#also the scene before totally has gay undertones
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creelarke analysis: scott and hank the ranger and “the gayest saturday morning cartoon episode ever”
It’s so funny to me that in s3, they just happened to have Scott painting a tall, blonde-haired, skinny, male DND figure.
it’s almost similar to…
And upon further investigation, that isn’t just any figure- That’s Hank the Ranger:
Hank is a DND character who was believed by some to have died as a child/when he was 15, but then it was revealed that he wasn’t dead. Does that sound familiar? Because to me, it sounds a lot like Henry and his death being faked by the lab.
Oh, but it gets better. Prior to his believed death, Hank had a friend and the only other person the same age as Hank in Hank’s group, named Eric.
And would you take a look at Eric…
And Hank and Eric are actually from the DND animated TV show from the 80s- and there’s a scene where Eric calls Hank “crazy,” for his plan involving a dragon, Tiamat. It’s giving “crazy together,” vibes.
Theyre SO Creelarke coded. Like come ON!!!
And it gets EVEN BETTER: there’s gayness. In the episode, Odyssey of the Twelfth Talisman, the group meets a new character, named Lorn, who ends having a gay-undertones friendship with Eric (which hilariously, this source, which is dedicated to ranking gayness in cartoons, calls the Odyssey of the Twelfth Talisman the ‘gayest saturday morning cartoon episode ever’).
And this source also talks about how gay it was:
And the “sleeping beauty,” line is interesting considering this post I made about Henry and sleeping beauty parallels and also because it’s giving similar vibes to Henry’s “someone’s a sleepyhead,” line that he says to El- maybe Henry said that line because he’s heard it directed towards him from someone else before. Someone like Scott.
I would bet that younger Henry is a combination of Hank and Lorn. Hank resembles Henry physically, but Lorn has more of Young Henry’s personality- he’s quieter and an outsider to the group, and initially rejected, and he has a magic amulet with powers that turned out to be more dangerous than expected and other groups of people start threatening Lorn as a result of it.
Like they’re totally giving young Creelarke vibes, especially with Henry being short as a kid:
The fact that Scott just happened to be painting a blonde-haired, blue-eyes figure from a tv show with an episode heralded as the gayest episode in saturday morning tv, which also happens to have a character that looks a LOT like young Scott (Eric)? It’s suspicious as hell.
Creelarke is real. I can feel it in my bones.
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Checked out Desire Catcher ep 1:
Thrilled the lead actors aren't as young as I expected
The main Luo guy looks so familiar to me, what have I seen him in before....
The other guy looks familiar too, but I think he looks like Khaotung from gmmtv and that's why
Luo Fei.... Luo fei.... Luo fei? You mean like Luo wenzhou and fei du????!!! I am aware the fei in fei du is费, and this one is fei 飞. But. Hear me out. Is this an original script? Maybe the script writer ships zhoudu. I can imagine, even if its not true. ToT
The setup, if at any point it turns magical/sci fi etc, reminds me of death note: being able to kill remotely and investigating that and all. And I do love some magic in an otherwise mundane reality story
Right now it's like that movie where ppl hear a trigger word then kill, except here they die
For some reason I heard some ppl saying this was gonna be bromance vibes? Well, I'll find out. I do think though that it will likely lend itself to such option (like Under the Skin perhaps? I haven't seen Under the Skin yet though)
I WILL say that... while there's the whole danmei not airing situation, and completely made shows not airing that were bl novel adaptations... mango TV is just the kind of bitch to drop an original script bl through the cracks. First, because they've written original script bl before (wasn't Killer and Healer an original script first before novelization?). Second, because it seems original scripts With bromance undertones is getting a much easier time airing right now: one example being League of Nobleman, another being Pledge of Allegiance. So any original script with Any level of gay stuff I imagine is having an easier time airing rn (also in mango tvs case right now? They're not high Press releases. There's a LOT of eyes on say Sha Po Langs drama than on this random one).
I like the vibe of this show. It's leaning darker/more realistic, feels like the kind of novels I read. Like Justice in the Dark, it has a dead animal early on and a murder scene early on. Not sure how many cdramas skew that direction in scary (or dark idk?) But this one clearly is going that route. Which I personally like (again giving me Under the Skin vibes).
ZHAO YUNLANS DAD IS IN THIS PLAYING A SHADY BITCH (GO FIGURE)
the old professor man almost... looks like he could also be Shen Weis old professor mentor from Guardian, but I don't remember that face as well... so this old professor guy could be from a number of dramas I've seen
Not to compare to Justice in the Dark cause I imagine it's totally unintentional, so it's just funny to me. But I Did Notice we have a Captain Luo, a girl cop whos on his team with That Haircut, and a guy cop who's a little less put together than Luo who talks to That Girl and you... you gotta admit visually they look a lot like Lang Qiao and Xiao Haiyang in casting and just character roles (initially) in the story. If I saw someone filling Tao Rans role I'd be really !!!. But no Tao ran like guy yet. However, our consultant? Ohoho... he's a criminal psychology consultant is he (like Fei Du), his professor helped get him in with the cops (like fei du you say?), he's a bit of a little shit (!!!fei du?!!), he's got slightly longer hair (was that a character design choice or just how the actor looked, either way very Fei Du). And I find it all just a Touch funny. ToT (also I miss Justice in the Dark). It's not Actually like Luo wenzhou/fei du though, as these two don't seem yo know each other and therefore Luo hasn't raised him for like 7 years. The dynamic is therefore Way Different.
I almost get a touch of Guardian or Torchwood vibes and I'm not even quite sure why, cause this first episode was Not campy at all or comedic. It's fairly like Beyond Evil type, murder mystery procedural and a bit heavy. But mm just like... design choices I think. Not the writing, not the directing or sound, just like the sets. The sets look way less bizarre than guardian don't get me wrong. But something about certain choices In them. The touch of bright colors at the first murder scene. The odd pink light. The glowing globe on the desk. The room of papers on the wall and a big crane light. The weird dining table on the roof with a big outer building sign in neon across the street. The focus on the Nokia phones, the Lolipop. Just like... lots of small detail decisions but they strike me as Not quite usual, enough to make it not seem like The Bad Kids (and those kind of realistic shows) in set design. Maybe... a bit like Tomb of the Sea? How tots was mostly realistic looking but there'd be a fucking stuffed animal in a kidnapping living room. Little details you notice enough to oddly remember.
All that said? I Like the set designs a LOT. It feels like Watching a murder mystery novel. It's similar to Justice in the Dark in NAILING the right atmosphere, a good coloring gradient for realism but also Slightly distorted/unknown, in sets that look done enough to feel lived in and like actual places, and with the kind of unique small details a Real place might have (like a fake office might just have office stuff, but THIS Xue guys office has some unique knick knacks so it feels more like an actual place thay could exist, etc).
I'll probably give it more eps. It was my kinda thing. Didn't absolutely capture me in ep 1 but honestly I saw just enough familiar faces that I was partly playing guessing games of where they were from in my mind and so it'll probably take me a few eps to settle and just click or not with it
I loved it's opening and ending though and... usually if I like those 90% chance I like the shows
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Rating Different Versions of Will Blake
Because Fever Swamp Brain is real
Official
OG Book: Not much to say, he was clearly just a dude. A guy alright. Twist is there just because we need a twist, but you can feel a good chunk of personality whenever Cassie antagonizes him.
8 R.L. Stines/10
Graphix: Great design since the art style is killer, and absolutely love the way it’s more obvious here that he’s actively interested in Grady for some reason. The gay undertones are slowly becoming apparent.
10/10
OG TV Show: Will’s actor has to take on both Will and Cassie’s roles in the story since Cassie got cut, but he really does bring Will to life as a character. He’s a more active threat, even if he canonically dies in this version. The eclipse scene though? * Chef’s kiss * absolutely gay as hell, if Will Blake was in Twilight (and the actors were all the same age) he would’ve bagged Bella AND Edward.
11/10
Movies: My personal headcanon is that the monsters in the Manuscripts are beta versions of the characters in the official books, and this is why almost none of them match their book versions in either personality and design. The design is absolutely killer, but it’s obviously not the twelve-year-old if his six pack and tattoo weren’t obvious enough. Even the branding makes it clear that this is “The Werewolf of Fever Swamp” as a character, rather than Will Blake.
If he was a character in the book I can totally see him as like, Will’s cooler older brother who’s also a Werewolf and maybe Will would have less trauma in my fic.
0/10 as a Will, but 10/10 as a Design.
Horrortown: Just like Bart.
IDK maybe the designers just saw the word “flat-top” and went buck wild, I would believe his character design belonged to CONAN before Will Blake (ToT). Personality wise, he’s straight ;^; also if he wants Marty to leave Courtney alone, he should just date him - boom, problem solved. When he isn’t being the “Am Am Werewolf” in Courtney King’s General direction he’s pretty fun since he’s basically a Dogboy.
6/10
- IDK if Will cameos or even gets a mention in the Fever Swamp comics besides sharing the name “Blake” with a main character. Hit me up if he ever appears in anything else. Fanfic Will’s in the Readmore.
Non-Canon
The Werewolves of Fever Swamp by Monokuma_memes(X): My own Will and I’m not deluded enough to rate my own writing, so read it yourself and make your voice heard. He’s gay and has trauma and that’s all I’m spoiling now.
?/10
You Never Grow Out of Your Goosebumps Phase by bluemandycat(X): Kickstarted me actually sitting down to write my fic, mostly because I wanted to put my own fucked up Will out there. Beware because Grady and Will aren’t really healthy at the point the protags of this fic find them, but you do feel a little bad for Will when he’s not being a dick. For what little we see of him, very interesting.
6 bullets from Cassie/10
Goosebumps United... (2014) by Lord Candycane(X): Aw yes, the Infinity War of Goosebumps/j. Not much for Will to do in this fic besides cameo every once in a while, since there are like...100 characters here. Though I do like the idea that Grady and Cassie just keep him in check like it’s their job. He also gets to be emo about being a Werewolf here! No gay undertones, since Grady holds most of them in that one chase scene.
5/10
Goosebumps United (2021) by Sweetiebuttons(Ao3:X and FFN:X): Okay, so SB made a fic based on Candycane’s fic(basically their own take on the idea) and just went hamwild. It’s crossposted on FFN and Ao3 but for some reason under different names and also FFN has more chapters uploaded(maybe they’re retooling the fic for ao3??). SB portrays him much more sympathetically, sometimes to a kinda cheesy degree? Honestly. it’s pretty endearing in a “webkinz milk cat” kind of way. Absolutely love him becoming friends with people that did this to him:
Not to expose myself for having terrible taste as a kid, but I like the touch of comparing Will to another gay-coded werewolf. Will gets to meet other werewolves and it’s definitely fascinating to think how he’s the only lycanphobic werewolf in GB canon - there’s even some more Fever Swamp lore based on what little we had in the first United fic. I do like how Will is now the straight man and just has to deal with constant BS from his fellow werewolves, and I especially like the idea of Will not being comfortable with how gung-ho Grady is about being a werewolf.
The dialogue is kinda confusing, and Will just goes all over the place and never finishes the interactions so we don’t get much. But I do like the ideas that are presented here.
6/10
Werewolf of Fever Swamp by sweetie buttons(X): Okay this fic is a revisionist piece on Grady having a Father/Son relationship with the Swamp Hermit, and Grady doesn’t become a Werewolf. Will is irrelevant in SB’s sequel to this fic, but for what was shone he sticks closely to his book counterpart. Except for the reveal, because like...Will did not even feel like he wanted to eat Grady. Like every description of him felt like Will wanted to cry and throw-up over how beautiful his boyfriend is. This Will would’ve bit Grady on purpose 100% and the Hermit and [REDACTED] were homophobic to get in the way of that/j.
5/10
Welcome to Goosebumps High by DanielDaponte(X): Not much to say, its Monster High but Goosebumps and it got put on permanent hiatus. But Will shows up for one chapter, now an adult and the school’s gym teacher(C.E. Teacher??), which is honestly the funniest thing that has happened with the character. I also forgot about the main character thirsting after him, which is doubly funny.
10 Werewolf Thirst Traps/10
The Goosebumps School(and it’s many sequels) by SquadMemberK17(X): This series is so fascinating, I could go on about how bonkers the sequels get and how weirdly engaging this self-ship fic about the hat guy from the Dead House live action episode. Like, a bunch of Goosebumps protags are brutally murdered in this fic it is so mindboggling. BUT we are here for Will and he’s a side character in the MC’s friendgroup, in fact, he’s the first person she meets. Will is weird because the author has a bunch of weird ships besides the main one with her self-insert, but Will gets paired with Hannah Stoneman from Werewolf Skin in what I can only call...Monster race shipping? Will honestly had more chemistry with the main character and Grady. Speaking of Grady!
The plot has Sarabeth doing weird shit to destroy the main character for some reason and it would take forever to explain, but one of her plans include getting the Swamp Hermit to kill the MC and Will. You see, in this canon the Swamp hermit killed Grady when he got turned and reveals Will’s past to the MC. Will then saves MC and kills the hermit, and after this traumatizing event it’s never talked about again?? Also, Grady’s cameo just involves his severed head so have fun with that (ToT). Will still had better chemistry with a Dead Grady than he did with HANNAH.
Goosebumps Adventure by Stone-Man85(X): It took me too long to realize this fic plagiarized the Haunting Hour movie, and even a more embarrassing amount of time to realize Grady and Will don’t show up (even in the Fever Swamp chapter). This led to a rabbithole that decimated one of my non-GB discords, but as for the Fever Swamp chapter I did not expect that much homophobia to be thrown into my face. Also, RL Stine is a real person in this fic and dies in the first chapter.
-85/10 a plague upon the Author’s house.
- I’m not talking about the fic where a dude’s fursona has a yaoi moment with the Movie version of Will. Or the Wattpad selfship fics.
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Rec list for Eddie and Symby being vaguely to very gay?
I'm sorry for coming to you with my monsterfucker agenda 😔👊 (no I'm not)
i mean, i probably could’ve seen this coming.
venom is dominated by two opposing narratives. let’s call this the “relationship narrative” and the “control narrative”. they’re not perfectly separated, like, you’ll definitely get elements of one in the other, but generally one of them describes what the story, at its core, is using the symbiote for.
now comics are an endless tug-of-war at the best of times, much less the gayest and slimiest of times. there’s a neverending backlash and backbacklash going on between these two takes. what you want is the relationship narrative.
everything very much started out with that take. eddie and the symbiote are two characters who forge an evil alliance because it lets them do what they wanna do (kill spider-man, more or less) and they have the same kinds of neuroses and complexes and syndromes. lots of early comics are also very fun about the merged consciousness, merged identity deal. that’s kind of the textbook relationship stuff.
personally i absolutely think the original stories (venom was created by david michelinie) have romantic undertones, even starting in the villainy days. eddie describes their first meeting as “a shadow moved, caressed me.” he takes the rejection of the symbiote still being “in love with” spider-man really hard. he sobs his eyes out when he thinks it’s dead and promises to avenge it bare-handed. they totally expect to live happily ever after on a deserted island together.
then there’s venom: lethal protector, which is cute on its own, but if you’re reading for slime romance, i very specifically recommend the novelisation. i won’t even spoil it. and then, planet of the symbiotes is the first comic that i would say has outright queer themes, intentional or not.
so all those recs until now are collected in this post.
we're trucking along through the 90s, we explore elements of one take and then the other and sometimes we ignore the symbiote completely, but not too much changes, overall. the next BIG stop in Gay Venom is, of course, the hunger.
miniseries by len kaminski, just venom: the hunger. plenty of people have written their essays on it, but what’s always important to me is that it DID NOT come out of nowhere. as said above, it expanded on themes that were there, it references michelinie venom very explicitly, like you get your SECOND “tenderly touching the green glass tube” scene.
but yes this one is specifically about, like, stigmatisation, otherness, mental illness, meeting all those things with care and empathy and optimism, tentacle sex. again, many essays. a venom comic that can go “look at the twisted deviance of this relationship” and then turn it around into “but how are you looking at it” is good. god how good would it be if they also did that to eddie more. anyway.
a few years later you get the first MAJOR fucking backlash, culminating in the SECOND story titled the hunger. spectacular spider-man: the hunger, from 2003. completely reboots venom and retcons their motivations and backstories, makes very spiteful references to planet of the symbiotes and the hunger, like it is not also called that by sheer coincidence. literally starts out, in a comic that wants to tackle and redefine venom, with the line “the PROBLEM is that you guys are like an old married couple”. so the new status quo is that the symbiote only ever used eddie to be with spider-man, and eddie only ever used the symbiote to not die of cancer.
the “control narrative” that really kicks in here uses the symbiote as, you know, a thing to control, eddie’s demons personified or even a completely foreign force to torment him. if eddie is evil, it’s not because of what he thinks and believes and wants, it’s because he couldn’t control the symbiote and gave in to its inexplicable bloodlust.
this is an unambiguous downgrade in terms of complexity, in my humble opinion, completely fucks up eddie’s responsibility themes, and is also a pretty clearly petty reaction to venom’s absolute oversaturation in the nineties. the bitch was everywhere and most of it wasn’t good. so there was LOTS of “look at this creepy loser” content by writers cringing themselves into self-awareness at the time. the 00s were going to be GRITTY and MATURE.
this of course means that we get to see eddie slit his wrists and bleed to death on panel after selling the symbiote to supervillains as an attempted act of redemption???
wild fucking times! it’s not exactly worth recommending as ~shippy~, but the first real backbacklash to this first round of retcons comes from dan slott, who just kind of ignores it all in new ways to die. drags eddie back to the land of the living and relevant, makes the symbiote refuse to let its new host kill him, telling that host, and reestablishing, that it loves eddie. and then, to keep him living and relevant, slott makes eddie anti-venom.
don’t even worry about it. anti-venom is essentially eddie seeking redemption with symbiote powers, but without the symbiote, except he pretty much acts no fucking different at all, just keeps on being a murderous vigilante with cracked ideas about innocence and guilt. people still act like he’s better now because, in its metatextual ways, the hunger was right.
then fucking uuuuuuhhhhhhh. agent venom. symbiote goes to flash thompson and the us military, and the writer, rick remender, goes really, really, really hard on the control narrative. the symbiote becomes a substance flash is addicted to, gives a voice to his past abuse, it’s dark times all the times.
people very much do like that narrative for flash, like at least from that perspective it was worth it. i don’t like it much for the symbiote. for the symbiote, representing everything fucked up with flash and forcing him to murder kill bite all the time is resolved via the good guy avengers literally lobotomising it so flash can wear it without further resistance or input. imagine doing that to a human person. you’re uncooperative so we’re gonna turn off your higher cognitive functions and wear you like a meat suit. happy ending for everybody! truly we’ve conquered our demons this day.
then! at the same time, there’s a cartoon coming out, it’s called ultimate spider-man. THAT one does the control narrative take with harry osborn, but then does the relationship take with flash, making it the only cartoon to outright redeem the symbiote and let it find friendship and be valued as a person.
and people loved it! so brian michael bendis gets it in his head that he’s going to redeem the symbiote and make it partner up with flash. and he does redeem it by the highly fucking questionable means of having it be “cleansed”, aka brainwashed and relieved of its memories and personality. not that it matters for long. nothing fucking matters in comics. take this with you if it’s the only thing.
so then for fun friendship times you get venom: space knight, flash and the symbiote’s adventures in space! and then that gets cancelled. eddie is off somewhere being toxin and hunting carnage (2016). many good comics but you did not ask for them.
and THEN.
it is time for the next MOTHER of backlashes.
flash gets literally discarded at fucking roadside to put the symbiote back on eddie and turn back time on their relationship to RIGHT before the FIRST backlash happened. you know, all those 2003 retcons. gone. ignored. no more. venom’s themes are now those circa 1996 again. full fucking on relationship narrative. ROMANTIC relationship narrative, and that after the symbiote was turned into eddie’s evil shadow, after he hated it and spent a LONG time seeking to eradicate all symbiotes (and not even for the first time).
the COSTA run. venom (2016). reviled and beloved.
like this comic is fucking ANGRY about symbiote treatment. i HAD to tell you all of that so you’d understand ANYTHING it’s doing. the first thing it does is flip it completely around, puts the symbiote on a military guy who’s making IT do bad things, makes his ability to control it horrifying and abusive instead of heroic and admirable. one of the later things it does (in the follow-up venom: first host) is outright feature a villain who lobotomises symbiotes, ending on a symbiote serving him swift and sweet payback by doing the same thing TO HIM. it’s exactly as unsubtle as the hunger (2003) was about its hang-ups.
comics... are a conversation.
flash remains a symbiote friend but still got fucked over big time by it all, symbiote-focused writers slott and costa also kind of use him to literally, in case anybody hadn’t caught on, literally spell out the REAL story that’s been going on in the writer's room for the past THIRTY YEARS:
you’ll notice i didn’t actually list any of the Gay Shit for you, you’ve probably already seen it or you’ll get to see it for yourself. yes, they are deeply in love, yes, it’s fucked up and flawed, yes, it is real and taken seriously and has ultimately redeeming potential. yes the concept of that nearly knocked me off my feet and in front of the subway at one point. yes there’s mpreg
it’s also fucking riddled with events, which spin off into other comics, so either ignore those and rely on the recaps OR click yourself forward through the “next issue (story)” button on marvel wikia to know what to read.
and after that must of course come the backbackbacklash, as certain as death or taxes. in the next run, we retcon everything once more, eddie just needs to control his darkness, the symbiote was an evil abuser all along, nothing on earth is ever new.
i’m not gonna go through it, i’m just gonna point you to the backbackbackbacklash issue that came out during this time: venom annual volume 2 number 1 - it’s confusingly named, it’s the one that has a blue-skinned space lady on it. this one ignores the backbackbacklash going on very pointedly and goes “it’s not ABOUT control” again, it’s pretty explicitly romantic.
and then there’s also marvel comics presents (2019) #5, which, oddly enough, does not particularly feature the characterisation you’d typically see in the relationship narrative? but it does feature eddie and the symbiote literally fucking, so you’d want to know about it.
that’s the overall, like, frame of eddie and the symbiote being in a relationship (nuh uh) (yeah they are) (NUH UH) (YEAH THEY ARE)
some stuff that’s smaller but still notable, uh.
nova (1999) 6 - 7, that’s the “we’re space married”
venom: dark origin, that’s an ALTERNATE (!!!) take on the character, don’t expect a likeable eddie but it’s very darkly funny and gay so what can i say.
venom: the end, which i would absolutely fucking hate to be canon, i think its characterisation is quite regressive, but the symbiote sure is in love, i guess.
venom: separation anxiety, the dawn of the control narrative but eddie’s characterisation did not have to go so wrong from here, like if they’d just figured out AT THIS STAGE that he's STILL acting like venom without it... i digress. it has the symbiote going eddie eddie eddieee
venom: sinner takes all, this is the first she-venom comic so that’s. hm. interesting. healing symbiote blanket
don’t read venom: license to kill just look at this panel with me
if i think of more comics worth adding i’ll add them.
the subtext slash text is heavy enough to be present to some degree in literally every cartoon adaptation of eddie brock. spider-man: the animated series goes FULL control narrative, in fact it started the “the symbiote corrupted peter” take that we to this day cannot escape, but the first few venom episodes are VERY playful about their relationship.
in spectacular spider-man it’s canon, but horrible. eddie’s in love with it, but eddie's a good boy and the symbiote is played very, very, very abusively. i think this is an evil symbiote adaptation that works well enough, at least it’s an actual meaningful character instead of just a malevolent force to resist.
in marvel’s spider-man, the only venom episode worth watching is venom returns.
i’ve actually got every symbiote-relevant episode listed right here from when we did our communal watch-through.
also watch truth in journalism. idk if it’s exactly shippy just do it
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I rewrite Sky High
okay so, disclaimer: sky high was actually pretty damn good for it’s time and a lot of the plot twists/tropes used in it were still just starting out and not as commonplace as they are today. so 10/10 really good movie.
Also as i was writing this, it turned into half analysis of what’s already in the movie and half things I would change about the movie so,,, yeah. enjoy!
***
So the point about Sky High is that and the way the school and hero society as a whole works, is that you, as the audience, are supposed to look at it and know that it’s a flawed system. We’re supposed to see it as an injustice that kids are sorted into hero or sidekick- Sorry, I mean ‘Hero Support,’ on your first day of school based on something you can’t even control.
(This movie was my hero academia-ing it up before it was cool.)
Anyway, the movie calls a lot of attention to it in the beginning, but then doesn't actually give it the resolution it deserves in the end. Which, not cool guys.
The Hero/Sidekick debacle is, on the whole, a very thinly veiled metaphor for the problems minorities face. Specifically, those of the alphabet mafia, or LGBTQ, as we’re more commonly known.
There are a lot of examples for this so I’ll speed through the big ones real quick:
Will’s nerves regarding not having attraction to girls superpowers?
The way he tries to fake having an attraction to girls superpowers to get approval from his dad?
Being literally outed in front of his whole class (by someone named Boomer no less) and then immediately trying to hide it from his parents as long as possible?
The constant references to being a ‘late bloomer’. Doesn’t it remind you of the common phrases: ‘it’s just a phase’ or ‘don’t worry. You’ll start liking [opposite gender] eventually.’ ?
The scene in the kitchen, right after Will introduces the Sidekick Squad (and yes, that is what I’ll be referring to them as for the rest of this essay tumblr post). Will is so obviously trying to gauge how his dad is going to take his friends being sidekicks and also him being a sidekick. I just, this is so blatantly a coming out scene? How does anybody not see it as that?
(also the dad talking so offhandedly about bigotry and the hatred his own father had for sidekicks??? Who else has been there?)
Will telling his dad that he doesn’t care, that he’s proud of being gay to be a sidekick is just,,, *chef’s kiss*
With all of this backing behind Will and him growing into not being ashamed of his lack of powers, My first change would be that Will does not, in fact receive his father’s super strength. It’s just such a cop out! The movie had all this amazing build up, and this brilliant metaphor it could have used and, instead, they threw it all away.
The sudden acquisition of powers and immediate acceptance by his peers, feels too close to someone being ‘fixed’. That Will wasn’t good enough the way he was and had to be better, had to be his father in order to be good enough.
So, no. Will remains powerless.
Instead of the revelation of ‘he’s strong’, we get to let the Sidekick Squad shine.
Lash and Speed still cause a fight between Warren and Will, but when Will is under the table, the sidekicks actually do something.
Will knocks the table over (not, like, lifting Warren up but something closer to pushing him off. I mean, even I could push upwards from underneath a table fast enough that if someone is standing on it, they’d lose their balance and fall to the ground) and that starts things.
The Sidekick Squad all grab forgotten lunch trays or cartons of milk or something and throw it at Warren. It isn’t long then that the whole scene devolves into a food fight (Zach, at least, does not have good aim and probably hits a bystander accidentally, drawing more people in, until the whole cafeteria is involved.) The fight turns into something more playful, but still with that bit of an undertone of trying to actually hurt each other.
Ethan melts at one point and (accidentally) causes Warren to slip and land on his back, Magenta probably punches someone (not Warren) and Zach is just mouthing off to anybody who gets close enough. Near the end, right before Principal Powers shows up, Layla finally gets the right idea and just fire extinguishes the shit out of Warren.
(Side note here: I am very much also nixing the Layla crushes on Will plotline. I love best friends to lovers just as much as the next person but… no. Let kids see boy/girl friendships!
Instead, I will be inserting a Layla/Warren love story and you can consider this the first scene on the road for that.)
Anyway, the whole Sidekick Squad plus Warren ends up in the detention room and all of them are covered in food. Right after Principal Powers leaves, the Sidekick Squad is immediately talking excitedly to each other about how cool they just were and what they did. Basically it’s very wholesome and they’re all hyping each other up and then one of them, Layla or Will, excitedly turns to Warren and goes, ‘and that thing you did with the fireballs? God! I don’t think Lash is going to have any eyebrows for a month’ and the tension between them all but drops.
Warren, of course, tries to push them away and not get involved with their ridiculousness, but the Sidekick Squad is stubborn and by the end of detention, everyone but Warren is in agreement that he’s a part of the Squad now. They will not leave him alone. They also start hanging out at the Paper Lantern all the time just to annoy/make fun of him in that loving way friends do.
(I just want Warren to be a part of the Squad guys. Will calls him his best friend at the end but what did the movie actually do to show they were friends? Nothing, that’s what. I want that fixed.)
So the cafeteria fight boosts the whole Squad’s reputation, right? People think those sidekicks are pretty cool, and they get their fifteen minutes of fame. Only… Will gets a little hooked on the feeling of being popular. He doesn’t want to be a capital-h Hero or anything! But, well… he’d be lying if he didn’t like people thinking he was cool.
The others don’t really care all that much about being cool, but Will does. He hates that he does but what is he supposed to do? He can’t change how he feels. So he starts trying to make himself more popular and sometimes tries dragging his friends into stupid schemes.
And then enter stage right, one Gwen Grayson.
I prefer Gwen being Royal Pain’s daughter, actually. A girl who would’ve had no stock in this fight but her mother, who is sickly and weak and survives mostly because her daughter takes care of her, practically brainwashes Gwen to do her bidding.
Gwen is a minion here, and also, perhaps, a victim.
At first, she follows her mom’s orders and charms Will into dating her. She also feeds into his desire to gain popularity but can’t, in this world, break him from his friends. Actually, Will brings Gwen along to the Sidekick Squad hangouts and, slowly, she becomes a part of the group too.
She starts to doubt her mother. Starts to care for Will and the Squad.
She throws the party, and the Squad is all invited (trying to break them up isn’t conducive to the Plan her mother has anyway and wouldn’t work besides) but she lures Will away to make out and… other things, and he brings her to the Sanctum for privacy just like before. She still steals the pacifier (or whatever death ray equivalent you want idk) but she and Will don’t break up at the end of the night.
It’s not actually until two days later, right before the dance is going to start, does Gwen decide she can’t stand back and let this happen anymore. She spills the whole plot and her betrayal to Will when he comes to pick her up for the dance. She’s crying and apologizing and basically expecting to be hated forever by the only people she thinks ever actually liked her.
And, well. Will is furious at her for lying but there’s more important things to deal with at the moment. They’ll talk more about this and he’ll be angry, but that’s all going to be later. Right now they have a school to save so he grabs her hand and starts running to warn the rest of their friends.
Things happen mostly as canon from that point with minor changes.
It’s Warren who pulls Layla into a kiss before they all split off into groups, telling her to kick ass and stay safe before sprinting off after Speed. There have been scenes throughout the movie where the two are very obviously getting closer and are into each other. And then, before the dance, while Gwen and Will we’re technically going as a couple, the whole Squad was going as a group.
When Warren and Layla saw each other all dolled up, it’s very cliché. Warren says she looks nice and Layla visibly gulps at his outfit of a button down and suit pants, sleeves rolled up to his elbows (because homeboy does not wear a full tux you can fight me on this).
And also, Will doesn’t fight Royal Pain by himself. Instead, Gwen is there with him and they don’t fight with super strength. Gwen’s been helping Will build an arsenal of gadgets a la Batman and the two face off against her mom together, Gwen with her powers, and Will acting as half support and half as a watered-down Batman who still needs some more training before he’s totally polished.
The school falls from the sky, but Gwen buys them time by keeping the anti gravs working through sheer force of will, while Will holds off her mom from attacking her while she’s vulnerable and concentrating. Magenta eventually kills the EMP or whatever it was, and the day is saved.
Gwen passes out, cause ~drama~ but she ends up okay so don’t worry. She’s just exhausted.
The sidekicks get their recognition and then immediately bounce because dances suck and they all agree that they should go to the Paper Lantern instead to celebrate cause they’re tired, alright? Saving the day is hard.
So it’s all of them, a little battered and bruised and exhausted, crowded into this corner booth and laughing and being kids. The camera does it’s fade to comic book page thing, and the narration is something more along the lines of:
“Royal Pain and her cronies got locked away. Gwen and I talked things out, and she’s getting help for all the stuff her mom did to her. We’re taking things slow in the meantime.
The school is undergoing a lot of changes to the curriculum and getting rid of the whole ‘hero/sidekick’ divisions. (Mostly at the urging of my parents… and Layla). Next year is going to look a lot different, I think.
But it’ll be a good different, just like we are. None of us were what we were expected to be, and, I think, we’re going to keep defying expectations. There’s a whole world out there that needs changing.
And I can’t think of a better group of friends to do it with.”
THE END
(just give me found family saves the day by being themselves rather than somebody else, give me them saving the day because they care about each other, give me them fighting for what’s right and fixing things. please i am b e g g i n g.)
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Additional nitpicks that are small but Very Important to Me
Coach Boomer is still called coach Boomer because there is no way I am missing out on the ‘okay, boomer’ jokes
Layla stays like Layla, but i’d like for the movie to stop trying to make her seem annoying for her beliefs or like she’s wrong to be so vocal about them. Her caring about things that are wrong ends up as the butt of too many jokes and i… do not like that.
Why so many dad/son scenes? Why this janky imbalance parenting dynamic between the Strongholds. Knock that shit off. I want happy functional family thank you very much
Mr Boy and the mad scientist are very obviously in a relationship
Wait, actually: mr boy, mad scientist and Boomer are al in a poly relationship and are ridiculous about it
I’d like to see more of the sidekick classes going over like, ‘the boring’ parts of the job, and teaching the kids how to deal with the aftermath of the heroes heroics, just to hammer in the fact that the system is fucked up and that it’s messed up that the heroes get all the recognition while the sidekicks are left to clean up the mess
Use actual 14 year old actors? These kids look like seniors.
Or, if you want more ‘mature’ characters make it so sky high is like,,, a finishing school or smth. Something kids 16 and over go to.
(What the fuck kind of parent thinks that their freshman child dating a senior is a good idea?? An almost adult coming onto a fourteen year old??? Are you trying to make Will’s parents (particularly the dad) seem like irresponsible assholes??)
Gwen is, at most, a year above Will in this rewrite, kay?
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im in that weird spot of "i dislike the concept of loki and sylvie being romantically involved bc the thought of loki's true love being himself kind of implies he's the only one who'll ever love him and i dont like that, and i also want to see him w a man since hes marvels first openly queer major character (even tho we were robbed of his genderfluidity but ig thats asking too much from disney huh) and i want him to be in a queer relationship at some point in the show at least instead of just "oh hot powerful main female character obviously has to end up being his romantic interest!"
but at the same time falling in love with a version of himself is one hell of a way to learn to love himself beyond his narcissism that banked on him fitting a certain expectation he had for himself, and that the interactions that have lowkey romantic undertones between him and sylvie are... to my dismay, really well written (at least in my opinion - i see a lot of lokius shippers cringed at the scene in the grassland but i was cringing and finding it adorable at the same time im so conflicted) like its a really good execution of a really bad idea so im just here like 🧍♂️🧍♂️🧍♂️
but im not a particular fan of lokius either? i can see the appeal in the ship and its a fun dynamic but i personally see mobius as like, almost a father figure to him, mobius is just such a dad LMAO like especially in the first couple episodes it felt like dad!mobius trying to keep his feral troublemaking child out of control.
so im like. i simultaneously like sylkie AND lokius but i also want neither of them to happen but also wouldnt be upset if either of them happened. but i dont want loki to be alone either bc he deserves someone to love him like that.
Yeah, idk everything is all over the place for me currently too. At this point I just don't want them to add any romance at all tbh. But as you said, if it does happen then I would honestly prefer loki to end up with a man because he's the first openly bi character we have in the mcu and they just gotta explore his sexuality more. Of course you're still bi if your in a f/m relationship, but since this is the FIRST (how sad even is that) lgbt character in the mcu we have, it would just mean a lot if they give us the first gay relationship too.
And I gotta disagree with you on the father figure thing. Of course you can have your own opinions that's totally valid, but I don't see it at all? It's just, the way mobius interacted with loki has felt like flirting to me from the get-go. Literally the second I finished episode 1 I messaged a friend going "am I stupid or is this mobius guy full on flirting with loki?". The "pussycat", "if looks could kill" or the "I gotta be careful or you're gonna take my job" (I don't remember the exact line) comments were just straight up flirty and then you add the tie fixing scene to that. There's some tension going on that you just cannot ignore. I know some people see him as a father figure, but I just really can't. Every time mobius interacts with loki it just feels like he wants to eat him alive, haha. But again, you're free to think whatever you want!
And as I said before, I'm not a fan of the sylvie and loki romance thing at all. It just doesn't feel right to me and makes me extremely uncomfortable. I just really hope they keep it platonic and give us an awesome friendship! I need my chaotic trio 🙏
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I found a Chinese BL Warring States Game of Thrones, three years older than The Untamed
And I just had to write a review about it! It’s 60 episodes long so I haven’t finished it yet at the time I’m writing this - but I decided to just go ahead and recommend it anyway.
Why, you ask?
For one, it’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms with all the Hollywood action and adult HBO things. It’s got explosions:
Horses falling down:
People getting flogged:
Sweaty soldiers getting mauled to death:
Children used as hostages:
Dead bodies presented in court:
Stylish dye jobs:
Loving father figures:
A Jon Snow lookalike:
And very gay innuendo:
That’s right, unlike The Untamed, which was first written as a straight series featuring Wen Qing as the main female lead and then rewritten again after fans of the novel decided to boycott it, this series was written to be gay from the very beginning. It got taken down by the Chinese Censorship Board after twelve episodes and river-crabbed to death, but a good number of scenes survived censorship. Those that did not made it to BiliBili in the form of “hidden” videos and disguised as “music videos”.
That’s not all. For a warring period Wuxia series, it’s got very beautiful actors, backdrops and clothing. It’s dressed like a fairy tale, with different kingdoms sporting different colours and styles in fashion and tastes.
In terms of art direction, it’s pretty low-budget for a series but the team makes good use of existing props, locations and brighter-coloured fabric to make up for the quality. The costume design is more fantasy-based than period, and the vivid takes and angles in the first season add to its charm.
There’s also its complex story line, which brings us to...
Men with Swords is not a title for the faint-hearted. There is an acute absence of black-and-white morality depicted in it.
If you think a BL series with such beautiful backdrops and fairytale-like clothes is for the simple-minded, one-track-good-vs-evil sort, think again. The series is a tale about Murong Li, a vengeful prince disguised as a musician and his rise to power, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction in its wake.
Where The Untamed fails at delivering gray morality unlike the novel it’s adapted from, choosing to alter its script to fit a more general audience (a commercially-wise decision which got it into Netflix), Men with Swords succeeds in faithfully telling a tale where there is no good or evil, only humanity, jealousy, grudges, rebellion, loyalty, life, death, greed and love.
Everyone has both good and bad sides, just different camps and motives. Men with Swords tells the story from not just one person’s perspective, but from the perspective of many different people, all of whom become entangled in a battle for their figurative Iron Throne - to become the king of the world.
There are no “what ifs” in this story, only decisions, reactions and repercussions
A prevailing theme in this series is that there are no “what ifs” and no turning back in life, only things that have happened and will happen. Murong Li starts his journey as a prince who has lost everything and a victim of war, wandering around for three years while being put down and getting sexually harassed, eventually losing it, taking his chances and hardening his heart as he walks down his conniving, badass path of destruction towards the top.
Men with Swords is not a series for the faint-hearted. It’s a game of chess where the main character, Murong Li, is cunning and decisive, cold and ruthless and many recurring characters die horrible, sudden deaths, friend and foe alike, a la Attack on Titan.
The series is filled with political strife and warfare, peppered with some sweet, comedic and romantic undertones. There is a stark contrast between fluffy and dark in its narrative, which is pretty refreshing overall.
With that all aside, I know what you’re probably scrolling down for:
The main characters and their boyfriends
This is it. This is what you’re here for. Most “BL” series are actually bromances, but the real upside for a BL fan is that this show is not a bromance - it’s a BL title, and even with censorship, the love stories prevail.
I’m going to put this under a cut because it’s LONG AF, but what that means is that there is a LOT of BL content available, and not the type that you have to hunt for. They’re very open about it.
While the show itself has a lot of ships, there’s a larger focus on three main ones, namely the beautiful Murong Li and two powerful kings, the fairy-like Ling Guang and his servants, and King Jian Bin with his general.
Murong Li: Da Ji 2.0 and his rich and powerful kings
If you’re a Jin Guangyao fan, you’ll probably enjoy Murong Li and his elegant, charming viles and ruthless scheming. He’s a surprisingly good fighter too, and unlike most elegant and waif-like beauties in dramas and novels alike, he’s a beauty with brains who uses his physical weakness as his strength, bending and seducing his way up to power.
Murong Li only really goes after rich and powerful people, worming his way into the kingdom and taking them down from the inside. Two main love interests are King Zhi Ming, the childish but rich king of Tianquan:
And Yu Xiao, a powerful barbarian king with a soft heart:
Murong Li, while wandering around as a musician, picks up many tricks along the way to hone himself. He’s adept at dressing up, making himself look helpless and alluring to bewitch powerful men, for one:
See that small smile right there? Yes, our boy knows what he’s doing.
Aside from that, Murong Li’s also pretty good at manipulating people by using their jealousies and insecurities, getting them to fight with each other over him.
Murong Li, although modeled after the cruel and beautiful Murong Chong, the Emperor of Wei, is likened to Da Ji, the favorite consort of the King Zhou of Shang. Da Ji was said to be a malevolent fox spirit who started the art of foot-binding to hide her fox feet. Everyone else looking in can see it, but the King was blinded, just like Murong Li’s powerful love interests. In fact, the series draws a direct parallel to it:
The Guo Shi here uses the term “yao”, which alludes to a malevolent spirit.
It’s not that Murong Li doesn’t have a weakness, though. Just like every Jin Guangyao has a Lan Xichen around to cause him to slip now and then, Murong Li surprisingly is weak towards the most naive and childish character in the series, the truant King Zhi Ming, whose only qualities are having purple bangs and being rich and playful.
No matter how calculative and ruthless Murong Li is in the series, he does end up almost slipping up and giving everything away when it comes to this bumbling fellow:
He’s saved only at the nick of time by one of his followers. Murong Li tells a lot of lies, but the one thing he can’t lie about are his feelings towards King Zhi Ming, who is ultimately the one thing he can’t give up next to his kingdom.
There’s a lot more one can write about a complex character such as Murong Li, but the second ship is just as good. It features:
Ling Guang: The Ex-Arrogant Depressed Hamster hung up over a dead ex
Ling Guang, the mortal enemy and foil to Murong Li, is a baby-faced, very-much-older-than-he-looks character whose sole purpose in this series is to wear frilly magenta clothing, destroy the kingdom of Yaoguang, set Murong Li down a path of vengeful destruction and piss off eligible, probably younger bachelors by comparing them to his very handsome, very loyal and very dead boyfriend, his personal guard, Qiu Zhen, who died sometime over thirteen years ago.
The bachelors’ pissed off takes to this are particularly priceless:
Here’s another one from season 2:
That HMPH face is to die for.
Ling Guang’s delusions are met head-on by these eligible bachelors, his ministers and his allies alike:
Only to be met by a, “haha, NO.”
Frustrating, right? It only gets worse as the series progresses. Due to Wuxia’s fantastical existence of sword souls, he begins to actively test his subjects out to see if they’re his dead boyfriend, whose sword soul is still alive:
Gu Shi’an: WTF.
So why do these eligible, handsome bachelors, particularly this guy from season two, jump at his lap every chance they get?
First off, he’s very, very pretty. He’s arguably the prettiest and fanciest king in the series, with a cute rounded face, favoring fluffy organza, frills and feathers in his garb, and sporting fabulous curls like that of a swan princess on a good day.
Secondly, and more importantly, it’s likely because he’s the type loyal dogs adore.
He’s stupidly and openly attached to his bodyguards and servants, unable to hide his feelings or control them. Ling Guang’s relationships are technically the opposite of Murong Li’s. While Murong Li hides his feelings and goes after men of power and tends to use them before leaving them, Ling Guang’s willing to sacrifice everything, including his kingdom, his health and his own life for men who are merely servants.
He's a king who doesn’t know proper protocol. He’s the type who’ll demand to eat with you at the same table:
Creeps outside the palace to see you off:
Hugs your sword around like a pillow while he waddles around listlessly and sleeps with it by his side after you’re long dead (grand total: 13 years):
Coddles you when you’re sick:
Takes arrows for you:
Isn’t afraid to cry and tell you how it is:
Faints violently and won’t rest until he can get your stolen body back:
The results?
If he’s not what loyal bodyguards like, I don’t know what he is. If Murong Li’s love interests have to pit themselves against each other to show how useful they are for his sake, Ling Guang’s love interests need to wrestle with a dead man he can’t let go of... which is hopeless, because you can’t kill a guy who’s already dead.
As a foil to Murong Li, what’s also interesting to note is that it’s alluded to and foreshadowed that he’s exactly the sort the loyal Yu Xiao, the current barbarian king, would have loved to have as a lover - honest, loyal and doting - unlike Murong Li himself. Gongsun Qian, a deputy minister with great foresight, had wanted Ling Guang to go to see the new barbarian kingdom, but he had refused to go outside the palace, shutting himself inside like an otaku. This decision ultimately gave Murong Li a step forward with his plans, at the great cost of four kingdoms, including his own.
Jian Bin: My boyfriend can (REALLY) fight
Next up is Jian Bin and his general. Jian Bin’s the king of Tian Ji, a new kingdom founded by astrologers. The catch here is that Jian Bin and his boyfriend, Qi Zhi Kan, are both men of science, and this tank of a boyfriend is a genius on the battlefield who doesn’t give a single shit about star signs, astrology and superstitions.
A story between a serious, loving king and his handsome general who was once a simple sword-maker in the woods, King Jian Bin meets his handsome ex-lumberjack boyfriend when he’s attacked, falls down from his horse and is rescued by the man himself.
Jian Bin then brings the guy back to his palace and dresses him in armor:
This puts the king’s general on the war path of several ministers and the superstitious people in their kingdom. As lovers, the two go through various trials together in an attempt to run their kingdom their way.
Qi Zhi Kan may seem like a herbivore in front of the king, but he’s really not one at all. He’s terrifying to a degree when it comes to warfare, and very, very difficult to take down. Unlike the other ministers, Qi Zhi Kan knows that he can expand the kingdom quickly and solve problems by waging war.
Even his allies are scared of him:
Ultimately, it’s a ship meant for those who like watching the king teasing his loyal subject and caressing armor whenever he’s around AND not around. Jian Bin even admits to it on-scene:
This loving and devoted couple were originally blessed as the ones with the most piggyback scenes, tender bandaging-your-chest and armor fondling, but they got censored unfortunately.
Scenes like these made the cut, though:
And that’s it! There are actually other minor ships, but these are the main ones for now.
If you’re sold and interested in the show, the series is available online on Rakuten Viki. https://www.viki.com/tv/35524c?locale=zh
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Sk8 The Infinity: Thoughts
I- like many- have finished Sk8 and have a lot of thoughts about the show. I was going to make this three parts but opted for just one. This is split into three sections though:
Adam’s “Redemption”
Character Relationships
Overall thoughts
Adam’s “Redemption”:
Okay let’s not get it twisted, Adam wasn’t really redeemed. At least I don’t think he was. When I initially pictured a redemption I pictured an ending where he got along with Cherry and Joe and the three were skating together again or something. That would be super badass for a shot- but it wouldn’t work and would have ruined any tension between the three in my opinion. So in the eyes of our main six Adam isn’t redeemed which is nice. If anyone wants to argue that he is then… sure? You can do that- I don’t really care though because it is quite clear that he isn’t redeemed in their eyes.
This doesn’t mean I like what they did with Adam’s character though. First of all, he was never going to jail. They set that up to build suspense but it was never really going anywhere which I hated. Despite him not getting redeemed in the eyes of our main six, he still didn’t face any consequences for what he did. I understand that him going to jail would not have been him facing consequences for his actions at S, because they weren’t related, but he got off. In the eyes of the viewer him going to jail would have been consequences for everything he did at S even if that wasn’t why he would have been goin to jail it still was supposed to serve as consequences. Instead he faces no consequences for what he did. He was never going to jail either which is what really pissed me off. The writers of the show made it so that the threat of him going to jail was sorta a red herring. It was something that was under developed and that a lot of viewers really cared about, but if you went to the bathroom during the episode you might not have even known about this subplot at all. The least the show could have done was make this a genuine threat and not something that was just used to build suspense- and it wasn’t even done well.
I get not wanting to send Adam to jail though, I really do. He is a central character who a lot of people really like (even I really like Adam as a villain- I think he makes a really effective villain and his character is explored decently well). Perhaps sending him to jail would have been an ending to his character that was too clear cut. The ending they did decide felt too good for him though. In my opinion he hadn’t earned it. While I’m not entirely sure if I wanted him to go to jail, I think that he should have faced more consequences for how he behaved. Again I think if anything the end of the show paved the way for him to have a larger character arc.
Character relationships:
Oh what probably everyone is here for: the topic of queerbaiting.
If you are reading this in hopes that I support the idea that this show was queerbaiting then you won’t find that here. I don’t think the show was queerbaiting in the slightest. I think that it is incredibly obvious that Cherry, Langa, Adam, and Tadashi are all queercoded as gay characters. Every other character is up for interpretation, yes Reki and Joe are included even if I personally headcanon them both as bi.
The show presents some beautiful friendships and handles them in a way that I love. Reki’s breakdown and self doubt feels realistic and how he and Langa reconnect was handled well and I think the pacing was good too. Langa and Reki contrast one another really well and obviously the same applies to Joe and Cherry. I have said it before but a spin off show with Joe and Cherry as central characters would be *chef’s kiss*.
Had these two pairings been explicitly flirting with one another then yeah we would have been queerbaited. Does that mean you can’t interpret romantic undertones from all of this? No it doesn’t mean that at all, I interpret both relationships as romantic- but they also make really well written friendships.
Where the show falls flat on its face and where I do take issue with the queercoding is the ending. By the end of the show I think it is quite obvious that Tadashi/Adam is canon. Their relationship isn’t normal by any means but they are in a relationship. Do I think it is a healthy relationship? No. Like k*nks aside- Adam treated Tadashi like shit through the bulk of this show. Adam is the most heavily queercoded character in the show so it rubs me the wrong way that this relationship is the one they make the most explicit. It rubs me the wrong way that Cherry and Langa’s sexualities are made more clear after having interactions with Adam. It presents the narrative that gay people turn other people gay and by having Adam be a flamboyant gay character it pairs gay with the idea of being evil and promotes sterotypes. Someone made a really good video covering this and I can’t find it- If I do I will repost this with a link- or if someone else wants to comment it then I’ll repost and add it into post. Flashbacks aside I wish we had gotten some scenes where it was a little more obvious that Adam cared about Tadashi. Don’t get me wrong- I know he does- but Adam acted like an asshole towards tadashi for the majority of the show and then pulled the “all is forgiven” between the two right at the end. Healthy relationships aren’t needed in a show and I don’t think these two need to have one, but having it be the only/most explicit relationship in the show is upsetting. I would have loved to see a healthy queer relationship be made canon.
Not having these other relationships be made canon is fine. I understand wanting representation, but it is just eh-
I get both sides of this- the side that desperately want’s queer rep that they are willing to settle and thirst over the crumbs they get and then demand an explicit relationship when we aren’t handed one. I also understand the argument of the cultural differences and how I can only ever look at this through a western lense. Japan has a vastly different culture and their media reflects that even if obviously they do try and appeal to a wider audience. I am very conflicted on this and am totally fine with matchablossom and renga not being made canon even if I do understand the appeal. Again what rubs me the wrong way is the relationship they do decide to make pretty much explicit. Anyone who wants to argue me that Tadashi/Adam is a healthy queer rep can- but from what we have seen… it really isn’t.
Overall Thoughts:
I love sk8 the infinity and I hope they get another season. The difficulty it must be to tell a full story with fleshed out characters in around four hours of run time is something I can’t imagine. Every single character feels fairly well done and they are all loveable in their own way. I understand the appeal people have towards any character. In fact there isn’t a single character that I actively hate. At the end of the day Sk8 The Infinity is meant to be a light hearted anime about having fun skateboarding. The animation is amazing, the music is wonderful- in fact I don’t think it could have been better- the characters that fill this world are all incredibly lovable, the show is so much fun to watch. The creators did that, they gave us a beautiful and fun show. Ending the show with Adam going to jail would have pulled away from what the show was trying to accomplish. The show was trying to have fun and I sincerely hope they get a second season so we can see every single one of these loveable characters again. I hope I got my thoughts across in this show but I am definitely willing to clarify if anything is confusing.
#sk8 the infinity#sk8#matchablossom#renga#adam#shindo ainosuke#reki kyan#langa hasegawa#kaoru sakurayashiki#kojiro nanjo#tadashi sk8
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Author Interview
I was tagged by the amazing @arrowflier to participate. Thanks for the tag!
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
3 (but I'll write more for sure)
2. What’s your total AO3 word count?
188,687
3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
Under Lock and Key (390 kudos)
Estate of Blood and Trust (269 kudos)
Taking a Chance on Love (160 kudos)
4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
Yes! I am giddy whenever I get one. It's way easier to read a fic, shrug your shoulders, and move on, so it makes me really happy when someone takes time to leave feedback.
5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?
Probably "Taking a Chance on Love" because it's unresolved. It leaves a lot to the imagination, and it ends with Mickey in a pretty raw place. It implies a happy future, but one that's not spelled out in the story.
6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?
"Under Lock and Key." I try to not overstay my welcome once everyone is happy, but I let Ian and Mickey have the most milestones in that one.
7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?
Oooh, not yet.
8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?
Not necessarily, although not everyone likes that I painted Lip as a villain in "Estate of Blood and Trust."
9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
If by smut you mean porn without a plot, then no, not yet. But I don't mind showing everything in sex scenes. My hope is to make any naughty time have relevance to the character development. When my husband reads and comments that he's "tired of the gay sex," it's my cue to scale it back.
10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not that I know of!
11. Have you ever had a fic translated?
I've been approached to have "Under Lock and Key" translated, but it isn't complete yet.
12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
Nope, but I wouldn't be averse to it.
13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?
I have to say Gallavich because it's the first one that inspired me to write. But I also love Hannigram and Fleabag/Priest. I was a huge Bellarke shipper until that show went off the rails. I'm still bummed that Lance and Keith weren't endgame on Voltron.
14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?
I wrote about 1/3 of a YA romance novel with dark undertones. It's not in any fandom; it's an original work. I love the idea and what I completed so far, but I don't know if it has enough meat for me to finish it.
15. What are your writing strengths?
I try to have good grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure. I've been told I have good editing. I suck out as much fat as I can so that the stories stay moving, so that every scene has a point.
16. What are your writing weaknesses?
I'm really impatient. Meaning, I know where I want my characters to go and already write them as if they're at the finish line. I have to remind myself to slow down and soak in the pre-growth versions of them so that their changes feel more earned. So, I guess, pacing of character change. I’m working on it.
17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
I've done snippets here and there, just a couple of phrases. I'm okay with it, but I haven't had much need for it so far.
18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?
Shameless!
19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?
The Umbrella Academy. Specifically, Five and Mr. Pennycrumb.
20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?
"Under Lock and Key." I finished it last week, so I'm still going through withdrawal of not having that story in my daily routine anymore.
I'm tagging these people (and feel free to play along even if you aren't tagged!):
@mzshko @yeah-all-of-it @notherenj-nowherenj @wildxwired
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You made a tag comment about how Buddie wasn't planned from the beginning. And therefore what we got in Season 2 wasn't (at the time) the groundwork for a love story. I agree completely! Much of it I can see as either a bit of fun (the Christmas elf, the instagram girl) or that kind of hyper-masc heterosexuality that loops around itself and becomes gay (Buck's whole...thing with Eddie in the beginning, the focus on Eddie's body/hotness/physical appearance). But sometimes I step back and look at the whole and I'm all 🧐 🤔.
I don't even know what I'm asking lol. Would just love your thoughts/feelings on the confusing spectacle that are Buck and Eddie in season 2. And when/how/why did the show change their mind?
Thank you so much for the ask and you know what? Let’s talk about it.I recently had an in depth chat about this pretty unpopular opinion with a friend and I tried to explain to her why I don't see buddie as an actual pairing or having any canon potential until early s3 and why I don't believe they were planned from the beginning.This will be long and all over the place of course lol
The first and the most obvious reason is the way 911 deals with main characters and their romantic arcs.They don't actually drag it on for long because there is no need or time for that since every single main character has a strong storyline of their own and any romantic development between any pair as an additional combined storyline. Relationships happen fast on 911 because they are planned ahead and the only relationship that took longer than usual few episodes was Chim and Maddie and they were already kissing and planning a date in 2x11.
Also when shows enter their second season there is never a way to predict how long it will stay on the air and because of that it is impossible for me to believe that buddie was planned as some epic old school slowburn that is nowhere as close to be resolved after 3 seasons.When I say old school slowburn I mean shows that have this one heterosexual romance at the center of the universe that is usually stretched across seasons and builds up sexual tension between characters and it takes literally years for them to finally get together.We have these two characters that where made for each other and you KNOW that they will eventually get together because of some ridiculous pining that will eventually end in a kiss and everyone will scream and cry.And maybe that’s how buddie feels to me now after years of careful build up-but the way I see it they as a potential something didn't happen in s2.
We all joke about how character introduction of Eddie is the gayest we have ever seen and Buck's reaction to him as true bisexual and I do that myself too because I am a bisexual too and tbh its hard to unsee (also I don't want to) but lets remove our rainbow glasses for a second. What really did happened in that scene? Eddie's perfect abs on display,Chim and Hen fun comments on how beautiful he is,Bobby's praise and bragging about getting Eddie and his Silver Star on the team and Buck's insecurities flaring up as a reaction to all of this.Buck immediately feels threatened.At this point we of course have no idea how deeply his insecurities run or why,but as episode progresses we witness Eddie on his first call making a better decision to how to handle a medical situation and backed up by Bobby.It has sort of a devastating effect on Buck,who suddenly starts acting like we have never seen him before.Then there is a that scene at the gym where Buck tells Eddie how he is his problem. And later we of course have the scene in ambulance when Eddie asked what exactly they are measuring. Because that's what it looked like - a usual macho men measuring context. But the thing is 911 doesn’t toxic masculinity when it comes to main male characters and we saw many examples of that already by then,but the biggest one was supposed to be BuckandEddie. Equals,partners and best friends.
911 was already pushing boundaries with cast,characters and relationships diversity and I strongly believe that what they wanted to show us was a male equivalent of what we are used to see in female bffs -a different kind of a friendship between men. Men who care about each other,who talk about feelings,discuss sex,dating or why they don’t,who again openly acknowledge that they find each other attractive and giving advices on how to take a more flattering selfie,who are not afraid of crying, admit they are struggling or heartbroken or loving their kid.Honestly when was the last time any of us saw a male friendship like theirs?Men are not allowed to be like that on TV (I am still shocked that its a Fox show tbh) and especially with each other.We are not used to see such a development so no wonder people started paying attention-which was what writers wanted,of course.
But that also brings us to that important question about queer undertones,subtext and do what we actually see in s2. Are there queer undertones?Absolutely. Subtext?It’s right there but you will probably not get it unless you’re reading between the lines.Before we get to Christmas Elf,there was ‘’He is cute!/He gets that a lot,you should’ve seen his kid...’’ Maddie and Buck scene that is once again reinforces that Buck finds Eddie attractive and it shouldn’t be a surprise because we already know from 2x01 he has eyes - but they mention it AGAIN and that personally made me raise a brow or two.By the time we get to that Christmas episode,we already have Shannon back and Buck finally moved on from Abby with Taylor and then Ali and then we are given another queer coded scene-with Christmas elf.And its very cute and to an average heterosexual viewer its a nice little joke,but any queer watching that scene was probably taken aback a little.
So why imo did Tim&Co do it and when they realized they can actually see where they can take BuckandEddie and when they started becoming buddie?My answer is ship teasing.It’s what a lot of people actually mistake for queer baiting,but we are not talking about that rn.Ship teasing works like charm and if shows can get away with that-they will totally use it to their advantage.It’s usually not always malicious,but it IS always intentional because that brings in a category of people that were overlooked for a long time-online fandom.Now I have seen some opinions that fandom doesn’t really matter,it’s the ratings that count and that is NOT TRUE.You can have your ratings,but if there is no buzz online?Your show is going nowhere.For at least a decade now every self-respecting production has teams to monitor fandom activities because it gives them better ideas about how consumers(fans) are interacting with their product (show).Fandom is important because we generate the buzz.So I do believe that BuckandEddie and that sweet ship teasing were to get a certain part of the fandom pay attention.
I wasn’t here when S2 aired so I don’t know if that was the case,but it is obvious that these scenes I talked about above made fans pay a LOT of attention. And maybe that was the reaction writers needed to start changing course from ship teasing to start building up to something else.They maybe didn’t plan it at the very beginning and on paper,but lets also not forget the insane chemistry between Oilver and Ryan,which imo is another big reason-it's impossible to ignore.
Because S3?Is light years away from S2 in terms of BuckandEddie-they became buddie.In s3 Buck and Eddie become each other’s significant other,they are in a primary relationship. ’’Buck invites Eddie...’’?!!!!! It is not yet romantic and probably won’t be until ending of s5 if we are lucky-but it is in your face,they are not subtle anymore.I personally saw buddie only at the end of 3x03 when Eddie came over and said that there is noone in the world he trusts with his son more than Buck, looking like he did into Buck’s eyes,while ‘Photograph’ played in the background right before Buck’s overvoice about being seen and found and a raft to bring one home. After S4 ending tho...we all know that something is about to happen and its like there is electricity in the air as we are waiting for s5!
Probably a lot more thoughts than you expected,but I have many feelings about these two and when buddie goes canon this post will become completely irrelevant lol 💖
#what i was trying to say#is that s2 still can be read as heterosexual#but s3? no way#s3 was different#it was impossible to ignore that something is going on#911#buddie
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The Destiel Folder: Season 6
[Season 4; Season 5] Man, this season... an emotional rollercoaster
Episode 3:
Cas admits he and Dean "share a more profound bond." (15:35) uuuhmm okay
"You think I came because you called?" (16:31) cut to "I always come when you call" later on in E21
"When a claim is laid on a living sould, it leaves a mark, a brand." ... like a handprint maybe? (22:33) Cas basically called dibs on Dean and admits it
Dean, I get it, Cas looks hot when he fights, but you don't have to look at him like this (24:42)
The amount of eye-fucking in this scene (25:56) almost 30 seconds (of Dean checking out Cas) of Old married coupleTM moments. Dean is worried about Cas dying again by the hands of an archangel. He just got attacked and wants to go out. But Cas has to go save the universe from a holy war. Basically a wife asking her soldier husband not to leave for the war.
[(26:28-26:30) Dean was totally looking at the BOOTY]
NOW FOR THE JUICY STUFF: Cas and Balthazar obviously had a history. More than brothers or war buddies. We could parallel them to Dean and Lisa: both old flames coming back after a long time and all.
Also, Balthazar can sense something is going on between Cas and Dean. It's so clear he can (35:26). ICWAW, we would assume Balthazar was an ex, getting jealous over Cas' new love interest
Episode 6:
"You asked me to be here, and I came", OH what about the whole 'I don't come because you call' thing? (13:40)
How domestic is this moment. Cas pouring Dean a drink, trying to comfort him (14:03). He hates seeing Dean like this, and hates even more the fact he can't do anything about it
Cas knows Dean is hurt enough already, and doesn't want to get him involved with a war that's not his to fight (14:20), but still wants to help
Episode 7:
Second time Cas starts stripping in front of Dean and he just stares (2:32)
Look, all I'm saying is... they really don't have to stand THAT CLOSE to each other (4:07)
Episode 9:
[Not a destiel moment but Dean struggling to say the words "gay guy" is too fucking funny to me (33:45)]
Episode 10:
Dean, will you not check out the angel in front of your brother, please? (11:54)
Dean is visibly uncomfortable at Cas watching porn practically NEXT to him, and having a BONER practically next to him. Understandable, but still... kinda gay (15:58) Look at Dean's face, my God (16:07)
[I'm screaming Dean looks like he's wondering what it'd be like to kiss Cas (25:29)]
"CAS?!" (26:23) the way Dean gets progressively more worried about Cas fading/being taken away and shit, kills me
[Cas is so fucking confused as to why Dean would suggest he'd let him have an hour alone with Meg (39:25), either that or he's embarrassed he might've actually wanted to. Meg and Castiel were cute together]
"If there's anything we can do-" "There isn't. I wish circumstances were different. *stares at Dean with puppy eyes* Much of the time, I'd rather be here." (39:46)
Also, Dean stares at Cas for 15 seconds, but averts his eyes when saying "We're your friends"? (40:01) Denial? Something's off. ICWAW, this would indicate tension, unspoken feelings
Just... the way Dean looks at Cas, and when he flies away (40:17) HIS EYES
Episode 11:
Balth jokingly calls Cas Sam's 'boyfriend', and Sam reacts normally, letting it fly over his head. When later in episode 17, Balth calls Cas "the angel in the dirty trench coat who's in love with you", Dean gets pissy. Just like later in 10x5. Touchy much? (13:48)
Balth admits he doesn't like Dean, and that "screwing him would delight me", but calls the one brother who threatened to crisp his wings, a "capable young man" (14:46). Jealous much? ICWAW we would read some sort of romantic rivalry between those two.
Episode 14:
This face... where have I seen this face before?
Oh yes, here
Dean looks at Lisa, the so called "love of his life", the same way he looks at Cas. Fuck my life
Episode 15:
"Cas" (Misha) starts stripping and Dean... stares... again (9:23)
"Well, Cas... now that you have your sword, try not to die by it." (39:53) Is it a saying? Or a reference to Dean being Michael's Sword? As in "He is gonna be the death of you"? And Balth looks at Cas THAT WAY?! (40:01) You can't tell me there was nothing between these two. Kill me now
Fucking stop being an old bitching married coupleTM already (40:25) you are hurting me
Episode 17:
Balth 'jokes' about Cas being in love with Dean (18:48) ICWAW we would read this as an ex being petty about the new love interest and teasing said love interest about it
Wow, jealous much, Dean? Again, ICWAW, this would totally be seen as jealousy for your crush's ex (27:30). And Dean, you're staring at Cas' lips again (27:37)
[Sam: "So, you killed 50,000 people for us?" Cas: *looks at Dean* "... No, I didn't... They were never born." (37:49) This is so stupid, but... sure, Cas... sure. That's what you ment.]
Cas makes a small speech about fighting for freedom, choosing your fate and all, while looking at Dean (38:55). OKAY SUBTEXT!!!
[As soon as Dean mentions boobs, Cas is gone (39:36) LOL]
Episode 19:
"It's not like Cas lives in my ass. The dude's busy. [...] Cas, get out of my ass!!!" "I was never in... your-" (4:28) and then they stare... Were you having unholy thoughts guys?
"Without your power you're basically just a baby in a trench coat" #MARRIED (10:38), "My friend is very sick." "I have a, uh... painful burning sensation." OH COME ON!!! (11:22)
"You know who whines? Babies. *pats Castiel*" (14:28) I'm sorry, pats him wHERE??!!
Dean saves Cas again (19:38)
The way Cas says "Dean, Dean!" (23:09)... I'm so fucking weak, and look at those EYES! (23:41) kill me now
"The kid... The little kid, he's one of them." "... Unbelievable." "Yeah, I know, Cas. You told me, all right?" (37:48) #MARRIED
Sam and Bobby immediately think Cas might be betraying them (39:31), while Dean won't even immagine the possibility. "This is Cas we're talking about!" (39:52)
Episode 20:
Even tho Dean can sense something is off with Cas, he won't bring himself to admit it. And the eye-car-sex. That. (4:44-4:53)
"You're distracted. [...] Is that all you're holding, huh? See... the stench of that Impala's all over your overcoat, angel." (6:20) this has such sexual undertones. ICWAW, it would be MENT as having sexual undertones. Also Crowley ships it
Dean protects Cas even tho clear evidence is there, and even feels bad about lying to him (12:06). And Cas feels oh so bad about Dean trying to be loyal to him, even when he was starting to suspect (13:18)
Dean still refuses to acknowledge the possibility of Cas' betrayal (19:56). His speech about Cas... I'm weak. "He broke ranks, gone to the mat, cut and bleeding for us, so many frigging times. This is Cas!" (20:10). ICWAW, this would be read as Dean having feelings for Cas, and as those feelings were getting in the way of his best judgment
Cas goes against the King of Hell to save the boys... but Dean first (21:48), and Dean defendes him against Bobby and Sam, apologizing for doubting about him. Cas hates having to break their trust
The look on Dean's face as he realizes Cas had been lying the whole time... BROKEN (23:35-23:49)
Cas doesn't want Dean to have to sacrifice more than he already had for him (25:19), and when Crowley shows up, Cas' first instinct is to look back at Dean protectively (25:30), and does that again before following Crowley (26:17)
Cas wants Dean to be happy, stay retired, even tho he was so longingly looking at him moments earlier (29:09)
"You gotta look at me, man. [...] Look me in the eye and tell me you're not working with Crowley." (32:38) the absolute desperation in both Dean and Cas, how HURT they look. THEIR EYES! Dean looks devastated
"I did it to protect you, I did it to protect all of you!" (33:09) one of the many "you, all of you" no-homo saves Cas pulls while talking to/about Dean
"I had no choice!" "No, you had a choice... You just made the wrong one." (34:21) how fucking hurt Dean looks. "Where were you when I needed to hear it?" THE EYES
"I was there... Where were you? *flashback to Cas looking back at Dean*" I'M DEAD
"It's not too late. Damn it, Cas. We can fix this!" "Run. You have to run, now. RUN!" (35:33) and they do, but Dean looks back at Cas, and the way they look at each other... STOP (35:47-35:52) ICWAW, this whole scene would seem like someone trying to save their loved one, and OH boy, that stare exchange would seem either a silent confession or a reminder of their feelings for the other
Cas visits Dean in the night, even tho they clearly don't trust him and don't want him there, and Dean leaves it be (38:06), and even apologizes for having to angel-proof the house against him
#MARRIED (38:28), "I'm doing this for you, Dean. I'm doing this because of you." (38:35) ICWAW... do I even need to point this out?
"Next to Sam, you and Bobby are the closest thing I have to family..." the look on Cas' face as Dean says this (39:15) "... that you are like a brother to me." did Cas' eyes just get more glossy? Poor baby. Also, ICWAW, by the way they interact, this statement would feel wrong on so many levels
"You're just a man. I'm an angel." ... why does it feel like Cas is telling that to himself more than to Dean? (39:43) "I'm sorry, Dean." (39:55) Kill me
Cas questions his decisions, asks God for guidance, the moment he understood he hurt Dean. He doesn't want to hurt Dean, but will do what he has to do to if it means he will be safe
Episode 21:
[Not a destiel moment, but "fragile masculinity" much, Dean? (4:20) "I was too busy having sex with women." (why do you feel the need to specify 'women'?)]
This Dean-Balth bickering has such current-former love interest fight vibes (8:52). Come on, ICWAW, this would totally be the case
Here's another Cas/Lisa parallel: how Dean acts here, looking for Ben and Lisa (13:11), and how he acts in S8 while looking for Castiel ("WHERE'S THE ANGEL!?")
Cas saves Dean again (21:46). "I didn't ask for your help." "Well, regardless. You're welcome." #MARRIED
They are both on the verge of tears... "I thought you said that we were like family." (22:22) They hate this situation. They hate not being like always, close, friendly, family
"Dean... I do everything that you ask... I always come when you call. And I am your friend." (22:39) the way he says 'Dean' and how his voice trembles. Dean is basically almost crying now (23:45)
"Dean, I said I'm sorry and I ment it." "Thank you... I wish this changed anything..." "I know.. So do I." (37:45)
[Alright. I do believe Dean really grew to love Lisa during that year they spent together, but I don't buy the "I always loved you, ever since that one hook up on that one weekend we knew each other for" shit. Dean wanted to give a try to the whole 'apple pie life' he'd promised Sam, with a good woman he knew Dean had feelings for.
If he grew to love Lisa over a couple of years after 1 hook up, I'm sure he could do the same thing for Cas after over a decade (he for sure would have already If Cas Were A Woman)]
Episode 22:
["You've always got little old me." "Yes... I'll always have you." (30:26) These two... Come on, they HAD to be ex lovers!]
"We were family once. I'd have died for you. I almost did a few times (Cas did actually, twice). So if that means anything to you... Please... I've lost Lisa, I've lost Ben, and now I've lost Sam... Don't make me lose you too." (39:55) ICWAW, this would be seen as a straight up CONFESSION
The hurtful look on Dean's face when Cas says "You're not my family, Dean.", and the terror when he thought for a second that Sam might have killed him (40:39)
["You will bow down and profess your love unto me, your Lord... or I shall destroy you." ... okay, Cas, honey, I get you are tired of waiting, but this is not the right way to get a confession out of Dean (41:20)]
[Season 7>>]
#the destiel folder#icwaw#if castiel were a woman#destiel#dean winchester#castiel#dean x castiel#supernatural#spn#jensen ackles#misha collins#supernatural spn#deancas#dean is bi#casdean#supernatural series#supernatural rewatch#rewatch#spnfandom#spn rewatch#spn fandom#supernatural fandom#fandom#gay ships#destiel moments#parallels#time stamp#spn balthazar#destiel should be canon#spn season 6
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I just gotta yammer a bit about anime scenes.
I actually really like Fraxus in the anime. Like, sure, sometimes they use Freed’s devotion for a quick gag, but I feel like even those scenes can be sweet. And of course, when they add actual, longer scenes of it, they handle it really well.
The ballroom scene had gag elements. Freed put himself out there and cried when Laxus walked away. But the thing is, the joke wasn’t about Freed. It wasn’t that Freed was a dumb gay idiot who clearly never has a chance with Laxus why does he bother? Laxus didn’t harshly reject Freed or ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. Laxus didn’t reject him at all. The entire joke was that Laxus got distracted. Even Laxus’ frowny face when Freed was asking him wasn’t a sign of rejection. Laxus’ face is a resting bitch face, he’s just looks like that all the time. They handled it in a way that let me giggle without leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
Now the bath scene, the bath scene I love a lot. It may not seem like it, but it really shows just how comfortable with Freed Laxus is.
Now in the japanese version, Laxus starts out thanking Freed when he asks/offers to wash his back, which is nice, compared to the english “sure, why not”.
But here is the thing, in the japanese version, Max and Warren are talking to themselves/each other, wondering if Freed is blushing, while in the english version they tease Freed directly about being super happy to be near/touch Laxus. Freed denies he is blushing in the original version, but in english he doesn’t deny he likes being near Laxus at all and instead tells them to let him work in peace.
In both versions, there are undertones of “Hmm, that’s a little homo of you Freed”. And Freed can hear them. Which means Laxus, with his dragon slayer hearing, can also hear them. So what does Laxus do? Does he go “Hmm, this is a little homo. I should tell Freed to stop.”? No. He directly encourages Freed to continue. “Scrub it good” he says. The other dudes in the bath are either directly or indirectly calling Freed out for totally being gay for Laxus, and Laxus encourages the behavior they find suspicious. He goes even farther later by telling Freed to get every inch of his body after he overhears the girls say it.
There are several reasons why this could be. The first is that Laxus is an oblivious fucking idiot to the nth power, but I really don’t think that’s it.
Another reason (and far more likely) is that Laxus trusts Freed. Even if Freed was/is gay, Laxus doesn’t care. He’s doing something nice for Laxus and it feels nice, and if other dudes think it looks suspicious they can go fuck themselves because Freed is precious to Laxus and Freed’s feelings matter more to him.
The next one is very blatantly in the english version a bit before the tartaros hug scene. The Thunder Legion is waiting for Laxus to wake up and Freed is beating himself up for not being able to do jack shit to help Laxus during the first attack, and Bickslow chooses the worst possible word choice imaginable. Evergreen tells Freed not to worry (paraphrased) because Laxus has always been stronger than the three of them, so there really wasn’t anything they could have done. Bickslow, in his infinite wisdom (or infinite stupidity), says “If you haven’t figured out that Laxus is out of your league by now”. Bickslow says this. To Freed. Who has clearly been holding a candle for Laxus for years. (Freed, prior, also said “I don’t deserve him” about Laxus) Que a gag about Freed deciding to end his life. To say I completely lost my shit was an understatement. The two completely different meanings that sentence held between Bickslow and Freed was the funniest fucking thing to me. Like mmm -chefs kiss- loved that scene a ton. Though I still can’t tell if Freed said “Goodbye cruel friends” or “Goodbye cool friends.” And you can’t forget that the last thing Freed said before Laxus woke up and interrupted the Groups’ collective freak out was “Tell Laxus I’ve always-” Tell Laxus that you’ve always what Freed? I bet I can fucking guess.
Then there is the the party finale where Laxus has a shit ton of rumors about the ladies with Freed being super jelly in the background the whole time. He then proceeds to get in Laxus space and offer him food and a massage. Laxus, a bit awkwardly, says “Uh, sure”. Laxus, who is bad with people, especially in public, is a bit awkward at Freed’s PDA. It’s completely in character for him and once again he’s not rejecting Freed/is actually encouraging his behavior.
The gag’s at Freed’s expense are always when Freed goes a bit overboard and starts crying or something, which naturally puts off the awkward Laxus, but otherwise? Laxus never rejects Freed. He actively encourages Freed to be near him/dote on him. The joke is never that Freed is wasting his time pining after Laxus, or that his feelings are dumb or weird, or completely unwanted. When the scenes actually have length, the two of them clearly respect and care about each other, and their relationship is treated well and I enjoy those scenes.
#fraxus#Under a read more both so I can yammer as much as I want without worrying for length#And also I know some people hate the anime scenes and I wanna be polite so they don't have to read this
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The Untamed, episode 43 - watching notes
The sun is setting on this show for me and I'm not ready to say goodbye yet 😔
(As if I will! Ha. Imma blog about nothing else the next ... probably years)
Last time on Sophie watches the untamed: We're still in the restricted section. The twin love-struck idiots of lan and wwx found the Collection of turmoil and suspect Jin Guangyao of intentionally bringing about Nie Mingjue's qui deviation.
As much as I love the "hihi. Wwx is wearing his boyfriend's underrobe" aspect of this, I also like the visual incorporation of lwj's colour scheme into wwx's clothes. (Not just through the undertone, his black tone also has slight grey seam.) It's as if now that they are finally fully committed to each other, wwx is displaying it for all the world to see
Jin Guangyao tore out a page to hide the evidence. That's not how to do that!!!
My heart is breaking for Lan Xichen. He looks like a man standing on a train track and watching the light speed towards him in horror while he's unable to move away
Feels like exactly no one on this show is getting their happy ending
*thinks about yi city and cries forever*😭😭😭
"Wangji, Jin Guangyao,in my eyes, is a totally different person from how you and other people see him." And we all know that lwj knows exactly what that's like
PARALLELS! 😭
(Sorry, I have a thing for those)
And lwj looks so pained
Thinking about it, it's now the man lwj loves against the man lxc loves (in whatever way. I still ship them. Not sure if its "canonically" romantic though). They can't both be right, so ... one of them is going to get their heart broken
Great, first the Yunmeng brothers, now the lan brothers are breaking my heart 🥺
Lwj says he's visiting "Grand Master", that's Lan Qiren right? What happened to him anyway? Haven't seen him in ages
I love how, even though it is wwx's word against jgy's right now, lan Xichen is still genuinely kind towards wwx
The whipping scars! I hadn't even thought about those anymore 😳
I'm probably going to get my heart ripped out soon, but before that
"You are not qualified to talk to me."
Sickest. Burn. Ever.
Also, no disrespect to the actor, but that's a backpfeifengesicht if I've ever seen one
(Backpfeifengesicht: "German compound word for a 'face that should be slapped'. Ex:. When GWB smirks on TV, my German friend Uwe tells me that he sees a 'Backpfeifengesicht'." Urban dictionary)
He went to burial mount after wwx was killed??? 🥺🥺🥺
I've noticed something with lwj. When he's distressed, he won't look people in the eye or not even at their faces, just in their very general direction. To me it seems like he almost... can't? Any thoughts on that? Cause I'm intrigued but I can't think about it too much right now cause I'm already writing half an essay in this commentary again 😅
Oh fuck YOU Jiggy!!!
Holy shit ... holy shit
Lan Wangji 🥺🥺🥺
He fought against everyone?
This is how he showed his grieve???
He went to the place wei Wuxian had called home and ... what? Protected or ot so they wouldn't desecrate it? To search for him? To ... what?
Oh god, Wangji! 😭
That image... I'm speechless. It's so powerful
He's half-mad with grieve and kneeling in the ruins of his dead loves home, having fought himself to exhaustion and I'm... not okay 😭😭😭
He had to repent for THREE YEARS??
Oh no, you don't
Holy ...
Holy shit
How can my heart break and be so full at the same time 💔🥺
Lan Wangji ... my love
I'm ... so proud of him and yet so sad
Here he is at his lowest, finally standing up to the orthodoxy he knows to be wrong
This is inhumane 😳
The corporal punishment of the lan sect always was but THIS
Fuck them
Or Lan Qiren specifically
That's his nephew. How can he even look at himself?
"Eradicate evil. Establish laws. Than goodness will be everlasting."
IT'S NOT THAT FUCKING EASY!!!
WHAT EVEN IS "GOODNESS"? WHOSE VERSION OF GOODNESS? DEVINE EVIL! HOW FAR REACHING INTO THE PRIVATE SVERE SHOULD THUSE LAWS BE? DOES IT STOP AT "DON'T STEAL FROM PEOPLE OR AT "DON'T PICK YOUR NOSE AT DINNER"?
what I'm saying is: there are about 200 ethical question ls being raised by this rule alone!
And now lan Wangji had 3 tears to contemplate them
Wwx asking "why would he bother ...?" BECAUSE YOU ARE LOVED YOU GODDAMN IDIOT!!
Ohhh! We're getting their parents' story 😱
Oh this IS a Lan episode 💙
So another Lan falling quickly and never looking back?
I'm sensing a pattern here 🤨
Wait what?
Let me get this straight:
Their father loved a woman who DID NOT love him back and then killed one of his teachers
(And I hope we find out why. That sounds like there is a REALLY interesting story there)
Then he takes her to cloud recess and DESPIT HER NOT LOVING HIM, marries her, fathers two children with her (um... how voluntary was that????) locks her up (as punishment for the murder?) then locks HIMSELF up and then fucks of and leaves his children with their uncle
What kind of disaster human being was their dad????
Did he do the right thing WHEN HE MARRIED AND PROBABLY RAPED A WOMAN WHO DIDN'T LOVE HIM???
NO!!!
The fuck kinda question is that ??
If you have to marry her against her will and then lock her up, guess what? That's not love, that's wanting to possess someone
I hope that maybe the connotation is different in the og Chinese,but I'm not holding out much hope
That explains why Qiren is such a lovely character through 😒
But god, my heart breaks for lwj and lxc :'(
Little Lan Wangji!!! 🥺🥺🥺
Oh darling ...
Oh no ...
Look at him look at his crooked little headband😭😭😭
He went there every month!!!
Oh Wangji 💔💔
Stubborn, steadfast, loving Wangji!
That seals it. I KNEW why he was my favourite character
He isn't so passive all the time, because he feels too little! He feels entirely too much!!! 😭😭😭
And that explains why lwj was so worried about wwx's demonic cultivation harming him!!! 😭
Oh god, it was such an old hurt for him. I had no idea 🥺🥺🥺
All of these characters need a therapist
Lxc playing the flute to what ... deal with his emotions? Express his grieve? Remeber their mother? (And god, do I want to know more about her!!) Either way, It's making me tear up 😥
"It's so difficult to determine others personalities depending on our perspective." Welcome to the human condition, my friend 💙
And that's love
I ... wish I could show you my face right now
I'm smiling through tears right now
It's so utterly beautiful
He looks so vulnerable here! With his hair (almost) down
And given what we've just learned, that's remarkable!!!
He closed himself off became the immovable stone-faced second Jade of Lan and yet, somehow, wwx wormed his way into his heart and sure, both of them needed to overcome a lot, but here they are, vulnerable and open,not letting their parent's fate decide theirs
I'm... *sniff*
I can never get enough of lwj with his hair like this!!
It's so domestic, so soft
And look at his face! 😭
And mister "alcohol is prohibited" is now serving it 😭
Oh my god this scene is so beautiful
I'm speechless
Was the second flute Jin Guangyao as well?
At this point I'm just expecting more plot-twists
He looks so young! 🥺
Both of them are exhibiting so much growth in this episode!! Wwx realising that the fact that the cultivation world had always looked for a scapegoat and that he himself was just the most convenient target, that it's not to any personal failing of his, that's HUGE!
And I'm so proud of him :')
Lwj starting to play in the distance :')
This is so utterly peaceful
My heart is bursting 😭😭😭
The music, the scenery ...
Also, both thinking they have a clean conscious!!! 😭😭😭
Again, it's them holding the same morals that's important! I cannot tell you how happy that makes me!
(But wwx still cannot drink like a normal person :D)
The contrast to lxc sitting alone couldn't be starker 😔
Wait, why are there puppets at burial mounds again?
Are we going back to burial mounds? I'm weirdly excited 😅
Aaand Jin Guangyao just proved to them that he's lying. Poor Xichen
Yup, I'm pretty sure his heart just snapped in half
Little Apple!!! I've missed him 😁
Gosh, they're laying it on thick with the domestic husband bliss this episode and I'm here for it.
I love lwj's soft smile when he looks at bunnies so much!! 🥰
Bunnies, bunnies everywhere
It's the invasion of the bunnies
Who ever is the show runner *banging pots and pans together* IT'S GAY!! cab you all hear me? These two love each other! It's G - A - Y!!! Gay!!!
Probably
Lwj's shocked look when wwx says that he's not popular with little animals, as if to say "how dare they!" :D
Holy shit ... HOW MANY SCENES CAN THEY INCLUDE IN THIS EPISODE THAT MAKE THEM LOOK SO GODDAMN MARRIED???
Is wwx sitting side saddle?
Wwx plays wangxian :')
He finally remembers how lwj recognized him :')
Sneaky, show, very sneaky :D
Wwx about to casually steal some melons, lwj *wordlessly takes out money* ^^
MIANMIAN!!!! AAAAAAHHHHHH!
I'd given up hope that we'd see her again!!!
I'm so happy I could burst!!!
Lwj's little exasperated head-shake before he stands up from crouching behind some hay 😂
Aww, look at her family! 😍😍😍
She build her own live :')
And look at this badass woman protecting the ones she loves!!!
ARE YOU KIDDING ME WEI WUXIAN??? You don't remember her???
You better remember my wife!!!
Aaand another freeze frame. But I'm willing to forgive it because THIS EPISODE WAS SO GODDAMN BRILLIANT!
It made me realise why I was so drawn to lan Wangji as a character. Of course he is mu favourite character! He ticks every single box
Let me explain. My favourite characters almost always share the following characteristics: seems either cold and distant or ethereal and aloof, as if they are above such puny human things like feelings™️(bonus if they're actually not human and their argument is "I'm [insert species]. We can't feel [insert emotion they are definetly feeling very strongly]"). then, over the course of the story, we (along with they themselves because they were in denial) discover that it's not that they feel too little, they feel entirely too much. They're a sea of emotions so deep that the surface is calm, but don't you dare be near them when the storm is coming because all hell will break loose. (extra bonus point if that storm involves them rebelling against the oppressive society they were born into and adhered to until then because they realise their consciousness won't allow it any longer.) afterwards they realise that making themselves vulnerable once in a while is actually a good thing and they proceed to fuck the Rebel™️ who they've secretly been in love with the entire time, a feeling they only now allow themselves to act on
The last part sadly isn't always canon, but who has ever had time for that?
You know what this episode made me realise most of all? The Lan sect are just as human as the rest of them. In fact, they seem to be especially prone to acting rashly on strong emotions. (I don't remember the exact story, but didn't the founder of the Lan sect also have some kind of tragic love story?) It should be obvious, but the impression you get is that they are so detached from their wants, so rigorous and disciplined in their righteousness, that they are almost super-human. But no. Thise 3000 and some rules? They weren't born out of some enlightened mind that had the secret of live figures out, they're a crutch. Abiding by them without question rids one of responsibility to make even the tiniest moral choice for oneself. But that won't work because a) they're bounty to contradict each other at some point and b) that's not how human beings work. They're messy and unpredictable and beautifully complicated. The way Lan Qiren choses to apply them, he completely disregards that. At that point, the rules aren't there anymore to grant a harmonious society, but simply for their own sake. (Or maybe as a wall to hide behind)
@sweetlittlevampire @fandom-glazed @elenirlachlagos @allhailthedramallama @luckymoony @kyrrahbird @i-love-him-on-purpose
I think this liveblog has been the longest so far. I'm sorry for going on so many tangents, but lwj's backstory hit me really hard. I hope you guys weren't too bored 💚
(I also apologise for the mountains of typos that probably accumulated in this post. I'm too tired to check.)
#the untamed#sophie watches the untamed#the untamed liveblog#wei wuxian#wwx#lan wangji#lwj#wangxian#lan xichen#jin guangyao#luo qingyang#mianmian#tw: rape mention#i just realized that I should tag that#although i still hope i misunderstood#don't think i did though :/
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Personally, what made me ship Genyalina is the fact that while reading the books, it was clear that the author definitely put romantic undertones in their relationship. It was clear that it was not just friendship. And i'm not saying they're in love with each other exactly. I'm just saying that the chemistry and tension they have makes them move in between a scale where on the one hand is the purely platonic and on the other is the purely romantic. pt1
Totally! And honestly - I don’t think Leigh put those undertone in there :/ not to undermine the fact that it does very much read as romantic - it doesn’t necessarily matter what she intentioned, death of the author and all that - but I think a lot of the (now obvious) homoeroticism was a combination of a) Leigh trying to emphasize other characters’ beauty to highlight Alina’s Not Like Other Girls syndrome, and even more apparent for Genya in which beauty (and making oneself beautiful) is actually very important to her character and b) sometimes authors write best friends and end up with the gayest stuff ever. There’s a line in the trilogy where Alina threatens people with physical violence if they insult Genya, and there’s a line in the King of Scars duology (post-trilogy. Also I haven’t read this one I saw it in the Genya tag lmao) where David, her canonical love interest, does the same thing. Leigh I’m begging you to follow through.
ANYWAYS I totally agree with you like for me the fact that we’re “supposed” to read them as friends is a huge reason of why I like their dynamic so much. A lot of it does very much feel like - girl best friends, if you will. This idea that you can find an instant connection to bond over, the way in which friendships ARE expected to go through these hurtles, these periods of highs and lows, but in the end returning to that bond and finding so much love in the other. Also, though it is like marred by betrayal. I think there’s a lot to be said about women supporting each other that exists as best it can within the Little Palace, and how there’s much more hope for them when they are further from those specific constraints.
ANYWAYS I wrote a whole post about my favorite scene though so I’m sharing that even though it’s a little beyond the point now LOL. I can’t really pinpoint the exact moment I started shipping Alina - my memory is terrible so I don’t actually know how I felt about them during my read through, but honestly with how I absolutely will ship two girls who even breathe next to each other there’s a good chance I did lol. I probably also saw some gifsets that really set me off lol, I was making a Genyalina playlist before I even got a chance to watch the show… BUT ANYWAYS this scene kind of captures WHY I like them so much.
It’s at the beginning of episode 5, after Nadia and Marie leave and before David comes in - Of course a lot of this is because it’s the make up scene… eyes and lips…. hands on face….. so close to each other……. It does make me lose my mind like I know I said Leigh was largely unintentional but the Daisy Head and Jessie Mei Li really popped off in this respect. Like. How Alina looks up at her? The light shining in her eyes making an already caring expression even more,,,,, gay. AND ALSO, what really hits about this scene is that it essentially starts with a lie! Genya tells Alina that there are no letters from Mal, when she plays a direct role in intercepting them (as well as later on putting the special tracking ring on Alina. I’m not sure if she knew it’s exact properties, but still). A really important part of contextualizing Genyalina’s relationship in-show is that despite how close they get, and so quickly, Genya is still very much an agent of the Darkling and constantly betraying Alina, even in the smallest of ways. And yet! Despite how this has to be a facade, Genya still finds herself genuinely caring and trying to help in the ways that she can. The “be careful of powerful men” line is in this scene (with that gentle face stroke and happy “I like seeing you this way” like okay… okay) and it’s like moments like these are the most Genya can do without revealing and thus endangering her (seemingly) one chance at escape. It’s these smaller suggestions about getting away from the General, finding ways to protect yourself, that REALLY get me. But it’s still not enough. God they’re SO tragic it kills me. Going out of order, but this scene also contains a) the only real description we get of the extremely messed up circumstances of Genya’s situation, which non-book readers really don’t get as much knowledge about and b) Alina’s pure excitement for the future!!! For what she might do and explore once the Fold is gone - maybe a farm with Mal but maybe not (*cough* maybe you settle down with Genya huh is that what you’re thinking I know that’s what I’M thinking). ALSO the line from Genya “perhaps after, you could return to blue” HOPING that after these charades Alina could find herself again and get that happy ending - and absolute sucker punch of a line “I think I’m going to stick with the black, moving forward.” Like to know all these tactics the General is using are paying off? Obviously this is a sign of Alina growing in confidence in her abilities and how she wants to present that to the world but it’s also…. :(
Rant over ok but listen when the ship has no screen time what else are you supposed to do but pick apart their rare scenes… Genyalina is just sooooo good just in a vacuum, and then adding all the show events that are happening around them and how their friendship becomes so much more impactful? And then to see that as romantic? It’s just such a good dynamic!
#thank you anon for giving me so much space to rant though. bc like yeah!!!!!! this is what it’s about!!!!#also about how the makeup scenes are the height of the platonic-romantic vibe they have.#shadow and bone#grishaverse#alina starkov#genya safin
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if u could, perhaps, bless us with all the applicable symbols from that fic ask for hvh 👀
ooOoOOOoOO Rub s gay hands togehter omg ty friend 😍;;;;;;
💡 - What was the motivation behind the story?
hHH i hadnt written in 10+ years so when i latched onto this plot idea i just thought itd be a good time to jump the shark and try it again !! i just wanted smth really edgy and depthful bc im emo and the rest kind of snowballed
💎- What was your favorite part?
osdlfksd;lf it’s hard to pick a fav but the drunk scene was definitely the most fun to write at least
⛰️- What was the hardest part?
THE SCENE WHERE THE GANG IS KIDNAPPED BY ENKI,,,, i debated toning down the violence but in the end i knew where the story was going (and where its still going) and that its gonNA be kinda dark so why hold back now ig
🎭- What was the feeling or mood you were going for?
BITTERSWEET AF,,, sort of just treading the line of ‘hopeful’ and ‘hopeless’ at all times to fully portray the feeling of being at your lowest, but with that classic tss ‘silver linings just around the corner’ kind of undertone
🏟️- Who was your intended audience?
mostly all the adults that watched tss as a kid and felt like spirituaLLY MOVED BY IT cuz i really tried to tap into that Emotion Tee Em we all felt when we found out that zak was [redacted]
🔬- Was there one scene you were building up to/knew you had to get just right?
hHH theres actually a LOT of scenes like that and i think a lot of my general motivation to keep going comes from that ‘WAIT FOR IT WAIT FOR IT’ vibe slkdf:SDF but the Plot Twist tm in the latest chapter was definitely a big’n, and theres a few more of those still to come :^)
🗝️ - What were you thinking when you wrote it?
kjdjFSDs:DF tbh whenever i start really writing, [’im shifting into soup mode’ seinfeld meme voice] im shifting into maladaptive daydreaming mode
🎥- Were there any tv shows, books, or movies that influenced this verse, if any?
:^) devilman crybaby pls forgive me for everytHing
📈- Was there a clear character arch you wanted____ character to go on?
i actually have a short list of what i somewhat consider to be the story arcs in my notes !! mostly just for organization and obvs i wont list the future ones but so far we’ve seen the kushtaka arc, the enki arc, and now we’re in what i call ‘the annunaki’ arc.
🎢- Were there any scenes you were nervous about? For audience reception or otherwise?
ALL OF IT JSHDJSKD, but again a lot of the enki scenes i was worried would be too edgy TM, and the whole annunaki plot as well i was worried might be too ‘out there’ for ppl, but it takes the story exactly where i always wanted it and lines everything up perfectly so i went for it lol. i was also ofc worried if people would like ila or not bc oc but most ppl love her actually which is so 😭❤️
☠️- Did you consider killing off any of the characters? Did you?
8^) [mickey mouse voice] this is a surprise tool that will help us later ,
✉️- Did you title your chapters? What title do you like best?
yes! the next one actually has my favorite chapter title yet, but so far i like ‘so strikes the harpoon’ since its a throwback to the first couple chapters
☀️- Was there symbolism/motifs you worked in?
o every single paragraph is an overly thought out middle school poem im entering in the talent show actually
🎵- Did you have a playlist/piece of music that went with this story?
Yes !! i have HVH insp part 1, Part 2, and an extra one for all those songs that have the vibes but just dont fit enough to make sense in a playlist
📜-Do you want to write something like this again in the future?
probably ! ive learned i definitely like the edgy/darker and emotionally driven stories with ongoing plot, so that trend will almost definitely continue. idk if ill write a dystopia again anytime soon, but i think my future stuff will at least retain that long and heavy vibe
💁- Did readers influence/change any part of this story?
oh yEA like basically i was ready to quit after the very first chapter before it was even written and kinda just got it all out on a whim of motivation but was expecting to flake on it like i tend to do with projects, but the invested response to it was just so uplifting that its what ive been riding on all ten chapters and im so grateful for it :’)))
✏️-Would you go back and change anything if you could?
hHHHHHHH yes and ok this is terrible but i actually tend to avoid re-reading my older chapters until i hAVe to bc i suffer from that sO much ,,, , its just little things like tiny words i wanna change or bits i wanna take out/put in and once or twice ive even caught a mistake or plot hole/smth i forgot to add that i rly do have to go back and edit and i just turn to dust every tim e
⭐- What’s a scene/paragraph you’re proud of?
i really liked the northern lights scene!! it was meant to be a pivotal moment of that ‘bittersweetness’ vibe i was talking abt and it was another one of those scenes i had been planning for a while;;;
“ I think of how much the rest of the family would love this. This isn’t like the moon and the sun, where I can see it and know that even if it looks different, they’ll see the same one soon enough, wherever they are. This reminds me only that I am not with them. It stings. It seems unnatural for something so gentle and natural to appear before us as if we aren’t in complete, total fucking chaos. After all we’ve been through, and the sky still dances. “
📣-What was the best piece of encouragement you got?
AVERY ALL OF UR LIVEBL OGS AND COMMENTS GIV ME SUCH L I FE, ,, ,, CRYIGN CAT FA ce
🔦-Did you learn anything while writing it? About yourself? Writing?
isdfhSDF YEs, part of my hesitation to write came from this thing where i always just assumed there was a wildly high standard of writing in fandom spaces like in original literature spaces, where you had to have like 10+ sentences to a paragraph and you had to describe every tiny detail of a setting and you had to follow every single grammar rule or it was unreadable but like. genuinely its like sculpting with words as long as you have a shape ppl get the idea which is such a weight off my shoulders lol, its still a lot of work but so much fun to know i can to an extent do what i want and ppl actually like it like that. i also learned that like most other writers i have to cause my favs emotional and physical pain,
🎁- Any writing advice for people who want to write something like this?
hhHHHH 1. please do it its so fun just give in to the edge my guy , 2. try to get comfortable re-reading your chapters, for me its like when ppl listen to themselves sing/act but im trying to do better bc its so much more consistent when i keep it fresh in my mind and it also boosts confidence when u can pick out the things u like instead of the things u dont, 3. trying to have at least one scene in mind for each chapter that ur excited to write so u can have motivation to update faster! for me it doesnt have to be smth i think would excite the audience either like it could be the most basic thing but just having an idea of it and knowing i want to see it come to life rly helps me stay on top of it all
TY SM FRIEND THIS WAS SO FUN x x )
#lochley#long post/ //#hvh#human v humanity#secret saturdays#tss#sorry to spam the tag with a longk boi but hHBHHBH#TYYY#fanfic
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We return to Wicked Saints with Chapter 23, a chapter that is - unfortunately - a Nadya chapter. We open with, oddly enough, a Book of Saints excerpt rather than something from the Codex of the Divine. In a better book, this would mean something. In a better book, all of these excerpts would’ve meant something.
Svoyatovi Yakov Luzhkov: The founder of the Selortevnsky monastery in Ghelovkhin, a place where clerics were trained in secret to fight in the holy war. When the monastery was destroyed in 1520, Yakov burned with it.
Okay... great? Thanks for that information that was totally necessary and will be relevant to the current chapter, I’m sure.
Again, using dates when you haven’t established a proper timeline is meaningless, because we don’t know how long ago these events were in respect to the present. Sure, it’s a bit more specific than the others because we know that by the events of the start of the book, the war between Kalyazin and Tranavia has been going on for about 100 years, but still, meaningless.
Everyone is still at dinner and Nadya is, surprising to herself, having a pretty good time, all things considered.
The High Prince of Tranavia was a charming boy who enjoyed self-deprecation and complaining. Nadya found herself laughing at his jokes and responding in kind as the evening went on. Żaneta was equally engaging, with biting wit and a keen intelligence that Nadya had not expected from one of the most impressive blood mages of the court.
Well, this is fast becoming a nightmare, she thought as she swirled her spoon through a bowl of borscht. There was soft music playing in the background, airy and light, and the atmosphere of the room didn’t feel nearly as oppressive as when the king had entered.
Nadya is, however, getting along a bit too swimmingly with Serefin for my tastes, considering she’s supposed to have - to put it mildly - a grudge against him for leading an assault on her home and, to Nadya’s knowledge, hurting and killing the people that she supposedly cares about there, including Kostya. She was so afraid of him when he rocked up at the monastery in Chapter 1 and now she’s just totally fine with him and considers him charming and funny.
If Nadya was clever and seriously cared, she’d attempt to talk him about his efforts in the war and in Kalyazin to try to covertly find out what happened after she fled the monastery and if any of the people she’s supposed to love are alive.
Also that description of Żaneta has me side-eyeing and I can’t tell that whether that’s just me and my heightened sensitivity due to how xenophobic and discriminatory Nadya is supposed to be. Like, is she surprised that Żaneta is intelligent and witty because she’s a Tranavian? Is it because she’s a Tranavian and she’s a blood mage? Is it because she’s accomplished? I can’t tell.
Either way, it’s not necessarily an unsurprising implication from Nadya all things considered but the fact that Nadya is supposed to have evolved so much that her views on Tranavians are... let’s say more progressive, the inherent judginess of what she’s saying leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe that’s just my mixed race ass reading too much into it, IDK.
Also this book itself is a bloody nightmare, both literally and figuratively.
“A nightmare that you are making for yourself.” Nadya almost dropped her spoon when Marzenya’s voice rang through the back of her head.
Not now, she pleaded. She couldn’t keep this up and have a goddess pulling her apart for what she had done at the same time. Admonish me all you like later but not here.
“You are treading dangerous ground, child.”
Dangerous ground that she was only making worse. Marzenya required full devotion. Nadya never could have dreamed that would be an issue. Yet here she was, a few days into Tranavia and already full of conflict.
Well, Marzenya is apparently getting through okay, because she’s able to talk directly to Nadya at dinner. This is like, the second or third time. I didn’t really believe you when you said, book, that the connection between Nadya and the gods would be strained and difficult due to the nature of her being in Tranavia, and I still don’t believe you now.
Also, “keep this up”? You’ve been a grand ol’ time apparently at dinner, besides glaring at the king and getting caught by Serefin glaring at the king. I don’t know what the difficulty would be, really, besides paying attention if anyone tries to talk to you. It’s not like it’s taking all your energy to stop yourself from murdering everyone you’re sitting beside with a fork or something.
Also, we’re not going to really unpack that last paragraph because I feel like I’ve commented on it enough and about the bullshit nature of this whole fucking thing as is. I’m just going to happily continue eating my dumplings because dumplings are delicious.
Anyways, the king gets angry at a servant, throws a goblet at the wall, and the servant runs away. A Vulture goes after them and ,ost of the people at the table aren’t exactly thrilled at that.
Ostyia comments to Serefin that the king’s temper is worsening and Serefin tries to temper his discomfort with more alcohol, but his glass is empty. Thank fuck for that. Serefin asks Nadya to call him Serefin instead of “Your Highness” and she just rolls with it.
“Trade places with me,” the one-eyed girl demanded of Serefin.
“You can’t flirt with every girl here, Ostyia,” Serefin said.
“I can and I will,” she replied primly.
He rolled his eyes and—casting another anxious look toward where his father sat—stood up and traded places with the girl.
Ostyia had a glittering eye patch covering her right eye in place of a mask. Her smile was electric, and she shined it Nadya’s way.
For some bloody reason, Nadya refers to her as “the one-eyed girl” despite knowing and using Ostyia’s name the sentence before that and then preceding to use it straight afterwards. Like, that’s not necessary, just use her name again!
Also, I’ve said it several times to @jefflion but Ostyia is quite literally the only one in this book who is explicitly queer so far. ED has gone on and on on her tumblr and her twitter talking about how basically everyone is queer and like how all the main Tranavian characters aren’t straight; that Kacper and Serefin are gonna have a romance in the later books but like??? Bitch, where?!
You can’t say that Nadya and Serefin are queer, when they have not commented on women and men, respectively, the same way they have commented and been explicitly attracted to men and women, respectively.
Look, I am bisexual. If you meet me for even two seconds online and/or at uni, I make it pretty fucking clear that I am attracted to girls too. I will take notice of girls I think are pretty or cute. Not always, but I do do it.
And the fact that there’s no build up for Serefin and Kacper either, even though there should be if she’s intending for them to have some romance in Ruthless Gods and the third book is just... fucking lazy. Like yes, there’s a couple of scenes in the book that you could technically say might have romantic undertones but the point I’m trying to make is the lack of explicit queerness.
At this point, ED is no better than JK Rowling with her whole “Dumbledore is gay!” shtick. Or rather, she’s barely better, but it’s a fucking low bar.
Also, as an aside: earlier, Serefin has Ostyia flirt with Żaneta as a distraction, but we never really get a reaction from Żaneta. ED nominally says that Żaneta is bi, but we don’t get a reaction from Żaneta in the text. For all we know, Żaneta could be uncomfortable with her flirting. Or she could be into it, but we just don’t know!
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