#IDK THIS SHOW HAS MADE WEIRD NARRATIVE CHOICES

[sixstepsaway]

right, so, here are my Thoughts about that whole thing now i've slept on it. probably won't be super coherent but here we go

i feel bad for stede. he got shoved, somehow, into the weird love interest role so many female characters find themselves in, where they are truly completed by a man and a romance not the things they've been striving for throughout the series so far. he's shown no sign of wanting to give up the pirate lifestyle he's just finally got back, and to accompany him giving that up with izzy's gorgeous "piracy is about family and somewhere to belong" speech from earlier just feels cruel. we joke about how episode 2 stede wouldn't care if lucius died but that changed, he got attached, his crew became his family. they were loyal to him and followed him even when they were just working at spanish jackie's for pennies. they respected him and loved him enough to let him talk them into letting ed back on board. this was, at least at this point in stede's arc, his happy ending. in fact, you can even argue he was happy without ed for a while at the start of this episode. his relationship with ed is important and it's icing on the cake, but it isn't something to complete him, or his only source of happiness -- nor should it be!!! and then for some reason ed shows back up, fishes up his leathers, kicks ass to save him, loses izzy and now they're leaving stede's ship and crew and found family to... run an inn made out of the world's shittiest fixer-upper? stede? stede twirly fancypants bonnett??? in that place? maybe at the end of a full run this might have felt like a good conclusion to his story, him realizing he wanted belonging, not necessarily to be a pirate, and maybe them bringing some of crew along to have their home somewhere safer and happier than the piracy they don't really enjoy but turn to because they have no other choice, but right now it just feels like... honestly like either he agreed to it to keep ed with him ("AITA for convincing my boyfriend to run an inn with me after leaving him two days ago because we were moving too fast? little backstory: this involved my boyfriend leaving everything in his life for me and no i did not apologize for running off to become a fisherman") or like, as i said up there, a matter of "actually all he needed was a BOYFRIEND all along" which... ngh. stede is more than his relationship.

idk why we bothered establishing that frenchie, jim and even archie were willing to put their lives on the line and lie to ed's murderous face to save izzy's life just for them to be stone-faced and have no feelings about his loss. like, okay, ed and he's stories are tied together and him dying in ed's arms makes more sense narratively than him dying in anyone else's, but also ed hadn't earned that and izzy deserved to die in the arms of someone who hadn't tried to kill him and shot him in the leg not to mention we went from fang's squishy hug and frenchie holding his hand to just... nothing? not a thing? roach, the ship's surgeon, did nothing to try and save him? it's just ed slapping his gunshot wound pathetically?

it strongly feels like they swapped izzy and ed's roles in his death scene sounds stupid but hear me out "you're my only family" would make so much more sense coming from izzy with ed dying in his arms. izzy's desperation to keep hold of ed, right down to accidentally pushing him down the kraken path at the end of season 1, being rooted in the feeling that ed is all he has in the world? ed responding that no, the crew love izzy. he's earned their love. he has a family outside of ed now, can't he see that? that makes so much more sense, considering izzy nearly died for them multiple times and spent the first few episodes trying to protect them and then being protected by them in kind he was their new unicorn!!! meanwhile ed said sorry to fang, izzy and lucius, and no one else has been shown to give any fucks about him since that whole thing, and like... rightly so? because he hadn't earned them back at all? and he fucked off on them too last episode lol dont forget he didnt JUST leave stede

we should have known better than to trust djenks when he broke jim and olu up for no reason ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ idk

nothing worth a damn happened this episode it was all running around and waving swords. idk how anyone got to where they were at the end. it was just poor writing.

the pacing has been off all season but they really shoved three episodes into one and hoped it'd work

i'm getting flashbacks to the timeless ~finale~ ugh

they spent so much time one ed's stupid fishing boat monologue instead of on ANYTHING ELSE

i ran out of thoughts

oh, here's another: the show walked a line between muppetry and things that were taken seriously lucius' finger, izzy's toes: serious ed getting bonked by a cannonball: emotionally serious, but not physically serious ed and stede both getting stabbed: not serious and what was treated as serious and what was treated as handwavy was dictated by what the storyline and the emotional needs were izzy getting shot to make it so they all had to run away yapping would have been hilarious, especially if he got back to the ship and went "nah eddie it's my left side, remember what i told you about the left? nothing important on the left" "your liver" <- roach, horrified but instead weird death scene because this was treated as physically serious, even though it...should not have been, really? and that is bothering me a lot too, because when lucius was thrown to his death, we looked at stede finding the crew on the island and went, "aha! lucius will be fine, because that's what the show logic is" and we were right, because the show had taught us that but that didn't extend to izzy for this and that's just weird

#ofmd #ofmd spoilers #izzy hands

[stellaluna33]

How about that time when ASP bragged that Rory only had her first time when she was 19/20 or something, wasn’t it weird that she was so proud of that, especially when she “made” her have such a lousy first time, married man and all?

Why was Rory being a virgin until “late” that groundbreaking for ASP, I wonder?

If I’m not mistaken she was shading other teen shows that had their protagonists/leading ladies having their first times earlier, and idk once again it just looks like she digs shaming girls for having sex.

Personally, I used to love that Rory was still a virgin until college bc I could relate to her even more because of that, haha, I just got kinda disappointed that Amy seemed to see it as some sort of quality?

Sorry, English is not my first language so idk if I’m expressing myself very well, but yeah I’m curious to o know more opinions about this.

The way I understand it, Amy was under a lot of pressure from the network to make Rory "sexier." But why should a teenage girl character HAVE TO have sex to be a worthwhile or relatable character? She shouldn't! But that kind of mindset was what ASP was pushing back against, and maybe it's an unpopular opinion, but I actually really appreciated that. What you have to understand is that when I grew up watching teen media from the 80s and 90s (and going into the early 2000s), there was persistent messaging that still being a "virgin" by the time you graduated from highschool was kind of embarrassing. Losing your virginity was widely viewed as some sort of necessary "milestone" instead of a very personal and optional choice. (Especially for boys, but there was a lot of that for girls in TV and movies also) It wasn't until right around the turn of the millennium that I remember starting to see movies/shows that QUESTIONED that idea, that started asking well, WHY, though? When there started occasionally being characters who expressed that they shouldn't HAVE to have sex just to fit in. That it should be a PERSONAL choice. And like, I'm not a historical scholar- I haven't done a STUDY of whether this is accurate or not, but this is what it FELT LIKE to me as a teenager. And it FELT LIKE Rory was a really refreshing character for nerdy girls like me and my friends- that it was OKAY if you hadn't had sex yet. It was OKAY for a teenage girl to be focused more on academic or career aspirations rather than "losing her V-card," or that maybe she just doesn't feel ready yet, and it doesn't make her a "loser" or a "prude!" Like, that felt like SUCH a rare thing! ASP wanted to write a character like that, partly because it hadn't been done much, and she got a lot of pushback from the Network about it (which is kind of gross?). And I just... don't think that necessarily means that she was "slut shaming" anyone else.

I confess to being surprised when I started seeing people on here saying that Gilmore Girls had a "negative" view of sex. (This got long, sorry!)

Like, Lorelai has an active sex life with a variety of different partners over the course of the series, and that seems to be portrayed as normal and morally neutral. Sookie has an active and healthy sex life. When Rory is sleeping with Logan in college, the narrative seems to paint Richard and Emily (and the unfortunate Reverend they brought in) as ridiculous and controlling for objecting. Paris and Doyle have an active and enthusiastic sex life, and the narrative doesn't seem to judge them for it... I do admit that there does seem to be a pattern of unfortunate "first times" for the younger characters, but I wonder if that's more about Amy's addiction to "drama" than her views on sex. About Paris specifically, I always interpreted her paranoia about being "punished" for having sex as being commentary about how SOCIETY judges girls for having sex (because Reality for girls was a lot different from the pop culture fantasy norms). Gilmore Girls just wasn't interested in portraying some kind of "ideal world." They were just "putting these guys in Situations." And I mean... it's a show largely about generational trauma stemming from a teenage pregnancy! The characters are going to have some complicated and probably even unhealthy feelings about sex! And can I be honest for a minute? Much like attitudes towards our bodies, I'm honestly a proponent of what I'm going to call "sex neutrality." Because, yeah, sex is supposed to be fun and feel good and even be beautiful... And ideally it is! But sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's bad or painful or awkward or emotionally messy or damaging or degrading. Are we supposed to pretend that doesn't happen? Because it does. Are TV characters just not supposed to acknowledge that side of it? I don't know. I don't think Gilmore Girls is a perfect show. I don't agree with everything ASP thinks or everything the characters do. But I do think sometimes viewers want to see some kind of "message" where there just isn't one. Anyway, this is just my opinion, and I may be wrong about one or several things! 😆

#Gilmore Girls #Feeling a bit like I'm wading into shark-infested waters here... #😂

[transmascutena]

Never got around telling you that I watched the transfeminism in utena essay and loved it!

Today I finally rewatched Adolescence and loved it as well, I think it's one of my favorite movies, it's visually stunning and so amazingly haunting/hypnotizing, felt like I was in a trance while watching it.

(and oh my god Anthy is my favorite character in anime of all time, I adore that she gets so much more dialogue and screen time in this, specially towards the end. Hearing her say the "Give me the power to revolutionize the world!" line made me tear up)

Just wondering your thoughts on it, or your favorite thing about it (?) Idk! If you have any rant about aou I'd love to read it

sure, i'll rant a bit about aou! this is mostly just my thoughts on various parts i like and dislike, not really any analysis.

i have mixed feelings on adolescence that change every time i watch it but mostly they're positive. i think my favorite thing about it is anthy. i love that we get to see her be more free and more forward. i love that it's her narrative, that we get to see what her and ohtori are like without akio (though still haunted by him.) i love the reading of the movie as a sequel, in that the show is about anthy escaping her abuse, while the movie is about the lingering trauma from it. i love the "we were together in killing the prince" line from utena at the end. i love that they're both free and together now. i also love the visuals of it, of course, it's a gorgeous movie. and i appreciate that we get to see utena and anthy in a much more explicitly romantic relationship, even though i do prefer the subtlety of the show by a lot. all their scenes together are very good, but i especially like the bedroom scene, the dance scene, and the drawing scene (i want to write some proper analysis of them sometime). i love the layers of metaphor and symbolism in every part of the movie, and that it feels even more abstract than the show. i love the car scene, it's silly and it's symbolic and it's emotionally impactful <3

on the other hand i think pretty much every part of the movie that isn't about anthy and utena is .. not very good in comparison (to the parts that are about them, and to the show.) which makes sense when you read the movie as anthy's narrative. of course she's not really focused on any of the other characters. saionji especially lacks literally all of his depth, which i think is just funny when thinking about it through that interpretation. uh, i hate the nanami cow scene which i've talked about before. i think it's unnecessary and uncomfortable and purposeless. i do however like that she doesn't appear in ohtori, because of the implication that she escaped. i appreciate touga's backstory reveal, though i don't really care for his role in the movie very much. it's never felt all that coherent to me, though i do understand what it's saying about the themes of the prince being dead. shiori has a weird antagonistic role that i don't know how to feel about. she's lacking a lot of her depth too, and i'm not sure i fully understand her motivations. or maybe i do and they're just not that interesting to me. hmm what else . akio is a far less interesting character than in the show also, but i think it works. he's not very intimidating, incredibly pathetic even, because anthy has already left/has already made the choice to leave him. also i like that he kills himself :)

i don't want to directly compare it to the show when talking about what i like about it, because obviously i like the show more. but i don't think the movie is trying to like.. compete with the show in terms of which you like better. because it isn't just a retelling of the same story. if it was, a 39 episode long tv series would always beat it in how developed its characters and themes are. which is why i think the movie works much much better when read as either a literal sequel to the show or as a continuation of its themes. it doesn't stand very well on its own in my opinion, aside from how pretty it is.

#adolescence of utena #asks #m

[mintywolf]

A Long Road Home - Author Notes

Page 25

Oh no, I made the whole Bradbury family adorable. (I guess it’s hereditary.)

I’m not sure exactly how old they’re supposed to be; by the time she’s 20 they’re both described as looking “older” but that was after 5 years of Bad Times Whitestone under the Briarwoods. So I’d guess early-mid 30’s? Kinda late (for the setting) to have a toddler. I like the implied fairy-tale motif of a couple who wanted a child for a long time finally ending up with a really weird one.

Imogen and Matilda both had unusually lonely childhoods because, despite both growing up on a farm, they don’t have any siblings. With Imogen it’s explained by Liliana leaving when she’s still a baby and Relvin never remarrying (and since he’s described as in his mid-late 40’s with a 28-year-old daughter, they got married pretty early) but with Matilda I suppose either her parents either couldn’t have more children, or, after all the difficulty they had with her, didn’t want to risk any more. :/

Sooo . . . okay okay okay. If you’re familiar with the show you’ve probably figured out what’s going on here. (If you’re not, don’t worry, Imogen doesn’t know either so it still has to be explained to her as well as the audience. You’re not totally out of the loop here.) There have been a few hints along the way, and a few clever readers picked up on it in advance. (Gold star!)

After Episode 37 I got really excited about the possibility that Imogen coming into contact with Laudna’s soul in the little memory vignettes we see in the shadow realm might have changed, if not the actual past, the memories themselves. (Idk how many people remember this short comic I drew on the subject in between 37 and 38.) Episode 38 did confirm that they managed to influence at least one; she remembers feeling their presence when she was building Pâté, so that a little bit of all of them ended up in him. (Which, given this table, explains a lot about his personality.) But I think, though, that by “it rewrote that memory a little bit” she probably means her experience reliving it in the Domain of Dread and not the actual memory, because she says with them there “it didn’t feel so lonely that time,” so she still has the original memory.

I got really attached to the idea though, and as with my last comic I had kind of wanted to include a slight road-not-taken AU element, something just to the left of canon but within the bounds of possibility presented by it, so it’s not just a straightforward retelling. (Incidentally both twists involved the characters being bonded on a soul-deep level.) Here it’s that Laudna can remember Imogen, in what is still the future for her, meeting her in her past.

That throughout all the loneliest parts of her life she had the memory of this loving presence and a voice that had spoken to her with kindness and told her it was going to be okay. That when she awoke, terrified and alone, from death the first time it was with the memory of having been told, “when it starts to get scary, you just come find us. We’re gonna get you home.” That even in her 30+ years of wandering the earth being chased from hovel to hovel she knew that there was a home somewhere out there in someone who needed and loved her.

I just . . . have a lot of feelings about Episode 37.

It ended up fitting really well with another recurring theme I have planned/written for Laudna in this that will become more apparent as she continues to share her story with Imogen, in that she isn’t a totally reliable narrator, even when she’s letting her into her mind, and she has contrasting memories of why things are the way they are. (Did she, for example, name herself “Laudna” after gothic literature drug of choice laudanum, or because of what she used to sing to Pâté, or, a secret, third thing . . . because it’s what Imogen called her in the past?)

It also, narratively, gives her a reason to come to Marquet in the first place, and gives some direction to her three decades of wandering around. What she said a few pages ago about having been searching for Imogen her entire life wasn’t just romance novel-inspired sappiness. She has actually been searching for her for that long!! (That whole page is probably worth a reread now that you know the thing.)

There have been a few other dropped bread crumbs along the way, which a couple people noticed right from her first appearance when Imogen overhears her thinking that “it probably isn’t even the right town,” implying that she’s looking for one in particular. On the next page there’s also this panel, which, when unblurred by a concussion, looks like this:

Not that significant-looking but it’s also from Episode 37 (and which I only deploy for purposes of inflicting suffering, haha, it is uttered by a 1 hp Matilda in Remember Us too) when Imogen reaches out to Matilda’s mind for the last time and she reaches back in recognition to lay her hand up against hers on the other side of the window.

I think this particular Past Matilda encounter, chronologically the earliest, actually makes the best case for Imogen and the other Hells having reached through the veil somehow. All the other memories they see involve some notable event in her life — she’s creating Pâté, she’s being betrayed and having her heart broken by her first crush, she’s getting ready for the dinner party that’s about to change (and end) her life. But when they meet Matilda at age 3 (an age it’s rare to have many coherent memories of to begin with) she’s not doing anything but playing by herself in the barn. The most memorable thing about it is that it’s the first time she met Imogen.

Now, here’s the conversation from the show with Baby Tillie taking place in panel 1 of this page:

Imogen: Laudna? . . . Matilda? Are you there? Matilda: Yeah? Imogen: I want to find you and help. Can you show me the path? Matilda: I’m just playing by myself. Imogen: Where are you? Matilda: I’m playing in the barn. Imogen. The barn. Is that outside of town? Matilda: Usually. But not today. Imogen: Can you see the tree, honey? Matilda: No, the tree scares me. Imogen: What does the barn look like? Matilda: Well, it’s kind of red, and it’s tall. It’s got big doors on it. I’m up at the top of it. There’s a ladder you take, and I made some dolls. (Pause) Imogen: We’re coming up, honey. Orym: Hey, Matilda. Hey. Are you by yourself here? Imogen: Who are the dolls, honey? Matilda: They’re . . . I made a nice woman, and I made a bird that can take me away from here. Imogen: We can be that bird for you. We can take you away. Matilda: Where will we go? Imogen: Home. Somewhere safe. Is there . . . is there a mean woman around here? Matilda: Yeah. She won’t let me leave. Imogen: Have you seen her lately? Matilda: She’s sort of out that way. (points towards the tree) Ashton: Matilda? Can you tell me about this drawing? It’s interesting. What were you thinking? Matilda: That’s what’s beyond the city. That’s what everything is now. Imogen: Have you tried to leave? Matilda: The tree won’t let me. Orym: You’re going to come with us, Matilda. We’re gonna go. Would you like that? Matilda: The tree won’t let me. (discussion about escaping the barn) Imogen: Matilda, do you have a secret way out of here? (She disappears)

For when we see it again here (which we will eventually) I rewrote it a bit to fit onto a single comic page (and also so it seems less like Bells Hells is attempting to abduct a toddler haha D: ) but the emphasis is the same. She’s alone and scared in a nightmare place and a benevolent presence tells her, “Come home.”

The title of the comic probably makes more sense now. :)

(Kinda mad because I had “Imogen is Laudna’s home” as an overarching theme long before FRIDA slid into Imogen’s DMs with “home can be a person” and now it’s going to be in everything, ever but oh well! It’s been here since the title page.)

#a long road home #author notes

[taehyungfirst]

https://www.tumblr.com/cocamalfeta/747686083101409280/hi-i-was-wondering-whats-your-opinion-on-the-in?source=share

I was reading your asks and this made me pause. I am strictly a Tae solo but I like other members too. Earlier my go to content was bh cameras. Not smart ik, so I also assumed taekook was not very close because in that talk Jungkook looked awkward when he was giving that interview. It looked weird but I was like oh well. I was new to the fandom mind you. Took me a while but I started watching fan cams, old videos and it was hard to digest why such good friends before 2016/2017 I think became so awkward with each other. I did a little digging and I found bh camera shows and bombs don't even show them together and if they do it's brief or awkward. In fact earlier bv showed Tae to be a villian tbh. It boils my blood when I see bh treating Tae. This solo era literally confused me so much because I came to realise taekook were so much together and involved in each other activities and I thought they were just loosing their awkwardness. My theory was jihopekook were besties. I really don't understand why bh don't like to show taekook together on their cameras? And why taekook like different in bh cameras (aloof, awkward) than public cameras (very close and comfortable). What was the need to show both of them in that talk and with their shady subs? If they really wanted to show depression thing shouldn't Jimin be the ideal choice? It's in his nature to comfort people as well bh has assigned that role to him especially with maknae line. Vmin could have bonded because we have also seen changes in their friendship. I think it made more sense with all their soulmate bs. I just don't understand what bh made them show taekook (one of the most popular duo) awkward rather than capitalising them. Because of their ass hattery Tae gets dragged everytime he shows even an ounce of connection to Jungkook.

Sorry for the long rant. Just been seeing Tae getting dragged on x due to some nonsense and it renews my hate for bh.

Hi! I hope my reply made you pause in a positive way and not in a negative one.

I’m gonna start saying “And why taekook like different in bh cameras (aloof, awkward) than public cameras (very close and comfortable).” that I don’t agree with this part because to me they don’t act awkward on camera, idk if it’s because I’ve been in the fandom for years but I think they act very normally, but the subs, the cuts, the context could lead to misunderstandings.

I think that they just showed that talk to grasp an opportunity, because everyone noticed the lack of footage and bh used that occasion to say “look it’s because they weren’t close before” when it’s really not true, like before ITS, in an award ceremony Tae leaned on Jk because he was tired (I think everyone knows what clip I’m talking about). I used this as an example, but I could say million other things that happened in 2020 to show that the “awkward duo” is a narrative pushed by bh and cult freaks.

#ignore the people on twt they’re airheads and they’re jealous of taehyung they want his validation #ask #taekook #taehyung #jungkook

[autisticcassandracain]

Batkids ranked from best to worst candidate to take over the Batman mantle according to my very objective (/sarcasm) opinions:

Cass: Cass is loyal to the bat symbol before all else; the bat pulled her out of an aimless, guilt-ridden existance and gave her purpose, a chance to help others, and she takes this very very seriously. She's canonically the most similar to Bruce out of everyone, and values the no killing rule more than him. She wants the job so bad, because to her, Batman is everything she could ever hope to be. Continuing the bat symbol into a new generation, to help and inspire others like her, would be the greatest honor for her. Becoming Batman would be the natural conclusion of her arc.

Dick: Has canonically been Batman and did very well at it, better even than Bruce, canonically. But Nightwing fits him better. He adapted to the Batman mantle, and eventually stopped being miserable in it, but it was a choice made out of necessity, not personal drive. Nightwing was his own creation and fits him like a second skin. He can do Batman, he can do it well, but it won't be natural for him like it would be for Cass.

Steph: There's a fucking curveball for you. Honestly Steph is here bc other than Cass and Dick I don't think there's a good choice for Batman, if Bruce kicks it and neither of them are around I think Batman should just die, but for the sake of this list we will look at how much I'd enjoy seeing the other kids take up the mantle in canon. Steph becoming Batman would be so funny. It'd be a great storytelling opportunity because there's no way she should even be in line so what happened? How does she deal with it? But most importantly, once again, it'd be SO FUNNY if Steph got the mantle of Batman after Bruce treated her as shittily as he did. That's what you get old man.

Tim: idk he'd handle the job badly and would be miserable but this is my list and I don't really care about him so he's here as a placeholder. If Tim became Batman I'd be annoyed but not enraged. So there.

Duke: Perhaps an unpopular opinion among Duke fans but I fucking hate the idea of Batman!Duke. It can work in very specific Elseworld circumstances like Dark Knights Metal but in the mainline continuity? Absolutely tf not. Duke's whole Thing is a radical departure from the batfam's status quo. He's thematically and literally attached to daylight, he has superpowers. Both of those are already wildly antithetical to Batman. In addition: his current hero identity is an homage to his mother. Why would he throw that away? Batman!Duke could be interesting for an arc or two, because all this WOULD make for interesting narrative conflict, but permanently? It'd be a wild misuse of Duke's character to take a character designed to defy the status quo and stick him in a mantle that exists to uphold it. If Bruce dies and Duke's the only one that could take over, Batman should die and Signal should take his place.

Damian: FUCK Batman!Damian all my homies HATE Batman!Damian. All those arcs and character development about how blood doesn't define him only for him to let blood define him, just on the other side of his family? You're all so fucking boring and you should feel bad. And while we're here, no he shouldn't be Nightwing either, that's only slightly less bad, why would stepping from one Dick Grayson legacy mantle to another denote character growth? I have OPINIONS on this. Damian should create his own identity to show that he's grown into his own and found his own path outside of his families. Also 90% of the arguments for Batman!Damian hinge on blood relations which is weird and creepy and also very very very boring.

Jason: I don't think I need to explain this.

Any variant of sharing the mantle: Every time the 'who should be the next batman' debate comes up there's always SOME motherfucker insisting that x and y can just share and two things to that: 1) coward, are you gonna hand out participation trophies next? 2) Batman should not be a status symbol. The batfam should not be a hierarchy with Batman at the top. That's the most boring way possible to approach the Batman mantle. I get that's what DC does in canon, but in canon, they won't ever let Bruce die permanently anyway, so what canon does is kinda a moot point. And frankly? Pretty much all 'x and y should share' arguments seem to be based in the idea that Batman is automatically a better, more prestigious mantle than all others, and that being deprived of it means you're worse than whoever took it. They want everyone to hold the mantle simulaneously because they don't want their fave(s) to 'lose'. It's not a competition of skill, it's a matter of narrative satisfaction. And the only character whose arc would be actively strengthened by becoming Batman is Cass. She shouldn't get it because she's the best fighter, or lose/share it because she's not the best detective; she should get it because it would be a perfect bookend to her arc of self hatred and self determination via the bat. Everyone else is better off with a solo identity or a different legacy mantle. So no, sharing is not a magic solution; it's a cop out.

#Batman isnt a competition but if it was cass would win #My posts #Infodumping #Cassandra cain #Dick grayson #Duke thomas #Stephanie brown #Damian wayne #Tim drake #Jason todd

[paintingformike]

I got really curious after one of your latest posts about your thoughts on bi mike vs gay mike. what's your main evidence for bi mike?

personally, I was a bi mike truther until I started my latest st rewatch a week ago. I always thought that mike had a genuine crush on el in season 1 but this time I noticed that mike didn't really show any romantic interest in her until lucas pointed out that mike likes el. before that, it was just mike being his friendly and caring self. and idk, every romantic moment between them seemed so forced to me, like mike was just doing what he thought he was supposed to be doing. and yeah, that whole dialogue before their first kiss was also weird. I haven't started season 3 yet, so maybe there will be some moments that'll show that mike is bi but for now, my only evidence of him being bi is byler/rockie parallels because vickie is clearly meant to be bi. I'm just so confused now, honestly, because I was so sure that mike is bi before this rewatch lol

sorry if some of these sentences don't make sense, my English is really bad...

nooo anon dont worry about your english, you’re perfectly understandable! to me personally i do see them portraying mike having genuine (but shallow) feelings for el via the inherently romantic tropes applied to them in s1-s2 (getting interrupted, the tiny bit of tension between them and all that), but that’s it, and the way i interpreted the painting plotline also makes me believe he had a shallow infatuation for el, but i’ve read a lot of gay mike analyses that have made me reconsider my stances on his sexuality and the byler storyline.

the byler/rockie parallels are also strong evidence of bi mike (and byler getting together in general) but it’s not really enough for me to discount the possibility of gay mike in the show considering a lot of points that make me believe they might go that route are narrative choices for his character. one example being the way he only showed interest in el after it was pointed out to him by other people, like you said, the stark contrast in how they make lucas and dustin show interest in multiple women but little to nothing from mike in comparison, they’ve also made him mirror will in this aspect (the way they both react to max in s2 compared to lucas and dustin).

season 3 was the most “i’m just doing what i think i’m supposed to do in typical het romantic relationships” season for mike because...he really was just being coached around by lucas constantly, looking totally clueless without him and most of his actions just him trying to adhere to societal expectations like getting his girlfriend a gift (?) and just. not initiating anything himself out of genuine love for el, he really needed a third party to hold his hand through navigating his relationship 😭 also the byler fight in s4 and how he said “thats because shes my girlfriend will” emphasizing the status of their relationship instead of saying something more genuine like el being important to him so obviously he’d write her letters...the majority of it was just him putting up a performance.

tbh he can still be bi and conforming to whats considered “normal” and thats what i was always firm in, but it can also be that they’re trying to portray how he really has no clue how to act when it comes to girls because he just feels no attraction to them. like the reason he needs his hand held through his relationship with a girl is because as a gay man it was never meant for him from the start, and the reason he can’t tell her he loves her is because...it was always impossible for him to feel anything towards her. he didn’t realize it at first (he wasn’t even sure of the difference between platonic and romantic before they kissed) but by s4 he was fully aware he only felt platonic care for el and was scared of losing her if he was honest about his true feelings (which explains the desert heart to heart he had with will.)

the duffers (or any other person from the writer’s room) have watched shows that portrayed internalized homophobia and characters that dated women while being cloested gay men, such as dawson’s creek and eyewitness, so that’s another factor that makes me think they could be writing mike to be gay because they’ve already gotten ideas of what it’s like, they’re not completely clueless. anyway this got too long (sorry anon i got carried away asjdksj) but the bottomline is i think both bi and gay mike have equal chances of being canon and are strong contenders in their own right, and while i used to think they wouldn’t explicitly confirm his sexuality, i realized they basically have to because they also need to clarify in the plot the true nature of mike’s feelings for el throughout their relationship and if he ever really loved her or felt attracted to her, it goes hand in hand with his sexuality arc and they can’t really just brush this over without leaving some kind of gaping hole in the storyline. mike’s gonna have to express how he really felt about el throughout their relationship so yeah...those are my two cents 👍

#i hope i was able to answer your question on anon #i feel like i ended up going in circles and went into a deep explanation of my thoughts oops #ask #byler #mike wheeler

[whoslaurapalmer]

gomens!!!! season 2!!!!!!!!!!! a collection of thoughts

-first of all. mother of goddamn fucking mercy, david tennant -his FACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -he was out there putting his whole entire BEING in this role and good for him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! holy shit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! goddamn

-related i loved crowley getting angry in ep1, that was gorgeous

-aziraphale the. landlord. LANDLORD??? -would aziraphale have charged rent in the first place? -he has no need for money vs keeping up human appearances vs he's petty but not like. landlord petty -show!aziraphale, though..........................

-idk. hold on i'm gonna say this now -i feel weird saying........'i might not have agreed with this choice' like especially weird here about this particular show because. -can i say i didn't dig a particular choice made by the man who co-wrote the book and co-wrote the episodes based on the book he co-wrote -like, i think that's just, entitled of me? or something like that. -but also. am allowed to disagree with neilman.

-like. the opening scene was Interesting (-also goodness is crowley not just the doctor in that scene. like damn. where's that post from a couple years back that was like 'david tennant knows his niche of playing near immortal beings with an attachment to a sentient vehicle, and can't drive' or whatever -anyway crowley really is just the doctor, living under different circumstances) -clearly there was time before eden, like, that's been very firmly established in all canons, otherwise when would crowley have fallen -i just didn't particularly. care to see it? -i think, crowley and aziraphale meeting in eden in particular, under those specific circumstances, under that discussion of ineffability vs free will, who did "Right" and who did "Wrong", was important, and -i felt like that was just being rehashed, here -and sometimes that vibe is important to continue -- do i think it was adequately addressed in all ways in s1? -- but sometimes i thought we were just doing the same sort of vibe over and over. and i wasn't sure if i liked it or not, if i thought it was narratively important or not -but!!!! the opening scene in ep 1 also matters a great deal for how ep 6 turned out.

-and there's also..............book!aziraphale+crowley and show!aziraphale+crowley are operating at VERY different spots on a character arc, this has been discussed before, even by neilman i think, and the tone of the show and what the scenes discuss are going to alter based on that

-like. there's stuff i disagreed with or just plain didn't LIKE in the first couple episodes -- then between watching 2 and 3 i accidentally saw spoilers for episode 6 -- and i was like, oh no, i don't like that. what the actual fuck, i hate it. that makes no sense. -- but then i got to ep 6 (and i had read a few meta posts in the meantime bc they kept coming up on a doctor who blog i check regularly) and i was like. it's. fine? it worked out better than i thought it would, actually. -so going through my original notes while i was watching to type them up is like. well i didn't like that. but i see why it was important.

-so now i'm like. well that initial ??? feeling went.......nowhere? cause i guess it's..............fine? hmm. and now i do not know how i feel about it as a whole. idk.

-like!!! i really didn't care for the extra backstory. like i just. i just didn't particularly care one way or the other about watching those scenes, they were just, meh to me, really. and i still feel meh about them, even in saying, yeah i guess that mattered to where they wind up -idk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! just. idk.

-ANYWAY!!!!

-you know miranda richardson was a choice, not complaining it's just very funny??? that she was madam tracy and now she's shax

-OH SHIT AND NINA WAS SISTER MARY LAST SEASON?????????

-okay but this is TERRIBLY funny, aziraphale just going 'we just gotta make them fall in love!' y'all. aziraphale. do you hear yourself.

-every day has really grown on me, hearing it so many times. find myself just casually humming it. although it's one of those songs that my brain insists on crossing with another song it thinks sounds similar, which happens a lot, so i also kept imagining it as, accidentally in love during the first few episodes.

-me, thursday night, after watching 1+2: did they just donna noble gabriel me, typing up my notes right now after watching it all: .............you know what, you could kinda say they did, in a way

-i have. little to absolute zero knowledge of any religious canon. quite frankly. but i do idly wonder about, the, actions and thoughts of god vs the actions and thoughts of the angels -oh especially with metatron!!!! if the metatron is supposed to be 'the voice of god' -but there is that stress in the book and in s1 about, they don't know. that's the thing, the angels and the demons don't actually, legitimately, 100%, know whether or not what they're doing is legitimately what they SHOULD be doing re: god and satan's actual wants in terms of existence and earth and fate -but we do see a little of that with job and quite honestly i wish i WAS up on religious canons to have more thoughts for that

-SPEAKING OF JOB!!!!! that was peter davison??????? i had no goddamn idea. i do want to go back and rewatch that -ty was an absolute terrible delight as ennon, what the fuck. oh my god.

-i had NO IDEA OR INCLINATION WHATSOEVER that crowley's apartment was hell-appointed. -seeing little analysis posts of people going 'aziraphale you have to see that crowley is LIVING IN HIS CAR and yet GABRIEL GETS A ROOM IN THE BOOK SHOP, THESE TWO HAVE NOT COMMUNICATED A SINGLE THING IN THE PAST FOUR YEARS, OR THE PAST ABSOLUTE AGE' by god. yeah. ugggggg :( -he's just living in his fucking carrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

-oh oh i loved muriel, oh my god. muriel, you sweet little bean -i love the scene where muriel is in the bookshop and muriel is mostly cast in the light from the window and aziraphale is mostly cast in shadow, i loved that

-i love that aziraphale keeps a diary. that's so fun

-people have pointed this out in doctor who as well about tooth and claw, but the difference between david tennant's actual accent and the accent he does as characters pretending to be scottish

-CROWLEY CAN FEEL WHEN THE CAR IS DRIVEN UNDER THE LIMIT????? HE CAN FEEL THE BENTLEY????????? -look. -look. -i'm not saying it but i'm thinking it. if he can feel the bentley and someone in the bentley. god. can someone please go write the fic. -no i don't know where on earth that sort of scene would take place in canon especially given that the two of them clearly have Very Little Concept Of Physicality With Another Human-Shaped Being, do not BOTHER me with petty details, it NEEDS TO EXIST and i don't have the time to do it by god please someone do it

-i can't say exactly what i mean by this like if pressed i cannot give examples but sometimes there would be dialogue and i'd go, ah. that's finnemore -cabin pressure is still top tier, okay.

-oh many people have said this by now but THAT CROWLEY'S IDEA OF ROMANCE IS SHELTERING FROM THE RAIN -crowley. -crowley.

-so getting shot or getting blown up would've discorporated them but crowley ingesting laudanum just. makes him drunk -you know what. i'm gonna say this one is on me bc honestly for atwq reasons as well i should read about laudanum

-nooooo god they were so cute in episode 5 - 'can i watch? <3' - 'YOU GAVE AWAY A BOOK??' - 'we don't dance.' TONIGHT YOU DO, CROWLEY

-that aziraphale's idea of romance is dancing............ -how many angels can dance on the head of a pin -AND THAT HE WANTS TO DANCE WITH CROWLEYYYYYYYYYY

-i love nina's. it's not genre awareness, but it's..........plot awareness? shenanigans awareness? something like that -speaking of nina and maggie though i was rather neutral on them as well like. no real feelings one way or the other

-'rescuing me makes him so happy.' !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -i love threatening!aziraphale a great deal. -see there's also........about aziraphale -i think it's easy to get aziraphale wrong, from a fandom standpoint. he's not a character i have any inclination to try and write in a fic honestly because i think. he has a great deal of layers in him. i mean not like an onion but. oh this thought is getting away from me -i just mean like............i think the one thing i would want to keep in mind is, aziraphale is just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing, that's key -and you have to balance that with him being an angel. and a bastard. and an angel. and a bastard -and i think there's lots of different ways to interpret those things into a fanfic and i don't know if i've ever seen it done................just right -like. in the of course fandom classic demonology or the tri-phasic model of trauma i think a lot about aziraphale being described as like............having such a severe kindness aubrey thinks of it as a KNIFE. and like a knife that he is wrapping in gauze in order to interact with her because he knows she is so unsettled by his capacity for kindness. -and i always roll that around in my head and wonder if i really, truly agree with it. because i think. yes. but also. no. -and show!aziraphale and book!aziraphale ESPECIALLY are at very different ends of Aziraphale In General -sigh. idk.

-'i haven't always been a demon. and they never change their password.' oh that was DELIGHTFUL -okay but see also. re: crowley -i've brought this up before but i think, when i first read gomens when i was..........16?? ish???? 15?????????? i didn't think a great deal, if at all, about crowley being technically a 'fallen' angel or of him having. any great angst about it, and that reading, pretty much stayed with me for a long time -but like, i get where it comes from? the angst? -i mean. there would have to be some feeling there, quite frankly. -i just thought a lot more about 'sauntered vaguely downward' which i think you can take at face value, or, as covering it up -idk all of this to say, sure i'm coming around to it. that line was particularly fun

-about the second apocalypse i was like 'ohhh this is what crowley and aziraphale meant by like. the end of the world wasn't the big thing, is the big thing is heaven vs hell' -and then metatron said SECOND COMING and i was like OH, SHIT, THOUGH

-'it's a container. it's bigger on the inside.' are we sure we aren't just watching doctor who -i.............guess i liked beelzebub and gabriel more than i thought i would -i appreciated THAT extra backstory, bc otherwise. that was. i mean not necessarily out of nowhere -- we do know angels and demons, besides crowley and aziraphale, negotiate with each other bc of hastur and michael with the hellfire and holy water -- but also would've been still. out of nowhere -!!!!! that it's like!!!!!! it IS that easy!!!!! to just be with your person, and want to be with them!!!! and it's NOT AT ALL that easy!!!!!! and it is!!!! and it isn't!!!!!! -that you have to give up Something, probably. but that what you get is. love. and it should be so easy to just walk hand in hand away with someone and be with them (-and also. that sometimes it's going to take work. you're not always ready right away, with nina and maggie) -and the other point here is like. the ultimate end here is not a fight between heaven and hell. that will go nowhere. and maintaining status quo isn't sustainable either, things are constantly changing, the only way forward is genuine discussion and collaboration and. maybe sometimes love. -and also that beyond aziraphale and crowley's STUNNING LACK OF COMMUNICATION...............they can't leave earth. (i mean aziraphale does but bear with me) gabriel and beelzebub have no stake or interest in human beings. but crowley and aziraphale have been there the whole entire time. they stopped the apocalypse for somewhere selfish reasons but also because they've got a personal duty to earth and what they love about it. as well as each other, but also, earth and humans and comforts and. all these other worthwhile things -and it's where the two of them are, too!!!!!!!!!!!!! aziraphale's book shop, crowley's car, a place where the two of them always are. always come back to. always have. -until it's not. :(

-'nothing lasts forever.' -aziraphale!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -my GOD

-the kiss really is, terrible to watch and that's like. that is the point, i do agree with the posts that say that -it's not supposed to be romantic bc it's NOT a romantic moment at all, it IS very sad and desperate and embarrassing and. heartbreaking. soul-crushing. i watched that whole scene with my hands over my face from the agony of it all. -and they really never have. done anything physical or physically romantic like that before, why would they have? as an angel and a demon and with THEIR STUNNING LEVELS OF AVOIDANCE AND NO COMMUNICATION -so yeah, by the time we got there, i was like, no, i get where you're coming from. i see where this goes with how show!aziraphale stands. he clings a lot harder to.........an idea of Goodness in a way that hurts him and especially crowley, and has more of a......loyalty? an at the end of the day sort of loyalty to heaven that is more surface for book!aziraphale

-quite frankly i don't intend to seek out any fix it fic because like.........this isn't the kind of thing that is, say, successfully, fixed, in a, fix it. like.............this is the sort of thing that's gonna be agonizing to try and repair between the two of them. and that, i'm looking forward to, i think. -and like, even if aziraphale wanted to get out of the elevator? if he wanted to change his mind? (which, i don't think he does? he's so upset he's avoiding everything else and just COMMITTING to this.) he CAN'T. he knows he can't. heaven would absolutely not let him out of that elevator to go back, now that he knows what metatron wanted him for.

-oh i always forget derek jacobi is metatron!!!!! look at him go!!!!! coming in, getting a little coffee (i love the 'has anyone ever asked for death?'), ultimately being such a fucker. i LOVE him. -bbc really does have 3 actors, don't they. -i know it's just that good actors find their way around and literally everyone has shown up on doctor who. i mean, you can do this with classic who, too! onslow my bone-idle beloved from keeping up appearances shows up somewhere along the line in trial of a time lord. -it's just fun to joke about :)

-i think a big thing existing here is also..............no one knew what to expect out of a second season? because we got all of the book. even if the sequel had existed in vague plans out there in the universe, just unwritten, the only one who knows what's in there now is neilman. as an audience we didn't know what to expect -and a lot of things happened in this season!!!! a lot that people WANTED!!!! and then all of it ended in a VERY UNEXPECTED HEARTBREAK -that does track with the rest of the season -but is also. not at all what anyone thought would happen, in a season 2, in any way shape or form -and i'm still rolling it around in my head. will be for a while. would like to watch s1 again. and reread the book again

#good omens spoilers #oh shit this wound up way longer than i thought it would be. #this is all i got for right now

[strangertheories]

I feel like there's too much discourse surrounding Mike's character nowadays that you cannot really talk about his character without it being turned into a ship war situation or slander. It also feels weird because many people seem to think that his character can be 'good or bad' based on Byler/Mlvn happens or not and it's just...? Do you even like him as a character or just perceive him from ship POVs then? It's like saying you wouldn't like Lucas or Max if they broke up or you wouldnt like Hopper, Joyce, Nancy etc if they just entered a relationship that you personally dont like. Because a character cannot be primarily defined or perceived based on shipping reasons, because they also have to stand on their own characterwise.... Max is my fav character and I wouldn't dislike or love her based on her romance choices. Yet whenever I see takes about Mike's character it just seems like both sides only ever focus on his romantic endgame. Or oftentimes just misinterpret his character by inventing made-up things about him that do not exist in canon. So is he that weak of a character then idk, because it seems like Mlvns will just hate him if he ends up with Will and many Bylers will call him a badly written character if he continues to be in a relationship with El or if the narrative doesnt turn out the way they expect or *exactly* want it to be. And it's especially kind of annoying when these both sides just want to insert Mike into a category that they like but when you just look at it, it sounds like they don't even like the canon!Mike but the fanon!version of it.

OH MY GOD, YES. I do get why people will like him less if Byler is not endgame, less because of Byler but more because they interpret Mike within the frame of being queer which means their justification for his behaviour or the reason they relate to him is now gone. However, I also think it's important to remember that he's 14 and traumatized and him getting angry at Will doesn't have to be projection or secretly be him being the best guy ever. He is flawed, canonically, and he has been a bad friend to Will since S2.

But people tend to act like he's an evil asshole or a perfectly innocent guy because their analyses are working backwards from each of those conclusions. I used to actually not like Mike very much, and I'm still not a huge fan, but I think understanding why he has his flaws without explaining them away helped me to understand him more. Also someone edited him to First Love, Late Spring by Mitski and I'm not even joking when I say it was the first time his characterisation clicked for me. And the show has been making this explicit, both in his need to be needed and his depression in S2, but they've not been as effective as writing him in years.

Even within the show, Mike is always defined in relation to other characters ever since S3 when he was less of a central character. In S2, they introduced all of his struggles with depression and emotional issues because of his loss of Eleven which was solved when El returned but it never really addressed the actual root issues that he had. I think fans analysing this behaviour from that perspective is completely valid because I do it too.

He could have a lot of depth but I feel fans give him much more than the show has awarded him in a way that Byler endgame can't exclusively solve. Because whilst they can write him falling in love with Will, they've given themselves eight episodes to break up his 4 season relationship, have him accept his queerness, come out and get with Will. And whilst I'd enjoy that, I also think they've just not written Mike as well in the later seasons. This may sound silly, but there's a point when I blame a character's actions on the writers and not the characters. Think of Nancy and Steve being weird in S4.

Overall, I think the route of this issue is that they didn't know what to do with him after S2. His primary goal in S1 was to find Will. His primary goals in S2 were to "get over" El and to help Will. In S3, his goal was having a good relationship with El and in S4 it was to confess his love (which he already did?). The issue with the last two seasons is that it felt like they were working backwards from a conclusion. They wanted conflict but didn't know how to and so he became a bad friend and bad boyfriend so he could have a character arc.

And I know we can explain his behaviour from a Byler POV which is why I do think it impacts my perception of the character, but Mike's "it's not my fault you don't like girls" line, Mike not contacting Will, Mike not noticing Will was crying, Mike saying the best day of his life was the one where Will went missing (I think the Duffers forgot that context too), and Mike being unable to effectively communicate with El feel out of character to me. In S1, we saw how even when angry with Eleven, he was highly emotionally intelligent and was able to communicate effectively. And we saw his special bond with Will in S2 where he was highly aware of Will's emotions, much more so than the other people in his life. And then by the next Summer, that was all gone. Even his whole "need to be needed" thing fell flat for me because it felt a bit random, it would've been way better for me if they had instead looked at his fear of loss or emotional repression or parental issues.

Jesus, this post grew arms and legs. TL;DR: Mike isn't an evil asshole and he has depth but he's also been failed by the writers in a way people justify with fanon but not the canon text. Byler helps to improve his character, but he's not been written outside of his relationships, romantically or platonically, and his struggles with mental health get solved by the power of love or whatever. Don't get me wrong, people hating Mike is bad but acting like they just don't understand the show or are stupid is also bad in my opinion. Everyone is just trying to fill in the gaps left by his under-writing in the later seasons.

#byler #mike wheeler #anti mileven

[oaxleaf]

mag 142 - scrutiny

look, i love jon. and i don't think he's, like a perfect guy, but i think that he tries his best to cause as little harm as possible. which makes this episode difficult, because i really dislike him here. i almost feel dissapointed in him, which i guess is kinda weird, condering he's, you know, a fictional character

but yeah. this episode, and the last one, are not a very good look for him, and despite the fact that some of his latter choices have far worse consequences, i think this might be his worst action. because he knows what he's doing, and he knows what it means for his victims, and he's showing uncharacteristically little guilt here. it's the most concious and deliberate he's ever been about how he hurts people yet. and the voice actress here also does an excellent job. you can really just feel how distressed this has made her, and it's really one of the time you truly feel the negative impact his choices have on the world and people around him

i think this episode is really needed, but god is jon easy to dislike here

martin and daisy's dynamic feels kinda weird to me, for some reason? i don't know exactly why and i have a hard time expressing it, but although i enjoy all their scenes together, i think it's that they as characters don't really have a connection? narratively, i mean? they're not foils or parallels or a close-tied duo. their dynamic doesn't add anything to neither story nor character. not a complaint, i suppose. if you have more than five characters in your story, you won't (and probably shouldn't try to) give them all distinct relationships and close narrative weavings and importance. it makes things messy if your not super careful. it just, idk. it's hard to explain? i just get a weird feeling about their scene here, as much as i enjoy it

#tma #a mag a day #mag 142

[ambelle]

I feel so odd as far as liking Loki goes because I like him as a villain so I don’t fit with his fans who collectively woobify him. No he was definitely a bad guy.

This is just me yelling into the void about shit I used to care about- more under the cut

Do I think Loki made up for killing a bunch of people by admitting he loved his brother? Nah! Is possible for villains to change their point of view? Yes! Loki couldn't redeem himself for the things he did in Avengers I think he just changed his mind on who he wanted to be.

Loki isn’t even the first bad guy to rethink his choices it’s pretty common. I wouldn’t classify him as a hero or a anti-hero though. IDK what to call him really. More like he just went “oh yeah that was wild LOL let me not do that anymore.” That’s honestly fine. I think it’s a unique and unintentionally funny character arc.

Taika deciding to humiliate the character to boost up Thor’s popularity was unnecessary IMO. Loki just has a character archetype people gravitate towards. Emo, violent, daddy issues, no friends, whoa is me, (black hair? LOL?)

They will always get people trying to make excuses for them it is what it is. And I do think these characters do add to the story even if I think fandoms babying them is lame and weird.

I feel like what Aang and T'challa have over Stefan and Thor is their writing. I feel like Stefan wasn't different enough from Damon to earn his " good brother" label and it felt like gaslighting every time it was pushed by the narrative. He was a whole serial killer??? With Thor it always felt like the writers weren't that interested in trying to flesh him out. His personality changes depending on what movie he's in. It's unfortunate because Chris is really charming and Thor has plenty of fans. I blame the messy inconsistency.

Marvel leaned into how funny Chris is but couldn’t decide if Thor was a joke or not. They couldn't find the balance and I think that hurt his character, not Loki.

Loki isn’t doing great character-wise now anyway. He was a side character on his show and no longer feels powerful enough to really do anything that matters. They are both down bad IMO.

Wow I haven’t rambled about anything to do with Marvel in years. Just feel like the ball was dropped with every character in Thor’s story. You find yourself needing to ruin one character to prop another one up then you're a bad writer. All your characters should be good.

#anti taika waititi #anti marvel #anti tom taylor #yeah I included Tom since he's ruining Nightwing to prop up batfam #but belle that's off topic #so what fuck Tom Taylor

[dylanobrienisbatman]

What made you ship Siena/Anthony?? Given that you also like Kate/Anthony. Obviously you can like both but I’m just curious since not many ship the former if they like the latter. The fandom isn’t big on multi shipping.

Oh hi anon!

Honestly, I liked them because they came from different mediums, so in the show Siena served a purpose in the narrative that made it work for me.

Honestly, the story of kanthony in the books isn’t actually my fave, the longer I’ve spent after reading it. I think book Anthony is very aggressive, and their dynamic is kind of weird in parts. But I loved the way she forces him to see that this plans to be lonely forever and to never find love because he’s sure he’ll die young are just… dumb. And I love how much she takes him by surprise. He never expects her and that’s always fun. Plus, the antagonists to lovers vibe is always fun.

Going into s2 tho, I LOVE the actress they chose to play Kate, and I love the changes they’ve made to Anthony, which I think also make me more excited for Kanthony. He’s a lot softer, I think they’ve taken out his aggression and turned it into him being very earnest in his efforts to do what’s right, if maybe he does the wrong thing through those efforts.

And honestly his relationship with Siena is part of that? Like we see that he’s not actually against love, just against a ‘proper’ love. He can die, and Siena won’t be left abandoned like his family was after his father, because they were never going to actually be a family. He allows himself to ‘love’ Siena because it’s safer. He knew they could never be together, so he doesn’t have to feel that anxiety when he’s with her. Now that he has to find a wife, he has resigned himself to doing his duty, rather than following his heart, because it keeps him ‘safe’ from that fear and anxiety.

I think him and Siena had extraordinary chemistry, and I think she was the perfect way to show us that Anthony has such huge capacity for love before his season, so that we know it’s only a matter of time before he falls for Kate. I feel like she got a lot of hate, and I don’t really get why? Like it’s obvious she was never going to be his endgame romance, and it’s also obvious that he wasn’t in love with her, he just loved her and found companionship with her. It also showed us that he likes women who don’t play by the rules, he doesn’t want a Daphne type debutante, he wants someone who will challenge him, which really reinforces that edwina is never going to be the right choice for him in s2.

I think Siena was the perfect set up to follow Anthony into s2, showing that he does want to find love, which will make his efforts to stop himself from falling for Kate all the more angsty and dramatic. Plus, I think him going into s2 with a bit of a broken heart adds to that angsty mess because he will have convinced himself that Siena was his true love, and that nobody could compare. Enter, Kate Sharma.

Honestly, I just think they both work for me because they serve different purposes? And honestly the chemistry and the fun, carefree feeling of Anthony and Siena’s relationship towards the beginning was so refreshing. I’m a sucker for him wanting to protect her and keep her safe even though he knew he shouldn’t. Plus, it makes Kate’s weird jealousy about the opera singer from the book actually make more sense. i also really want the show to focus more on ‘regular’ people, which is why i’m also a huge sucker for Theo x Eloise, and i was hoping for more Benedict x Genevieve too, though that pairing got way less development

Idk if that answers your question?

#this is MONTHS late i’m so sorry lol #i found it fully written in my drafts #anyway #siena x anthony #siena rosso #anthony bridgerton #kate sharma #kanthony #bridgerton

[chestharrington]

I think my biggest problem with Nancy is that her behavior towards others is excused in the show, for some reason she can treat others like shit but everyone is still worshipping every step she takes. If her behavior would be treated as bad behavior, like having consequences for her actions I wouldn't mind her so much. But because she can't do wrong in the shows narrative I feel kinda gaslit by the show because she's portrayed as a holier-than-thou person with flaws that will be excused.

Like why tf would Robin be so eager to befriend her after she treats her like garbage and as Steve's bff she has to know how things had ended. If I were Robin I would be vary of Nancy and def wouldn't encourage her to get with my bff again.

But I think Steve still doesn't have a clue that that Nancy cheated. Yeah he saw her with Jonathan but I doubt he knows they slept together two days after their fight. Plus because she was never honest with her feelings towards Steve, Steve is under the impression Nancy fell out off love because he couldn't be there for her, and not because he was always the second choice and as soon as Jonathan would have made a move she would have immediately left him. She literally admitted this in canon but everyone brushes over it because they were rooting for Jancy, even though that relationship was born out of cheating. Big L from Jonathan's side as well, he knew Steve was in the picture at Murray's but he still had sex with her.

But you can't discuss this, even though it's canon, within the fandom because you're labeled as a misogynist. Literally the amount of people who see nothing wrong with Nancy's treatment of Steve in s2 is astounding. S2 Steve is not S1 Steve, he was literally trying his best but he was also a dumb teenager trying to navigate through his own trauma and quite literally high school. People call him horrible because he brushed over Nancy's needs meanwhile Nancy was emotionally cheating on him for a year, both were bad for each other at that time. To paint Steve as a villian for trying to distract his gf, so she doesn't spill confidential information that could get them and their families killed by the government, is weird. If Steve would act like Nancy people wouldn't even questioning cheating, like they would constantly bring this up.

And now she kinda cheats on Jonathan with Steve again, idk also didn't like that Steve encourages this as well. Like bitch you know how you felt please stop. Nancy is not worth that trouble, she will never pick you because you will be always the second choice. I still don't know how to feel about the kids speech, inherently it's not as bad as people make it out to be. After all he confessed thinking he is about to die but he never forces her to suddenly become the mother to his kids. It's also telling how little he knows about Nancy, because she probably wasn't honest with him throughout the relationship so he has this idealized image of her. Again he soley blames himself for the failing of their relationship and having a new perspective, he dreams of the what if possibilities, completely unaware that the relationship hugely failed because Nancy never loved him from the beginning.

You’re absolutely correct.

I think what is frustrating is as people who consume this content we are well within our right to demand well-written complex women. And Nancy could have been that had they chosen to hold her accountable for some of the ways she’s treated Steve, Jonathan, and Robin. But they don’t so it makes it hard for me to really appreciate the way she’s written outside of what she adds to the plot.

Again it’s really frustrating to me because I absolutely loved Nancy before I liked any other character. With love and care they could have kept her as she is (an intelligent, strong-willed badass who doesn’t sacrifice her femininity) without excusing every kind of shitty that she does to the people around her. Real people have conflicts and dilemmas and do shitty stuff and great stuff. I think that’s where Nancy lives like in the better version of stranger things that lives in my head. Nancy wheeler IS a great character and I think she deserved a lot more attention and care than the writers room gave her.

[shakapuffin]

Alert episode 4 promo!

Alert 1x03 “Zoey” Review

my thoughts on the lastest episode, episode 3 “Zoey”

- i liked it as much as, if not a bit more, than the first two episodes… still some obvious questions and hiccups. idk why but this episode seemed a bit more structured… maybe it was because C wasn’t there lol!

- i still want to find out more about Keith, like i know they’re gonna drag his whole storyline out but how do we still not know anything about where he’s been the past 6 years?! or better yet how does no one else question him harder on where he was. i get that jason tried to talk to him in the beginning but i want to see a full on convo, not just a few minutes. i want to see more scenes with the whole family together, interacting. idk that’s probably just me tho.

- i totally understand why Sydney wanted a lock on her door, but I didn’t understand why Nikki thought it was weird. I’m happy Jason wanted her to have one if she felt safer, but it made no sense for Nikki to say no since it’s her daughter and she hasn’t seen her supposed brother in six years. it still confuses me why they haven’t taken Keith to a hospital or a therapist to get checked out, especially because they’re law enforcement officers and they deal with missing persons and it’s consequences every day.  Also, I get that they want Keith to be back in school to get back o normal but I’m still not sure how long has it been since he’s been found. If it’s been a couple of weeks or even a month or two, then I understand but if it’s only been a week or two, I don’t know why they want him to rush into school that quickly. It’s just crazy to me that the parents are already back at work and I assume Keith is left home alone? I also really liked the use of Beowulf in the underlined narrative of that story between Sydney and Keith. it added another interesting layer.

- I’m sorry but the whole scene between Nikki and Mike doing a quickie in the supply closet was just so weird to me. Like why was there a need to put that into the episode, like I get that it’ll add characterization for Nikki and Mike and it’s a good way for them to reconnect, but not at work in the middle of a missing persons case where the girl could very well either be dead, or about to die. No law-enforcement officials would ever ever do that on a workday. It doesn’t matter if Nikki is the head of the missing persons unit, Zoey’s parents put their trust in her and even if there was a few extra minutes they could’ve been doing other things to progress the case besides that. Also, they only had 10 minutes! Really really odd writing choice. save that for the end or beginning of the episode when there’s no life or death situation.

- okay so I’m really confused on Kemi. She literally offered to rub eggs on Zoe’s parents to catch all the vibes/feelings? I’m still confused what happened like I just don’t understand. I saw her purpose on the team a little bit more in this episode, she’s really good at breaking down pictures and finding where they are located. I just don’t understand some of her references, like who is she? haha! Apparently she’s been married 12 times? Sometimes some of the things she says are just so out of pocket it’s insane and it doesn’t relate to the case whatsoever.

- I thought the structure was better this episode with a few blips but overall a bit of an improvement from the first two. That being said, I thought this weeks missing persons case was very dark, creepy and low-key disturbing. I get it stuff like this can happen, but it was pretty surprising for that subject matter to be on a network television show. Overall, I think the case made sense in terms of storytelling maybe a few improvements on the shallow dialogue at the end and throughout, but that’s it.

- now that i know the parents had keith’s baby hair in the baby book, they should’ve had a DNA test right when he got home. i get that they don’t want keith to think they don’t trust him but they just have to do it, especially when they’re daughter is repeatedly telling them she doesn’t feel safe. they are law enforcement, they know the importance of a DNA test. it’s weird that they’re avoiding it.

- I thought Scott Caan was really good this week, per usual, i liked his literal leap into action to tackle the creepy guy away from Zoey. dania ramirez was good too, i like her catchphrase of ‘finding our babies’ but i hope nikki doesn’t overuse it because it can become old very fast. i liked adeola role, her character continues to confuse me but she’s great, as well as ryan broussard!

anyways that’s just my opinion for the week! i’m excited for the next episode, the promo looks good! still happy that scott’s back on the screen! what did you guys think? let me know, i luv talking!!

#Youtube #hawaii five 0 #scott caan #danny williams #scotty caan #danno williams #alert #fox tv #alert on fox #dania ramirez #film

[philippageorgiou]

rosie! i don't know if you are up to date with it, but your thoughts on the latest season of for all mankind? i actually really hate where they've gone with it and feel like it's a totally different show now, but curious to see what others think!

ok turns out i have a lot of thoughts

i really loved the first half of this season, but god there have been soooo many narrative choices i’ve hated in the second half. 

the treatment of kelly and her pregnancy has been so gross. and it’s so narratively stupid and unbelievable on so many levels! you can’t tell me she (and nasa under margo fucking madison) hadn’t made sure there were precautions so this couldn’t happen. and it’s just gross that the russians knew she was pregnant before she did. and i hate that we don’t know how she felt or feels about the pregnancy. and why is no one talking about how risky it is for her and the baby! they took away her agency and continue to use her only as a plot device and i hate it! it’s lazy and bad! and the way the characters/world within the show are treating it as some cutesy novelty thing instead of a serious dangerous unprecedented health risk? bad

karen has really grown on me over the seasons, and i actually love this milfy lil business savvy girlboss and her ambiguously-aged grey hair and single wrinkle, but a lot of what has played out in the last two or three episodes with her and her work and everything with dev has just felt clumsy. not bad, but just badly thought out. kinda infantile. idk i can’t pinpoint it. 

i don’t like that we didn’t see any of the immediate fallout of the shit that went down on mars. that felt weird. something that catastrophic, that the whole season had basically been building up to and all we got was a time jump and a throwaway line that basically told us danny got off scot free?? wild

perplexed about the jimmy thing. what is his deal! can’t figure out whether i just don’t know where they’re going with this or the writers don’t either. the trajectory has been weird and felt a little all over the place.

ellen! i like her, don’t get me wrong, but she is very much a slimy republican and i can only sympathise with her so much. however, i really loved her lil speech and coming out moment. kinda think it’s bizarre that the public reaction seemed to be overwhelmingly positive, but maybe the writers just wanted to enjoy the positive vibes for a moment. i’ll take it, but like… considering the homophobia of not only the republican party but the wider society at that time? the whole thing felt a little too nicey nicey. but i’m sure there’s a lot more nastiness to come. anyway hate to say it but i’m not really invested in her and pam. oh also the fact ellen and larry’s son has appeared like twice and doesn’t even have a name is so funny to me like ok kiddo you literally just exist for future seasons’ sake huh

i like how the whole aleida/margo thing has played out for the most part. their relationship is one of the most interesting things in this show imo and seeing it totally tear aleida apart has been so stressful!!!!!!

the reveal at the end of 3x09 was very… American… idk but i’m intrigued to see where they go from here and what happens in the finale!! if anything happens to margo madison or sergei nikulov i will actually kill someone though

i’m absolutely dreading the 2000s vibes of the next season though. worst era for fashion and music and aesthetics! 

unfortunately i don’t care much for any of the second generation characters. the main characters who’ve been around since the beginning are great (except ed. he’s getting more boring by the minute) but i’m concerned about where the show can go from here character wise because none of the kids are interesting enough to carry it

this show stresses me out so much lmao

also forgot to say yes i actually kinda agree that it’s starting to feel like a different show. it’s always toed the line between realism and soapy pretty well but these last four or five episodes to me have felt a little too reliant on the shock factor, and veering too far from the Brutal Reality vibes and made it more Shocking Drama idk idk i just really feel like it’s gone downhill so fast lmao

#answered #anonymous #rosie watches fam #also! anon! love that youre on a first name basis w me whoever you are but like. you can message me off anon if you want kdjhgfkghkdf

[away-ward]

Ranty text block: Another scene i remembered from rereading corrupt and punk57: ryen describing rika's clothes at their condo building(?) that led to me thinking, "why do people always put rika edits in the best, sexiest and prettiest clothes? Because as much as this girl was said to be "pretty", her fashion style was ugly as a rat, like shitty af. She always looks like a 33 years old extremely rich suburban mom who got no taste in fashion and wore dull ass colours but still everything is designer thing" Like that was my first thought every time i saw Rika edits, and how i remember her in books. I almost confuse her with em's high school no-choice aesthetic because of how bad pd tried to make rika look "not other rich girls" by not dressing up much and kept on going with the narrative of "oh alex looks hot, but me (rika)? Ew" 🙄 im sick of stories like this because it reminds me of Rubi (a telenovela) where Rubi's hot rich girl friend kept on complaining about her looks, and was jealous of rubi (similar to alex's style here) when that girl friend can literally hire someone to style her, or build up her confidence and wear something even sexier or hotter than rubi (alex) because they got all the money that rubi (alex) never had. But nooooooo they had to wear ugly ass outfits 😭 i hate it here. Aside from that, i can totally see Winter and Banks rocking hot and pretty designer wears, because all thats left for winter was for someone to doll her up and banks to feel safe in her feminity and trying out more quality clothings, but Rika??? That girl really needs some personal stylist because why was she be making so much money and still be dressing like that? 😭 i genuinely hate it!!! This is a rich people story, why was she looking raggedy?? She could literally be cute and hot with her style, but noooo her outfits always gotta be ratty af, even elon musk has got more style than her and it's saying something because elon's outfits WERE.NOT.IT. I cant imagine how yikes rika looks every time she wore outfits that dont match her luxurious cars (especially before she met alex, and sometimes, even after, case in point, that punk57 scene), and readers supposed to look at rika and be like "wow, fashionista!" when she never really gave us anything to fawn over for?!! Her fashion is as dull as her personality, and she had no valid excuses for it because all her life, she was always sureounded by beauty and luxury. Emmy had excuses bcause of her lacking money & at home situation etc., but rika? It couldnt happen Only for two reasons being one, she didnt want to be called a slut or looked down by her society, or two, because trevor that scum kept on harrassing her on what she should do, and because she was a pushover, it was har to not push him away, BUT! BUT! but even then, there's so many hot, cute, pretty or beautiful modest fashion??? Modest fashion is one of THE most popular style for rich people because they associate modesty = being classy, so i still dont understand why rika was raggedy. Idk this really irks me. I'll let you know if i have more irk-inducing things from DN. Though i don't think i have the energy to shit on killswitch because that book was exhausting 😭 damon torrance was exhausting, i pray for winter, every five seconds to get away from him.

Out of all the character’s, Rika’s style has struck me as the oddest. I can only recall two specific moments that made me

One was when she was getting ready for school and she wore like boots, a sweater, and a scarf. Which, knowing it’s October and is probably a bit chilly, isn’t all that odd but I felt weird to layout her outfit like that.

The other was in Hideaway when she shows up for the sleepover and she’s wearing an avocado shirt and matching shorts, while everyone else was in sexy wear. It felt very “I’m main character/not like other girls” energy. And Michael comments that his mom bought those for her and he can’t believe she still has them, like it’s so cute. I couldn’t shake the idea that PD saw these PJs in rl and thought they were cute, so immediately wanted to put Rika in them because Rika’s soooo quirky like that.

I tend to let it go a bit in Corrupt, because I thought some of Rika’s storyline and character development was getting away from people that controlled her.

Her fashion style was ugly as a rat, like shitty af. She always looks like a 33 years old extremely rich suburban mom who got no taste in fashion

Remember in the first scene when she’s racing back to the Crists’ and Michael’s mom as laid out a white dress for her to wear. Rika isn’t that excited for it?

It feels like Rika dresses like a 33-year-old woman with no taste because she’s being dressed by a woman in her 40s who thinks this is what a young lady of a respectable class who is going to marry her son would wear. And Rika specifically indicates that it’s not her style as a 19-year-old who wants her independence. So, I can let it go.

Meeting Alex, who is the same age as her, was probably an eye opener for how someone who decides how they present themselves could dress. It is no excuse for the rest of the series, but like I said, I never paid attention to Rika’s style. I never saw her as a “fashionista” and in fact, if any of the characters were, I’d say it was Alex.

Rika could have afforded a personal shopper or a stylist, but I think after breaking away from the Crists’ control and Michael wanting whatever she wanted, it meant she dressed however she wanted without thinking “is this fashionable?” Which is fine. I don’t really care, and I don’t have a fashionable bone in my body. I can’t expect rich people to have it just because they have money, and I wouldn’t expect all people in their 20s to care. Fashion and being stylish is such a person-to-person thing, so I guess it never really mattered to me.

It couldnt happen Only for two reasons being one, she didnt want to be called a slut or looked down by her society, or two, because trevor that scum kept on harrassing her on what she should do, and because she was a pushover, it was har to not push him away,

The slut shaming and Trevor were most definitely factors in how Rika dressed in her teenage years. Probably past down from Trevor’s mom, like I said before, the idea of this is how a young lady dresses.

So maybe like with Em, the rejection of clean, modest style to a slouchier style was a way of rebellion for Rika? I don’t know.

Thanks for the rant. It was fun to read about something that I didn’t notice. Since we’ve been talking about style recently (or me and other anons), maybe it’ll be fun to go through and explain how I do picture the girl’s style like how I did with Em. You guys can offer your thoughts and HCs as well! Maybe we’ll come to a consensus.

#asked and answered #devil's night series stuff #rika fane #character discussion #character's appearance #asked and answered 106