND ELABORATE.

This teacher really decided to roast Teh in front of everybody🤣

Teh really sitting here at this cafe dragging down the mood with his heavy vibes.

Man I forgot how petty Oh Aew could be 🤣 'Oh Bas you're so smart, so much smarter than dumbass Teh *bats eyelashes*

The friends really went through it with these two. You know how hard it is to maintain a friend group that includes two people who are in love/have beef? Yes I put those two things together. Kai n'em fighting for their lives this whole show.

Not Bas the New Friend putting his foot right in his mouth talking reckless about this Chinese play and the whole group bracing for impact. Nobody warned him these two are in love/have beef?

Oh Aew embarrassed as shit now, plan totally rumbled, not that Teh's dumbass even understood why he wanted to do a CHINESE PLAY WITH PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT SCHOOLS.

'Didn't anybody tell you?' WHY Y'ALL AIN'T TOLD HIM INSTEAD OF LETTING HIM GO POPPING OFF AT THE MOUTH?

Man I had forgotten how subtle yet totally clear the acting in this was from jump. Billkin and PP's eyes, their face journeys, the small microexpressions, the body English...you know exactly what they're thinking at all times.

Teh: 'Oh? A Chinese play?' Mod n'em's facial expressions: 'Oh shit here we fucking go.' Bas's face: 'What just happened? Why'd the temperature drop 20 degrees?'

Oh Aew said leap if you're feeling froggy and they were really about to scrap over a 3-year old petty beef. Who says men aren't emotional?

Teh was out of order making fun of Oh Aew's grades and he knew it immediately too. Forever popping off at the mouth and instantly regretting it, from the beginning.

Bas looks so distressed that he caused this whole altercation. I'd actually really love to know Bas's perspective on this story, because from where he's sitting the whole thing is WILD.

It's really striking me on this rewatch how protective the friends are of Oh Aew, not just Bas but Phillip n'em as well. He always engenders such loyalty, whereas Teh is harder to love hence why he doesn't have other friends except their mutuals.

Oh Aew called Teh an asshole with his whole chest, love that for him. Teh was absolutely being an asshole.

Kai really like 'how y'all still beefing off some middle school shit and we about to be in COLLEGE? Let it go!' And you really get the feeling Oh Aew really did want to try to squash it until Teh came at him all RAH.

I never really got a sense of the dynamic between Oh Aew and his parents. It's clearly loving and supportive, but it doesn't seem terribly affectionate and it's maybe a little distant? Idk how much of my reading of it is due to it not really being foregrounded as compared to Teh's familial dynamic. But Teh is main character and Oh Aew is the love interest so Teh does get a deeper dive.

You forget all the time that Teh is totally the spoiled baby brat of his family.

In this scene where they're waiting for the admission results, you can see Oh Aew's stress level shoot up in real time when he realises Teh has entered the room. Teh has put in his head that he's not gonna make it, and he doesn't want Teh to see him fail (and probably gloat about it he's thinking). And then Teh FOLLOWS him...no wonder he runs away like Teh's the devil. Teh's literally number 1 on the admissions list and Oh Aew didn't make it. And he thinks there's no way he can make it through the admissions system so the dream's dead. With the hindsight of realising that everything Oh Aew did since their fight was a combination of wanting to prove to Teh he was wrong about him plus hoping that they could repair their broken relationship and be close again...ARGH this show will forever put me in my feels.

Oh Aew always looks so small sitting on that beach alone in this scene. It's been said a million times, but the filmmaking in this show absolutely slaps. That tracking shot following Oh Aew getting his bags from Teh and then walking away as Teh follows? So good...

You really feel the weight of Teh's apology here, how he first apologises for the immediate offence and then realises no, that's not all he feels guilty about. The apology is such an unburdening for him and you can feel the weight lift off him when Oh Aew accepts it. Also, Oh Aew's surprise and immediate surge of emotion at each stage of Teh's apology...ugh these boys acted DOWN, so detailed, so effective!

This show is built around Teh and Oh's conversations, they're so important to me for how raw and vulnerable they always are. Part of the reason things fall apart for them in I Promised You the Moon is that they stop talking to each other like this, because they're trying to be brave, or to be grown up, or to be considerate, or to hide how not fine they are.

For Oh Aew to say 'I forgive you but bitch I DESPISED you, I don't know if we can ever come back from that' was such a moment. Teh being forced to sit with the possibility that what he broke with his pride and selfishness might not ever be fixable, and deciding to try ANYWAY...see this is why despite him being the worst he's also the best.

No but Teh really went from calling that sidecar 'hideous' and 'embarrassing' to taking it everywhere because it could carry Oh Aew, and all the things he wanted to give Oh Aew. But this fool really packed up every school book he owned in a suitcase he stole from his brother and left his house at the crack of dawn to give them to Oh Aew. Down HORRENDOUS.

Oh Aew's smile before he answers Teh's ke yi ma always gets me.

Guess I'm back on my ITSAY/IPYTM bullshit

#i told sunset about you #itsay #itsay 1 #live rewatch #liveblog #translate my love with your heart

[fantasy-things-and-such]

Meet My OCs: Lilliwiess

Welcome to Meet my OC, where I take a character from my WIPs and explain them in detail: who they are, what they do, and what makes them tick. First up is Lilliwiess, from my WIP “Sunset”

Name: Lilliwiess Cere Farrowynn Nicknames: Flower, Lilli, Ceres Date of Birth: First of May, one-thousand fifty-nine AA(after ascension) age: 20 WIP: Sunset Role: Main lead

Background & personality: who are they?

Lilliwiess is the third daughter and fourth child of the Farrowynn Estate, and naturally the youngest. She has dark brown(almost black) hair that falls just past her shoulders which she keeps in a ponytail, and blueish-grey eyes, taking after her mother rather than the lighter brown hair of her dad. She stands at around 5'4", making her my shortest OC to date. Being the youngest of the Farrowynn family, there was pressure from her father to find a someone to settle down with. she decided that she didn't want to be married off and follow her older sister’s footsteps in becoming a Knight.

Lilli has an acute memory and a determined attitude: when she sets her mind to something, she uses everything in her power to get it accomplished. She isn't afraid to bend the rules or find loopholes to achieve her goals, but, she also knows when to quit. For her, though, that's a double-edged sword because she has some self-worth issues Her ambitions to become a Knight are challenged by two things: Hemophilia, a condition that makes the battlefield that much more dangerous. and the ability to use magic, a skill usually unique to the Fae, Spirits, and Wyvernkind. Using magic(known as Weaving) is shunned in Tarn and those who can are often outcasts and ostracized for their ability, and as a result, she's very guarded and secretive. however, she's not timid and gets along with her peers just fine, even if she comes across blunt sometimes.

Hobbies

Lilli spends her time reading or sparring. She also enjoys knitting and sewing, to the point where she considered it as a career earlier in her life(what a different story that would've been), before setting her sights on becoming a knight. She like learning new things and finds it worthwhile to take time learning skills pertinent to her life

Relationships

Lilliwiess is a lesbian and isn’t particularly interested in pursuing a relationship with someone, right up until she meets Tira at the Knights academy. She broke up with her last romantic partner, Clara, on amicable terms. Clara, being a year older than Lilli, also had ambitions to enter the Knights academy(Clara was the one who convinced Lilli to follow her dream to become a knight). Clara didn’t want a love interest distracting her at the academy, so they parted ways.

Lilli has a healthy relationship with her older sister, Milliana, whom she lives with. She dislikes Cecilia, her second sister, and respects Theodore, her older brother, who tutored her in her early years.

Her relationship with her dad is less than healthy. He wants to marry her off to protect her, which, of course, she doesn’t want. Between him and a mom who she barely knows(due to her position at the capital) Lilli lacks a true parental figure(and spent a lot of time in the library alone.)

Other miscellaneous facts:

- She likes snack foods(bite sized foods. She would love potato chips if they existed.)

- her love language is physical touch

- she loves hot tea

- her favorite animals are hedgehogs and ferrets

@jakkon-and-rose-topic @angst-is-love-angst-is-life

Lemme know if you want to be tagged in future things/want to be taken off the tag list. Cheers!

#sunset things #my wips #writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writers of tumblr #creative writing #writers #oc #oc wip #meetmyocs

[ladyinbooks]

Have you read Mary Renault's Alexander series/if you have, do you have thoughts? I've only read the persian boy so far and just started Fire from heaven but I've always heard amazing things about how she wrote them

Hello lovely anon!

I'm going to start off with an apology in advance, because whoops! You've asked me something that's set off my inner ramblings quite happily here (in a good way). So I'm going to roll up my sleeves behind the 'read more' and get overexcited about this.

But just in case, the tl;dr is: yes, I have. And yes, I love the series (with a few caveats):

Let's start when young!Lady was a small, wide-eyed thing, all of 17, who had just lied on her Oxford application form, and said she'd read Arrian's Campaigns of Alexander. Then she got called for interview and thought 'Oh shit, I'd better actually read it'. So she did. And she loved it. And she kind of... ended up developing a little obsession with this bloke called Alexander.

Now, around the same time as this deceit was taking place, Robin Lane Fox's biography on Alexander was fairly accessible in most book stores. Possibly because it's really quite a readable biography, and thus had become quite popular. And so young!Lady snaffled that too, and read it. And Lane Fox's name kept coming up in conjunction with Mary Renault's (perhaps because - personally speaking - I think they have a fairly similar approach in their views on Alexander), and so young!Lady thought 'Hey! Let's read those books too!'

All of which, is a very long-winded way of saying: I read them, and I loved them at the time. (To be fair, I still love them. Hephaistion my beloved.) Renault's style of writing is gorgeous. I know for some people it can be off-putting, and a little difficult to parse (she's not what I call a 'light read' in that sense), but I genuinely love the way she constructs her prose.

She was also, I think, one of the first fictional writers to actively and openly tackle an explicit romantic relationship between Alexander and Hephaistion (most prominent in Fire from Heaven, but it's definitely still there in The Persian Boy), and although Hephaistion-as-a-concept had been kicking around before then, I think Renault made the relationship (and Hephaistion) more... mainstream, if I can put it like that?

Renault's historical research is also good. She does give a really interesting flavour of what it must have felt like to live in a Macedonian court, filled with intrigue and the kind of political machinations that resulted in heads rolling. She captures that dangerous, desperate element very well, and she makes Macedonian life accessible to a reader in a way I very much enjoy.

I think as I've got older, where my love for Renault's version has become a little tarnished is in my own inability to put aside my mental nitpickings (and this is no fault of Renault's writing!). Her Alexander trilogy writes about Alexander-the-Legend, not Alexander-the-Man. For me, there is very little balance to be had from her, and although this was a stylistic choice, I do find myself missing the nuance of an Alexander who is not, well, pretty much a perfect example of a living god. He's almost Achillean in the way Renault portrays him - far beyond us brief mortals! - and in some ways that makes his fictional character feel more inaccessible to me. Her Alexander is untouchable. Unknowable. Godlike in his abilities and driven by ambitions far beyond anything a non-heroic mortal can comprehend.

I also feel that Renault's portrayal (understandably) is a bit wrapped up in W.W. Tarn's vision of Alexander as some kind of benevolent conqueror (he wasn't), whose life's exploits were geared towards the betterment of mankind (they weren't). I need to add: this isn't a criticism of Renault! Tarn's scholarship and ideology was very prevalent for quite a while (see: Robin Lane Fox, who sort of subscribed to a viewpoint of Alexander along vaguely similar lines, I think).

My other gentle nitpick, is that very often Renault's women are stereotypes. Or caricatures. Olympias comes across as a vengeful harpy (interestingly, I think there is a lot or Renault's Olympias in Oliver Stone's film version). Again, I think it's fair to defend Renault with the fact that she's working with historical sources that can have the same biases - but even so, for me it's not particularly satisfying.

In the same vein...

Hephiastion my beloved. He does suffer from this too, I think. He's very much in the style of an 'Alexander-can-do-no-wrong' kind of character, and although that does fit the narrative purpose, it simultaneously makes me a little sad that we don't particularly get to see an active, competent Hephaistion in the way I personally feel he likely was. He's not completely reduced to the role of 'the boyfriend', but he is completely defined by Alexander - his behaviour, his impulses, his career are all attributed more to being 'philalexandros', than to any genuinely displayed individualistic motives. Again, it's not a bad thing, but for my Hephaistion-loving gremlin heart it can be dissatisfying if I don't turn off that portion of my brain a bit.

All of which is my very rambling way of saying: yes, I've read Renault's Alexandriad, and yes I genuinely do love those books - for what they represent, for what they do and just for the sheer joy of reading them. But I do have some slight quibbles. None of which are enough to put me off of them, only to say that I think as a reader I have to temper my expectations and meet the books where they are (for what they are). They are beautifully written, and I do think they do something rather unique for the Alexander mythos.

One other book I'd recommend - purely for the sheer delight of it - is Aubrey Menen's A Conspiracy of Women. Written around the same time, it's very different and deals primarily with a moment in time during Alexander's campaigns. It is a satire (not particularly historically motivated), and it pokes fun at quite literally everyone. Whilst not at all romantic in (either sense of the word) the way Renault's writing is, I do love the fact it takes aim at Alexander, and the Alexander mythos (along with a more generally satirical approach to the concept of empire building).

I also love Menen's Hephaistion, who is possibly the driest, wittiest takes-no-nonsense-from Alexander character:

Few men could face an angry Alexander and remain in control of themselves. But one of these was Hephaestion. He glanced at his friend the King, smiled and then said, "Alexander, if you continue to glare that way, the poor man will die of fright. Bathyllus," he said, "for the moment only His Majesty may wear Persian robes. Maybe one day we shall all do so. But His Majesty has not yet made up his mind on the subject."

This being the exact truth, it made Alexander angrier than ever, as Hephaestion knew it would, but with him and not with the unfortunate Bathyllus. Alexander turned his back on Hephaestion. "See that he is brought to my tent," he said, and strode away.

"See that you bring yourself to His Majesty's tent," said Hephaestion to Bathyllus. "I am in no mood for his imperial tantrums this evening..." (pg.19)

Or:

"Hephaestion," he said, "am I really as vain as you say?"

"Did I say you were vain?"

"You said I was in love with myself. Just now. When I boxed your ears."

"Ah," said Hephaestion. "Yes. You are."

"You must tell me when I get vain."

"I do," said Hephaestion.

"Yes, you do," said Alexander. "And I am grateful."

"You are usually remarkably cross," said Hephaestion. "But I shall go on telling you."

"It's strange," said Alexander. "We have conquered a world together, but our friendship is as strong as ever."

Hephaestion made no answer.

"You must find me very hard to bear sometimes, Hephaestion."

"Sometimes," agreed Hephaestion.

"When?" asked Alexander.

"When, for instance, you say things like 'We have conquered a world together, but our friendship is as strong as ever'." Hephaestion echoed exactly the touch of pomposity that Alexander had put into his voice.

Alexander smiled. He reached out and put a hand on Hephaestion's shoulder as they rode together." (pg. 101)

Hephaistion my beloved.

#lady replies #perils of a classicist in modern life #sometimes Lady is a Classicist #this reply could be ten times longer #I have a lot to say about Alexander in fiction #and it shows #alas I do not have the time to do a deep dive into all the things I'd love to reflect on at the moment

[speedfreak01]

now that you CLOWNS, you JOKERS have got me thinking about the tarn identity reveal, man that was a really shitty reveal huh

like first off, yet another james roberts villain who has a disability (the physical and social disability of empurata, as well as the pre-existing disability of tarn's transformation addiction, which we as an audience are meant to see as some sort of indicator of tarn's vice and indulgence) and becomes the joker, like there aren't already a hundred of those in the damn book

but it's also a really unsatisfying way to conclude the dying of the light arc because it doesn't have anything to say. i've mentioned this before in other posts, but the reason that so many plot twists and narrative beats from mtmte season 1 work is that they tie back to an over-arching motif of emotional honesty, of saying the things that are uncomfortable to say, answering or addressing that central theme in a way that encourages its audience to think more deeply about them, and facilitate character development along those lines.

but dying of the light? you can clearly, CLEARLY tell that jro was writing this just to get people to say OH MY GOD THAT WAS SO SHOCKING AND UNEXPECTED AND BRUTAL on twitter, so he could termsearch and lap up their reactions, so it's all shock and no substance. the scene where megatron kills tarn with his super special black hole piss beam or whatever implies that the theme we were supposed to be picking up on was "evil people dress their cruelty up in grand narratives to disguise and justify it, but evil is in reality banal", but nothing else in the story serves that theme whatsoever, because the story is at this point uninterested in exploring any sort of theming.

in fact, the supposed thesis of dying of the light is directly invalidated by megatron himself, who has consistently dressed his cruelty up in grand narratives to disguise and justify it without being challenged by the story, and indeed continues to do so throughout the rest of the comic's run, and we as an audience are supposed to just take him at his incredibly constructed and carefully-crafted word!

but also!!! also!!!!!! jro somehow managed to pick like the one character that would make the plot beat of "oh he's just some guy" fall the flattest. because glitch ISN'T just some guy!!!! we know him!!!! even just a little bit!!! but at the same time we don't know him enough for the revelation to have any kind of impact in the other direction

too known to be a nobody, too much of a nobody to be shocking, clearly just intended to be WOAH COMPLETELY OUT THERE AND LEFT-FIELD for the sake of ~subverting expectations~

absolute scenes. a complete omnishambles

[decepti-thots]

soundwave for the character ask?

I hope IDW Soundwave works for you anon!

one aspect about them i love: i really like that idw soundwave is a character who is so strongly defined by genuinely believing in their convictions even when it is disadvantageous to them. idw has a lot of characters whose big flaw is their inability to not fall into hypocrisy, and that's great and all as character flaws go, but a character who instead comes into conflict because he doesn't and it causes problems- that's great in a setting like idw. soundwave really does do what he thinks is right, and his moral code means that if this turns out to be in error, he won't let himself weasel out of things, so you get these fascinating twists and turns post-war. like when he realises humans are sentient and he was wrong to assume they weren't, and now he has to deal with knowing he massively cocked up during the war because he's not the kind of person who can mentally excuse himself from what that means.

one aspect i wish more people understood about them: i feel like a lot of people brush over the fact that soundwave's sense of betrayal when megatron defects isn't just... personal? soundwave sees megatron as betraying his people more than just soundwave himself, it's not a tarn situation where for all his posturing about The Cause tarn mostly wants revenge on megatron for fucking him over. soundwave's actions post-war are all centered around the fact that soundwave genuinely wants the best for the decepticons "left behind" by that event. reducing it down to "he's mad at megatron" is, well, kind of reductive.

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have about this character: ok, so canon has this unusual-for-barber inconsistency where it's suggested soundwave was at the academy as an outlier but it doesn't... really work. my headcanon is that he was solicited to go there but, suspicious of what would happen, refused. oh you want me to walk into this "training facility" for people considered Weird by a famously orthodox government and noone knows anything about it? yeah i'm SURE that's not gonna end in you dissecting my spark for science. pass. so he was on the intake list but he bounced.

one character i love seeing them interact with: SHOCKWAVE. i love how much soundwave loathes him. the fact that the worst thing soundwave can imagine in a person being that they don't truly believe in anything, not just what shockwave does but that he doesn't care. and i think a part of this is that it scares him, personally- he knows this is due to shadowplay and the idea that could happen to him must feel much realer to a telepath who can feel what's been taken from shockwave, right. it's great.

one character i wish they would interact with/interact with more: god i would kill. for some contrivance to put post-war soundwave and chromedome in a room together. remember, chromedome was like TWO SECONDS away from lobotomizing him once. i think having chromedome face to face with someone he did that to (rather than his usual abstract sense of the people he's wronged) would be fascinating, and likewise see above about me thinking soundwave would have found that situation terrifying. i think a situation where soundwave has to confront something from the war that actually maybe fucked with him a bit would be. interesting? idk.

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have that involve them and one other character: it took aaaages for him, rumble and frenzy to get used to each other. those two are simply Not people he would have ever chosen to spend large amounts of time with had it not been on order from megatron, or vice versa. but privately soundwave is glad it happened, even under slightly weird circumstances. ravage thinks he's a sap who could packbond with anyone given enough time (and never remotely came around to them).

#ask meme

[withoutalice]

You wanted ask drabbles and idk like character limits so could I request a Tarnma fluff drabble?

Tarnma fluffyness <3

Word Count: 880

Warnings: none! just a really sweet date night with some sillies

Pharma had always dreamed of being one of those mecha, you know, the kinds that go to grand theater shows and masquerade balls and galas; he was made to be dramatic. Day in and day out it was logic and procedures and direction. He was a forged medic, very skilled at his craft, but he wanted mystery and allure in his life. At night he was able to listen to music, closing his optics and pretending he was lounging in a velvet VIP theater box seat, high above the commoners while indulging in the sweet arts of performance and entertainment.

Pharma sipped on deep red engex, enjoying the peace of his dark office. It was after hours, all the other medics had gone to their quarters for the night. Soon, he heard those familiar stomping pede-steps approaching. He continued nursing his drink, smirking when Tarn opened his unlocked office door.

“Here for your T-cogs?” Pharma sneered. Tarn cleared his throat.

“Actually, I had another request of you.” Pharma rolled his eyes. Tarn ignored it and continued. “Would you be willing to join me for a night?” Pharma hesitated.

“A night of what?”

“It’d be a surprise…” Pharma cackled.

“Hold on, you think I’d just…go?! With the terrifying leader of the DJD without some sort of plan?”

“I assumed, since you’re a flier frame, that you’d be more inclined to act upon impuls-”

“Of course I’ll go!” He snapped. Pharma muttered under his breath as he finished his drink. “Do I look like a square to you? No? Anyway, what should I bring…” Tarn paused for a minute.

“Nothing, unless you have a favorite accessory or other…polish you like to wear out. I’ll give you a few minutes.”

Pharma just opened a drawer and put on magnetic clips to his audials, and used a pocket polish for the corners of his optics and lips.

“No need, let’s go.”

Once they arrived at the location of Tarn’s choosing, the DJD’s leader’s air completely changed. First, he walked over to the side of the transport to open the door for Pharma. Pharma cautiously stepped out, eyeing Tarn suspiciously. After Pharma stepped out of the vehicle, Tarn took Pharma’s arm and servo, walking along with him, clawing servo on the flier's waist. Pharma blushed.

“I-is this some sort of trick?”

Tarn ignored him. They rounded the street corner, exposing them to a grand old building fit with statue-topped columns. It was obviously a theater hall meant to mimic old Cybertronian life. Pharma turned to Tarn in shock.

“How’d you-”

“I saw your collection of tapes and music, figured this would be something you would enjoy…” Pharma was speechless.

“A-are we going to a real show?” Tarn smiled with his eyes and just continued walking down the street, leading the medic. Tarn picked up their tickets at the entrance; Pharma admired the art around the venue hall. 

“You know, I would've put on some better polish on if I'd known.” Pharma jested. Tarn traced the jet’s jawline with a thumb and forefinger admiringly.

“Oh, but I think you always look elegant…natural beauty is very rare.” He blushed again, shaking his helm out of the touch. The DJD leader put his servo guidingly on Pharma’s waist again; he leaned into the hold this time.

Tarn had not only bought them the late night performance tickets, but also seats in the VIP box. Pharma was shocked at how the tank seemed to read his mind, even when he was not around (or, maybe he was…he didn’t dwell on it). Still in awe of the scene, the jet let himself be guided into one of the plush benches, settling into the sound of the orchestra. Tarn watched his face; Pharma’s optics were wide, darting around, studying the architecture and categorizing all the historical pieces and art forms and musical numbers played. 

Throughout the show Pharma slowly started to lean into the leader more, but he never looked up at him. Tarn did his best to understand the show, but to be honest it really wasn’t in his style. He’d only planned this just to spend time with the medic.

Of course, on the way back Pharma did his best to explain his analysis of the story and the value of the original writing. Once they were back at Pharma’s work, the leader uncharacteristically made sure he made it inside safely; he waited at the doorstep for an extra moment.

“Sorry, I almost forgot…thank you. I really enjoyed…uh…whatever tonight was.” Pharma said sheepishly, opposite of his passionate rant earlier.

“What do you think it was?” Tarn rumbled. Pharma vented sharply.

“Oh…well. Fine, it was a ‘date’ ok. Are you happy with that?”

The leader nodded slightly. Pharma couldn't tell if he was blushing under the mask or not, but his body-language showed it was likely. The jet gestured to Tarn to come closer. He pulled the other’s helm down by the side of the mask, lifting the bottom just slightly up. He could feel Tarn's venting still when he kissed those scarred lips, even if it was just for a second.

“Goodnight, Tarn.” The tank adjusted his mask, eye’s still wide in surprise at the show of affection. Tarn cleared his vocalizer.

“Yes…goodnight – !”

The door shut loudly in his face.

#alice writes #so apparently i hit save draft instead of post #oops! #anyway this took about half an hour sorry for typos! #tarnma #tarn #pharma #transformers #maccadam

[novafire-is-thinking]

Writing advice from a non-writer ✨writer✨

Keeping a character, well, in character, can be a challenge, regardless of whether they’re well-established in canon (ex: Ratchet in most continuities) or not so much (ex: Prime Soundwave).

One thing that’s helped me is identifying which “negative” emotion(s) said character operates from and how they respond to those emotions:

Fear

Anger

Shame

I know there are more, but these three seem to be at the core of individuals’ negative experiences.

Now, of course everyone experiences all three at some point in their lives. However, when one looks closely, it’s usually possible to identify which one or two come most easily—the primary motivators.

Some examples from TFP:

Megatron: Anger + Fear

Starscream: Shame + Fear

Soundwave: Unknown, but I’ve chosen Anger + Shame

Optimus: Anger + Shame

Ratchet: Fear + Anger

Arcee: Fear + Anger

Some from IDW:

Rodimus: Fear + Shame

Ultra Magnus: Anger + Fear

Drift: Anger + Shame

Swerve: Shame + Fear

Shockwave (pre-shadowplay): Fear + Shame

Prowl: Fear + Anger

And so on.

With some characters, especially antagonists and “neutrals,” it can be hard to tell which ones are in the lead unless they state their motivations outright, but here are a few I’ve identified:

Overlord: Anger + Shame

Tarn: Fear + Anger

Tyrest: Anger + Shame

Froid: Fear + Shame

Some of these may look a bit off, but that’s to be expected since I don’t just look at the primary motivating emotions, but also how they are responding to the emotion(s):

Are they so aware of it that they do their best to consciously push back against it?

Do they vacillate between repressing/denying the emotion and exploding/over-expressing?

Do they consistently overindulge in it/over-express it?

I’ll use IDW Rodimus as an example:

Fear: He fears being limited in some way, either by circumstances, others, or himself, and succumbing to the emptiness of life. He actively runs away from his fear by jumping at each new fun thing to avoid uncomfortable, dark feelings. (Actively pushes back)

Shame: He struggles with issues of self esteem. He doesn’t know love apart from a sense of admiration, so he takes every opportunity to make himself look good/accomplished to earn love while denying it. (Vacillates)

Anger: This may be a bit surprising considering his hotheaded nature, but I see this one as being his weakest motivator, just barely. It doesn’t seem to be his first response to everything like it is for someone like TFP Megs. He doesn’t rely on it as much. Rodimus only really gets angry when someone is trying to (1) limit his fun or (2) steal the spotlight. However, when he does get angry, he doesn’t hold back. He’s perfectly comfortable with the emotion. (Over-expresses)

With some characters like Rodimus who seem to be pretty balanced with all three, the order doesn’t matter as much and is fluid/inconsistent.

But usually, I can pick out which one(s) do and don’t have as much of an influence on a character’s behavior and go from there, which is all that matters to me when writing:

IDW Prowl doesn’t deal with Shame as much as he deals with Fear and Anger.

Cyberverse Soundwave deals with Anger far more than Fear or Shame.

Blades from Rescue Bots doesn’t struggle with Anger as much as Fear and Shame.

And so on.

—

Final notes:

A lot of this is inspired by my knowledge of Enneagram theory, but I put my own twist on it.

Theoretically, with some modifications, this same process of identification can be applied to sadness, joy, and other emotions that exist.

It’s good to keep in mind that characters, just like real people, don’t react the same way every time to specific emotions.

The goal is to identify the overall pattern of motivation + reaction combinations for each character and use those as anchoring points.

#nova’s procrastination posts #<- I’m beginning to think I should make this a tag #nova talks enneagram #(sort of)

[bengiyo]

I Told Sunset About You Rewatch Ep 1 Stray Thoughts

We're doing a retrospective for @the-conversation-pod soon, so I want to get a rewatch in (I think this is my sixth) before we record. Figured it might be fun to jot ideas down.

Let me just say that the quality of the opening song still hits like a ton of bricks right as this starts. I had not experienced something like that before.

Telling us from the first scene that it's always been about Oh-aew.

RIP LINE TV. Pour one out.

Thinking about Teh's relationship with his mom this time, she was praising Teh for making it into this school with high marks.

Oh we finally know what MoRaoYuLok means! (We look so funny)

Skyline is just such an affecting song.

I often forget that the first float we saw was with the young actors.

Really like the camera zooming in on Teh after Oh agrees to play Yongjian. We've seen them in frame together for about four minutes of the friendship montage, and now Teh suddenly feels alone.

The tragedy of their breakup hits every time. You can see it coming immediately as soon as Oh is selected and Teh tries his best to support him through the play.

I often think about how Teh wasn't even selected to play a tree in the play.

Oh, Teh, he was always in the wrong when it came to Oh. Oh hoped they could share a passion together and Teh only saw someone stepping on his dream.

Hello again, Tuty the Homophobic Dog.

Oh, Teh, why do you have to get salty about your mom praising your brother for being able to help you afford school?

Tarn, you will regret telling Teh to go after someone else because you don't want him to waste his time waiting for you.

I love the bass beats at the mention of Oh-aew.

Sometimes you briefly forget how beautiful PP Krit is, and then you see him again and you're like, "Right, I didn't imagine that."

Gosh, Teh was always petty.

Very sad foreshadowing about Teh later waking up early to study with Oh.

This whole scene of The deciding to mess with his hair is almost Japanese in styling. It's rare in Thai shows where they hold a shot and let the actors enter and exit the frame, trusting the audience to remember where things are.

Lol, Teh is so embarrassing sometimes. Even the teacher had to call him out about the hair.

I'm still fond of Khunpol's acting as Bas after all this time. He was new to Nadao at the time and was very nervous to work so closely with PP.

He's always good at saying things to hurt Oh, but then instantly regrets it.

Oh, Bas. If it could have been you it would have been you so easily.

I sometimes wish we'd dug more into Oh's family relationship, because it feels like Teh often said things that reminded Oh of his dad.

Truly this is a beautiful shot of all of MoRaoYuLok together. Teh positioned between Bas and Oh is exquisite.

The score for this show really is just so fantastic. Underlines every moment beautifully.

Billkin is really beautiful when he has to show sympathy for PP's character crying.

PP's legs? Undefeated. Closest challenger was Todd Techit.

Goddamn these two make each other ugly cry so easily. Even on this gorgeous beach!

Poor Bas. He noticed so early.

Oh always cuts to the emotional core of their problems.

Billkin's eyebrows are doing so much work.

Ending on what Teh might say to Oh from the interview and having him not exactly say those things to Oh? Crushing.

Ke Yi Ma? Ke Yi.

Billkin singing Skyline just blasts you at the end. My goodness.

Something that still surprises me each time I come back to this is how much these boys cry at each other about each other. Normally you'd expect some kind of machismo or gender dynamic where one of them is maybe stoic, but no, these two know each other too well for that. Their relationship just feels so huge. Really the only other two characters that have close to this feeling are Pat and Pran, and Our Song explicitly asks if it's okay if they're not as huge as something like this.

#i told sunset about you #itsay meta #thai bl #bl series #Ben watches

[artsy-hobbitses]

I was wondering about all the current Outliers characters and their abilities that you currently have and what extent their abilities can go, their limits, and side effects if that's alright with you?

Those I control/play so far!

Trailbreaker: Psioplasmic bio-forcefield. Can range in size and molded at will, but if he's not careful, his emotions can change it as well. Uses it mainly to shield his team mates on the field defensively, but it can also be used in a more dangerous manner when he forms it into spikes (he's prone to this when angry and accidentally killed a man in his youth with it, so he's very Pepa Madrigal with his emotions). Downside is it saps a LOT of his energy and he's pretty much narcoleptic everytime he's back from a mission. Dead asleep for three to four days straight and actually needs to be fed intravenously sometimes because his body simply won't let him wake up even for food when he comes back in that state. The more he uses it/the wider ground it needs to cover, the more severe his situation becomes and his organs/muscles can break down from the stress. By the end of the war, he can create a forcefield with a radius of about 2km for five minutes before he starts throwing up blood, but his powers are massively boosted by virtue of one of the 10 Primes (Nexus) trapped in the Matrix choosing to work with him and Skids in tandem.

Blurr: Super speed, still working out the semantics for them

Tarn: Still working out this fucker

Skids: Still working him out!

Skywarp: Teleportation. He has Nightcrawler limitations for most part--he has to be able to see or at least clearly visualize where he needs to be, else he can fucking kill himself by phasing in unintended places (like the middle of a wall). Like Trailbreaker, the further distance he uses it over, the more it taxes on his body. He's able to safely teleport for something like 2-3km. He CAN push himself to 5km or more, but he risks molecular degeneration if repeated in a short span of time.

Soundwave: Super hearing and sound-based telepathy. They can only hear surface thoughts however, it's not possible for them to dig into repressed thoughts. Also their super hearing is a double-edged sword since they can get overwhelmed by it when there's too much stimuli. Initially in their earlier years, their inability to differentiate their thoughts and the thoughts of others was also detrimental as they thought they were going mental and even now, sometimes they can accidentally mistake someone's thoughts as their own if they aren't focusing.

Tailgate: Super strength and durability, still working on this cutie.

Thundercracker: Sonic scream. Though it's not always screaming--shouting and thundering away at his team mates or enemies have the same, dangerous effect. His voice, unmodulated and uncontrolled, can hit a high of 160 decibels, and like Trailbreaker, he has hurt people badly in his youth on accident because of his lack of control or understanding of his abilities (in this case, one of his two mums, who is permanently deaf because of him, though she doesn't blame him for what happened--he was anywhere between five to seven then--and still loves him very much). Still thinking about any side effects. There's a reason almost everyone wears earpieces on the field, and about 50% of that reason is him (It's their luck that he's generally a good-natured fellow who is actually VERY adversed to doing to others what he did to his mom... but push him and he may just make himself heard for the first and last time for you)

#inbox #save for later #humanformers au

[icyrambles]

one of the things i find consistently weird about transformers as a piece of media is how the decepticons keep being the bad guys without any really attempt at reworking them as a faction

pretty much every continuity that exists has the decepticons filling the role as the primary antagonists. here's a list of the tf media i've consumed over the past year; g1, animated, prime, cyberverse, earthspark, rotb, first 2 bayverse movies, idw1 + idw2, the first 5 issues of tf skybound, shattered glass, the first 10 episodes of rid15, and a few episodes of armada and beast wars. and literally all of those have the decepticons fulfilling the role of antagonists.

now i'm specifically not taking issue with the fact that the decepticons are the bad guys. that's not my problem here. my problem is that the franchise as a whole seems to have a problem with actually developing the decepticon characters and the faction as characters/concepts worth being antagonists

this isn't a dash on the existing pieces of transformers media just to be clear, i enjoy cartoonishly evil shenanigans as much as the next person (my favourite character is fucking tarn for goodness sake). instead please read through the rest of this post as a single person's critique of a tonal inconsistency throughout the franchise of transformers

with the more recent pieces of transformers media attempting to paint the decepticons in a more sympathetic light (see cyberverse and earthspark) i noticed a core writing flaw with how the teams behind these works tackled making the decepticons more morally grey characters.

and that's the fact that they decepticons are still just as evil as they are in the original g1 cartoon, just with a little more grey paint thrown over their war crimes. it's one of the main writing flaws i have with both idw1/2 and earthspark.

because those writing teams really want you to view the decepticons as less evil. they really want you to watch/read through their content and see the decepticons as a group of individuals who, while not right in their actions, still deserve to be treated as more than a villain of the week.

and i agree with this sentiment. i think the decepticons should be more than villains of the week who need to be defeated at all costs. i think the decepticons should get the opportunity to be fully developed characters with hopes, dreams, aspirations, flaws, and emotions just like their autobot counterparts.

but there's a problem with how these writing teams interact with the decepticons. and it's the fact that they're still the bad guys. even if you give megatron a redemption arc in earthspark, there's still the looming implication that he, along with an army, invaded a random planet and potentially killed millions. (it's a kid show i'm not expecting them to go into detail with all of megan's war crimes, but earthspark does imply that megatron did fuck up a lot of earth's shit)

idw does a slightly better job with this, showing that the autobots have their fair share of war crimes, but the decepticons are still the primary antagonists throughout the comic's run.

even shows that paint the decepticons as purely the bad guys have tonal issues with how they're written

taken animated for example. the autobots get to be fully developed characters with personality traits outside of just being the good guys. bumblebee is impulsive, he likes video games and racing and being a little shit, he's not a beacon of virtue. prowl is antisocial, he doesn't like communicating with his team, but he fucking love nature, he loves meditating. he has a whole backstory about wanting to avoid being drafted into a war for fucks sake.

but the animated decepticons don't get that. there's nothing about blitzwing or lugnut or starscream that makes them uniquely suited to being in the decepticon cast. none of them get to have defining character traits outside of being decepticons who need to be beaten.

the same can be said for prime.

while i don't particularly think that any of the tfp characters are written well, at least the autobots have reasons for their personalities. arcee is a jaded bitch because she watched both of her partners die right in front of her. optimus is distant because he lost his best friend to differing ideologies. ratchet is grouchy all the time because he's constantly running low on fuel and is probably worried about his only family dying horribly in a war while he sits on the sidelines.

but the decepticons. they're just evil. megatron gets so addicted to power that he hypes himself up on the space equivalent of hard drugs for most of the series. soundwave.... he's there i guess? shockwave decided to violate the laws of nature for shits and giggles because the series never decided to expand upon his character except for evil scientist. starscream gets to be a sniveling coward who gets beat up whenever he appears and we never learn why he acts this way.

time and time again, transformers has an issue with writing decepticons as anything more than the bad guys.

and the reason why i take issue with this, isn't just because it's "bad writing" it's because the decepticons have a habit of having backstories that involve being discriminated against and it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth when the group of people who are more than often classified as second class citizens on their own planet get lumped into the role of "bad guys who want to steal and murder and pillage" when they want to change the system that is actively discriminating against them

and this all sounds like a lot of complaining. and it is. but i do have a method of trying to remedy this mess. two ways actually

#1: the hard way. (aka, this is the harder of the writing solutions because it requires viewing the decepticons as more than villains)

instead of having the decepticons being a group of revolutionaries who loose their way and become evil and genocidal seemingly for no reason other than "oh well revolutions don't really work and anyone who starts one just wants to cause problems against the system" why don't writers actually try and view the decepticon faction for what it is in most cases a group of people who were heavily discriminated against and who want to change their planet to actually treat them more than objects.

cybertron is shown to be a shitty planet to live on in more continuity, i can find it perfectly believable that people would want to change the system through radial reform.

show me why the decepticons became the way that they are. don't just tell me that megatron was always a bad person who wanted to become a dictator. that's stupid and highly uncreative after it's been done 15 times in a row in every single continuity

i would highly prefer a series that takes place from the decepticon perspective. i wanna know more about them. why is starscream constantly trying to overthrow megatron? is it because he thinks megatron is a bad leader? does he have a plan for how he would change things if he did become leader? if he's just doing it because he's egotistical, does he have a backstory that made him the way that he is?

give me decepticons with hobbies and personalities outside of wanting to kill everything.

#2: the easy way (this is easier because it doesn't require radical re-imagining of the decepticons as a whole)

just make the decepticons the ruling class. genuinely, just make the decepticons the people in charge from the beginning. you wouldn't have to imagine that many changes. megatron can still be a warlord intent on conquering the galaxy (it's just re-framed through the lens of him always being this way instead of having to learn violence is a solution), starscream constantly vying for the throne is now much easier to understand because the faction isn't rising up from the lower class, they were always in power and starscream wants more of it.

it even works out for the autobots because them being the lower class rising up against a tyrannical force re-contextualizes their desperate want to defend planets being attack by the decepticons. they're not just doing it because it's the right thing, they're doing it because they know what it's like. and that makes their motivations seem more sympathetic than a fucking god complex of saving the "tiny pathetic humans who can't defend themselves"

the decepticons being purely the bad guys is actually the reason why i'm not gonna read the rest of the skybound comics. i have no interest in another comic that is functionally (at least from the five issues i've read) just a bloodier, more violent g1. it's disappointing that instead of trying to explore the existing transformers characters through a different lens other than "evil" tf writers keep making the decepticons the same old bad guys.

this franchise has so much potential for interesting stories, cyberverse proved that to me when they allowed the autobots to team up with clobber, dead end, and soundwave, but it's being held back by the pervasive trope of the decepticons being the bad guys in every single story

#transformers #maccadam #decepticons #autobots #ough i desperately yearn for a silly tf sitcom that doesn't focus on the fucking war #give me silly stuff hasbro i could care less about earth #icy writes

[outofangband]

“Beleriand is wide and houseless for exiles...”

Morwen, The House of Bëor and the Trauma of Dagor Bragollach

updated post with more meta on the House of Bëor in general and links to other relevant posts.

Actually has been updated to read like a real post and not just rambling!

Related post on Morwen and Rían and the survival of traditions

My general tag for Bëorian cultural trauma is houseless for exiles  where I have a lot more rambling like this

So Morwen is obviously one of my very favorite characters in Tolkien’s world, in general  and she is in my opinion one of the most interesting figures in The Children of Húrin, though as she is separated from Túrin for so long there are long periods of her life we have only summaries on. I find these fascinating to speculate on and read/write about

I wrote this post while very tired so I hope this makes sense and is ok, I’ve definitely seen more eloquent meta on the subject, I just wanted to throw out some thoughts and I wanted to write more about the trauma her people went through during Dagor Bragollach

I want to make two posts on this, this one which is an introduction and some general thoughts then a second one that will go into more specific headcanons about how the trauma of the Bragollach manifests for Morwen.

The Battle of the Sudden Flame and the aftermath is such an important part of Morwen’s life that likely plays a significant part in shaping her character though it happens before the events of the book and is mentioned only briefly, much information needing to be found through inference and connecting details

The House of Bëor lived in Ladros in Eastern Dorthonion where Aegnor and Angrod, sons of Finarfin, lived and lead a defense of the Watchful Peace, maintaining a friendship with their Edain allies. Ladros was a cool land of pine forests and steep, craggily slopes that lay South of the great green fields of Ard-Galen and then of Angband and the regions of Morgoth.

On a cold winter night in the year 455 of the First Age, rivers of flames, many choked in poisonous fumes, were sent down from the Thangorodrim. These utterly devastated Ard-Galen turning it from the fertile, green lands to a desert made uninhabitable by the lingering clouds of toxic air. Next came a legion of balrogs with Glaurung leading them and a massive army of orcs that quickly invaded Dorthonion, killing countless elves and humans including Aegnor and Angrod, taking a large number captive and occupying and/or displacing the rest of the Bëorians. Barahir, the father of Beren led a group of outlaws including the fathers of Morwen and Rían. Their group was killed in a massacre by the lake Tarn Aeulin several years later after

(It’s likely Morwen knew nothing of this until she came to Doriath, if even then)

During the chaos of the invasion of Ladros, Emeldir, the mother of Beren fought to protect the children of the Bëorians, many if not most of whom had been orphaned. She managed to lead a group of refugees Southwest to Brethil where the Halidan took them in. Later, though there is not much said in the text about this, a small group of the surviving Bëorians would come to Dor-Lómin in Hithlum where the Hadorians lived. (Note: I have two posts speculating on their route, here and here)

Morwen was elven or twelve when Dagor Bragollach broke out, depending on when in the year her birthday is*. She was likely orphaned during the invasion though we know only that she was separated from her father who was later killed. She was among the Bëorian refugees who would come to Hithlum though her age at the time is unknown. There is so much that is unknown about her life before the events of the Narn.

I also spoke about this on a few different posts, but I’ve oft wondered if Morwen’s time in Brethil as a child was not a good one. Our glimpse into how some of the Haladin treat those who are mentally ill, neurodivergent or traumatized in The Wanderings of Húrin is a very bleak one and although this is certainly not representative of all the people of Brethil, this combined with parts of Morwen’s conversation with Húrin prior to the Nírnaeth leads me to believe she does not look at her time there with good feelings

Both the text of the Narn and Morwen herself describe her as an exile; one who has not only been forced to leave their home but who is forbidden from returning.

The word diaspora obviously comes to mind as well.

There is a bitter shame that bubbles beneath her cloak of pride, an unearned shame but one that has left its mark on her nonetheless (another thing I've mde way too many posts on tbh; her grief and pride are completley inextricable from each other, almost every line in the Narn mentioning her pride or her more severe qualities comes with the addendum that as much as it is directed at others, it is also directed at herself; "for Morwen was as stern with others as with herself", "she did not seek to comfort him any more than herself, etc")

That Morwen is a refugee in Dor-lómin is an important aspect of her character as is her likely trauma from Dagor Bragollach, how flames and armies drove her and her people from their home, killed so many of them, destroying their families and way of life.

It’s not difficult to speculate on the extent of violence that she witnessed and the horrific trauma she was barely old enough to understand. Eleven or twelve is such an age, just starting to understand your own identity and place in your family and community and culture and then to have that so brutally torn apart…

(I personally headcanon that she was injured in the Bragollach and had burn scars but that’s a different post)

I think her pride is very much tied to the fact that she is one of the only remaining members of the House of Bëor, a people who Morwen herself considers all but gone as she says to her husband in the first chapter.

I’m thinking about how this impacts her choice to remain in Dor-lómin after Nirnaeth, thinking that perhaps this time nothing short of another fiery inferno will drive her from her home. How she will not flee again (even as Rían, another of the few survivors, runs again and runs until she cannot get up).

And what’s on her mind when she speaks with Húrin before he leaves for Nirnaeth, how she believes her House to be fallen and fears Húrin’s following suit. The destruction of Hithlum would mean another home taken from her.

I’m also wondering about her significantly less optimistic view of the elves. While Húrin is heartened by the knowledge that the lords of the Noldor have known Valinor and the Valar themselves, Morwen thinks quietly of the exile of the Noldor from Valinor. Which also makes her being labeled elffriend (derogatory) and accused of power akin to theirs

“Húrin Thalion, this I judge truer to say: that you look high, but I fear to fall low.”

That Morwen lives in her own home under occupation for so long adds yet another painful irony to that quote.

“Beleriand is wide and houseless for exiles” is also just one of my very favorite spoken lines by Morwen. I just always feel so strongly that Morwen is not just talking about her hypothetical future there but also her here and now. Even in the safety of her own home and room (I always pictured that conversation as in their bedroom?) she is acutely aware that she will never return to where she grew up, that the place of her and her people in the world has been irrevocably changed. She is contemplating this ordeal being repeated and likely becoming more convinced that it will be. The sheer exhaustion alone of having to reckon with that…

I don’t think the parallels between Morwen and Túrin with regard to fleeing and being hunted or trapped and the ways these and the fear of them shape their lives are discussed enough

A lot of Túrin’s story is about exile. He is forced to flee his home and spends most of the story away from it, deprived of news of his loved ones and people for years at a time. When he does return it is temporary and he finds it unrecognizable.

Even his memories of home, of any home he makes, are clouded.

But his home is not Morwen’s, at least not in the same way. What he loses in Dor-lómin, Morwen has lost more than a decade before the events of the Narn.

Morwen escapes Glaurung twice and ends up in Brethil both times afterwards. Like not to put too fine a point on it but she has always been running and trying to escape the horrors of the past and also she lives in fear, a very real fear, of being forced out, forced to run, or else trapped and imprisoned. When she fears Thingol means to keep her in Doriath against her will, she tells him this fear is part of what made her delay going and I don’t think she is exaggerating in the slightest.

I am just never not obsessed with the themes of diaspora, exile, and persecution in The Children of Húrin.

Anyways I hope this is coherent and all. Hopefully I’ll say something more meaningful on this later. I love Morwen very much.

*as the year of her birth is from The Shaping of Middle Earth it is not considered strictly canon however it does match up with other timelines and events.

#the silmarillion #the children of húrin #morwen #musing and meta #houseless for exiles #mentioned #Túrin #Rían

[tripleglitchwriting]

I realize I don’t post a lot of thoughts that often (or, like, ever), so here goes:

I am a sucker for crossovers. It doesn’t matter of what- it could be inter franchise, combing the continuities of one franchise, or pulling the ol’ undertale AU Christmas party- I don’t care. Because this is a transformers blog I’ll stick with that, and honestly I think crossovers with it has some really great potential.

I haven’t read the MLP crossover comic yet, I will eventually, but that’s an example of what I’m talking about. How would a logic and science driven character like Shockwave react to the absurd ghost-sun magic of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure? (The answer is horribly unethical experiments, probably) How would a rule following, morally upright character like Ultra Magnus deal with The Strawhat Pirates? How would a sadistic, power hungry character like Tarn handle an enemy with incomprehensible power like Bill Cypher?

The rules and culture clashing would be so interesting to think about. Some franchises are forced to avoid graphic imagery and such, so characters from something like that ending up in the IDW transformers comics would be cool to see. In some shows, movies, books, comics and more death is something that happens 24/7 all the time, so a character from a piece of media like that ending up on the lost light and just killing someone would have some very intriguing repercussions!

I know it’s been done plenty of times before in plenty of fics and even canon material, I just like to think about how those elements and personalities would mix. I have so many thoughts about this.

#tripleglitchyaps #transformers thoughts #crossover stuff #sighhh #I literally think about this all the time