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alexiswritergirl · 1 month

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What he finds most attractive about you

Prompt: Headcanons on what the bllk boys find most attractive about you.

A/N: Some of these characters could be OOC, so keep that in mind.

Featuring: Rin, Sae, Isagi, Bachira, Reo, and Niko

Rin

What does he find most attractive about you? Your voice.

It took a bit for Rin to warm up to you fully, but when he did, he started to notice how calming your voice is to him. For him, it’s like an angel singing him a lullaby, his favorite music to listen to. If you are insecure about how you sound, don’t be because he genuinely finds comfort in the sound of your voice. It’s the fact that hearing you lets him know that you’re there with *him*. He listens intently to you every time you talk, paying close attention to the pitch of your voice and letting it calm down all of his nerves. When you talk about something that excites you, he will slightly smile and wonder how high your voice would go. If you were to have a bad day, he would know right away just by the tone of your voice no matter how hard you try to hide it. When he’s the one having a bad day, he always finds himself looking for you for comfort and letting you comb your fingers through his hair, while consoling him. He feels as if you are the only person in the whole world who understands him and won’t judge him (and leave to Spain 🙄). If you can sing, that is a HUUUGE bonus for him. He would be pretty down bad for you and will shyly ask you to sing to him. He knows he can be a lot to handle, so he’s appreciative of you for being there. Even though Rin doesn’t always outwardly express how much he appreciates you, he definitely shows it through his actions.

“Being around you is different…God, I don’t know how to put this into words, but all I know is that I want to be close to you forever.”

Sae

What does he find most attractive about you? Your sense of humor.

He freaking adores your sense of humor. This guy has the personality of a broccoli, so you being the funny person you are really switches up his usual routine. He always makes sure you’re around to make everything feel so lively; he feels like a “normal person” with you, it’s as if he forgets he’s a celebrity. When he’s abroad for a game, he misses you a lot and wonders what shenanigans you’re up to. He especially thinks about you A LOT during boring interviews, wondering what bizarre thing you would say to turn it into something fun. He makes it a top priority to call you when he has free time—this is like a way for him to unwind and just giggle the night away after a game or other important matters. He will sometimes purposely be mean to you in a playful manner just to get a reaction from you. He often chuckles to himself reminiscing the times when you said something stupid that randomly popped into his head. Some of his teammates wonder if they’re in some sort of alternate universe. Like…Sae Itoshi is laughing? No must be hearing things. Except Shidou though, he will tease Sae to no end.

“Life never gets boring when I’m with you. Feels like I’ve known you for years, lifetimes even. You better stay close to me because I’m not letting you go, got that?”

Isagi

What does he find most attractive about you? Your smile and laughter.

He finds it very attractive every time you laugh and flash that bright smile. It makes him feel very special and reassured knowing how happy you are around him. If you’re insecure to laugh or smile, he will look at you as if you are crazy and shower you with compliments until the end of time. He doesn’t fully understand why you would be insecure because for him he gets all fuzzy and warm inside when he sees you cheerful. Even though he tells an unfunny joke, he can always count on you to fill in the awkward silence. Your laughter is like a soft melody to his ears that will never bore him, and that smile just makes all the negativity leave his entire body—it’s like a reminder of how much he is cared for. AND OH MY GOSH if you have dimples, he will be so down bad for you. He will do everything in his power to just make you smile. If you’re insecure about your dimples, he would be so confused as to why. He will kiss them very often just so you can feel good about them, along with his sweet compliments of how cute they look.

“You must be some sort of magician because every time I see you, everything else just disappears. Hey! I’m trying to flirt with you, don’t laugh! Or do… Damn, you're too cute…”

Bachira

What does he find most attractive about you? You dancing carefree.

Bachira gets all excited and energetic every time you dance. It’s the way you freely move like there’s no one else around and how you dance so effortlessly as you sway your hips and wave your arms everywhere. And your face is so relaxed while doing so. Bachira could watch you all day and be absolutely mesmerized by you as if you hypnotized him, even though he much prefers to be dancing with you. He has Just Dance downloaded and will have you play it with him to see who’s a better dancer. He also has an entire playlist of songs he remembers that you love so he can see you get all giddy. I can see Bachira practicing kpop dances to impress you if you’re a fan of kpop. He likes to call himself your “personal idol”. His favorite thing is to have you close to him so that he can hold you and gaze into your eyes while he sweet talks to you.

“Y/N! Just learned a new dance move! Impressed right? As your personal idol, I have to have these kinds of moves down, I gotta keep up with you, yknow? How else will I dance with my Galway Girl?”

(Yes it is an ed sheeren reference)

Reo

What does he find most attractive about you? Your nose.

Reo is the very observant type, so it didn’t take long for him to notice the way your nose would perk up every time you smile or scrunch up when you get excited or disgusted by something. He thinks it's a very cute charm you have and reminds you every time by giving you a little peck on the nose. Not only that but he will also “boop” your nose or rub his on yours occasionally. He feels incredibly special since he is hopefully one of the few to notice this. Will definitely gatekeep this in case others also want to boop your nose because those boops are only reserved for him! He will talk about it all to Nagi though.

“Y/N! Come here! Closerrrrr. Scooch on closer! Boop! There she is. You’re like a sweet little bunny, my bunny.”

Niko

What does he find most attractive about you? Your eyes.

At first, he did not think much about you or your eyes until you both became friends and later on realized how pretty your eyes are. Canonically, he believes you can read someone’s personality if you look into their eyes. And what he reads in your eyes is how caring and genuine you are. You sometimes catch his gaze linger a little bit longer than usual, so you tend to snap him out of his thoughts. Most of the time he does it without even realizing it, which results in him feeling embarrassed afterwards. When you’re at his place, he’ll turn on the TV to watch an anime in hopes of just focusing on the show and not creep you out with his constant staring. That is until his eyes wander onto yours once again. Sometimes if he’s feeling good, he’ll secretly push his bangs up a bit so he can get a clearer look at you. If you both have been together for a while though, he won’t cover his eyes around you and will only be reserved for you. On dates, there will be times when you both just hold onto each other's hands and stare into one another’s eyes. When you’re both going to bed, he’ll lightly kiss your eyelids shut before you both sleep. He believes it’ll help you have good dreams at night.

“Maybe it’s the way your eyes hold so many mysteries that makes me feel this way. Or perhaps it is curiosity? I don’t know…It’s like trying to study the universe, so many things to discover.”

#blue lock #isagi x reader #rin x reader #sae x reader #Bachira x reader #Reo x reader #Niko x reader #bllk x reader #bllk fic #blue lock fluff #My first fic. I think this turned out better than i initially thought so woop woop

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izukuisbaby · 2 years

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⊹˚.⋆ OUR FAVOURITE DILFS WITH A FAMOUS S/O - JUJUTSU KAISEN

℘. flora's notes : I've had this idea forever but I couldn't manage to write it UNTIL NOW. my idea was that reader is a model so it's kind of based on that, though you are free to be famous for whatever reason u want 💀

℘. send me a request ! : i would love to write this for other jjk characters (especially TOJI) but please give me ideas cuz i can't find anything :((

℘. gn, male, female reader 💓

m.list | comment and reblog if you enjoyed ! i am not posting at peek hours i would rly appreciate it if u could reblog w related tags 🥰

★ 𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐔 𝐆𝐎𝐉𝐎

℘. he 100% stalked you on your socials and knew everything about you

℘. it's also very likely that he slid into your DMs shamelessly

℘. something cringe like : " what a pretty human in a pretty restaurant, we should go there together sometime 😏"

℘. but we all know this mf, he didn't stop at ONE DM

℘. no, his name is elegantly followed by "9+ messages" all of them being cringe pick up lines to beg you to go on a date with him 😍

℘. and you eventually agreed but it was mostly for him to leave you in peace

℘. he was convinced you'd fall for his charms and unfortunately, he was right... can't blame you I would too

℘. and since your first kiss - which was an officialization of your relationship to him - he would not shut up about it

℘. everytime y'all are out in public he makes it clear he's your boyfriend for the paparazzis

℘. gojo loves attention... so he LOVES paparazzis

℘. he thinks y'all are the most goal couple to exist and brags about it

℘. "y/n, can you imagine what other people must think of us : "the strongest and the most famous (your job of choice), they were meant to be"

℘. you have 100% your own ship name and fanpages, you're labeled as the "hot couple" who is edited on tik tok 24/7

℘. I don't think I insisted enough on how he BOASTS about dating you to whoever shows a spark of interest in his life

℘. the poor nanami hears about it every second of the day and is FED UP with it, but his last straw was when gojo was talking about you to a curse they were suppose to eliminate...

℘. he has you and him on a fun fair date as a wallpaper and purposely leaves his phone on during meetings so everyone can see he's dating you... and also to get yet another occasion to brag

⊹

★ 𝐍𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐌𝐈 𝐊𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐎

℘. HE WOULD BE SO SUPPORTIVE

℘. he will attend all of your shows and interviews, always on the front row. sometimes walking for a show can be pretty stressful for you but seeing his angel face calms you down and gives you back your confidence in an instant <3

℘. ... he's very active on LinkedIn and he reposts your achievements/front pages with a professional yet sweet and admirative commentary

℘. he likes to go backstage before your shows so he can give you one last forehead kiss and compliment

℘. never hesitates to tell paparazzis to back off, he doesn't like his privacy invaded but he will gladly take pictures of you with a fan for them

℘. his favourite photo that he has everywhere is one a selfie you took before a show with a world renowned brand. you looked so stunning and confident, it never fails to make him smile when he looks at it

℘. i feel like he didn't really know you, just saw you from one or two front pages but it didn't click until you told him you were a (your job)

℘. i don't know why but i think you would have met on a dating app 😭 like nanami is tired of being single and he told gojo about it WHO OBVIOUSLY WAS KIN ON HELPING ! and he got to discover your personality first, which is the most precious part of you in his opinion

℘. because yes you ARE attractive but no one but him knows the part of you that is the most beautiful and he loves that

℘. i think he can't help but be a bit jealous that people simp over you so he would never refuse to take a cute picture for the world to see

℘. on your third date, he asked you to be his partner and gave you a ring as an officialization. since them, you've been wearing it as a lucky charm and you never take it off

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jesncin · 5 months

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A Failure of Asian Lois Lane: Pt 2: My Adventures with Superman, an honest discussion

If I had to pinpoint the fundamental problem with My Adventures with Superman's depiction of Asian Lois Lane it's in their attempt to subvert the classic two person love triangle: Lois loves Superman but is indifferent to Clark Kent. In MAWS, Lois insta-crushes on Clark Kent and hates Superman. In the show's attempt to make sense of this dynamic, Lois' Asian identity becomes at odds with a story meant to touch on xenophobia and immigrant themes.

Let's have an honest discussion about a show that made fandom cheer as an Asian character removed the one thing that made her most visibly Asian.

Disclaimer: While I am of East Asian descent, I am not Korean. I'll be discussing general Asian diasporic experiences but the specifics of Korean culture are outside of my knowledge (as usual I can't and don't speak for every Asian person ever, I am 1 opinion). Secondly, I'll be pulling from my personal experiences every now and then particularly pertaining to being a butch Asian person watching this show. It'll be a mix of formal analysis and personal anecdotes. Thirdly, this isn't an exhaustive analysis of MAWS Lois' character. We'll be sticking to what I consider is relevant to themes of Asian identity and immigration. Lastly once more, I do not believe the MAWS crew had malicious intent in any (of what I consider) poor writing decisions. We're here to analyze and challenge these writing decisions.

Please read Pt 1 of Asian Lois analysis that covers the comics, as it provides the groundwork for the ideas expanded on in this essay.

We need to talk about Lois' design. In the follow up to MAWS' release, people have been speculating on Lois' ethnicity. CBR writes that the show has "some fans believing that she's at least part Asian" and other articles have the show crew confirm Lois Korean heritage via her hanbok outfit in episode 4. The existence of these articles, my own anecdotal experience of streaming MAWS with Asian friends, and comments I receive from people asserting Lois' Asian identity was never explored in the show ("you'd only know she was Asian if you searched up articles about it"), tells me we have a case of an ambiguously designed Asian woman. Tangentially many people had no idea Livewire, the white haired and blue eyed woman, was meant to be South Asian.

There's a lot to be said about art styles that don't properly stylize ethnic features, but for the purposes of our analysis that means the writing has to deliver the heavy lifting where the design fails. This is the opposite case of American Alien: a comic that relied on the art to portray Asian Lois.

Let's start at episode 3. In it, Lois finally manages to conduct a private interview with the elusive Superman. When she asks where Superman comes from, how his powers work, etc- Superman comes up empty. In this version, Superman can't talk to his Kryptonian father (Jor-El)'s hologram because of a language barrier, so he knows very little about his alien heritage. He leaves Lois, assuring her he's here to help the people of Metropolis. When Clark Kent congratulates her for interviewing Superman, Lois rebuffs him. "Oh, he's [Superman's] a liar." smirking as she says it. This is the start of the Lois Hates Superman For Being a Liar arc.

I'd like you to consider the optics of an Asian American woman interviewing an alien immigrant who honestly told her he doesn't know where he comes from and is still figuring out who he is, only for her to think he's lying. Because she didn't get the answers she wanted. I can't help but think about my own experiences, where I was asked "but where do you really come from?" or "okay but what's your real name?" I think of my Asian American peers who would honestly say they're from Texas or Atlanta and get a vindictive "you're lying" as a response. People want to hear you're from China. They want their biases confirmed. I think about how I honestly can't tell you where my elders hailed from, because of cultural genocide and language barriers. This scene makes me uncomfortable, but let's press on.

Episode 4 is where Lois is most visibly Korean. In this episode the trio of Lois, Clark, and Jimmy are tasked with interviewing rich techbro Prof. Ivo of Amazo tech at an investor event. It's a prom episode. Lois wears a "hanbok inspired gala outfit" designed by Dou Hong and Jane Bak in a deliberate move to showcase Lois' Korean heritage. Bak comments "I remember feeling strongly about wanting to inject some aspect of her Korean heritage without disrupting her characteristic as a spunky and resourceful intern/reporter." while the wording poorly implies that Korean heritage is at odds with Lois' spunky personality- I do want to challenge a couple of the decisions that went into this design.

I want to acknowledge as an Asian butch that there are many ways to sport traditional garments and it's okay to mix and match to figure out what reclaiming culture (and your comfort) mean to you. However we're talking about the opportunity to showcase culture in an episode of a fictional animated show. I also encourage cultural gender expression that thinks outside of western white people's idea of gender (in both fiction and real life).

Whenever artists try to do a non-conforming spin on a cultural outfit, I always have to ask: "what standard of masculinity are we basing this on?" It's clear that MAWS is pushing for a "tomboy" Lois, and this gala outfit is an extension of that. But what's the standards of masculinity in a Korean lens? Men wear hanbok too, so why can't Lois imitate how Korean men wear hanbok, by traditionally accompanying her look with baji (baggy and loose pants)? This design notably has tight pants that hug the form, instead. I know the hanbok look has been modernized in and out of Korea in many ways, but in a show where you have the opportunity to showcase cultural non-conformity, I feel more thought should be put into the outfit outside of a potentially western lens- or the idea that cultural heritage of any sort "disrupts" a character's personality.

Now that we've discussed the design of the outfit, let's look into the narrative role it plays in episode 4. While we can celebrate cultural representation in media, I consider it important to ask "what is this media's relationship with the cultures it represents?" and the answer for Lois' hanbok in this episode is: nothing! It's an aesthetic acknowledgement of culture. "Hanbok" or "Korea" are not terms explicitly mentioned in the show. When Prof Ivo offers beautiful women as compensation for Clark to keep quiet about his company's corruption, Ivo looks over to Lois- who spills food on her clothes, and remarks that she's unclassy. She's not judged for wearing othering cultural clothes- which would have tied nicely into Clark choosing to be silent on issues of Ivo displacing a neighborhood, making Clark realize his complacency actively hurts marginalized people. Despite wearing cultural outfits being a political statement in America, nobody reacts to it. It's clear what the actual goal of this scene is: Clark looks cool for defending his "tomboy" crush.

In a scene blatantly made for fanservice, Lois offers to sew up Clark's ripped tuxedo by undressing her hanbok so she can reach her little sewing kit. Lois never wears her hanbok again afterwards. This scene haunts me. It's a scene that tells you that fanservice is more important than cultural representation. It's a scene meant to set up that Clark gives his tuxedo to Lois later on for warmth. Lois removing her hanbok is meant for not one, but two fanservice scenes.

Lois talks to Clark at the stairwell. She opens up about her estranged relationship with her father, how her mom has passed away, and how she's been an intern at the Daily Planet for a year with no sign of being hired. This makes the narrative decision for Lois to lose her hanbok far more tragic. Lois being a diasporic child with so few familial ties to her culture would mean garments like her hanbok would hold a lot of sentimental value! It's hard enough finding a cultural outfit that fits with your butchess (many of my cultural outfits are hand made to fit my form and gender expression), and yet Lois unceremoniously loses her hanbok. You would think in Lois opening up about being distant from her parents that Clark would be able to culturally relate with the distance he has with his Kryptonian parents. But the narrative opportunity to link their immigrant experiences is not taken, because the show simply doesn't recognize the parallel between the two.

Instead MAWS pushes for the Lois Thinks Superman is A Liar thing again. A far less narratively substantial and fundamentally flawed arc. This episode starts with Lois calling Superman a liar and has Lois ranting about him "dodging her questions" (remember, he was honest with her about not knowing his heritage) thereby rendering her interview unpublishable. She resorts to conspiracy tabloids giddily provided by Jimmy for information. She rather cruelly says "nobody normal believes in aliens". We are uncomfortably seeing the build up of Lois being allegorically xenophobic towards alien immigrants- a Lois on a quest to out an alien before he's ready. This is their justification for flipping the love triangle. Lois loves cuteboy Clark from work, and hates Superman for not confirming her biases that would help her publish an interview that would promote her at work. What a love story.

To wrap this episode up: Prof Ivo ends up challenging Superman to a fight so he can flex his Parasite suit to investors, only for it to backfire, destroy his reputation, and greatly damage the Amazo building (remember this it'll come back later). The episode ends with Lois discovering Superman is Clark Kent. Anecdotally, I was so frustrated with the treatment of Lois' hanbok in this episode, that I went online to search if anyone else felt similarly. All I was met with was fandom thirsting over the stairwell scene where Clark and Lois were undressing. Consider the optics of an Asian character who removed the most visible signifier of her heritage (the outfit far more culturally specific where her character design was racially ambiguous) and how people cheered because that meant they could see her in her undergarments. They can happily thirst over the body they desired now that the othering cultural garment was out of the way. It's just clothes after all. Diversity clothes. This show continues to be very uncomfortable, and a little too real.

In episode 5 Lois is passive aggressive to Clark and Superman, trying to get Clark to admit he's Superman and vice versa. She eventually confronts Clark by jumping off the roof of the Daily Planet, causing Clark to fly down and save her. She proclaims she doesn't want to be friends with him anymore for "lying" to her. This episode caused a huge ruckus online as people were divisive over Lois' actions. Some defended Lois, saying that "women should be messy" and "it's not Lois Lane if she doesn't do something crazy for journalism!". Ignoring that opinion's very flandarized view of Lois' character for a second, let's thoroughly discuss how this relates to themes of immigration and Asian identity.

By this episode, Lois had known Clark for 5 days. In that time she's entitled and angry to the point of friend-breaking-up with him because he wouldn't disclose his marginalized identity to her within less than a week. "A secret is another type of lie!" Lois says, regardless of her lying on sight to both Jimmy and Clark upon meeting them at work, and continued to lie in episode 3 (after promising not to in ep 1) about her intentions to interview Superman. Only Lois gets to lie in this relationship. The hypocrisy of her character is never recognized. Clark calls out Lois for having previously admitted to him that she wanted to dox Superman and "publish all his secrets. MY secrets!". Keep in mind that when Clark brings up Superman feeling uncomfortable about his secrets being published by Lois in episode 3, Lois' response was "yeah, but HE doesn't know that's my plan!". She explicitly admits that she would publish private information about Superman without his permission. But when she's confronted by Clark in episode 5 about that, her response is "I would never do that to you, I didn't know it was you until after the gala. How could you think that?" It's only through conflict of interest that Lois spares Superman of being doxed. He's supposed to magically know this. Extremely cool of Asian American Lois to be entitled to an alien immigrant's identity within four business days.

Episode 6 wraps up the Lois Hates Superman For Being A Liar arc, so let's quickly summarize what happens. Lois and Clark set aside their fight to find Jimmy in an abandoned scientific facility (he's being cared for by Mallah and the Brain). Jimmy admits (very smugly) to having known Clark was Superman all along because he kept breaking stuff. As the trio are chased by killer robots, they emotionally confront Clark for not trusting them with his alien secret- despite neither Lois or Jimmy creating a safe environment for Clark to come out to either of them (Jimmy outed Superman as an alien on his video channel). The moral of the story is Clark should have trusted his friends anyway, because lying is bad. Not once does the narrative hold Jimmy or Lois accountable.

We have Black Jimmy Olsen and Asian American Lois Lane being entitled to their white passing friend Clark Kent's marginalized alien identity. A joke is made at Jimmy's expense that he doesn't understand bigotry, and Lois clearly doesn't understand why an immigrant wouldn't be forthcoming about his identity to his hostile friends at work. This is how that arc ends.

I'd like to quickly compare this Lois Hates Superman For Being A Liar arc to my favorite scene in Superman Smashes the Klan. In this story, Superman debuts as a strongman superhero instead of an alien, suppressing his more othering powers to pass as human. He jumps instead of flying. Roberta, the Chinese American girl targeted by the Klan, calls Superman out for not using his full abilities to save people who could've gotten hurt. Yet, as she's calling him out, Roberta understands Superman's fear of not wanting to be othered. She sees the way her father dresses up to pass as an accomplished scientist, how he tells her mom to speak in English, how her brother makes racist jokes at their family's expense to fit in. She's not mad at Superman, she's mad at the world that would be scared of Superman if he flew.

"I wish it were okay for you to fly!" Roberta yells. This is a beautifully empathetic scene that shows a marginalized person frustrated at a systemic problem, instead of blaming the marginalized for being marginalized. It's the empathy and perspective we're missing from MAWS.

Episode 7 is a metatextual episode where MAWS addresses how their Lois isn't like the other Loises you've seen before. Lois and Jimmy are brought on to a team of alternate dimension Loises to find interdimensional troublemaker Mxy. In seeing the other more accomplished Loises in the multiverses, Lois ends up feeling inadequate about her self worth...in connection to being Superman's girlfriend, of course. Because Superman only loves Lois Lane after she wins a couple of Pulitzers, right?

I'm open to a version of Lois Lane that isn't as accomplished as she's historically known to be. I can like a Lois that's young and idealistic, like in Girl Taking Over. It's hard not to compare this episode to 2022's Everything Everywhere All At Once, another multiverse story about an Asian American woman who is the "greatest failure" version of all the parallel iterations of herself. But while that movie talks in depth about themes of generational trauma, expectations, and self potential within Asian immigrant families, MAWS uses the multiverse to say that while their Lois is less accomplished, she's still a good girlfriend to Superman! Why should I bother giving grace to a different take on Lois only to get such a superficial story out of it. This is metatextual-ly frustrating.

Why is it, the minute we get an adaptation of an Asian Lois in something as prominent as an animated show, we get "the worst Lois in the multiverse"? Lois is historically depicted as excelling in her field. She's an award winning journalist, jaded and mean from having to work her way to the top. She owns her sexuality, she's the experienced city girl. Instead of taking the opportunity to inform Lois' jadedness and excellence with her Asian American identity like in Girl Taking Over, instead we have an Asian Lois that's simply incompetent at her job. Why are we now adapting historically accomplished women into adorkable quirky screw ups? She went from being sexually confident to being insecure over sending a text to Clark. Is it more relateable to see an Asian woman that way? Is it too intimidating to see a butch Asian woman who excels at her job? Who's romantically confident? This is what MAWS would rather do than humanize her excellence or her failures.

Are you tired of an ambiguously designed Asian American woman reporter being xenophobic to Superman in MAWS? Well too bad because episode 8 introduces us to Vicki Vale, voiced by Andromeda Dunker (an Asian actress), with explicit notes in leaked concept art to design this character as "Indian American or Asian American" (as if those are mutually exclusive...) inspired off of real Asian reporter Connie Chung. Vicki wants to write a hit piece on Superman and interviews Prof Ivo's assistant, Alex, for a negative biased opinion on Superman (to Lois and Jimmy's dismay).

This episode is where it's abundantly clear the writers don't know how to talk about xenophobia. They'll make nods to xenophobic rhetoric, but they don't know what the rhetoric means. In response to Alex's derisive opinion on Superman destroying Amazo tower thereby bankrupting the company and putting "thousands out of work", Vicki responds "Superman wiped out good American jobs". This is a misplaced nod to Replacement Theory: the fear white people have over people of color, but particularly immigrants, coming to "their" country to "steal" jobs they're entitled to, ultimately becoming demographically replaced by non-white cultures and people. This rhetoric is also commonly applied to Jewish people.

The problem is, that's not what Superman did in the show. Amazo tech was going to go bankrupt because of Prof Ivo's poor business decisions. Prof Ivo made the mistake of antagonizing Superman and ruining his own image. Superman damaging the building came from his fight with Prof Ivo, not a deliberate attempt to get hired (if anything don't the building repair people have new jobs now?). No one's job is tangibly being taken by Superman. None of this is called out by Lois or Jimmy, who know the full story and were even the ones to attack Alex for helping Prof Ivo (let's be real the writers forgot this happened). In fact, Lois and Jimmy don't react to Vicki's Replacement Theory remark at all! It's like they don't even recognize she said something with racist implications!

Jimmy and Lois meet up with Superman who learns the people of Metropolis are becoming scared of him (from causing some recent property damage in an attempt to hunt a criminal down) and writing mean comments on social media. A user writes "he should go back to where he came from." This is a transparently xenophobic comment. It doesn't work in the context of the show because of a huge plot hole: Superman never publicly came out as an alien to Metropolis. No verified newspaper has explicitly made this fact known. The only source that mentions this is Jimmy's conspiracy channel, which the citizens of Metropolis are apparently treating as fact- therefore (if we're to believe this is how people knew) this means Jimmy absolutely outed Superman as an alien without Clark's consent.

So how does Asian American Lois respond to seeing her alien boyfriend go through xenophobia? She says "Take a break from being Superman and just try being normal." To be fair, the narrative does portray Lois saying the word "normal" as charged (only here at least, not in episode 4), and when she tells Superman to "take a break" it's because he had been overworking himself after suddenly unlocking the ability to hear when someone's in trouble. But was this really the response Asian American Lois thought to say? To her boyfriend going through such explicit xenophobia? At this point it's abundantly clear that racism doesn't exist in the world of MAWS. Being "normal" is to be human. And to be marginalized- or as the show likes to call it "different" is only reserved for white passing alien man Clark (along with gorilla and robot that was once a white man). Any hope of an immigrant parallel between Asian American Lois and Superman should be fully discarded at this point.

After the events of the previous episode where Superman is kidnapped by Task Force X, in episode 9 Lois regrets being allegorically xenophobic to Clark. At least I think that's what's happening. I often describe MAWS as a show that's extremely squeamish with getting political- and I believe the vagueness of Lois' Dark Night of the Soul moment reflects that. "I said awful things to Clark. I doubted him when he needed us most. I was wrong and now he's gone..." Lois says as she cries to Jimmy. Is this dialogue implying she shouldn't have told a sleep deprived Superman to take a break? What did she doubt about him? This dialogue is purposefully vague about Lois being xenophobic. They've universalized Clark's immigrant identity to such a point that they can't keep their argument consistent. Was Lois in the wrong for telling her overworked superhero boyfriend to take a break? Or was she being xenophobic for telling him to lay low for a while? Or is she regretful for hating Superman for Being A Liar? How is that possible when the narrative sided with her and Jimmy in episode 6? It's woefully non-committal. Regardless, the intent of this scene is to pay off in the climax of the episode.

In the end Superman has a showdown with Prof Ivo Parasite, who has grown into a large godzilla-esque kaiju creature. In typical MAWS fashion, the show is more interested in a surface level nod to Asian media instead of engaging with the specific themes of nature and post-war trauma kaijus and godzilla serve in Japanese culture. I digress. Using Jimmy's massive social media platform, Lois delivers a hope speech that instantly heals Metropolis of its xenophobia towards Superman.

Lois says to the people of Metropolis.: "People have told you to fear Superman because he's different from us. But we humans are capable of causing hurt and pain too. [...] Because we want to punish those who don't look or act like us." I mean this in the most polite way possible, but who on Earth thought this line was a good idea for Asian American Lois Lane to deliver when talking about white passing man Superman?? Why did the writers feel the need to specify Superman not looking like us. I simply don't understand how nobody considered the terrible optics of this.

After Superman defeats Parasite, episode 10 is about Clark, Lois, and Jimmy celebrating Thanksgiving at the Kents' house. At the Daily Planet, the trio of interns are promoted to finally being reporters. It only took Clark and Jimmy a few weeks while it took Lois a whole year! Now feels like a good time to remind you that Lois as a character was historically frustrated at sexism in the industry and despised how men were treated better than her (including Clark Kent). Well in MAWS episode 4, Lois has no idea why she isn't getting picked up to be a reporter. According to the narrative, and Perry White's dialogue ("you're terrible interns, so the only thing to do was to make you reporters")- she simply didn't break enough rules yet! Thank goodness she had the help of two men to show her how it's done! This is a pretty clear case of character regression. Keep in mind that in American Alien, at the very least that Asian Lois still underwent sexism, and I gave it the grace that the story could eventually expand to talking about both sexism and racism if it were to continue. But in MAWS? I don't think even sexism exists, let alone racism. Somehow Thanksgiving does, though.

Half the final episode is spent on Thanksgiving shenanigans where everyone's trying to be polite but they dislike Lois' stoic dad (Sam Lane)- who Clark recognizes as the Asian American xenophobic man who tortured him in Task Force X's government bunkers. A parallel is pulled between Sam and Jor-El, two fathers with different ideals when it comes to protecting their kids. There's a huge missed opportunity to have Lois and Sam speak in Korean with each other, to create a parallel in the language barrier between Clark and Jor-El. Maybe Lois isn't as fluent in Korean as Sam is depending on how culturally connected she is. Oh, but the existence of non-English human languages would imply some sort of minority, who would be marginalized, and we can't have anyone outside of aliens and a gorilla be marginalized in MAWS. Non-English languages in America are political, after all. Oh, but they also got a Filipino actor to voice Sam. Generously Lois could be Filipino-Korean but if we're being truly honest it's clear the MAWS crew think Asians are interchangeable.

Let's talk about Sam. In terms of optics, it's already not great that the main villains who represent the face of America's secret government xenophobia are Amanda Waller and Sam Lane- a Black woman and an Asian man. What's doubly notable is that of the antagonistic villains, Sam and Vicki are the most xenophobic. When Sam tortures Superman, he shouts "When is the invasion? How many of your kind will come through this time?" without a hint of irony. Reminder that historically, Asian immigrants were (and still are) considered invaders in America. They are the perpetual foreigner. MAWS loves making nods to Superman being an immigrant allegory, and yet they can't fathom the human beings that allegory is inspired by.

It's not impossible to portray people of color or even Asian American characters specifically being xenophobic. In Superman Smashes the Klan, Dr. Lee is initially antagonistic towards Superman but we understand why. We see him trying desperately to assimilate into whiteness, to the point he rejects assistance from his Black neighbors who help put out a fire in their backyard (that the Klan started as a threat). We understand why he's a character who would turn on fellow people of color, or fellow immigrants, in order to fit in. For MAWS, if we had a flashback scene where Sam was serving in the military and fought against Asian soldiers, showcasing his loyalty to America over his own people- that would narratively explain why an Asian American character would be xenophobic. Writing bigotry from within marginalized communities requires specificity. Otherwise, you've just got a diverse villain. In the end, Lois defends her immigrant alien boyfriend from her xenophobic Asian American dad.

Whenever I bring up how MAWS fails its characters of color but especially Asian Lois, I'm met with people telling me that "hopefully they'll make Lois more Asian in S2" or "they'll just retcon the bad writing in S1" and I hope this thorough analysis on the treatment of Lois' Asian American identity can help enlighten why I personally think that's impossible. The entire concept is flawed from the very beginning. The story MAWS wants to tell is at odds with Lois' Asian identity. In trying to justify an Asian Lois that loves Clark but hates Superman, they never considered what it means to hate Superman. To hate the alien immigrant. The alien other. What it means for an Asian American character to do all that. MAWS is a show that wants to have its cake and eat it too, they want a diverse world without racism or sexism but still want to reap the clout of lightly portraying Superman as "different".

They'll make the most surface level nods to Lois' Korean heritage- but remove all of the cultural context from them. They can't be bothered to acknowledge the inherit political identity being a person of color means in America, they're too busy doing that with Clark. I'm told "MAWS didn't have the time to go over Lois' Asian identity, it's a 10-episode series that focuses on Clark's alienation", and to that I say the potential of an immigrant love story and time frame was there, they simply chose to go another direction.

When I bring up things like Superman Smashes the Klan, Girl Taking Over, and Everything Everywhere All At Once, it's not to say MAWS should have used those stories as reference when crafting their allegory. All of those specific media were released while MAWS was deep in production already. Girl Taking Over was released the same year MAWS premiered. What I am saying is that we, as the audience, should have higher standards. Because better media portraying Asian American characters already exist. Better media portraying Asian characters relating to Superman mythos already exists. What we're doing when we celebrate the breadcrumbs of representation that is MAWS, is allowing mediocrity to exist uncritically.

Shows like Wednesday are known in the discourse for their portrayal of Black characters as being functionally white, yet that kind of scrutiny doesn't seem known for MAWS. The diverse reimagining of Lois and Jimmy is so poorly handled in MAWS that it would honestly make more sense if Jimmy and Lois were white here. The joke made at Jimmy's expense that he doesn't understand bigotry would be actually funny if it was calling out his white privilege. If, for whatever reason, the writers are compelled to write a xenophobic Lois that unlearns her bigotry and falls for Superman, I'd rather she be white for that kind of story. I wouldn't personally root for that kind of couple, but at least it'd make sense. It's a common joke among DCAU fans of color that we like to headcanon Lex Luthor as Black, or Lois Lane and Terry Mcginnis as Asian. It's a cruel irony that the one time we finally have a canonized Asian Lois in an animated show, she honestly feels and acts whiter than actual white Lois ever was.

I mentioned in Pt 1 of my essay that Asian Lois and Superman has the potential to be a definitive love story. One that considers both their backgrounds as immigrants, othered in different ways by American society. The story of a jaded but accomplished Asian city girl who finds hope to be herself again in an alien immigrant superhero. One where she gets the courage to wear traditional clothes again, to practice languages she once suppressed. The story of Superman, an alien immigrant, finding hope in someone with a painfully similar experience.

As of writing, we have yet to see this dynamic in any canon DC media. A second season of MAWS will not give us that story.

#ramblings #media criticism #jesncin talks maws #lois lane #warning LONG LONG POST #this is a 30 minute read for reference. read it in chunks if u like but this is a big lad fellas #as always please be kind!#jesncin dc meta

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the-modern-typewriter · 5 months

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do you have any advice on writing beginnings? i never know where to start so that the exposition and action are balanced enough to make the opening interesting. i can do middles and ends easily enough if the beginning is well-set up, but i’ve always struggled. any tips?

I'm going to focus on balancing exposition and action in this answer, as it seems to be the key area you are struggling with, rather than openings more generally.

Okay. Let's go!

1 - Need to know

The first question to ask yourself is what does the reader actually need to know to follow and understand the story?

Openings can vary by genre and the age group they are written for, but beneath all of the variations and methods, is the need to know. So long as you have that covered, the rest honestly just comes down to reader and author preference.

What a reader needs to know will depend on your story and your plot. E.g. if it is a portal fantasy, then we typically just need to know what the protagonist is missing/yearning for/struggling with in their everyday life in order for us to see how this is changed through their adventure in a new world. We will learn about the new world as the protagonist does so there will be a natural exposition point as they explore (exploring = action, we learn as they learn).

If, on the other hand, the whole story is set in a magical fantasy land that the protagonist has always known, then you're going to have to do more exposition in order for your reader to understand the key rules of the world and what things mean.

2 - Start at the interesting bit/provide your protag a goal or the reader with a question they want answered

We don't typically start on an ordinary day where nothing happens, even if it shows us what the protagonist's normal life is like. We start on the day that they have a job interview they desperately want to ace, or the day a body is found in the river, or a day where something unusual happens or two characters meet for the first time.

This raises external, concrete plot questions.

Because we have started at an interesting point in the story where something is actually happening, it makes it easier to interweave action with exposition.

To go hand in hand with this, give your character a goal/something they want. This doesn't have to be a big or seemingly important thing, although it can be. The recent film Everything Everywhere All At Once did a wonderful example of this in that the main character just wanted to do her taxes. Other examples might be that a character just wants to get home after a bad day, or to pick a cake for an event. Whatever.

This can have a number of different purposes depending on the story. For example, it provides tension and conflict because there is an obstacle in the way of what they want (to get home), or it provides an opportunity to showcase character or relationship (e.g. the cake).

3 - Options for exposition

There are different options for doing exposition.

A narrator or first person POV can tell the reader about the world even through direct narration or their internal thoughts. This works especially well if you have a strong sense of character. It is useful for conveying key information quickly, but you will likely want to break it up with other forms of exposition to avoid an info dump.

A flashback. Flashbacks are a great tool! I don't recommend starting a story with a flashback. They are much better for providing important information a little later after you have hooked your reader with the more immediate plot.

Dialogue. Dialogue is a natural and excellent way for us to learn about characters and the world that is also action. The danger being that your dialogue still has to sound natural. If the characters wouldn't be standing around actually talking like that in that setting at that time, sorry mate. Do a different exposition technique.

Exploration/setting. Characters can learn about a place/world as they explore it, which means the reader can learn with them as they experience the world.

One way to balance your exposition with action is to vary how you do your exposition. If your reader is having fun reading the story, they won't care that it's exposition/set up. All stories start with exposition. Look at your favourites and break down what they are actually doing, shamelessly steal the framework, and adapt as relevant for your work.

4 - Remember that you don't have to start by writing the opening

Openings are easier when you know what your story is about. This is because openings often showcase something that is going to be relevant throughout the story. This could be a specific image, a nod to theme, or some character trait that will be important.

If you don't know what your story is about yet because you are still writing it (totally valid!), feel free to come back to the opening later, in the same way that you might write the body of an essay and then do the introduction/conclusion last once you have figured out what you want to say.

You're allowed to work backwards. You're allowed to work in any jigsaw way that works for you. You don't have to write the first line first.

When you know your story, it's also a lot easier to figure out what your reader will need to know.

#i hope this helps #sorry it's a bit general/vague there's a lot going on with openings #writing talk #writing tips #writing advice #writeblr

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the-orion-scribe · 7 months

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An essay on Ford and Mabel

To commemorate my 1000th post, I decided to embark on an essay on the limited Ford and Mabel bonding in the show!

Among some of the shortcomings in the show (including Wendy being chaffed as a main character), there aren’t as many moments for Ford and Mabel to bond over, compared to Ford with Dipper. Well, it’s also due to the short runway we have from A Tale of Two Stans to Weirdmageddon, but for rather odd reasons, Ford didn’t get a lot of screentime and often holed up in his own lab. Even Roadside Attraction did not even drop any mention of Ford. As a mutual lamented to me, it’s likely the case of Ford, like Wendy, being another character whom the writers had a purpose for (as the answer to the mystery of Stan and the Portal), but didn’t know how to write outside that purpose.

Of course, some argued that, for plot reasons, this is so that Mabel gets duped by Bill since she didn’t know about the Rift from Ford. Or that Ford just overlooked her when he offered Dipper the apprenticeship. As such, there is a main misconception that Ford didn’t care about Mabel at all compared to Dipper. Or, in some ridiculously extreme cases, that he hates her. While I guess this was extrapolated from what we might have gleaned in the show, I don’t agree with such extreme views.

People forget that Mabel was actually the first twin he interacted with, and it was largely positive. When Mabel stated that his six-fingered handshake was one finger friendlier than normal, Ford laughed and said he liked her. Given how much he was shunned by many others for his extra fingers, it probably warmed him to hear someone saying something positive about his anomaly. It seemed initially set up that Ford and Mabel should get along fabulously. Even Mabel went as far as to knit finger puppets for Ford and while he sounded rather hesitant in Journal 3, we later glimpsed a scene in which both bonded over something similar (a hand turkey).

Which brings me next on Ford’s journal entry about Mabel. (I also noted he interviewed, or wrote about, Mabel before Dipper). His interview with Mabel sounded largely positive given he remarked how he was “instantly charmed” by her “enthusiastic” personality. Ford also considered her as an “odd specimen” (almost certainly a compliment), and also hoped to seek her help to repair his own coat.

I suppose this interview probably shaped some initial impressions for Ford about Mabel. “Overall positive but somewhat ambivalent/not-really-comprehending how she ticks necessarily” is much of how I would define Ford’s attitude toward Mabel - he likes her, but doesn’t especially identify with her because the traits he admires in her are almost inversions of some his own.

At this stage, one could also take that with his remark in Dipper’s initial assessment about how he “possibly takes after Stanley” as Ford initially trying to identify with Mabel the way he ended up identifying with Dipper, such as him enthusiastically commenting about her sweet tooth and hair curls being a Pines trait. Of course, as it turned out in the show and in Journal 3, his perceptions of the twins shifted and he found himself relating more to Dipper especially when he looked back on Dipper’s entries and additions, and the events of Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons.

I have to admit that when I first read this part, I thought he remarks he himself needed further psychological testing and not Mabel. For some light-heartedness, I rather think of it that way, but there’s something deeper in this for the two’s psychological profiles. First off, the tests were flawed, given Rorschach testing blots should be less definitive, but it probably reflected Ford’s possible lack of comfort with ambiguity, and the preoccupation he had with death and destruction for so long. As for Mabel, it shows a certain degree of wilful misinterpretation, trying to see things through a particular positive lens and has a sort of fear of unpleasantness that manifests in a possibly neurotic drive to control reality around her, which finds its ultimate expression in Mabeland.

This is rather important as something I would delve into deeper later on in this essay, which gave Ford an impression that Mabel’s psychology, while odd, was overall positive and not much to be concerned about. He clearly recognized Mabel’s social ability as a valuable skill, and may see her lack of cynicism as something of an asset too, as we later see in The Last Mabelcorn. I suppose Ford neglected to do a deeper dive into her psychology given the fallout we would see in Dipper and Mabel Vs the Future. He might claim to have 12 PHDs, but I doubted one of them is in psychology.

We move on to the Last Mabelcorn, which is where we see Ford interacted more with Mabel and offer a bigger insight into how he feels about her. First, he agreed with Mabel when she stated she was probably “the most pure of heart in the room” and entrusted her with the unicorn mission, even knowing that the unicorns were difficult (and frustrating). As such, he equipped her with Journal 1 and a crossbow for the mission. Obviously this was for her safety, as well as trying to give her as much help as he could regarding unicorns, even though he himself had little success (Ford mentioned of an arm-wrestle with a unicorn in the blacklight edition which I doubted went well). At the end of that episode, he directly told her that she is a good person, even without being aware of the struggles she had gone through with her morality moments prior. And after the episode he even regarded her as an expert on unicorns given she managed to defeat one, and allowed her to write an entry in Journal 3 about unicorns. I needed to note that Mabel was the only person who wrote in Ford’s Journal after Dipper returned Ford the Journals (and before their recovery in Weirdmageddon). This rather showed how much Ford really trusted Mabel, especially when he regarded his Journal as his “important scientific documents”.

Dipper and Mabel vs The Future is more contentious in this regard. We see how plenty of fans often using this episode as proof that Ford doesn’t care about Mabel just because he only asked Dipper to stay in Gravity Falls, and waved off concerns that Mabel would be all alone in California. However, we need to relook some bits of this in context.

Dipper: There’s also Mabel. She’d be all alone in California. Ford: Mabel will be fine on her own. She has a magnetic personality. I watched her become pen pals with the pizza delivery man in the 60 seconds he was at the door.

From this, we can see how Ford cared enough to observe Mabel’s social skills with the pizza delivery guy, plus probably witnessed plenty of instances of Mabel handling herself without Dipper’s help. I guessed that was further underlined by her success in the unicorn adventure, and thus he genuinely believed that Mabel could take being without her brother outside of the summers.

Dipper: Gosh, we’ve never really been apart before. Ford: And isn’t it suffocating? Dipper, can you honestly tell me you never felt like you were meant for something more?

This is another contentious bit, I admit. It sounded like Ford considered Mabel as a stumbling block in Dipper’s future. Well, I concede Ford isn’t perfect. Again, this is one of those times Ford was projecting his issues with Stan onto the younger twins after finding out how similar he thinks Dipper is to him (possibly aggravated probably by Stan blatantly aligning Mabel with himself, ex, telling Dipper that he belongs upstairs with “me and Mabel”). At this point, he was just extremely clueless about the nature of her and Dipper’s relationship, and how it was much healthier than his was with Stan, probably even at that age.

Nevertheless, to say that he didn’t care about Mabel at all is simply a misguided oversimplification. He cared about them both so much. His traumatic experience with his own twin just tainted how he saw the twins’ bond being something that could be potentially suffocating. He did sort of have a point though; Dipper and Mabel couldn’t force each other to stay glued at the hip forever or it could potentially stifle their individual dreams if handled badly. But the twins were only 12 and had a lot of growing up to do together. It wasn’t a great idea to separate the twins at this point, which was something Ford forgot.

Mabel wasn’t forthright about her feelings about leaving Gravity Falls and growing up until she blew up at the end of the episode. We see how she maintained that mask of optimism throughout the show, even when she was worried about the Grunkles’ falling out and the parallels she found between her and her brother back in A Tale of Two Stans. That mask began to slip when she realized growing up wasn’t as great as she thought, and Ford didn’t know how badly Mabel would take it.

Ford thought he was doing Dipper a favor by giving him a head start on his studies. This is probably a bit too charitable of an interpretation, but one could, I suppose, see Ford's “something more” remark as “Dipper more than just half of a set” instead of “implying that Mabel is in some sense inferior than her brother.” As said earlier, he even believed Mabel would be fine and thrive on her own, too. That the two could have reached a compromise if needed.

We can probably conclude that Ford actually did not disregard Mabel or see her as the "inferior twin", but he just found trouble trying to connect with her despite his initial positive impressions. At the same time, due to Mabel's outward outgoing personality, he overestimated Mabel's confidence in being on her own, and also (subconsciously) projected his own issues with Stan on the younger twins. Not to say Ford was a bad person by any means, but he was misguided in some of his assumptions and impressions.

On a tangent, I say the recent fan episode Return to the Bunker tried its best to imagine how Ford and Mabel might go on an adventure together. However, it instead exaggerated too much of his flaws (e.g. his trust issues) and it became more of a Ford bashing episode. Yes, we know Ford isn't perfect by any means, and he might be unfamiliar with interacting with others like Mabel.

Yet, as we also saw from the canon (the show supplemented by Journal 3), he could get along well with Mabel, especially in such a desperate situation like confronting a Shapeshifter (how he dismissed the others' suggestions is really beyond me). We even saw how Ford was willing to give up himself to Bill in WMG when Bill threatened to torture or even kill the kids.

I supposed the writers of that fan episode did read J3 but took the wrong lessons. While definitely an attempt to show Ford's flaws, the episode instead went the other extreme. Ford could sometimes be insensitive (like the remark he made about "suffocating"), but not anti-social or downright unpleasant.

There is definitely potential for more positive Ford and Mabel bonding moments that could further underscore that Mabel could cope well on her own (from what we saw in The Last Mabelcorn). From what @hkthatgffan also told me (and on Reddit), when Lost Legends was coming up, everyone thought, from Hirsch's hint through his emojis, that we might finally get a Ford and Mabel bonding story but instead we got an (admittedly) half-hearted attempt to redeem Mabel from her role in WMG.

I supposed another angle could be Ford and Mabel also coming to terms with their roles, given Ford is partly responsible (and even took some blame himself), and both can overcome the trauma together. I don't doubt these are already concepts being explored in various fanfics and fanarts. And here are some other ideas from Reddit.

Let me end off with some parallel scenes between Ford and Mabel, which show how similar both are. We need to also remember that it's not exactly Dipper-Ford and Mabel-Stan, but rather Dipper and Mabel paralleling each of the Stans in different ways. That is probably another essay for another time.

This essay is written with assistance from @jacky-rubou (who already provided an initial essay for me to work from) and @callipraxia who is able to offer more insights.

#gravity falls #essay #ford pines #mabel pines #thousandth post #stanford pines

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major-wren · 8 months

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I love the "ARK siblings" concept and I love cute lighthearted fanart of them being siblings but I feel like a lot of people forget that they literally canonically share a soul and that her death is, in my opinion, I think supposed to represent a part of one's self dying and that they're supposed to be, symbolically, a lot more than siblings.

I always saw Shadow's story as a symbolic way to express the way your inner child and innocence is sacrificed in order to survive complex childhood trauma. Maria's color scheme and the way she's written is, I think, clear to all of us how she's meant to represent innocence and youth. I mean, she doesn't really function very well as a stand-alone character or realistic depiction of a child, shes always been more of an.. idea.

I'm not sure if it was purposeful, but the moon's "Maria" are craters that formed from the moon repeatedly taking the hits of asteroids at it's points of gravity. These points of gravity attract asteroids and draws then away from the Earth. The craters are mostly on the side of the moon we see, so the dark side of the moon, or "shadowed" side is better protected because of that. I feel like this is an extension of Shadow and Maria's symbolism. She took the bullet for him, protecting him, the same way Maria takes the comets, and the same way your brain will sacrifice your inner child (or freeze/rush your mental development) in order to survive intense childhood abuse. I know it all sounds extreme lmao but at the end of the day characters and storytelling are used to explore and express hard emotions and I don't think this randomly tragic character sprung out of nowhere for the Sonic games, which, before that point, always had very lighthearted positive characters (except for the echidna extinction in the game right before Shadow's). Having a character that was easy to approach, yet could represent scarier concepts as a child-friendly stand-in, felt like a very important tool to me growing up. I just hope that that writing can be appreciated in his character, with an understanding of how messy production can be and how a character can get pulled between many different people and ideas. I do think this symbolism was intentional to some degree, especially when it gets to the blatant soul-sharing and how characters insist that Shadow can't be a weapon because Maria's soul (his inner child and true morals despite the damage done to him) makes him "good hearted."

There's other things that uphold this symbolism of Maria dying as representing his inner child being killed, like the rushed/suspended mental development in the face of trauma being illustrated by the fact that Shadow was forced into a dormant cyro slumber right after Maria's death, symbolizing the way he had to basically skip childhood or hit pause on development until he could escape the people controlling him. Much like how victims will have to pause everything and go on autopilot with only a goal of survival until they can escape their situation; only after they feel safe can they begin growing as a person and find their identity. In the Japanese language, there are different types of pronouns people can refer to themselves with instead of just "I" or "myself." In the Japanese dub of SA2, Shadow's creator said in an interview that he had been very insistent on Shadow using the pronouns reserved for young boys, despite Shadow's menacing villain role in the game, because he felt it was important to show Shadow's purity and his lack of experience in life so far. That "live and learn" theme.

And then in his self titled game, Shadow is searching for a way to reconnect with his past and to find the truth about this Maria person he keeps seeing in flashbacks, but in the end he throws away her picture and accepts himself as he is now, forever changed and stained by his past, but more than just a product of his situation. He is "all of him," including the negative impact he never asked for, and including the parts of himself he lost, but also the parts of himself he chose to become. Your environment and childhood shapes you even if you didn't want it to, but that doesnt mean you cant have control in your identity and recover your inherent nature once you've escaped the negative influence (nature vs nurture theme). He will never be the person he used to be, or could have been, (represented by Maria as a pure and untouched youth), but he still has a say in what that grows into.

I just feel like a lot of Shadow's identity issues and inner conflict stem from this whole soul sharing situation with Maria and that his character ends up inevitably being misunderstood if you water them down to just siblings. Especially considering that it was never answered if Shadow actually even ever met Maria or if they're just memories planted by Gerald or caused by the shared soul. In Sonic Battle, it's also said in Gerald's diary that not only do Maria and Shadow share identical souls, but that Gerald literally modeled Shadow after Maria out of his love for her. I'm not sure to what degree or in what ways, but Shadow is supposed to share purposeful similarities with Maria, likely through the content of her character and her morals. That's what makes them so much deeper than just psuedo siblings, he's not only made for her, but designed after her too. It can't really be compared to, for example, Sonic and Tails.

I also think its what makes Shadow's character so substantial and meaningful. His self titled game's entire theme was purity, morals, what is good and bad. This question of purity and morality spreads into his appearances in other stories too- This question that, if you were badly hurt in your youth and shaped by evil- does that leave you impure? Stained? Destined to continue that cycle of harm and cruelty? I think these insecurities feel very real and relatable, and that it's even more realistic that despite these insecurities, that hurt and damage is actually what fuels him to protect others. Just as he said in Sonic Battle, "There's no need to repeat past tragedies! Nobody else ever needs to go through the things that I have!"

Statistically (despite media portrayal) abuse victims RARELY become abusers, because they understand the pain on a deeper level and can't bring themselves to force someone else into experiencing that same pain, knowing the permanent damage it causes. However, childhood abuse leaves people socially stunted and conditioned to harshness, which causes them to accidentally hurt others without meaning to. Or they end up hurting people out of desperation if they feel endangered (like Shadow's "means to an end" approach where he'll prioritize violence if it means reducing the end-impact). Also, they are more susceptible to being abused again after escaping the first abuser, because they are so susceptible to manipulation- Just like how whenever Shadow does switch sides, its usually because someone manipulated him into it or literally brainwashed him. I think Shadow conveys all of this so well, and that Maria's true role is an integral part of it all that can't be ignored or misunderstood, or else Shadow ends up reading as unnecessarily violent or overly obsessed with her when you interpret her as just a sister-figure that he knew for... who knows how few years.

I think this symbolism runs deep with his writing. Just like Maria's meant to be that inherent purity and inner child, I think the black arms DNA is that stain that abuse or trauma can leave on you, that causes you to act out or feel like you're always holding back and trying to keep control over some darker part of yourself that was left behind in the damage done. Especially since they literally have a mind link with Shadow. In the Sonic Universe comic, they succeed in brainwashing Shadow and turn him against his friends. These mind-links, soul-sharing, and brain-washing from both Gerald and the black arms... To disregard the fact that he's deeply connected to these people on a metaphysical, identity altering level is to water down his character and leave it feeling as though his motives are too weak to justify his harsh actions. I've seen people poke fun at his amnesia or insecurity in his identity, as though his confusion isn't justified, and I think it's because people don't realize he has these... literal fragments of other people inside of him, that that's pretty much what he's made of, kind of franken-steined together between a little girl's hopes and morals, an alien race's hivemind greed, a weapon-hungry government and a revenge maddened scientist's painful grief, and even the chaos emeralds which we all know are spiritually whacky and potentially connected to another alien race's memories and energies (the ancients from sonic frontiers). With all of that going on, plus some amnesia mixed in and his memories having been altered by Gerald- I mean.. you'd be searching for the "truth" of your identity too, who you really are. And of course, prone to frustration and aggression, or even a "wish-washy inconsistency." I think there's always a constant tug of war inside of him and that his whole development was a game of tug of war between Gerald, G.U.N and the black arms too. "Am I a cure, am I a death-bringer, am I earth's protector, am I it's destroyer," etc etc

Idk I just think a lot of problems people have with Shadow's writing stems from not realizing how deep things go and what they symbolize. Not to say that something like his boom characterization is of good quality or anything, but I think it's unfair to call him inconsistent when a confusion in his own identity and purpose/goals is kind of the point. And I think people not realizing Maria's deeper, physiological connection to him and influence might be part of the problem.

#major mumbles #shadow the hedgehog #ark siblings #maria robotnik #gerald robotnik #sonic the hedgehog #sth #shth #sonic adventure 2 #shadow the hedgehog headcanon #sonic headcanon #sonic analysis

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the-cat-and-the-birdie · 9 months

Note

What makes you know hobie is 18 or above? And not the in the same age range as miles and gwen

Honestly, great question. And the answer is:

I Don't Know Jack Shit. So jot that down.

Additionally, anyone telling you they DO know Jack Shit is a liar. Jot that down too.

[I may go a little Miguel Mode at the end of you know what I mean]

I personally operate under the headcanon that Hobie is over 18.

Why? He says he goes to pubs. You need to be over 18 to do that. The End.

You can headcanon that he has a fake id or simply finds himself in pubs while underage - and that's completely valid. Go ahead. You can headcanon he has a mfing tail. I can't stop you and we haven't seen his ass so maybe he do, who knows.

But my headcanon is just that. And to me - until Hobie's age is clearly displayed and mentioned on screen, then it'll always be a headcanon.

No matter what age you headcanon him as - if you think you KNOW his age, you're probably wrong. And I mean that.

The ATSV describes him as a 'slightly older boy'. Case closed, right? He's a minor then.

Nah, three lines later they say he's MUCH older than Miles....literally contradicting themselves within the same paragraph.

[And the funny thing is - I've seen the artbook used as evidence in the argument multiple times. Even though it literally contradicts itself. And every single time I'm like 'bruh did you even read the full page come on now'.]

Case in point, if you think you KNOW Hobie's age when 1) it's not stated on screen and 2) even the official external material gives conflicting information - you're just wrong. You can't know a theoretical number. And you can't be wrong about a theoretical number.

It's Schrodinger's age.

Example: A character is shown to be in High School. They live in New Jersey where the driving age is 16. If a fanfic writer has the character say "I can't do that, I can't drive yet.", is the fanfic writer canonically wrong? No. Because the character could reasonably be above OR below the driving age, either 14-18. Even if the director mentions the character having a sweet-16 that is never mentioned in the show, it's not screen-canon and the average viewer will not know the character is definitely over 16. Therefore they can reasonable be 15.

"But the director said-"

Don't care. Not weighted canon unless stated on-screen.

Maybe this is a controversial opinion. But if it's not on screen, I can't say it's canon.

Sure, the director may have said in an outside interview that Hobie's conceptually 19-20 -

But a normal person who goes to see the movie, and comes home to write fanfiction isn't going to know what.

They shouldn't have to dig through all conceptual and external content of a specific character in order to be deemed 'acceptable' and knowledgeable enough to write about them.

A person who watches the movie and writes solely based off of what the movie says about Hobie shouldn't be harassed or told they're wrong because they didn't listen to a podcast of a director who's name they don't even know.

There's no pass that says 'Okay you've done enough research about Hobie to write about him, congrats-'

If it's not in the movie, show, book, etc - a fan should not be required to seek out that information to be caught up to speed. External information is supplemental, not a part of the hole.

Also-

If it's not in the movie - It DOESN'T MATTER.

ATSV is a very well written movie. Every line is used for the purpose of telling the story. Especially Hobie's.

They didn't tell us Hobie's age because it didn't matter to the story. And it shouldn't matter to you.

If the writers didn't care enough to take time out to clarify his age, then it makes no sense to spend take arguing about it.

They obviously don't find it important. Because it isn't. It doesn't matter to the story at all.

Hobie's age doesn't matter to the 'love triangle'. Although the film is narrated by Gwen, we largely see it from Miles' point of view. And the 'love triangle' only exists when Mile has no concept of who Hobie is.

Miles doesn't know Hobie. So him questioning a love triangle happens regardless of whether Hobie is an adult or not. Miles doesn't know, neither do we.

The 'Hobie' in the 'love triangle' is an empty-shell of the mystery of who Hobie COULD be. The moment Hobie takes off the mask and we're revealed to the real him - the illusion of who he could've been is shattered for both us and Miles.

Because his age isn't stated, it has no bearing on Miles' perception of him. Miles don't know shit. Neither do we.

Also you people should be fucking grateful GODDAMN WTF

If you deadass beef about this you one ungrateful mfer i swear. Take offense. All offense.

We have a black, attractive, educated, useful, respected character in an animated movie that's available for ANY SHIP with ANY character and what do you people do??? - you argue.

Why? Explain to me why.

You should be happy it's up to interpretation and not definitely stated that you were wrong. At any time the creators could just put it in the next movie and make you look stupid.

You could be out there enjoying any ship of your choosing; with any character you enjoy him with - regardless of age. But no, instead of enjoying the ship that's available to you, you antagonize others.

Sit there and eat your mfing salad you INGRATE

Be grateful we have a character with such free range of shipping. A character that's un-aged and doesn't have a specific gender preference. BE THANKFUL.

You like Gwen x Hobie. Great. You argue with people and harass people who think Hobie's an adult??? - What if Hobie deadass looked in the camera next movie and said "I'm 19 also I'm gay." You'd look dumb as hell.

But they didn't do that. They left it unstated for you to go and enjoy your Hobie x Gwen or Hobie x Miguel or Hobie x whoever the hell.

I'm thankful everyday they didn't say his age because I don't make OCs that go to high school because I'm 24 and hate high school. And guess what, I can do that.

Him and Diane can just hang out on the houseboat all day cause they're grown ass adults with no place to be. Isn't that swell?

Stop playing with me and enjoy the goddamn shipping buffet. Christ almighty

All in all - I don't know shit. You don't know shit. And it's okay to not know shit.

NO UM-AKSCHULLY

Get comfortable with saying "I'm not the authority on this." or better yet "I don't know shit about nothing."

I love him to death, but I am not the authority on Hobie Brown.

For me - I know he said he goes to pubs and I know I wanted to ship him with Diane. Personality wise, Diane is 19. So Hobie is 19.

But I don't know anything about his age. No one does.

I'm just cute and like to share headcanons. Hobie Brown as of right now doesn't have an age. And that's fine. Cause he ain't real.

If you made it this far ummmmmm Here he is. I'm giving you this photo under the condition that you'll act right and enjoy him in a ship of your choosing if you'd like to do that.

Now lets sit here, and eat this ship salad.

[me making sure ur enjoying ur shipping salad]

Bye.

#I said what I had to say #Argue with the wall Im sure someone will #hobie brown #spiderpunk #spider punk #atsv #spider-man #spider man #spiderman #across the spiderverse #marvel #hobie brown x reader #hobie brown x you #hobie brown x y/n #atsv analysis #across the spider verse #spiderverse

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toooliix · 3 months

Text

hey! alright so i may have done a thing

so for the past,,, idk 3 weeks? ive been going on a deep dive into spelling bee mostly to sedate my own curiosity of needing to know everything about what i'm interested in. as it turns out, there is a LOT of content with this musical, so i'm here to talk about my findings! note: i will be keeping this EXCLUSIVE to the original 2005 off broadway cast. as much as i'm a brown university girlie through and through, the original cast is where the content is. OKAY FIRST: youtube findings

a lot of small videos were made usually with logainne and leaf. you'll be quick to learn that they made the most off stage content. i have a public playlist with these videos, along with interviews, the original boot, and a few other things. the cast album isn't in it because that's audio only and i want visuals damnit. (plus its on spotify and easy to look up so.) the exception is 25apcsbmt12doc because its pretty underground and the purpose is to get word out about niche things.

second: myspace pages a lot of the spellers have myspace pages! this is like. a common thing!! only two were archived (leaf and logainne) and are able to be accessed! i'll talk about the others in a bit. they contain new information and i personally find them very interesting!

leaf logainne

HOWEVER: three are currently able to be accessed through modern myspace without needing an account. the format is off, but it's accessable.

barfee 25apcsb account panch third: other

there's two different things here so i'll separate them :]

3.1: r/v club

r/v club is a short film by rebecca feldman (one of the people that worked on spelling bee) that includes logainne! it can be found on her site with other short films. i believe this is the only one with her in it HOWEVER i have not checked therefore i could be wrong. it's set post-spelling bee, i believe. also jesse is in it but not as leaf.

r/v club

3.2: official site

spelling bee had a site!! and official merch!! its just a cool thing i think. it'll be mentioned again in the last section

spelling bee site

fourth and final: lost media (to my knowledge)

okay, spelling bee has.... QUITE a bit of lost media. again, this will be separated into parts.

4.1: C-R-E-P-U-S-C-U-L-E

before spelling bee was a thing, crepuscule (albiet mispronounced) was an improv play made by the farm. (same group who made r/v club) a lot of the characters were similar or the same, and it has a similar premise. however, it wasn't a musical. from what i've heard, there USED to be a boot of it, however i haven't found one of my own. i would love to be corrected.

4.2 myspace pages

remember how i was going to say this was going to come up again? hi thats now. outside of leaf and logainne, other myspace accounts were made! mitch (comfortcounselor), olive (mydictionary) + (oliveostrovsky), chip (chiptolentino), marigold (marigoldconeybear) an olive and barfee joint account (ilovemydictionary), and a leaf and logainne joint account (schwartzylogan). there's also another leaf account with the very confusing name of panchspell the issue with these is that theyre not archived, so you'll need a myspace account with a verified email to view these. in the year of our lord 2024 that's not exactly an easy find, especially since verification emails no longer send. plus, one of olive's accounts is dictionary.com now so,,,, who knows what it looks like there. most also need a connection, which makes things even MORE difficult. i hate how close but out of reach these accounts are.

4.3. spelling bee game

yeah they had a game. it's on the site, and it's eternally stuck at loading characters from my experience. here's the link anyway! game

4.4 the dirty bee

oh jesus its the dirty bee. so for context, in 2006 when the show was running, a few nights were booked for spelling bee that were meant for mature audiences and were 18 plus. it's catered towards people who have already seen the bee and want something new. it was inspired by jay (panch) and putting in words or sentences researsals that were clearly for funnies because he was bored. alas it became a derivative of the musical. all we know is what an article provides (theres more than one but the one linked gives the most info) and that chip quote unquote "finished off" at my unfortunate erection according to jose. there's rumor that chip is canonically bi in it but theres no sources so,,,, can't confirm that one.

article

(the quote is said in the reunion "stars in the house" and is found in the playlist)

conclusion:

there's genuinely so much shit in this musical i find it fascinating. this post WILL be updated with any other finds or information. PLEASE dm me or let me know if i got something wrong or if you have something to add (though do add a source, please and thank you)

ALSO: reblogs are greatly appreciated!! shoutout to the wiki, @/honkmaster69 and the people i spam in dms for helping and tolerating me <33

#liix rambles #the 25th annual putnam county spelling bee #t25apcsb #25th annual putnam county spelling bee #25apcsb #leaf coneybear #logainne schwartzandgrubenierre #william barfee #olive ostrovsky #marcy park #chip tolentino #mitch mahoney #rona lisa peretti #rona peretti #douglas panch #this took so long but its FOR A PURPOSE BAYBEE

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glasspunkart · 3 months

Text

Bravern Radio Episode 1 TL (1/2)

Hi! Recently the web radio of BBBB came out on Youtube so I decided to do a translation for anyone interested!

As a key: Isami Ao VA -> Suzuki Ryota Lewis Smith VA -> Azakami Yohei Bravern VA -> Suzumura Kenichi For the purpose of this TL, I will be using character names (Isami, Smith, Bravern), and I'll put in bracket any time a name is mentioned or any additional info! So let's go!

Isami: We've started with a 'Bang'! Hey everyone, are you exploding with courage?! I'm the voice actor of Isami Ao from Yuuki Bakuhatsu Bang Bravern, Suzuki Ryota! Nice to meet you all~ ("Yuuki Bakuhatsu" means "Courage Explosion", they will use "courage" a lot, they're referencing the title) Smith: I'm the voice actor of Lewis Smith from Yuuki Bakuhatsu Bang Bravern, Azakami Yohei! Isami: Yup! This program, starting January 2024 will be broadcasted about Yuuki Bakuhatsu Bang Bravern, featuring me, Suzuki Ryota, the voice of Ao and Azakami Yohei, the voice of Lewis as radio personalities. Sometimes we will bring in guests, sometimes just us, and with courage we have our Web Radio! I'm going like a factory here lol

Smith: Seriously, I can't catch up to you haha Isami: The main part of the show well, it's a story about Isami and Ao's growth and the bond between them. The two of us are going to show courage and roll through with the show, welcome our guests and hopefully inspire some courage in you all too! Smith: We will try to convey the appeal of this show from all kinds of angles for you, please listen on! Isami: Actually first I apologise, the opening is- it keeps going. Ah, it's amazing huh, gets the tensions high. Smith: Haha, BRAVERN! It's so cool

Isami: Going on about our first radio episode, we were just in the middle of searching and searching. For the first, well, somehow we have managed to call a guest who's way too amazing. Bravern: It's sort of like we got the last boss of guests here. Isami: Right! It's like 'is it okay for us to call them?' Smith: Sooo Isami: Is it okay now? Smith: Lets call now ?: Should I be called now? Smith: Its better if we call fast now. Isami: Time for introductions! It's this person! Bravern: Is your courage exploding?! I'm the voice of Bravern, Suzumura Kenichi! Nice to meet you~

[Applause]

Isami: Yaaayy Smith: Thank youuu. Truly, we searched and searched, please save us senpai haha Isami: Save us Braveeeern!! Bravern: But like with such an amusing setting, you two as the main personalities, it's hard to be in step with you! Smith: Truly it's hard to find such an amusing set Bravern: In most of the shows I know, they have a lot of experienced veterans who have been doing this for many years to try to keep in step with. But you normally don't see it that much- the difficulty to keep up Smith: Normally it would be like- me and Ryota-kun (Isami) will be opposing each other, and the guest gets to pick a side Bravern: Yeah, this is some kind of strange thing. It feels like an interview Isami: It's like we are the ones being called Bravern: You have it reversed!

Smith: Also, personally, you don't often see radios having a guest right from the first episode huh? Bravern: Yeah that's true Isami: It kinda feels like, lets just do it with the three of us Bravern: Until the end? I wish! Smith: Seriously, I wish! Okay firstly, as for how we're calling each other? How about we change it from our usual names? Isami: This too gotta be done with courage! Bravern: For each of us? Smith: Yep! We want to go with names that we haven't been called until now Bravern: What would I want to be called….well, if we decide it here it will be easier to call those on-site. Isami: Oh that's true

Smith: We also have names that we are called on a day to day basis too Bravern: Oh tell us about those too Smith: For me it's Azakami so…people call me Azi Bravern: Azi???? Isami: Azi…. Smith: Yep, Azi Isami: That's nice, it's easy to say too. Smith: Really? Anyway, we need to pick names that we only use here? Bravern: Oh, okay… Isami: What were people calling me until now? Bravern: Oh…there's a lot of them. Smith: Lol, a lot huh? Isami: Pick something that's not Azakami-kun Bravern: I've been calling you 'Azakami-kun' all this time but what should we call you huh? Smith: Other than that! Not something I've been called a lot until now Isami: I've also been saying Azakami-san this whole time…

Bravern: Usually at this time we have to search. When you know what's needed and talk about it with people, like 'what do i want you to call me?', there's sometimes a really skilled senpai, who will just suddenly pull out 'Azi' as a nickname. Isami: If I was just randomly called Ryota (his first name) it would make me super happy~ Bravern: I'm the type of senpai who can't really do that….I'm different from those kind of senpais Smith: Hahahaha Isami: So the one who needs to show courage is Suzumura-san, finally Bravern: Yeeaah that's true. Though now I want to call him Azi, after all that. It's just in here right? Just between us? Smith: You can call me that elsewhere too! Bravern: It's not like calling 'Sardine' or 'Mackerel' or something, like "Aji" (jackfish/horse mackerel) fish or something! Isami: Aji…lol Bravern: It's not like that! Next it'll become whale shark… Isami: That's so long! We are getting further and further from the point here! It's hard to understand!

Smith: Well then I'll be simple and say that I like being called by my (given) name. By my senpai, like "ah, Yohei", kinda Bravern: Yohei is nice! Smith: If you called me Yohei it would make me happy Bravern: Yohei, right? Yohei, huh…but now I like Aji lol, is it okay if only I call you 'Iwashi'? (Sardine) Smith: Sto- well, maybe just Isami: Just this time? Smith: Mm, just this time, you can call me Iwashi.

[lmao]

Smith: On to you, Ryota-kun… (Isami) Isami: Hmm Bravern: Normally, what are you called? Smith: By fans and such Isami: Well, fans call me "Su" (From "Suzuki") Bravern: Su?? Smith: Su! One character….lol Isami: Su.. Bravern: This is like, 'oh it's become that era already'! Isami: With this they're definitely bullying me Bravern: Ryouta-kun- it's the same as using 'ryo' or 'ri' Smith: Aahh yeah nowadays (the nicknames) are becoming shorter and shorter, huh? Bravern: 'Su' huh Smith: They've taken that lol Bravern: I've seen people use "Suzu" pretty often these days, I've been called so too Smith: Yeah I have too Isami: Ohh yeah I see Smith: But Suzu is kinda- well, if Suzumura-san is okay with that's fine but I don't like it, calling you "Suzu" since it's Suzumura-san's nickname ("Suzu" works for both "Suzumura" Bravern and "Suzuki" Isami) Bravern: Yeah that's true too. Then, 'Su', huh? Smith: Su…lol, Su… Bravern: Okay I know. Let's call you Miso (a type of soup) Smith: Hahaha, that fits perfect. The Sardines have assembled here (miso soup can contain sardine)

Bravern: The sardines. We've made it something you can taste, it sounds delicious. You guys should call your unit Namero (to lick/taste) Smith: Namero! Isami: Let's go with Namero Smith: Lets do Namero to show our gratefulness to Bravern (lets lick bravern to show our gratefulness) Bravern: If I was a woman first I would be concerned for you Smith: Hahahaha no no no our idolisation of you can't be stopped. So what should we do for you, Suzumura-san? Bravern: You gotta show courage, right guys? So, stuff like Suzu-san is not going to cut it. Smith: True Bravern: It needs to be something stronger Isami: R…rin-san? Bravern: Eh…well… Smith: No more, more than that Isami: Suzu… Bravern: Come at it strong Isami: Something which could come from Suzu… Smith: Mm…

Isami: ….castella, or something? ("suzu-castella" is baby castella, a type of cake) Smith: Hahahaha Bravern: Hahahah Suzu-castella, huh? That's amazing Smith: Castella! Bravern: Castella-san….we don't need -san, let it just be Castella Smith: Castella pfftt Bravern: Castella is… Isami: It's kinda dangerous, right? Smith: It's become a dangerous radio now Isami: It's not even courage anymore Smith: It's a dangerous radio now! Bravern: Noo, call me Castella please! Smith: Well then this time only, let's call you Castella Bravern: Castella, Miso, Iwashi (Sardine), huh? Smith: What even pff Bravern: Sounds delicious honestly Isami: What the hell…

Smith: What is up with this trio…well, that's done now Isami: I understand Smith: You understood? You got it? Bravern: I understood too Smith: I got it Bravern: Amazing, this is so ani-radio Smith: What we're doing now? Bravern: Whatever we're doing now, it's just like all the ones I've experienced till now Isami: Now that we've decided on the names Bravern: It's been a while since I've done something like this Smith: Yeah, and there's stuff you don't normally ask, so with this too we have to have courage- Isami: -and go to the questions Bravern: Yes, I'll answer anything you ask me Smith: Anything? Isami: …your annual income- Smith: Hahaha he said it! He said it… Bravern: There's some things I can't say you know Isami: Then how many castellas do you earn Bravern: Hahaha if you ask in terms of castella, it will be a lot Smith: Yeah it will be a lot Bravern: It's got to be Isami: Makes you curious right? Bravern: Amazing Smith: But I wanna become like that too

Bravern: It will be a building's worth Smith: Hahaha, a building full of castella?? Bravern: A building's amount Isami: This is difficult to ask but- Bravern: Mm, go ahead? Isami: Can you tell us your weight in terms of castella? Bravern: Mm, I see. Well if I have to answer it in castella then- uh, how much Smith: How many castella?? Isami: Pfff Smith: Are you lightweight? Bravern: I have no idea! Smith: When you're soaked, you know- your weight changes a lot right? Bravern: Um…then sixty….sixty….sixty five- sixty five castella?? Smith: Castella?? Isami: Isn't that way too lightweight? Bravern: I have no idea Smith: In terms of weight this measurement unit will make the numbers seem really huge and it's hard to understand Bravern: Yeah, it is hard to understand Smith: Though I'm sure its difficult to ask it like that- if you're going to answer it's okay to sugarcoat it Isami: Mm I see Smith: Yeah, round it off, it might be better that way Bravern: Gotta have courage…

Smith: This kinda conversation- we don't do this during the recordings (of the anime) at all Bravern: True, you can't Smith: At the recordings, Suzumura-san (Bravern) and I are often together- intensely working together, so this is the first time Bravern: Yep Isami: Yeah in radio you can kinda- Smith: You can say stuff like this Isami: There's also a certain impression of what recording should be Smith: Yeah at the recordings- hmm, well, we talked a lot about tokusatsu (live action JP shows with lots of effects, like giant robot shows, power rangers, etc) Isami: True lol, I was hearing a lot of tokusatsu conversation the whole time Bravern: Obari-san (BBBB director) is kinda rigid about that kind of thing Isami: Yeaaah Bravern: But Bang Bravern is sorta like, Obari-san's interests are bared and showing Isami: It's soooooooo obvious Smith: You can immediately point it out. But with this kind of passion it's easy to become super aware of it (Obari's signature genre and tropes), and even more so if you try to stray from it Bravern: It's blatantly written in the script! Smith: "Okay now this conversation is getting way too long so let's move to the next corner", sorry, the instruction was given to me so

Isami: Yes, I'm sorry for that…So then, Castella! Castella will be the guest Bravern: Mm, for first and second Smith: -two weeks in a row! Isami: We will be talking about a lot of things Bravern: We did it! Smith: Way to go, Castella! Isami: Yeah! Smith: Without further ado! Smith & Isami: TV Anime Yuuki Bakuhatsu Bang Bravern Web Radio! Smith: Let's start with introducing the program, henceforth we'll be talking about the work, with courage we will tell a lot of stories, and with courage let's deepen our bonds with banter Smith: The other day, the first episode of the anime aired on TVS Isami: Let's start with a summary of what happened. Smith: The first episode, "I've made you wait, Isami" Isami: 'The representatives of the countries of the world have gathered in Hawai'i, The Airforce's Titano Strider, T.S. Pilot Lewis Smith, in the middle of a fight, meets Japanese Defense soldier Isami Ao. During the fight, Smith, having seen Isami's cut-above-the-rest abilities, challenges him to a 1v1. But on the promised day, suddenly they are attacked and destroyed by a mystery force and their peaceful days are at an end.' is what it will be.

Bravern: Right from the summary of the first one…the work is described like it's going to be so badass. Smith: The quality was soo high Bravern: Right? Isami: For sure Smith: Then again, with this summary, people will think 'it's totally different though' right? Bravern: Definitely true Isami: It is! It sounds like it's going to be a super real feeling army story Smith: Like some serious military thing…but for us it was laid out wasn't it? 'You can't say anything about this' Isami: Yeah, we were told Smith: And because of that I mostly wanted to observe…once the first episode aired I wanted to see what is the atmosphere everyone feels, and we were told to give our cast comments by everyone too. That too…felt kind of untouchable Isami: It did feel like a hard topic to touch Smith: They really wanted to deceive everyone and play it like 'No, it's a serious military thing, it's very dark, we're maintaining a suspense tone', they were writing it to us constantly

Isami: In the PV like…the vibe and the song did not match even a little bit Smith: It reaally didn't! Bravern: Hahaha Smith: Exactly, exactly! Hahaha Bravern: They kind of made a mistake there. If they're going to do this anyway, they should have tried to hide that song too Smith: Totally! Pfft, if they intended to deceive Bravern: Mm- Smith: I was thinking, if they're going to deceive then go all out and deceive us! Isami: For the listeners too, it would feel like "this is the start of something" Bravern: While we're talking about it being "hidden", I was the one who was hidden the most! Smith: Castella was- Bravern: The whole time- yes, the castella was hiding the whole time! Kakure-castella (Hiding is "kakure-teta" so he made a word mash "kakure-kasutera") Smith: Kakure-castella, huh? Bravern: There was a lot of stuff I wanted to say but I couldn't say! Smith: Must have been Bravern: There was

Bravern: Back when it was announced, once, if I had done something without thinking…like retweeting- Isami: Noooo Bravern: …it would have been bad! Isami: Scary, scary, scary Bravern: I was thinking 'Ahh it's been announced', and that i have to be quiet. Smith: Hahaha Bravern: And then Tachiki-san slipped up and retweeted. And i was thinking why did Tachiki-san do that?? (Fumihiko Tachiki, VA who appears in other mecha animes) Smith: Tachiki-san you shouldn't do that! Isami: No no no!! Bravern: Why did Tachiki-san retweet??? Smith: Seriously, why! Isami: That was a no! Smith: We can only wonder why… Isami: What kind of character do you think Bravern is? Bravern: Mm..well, there was an audition, and I auditioned for Smith and Bravern Isami: Ehh?? Smith: Euuuhh??? Bravern: Yep. And if I had to say, it was mainly Smith Isami: Really?? Bravern: I went to the agency, at the time of the audition, and then Suwa-san asked what will you take, and my company managers had selected some for me. Suwa-san said to take the audition for Smith, so I went there to take the audition…and I thought "Wait, there isn't any other voice actor who knows robots as much as I do." (I think it's Masahiro Suwa-san, animation director)

Smith: I see! Bravern: Obari-san means robots, right? And the document- there was also a role document for Bravern, so I said "Let me take the audition for this 'Bravern' too". So they let me take it for Bravern too (Director Obari-san is well known for mecha shows) Isami: Right right right Bravern: And I went to it resolved to win, so- but then at that one, there wasn't really much instruction in the role document, it was pretty much just "sound robot-like". But there was a script at the audition, and after seeing that it was kinda, probably, between the human characters, there's a rigidity…it's a show where the communication of thoughts doesn't go well Smith: lol Isami: So sharp! Bravern: That's why, the robot will be a robot but there's this…if I had to describe, this theatrical beauty, sense of honour. I've been watching hero shows for a long time and I've been a lover of robots since even before that. So if you say "robot", and then "a robot who talks" then it has to be this (specific) way. How do I explain, there's a certain way that a partnership should be done. That kind of thing between normal people- and then suddenly a robot has come, trying to have that with a person, it's a conflict in their way of thinking. I was going with that in the audition Smith: You're way too sharp! What a pro

Bravern: So I worked hard trying to be like all talking robots I've seen so far, but without fretting about the tiny details. One who is obsessed in the pursuit of honour. Isami: I see! Smith: Heeehhh Bravern: So then I went to the first recording and it really wasn't too far off from my imagination. But there too I had to consider the meaning between the things I had to do. I made it while talking about a lot of things with Obari-san (director), kinda. Smith: Ohhhhh Isami: Amazing- you're so overly reliable, it's like there's a warden within the cast lol Bravern: Warden?? Smith: I don't know if it's that extreme haha Isami: But at the recordings, it relaxes us too to have that reliability Smith: That's true, it fits perfectly…but it was a surprise, right? A talking robot Bravern: Yes! It feels like the first time that's been done Isami: Oh really? Smith: I thought "oh, it is?" Bravern: About talking robots, from our age of the hero shows, Hayami Sho-san's voice comes to mind Smith: Aah, a little bitter, yeah. Bravern: Right? So when a line with bitterness is required, I think I should approach it with a different feel. And sometimes a robot with a youthful voice is needed too. From that time, it's Matsumoto Yasunori-san or Nakamura Daiki-san's lines. Isami: Something a bit more energetic Bravern: Yep. For this line I have no choice but to go there! I really imagined a lot. Smith: Amazing!

This is only the first 15min 40sec ish ! If people are interested, I'm happy to translate the rest too :)

#yuuki bakuhatsu bang bravern #bang brave bang bravern #bang bravern #lewis smith #isami ao #bravern #bbbb #radio translation #glass text #glasspunkart

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youkaiyume · 1 year

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So, Rise of the Beasts!!

I saw it twice of the weekend, and I want to put down my honest thoughts.

Overall, I had a great time and I definitely think it's worth watching. Ignore the critic reviews for some reason they are offended that a Transformers movie exists to sell toys. You know, their sole purpose since the very beginning of inception. But OF COURSE I have THOUGHTS so...

Spoilers under the cut!

I liked the human characters for the most part. Noah's sudden onboard motives for going with the autobots to Peru was not as convincing but adventure needs to happen so I gave it a pass.

Mirage is like, DTF with Noah. Like he is SO ready for that tiny bf bff. It's obvious that Bee spoke so much about Charlie (cuz it seemed he was the only one who did talk positively about humans in their group) that Mirage was just. HIS BODY WAS READY.

CHARLIE WAS MENTIONED!!! AHHHHH!!! That was the one tiny smidgeon of a crumb that I wanted and they gave it to me. Granted it was implied when Optimus says "I know one was good to you, Bee" But I was told that the Latin America dub had him say Charlie's actual name. There was a SCENE that was cut out according to the Hollywood Reporter--that Bumblebee had also pulled out a polaroid pic that Charlie took of them together from the first movie here to show OP. HE'S BEEN CARRYING AROUND HER PICTURE ALL THESE YEARS I DIE WHY DID YOU CUT THIS OUT!!!

Mirage's abilities seem very arbitrary. And I do not like this. He can turn into several alt modes which seems to be only a thing that he can do... he can mass shift--which I know mass shifting is a thing but when he turns into a truck to sneak past the museum security I was like??? I was always under the impression that the bots could turn into a vehicle relative to their own actual size so this just confuses me. There is supposedly an earlier cut of the film where it was more clear that the trailer was another illusion. which I wish they kept in. Also when he becomes Noah's symbiote suit at the end?? Like, as a shipper and rule of cool I am into it, but as a person who wants rules to ground my science fiction I don't like how Mirage is just a swiss army knife for the writer's convenience. It feels lazy instead of taking the time to actually worldbuild. Nobody else can do these things.

The arbitrary mass shifting of him being as big or as small as he wants (like when he becomes Noah's exosuit) really falls apart when they keep insisting that they need the humans because only they can fit into small spaces. Well, clearly not cuz you can just do it yourself. AGAIN, PLEASE BE CONSISTENT WITH YOUR RULES.

Airazor x Elena. Anyone else????

speaking of which, I am very upset about what happens to Airazor. And we never even got to see her transform. tragic.

Optimus sure was a negative nancy which--I understand why but I hope they ease up on edgy "i will rip everyone's faces off" Optimus because it feels disingenuous to his character to keep it going for too long. Like I get it, they killed your fave child so I will forgive you but also I want more of "Be strong enough to be gentle" Optimus. Not the edgelord Bayverse Optimus that they are clearly going for cuz the know certain :ahem: fans like that.

Beeeee. They put him out of commission which again, according to interviews they did just so they could make sure he doesn't steal the spotlight and give a chance for the other characters to shine lmao. He is too powerful. But also because we shots of him in the trailers, I was not too worried about Bee staying out of commission. But goddamn when if I still wasn't hyped as hell when he made his comeback. 10/10 he proves he's still the GOAT.

I hate Pablo/Wheeljack. No, after seeing the movie my opinion of him did not improve in fact it got so much worse. His design was the LEAST of his problems. Every moment he was on screen was deeply cringe. And he barely did anything!! He could have not been in the movie at all and it wouldn't have made a difference and I genuinely believe it would have been a better film. All this hullaballoo over Pablo and this is what we got. Wheeljack fans lost hard after all that defense I'm sorry this ain't it.

Hey speaking of bots that barely got any lines or screentime, wtf was up with Rhinox and Cheetor? My boys got shafted :(

There was a moment where OP is asking the bots if they detected the terrorcons and Arcee WHO IS SITTING in the pablo van was like "lol nope" and I was like GURL how could you, you're in a van. And it made no sense because don't you also have an altmode??? Shouldn't you be scouting outside to cover more ground???

I firmly believe the only had Arcee sitting in there like a dumb duck because they wanted Wheeljack to make a dumb joke in the original cut about how it was a long time since she was inside him. UGHUGHUGH.

Did I mention how glad I am that they cut the majority of Wheeljack's screentime since it was so awful especially his and Arcee's implied romance? Especially since they killed off the other femmes so the only one we got now has to have a mandatory romance. No thanks. Glad that nonsense is gone.

The Maximals' robot modes were very minimal. and they went by so fast I never got a good look at their designs.

I loved how the Maximals were harmoniously living with the native tribe--and speaking their language!

Scourge's face reveal seemed to be treated like it was a big deal but when we saw him it was just... guy without his wig on. Literally the surprise is that he is bald.

Noah x Mirage is very strong good. I have no doubt the fandom will be all over it since they seem to eat up BL romance much more readily and I am all for it. They also have all the great ingredients for it--flirting, drift compatibility, self sacrifice for the other. Another human x transformer ship for the books.

I'm sure there are some ppl who like the ending. but I.... did not. I do not want to see G.I.Joes in my transformers I'm sorry. I don't want the return of military propaganda or more introductions to several human characters that take away from the transformers. I don't want to see them exploited or used for our own human affairs--even if it's a fictional cult-- when they could be literally fighting Decepticons or Unicron or whatever. People might have wanted them in Bayverse cuz it was heavily skewed Military in those films but I don't want to see it again. It was a terrible, dark time. the Joes might be presented as good guys but I don't trust the military in general and I don't see their motives as altruistic--especially if their goal is to use them for their own purposes. Why would they help them get home? They wouldn't, if just to keep their best weapons--and Noah is bait. He is bait and he will fall for it hook line and sinker because they are bribing him with his brother's healthcare and the fact that he is struggling to find work elsewhere.I hope if they are to be involved at all it will be relegated to characters here and there but they stay in their own movies if they have to ride on Transformers coattails to revive an irrelevant struggling franchise.

There was minimal human injuries/death and I appreciate that. They did the DBZ thing where they took their fight to remote locations. This probably won't keep up if they introduce the Joes :/

Overall, 8/10. I had a fun time. I didn't love it as much as Bumblebee but it was definitely miles better than Bayverse (a low bar I know). The action was clear, the characters likable, the CGI mostly stellar. I have hope that they will bring back Charlie maybe. But hey, I took my parents to it the second time around and my Mom liked Mirage and my Dad did not fall asleep so I will consider that a stamp of approval.

#transformers #rise of the beasts #ROTB #text post #long post #read more under the cut #not so much a review as all of the thoughts i had while watching it

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sherl-grey · 7 months

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dangerous words I fear but I’m craving some OFMD critical but civil discourse… s2 finale spoilers included below the cut. this is incredibly long FYI bc I’m truly desperate to get all my thoughts out

I want to preface by saying I loved S2. I think I loved it more than s1, I think there were some absolute GENIUS moments this season (the entire Calypso episode was *chef’s kiss* my favorite), and I think the cast, crew, and DJ deserve a lot of love and, of course, a renewal for another season.

I know there’s been a lot of anti-finale-critiquing posts out there (and yeah, I also don’t want to see baseless hate or, god forbid, people trying to interact with the cast/crew with anything less than love and respect) but personally, I think the biggest sign that I love a show is me wanting to pick it apart. I think digging into the writing and decision-making and characters of a show means you really appreciate the choices that were made even if you don’t agree with them, because you’re working to understand the story on a level most people only dive to if they’re forced to in an English class. No story is going to be perfect. No story is going to be written specifically for me unless it’s literally by me. But sometimes I still want to study it like a bug under a microscope, you know?

So here we go: I didn’t like the finale, and I didn’t think it fit very well with the rest of the season/show. Weirdly enough I didn’t feel a need to discuss online until I started reading the interviews DJ has been giving about the finale (specifically the choice to kill Izzy and Ed/Stede’s ending) and I’m so curious as to whether others interpreted things the same way. (Yes, they’re DJ’s characters. No, I don’t think all viewers are obligated to interpret things the same way as writers did—that’s half the beauty of storytelling and media consumption.)

Izzy’s Death

Let’s unpack the big one first. I think a lot of what DJ/finale defenders (if I may respectfully call fans who enjoyed s2e8 that) have mentioned is that Izzy’s arc was over and he’d served his narrative purpose. I’ve got a few different issues with this:

1. Part of what I love(d?) about this show is that I did not think this was a show that kills characters once they’ve served their narrative purpose, or a show that kills characters as punishment/retribution for mistakes/earlier actions. To me, OFMD symbolizes the idea that everyone is deserving of love, forgiveness, and second chances. I truly trusted that no one on the Revenge crew would die in this show, and to be proven wrong was a bit disheartening, to say the least. Will talk more on the suicide notion in the next bit because I think it was symbolic, but Izzy also now represents a suicidal character who finds the will to live again. I’d argue that a “full arc” for a character like that should be ending in happiness, not death (and especially not with a line like “I want to go” or whatever the specific words were).

2. DJ seems to describe Izzy’s role as being a mentor to Blackbeard, which I personally struggle to see at all. Despite the Captain/First Mate status difference, I think most signs have pointed towards them being roughly equals—the unrequited love Izzy feels for Ed, the way the two of them stand right up to each other when everyone else would be afraid to, the clear shared history and longevity of their friendship/companionship. (If anything, I’d argue Izzy takes on the mentor mantle for Stede in s2, though it’s a bit glossed over because of how crunched for time everything was.) I certainly have trouble seeing the “father figure” relationship that DJ mentions in interviews, because I think Izzy is the one crew member that puts himself on even ground with his captains.

But even humoring that, Ed’s story has been about shedding Blackbeard. And DJ has a great quote in the Entertainment Weekly interview where he says that Izzy and Ed are both Blackbeard, that the two of them together are what makes Blackbeard “happen.” So in theory, if we’re killing Izzy off to further Ed’s storyline, it’s to ultimately kill Blackbeard, right? Especially since his line at the end is to “just be Ed.”

Except we already have metaphorically killed Blackbeard, several times. I think S2E3 is a really interesting episode because in season 1, it can be argued (and is, by Chauncey Badminton) that Stede kills Blackbeard in his own pirate-y way—with kindness. The crew is also somewhat a part of this, as they all accept and love Ed for who he is and not only because he’s Blackbeard; the crew follows the example of their captain and it changes who Ed is as a person. S2E3 is a crew under Blackbeard, and they also kill Blackbeard following the method of their current captain—violence. And this “death” is, in my mind, the death of Blackbeard while Stede symbolically saves the part of him that is just Ed. (Bonus: we also get Ed trying to sink his leathers, and while it might just be because he’s on a damn boat, it’s interesting that Blackbeard’s clothes are drowned/sunk while Ed’s metaphorical comeback was being saved from drowning by Mer!Stede.)

So Ed’s half of Blackbeard is dead. If we stand by DJ’s idea that Blackbeard is half Izzy, we’ve still got half of Blackbeard left, right? Well, that would’ve been right immediately post-S1, but then they gave Izzy a beautiful arc that seems to be a shadow of Ed’s S1 track. Ed and Izzy are very similar characters, but in S1 Ed is on the receiving end of love, acceptance, and admiration—namely from Stede, but also from the crew. Meanwhile, Izzy is subject to contempt and hostility… once again, namely from Stede, and also from the crew. Ed blossoms under the love during S1 until that’s taken away; Izzy simply moves in the reverse direction. He continues to be an antagonist while being treated like one, but once others start treating him with kindness (Fang hugging him, Jim and Archie amputating his leg while Frenchie lies for him, the whole crew making him the unicorn leg), he too becomes a part of the family. And wouldn’t you know it—Izzy has a near death scene as well, a suicide no less. Izzy is the one who is responsible in S1 for “bringing back Blackbeard,” so the symbolism of him pulling the trigger on himself is huge. This is Izzy killing his half of Blackbeard! Because Izzy Hands continues to live, even if it takes him some time to remember how to live without Blackbeard at first, and his relationship with Ed effectively dies here.

(As a side note, this growth arc and the way Izzy fully transforms into a member of the Revenge crew afterwards—whittling Lucius a shark and talking to him about forgiveness, dressing up in drag and singing to the crew, cracking silly jokes about Ed and Stede’s relationship—are also why I find the “Izzy Hands is the symbol of traditional piracy and his death is symbolic of traditional piracy dying” argument to be weak. In season 1, he was that definition, but we’ve literally watched him grow out of it. He’s no longer symbolic of something stagnant that will remain the same or be destroyed—he’s symbolic of something that grows and adapts to the new situations, that survives when all of the rules change on him.)

And then we have the return of Blackbeard: Pop-Pop pushing Ed to go back to doing “what he’s good at,” Ed fishing his leathers out of the ocean, Ed killing a ton of people because he thinks Stede is likely dead or at minimum in captivity/grave danger. This bit seems to go against everything the season was building towards; Blackbeard was almost entirely gone, but Ed is now the one who brings him back because he thinks Blackbeard is the one who can save Stede. And that’s fair, but what does that have to do with Izzy at this point? Why does he need to die for Ed to put that part of him away again? While we’re not owed a main character having a death that serves a narrative purpose, I’d hope for that to be the case, and I struggle to interpret what happens to Izzy as beneficial to either plot or character.

3. I think the actual core arcs of the show are character arcs and not plots. I get that they might’ve been trying to wrap plots with Zheng and the British in case they aren’t renewed, but I don’t think it was necessary—the pirating has always been secondary to the rom com and the found family, IMO. In S1, we had two main characters, but I’d argue Izzy got enough focus and attention to be a third this season. Which left us with a great character-driven story: we’re watching all 3 of them come into their own and discover who they are individually, while also discovering that the changes in themselves are causing friction between them now that they’re growing into new people. Which is an amazing story to tell, if you ask me, but the fulfillment of that story requires all three characters to be there. The conflict to be resolved is how these characters can become the people they want to be and still coexist together, because on some level they’re family now. Notably each pair combination of these characters grows together or apart (or in Stede/Ed’s case, both) during this season. Ed and Izzy are growing apart because they hold each other back from becoming the person they want/need to be; to complete this narratively, I would’ve expected the next challenge to be finding a way to become friends again as their new selves while letting go of the fact that they used to have a toxic relationship when they used to be different people.

Ed and Stede’s S2 Ending

So Izzy’s death is the big talking point, but I also think DJ’s take on Ed and Stede was interesting. He said that they deserved a happy ending for the work they put in this season. I agree with him in theory, but I’m curious as to whether others agree that they put in a lot of work. I think Stede followed through with his goal to come back and tell Ed how he feels, and to stay instead of running away from his problems. I think Ed followed through with trying to understand who he is and what his needs are while also trying to find the courage to open himself up to love again. But critically, they never talk. E7 makes a point to highlight the miscommunication/lack of communication between them, and then in E8 they still aren’t shown talking.

(I realize part of the issue is the limited amount of time and the amount of plot shoved into episode 8. I get it; personally, I think the plot should’ve been sacrificed for the characters. At this point, we were 7 episodes into a very character/relationship-heavy season. Plot could’ve waited for a potential S3.)

What’s more—there’s a huge, glaring gap between where they left off and where they end up. Ed left in S2E7 after he begins panicking and realizing Stede is becoming deeper entrenched in pirate life just as he’s finally finding his way out of it. Not once do they talk about this, but suddenly they’re retiring together? And right after Ed says Izzy was his only family and Izzy calls the crew his family (which… is also an unearned line, as Ed and the crew have almost no bonding or forgiveness this season, since we focused mainly on Izzy with the crew and Ed with Stede), they leave the crew to do their own thing? They’re all relatively minor things that could be fairly easily addressed by dialogue, but they fact that they’re not only serves to underscore the way that Ed and Stede really aren’t on the same page.

I want them to get their happy ending. They deserve it. I’m just not sure that I agree that they earned it to the degree that it was received, with retirement alone together without their crew, if that makes sense.

Positivity Tax: Calypso Love 😊

I’ve probably got more to say but those were the big ones on my mind after reading the Vanity Fair and Entertainment Weekly interviews. Just to counterbalance some of the more critical things I’ve said, I wanted to share some loving analysis of the Calypso episode:

1. It’s a minor thing, but the way this episode shows that Ed’s actions as Blackbeard had consequences is amazing. Despite him arguably committing the more grievous wrongs in S1, he’s the one we get the least redemption for in this season (his apology to the crew wasn’t great, and most of his screen time is spent repairing his relationship with Stede), so for him to have to face something that happened because of his past actions is cool, especially because it was done in a way that doesn’t further damage his standing with the crew.

2. The way Stede saves the day is incredible. Competent Stede this season has been an absolute joy to watch, and his success in this episode is twofold: first he wins his way, with signature Gentleman Pirate flair. He listens to Ned’s crew, helps facilitate communication between them, and encourages them to stand up for themselves and demand better treatment. That’s a very classic Stede win. But then he wins in the traditional pirate way, and it’s absolutely glorious; he’s been working towards becoming a better pirate, both in terms of stomaching violence and building up the necessary skills. Ned’s crew can be taken down with kindness, but Ned himself is a pirate and will only be matched by another. I genuinely cannot think of a more perfect way to show that Stede is still himself while also showcasing the newer side of him that he’s been working towards this whole time.

3. Speaking of that newer side of him, the way this episode starts to open up Ed’s insecurities? The combination of seeing his least favorite parts of himself reflected in Stede as well as watching Stede grow into the career that he’s trying to leave? Amazing conflict development.

4. I’ve already talked so much about Izzy but the way this truly caps off the crew’s acceptance of him as part of the family is gorgeous. He’s an entirely new man at this point and there’s no jokes made, no friendly ribbing… just love and acceptance. It highlights both his newfound comfort and familiarity with the others as well as the extent to which they care about him.

5. Less analytical, but it’s also just a really pretty episode.

Considering the fact that I have zero OFMD mutuals and this was a whole essay (I’m on mobile and can’t see how long this is but I’m honestly scared), I would be shocked if someone made it down this far, but if somehow people are here and open to civil discussion… I’d love to know how you felt about this, if you thought DJ was right, if you were a little more on my wavelength and thinking things weren’t adding up, etc. Realistically I’m not sure if anything could change my mind as I’ve done a lot of stewing, particularly about Izzy arc, but new perspectives are always refreshing. Much love to the fandom and of course the creators, who hopefully never see this and get their s3 renewal 🤞🏼

#ofmd spoilers #our flag means death spoilers #our flag means death #sherlgrey.txtea #i am SO going to regret posting this aren’t i #i guess worst case scenario i delete #but I suspect most likely scenario is no one reads this lol

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andreal831 · 1 month

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This fandom needs to back off of Matt Donovan and Zach Roerig

Starting with the ridiculous: Zach Roerig and Julie Plec never dated. It's ridiculous that I have to say this. There is a blurry picture of him leaning in to Julie Plec at some point. I even tried to do the work for you all and could not find one shred of evidence of an actual kiss. Y'all are just wild for this rumor. If anything, my search revealed that Ian and Zach were in a relationship. I mean look at that affection.

Also, with just a tiny bit of research, we can find out that Zach was in a relationship when he started the show and, due to issues at home, he ends up fighting for full custody of his two year old daughter while on the show. The only romantic connection there is any reports on is with Candice King and that was relatively short lived. Otherwise Zach was just a single father, trying to raise and support his daughter.

Now people will try to say Zach is racist as well. I've heard he was racist because of dating Plec. See earlier paragraph. Or that he made racist comments to Kat. Again, there is zero evidence of this. People keep pointing to this interview saying that he either does the Nazi salute or a black power fist and it is such a reach it's ridiculous. He is looking at Kat because the question asked related to Bonnie and Matt and he reaches forward as a hand gesture and then raises his fist in a fairly generic way.

I can't tell if people get Matt Davis and Zach confused because he plays Matt or if people just love to hate on Zach because he plays Matt. Either way, it is disgusting to spread rumors about someone being racist when there is no evidence as far as I can tell. It's also terrible to distract from the actual racism that Kat had to deal with on the show.

From every interview I've seen he seems like such a sweet person. He even said working on the show was a "healing process" and yet the fandom treats him like this. Zach goes to the panels and none of his coworkers seem uncomfortable and avoid him. Not that them liking someone means that person is good, most of them still interact with Matt Davis and yet unfollowed Michael Malarkey.

Now onto Matt Donovan.

First of all, the fact that y'all pretend this man isn't attractive tells me all I need to know. Objectively, Zach Roerig is attractive. You can not like his character but you all just sound goofy.

The biggest complaint with Matt is that he is "useless," but this to me just shows you are watching the show for either the romance or attractive people and not for storytelling.

The role of the "human" in fantasy is so important. We, as an audience, are humans and we need to have a threshold character. A character that reminds of that even though we are rooting for the supernatural creatures, they are still not the good guys. It's why supernatural stories often revolve around humans. It gives the show the humanity that it would be in danger of losing if it just focused on the predatory species. Matt reminds us of the humanity that is at stake in the show.

Matt is particularly important in this show because he not only the sole human in a pack of supernatural creatures, but he is the only one without financial privilege in TVD. Matt not only comes from a family that is struggling financially, but his parents are gone and his sister is struggling with addiction. Matt is working it appears full time while in high school full time. All of his friends are going to parties and given cars and clothes, planning for college; while Matt is having to figure out how to afford his mom's mortgage/rent. Season 1 opens up focusing on how much Elena is struggling with the death of her parents but dismissed Matt's struggles as some lovesick teenager. When in reality Elena at least had a support system. Sure Jeremy was spiraling like Vicki, but Elena and Jeremy had Jenna. Matt was struggling with the purposeful abandonment of his parents and his sister's drug addiction with zero support system. He even loses his childhood friends when Elena and he break up. He only really has Tyler, who, let's be honest is not the best friend in Season 1.

He is also the first person in the show to lose someone due to the supernatural. His sister ends up attacked and in the hospital and he then has to figure out how to pay for that while taking care of Vicki who is clearly struggling even more than normal. When Vicki does end up dead, he knows there is more too it and the entire town, including his friends, gaslight him. Matt has every right to hate vampires. They murdered his sister in cold blood.

Matt is so devastated by Vicki's death that is haunts him throughout the show. He even risks his life just to talk to her ghost for a few moments.

People say Matt hates the supernatural, and he did, but he had reasons. And despite that, he was always there for his friends. Even when he was terrified, and in much more of a risk than his vampire friends, he was always there for them.

Yes, Matt is the one driving the truck when Elena dies and Stefan saves Matt over Elena, but none of that is Matt's fault. He was attempting to save his friend's life with Jeremey's help. How is that any different than Elena having Stefan compel Jeremy to leave town? Let's also not forget who helps Elena feed in her early days. But the fandom never wants to give him credit for that.

Matt is constantly used, berated, manipulated, and compelled by the supernatural around him. Mystic Falls needed someone like Matt to stand up for them since they were unaware of the supernatural world. Even the "good vampires" killed humans. Matt was trying to protect his town.

The last complaint ties it all in, that Matt only survived so long on the show because he was dating Julie Plec. Again, that's a lie. He never dated Julie, and it especially had nothing to do with the show writing. I would also like to point out that the character Matt is based on, Matt Honeycutt, in the book never dies. So why are we surprised he doesn't die in the show? Matt had a lot of close calls and even had a Gilbert ring for protection. No one ever asks why Steven McQeen (Jeremy) doesn't die or assumes it's because he was "sleeping his way to the top." These assumptions are immature and baseless.

All Matt wants to do is live a normal life, something he had to fight much harder than the rest of them for. He is the most consistent friend out of all of them. People love to say "how did Matt get so many girls?" Because he's nice. Because he respected them and fought for them, even if they didn't deserve it. They would all have been better off ending up with Matt.

Honestly, Matt and Cami's purpose are similar to me and both of the actors deserve such a huge apology from this fandom. Some of y'all need to learn to separate a show from reality.

#some of you all need to chill #making up lies about real life people is wild #it's okay that you're mad he pulled more than your favs #he was just a kid trying to survive #why are you all so mad that he made it #most of your favs got to live for hundreds/thousands of years #let Matt have his normal 80 something human years #this fandom acts like being human is a crime #and men having emotions is worse than being literal serial killers #the vampire diaries #the originals #tvd #tvdu

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ourbeloved1011 · 8 months

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Just something that's been on my mind lately.

Imagine having a personal graphic designer boyfriend who design your logo & geniusly leaving behind his initial xz & a red star cos he's claiming that you're his most beloved lonely star 🙄 despite his busy schedule as a famous actor.

Also, he still manage to fold your shirt & of course you need to take a selfie for that (no one will know who fold it for you or the real owner of the shirt that you stole anyway 🤡) And of course, you need to show off your motor goggle when your boyfriend's drama had the same drawing of it. Well, people need to know that it's you in that drawing.

Imagine having a handsome boyfriend who is 6 years older than you but a sunshine through & through that make you forget his age right away. The one who chooses his project carefully & each of his character is somehow related to his real life situation.

For example, a character who is fully aware of his sad tragic ending but still choose that path & trust his decision with no regret. A character that can overcome the age gap & proves that he is worthy of his love- both the older & younger have something that each other don't have.

Imagine that he's having an in-depth discussion with you about it & using your unwavered love for years as a reference. Imagine him missing you when he's acting the recharge battery scene.

Most importantly, he keeps emphasizing in his interviews that he will trust his decision in life 🥹 & believe in good things will come with working hard.

Imagine the effort to be with you therefore hide you under that ridiculously huge black curtain but somehow failed cos your rabbit knot scarf on your backpack was so obvious & somehow you forgot that your bodyguard is famous too.

I tried so hard to keep minding my own business but I swear you guys keep giving hints on purpose. I mean. What am I gonna suppose to do?

You guys, please get a room. I feel so single ugh. Oh you guys did. A hotel room in inner mongolia hahaha

I swear this is too good to be true like some fictional manhwa plot but I really believe that it's true 😂

#cpn #🤡myself

#bjyx #bjyxszd #yizhan #ggdd #bozhan #bxg #cpn

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lovedreamer11 · 6 months

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There are times when I really hate HOTD

You have no idea how much I want the HOTD writers to go to hell. I'm a patient person and I'm used to adaptations being different from the original, but what they did with HOTD is a huge piece of garbage. Adaptations often change appearance, plot, time frame, but a drastic change in personality is something I cannot tolerate.

What the hell happened to Alicent? Maybe the real Alicent was a stepmother from hell, but at least she knew what she wanted and was ready to do anything to achieve what she wanted. What happened to the boastful, arrogant, stupid and hot-tempered Aemond? And Aegon? This guy was a hot-tempered, spoiled hedonist, but not Mr. "I do what my mom says. My parents don't love me. It's time to show everyone my sad eyes."

Rhaenyra and Alicent's "friendship" is just 🤮. What the hell is friendship? From the very beginning, show!Alicent was jealous of show!Rhaenyra's position and status and her relationship with her parents. The real Rhaenyra would never have noticed someone like Alicent, let alone befriend her. Both girls had different upbringings, interests and worldviews. What common topics of communication did they have?

What kind of love are we talking about between Show!Viserys and Show!Rhaenyra? For half the season, all Show!Viserys did was just yell at his daughter and not listen to her, and for the second he looked like the walking dead.

How the writers couldn't come up with anything better than stealing some of Rhaenyra's things. Like her signature black dress, a forced marriage to a man who didn't care about Rhaenyra. Did you notice show!Rhaenyra's dresses and hairstyles? The book literally had a description of how Rhaenyra dressed and what hairstyle she preferred, but the writers apparently read the book from Wikipedia and skipped every second word.

I showed my friend, who hasn't watched the show and doesn't know anything about GOT or HOTD, photos of young show!Rhaenyra and show!Alicent from the series and asked what she thought. Do you know what the answer was? My friend decided that show!Alicent was a princess and show!Rhaenyra was a servant.

Just look at the banners they made for the second season. The green banner is really nice, but the black banner looks like a cheap towel.

What about the blacks on the show? How stupid must a girl be, who grew up in a world in which the main purpose of a woman is marriage and the birth of an heir, and who is the heir to the throne, to think that she can avoid marriage? The real Viserys didn't give Rhaenyra a choice and chose her husband himself, but did show!Rhaenyra really think she could avoid marriage? Show!Raenyra is the height of stupidity and absurdity, which constantly contradicts itself.

And Daemon? I really feel sorry for Matt. He is a talented actor and tries very hard. I think if the show had more skilled writers, he could have portrayed the real Daemon. But show!Daemon is a stupid, illogical, absurd clown who doesn’t understand what he wants and doesn’t follow through. This character has so many fans solely because of Matt's charisma, the writers should kiss his feet for that.

And of course, my favorite. There's only been one season out, but the writers have already demonstrated their style of throwing aside logic for the sake of effect. I mean, show!Laena's self-immolation and the way show!Rhaenys ruined show!Aegon's coronation. Do you know what the people who work on the show said in interviews? They added these scenes because they thought it would be cooler and more impressive. Wasn’t the creators of GOT guided by a similar point of view when working on the plot of the last seasons of the show?

And now, because of this show, a lot of people have come out of nowhere to argue that women should not hold leadership positions, remain silent and accept neglect because it is necessary, and rapists and aggressors can be forgiven if they are played by beautiful actors or if the characters lacked parental support love. According to this logic, people should love Joffrey and Ramsay since they both also lacked parental love in childhood.

This show really had potential and a good cast. But the screenwriters' work destroyed everything from the very beginning. Many people still have hopes that everything will be better in the second season, but I am in despair. No, seriously, look at the team banners for season two. They really did a good job on the green banner and that would be fine if the black banner wasn’t yet another proof of the writers’ bias. Black team, we have no hope.

#anti team green #anti hotd #I want to cry #what did these barbarians do with the plot?#team black

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softguarnere · 7 months

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Hello Dove! I am new to fandom, I recently finished watching Easy Boys. I read some of your fics on AO3 and loved them. I wanted to ask if your requests still open can I have something sweet with our dear OC Ron Speirs. He is definitly one my favourite characters. A romance fluff maybe or whatever you like :)

Please don't feel any pressure to do that! :)

Everyone, Everywhere, Everything

Ron Speirs x reader

Soulmate au in which on your thirteenth birthday, the first words you ever hear your soulmate say appear as a tattoo somewhere on your body

A/N: Hello love! Welcome to the fandom! I'm so glad you've liked my fics - you're very sweet 💕 Ron is one of my favorites to write, so I really enjoyed this one, and I hope that you will, too! (As always, this is written for the fictional depictions from the show - no disrespect to the real life veterans!) Just a friendly reminder that my requests are currently closed - I wrote this one while catching up on the ones I already have in my asks! Warnings: language, mentions of war

Depending on who you ask, you might just be the luckiest person on earth.

You could hardly sleep the night before your thirteenth birthday, knowing that in just a few hours, you would wake up and have the first words you would ever hear your soulmate say tattooed somewhere on your body. And when you woke up that morning, you not only knew the first words you would hear him say, but you knew his name.

Captain Ronald Speirs, at your service, graced the back of your left hand. Seeing the words for the first time sent a shiver down your spine and a thrill through your heart.

“You know his name!” Your mother had exclaimed, squeezing your shoulders in an excited hug. “And his career! Well, sort of. He’s either in the military or he works on a boat.”

“The captain of a boat sounds mysterious,” you had said, the possibilities of such a career very much shaped by the understandings of the world held in your thirteen-year-old mind. “Maybe we’ll live in a lighthouse together!”

“Maybe,” your mother agreed.

Thirteen-year-old you was right about one thing: your soulmate certainly does have an aura of mystery about him. Something that you learn all too soon once you land in Europe and are introduced to a company to interview.

E Company – or Easy, as they call themselves – are a mixed bag once they learn that you are a war correspondent. Some of them ice you out upon learning that you’re a reporter, not wanting to speak, while others just seem happy to have a woman around, and answer all of your questions, albeit in a manner that’s somewhat flirtatious. It’s during one of these interviews that you hear your soulmate’s name thrown around for the first time.

Settled in a shell of a building in a place called Haguenau, you lounge with some of the men, diligently taking notes as they tell you their stories. All of them – from the downright hilarious to the gritty to the ones that are horrifying and unbelievable.

“No, no, that was before Captain Speirs took over,” one of the men, Skinny, interrupts, correcting his friend about the timeline of an event.

“No,” another man, Martin, cuts in. “It was right after he took over. When he took over for Dike in Foy, remember?”

At the mention of Captain Speirs, you perk up. Suddenly grateful that you’ve been wearing gloves the whole time to protect yourself from the cold, you find yourself staring at your left hand, where you know that very name to be printed.

“Who’s Captain Speirs?” You ask, trying to keep your voice casual. You even ready your pencil, as if you’re just trying to keep the facts straight for the purposes of your notes.

One of the men snorts. “Yeah, that’s a good question. The one that everyone really wants to know the answer to.”

“Oh?”

The men all furrow their eyebrows, glancing between each other and you, having a silent conversation that you can’t translate. Finally, Skinny shrugs, leaning forward in his seat. “Well, see, the thing about Captain Speirs is that he’s a real good leader – “

“But he’s got quite the reputation,” Martin finished. “Some people call him Killer.”

“They what?”

More glances are shared, but less hesitant than before. Then Martin begins his story. “It all started back in Normandy . . .”

. . .

The first few times, Ron told himself that he was imagining it. Simple coincidence was behind the fact that every now and then he would look up to see an unfamiliar woman – maybe one of the nurses? – watching him from the corner of her eye, only to then look away when she realized that she had been caught.

If he’s being honest, this kind of thing has only happened to him a handful of times throughout his life. One of his older sisters had to explain to him in middle school that one of the girls who sat near him in math kept glancing at him and looking away with blushed cheeks because she had a crush on him. If she hadn’t explained, he might have gone about the rest of his life wondering what those shy glances were about.

But lots of people stare at him these days. He would have to be blind not to notice. And even then, he could probably still feel the weight of their heavy stares and would be able to hear the whispered rumors as he passed by. Have those stories made their way to the nurses in the aid stations?

If the words on the back of his left hand are anything to go by, then everyone everywhere must know everything about him by now. Or at least they think they do.

Most people wouldn’t expect the infamous Captain Speirs to become tongue tied when Major Winters called him into his makeshift office, asking if he could meet with a reporter on his behalf. “I just haven’t got the time anymore.” Winters had frowned. “Besides, you’re the one in the field with Easy. You can add color to her story that I can’t.”

And most people wouldn’t have expected him to feel his heart begin racing in his chest when he stepped into the room and saw you sitting across from the major. You – the pretty woman who’s been watching him in glances. He had assumed that you were a nurse, since you always seem to be in the background, always near them.

When he enters the room, you and Winters both stand to greet him. You clasp your hands behind your back, wide eyes glancing between him and the major.

“And here he is now,” Winters says. “Miss (Y/L/N), this is Easy Company’s CO. He should be able to get you what you need for your story.”

Ron extends his hand to you. “Captain Ronald Speirs, at your service.”

You have a firm handshake, he can’t help but notice. So firm that you don’t let go of his hand when you look him in the eye and say the words he’s waited most of his life to hear. “Your reputation proceeds you.”

He steps back. You? But all he said was – oh. So you’ve known about him from the start, then. Known all about him, more accurately. He can’t help but glance at his hand, as if the words could have suddenly changed. Major Winters himself even looks taken aback, which is not something that Ron is used to seeing from him. But Ron’s soulmate tattoo is in a place where it cannot easily be covered. Everyone with basic powers of observation at their disposal knew what the first words he would hear his soulmate say would be.

He’s trying to think of something to say when you offer him a kind smile.

“Don’t worry,” you say. “I don’t believe half of what I hear. I’m a reporter; I’ve been trained to sift through all the bullshit.” Then you laugh, casually, as if it’s the easiest and most natural thing in the world. You tap your pen against your notepad. “You’ll get the chance to clear it all up.”

Speirs nods, trying to be as lighthearted about all this as you are. “Thank you,” he says, then, in an attempt to be less formal, “Although, off the record, I kind of like them. They make me more interesting.”

“Well, I think you’ll be plenty interesting without them.”

He’s not so sure. Really, he’s just Ron, when it comes down to it. What’s so interesting about that?

But for you, he’ll try to be.

#ron speirs #ron speirs x reader #band of brothers fanfic #band of brothers #band of brothers x reader #my writing #hbo war fanfic

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