#i really do rewatch shows and barely ever start new ones i do not explore

[bisaster-energy]

always rewatching russian doll almost like i too am in a time loop

#russian doll #i love this show so fuckin much #i really do rewatch shows and barely ever start new ones i do not explore #i stay in my 10 by 10ft space and sometimes look out the window. my bed and these 4 walls are all i know #seriously tho this is like. my fifth time watching this

[hazashiovo]

Father!figure Joel random headcanons with fem!reader?

(now that I'm reading my request again it sounds pretty vague :/ I'm gonna try to tell some ideas or details. So, would be cool to see how joel cares about reader's hobbies like bringing her new things, what does he do when reader gets sad, or when someone in town is messing with her, how does he reacts when reader shows him affection like making him a gift or hugs him or kisses his cheek, or how does he teases her when she's shy of some subject, etc)

I love this! Especially since I see Joel more in a platonic way.

Joel Miller father headcanons

Joel would be TERRIFIED to be a father again.

After losing Sara he kept living with the feeling that something bad is going to happen to you too.

Even so, nothing is going to harm you while Joel's there ,and he's always there for you.

He had a hard time accepting you as his newly adopted daughter,but once he made peace with himself? Best dad ever.

You like drawing? He left a box with a ton of art supplies.

He found them a while ago but didn't know at that time that you like art.

You enjoy music? He got you your own guitar,which also comes with music lessons only from him.

He knows how much you like listening to him singing,so it became a habit for him to sing to you,and once you gain more experience you'll be able to sing with him.

Maybe you like reading, Joel makes sure to bring you to this huge library,a bit far from Jackson but it's totally worth it.

You returned home with toons of books to occupy your time.

It doesn't matter which hobby you have, he will always be there to support it.

One thing I learned from the show,is that Joel likes hiking.

He used to do that with Sara when things were still okay, so when he started this with you it felt like a part of him healed.

When exploring a new place,he found an old shop full of video cameras and photo camera,and so he started collecting photos of you two. He even made an album where he keeps the photos with you.

If there was a fire that would be the main thing he would save.

When you got older he became more protective. He knew those Jackson boys barely wait for a new girl to get with. Well not this girl,not his little girl.

If you're queer,he would be completely oblivious. My man doesn't have a gaydar,not in the slightest.

If you would hang out with a girl pretty often he would just assume you're best friends or something along the lines.

Now if he accidentally saw you kiss with said girl? S-H-O-C-K.

Joel's not homophobic,don't get him wrong,but he just never expected it. And never actually saw it coming.

But if he saw you and a boy kiss,he's all protective father mode on.

Of course he's not a meat head, he'll understand that you have the right to a relationship just as much as anyone,but that doesn't mean he's also fond of the idea of a boy around you.

He'll only accept it for your happiness,but if that guy ever hurts you? Oh well, it's not his fault for what's about to happen.

Fortunately he trusts you can pick the right person, whether they're a girl or a boy.

At times when you're sick he can't help but remember Sara, he'd also remember how worried he would be for his daughter,the same worry that he feels for you.

He makes sure you stay inside and makes you drink and take the pills the doctor prescribed for you,even if you don't like it.

If you ever return from outside hurt, expect to never hear the end of it. For some time he wouldn't let you leave Jackson, mostly because of his fear of anything happening to you again.

But he's not that kind of Father,so after a while he will reluctantly give you permission to go outside Jackson again.

Movie nights.

Joel finds those old DVDs with movies he used to watch before the apocalypse,and he just loves rewatching them with you.

You'll be all snuggled up in his chest,head right where his heart beat, everything reminding him of his movie nights with Sara after a long shift at work.

Joel feels really happy and fulfilled that you trust him enough to be this vulnerable around him. Especially since this world is cruel and full of dangers.

He's dead set to never let anything or anyone lay a finger on you,even if it costs him his life.

.

.

My daddy issues are sueing me.

#joel tlou #joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel #joel tlou2 #joel headcanons #joel miller headcanon #tlou #tlou headcanons #reader #x reader #platonic #father x daughter #tlou2 #the last of us x reader #fluff #fluff headcanons #fluff imagine

[spocks-evil-godmother]

Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

I typed that out from memory. I could not tell you when I memorized it, though it had to be in the last few years. I could not tell you when I made the TOS dialogue my go-to, when TNG's is more egalitarian and, besides, I saw that one first. I can tell you that "to boldly go where no man has gone before" is iambic. I can tell you that its recitation at the end of whichever AOS film nearly made me cry. Space. The final frontier. When you hear these words, we already know which story we're talking about. They draw us in.

It's like a liturgy.

It is not lost on me that the last thing Gene Roddenberry would have wanted is to start his areligious TV show with such a thing, but here we are. A liturgy is a prescribed ritual in a religion, which means "the way you do it" when you're trying to worship something (though, as often as not, it's the Christian concept of God).

I am rewatching Discovery and I watch Captain Pike very closely, for he is terribly religious for someone who is apparently not religious. I think especially of his behavior in New Eden, and his response to the All-Mother's blessing of peace. "And also with you," Pike says. He knows the ritual. He participates in it. He is called into the story. The scene cuts to an expression on Michael's face. I don't always know how to interpret it, but I think of it as unease--though it might be more accurate to call it jealousy, or irritation, or even confusion. Somehow, in this isolated community of strangers, Pike says the words that make him belong. (Michael, of course, is still figuring out how to belong.)

Religion in Star Trek is a tricky business. Kirk and Spock might have barely missed Jesus. Spock is Jewish. Sisko becomes a prophet to the Prophets, and converses among the gods. The Klingon gods are dead, they killed them. The Ferengi go to a big bank when they die. Chakotay worships as his ancestors did, even from the farthest end of the galaxy. It's all very something.

"Have either of you ever been in a church before?" Pike asks, and neither Michael nor Owo ever has.

Space. The final frontier.

Live long and prosper.

Q'apla!

Energize.

Hit it.

Imagine that every story in Star Trek is a little ritual. We listen for the words we know and recognize to get drawn into the story again and again. There are things we learn, things we memorize, and sometimes things we reject and question. I will be on this planet for the rest of my natural life, and yet I have a place among the stars.

I don't really know what it means. Somehow, I don't think I'm supposed to: it is, ever and always, a story for another day.

#star trek #christopher pike #star trek religion #mitch pitch

[testudoaubrei-blog]

“I’m loyal, that’s my whole thing.” - Scorpia, Season 4 Episode 6, Princess Scorpia

“Everything they taught us in the Horde about loyalty is meaningless” - Lonnie, Season 4 Episode 5, Protocol

Rewatching Season 4, I just finished Princess Scorpia. This is an episode that has always stuck with me, especially the A plot of Scorpia realizing how badly Catra has treated her and everyone else and deciding to leave. One thing I’ve been thinking about since I finished the series, though, is what this episode is telling us on a larger level. Looking beyond the character arcs and more at this show’s larger themes and message. Because this show is very much a show that says things, made by people who believe them. That earnestness and depth is one reason I keep coming back to it.

In the pull-quote above, and throughout the episode and before it, Scorpia defines herself in terms of loyalty. It is her identity - as she says, that’s what Scorpions do, they’re loyal. Her actions for three and a half seasons bear this out. When she first shows up, she tries to position herself as Catra’s new best friend, the one who won’t leave her and will stick by her no matter what. And that’s what she does, until this episode. She sticks by Catra through Catra’s increasingly villainous plots and erratic behavior. But she doesn’t just stick around. Until the portal, she barely contradicts Catra, and even afterwards, does so only furtively and immediately backs away as soon as Catra pushes back. For more than a year of show time, Scorpia has not just stood by Catra, or supported her, she’s actively assisted her in her most villainous and destructive acts. Scorpia is fighting by Catra’s side, eagerly carrying out her orders, and doing her utmost to see that Catra succeeds. But her loyalty goes beyond this practical help. Because for all that Catra loudly declares that she doesn’t need a new best friend, she consistently seeks out connection throughout the show, even when she’s at her most isolated in season 4. She needs moral support, and connection, and to know that she isn’t alone. Scorpia provides that, and keeps Catra going. Though Scropia isn’t initiating Catra’s various misdeeds, she’s assisting and supporting Catra throughout. On a personal, psychological level, the only word that seems adequate for this is ‘ennabling’ - Scorpia, sweet as she is, is Catra’s enabler. We see in the next few episodes what happens when Catra doesn’t have Scorpia’s support - she breaks down, and realizes that her actions really do have consequences, and that the affection she took for granted for so many years is something she can’t live without. But as long as Scorpia’s still around, Catra can’t make that realization.

Now I’m not going to say that Scorpia is morally culpable for Catra’s own actions. She’s not. Catra is solely responsible for her various betrayals, manipulations, violent outbursts and assorted murder attempts against...most of the rest of the cast (though being raised by Shadow Weaver sure as shit is a mitigating factor). But while Catra is obviously being a bad friend to Scorpia throughout, Scorpia isn’t actually being as supportive or helpful to Catra as she thinks, because Catra doesn’t actually need unconditional support, she needs people to be honest with her and express to her how she’s hurting them. She needs people who will stand up for themselves just as she needs to take responsibility for her own actions. This is part of why she and Adora have such a healthy dynamic in season 5 - Adora doesn’t take her crap, and Catra takes responsibility for her crap.

However, Scorpia -is- responsible for her own actions. And as I said above, she’s been with Catra every step of the way as Catra has attacked just about everyone and made war on Etheria. On a larger, political level, Scorpia is a willing participant in upholding the Horde’s oppressive system, and executing a war of aggression and colonization against innocent people. Speaking of colonization, perversely, she’s loyal to the very organization that dispossessed her and literally stole her birthright, then discarded it like a useless trinket when it was no longer useful to them. No one ever suggests ‘why don’t we let Scorpia connect with ~her runestone~’ until Glimmer does (and Glimmer’s motivations and arguments aren’t exactly forthright). Scorpia’s loyalty makes her an accomplice in her own oppression (like a bunch of the themes in this show there’s some interesting post-colonial stuff that the show doesn’t fully explore, probably because Noelle and the crew felt self-conscious about telling a post colonial story, or just didn’t know where to go with it). Interestingly, Scorpia’s loyalty to the Horde here parallels her loyalty to Catra, which has made her completely disregard her own wellbeing, which is the most obvious take away from the episode.

But I would argue that everything above shows that for Scorpia loyalty has been a way of avoiding developing her own moral compass. Scorpia repeatedly shoves aside questions of right or wrong in favor of being loyal to her friends and to the Horde. Loyalty has made Scorpia not only willing to accept her own mistreatment, but to willingly mistreat others, and to keep herself from asking any hard questions about what she’s doing or why. This is despite the fact that Scorpia is, by inclination, an incredibly gentle, kind and compassionate person. She’s willing to silence the best parts of her nature out of loyalty to Catra and the Horde. In the end, she also commits acts of violence and perpetuates the oppression of Etheria. And this is so insightful, because we see this sort of thing in our world all the time. So many oppressive institutions depend upon the loyalty of their members to keep them ‘just following orders’; so many abusive systems depend upon loyalty to stifle dissent and silence potential whistleblowers before they even speak. We see this in some of the most oppressive institutions and the worst scandals in our own society, and looking back through human history we see it in some of our nation’s and our species' most infamous crimes.

And when we look at the Horde as a system that Hordak has built in imitation of his elder brother’s empire, we see just how central loyalty is an ethos. Hordak himself is motivated entirely by loyalty to Prime - being a former clone, he spends the entire series not fully capable of accepting himself as an autonomous being (even when he acts like one and enjoys it, there’s some fucked up religious shit there that I won’t get into). He seems to have instilled this in his followers. The Horde Trio, Catra and Scorpia all hold loyalty as one of their highest values. Catra clings to it as her biggest accusation against Adora - that she was disloyal, as expressed in Catra’s perception that Adora broke her promise and abandoned her. Loyalty keeps the Horde Trio together and fighting for the Horde, and Scorpia with Catra. I think we can read between the lines and say the Horde runs on loyalty (as well as fear) and this is a very insightful portrayal of oppressive military and paramilitary institutions like armies of conquest and occupation and other instruments of state violence.

There’s another, related way of looking at how a sole reliance on loyalty as a moral framework has stunted Scorpia’s moral growth, and I think that brings together both the ways that it makes Scorpia willing to accept her mistreatment and participate in the mistreatment of others. Namely, loyalty in the Horde style isn’t just sticking with someone or something, but subsuming your own will into theirs. Following orders. Supporting your friend in what they do no matter what. Whatever you call it, it’s about turning off your own self - your self preservation, your self respect, your conscience, whatever other things you value - and just going along with what the person or institution you are loyal to wants you to do. And this is where Horde loyalty goes full circle, back to its origin - Horde Prime, the narcissistic self-made god who wishes to control or destroy everything that is not himself. Loyalty as Hordak conceived of it and as the Horde believes in it is a reflection of Prime's absolute control over all his domain.

In a way, self-determination is one of this show’s highest values (together with love). It’s at the heart of Adora’s 5-season, 3 year struggle to become her own woman and her own hero as she shrugs off one imposed destiny and then another and finally embraces what she wants. In a more negative form, it’s at the heart of Catra’s arc, as she finally accepts responsibility for her own actions and their consequences and starts working to make a world that she actually wants to live in, as well as admit to herself that what she really wants is love. And I could go on. This self-determination is existentially, obviously threatened by Prime chipping people, but it is also stunted by horde-style loyalty that demands unquestioning support and obedience.

Both the Horde Trio and Scorpia reject the Horde’s ideal of loyalty and walk away, but I think it’s interesting how they do it. Neither rejects loyalty entirely (not on the way Adora does) - the Trio, realistically, remain loyal to each other and simply walk away and walk out of the war (this might save their lives), joining the other disillusioned cynics in the Crimson Wastes. They reject loyalty to the horde and embrace a more supportive and respectful form of loyalty to each other. Scorpia leaves, but she actually comes to her crisis and makes her decision out of loyalty, and because it’s clear that her loyalty isn’t returned. The immediate situation - loyalty to Emily and Entrapta’s memory on one hand and Catra’s orders on the others - creates the conflict between loyalties that forces Scorpia to actually make her own choice rather than deferring to Catra. But she also reflects how Catra betrayed her loyalty to Entrapta, and thus how all of her friends’ loyalty to Catra is not returned.This is another point about horde-style loyalty - it’s one way - Hordak or Catra will demand your loyalty, but they feel no obligation to return it, which reflects Prime’s view of every other being in the universe as disposable. It’s only when she’s with the Princesses that Scorpia starts to find a new moral center, though sticking up for and protecting her friends remains important to her. In neither case, though, are these kinds of loyalty coming at the cost of either the Trio or Scorpia’s autonomy or ability to make moral choices of their own. In the very next episode, she says she wants to 'be A good friend' which is how the Princesses typically describe sticking together, which is a much more active and holistic concept than 'loyalty'. Scorpia confesses that she doesn't even know how, but she wants to learn and thinks the princesses can teach her.

There's another interesting counterexample to Horde Loyalty. Adora repeatedly breaks with the people around her to do what is right. First she leaves the Horde, then walks away from Catra by stages when it is clear that Catra is going to continue to harm other people and Etheria. Then she walks away from Glimmer, defies Light Hope and breaks loyalty with her supposed destiny and purposes as well as loyalty to the homelans she has never known. By season 5, Adora is loyal only to herself and the people she cares about, but she isn't constraining her will to anyone else's. For all that she seems like a rule follower Adora has a rebellious streak a mile wide, and she will do what is right, no matter what. This is what allows her to save the universe 3 times.

So the show’s argument is that loyalty is not a good moral framework to base all of our actions around. I don’t think it goes so far as saying that loyalty has no place in our ethics (being a good friend, which is such a huge part of the show, certainly includes loyalty, especially sticking with people when the going gets tough), but the show stresses time and again that being loyal to something or someone shouldn’t make you disregard yourself and what you think is right. Because it’s only by living out our own values and taking responsibility for our own actions that we can come into our own as moral beings. Moreover, if we insist on maintaining loyalty to institutions that oppress us and others, we can’t dismantle the systems of oppression that are holding us and other people down. (Yes, this is a pretty radical message, but I suspect that Noelle is some kind of anarchist? Anyway, it’s a thing.)

Okay, so that’s what I, a 35 year old, get from this kids show. I think it’s also worth pointing out that this lesson applies to younger viewers too, in their most immediate lives. Younger viewers will have had friends who didn’t treat them well, or might not have treated other people well, and who might have pressured them into participating in the mistreatment of others (this is kind of how bullying works a lot of the time). I think it’s important that younger viewers see how being a good friend never means disrespecting yourself or other people and it means a lot to me that She-Ra shows this in such a nuanced and realistic way.

#she ra #she ra spoilers #spop #she ra netflix #she ra and the princesses of power #meta #analysis #scorpia

[lynkhart]

MAJOR spoilers for the C2 finale of Critical Role so read at your own risk of you haven’t caught up!

I have so many feelings regarding Caleb and Essek’s intertwining character arcs I needed to explore, so strap in folks, you’re in for a bit of a ride! (But seriously though, this is like 4000 words long, I basically wrote an essay 😂)

At the start of the campaign, Caleb Widogast was dripping in guilt and self loathing and refused to believe he could ever absolve himself of his sins. Essek Thelyss was a cold, aloof individual who betrayed his people for selfish goals, and their differing yet mirrored narratives have been an absolute delight to watch unfold.

In the beginning Caleb truly hated himself. He shot down any attempt at a compliment, described himself as a ‘disgusting person’, outright rejected the idea that he was worthy of love, and never let the blame shift from him for what he’d done. When Beauregard and Veth/Nott pointed out that he was coerced and manipulated into killing his parents, he reacts in an incredibly visceral way, and I’ve seen several comments likening it to a victim of child abuse who was groomed into believing they were as responsible as their abuser, and I think that’s exactly how it was meant to be read. He doesn’t see himself as a victim, only a murderer, and punishes himself for it every day. We see this in the way he presents himself, dirty and unkempt because in his mind he doesn’t deserve to feel good about himself in any way. Other than Nott/Veth and Beau to a certain degree, he purposefully isolates himself from the rest of the group and it’s a long time until he feels relaxed enough in their company to drop his defences a little.

(Speaking from a purely meta point of view, Liam did an absolutely phenomenal job of showing this through body language and I’d love to see someone do a compilation video of it. He starts off very hunched and guarded, leaning his body away from the closest person to him and avoiding eye contact and physical touch; but by the end stands tall and sure of himself.)

Early on there were a few moments where he had the option to do some pretty dark shit, and I’m sure there’s a possible timeline where he gave into his desire for revenge and really lost his way, but I’m glad he stuck it out and worked through his trauma in the way he did. His PTSD and disassociation when casting with fire was tragic, but over time he was able to work through it thanks to the constant love and support of his friends who kept him from going off at the deep end.

Molly’s death was the catalyst for change in a lot of the party, and Caleb is no exception. On the verge of leaving the group prior to his death, the grief they shared, combined with their frantic attempt to rescue the other half of their party put things in perspective and gradually he learned how to be a person again, to care.

Altering time to save his family had been Caleb’s only goal in life, and so when Essek and by extension, dunamancy was introduced, you could see his eyes light up at the possibilities.

A huge turning point for him is aligned so closely with Essek’s redemption arc which feels quite apt I think. When Essek confesses to his crimes, Caleb delivers a beautifully iconic piece of dialogue where he acknowledges their similarities and how much he himself has changed as a person since meeting the Mighty Nein. (Source - CR wiki)

‘You listen to me. I know what you are talking about. I know. And the difference between you and I is thinner than a razor. I know what it means to have other people complicate your desires and wishes. And I was like you. Was. I know what a fool I have been for years. You didn't account for us. Good. That is life. Shit hits you sideways in life and no one is prepared. No one is ready. These people changed me. These people can change you. You were not born with venom in your veins. You learned it. You learned it. You have a rare opportunity here, Thelyss. One chance to save yourself, and we are offering it.’

This is not the same Caleb we met back in the Nestled Nook inn way back in the first episode. While not yet fulfilled or entirely convinced of his own worth, he knows he’s on the right path. That alone is progress enough, but that he uses his own experiences to help another escape those same chains of guilt says such a lot for his development. When he tells Essek that his ‘venom’ was learned, he’s also talking about himself and his own history of being manipulated and gaslit, with the implication being that it can be un-learned just as efficiently.

Caleb Widogast is selfish no more, or at the very least, doesn’t let his goals undermine anyone else’s anymore. Contrary to what he himself might still think, he is in no way a bad person. He loves fiercely and cannot abide seeing those he cares about in pain.

Early game Essek is what Caleb could have been if he’d rejected his friends and focused solely on his own selfish goal to undo his mistakes. Both are impassive at first and see the Mighty Nein as means to an end...until they get to know them and then their fate is sealed. The Power of Friendship wins once again!

At the beginning Caleb said he wanted to ‘bend reality to my will’ (sic) and in the end he does just that, though not in the way he originally intended. Destroying the T-Dock, and by extension the one thing he’d been building towards from the start, the chance to go back and change time, for me personally was the absolute peak of his journey. I rewatched the scene where Caleb revealed the truth about his parents death today, and it was really jarring to see just how far he’d come since then. It made me oddly proud actually.

I always felt like his plan to save his parents was the one thing holding him back from truly accepting their deaths, which is why the final scene of him in the cemetery with the letters for them hit so hard. He never truly gave up hope that they’d be reunited, but ultimately he realised he was merely postponing the inevitable and never allowing himself to live his own life. While time travel shenanigans would have been incredibly interesting to explore in game, choosing to let the past lie and not go back for them finally allows him to grieve and move on, and perhaps most importantly of all, to forgive himself at last.

I know some people were annoyed by Caleb’s decision in the finale to spend the rest of his life teaching rather than continuing to adventure, but I see it as the natural conclusion to his whole arc and his own personal victory.

He looked Trent Ikithon in the eyes, a man who he’d spent years wanting to kill and run from in equal measure, stripped him of his power and his voice (and ultimately his ability to harm anyone else) and finally spared his life so he had to live with the indignity of his defeat for the rest of his miserable existence. You couldn’t have asked for a more damning rejection of everything he’d been brainwashed into believing as a child. His dismissal of Trent’s position in the Assembly played into that as well. He never really wanted power for the sake of it; he had no desire for politics, he just wanted his family back, and while he didn’t get the one he started with, he made a new one for himself in the end.

As Caduceus once very wisely said:

‘Pain doesn’t make people; it's love that makes people. The pain is inconsequential; it's love that saves them.’

Caleb gets to break the cycle of abuse and teach a new generation of mages the way he should have been, with kindness and respect, and I’m pretty sure he’d have introduced a handsome drow as a guest lecturer from time to time. 😉

Speaking of...

Essek described himself as selfish and as a coward, forever putting his own wants and desires first, yet over the course of his journey with the Nein we see his priorities change drastically.

Having friends gives him people to care about, something he’s never had before, and it changes his outlook on life completely. For me, the first time we really see this is when he joins them for dinner in the Xorhaus and stops levitating. It’s a subtle thing, but meaningful. He explains that it had become an expectation of him, a quirk he’s known for, and so to feel comfortable enough around the Nein to drop that pretence is quite bold I think.

Much later, when he chooses to destroy the mini beacon they discover in Aeor in order to give everyone a long rest before the final confrontation with Lucian, he’s essentially giving up everything he betrayed his people for, just to keep his friends safe. The existence and context of that single artefact could have had an earthshattering impact on the Dynasty’s entire culture, forcing them to reevaluate their entire belief system and attitude to the Luxon, something he’d wanted from the start, something he helped start a war for, but he offered it up as a sacrifice without a second thought.

I’d say that’s a pretty big morality shift, and I’m super interested to see if Matt reveals if his alignment changed in the post campaign Q&A. I have a feeling he set him up as a potential BBEG but the party was like ‘no, you can’t have him, he’s ours now’ and that was the end of that. 😂

I think it says so much about the other characters too, that they befriended this person they barely knew, and when he was revealed to have done such terrible things, their first reaction was to give him comfort and an opportunity to atone. Jester held his hand while he confessed, and afterwards, while they didn’t immediately forgive him, they saw the good in him and wanted him to be better, which ultimately feels like what the entire campaign was about, leaving places (and people) better than they found them. It’s obvious that he’s never really had many friends before and has therefore never had the opportunity to be emotionally open with anyone, so seeing him gradually warm up to the Nein and allow himself to soften around them was really lovely to watch.

(Obviously, from a realistic moral perspective, he still fucked up big time. He’s still a godsdamned war criminal and really should have been put on trial for what he did, but I think from a narrative and personal point of view, his redemption arc was far more satisfying, so I’m glad it happened the way it did. (And not to derail but the rest of the gang have done some pretty horrific stuff as well, though perhaps not quite on the same scale)

He has a few moments towards the end that I absolutely love because they show that beneath the guilt and anguish, there’s an incredibly sweet and sensitive soul in there, just wanting acceptance. His dry jokes which often don’t quite hit, (the ‘I will punish the bakery’ line is such an under-appreciated one 😂) his simple joy at learning to garden in the Blooming Grove, and realising that he’d never been asked what his favourite food was before was actually kind of heartbreaking, because it highlighted how lonely his life must have been until that time. There was a moment pretty early on I think when he cast disguise on the party and Jester asked if he could cast it again to change the look of her outfit a bit and while he seemed to find it amusing, he refused, not wanting to waste a spell on such a frivolous request. Cut to their time in Aeor where he burns a fly spell just so he and Caleb can flirtatiously swoop around each other for a couple of minutes, all the while trying to beat Lucian to the city.

His breakdown when Molly’s resurrection failed really cemented to me how much he’d grown as a character. He never met Molly, his only knowledge of him was secondhand, through the eyes of his friends, but seeing it fail just broke him because he knew how much it hurt them to go through it all over again.

His comment to Caleb about not admitting defeat and wishing he could do more did get me wondering at the time if he was going to try and do something crazy, perhaps sacrificing himself via the Temporal Dock to make amends or somehow forcing another reroll, but I’m glad he didn’t. The conversation following that with Fjord was one of my favourites- he shows him acceptance and belief in his potential for the future, something he’s lacked for a long time, and when Caleb bluntly affirms afterwards that he is indeed an official member of the Mighty Nein, it’s the start of the rest of his life, and something he’s exceptionally grateful for.

It all leads to that final moment in Aeor with Caleb, when, presented with the opportunity to alter time and undo everything, he chooses to accept his decisions and carry the weight of his sins for the rest of his long life. That’s...huge.

He’s essentially choosing to live the rest of his existence as a fugitive, forever on the run, with no guaranteed peace or safety. He chooses to spend his life making up for his deeds, rather than looking for an easy way out.

I think that may have had a big impact on why Caleb ultimately made the same decision, as if Essek had been up for altering his timeline I think he’d have struggled to resist it himself. The conversation they had earlier in Aeor about their priorities and resisting temptation really comes to mind as well.

Now, to the relationship.

It was subtle, and not as ‘in your face’ obvious as the other characters, but I’ve been watching and hoping for a long time and I must say, it feels good to be vindicated.

(And if you have any doubt, both Matt and Liam confirmed on Twitter that their post finale relationship was 100% romantic)

I’d been hoping that Shadowgast would be a canon endgame relationship for a while, so the finale, and the aforementioned T-Dock scene in particular had me quite literally shaking with emotion as I watched live. Here you have two men, both damaged and guilt-stricken in their own ways, who find in each other a kindred spirit and a path to redemption.

They’re both very guarded and closed off people, but Essek in particular has a definite shift in the last arc of the campaign especially when it came to his interactions with Caleb. At the start he was quite aloof and stoic, though charming, and they had an instant connection through their shared love of the arcane, (anyone who couldn’t see them making heart eyes at each other when Essek was describing the different types of magic he could teach Caleb was clearly blind) but by the end he was incredibly open to showing his vulnerabilities and that takes a lot, especially for someone whose primary focus was to stay in control of every aspect of his life. The ‘Caleb, I’m scared’ moment during the Trent fight in particular made my heart ache.

No, we didn’t get a dramatic declaration of love or a cinematic mid-battle kiss, but I’d argue that their relationship was just as, if not more intimate than any of the other main characters were. They understood each other in a way the others didn’t, their shared guilt, feelings of inadequacy and their obsession with magic forged a deep connection from the get-go. Neither of them are big fans of PDA I think, though Caleb is tactile as hell (forehead touches and kisses, oh man, I’m so weak for those 😩👌) and some of their most iconic moments have them putting themselves in harm’s way to protect the other. Essek shaking off his forced guilt trip immediately after the now infamous forehead touch in ep140 was beautifully poetic, as was using his fortune’s favour to pull Caleb out of the rubble moments before. Caleb trying to include him in his Sphere of Invulnerability in the finale and Essek staying close to him the whole fight despite being obviously terrified of Trent was the icing on the cake. It’s clear that they care for each other a great deal; whether by the finale they’d consider it love is up for debate, but we know that’s eventually where it ended up and honestly, I love that. I deeply appreciated the fact Matt and Liam both emphasised that they took their time with their relationship, letting each other heal in their own way before they took the next step. All too often in media, and real life too sadly, a romantic relationship is seen as some kind of quick fix, and that a lover will somehow complete you or make all your problems vanish. They knew this wasn’t the case here, and that made it all the better.

While I would have *loved* to have seen them together as a couple right to the very end, the change in their relationship felt right, if bittersweet. I doubt they ever stopped loving each other, and if anything, choosing to shift to a deep and lifelong friendship over a romance that would cause them both so much pain is one of the kindest things you could do for someone you love. After all, friendship isn’t a downgrade, just another way of experiencing that same love, and it wasn’t as though they broke up and never saw each other again, it was pretty strongly implied that they remained a major feature in each other’s lives, they just changed their label slightly. Caleb would hate to have forced Essek to watch him wither away, and although his eventual passing would hurt Essek regardless, incompatible lifespans being what they are, having a period of time to adjust to it, to give them a buffer between the inevitable heartbreak was actually really sweet.

Their romance was no accident, they knew going in that it had a time limit, that it wasn’t going to be forever for one of them, and the fact they did it anyway says so much. They began their adventure wholeheartedly believing that they were both, in their own way incapable of love, only to later find it with each other. Whether their relationship lasted for a couple of years or multiple decades is irrelevant, what matters is that while it did they had a happy and fulfilled life together.

I know some folk wanted Caleb to use the transmogrification spell on himself so he could live on with Essek as another elf, or make him human instead, but that would have been way out of character for both I think. If they could have backwards engineered one of the rejuvenation stations in Aeor and used it to extend Caleb’s life by a hundred years or so, so he’d have a similar lifespan to Veth, now, I could have seen him possibly doing that, so he could spend more time with his best friend too, but nothing further I think. He longed to be reunited with his parents too much to postpone death unnaturally like that.

That both Caleb and Essek ultimately chose to live with their mistakes and make peace with themselves was incredibly cathartic, and I couldn’t imagine it playing out any better.

The fact Matt has explicitly stated Essek is Demi too means so much to me personally because the latter is a label I’ve been identifying with a lot recently, and it’s so rare for aspec relationships to get any representation! It has honestly given me a lot to think about over the last few days, and I really appreciate it.

To conclude, here’s a bit of shameless self promotion. I wrote this after watching the finale and honestly feel like it sums up my feelings on the nature of their relationship pretty well.

‘A casual hand on a shoulder, a waist, a wrist; a gentle kiss placed on a forehead is common between them now, an intimacy born of trust and mutual affection. Over time it grows, like a fire born of seasoned timber; gradual and steady, no spluttering kindling that flares and sparks, but a slow burn, one which lasts.

Their love is embroidered into every aspect of their lives together. Acts of service, of comfort, of understanding.

Sometimes a kiss leads to more than a kiss, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way they are content.‘

So yeah, I love these two wizard boys so very much and I couldn’t be happier with the conclusion of their stories. ❤️

#Critical Role #Critical Role Spoilers #CR Spoilers #shadowgast #Essek thelyss #Caleb Widogast #C2ep141 #C2ep141 spoilers #critical role finale

[tuiyla]

Do you think Santana ever/will ever go to therapy?

I’m pro all the Glee kids go to therapy, but sometimes I feel like the UHT needs a little extra counseling after having Sue to deal with for so long, bc on a serious note I feel like the fandom overlooks how much power she had over them/how much she affected them as teenagers and how they’ll carry that over into adulthood. The manipulation, causing disordered eating, bullying, threats etc, Sue was crazy horrible to all of them.

Oh god I hope she does.

I think everyone should got to therapy tbh. Make it more accessible and normalize it. But yes I agree that the UHT especially. We know Quinn really needs it, like man how many mental breakdowns until someone gets this poor girl into therapy?

The thing about Sue is that because she's so cartoonish most of the time, e.g. trying to shoot Brittany out of a canon and in general how she had a heel face turn every Wednesday, it's difficult to discuss her in serious terms. I know people really get upset when Schue gets dragged and not Sue but you've got to understand, they exist on completely different narrative levels. And even when Sue is treated semi-seriously, her relationship with and influence on the UHT is rarely mentioned much less explored.

The Sue Sylvester Shuffle comes to mind as one of the only instances when we deal with the topic. There, the Unholy Trinity are almost treated like children of divorced parents, forced to choose between Will and Sue, New Directions or Cheerios. But even then there's little focus on this unique position they have as a part of both he Glee Club and the antagonist, Sue's squad. I've been rewatching the show and it's painfully clear in seasons 1 and 2 that Glee doesn't know what to do with Cheerios in this regard even though there's a super interesting story here about worlds colliding, being with Cheerios only for social status reasons vs. Glee being a safe space, etc. They touch on it, barely, with Quinn in season 1 and then make Santana the villain (again) in the season 3 premiere, and that's it.

So that complaint aside, I still think we can analyze what we do have of how Sue affected the UHT. I think the fandom overlooks it because the show does as well, but there's plenty smaller hints and scenes to go on. Santana's post-graduation feelings on Sue are particularly fascinating to me and I think I'll write about that when I get there in my rewatch. On the one hand, you have Sue offering her and not thinking there was anything wrong with how she treated her students and then Santana exploding at her, twice. Once during The Quarterback, which is its own thing, and then again before her wedding. Which I really need to rewatch because there's so much there that I never fully processed.

Anyway I feel like I'm getting a bit off topic. Sue 100% caused lasting damage to all of them. Least explored with Brittany but Sue was horrible to her as well, and then pressuring and shaming Quinn, encouraging Santana's worst tendencies and also very weirdly sexualizing her? Like can we talk about how her nickname for this child is literally Sandbags and other variations of boob jokes. And don't get me started on that season 6 "high-end prostitute" quote. The problem with Sue is that if we start taking her seriously, not even the more outlandish stuff but how she relates to the kids, it gets real messed up real quick. And I haven't even touched on the disordered eating aspect or that she actively encouraged her Cheerios to, for lack of a better term, whore themselves out.

Basically when people go "but the UHT weren't even real members at first they were Sue's spies!!!" I'd like to encourage them to a) think about how messed up that was from Sue and b) consider that growing to care about the Glee Club is a really important aspect of their journey that the show doesn't focus on nearly enough.

(Oh and I didn't even touch on therapy itself much. I'd like to think that 22-23 year-old Santana would give therapy a shot because god knows if I was Maribel and my kid got outed on state television I would have gotten them into therapy ASAP. Better late than never, and it's only in/after season 6 that I can see Santana reaching that point.)

#glee #the unholy trinity #sue sylvester #santana lopez #quinn fabray #brittany s pierce #anon #ask #anonymous #my thoughts #sue and her relationship with the UHT is A Topic #long post #just in case #oh and #anti sue sylvester #lmao kinda #glee asks #unholy trinity #santana asks #santanalysis

[twh-news]

'Loki' Star Sophia Di Martino on the Season 1 Finale, Working With Jonathan Majors and What She Knows About Season 2

[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 1 finale of Loki, "For All Time. Always."]

Since her introduction at the end of Episode 2, Sophia Di Martino's depiction of Sylvie, the female variant of Loki introduced midway through her campaign of vengeance against the TVA, has been a defining aspect of Disney+'s Loki. And, as we learned in the season finale, the story of Loki isn't over yet — though what's in store is pretty nebulous, following Sylvie's betrayal of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) after what was their first and what might be their last kiss.

In a one-on-one conversation with Di Martino via Zoom, Collider asked about working with Jonathan Majors in his MCU debut, what it was like having both fight scenes and more romantic scenes with Hiddleston, and of course what the conversations around Season 2 have been like.

Collider: To start off, when did you have a sense that there would be a second season of Loki?

DI MARTINO: I mean, there'd been rumors for a while, but I still haven't heard officially if it's happening, like officially, officially. I only know what I know through reading the news. And I know, because you guys know, because of the tag at the end of Episode 6.

I was going to say, that feels like a pretty official thing, but it doesn't sound like anyone has shown up at your doorstep with paperwork.

DI MARTINO: No, nothing. Nothing like that.

Now, does that mean that when you watched it, were you given a full script of the sixth episode?

DI MARTINO: Yes. We got one episode at a time. So I wasn't given Episode 6 until like midway through shooting Episode 5.

So in that situation, what was your initial reaction to reading, especially like the last, say, 10 pages or so.

DI MARTINO: Just like, holy crap. This is massive. How exciting. Woof. And then also, "who's going to play He Who Remains, I need to know because it's such an amazing part and such incredible speeches he has. I wanted to imagine who would play him, but I couldn't have ever imagined the way Jonathan would have done it. So brilliant.

In terms of working with Jonathon Majors, what was that experience like? Just because I feel like he brought such a different energy to the role than I think anyone would have ever expected.

DI MARTINO: Yeah. He just exploded onto that set with so much energy and nothing like we could ever have imagined. It was a lot of fun and he was brilliant. You know, people were saying this is going to be something really special, whispering behind the camera. He was so eccentric and fun and kind of terrifying. Very easy for Tom and I to just sit and listen to him for a few days. Very entertaining.

Yeah. In rewatching the episode, it's still so striking to me the way that, after Sylvie stabs him, he makes barely any noise.

DI MARTINO: Because he knows that it's a possibility, I think. So maybe he's had a long time to sort of imagine every scenario. Yeah. It's kind of creepy, isn't it? The way he does that.

When you were breaking down the script for Episode 6, were you talking about Kang the Conqueror? Were you talking about the comic book backstory there?

DI MARTINO: I don't remember talking about the comic book backstory of Episode 6. But you know, to be honest, it was all very quick. Especially with Episode 6, we got the script pretty late in the day. So there wasn't that much mining to be done, to be honest. I'm not sure about Jonathan's experience, but for me, it was sort of pretty late in the day, just in the case of learning my lines and trying to make sure I didn't mess that up.

Of course — and it makes sense in terms of where your character is coming from.

DI MARTINO: Exactly. So I just need to know at that point, I just need to know what's going on for Sylvie.

In that case, in your head, what was going on for Sylvie in those scenes?

DI MARTINO: Oh my goodness. So much. I mean, so much happens in like 30 seconds. Doesn't it?

Definitely. But even before the final sequences, it's very dialogue-heavy and there's a lot of listening. In playing that, what was important for you?

DI MARTINO: To really listen and to really take on board what he was saying to us at that point, and then to choose not to believe him. For Sylvie, she's just on a revenge mission from the minute she walks into that building, she knows that she wants to kill someone. When they're in the elevator with him, she's already taking swipes at him. She just wants to get him with her machete. And I think she's just so laser-focused on that goal, that he could have said anything to her and her priority wouldn't have changed.

So you don't think there was ever a moment in that whole sequence where Sylvie was tempted, not tempted by the possibilities presented, but tempted to believe him?

DI MARTINO: I think there's a moment that he really pushes Sylvie's buttons when he's talking about you have been on a long journey and it's been really tough for you, hasn't it? And you can't trust anyone. You think you can trust him. And he starts playing mind games with them, playing them off against each other. And I think at that point, he plants a seed of doubt in her mind about Loki, but I think her mission to want to kill him doesn't change. She's absolutely married to that idea. And that feeling is so strong that she chooses it over Loki in the end.

From your perspective, where does that come from?

DI MARTINO: Just revenge. Like having her life taken away from her, her life ruined, spending her whole life on the run, this sort of anger. And if you want to think of it in these terms, her "glorious purpose." I went there.

I don't think you got to say those words during the show, so I'm glad you got this moment now.

DI MARTINO: Yeah. I'm saying it as much as I can now.

Later in the episode, this wasn't the first time you had a fight sequence with Tom Hiddleston, but did it feel different from the episodes you shot earlier?

DI MARTINO: Yeah, it did. This scene was far more emotive. There was a lot more going on for both of them. It was the breakup scene. It was the fight that you have when you are leaving someone. And it's so painful because you care about this person, but you just can't be with them for whatever reason. And that's how that felt.

Which is so interesting because of course what happens at the end of it is that there's a kiss and it's given the whole big Hollywood romantic music treatment.

DI MARTINO: Yeah. I mean, but that often happens when you're splitting up with someone, doesn't it? Just one last time, a sweet goodbye. It's kind of like a goodbye kiss in a way.

Of course. But it was also, unless I'm missing something, the first kiss.

DI MARTINO: Yeah. It was. And it had been building up for a long, long time. I think it was ultimately a goodbye kiss and a clap away for Sylvie to physically turn him around so she could get hold of that TemPad and zap him back to the TVA.

Yeah, of course. In terms of that, in general, I feel like there's a temptation to just kind of look at the Loki and Sylvie relationship as a straightforward romance, which of course it is very much not. From your perspective, what was it about that you worked hard to lean into.

DI MARTINO: I think it's about sort of self-love and acceptance as well as being a romance story. And for Sylvie, she's sort of shedding everything she doesn't need before she gets to He Who Remains so she can kill him. She gets rid of her cape, she gets rid of her horns. She ultimately gets rid of Loki. It's just not serving her in that moment. And it's so cold to think of it that way. But I think that's what was happening. That and the fact that she wanted him to be safe. So, she's kind of saving him by pushing him through that time door as well.

And if you're going to think of it as like an exploration of self-acceptance and self-love, that's also interesting because she showed sort-of, I don't know, getting rid of a part of herself that isn't serving her anymore at the same time as keeping it safe.

It's really interesting to hear you talk about it that way, because it makes me think about how the one thing that came out, especially I think in Episode 5, is the idea that knowing Sylvie made Loki a better person in some fundamental ways. And I'm wondering about the opposite of that. What did knowing Loki mean for Sylvie?

DI MARTINO: I think it's slightly different for Sylvie. I don't know if he's made her a better person. I don't know if she's allowed herself to change yet. Loki's been quite brave and he's changed. He's a changed person by the end of that series. Sylvie is still hell-bent on her mission and she still chooses it over caring about someone else. So maybe she's yet to make that change.

So in talking about the scene like it's a breakup... Season 1 ends with the characters being very separated and of course, Season 2 is very much a nebulous thing at the moment, but people break up all the time and get back together. In your head, do you see there being still some sort of future for the characters as a couple?

DI MARTINO: It would definitely be fun to see them in the same room together again, wouldn't it? I'm fascinated. Yeah. After that, I'm fascinated to see what Loki has to say to Sylvie after doing that to him. Who knows? Never say never. I'm really excited to see what they come up with because it could go in so many different directions, but surely they have to come face to face again at some point.

It's like that awkward party after you've broken up with someone and you see them again. And that first conversation, whether it's in public or not, it's sorts of awful, but such a relief once it's been done.

Something that's been kind of a topic of discussion when it comes to talking about romance on screen is a quality that a lot of leading men have — for lack of a better term, the ability to give their love interest a Look. I've consulted with others and we feel like Tom Hiddleston has the look or has the ability to deliver the look. And I'm curious what it's like to be on the other side of it.

DI MARTINO: Tom's a very charming man and he could definitely make people go weak at the knees by just giving them a look. My reaction to that is always to sort of make a joke and run away. So there was probably a lot of that on set, breaking the tension by being a goofball.

I just had to react as Sylvie. And Sylvie's got these walls up. She doesn't let anyone in and that includes Loki. So sure there's a sort of, oh, this person is not as I thought they were. I'm warming to them. But Sylvie's not an easy nut to crack.

Is it fun getting to play that kind of strength?

DI MARTINO: Yeah. It's awesome because when her defenses do come down and she's vulnerable, it's really interesting. And you start to see all of the stuff that's buried underneath and that's what makes her a great character to play.

So, how do you feel about there being a second season? Do you feel like if there hadn't been a second season, you would have gotten the closure you wanted to from the story?

DI MARTINO: Probably not. I want to know what happens just like everyone else. I'm super excited and I just can't wait to see which direction they're going because it could be infinite directions.

Do you have a sense that there might've been different aspects to it, had COVID not been an issue?

DI MARTINO: I think COVID actually probably made it a lot better. We had a five months hiatus and Kate and the producers and writers worked a lot on episodes five and six during that time. And as far as I've heard, a lot changed for the better. They could rewatch what we'd already shot and just carry on working on the scripts and developing them. So I think it was great to have that time actually, as awful in most ways it was, that was the silver lining of it.

Very. Yeah. So looking forward, I imagine if there's a second season, you're on board if you get asked.

DI MARTINO: Hopefully. Hope so.

By the way, I was really excited to see the story about how your costume was designed to allow you to breastfeed during shooting. That seems like it was a really special detail.

DI MARTINO: Yeah, really, really. I'm just so grateful that that happened. It made my life so much easier and it was important to me that I carried on doing that. So it was just the little things and it's just saved a lot of time. Practically, it was a godsend.

Of course. So looking forward, what's next for you?

DI MARTINO: Lots of interviews. Lots of being able to talk about episode six finally, and then, who knows? An infinite possibility. So yeah, I'm excited to see what happens and to see people's reactions to the series because people are still catching up. People are still watching and rewatching it and probably go on.

Yeah. I mean, I imagine that you're going to be cosplayed at various conventions over the next several decades probably.

DI MARTINO: Do you think? That blows my mind.

I mean, cosplaying has a long legacy to it.

DI MARTINO: It's so cool. The way that people are already making Sylvie horns and crafting them from scratch and spraying them. And there's one woman that's just sewn a whole suit together and it looks exactly like my costume. It's so impressive, the love and attention people put into it.

Are you getting an action figure?

DI MARTINO: I don't know. Hopefully. What would I do with it? Maybe I could use it as a cake topper. Who knows? But that would be a very cool thing to have, wouldn't it?

#loki #loki series #sophia di martino #sylvie #interview #article #collider #spoilers #loki series spoilers #loki spoilers

[wannaliveattheholidayinn]

Ok, But Seriously, I Have Thoughts

I have... really mixed feelings about this episode, so I'm gonna talk about those feelings. And if my feelings about zep as a show and this season come out during that... so be it. (Seriously, this got long. I'd apologize, but I'm not sorry). Also spoilers for the new ep below the cut, but y'all should've been able to guess that

- I... Zimon seriously deserves just so much better. We saw them as a couple together for three episodes, and they honestly weren't explored enough. Zimon... and this is a very personal opinion, but they really do strike me as a couple who never fully leave the honeymoon phase... like ever. Like, of course, they'll fight and disagree on a lot of things, but they also can have adult children, and just kind of act like newlyweds even if they've been married for over twenty years. And again, I know that's a very personal opinion, but I mean... we all knew c/arkeman was gonna be endgame, and it just feels like zimon was never given an actual chance.

- However, I do very much appreciate that their breakup was not messy, there's still clearly a ton of respect for the other on both of their sides, and that Simon is okay.

- "We didn't belong together." No, you fucking did.

- I am not going to stop writing Zimon fanfic either. In fact, this might spur me to write more and work harder on writing Zimon fanfic.

- Rose. Fucking. Deserves. Better. I'm not even gonna elaborate on this one. We all know it.

- Despite the fact that I fucking hate c/arkeman and that it was very, very rushed... I'm giving acting and singing props to Jane. I Melt With You is a song that's extremely personal to me. It helped get me through a point in my life where... I was constantly feeling at war with others, myself, and even felt unsafe in my own home (something I still feel today, no matter how irrational I know it is). I just generally feel a strong connection to every version of the song bc of that, whether it's the original or the Bowling for Soup cover (that was in Sky High!), and... Jane just has a way of making me feel safe when she sings. So, I really, really loved her cover.

- Um... yeah, I'm gonna be real, I don't like the idea of Max having powers. I don't know, I just think it kinda changes the whole original concept of the show, and I'm not a big fan of that...

- Simon! Simon working on changing SPRQ Point!!!!

- I do not really like how they handled Simon's racial bias/systemic racism in coding storyline *after* episode six (aka it only really being mentioned in passing, not being further explored, etc.), but,,, credits due where it's due I guess? I like how they handled him going to Danny Michael Davis, and how DMD listened.

- Sidenote, I kinda find it weird we as a fandom don't refer to him as Danny... it's Danny Michael Davis, DMD, or fucking Willy Wonka jokes. Makes sense I guess.

- Um... the writing was just... so lazy. Yeah. It's... really sad, I think that the show would've benefitted from even one less ep. But on the other hand... lazy writing is lazy writing.

- I think it would've been better - honestly - if Zoey's feelings of loss hadn't been connected to Max in a romantic way, but in a platonic/familial way. We didn't see a ton of their friendship, and yeah,, I hate Max, but there are a few moments there where you can see a legitimate friendship that's really sweet. I also think if they had maybe explored Zoey's fear of losing Simon as well as Max and centered the finale more on Zoey telling Simon about her power, it would've just been a lot better.

- But... honestly, after I just aired out all my issues with this episode (and the season too kinda),,, I honestly liked it. I hate that Zimon broke up and I just generally hate cl*arkeman but... this ep had some really great moments. Zoey and Mitch were beautiful to see again. Mctobin, Davidemily, and Mo x Perry were all absolutely my favorite parts of the episode. Hell, I'll even admit I... well I don't wanna say laughed considering I was so close to crying, but I let out a weird, breathy noise resembling a laugh when Zoey just blurted out she and Simon had broken up.

I don't want to say it was a bad episode, because I did honestly, enjoy ~parts~ of it... but... it wasn't even that cl/arkeman happened, I knew it would, but how it did... it just honestly (my g.od i need to stop writing that word) seemed like they were trying to kill off or like... fucking quash *any* hope Zimon shippers may have had,,, and the writing was just so fucking lazy, I just...

I started the show after dance one night because my teacher showed us the Help! number bc he was an extra in it. And I had already been intrigued by the few ads I had seen for it. So, my mom and I watched it, and we loved it. So we kept watching. And it was good! It was really good! Sure it could be cheesy, but... that didn't matter. I latched on...

I don't know if, ZEP is gonna get renewed, and if it is, I don't know if I'll watch it if/when it does. I latch on to shows really fucking hard when I do latch on. It's why I keep rewatching The Good Place and why I'll never forgive Freeform/Disney/Marvel for canceling Cloak and Dagger. The way I latch onto things is probably a bit unhealthy. And the fact of the matter is, despite everything, my overwhelming feelings about ZEP are positive. And I latched on. I'd honestly do it all over again.

I have a lot of feelings about this fandom and this show, both positive and negative. Still, I love it. Unconditionally. Ultimately, I don't care if Zoey ends up with Max or Simon (though, seriously, she and Simon are made for each other). It's a good fucking show, ships shouldn't be everything that matters.

I began lurking in this fandom when I was fifteen. I began posting fanfic for it when I was sixteen. I'm almost seventeen now. I was planning to get Tumblr when I was seventeen. I also knew I wouldn't forgive myself if I hadn't made my presence here known if it didn't get renewed.

I want to thank @simon-haynes because, uh, holy fuck, I adore you. Running a blog for fandom is something I couldn't even fathom, especially when a large portion of the fandom doesn't like your ship. I legitimately can't believe you followed me.

Thank you to @jennakang. You are, honestly, one of the best writers I've ever read from. You were so incredibly supportive of my writing on ao3, despite the fact you didn't know who I was, and that really meant the world to me. Thank you so much for your contributions to the fandom. Also, uh, fun fact, I was the anon who, after you expressed the want to write the quarantined Zimon fic, sent in that ask that was like "please do!" and also "hope I'm not being pushy about this". I don't know if you remember that at all, but your response meant the world to me.

And uh, lastly @myheartissetinmotion. Um, wow. I know we barely know each other, but I can honestly say, you have been my anchor for this whole show. I love both your Tori content on TikTok as well as just zep content you do on there, and how you wrote her into zep on ao3. I personally like to think of you as the pioneer of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist Tok. You were pretty unbiased when it came to ships on there, and that made me feel safe in a place where there were virtually no zimon shippers. Your content was funny, and I always found myself laughing or screaming "accurate" at it. I know, I'm the nuisance who every few months DMs you about something zep related, but I hope you know, you made me feel both seen and somewhat appreciated in this fandom. I cannot thank you enough, Isabella 💗

I know Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist may not be ending. But this still oddly feels like the end of an era. I'm not leaving the fandom, I plan to keep posting fanfic for it and everything. I just want everyone who may be reading this to know I love this fandom and I would not take any moment here back.

Also, this is me formally asking for a link to a Discord group chat since I know it exists but I'm too scared to actually ask any of you for it directly.

#zoey's extraordinary playlist #zep #zep spoilers #uh... #zep fandom #zep discourse i guess #zoey clarke #simon haynes #max richman #leif donnelly #tobin batra #mo zep #mckenzie zep #perry zep #david clarke #emily clarke #maggie clarke #mitch clarke #zoey x simon #zimon #mctobin #mo x perry #david x emily #anti zomax #jane levy

[the---hermit]

Tag 9 people to learn about their interests!

Tagged by @just-a-cup-of-anxietea thank you 💜🌿

MUSIC

Favourite genre?

I grew up listening to metal and rock, and that's where my heart is. Expecially symphonic metal. But I also listen a a lot more.

Favourite song?

I could say so many songs, if I really have to pick just one I would say Fear Of The Dark by Iron Maiden. That's the song that made me fall in love with music as a kid.

Most listened song recently?

Lately I have been really into Rain Paris' covers, she's really good.

Song currently stuck in your head?

Below My Feet by Mumford and Sons

5 fave lyrics?

Although I felt like giving up

It's not the road I chose

The path less often traveled

Held the highest, the highest of hopes

(The Curse Of The Fold by Shawn James)

Man, he took his time in the sun

Had a dream to understand

A single grain of sand

He gave birth to poetry

But one day'll cease to be

Greet the last light of the library

(The Greatest Show On Earth by Nightwish)

The first thing I ever heard

Was a wandering man telling his story

It was you, the grass under my bare feet

The campfire in the dead of the night

The heavenly black of sky and sea

(Song Of Myself by Nightwish)

And suddently Hades was only a man...

(Epic III from Hadestown off Broadway)

You can be every little thing you want nobody to know

(Wilder Mind by Mumford and Sons)

radio or your own playlist | solo artists or bands | pop or indie | loud or silent volume I slow or fast songs | music video or lyrics video | speakers or headset | riding a bus in silence or while listening to music | driving in silence or with radio on

BOOKS

Favourite book genre?

I have a thing for the very first horror/scifi/fantasy that bloomed in gothic litterature at the end of the 1800s. I have no idea if that counts as a genre, but I have always had a thing for that part of litterature, and when I don't know what to read I usually just go for something that falls under this category

Favourite writer?

Neil Gaiman, and many others, but if I have to pick just one that's him. His writing style, the topics, everything is just perfect for my taste in writing.

Favourite book?

I usually say Frankenstein by Mary Shelly cause that is a great way to present the type of story I like. I was also lucky cause I read that book in the perfect moment of my life to connect with it amazingly. At the same time I feel like I am lying because to only pick one single book is so reductive.

Favourite book series?

I have commitment issues, I don't usually go for series. I would like to cheat by saying The Lord Of The Rings, but Tolkien considered it a whole book. Other than that the only full series I have read is Harry Potter. ( I have also read a few books from the Percy Jackson series, which I enjoyed at the time. And last year I started reading The Witcher series, which I am really liking but I am only two books in and I don't know if that would count).

Comfort book?

The Humans by Matt Haig. Anyone who knows me, or has been following me for a while knows about this, amd no I will never shut up about it until everyone has read it. It just gives me hope in a way didn't think was possible. (Also shout out to The Hobbit cause it just makes me feel so good)

Perfect book to read on a rainy day?

Okay so not an easy question. I think I would either go for a short book that I could read in one sitting or a collection of short stories. For the first category my first thought was Tarocchi Magici E Cavallereschi : La Vera Storia Di Rolando by Marcello Simoni. I have no idea if this was translated but It was a great retelling of the medieval story of Rolando I read last year, I'd love to re-read it. For the second category any short story collection by Neil Gaiman. I particularly love Trigger Warning.

Favourite character?

How can you ask me to pick just one? I love the Creature of Frankenstein, I connected so much to that character. But also Herger from Crichton's Eaters of the Dead is a character I love. I adore his positive spirit and his way of seeing life. At this point I should also mention Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit, one of the characters that I feel more close to me.

5 favourite quotes from your favourite book(s) that you know by heart?

Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.

(Frankenstein by Mary Shelley)

A paradox: The things you don’t need to live—books, art, cinema, wine, and so on—are the things you need to live.

(The Humans by Matt Haig)

Don’t aim for perfection. Evolution, and life, only happen through mistakes.

(The Humans by Matt Haig)

Herger said to me, "Be thankful, for you are fortunate."

I inquired the source of my fortune. Herger said in reply, "If you have the fear of high places, than this day you shall overcome it; and so you shall have faced a great challenge; and so you shall be adjudged a hero.

(Eaters Of The Dead by Michael Crichton)

Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.

(The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien)

hardcover or paperback | buy or rent | standalone novels or book series | ebook or physical copy | reading at night or during the day | reading at home or in nature | listening to music while reading or reading in silence | reading in order or reading the ending first | reliable or unreliable narrator | realism or fantasy | one or multiple POVS | judging by the covers or by the summary | rereading or reading just once

TV AND MOVIES

Favoutie tv/movie genre?

I have no idea. I don't know if I feel different about the genres I watch the most. You know what? I'm gonna go with animated movies because at the end of the day that's always the best option when you don't know what to watch.

Favourite movie ?

There is so many movie. In my family we religiously rewatch a bunch of movies every year, how could I pick just one? I'm gonna go with Young Frankenstein cause that movies is hilarious, and everytime I rewatch it I laugh as if I didn't know all the jokes already.

Comfort movie ?

Honestly it depends on what type of comfort I am looking for. I could go with a couple of my favourite disney classics like The Emperor's New Groove and The Lion King. But also The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings movies. This list could go on for days honestly.

Movie you watch every year ?

The list would be way too long, I am a serial rewatcher. I can say a few I haven't mentioned yet. Big Trouble In Little China, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, Wasabi, The 13th Warrior, Lo Chiamavano Trinità and A LOT of other movies.

Favoutie tv show?

The answer to this has changed many many times through the years, but I can confidently say Brooklyn Nine Nine.

Comfort tv show?

Brooklyn Nine Nine, Friends, and I know there's something else but I can't think of any title at the moment.

Most rewatched tv show?

I could say Supernatural, but I really don't want to say Supernatural. I have watched The Mentalist a fair amount of times (the first couple seasons). Now that I think about it I have seen Lie To Me a lot of times aswell. B99 too but I disn't awant to be too repetitive.

5 fave characters?

I don't know if this is supposed to be on tv shows or movies so I will randomly list a few from both. Bilbo Baggings from The Hobbit (yes I am saying it again BUT you don't understand how much I feel like him cause I also both want and not want to go on an adventure). Rosa Diaz from B99, Patrick Jane from The Mentalist, Elizabeth Swan from The Pirates Of The Caribbean. I know it's just four but I can't think of anyone at the moment.

tv shows or movie | short seasons (8-13 episodes) or full seasons (22 episodes or more) | one episode a week or binging | one season or multiple seasons | one part or saga | half hour or one hour long episodes | subtitles on or off | rewatching or watching just once | downloads or watches online

I tag (no pressure) : @anxiousoptimist101, @contre-qui , @justanotherstudyblrinthecrowd , @starrystvdy , @sage-studies , @occhicerchiati , @fly-away-from-here , @illuminatingnun and @outsassing-nero, plus whoever whats to do this just pretend that I tagged you!

#i wrote this the other day after i had slept till 1 am e then travelled for like 5 hours #i have edited it once but my brain is still kind of a mess which means there might be a few errors here and there and for this i apologize #i will probably spend the next two weeks editing this everytime i look at it #ANYWAY this was really fun! #tag #tagged #tag game #get to know me #studyblr #bookblr #just a cup of anxietea #mutuals #friends #the---hermit #cris speaks

[cjstalkingstarwarsagain]

hi! i’ve recently decided to rewatch all the star wars movies and take notes on them and then,,, share them with you. so if you’re even mildly interested in my star wars opinions, here you go :)

i’ll divide it into a couple categories so,,,

well start with rogue one!!

shit that made me giggle

"oh look, here’s lyra back from the dead. it’s a miracle."

everything K2 says and does. i love him and he’s perfect.

i love the continuous attempts by K2 to appear imperial and how he fails every time. not a single storm trooper or officer ever believes him when he starts running his mouth.

so sorry but bohdi getting his cable caught and trying to shake it loose is such an adorably human moment. makes me giggle every time.

i honestly thought this section would be longer, this movie made me laugh a bunch. 

stuff i don’t like or doesn’t make sense

why does jyn start believing in the rebellion? there’s no indication that she cared before they found her. there’s no real turning point that we can see. she just,,, suddenly is really into this shit. which is strange because the only reason she ever joined was because she was given a non-choice (either help or get put back in prison). i guess i can kinda see how her father dying could have changed her, but we see none of that on the ship after his death. we just get to the rebel council and all of a sudden she’s the poster girl for rebellion.

saw seems really stable at the beginning of the film, so why did he go seemingly crazy and paranoid? it’s probably explained in the novelization but that’s no excuse to just have a character go crazy with really no explanation or backstory.

that being said, a lot of the character development is pretty lacking. i don’t think i’d care about these characters nearly as much if i wasn’t already a star wars fan.

video game cut scene style general tarkin

bor gullet is supposed to make you lose your mind but bohdi was pretty much fine after like,,, a day

how does the death star,,,, move?? like i know it can but has that ever been explained? is it like little thrusters? like the ones you can see in real life to stabilize things in space? there’s nothing i can visually see. i’m not mad about it i just wanna know.

why does saw insist on staying behind? why doesn’t he come and help?? it would have been so easy to just leave but he insists on staying behind and just watching as death inches closer. i think it doesn’t make sense because we know *so little* about his character. give me more on him, make me understand.

since james earl jones is getting older, vader sounds older. was there??? nothing the audio or editing department could have done about that??? not super mad about this one just because darth vader is really cool and i’ll never really complain too much about darth vader screen time.

when the fuck did jyn become a motivational speaker??

my one gripe about pretty much every star wars movie is the sheer number of times people climb through huge shafts and jump around and shit and they’re always *fine*. no way they wouldn’t fall to their deaths in any normal situations.

can someone?? check the science of the hammerhead corvette?? because there’s no gravity or weight in space right?? theoretically all you gotta do is give that star destroyer a bump and it’s spinning out, right?? i know absolutely nothing about space physics but i gotta be right. maybe i’m wrong. i dunno. i’m dumb as rocks. hear that baby girl?? it’s the spare change rattling around in my skull. i got pennies where my brain is.

absolutely no fucking shot cassian survived a blaster hit AND that fall AND climbed out. my belief simply cannot be suspended that much.

DUDE I FORGOT THAT THE DEATH STAR CAN TRAVEL THROUGH HYPERSPACE HOW DOES WORK SOMEONE TELL ME!!!!!

why doesn’t vader just,,, force grab the plans. i know he sees them. why not just force stop the guy running away with them??

final note now that the movie is over. yes, it’s got a lot of issues. the plot is ehhh at times. the trailers don’t match up with the movie shots AT ALL (i wanna know what happened behind the scenes with that). the character development is lacking in many major ways (that has not stopped me from loving these characters though, but that’s the autism talking). but like i’ll say in the "stuff i liked" section, this is such a damn cool movie. i was once talking about it with an older friend of mine and he said seeing rogue one in theaters felt like watching the original trilogy in theaters back in the 70s and 80s and honestly that’s such a compliment. i love this movie, i really do.

just cool shit,,, you know the vibe

DEATH TROOPERS

krennic is probably one of my favorite imperial officers. for some reason he just really sells it for me, the evil and manipulation that borderlines in try hard. and (i mention it more later because you see it more in the "choke on your aspirations" scene) beyond that just the fact that he’s?? a guy. just a dude. at any given moment he could be described as just hanging out. but he’s trying so hard (for whatever reason, we don’t know his evil motivations) to be this big bad evil dude. and it’s just interesting to see someone *trying* to be imperial and *trying* to be evil, as opposed to a tarkin-type character who’s just naturally an asshole.

i love the rogue one main theme. don’t even talk to me. it’s so cool.

it’s cool to see more about the birth of the death star, seeing other people learn about it. sort of realizing the fear and terror that everyone must have been experiencing. especially after being a star wars fan for so long and being like, yeah it’s the death star it’s just a staple of this universe. it reminds me that "oh god this was a planet killer and this was the first time something like that had ever even been heard of".

there’s gorgeous visuals in this movie.

i like the "i’m wanted in 12 systems" guy cameo (did you know his name is cornelius? i googled it)

when the storm trooper asks for papers?? like fuck yeah show me what life is like under imperial rule. give me that shit.

chirrut is so badass i’ll never get over it

"i’m one with the force and the force is with me" i’m eating that shit UP! salivating over the meal in front of me. i really want more exploration of the guardians and jedi worship in general. like gimme that weird funky space religion.

seeing an at-st just walk around a town. i dunno i like that shit.

K2 saying sorry for hitting cassian. i’m so soft on this robot.

"clear of hostiles,,,, ONE HOSTILE"

jyn stepping in front of K2 to protect him after she (not ten minutes ago) made the comment “i’m just afraid they’ll miss you and hit me”. jyn,,, your soft side is showing,,,,

i like the cool machine blaster that baze has. it’s awesome seeing different blaster styles when originally the only variation we really saw was chewie’s cross bow style blaster.

i really wanna see more of baze and cirruit. i wanna know what happened that made baze stop believing. i wanna know how they met. i wanna see them evolve and grow together.

i like that jyn argues that 16 is too young to be a solider (she’s 21 in the movie). i like that she’s mad that she’s young and has been put in a position to protect herself and then later save the galaxy. (for context: luke and leia were 19 in a new hope. anakin is 19 in attack of the clones, ~22 when he became darth vader, and rey is 19 in force awakens. stop putting the fate of the galaxy in the hands of people who are *barely* adults)

the testing of the death star is awesome. love seeing wicked cool space weapons. when it blocks out the sun? ominous as hell fuck yeah.

it’s interesting that baze says cassian doesn’t look like a killer, that "he has the face of a friend", when one of the first things we saw him do was kill a man. i think about that a lot. does that say more about baze’s ability to read people or does it say more about who cassian is deep down, beyond what he’s done to serve the rebellion?

cassian’s relationship with death and killing is very interesting. you could argue that cassian is just as brainwashed and deep in the rebellion as anyone imperial. i really hope it’s something that gets explored in his stand alone show. he mentions he’s lost everything and has been a rebel since he was 6. gimme cassian andor backstory.

"careful not to choke on your aspirations director" is probably some of the most dramatic-anakin-skywalker shit i’ve ever seen vader do

i like seeing rebel infighting. so often it seems there’s always general consensus about what the rebellion wants, but it’s good to see that they don’t always agree on how to rebel.

i love the consistent "found family" rebel alliance shit in these movies. it makes my dick so hard.

ARTOO AND THREEPIO CAMEO FUCK ME UP THOSE ARE MY BOYS

okay i totally get that the empire is evil, i really do, but rogue one (and lots of moments in the sequels) really reminds me how fucking cool some of their shit is. like death troopers? imperial droids like K2? the base on scarif? vader’s castle on mustafar and his bacta tank?? fuck me UP.

i loved hearing the troopers doing their dumb small talk about the T-15s on the beach.

i think ben mendelssohn is perfect for the role of krennic, no notes there. he’s just like?? a guy and he’s doing everything he can to fit into this evil role and he just wants to be like this big bad imperial boy on campus. i don’t know. i don’t have the words right now to express how fuckin awesome he is. i’ll write an essay about it later.

THE AT-AT COMING OUT OF THE MIST?? CHRIST ON A BIKE. LAY ME TO REST. LOVE IT.

fucking love me some female fighter pilots. the women of star wars are so badass. doing justice to my return of the jedi ladies.

i think a whole lot about jyn giving K2 a blaster. the way he takes it and looks at it and holds it so gently. i think that’s the first time a human has trusted him with a blaster since his reprogramming. he seems so appreciative of that trust.

i love seeing the faces of baze and the other rebels when a few of the x-wings show up and take down an at-at. i’m so very soft for the relationship between these rebels. not to be cliche, but the *hope* that they have. it’s so moving. this movie is just so full of that quintessential rebel feeling.

hey so i’m super emotional about the death of K2 okay? because in the novelizations you learn that in the last second k2 had before a full shut down, he ran a simulation where cassian lived and even though he knew it was impossible, it made him happy. FURTHERMORE K2 is very well known and his name is often listed along side jyn’s in terms of talking about the history of the rebellion.

chirrut and baze’s deaths are so important to me. we know they’re best friends, and even though we don’t know how long they’ve been together, they love each other so deeply. chirrut being the path for baze to return to the force? touching. i so wish these dumb force husbands could have had more screen time. baze calling chirrut back?? chirrut telling him to find him in the force?? baze looking to see the man he loves one more time before he dies??reminds me of the silken quote about dying in your best friends arms because it’s all you know. anywho,,, if star wars canon has any mercy then these two lovers are force ghosts together rn. don’t care how you feel or whether you "ship" them or not. love comes in so many forms and they encompass all that love.

terribly sorry but i think about those two star destroyers colliding with the rogue one main theme playing over it every day. it’s,,,,, so,,,, ( ´∀｀)

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again BEN MENDELSSOHN??? UH YEAH

krennic watching his weapon (his beautiful, successful weapon) power up and kill him,,, the poetic justice of it all,,,,

any time anyone says "may the force be with you" i dunno maybe it’s my religious trauma but i’m head over heels for that good shit

the star destroyer coming out of hyper space as the rebels are escaping and some of the ships hit the destroyer?? one of my favorite things in the new star wars movies is directors and writers saying "oh this can totally happen" and they DO IT

jyn mentioning earlier in the film that she isn’t used to people sticking around when shit hits the fan and then dying in the arms of cassian?? because he stayed?? and for the first time she has someone??

in that same vein: cassian also says earlier in the film that he lost everything too. his connection with jyn is also important to him, just as important as it is to jyn. they need each other. i can’t remember who on this hellsite said it, but someone mentioned that they hope the stand alone cassian stuff coming out doesn’t make him this swindling playboy who fucks around a bunch. i think having him as more of like?? a mandolorian type character would be really cool. like he’s a rebel assassin: make him one. make him independent and badass and cool and DONT give him a bunch of romantic or sexual interests because then that downplays the clear love he had developing for jyn. again LOVE COMES IN FORMS BEYOND BASIC SHIPS. and there’s a lot of love in star wars.

i’ve said it a million times but vader is so cool and over and over again this movie reminded me that he’s actually so scary. i saw star wars for the first time when i was 6 and i can’t remember my initial reaction to him, but i’ve definitely (like with the death star) been desensitized to the fact that if i was in star wars, darth vader would scare the shit out of me. he’s *scary* and that’s cool. i liked seeing vader effortlessly go fucking mad on these rebels. then you understand why they were so scared in that first scene of a new hope.

no i absolutely will not get over the vader scene. i won’t. his saber turning on. his force abilities. his effortless lightsaber work. the choral music over the scene with the hectic orchestra. don’t touch me i’m emotional.

i loved seeing leia. it touches me so deeply every time.

fuck i love this movie despite all its faults.

if you’ve made it this far, thank you!! i hope you enjoyed. please remember that this is totally a safe space for all star wars opinions and you can feel free to disagree with me! i’d love to hear what some of you thought :))

#star wars #rogue one #baze #jyn erso #chirrut imwe #cassian andor #baze malbus #bohdi rook #k2so #star wars opinions #star wars critique #star wars review

[jbuffyangel]

The Bermuda Triangle: Arrow 1x13 Review (Betrayal)

Time to deal with this love triangle and all the ways it is awful.

Let’s dig in...

L*uriver vs. Merlance

I frequently say to myself as I rewatch Season 1 that the triangle makes sense in theory. The writers have all the components, albeit clichéd, that should create a love triangle full of juicy drama.

Man wrongs woman in another life thereby destroying any future together

Woman falls for secret identity without realizing it is the same man who hurt her

Man “gives up” woman for her own good 

Man and best friend are in love with the same woman

Best friend changes his ways and becomes the perfect boyfriend

Woman no longer wants best friend and instead lusts for secret identity bad boy

And round and round we go. The problem is this doesn’t really tread any new ground. How many times have we seen this type of love triangle play out? MANY TIMES. Not saying a tried and true trope can’t be repeated, but if you’re going to use it then try to inject some new life into it. 

Arrow stays stubbornly in between the lines on this one, which means there are no real surprises. We know exactly where this is headed. Everyone is just waiting for L*urel to choose Oliver. Hell, even Tommy knows it is coming someday.

This brings us to our second problem. L*urel choosing Oliver is so inevitable it doesn’t require a lot of character growth for either of them. L*urel and Oliver have not dealt with ANY of the issues that caused their demise. Yes, Oliver cheated on L*urel, but there were reasons why he cheated. Those have yet to be discussed. 

We’re supposed to accept that since Oliver is wearing the hood and is out saving the streets as the vigilante then he is “worthy” of L*urel again. We’re supposed to be waiting with baited breath for L*urel to discover Oliver’s secret identity, realize he’s the man in the hood she’s been lusting after, and fall back into his arms where she belongs.

I think not. Don’t get me wrong. I love me a good triangle. I loved The Vampire Diaries. Two brothers in love with the same woman. Interesting. Woman looks exactly like the lost love that destroyed their bond a hundred years earlier? MORE INTERESTING. And kinky. 

I enjoy exploring the varying ways love is expressed in different relationships and what it can reveal about the characters. There isn’t always a right or wrong choice. There’s just a choice and it reflects the kind of love you need to live.

But I understand the complaints about love triangles. Oliver, L*urel and Tommy are the PERFECT validation of those complaints. It’s a tired way to insert some drama that has a completely predictable ending. The even bigger problem is there’s barely enough heat to melt an ice cube. L*uriver is frigid. Merlance is better, but they certainly aren’t an inferno.

“Betrayal” does an excellent job of highlighting all the love triangle problems which plague Season 1. We’re all waiting for L*urel to see that Oliver is a changed man. If only she knew he was The Hood! Her anger and hurt over Sara blinds her ability to see those changes. He needs to wear the mask, so L*urel can see who Oliver truly is. God that sounds good doesn’t it?

 IT’S NOT GOOD.

Sara was a symptom of much bigger problems between L*urel and Oliver. He did not want to be with L*urel, so he blew their relationship up in a fairly spectacular display of self sabotage.

Why doesn’t Oliver want to be with L*urel? Well... welcome to Oliver’s mind. He’s been asking himself that same question for the last five years. If he wanted to be with L*urel then he would have never left town. He would have never cheated on her with Sara. Then Sara would be alive. His father would be alive. EVERY ounce of guilt Oliver Queen carries is connected to that one single choice of leaving L*urel.

So, it’s fairly easy to understand why Oliver thinks being with L*urel will fix everything. If he can fix things with L*urel then he’s truly forgiven. It washes away the sins of the past. It’s like it never happened. At this point, this is what Oliver wants more than ANYTHING. He can’t bring Sara or Robert back. But he can resuscitate his dead relationship with his ex-girlfriend. Close enough. The man isn’t choosey after five years of misery.

Unfortunately, Oliver hasn’t changed at all when it comes to L*urel Lance. Oh I know BUT THE HOOD. Listen y’all, throwing on leather accessories and playing Robin Hood doesn’t equate to relationship therapy. Sorry writers. I need more than crime fighting to believe Oliver can be the perfect boyfriend now.

He continues to make all the same mistakes. OLIVER IS STILL LYING TO L*UREL. He lies to her every day.  He lies when he’s wearing the hood. He lies when he’s not wearing the hood. LIES LIES LIES LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIESS. Oliver continues to hide who he truly is from L*urel. Different outfit. Same problems.

This brings us to SO. MUCH. MISOGYN. Lance is using the phone The Hood gave L*urel to trap him. Whenever we are looking at betrayal and the Lance family it’s important to grade on a curve. It’s a dirty move on Quentin’s part, but far from the gold medal of betrayals this family achieves.

Source: @laurelsource

Everyone finds out that L*urel is working with the Hood and by everyone I mean Tommy. Quentin follows L*urel with a battalion of police officers to her meeting with The Hood. He’s gathered information on a newly released crime boss, Cyrus Vanch. When Oliver realizes they’ve been busted he holds L*urel by the throat as cover so he can jump off the roof. BuT tHeIr LoVe Is iS hEaLtHy.

Source: @dinahlaurellancesource

As L*urel rants to her current boyfriend (yes I use the word “current” on purpose), he pieces together that she’s been lying to him about working with The Hood.

Source: THEARROWGIFS:

L*urel: He's been lying to me for weeks.

Tommy: Yeah feels like crap doesn't it?

Are we surprised L*urel fails to see the hypocrisy in her little rant?

We are not. This is why Tommy was always the better man for L*urel. He actually had a pair and would call her on her BS. Oliver was incapable of doing until well into Season 2, but I digress.

So, Tommy goes to his best friend Oliver for relationship advice. I know this is a television show, but why in the ever living mother of Zeus do L*urel and Tommy think OLIVER is the best person to ask for relationship advice?

Oliver: Tommy, every time you want to talk to me about something, and that something is L*urel, you look like you’re about to tell me you have some terminal disease.

Me: He does have a terminal disease. It’s called L*URIVER.

Tommy: She’s been working with The Hood guy.

Oliver: What? You’re letting her work with that crazy person? She could get hurt Tommy.

Tommy: I’m not letting her do anything. I only just found out about it.

I know this episode aired in 2012, but talk about some patriarchal bullshit. The entire episode is filled with language like this. Quentin, Oliver, Tommy and The Hood all act like L*urel needs their permission to go to the bathroom. New flash fellas: If L*urel wants to engage in nightly rendezvous with a serial killer that’s her business.

L*urel says something to similar effect, but is summarily blown off by whatever male she’s speaking to. She meets up with The Hood after he and Lance save her from Cyrus Vanch.  

Source: BJ-HUNNICUTTS-BLOG 

It seems The Hood didn’t think through all the ways talking to L*urel on a phone and meeting her secretly on rooftops would put her in danger.

Source: BJ-HUNNICUTTS-BLOG

L*urel: I knew the risks.

The Hood: Now I know them and I’m not willing to take them with you.

L*urel: What does that mean?

It means he wants to bone you, L*urel. Get a clue. 

Holy hell, these conversations make her look stupid. L*urel, do you know a lot of six foot men with similar build and facial hair to Oliver Queen? 

Maybe she would take issue with his infantilizing if she stopped speaking like a three year old whenever The Hood is around. 

Source: LAURELSOURCE

She has this dazed expression too. I know L*urel is so overwhelmed with all the ATTRACTION and LUST that her eyes dilate and the bosom heaves, but I’m starting to think a taser gun is how they forced Katie do scenes with Stephen.

Source: @dinahlaurellancesource 

The point is nobody is all that interested in L*urel’s agency – INCLUDING L*UREL. I understand “secret identity” is a very common trope in hero’s stories, but it never makes any sense to me. Shouldn’t the “true love” be the first person to know who the hero is and not the last? Oliver keeps saying he can’t tell the people he loves who he truly is because it will put them in danger. So, he doesn’t care if Diggle gets killed? His logic makes no sense.  If this was truly about protecting people then why did he need a partner?

And no – you can’t use John can protect himself. We just watched L*urel throw down with that umbrella. She was lethal. 

Source: @dinahlaurellancesource 

Oliver is the king of compartmentalization. He does not know how to merge his two selves yet. He cannot fathom showing Thea, Moira, Tommy and L*urel his darkest self because that means being honest about what happened the five years he was away and what it did to him. That will be a hard pass from our leather clad hero.

My other issue with the love triangle (in addition to all the lying and misogyny) is Oliver comes off like an asshole. He manipulates Tommy with statements like, "L*urel is lying? That doesn't seem like her” and “ have an honest chat with her” like there is something in their relationship causing her to lie or that Tommy is responsible for L*urel’s behavior. He’s slowly pecking away at the Merlance walls until it crumbles. DIRTY POKER OLIVER QUEEN.

But then we arrive at this gross fest:

Tommy: There’s some sort of infatuation thing going on here. We both know that she has a pretty strong track record of being attracted to guys who are dangerous, who break the rules. Show me a more dangerous rule breaker than The Hood.

Oliver: I just think you need to have an honest chat with her. Find out the real reason she’s keep secrets.

Tommy: I just can’t believe that L*urel of all people would lie to my face. I guess that’s the way it is with the people you are closest to.

Oliver: I know, but talk to her anyway. And fix this before it becomes something that’s unfixable.

Did this conversation actually happen?

Does anyone else find it weird that Tommy and Oliver psychoanalyze L*urel’s dating preferences? 

And even weirder they are ACCURATE? 

Credit where credit is due. L*urel likes bad boys right up until they become good boys. Then she’s off to find the next asshole that will lie, cheat and disappoint her. (We could do an entire novel’s worth of L*urel Lance’s toxic dating choices).

Even worse, Tommy concludes she has the hots for The Hood like it’s nothing. Like it’s completely normal and okay behavior. 

Holy hell man! Tommy, maybe L*urel has beaten any self respect into the ground, but IT’S OK TO EXPECT YOUR GIRLFRIEND TO NOT BE INFATUATED WITH OTHER MEN.

What’s really gross is Oliver lies straight to Tommy’s face (no differently than L*urel did) while using the secret identity to engage in inappropriate flirting with his best friend’s girlfriend. He uses the hood to say things to L*urel that he would NEVER say as Oliver Queen. And L*urel never tells The Hood she has a boyfriend or to back off. In fact, she encourages the behavior. THIS. IS. CHEATING. Maybe not physical, but it sure is emotional.

Let’s also never forget L*urel started sleeping with Tommy as a way to stick it to Oliver. She wasn’t expecting to develop real feelings for Tommy, and I do believe she loves him, but that doesn’t erase the toxicity of this cycle that somebody needs to end.

There’s just no good here, my friends. 

Source: @dinahlaurellancesource 

The writers are relying on an empty “they are supposed to be together” promise without providing any evidence why. Neither L*urel nor Oliver has changed in a meaningful way to support giving their relationship another try. The problem between them wasn’t whether or not Oliver fought street crime. The problem was honesty. Between all the lying and just-on-the-line cheating, I’d argue they bring out the worst in each other. Nuclear winter has better chemistry. Need I go on?

Ok. I will.

The only one who has shown any growth is Tommy. This is change L*urel encouraged in Tommy, but then he became dependable and honest, so she started lusting after The Hood. Both Oliver and L*urel are lying to him about a variety of things. With friends like these who needs enemies? 

L*urel is treated like some prize, but is she a prize they really want to win? Neither man is given a reason to love L*urel beyond she’s who they are supposed to want.

Source: @dinahlaurellancesource 

Don’t get me wrong. I am a Merlance shipper, but it is hard to root for their ship at this point. If the writers just left them alone and let them be adorable then it would be fine.

Source: @dinahlaurellancesource 

BUT. THEY. KEEP. INSERTING. OLIVER.

And where is L*urel’s character? We’re thirteen episodes in and she’s too busy flip flopping personalities for me to nail her down to one specifically. For arguments sake, let’s say the hot and cold behavior IS one of her main traits. It only surfaces in relation to Oliver. L*urel flips on him which causes her to flop on Tommy. L*urel’s actions are simply a reaction to Oliver.  That’s not agency. That’s a prop.

Source: @dinahlaurellancesource 

It’s almost like the writers can’t be bothered with more. She’s a justice seeking, self sacrificing attorney who works pro bono. TA DA! Character is complete. Nothing more to see here! 

Well, if that’s the criteria then why isn’t Joanna in the running for hero’s true love? Throw Annie Ilonzeh in a room with Stephen Amell. Let’s see if the chemistry is any better.

The writers haven’t constructed L*urel’s character beyond a hockey puck for Tommy and Oliver to pass to each other until we reach the inevitable conclusion of L*urel “choosing” Oliver. It’s like watching a train speed toward a brick wall. I know the crash is coming, but I’m not apprehensive about it or grotesquely fascinated or even scared. I’m just want out of this Bermuda Triangle.

Quentin and L*urel

The only real interesting facet of L*urel’s character is her relationship with her father. I love the raw pain between them. It is always just under the surface. The writers throw those problems like grenades in their scenes together. Katie isn’t given much to work with, but her best material is always with Paul Blackthorne.

Source: LAURELSOURCE 

Quentin using his daughter as bait was brilliant, but shadey. Super shadey. It also had the unintended consequence of getting her kidnapped by a mob boss. Oops. I sort of love that Quentin had to eat crow and call The Hood for help once he figured out there was a dirty cop feeding Vance information.

L*urel is in a rage after being held hostage by The Hood. (He can use her as a human shield because he loves her. No problems here. Nope nope nope!) Quentin really hoped L*urel would appreciate his fine detective work, but she’s pretty pissed off about all the guns pointed at her. She feels her father has lost his perspective on this particular case.

L*urel: Are you gonna find another criminal? Someone else to blame for mom leaving, for Sara dying, for your drinking?

The gloves come off! Daaaaaamn. The booze? We’re going there? Meow.

I agree Quentin Lance has an addictive personality. He directs his rage and grief into an outlet he can control. Hmm… who else does that?

However, L*urel’s indignation is a little much. She is cavorting with a known criminal. The same criminal her father is investigating. L*urel does nothing to help the investigation and one could argue she impedes the investigation. This is called obstruction of justice, Counselor. L*urel actually commissioned the crime The Hood is perpetrating this week, so she could also be charged as an accessory after the fact. Maybe even aiding and abetting. So, her horror at the police pointing guns at her is somewhat ludicrous. Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.

Source: LAURELSOURCE 

L*urel spends much of the episode fighting the rampant patriarchy and misogyny of the men around her by firmly accepting the danger of working with the vigilante.  She is prepared to take those risks. 

Source: LAURELSOURCE 

But then L*urel is appalled the second she’s put in any danger and holds all the men responsible for not keeping her safe.

She can be mad her dad lied to her, but stop clutching the pearls. If L*urel wants to play the vigilante game then she is going to be used as bait and occasionally get kidnapped. That’s what everyone means by danger, girl. You’re either in or you’re out. If you’re in then you don’t get to blame anyone else for danger knocking on your door. Own your choices honey. THY NAME IS AGENCY.

Oliver and Diggle

This is week 323 of Diggle arguing that Moira is guilty as sin and Oliver ignoring the massive pile of evidence supporting that belief. 

Ok, it hasn’t been that many weeks, but it feels like it. Thou Shall Not Question Diggle. He is always right, but Oliver digs his stubborn heels in. So, John offers to drive Moira around for a week and bugs her. As one does.

Oliver: You bugged my mother?

This is how OTA shows their love, Oliver.  Diggle knows Moira is a slippery snake and can wiggle out of any question Oliver asks her. She even burns the copy of the List Felicity gave him after Oliver confronts her with it.  

Moira insists she never associated with the people in Robert’s book and knew it only as a list of people who owed him favors. Oliver believes his mother is trying to protect her children from Walter’s fate.

So, John gets Moira ON TAPE discussing The Undertaking with Malcolm Merlyn and the sabotage of Robert Queen’s boat. 

We’re going to ignore that Moira’s voice is perfectly identifiable, but Merlyn’s is about ten octaves lower. The point is these are information diamonds Diggle unearths and Oliver FINALLY agrees to pay his mother a visit as The Hood.

Flashbacks

The best part of the flashbacks is meeting all the people who helped Oliver Queen become The Hood. 

Source: @olivergifs​

Hello Slade Wilson! He’s a massively important character in Arrow and it is fun to rewatch how he came into Oliver’s life.

Slade and his partner, the man who tortured Oliver, are Australian Intelligence who came to Lian Yu to free Yao Fei. Slade and Yao Fei have been monitoring an air field so they can escape the island, but he cannot take it alone. There is always a reason behind all of Yao Fei’s actions, but it takes Slade a minute to figure out why he sent Oliver.

Slade: You have no skill. No strength. No training. To say you fight like a girl would be a compliment.

I’m equally indignant and amused by that line. Slade doesn’t believe Oliver will be any help to him because well… he met him. If Oliver is ever captured again he could reveal Slade’s location.  So, he decides to behead Oliver. It’s the nice thing to do. It won’t hurt a bit. What can I say guys? It’s Lian Yu! These are how the memories are made.

Oliver dislocates his shoulder and punches Slade in a vain attempt to defend himself. Yao Fei may be a softer judge of character, but he’s not wrong about Oliver’s survival instinct. Slade sees the fight in Oliver’s eyes and finally understands why Yao Fei sent him. They need Oliver to survive as much as he needs them. He might not be much to look at now, but Slade Wilson is just the man to harness Oliver’s will and turn him into the fighter they all need him to become.

Stray Thoughts

David Anders is like my personal Kevin Bacon. He's in everything I watch. #Arrow #TVD #Alias #OUAT

I was never all that jazzed when L*urel was the damsel in distress and I love that crap. Another clue I didn't ship it. Source:  LAURELSOURCE

Do people on this show not realize you can’t touch evidence? JFC.

Twenty four arrows in the quiver. Good to know.

“It doesn’t mean I have to read the bastard his rights though.” IF YOU WANT THE CHARGES TO STICK YOU DO.

I am so confused on what type of law L*urel practices. Her firm works for a victim’s advocacy group, but she also prosecutes criminal cases. This feels like a radiologist performing heart surgery.

KC is just really bad at action scenes. It's always so awkward.

Musings of the Kiddo

Kiddo: Does he ever run out of arrows?

Me: He has extra in the car.

Disclaimer: Any gifs on the blog are not mine. If you would like a gif removed from my reviews, please message me.

If you’d like to support the blog, please buy me a cup of tea!

#arrow #arrow review #arrow 1x13 #arrow reviews #anti laurel lance #anti lauriver #merlance #anti katie cassidy #quentin lance #arrow rewatch #arrow season 1 #season 1 episode review #season 1 episode reviews #tommy merlyn

[spocks-evil-godmother]

Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

I typed that out from memory. I could not tell you when I memorized it, though it had to be in the last few years. I could not tell you when I made the TOS dialogue my go-to, when TNG's is more egalitarian and, besides, I saw that one first. I can tell you that "to boldly go where no man has gone before" is iambic. I can tell you that its recitation at the end of whichever AOS film nearly made me cry. Space. The final frontier. When you hear these words, we already know which story we're talking about. They draw us in.

It's like a liturgy.

It is not lost on me that the last thing Gene Roddenberry would have wanted is to start his areligious TV show with such a thing, but here we are. A liturgy is a prescribed ritual in a religion, which means "the way you do it" when you're trying to worship something (though, as often as not, it's the Christian concept of God).

I am rewatching Discovery and I watch Captain Pike very closely, for he is terribly religious for someone who is apparently not religious. I think especially of his behavior in New Eden, and his response to the All-Mother's blessing of peace. "And also with you," Pike says. He knows the ritual. He participates in it. He is called into the story. The scene cuts to an expression on Michael's face. I don't always know how to interpret it, but I think of it as unease--though it might be more accurate to call it jealousy, or irritation, or even confusion. Somehow, in this isolated community of strangers, Pike says the words that make him belong. (Michael, of course, is still figuring out how to belong.)

Religion in Star Trek is a tricky business. Kirk and Spock might have barely missed Jesus. Spock is Jewish. Sisko becomes a prophet to the Prophets, and converses among the gods. The Klingon gods are dead, they killed them. The Ferengi go to a big bank when they die. Chakotay worships as his ancestors did, even from the farthest end of the galaxy. It's all very something.

"Have either of you ever been in a church before?" Pike asks, and neither Michael nor Owo ever has.

Space. The final frontier.

Live long and prosper.

Q'apla!

Energize.

Hit it.

Imagine that every story in Star Trek is a little ritual. We listen for the words we know and recognize to get drawn into the story again and again. There are things we learn, things we memorize, and sometimes things we reject and question. I will be on this planet for the rest of my natural life, and yet I have a place among the stars.

I don't really know what it means. Somehow, I don't think I'm supposed to: it is, ever and always, a story for another day.

#star trek #christopher pike #star trek religion

[spiritus-sonne]

"Humanimality"

July 9, 2021; Explores themes of animality & monstrosity in numerous media stories and within my own self

So I’ve been watching various shows lately, skipping between different ones or different episodes or seasons, to the whims of my mind, but they generally have some element of human animality in them, and it’s interesting to me to compare and contrast how that theme is handled in the different series and even more interesting is how I personally respond to watching them in regards to that theme. I rewatched the anime series “Claymore” since I hadn’t watched it in a long time and honestly didn’t remember much from it beyond there being women in it that could shapeshift to monstrous forms. “Claymore” handles the contrast between human and nonhuman through themes of monstrosity and heavily blurs the line that supposedly separates human from monster, including showing that some of the claymores (the half-monster women) can surpass that line into physical monstrosity beyond what others believe are their limits (to which they wouldn’t be able to retain, let alone return to, being human in mind), but they still manage to come back to their human side. Although the show doesn’t instill any ‘shifty’ feelings in me despite the large amount of nonhuman shifting it shows, my reception of it is overall positive in how they handled the themes of humanity and monstrosity, though I think it could have used a bit more emphasis on human not necessarily being an “opposite of monstrosity” kind of thing since humans can very much act monstrous to extents Earthly nonhuman animals don’t or can’t.

Then there’s the CW’s “Beauty and the Beast” series, which I vary as to how much I like how the show is handled depending on the episode and season. Part of season 3 was leaving me feeling tired and annoyed at the over-glorifying and romanticizing of the concept of “being human” and acting like there is some hard line between human and animal and if someone (such as the main character, Vincent) passes that line they are forever a monster and can’t return to ‘being human’ no matter what. By the end of the season they loosened that hard line and heavily implied that even if such a line is crossed the individual can still return to being more human rather than being “doomed to forever be a monster” (in the bad, derogatory sense). So my response to how they handled the human verses animality theme improved as the season went on. I have a special fondness for most of the first season, though, especially since Vincent’s animality was front-and-center for much of it and it was something he was much more learning to control and handle as being part of how he was and how to live with being more animalistic at times. As opposed to some parts of the series in which he tries to live as ‘human’ as he can, shifting to his animal side as little as possible, and leaving that shifting or the use of his heightened senses to basically being a tool uncommonly used to fight off some foe or to help ‘solve’ a case. I do wish the show included a stronger sense of Vincent embracing instead of rejecting or hiding his animality, and that the line between human and animal was treated as being much more blurry instead of a bold, solid line. Maybe some therians would be better at writing something like that. Heck, I’d write fanfiction like that if I was actually any good at writing fiction--which I’m totally not.

I’ve tried to get into Freeform’s “Siren” series about mermaids--I watched the first season but kind of slowly got through it and barely managed to watch through the 2nd season’s first episode. Which is unfortunate because I rather like the design of the mermaids--their physical design with fangs, claws, and gills, but also their mentality as predators and pack animals. Yet there’s just something about the characters or how the story is told or something else that just makes it difficult for me to really get into the series and enjoy it. I do kind of dislike that parts of it focus on making the merfolk more “human”, including there being one that’s basically lived decades of her life out of the water being essentially totally human and out of touch with her roots of being a mermaid. I feel like they took a great concept of merfolk that are animalistic humanoids and tried to ‘humanize’ it too much for the sake of a longer story (whereas if it was a shorter story like a single movie, maybe they could better leave the merfolk more animalistic--though hopefully not as the villains).

The anime series “Vampire Knight” is another I recently have started rewatching. Despite the number of vampires in it, the only one I really connect with is one of the main characters, Zero. The story in part deals with him coming to terms with slowly transitioning into a vampire, a more feral type than the other recurring vampire characters in the show, and there’s something about him and his story that I connect with and gets me a bit vampire-shifty. Most of the vampires in it are just “too human” feeling to me. Which is kind of funny because my own kind of vampire, blutpirs, are still overall rather human in form and mentality, though they can do minor shapeshifting (eyes, teeth, nails) and do have more cat-like mental aspects at times, but I think it comes down to me personally experiencing being a blutpir, non-physically, through times in which I feel not “just human”--the shiftyness is an important aspect of how I experience my vampire ‘type.

When it comes to the game "Prototype" I love that it allows the player to be a humanoid monster that can fight and consume others. It blurs the line between human and monster and is morally grey about the main character's position as a monster that needs to consume others (be the prey human or monster, civilian or military--it's kind of left to the player as to who or what to consume) in order to survive and heal, and even potentially be a hero of sorts. I enjoy being able to play as an animalistic, monstrous predator and maybe I'll go back to replaying it sometime as it's been a long time since I've played it. But I do have a strong fondness of the protagonist that goes into teratophilia.

Another TV show, MTV's "Teen Wolf", can make me feel kind of shifty, as well. I do like that, at least in the seasons I watched, there was a lot of embracing of the characters' nonhumanity, that being nonhuman or partially human didn't automatically mean "bad" or "evil", with the villains being human or nonhuman but it really came down to the individual's personality instead of their species. And I rather like that approach but it's uncommon for me to come across.

Lastly, a somewhat odd one is the 2000 Syfy series "Invisible Man" which can get me a little shifty at times. I said odd because it may seem a story about an invisible man wouldn't deal much with themes of animality and monstrosity but it really depends on the angle in which it's approached (I've seen and heard of other invisible man stories exploring monstrous themes, though, but this one in particular really stands out to me). The protagonist is fully human but due to certain factors, he has times of basically ferality and a predatory mindset that I kind of relate to with my vampire 'type, possibly more so because ultimately my own animality isn't something that's physical, it's a mental and behavioral thing despite me of course being fully physically human. I also like that the transition in mentality is preceded by severe pain, which kind of feels like a parallel with the pain of physical transformation that many shapeshifters are depicted going through.

I do have a soft spot for numerous stories that involve a person just coming into a new power or aspect of themselves that is animalistic in some form and them learning to control and/or embrace it. It's just something that I tend to connect with and enjoy both from a monstrous and animalistic otherkin/therian perspective and from a monster-hearted perspective. These stories leave me kind of empathizing with the character, feeling myself in their place and connecting with their struggle to balance human and nonhuman in their life and selves. But when/if the story turns toward fully rejecting that animality or being “saved” by becoming fully human, then my interest vastly wanes and the connection is lost. I’m so tired of stories about how being human is “the best thing ever” and is infinitely better than being nonhuman, especially animalistic, despite the fact that humans ourselves are animals and animalistic. It’s a stupid dichotomy that I’m bored and annoyed at hearing throughout my life.

My mind scrapes around various media--pictures, TV shows, movies, books, etc.--to find stories and characters that don’t give into that tiring theme of “humans are best”, media that I can relate to more in the fact I’m nonhuman and human--blended and fluid, animal and monstrous--because it’s just such a rarity, such a gem, to find those little scraps of this stuff, and unfortunately it sometimes ends up being in the form of a villainous or antagonistic character. I’ve sought out this media since my early childhood, though I’ve tended toward hiding away that kind of thing from others, privately enjoying it because of fear for how others may react to me finding such satiation in the monstrous and the nonhuman humanoids rather than in the ‘glorious solely human’ stuff. I still hide it most of the time from my partner, not really anymore for fear of what they may think but rather out of habit and because privately partaking in it is more comfortable for me, especially if it does get me feeling shifty, and I’m overall okay with that.

I also relate to these fictional 'monsters' in that I feel like I live a "split" life between human and nonhuman, that my nonhumanity is something that remains hidden from most people--albeit, because it has to in that it is so highly non-physical, just mildly behavioral, that others can't be aware of it, rather than it being a physical thing. But there's still that empathy I feel of "I'm hiding my animality and monstrosity from other people for fear of consequences and them not understanding". I feel a deep sense of familiarity and sameness with these animalistic or monstrous humanoid beings. And that's where my monster-heartedness and otherkinity really meet. I know that unfortunately I'm limited my whole life to these nonhuman aspects being so strictly internal and subjective, even though I came to terms about that a long time ago and generally don't have species dysphoria, there's still part of me that wishes I could live this, or part of it, physically and to be loved and cared for by someone else (be they fully human or not) despite this or maybe in part *because* of my nonhumanity. To be loved so much even though the other person can clearly see my monstrosity and animality--that would speak volumes to me.

#alterhuman #otherkin #therian

[cogentranting]

Once Upon a Time Characters with the Most Wasted Potential

Recognizing that outside factors (such as actors leaving) influenced at least some of these. Does anyone care about posts like these for a show that’s been cancelled for two years? I don’t know but it doesn’t matter; this isn’t for you,  it’s for me and my need to rant about things like this as I rewatch the show. Now enjoy.

5. Jefferson Jefferson is just such a delight whenever he’s involved in the story. His love for his daughter makes him likable and sympathetic, but at the same time he’s never quite fully a good guy. He’s wonderfully chaotic, especially in his flashback appearances when he’s working for Rumple. A world-hopping treasure hunter, could have been woven into so many plots, especially if they continued to pull him into the middle, between the heroes and the villains. We never got any information on his wife, we never saw how things worked out with him and Grace, and he just would have been fun to add into more stories. If he’d been available to include in the Wonderland spinoff, even better (unless Will filled the role that would have been his, in which case, I’m very grateful we got Will). 

4. August As far as pure concept goes, August may be my favorite twist on a classic character. The idea of Pinocchio being sent into the real world, supposed to serve as big brother and protector to a magical savior, but abandoning her (because of course that responsibility is too much for a six year old) to go protect himself is so fascinating to me. The fact that he seems to know more than all but a few other characters (he has more information than pretty much everyone but the Blue Fairy and Gold), the way he moves in and out of his role in Emma’s life at different times, the way they depict his key flaws that he keeps falling back into are all so interesting. Even just the idea of a Pinocchio as a grown man living in the real world but knowing that he started life as a magical puppet brought to life is fascinating. August as the roguish wanderer, with secrets upon secrets and flaws he can’t escape, as one of Emma’s first and only friends is a lot of fun and it’s a shame they didn’t keep him around more. 

3. Lily If you scrape off some of the dumb ideas of season 4, Lily is a really interesting concept for a character. A foil for Emma whose life is intertwined with hers as they grow up; another magical child growing up in the real world, and seemingly cursed to always make the wrong choice, who also shares a deep connection and bond with Emma and understands her in a way that few people do. The flashbacks with teenage Emma and Lily are really well done, and the actress playing young Lily does a great job. But the introduction of adult Lily seems rushed and the casting of the new actress isn’t great (or maybe the writing for the adult Lily just isn’t as good). Adult Lily lacks some of the complexity and struggle of young Lily, and doesn’t seem nearly as easy to empathize with. It also seems like a missed opportunity to reintroduce the adult version already having learned all about magic and her parentage and Storybrooke. To me, a character learning that she’s Maleficent’s daughter, magic is real, she’s fated to cross paths with her one time friend from child, and that Snow White and Prince Charming basically cursed her and having to process all that, seems far more interesting than just having her show up turn into a dragon and try to kill some people but then be very easily stopped. Besides all that, the dynamic between teenage Emma and Lily is great, but there seems to be no attempt to recreate it with the adult women. I don’t know if this is the cause or the result of them not bringing Lily back after the end of season 4. But that is also a missed opportunity. They could have kept Lily around as a friend for Emma (something she’s really missing in later seasons) and further explore her background, including the mystery of her father which is introduced and then forgotten. Granted, it doesn’t fit well in season 5-- though Lily would have been a much better addition to the camelot team than the dwarves-- but even if she spends that season off bonding with Maleficent, Lily could have easily been brought back in season 6, where it seemed like the writers were low on ideas anyway. But instead Lily is completely forgotten. 

2. Robin Hood One of the show’s greatest mysteries is the thought process behind Robin’s story. He’s a good character. He’s likable. He and Regina were a popular couple. He interacted well with the rest of the class. He’s an adaptation of one of the most famous, coolest characters of all time meaning he shouldn’t have been hard to write for. But then they brought back “Marian” and everything went off the rails. Why did they take every opportunity in season 4 to complicate Regina and Robin’s relationship to the point where it was hard to root for? Why did they bring Marian back in the first place if they didn’t seem to have a plan for fixing that problem? Why is Robin a passive figure in the Regina-Zelena conflict instead of having his own much more justified conflict with Zelena to compliment that story? Why does Robin never have stories where he bonds with Henry the way Hook does? Why does season 5 seem to go out of its way to remove Robin from the story including literally sending him to go hide in the woods for episodes at a time? Why did they kill him? Why does it feel like the writers hated him and actively tried to sabotage any interesting role for him? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions. But I do know that a lot of the things they did to Robin are among my least favorite decisions the show made. 

1. Will Scarlet Will was so wasted on the main show, that I don’t think it’s even clear how wasted he was unless you watched the spinoff. I don’t know that they used him enough to on OUAT to endear him to you, unless you already loved him on OUATIW. And people DID love him on the spinoff, because he’s the one character they chose to keep when the spinoff was cancelled. But then, in another one of season 4′s trademark, bizarre decisions, they seemed to have NO plans for how to use him on the main show. Will is a great character-- for me personally he’s in my top three characters through the whole run of the show-- he’s complex, he’s charming, he’s funny, he’s sweet, he’s brave, he’s damaged, he’s flawed.  And they had so little for him to do on the show that they actor quit because it wasn’t worth it to him to show up and do nothing. He floats in and out of the plot, he doesn’t have lines in the finale, he hardly forms any connections with the main cast (his only firm connections are with Belle and Robin who are often sidelined themselves), he’s not connected in any way to either the author story line or the Snow Queen story line, his backstory is never explored and even what does exist from the spinoff is never explained to viewers who didn’t watch that. Even his one significant role as a rival love interest for Belle is never fleshed out (we don’t see them meet, we don’t see them start dating, we barely see them together-- there are one-off guest characters with more developed love stories) and is misguided  because at this point a new love interest for Belle should have been presented as a real possibility (even if they were always planning on going back to Rumple) because of how broken her relationship with Rumple was, but Will is not a real possibility because he’d already been promised a happily ever after with Ana. Their disregard for Will is so bad, that when the actor left the show, they didn’t even spare a single line of dialogue to explain what happened to Will. He’s just forgotten about completely and never mentioned again. 

#ouat #ouat rewatch #august booth #lily page #will scarlet #ouat robin hood #jefferson the mad hatter #the other one i considered is mulan #but personally i find the character underdeveloped more than underused #with a lot of the non-main princess characters i feel like they kept too close to the disney versions for me to really want a lot more of it #you can do whatever you want with a new character #or with the mad hatter or pinocchio because no ones protective of them #so you can do whatever you want with them #and that means there's a lot of possibility #but when you're trying to maintain the personality and image of disney's little mermaidthe world isn't quite so open #there are also some season 7 characters i'd like more of #but that's less about the show wasting them and more about the show just getting cancelled before it had the opportunity

[aeruthien]

1, 6, 7 11, 15

Thank you, anon <3

1. What themes would you like to write about that you feel don't get explored very often? In the fantasy genre, especially high fantasy, the general plot often revolves around good vs. evil. The heroes are chosen/take on Evil McEvil, who is a representation of everything bad happening in the world.

What I would like to see more of is other genres existing in the fantasy world (and I feel fanfic is really good at this): give me a rom-com except there are mermaids and orcs. Give me a heist-movie except it is in a steam punk setting. If I'm ever going to write original fiction I'll probably try to explore some of that.

6. What point of view do you tend to write in? Do all of your pieces use the same POV? Do you have strong opinions on the POV used in novels? I write mostly in third person limited. I feel like the voice of the narration changes based on whose POV you are writing in, and fanfic are mostly character-driven pieces. It is sometimes a challenge to determine from which POV the scene is the most interesting, or how the scene changes when written from another character’s POV, but figuring that out is also the fun part of it. In a third person omniscient, that personal flavour is lost.

For novels I don't really care, although I think it depends on the style/purpose of the book. It is a choice the author makes, and it should suit the story. In LOTR, the omniscient POV makes sense. In GOT, it does not.

7. Favorite description in your wip? (If asked more than once, respond with a new piece each time) This is set in between s3 and s4, Hayley dealing with her grief for Jackson, and the effort she is now putting into saving the Mikaelsons but never put in saving him. Hayley takes off, not following a particular path. Within minutes, she has left the village behind. The wind ruffles through her fur as she increases her pace. Faster and faster she runs, until her paws barely hit the ground. She continues on, before suddenly coming to a stop.

For a moment, the only sound she can hear is her panting, hard and fast, but as she catches her breath, the world comes alive around her. Animals scurrying back and forth in search for food, the wind rustling the leaves, water dripping down a small underground stream.

The heavy weight still sits on her chest, and she throws her head back and howls. The sound carries over the hills and fields, echoing back to her. They had sung together, her pack, she and Jackson, when they had been trapped in her wolf form. Sung to the moon and the stars.

But there was no one to sing with now. A deep sorrowful whine starts in her chest, and she lets it grow, infusing it with all the love and pain she felt for her pack and for her husband. How grateful she is, for all they have done for her and her child, for the pain she feels at their loss. It is an ode and a lament, for what was and what could have been.

But not for what it is. Not any more.

With the final notes, she tells them goodbye.

The valley is silent after she stops. Even the other animals seem to have paused, in respect for her song. Soon after, though, the scurrying and dripping and chirping continues, and Hayley knows that life will go on.

Always and Forever.

11. Set the scene for us. What are your settings like and do you have any pictures saved that represent them? Do your characters travel and see more than one? What are their names? If there is a real place I am describing, I tend to look up some references. For example for The Howling, or any of the flashbacks stories in TO, I did some research into which castles were build in the 10th-12th century, how people lived, what kind of houses there were, etc.. In the story itself the characters usually stay in one place, but my various WIPs do take place in different countries and in different time periods, so there has to be some kind of feeling for time and place.

15 Why physical quirks do your characters tend to have? Eyebrow raising, picking nails, biting lips, pacing, crossing arms, etc. Elijah tilts his head a lot, and his lips curl up in amusement (either warmly or coldly). Klaus is a master at smirking. Hayley does this thing where she clasps her hands in front of her when she is nervous, and Cami for some reason has a bag with her which she can clutch. I don't have any OCs, so I tend to picture the characters in my mind and rewatch some scenes of the original show to get their quirks right, but I am sure I have exaggerated some of them lol.

#writer's questions #thank you for sending this in! #these questions really force you to think #Anonymous

[rallamajoop]

Inception: A Fannish Retrospective

For a while now I’ve found myself craving a fic of a particular hard-to-define quality – something with a bit of grit and maturity – not graphic or grim, but perhaps the kind of seedy underworld setting you might find in the better parts of Tarantino or Guy Richie’s oeuvre. The kind of fic that lets me believe that if the author toned down the slash and published it as a mainstream crime or espionage thriller, I’d still be enthused about reading it. Cord Smithee’s work is a particularly good example, for the UNCLE fans out there, but you can only reread those fics so many times, and fic of that quality has been especially sparse in the last few fandoms I’ve drifted through, and so the craving lingered.

Then it hit me: hey, you know what fandom used to be really good for that kind of fic? Inception.

And after all this time in Venom fandom, it was hardly a big jump to more Tom Hardy, so.

Maybe the bigger wonder is that nearly ten years on, most of the fic is still just as good as I remember it being. Mirabella’s Towards Zero remains one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever read in any fandom, and delires’ chav!Eames AU is better than any idea that cracked has any goddamn right to be, and (at least as long as you’re into the juggernaut ship that is Arthur/Eames) you are spoilt for choice ­­for more.

But revisiting a fandom this much later and binging this much fic, you notice things. We’ll start with…

The Film

Still holds up on rewatching today. It will never be nearly as smart a film as I’ve seen some claim: totems, for one, make no fucking sense (they’re objects with details known only to you, but if Cobb can unintentionally bring a carbon copy of his wife into a dream, why not a top that falls over when spun? And why does it keep spinning indefinitely in dreams, anyway?), and for all the exposition on ‘kicks’, why the kicks need to be synchronised to work under sedation is woefully under-explained, to the point I’m always by distracted trying to make sense of it in the middle of the third act. (Do not even get me started on the ‘it’s actually about filmmaking!’ theory – the mental gymnastics required to explain how Yusuf or Mal fits in or why we’re so fixated on the importance of the set designer, of all roles, is laughable. Some of the parallels are moderately entertaining, but don’t try to tell me you’ve unlocked the secret meaning of the film – Inception is not a movie that makes you work that hard to find its main themes.)

But the film works despite its plotholes because it’s not, ultimately, a story driven by its mechanics: the endlessly spinning top may make no sense, but film is a visual medium, and it’s such a good visual gimmick it’s gets a pass. The practical stunts are still as impressive ever, but what really lifts Inception so far beyond your typical action/heist film – for me, at least – are the characters, and the huge emotional payoffs at the end. Fischer’s reconciliation with his father is no less moving for its falseness, “We did grow old together” has gotten a sniffle out of me time and again, and the final “We’ll be young men together” scene is wonderful in so many ways I could only dream there was the Cobb/Saito fic to live up to. It’s not for nothing I’ve got Inception mentally filed in my very short list of humanist action movies along with Mad Max: Fury Road, Terminator II, and precious few others.

And then there’s…

 The Fandom

Film fandoms are always an interesting beast, peaking as they do when the film is still in theatres, when most folks writing fic are working off imperfect memories of having seen an hour or two’s worth of canon maybe once or twice at most. Fanon can go feral in far less conducive environments, is my point here – inevitably, there’ll be the details that get analysed to death or flanderised to the point of parody, and the details that get altogether forgotten. Here’s just one example that hit me on a rewatch: I have lately read god knows how many different theories on just what it means that Arthur knew Eames was in Mombasa – none of them the least bothered by how everything in Cobb’s behaviour in that scene suggests he already knows exactly where he’s going, and may even be right now leaving to catch his flight. We could talk about the artefacts of clunky exposition being shoehorned into the dialogue, or the actual intent of that exchange, but shipper-goggles give you some powerful tunnel-vision (and I say this as someone who ships it like burning).

Binge as much fic as fast as I have in the last few months, and you begin to notice trends. Common themes and popular fanon that have ascended to gospel, and facets of the original film I’d love to see explored that fandom seems to have collectively missed altogether (and the sad lack of decent Cobb/Saito is only one). Below, in no particular order, are some of those observations.

Since most of these come across as critical, I want to emphasise that I have had a ball revisiting the fic in this fandom, and there are probably multiple fics guilty of everything I touch on below which I have loved to bits. It’s only the repetition that really starts to make you sit up and notice.

1.       The Cobb-bashing, oh my god the Cobb-bashing! I had forgotten just how much this fandom hates Cobb. In the film, Cobb’s plan is the only reason Arthur and Eames ever end up in the same room at all – yet in fanfic, Cobb has been recast as the only thing keeping them apart. I’m not kidding there – fic with that exact premise is almost its own genre. In Inception fanon, Cobb is crazy and cares only about himself, and Arthur has wasted years of misplaced loyalty keeping him alive. Fanon!Eames hates Cobb for monopolising Arthur’s attention (in the film, Eames seems underwhelmed to learn Cobb is still working with Arthur at all). Fanon!Eames only works with Cobb at all because it’s an excuse to work with Arthur (in the film, they’re barely capable of having a civil conversation). Fanon!Eames never forgives Cobb for concealing the level of sedation they were under Inception job, and nor does Arthur (in the film, no-one even mentions Cobb’s deception after they leave the first level, and Eames’ main disappointment at the end is that he won’t get to see the Fischers’ big reconciliation, but why let that douse a good hateboner?) Meanwhile, Yusuf’s corresponding betrayal and Arthur’s equally-disastrous research-fail are rarely referenced. It’s not every fic, but the base level of Cobb-hate around these parts is pretty astounding. There’s nothing new about fans bashing the main character for having the gall to take screentime away from their OTP, and I’d be the last to play down Cobb’s real failings. But when one finds oneself tempted to leave enthusiastic comments on decade-old fic, praising the author for giving Cobb a minor scene or two where he gets to be a total bro to Arthur for a change… I promise you, it’s not me, it’s this fandom.

2.       For all that Eames is basically the single biggest reason I’m reading in this fandom, his fanon characterisation leaves something to be desired. I do get the appeal of flirty!Eames or pining!Eames – it’s just that once in a while, you find yourself longing for fic about the guy who was actually in the movie – y’know, the one who’s first response to Arthur’s name was, “Arthur? Are you still working with that stick-in-the-mud?” I am totally down with the idea he was feigning indifference– maybe for Cobb’s benefit, maybe he’s actively in denial himself, whatevs. But fanon!Eames characterisation typically ranges from “hopelessly in love with Arthur from the moment they met” to “a walking sexual harassment lawsuit in action,” and neither of those guys could convincingly feign indifference to save their lives. It’s also a shame we don’t see more of the side of Eames that got so genuinely, unashamedly invested in what they were doing for Fischer – quite beyond the money and the prestige, Eames loves that they get to fix Fischer’s relationship with his father and reveal Browning as the rat that he is, and it’s a wonderfully humanising side to such a shady character. There should be so much scope in there to cast Eames was a guy with a real idealistic streak, or more conscience than he’d usually admit to, or just an abiding love for melodrama – the possibilities go on and on (and if you can’t think of a dozen ways to tie any of those in as fuel for his rivalry with Arthur for bonus shippy fodder, you aren’t even trying). But that part of Eames never does seem to have found a place in the fandom’s collective headcanon, because hell if I can find any exploration of it in fic, le sigh. (Cynically, I have to wonder if it’s because it clashes with the fanon where Eames spent the Inception job furiously hating Cobb and focused on Arthur, but even that seems somewhat lacking as an answer. Who even knows?)

3.       As a corollary to the above, remarkably few fics make any attempt to deal with the fact that Arthur and Eames a) basically hate each other, b) for reasons that do not entirely revolve around how Arthur won’t put out. Obviously, this is a ‘hate’ that covers a much deeper well of underlying respect, but these are two guys who only stop taking potshots at each other when they’re being shot at for real, and to me that is 95% of the fun of the pairing – why does no-one even seem to try to recreate that dynamic in fic? Even 99% of Eames’ infamous ‘flirting’ would be better described as him pulling Arthur’s pigtails. Yet virtually no-one seems to want to tackle their antipathy head-on – even fic that acknowledges it as a past phase of their relationship isn’t set during that phase. I’m all for seeing them eventually end up friendlier, but you’ve got to show me how they get there first – that’s the good bit! Why does everyone skip over it? :((((

4.       This fandom has SUCH a thing for underage!Arthur. Fics will go on and on about how young he looks, or theorise that he was actually underaged when he first got into dreamshare, or at least looked it. Seriously, the idea of Eames having mistaken Arthur for a teen when they first met is, like, the accepted pan-fandom headcanon as to why they don’t get on (unless we’re in military-backstory land, in which case it’s that Arthur had to deal with Eames hitting on him during the time of DADT). Then there are the many (MANY) AUs where Arthur really is a teen, hitting on the much-older Eames – there’s that one semi-parody where even twenty-something!Arthur gets cockblocked by his own looks, and there’s even at least one that flips things so that Eames the one who was underage when they met, just for variety.

It’s a real Thing, and I only wish I understood where it comes from, since (to me) Arthur has always looked like the 29yo man JGL legitimately was back when Inception hit screens – I don’t think he’d even passed as a Hollywood!teen for a solid half a decade at that point. So… are there really that many people who thought JGL looked that young when the film came out, or is this just one of those fannish meme things? I may never know.

5.       No-one (by which I mean almost no-one) gets how limbo works. Fic after fic treats it as basically just a garden-variety coma, and colleagues can spend days or months moving the victim, gathering a team and planning a complex rescue. Rarely is it ever remembered the whole point of limbo is that you can age and die trapped in your own mind in no more than hours in the real world. When Eames talks about being ‘trapped in limbo until our brains turn to scrambled egg’, I think it’s safe to assume he’s being pretty literal. Basically, if you’re not treating limbo as the temporal equivalent of the Total Perspective Vortex, you’re probably doing it wrong.

6.       No-one does anything interesting with Ariadne. This, I have some sympathy for: it’s hard to know where to go with someone who ends the film where she does – her push-pull relationship with the world of illegal dreamshare is not a contradiction that can be easily resolved in a subplot, if at all. But the Ariadne who so quickly had Cobb picked as a loose canon never seems to appear in fic either, and nor does the Ariadne with the guts to sneak into his dream to find answers, or the prodigy whose last-minute moment of inspiration saved the whole job. No, Inception fic is more likely to give you an Ariadne who giggles and drags her teammates out partying than any of that, which is absurd to the point of being genuinely offensive. Seriously, that is some A-grade “all we remembered about her is that she’s female”-bullshit. Even when she’s not saddled with OOC giggle fits, fic!Ariadne also remains frustrating static: years after the film, she’ll still be doing extractions with the Inception team, despite seeming no more at home in their world. Where’s the Ariadne who embraces the underworld wholeheartedly and reaches Arthur or Cobb levels of badassery? The Ariadne whose natural gifts and overconfidence get her into Cobb-levels of trouble? Who takes the Inception job as inspiration to go into therapeutic uses of dreams? Who finds legitimate dream-related work through Miles or Saito, but still lets the old team drag her back into extractions every once in a while (because she’s easily one of the most reliable architects in the whole shady business, and there’s a part of her that still kind of loves it)? WHERE?

The obvious rejoinder to all this is that it’s hardly surprising Ariadne doesn’t get much play when you’re mostly reading Arthur/Eames fic. So (because the land of fic is still terrible at cataloguing character-specific gen) I had a dig through some Arthur/Ariadne fic for comparison – only to run into much the same frustrations all over again. No-one takes her character anywhere very interesting.

So you can imagine my surprised delight when I tried a couple of Arthur/Ariadne/Eames fics on a whim, and almost immediately found not one but two different stories willing to dive headfirst into the questions surrounding Ariadne’s future in the world of illegal dreamshare (plus multiple stories which made a very convincing case that Ariadne should absolutely celebrate their successful Inception by having a threesome with her colleagues, I mean, damn).

I have absolutely no idea what it says about fandom that I had to go looking at threesome fic to find real character development, but at this point, I’ll take it.

7.       So, I get why everyone reads Eames as queer (duh), but having discovered two quite excellent straight!Eames fic (which is to say, fic which utterly sells the idea that Eames considers himself straight or had no experience with men until long after meeting Arthur), the fact no equivalent seems to exist for Arthur baffles me. Sure, there’s one or two stories where one smile from Eames is about all it takes to make him change his mind, and one great kink meme fill that might have been just what I was looking for if it had ever been finished. But otherwise, the idea that Arthur (a guy who snogs Ariadne and is given no other obvious sexuality) -- the same Arthur whom every other fic portrays as seriously emotionally repressed – the idea this guy might not be experienced and comfortable dating men just… doesn’t seem to have occurred to anyone. Which is so weird.

Is there not enough RL evidence that Tom Hardy can and does make straight guys reconsider their preferences? Is the idea of an Arthur who’s repressed that side of his own sexuality not a juicy enough explanation for the tension between them? How on earth did we wind up with a fandom where Eames is more likely to be the designated “straight” one at the start of the story than Arthur? The mind boggles.

Holy shit, you’re still reading? Damn! Have some more recs as thanks for listening to me ramble at so much length.

Recs!

Here’s those two from the top again, because I really do love them that much

We Can Do This Until We Pass Out by delires Disturbing London, baby, we about to branch out. (The one where Eames is a chav)

Towards Zero by Mirabella Five levels down, and five to dig yourself back out.  Arthur met Eames' projection long before he met Eames.

Where the Dead Live also by Mirabella There's a monster in Arthur's basement.  Maybe he shouldn't have invited it in. It’s the vampire!Apocalypse, and this one is intense. Utterly brilliant, but equally unapologetic about the implications of its premise. So, for a somewhat-lighter take on monster!Eames, I will also throw in:

Cthonical’s demon!Eames verse Unfinished -- arguably never even properly started, just a series of ficlets from a ‘verse that never quite got written, but they are scorching hot and still well worth a look.

That’s a lot of darker fic though, probably time to lighten the mood a little.

Anal [Inception] aka Not Now Cobb We're Doing BGs also by cthonical Arthur and Eames both play WoW. They kick ass at Warsong Gulch, and when they team up they’re nigh on unstoppable.They don’t know they’re playing with each other.

Champion Sound by pyrimidine Prompt: Arthur is a DJ, Eames is a bartender.

London Bridge by sorrynotsorry Arthur loves whiskey, and maybe strippers. 

My two favourite Arthur/Eames/Ariadne fics

How to Cure Insomnia by wonderfulwrites When she called Arthur for advice on how to deal with the unexpected insomnia - okay, fine, on the pretense of asking for advice – she hadn’t expected to have to wade through a sea of bodies to see him. But then, she also hadn’t expected Eames’s cheerful but surprising, Just come, Ariadne. You can sleep when you’re dead.  Or Eames, at all, really. The Wind on the Mountain by Starlingthefool Something in her rebels against this casual, passive seduction. God knows why, but she’s sitting up in the water, taking her foot back from Eames and dislodging Arthur’s hands from her back. She stands, wet underwear clinging ridiculously to her, and says to Arthur, “All right. Your turn.”

Aaand let’s have a few more straight Arthur/Eames to round it out.

Untitled and Untitled, redux by Helenish -- two variants on a theme, and do not let the lack of proper titles put you off, they’re both great.

Unexpected Plot Twist by ethrosdemon Post-Inception -- long and (as promised) twisty, and a very solid read.

Four Corners by Mithrigil In Eames’ line of work, a first impression means nearly everything. It’s always a pity when he doesn’t get off on the right foot.

Kiss With A Fist  by cmonkatiekatie Because apparently, to find real Arthur/Eames antagonism, I have to go looking for hate sex. (Not complaining, this is some amazing hate sex.)

And also basically Everything by Wiltling There’s a darker vibe to their work, but it rarely gets oppressive -- just generally a lot of great fic.

#Inception #meta #fic recs