#don't tell lies to people who trust you that will then require an ever expanding web of deception to keep up because you don't want them to

[mdhwrites]

Amphibia Meeting the Human Realm is My Favorite Half Season of the Show So Far

And it's because it managed to push into new territory that expanded its themes harder through contrast and parallels, never forgot its stakes while keeping its identity, and yet still managed to give us a new vibrant cast of supporting characters so as to bring together an exceedingly satisfying half season. Not a perfect one but one that never quite felt as awkward as the low points of other seasons and is DRIPPING with good characterization, morals, ideas, etc.

One of the big things I think a lot of fans of the series miss by calling it filler, the same fans who I assume likely skipped S1 because they saw it as filler, is actually the importance of swinging back around to S1's concepts but with the Plantars. We get to see the changes to how things go because of how much Anne has changed, how much Anne has affected the Plantars but also how little Anne has changed. It makes it so that while we do keep getting told Anne is more responsible, we can see it more clearly than during any other part of the series.

But we can also see the seeds being set for why the ending will be what it will be (because there's no way I don't know how the series ends). Both Sprig's Birthday and You Give a Frog a Cookie show that while Anne is doing it for better people... She's still a people pleaser to her friends. She still has growth she needs to do. Growth that might require some amount of time away from those she's closest to to achieve because she needs time to invest in herself.

Not to say the half season is perfect. I can see a lot of reasons why some dislike Spider-Sprig even if I like the segment, Thai Feud has good character reasoning behind it even if I think it goes beyond just childish selfishness which is the saving grace for Anne during a lot of S1 and Hollywood Hop Pop is a good use of the fact that Anne lives in Los Angeles but it still doesn't change that it's awkward and clunky in the same ways that some Hop Pop focused episodes tend to be when he needs to act like an idiot. All three of these though have reasonable justifications, good lessons, are trying to put closure to things or say something about the characters... There's a point to all of them existing, regardless of if they're executed on the best. And even at its worst execution, each one probably still has at least one heartwarming moment and/or one real good joke, like Sprig breaking down about getting yelled at.

And that's one thing I do ADORE: Amphibia is still Amphibia. Despite True Colors, it did not abandon its own identity. It's still funny and over the top and kind of crazy and it's willing to let the human realm be its own sort of crazy to reflect that. I don't think people are right in saying it just forgot about True Colors though. Even while keeping this identity, you have them worrying about getting caught, Anne working herself to death, the weight of lies, etc. like that. It backs off a bit in the second half of the mid-season but only once it has gotten Anne and others to a healthier mindset and even then, no one except whoever is fucking up in a given episode is entirely forgetting what the final goal is. Hell, anyone who claims the show just forgets about True Colors isn't recognizing that this thirteen year old, multiple times, overloads herself by trying to trivialize all that happened. Anne's whole scope of conflict she's EVER been a part of increased a hundred times fold over the course of a single day so her not directly addressing it besides the one part she actually can do something about is GREAT. All the rest of the whispers are part of what's torturing her until finally she knows progress is being made by people like Doctor Jan and she starts breathing again once she tells herself she can trust others with the problem.

It's just... REALLY FUCKING GOOD. And that's without getting into the fact that despite most of the side characters like the IT Girls and Doctor Jan only actually getting like two minutes of screen time each before the last two episodes, they are wonderful additions to the cast and work great. Oum and Bee, Anne's parents, are the only real protagonist additions and the closest they get to a dedicated episode is when Anne goes to the movies. Otherwise, they're always supporting characters to the character drama or themes going on with Anne and the Plantars. And anyone who claims the Plantars are not main characters WILL BE BONKED. Sprig is literally the secondary main character people.

For new antagonists, we have Cloakbot who is a great way to introduce a new threat that goes well with the early focus of trying to adapt and hide on Earth like the Plantars are before then swapping to Mr. X who is SO full of personality and does well to prod the cast forward as they think they're ready to settle in for however long this takes. Cloakbot actually takes up way more time than Mr. X though as Mr. X only shows up like three times before the final episode and while he is the primary threat in each, he's not nearly as involved as Cloakbot was during their appearance. It serves well to build up Mr. X though before finally we see the FBI triumphant... Briefly. But triumphant nonetheless.

The last thing I'll touch on is Sasha and Marcy. Marcy... Marcy is the one part of the half season where I suspect rewatching makes it worse. Knowing this is effectively the final outing for Marcy and even Olivia and Yunan are treating her as just a brain and less as a character (I'm sorry but Marcy really doesn't have a found family) is ROUGH. Marcy has always been only kind of half a character with how she's written though and if I have one big complaint of Amphibia as a whole/so far, it's that Marcy so obviously is tailored for plot purposes more than she is to actually be a part of the show. The episode itself is enjoyable, the two newts have a GREAT dynamic and it sets up the terrifying might of Andrias and what is to come well but... It still is a real shame for the character.

Sasha on the other hand is great, as she commonly is. She genuinely has to ask if she is a conqueror or a protector. She has always seen herself as on the side of right after all. That she controls others for the sake of protecting them. It's part of why Reunion is so effective. Getting to see her at her lowest cause her to decide that and how it inspires Grime is great. Also seeing another big city slicker underestimating the townies and their capabilities is great, not only just a nice hurrah for anyone who loves Wartwood but a nice reminder of why Anne has so much adjusting to do because she underestimated all of this so much. It sets her up VERY well for what will make up the bulk of S3B, at least from my understanding.

So yeah, Amphibia keeps being fucking amazing and yet I STILL have hot takes that go against the opinions of the fandom. Go figure. XD

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I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

#Amphibia #Amphibia Critical #amphibia season 3

[yurious-george]

anyway this one's more personal, kind of an 18+ vent/reflection.

I few months ago i was falsely accused of sexual assault from a long-term friend group, specifically from someone I was close friends with and very flirty (read: horny) with. This person had confessed to me a little while earlier, and I was really struggling with that? I see the problem was multifaceted.

I'm a lesbian who is most likely somewhere on the aro spectrum but NOT the asexual spectrum, and never unpacked it before

i don't do 'casual romance,' to me, a romance is a promise to be on the same side, long term, but i'm thinking i might expand this definition... I'm starting to understand myself and what I want out of dating a lot better. i want to get flirtier and sillier, but again, my sense of sexuality is much more defined than my sense of romance

i am autistic

the language used to describe sexual trauma is all sexual assault based, when there are many situations that can be traumatic that don't involve an attacker

sexual inexperience when playing with more dangerous sexual ideas

not thinking of sexting as actual sex and not really requiring proper safeguards

her own misconceptions that the dom(me) takes all responsibility

i had publicly left our community after a reveal i had been lying about an identity (a joke blog), which was probably interpreted as crueler than intended

all these problems bled into each other. being autistic probably fed into my understanding of romantic feelings and how i express them. I don't think i properly conveyed that I cared about her deeply, even if i didn't understand those feelings as romantic; I admitted i had been 'using her' for sexual attention, and i was so relieved when she said she was into that. i knew that was cruel, but i told the truth because i cared about her. I didn't want to lead her on romantically when I was committed to someone over her. I was like we can maybe-sorta date casually but i encourage you to look for a serious partner who can fully prioritize you. I see ways I could have done better, but I did the best with what I had at the time.

she should not have lied to our entire friend group about being 'assaulted,' though. I cared for her deeply and the thought that I had hurt her badly caused me pain, and her utter immaturity & cruelty in handling the issue made me ashamed i had ever trusted her with pictures of my body. (seriously - she never ONCE told me I had gone too far, and then used examples me "obviously going too far" as proof of my guilt! WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST TELL ME!?) she caused my girlfriends immense suffering just because she couldn't handle vulnerability and i resent her deeply for it.

Basically my ideal dating environment is a harem, but i don't want anyone I'm dating or sleeping with to feel neglected just so i can feel powerful. One wife, several girlfriends (or friends, but I like to have girlfriends) I can Bite and feel sexually possessive over in a fun & sexy way, and those girlfriends can date whoever they like because everyone deserves to be someone's top priority. I just want to know the people in my care have lives outside of me and are being taken care of when I can't make that commitment, you know?

Anyway, I'm gonna make strawberry rhubarb crumble for a potluck later.

#personal

[winepresswrath]

sometimes when I'm feeling salty, I think Lan XiChen is too weak. he doesn't commit, he's always in the fence, trying to make everybody be friends even though some of those people are not good, but he doesn't want to Cheng é the status quo

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

I did spend the back half of my first watch through CQL yelling Xichen!!!! Xichen NO at my TV (because I am a woman of grace and poise), but I've softened on him a lot and kind of arrived at the conclusion that Xichen was trying his best and had his reasons even when they make me personally scream Xichen No. The reason why I went for disagree rather than neutral is that I don't think the problem is actually one of weakness; I think Xichen legitimately feels that compromise is a moral good he as a duty to fulfill.

He's often right! There is value in compromise and peacekeeping! But also he's often just (in my not terribly relevant opinion) straight up right and in those instances I do think his desire to compromise leads him to co-signing some pretty terrible things he knows are terrible and turning a blind eye to some things I wish he'd looked harder at.

Xichen being flawed does not exactly set him apart from the rest of the cast. I don't think there's a single character besides the juniors who hasn't done some stuff that I think can fairly be interpreted as questionable. One of the things I like best about CQL is that while it's mostly a love story with shades of family drama it occasionally detours to address like, the problem of how to wield power ethically, private love vs. public duty, how much you can actually expect another person to know your innermost heart, the private self vs. the public performance of self, ethics in feudalism, Vengeance! What is it good for? etc etc etc and the conclusions it reaches are often that it's difficult and complicated and easy to fuck up even when you're trying very hard. There are also some very bad special effects and very broad acting. Something for everyone! Truly a very fun and often delightfully silly story.

Also OK I do think when you are in a position of power reflexively supporting your true love/best bro who is also in a position of power is not an uncomplicated good, even if he has always been good to you specifically (again! in my not terribly relevant opinion). Sometimes I see people comparing Wangxian to Xiyao and reaching the conclusion that both Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen were right in their faith and I'm just sitting there like I think actually It's Complicated in both instances. I'm happy for Wangxian and I love their love story! But I don't think the takeaway is "support your boo no matter the body count, the important thing is that powerful men who love each other have each other's backs no matter what." It can be if that floats your boat! I just wouldn't say that's the only or truest way to love someone.

#this is also kind of how I feel about courcorse #like of course modern medical ethics are not a thing #but like! I personally still care about them to some extent! in the same way I still care about wiping out the Wen remnants #and yet I feel like u can kind of work your way around to lying about what you're going to do to people's unconscious bodies is bad from #first principles #but that's why my feelings about wen qing doing it amount to sometimes mad science can be so personal and sexy #and my feelings about Wei Wuxian doing it are buddy no :((((( ouch my heart #don't tell lies to people who trust you that will then require an ever expanding web of deception to keep up because you don't want them to #be sad! #especially don't tell these lies about what you're going to do to their unconscious bodies #it does not surprise me that he was upset about that #oooh here's a hot take arguably cql gives Xichen a villain edit

[counterspelling]

The great dilemma of my life is that I wanna get into the Star Wars expanded universe stuff (or legends or whatever they're calling it now in wake of the new movies), but I get nervous about it because 1) there's so much of it and 2) I don't want to be called a faker because I've traditionally been more into Star Trek

Anon, you are absolutely not a faker!! People like what they like and that’s totally fine, and there’s never a time limit on becoming a fan of something. You can like both Star Trek and Star Wars and anyone who tries to set up a rivalry between them or say you can only like one doesn’t make sense and is pulling some gross fandom gatekeeping bullshit. There’s no requirement list for liking something, just be into what you’re into. :)  And if anyone ever tries to tell you you’re not a fan of something for whatever reason they come up with, they’re wrong. If you like something, you’re a fan, and it’s not a race or competition to see who is the ~best fan~

There is absolutely A TON of stuff in the EU though, you’re right, and what you should read depends on what you’re looking to get out of it. It’s a lot like comics where you pretty much pick and choose what you want to read and what you personally consider canon, lol. Cut for excessive EU talk lmao

Qualitatively, the best books are basically the standalone books and a trilogy with a duology sequel. My personal rec list for just the most well-written books are:1. Razor’s Edge by Martha Wells - A Leia book set between ANH and ESB with a heavy dose of beautiful Han/Leia UST and portraying their relationship as the way I’ve always seen it in that era, as very good friends who trust and rely on one another who’ve been falling in love for years and know it but are constrained by circumstances. It also is one of the only books to deal with the fallout of the loss of Alderaan. If you like Leia or Han/Leia it’s the book for you, and is hands-down my fave EU book2. Tatooine Ghost by Troy Denning  - a post-ROTJ novel about Leia and Han on Tatooine. It’s about Leia dealing with her heritage and Denning is one of my fave EU authors because he handles characters and feelings very well and always writes Han/Leia with the respect and love and humor they deserve3. Kenobi by John Jackson Miller - post-ROTS Obi-wan in hiding on Tatooine and coming to terms with like… everything lmao4. Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn - immediately post-ANH canonical Ocean’s 11 AU about Han putting together a team to pull a heist. Zahn is the most well-regarded EU author and he’s really great at characterization and always has interesting plots5. Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor by Matthew Stover - post-ROTJ Luke novel that did a great job at characterization. Stover also wrote the ROTS novelization which is probably the most popular movie novelization

The series that gets rec’d the most as the best place to start is definitely Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn trilogy. It’s set like 10 years post ROTJ and focuses on Han, Luke, and Leia and introduces the character of Mara. I have mixed feelings about this trilogy because I think Zahn does a great job at handling the universe and the team and he’s one of my favorite authors for characterization, but he spends so much time on the villain Thrawn that I just get pissed off every time because I think he’s a terrible character and it’s a waste of pagetime lol. But this is so, so many people’s entry point into the EU, and they’re good books! Then there’s the Hand of Thrawn duology sequel set another 10 years or so after that.

So that’s my list for if you’re looking for just the Best Books. But my heart really lies in the books that take place after that, from the New Jedi Order onward, about 20 years post-ROTJ because that’s when the Solo kids grow up enough to take center stage in the main books alongside their parents. Jaina, Han and Leia’s oldest child and only daughter, is tied for my all-time favorite character, and this is the era where she really gets to shine. If you want to see Luke start and rebuild the Jedi Order and not give up even when a student goes bad and kills millions of people, if you want to see a bunch of jedi working together, if you want to see Leia as a jedi, if you want to see Han and Leia in love and working together for 40 years, if you want to see Han and Luke and Leia as a family who support and help and tease and love one another as they grow older together, this is where you get it.

You can’t really pull a qualitative rec list for this era though because each book builds on the previous. The NJO is a 19-book series split up into shorter series within, but I can’t imagine just picking up a random series in it. It would be like watching ROTJ without seeing ANH and ESB, you would technically be getting a full story but you’d be missing so much context it would hardly be worth it. So that’s the biggest problem, you have to basically commit to 19 books to get the story. Then it’s followed by the Legacy of the Force and the Fate of the Jedi series, which are shorter ~10 book series each, but still require you to read every book in continuity. And because of all the different authors in every series, characterizations aren’t always handled the best and different authors have different strengths, so it can be a little frustrating. But I love the Skywalker and Solo families, so if you have the time and the inclination, it’s where my heart is.

#star wars #eu #SORRY I LOVE TALKING ABOUT THE EU #so i just write novels whenever i talk about it lol #anyway i hope this was at least a little helpful anon #Anonymous #long post #long post for ts