#REALLY want to watch/rewatch the originals too i don't remember why i dropped it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

acromandus · 3 months

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Finally getting around to doing this! Thank you @thelifeinmyshadesofgrey for tagging me ♥♥♥♥♥ I haven't done these in ages so it was fun to feel like we were back in the 'golden era' of tumblr xD

Tag someone you want to know AND/OR some of your besties: I don't wanna pressure anyone to have to do this, so consider this a warm suggestion rather than a I-will-judge-you-if-you-don't kind of situation @heyitszev :) (and if anyone else reading this feels like it, go ahead, the more the merrier lmao)

Favourite colour: This is a tough one because it all just depends on context so much. I'd say typically I veer more towards darker tones in general: really like a nice dark green, or a dark red or crimson. Purple is lovely too :D

Last song: Two Knights and Maidens by Crash Test Dummies https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NS2EcHzdYY

Say what you want about the lyrics, but the chord progression in this song is *chefs kiss*

Last movie: 9. A bit of a strange one perhaps, but an interesting take on a post-apocalyptic world brought to life in a style that reminds me of Tim Burton a little bit. Basically, the world has been destroyed in a war between humans and machines, and we're introduced to a group of sentient dolls, each with a number on their backs from 1 to 9, who have had to survive in this strange new world while figuring out why they were made in the first place. I don't wanna spoil this for anyone who hasn't seen it, so I'll leave it at that :)

Currently watching: I'm in-between series atm haha. Waiting for season 4 of the Boys, and just finished watching season 2 of 30 Coins. Might just do a rewatch of Andor or the Punisher to fill this void.

Other stuff I watched this year: Err… from what I remember (and yes, since we're only in January, I'm counting 2023 into this as well) I'd say Moon Knight, Andor, 30 coins, a rewatch of Supernatural (up to season 12), and the One Piece live action series. Out of all these Andor was perhaps my favourite, but I enjoyed all of them, and was pleasantly surprised at how well the One Piece adaptation remained loyal to the original works :D they obviously had to adjust some things but it still felt true to form. With Andor, I was hesitant to watch it at first because the last SW series I had watched had been declining in quality (weird writing, etc), however… Andor completely blew me away. The way it builds up to the climax was just so well done, the writing is superb, music fantastic, and it's one of those series I wish I could forget about completely so I could experience it for the first time again.

Shows I dropped this year/didn’t finish: I haven't watched many series I've not finished since I usually watch them to the end anyway, but looks like that new Percy Jackson series may unfortunately fall into this category?

Currently reading: I've been powering through the Harry Potter books. Started during the Christams holidays and I'm now on book 6. So far so good, though I've had to slow down with holidays being over. Might need to reread the Robert Langdon series as well after this as it's still one of my personal favourites.

Currently listening to: This changes daily but I do find myself drifting back to Riot music very often. So, that's music made for League of Legends, Valorant, etc. Not the soundtracks, but songs like Worlds anthems like "GODS" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3GouGa0noM) and 2021's "Burn It All Down" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Z6CHioIn3s). I also absolutely love "Breathe" from the official launch video for Legends of Runeterra (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNhKAJwlj04). I also like this vid for it heavily featuring Darius, the only champ I ever played when I attempted to get into LoL before the toxicity got to me and I decided it's not for me :3 (didn't take long, but left me with a bit of a soft spot for him lmao)

I absolutely do not play any of these games but man… the music is on point imo. Something again about chord progression, don't ask what my obsession with that is lmao.

If I'm not listening to these and songs like them, I'm listening to heavy metal (industrial or symphonic), movie or game soundtacks, or oldies belonging to various genres from the 70s and 80s, occasionally 90s as well. Here's a couple examples:

Once You've Tasted Love by Take That

Take the Long Way Home by Supertramp

Evil Woman by Electric Light Orchestra

Misplaced by Sonata Arctica

And I will leave it at that as I've already included too many songs lmao

Currently working on: I'm currently making a backend for a gym app I'm working on. I somehow got the GraphQL elements working, now I need to get it saving to a database of somekind. I could do this locally or learn to save data to the cloud but I haven't yet decided which approach to take lmao. Overall, I'm just upskilling in the hopes of eventually landing a job as a full-stack developer. NO LUCK SO FAR aside a couple freelance frontend opportunities :/

Current obsession: Hmm….. good question. I'd say, despite me not playing it as much as I used to, I am slowly getting back to Elder Scrolls Online? Fire Emblem Fates is another, as well as Bleach.

#personal #i can't help that my tastes are very eclectic #i like so many things it might even be easier to point out things I don't like #but where's the fun in that :)

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brakken-spideyverse · 3 years

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What are your thoughts on No Way Home?

Let me drop my hottest take and say....

It looks pretty cool!

(spoiler warning, in case anyone's avoiding trailers)

I was quite prepared to be annoyed by it, as the announcements/rumours about who's in it felt kinda forced and crowded. But I think they're setting up the premise fairly well - I'm glad to see that it feels very Peter-focused despite the reality-altering storyline.

I'm still skeptical on the inclusion of Raimi's Ock and Goblin, given their fates in the original films. The easy excuse for this is 'multiverse shenanigans' but that doesn't hold up for me, unfortunately. At that point, just cast someone else or admit that it's pandering, ya know? (For clarity, I didn't vibe with J.K. Simmons in FFH either) But Molina and Dafoe are both great performers and will bring plenty of scenery to chew on, I'm sure.

Villain-wise, I'm more interested for what's in store with Electro, and potentially Sandman. This movie has the chance to make folks realise that 'too many villains' isn't actually a problem with live-action Spidey movies, and could possibly lead to better discussion around SM3 and TASM2... ? (narrator: it didn't.)

On the theory/rumour/whatever about Tobey and Andrew... if it's real, I really hope they keep it out of the trailers. I want to be fully pulverized by that moment in the theatre. Andrew deserved more time in the role, for-sure-for-sure.

As far as references and cameos go, fingers crossed that they're made in appreciation, rather than satire. We already got the 'haha dancing Peter' out of our system in ITSV, so I'm kinda okay with moving away from poking fun at 'the bad ones'. But I'm not thrilled by how MCU Spidey has handled the goofy tone so far, so I'm a little skeptical.

At the moment I'm only enthusiastic about one movie in each franchise, and I haven't watched any of the new MCU shows, so don't know if whatever they have planned will necessarily hit the spot - but at the same time, there's the chance it could! Also, Electro's in it, and he's yellow, which is cool.

It's weird - the parts that actually got me most hyped had nothing to do with the crossover stuff. I wanna know why Peter's running through the cafeteria in his new suit! I wanna know what the deal is with the train going through the canyon! Some great imagery, there.

Oh, one funny thing - I saw people speculating that Lizard is in the trailer, and I was like "Huh, so they're bringing him back from the dead as well?" Then I remembered that my TASM3 screenplay isn't canon, oops :Y

It's kinda making me want to rewatch all the Spideys and share thoughts about them as I go... I'd always wanted to do that in a video or something, but it feels timely. I can finally reveal the Top 10 Things You Missed in TASM2.

Anyways, hope you're all getting good Spidey vibes one way or another!

#nonmakeover #no way home #max talks about spidey

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sillyfudgemonkeys · 3 years

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Random ask, but why do you hate the p4 anime exactly? It seems like something you'd like given it's p4 and it's pretty comedic

Finger is healed enough to start typing again so here we go.

Before going into it, despite me being a dub lover, I've only seen it subbed....because I was watching it as it aired (tho I know that the dub has Yu calling Naoto "melons" so I think it's for the best lest I burn down the studio). So we're going with my views on that. I dropped it not long after the Naoto rescue ep (before the Nanako family drama ep).... Because 1) Naoto's arc was the straw that broke my back (and it broke it hard), 2) A series of bad IRL stuff happened and......let's just say I had no motivation to continue watching and ingesting the subs (I still was nabbing RAWs for videos tho) of a show that pissed me off. ("so it's not the anime's fault! it's the IRL stuff?" no, I just realized it was not in my best interest to push through legit following it cause it was ass and it was def not gonna make me happy so why add one more thing to the mix?)

Anyway under the cut

Before I go into why I hate I want to bring up somethings I do like about it:

Aika, everything about her. She was the only good addition.

The dual summer ep, mostly for Nanako (esp the Nanako and Naoto interaction). While I have some issues with Yu's side (Sayako deserved SO much better), I liked the two sides of one story aspect esp in relation to Nanako.

I liked how they played up the Naoto danger/rival thing, it was always tense when they talked to her. Not that the game lacked it, but this new visual media was able to amplify it (picture below of a scene I really liked, the simple look, the tense sound, it was good)

This picture of Yu (sectioned below Naoto). It was the only time I thought Yu looked good in this anime (not a fan of the artstyle and how wonky it can get).

Mitsuo's arc was good, cause they took themselves seriously.

The stats thing was a neat idea.

Anyway that's it. Maybe they had a few jokes I liked but I can't remember them so it doesn't matter.

My issues now........I think I'll stick to just a few points. Partially cause it's been awhile, and partially cause these points are just ones I remember that always annoyed me.

I guess Kanji and Naoto's arc. Mostly Naoto's, but I remember the same issues when it came to Kanji (probably Rise's arc too but....I really don't want to rewatch the anime so I'll stick to looking into two arcs). Yu's personality is another (I think anime!Yu is an asshat and kinda goes against P4's friendship message). And.....the "comedy." >_>

We'll talk about the comedy, because that's what leads into my other two issues.

For the most part I don't like the anime's comedy. Not a "oh you don't find it funny?" way, a "wow they think they can be funnier and will add stuff even if it goes against the source material" way.

Yu's personality, he can say some really.......not great things. Maybe he's too blunt, maybe it's just rude. I remember him stealing Yosuke's line and calling Naoto the "shrimp detective." It's fine with Yosuke cause his character is written as good natured but puts his foot in his mouth constantly. Yu? He's just rude at times. If he was rude in the game, characters would call him out on it tho. But not here, chars are just like "????? OH you!" (tbh it's the same issue I have with PQ1 when playing as the silent MC, you can say mean things but they just brush it aside, tbh it's the only spinoff game that's as close to the anime counterpart and it's the only one that doesn't call him "Yu"....and it's only when he's silent, when he talks he enters "Game!Yu" mode who doesn't have rude(-airhead) tendencies. Just "good natured and can be silly-air head tendencies").

They probs wanted to develop the MC and this was their way of doing it, but it just......is distracting. If it's original or conflicts with the game's dialogue (when he gets bitten by Teddy and says he's going to cry, instead of showing his sensitive side and Chie's worry for him, they straight up erase that......it's not a joke I'm particularly against but it's something that starts off from ep 1). The only thing I feel like they got right was the Mitsuo ep (maybe they got the Dojima family drama and onwards right but it was too late for that imo). There's a reason I prefer Souji over Anime!Yu. Anime!Yu takes me out of the experience too much compared to Game!Yu and Souji.

The comedy issue bleeds into the dungeons too. And it's where I have the biggest issue. You can especially see it in Kanji and Naoto's dungeons.

Kanji first. Biggest difference is Yosuke.

Game!Yosuke/Gang: While deeply uncomfortable (you can argue if he's homophobic or it's just the lack of exposure to something he's not used to), he still wants to save Kanji.

When they first encounter Shadow!Kanji, he's (as well as the cast) worried about Kanji and that people on the outside are watching. And are worried how far Kanji's shadow is taking to trying to really.......embarrass Kanji by airing all his dirty laundry. Only joke is the "bear it all" one (none about Kanji maybe being gay)

The next encounter is when Kanji faces himself. It's treated seriously because you know....his life and their lives are in danger. It's only after the fight that the Shadow is like "you'll make a wonderful boyfriend~! ;)" and Yosuke's like "Uhhhhh no! It's not like that! Please I don't swing that way!" (three lines for three advances). No real insults he just doesn't want to be hit on when he's not interested.

Anime!Yosuke/Gang: Really doesn't want to go into the dungeon and has to be dragged in.

When they first encounter Shadow!Kanji Yosuke and Yu (Yu is also 100% on Yosuke's side (in the game the MC can either be oblivious or he is like "yeah.....I think I know where this is going" but he never reacts like THIS)) summon their Personas to fight a non rampaging S!Kanji because they are so freaked out (DEF homophobic) by him and the girls+Teddie have to stop them (then S!Kanji says something and Chie joins Yu/Yosuke's side). The team constantly talks about how it's ok to just attempt to destroy S!Kanji because he creeps them out.

The next encounter is where Kanji is confronting his shadow. They don't want to go in, the scene keeps getting ruined by "comedy" as they flail about. The only thing that I can even say about the rest of this mess of an episode is that it's "interesting" how they adapted status effects from this fight into the anime. I "liked" that attention to detail.....but I HATE how they used it for more bad original comedy when.......this is a serious moment, people's lives are on the line, and needs to be treated seriously. They could've adapted these status effects to make it more serious not.....bad.

Manga!Yosuke/Gang: At the entrance they just don't like how stuffy it is. They are chased by shadows and they (Well Yosuke/Chie, Souji/Yukiko were more battle ready focus to get everyone's six) are......freaking out (they were burly kind). Tbh those guys do hit hard in the game, but those are the hostile shadows not S!Kanji/Kanji but they were relying on the bara stereotype so......but those stereotypes are fueled by Kanji's fears so..... Well they aren't asses to Kanji (yet?) so they are beating out the Anime so far. There is one joke, and it's that Yosuke is like 'Great work team!" even tho he didn't do anything (ironically cause the Gigas are weak to his wind afkldjskl)

The first encounter of S!Kanji plays out....almost exactly the same the game did (right down to the bear joke, or well the fansub uses the "kanji" joke kfljsdafk)

Unfortunately I can't compare the rest of the manga cause my vol is at home and the fansubs stop when he denies his Shadow (I feel like it's missing pages tho). orz I do know that for the first half of the fight they take it seriously tho. So manga>anime yet again for me. 8U

I'm not going to go as in depth on Naoto's, it's straight forward. Similar concept and execution. Person's life is on the line, the girls can't take anything seriously and only the boys take it seriously. Unfortunately 3 of the boys get screwed with a status effect so that cause the girls to not take it seriously, and to mess with the the majority of the team that is trying their best to take it seriously by forcing them into a ~comedic situation~! What pissed me off was the most blatant negligence on the girls end. The whiplash of comedy one second and "seriousness" the next. In the same scene, on the same plane.

So finally, my issue with the "comedy" the legit original anime only comedy, is that it messes with the tone of the story. It happens constantly and for far too much of the majority of the anime. This wouldn't fly in the game, the game KNEW when to be funny and when to be serious. When to go into gag mode and when to be quiet (with maybe, MAYBE a small joke to alleviate the scene). The game knew how to manage each scene and pace it's story and transition it when needed. The anime just throws shit around and adds comedy cause "P4 is the funny game! We can add more comedy!"

I believe that P4's anime tarnished the perception of P4. Because of it I had to see a wave of BS "analysis" on the fucking game when people were just watching the anime.

"Yosuke's homophobic!" Maybe he is, or maybe he's just not used to gay people and doesn't know how to act. Or maybe, with the worst scene in the game being the tent scene for Game!Yosuke's homophobia, maybe he just doesn't know Kanji that well and regardless of Kanji being gay or not....knows Kanji is violent and especially when he gets angry and Yosuke is a PRO of accidentally getting people angry (because he constantly puts his foot in his mouth....which is exactly what happens in the game). Instead Anime!Yosuke is king of homophobia and that's it. No nuance, no a melding of different personality types and the initial awkwardness when you try to figure it out. Just "Kanji had a gay episode and Yosuke is homophobic" and that's it. The game at least had interpretation (you can agree with that interpretation or not, but at least you can see it being possible, there's at least DEPTH to the game not the anime tho).

"Chie is abusive!" She does show off her kicks more in the anime I guess. And yeah she tripped Yosuke in the anime, but in the game she just chased him and Yosuke just ran into a desk. Chie only kicked one friend in the game iirc and it was Kanji....for "hitting their tent" and she didn't even know it was him.

"Naoto is trans!" Probably from the game cutting down a lot of character's time and development, and it esp didn't help not including her freaking SL that really goes into the core of her character. (I didn't care for this HC at first, tbh I thought it was fun....until people started saying how transphobic the game was because their hc wasn't canon....which meant the game was bad....even tho that is just....... wrong on so many levels....over a freaking hc.....and it got so bad and it still is tbh >_>)

My fav pooly age one is "Teddie is homophobic" fklajfdslf no Teddie just doesn't like Kanji/burly men. He likes pretty bois (aka P4MC....and later Goro thanks to PQ2 jfdkslf). KLFJSKDLAJFA oh yes he's homophobic alright, bi boy just has taste and a type is all god. >.>

These things weren't really a big topic in the fandom until the anime roll around and man did it pick up steam (which is why I blame the anime). The anime hit (along with announcements for Arena and Golden) hit right when P4's honeymoon phase started ending, so people decided to become more critical.....Some upset it was getting attention, some had some understandable criticisms (tent scene), and some just watched the anime and assumed they understood a 21+ hour game (give or take a handful of hours with SLs) by watching a roughly 13 hour anime (that either rushed through SLs or didn't even touch on them).

It was a perfect cocktail of fucked up >.>

*inhales* I think the anime's first mistake was making P4 into a straight up......comedy with some serious moments (where we suddenly have a genre shift after Nanako because......*shrugs*). P4 may not have gotten so serious it weighed the scene down, tho it def feeing more serious post-Nanako, it wasn't as drastic of a genre shift. It wasn't much of a shift with the game, just a natural arc of the story. As the stakes got more serious, it got more serious. It still had moments of levity, but post-Nanako we basically get none of that (sans Marie's arc in P4G, but understandably the killer is caught and they think they can unwind). And it feels natural with the game. Anime was probably a big sucker punch and a shift, not a (slow and) natural build up.

I'll never forgive what the anime did to P4. It took till P4D and PQ2 for us to get some characterization that resembled base P4 again (as much as I think PQ1 is the better PQ game, and is tied with P4D as my fav spinoff, it does have some......mean qualities with the characterization of the chars at time. Arena/Ultimax are more or less fine but I always felt like there was something off about it. It was def the start of the flanderization......with P4D/PQ2 fixing that)

As for P4GA? That’s....there’s only really one issue I have with that, it’s the shippy-ness of Marie with Yu. I believe that the adaptation should reflect the game and try to give every girl equal amount of ship moments to each girl (can be hard when the narrative favors one character like say Aigis over most other girls but still). It also hurts considering the friendship route is my fav part of Marie and they could still have the shippy stuff but keep it ambiguous while following the friend route. So yeah, that’s the only aspect I outright hate about the anime, everything else I’m like “eh yeah that’s cool.” (basically I could just ignore the last ep or two and cut out a few more moments in the anime and I’d probs be fine fkldsajfla).

I didn’t finish this anime either (this time it was just school got busy and I rarely follow animes that are in the process of airing, let alone keep up with it till the end of the season, tbh if I can I tend to just.....read the manga instead when it happens), but I know some parts (aka how shippy it gets with Marie).

I like Yu in P4GA more, he’s more “friendly air head” and less “rude air head” in this one (my list is still P4MC/Souji>=Game!Yu(might depend on the game)>P4GA!Yu>>>>>>>P4TA!Yu). The art is better, PTS and P3 movies are still better but at least it’s not P4TA or P5TA quality. >.> While I’m....iffy on Marie (I like and don’t like her at the same time, and I wish Atlus handled the tsundere-ness better....might have to make a meta on tsunderes in general but not now), I do find it was a good choice to have her included in Golden moments (while tying it with her SL) she wasn’t originally apart of to make me feel like she was part of the IT rather than just Yu. It also just has some genuinely good comedic moments over P4TA (I remember a scene where Naoto thinks everyone is yandere and is after her.....tbh that fits her character, it felt like that studio actually kinda knew what the assignment was jfksladfja;). I feel like a lot of fans expected more out of it and....I don’t blame them for not rehashing the whole P4 plot. I think they could’ve added a few more eps, either original or better adaptations of the SLs but that’s it. I also understand fans not liking it cause.....Marie. I get it. I applaud it for attempting to fix an aspect of the game’s flaw (imo) but I also understand people.....might not like having to deal with her. Most other issues I don’t remember atm, or they are issues found in the main game.

#silly asks #silly answers #anti p4 anime

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vohalika · 5 years

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hello, this is random but.. could u please tell me some of your fav things about vex? i don't often see people who Really Like Vex and we need more of that

Well, well, well, anon.

I have literally no idea how long it has been since you asked this of me, but rest assured I have not forgotten! Well, okay, I had for a while, then I saw it again and was like “oh, right, huh… And would you look at that, I’m about 100 posts away from 100,000… Wouldn’t that be a good one…”

So. Here we are! An unstructured rambling of all the reasons I really, really love Vex, somewhere between superficial and embarrasingly personal, to celebrate this arbitrary number of things I have spread around on this hell site.

Okay, first of all, the only thing Laura had to say to Kit Buss for the official art was “make her hot”. That is a Statement. And boy did Kit and also everyone deliver on that.

Like seriously. I didn’t use to be a fan of feathers in hair or white armor, but good god does she make it work.

Hey, I said this was going to be extremely superficial

Another thing I really didn’t use to like, twins. Overdone and usually poorly executed. But our girl made a Point out of being as different from her twin as she could be while at the same time being completely believable siblings.

I swear to god I’ll do my absolute best to mention Vax as little as possible. This is not about him.

Third thing I really couldn’t stand! The one, usually female, team member with a pet! Closely related to the one with the nature powers! I don’t know, these just always rubbed me the wrong way in media before, probably because I also never really cared for shows or movies about animals. Fight me.

And yet here she is, and she is not the “won’t somebody think of the children animals!” type of gal and Trinket is amazing and it still ties into her personality on a larger scale without being preachy.

I have a fourth thing. I also really don’t care for elves, ever. Everybody hates them. And then she turns around and makes me cry about the elf thing. Good god.

Yes, watching the first episode way back when was an uphill battle. There’s a reason I started with episode 69 and then watched the rest.

Nice.

Vex has the best worst sense of humor. No, really. I’m not even talking about that time she made a comment about the boy with the shot off fingers not having much of a future as a musician. But I’m also talking about that. And that time Scanlan tried having a meaningful monologue about having a daughter now. “I’ve defined most of my life by the people I slept with, and now…” - “Well, technically, this is still kinda defined by that.”

(Shoutout to Percy “I was just thinking that”)

Also, “We don’t do anything with dignity”, “I only serve gods with big dicks”, “You might live forever, but you will still be fucking ugly”? Girl is iconic, even if her sense if humor is usually pretty inappropriate for the given situation, she just can’t help it. I relate.

On a related note, it is so easy to play a similar archetype and have her just be this always dignified and above the humor kind of stuck-up. It’s basically how most people would have written her (and a certain someone did). But not our girl, oh no.

Also, I recently made a post about this, but we really, really don’t talk enough about how she’s just the leader of the party. She is. No, really, lower your bitch sticks, y’all. She’s the one to talk to the most NPCs, she’s the one to usually say go, and everyone just naturally adheres to her. It’s never forced, it’s never an “I, as the leader” moment, and she doesn’t try to wrestle her way into the role. It’s just what happens naturally.

Which also means she’s good at stepping back and letting other people shine for a bit. But still, Vex is the reason they didn’t just flounder around like a chicken without its head after Scanlan left. Laura was late to two sessions in campaign one; the first one was already in an extended battle scene, and the other was literally spent in a bedroom in hell waitinig for Vex to tell them what to do.

This is why scholars are generally of the opinion that Vex is the only Top in VM. And also what intellectuals refer to as Big Dick Energy.

Let’s talk about what the assholes call Greed. Yes, Vex is, out of all of them, the most pre-occupied with gold and loot. But she NEVER hoards anything for herself, never spends any of her own gold on herself even until the timeskip, leave alone the party funds.

She looks out for the interests of the group, makes sure they get the best possible deals and are paid what they are owed. And she’s the only one to ever worry about money, too, whereas everyone else never bothers to think about it. Hence why her and Vax split the cost of paying their staff after the party spent all the funds early on.

Look, I find her worries very indicative of growing up in poverty with her mom, than surrounded by rich and important people but locked out of the loop, and then poor and on the road again with Vax. I find it very relatable, and everyone who claims that looking out for the financial well-being of the party is “greedy” is lucky enough to never have had to worry about eating next month while also making rent.

There’s Safety In A Fist Full Of Diamonds, okay?

No really I need y’all to read that and send it to the annoying bitches who complain.

Vex is literally never stingy when it comes to helping people with the money she made sure they have. Remember how she didn’t even flinch at spending a five digit number to free angel boy slaves?

WHICH LEADS ME TO ANOTHER POINT. Vex. Vex has a serious hoarding problem. But not when it comes to money of earthly possessions. No. When it comes to PICKING UP STRAYS.

It’s how she got Trinket.

It’s how she got the angel babies.

It’s what she tries to do with the grey render baby.

It’s what she suggested they do with the dragon eggs in the Raishan fight

(LET! VEX! HAVE! PET! DRAGONS!)

IT HOW SHE GOT HER OWN GODDAMN HUSBAND OKAY.

I have no idea how she hasn’t adopted her own zoo by the time VM forms. Though I can totally see her opening orphanages in Whitestone, both for people and animals and creatures of all kinds, really.

Remember when she was the only one to protest the punching of a spectral ghost cow?

The hardships of her youth made her, yes, very afraid of being out of money, but also made her compassionate as fuck. She’s always down with helping people even if there’s little to no coin in it, okay? Stop overlooking that, assholes.

SPEAKING OF COMPASSION. Remember what her original beef with the Vasselheim potion seller was? That he took advantage of Grog being intellectually challenged. Which is what he did! Blatantly so! And he wasn’t the least bit sorry about it!

I mean, I bet he is by now, but, you know. Karma.

When Laura says Vex just wanted justice and then everyone else escalated that scene she is goddamn right, rewatch your own footage Matthew.

Oh god do I have to talk about broomgate now. I don’t want to talk about broomgate.

OKAY

Broomgate is literally the only time in the entire series that Vex ever takes something for herself. Was it the morally right thing to do? Maybe not. Though to keep in mind that a) Hardwick is a piece of shit, b) they literally met Gern when he had the skeletons of Kiki’s dead civilization dancing for him; Vax shanked Nothics for less, c) and this was hot off the heels of fighting a necromancer in the last big arc, too, d) they were on a mission to kill dragons. That fly. With no method of flying for the majority of the party. Vex always intended to use the broom for that purpose, so you could make the legal argument of commandeering it instead of stealing, and, finally, e) SHE HAD JUST FUCKING DIED

Why do we never talk about that

Other characters get cut all the slack for what they do after just dying

Other characters get cut all the slack when they steal from other guests

Other characters get cut all the slack when they withhold loot for the party

Other characters DIDN’T GET AN ALIGNMENT DROP FOR DOING WORSE SHIT THAN THIS

WHY ARE WE STILL TALKING ABOUT BROOMGATE

WHY WAS BROOMGATE EVER EVEN A THING

okay

MOVING ON

Hey, while we’re at dying. Remember how Vex spent the day after she, literally, died, trying to make sure the person who was to blame for her death was okay? She did that. And Percy was uncomfortable with it, visibly so, but also too guilty to call her out here.

And no one. NO ONE. EVER. Bothered to check in on how she felt after dying.

Vax made it all about the sacrifice he made, Percy felt too guilty, NO ONE ELSE CARED.

And what does she do? Soldier on. Try and cheer Vax up and support him in any way she can.

Honestly, learning the Raven Queen book by heart and then telling him that being the champion of a god is really fucking cool? Relatable. Relatable as fuck. You go girl.

And TO THIS DAY. ACROSS TWO CAMPAIGNS. Vex has been the only one. THE ONLY ONE. To EVER check up on someone after they died. Jester might eventually be the second one, but, you know. I am a big advocate for post-death and just post-big-battle-in-general aftercare cuddle piles or whatever. Someone tell the cast to implement that immediately.

And while we’re at death, let’s talk about THE DARKNESS

There are dark facets to her character. Vex never makes her own issues everyone else’s problem and they go largely unadressed, but they’re there.

Saundor brought up the story about how she got Trinket and had to kill for the first time while doing so.

(Sidenote: Saundor doing more research into her character than an actual writer is extremely telling.)

That was definitely traumatic for a young girl and I don’t mean to dismiss that, but that’s also the part I can understand Vax dismissing when they talk about it later on. They do kill a lot of people after that and this was self-defense, so hey, okay. Fine.

HOWEVER

That short story was indicative of many other things that torment Vex. Mostly her low sense of self-worth.

Like, her entire inner monologue is centered around how stupid she was for getting into this situation in the first place (= for being taken advantage of by criminals at the tender age of probably like 15), and how this would never have happened to Vax, who was away in the city to take care of them.

And we see that low sense of self-worth bleeding into Vex’s character throughout the campaign. That’s part of the reason why she spends the day after her first death making sure everyone else is okay. That’s also part of the reason she blames herself for Scanlan leaving and acts like she’s completely fine when he returns just so he’ll stay.

Honestly that short story is so insightful and explains so much about her, I don’t know how anyone could claim to have any grasp on her character without reading it.

(Also, Laura should write more, she’s talented)

Now a significant part of her self-worth issues obviously also ties back into her time at Syngorn. I can just hear people getting out their tiny violins, oh, waaah, she wasn’t one of the rich, cool kids in elf school, poor her.

But that’s not entirely it?

Like, just that is already plenty to fuck a person up. I’ve been there, too.

But let’s just say the fact that her dad was also cold towards them and acted like they were unworthy is a BIG part of what fucked her up. Call it daddy issues if you feel like being dismissive about a genuinely traumatizing upbringing, but that’s how it is.

And don’t get me wrong, if this were the traumatic childhood olympics, it’s not exactly up there and relatively tame for the background of a character in a fantasy story, but it is very true to life and extremely relatable, and Laura just executes it so well. So, so well.

That’s part of what makes the entire stretch of Feywild episodes so great. From what we see of Vax’s reaction later on, Percy is the only person she ever talked to about this - or at least the only one who ever listened - and he immediately got it. And instead of yelling at her about how amazing she is, he did something to make her feel better about herself. Without making it about himself, by the way.

I enjoy a fake married plotline as much as the next gal, but Percy giving her a title she’d have to earn by her own merits is soooo much more meaningful than just putting a fake ring on her, okay?

Yes, at the end of the day, this is basically a Cinderella fantasy. So what? No, really. One of the best things about Vex and her arc is that it validates feeling upset about not measuring up in superficial, material ways. And it validates getting your come-uppance. These are, as mentioned above, experiences that can really mess with a person, but we’re usually supposed to be above it all because money and titles don’t make you happy.

Also something only people who never struggled financially can say/believe unironically and without specifying.

Hell, that’s about 70% of the reason I’m considering getting a Ph.D. if I happen to get the grades.

I’m also not a big fan of the term daddy issues, but I can’t deny that this is a thing here

not the thing they went into the Feywild for, buuuut

ahem

So. Remember when Laura said during the campaign wrap up that Vex thought of Scanlan as a father figure and everyone was like whaaaaat? And I was like ahahahaha, I knew it.

This is so tragic, really. Because she tried so hard so many times to help Scanlan and be nice to him and he just brushed her off. And then she’s the one who volunteers to spend the night all by herself in some dirty pub far, far away after opening up to his daughter about her own issues to bring him back alive, and then gets yelled at, and never apologized to.

And then he comes back and tries to erase her memory and not only is that never even brought up, she also just doesn’t even think she might be owed an apology because a) she still blames herself for him leaving because, you know, they never really talked out what happened there and b) she’s just too happy for at least that father figure returning to them to make much of a fuss about it, and Percy, bless his heart, TRIES, but it’ll take a few more years of marriage to talk through all of her issues

And like. I am not wild about anything that happens after episode 99. If I’m known for anything in this fandom on this platform it’s probably for that time I was really into the Ioun discourse, which I still stand by, btw. And I personally would have preferred for Vex to maybe get someone like Sehanine as her patron, as fitting as giving her yet another unworthy and disapproving father figure in her life might be

But there is also something somewhat gratifying about everyone talking about how great she is. And she had been sort of working for Pelor before that. Also, the headcanons about her having sun spots or starting to glow when she gets emotional after this are amazing.

So I made my peace with that. She deserves better, but hey, she always does.

She is so smart. So extremely smart. People roll their eyes at her battle plans and say it’s all Travis feeding Laura information, but Travis fed her nothing that time she schmoozed up to the Briarwoods while also making herself appear extremely superficial and unthreatening. Honestly. That dinner scene? Prime Vex. Amazing Vex.

Her battle plans are also so good. Pokeball-ing Grog out of the kill box? Using the Goristro against Vorugal to save the party a trip into the abyss? The only plan of Vox Machina that ever worked out basically perfectly? Amazing. And even IF Travis told Laura these ideas, that means literally nothing in relation to how smart Vex is.

And btw I don’t believe that for a second. People just aren’t good with acknowledging that sometimes, D&D playing women might actually have good ideas.

And she just is so street smart. With her skills, her battle plans, and just her way of handling people. There’s a reason she is the natural leader when it’s not someone’s turn in the spotlight at the time.

Like, the two things holding her back were that her class was extremely underwhelming, so much so that it got completely revamped in the Unearthed Arcana to make up for how bad it was in the PHB, and the fact that she just. Has, what. 1.5 episodes of her own storyline? Even Pike got 2. It’s amazing that I can even say this much about her with how little narrative focus she got throughout the series. And most of what she did was literally due to Percy using his plot clout and putting a foot in the door to force her into the spotlight.

Speaking of which. Percy’s best quality, next to being self-aware of how fucked up he is and actively trying to do better and be kept in check, is how he realizes Vex is the coolest, smartest, most amazing person around and treats her accordingly. The way she deserves to be treated.

Oh hey I mentioned to get this far without even mentioning the romance arc. And oh my god THE ROMANCE ARC. The pining. The slow burn. And the fact that we actually saw them together and later married for like 35 episodes. They were so good for each other.

And yes, PERCY WAS GOOD FOR HER. And Vex was not his therapist and manic pixie dream girl. None of that bullshit here. Percy was already firmly on the path to being better before he even considered that crush he has had on her for forever to turn into something more.

And by he was good for her I mean that he actually UNDERSTOOD her and where she was coming from. Refer again to the titling issue, where Vax is just confused and kind of pissed, Percy got it. And that’s important.

Something I have not made a post about so far, by the way, is also something people have called problematic and co-dependant is how Percy shares his darker impulses with Vex in hopes she’ll talk him out of it. Which she does, and it’s never hard, but that also means so much to her? Because he involves her and tells her exactly what is going on with him and values her opinion? And that is just exactly what she needs? And they’re so good? THEY’RE SO GOOD.

WHEN DOES YOUR OTP EVER

HE COULDN’T HAVE ASKED FOR A BETTER DREAM

This is more on Laura, admittedly, but also, it was just so great to see her unapologetically pursuing this romance? There’s a place at the table for a 72 episode slow burn, and she’s gonna go for it, and there’s nothing any of the dudebros who are just here for the fighting can do about it.

And also Vex is just so unapologetically sexual at the same time. From episode 1 onwards, really, and in general and just limited to Percy. And no one ever treats that as weird or bad or anything. It’s just who she is and that’s great.

And she fought. So hard. For that happy ending of hers. Kicking and screaming, against the world and against Taliesin’s determination that Percy is irredeemable and not capable of getting a happy ending. Defy that auctorial intent, my girl. You deserve it.

Seriously. Seeing her get that happy ending against all odds was unfathomably gratifying and validating and I’ve never connected to any single character or narrative at large for that matter this much and this intimately, and considering how I came across this story at one of the darkest times in my life, I probably never will feel so strongly connected to anything ever again.

Which is probably for the best, but hey.

Aaaand there you go. An almost unstructured, epically long list of reasons I love Vex. Dammit, I talked about other characters way more than I intended, buuuut hey. That’s how it goes when you’ve got an ensemble piece, they’re all kinda interwoven.

Thank you this wonderful ask, anon, and reason to celebrate my 100,000th post on this site in style.

#critical role #cr #cr1 #vex'ahlia #lady vex'ahlia de rolo #is better than you #deserved better from the narrative #will forever be my favorite character probably #will forever be part of my ultimate OTP #we do not deserve her #we are unworthy #long post #long post for ts

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inevitably-johnlocked · 6 years

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Hey Lovely! I was wondering how you first became a part of the fandom? When did you start watching the show, at what point did you feel John and Sherlock might be(come) a thing, what made you start a blog on these two? I just want to know it all ^^ Hope you don't mind sharing a bit :) Thank you for everything you do for this fandom, love you lots!

Hi Lovely!

Oh gosh, what a nice question! I think I’ve talked about this in snippets in various posts, this post being the one talking the most about it, but never as a whole! Apologies if this turns into a long ramble, hah hah!

So I remember exactly when I got into the show SO CLEARLY. It was July of 2013, just a few months before S3 was to air in January 2014. I was over at my friends’ place, and they suggested the show to watch, since we always watch movies together whenever I visit. I remember asking, “Is that the show with Martin Freeman and that Khan actor from Star Trek 2?”. We finished Season one all in one go, and immediately fell in love with Ben and Martin’s portrayals and their chemistry. And then I had to head back home. I was ANGRY because OMG WHAT HAPPENS NEXT and my friends just laughed.

So as soon as I got home, I downloaded S1 and S2 and watched them ALL the way through. I needed more. So, because I already had a Tumblr and knew it was for fandoms, I decided to see what it had to offer.

Oh boy what did I get into???

So I lurked for a bit, and then I discovered something called “meta”, back when the TRF theories were the prominent meta in the fandom. So while I was getting deep into meta, I started switching my fanart from Ninja Turtles to Sherlock, because I was warming up to Ben’s ethereal face and I wanted to draw it. And I wanted to be a Sherlock fanartist. I briefly shipped Sher1011ie for a week or so, until I rewatched the series again and it just didn’t jive like it did the first few watch-throughs. I was too invested in John and Sherlock’s friendship – I saw them as bestest friends ever, too devoted to each other.

Now, at this point, y’all need to remember this: I was naïve, have never been exposed at length nor ever heard of subtext, was and am not part of the LGBT community (I grew up in a different time and in a conservative city, so being “gay” just wasn’t a thing), had a very heteronormative view on my life, and I just had always just insisted that in all of my fandoms, when I liked two male characters together, it was because “bestest friends ever!!”. I didn’t know I was ace and I’d never read smut up until 3 years ago (yes hi hello I’m so old and so innocent LOL).

Okay, so I was just lurking for a bit, learning my way around fandom, reading meta and just generally dipping my toes quietly into the fandom.

Then came Season 3.

As many of my followers know, a lot of my fondness for season 3 stems from this being the season that LITERALLY opened my eyes to EVERYTHING: subtext, Johnlock, my own sexuality, and my meta-writing career.

So, season 3 aired and I decided to dip my toes into “reviewing” the episodes as my first “meta”. They were posted onto my multi-fandom blog here, here and here. I was so proud of them, because it reinvigorated my love for writing (I used to be a pretty prominent Sonic fan-fic author back in the 90′s… I never finished my stories because my interest in the fandom died before I finished them), despite how laughably bad they were, haha. I got a couple compliments on them, but nothing beyond that, especially since I sat down and wrote them for HOURS after each episode aired.

Sometime between TSo3 and HLV, I discovered loudest-subtext-in-television (aka LSiT) and deducingbbcsherlock completely by accident and I was FASCINATED. I ate up everything they wrote. The first time I watched TSo3, something was niggling at my brain but I couldn’t quite place it. It was one of LSiT’s meta that twigged at it. That’s when I learned about subtext, heteronormativity and the queer community. And suddenly, just like that, something in my brain clicked.

Oh. My god. This show is gay, and I actually SHIP these idiots like I did in the Mother Ship (ie. The X-Files Mulder / Scully). That’s why I was SO ANNOYED with Irene. Why Molly was slowly grating on me. Why Mary’s introduction kind of annoyed me but okay I guess I can deal with it. Why everything seemed really romantic but it just couldn’t be, could it?

I rewatched the series. And it was gay. Y’all, those rainbow-coloured glasses were suddenly GLUED to my head, and I saw gay EVERYWHERE.

So, after HLV, I discovered The Johnlock Conspiracy and I was eating up all the meta about Johnlock I could. Around this time, I also was learning a lot about the LGBT community, its history and sexual fluidity from wsswatson. It was also around this time I discovered asexuality, and I started reading a lot about it.

In February of 2014, I started this blog because I wanted a place to reblog Johnlock meta. This was the first post I made on this blog, and looking back at it now, I am DYING because wow I never imagined I was going to be this deep into the fandom the day I wrote that. I don’t even remember writing it, to be very honest. I just shake my head, HAH. I think I really started understanding Johnlock because of this post here. It’s still one of my favourites and is one of the ones I credit for helping me understand what I was watching was actually a romance, not a “crime show”.

Anyway, after learning how to read subtext from mostly LSiT (they wrote a meta about how to read subtext and it was super informative) and other Johnlock bloggers, I wanted to try my hand at my own little Johnlock meta. It was more of an observational post, as my way of trying to interact with the fandom. I am a terribly nervous and shy person, so I never tagged anyone in anything. It was an overwhelming fandom, and it was terrifying to interact. A few bigger bloggers noticed me and were nice enough to comment on a couple of my posts, but I mostly stayed in my little corner, and interacted with my small little group of other smaller fans. I dabbled in both fanart and writing, just plopping my thoughts and art into the aether, hoping something would interest someone enough to start a discussion.

I started getting braver, and I was “moderating” some of my favourite posts that weren’t mine, but had my additions to it. Mostly, the Phones and Hearts post. I didn’t want to impede, but it was one of my favourite posts, so I went and copied all of the comments in the notes and put them onto one post. I don’t honestly remember HOW I ended up moderating it, but I just did because I was FASCINATED with symbolism, and I was excited because I could finally read subtext and understand it. I still had a small following, and a few people I regularly interacted with on my blog.

So, during the hiatus between S3 and TAB, somewhere along the way I suddenly had a sexuality crisis, when I suddenly realized I wasn’t broken and there was absolutely nothing wrong with me, and damn it, there’s such thing as split attraction model and asexuality?? Mind was BLOWN. I was also slowly becoming obsessed with Mary’s character, and at the time I couldn’t understand why (inevitably, it was because of events happening in my own life and me trying to understand them), but I really enjoyed just psychoanalyzing her. It’s something I’ve ALWAYS loved doing – character studies; I’ve done it in EVERY fandom I’ve been in – and I was doing it for her, Sherlock and John’s characters.

So yeah, nothing much really happened to me during the S3 hiatus, except my entire world view flipped on its head and I was completely Johnlocked beyond repair. I became known for some painful posts and some lovely revelations and writing a lot of character study posts on both John and Sherlock. I’m very proud of some of my earlier meta, just sad they never really got seen (some of my earliest meta can be seen on my Ao3).

Then came the announcement for TAB in 2015, and the start of my “Tumblr Career”. I put a lot of my energy into my fandom life. I was OBSESSED with TAB, and became known for it. I put my moderation skills to use and created the TAB Starter Pack, which started gaining me some followers because OMG some loser is taking the time out of their day to compile all the news about this new series! AWESOME. I remember, it was around this time I was excited because I got to 1895 followers and it was one of those milestones all Johnlockers like having, hahah.

In October of 2015, I lost my job and was unemployed. Conveniently, this is also the time when the promo season for TAB started, because we now had a name and airdate. I devoted a LOT of my time, when I wasn’t job hunting, to working on this blog. I was just writing a lot, and obsessing about the upcoming episode.

Then the trailer aired.

And immediately after that trailer dropped on October 24, 2015, I made this post here, which, some would probably say, was the beginning of everything for me. As I was writing that post, with a cracking headache, something clicked in my head, and several hours later, I had written and posted the original Mind Palace Theories of TAB at 2AM-ish, and went to bed.

When I woke up, my post had suddenly gone viral and I couldn’t figure out why. Then it just kept expanding from there, and I made sure to include everything I could onto it, because WOW something I wrote was gaining traction, and interaction, and I just wanted us all to have a good time with it. And as the time for TAB drew closer, suddenly I was gaining followers, and more people interested in what I had to write. I welcomed everyone to continue to predict the outcome with me.

January 1st. Was a complete and total mind fuck. I was liveblogging the episode, and inadvertently created another viral post with my Mycroft’s Death post because FUCK ARE THEY KILLING MYCROFT OFF?? kind of freaked people out (sorry loves!), which gained me some more followers, and at the time, my top post was my December 31st reblog of my Mind Palace Theories post, so anyone who came to my blog, it would have been on the first page of it.

After the episode aired, suddenly, EVERYONE had questions for me, about EVERYTHING, but mostly to scream at me that I was a mind reader, LOL. No, I’m not, I was just a sad, unemployed twat with too much time on my hands and was avoiding job hunting. But good god, all DAY on Jan 1, I was replying to asks, gaining followers like crazy, and pretty much just stating my opinion on anything that someone wanted to know.

I became known as the unofficial TAB blog, and the one to come to with questions about my interpretation of the episode. I was SO obsessed with TAB, studied every nuance and narrative structure I could. 2016 was “my heyday”, and it was fun. I found my niche, and meta-writing is what I became known for. And until I got a job in April of that year, I was a pretty solid presence in the fandom, if I understand some of what I’ve been told correctly. I still ran my blog as full-time as I could having a full-time job, and still do in some ways, but yeah, 2016 is when I produced a LOT of meta, mostly Mary meta because, as I said above, I was and am obsessed with her character arc. I was learning about myself a lot more by writing meta, and my “original” meta turned into “asks” meta, which was fine by me, because I do like a good prompt to get me going.

Somewhere in there I also somehow became the blog new bloggers came to, which I didn’t and don’t mind at all, because being new in a fandom is scary and I wanted to be a friendly face because I like meeting new people.

Then we got an announcement for S4, and like TAB I also kept track of anything and everything S4-related, so once again I was sort of the “go-to” place for everything S4 because I compiled all the stuff from setlock bloggers and listed them all for easy-access. I kept track of everything promotional, and I reblogged some of my favourite pre-S4 meta here.

Essentially, I LOVE organizing things, and people liked that I LOVED doing it, so that’s sort of how I kept my following when I wasn’t posting as much new meta. I did make a few original meta before S4, and I made a 68 day video countdown to the series which is cringy AF and I’m not linking it (lol you can find it if you look hard enough).

We all know what happened in S4. I took a bit of heat after S4 aired, because I got people’s hopes up. I was discouraged for a bit, but then I started receiving asks that weren’t really asks, but “I need advice” and “I need support”.

And I started answering life questions, and realized people LIKED my responses, liked my little personal anecdotes in each of my replies, and felt comforted by it. So, after S4 aired, I became an eclectic mix of life advice, meta, fics, music and TJLC / tinhatting blog. I have a “no judgement” approach to my blogging, and I think that’s why I’m still gaining a steady dozen or so followers every couple weeks, rather than losing. The only time I took a big hit was the Tumblr Feedpocalypse, where they fucked up the algorithm and I’m not getting nearly as many hits on my posts as I used to, but that could also be because we lost so many people to S4, especially after Jan 1, 2018 when people were hoping for another episode.

I personally don’t think I’m popular, but I suppose I am by Tumblr standards. I dunno, I think we all have that “starry eyed” view of popular bloggers, and I just can’t picture myself as someone anyone would fawn over. I’m just me, and you can take it or leave it.

I think where I’m at now and what I’m known for is a good place to be, to be honest, despite how S4 turned out. I’m not certain, but I FEEL like I have a positive reputation here, but don’t quote me. I know I have people in this fandom who hate me, and quite frankly it saddens me that they feel they need to expel energy on me that way when they deserve to just be happy and forget about me.

ANYWAY, sorry that got long and rambly, but it’s something I’ve wanted to talk about for awhile, but I was waiting for the prompt to come because *shrugs* I dunno, self esteem thing, makes me think no one REALLY cares until someone actually asks, hah.

And if you made it all the way to the end here, Love ya Nonny, and thank you for asking and thank you for being a follower of my blog

#steph replies #about me #fandom life #steph's storytime #fandom history #Anonymous #long post #my blog

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