#i just finished s5 CAN YOU GUESS

[markantonys]

the good thing about the slog is that because such little of true import happens over such a long chunk of the series, the show is quite well-positioned to be able to tell the whole story cohesively in any number of seasons after 4. only 4 seasons would be tricky, but 5 or 6 would be just as doable as 7 or 8. (disclaimer that there has not been any news or speculation about potentially getting less than 8 seasons so don't panic haha it's just a topic i was randomly thinking about today! that being said, i do think 8 seasons is pretty ambitious in today's television landscape, especially if it continues to take 2 years to make each season, so while we're all hoping for the full 8, it's worth imagining how they could do it in fewer.)

i expect s4 to roughly coincide with the end of LOC, so, dumai's wells for rand and being raised amyrlin for egwene. perrin, mat, nynaeve, and elayne have more wiggle room in what they might be getting up to during s4 (it seems possible the ebou dar trip might be absorbed into tanchico in s3, and perrin may have to get an invented plotline or have a later plotline brought forward for s4 since he has so little in TFOH-LOC), so i won't guess at the endpoint for them beyond that it will likely leave them ready to kick into a fresh new storyline for s5. and nynaeve frankly doesn't have a book storyline after ebou dar (she's just supporting rand's & lan's storylines), so i'll ignore her in this post and just focus on the other 5 mains. fingers crossed the show will come up with more for nynaeve to do during this part of the story, but that's a separate topic.

after LOC, as far as i can recall, each of them only has 1-2 main things they strictly Must do before the last battle (obviously i've left out a bunch of stuff, but i'm thinking of just the absolute bare minimum essentials here):

rand: cleanse saidin (only requires 1 episode); reach his lowest point, then pull himself back up again, all the while simultaneously working to get as many nations under his banner as possible

egwene: unite the tower as uncontested amyrlin

perrin: finish wolf training; fold the whitecloaks into his army

mat: rescue moiraine (only requires 1 episode); get himself in charge of the seanchan forces

elayne: become uncontested queen of andor

so if s4 ends where i speculate, they'd all be perfectly positioned to spend 4-6 episodes of s5 doing these things, then the last battle for the remaining 2-4 episodes, and boom, we've fit all the most crucial things into only 5 seasons.

i know the instinct is to gasp and insist that they all have so much else to do, but.........do they really? everybody agrees that egwene & elayne & perrin only have 1 plotline during books 7-11 which is dragged out for more books than is needed to tell it, so mat and rand are really the sticking points. but if you think about it, mat spends this time repeatedly starting one plotline but then getting yanked out of it partway through to start a new one, so he doesn't actually accomplish that much story-wise. rand, meanwhile, is on a bunch of little 1-book quests (taking illian, seanchan campaign, hunting traitor asha'man, trying to meet with DOTNM) that could be cut for time or merged into his Darth Rand emotional arc from TGS. honestly, he's so emotionally stagnant for most of books 7-11 (he's either not present, dicking around doing nothing, or repeating emotional beats he already did in TSR-LOC) that i don't think going from dumai's wells straight to Darth Rand would be a bad idea at all, if the show had to; in fact, dumai's wells is kind of a perfect launchpoint for that arc, emotions-wise, and plot-wise, if they wanted to replace some of the arad doman events with some slog events, but just put the Darth Rand emotional spin on those slog events, they could easily do so (for example, him being reckless/arrogant with callandor against the seanchan and getting his own people killed could sub in for natrin's barrow in showing how ruthlessly Ends Justify Means he's becoming).

but anyway, these are imo the absolute most crucial pre-TLB plot points of the second half of the series (at least for these main characters, i'm not taking ALL characters into account in this post) and they could be fit into only 5 seasons without much trouble. now if you've got 6, 7, or 8 seasons, that gives extra room to expand these plot points and also add in some additional, not-strictly-required-but-nice-to-have plot points like more Little Rand Quests, elayne taking the throne of cairhien, egwene & gawyn hunting assassins in the tower, and the faile kidnapping plotline. (while making this post i actually had a wild thought of the faile kidnapping being perrin's s4 plotline followed by wolves & whitecloak stuff in s5 then into TLB, or alternately the whitecloaks being part of the kidnapping plotline as perrin's unlikely allies rather than the seanchan; could be a great structure for a 5-6 season scenario, but for 7-8 it would cause perrin to run out of content too quickly haha)

#i know we don't even want to Think about getting less than 8 seasons #but it does bring me such peace to mull over how well the story could be told in as few as 5! #wot #wot on prime #the wheel of time #wot book spoilers

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

so this post is inspired by a person who sent an ask to @my-nitpicking-self (i hope you don't mind me tagging you), who mentioned the confrontation between katara and zuko in atla, in reference to glimmer's and catra's relationship in spop. i thought it was an interesting comparison, so i'm going to expand on it.

so two very similar scenes in atla and spop: katara and zuko being stuck together in crystal catacombs and glimmer and catra being stuck together in horde prime's ship. two things to note here - zuko was beginning to heal at this point and had almost completely given up his mission of capturing aang, while catra has just finished conquering salineas and was neck-deep in villainy.

as soon as katara sees zuko, she becomes outraged. keep in mind, zuko did not kill katara's mother. but she still had a valid reason to be mad at him. she holds him accountable for everything he has done.

K: Why did they throw you in here? Oh, wait, let me guess. It's a trap. So that when Aang shows up to help me, you can finally have him in your little Fire Nation clutches!

K: You're a terrible person! You know that? Always following us! Hunting the Avatar! Trying to capture the world's last hope for peace! But what do you care? You're the Fire Lord's son. Spreading war and violence and hatred is in your blood!

Z: You don't know what you're talking about.

K: I don't? How dare you! You have no idea what this war has put me through! Me personally! The Fire Nation took my mother away from me.

here, zuko doesn't try to argue with katara until she implies that violence and aggression is an inherited thing, because he's from the fire nation. zuko accepts his mistakes but he is also aware that being a fire nation citizen or even royalty alone doesn't make you a bad person. even then, he doesn't raise his voice or lash out at her, he just calmly disagrees.

after katara mentions her mother, he apologizes and sympathizes with her.

Z: I'm sorry. That's something we have in common.

K: I'm sorry I yelled at you before.

Z: It doesn't matter.

K: It's just that for so long now, whenever I would imagine the face of the enemy, it was your face.

katara also apologizes but zuko understands that it was completely in her right to blame him. and then we get to the crux of the issue. katara's mother was killed years ago but she still hasn't been able to move on from the grief.

now, of course, zuko again turns back to villainy but this was an important confrontation. and it wasn't the only one. as you all know, after zuko's official redemption, the gaang still doesn't trust him and katara is the last person to forgive him. she is still upset and disappointed by the way he betrayed her after they had begun to bond in the catacombs. and zuko has to prove his loyalty before katara could forgive him.

now let's come to glimmer and catra. catra DIRECTLY caused the death of glimmer's mother. and it was recent. glimmer had been grappling with her grief in the last season, to the point where she spirals into a small corruption arc. s4 of spop does NOT forget angella's death.

so obviously, you would expect there to be a confrontation between glimmer and catra in s5, especially since they were alone together in a confined space. but let's see what happened.

Glimmer: You again. Why do you keep coming back here?

Catra: Just...bored, I guess.

Glimmer: No, I mean, Horde Prime told you not to talk to me. He's gonna catch you eventually. Why risk it? ...You're lonely, aren't you?

so far, no confrontation, no apology.

Catra: What do you know? You're the prisoner here. I can go where I want. So, stay here by yourself for all I care.

Glimmer: Okay, okay, you're right. It...helps having someone to talk to. Even if you're the last person I'd ever want to be stuck here with.

Catra: Trust me, Sparkles, the feeling is mutual.

and just like that, they're on better terms now. glimmer doesn't bring up angella's death, she doesn't bring up the way catra treated adora, how she and bow were kidnapped by catra, nothing. they seem more like casual rivals than enemies here. catra doesn't seem guilty in the slightest, she just has to threaten to leave and glimmer immediately makes her stay.

and not just that, they joke about adora's paranoia that was rooted in her trauma, as if it's just a fun quirk. at this point, it's clear that the writers are not even trying to make it seem like they don't favor catra over all the characters.

and the one time glimmer somewhat confronts catra—

G: Please, Catra. Do one good thing in your life!

C: Don't talk to me like you know me! You don't know anything about me!

of course, catra shuts her down immediately. and afterwards, even when catra saves glimmer, she makes it clear that she's only doing it for adora. while on the surface, this might still come off as a good deed, it's clear from her later behaviour that catra's goal wasn't to help either adora or glimmer. my best guess is that she was practically awaiting death at that point and didn't expect to face the consequences of her actions, so she wanted to go out with one good deed, much like shadow weaver.

it's crazy how zuko, who was just an antagonist and has done very little to directly hurt the gaang, faced the consequences of his actions and got a drawn out and detailed redemption; while catra, who spent the entire series hurting the protagonists out of her own interest, gets off scot-free.

any time her past actions are brought up, they are mentioned in the vaguest terms possible i.e. “she made some mistakes” or “shs hurt people”. it's so clear that the writers were hoping that if the other characters forgot everything that catra did, the audience would do the same. and the worst part is that they're right. 90% of the fandom were willing to accept catra's redemption because no one in the show ever holds her accountable or confronts her properly.

#spop critical #spop #spop salt #spop criticism #spop discourse #she ra #anti catradora #anti catra #anti spop #anti c//a #antic//a #anticatra #anticatradora

[timetobeaghost]

Stranger Things Endgame ships

Jopper 110%

No happy ending without Jopper, not even a bittersweet one. Mom and dad.. Solid as a rock. Forevvva!!

Byler 100%

Might be under Jopper, but still a solid 100%. Iconic, legendary, best thing about the show. Will improve the rewatchability of the show by also 100%! Literally people will gasp when watching S1 after finishing S5. GASP!

Duzie 95%

They gave Dustin the perfect girlfriend. There is no reason to take her away.

Rockie 90%

Obviously happening, as promised in S4. I guess one of them could die, but not likely. Or they could kiss but somehow separate in the end? Very unlikely.

Lumax 85%

I wish they were higher, but I'm not fully convinced she is going to be okay? I really hope they are endgame and I believe so.

Jancy 48%

Could be endgame. I just don't know. It doesn't feel like the resolution of their arc? Jonathan wants to go to that one specific college and be free of his responsibilities, just live for himself for a while and thrive. Nancy feels like another responsibility to him to go to some other college and whatnot... Nancy wants to go to her specific college and pursue a career. What does Jonathan add to her dreams? Both were relieved not to see the other at Spring break even though they love each other, you know? Yeah, sry, I hope they are not endgame. (Better than Jonathan dying tho!!!)

Stancy 10%

I don't think so, as you can tell from the percentage, but I guess they could go crazy to be surprising or something. Please not! Steve deserves real love too and not "I guess you are not as dumb as back in the day and your chest is not bad at all"

Steddie 5%

I'm surprising myself, but I guess the possibility is above 0. No real reason why not. Sure Steve is straight and Eddie is dead, but would you bet a limb on either of those facts? It would be kinda unserious, so I strongly doubt.

Mileven 0%

But I secretly love them and they are canon, so they get a pic. Hope there will be lots of sad Mileven edits for my viewing pleasure post S5! They so cute! Lookatmypookies! Cuuute. And doomed.

#and everything else is below 0 #stranger thinngs #stranger things 5 #byler #jopper #lumax #duzie #rocvickie #elmike #my beloved #stranger things predictions

[hawkinsp0st]

when the final scene of stranger things is a grown-up will byers at his kitchen table, drawing, and he calls out “hey, sweetheart? can you bring me my good eraser?” his husband walks out of their home office with the eraser in his left hand, wedding band glinting, wordlessly handing will the item.

will smiles up at him. “thanks, michael,” he teases, and mike leans down to kiss him. “you know, you still need to finish your part of volume 5 before we can send this out.” mike stands up, huffs a laugh and gently rubs will’s shoulders.

the camera focuses on what will’s been drawing—the first draft of a graphic novel. will reaches forward and flips from the early page he’d just been sketching on, which depicts the dnd campaign from s1e1 and will getting captured by the demogorgon, and flips to the end, which depicts the Party saving him in s5 (which we’ve just seen earlier in the episode).

“remember?” will points at empty speech bubbles on the page. “this was all happening in your perspective. i was literally in a trance. i can’t fill it in for you,” will laughs, a mirth-filled sound that radiates through their cozy kitchen and living room.

“oh my god, and especially this part.” will flips back to volume 4 of their comic, showing frames of will and mike in the pizza van. “you left all your thought bubbles empty, babe. lucas and dustin are brutal when they edit our shit, you know they won’t let it slide—”

“yeah, yeah,” mike smiles. he sighs as he reaches down and traces his fingers over the thessalhydra on the final pages of the novel. “will?”

“yeah?”

“this is gorgeous.”

“oh, stop.”

“…and i wanted to ask you—“

“yeah?”

“do you think anyone will believe us?”

the room falls silent. will knows what he means—are readers going to believe that this really happened to them and their friends, that this is really their love story? or are they going to think it’s pure fiction? just a metaphor, maybe? and the bigger question hangs between them: do they want people to believe them?

mike clears his throat and continues. “i guess i should ask you what i’m really worried about. do you think people will… like it?”

finally, will’s face breaks into a beaming smile. “oh, yeah. the smart ones. the ones who know what it’s like to be… different.” will leans back into his husband’s arms. “it’s late. we should sleep. el is picking us up early tomorrow, remember?”

“oh yeah, that’s right. she’s really excited about teaching that yoga class.”

they laugh together and roll their eyes lovingly at the thought of their best friend, and will gets up from his chair. he starts to follow mike into their room, but gets stuck on the image of the whole Party physically pulling him from vecna’s clutches on the final page.

mike notices and peeks out from the hallway. “hon, you coming?”

“yeah,” will says, and he smiles fondly, thinking about how lucky he is to have the people that he has, and to have been to hell and back with them. “yeah, was just looking at a couple things.” he sighs and closes the book, and follows mike. his voice trails off as he says “you know, i’m still not sure about the title…”

the camera shows us that the draft’s cover reads:

STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED…

by William & Michael Byers

Introduction by Jane “El” Hopper

Epilogue by Maxine Mayfield-Sinclair

Henclair Media, 2016©

#byler #this was not my original idea btw #like the general concept #yes i’m putting the meme on this no i won’t be taking questions comments or concerns #/lh #sorry this is so cheesy but i had to post bc it just haunts me #duffers

[fangirleaconmigo]

Finished S5 of Justified and Raylan’s behavior with Boyd is just so unnecessarily dramatic. Like he’s a one man high school production of whatever the shit he’s got going on.

I mean. Whenever Raylan needs intel on the criminal element, he *could* just ASK Boyd for it. We all know that. He knows it. I know it. You know it.

He could literally fuckin walk into that godforsaken bar/site of more executions than I can count, and he could say:

Hey Boyd. There’s a kid in trouble. OR he could say Boyd, I’m in trouble. OR Boyd, I need your assistance.

And GUESS WHAT BOYD WOULD DO

He would flash his pearly whites. He would do his narrow hipped vest wearing gay little swagger. He would sit down next to him and something like

well, Raylan Givens, I do declare, like the philosophers say, it is my pleasure to assist the golden son of Harlan blahdeeblahblah. He would serve him some whiskey and scoot in close and he would help!! Because they dug coal together!!

Boyd is a criminal far beyond anything Raylan has ever contemplated. However, Boyd’s hometown, his community, and his former partner in coal extraction, MATTER to him. We all know that. Raylan knows that. All these people Raylan wants intel on are outsiders and as far as Boyd is concerned, fuck outsiders.

There’s a hierarchy of loyalty and Raylan, lawman though he is, is Harlan. Raylan is HIS. So his loyalty will be there first, fuck the US Marshall service this is Raylan Givens.

We. All. Know. This.

But can Raylan just be a normal goddamned person and ask for information?

Noooooooooo no of course Raylan Givens has to swagger in with his little hat cocked, his gun out, his dick loaded, and start threatening Boyd, punching his bar staff, giving him ultimatums and threats to “force” Boyd to give him intel he woulda given him if simply asked.

Why does he do that?

Because Raylan is HYPER AWARE of the fact that he treads that line between outlaw and lawman but he NEEDS that distinction between him and Boyd. He NEEDS it or he (in his mind) becomes his daddy or he becomes Boyd.

So he has to put on this big production every time. He has to go through these motions of harassing Boyd for no reason.

Because GOD FORBID he admit they have a bond. GOD FORBID he admit they could be friends in another life. Hell he could *be* Boyd in another life. GOD FORBID he admit that his obsession with Boyd outstrips every passion he has experienced in his romantic relationships. GOD FORBID he notice that he is prioritizing his obsession with Boyd over his own child.

He cannot cope with any of that! If he acts like a normal person with Boyd, it all comes tumbling down.

So he just goes through the motions and acts out his little high school production of a John Wayne movie every damn time. It’s this whole rigamarole he drags his colleagues along to witness and I’m embarrassed for him!

Raylan! Get your shit together! Get in therapy! (No, don’t. This is way more entertaining.)

#justified #raylan givens #boyd crowder #they dug coal together

[byrhop]

Why were California and Russia plots so important

I’ve seen a lot of people complaining last summer about how the Russia and California plots were unnecessary and just a waste of time. I’m here to dive in into the brain of the duffers and tell you exactly why they did this and why it was the exact opposite.

I have 3 main points to make:

1. Developing Vecna’s background

The duffers are smart and probably already had the idea about what s4 and 5 are gonna be about while writing s3 and maybe even earlier. So put yourself in their shoes, they want to introduce this big bad that will end up being the mastermind behind everything and they need time to introduce him properly.

Now imagine this: Will, El, Joyce and Hopper are in Hawkins and the planned story for s5 would have to immediately get into motion. What’s the story? Due to the play, we can guess that Joyce and Hopper knew Henry. The dots would be connected much sooner, leaving no time for us to have a question mark over our heads trying to figure out how the Creels play into all of this.

Another thing is our dear William Byers. We know he’ll be very important in s5 and there is no way Joyce knowing Henry wasn’t connected to his s1 disappearance. Will is connected to Henry, if he were in Hawkins, this plot would start immediately. We’d have to find out more about the connection sooner, Will would again be put through supernatural hell and we’d most likely be introduced to him struggling with his sexuality through vecna which i would hate. Like this we at least got a glimpse into Will already figuring it out on his own and even accepting it.

If El hadn't lost her powers and stayed in Hawkins, she would immediately locate vecna and he would probably remind her of everything that happened… and there goes all of your time to introduce Vecna slowly with a mysterious effect to him, we’d have the same characters in supernatural mess as always and no time for sadie sink to shine. Which brings me to my second point

2. Focus on other characters

What does this mean? For example, Will is an important character who was sidelined for a while, but we know he will return to the center stage next season. In season 4, we saw that he had grown more confident, likely due to a more open-minded environment. The smaller plot that he had will become more significant in season 5.

Mike usually leads the party, but in season 4 he didn’t which led him to voice some of his insecurities. However, when was the last time something significant happened to him? I believe it will in season 5.

But, what about other characters? If we assume that Will, El, Mike, Joyce, Hopper (and probably Nancy and Jonathan) will be the main focus in the next season, when will there be time for the rest? That's why season 4 was important - it gave the Hawkins crew more focus and developed their final stories, so they only need to be finished and given proper closure. If our Cali and Russia crew were in Hawkins, there wouldn't be enough time for other characters because they would be the ones in the middle of a supernatural mess.

3. The relationships

Russia and Cali had a common theme going on when it comes to relationships. Both jopper and byler (no matter if platonic or romantic) experienced having to spend time without the other person to realize how important the relationship is to them.

Mileven struggled with issues that they didn’t even know they had before. It doesn’t matter whether mileven or byler will be endgame, we know that Mike deeply cares about both of them, and the distance definitely made him realize a lot of new things about his relationships with those two.

Jopper was on the verge of getting together last season, but his “death” made them realize there is definitely no time to waste and made their feelings for each other perfectly clear.

Conclusion

Relocating characters was important to make space for forming a background for a probably packed plot that is coming next season. If they hadn't done that, season 4 would most likely be the last season, and it would feel incredibly rushed (they even originally planned to have only 4 seasons). This gave them an opportunity to focus more on the characters and their relationships, and paved a path they're about to follow to their final closure.

Although there's still a lot of stuff left open, particularly with relationships, I feel like most of their problems can be solved with one big and important conversation. Season 5 was definitely tricky to write because there's so much going on, but if you think about it, we already know the big bad and quite a lot behind his motives, giving us 7-10 hours to give the show a proper ending without spending at least 2 hours introducing a new villain or characters. That's precisely why the way season 4 was written was extremely important.

#stranger things s5 #stranger things s4 #stranger things #will byers #mike wheeler #eleven #dustin henderson #byler #mileven #jopper #lucas sinclair #cali crew #analysis

[daphnebowen]

hsmtmts headcanons :)? also what show would you have them do if there were a s5 :D

oh my goodness yes hsmtmts headcanons! I have some that I’ve been thinking about so apologies if this is a horrific mess that jumps all over the place :) also this is going to be very very long so apologies 🥰

after the whole “Romeo and Juliet announcement” for Christmas they get twin golden retriever puppies, one for each of them, and name them Romeo and Juliet. Juliet belongs to Ricky and Romeo belongs to Gina. Romeo is affectionately known as ro or romey and Juliet is affectionately known as ju or juju. (pretty sure this one has been said by people already but I LOVE the idea of it and i had to add Juliet)

furthermore on the Romeo and Juliet topic after Mack leaves Quinn asks Ricky to step in 😍

this is more down the line but I have a vision for in the future when Ashlyn and Maddox want kids. they want to adopt though, and as soon as they find the perfect little red haired munchkin Maddox immediately goes to the hardware store and buys tons of paint and they redo an entire room in their cute little cottage for their kid. idk why but that just came to me in the middle of the night, I had an image in my head of Maddie FaceTiming jet covered in paint laughing/crying as they finish up the room.

jet asks Kourtney out at the big New Year’s Eve party at Ashlyn’s. Enough said. she giggles and accepts and the two become a power couple and a force to be reckoned with.

ricky and Gina continue to meet in the secret stairwell and he continues to climb up through her window even after their relationship goes public

We don’t know what ej is majoring in (at least I don’t remember) so during the middle of his freshmen year he switches it to education. he becomes a teacher and goes somewhere else (somewhere in the Midwest maybe?) to teach middle school sports.

ricky pursues music through college and ends up becoming a famous singer/songwriter/music producer similar to nini but he ends up writing a lot of the songs and soundtracks for Gina’s movies.

Gina pursues her acting career and ends up becoming a total rockstar but she never changed her values and who she is. her and Ricky attend every premiere together

when Dewey gets too old to run camp shallow lake anymore, guess who he asks to take over? Maddox. she happily accepts and moves her and Ashlyn and their red haired baby (ash and Maddie are not married yet btw - can you adopt and still not be married? Dumb question maybe lol) over to California. and one day as they’re going through each of the cabins seeing what shape everything is in, they stop by the honeycomb bunk. Lo and behold as they walk in is a magnificent beautiful romantic picture before Maddox, with a huge framed picture of her and Ashlyn and tons of wild flowers and all her favorite guitars and things. She turns around… and there’s ash with a ring. Ashlyn doesn’t even get to pop the question until Maddox screams and tackles her, laughing and saying “I have to show you something!” She pulls ash behind her over to the theater barn and there is almost an identical setup on the stage, except all of Ashlyn’s favorite things. and now Maddox has a ring. You can guess how it ends. (sorry this one was super long but once I got started I couldn’t stop)

ricky has always enjoyed doing public things for Gina, as we’ve seen. He’s always shouting about his love for her in public, serenading her randomly as they walk through town, etc. well his proposal is exactly the same. They’re on the red carpet for a movie Gina had been kicking butt in (literally, it’s an action movie). (like everyone else has said, they got married young. You decide what age you want specifically) Ricky had been acting a bit nervous and Gina didn’t know why. once they got on the red carpet, in the very center of all those cameras and fans, Ricky took her hand and got down on one knee. Gina’s jaw dropped as Ricky gave the most beautiful profound speech in the world since “I love you forever” and immediately Gina started crying as she said “yes yes infinity times yes!” and everyone cheered and Ricky gave her the biggest hug of his life and spun her around did not let go of her for the rest of the night. *side note: when a reporter asked Ricky if he was nervous about proposing to Gina since it’s very public and what if she says no, Ricky replied with a “that’s not why I was nervous at all. No, I wasn’t nervous that Gina would reject me. We’ve been dating for so long, it’s just- we just get each other. We complete each other. I promised her forever and I’m never going back on that promise. because I do love her forever. No, the only reason I was nervous is because it’s so loud here and I didn’t know if she would hear the things I was saying. I was speaking from the heart! and because I’m on tv being recorded, obviously, what if I mess up and do something stupid? but no, I wasn’t worried at all that Gina would say no.” 🩷 (this one was also extremely long sorry!)

Saw some other rina headcanons (sorry this post might be a lot about them bc I’m in love with them so yeah) but one of them was Ricky gets Gina mystery childcare’s every Valentine’s Day and she literally knows who they’re from but plays along anyway because he’s adorable

Carlos and Seb continue to be a little on again off again through college but eventually settle down in a far-style version of glamping with a huge fancy central house and then a rusty old barn for Seb to do this thing with the cows and such

they have both boys and girls and Carlos insists on having a quince for every one of them (I’m thinking big family…)

all of the respective couples when they have kids name miss Jenn as the godmother 🥹

kourtney is a cat person. idk why. but you cannot change my mind. she’s gonna be a crazy old fashionista grandma with tons of cats telling her grandkids stories while her is half asleep next to her waking up every so often to say “and then I…” and then falling back to sleep

speaking of jetney, jet needs 60 million pep talks before he proposes to kourt - it takes a LOOOOOOOONNGGGG time

i imagine their proposal to be somewhere like iconic. idk I don’t have any ideas where - maybe somewhere overseas?? Kourtney makes her Sharpay dreams come true

Kourtney becomes a world renowned fashion designer and jet is just along for the ride. they have twin boys and a girl and he raises them while working some boring 9-5 job but he loves raising his kids and teaching them all about music and their mama since she’s gone a lot. But they FaceTime every day after school whenever Kourtney’s away for her job, it’s the best part of any day

jenn and mazzy love New Zealand so much that they end up moving there once miss Jenn retires (don’t worry, it’s not for a long time) and when everyone goes for a big reunion party to celebrate the 25th anniversary of hsm4

mike and Lynn don’t actually get back together… do they actually get back together in canon? Or are they just like more friendly towards each other and not so standoffish? Because I dunno, a divorce is very final and then getting back together just offsets the whole change thing Ricky’s gone through. But anyways, that’s just me

nini goes on tour Ricky and Kourtney’s freshmen year in college and Kourtney comes back from Lewis to see her perform in Salt Lake City. nini gets everyone prime seating - even Emmy and jet and Ricky - and they all go and have the best time ever. Ricky and nini don’t kill each other on sight and turns out nini is the biggest die hard rina fan ever and ends up writing a song for them on their wedding day. her and Ricky go back to being better friends and things aren’t so tense after they have a huge raging private concert between them too where they sing all of the thoughts they’ve ever had about each other and just let it all out. It’s very therapeutic for them and helps them understand each other a bit more (same vibe as portwells lil thing in season four where Gina apologizes to ej)

and I’m out of characters soooo more hc and what show they do on the way!! Hope you enjoy!

#hsmtmts #cant believe I ran out of characters #This was such a good ask!! #I’m definitely going to be making a part two answering what show :) #hopefully it won’t take forever #I’m on break so this week I will probably have time #thanks for reading! #rina #high school musical the musical the series #gina porter #hsmtmts season 4 #ej caswell #kourtney greene #madlyn #carlos rodriguez #ashlyn caswell #maddox hsmtmts #jetney #jet hsmtmts #emmy hsmtmts #miss jenn #benjamin mazzara #ricky bowen #seb matthew smith #and anyone else in the show lol I’m too tired to tag the rest of them #there’s too many people in this show fr lmao

[russian-spider]

you know what pisses me off the most? the fact that i watched 2 seasons of wwdits and i didn't ship nandermo because it didn't feel like they were going there, like you could ship it because there were plenty of great moments between them and the dynamic was great but i could tell their closeness wasn't meant to be romantic, or the romantic undertones weren't meant to be taken seriously. Until season 3. the shift was so obvious! guillermo canonically had a crush on nandor! they can't deny that. it was then that i started shipping it because suddenly this dynamic i loved was something more and it had the potential to be incredible. paul simms can say whatever he wants but he made nandermo canon, at least one sided nandermo. and then he... got bored of it? changed his mind? never meant for it to be more than the joke of the season? i couldn't believe they would do that, i thought nandermo was now The Plan, i was so sure of it! and the end of s3 only reasured me. but now i feel like a fool. there was another shift in season 4, guillermo was over his crush like nadja was over her club in s5. for the longest time i couldn't understand the choices made in s4, it didn't make any sense with what came before, why would they waste the cliffhanger? why would they get separated for a year and not try to find each other? why would guillermo get a bf if not to make nandor jealous and bring them closer? and season 5 was so good and it did bring them closer but as friends... nandor has called guillermo his friend so many times already and it sounds so much like the way other shows queerbait (it doesn't apply here as both are queer but yk what i mean, shipbaiting, wtv) and i didn't want to see it. but i guess i was stuck on the s3 narrative, i was looking at everything that came after with what i knew from s3 in mind, but i see now nandermo was a one season plot that ended with the cliffhanger, that the year apart was their way to finish it, to get a clean slate. i see now that for the writers guillermo's crush is barely more than nandor's crush on meg or the guide's crush on guillermo, another thing that gets discarded from season to season. and since then they've given us just enough to string us along. and i'm pissed off because i fell for it, because they made it canon but not canon enough and now i have to read paul simms call the ship he wrote as romantic "problematic", like we're bad for liking it, like the whole show and characters aren't "problematic", like we're dumb for not taking guillermo's word for it when he said it was over bc we thought this show would give a fuck about arcs and themes and continuity. and yeah we can ship it even if it never becomes canon but it was supposed to, that's why i let myself become invested, because they gave us hope, because it was already happening! and just like guillermo becoming a vampire, it's been undone.

#nandermo #wwdits #tldr: nandermo was canon in s3 and i got invested bc it was the real deal but it's been undone like guillermo's turning #and now i feel stupid #i didn't want to believe they would do that to us but they did #time to face the truth #also fuck u paul

[vexcraft]

Need help with Convex, please!

Hi, Hermitcraft enjoyer who jumped on in Season 7 here. I recently finished updating my hermit tier list (gives my fingers something to do while watching episodes) and found that Scar and Cub are my fourth and third place favourites respectively. (Zedaph and Gem btw). Obvi this got me thinking about how there is, theoretically, an entire season and a half's worth of dynamic between them that I've never seen! This is exciting, except, I don't really have time to watch through the whole of their seasons 5 and 6 to get to the good duo stuff. (Both of their season 6 lineups are well over 100 episodes... Cub has over 200!! Yikes.)

So I'm consulting you, an expert, to help me out. Is there a list of particular episodes that show off their dynamic especially well? Or, if not that, then is there a good jumping on point from one or both perspectives to get right to the good stuff? I suspect the seasons don't just start with them teamed up after all. A number past which they're already an established group would be nice to know.

hello! welcome to a massive rabbithole :D

there are two playlists of the episodes with their interactions (s4 & s5 and s6) if that's something you would be interested in, though i can't necessarily recommend those for properly wanting to learn about them as you would miss quite a lot of stuff and things will most likely feel confusing :p if i remember correctly the vex stuff starts in scar's episode 24 and cub's episode 40 in s5 so i guess that could maybe be a bit of a jumping on point? (though there are a few pranks before that, you can find a links to the prank episodes here)

unfortunately the thing with convex stuff is that it's rather... complicated. it's everywhere, once you start looking. little bits and casual mentions all over the place. my best tip would probably be trying to watch through the seasons while doing something else, having the episodes play in the background so you can tune in when something sounds important, or skimming through things like long parts focused purely on building to get to the more relevant stuff. scar's seasons have less of the vex stuff but they're also a lot shorter and easier to get through and with that knowledge you can pretty easily watch cub's episodes from here and there and have some sort of an idea of what is going on :D it's a lot but man is it also a lot of fun

i'm sorry this isn't a very good answer for what you were asking for but i hope you can still get something out of this!

#asks

[rist-ix]

I have a question for you what do you think of the quote unquote age gap between Bloom and Valtor?

I had to do alot of research to understand Bloom age when I started to like this ship better than Mr cheater. So here's a brief information dump:

Bloom is 16 in the first episode and its confirm her bday is December 10 (we don't know the the exact year when each girl was born only the fact Stella is the oldest by that logic Bloom is the second youngest out of the group) when we get to season 3 it is confirmed that the girls is in their 3rd semester so that makes Bloom 19 at point. Valtor's age we do not know however I'm going to say at most early 20s from what we know Valtor working with a younger Griffin before he got Popsicled.

Here comes the tricky part. In s4 the girls just finished their semester and graduated making them 20-21. Up until s5 where Nicklodeon had to reboot their age making them 16 again. Flashforward to s8 and that makes Bloom age 19 if you are following the reboot or 23 if you do not follow the reboot. Since we don't know how long Valtor been frozen his mental age is up for debate.

For me personally I don't see Sparxshipping as an Edward and Bella situation as Edward was aging naturally during his years while Valtor was frozen and couldn't age naturally but only mentally.

Okay okay first of all! Your Bloom math checks out and I just realized that I for some reason always thought Bloom is 18 in s3. Which is still possible, I think, I just dont know why I assumed that. Actually no, it works, if she is 16 in s1 she is 17 in s2 and 18 in s3, but we dont know a lot about how the school years work in Magix so I'm gonna jot her down as 18-19 for the remainder of this post.

Still dont know how I passed math btw.

Anyway. Valtor's age is where the real mystery is at. We've got two possibilities in my opinion.

1. He's pulling the ageless immortal card.

My personal go-to for fics and discussions. Love me some 300 year old mommy issues. He has too much practice being a messy bitch, there's no fixing this man folks.

Evidence: There's a flashback showing him with Griffin as a tween: she looks MUCH younger, he looks exactly the same. Unless he also stole the secret magic of the world's most potent anti aging cream, or Griffin's proximity to Faragonda just aged her by three more decades, he does not age.

2. He is the age he looks.

Which, in my humble opinion, would not put him anywhere near twenty. That is a grown man. He's not college age, unless you count college professors under that word. Even if I were good at guessing ages the very stylized art style would throw me for a loop, but im gonna say 40s, give or take. Look at Avalon, look at Codatorta, look at King Radius if u must. That is the age range we're looking at.

Evidence: I dont have any. We're ballin'. I guess it's never explicitly stated he's immortal, which you'd think would be big enough of a deal to mention. If u got something feel free to let me know.

That being said, the Winx Club Wiki page for the canon timeline (ha, good one) puts the time of Valtor's creation in a rough time frame from "Over 17 years before season 1" to "Under 100 years before season 6". So he could technically be anywhere from 17-97, though I'm not sure the upper limit is as reliable as the lower one, given the check-list format of the website. So make of that what you will.

Now that we've got the question of age out of the way, lets get to the age gap. I have no idea what the situation in twilight was to be honest, so I cant compare that.

Realistically, there's at least a decade between Bloom and Valtor. Possibly two decades and change. And that is just from visible age, we can add a few centuries on top of that if we're sticking with the immortal bit. I'm gonna be gonest, I dont think being frozen for 17 years will make a whole lot of difference here.

If you find that icky, which is fair, you can always change that for fics tho! Either turn him into a twenty year old or put Bloom in her milf-era, the options are endless. Personally, I think the age difference is half the fun though, and also the least of their issues. When you're off making out with the objectively worst person in history, wether he's too old for her isnt gonna rank very high on people's list of concerns.

#asks #sparxshipping #winx bloom #winx valtor #i think their very obvious gap in knowledge and experience is very intrinsic to their canon dynamic #Bloom being the underdog while Valtor is VERY convinced of his superiority kind of defines the ship for me #and it makes it so much more satisfying when Bloom does put him on his ass

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep : I don't know the episode numbers anymore I never wrote them down, so from here on out, I'm just going to number up from my previous post. So I guess episode 49

Fun fact I finished this post a week ago and then never pressed send. I can blame this on a lot of things, (work, illness, brain fog, etc) but at this point we just know it's the universe trying to keep me from finishing S5 of my Yugioh reblog, lmao.

So, last we left off, Sad Seto was next to die.

What makes this extra weird is that the other Seto is going to just watch this entire thing happen. He apparently didn't have enough traumatic disassociating while watching his Blue Eyes Wife die, now he will disassociate from watching himself go out in a blaze of glory, too.

Sad Seto's strategy against Zorc is not really what you'd expect out of the #2 of Egypt's court. Although...I guess before everyone biffed it, Seto was more like #5? #6?

He's above Mana I feel. Barely. Mostly because Mana probably isn't the right age to legally work, even in ancient Egypt when the working age is like...if you can walk.

But he was apparently so busy doing Aknadin's taxes that he's decided it's good judgement to throw himself at a 800 ft tall dragon/crotch/man.

for his credit, Sun Tzu's art of war hasn't been written yet.

And Sad Seto realizes his true purpose, which is that he has a smarter, stronger, and more powerful girlfriend (ish.) Which is a running theme on this show, as we all know.

In a bizarre cut that I can't believe they left on US TV...other than I think they couldn't cut this any other way, the penis dragon attached to Zork extended it's neck up to grab Blue eyes by her neck and just fling her into the ground, killing her instantly.

I don't like that the neck can extend longer. I don't like that it's a function of the dragon crotch. They knew. They knew what this looked like. Thanks, I hate it.

Also what an embarrassing way for Seto's past self to die. Truly the hieroglyphs about this event will be wild, and thousands of years later, Grandma Muto probably looked at this event etched into stone and just thought it was weird ancient pervert stuff.

Sorry if you were thinking Sad Seto would recover last minute and realize he's like the most OP person in Yugioh. He instead rotted from his hand and joined the rest of our Egyptian cast in Shadow Hell.

Leaving us with just Mana. And like kudos to her, but how on EARTH did she survive so freakin long!? Like of all of them, I thought Seto would be the last one. Not Mana. Not in a million years did I think it'd be the girl who hid in a pot.

But youknow maybe that's why she survived?

And then Bakura casually walked away from the only Seto who matters. Which is fitting, because if memory serves, that's also what Yami did to Seto for like half of the Battle City tourney.

It's such a weird strange bod on this dragon. It's such a strange bod. He's both got kind of a belly, but also is ripped to shreds. Such a weird bod.

In case you were like "We haven't given Seto enough motivation," we also toss in a few nearly dead brothers just to make sure we have properly traumatized this boy to the point where he'd duel someone who isn't Yugi Muto.

Seto decided magic exists 6 minutes ago, and he's already better at magic than Yugi Muto who's had access to it for YEARS.

Like he learned about magic in a different culture, a different time, a different language, and now he's fighting the final boss.

But it's Seto, so I buy it. He would speedrun his life like this.

That's the dialogue of the show where he says his first words were "neutron blast attack" and youknow...he probably has very few memories of himself as a child since his parents died and his other family put him up for adoption...but he knows his first words?

That, or Seto likes making his brand a reality by making up whatever nonsense it takes to make that brand legit. Which I can also see him doing.

Also please don't look at this foreshortened hand, don't look at it, ignore that this happened.

So thanks to Bakura's weird choice to drag Seto into this universe in the first place, now Bakura has to fight Seto and his 3 blue eyes that would not have existed here otherwise.

++++++ME RANTING ABOUT THE SETO ARC FEEL FREE TO SKIP++++

TBH it kinda makes the whole Sad Seto arc feel kind of like it didn't need to exist. Like this is the Seto fight that matters. This one right here, and although they share a name, it's not with the same guy who fought Zorc at the beginning of this episode.

And like I could add it to a list of problems with this season. But Sad Seto started out so interesting, and then forgot. It was like he only existed to introduce the dragon, and not explain anything at all about the nature of Seto Kaiba we know and love. Like the possession of Aknadin can be a parallel to how Seto was raised following Gozaburo's footsteps, but youknow...that's all old territory.

Like, I wish I had any sort of new growth from the interaction of either of the Seto's together in the same room, much like we've been getting from Yami facing his past self. Yami's been growing a lot, he's been facing his demons, but Seto? Seto's been walking around this desert trying find wifi.

(which like he did find a "wifey" which is almost wifi but wasn't as helpful because she was dead)

The Seto Kaiba who is fighting Bakura right now, is the same exact guy we saw at the end of the last arc against Zeigfried Von Schroeder.

Which means the reason that Seto is now souped up and capable of going up against Bakura isn't because of anything we witnessed here in this arc, but because of the weird horse guy last arc who taught him how to put up a better firewall.

And maybe there was a draft where Seto decides he is a spiritual reincarnation of the Pharaoh of Egypt. Maybe there was a draft where he gained a new ability. Maybe there was a draft where he realized the gravity of what was happening and wanted to save the world.

But it ain't this draft, unfortunately.

Seto is here not because of an internal growth reason, but because he was on a tablet in S2, and we have to know where that plot thread went to have an ending...but the show rewrote what it initially said in S2.

Like in the OG timeline, it was Seto who killed Pharaoh. But here we found out it was actually Aknadin who possessed Seto to kill Pharaoh. (and at some point in that fight, Pharaoh stuck his soul in a box and sealed away Zorc)

Sad Seto was apparently a chill bro the entire time. Just a nice guy who arrested half of Cairo and had a sort-of-girlfriend for about 8 hours before she biffed it.

And I would have been OK with that, if it were more interesting than what we initially thought happened in the past: where we thought it was a kickass Seto launching a coup. But unfortunately, it's not, instead it's a boy who started out powerless, and continued to be powerless despite working in Pharaoh's literal court. He didn't even have the power to not get possessed.

And I am sure there were other drafts, and endings are hard, and the author did get hella hospitalized while he wrote this season, animation is a miracle of many moving parts and budgets, and we were lucky to even get an ending to this show. So I don't want to sound like I'm complaining when there are so many worse directions this show could have gone. I'm just a little surprised it went this direction, mostly.

But say what you will about Yugioh, it doesn't like to be predictable, doesn't it?

+++++++++++++++++++OK I'M DONE++++++++++++++++++++++

Speaking of characters who haven't gained anything from being here, Tristan is no longer possessed!

Tristan begs his apologies and Yugi takes it gracefully. Which means, it's time for the main character of this entire show to finally re-enter the plot.

And they do so, in style.

Y'all I remember being excited about the look and style of extreme sports, but I do not remember this many heelies in the 00's.

Anyway, this is the link to read these in chrono order, you know the drill. See you next time to see yet another girlfriend biff it!

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

#yugioh #yugi muto #seto kaiba #bakura #yu gi oh #photo recap #S5 #YGO #theif king bakura #Tristan taylor #zorc necrophades

[britingotmywholeheart]

I asked @britinbliss for their favorite britin scenes and also for their favorite qaf scenes in the whole show, and I am sooo happy that they answered, and they asked me to answer the questions too, so here we are.

My favorite britin scenes:

5. I really love their first time sex scene cause it was so intense and just beautiful and really hot. Especially, I love the rim-job Brian gave Justin. It was so beautiful when Brian's tongue runs over Justin's back and a small drop of sweat caught on her. And Justin moaning when Brian's tongue got in his ass was just so intense. I love it!

4. The pride party scene at the end of the pride episode is sooo beautiful. Justin accepted who and how Brian is and wanted to leave, so Brian can do what he wants to do, but Brian just wanted to dance with Justin is such a huge step in their relationship. "Hey stud, wanna dance with me?" "Shut up." "I promise you won't forget this one." makes me giggling and smiling every time cause it is just so cute and beautiful. Brian would literally do anything for Justin, and we see this in season two. Season five is so far away, but we can see that Brian really cares about Justin and loves him. Brian is just proud of Justin cause he made it. He showed his pride and he got over the thing with Chris Hobbs. Brian taught Justin so much and this scene shows this and is just lovely.

3. Of course, I really love the scene in s5 ep10 where Brian says "I love you." for the first time. I cried so much when I first saw it because we all waited so long for this moment, and it was soooo beautiful. Brian showed Justin that he loves him for five seasons (not straight lol) but when he said it a new era began.

2. Also, one of my favorite scenes is when Brian brought Justin to Britin and said he would do anything and be anyone to prove Justin that he loves him and that he meant it when he said he wants to marry him. The best part of this scene is when Justin said, "You bought this! This Palace!" and is totally in shock and Brian just answered "It's for my Prince." And when they made love on the floor in front of the fireplace, I was crying again.

1. My all-time favorite scene is their reunification in season three. How they are laughing and smiling while kissing and undressing each other is so beautiful. I can see that Brian missed Justin so much, and he wants him back soo badly. I just love this. And how they dance after this in Babylon is just perfect. Ben was so right when he said, "The biggest reunion since Germany" (which is so meaningful and funny to me because I am German). But I can not stay with my top five, cause my second all-time favorite scene is when Brian and Justin are celebrating that they betrayed Stockwell (of course they are celebrating with sex) and got interrupted by Stockwell and Gardner Vance. The sex in this scene was so intense and how they undressed each other was just beautiful. But what I also like about this scene is that Brian said "Wanna finish?" after Stockwell and Gardner Vance were gone. He doesn't seem to be mad about Justin and what happened. He wanted to go back to Justin and fuck his brains out like he always does, cause he hates it to get interrupted when he has his time with Justin.

To write down my top five was really difficult cause I love nearly all the britin scenes the show gives us, but I tried.

My favorite scenes from the show in general:

5. I really love the scene in s3 ep14 when everyone at Liberty Avenue is celebrating that Stockwell lost the election and Mel and Lindsey had their absolutely cute moment. They were sooo happy together, and I loved them very much in that scene. I also love the britin scene in the last moments of season three when Brian said, "I guess I've lost everything." And Justin answered, "Not everything." to show Brian, he will stay with him no matter what happens.

4. I also really enjoyed the scene in s1 ep1 when Daphne asked Justin where he was, and he just said, "I saw the face of god! His name is Brian Kinney." This scene is so funny but also shows how much Justin felt in love with Brian after one, okay two times, they had sex.

3. And you're right! I love the scenes where the whole group of friends helped for Mel´ and Lind's wedding. It was such so beautiful how they all worked together and Mel was soo happy about this. In my opinion, she wanted to hug Brian, but she knew it would be awkward for both of them, so she just smiled and punched him softly.

2. I really liked much of the scenes with Emmett and George. In my opinion they were a good and cute mature couple. And Emmett was so tough with the thing with George's money to give the whole money back to his awful family just to make his point clear.

1. I really don't like Cody Bell and what he made Justin do, but I love his little argument in the church with the reverent. "What's your point, young man?" "I believe the point is, if you can eat shrimp, we can eat cock!" I love this quote. It's so on the point and so true.

My favorite episode:

I would say my favorite episode in the show is s2 ep9, cause in serious times it's nice to watch it and just laugh about it. This whole episode is just funny and nice. The beginning where Brian fucks the reverent is so cool, cause in first place I thought Brian is just fucking around as always, but then he leans to the side and kisses Justin. And Micheal says they have a date night. Their definition of a date night is so cool. And then the whole thing with Ted taking viagra and the conversation on Mel´and Linds´ veranda, "What do you mean, you still have an erection?!" "Thank you, CNN!" is just so hilarious. Brian's idea to spook Ted's penis and when he said Mel and Lindsay should show him their tits to turn him of is soo funny. And after that, the scene where Justin and Brian really stole Teds viagra and are fucking for the tenth time this day and their conversation "I can't believe you're fucking me again." "It was your idea to steal Ted's viagra." is so fucking hilarious, too. The whole thing with Brian's mum is so shitty, and I hate Joan so much that it's actually funny again. How Brian holds his hands in front of his erection, so his mum can not see it, is so funny. I just love everything about this episode, so I should stop.

I could write so much more about other (favorite) episodes, so I should stop. It's too much.

I hope you all can understand what I wrote in here. English is not my first language, but I really try.

#queer as folk #brian kinney #britin #qaf #The whole thing escalated a bit #qafus #queer as folk us #michael novotny #emmett honeycutt #debbie novotny #ted schmidt #queerasfolkedit #queerasfolk

[cookinguptales]

Sigh... Okay. I've had a couple weeks away from wwdits and I've finished the major work project that has Consumed Me so I guess I can talk about my thoughts a little bit.

There are a lot of reasons that the very end of s5 bothered the hell out of me and a lot of reasons that I hate it. There are things I liked about the last two episodes (most of them being... before the last ten minutes of the season) like that metaphor coming full circle and Nandor giving Guillermo a better (uhhh metaphorical) sexual experience where he was listened to, cared for, supported, and helped along at his own pace. I do have interest in ideas like Nandor's loneliness being worsened because he believed that Guillermo would have a terrible time as a vampire and knowing that avenue of immortality is closed to him. But none of that feels worth it, I guess, and here's why.

Yes, I hated the whole... Guillermo realized that he never really wanted to be a vampire thing, at least how it was done. It wasn't Guillermo realizing that he didn't need vampirism (which I would've been quite happy with) but learning that he just didn't have the stomach for it. I hated the way that seemed to betray Guillermo's earlier characterization. I hated the way that made the "supernatural as queer, as Other" metaphors they've been using with very little subtlety suddenly feel very problematic indeed. I hated the way this made it canon that Guillermo really does see vampiric lives as lesser than human ones, and I hated that Guillermo had power taken from him rather than power claimed. I hated the way this upset the power dynamics of the household (particularly Nandor going back to ordering Guillermo around) and I hated the idea that Nandor thought Guillermo was weak and he was right. I hated this somewhat paternalistic idea that Nandor really did know best all along and Guillermo was just a silly little boy who didn't understand what he really wanted. Again, the power dynamics are so thoroughly fucked right now.

But the biggest thing, really, and the reason why I just can't bring myself to care about about the things I did like, was that it just... The message was so clearly that past episodes of the show did not matter. I always knew that there was a vibe change after Jemaine Clement left (especially because that vibe very much traveled to WP instead) but there was always enough dedication to the fundamental building blocks of the series that I didn't mind the way things had changed too much. But... this season really seemed to hammer home that they do not feel beholden to the first two seasons of the show and I liked those seasons.

I remember feeling kind of uneasy when little pieces of canon were discarded, like the way that it was stately clearly and repeatedly that Laszlo was better at hypnosis than Nandor in the first two seasons and then it was the opposite in s5. But like... I could forgive small changes like that. Little retcons. Guillermo, though. Guillermo.

I have never loved Guillermo more than I did at the end of s2, and I'm not sure we're ever going to see that version of him again. We got to see Guillermo go gloriously feral several times in s2, we got to see him kill an entire room full of people several times, we got to see him take his power and own it. And he really has never done it since, has he? He always tries so hard not to kill people, and the very few times he's done it since s2, it's been entirely in self-defense. And I just kept thinking it didn't have room in the plot, but they'd do it! Of course they'd do it! But then to have Guillermo straight-up say he doesn't have the stomach for killing... It made me realize that they'd brought Guillermo to heel as a conscious choice. They'd purposefully neutered his character, and in doing so, reduced the complexity of him that I'd always loved. Guillermo has always been a sweetheart and a murderer, and I loved that about him.

And then... you know, you have to come to wonder what other intrinsic parts of characters, intrinsic themes, they're going to feel okay with discarding when they feel like it. If they're going to retcon Guillermo, who was borderline sociopathic in the first two seasons (just look at how angry he was they didn't kill Jenna after he brought her to them), as a weak, naive familiar who really doesn't have the stomach to be a vampire... Like he wasn't paying attention at all for the last 13 years?? Like none of his choices were real or mattered? What the fuck? That's a major change.

And then you look back at the rest of s5, at Laszlo's entire storyline of "I'm going to do experiments on Guillermo to figure out how to 'cure' him so Nandor can turn him", and you realize they didn't even have that cohesion within the same season. Laszlo's entire season-long plot line makes zero sense once it's revealed that they knew (somehow) that killing Guillermo's sire would revert him. Like -- forget that it goes against his knowledge level in s3, forget that it goes against his knowledge of how to finish Jenna's transformation in s1, it goes against his stated knowledge of things within the same damn season.

And if they're not going to care about those things, why should I? If they're going to ignore details, plot lines, characterization, hell, the overarching themes of their own show, why should I get invested in them? Why should I care about Nandor seeing Guillermo's baby pictures or the idea of Nandor's loneliness or the fact that Guillermo only decided not to kill that human after self-centeredly tying him to his own experiences?

What else am I going to get invested in that they're going to ignore? What other choices that characters make are going to be pointless later? What other storylines are going to be dropped after just one season?

I don't know. The whole thing makes me so damn tired. To see all of Guillermo's struggles with his sense of self, his sense of power, his sense of Otherness, be reduced to "actually he's too squeamish to drink blood because he doesn't have the heart to kill anyone" is so... I'm so frustrated, and it makes me not want to get invested in anything they make anymore.

I've been really struggling as a creator, because like... I always made fanworks for this show because I genuinely loved it, I genuinely loved the characters. I respected what they'd created. But now I just feel like I'm getting overly attached to something that's just going to keep hurting me and... where do I go from there? Do I start writing canon divergence fic? (Never thought I'd end up in a place where I wanted to ignore canon here but if they can do it, so can I.) Do I just pull back a little and force myself to be a more casual fan?

I've been part of fandoms that hurt me before and I don't... wanna do that again. lmao. When I left comics fandom I was like "as god as my witness, I'll never stay in a fandom that makes me unhappy again!"

And.... I'm unhappy. :(

idk man, I'm still kind of stewing in it. Getting into other canons has actually helped tremendously in removing the sting from it all, but how to proceed going forward... I guess I still don't know. I don't want to write anything right now, and I assume that'll change, but... I don't know. : /

#wwdits tag #I usually use the main tag for things like this for ease of finding/blocking but #I'm not going to bother putting it in the main tag #I feel like that won't actually benefit me #and so help me god if I start getting dicks in my inbox again I'm blocking on sight

[queerofthedagger]

20 Questions for Fic Writers!

Thanks so much for the tag! <3

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

132 which. insane.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

1,520,700 which is even more insane. anyway

3. What fandoms do you write for?

BBC Merlin, Stranger Things, The Sandman, The Raven Cycle, and Lord of the Rings, and coming soon probably also Black Sails, let's be real

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

Old Haunts (Are For Forgotten Ghosts), A Study in Choices and Second Chances, I Wouldn't Leave You If You Let Me, Still I Surface in Morning Light, and Fate Rests Heavily On Our Shoulders. I'm never not baffled by the fact that my two most popular fics not only are for HP, but are for Regulus/Harry. Like. That tag has maybe 100 fics???

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes!! Sometimes it takes me a while but I'll tend to get around to them eventually <3

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I think that's a toss-up between my my s5 Morgwen AU With Eyes Wide Open, and the one where I made the Diamond of the Day worse, watch all my bridges burn

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

This is such a difficult question because Angst with a Happy Ending is kind of my brand. That said, esp where Merlin is concerned, one thing I think about a lot is the inevitability of tragedy and how, no matter how many fix-its I write, personally I believe that most of them, if I didn't end them before the fact, would eventually end in some kind of tragic way, actually. Like. Very rarely is Merlin not immortal, or the world not against them, or or or. So in that vein I guess one of the happiest ones would be We Can Always Run because it's such an utter rejection of destiny, an utter refusal to even pretend they're playing the game.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Very rarely, thankfully.

9. Do you write smut?

Occasionally, yeah! It's a constant process of pushing at my comfort zone tbh, but I do enjoy doing it (ha), so!!

10. Do you write crossovers?

Nope, it's just not really my thing, neither for writing nor reading. Obviously never say never but yk.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Unfortunately (don't do this).

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! Such a cool feeling, I love the thought of them existing in other languages in the world <3

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope; there have been and are a few plans for that floating around though 👀

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

This is so hard but in the end it gotta be merthur, like, because I love them to pieces but also just for the sheer amount of words I've written for them. Not sure if/how that would ever get topped, especially considering it's like, on-going.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

There's a bunch of HP WIPs I would have loved to finish, but I've fallen so utterly out of love with the fandom I don't really think it's ever going to happen at this point tbh.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Worldbuilding, plots/characterization, and prose; I think I'm solid in those and they come easily to me/bring me the most joy when writing. Editing, in a way, because I'm an obsessive bitch with a system about it.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Descriptions; I'm just not a very visual writer, which is not too huge of an issue when writing familiar characters and settings in fic, but becomes immediately and glaringly obvious whenever I 1. introduce non-canon stuff, or 2. have a go at OG. Also planning/outlining; I can make a bunch of notes but if I write an outline, I will not write the fic. I don't think it's necessarily a weakness, but it can make a bunch of additional work when it comes to the plottier stuff.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language?

Not the biggest fan tbh, which I know is probably controversial but odds that your audience will understand it are low if it's more than a bunch of words you can guess from the context? I prefer the ""dialogue," he said in Latin" approach. It's subjective though I get it.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Bandom RPF at like, 12 (not telling you which band peace and love). I took a long fandom hiatus until a couple of years ago though, and under this fandom alias it'd be HP/Tomarrymort.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Still There Are Many Names In History, I think. I love a lot of stuff I've written, but that story has my entire heart in it, and the response to it has left me sobbing like. a ridiculous number of times which, like, is not something that I usually have to deal with lmao.

No Pressure-tagging: @prattery @emryses @glaftwlet @snapshotmaestro @merlinemrys @atlantablack @insane-ohwhyfandoms @hazelands @aeonthedimensionalgirl @slantedknitting and anyone else who'd like to, just say I tagged you <3

#tag games #mona's writing #i have so many of these to catch up on but this one just was so much fun i had to do it real quick

[myrandomfandomramblings]

Chenford Week 2023 Day 2: TV Tropes Day (July 12)

Spin the wheel! Pick a random trope and fic type from the wheel (click here)

S5 tropes / s5 parallels (can include other seasons)

Future tropes (engagement, wedding, pregnancy, kid fics)

Trope: Vacation, Fic Type: Fluff (full disclosure: I chose these from the wheels to fit an idea I already had in mind)

__

Bear it all - A Chenford fanfic

When Lucy first opened her eyes into pure darkness she was momentarily disoriented. However, it didn’t take long before she remembered where she was: A tent in the California backcountry, with Tim, on their first ever camping trip. She wasn’t exactly sure what had woken her up but the top contenders were clear: she was cold and had to pee. The temperature had dropped significantly since they went to bed. In fact the tent had been so hot after sitting in the sun all day it could have essentially functioned as a green house. To beat the heat her and Tim had gone for a swim just before bed to cool down and both fallen asleep naked on top of their sleeping bags, shortly after. She figured the solution to that problem was pretty clear. She just needed to slip into her sleeping bag, but first she had to get to the outhouse to pee. She quickly located her headlamp which she had strategically placed under her pillow. However, she didn’t want to turn it on until she was out of the tent to prevent waking Tim, so she fished around blindly in her bag for something to throw on. Eventually she successfully produced an oversized sleep shirt and slipped it on , along with a pair of shoes, before quietly exiting the tent.

Once outside she was about to turn her headlamp on when she was distracted by the sky. This far out of the city it was clear of smog and light pollution and the stars were on full display. She started in the direction of the outhouse with her eyes still fixed on the sky until she realized she would ultimately need her headlamp to find them. She pressed the on button as she lowered her gaze and immediately let out a scream as her eyes met those of a bear illuminated by her light. The bear immediately turned and ran away into the woods, clearly frightened by the screaming woman. Just as Lucy’s pulse began to slow it began to pick up again, as she heard fast steps approaching from behind. She turned around and took up a fighting pose on instinct, ready to defend herself as she saw a large shadow advancing quickly toward her in the darkness. She was just debating Fight vs. Flight when it stepped into her headlamp’s beam.

“Tim?”

She questioned as the situation became clear.

“Lucy?” he asked frantically, “Are you okay? I heard someone scream.” 

“I’m fine,” Lucy reassured him, “but I have to ask, how exactly did you think this,” she continued gesturing to Tim, who was standing before her buck naked wielding a pillow like a weapon, “was going to help?” she finished dissolving into laughter.

“I don’t know,” Tim replied defensively as the reality of the situation seemed to sink in and he lowered the pillow to cover himself. “I woke up to screaming and you gone. I guess I just panicked and jumped right into action.”

“With a pillow?”

“It was the first thing I could find. Would you rather I had left you to die?”

“I wasn’t going to die. It was just a black bear. Gave me a bit of a scare but I think I scared it more.”

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“I guess you weren’t,” Lucy offered, finally containing her laughter, “I appreciate the effort,” she continued giving Tim a quick kiss, “but if you wanted a naked pillow fight all you had to do was ask.”

#chenfordweek23 #the rookie #chenford #lucy chen #tim bradford

[seraphtrevs]

my monkey brain saw fargo so i have to ask, how would you rank the seasons?

I hope you're still around anon because I love this ask. I just wanted to wait until I was finished with s5 to see if it effected my rankings, and turns out it did! Two caveats - I have only seen each season once so I don't have 100% recall on them lol and 2) I have not seen season 3 yet! which is completely insane because I love Ewan MacGregor. That's next on my to-watch list, but for now, here's my ranking of the seasons of fargo, from best to worst (I'm also going to grade them on a scale out of 10 because I think it's important to note that when I have criticisms, I still think this show is consistently excellent):

Season 2 - one of the best seasons of television in television history. An incredible work of art. This is the season that really exemplifies the kind of profound absurdity that defines the series. The comic and the tragic are perfectly blended, and the characters are all depicted with an unsentimental empathy that I found very moving and enlightening. All of the moving pieces of the plot slot together so perfectly and there is zero handholding. Like I love a show that respects me enough to not spell things out so I can have a little think for myself, as a treat. Perfect season, no notes. rating - 12/10

Season 4 - I guess there are people who don't like season 4?? I don't get it. Maybe I'm just predisposed to like it because I love the historical setting, feuding crime families, plucky girl detectives, and female serial killers. It doesn't get on the profound level of season 2 but it's very entertaining. rating - 9/10

Season 1 - there was a lot to love but i feel like they were kind of finding their footing. It's not as polished as the later seasons, and I actually find this one unpleasant because I hate Martin Freeman's character so much - like, he's meant to be hated and they did a super good job of making him hateable, so I can't knock them for it exactly. But seriously there was nothing to like about this guy and watching him was often very unpleasant. Obviously I love Malvo, because I can't resist satan-coded characters. But sometime I felt like they went a little too far with him - like sometimes his only motive is that he's just so cccrraaaazzzzzy! Like there were a couple of moments that were moriarty from sherlock kind of lameness. But those are very minor complaints. Rating - 8.5/10

Season 5 - I still really enjoyed the first half of this season, but the back half really rubbed me the wrong way. I loved Dot and I especially loved that when you discover she's a secret badass, it's not because she's really good at martial arts. Instead, her strength is in her quick thinking and ability to construct elaborate home alone traps, which is so much fun. I also love the actress - this is a great performance. John Hamm is also really good. But the whole season had this maudlin tone that was very at odds with the other seasons. Lorraine's character didn't work for me at all - like her "no daughter of mine will be held captive!" moment was supposed to make us feel good, i guess? except it felt so forced and unearned. And I really have no idea why the narrative decided that she was a cool girlboss for using her power to control people via their debt for....good, I guess, by giving the cop lady a nice job and using her influence to punish john hamm via prison violence. That last part I particularly hated - not that i have sympathy for asshole rancher john hamm but the idea that prison violence is a righteous part of the justice system is very fucking gross and they really wanted me cheering for that. the battle of the sexes aspect in general was very on the nose, and it read like a fantasy of domestic violence by a man who feels very upset and guilty over the fact that women suffer from domestic violence than a more serious look at the issue. I also HATED both of the deaths in this season - I'm not against character deaths but they both felt completely pointless and just there to add to the body count. rating - 7/10

#i know nothing about fargo fandom so i don't know how popular these opinions are lol #fargo #asks