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genericpuff · 6 months

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The Extended Mishandling of LO's S3 Midseason Finale Premiere (Pt 2)

Alrighty, I promised a part two back in the first part of this analysis, but found myself busy with Rekindled and my day job, so I'm finally sitting down and finishing this up. If you haven't read that first part yet, please go check it out!

CAUTION: THERE BE FASTPASS SPOILERS AHEAD!

We left off with Hebe and Apollo roleplaying that one scene from The Lion King, albeit with a lot less sense or nuance. Literally all the "drama" so far feels purely manufactured for cheap plot progression and tension and it hardly feels authentic. But now we gotta talk about the second half of this episode, where we finally address the cliffhanger that the FP midseason finale episode left off on - Persephone causing winter.

And what better way to kick it off than with a completely off-base Persephone monologue?

Now, what's shown here is actually a flashback to the job interview scene from S1, when Persephone asked to see the snow in the Underworld. But it's written as if Persephone has some intimate relationship with snow as a whole, as if she's experienced more than this one time which... she hasn't. There was nothing "romantic" really about that scene following the job interview, she literally just wanted to go out and see something she hadn't seen before.

But that calls into question - why does Persephone constantly act like she has an intimate relationship with snow when it doesn't occur in the Mortal Realm? She even says in the honeymoon episode that it's hot all the time in the Mortal Realm, and the temperature only drops every now and then during rainy days... and she somehow makes this about Hades when it literally has nothing to do with him lmao Persephone monologues are some of the worst /r/im14andthisisdeep moments in the series because she's constantly using word salad to describe feelings we never saw or scenes that never happened.

And this scene is no different. She says that snow is something that's interwoven with her most 'treasured moments' but all the visuals have to show for is that one scene from S1 that, again, didn't even come across as a 'treasured moment', it was just her seeing the snow for the first time, there was nothing 'romantic' about it in a vacuum. All the moments from the series you could call ACTUALLY TREASURED milestones of Hades and Persephone's relationship - and Persephone's supposed "love" for the Underworld - are scenes where snow was completely absent (ex. the scene of Persephone and Hades talking about Sicily in Zeus and Hera's garden, Persephone and Hades spending the night in the cabin during the trial arc, etc.)

But then, to make it even more confusing, she goes on to describe her losing her powers and causing winter a "betrayal". As if the concept of winter owes her anything. As if Erebus owes her anything.

The allusion to Erebus itself in the visuals implies that she feels "betrayed" over this happening, as if it wasn't made ABUNDANTLY CLEAR TO HER that she would have to sacrifice something. She's gone SO LONG without knowing or caring about what she could have possibly given up, that by the time it finally revealed itself, she's acting all shocked Pikachu because there's finally something she can't just have. Everything that could make her seem imperfect has been washed away, from her SA trauma to those pesky green hands. Now we finally ARE seeing her affected by her own choices and she's basically waxing poetic about how sad it is that her actions have consequences.

That said, she does seem to have a moment of self-awareness here... but I can't be confident it will actually amount to anything seeing as how all the past attempts at 'growth' have been overshadowed by her vanity and ego.

This line is really confusing / weird in the way that it's written but I think she's trying to say that the source of the cold is from her, she can't pin it on any sort of 'big bad' like she could with Apollo and Kronos. It's just her.

And again, this could be a moment of realization for her that her actions are her own regardless of whatever she wants to pin it on-

But she rejects it instead. She's still not capable of acknowledging that her choices affect others, that her actions have consequences, that she's finally paying the price for something she knew had a cost.

If this were any other comic, I would accept her rejection of this, I would have confidence in knowing she may recognize it eventually. But this is LO and we're three seasons in, she's technically already gotten her happily ever after in the form of becoming Queen and married to her 'true love', so all of this feels like a very last-minute attempt to paint Persephone as this "struggling" character. But she's not "struggling", she's just finally experiencing karma catching up to her and as expected for a person like Persephone, she's already cracking under the pressure of realization that she can't have everything she wants.

Again, in any other comic, this would feel satisfying or endearing to see her fall on her own sword, but to me it just feels frustrating in the context of LO because we've spent five years seeing her get everything she wants with barely any real struggle that wasn't manufactured - with all of it painted as a GOOD THING - while still getting away with treating the people around her like shit.

And when I say she rejects this concept of having humility, I don't just mean through her monologuing, but also through her actions.

If I were to critique LO the same way I would an actual functional series, I would say that this should be the point of realization, the point where we see her crumble under the weight of her not being perfect, not being able to "fix" everything. It all stems back to her entitlement as a bratty main character, someone who can't fathom not being the main character or the "hero".

Because she's not the hero. Demeter is - or at least, she tries to be.

Again, it's hard to know if this is intentional or if this is yet another attempt to present Demeter as an "overbearing mom", but Persephone here looks and sounds like she's been reduced back to the state of a child crying for her mother in the face of her own failures. Despite now technically being a mother herself (through literal babynapping sigh) Persephone is still not a mature adult. Aging her up 10 years and giving her a husband and baby will not make her an actual functional independent adult who's capable of taking care of themselves or making the right decisions... unlike Demeter who is still, ultimately, more skilled than Persephone. She is an actual experienced and mature adult who's capable of rationalizing and decision making, and knowing when it's time to put aside your ego, walk away and let someone else who's far more qualified take care of things.

What Demeter has is something that one can only gain through true hardship, failing, learning from one's own mistakes, and experience, all of which Persephone does not have because she transitioned from a cage of her own imagination where hard work and responsibility was a virtue, into a gilded cage where true hard work can be passed onto someone else whose efforts she could take credit for while sitting on a throne and buying anything and everything she could ever want.

Despite everything Persephone and the narrative claims to have 'earned', she's still a child. The adults have to take over.

And like a child, she doesn't let them.

This is not an 'anime moment'. This is not a moment of redemption. This is immaturity and irresponsibility in its most visible form for Persephone - refusing to let go of her ego and shortcomings to "prove herself", even if it means making things worse.

And Hades enables it.

I want to make it clear there is a massive difference between not being controlling over someone, and actually enabling them.

This is not some small hill to die on. Persephone is literally causing winter, which could very well kill the Mortals. As we've seen in that prior Hebe scene from the first part of this essay, the snow is showing up in Olympus. This isn't something that's happening in the isolation of this single scene, this is happening everywhere and instead of taking the L, Persephone is trying to make things 'better' by simply 'trying harder' which is just not the solution here, Demeter knows this, but Hades is playing the "girlboss" version of a "good husband" by not even bothering to try and convince her to do otherwise. Hades above everyone else should be the one stepping in because he'd likely be the only one she'd actually listen to, but he's refusing to because he has to be the "good husband" who doesn't control the actions of his wife.

So he flat out enables her instead by not even bothering to try and reason with her, to help her see that what she's doing is not helping. Not even so much as a "Persephone, I know you want to help but it's clear something is wrong and if Demeter can figure out what to do to fix this, we should let her", just him saying to Demeter who wants to stop her that he can't stop her from trying... ignoring the fact that he should at least try.

And that's the difference between being controlling and being an enabler. He's not keeping her from doing something that benefits her and doesn't harm him or others. He's not micromanaging her decisions or trying to tell her she's not capable. Now, don't get me wrong, there are definitely things that make Hades a walking red flag especially when it comes to him being a groomer, but when it comes to directly controlling Persephone, most of the time she's doing things of her own accord convinced that it's "the right thing" (which is still just a side effect of the obvious grooming because I really doubt S1 Persephone would have done this shit lmao).

Here, he's not stepping in to even try to reason with her because "well I'd be a bad husband if I stepped in", completely ignoring the fact that it makes him a terrible person, period, to not at least try to calmly reason with his wife and explain to her that her 'help' is not going to help here. Just like when he rewarded her with sex for abusing a nymph in her own home, he's completely complacent to Persephone's actions and doesn't step in to try and help because, according to Wattpad and TikTok, a "good husband" is someone who looks the other way while his life partner does whatever she wants regardless of the consequences to herself and others. "Happy wife, happy life, who cares if the wife wants to be an actual piece of shit to people if it makes her happy".

And thus she makes things worse in her pursuit of "happiness", while Hades stands idly by, watching it all unfold as if he's just an innocent bystander who can absolve himself of any responsibility in this situation. As if she didn't become this way because she ate the pomegranate to be with him and a part of his world.

Now, there's one other sort-of-blatant smoking gun that I want to talk about that I haven't really seen anyone else mention since this episode went up. Granted, this might be me reading far too much into it, but hey, that's what this blog is for and I think it's something that absolutely needs to be mentioned.

Persephone goes on about how her powers aren't just gone, they've been replaced, all she can create is decay, and more specifically-

Now... think of the context of LO's narrative, what it's told us both literally and through subtext, intentional or not.

What does this sound like?

Hades lost his ability to produce children when he ate the pomegranate. He can no longer "create life".

And now, Persephone is finding herself in a similar situation, unable to "create life" the way she knows how. I'd like to think this isn't literal, but it really feels like there's a metaphorical implication here that Persephone losing her ability to create life is meant to be taken literally, that she not only can't create flowers and plant life anymore, but she's lost her fertility entirely. You can go even further back in this when it was established Persephone didn't eat six seeds, but nine, which originally felt like a weirdly random choice, but now seems intentional. I know some people have theorized that it has to do with her possibly being pregnant, but I don't think that's the case, I think it's the opposite - that the 9 months was a metaphor for the 9 months of childbearing that Persephone can no longer do.

And if that's the case... LO truly is no longer a "feminist" piece of work. It barely was before, but if the point of all this winds up being an attempt by Rachel to give Persephone a "flaw" by taking away her ability to bear children... that'll be a punch to the gut.

That said, if it does go somewhere, maybe the point will be Persephone learning she doesn't need to be able to reproduce to have value as a woman. But considering LO's track record with these sorts of plotlines, I can't be confident in the slightest that's where it'll end up. What I can be confident in is that Persephone will likely not stay this way. Like her green hands, she'll likely get her powers back, maybe after the resolution that she's still a real woman deserving of love even if she can't reproduce. I can't possibly know at this point where it's going, all I do know is that LO hasn't done a great job at resolving these sorts of deeper narratives so this just feels like another dart on the wall of bad ideas. Because it's, again, all being framed through Persephone being the "perfect woman", without there being any actual subtext throughout the narrative to imply that this may be a flawed ideology to have, it's just what Persephone has to be and it's sold in the narrative as a positive.

There's one term to describe this with that's rather consistent throughout LO when you peel back the layers of both the comic and Rachel's past work - white feminism. Despite LO's attempts to be "feminist", it's still ultimately being written through a heteronormative male gaze, that women are only "valuable" so long as they're youthful, that any goals or dreams a woman may have should be dropped as soon as they fall in love with a rich and powerful man, and that "other women" who don't fit into that mould of being rich, white, and heterocis are not worthy of love, empathy, or understanding. It's hard to trust that LO will actually challenge these norms when it's been practically enforcing them for five years.

But ultimately, that's a very loaded topic and right now, we don't know where this is going... I'm just not so sure I want to see it after all the missteps the series has pulled over the past half a decade. Like the miracle of childbirth, it's gonna take a miracle for LO to actually stick this landing.

Now, I'm assuming you read this line of dialogue, and you understood it. Yes? You positive? Okay, great. Why am I asking you this question as if you're an infant who doesn't understand what being "passed out" means? Well, you'll see what I mean in a minute.

Now, again, like with the whole "I can't bring life to anything anymore" thought process I just went through, I can't know exactly what they're trying to do here, but Demeter is fully in the right. I want to make that abundantly clear that Demeter was right the whole time and it's pretty telling that even a lot of the people reading the comic in good faith are pointing this out in the discussion circles they can actually access.

Now, in case anyone hasn't noticed, it's clear that Demeter herself is drawing upon the fertility magic of Gaia or Rachel is just alluding to Gaia for some reason. At first I thought it was supposed to be her form of "wrath" until I remembered that (unfortunately) Eris was the only reason for Persephone's wrath, so this is clearly meant to be some allusion to Gaia. Considering the fertility powers were passed down purely through Gaia and Ouranos, this means Demeter is a descendant of Gaia, which... calls into question Rachel's attempts to "remove the incest" from LO, but that's for another topic.

Either way, Demeter is fully in the right here. Hades is a fucking idiot - a useless lump - for not only enabling the shitty actions of his shitty wife, but for not taking even any amount of accountability for the fact that Persephone found out about the pomegranate through him.

"But Puff, she had to eat the pomegranate to beat Kronos!" Did she? Or was that purely manufactured for Rachel's sake because she just had to have an MCU Evil-Robot-Jeff-Bridges villain despite the fact that this FANTASY ROMANCE series didn't need one? The fact that it was written purely to 'force' Persephone into doing something she already wanted to do was completely redundant, it wasn't a 'sacrifice' she made, it was made pretty clear in Episode 165 that she wanted to eat the pomegranate as soon as she found out about it and while that decision is certainly her own, that does not absolve Hades of responsibility for not questioning his future wife's fascination with it or realizing that he unlocked the inner Pandora's Box of Persephone's mind.

And so, Demeter holds him responsible. As she should.

Okay, you read that, right? But remember that line I asked you about before? We should all know Demeter doesn't mean this literally. We have brains and we should all have a minimum amount of media literacy to understand that Hades was telling the truth when he literally said Persephone was "passed out".

We finish the episode on this panel, which I swear to christ I couldn't tell you in all of my own divine wisdom of the arts what in the world is going on in this panel. I'm literally looking at salad.

Is it Demeter and Persephone? Just some dying plants? I have no fucking clue, your guess is as good as mine.

But we're not done. Because we have one more glaring issue to talk about with this episode, and it comes in the form of an author's note that was inserted at the end of the episode. It is truly, despite EVERYTHING we've talked about in both parts of this analysis, the dumbest, most airheaded and egregiously pretentious thing I've seen in this entire episode.

Rachel quite literally put in a fucking disclaimer telling her audience what Hades already told us point blank in the comic - "Don't worry, audience members, Persephone is not literally dead, it's a metaphor for her spring powers being dead!"

I literally can't even express to you how pretentious and shitty this is of her to do. I can't tell if it's legitimately her thinking her writing is "too smart" for even her older audience members to grasp, or if she just wants to dispel the theories that people would want to make about this, or if she completely misconstrued the criticism about her writing not being "clear enough" and thinks that THIS is what people meant. Pardon my tone because I've kept it together relatively well throughout this post, but this is some 2009-era Fanfiction.net level of author's note bullshit.

If she thinks her writing is "too smart" for her audience to grasp, I'm sorry Rachel, but you're just wrong and this is incredibly shitty of you. You think the 14 year olds in your community aren't also reading other webtoons that have deeper writing than LO? I read Death Note when I was fucking 14 and I knew exactly the point of what the story was getting at by the time it was over, despite all the other stories I read at that age that completely flew over my head. And you think LO is somehow more complicated than Death Note, baby's first introduction to the grey areas of morality and justice?

If she's trying to dispel the theories... that actually holds some merit because not only is Rachel notoriously bad at not letting her fandom just talk about their theories without her swooping in to "um actually" them (even if it means killing the fun of theorizing), but the official FP page on FB was closed to new submissions in the hours following this episode and it since hasn't posted any new content. Is it because people aren't posting? Absolutely not. The mods are quite literally holding these posts hostage through the submission and approval system. People are legitimately trying to submit only for the mods to block it entirely from going through. If this is Rachel's attempts at trying to "protect herself" from the criticism this episode has surely earned, then all she's really doing is punishing her own fans who want to talk about it. It doesn't matter anymore that the discussion groups are finally back from 3-4 months of being shut down over the hiatus, they're still not being allowed to operate. The best there is now is the Discord and it's undoubtedly just as heavy moderated as the FB groups.

And as for the third possibility, this also feels like an attempt at Rachel trying to make her writing "more clear" without actually putting in the work of writing a good story. She's undoubtedly seen the criticisms towards LO as a whole that it doesn't express itself clearly, that it constantly flip flops on character motivations and information that has been established, and that any monologuing that's done implies things or events that we've never seen unfold on screen (case in point, the Persephone monologue from the start of this episode) but she seems to have either misconstrued or ignored the point of that criticism entirely by solving it with a quick and shitty author's note at the end explaining her intentions with a scene that was already clearly laid out to us. Instead of putting in the work to write a concise story to explain the things that are a bit more under-developed, she's slapping in a spoonfed explanation for scenes that literally don't need explaining and that ultimately cheapens the scenes that are TRYING to have impact, bringing them down to the same level of mediocrity as the scenes that never had the impact they intended to have to begin with. "You've killed the Goddess of Spring" was plenty clear after Hades said she was passed out, Rachel. Taking the time to explain it in a note at the end is just sad and it really goes to show what you think of your audience, especially when it comes to how you treat your fans in regards to community accessibility in the official discussion groups.

"The haters" didn't set this comic onto the path that it's on or ruin the fanbase experience, Rachel - you did.

#also i stg if she's just redoing the coma plotline from S2 #you can't just go to sleep and avoid the consequences of your actions persephone #wake tf up and take some goddamn accountability #lore olympus critical #lo critical #anti lore olympus

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skibasyndrome · 2 months

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hi i just have to say! that i think the writing for wille is perfect this season. kinda annoys me that this is a hot take but! i think it makes SENSE. everyone wants wille to be this perfect boy but he actually doesn’t have the foundation to be that person. he had a sterile and isolated upbringing where he has never had any agency while at the same time having obscene wealth and anything he could ever want except for LOVE. like cmon the only people who have probably ever said no to him were his parents!! and they were absent and loveless! and then he loses the closest person in his life only to find out that he wasn’t who he thought he was and AND that maybe he wouldn’t have accepted him. and for so long wille kept erik’s love close to his chest and used it as a life raft. his parents can’t accept him his classmates can’t accept him the world can’t accept him simon can’t see his side but erik. erik would love me through all of this even if my parents won’t. but that comes crumbling down! and i know i am just rehashing the plot of the series but BE FOR REAL EVERYONE. he was set up to be a cold, selfish, privileged asshole and the fact that he fighting back against this and having this deep internal struggle of just wanting LOVE and wanting to be with the boy he loves but he can’t and no one understands is! brave and really hard! the isolation he must feel!!! and also like!!! HE IS A PRINCE HE IS SURROUNDED BY YES MEN!! ofc he has an attitude. also he’s a teenager hello??? the writing makes sense it’s so goooodddd to me personally and edvin Understands wille and portrays this insane struggle so so well. anyway i felt the need to step in and say my piece bc everyone always gushes about how they love that wille isn’t perfect but when they portray all this internal struggle coming to the surface in unhealthy ways everyone throws a fit and turns on him. justice for wille!!!! yeah he’s an asshole but he is trying!!!!!!!! (sorry this is long no one i know irl watches this show so i have opinions)

don't apologize for this anon, THANK YOU for your great points!!!!

I agree 100% with this. Wille has always been this very flawed, very sheltered character and I LOVE what they did with him in s3 even though it really, really hurt to see it, naturally, because I just want these characters to be happy together (and I still think they will be, after some work and more talking and Wille making some decisions). But yeah, this isn't new for Wille, Wille wasn't "ruined" this season, that's the Wille we know and love and yeah, that makes a bunch of questionable decisions because of the fucked up way he grew up. But I mean that's the beauty, right, he found a guy who can finally show him that that's not something he has to be stuck in, that change is possible, that working on himself and getting better for himself and the people around him is not only important but possible. I mean Wille literally told Simon he learns from him. This id anything but easy and anything but a linear process, but he's there and he's willing to do the work!!!!!

I really try not to get too deep into any of the discussions, especially about character morality, just because we're still one episode short and also because the onslaught of theories and opinions and everything is nerve-wracking as is and I try to guard a last piece of sanity, but seriously THANK YOU for this. You put into words what I haven't been able to 💜

and feel free to come discuss YR with me any time! I know the struggle, so please, let those thoughts out :)

#anon #answered #wilhelm #young royals season 3 #young royals season 3 spoilers.#yr s3 spoilers #yr s3 #young royals #young royals analysis

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98chao · 3 months

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Sonic Prime thing

so basically after i watched Sonic Prime S3 (on the day it came out) i was left pretty unsatisfied with the weird storytelling, plot holes and loose ends and decided to start brainstorming a re-imagining for it and drew some designs...

so this is gonna be long but i wanna preface this by saying i'm not a writer or even that good at character design 😭!!!! and also the majority of this is like from almost 2 months ago and it's very incomplete so i haven't done much thought on it i just had some ideas and ran with it Tbh. so if stuff doesn't make much sense Lmk bc a multiverse story is a very big thing to tackle, you really have to pay attention to the little stuff for everything to be complete.

also i like stuff with darker themes so if a lot of this is like "a Sonic show wouldn't do that" well. Yeah. this isn't a pitch to SEGA it's just my own thing LOL

(also also we're just gonna throw out the whole "Prime is canon to the games" here, i use the games as a basis but i wouldn't say this is in the realms of canon for multiple reasons)

~ The Main Stuff ~

so pretty much i went into this mostly thinking about changing the shatterverses while still keeping the base ideas that Prime had, and also a bit about how the shatterverse works in the first place. so i have some bullet points that i wrote down. i haven't watched s1&2 in a long time so i don't remember too much of the lore they already established, so if some of this is just reiterating what they said in the show then that's my bad

i wasn't exactly sure how it made sense that a single rock in some random cave conveniently in green hills had control of the entire universe so i want the explanation for why breaking the prism had this kind of effect to be something else (or to just change the prism to be something different) but i'm not sure exactly what. definitely not like "it was an illusion like the phantom ruby" or some stupid shit but it felt off that something completely world (universe) ending was so easily accessible. anyway.

Sonic explicitly doesn't exist in each alternate universe because he was the one who broke the prism. Sonic being the final piece that brings the universe together should probably have bigger lore implications as well

i think this is already what's in canon but Shadow used chaos control as the prism got shattered, causing himself to get fragmented across time and space as well.

unlike in the show, Shadow still has alternate versions of himself in each of the universes, but he has to kinda do an EEAAO and swap into their consciousness for him to be able to enter their respective universes (which takes a lot of energy bc its literally dimension travel so he can't do it a lot). his actual body is stuck in the void which means its at risk of erosion and also any hazard in the void like asteroids n stuff. it also explains why he's greatly weakened in the show (because his ass should not have been handed to him that easily in s3) cuz bits of his . being. is split across each universe, and can only be completed by the prism.

the void decays life which adds a higher stake to Sonic needing to complete the prism asap and also why Shadow is so hellbent on getting him to do it quickly. his actual, original self is slowly dying. (adds a bit of a character flaw too like the zombot arc, because you'd think the ultimate lifeform would be resistant to erosion. maybe at first he thinks he'll be fine and does the dimension travelling for fun until he starts feeling Really drained)

before i get to the individual universes, i'll talk a bout Sonic's character real quick because hoo boy, was it BAD in Prime. no shade to anyone who enjoyed his character in Prime, but as a show that claims to be "canon to the games", he was embarrassingly out of character. if it were just another version of him like movie Sonic i wouldn't really be so weirded out by it. so i wanna just say right off the bat that i'm using my own favourite iteration of Sonic as a reference for his character, which is the characterization from Sonic X.

i think when the prism gets properly explained, Sonic would kind of put 2 and 2 together and realize completing the prism would erase the other universes. and rather than being all ambiguous about it like Prime was, here it very explicitly would be that restoring the prism will erase the shatterverse. so Sonic get's really stuck between a rock and a hard place, because restoring the prism brings his friends and world back, but then he's effectively killing thousands of people, many of them who look exactly like his friends, all for the sake of his own world.

i think this is the kind of dilemma that would be really good for a character like Sonic, who's carefree and always does what he believes to be the right thing regardless of what other people say. his conflict with Nine isn't even all that different from his conflict with Merlina. but would he be okay with being enemies with someone who's literally just his little brother? i don't think Sonic would have tried to reason with Nine as much as he did in Prime, attachment be damned, but i still think it would still be hard for him to come to terms with the fact that Nine is his enemy and that in the end he would have to erase him too.

this is all i wanna say about Sonic rn because truth be told i'm not exactly sure how different the decisions he made in Prime would be here since i haven't thought too much on it, i would have to rewatch the show (god forbid) to figure that out lol.

~New Yolk City~

so i actually have designs for this, some of them have went through changes but they're all pretty "initial concepts". i wanna say that first off, i wanted this to be explicitly an alternate timeline and not just an alternate universe. one where Sonic doesn't exist in the main timeline so nobody really does anything to stop Eggman and he takes over the world. the designs are deliberately edgy so i call it sonic underfell in my notes lol

also, because a dystopian Sonic premise already exists in the form of SatAM... we got Sally Acorn back :D i didn't include all the Freedom Fighters for fear of the cast getting too big, but Nicole is here too because i love Sonic comic's robo assistants like Nicole and Kintobor. Sonia and Manic were also considered as added characters since Sonic Underground also has a dystopian premise, but i think it would be weird to add Sonic's siblings in a world where he doesn't exist, so it's not like they'd have a little 'OMG he's my long lost brother' moment. like no they don't even know who he is LOL.

alright so for character info i'll start with Nine because he's like the 3rd most important character in the show. i have a few different sketches of him, most incomplete... and for the third one my friend wanted him to look more emo. i wanted to add a bit more to that design but i wasn't sure what to do. if anyone has suggestions lmk

just like in the show, bc Sonic never meets Tails, Tails doesn't get saved from bullying and becomes very jaded. as for the robot face and tails, i think in the show they really drive it home how Nine values robots over people very much, going as far as to make robot clones of his friends in order to replace them. so... robot body parts doesn't seem too out of the realm for what he'd do! it's a very good parallel to what i have planned for Eggman/the Chaos Council it's also very fucking gruesome and sad esp because hes like 8 years old..

also, i'd really love it if he wasn't just weirdly evil the way he was in Prime S3. because no the hell he is not evil, it felt like a cheap way to get you to stop sympathizing with him until the very last moment where he had a change of heart. he's just a small, traumatized kid who was shown friendship for the first time only to realize that Sonic only cared about him because he was a Tails and actually pretty much wanted him dead (even if this all wasn't exactly true, i can genuinely see why he felt this way).

next i'll talk about who the main extra characters in this universe will be, which is Sally and Nicole.

so obv the resistance is called the Freedom Fighters, and Sally is the commander (like she should've been in Sonic Forces/IDW, but alas, she is dead to SEGA). she'd have a much more serious personality compared to her Archie/SatAM counterpart. where she'd usually banter with Sonic in Archie, here she would straight up tell him to gtfo. the aim of the Freedom Fighters in current time isn't really to fight to get their world back, just to survive and preserve what they still have.

just like in other media, Nicole is Sally's AI assistant slash potential love interest who does all the tech-y stuff, like scanning the area for threats, hacking things, etc. which gives them a bit of more power against the enemy without needing Nine's help.

next we got Amy aka Rusty Rose, this time she's fully a robot instead of being only half of one, and i'll expand on why. (also to note i didn't look at other Metal Amy fan designs when making this just to try and keep this a bit more original lol)

so, obviously being inspired by SatAM and Archie, roboticization is a concept that would be reintroduced here through Rusty Rose. she was previously a freedom fighter who got a bit reckless and was captured, and was roboticized before her allies could save her. she's kind of used as a cautionary tale among the Freedom Fighters as a way to hammer in don't be reckless and don't get caught.

i remember in Sonic Prime they tried to use the flicky 'powering' her as a way to keep her connection with humanity, which was great except for the fact that she still had half a mobian face so she wasn't even fully robot. in this case, i decided to make her fully robot and keep the flicky, except this time it is genuinely powering her lifeforce unlike whatever they did in the show. obviously taking it out for a bit just to showcase the fact she does have a flicky won't insta-kill her, but she will slowly die without the flicky inside of her. not sure why the Chaos Council didnt just slap a chaos drive in there but whatever lol, it's nice symbolism anyway.

also just a note, she can shoot bullets out of her fingers if you were wondering why her hands looked like that. yes its an Aigis Persona 3 reference. but also she no longer uses her hammer because as a robot she's stripped of her personality and autonomy, and the Piko-Piko hammer was like an Amy signature weapon, who Rusty Rose no longer is at this point. but mostly it's an Aigis Persona 3 reference. We ball

next is Rouge, who's no longer a leader of the Freedom Fighters, but just a spy/intelligence agent who still has an eye for shiny things.

in the inital art i drew of her i named her Agent Rebel, but honestly Agent Rouge works just fine because yknow. Rouge is just the word for red in french. if they really have to all have different names then Agent Red also works too, but it might be a bit on the nose. anyway she's apart of the Freedom Fighters as their spy, something they desperately need because of the constant surveillance around new yolk. of course she's still the morally gray bastard she usually is, so she always desires compensation for her efforts, especially on the more dangerous missions.

the reason why i demoted her from leader is because Rouge is really not the leader type, maybe you could give her a leading role if it were a smaller group like Team Dark, but when its a whole resistance she's genuinely not cut out for it, especially because she's not particularly selfless and definitely doesn't give too much of a shit about the well being of others. here she understands very well that her life is also at risk, so aiding the Freedom Fighters is pretty much her only choice.

next we got Knuckles who is definitely not having a good time. he never met Sonic so he's very distrusting towards everyone, even allies. he lived on Angel Island until it was attacked by Eggman and he lost the Master Emerald. unfortunately i didn't draw anything full body or coloured so i only have this sketch

being from a clan of warriors, i'd say its a no-brainer that he'd be co-commander of the Freedom Fighters. as for all the injuries, they're from a time where he was captured. to compensate for his... lack of knuckles... he now wears brass knuckles. he's definitely the most angry and vengeful of all the different versions of Knuckles, because he feels as if he's been disgraced in multiple ways, and he sees the Freedom Fighters as a means to an end. his pure, unadultered rage definitely helps with taking out enemies tho.

okay, i mentioned that Shadow would have alternate versions of himself and lucky for yall i did draw a design for New Yolk Shadow, who's named Terios and is inspired by that beta design.

Terios isn't apart of the Freedom Fighters, but he's not on the side of the Chaos Council. hes kind of an anti-hero vigilante, he's cordial with Rouge but not really interested in the Freedom Fighters. he kinda does his own shit. realistically, since New Yolk is an alternate timeline where Sonic doesn't exist, and it's implied that Gerald based Shadow off of Super Sonic then technically Shadow shouldn't exist but hey, this is the one plot hole i'm not gonna try to mend. We Ball. Shadow exists because he's goated like that.

anyway his backstory is the same but because everything is so Fucked Up he never really gets the chance to explode the world like he wanted. since he's not on the evil side i'll say that Eggman wasn't the one who woke him up tho and he got talked out of his homicidal urges. who woke him up? idk i'll think about it

now for another added character... Silver!!! but he goes by the alias "Venice"... because his beta design is called Venice LOL

before i explain Silver's deal, i'll talk abt how i imagine time works in the Sonic universe. basically, the future isn't something predestined and is actively changed by events in the present. this is in fact something that 06 contradicts since the future was messed up before Sonic even met Elise, but that in and of itself contradicts Sonic CD which does the whole "actions in the present affect the future" thing with the good future/bad future. so i went with CD's time mechanics because it makes more sense for this story. also 06 isn't canon so #WeBall

so Silver, being from the future, wakes up one day to find everything all fucked up again. except now he's in the present too. he tries to ask ppl if they know where Sonic is, assuming that of course Sonic would know what happened, but nobody seems to know who he's talking about. Silver eventually crosses paths with Shadow/Terios and asks him where Sonic is, but even Terios doesn't know who Sonic is (at this point, our Shadow hasn't linked his consciousness w/ Terios) so Silver is just really fucking lost and doesn't know what the hell is happening, why it's happening and why nobody seems to know who Sonic is.

he ends up following Terios around as sort of an apprentice type thing because he's the only familiar face so far and he really needs to understand what's going on. Terios isn't very happy about it but can tell Silver's a pretty strong person he would want as an ally, so he keeps him around. Silver wears a cloak and goes by the alias Venice as a way to protect his identity.

so obv when Sonic shows up he KNOWS Sonic fucked up real bad somehow. cue the 'it's no use! take this!' loop

(Blaze isn't here because she's relaxing and enjoying a cup of tea in her palace. also trying to tackle how the prism affects the Sol Dimension will make things way more convoluted)

~ New Yolk City: The Chaos Council ~

okay... NOW we talk about Eggman. so maybe you've noticed i kept switching between saying Eggman and the Chaos Council, and i will explain.

the Chaos Council do still exist in this reimagining, but Eggman also exists. Kind of.

basically my idea for the Chaos Council was that it was originally just Eggman ruling the world (btw his name would be Robotnik because nobody was there to call him Eggman), but here comes the inspiration from Archie again, and now he's split himself into 5 robots to help rule over New Yolk City. and i say it's inspired from Archie because i very vividly remember that Robotnik fucking died in Archie and then uploaded his consciousness into a robot or some shit, and then when it came time for his modern design to be incorporated into the comic he literally switched robot bodies to become modern Eggman. So Yeah.

multiple facets of himself get uploaded into robot bodies, because what's the point of living a mortal fleshy life when you can be a sick ass immortal shiny robot (throwback to how i said it would be a parallel to Nine) and these different "facets" of Eggman would just be different parts of his personality, these are what i had in mind but it's still a WIP:

intelligence (cunning, manipulative, thinks logically and lacks empathy)

childishness (interest in juvenile things like themeparks, acts. well. childish)

vain (self-absorbed, uncooperative, gets upset by criticism, interest in flashy things/theatrics)

emotional (prone to outbursts--typically rage, empathetic)

dramatic (placeholder until i think of a better one because this is just grouped in with vanity tbh)

bad news is that i never drew designs for these. because if im not good at designing characters, im ESPECIALLY not good at designing robots. Rusty Rose was already a challenge. but ill figure it out lol.

ANYWAY now we're done with New Yolk. if this seemed long, don't worry because it was pretty much the only one i did brainstorming on. i have one more design and a few notes but nothing else for the rest of the shatterverses.

~ No Place ~

there's not much about No Place i would change other than the character roster and basic premise. it's still pirate-y, and Dread is DEFINITELY staying the same because i Love him.

pretty much my idea is that instead of there only being one crew which is Dread's, there are two. one with Dread, Amy and Tails, and another crew with Rouge, Shadow and whoever else i think to add. basically they're rival crews that compete to get treasure, and the prism shard is just another one they set their eyes on. Marine is also gonna be there probably on Dread's crew.

Sonic initially takes Dread's side because hes a Knuckles, Knuckles is his friend and Rouge usually means trouble, but when Dread starts being yknow. batshit crazy and manipulative. Sonic realizes that he picked wrong and hes kinda on his own to get that shard.

the only thing i drew for this is a design of Rouge

i imagine Shadow would just be the one pirate design from that Sonic mobile game that everyone likes to draw. his name would also be Blackheart because of the lyrics "black-hearted evil / brave-hearted hero" from I Am... All Of Me

that's all i have for No Place. in truth i didn't make much changes because i actually very much enjoyed No Place (mostly bc of Dread)

~ Boscage ~

so... this one i've done the least thinking about, and honestly it's because i don't really know what to do with this one. something about Boscage rubs me the wrong way, maybe just bc it's a jungle universe and the designs make me cringe a little bit. if anyone has any ideas on this then lmk. i don't think i want to get rid of it entirely but i just don't know how to go about this one.

all i have in terms of notes is that:

it should be a bit similar to Sonic Boom in setting, so an island with dense forests

Sticks should be a character, potentially taking Prim's role in the story

~ Extra Notes ~

more characters in the main cast like Cream and the Chaotix should appear

other characters robot copies should resemble canonical ones like Metal Sonic, Knuckles and Amy, however Nine's robot copies should look Fucked Up to emphasize the Wrongness in how he views his robot copies as true friends

^ this means Chaos Sonic should literally just be Metal Sonic. sorry Chaos Sonic fans i love him too but it made no sense to me that it wouldn't be Metal Sonic but lmk your thoughts on that

that's it for everything i think. i might have had more but i didn't write it down so it has just been forever lost in the dark depths of my brain. this is very unorganized and way too long but i hope it was interesting to read at least. ofc any feedback is welcome. i don't think i'll make any kind of story out of this but i'd like to complete it tbh

#when i say it's incomplete It Is Very Incomplete #it took 3 hours for me to write this post tho #a lot of this is just “well im not sure how this makes sense but this is how i would do it”#feel free to disagree on anything or give advice on how to improve it bc like i said i'm not a writer and i'm welcoming towards criticism #sonic the hedgehog #sth #sonic prime #sonic au #ugh should i even tag characters #maybe do that later #long post #txt #my art #2024 #tw body horror #<- just for that last nine design #and also roboticization ig

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cookinguptales · 8 days

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Out of curiosity, do you have any theories for why the bizarre narrative shift wwdits had circa late s4 happened?

I've gotten some uh. Pretty intense anons for saying what I'm about to say, for some reason, but sure, yeah. I'll talk about it. This will be pretty long because I haven't written wwdits meta in a long time, but. Oh well.

For s4 specifically... There's something that Anoop Desai, the actor who plays the Djinn, said in an interview once that I thought was really interesting. He said that they initially only wanted him to be in a few episodes of s4 and told him they'd go from there. As we all know, he ended up doing a great job with the part, the Djinn ended up becoming wildly popular, and the role was expanded.

But when you think about it... a lot of things in the back half of s4 only happened because the Djinn was around, right? The wish for Marwa to like whatever Nandor liked (and its subsequent issues), the wish for Marwa to become a Freddie clone... Those can only happen the way they did because the Djinn's wishes were available as a plot device. It's entirely possible that they were going to happen anyway, just another way, but... I don't think it's really going too far to say that there had to be rewrites of late season s4 in order to incorporate the Djinn, and we just have no way of knowing how extensive those rewrites turned out to be.

I think certain aspects of the end of s4 still had to have been there (a boyfriend for Guillermo, the wedding going poorly) but the exact way that things played out? Well, it did kind of smack of last-minute rewrites to me. We know there was also a lot of confusion about episode order, too, with the wedding seeming to have been originally placed closer to the end of the season... (Based on slates seen on IG.)

So... it really does make you wonder if things might have gone very differently if not for the Djinn's presence. I always kind of felt like I got monkey pawed because I love the Djinn, I really wanted him to be around longer, but then... oof.

s4 was kind of bewildering because it had some truly wonderful episodes, but there was a sense that they were building up to something that just never happened. A lot of themes, like Guillermo learning he can't lie to his loved ones and still keep a strong relationship with them, were really emphasized only to be dropped when they should have been very important with Freddie and all of s5.

Even what I'd argue was the most successful part of s4, the relationship between Laszlo and Colin, was really kind of unceremoniously dumped in s5.

I feel like s4 was where we really started to see a lack of payoff in long-running arcs. s2 was really the last time a season finale cliffhanger had much of any impact on the long-term events of the show (and s3 was when there was a showrunner change, so that could partially be why) and I think that fans were hoping that we'd still see those long-term arcs for characters, especially when s3 on seemed to focus more on characterization and relationship-building.

But what's actually ended up happening is that we constantly get these build-ups that either fizzle out, go nowhere, or worse, get retconned altogether. There's been a real lack of canon consistency the last few seasons, and what felt like small momentary lapses in consistency (like Nandor suddenly being better at hypnotism than Laszlo when the opposite was true in s2) suddenly felt much more dire when fundamental character changes seemed to happen with characters like Guillermo.

I've noticed a real divide between s1-s2 Guillermo and s3, s4, and s5 Guillermo, with him starting to get... almost Flanderized, honestly, with his whole uwu I could never hurt anyone thing. It seems to get worse every season, and this last season making it canon that he feels no guilt towards killing vampires but could ~never~ kill a human (despite being totally blase about it in early seasons) really seems to turn the whole conceit that he loves supernatural creatures (and can't meaningfully connect with humans due to his social otheredness) on its head. Personally, I'd consider that a core aspect of not only Guillermo's characterization but the overarching themes of the show, so it really kind of shocked me.

(In other words, I'm not actually disappointed that he didn't become a vampire. I always kind of thought that was how things were going to happen. But to make it be because he's too gentle?? Because he values human life over vampire lives??? Oof! That lack of character consistency is rough!)

I guess... the reason why I thought the end of s4 was rough was the rewrites. It really did feel rushed, and often themes/characters/relationships seemed to be chucked out in favor of jokes that weren't even all that funny. But I think the overall quality dip (imo) of the last season and a half are due to larger problems. There's a lack of commitment to things established in early seasons that I find troubling, and a total inability to commit to the arcs they're writing now, too.

It's odd. I feel like the first two seasons were more episodic and were less concerned with big arcs, but they still pulled off slowly growing character changes well -- Guillermo finding out he's a slayer especially. Since the showrunner change, they've been much more ambitious about characters, relationships, and long-running arcs -- but they never seem to stick the damn landing! They're aiming higher (building expectations) and landing lower. Which is a bad combination.

So then you have s5, which kind of feels like a culmination of all this. Characterization choices that don't always make sense, season-long arcs that don't go fucking anywhere and ignore previous canon (Laszlo was particularly egregious here), important characterization moments being thrown out in favor of jokes that no one fucking liked. (God, those fucking hybrid creatures.) And in the end, they again refuse to commit and instead send things back to a status quo, now made even shittier because they've closed off a narrative path.

I would hope that this season finale would mean something and we'd see the characters dealing with everything it brings up for the next season, but that didn't fucking happen the last two times, so... I have low hopes. I'd love to be proven wrong, but. I do feel very tired.

Finally... In retrospect, I actually think the death knell came very early on in s4. It was the time jump. Instead of really dealing with the way that any of these characters would have to function with the set-up they created in s3, they skipped all that. I'm not sure Guillermo ever really made that much sense after that, especially, and I think it's because they simply didn't think about what that year would mean to him very much. In interviews, we've seen that Harvey had to make up a lot of backstory himself, we've seen that Harvey and Al independently came up with two very different backstories for how Guillermo and Freddie met and how long they knew each other, we know that the writers often didn't really seem to know what Guillermo was doing in London...

Like. I hate to say it, but that's lazy writing. A time skip doesn't have to be lazy writing, but it often is. It's often used to skip the hard work of getting from characters from A to B, and the only way to do one well is to still know what happened during it. But once they did that, we started to increasingly get these [scene (and characterization) missing here] periods that really brought down the momentum every single time.

So... I guess I think that's been the overarching problem. Rewrites, a lack of loyalty to early canon and worse, a lack of loyalty to the stories they're writing now. If they're not invested in the story arcs they're making, why should we get invested? The way that the whole Laszlo and Colin thing was barely ever mentioned again in s5 was egregious. It was treated as lasting trauma in s4 and then Laszlo seemed totally fine in s5, even going so far as to have sex with the man he'd seen as his son like... two weeks before. For a while, we kept thinking that his weird behavior towards Guillermo was a form of transference, but that never really amounted to anything, either. I think we were just putting too much faith in the writers, maybe.

I guess, in the end, that's probably the biggest problem of all. The writers did some really amazing stuff in the first three seasons. They had a lot of long cons, so to speak, and it was hugely fun to see those pay off. We came to trust the writers, and now we keep thinking that these confusing plot arcs are just one more long con.

But they're not.

So we just get annoyed and let down every single time because we keep expecting payoffs that never come anymore, and in the end we just get kinda bitter.

That's just my two cents, anyway. And it really is still possible to turn things around! But uh. There's not much more time to do it. lmao

Fingers crossed, I guess. (But not around the vampires.)

#replies #wwdits tag #wwdits meta

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ursae-minoris-world · 1 month

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20 questions for fic writers

Tagged by @starlightvld- thank you!!! ☺️

1. How many works do you have on A03? 42! (neat!)

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 140,503!

3. What fandoms do you write for? Mostly vld. I have a Good Omens fic and always want to write more and a few fandom that I'm tempted to write for, but I'm still very much in vld.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? - Breaking point (vld, sheith) ; A little mouse told me (vld, sheith); Flowers and Blood (vld, sheith); A cure to loneliness (Good Omens, ineffable husbands)

This gets long so I'm adding the rest under a read more!!

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes! I do! Sometimes I can take a little long but I really enjoy talking with my readers!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Just a call... (vld, gen) I think! It's an open ending, but it ends up on a frustrating note (which was the point).

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Oh man, they almost always have a happy or at least hopeful ending. Let's go with A little mouse told me (vld, sheith).

Oh, hey, fun anecdote! Someone commented on Stay with me (vld, sheith) to tell me it was the 200,000th work in the "happy ending" tag! They had just witnessed the tag going up to that number with my fic!

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not so far, thankfully. (Happened once on fanart though, but it was just one dumb comment by an anti).

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I haven't so far, I'm not really interested in writing it (never say never, though!).

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Well, I did 2 fairly recently for a crackship event! It was loads of fun. The craziest might be A Mysterious French Chef, which started as a Hunk&Remy idea, but ended up involving Hunk, Allura and the space mice for vld, and Linguini, Colette, and Remy for Ratatouille, and everyone interacting pretty significantly. I really loved mashing the 2 universes, and for something that started as a "crack" idea, it ended up working surprisingly well!!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of. I've had some original (anonymous) poems that I cowrote with a friend plagiarized down to using our actual pseudonym, but that wasn't in fandom or even online!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? I don't think so.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes! Five times Shiro broke the rules, and one time Keith did with VirdisDrachen (vld, Shiro&Keith). It's based on a roleplay. Other than that, while it's mostly an artist+writer big bang collaboration, I think Square_Orange and I did discuss the plot a fair amount for Let It Snow! (vld, sheith).

I also have 2 fics that are remixes of other people's work, done for the sheith remix event : When you lived! (the “Enormous, within your small hands” remix) inspired by a fic by @annaofaza, and High Score! (the “I want us forever” remix) inspired by a fic by Tragedy_Machine.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? To no-one's surprise: sheith.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I am fairly good at finishing my wips, even if I do have some stuff that has been waiting for a while. I still have my notes about Keith grieving Shiro between s2 and s3 and how the team tried to support him and each other but how things became tense, that I wrote just after s3 aired! I still hope to get to it one day!

There's also the collab with VirdisDrachen tbh because we dropped the rp after a while and I wouldn't finish this alone. So I'm afraid this one will stay as is.

16. What are your writing strengths? I think I'm good with dialogues and characterization? Themes like friendship, found family are my jam, too. Of course it's subjective.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I am learning, but action and fight scenes are *hard*. (But I also love them? haha). On the exact opposite side, stories with very low stakes are sometimes hard to write, when it's just 100% fluff and no conflict, unless it's like, a short scene... It's easier with some emotional or romantic build up (ex mutual pining > getting together) but otherwise I really have to *think* to plot the fic. I'm so used to stories centered around conflict (in the literary sense, including inner conflict, not necessarily an actual fight).

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I agree with @starlightvld that if it's a language that I'm not personally fluent in, I'd look for a native speaker who might want to help or avoid it. Except maybe for conlangs, like Sindarin or Klingon. Although if I ever write in a fandom with something like that, I would f*cking love to get insight from one of these people who actually studied them and are fluent. In a more general way, I'd be cautious that it actually brings something to the story, that it makes sense to use the language that way, and to do it in a way that doesn't confuse readers too much (unless I am purposefully writing for those who know the language, I guess). I will say that I do love different languages to be aknowledged, like for vld fics that actually dig into the paladins having different languages, and the Galra and Altean also, and so on (ex fics where they have universal translators and then there are issues when they break or they can't rely on them for whatever reason).

19. First fandom you wrote for? Voltron! My first fic was a Hunk-centric gen fic, While some count sheep, and I'm still really fond of it!

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? Oh, that's hard, I like them all for different reasons. I do enjoy Carry me away for the sheith saving each other vibes. A little mouse told me (sheith written from the space mice pov) was such a fun exploration! Honestly, the most kudosed ones in question 4 are all fics I am proud of. To chose a lesser known one, I also love A special day , a vld gen Hunk-centric fic!

Tagging... @sodomhipped, @tomatocages, @an-aphorism @museaway @jacqulinetan @levyscripts @annaofaza and whoever wants to do this!

(also no pressure at all if you are tagged!)

#writing #ursae answers #memes #fanfiction #sheith #voltron #good omens #ineffable husbands #vldGen

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fifteensjukebox · 2 months

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tagged by @amidalleia tysm!!💖

last song: winning by emily haines & the soft skeleton has been in my head and i have whatever a photographic memory but for music is called so i think it counts. i was trying to figure out the change in timing starting about a minute into the song and my memory wasn't good enough to figure it out, and i think the last song i actually listened to was wet blanket by metric (emily's band) in the car yesterday. what can i say i love her! (the update is that I tossed this post into my drafts earlier and i have now actually listened to winning and almost figured out what she's doing but i'll have to discuss with my music theory-knowing brother)

favourite color: turquoise/mint/teal/sage/cool amethysty purples/the denim blue VW car colour (my beloved first car was a vw beetle we called lulu so that colour is now lulu blue in my house à la dodie yellow)

currently watching/reading:

rewatching btvs and angel mid s4/s1 respectively while showing it to my mom and brother for the first time! it's taking ages but we're having the best time

gilmore girls - (late mid s3) first watch w my parents! there's so much i know from here and so much i don't but i know i love jess

grey's anatomy - watched s1-17 with my family a few years ago (begrudgingly at first bc i so did not want to watch a medical show. and sooo long! but it really is that good (sometimes)) & have been watching weekly as it airs since, but we just caught up on the first bit of the current season yesterday bc i didn't realize it was back. and i love the new class of interns so much we are SO BACK

not dead yet - the only show i'm currently watching by myself week to week as it airs and of course my favorite character is the white man i hate it here... i do love the women too though!!

doctor who 12th doctor rewatch but i stopped like a month ago in the middle of the episode before the cybermen plot starts bc it's just going to break my heart to lose bill for a third time. but i miss them! missy most of all so i will get to it soon

i'm not really reading anything at the moment but i have a couple audiobooks on hold at the library (yeah this is jenny's answer exactly but it applies!)

relationship status: single and i don't go out enough so i doubt it'll change anytime soon

sweet/savory/spicy: i want to say sweet bc i loooove sugar but i add salt to everything lately, i even added it to a rice krispie square the other day, so....

current obsessions:

also still nancy drew forever and always, but honestly i don't have a fandom hyperfixation atm! it's all about furniture shopping.... i'm looking for a small chair/stool for my bedroom desk, and a bigger table to go with my living room big chair so i can have my laptop/food/whatever else i want bc i seem to spend most of my time here

and emily haines/metric music (lately i haven't been listening to much me after 2007, but i love the more recent stuff just as much!

last thing you googled: something about the st vincent rock&roll hall of fame exhibit bc i'd seen a clip about it on someones story but i couldn't find the full video (still haven't)

no-pressure tags: @redheadedbrunette @apolloamy @godofsmallthings @jemhowling @acafemmeic @electrictouchfeaturingfalloutboy @coldnightairinmylungs & anyone else who wants to! i love these sm

#goodnight babes i NEEEED this sleep tn i been strugglin #vie #qs #recipes #(rec from bethany in the tags)

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fluffypotatey · 9 months

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Hello again! I hope you don't mind. What's your opinion on Azure Lion, and the Brotherhood? You said they were a toxic group, can you explain how and why? I am very dense. Also have you watched the newest Monkey King movie? What do you think of it? Are there any part of JTTW or Sun Wukong's story you'd like to see be made into a movie that doesn't get much attention? Not LMK verse of course. I'd like to see Ao Lie, the White Dragon Horse's story get expanded on, especially when the group encounter the Dragon family during their journey. What about you? What's your opnion on LBD's host, or Bai He as the fans are calling her? Would you like an interaction between her and SWK? Have a good month!

ok imma save your brotherhood question for last because once i start with them and swk's relationship with them, i will not stop.

anyway,

no, i haven't seen the new Monkey King movie yet T^T i hope to see it soon when i have free time, but uni's began, so i will be busy with assignments T^T goodbye summer vacation :'(

as for what jttw story i'd like to see more of? hmmmmm, idk, though tbh i am very new with any jttw interpretation (my introduction to this story was through OSP, and after seeing the sun&moon poll i decided to check out lmk), so my personal information is still small compared to the people who grew up with the many stories and variations of Journey to the West and its characters.

however, i kind of wanna say Sha Wujing/Sandy? mostly because he does seem like an interesting character (2nd strongest out of the companions if i'm remembering right), and is fairly clever with his fighting (which might be why he gets along with swk a lot). idk, it would be fun to get some background on how he acquired his skull necklace (pretty sure they were enemies of his???? or something idk) and his own motivations for redemption, not to mention he does become a Bodhisattva just like swk and Tripitaka (pretty Pigsy/Zhu Baije doesn't???), so that would be fun to touch on!

moving on now....i actually do like how the fandom just adopted :BD's host and we all affectionately call her Bai He! it's sweet and i like that we all kind of want to see her own recovery of being possessed for like months (or a year idk lmk timeline is weird and funky and no i am not annoyed-) i am a big fan of the "Macky adopts previously possessed child out of solidarity but also she latched onto him first and wouldn't let go so he's kind of stuck with her now :)" it's very fanon but, eh, i'm a sucker for "reluctant dad to protect the smol" characters (prob another reason why i love Pigsy and swk so much lmao).

ALSO, i think her interactions with swk would be so funny (for me) and awkward (for swk) because she's like "thanks for saving the world and me!" and swk like "MHM! uh yeah, sure, np kiddo" bc he did almost kill her (tho he really did try to find a way to not do that) but also Bai He might not even be mad at him for that. (maybe i want her to attempt to befriend him, but swk is just so nervous and feeling a tad guilty so he avoids her but she's a persistent little fucker, maybe i want to a lot, sue me)

idk what her role is now in the show tbh. she could be sidelined now, and we only get cameos of her (s3 ending & s4 special) for the time being just showing her slow recovery (lmk has been doing a "minor/background character development happening behind the scenes" for awhile (DBK fam) so i wouldn't be surprised if we see that with her). but it's possible that she could grow to have some role in s5 or s6 (maybe she's got some leftover LBD powers bc post-possession symptoms, maybe Mr. Hoodie Man wants to use her too bc she was such a great host for LBD, maybe she saw something plot relevant while possessed concerning MK and wants to warn him or his friend??? WHO KNOWS???)

ok.....Brotherhood™️ what are my thoughts on them......

this post is already long as is, and i have class in 30 minutes, oh boy let's go >:3

sO, let try and summarize my thoughts of them before delving in: i think that narratively, the Brotherhood are a great way for establishing who Sun Wukong was pre-jttw as well as giving us access to his history with Macky (THANK FUCKING GOD I WAS SO DESPERATE FOR THEIR BACKSTORY).

the Brotherhood is also a great way to showcase MK's growing similarities with swk and the narrative parallels the two characters have for each other. we already knew swk was trying to mentor MK is a way that was different from how swk lived his life before because, we he's shown, he really does regret his past actions, and wants MK to be a better version, believes MK can be this better version of him. and you can see him trying, but also he fails to really explain WHY his teaching methods are slow and vague sooooooo, uh oh :)

anyway, character-wise.....the Brotherhood is written to be both sympathetic and dislikable. the sympathetic aspect comes with Azure and his Cause™️ because that shows you that "wait a minute...he really did want to do good, but lost sight of it and the harm he was doing along the way." you're supposed to sympathize with him, you're supposed to feel confused about his shaky relationship with swk because "Azure only wanted to do good, yet swk ruined it" <- this is some excellent unreliable narrator shit i love about this show btw

HOWEVER! Azure is not an archetype character (lmk doesn't really do archetypes. okay, they do, BUT it's more of deconstruction of the archetype than really using an archetype, you feel me?) he is a character who is deeply flawed. he is idealistic and vain (yes, yes he is vain bc have you seen this lion????) Azure built up swk on a pedestal of what a true role model king should look like (nevermind that swk's kingdom was on a island and his subjects were just monkeys, meaning his reign was fairly small compared to Heaven, therefore more manageable BUT I DIGRESS)

basically, Azure placed so much admiration and all his ideal onto swk, who was frankly a lot younger than the celestial lion being that he would have only recently met him post-Havoc & he was only about 500-600 years old by then (maybe????), and saw the monkey more as a perfect weapon to use to defeat the Jade Emperor and start a new, "more compassionate" era.

ok, and this is just me speaking, but, Azure, honey, if you really wanted to help restart Heaven into helping out the poor humans, instead of the very flawed bureaucracy you argued against.....maybe, don't continue on with a monarchy????? idk, maybe it's the Western influence talking but Azure, if you hate the celestial lords and emperor so much, maybe create a system that DOESN'T favor the lords and emperor????? break the whole system apart and create something new???? course you didn't think that far (which was eloquently shown in the special) so i'm honestly not surprised that your mission failed so many times

anyway, the dislikable aspect! Peng is a wonderful character for this section! so, when meeting Azure, you may come to a couple conclusions: wow a pretty lion! is he trustworthy? well, he seems to really want to help out.....damn he's got quite the silvertongue there, very convincing and great orator....you seem very upset about whatever swk did to you, huh? but meeting Peng you get: ooooh pretty bird man! oh, they're kind of a bitch, aren't they? yeah, still a bitch (and depending on the viewer, bitch can be affectionate or derogatory)

but yeah, so Peng, one of Azure's brother trio who worked with him in the Celestial Court and views him as the leader of the Brotherhood rather than swk (actually, none of the brotherhood members even consider swk their leader, except Azure and maybe Macky (but that might be bc Macky does not fucking care about the brotherhood member BUT swk) bc the rest view swk as their prized weapon)

Peng is really the character that starts to make you reconsider Azure's trustworthiness because my god is this bird the most condescending and bitchiest of friends. they are that toxic friend, okay? it was because of Peng that i clocked in "oh, ok, this is high school toxicity 101, got it" lol

anyway, Peng does not really seem to care that much for...the Cause™️ like Azure and Yellow Tusk do. rather, they seem to just stick around mostly because Azure and Yellow Tusk are their brothers and that's it. i guess props for staying loyal??? but still, Peng is the character that gives us the first crack into Azure's worthy crusade because their character will resort to violence first, turns on anyone who slightly disagrees with Azure's methods (*cough cough* Mac *cough cough*) or, hm, let's say....surrenders to the Jade Emperor, is missing for 500 years, then miraculously is freed and is working with a Buddhist monk?

so yeah, uh running out of time but to sum up: Azure and the brotherhood were never really "friends" they were colleagues who though they all had a common goal to defeat Heaven but their loyalty was built on ideals and pedestals and flaky attitudes which was why Mac was never comfortable around them, why DBK stopped interacting with them after the war, and WHY swk was so easily pointed as a traitor and a villain by the Camelhead Trio.

*jazz hands* and there you go, i would say more but i have class!

#lmk #lmk analysis #lmk brotherhood #lmk sun wukong #lmk six eared macaque #lego monkie kid #asks #I HAVE 5 MINUTES FUCK #long post

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howtobecomeadragon · 2 years

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D&D and I love you's

The love language between Mike and Will is D&D. The love language between Mike and El is just... "I love you."

I made this post last week about the importance of the words "I love you" for El and Mike vs the importance of actions for Will and Mike, and it got me thinking about the ways that Mike uses these love languages, the expectations El and Will have of Mike, what they ask him for, and how he delivers.

This comment by @a-place-on-cordelia-street especially inspired me, thank you!!!

Following the D&D plot vs the "I love you" plot, I found some interesting parallels or story beats between both of these relationships.

Will and Mike had a solid history of playing D&D throughout their relationship and Mike hypes Will up as he wins the campaign after he's rescued from the Upside Down.

Mike freely says that he loves El and doesn't want to lose her again, whether platonically or romantically. It's not pressured, he is just feeling a lot of stress about losing the people closest to him.

Later in their relationship, Will repeatedly asks to play D&D, asks Mike to revisit their strong friendship, and Mike continually shuts him down.

Mike feels pressure, mostly from himself, to say "I love you" to El again. He feels like he should say it to El's face but he can't, and El, while not pressuring him, did look anticipatory and disappointed when he doesn't say it.

Will springs a game of D&D onto Mike after Mike didn't initiate a game himself. Mike goes along with it after complaining, and makes Will feel worse by making fun of it. He gives Will what he wants on the surface level, but his heart isn't in it and that makes it even worse.

El springs an "I love you" onto Mike after he doesn't ever say those words to her. Mike pretends not to know what she's talking about, doesn't really participate in the kiss she gives him, and looks confused afterward. He goes along with what El is saying and what she wants here, not cutting in to say "I take it back actually" or "I don't feel this way romantically." This eventually makes it worse.

They both tried getting what they wanted from Mike and he refused to make it easy for either of them.

The D&D game is more paralleled to Mike's "I love you" in s4 but I'll touch on that later.

This leads to a fight in both relationships. Will calls Mike out for not being in the mood to play anymore. This rings true, as we know Mike used to love playing. Mike acts like the idea of them playing for the rest of their lives is immature, but Will says that's what he wants. The conversation ends with Will affirming that he wants to play D&D, he wants that love from Mike back.

El calls out Mike for not loving her anymore. This does not ring true, as we know he never even said it to her face and looked very conflicted when this came up last time. Mike pretends like her accusations are baseless and changes the topic. The conversation ends with El saying that she's not what he thinks she is anymore, she's not a superhero. An idea very woven into their "I love you's" in s4.

The next big talk Mike and Will have after their fight, Mike gives Will what he wants, genuinely this time. He makes that effort to say "yeah, I do still want to play, and I don't want you to move on from me." This is unprompted from Will, and comes from Mike reflecting on their fight. It ends on a high note, both boys smiling.

The next big talk Mike and El have after their fight, Mike doesn't give El what she wants. He tries to (I think? I know some people think they were coming up on a mutual break up here, but this could've been Mike trying to say I love you, and I'll go with that interpretation for this analysis) in a very similar way to how he tried to say it at the store in the "blank makes you crazy" scene in s3, but he fumbles over his words, looking incredibly nervous and negative. El can tell.

We haven't completed these stories yet so I think this arc is unfinished. But analyzing what we do have, while Mike and Will have ups and downs in s4, staying on the topic of D&D, we see Mike continue on the path to make Will happy. He gets back to playing D&D with Dustin and at school, and it's easy to see that he's in the right place to play D&D with Will again when they have the time. Will states his desire to play D&D with Mike for the rest of their lives again and Mike doesn't shoot Will down. He calls Will's D&D painting amazing. He is continuing to repair the love language that had previously been broken in s3. He is doing the work to repair that, show that to Will, and get to a place where he can accept that this, playing D&D with Will for the rest of his life, is what will make him happy.

With El, Mike also gives what was asked for. He doesn't want to, though. He has to be pushed into it by Will, his mouth scrunches up before he says it, just like it does every time he regrets doing something bad to Will (see this post), he's not happy to say it, he doesn't look relieved to finally say the words and get them off his chest. He doesn't look in love. I think the previous scene when they're talking before being interrupted by the pineapple pizza shows this: Mike didn't want to say this, or else he would've already been making steps to make his previous error in not saying it right. It wasn't an error though, Mike doesn't want to say it, and Mike finally giving in and giving El what she wants doesn't fix it.

Which is how this scene parallels back to the D&D game back in s3, rather than Mike coming to terms with loving D&D and Will in s4. This "I love you" was purely pressured out of him, not just by El but also Will. He played the game, he said the words (he basically said the whole speech about how he'd sacrifice himself for the Kalamar all over again, sarcastically high fiving Will who'd egged him on, just like Lucas had in the D&D game), and then in the epilogue, Mike is realizing that El still isn't happy, just how he realized that Will wasn't happy during that game in s3.

#byler #mike wheeler #will byers #d&d as a love language

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selfproclaimedunicorn · 6 months

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MORE QUESTIONS

what other fandoms do you enjoy outside of ASOIAF?

Lmao, the big list of Things Misa Enjoys

I very much enjoy anime & manga. I got infected with those brain worms back in high school, & they simply will not leave. Particularly into Sailor Moon, which I haven't stopped thinking about since 1999, (I have OCs for that & a fic I'm gonna one day sit down & plot out beyond This Is The Vibe. I have a few things floating around in my brain, but I just haven't made the time to do anything with it. Maybe since I'm at reception for 6 hours I'll do that 🤷🏻‍♀️) & JoJo's (I also have OCs for this one, but no fic. I do have a homebrewed ttrpg system to run a JoJo's campaign with, though. But I need to finish statting enemy Stand Users & some character design. Also it's not a priority because I have an asoiaf campaign trilogy to finish running). I don't read or watch anything with the quickness, so I haven't watched a ton of newer anime or made that much of a dent in my reading of Berserk, but I do enjoy both newer stuff and Berserk. I even have a couple figures from Demon Slayer, which is probably my favorite newer series? It feels very nostalgic to the series I grew up watching.

I was into the Netflix Witcher series, but I haven't been able to bring myself to finish season 3. No amount of Joey Batey tits or confirmed pansexual Jaskier can really build my hype back up when I've heard the last bit of s3 sucked & I know I probably won't watch season 4. I have collected all but the last book of short stories though, so once I've worked through more of my books I need to give a fair shake before donating I plan to start those & get into The Witcher proper.

The Elder Scrolls is very good & fun, & I know the plots of all the mainline games even though I've only ever actually played Skyrim to completion. I have...I have so many OCs for that. And a fic I'm slowly working on that tells the story of the Dawnguard DLC by way of Lapsed Viglant Of Stendarr & Werewolf Vampire Hunter Are Forcibly Adopted As Serana's New Parents (and also I am confirming Serana as, like, eternally 19 because she feels very teenagery/early 20s-y to me). Fun fact: two of my current very close friends (my Platonic Wife included) were made by way of TES (and then another friend was introduced to me by a TES friend). So, thanks for your service, Todd Howard. Y'know, I guess.

It feels very "What are your hobbies? / Magnets." to say, but, like, dolls in general. I've collected porcelain dolls since I was little (but that collection got pared down massively when I moved from Texas), & I'm currently working through a clean/restore/dress/display of my old Bratz dolls. I've also dropped real adult money on dolls to (out of box, bc it sparks joy) display in my apartment. Specifically the Sasha (my best girl) Rock Angelz repro I waited almost a full year to see drop, Heather Greyson from Shadow High, & The Pride Bratz (I had a giftcard). I need to finish cleaning my old Bratz before I drop money on more though. So I know my shelving situation, lmao.

I am not not into Dragon Age, but I also complain about it all the time. I refuse to engage with it in a multimedia way. What I cannot learn by playing the games/have told to me in those games is simply not for me to know. Just...the way the franchise is handled & how it feels very obvious that Bioware wants to tell an incredibly specific story (while still allowing for character creation?), all the lore decisions they're making that feel like retcons/throw away everything I got invested in early (hello the dwarves & the dalish & Alistair's everything), & the increasing non-optional nature of the comics & books...it brings my blood to boil. The games are fun though! I have fun playing the games! And my personal Warden/Hawke/Inquisitor trios can be pried from my cold, dead hands!

I'm gonna be real, I know much more about Th Old World Of Darkness than Vampie v5, but I am into Vampire The Masquerade. This is, again, a "I have learned everything in bursts of hyperfixation that last a varying length of time," but I would very much like to take one of my two special vampire boys out for a spin one day. Because they're there! They exist & they are appropriately melodramatic, & I love them. Evil, fucked up, Hecata thug & flouncy, Catholic For The Aesthetic Toreador music producer my beloveds 💕

#ask #im also casually into batman & the flash #and star trek #but not enough to really make NOTE y'know

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jojameswinter · 10 months

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What do you think the plot line of s4 will be based on what we’ve learned so far? Chase saying them dealing with reapercussions scares me. Also— what are your thoughts on Jiara’s future like whether they’re together or not and how they’ll be affected as a couple and individually?

OKAY I'M BACK! So sorry this took me forever! I've been buried in jiara week docs 🫠

I actually LOVE that Chase said that...bc maybe it means they'll actually be addressing their trauma, relationships, healing, etc. Like actually showing conversations and scenes that are about these dynamics and character nuances as opposed to the high octane stuff. However, they also said stuff like this about S3 and well!!!!! Anyways...we'll see what happens.

As for plots and jiara's future, there's so much to think about! But here's some thoughts:

I'd like to see plot lines addressing their trauma. All the Pogues have experienced a lot of hardship in various ways, and I'd like to see the repercussions of that, as well as the healing process

I want to see more Carrera stuff. Whether they work it out with Kie, or not, or something in between, I want it to have the fully fleshed out storyline it deserves

I would love to have Luke back! But only if they give him the nuanced plot line he deserves, not just bring him there to fuck some shit up right quick in a way over-the-top manner and dip

I want to see more relationship nuances for all of them. Jarah b still hasn't really addressed their distancing in S3, and they both lost their dads last season. Cleope is forging this new romantic relationship, and I'd like to see how Pope's goals fit in with Cleo's (e.g. his desire to pursue college or endeavors possibly outside obx while she just wants the simple family life she has with the Heywards). Then ofc jiara 😍 I've spoken about this before, but basically, I want to see their beginning stages, how they address their trauma and heal together, how they comfort/support each other...just literally everything! I want every scene imaginable of them, sharing space, breathing the same air, talking, touching, kissing - ANYWAYS!!!! You get me.

I do think jiara is a couple! Even if they're not officially a couple at times, you know? They may have ups and downs or challenges, even periods of separation, but I think at the end of the day they are together

I haven't thought much about what the overarching plot line will be as far as the Blackbeard stuff...if they are already living comfortably, I'm wondering what their motivation will be. I mean I think the Pogues are always up for a good adventure, but they're growing up too and have so much more to lose. Maybe it will have something to do with a possible threat or stopping something bad from happening. Or the opposite, helping achieve something for the greater good.

#jiara #ask #my asks #lovely anon #diana answers #obx3 #obx4 #jarah b #cleope #the pogues #obx #chase stokes

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implausiblyjosh · 11 months

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Been watching Superman & Lois recently, and with the 3rd season wrapping up, I wanted to talk about what I saw as "Drama Busywork" in this season.

One of the b-plots in this season is that Jordan, one of Clark & Lois's sons, is dealing with Teenage Issues. In episode S3 E12, he sees people make fun of his superhero alter ego right in front of him & he responds like most kid superheroes do in these types of shows, basically saying "so what if this new superhero is a kid and wears goggles? seems like this new superhero is kinda badass and saved some kids!"

That exchange makes his ex, Sarah, think that Jordan doesn't care about his secret and having a secret identity… despite the fact that she saw the entire conversation start to finish and saw him keep the secret, all he did was kinda go "whoa hold on peers, what if the kid hero is cool and awesome instead???" Sarah, going off of this wild interpretation of events laid out in front of her, tells her mom, Lana Lang.

But this game of telephone telephones-back? It starts as "heyyy what if the new kid superhero is cool haha", then Sarah sees this as "Jordan doesn't care about his secret, so I shouldn't have to care about keeping his powers a secret", which Lana Lang takes to Clark and Lois as "he cares too much about his alter ego", and finally Clark & Lois go to Jordan with "you don't think people knowing about your alter ego is bad". And this last point isn't in a "People should know Superman and Clark Kent are the same person" way, it's in a "People should know Superman exists" way.

So Jordan doesn't actually get to address the core problems here, which are:

1) he is a bit of a Teen Weirdo dealing with Teenage Adolescence on top of being a Teen Hero

2) His relationship with his ex, Sarah, is Bad

Watching the season finale right now, and we haven't gotten any meaningful closure on this Jordan arc. So, like, what's the point?

It really feels like meaningless drama that isn't really adding much to the story or the characters, it's just giving them something to do. Just a lot of characters handling things horribly, AND characters who aren't handling things poorly have the memories of goldfish.

One of the other characters, DOD Grandpa (cannot remember his character's name, but he's Lois Lane's dad) is the one who got Jordan on this whole alter ego track! But when everything comes to blows about Jordan wanting recognition as his alter ego, he gets to just kinda peace out of that whole conflict.

Another example from this same episode is a Clark and Kyle interaction, part of the C-Plot of Jonathan (Lois & Clark's other son) feeling kinda left out of the whole family because he doesn't have powers like his brother and he's not someone of worldwide importance like his mom.

Jonathan has been working as a firefighter in-training with Kyle, Lana Lang's ex. Recent developments have made it so Kyle knows Clark is Superman. This has had an impact on how Kyle treats Jonathan, since Kyle knows that not only is this Superman's son, but also Kyle used to be Clark's biggest bully. Clark goes to Kyle and asks to not treat Jonathan any different because Clark is Superman, and clearly and concisely states that this is about Jonathan not wanting special treatment and Jonathan wants to make it on his own merits.

Kyle would literally not be receptive to that idea from anyone other than Superman, he's still in "this man could kill me and coulda killed me in high school when I was his biggest bully" mode of thinking. So, how does Kyle take this new info to Jonathan? like Jonathan went and ratted to his dad! Even though Jonathan clearly states that's not what happened, Clark just overheard him talking about work! Jonathan's obviously comfortable talking to Kyle about these issues, or else he wouldn't expand on them and defend himself by basically saying "what, you expect me to never talk about work outside of work?"

This is the drama equivalent of worksheets. This is busywork. I don't feel like anything productive is happening here in these interactions, either as character work or as narrative. This doesn't get into the fact that a lot of underlying issues here are just… not really brought up again!

If we focus back on my two points with Jordan, there's one that's just normal High School Drama Stuff. The second is his relationship with Sarah, his ex. Despite this second point being a huge driving force in a lot of Jordan's B-Plot (I'd argue the reason he wants to be recognized as his alter ego is directly caused by this awful relationship) there isn't much movement on dealing with the relationship.

This angle is completely unresolved. The Sarah & Jordan angle starts going sour because Sarah cheats on Jordan over summer camp. They talk it out, and are still together despite it, until Sarah decides because of her own cheating she just wants to be friends. Jordan is (understandably!) heartbroken about this, and tries to continue to be friends with her and it bleeds into that first point. Now he's gotta deal with this heartbreak, on top of the usual High School Drama Stuff. It is the catalyst for all these other things in his life, and all his actions, but like… nothing satisfying is happening there!

(Additionally, this plot point hits really close to home for me! I've been on the cheated-on end of a situation, and watching all this knowing it comes from this unresolved issue that hits close to home makes watching Jordan's B-plot hard! However, that's a Josh-Issue not a Writing-Issue, but I felt it needed to be said so you can take that together with my criticisms)

Again, this all feels like busywork. I don't think any character development is happening, and I don't think the character work being done is good in these scenes. It's just… nothing. I know "Filler" gets thrown around a lot, but this feels like that! This feels like padding. It feels like taking up time to hit a word count.

Next season a lot of these characters are leaving the show. On the one hand, it sucks cause I think they're good on-screen! I don't necessarily dislike these characters! On the other, I think having a smaller cast with less of this writing baggage will likely be for the best, or at the very least we get a different type of bad writing.

#superman and lois #media thoughts #media criticism

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pensbridgrton · 11 months

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Thoughts of the S3 Polin? I love them and I'm so excited

i'm clearing out this inbox of mine... and i haven't properly ranted about this in a while, so... yeah. So if you're excited about S3 and don't want to hear anything negative, this may not be the post for you. (I'd classify it as bittersweet, maybe.)

I still HATE the idea of Polin being S3. I hated it when it was rumored, I hated it when it was announced, and even if I've now accepted that it's happening, I still think it was a TERRIBLE decision and actively ruins some of the elements of Polin I love the most (Namely: two characters growing up individually until they're in the right time and space to fall in love and grow together; the spinster and the bachelor; Penelope being successful for a DECADE at LW before being ready to move on; Colin enjoying his travels but being ready to settle down.)

But here we are.

Ignoring the past two weeks, I've been pretty pessimistic about S3. For me, in order to LOVE a romance I need to LOVE both individual characters. I can still like and enjoy a romance if that isn't the case, but with Polin - a book ship that is one of my all time favorites - I had high expectations in S1. My expectations post-S2 were pretty much on the floor because Show!Pen and Show!Colin - while not terrible characters in any way - are not MY characters, or at least not the ones I would die on a hill defending. In addition, while I do not care about plot in the slightest (and therefore do not care about the - frankly, sparse - RMB plot being done away with) I DO care about vibes and keeping characters in character. I love fic, obviously, but I love IN CHARACTER fic... and the show is wildly OOC fic right now. Not my cup of tea. So... really, in the end, I'm just here to support Nicola and Newts. I have always believed that S3 would be wildly popular, eaten up by the casual audience, and generally well-loved... I just felt that S3 wouldn't be my all time favorite season with my all time favorite couple as Show!Polin had the potential to be (especially if it had been S4 and had gone through with the actual slowburn, individual character development route).

Now, ever since TUDUM and some of the interviews that have come out... I wouldn't say I'm cautiously optimistic, but I am choosing to have more of an open mind and be open to the possibility that I might enjoy the main romance without having to turn my brain off. I know there are probably going to be things I dislike/despise (jealous/possessive Colin, Pen not apologizing to Marina, Marina dying, an overemphasis on the sex and not enough on the friendship, Colin's costuming, etc. who knows what else) but I know I will enjoy watching Nicola and Newts play these characters on my screen (the stills had me giddy!)

More importantly, while I try not to read TOO much into interviews, everything Nicola and Newts have said about the season so far does give me hope about Penelope and Colin as individuals. Again, I don't care about the plot. The quotes? Are fun! I'm definitely really happy about "you're my mess" and any other book quotes/scenes were get. But hearing Nicola talk about how Penelope needs to grow up, how she's terrible with men, how she's made mistakes.... hearing Newts talk about how S3 is basically a different Colin... THAT is what gives me hope. Because for me, I am always drawn to character-driven romances but it's hard to be invested in that romance if you're not invested in the characters. And again while Show!Pen and Show!Colin are fine, I really miss their book characters and hearing that they both might be GROWING into their book selves (especially Colin, imo, bc Show!Pen just needs to grow in general and I'll be happy whereas I really didn't like the writing for S2 Colin) does, actually, get me a little excited.

But yeah, I'm still here. I'll watch. I'll keep an open mind because Nicola and Newts clearly care about these characters and the romance and I do appreciate that and at the end of the day, it's an adaptation of the show and if I hate it (wouldn't be the first time!), I'll always have the book.

#polin #penelope featherington #colin bridgerton #bridgerton for ts #bridgerton thoughts #idk if nic and newts wrote this season i would probably be safer having hope but sdjfhskfjhkljafd who knows!#and i know it's pretty unpopular in polin spaces actually to prefer book colin....#matchmaking little shit chaotic laid-back charming colin who everyone gravitates to is MY MAN and i miss him so much #s1 had that correct energy even with the marina storyline but s2 fumbled the bag so hard until 2x08 #but even those 2x08 moments were overshadowed by ONE SCENE told from PENS POV but thats a different post #asks #anonymous

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coffeeteaitsallfine · 1 year

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Hello there, this is the person who asked you on anon about spn podcasts (although the actual spn blogging is happening in the sideblog 17yearslatewithlattes; being unable to send asks is one of the more annoying sideblog features x)). Anyway, thank you so much for the podcast recs!! I've been listening to Escaping Purgatory as I watch, and enjoying it a lot.

The show is sucking me in real quick too! I've watched the first 6 episodes, the most recent being Skin (which. Oof). I've been on tumblr/lurked in the spn fandom long enough to know a lot about the show and characters, and I've been pleasantly surprised by how fully-formed it feels from the get-go. Sam's taking a minute for me; I am fond of him but I think they really hamstrung him at the start by giving him a frustrating and lazy fridged love interest plot as his driving motivation this season. But Dean is already so faceted and dynamic and (despite his best efforts) vulnerable, and way more relatable than I expected. In particular I knew fans tend to see him as a caretaker, but I'd underestimated how much. I also expected his playboy persona to be played pretty straight (heh) in the beginning, but while it's subtle enough that I may very well have bought into it were I going in blind, when you know what to look for it's already so transparent. I mean seeing the shapeshifter pursue Becky in Skin while wearing Dean really highlights that actually we haven't seen Dean do that. He flirts incessantly and says crass stuff, but six episodes in any move beyond flirtation has been made exclusively by the women, and left Dean looking properly shell-shocked.

Meantime, even if I'm finding Sam a bit underdeveloped so far, the dynamic between Sam and Dean and John is already soo. Crunchy. From episode one. This ask is already plenty long so I won't go into that, but thank you again for the podcast recs and letting me update you on the watch!!

Glad you’re enjoying it! Yes the Dean lore goes deep in the early days more than one would expect. It’s funny to me how much they wanted Sam to be the main character. He’s like a ya female main character that’s self insert and vanilla compared to the interesting side characters. Though I think after S1 that starts to shift and S3 and 4 become more Dean centric.

I’d agree and it’s evident from the show that Dean usually has the emotionally vulnerable sex scenes compared to Sam. Dead in the water gets to me.

My ire for john winchester is eternal. So. Something Wicked is a good one to stoke those flames.

#also have you seen faith yet cause 💀😭

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angelhummel · 11 months

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Wow - that's a very impressive list of songs. i was looking at it in detail, and i'm sure you have, and i wont bore the pants off your mutuals, but it's very interesting!!

I counted the group numbers - ie 3 or more characters or more and this is how it broke down:

season 1 - 19 numbers season 2 - 13 numbers season 3 - 16 numbers season 4 - 15 numbers season 5 - 11 numbers season 6 - 4 numbers

18 characters had solos still on list.

I think about 38 different duet partnerships.

oooh that is interesting!! thank you for taking all that down for me. I do like breaking stuff down like that but tbh no i haven't looked quite so intently myself bc it's work enough as it is just doing everything else lmao

which, fun fact, i've given myself more work than i need bc even tho i could go ahead and write out a full bracket, i haven't. i keep randomizing the matchups every time lmao so i and the voters have no idea what's coming! more work but more fun imo (if you dont agree sorryyy but its my poll uwu) but yeah ive been staring at the names of all these songs that i start to feel like ive accidentally done doubles and messed something up but nope, everything is just stuck that firmly in my brain rn lol

Alright since you mentioned solos I'm gonna go thru and list all the characters that still have solos in the running, and how many there are...

Elliott: 1

Emma: 1

Holly: 1

Jake: 1

Jane: 1

Sunshine: 1

Jesse: 2

Quinn: 2

Brittany: 3

Unique: 3

Artie: 4

Finn: 4

Tina: 4

Santana: 8

Kurt: 9

Rachel: 9

Mercedes: 15

Blaine: 24

Now it's kind of null bc it's not like I included how many solos they had from the start BUT we all know Rachel had the most (42) and Blaine managed to come second (29), despite being in a full less season than her

BUT as I always say Mercedes has the next most out of anyone lmao (24) so it always irks me when people act like she was starving for solos and needed more alongside like Kurt (13) or Santana (14) or god forbid Tina and Quinn with their pathetic little 6 each

and everyone can talk til they're blue in the face about how it has nothing to do with the actor or character and they just like what they like and that they just don't like rachel's solos bc there's so many they all start to run together which is totally valid criticism but are we going to pretend like mercedes and blaine don't also have that problem too???

i mean truth be told there are so many rachel solos that i forget about bc they just mean absolutely nothing to me or the plot lmao but honestly i feel like mercedes's solos run together more?? honestly im mostly just a fan of her early s1 ones but then everything after sectionals is like ...yep. (except for sweet transvestite, love rhps). i mean she has way fewer than rachel but they still manage to feel exhausting for me lol

and i kind of feel the same with blaine but to a lesser extent bc like the warblers are one thing but i really love all his songs but some of his from s3 onward are like... eh.

I think Kurt and Santana are the ones I have the least problems with, musical catalogue wise, bc at least their songs were fewer and further between so they hit harder. Plus there's actually like a lot of variety in their styles. which again could just seem like a personal matter bc like someone else could say that all kurt's songs are just old broadway standards that blend together but like that's what i like and what i know lmao so they stand out more to me from song to song. yknow???

so like it is all personal preference but also i do feel like some people are biased aklsjfdskl the end <3

#this got away from me #oops #glee #glee song tournament #asks #my thoughts #1908jmd

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inkofamethyst · 8 months

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September 21, 2023

Wednesdays, I think, are going to be the days that suck. Thursdays will also be tough. I start Wednesdays pretty early and have a lot to complete for Thursdays. I suppose Wednesdays will suck significantly less if I do a better job with spacing out my preparations. I should look into that. Thursdays this semester will always just require a lot of stamina.

Today (one of those dreaded Thursdays), I wanted to get another one of those synopses submitted, and I'd mostly finished it yesterday (with significantly less frustration) but didn't have a critique until midday today. I did end up submitting a synopsis that I was somewhat happy with. I took notes during today's discussion on some of the critiques and experimental methods suggested (I learned that the experiment I proposed in my synopsis is currently impossible lol) so I could use them when coming up with ideas for future synopses (I have to write six for this class). I also had a quiz today which I didn't study enough for (took for granted that I'd learned most of the content previously--will not be making that mistake again). I had a meeting with my PI late this afternoon, my first one since the semester began, it went well.

I still find that I'm settling in. Settling back into schoolwork (totally underestimated the difficulty of the quiz I took today (my first quiz in grad school (the part that sucks isn't going to be the grade or even knowing that I could've done better, but that my PI is the prof and there aren't tons of students in the class so I'm def not just a number and he could probably surmise that I didn't do my best on it (in our meeting today he asked what I thought of the quiz and I told him that I prob screwed up a bit and he was basically like "no worries that happens" ugh what a man)))), settling into my space (gotta admit, walls are still pretty barren (it's difficult for me to really think about putting things up because I'm fairly certain that I wouldn't like to live here next year (it's okay but that's really all it is, just okay, and I, naturally, have illusions of grandeur and high-roller living), but I also don't really vibe with the totally blank walls when I spent so much time thinking about my theme,,,, maybe I'll use this space as practice? idk)), settling into this city (still haven't gotten my library cards), settling into my role (gotta email my postdoc tomorrow). Settling, settling, settling, settling.

I met up with those three girls today for a free dinner at an event they were invited to. I'm glad I decided to go to that with them instead of going to the kickoff event for another club. I'm sure the kickoff would've been great and informative, but I'm really trying to put effort into community-building. We went to the nearby art museum for a free event to just kind of hang which was also nice. Might go out tomorrow night, too. Gotta rest up for that.

Currently binging Young Justice, started last Friday, it is very good. Extremely well-written. I watched the first season way way back when it came out originally with my dad, and it went off the air suddenly. It came back with a third season in 2019 which I didn't know about, then a fourth in 2021 which I also didn't know about. There's a very clear shift from the TV-Y7 rating in the first two seasons to the TV-14 rating immediately in S3E1 which was very interesting. I'm hooked for sure, it's a good time. Action-Adventure + Science-Fantasy is totally my favorite entertainment genre. I hope S3 can adequately follow how well S1 and S2 were plotted.

Today I'm thankful for my PI, he's great, he seems like he really does care. I'm also thankful for the free tote bag I got at the art museum tonight. I didn't need another tote. What I want is a tee shirt, honestly. But alas.

One actual negative thing: discovered that my favorite jeans of all time (Hollister High Rise Crop Boyfriend (vintage stretch)) which I purchased four years ago and loved immediately out of the package are developing a hole in the crotch. I've never mended jeans at the crotch before, but I must try to save my baby (perfect relaxed fit at the natural waist, perfect length, perfect button closure, perfect neutral light wash, perfectly big pockets in the front and back, perfectly soft fabric). I love these jeans so much that I haven't bought a single additional pair since. Taking a trip to a fabric store sometime soon to gather my arsenal.

Today was a (net) good day, despite the little annoyances. A long one, but a good one.

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