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factorialsotherfandoms · 4 months

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Surprise alt PoV on Saturday's fic...? Magic exhaustion is totally exhaustion and I wrote basic type back on the fainting day so like. Enjoy some weird shit instead.

XCOM AU, again, with people having extremely bad times. Referenced torture, everything's a bit on the magic end of things for me to be sure how to warn it. Oh right! Implied Major Character Death (they learn this isn't actually the case before the end of the story, but do believe it for long enough to have genuine grief hours about it). Actual major character injury. Psychic torture. Poorly explained magic and soulmate system.

Mostly Forever, Cellbit, and Pac, with background Fit/Pac and not-on-screen-but-vital-to-story Pac & Mike

The meeting has been over for a good twenty minutes now. Most of the Order have dispersed back to their days, but a few still hang around the command centre. Forever is nominally in charge of navigation, but auto-pilot is engaged and they don't have anywhere specific to go. It's the sort of day where one person can manage both navigation and comms, though Cellbit has pulled up a chair and an old book of puzzles to keep himself occupied as he pretends to handle the later.

Not that puzzles are being done, at the moment; currently they're both over by the holographic map system, lazily watching the flightpath while chatting with Pac. Ever since Mike was kidnapped two - maybe three - months ago, he's been out of sorts. Of course he has - Forever doesn't understand what a soul-bond means, not innately, but to have someone trusted with your head pulled away? In danger with nothing you can do, with every lead going nowhere? Pac's honestly dealing weirdly well.

Forever knows he and Cellbit dealt /much/ worse when Felps was stolen from them.

"Any plans tonight?" he asks, when the conversation Cellbit and Pac were having slows to a halt.

"Roier wanted to show me something," Cellbit's face goes soft for a moment at the mention. "Who knows how it'll go?"

"Not really," Pac blinks a little harder than normal. "Maybe the bar? Is there anything else to do?"

"Steal the lab back for an evening?" Cellbit suggests.

"Dating!" is Forever's reply.

Pac laughs at the first, and goes red at the second.

"Ohhhh," Forever laughs, suddenly realising. "Is Fit going to be at the bar, by any chance?"

"I- Ah- Maybe!" Pac's hands swish about the air with just quite how flustered he is by the mere suggestion. "What about you? Aren't you up to anything?"

"Me?" Forever replies, teasing. "Well now you ask... No, not much. Pierre had some new reports I should probably start working through."

"The elerium reports?" Cellbit's eyes light up. "He's finished? Did he have much to say about it?"

"His report's short, Tubbo's though..." Forever laughs.

"Tubbo's right, though," Pac looks over to a point between Forever and Cellbit, thinking hard. "If we can fully harness it... Ship power isn't going to be a problem again. We might even be able to use it to channel... No, I don't think it'll work for grenades. We don't have enough anyway. But if we can find a way to safely embed it... You might... Maybe... You should make Tubbo talk to Pierre. I'm not up to date on all our schematics, and I'm not Mike, but... With the right wiring it should make energy weapons viable? And! The alloys he was looking at for the new armour? If I'm right about it-"

At some point during the ramble, Forever had looked away; one of the engineers was flagging him down for permission to start maintenance on the steering system. He is in the middle of giving them the thumbs up when Pac's ramble cuts off.

Forever abandons the engineer, head snapping back around to check on him.

Pac often trails off.

But Pac does /not/ cut off at the peak of excitement in a ramble. Not unless it's followed by an apology. Never to nothing, never to dead silence.

Forever's correct; Pac has frozen up, his eyes overtaken by a haze of glowing blue.

Fuck, psionics; Forever looks to Cellbit, who shakes his head - not anything he can detect, and so not anything from an attack.

Just in case he still sees Cellbit extend a nullification field over Pac - and Forever as well. No change.

Pac's fingers, previously loose on the guard rail as he leant against it, are white with the tension in his grip.

"Pac...?" Forever glances back and forth between Cellbit and Pac as he speaks. "Everything okay?"

Pac blinks.

Usually it would erase the glow.

This time... The colour shifts.

Right eye remains blue.

Left eye shifts to green.

"... Mike?"

If it /is/ Mike, some sort of long distance contact from his cell that Cellbit and Pac had both called too dangerous to attempt over the distance...

Forever tries to remind himself it means something is terribly wrong - Mike would have tried this earlier if he thought that he could - but all that happens is that his heart soars.

A lead, a lead, for the first time in months they have a better lead than 'somewhere in Australia, South-East Asia, the Pacific, or South America'. He's no idea how good a lead, but it is one.

"Mike!" Cellbit's call for their missing friend is sharper. "Pac? What's happening? Where are you?"

Pac - Mike - neither of them respond. Pac doesn't even blink, his body rigid against the guard rail.

Cellbit reaches an arm behind him, making sure he doesn't fall back over it if at any point he goes limp. The action... The action forces Forever's brain into accepting just how serious this probably is.

And no matter what, once this is over Pac is going to be a wreck. He's coping... badly, but so much better than any of them thought he would, the bad limited to reckless disregard for his own safety, not anything else. After this, though, after having Mike in his brain only to have to leave...

If he and Cellbit aren't enough to help - and they won't be - there's two other people Forever can think that Pac might want. He grabs his communicator, sending messages summoning Fit and Felps.

Fit is on the training range, and Felps is probably asleep, but at least they'll come as soon as they're free.

Forever and Cellbit... They can work with that.

He leaves Cellbit to do whatever psionic things he's trying - soul-bonds aren't like Cellbit's academic psionics, but it comes from the same root source, they think - and does what he can.

The engineer has taken his distraction for permission, and is doing her job. Forever... This isn't his, but all the crew are his responsibility - and especially the Brazilians.

He takes one of Pac's hands, peeling it from the guard rail and interlacing the fingers with his own.

Nails dig deep into his hand as Pac, still blank eyed and otherwise unresponsive, clings back.

It stays like that for a few minutes - even on their ship they refuse to leave Pac alone and vulnerable. Just... Forever holding his hand, Cellbit protecting his back, and Pac's face completely blank in a way Pac's never is.

Forever can read the tension in his body, though, the way the shaking grows with every breath.

He does his best to reassure them, whatever combination of Tazercraft can or cannot hear him, all the while shooing anyone looking into walking past. Fit and Felps still haven't replied, but it's okay, it's okay, he and Cellbit can at least keep Pac curled up sobbing somewhere safe until other help arrives. Forever wants to fix it, wants to take the tension from Pac's spine and bring him Mike - the only real way to soothe the gash in his soul - wants to just keep those he cares about safe.

But, no, all Forever can do is hold Pac's hand as the minutes tick away.

Tick, tick, tick away...

One minute

Two minutes

Three.

Four minutes pass, five...

The green disappears from Pac's eyes.

He screams.

The blue is still there, lashing out from his eyes. Forever drops his hand to try to pull Pac against him; Cellbit shifts like he's about to try and do the same.

Before they can touch him, it stops. It all stops. Pac crumples to the floor, deathly silent, terrifyingly still - a limp, dead weight. Forever catches him against his shoulder, easing him to the floor, unable to think, unable to breathe. Cellbit takes over, calling Pac's name, checking his breathing, lowering him onto his side.

Forever drops to his knees, and lets the jolt of pain break the trance. He grabs his comm back up, not even looking as he flicks the button to summon someone from medical.

"Is that...?" he looks to Cellbit, and Cellbit looks back.

And, fuck, Cellbit is just as helpless as him.

"No idea," their best expert on psionics says, and they're fucked; Forever knew that, but can't blame a man for hoping. "Bonds aren't... I don't do bonds. Pac would be the one to ask."

And Pac is the one lying on the floor.

It's another couple of seconds before Pac's eyes blink open. As soon as he sees, Forever leans down, brushing a hand along his cheek.

"Pac?" he asks. "Pac, are you okay?"

Pac's eyes do find him, and do focus properly. It's a relief, even as the tears start flowing.

Forever... Forever doesn't know what could possibly cause such a violent reaction, but his heart shatters at the possibilities. He doesn't want to think, doesn't want to think-

"Mike," Pac whispers between the sobs. "Mike..."

Too late, too late, they're too fucking late.

Forever can see his own hands shake as he brushes them across Pac's skin. He needs to pace, to scream, to think, to plan, to- to- there is /no/ making this right, but he /has/ to, he has to, he has to, Mike can't- He can't be-

Forever cannot even think the word.

Cellbit is also quiet.

Cellbit's hands are also trembling.

Cellbit must have concluded the same.

Forever wonders why the fuck Cellbit has not taken back his position, when Forever sits here trembling and Cellbit manages to at least flag the medics down.

They nudge him to one side, two helping Pac while the third orders him and Cellbit to sit, orders someone else to get warm drinks, and generally takes control of the support staff. Someone - Forever thinks it might be Jaiden, but he can't quite see more than a purple blur, so it could be Vegetta - has taken over navigation and comms. One of those warm drinks is placed in his hands, and another in Cellbit's. Pac is able to - with a bit of help - sit by the time he's helped onto a stretcher. It's a relief, it's a relief, if the only one Forever has - and, fuck, how does he face Pac again, when he didn't have the information.

Fit appears at some point. One of Tubbo's people - Tubbo's people, who used to be Pac and Mike's people, fuck - directs him.

Fit's face is pale, when he sprints off.

Felps joins them even later. He doesn't say anything as he worms his way between Forever and Cellbit, pulling them both into a hug.

Bagi's away from the Avenger, doing work with Tina and one of the rebel cells. They're necessarily out of contact; they have time to work out how to tell her. Everyone else... Fit will work it out, once he sees Pac - if he hasn't already. Otherwise... Maybe he can fob the announcement off on Wilbur, but it doesn't seem right, doesn't seem... He's the commander of this operation, it's /supposed/ to be his job.

But he can't, he can't - right now all he can think of is pink hair and sharp laughter and a sharper mind, bright eyes behind taped together glasses.

They... They still don't know where he is. They'll never even be able to retrieve a body; the thrice-damned Federation will have melted it down for parts before they get there.

Just like they did to all those civilians...

That's what breaks him, in the end. Forever curls over Felps shoulder, and sobs into his neck.

Mike, Mike, Mike...

He's lost everyone before - lost Mike before, not once, but twice.

It still hurts, it still hurts, maybe it even hurts worse than before.

Really, he should have known miracles don't come in threes.

---

At some point, Felps steers them all into the privacy of Forever's... office-slash-bedroom. There's definitely a desk and computer there, but also some old beaten up couches, a thousand filing cabinets, and an old army bed shoved in a corner.

There's also a coffee machine on a table between two of the cabinets, and Forever doesn't have the strength to stop Cellbit from abusing it today.

He's trying to plan, trying to think - but what can he do? They know where the /Hunter/ is, they could get revenge, but there's still the Warlock, and even taking out those three doesn't promise safety. His instincts say pull everyone back, cocoon up, drag everyone else to safety and let nothing touch them ever again - especially now there's /children/ on the ship too.

But they don't have that choice. They have too many friends, too many allies, too many people to save and too few of them would ever leave the world to burn.

Fit's not come to find them, so at least Pac isn't alone. He should go, he should maybe try comfort Pac, but what can he say? Sorry my contacts weren't good enough to find your soulmate before he was murdered? Fuck, he can't do that.

But then again...

Felps is telling a story, trying to keep their minds off things they cannot change. Cellbit doesn't seem to be listening, and Forever certainly isn't, but there's some things he just cannot change.

They did get Felps back.

... They did, right?

Forever reaches out, grabbing his wrist. His fingers find his pulse, and he forces himself to breathe. Felps was dead - everyone was convinced Felps was dead - but he wasn't actually. He wasn't harvested and liquidised, his brain was used as a CPU for a supercomputer instead. Horrific, horrifying,with mental and physical scars to this day, but they got Felps back.

Maybe...

Pac would know if Mike was still alive, even like that; if the soulbond is still there, it's there. If it's not...

Though...

Oh.

Forever pulls Felps with him as he marches to one of the cabinets. Which mission, which mission, which mission...

There. Operation Wailing Feast. No losses of their own, minimal civilian causalities too, but it was more by sheer, dumb luck than anything else. Philza had been in command, but Roier had written the initial report, the paperwork slightly smeared in blood, because Mike had been a sobbing mess, and the rest of the squad were recovering from major surgery.

It was before there was a proper medical facility on the ship, too; Aypierre's lab was thoroughly cleaned first, sure, but between needing to do surgery in an autopsy lab, and the only place for them to go after being the beds at the side of the common room, it's a wonder all of them made it.

They had - all of them had recovered - but it had never been a sure thing.

Another failure on Forever's part - he should have realised they'd need a medical ward sooner, should have made it the highest priority. But the cash just wasn't coming, and the parts, and...

And, there is one, now. He fixed that error.

Guilt is not what he came here for, it's just too easy to feel.

He refocuses and ignores Roier's report. Instead he looks for the other page, written by Philza several weeks later, once the man's hands were capable of writing again.

Skims it over, skims it over and breathes.

The report is short, as Philza's tend to be, and Roier had already covered most of the details. It, however, concerns the circumstances of Pac's injuries that day - caught in multiple explosions in quick succession, burns, shrapnel wounds, knocked out by the concussive force...

There's a note there, too, of how Mike had panicked. Panicked and started blind firing at anything that came close. He'd believed Pac dead, at first, needing coaxing to reach back along the bond and find him. Only then did he calm down long enough to allow Philza's Crow to approach, and stabalise Pac's wounds.

He clutches the paper, and names it hope - it says nothing good, it says so many terrible thing, but- but the soul bond /is/ fallible. In heightened emotional states, if someone is injured enough, it's possible to miss.

Even if they read Pac correctly - and now he thinks Pac never said Mike was gone, just the green vanished from the connection and Pac had called for him while sobbing - even if Pac can't feel Mike... It doesn't mean Mike's dead.

It's Forever's turn to drop to his knees in relief. He hates that it's relief - for Pac to have that reaction, for the soul bond to be missed, Mike must be horrifically wounded and is still held captive by an enemy that liquidises humans in a very literal way, for nobody knows what purpose - but it is. Because... Because he might not be too late. Mike might be /alive/.

He sobs, but they're not sad tears this time.

He hands the paper to Felps.

Felps, whose eyes also light up, and hands it to Cellbit.

Cellbit, who still downs the coffee but slams the mug into the table and says "do you think Pac has any idea where to look now?" already working on a new plan.

It's a good question. Pac was too out of it earlier, but maybe...

Forever's comm pings, and the timing is immaculate; it's Fit, saying Pac's properly awake and wants to speak to them.

It's followed by another message saying at least Fit thinks that's right, but Pac's struggling with English more than usual and his Portuguese isn't great.

"I'll go talk to him," Forever breathes out. "Do you-?"

"You two go," Felps takes the paper back from Cellbit, and puts everything back away. "I'll start asking around. Maybe Fred's people have something?"

They checked in yesterday and had nothing then, but the name of the game is hope, and contacting Fred's faction is always more complicated than the others. Maybe they'll have information from Pac once they manage to get a meeting.

---

Medical is the same as ever, if surprisingly quiet. It's been a while since their last full operation - Forever is certain that everything will go to hell soon, it always does - and nobody's managed to get shot on more covert activities of late. Pac's the only patient, curled up on a bed towards the back with Fit at his side and a nearby doctor keeping half an eye on him while she cleans.

"Pac!" Forever sweeps to his other side, taking one of his free hands. "Are you alright? You didn't hit your head or anything?"

Pac squeezes his hand, and offers a shaky, scared smile, "I'm good, I- Um... Fit?"

He glances at Fit, who tilts his head. After a second, the bomber works it out.

"Doc says he's just exhausted himself," Fit squeezes the hand of Pac's he's holding. "They're more trained on physical shit, but something about overtaxing himself psionically...?"

Cellbit's expression goes dark for a second. He storms over to Pac's side, pressing to fingers to the side of his head. Their eyes meet and Cellbit's eyes take on a slight red glow as he presses harder onto Pac's skin.

While Cellbit works Fit squeezes Pac's hand, and stands.

"I'll give you guys some privacy, let Tubbo know what's going on," he says.

Pac reaches for a hug; Fit gives it with only a little hesitation, whispering something in his ear before heading out. He gives Forever a wave, and it's returned, and then it's just a case of waiting for Cellbit to be satisfied.

Eventually, Cellbit pulls the fingers away, frowning as he does. "What happened, Pac? You're lucky - that's low enough to- fuck, Pac, you'll hurt yourself like this."

Pac doesn't even laugh nervously, his eyes just flicker to his hands.

"Mike reached for me," Pac says, clearly still badly drained. "I knew... I knew it would be bad, if he was reaching that far. We know it's too far to do safely..."

He trails off, and Forever tries to be gentle in his questioning.

"Is Mike okay?" he asks, because until he has that answer he doesn't know if he can breathe.

"Alive," Pac says, and both of the other Brazilians in the room relax; Cellbit starts texting Felps and maybe Roier as soon as that word is said. "He... He's hurt, though. Badly. I'm not sure what happened - physically - it was... We were entwined, we were trying to stay together, then suddenly he pulled back. Seconds later he grew very faint. He's not... Not gotten worse since, but..."

But it doesn't mean anything good, if the building tears mean anything.

"What happened?" Cellbit is the one to ask. "Mike isn't stupid, he wouldn't have risked it unless..."

"Cucurucho," Pac says, and the room goes dead silent.

Even the doctor freezes for a moment, before beginning to scrub even harder than before.

"Interrogation?" Cellbit asks, the only person they know to have been interrogated by one of the Federation's spokesmen.

Well, interrogated and have survived.

And he only lived, they think, because the cursed bear thought it was funnier that way.

Pac nods, shaking, "he... I don't know exactly? He threw /himself/ at me, I caught him and threw up a shield. I think... I think I covered everything important, but- but... not everything. There wasn't time. And the claws..." a particularly violent shudder. "I felt a little of the rest, as he pulled away. It's... Cucurucho must have read it, but it's all... fragmented? I... I don't-"

"You saved him," Cellbit cuts Pac off without a moment's hesitation. "Pac, listen to me? No matter what Cucurucho did or didn't take, Mike is alive because of /you/. Whatever happened? We can fix it. So long as he's alive when we get to him, we can fix it."

"I don't-" tears bubble out of Pac's eyes, and onto his cheeks. "He's so weak. He's there, he's still there, but..."

Forever shifts over to the bed, offering Pac a hug. It's quickly taken up, Pac folding against him.

"We'll find him," Forever promises, because if he's alive then they /can/. "Any information might help, but no matter what, we'll find him."

He's been saying that for months, now; he continues convincing himself it's true.

Pac shakes his head at first. Forever knows his friend - he gives it a second even as Cellbit's feet tap-tap on the floor.

The second pays off; Pac raises a hand, and points out in a direction, "he's that way. Not sure how far, but... Not this continent."

Forever sees Cellbit grab a compass - why he's carrying one he has no idea - setting it up and scribbling the direction on his hand.

It's something, it's so much more than they had.

"Thank you," Forever whispers to him. Holds him tight, doesn't know if Pac will ever understand how much he means to them - with Mike, yes, but even without him - and how wonderful he is. "Thank you, Pac. Rest, you did well; thank you, thank you so much."

There's no more promises that it'll be okay - they can't promise that, not here, not now, not like this. But it might be, it might be, it's possible.

The thread is fraying but it's not yet been cut; there's still a chance to pull it back in and weave in new strands.

All they can do is try.

#qsmp fanfic #qsmp x xcom #qsmp forever #qsmp au #qsmp cellbit #qsmp pac #qsmp tazercraft #angst #fred gets to be a defector this au because I needed more than just walter bob #congrats them #its grocery day but in the afternoon as had to wait for a parcel ew

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xenon-demon · 9 months

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ooo tell me more about med student steve & nurse eddie 💕💕💕

HELLO JANAI!!! this fic is the one I'm most actively writing rn (as opposed to Kas!Steve AU where i'm constantly rotating it in my brain like a rotisserie chicken, but that's for outlining/untangling knots in the plot reasons lmao) so I am Very Happy to talk about it <3

I did actually finish properly outlining this AU today too!! Unless inspiration strikes me and I write way too much for something, it looks like this fic will be 7 chapters and a short epilogue.

SO, to answer your ask I'm going to share with you what some of the other ST characters (those that I've slotted into a healthcare role, at least) are doing in this AU:

Chrissy is the ward clerk, aka the person who handles all the admin tasks, on the ward Eddie works on! They're best friends, and if there's a quiet moment (or more likely, Eddie is on break) you can usually find them talking shit together at Chrissy's desk. Chrissy is also a bi icon in this AU 🩷💜💙

Joyce is the Nurse Unit Manager of the ward - as the title implies, she's the boss of the nursing staff on the ward and in charge of things like making sure hospital policies are being followed & organizing the nursing team so all patients are adequately cared for. She is Very Overworked but she runs a tight ship!

Argyle is one of the hospital pharmacists, and Jonathan is a trainee hospital pharmacist working with him (but not directly under him as Argyle's personal trainee. That'd be a little weird, considering they're dating). Argyle is also working on a research paper about the benefits of medicinal marijuana (with hopes the team's findings will contribute to further legalisation across the country).

Jason sucks. Jason is a medical student on placement with Steve, and he's... he's what we call a gunner. In med school, gunners are students who are ambitious to a fault, potentially willing to throw other students under the bus to further their own career or academic performance, and often focus too much on the "being right"/"being The Best at medicine" aspects of being a doctor instead of prioritizing the patient and their needs. Basically, he's an out-of-touch privileged jackass who comes from a long line of doctors, and has therefore just Assimilated into the family destiny without ever thinking about what being a doctor actually means.

Vickie works in the hospital pathology centre - she's one of the people who picks up samples and processes them after the doctors or nurses drop them off. Every time Robin goes up there (because it's common to send the med students off to drop off the pathology samples) she is So Very Normal and makes Normal People Conversation with Vickie. Robin is so smooth, I promise.

Nancy is another medical student like Robin & Steve are, and she's currently with the consult psychiatry team with Robin. Nancy is also dating Jonathan, because Jonathan has two hands, and Nancy is very interested in the research work Argyle does. She is still Steve's ex-girlfriend in this AU - they had a poorly-thought-out brief relationship in their first year of medical school, and no one in the medical school has let them live it down.

Dr Henry Creel is the consultant doctor in charge of the Internal Medicine team Steve & Jason are currently with. As he's in charge of the team, he's the one who grades the med students and decides if they pass or fail their placement term. I'm sure nothing bad will come of this.

For reference, the "young adults" of the ST cast are in their mid-twenties in this AU. This means that those in fields like nursing or pharmacy have already graduated from college and are full-status employees in their chosen fields, while the med students of the group are still working their way through medical school (since doing a bachelor's + an MD is pretty time-consuming, and that's before you take any time off from studying after high school or between degrees). Also, Henry is Older here, since in canon he's like... what, 40 in 1986? He's at least in his fifties in this AU, since consultant doctors are rarely any younger than that (particularly if they're not brand new to the job).

Also, if I haven't said this elsewhere already, this is a modern AU! No way am I forcing myself to replace all my healthcare knowledge with healthcare knowledge from 40 years ago for this fic, it's bad enough I have to pretend to understand how the American healthcare system works lmao

Send me an ask about my WIPs!

#charlie writes things #med student steve & nurse eddie #hospital au #at the moment i think the only ones who won't make an actual appearance in the fic are argyle & jonathan #they're living their best (most peaceful) lives in pharmacy land while steve and eddie have their relationship problems #god bless <3 #also i think somewhere along the line this fic accidentally became about me finding meaning in my chosen course of study #and exploring what being a doctor means to me. through the medium of steve harrington #huh.#i could unpack that in therapy but pffffft who has time for that *throws the whole suitcase away*#also NO i have no idea what robin ship i'm going with for this au ok!!!!!! i just know it's not going to be ronance #nancy already has a bf and her bf has a bf. nancy could ALSO have a gf but she doesn't have time for that in med school lmao #maybe i'll just let robin have two girlfriends.

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freddy-fazbears-wonderland · 3 months

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what is a hot take about the FNAF franscise / fandom that you have? You seem to have really good opinions tbh

Lemme give you more than one

A lot of the male characters the fandom obsesses over really aren't shit when you think about it. When you look into them, you realize that most of it is just fandom interpretation, and the characters on their own aren't worth the hype. And I'm not just talking about being underdeveloped. Even just poorly written in general. This is why I am largely uninterested in the Afton family with the exception of Elizabeth.

If Security Breach didn't bring us characters like Gregory, Vanessa and Cassie, I probably would've stayed invested purely in the animatronics.

And while we're on the subject of character writing, a lot female characters in fnaf get done dirty not only in canon but the fandom as well. The most infamous example and one I'm sure everyone agrees with is how Circus Baby was handled after Sister Location and in the books. I'm not completely opposed to the idea of her being manipulated by William.

But they dropped her original characterization entirely just to make her daddy's little girl. That being said, this also could've worked if we got to see how William controlled her become she's just... unwaveringly loyal and we don't get why. The most we could go off on is that William probably knowingly had his daughter endure controlled shocks. I'm so fucking glad Help Wanted 2 dropped and we got OG Circus Baby's characterization back.

But it's also weird that the writers of the fnaf novels thought it was a good idea to make Circus Baby of all characters an attempt at a femme fatale. The character possessed by a freaking kid.

Which is why I'm glad that at least with the games, Steel Wool has been doing better with how the female characters are handled.

That leaves the fandom as a problem the girlies can't be bad or nuanced. Because Elizabeth, who is also a victim much like her brothers, tends to get overlooked at best if nor outright villainized. Like, this girl being a brat makes her irredeemable somehow.

Which is so weird when a popular headcanon is that Michael is the Foxy bully and loved to pick on the Crying Child. But he gets treated with much more grace despite this.

William motherfucking Afton gets treated which more grace despite clearly being an irredeemable villain.

And let's not forget how people were trying to antagonize Vanessa for throwing away Mike's pills. Sure, she could've handled it better but she still helped him out. Hell, she's one of the reasons why Mike was able to get his shit together and become a better guardian for Abby. Despite all her flaws, if she wasn't there, Mike would've lost custody Abby.

There's probably more but those are the only ones I can think of.

Can we talk about how the Clickteam/Scott era of fnaf is overhyped?

Because since he retired, people have gotten rose tinted glasses about that point in fnaf history and have forgotten that a lot of the problems we have with fnaf's writing is his fault.

But because Steel Wool committed the crime of making one bad game, people blame them for fnaf's bad writing. Which isn't true because while Security Breach wasn't good, what we got in writing and what could've been is way better than what Scott would've given us.

My last hot take is that I'm noticing some elitism in the horror side of the fandom. Like, they seem to think that they're true fnaf fans because they're in it for the spooks and think that kids are ruining the franchise when... youngins have always been there. Hell, I have no doubt in my mind they were fnaf kids themselves.

Not even just kids in the fnaf fandom but anyone who dares indulge in fnaf any way they deem unacceptable like making goofy videos or even shipping characters, for example, are somehow ruining the franchise.

It's weird until you realize that a lot of them are toxic anyways, so of course they see harmless fun as a bad thing while actual dogshit behavior like grooming, bullying and the likes get overlooked.

I have to mentally prepare myself for them because I want to make a fnaf shipping series and while it's most likely that it'll just be isolated to just other shippers, you never know. Especially since I've seen two YouTubers make negative videos about fnaf pairings, there is a chance I will have to deal with one of them.

They also have rose tinted glasses about fnaf because they refuse to acknowledge that the franchise was already kinda goofy from the start and not horror 24/7.

Anyways, I'll end it here because I'm pretty sure I'm pushing it and I can’t think of anything else to add.

#fnaf #five nights at freddy's #ask answered #ask me stuff #ask me questions #ask me anything #ask #security breach #steel wool studios #scott cawthon #five nights at freddy's sister location #sister location #fnaf novels #fnaf help wanted 2 #long post

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sun-to-sorrow · 3 months

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So like, reading Maximum Ride again after like 4-6 years and like, there are so many things I’m questioning. For starter Manga reader only because I have this issue of not being able to read other forms of something I’ve already read. Brain kinda shuts down. So like

1) The whole Max, Martina (Martinez?), and Ella thing is just so strange. For starters Max is just awful. Prioritizing a random girl being cornered and has an easy escape route (Max took it after all) over your 6 year old sister who is in the hands of actual mad scientist who you know has actively done shitty unethical things is just, why?! Angel could’ve been saved just a bit earlier if you listened to Fang! But also the whole Martinez has something to do with the school but then it’s completely forgotten.

2) Max leaving the Blind guy and the 8 Year Old alone because “Angel (who is to young to know how to escape the school) might escape and come back here”. Gazzy has little combat experience because he is either told to run/hide or uses bombs and Iggy is BLIND!

3) Iggy really goes between I have the best hearing in the flock to I have normal human hearing. Like sometimes he can hear Erasers (like only twice?) or the homeless people in the subway and most of the time either he’s surprised by them (angel’s kidnapping or the ambush when Max and Fang leave) or Angel finds then before him (the two children). Like, JP make it’s consistent! Let Iggy be the Flock’s alarm so when they don’t have him in the group they suffer more casualties! Especially during when Erasers become robots so Angel becomes useless (like de buff the girl honesty)

4) speaking of Iggy. He has been shown enough times that he’s really REALLY smart. Building bombs, being able to remember recipes to cook, learning and mapping places out (E house and Anne’s place), yet JP literally doesn’t expand or utilize it to its fullest. Iggy could probably be the Flocks brain but no~, he’s to blind to be the flocks brain, let’s have Fang (the right hand man, second command of the flock, has invisibility powers and (I just learned) immortality) and Angel (child with telepathy, mind control, shapeshifting, and probably other things) be the brains and Max (leader and golden child) have moments here and there. The most I’ve seen of Iggy utilizing his brains was lock picking or making bombs/planning out traps. I could be missing some but JP makes it so hard to know.

5) the severe infantilism of Iggy

6) Gazzy still has no new power unlike everyone else (but Iggy’s are pretty shitty because they all are powers to “help him see without him actually seeing”). Like let him have telepathy or maybe a way that only him and Angel can communicate each other.

7) Nudge. Like she isn’t as bad as Iggy and definitely not the worst like Gazzy, but god she’s still really poorly written. She has this whole thing of not wanting to be a freak and wanting to find her family and wanting to be normal and not having to run all the time but every single one of these just stops on a dead note! It like stops existing after like 2-3 chapters and never brought up. Like she’s the most interesting girl in the flock but just so butchered.

8) their looks. Ok I’m not gonna harp so badly on the Manga artist because she is Korean and Korean beauty standards and all that is just bad in general but that’s just cultural differences. But one thing I never understand was that makeup transformation. Angel who has short hair suddenly has hair that goes below her neck. Nudge’s bleached streak somehow stays even though her natural hair should’ve shown by the 9 manga vol. Fang who always was shown with straight hair now has really curly hair. That’s not how hair works and let’s not talk about Iggy and those weird dark tips.

9) Fax and Ella/Iggy (which I learned was canon. I was wondering where all those Ella/Iggy stories came from) I don’t hate straight ships. I just hate these straight ships.

10) oh poorly written trauma handled even worse my beloved. Your telling me Iggy, the one who was awake the entire operation on his eyes doesn’t have trauma. Your telling me Fang, who almost died to an Eraser doesn’t have trauma. Your telling me Max, the one who continuously has a voice in her head, a chip in her shoulder, seeing an Eraser in the mirror doesn’t have trauma?! Angel?!

But like I could continue because there is so much but, there where definitely things I liked. I like how Iggy was drawn. Out of all the characters he looked always bony and skinny and long. Like even next to Fang who is supposed to be the same height he looks so twiggy and tall. Gazzy was so interesting because he was that grey “I suffered through the school but I was also way to young to remember” and I wish it was expanded more. I liked the Ari arc if you ignore every other Ari part in the story. Total was nice if we found nice as before he talked.

Like not to be the paranoid one but if I was in the flocked I would be questioning everything. A Gazzy photo from an abandoned apartment? They could’ve stuck it there after knowing their research was stolen just to trap the flock. Anna watching a new about Iggy’s parents? She purposely put it on so Iggy will be removed. Erasers still finding the flock? Did anyone thing that the others might have chips in them, especially when Fang, Gazzy, and Iggy where attacked. Also how does Fang still have his laptop when he was captured by the institute?

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thechangeling · 1 year

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God id literally send all the violence asks if possible but for now ill limit myself to 1,6,8

For now-

Ok I'm assuming this is just in general and not limited to a specific fandom.

1. Which character does everyone always get wrong?

God I could list so many, but the main two that come to mind are Wylan and Ty (both autistic/coded characters hmmm I'm sure that's a coincidence!/s).

Right now I'm going with Ty. A lot if people just don't write him correctly imo and you could argue that's relative, but it becomes glaringly obvious when you change the way he speaks, making it way too formal or way too casual. And yeah you could argue this is me being picky, and yeah I've definitely screwed up the voices of other characters before like Kit. (I have such a hard time nailing Kit's pov and @sandersgrey makes it look so easy I want to bite him/j)

But anyways it bugs me when people dumb Ty down on certain things for the sake of convenience for the plot or make him less competent... again for the sake of the plot and so Kit has to rescue him. He is actually a good fighter and a good shadowhunter in canon! He just doesn't LIKE doing it. He would much rather investigate shit. He hates training but not because he finds it difficult, but because getting an autistic person to do anything they don't want on your schedule is like hearding cats.

Not to mention exercise leads to sweat, and sweat is a sensory nightmare. Also this may seem petty but Ty being bad at math is super important to me. We never get ANY bad at math autistics! So it pisses me off when people try and overwrite that because they're a math gay or whatever or even if they're a math autistic. You literally have tons of math autistic characters! Leave this one alone he's OURS!

Also just the general allistic person writing autistic characters vibes I get from a lot of fics. Either they completely steamroll of his autism and don't even include it in an attempt to not other him, or they play it up in weird and incorrect ways. Or sometimes quite frankly the vibes are just off, and that's annoying because I don't have any constructive feedback for that.

Also what's annoying is sometimes canon is ableist, so sticking directly to canon like the bible will lead to you putting ableism uncritically into your fics. A good example of this is the "nobody ever tells Ty things" phenomenon which still persists in the secrets of Blackthorn Hall. It's a good plot device sure, but ableist and annoying.

6. Which ship has the most annoying fans?

Honestly there are annoying fans in every ship I can think of. But the ones that bother me the most have gotta be Certain spuffy shippers (Spike and Buffy from Buffy The Vampire Slayer) who kind of steamroll over all of the toxic shit Spike has said/done to Buffy and pretend like he is always objectively right about everything he says about or to her. Plus the lack of acknowledging the racism of the narrative in the episode "Lies my parents told me" and immediately jumping to "Spike did nothing wrong!"

Like, if I as a white person can acknowledge how poorly Robin was treated in season 7, then I can only imagine how fans of color especially Black fans feel.

Sorry I know you don't have context for any of this but just trust me lol.

Also the handling of Seeing Red into season 7 was not good imo and a lot of spuffy shippers ignore that. I love their relationship from a narrative perspective and I love analyzing it and what it says about the characters and the story they're in, but I can't interact with a lot of spuffy shippers because they get under my skin.

8. What's one popular fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about?

I don't really know if it's popular but I've been seeing it a fair amount recently. The idea that Ty looking Kit in the eye is romantic or special in some way.

We gotta nip that crap in the bud right now. Eye contact, for a lot of autistic people is not just uncomfortable but physically painful. A lot of autistic people describe it as a burning or stabbing sensation. I experience it like a giant poker stabbing through the top of my skull. Most of the time we do it because we have to, not because we want to.

Of course this isn't true for everyone. Every autistic person is different, it's a spectrum. But Ty is cannonly someone who rarely makes eye contact, presumably because he doesn't like it.

Now unfortunately CC has contributed to this problem by having Ty occassionally make eye contact with Kit or other members of his family in intimate situations, creating this idea that Ty putting himself through pain or discomfort for the people he loves is something we should admire and romanticize. But it's not.

Honestly you could solve a lot of this by actually having Ty's pov, because then you would know how he feels about it.

So yeah. Those are my hot takes lol.

#asks #zia!#ask game #btvs #tsc #tda

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villains4hire · 1 year

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Lapis Lazuli

1 - For starters? Out the gate, I roleplay this character as ace. Did years ago in the SU fandom and I see no reason to change her. I will ship her and more or less smut with her still, however, but be picky and be sensible about it as I did prior. Regardless, and here’s my personal message to anyone who has a problem with this: Ace people have dated, had sex, or been repulsed are varied and not a monolith, etc. The amount of weird control I see over shipping Ace characters, sex lives is fucking creepy, but also I understand if it’s disregarded or sexualized/handled poorly and I hear you, I can relate to that in my own, but not exact experiences. But those outside of being ace who do not understand nuance and are incredibly aggressive or annoying about this? Fuck off and quit talking shit about stuff you don’t get, take more than five seconds looking up a definition to learn about how actual people live. Anyway, you’re free to ask me if you want to ship, but I will say if I don’t think it’ll work I’ll tell you out the gate. I will just say there are gems just canonically involved with people, so it’s not because she’s alien. I just hrm, can’t really see her into people a lot of the time other than in certain ways I can’t really say is ‘down-bad’, though could be willing.

2 - I roleplay Lapis more or less with the ending of SU but also my original characterization, I believe before the Malachite arc ended years and years ago. She’s a bit fighty, lonerish, but incredibly loving if close, bit of a goofball, memer, more below etc. That being said? My Lapis is stand-alone. She is not to be presumed to be living or with Peridot, Bismuth or otherwise and isn’t a Crystal Gem. She fights for the people she cares about, but it’s nothing canon changing other than motivations, relationships or what she identifies with in terms of factions etc. I roleplayed this character for her potential and friendship with Steven and still do. Most canon-compliant Stevens I’ll accept out the gate but at least ask me first.

3 - This character is fairly powerful to being overpowered? Bit of a glass cannon if physically hit though, so bit of a warning if on Earth for example or other heavy water-based planet.

4 - I will have this character curse occasionally, as Lapis is probably one of the few who would. But I’ll try not to go crazy with it. 5 - Oh right Jasper is also in the wrong, but I will say that Lapis abused the ever living heck out of her with Malachite. I am not going to skirt around that and if you try to say otherwise or have a problem with it? Do not approach me for this character, as I embrace every aspect of a character if I take them up as I like. As Lapis is a victim, yes, but it does not make her weak, if anything? It made her one of the more formidable characters of the series and dangerous.

Do I want them to die: Nah. Stakes can be high but SU has no real death other than skirting the censors for shatterings. Death can occur in rps so long as it isn’t too gorey though. Just have them pop like a balloon or something into paste if shot with a laser or like comically smushed etc. Will I have/get icons: I have them Tag: tide reformed (Multiverse, after the events of SU default verse) tide formed (Homeworld Verse, Prior to Meeting Steven and the mirror) Age: 10k+ Years in terms of age. Sex: Nothing. She’s a rock. Gender: Fine with any pronouns, he/she. Race: Gem Race - Subcaste: Lapis Lazuli Sexuality: Ace. Personality traits: Extremely loyal. Loving. Distrustful of outsiders, people or even other Gems at first until she knows their intentions. Can be incredibly selfless, but also selfish. Can enter toxic relationships at times, especially if it’s her in control in terms of power or wrestling power into her control. Unforgiving, grumpy at times though is not incapable of forgiving people. Can hold a grudge. Has deep guilt regarding certain things. Tends to forget certain people she doesn’t hold much regard for. Brutal beyond words if pushed or she sees the need to be, is not canonically above torture. Is a touch unstable at times in terms of anger from being in isolation for six thousand years, but has immense willpower as she’s one of the few who didn’t go outright insane. Enjoys memes. Art if you could call it that in the form of ‘Meep-Morps’ and other activities in random garbled words. Likes memes even if she misunderstands them, phrases, words even if she misuses or misremembers them. Deadpan sense of humor or grimness but also can mess with people. Laidback, likes to be lazy and lounge. Likes jokes, humor, a little immature honestly for what she’s willing to get into for some good fun. Mental traits: Gem Mentality, she isn’t human by any means. Physical traits: Pretty slim, petite, inhuman body type but not overtly so. Flat-chested, thickish legs and all around a smaller body. Around 5′1 to 5′2 and has a free-spirited but mature beauty to her despite her personality. Powers: All of this is simply here canon powers as this character does not need help other than flavor for a few unsaid things. Enhanced Condition - greater strength, speed, and durability but varies gem to gem Immune to disease - age. Bubbling - can bubble objects, gems or large objects like other gems can. Shapeshifting - can shapeshift form, parts of herself. Regeneration - reforming and such after poofing. Gravity Shifting - adjusts to gravitational changes. Weapon Summoning - she’s never had a weapon summoned before as she usually just has water. It’s presumed she has one though, however, and it’s basically a whip-sword that moves and flows like water. And can be manipulated as such and use her hydrokinesis, it’s usually used like that of a razor ring in self-defense when there’s no water around. Hydrokinesis - Lapis is exceptionally strong in this regard it seems even compared to other gems. Most likely from being more early generation gems than the later ones. It’s a self-explaining ability but the exact limit is not known but it’s planetary for the manipulation she’s capable of. She could potentially manipulate high-density liquid entities but I will say that blood is not water-like enough for her to do this to and it’s more intended for liquid metal and minerals such as moving tectonic plates since she’s a terraforming gem. Water Generation - she can generate a certain amount of water from her gem, but it’s unknown. She usually use’s this with a combo with her weapon if forced into tapping into it. Water Form Manipulation - she can cause water to turn into ice or even use it as deadly projectiles. Thermal Manipulation - she is capable of causing water to steam or boil. Hydromimicry - she can create clones against her enemies. Water Bubbles - she can use these to imprison gems, people, granted they’ll drown if not given air. Water-Walking - she can walk on water and even allow others to walk on water with her. Water Wings - she can fly using a form of water wings and like other things, she can manipulate, stretch and even punch with them. Memory Projection - can project memories onto a mirror-like surface or still enough water. Pathokinesis Resistance - she is immune to emotional manipulation such as Blue Diamond’s empath attacks. This is not to be confused with White Diamond’s ability to control other gems. High Nobility Status - Lapis Lazulis judging by their demeanor for the others we’ve seen and the vast amount of power they have? Seem to be Blue Diamond’s higher gems, so when it matters. I will say that Lapis is pretty high up there in terms of caste and privilege. Motivations: To be free. To move past what’s happened. To belong, to find purpose beyond her original intent. To find what’s considered home. Backstory: The entire wiki for her other than being with Peridot, Bismuth, at the barn. I primarily have her come and go, then mostly show up to help Steven, make a few friends but more or less just have her in the background. She comes when she’s needed or wants to be there and gets better about it as time goes on, along with those approaching her consistently does she become more social. She never considers herself a Crystal Gem but she told Homeworld to eat it basically.

#tide reformed #long post #tide formed #bios #bios save

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lossie92 · 2 years

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hi there, may I ask 5, 10, and 24, please?

Hi anon, sure thing 😊

5. Do you have any writing superstitions? What are they and why are they 100% true?

Hmm I think I have to agree with @wisiaden that if you think you will get many kudos and comments on a fic, usually the exact opposite will happen and it has proven to be true with my fics so far. I know it's true for other writers too 🤔

Another one (which idk if it counts, but whatever) would be that if you write and post something you're not happy with, no matter the amount of nice comments you get it will never make you like the story and in most cases you will actually end up hating. Therefore you should write stuff that makes you happy from the get-go. If a particular trope or ship or concept doesn't feel right, just don't write it. Even if someone requested it, you are the writer and have the right to decide if you want to create this specific content. Don't force yourself, it doesn't feel well and it's not really worth it.

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

Definitely. I have two fics which "haunt" me, I suppose, aka occupy my thoughts sometimes in an unpleasant way and they are my own fics.

One of them, Reprisal, I decided to delete. I wrote that story for someone, but that person didn't seem to be interested reading the story, so that already made creating the fic kind of pointless and I also just hated the plot. It was an interesting experience to write it and explore once again some dark themes, but in the end I felt really unhappy seeing it on my AO3 account and I felt bad every time I got comments on it. That's why it went to the bin.

The 2nd story is Pull the Wool. It's a fic about cheating and even though I, once again, found it interesting to explore this topic, it feels weird. It's not the type of content I write anymore and I guess it just makes it odd, to have written it. The fact it is one of my more popular stories contributes to the oddness too. To be honest, I'm probably bothered by it so much, because imo cheating is one of the worst things you can do to your partner and I personally don't like reading stories that involve cheating. So yeah, this one is definitely weird for me.

When it comes to other people's writing... There are fics I think about sometimes and those thoughts are mostly annoyance, anger, or even disgust. I've read A LOT of fics over the years and unfortunately some writers don't put any thought behind their writing. I've seen my fair share of rape and paedophilia fetishism and glorification, terrible examples of internalised misogyny and sexism that the reader is supposed to read as something romantic, a lot of queerphobic stuff (Homophobic, transphobic, aphobic... You name it, I've probably seen it all by now), poorly handled violence, terribly written stories about abuse recovery, lots of poor "jokes" that authors tried to pass off as "dark humour"... There is a lot of content out there that's BAD and if you read it, it will stay with you (what was seen cannot be unseen etc etc).

I'm not going to list those fics here, because I don't think there's a point in that and I don't want to give this creators more of a platform either, but trust me, there are fics that I think about sometimes and they make me ask the question wtf is wrong with some people at the very least 😒

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

Oh my. I put a lot of prep work into my fics. I do research, take notes, write down ideas for scenes and character interactions, do a bulletpoint list of what happens when (if it's a chapter fic, this is divided by chapters), brainstorm with my writer friends... So yeah, I'm definitely a big planner. At the same time I let the story flow.

Imo it's very important to constantly ask yourself What this character would do? Why would they do it? What's their motivation? What are the consequences? Is it something in character for them? If not, why? If yes, why? etc. and go from there. If a scene or plotline I wanted to include no longer makes sense, I will delete or change it. I have been actually known to change the story endings or get rid of entire pages of text if they no longer fit with where the journey is taking the characters.

I think it's very important to remember that as much as you want something to happen in the story, in the end writing isn't about what you want to happen, but rather what would logically happen in a given situation. That's what separates a well-written story from something that reads out of character or chaotic. It's a bit like playing detective with your own characters and writing, I suppose.

Either way, yes, I do enjoy the planning and brainstorming part of the writing process. It's a lot of fun 😄

Weird Questions for Writers

#weird questions writers ask #dear lord this got LONG #i'm so sorry anon #hope you don't mind

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relaxxattack · 3 years

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wait omg what are the canon endgame wof pairings you DON'T like? 👀 no pressure of course, im just not a fan of several of them either and im interested to hear what you think :]

honestly most of them?? like idk 😭

ripnami for one is just odd to me. like i don’t dislike riptide but there’s an age difference and a like, immediate love type thing, and the romance is just sorta Boring and Annoying imo?? maybe that’s just cuz im gay though

starflights whole debacle was ATROCIOUS. like i understand why he mightve had a crush on sunny— she was like one of the only other people he knew growing up— but they were all essentially adopted siblings and she obviously felt platonically towards him? and then fatespeaker was brought in, and one part of fans hated her for replacing sunny cuz they shipped sunnyflight, another group of fans hated her for obviously being practically written AS a sunny replacement, and then the last third just fiercely loved her out of spite. so like. starspeaker is Cute, sure, but it just feels like a weird work around to the supreme awkwardness of sunnyflight.

clay and peril? ehhh. clay seems like, SO aromantic to me, so that’s one reason i dont like it, and the other is just. peril as a character always felt like she was handled weirdly. like im not sure if she was a good concept poorly executed, or a bad concept that sort of followed itself through well, but either way my feelings on her constantly go back and forth. i get that she’s probably just like, genuinely mentally ill, but i don’t think the author really represented it too well? but at the same time, i don’t think i’m one to talk on the rep of people like that. (is sociopath the right word??? i literally don’t even know). basically it bothers me how she swings from like. yandere to hilarious older sister character. i love her, but i also feel weird about her. she’s like a girboss in a bad way.

glorybringer… okay theyre really cute, it’s just their development feels a little silly to me. then again, it’s a children’s book. also there’s an age difference, although idk how much that counts for dragons??

moonbli: i hate moonbli okay. they dumped qinter— one of the Only Well Developed Ships— for moonbli. ive ranted before about how much i hate the winter-qibli-moon love triangle, but GOD it’s so bad. like— in book six, moon is fascinated by both the boys. winter treats her like shit, but she can hear that in his thoughts he actually thinks she’s incredible. qibli is nice to her, but he’s like, super sus for some reason. moon actually TELLS DS that she doesn’t like either of them, but she Must pick one because her futures say so? like UM??? (she’s aromantic but denying herself or something) meanwhile in the winter pov book he’s absolutely tortured by guilt and his abusive family, so eventually he breaks off to find moon because he feels bad for treating her bad cuz he’s in love with her. also they have some Moments together. then in qiblis book, he’s also in love with moon, but spends the entire book bonding and flirting with his roommate winter! who is no longer an asshole now that he’s broken off from his family. moon is busy hanging out with some 2000 year old guy who attempted literal genocide, but it’s okay because he’s sad. anyway after like 200 pages of flirting, winter and qibli meet up with moon again and they’re happy because they’re both in love with her or something. except winter is upset because moon is defending the guy who tried to genocide his race and is going to do it again. moon and qibli decide this makes winter the biggest asshole in the entire world, abandon him, and then defeat DS together without him. then moon decides she “chooses” qibli and moonbli becomes canon and they leave winter in some random ass town. like? WHAT THE FUCK??? and we’re supposed to enjoy the moonbli ship :|

like no fuck off and PLEASE give us aromantic moon and mlm qinter please. THERE ARE NO CANON MLM RELATIONSHIPS. and im not just saying this cuz im a gay guy, like qinter legitimately had so much good development throughout arc two and then they get dropped like a hot potato

and then finally we have… whats left, turtlejou? i could take it or leave it ig. too much weird magic stuff there. i would actually maybe prefer turtle and peril just because they’re Actually Friends and their dynamic in book 8 was cool and way less creepy then cleril.

sundew and willow? they're cute but ive seen the mean lesbian and nice lesbian trope many times and they just didn’t pull it off too well. still better then 90% of the ships here though.

SORRY THIS GOT SO LONG I HAD A LOT MORE TO SAY THEN I REALIZED…. IF THIS SOUNDS AGGRESSIVE ITS AIMED AT THE AUTHOR NOT AT YOU ANON

#wings of fire #wof #mildly negative #i ended up ranting about winter again #he was a shitbag but he didn’t deserve that

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yurissweettooth · 2 years

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Hey! Curiosity is killing me, so I want to ask: Do you have an unpopular opinion or something like that about T&B? It's ok if you don't want to answer!

Hi!! Thanks for the ask! :D In all honesty I don't think I have too many truly unpopular opinions or at least not many that are hot takes or anything. My criticisms and whatnot of the show and characters tend to line up with other people's in most cases. But! A few lukewarm takes I have under the cut...

-I think the biggest one is that I don't particularly like the way the fandom treats Ivan like he's a soft, innocent little baby. I relate to him a lot and I find that we're quite similar both in personality, interests, and insecurities so I always found it cool to see him grow stronger and more confident. However, I feel like a lot people lump him in with the kids due to his height and shy/insecure personality. It's weird because he's friends with Keith (and also seems to be the main one supporting/helping him and not vice versa) who is far more immature, ditsy, and childlike yet because of his looks he is seen and treated as an adult by the fandom while Ivan isn't. IVAN IS AN ADULT TOO! Us short, sensitive, baby faced adults are still adults! >:( -The first OP is greatly superior, I skip the second one every time other than on the first episode it appears on. -I feel bad for Edward. I know he did some terrible things but I don't think he's a villain like I see a lot of people portray him as. He was a kid who tried to do what he thought was right and made a mistake that ruined his life and likely left him with trauma that he's handling poorly. -I'm not really that big of a fan of Taibani. Like, I DO like them and I think they're cute but I mostly only get hyped while I'm actively watching the show since they're just there, outside of that I rarely think about them or have any strong feelings (unless it's Barnaby/Kotetsu/Yuri or Apollon Trio ships). Even if Taibani became canon I would just make my own ships anyway like Bunny/Yuri and Kotetsu/Antonio because I love my rarepairs... -Ryan is kinda boring and unlikeable in canon, I only like him when he's got 5 million headcanons slapped on him or for pairings. -Jake is the sexiest character in the whole show and no I will not be taking questions (Yuri is close second but I just love crusty men with shitty tattoos who don't know how to dress). Honestly if it weren't for the fact that he died or the fact that he threw Yuri's trauma in his face in the manga he might actually have been my favorite character. -Much like everyone else I will continue to bully him relentlessly for it anyway but... I actually like how Barnaby's empty apartment looks😐 -Virgil's story is kind of stupid as is the whole main plot of the Rising. Still love him and his movie though. -Yuri should have kept his ugly reaper outfit because it was 100% superior and cooler than the regular Lunatic suit we see now. He has a clear theme and motif going here, wtf is he supposed to be in the current version?

#tiger and bunny #ivan karelin #yuri petrov #tnb

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scarlet--wiccan · 3 years

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I like tommy and David together for the elaborate fanon couple people have built up (I know you’ve pointed out that shipping two people based on a kiss wasn’t consensual on either side isn’t great and I wholeheartedly agree—I think more people ship them as a “pairing the spares” type thing since most of the other YA chars have more popular/canon ships, not everyone’s read the other things the characters appear in, and noh’s weird since V2 ends on an unflattering note for him and he looks so much like tommy on panel) and I’m not inherently against the idea of them being together in canon. Like during emperor hulking it was kind of perfect because neither of them were doing anything so they just kind of threw a bone to their fans (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing). I want their relationship to mean something if it’s going to be a thing but X-Factor is just not handling it well and this really isn’t the time for them to be together if they can’t deal with it.

I’m not sure there’s a good way to resolve the issues there but if there’s a story about them in Pride the week before the issue Tommy’s at the hellfire gala (in what looks like a surprise?) I’d love if they like. Broke up in Pride. I’m not sure how well that’s go over given the theme of the issue but if they actually discussed the issues in their relationship, even if they unrealistically reconciled a week later, I’d feel a lot better about it. Although their relationship is already so bare-bones they could just as easily show them getting together, or no significant landmark at all…

I think the best case scenario at this point is tommy would feel like David’s keeping him at arms length for some reason and the reason is revealed to be the pretender thing, which he didn’t want Tommy to find out about at all. So when tommy finds out he’s pissed but David still buys into it on some level because the propaganda is working overtime on krakoa and he was depowered himself and I assume he doesn’t know Wanda if he’s even met her so they fight and break up over it. But next issue tommy shows up at the hellfire ball and they both say they’re sorry and something about actually getting to know each other’s parents, maybe tommy gets to say something rude to prof x or someone. Not ideal but it’s the best I can see happening because I can’t see them suddenly shifting to have tons of sympathy for wanda (even this much is a stretch) and I’d be worried about people acting like David is the villain in this situation for being conflicted (like when he kissed teddy and people acted like he was the devil when that was really out of character and just biphobic writing in general)

Dunno if David's actually met Wanda, but he's been in a room with her at least once-- he crossed paths with her and the Kaplans in Young Avengers, but they didn't speak and the parents were all under Mother's control at that point. I can't remember what David was doing during AvX, but he might have been around when Wanda and Hope were having their whole shindig.

Anyways, you're 100% correct and I agree with you completely-- I like David and Tommy together in theory, and their dynamic was cute in YA, but there is literally no substance to their relationship as it stands. That's mostly a problem because it doesn't do any favors for Tommy, who is a criminally underused character, but it's particularly dissatisfying right now because Krakoa presents external factors (pun intended) that should be getting in the way, or at least giving them things to work through-- but no one is acknowledging that. Tommy, specifically, is denied interiority and seems to have been washed clean of his backstory and other relationships, which, like, sucks.

I'm looking forward to their story in Marvel's Voices: Pride. I don't know if it's going to be set in the present day, or if it'll be a flashback to how they got together, but I am hoping it'll add some substance to their relationship. I've talked about this a little before, but these characters are both young men of color who have each recently come into their bisexuality-- and for Tommy, this might actually be the point of realization. That right there is a love story that I desperately want to read, so I'd be happy just to see their first date or their first real kiss. It'd give me a reason to root for this couple when the Krakoan dust settles, and it'd give Kieron a chance to make good on how poorly he handled David's kissing streak, and Tommy's character in general, the first time around.

I like the story idea you suggested, although I'm not sure Williams would be able to squeeze all of that into one issue of X-Factor. If this relationship is going to work going forward, I at least need to know that David and the other mutants that Tommy is socializing with have a clear understanding of the Decimation, are aware of the conflict that Tommy being on Krakoa represents, and would have his back when push comes to shove. If not, well... the other shoe has to drop, and I want serious emotional payoff.

#tommy shepherd #david alleyne #speed #prodigy #robintext #not gonna tag the ship name but. yknow.

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aces-reviews · 3 years

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The Lecter Variations, pt 6: Hannibal, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the TV Show

Sorry, I’m drooling over this show

When I first read “Bryan Fuller wants to make a Hannibal Lecter TV show”, I died a little. A tv show? About Hannibal Lecter? Ugh. I was not happy.

It was in the post “Hannibal Rising” era (ugh) and there was really nothing happening with the character of Lecter. And now...they wanted TV? Are you nuts? You can’t do killer-thriller TV on NBC!!

The first leaks came out: it take place before “Red Dragon” and focus on Hannibal’s relationship with Will Graham. A small glimmer of hope: maybe we’ll see a touch of RD, that would be cool.

The casting was announced: Laurence Fishburne as Jack Crawford? Hell yeah! Hugh Dancy as Will Graham? He’s not bad. He was in King Arthur! With...wait, what?

Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lecter.

As soon as I read that, I immediately checked dates and times to make sure I could watch the premiere. Mikkelsen is one of the best actors working today, and his take on Lecter would be worth the price of admission!

And oh what a glorious show we got in return.

Fancier pants! THE FANCIEST PANTS YOU OWN GOOD SIR

Those who have seen the show know what I’m talking about: a potent mix of story, performance, audio, and visual elements that combine into this amazing and surreal journey into the minds of dangerous people.

I apologize for making your underwear burst into flame

The core of the series is the relationship between Will Graham, a special investigator with the FBI, and his therapist, the affluent and mysterious Dr Hannibal Lecter. Will can think like a killer, and that is helpful in his line of work. But it also puts his mind on the edge of a knife between hero and villain. Enter Dr Lecter, who sees something unusual in Will Graham—himself. Or perhaps, the potential to be...

Will’s boss, Jack Crawford, is concerned. After all, if Will thinks like a killer then maybe it’s not too far off that he becomes the killer...

“I have zero tolerance for your bullshit”—Laurence Fishburne, every frame

The series plays a lot with the lore of Hannibal Lecter. For one thing, it has to—a lot of people forget that Silence of the Lambs takes place in the early 80’s. Hannibal couldn’t be a sexy 40 year old in 2016 and have lived through WW2. Adjustments are made, and for the most part, they work. There are some gender-flips as well: Freddy Lounds the tabloid journalist becomes Freddie Lounds, a young woman who runs a true-crime tabloid website. Dr Alan Bloom becomes Dr Alana Bloom, a woman who knows better than to try and analyze Will without permission (and provides a polarizing foil for Lecter).

Until, of course, it’s too late.

Make no mistake: this show is not about Hannibal “becoming” a killer: when the show opens, we know exactly whom we are dealing with.

It is, however, about two people falling in love and hurting each other because of it. The Hannigram section of the fandom is quite right when they try to ship Hannibal and Will. And it adds a fascinating aspect to everything that occurs.

Side note: this scene in the museum might be the best five minutes of television ever produced.

The show is also equal parts food porn and murder porn. Hannibal, a gourmet chef, prepares exquisite dishes, quite often after killing someone exquisitely.

Obligatory finger foods joke

Don’t get me wrong: the show has its flaws: I personally think the Red Dragon arc was handled poorly, and sometimes it gets a little weird seeing a different gimmicky serial killer every week. But even for those things, it’s one of the best series to hit the networks...well, ever.

It adapts material from Red Dragon, Hannibal, and Hannibal Rising (just for flavor), but since another studio had the rights to Silence of the Lambs and all the associated characters, they couldn’t get into that. And I’m okay with that: the core of the show is Hannibal and Will. Messing with that would dull what makes it work.

Do not sleep on this series!! Go watch it now!! And join us next time for our final installment of “The Lecter Variations” with a thriller from the slick and dazzling 1980’s!!

#review #hannibal lecter #hannibal #mads mikkelsen #hugh dancy #tv #foodporn

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poguesgold · 3 years

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how did you feel about season? i know most people liked it better than season 1 but i’m not sure how i feel yet🤔 might need to rewatch it

okay this ended up soooo long so i'm giving a tl;dr review here and if anyone cares to read my insanely long thought dump you can feel free. this part is spoiler free also!!

cons: i think they should have further developed the s1 storyline rather than conjuring up an entirely new treasure and conflict; i don't think they did the characters justice a lot of the time, particularly kie and jj; too much yelling and running not enough hanging out; the finale cliff hanger was a stupid writing choice

pros: cleo!!; pope-centric plotline!!!; amazing jjpope moments in the improv sequences; never a boring moment; rafebarry oh my god????; neck kiss shirtless wrestling holding hands standing unnecessarily close jjpope rot; just a straight up nine hour long adrenaline rush and i love that shit.

overall: i definitely did not like it more than s1, but i still REALLY loved it. i think it's worth the watch, just don't go into it expecting good writing or realistic injuries or a comprehensive plot LMFAO. what saves the season is the pogues' chemistry and their improv sequences, for real. and cleo. you WILL get angry about the shitty script and characterization if you’re really invested in that part of things, but as far as vibes and dopamine high it was awesome. it was a fun watch and i'll definitely rewatch at least once to soak it in properly

please this is going to be soooo long i apologize in advance. but i have a lot of thoughts. also ⚠️⚠️spoilers ahead!!⚠️⚠️

most of this review is going to be criticisms tbh so sorry for that but this show kinda sucks (affectionately<3)

i thought season 2 was an absolute TRAINWRECK as far as writing goes. jonas pate was basically like. this season we're going to have an even BIGGER and BETTER treasure!!! but the exact same thing is going to happen. like. we already had gold. and that's what they were going to the bahamas for at the end of season 1 for anyway????? it would have been so easy to just develop the original storyline further, i just cannot figure out why they would completely abandon it for another mediocre storyline. (i LOVED that this other mediocre storyline was pope-centric and the main character energy he was given this season. but. they. could have done that?? with the first storyline?????)

i hate that they brought big john back so so much. SO much. literally it was the stupidest most idiotic lazy cheesy plot choice in the world. it doesn't make sense, we like saw his literal bones at one point like his lifeless corpse, and WHY would they bring back a key character from the PREVIOUS ARC when they created an ENTIRELY NEW CONFLICT AND PLOTLINE FOR THIS SEASON???? jonas pate stuck it in for shock value and cliff hanger in hopes of securing a season 3, and i hate him for it. he's such a terrible writer white men have it so easy

someone in the neck kiss truthers discord earlier pointed out that jb's dead father returning after like a year and a half of thinking he was dead would probably be more traumatic that healing at this point, and i agree so much. also, you know that they're not going to use it for good either way. they're going to use his dad coming back as a way to further traumatize him somehow because obx writers are jombeephobic. and i wouldn't put it past them to bring him back just to kill him off again. jonas pate wants to write john b torture porn and i am TIRED of it

my least favorite thing about season 2 was the characterization. they really did just disregard the characters they created in season 1. kie was completely ooc for like three episodes, and it wasn't because she was mourning. it was just shitty writing. she had no character outside of her relationships this season, which has been my fear from the very beginning and why i have never wanted kie with any of the pogues. season 2 diminished her character to the female love interest, and that just sucked so bad for her.

whether you're a jjpope or not, season 2 completely changed their friendship dynamic. the only time we got glimpses of the season 1 jjpope dynamic was in the improv sequences when rudy and jd took it upon themselves. also during their hugs LMFAO. which is also an acting choice. the writing completely disregarded their friendship and dynamic. it was weird as fuck it was all weird. i also hated that kie and sarah's scripted interactions were just them talking about boys. another case of friendships again being completely disregarded for the cishet relationships.

i just really feel like all of the characters were handled poorly this season, which is crazy because literally ALL we asked for was backstory and character development and pogue screentime. but jonas pate instead decided to write ten episodes of nonstop running and yelling and fuckinf adrenaline, with an ooc script. for funsies

i feel like the magic of season 1 was lost. the vibe of season 1 that makes it so comforting and rewatchable and lovely is sort of just lost in all the silly plot. we see snatches of it here and there, but they feel crammed between unnecessary action scenes and stunts and shouting when we would have been happy with ten episodes of the pogues hanging out in each other's bedrooms.

NOW IM GOING TO TALK THINGS I LIKED OKAY OKAY

i seriously DID love watching it. we pulled an all nighter in the neck truthers discord and binged the entire season and the adrenaline of that kept me going for the rest of the week. it was literally fucking insane absolutely batshit and i LOVED it. the writing was horrible but like. it's obx we know it isn't good LMFAOO. it's part of the charm

i definitely don't like it more than s1, but i did still like it a lot. i LOVED how pope centric it was, like he fr had such main character energy this season and it was wonderful. even though the storyline was weird and didn't make sense jd did so well lolol he did so wonderfully. i loved seeing pope get the attention he deserves this season.

JJPOPE MOMENTS. i was definitely sad they didn't have an arc to themselves like they did season 1, but oh my god jd and rudy FED US with jjpope improv moments this season. the NECK KISS? the WRESTLING? every single one of their hugs?????? they're insane. it sucked that they really didn't have any scenes alone but we take what we can get.

SPEAKING OF GAYS LET'S TALK ABOUT RAFEBARRY. because?? oh my god??? first season it was like a crack ship and then season 2 came out and... what are we supposed to do ignore it? they are literally??? gay????? it's jarring they're insane. i am so so invested in them it's kind of unreal how deep i got into this ship in such a short amount of time (follow @rafebarry babies <33)

cleo. i love cleo. the best new thing to come out of this season for sure. clarah is coming strong i can feel it and i am SO ready. i know that they're most likely going to move toward a cleopope romance next season, which i don't hate? i'm bothered only because a) it's obvious it's mostly being done to get pope out of the way for jiara, and b) i think people often push two dark-skinned characters into a ship just because they're both dark-skinned, and that yucks me out. but i will say i really liked their moments together in s2 and i think they could be really good together if they're canon s3 (which they probably will be.)

overall like. it was a fun watch. i retained like 2% of the plot i was just there for the vibes and dopamine high and that was totally fine. i want to take the pogues out of jonas pate’s greedy little white man fingers and give them the character and relationship development they deserve, but we can’t have it all i guess. the cinematography this season i think i liked better than season 1, wasn’t a huge fan of that weird yellow filter tho. also the lighting. obx lighting guys get demoted challenge. umm yeah season 1 supremacy but season 2 had amazing vibes

#jesus clearly i haven't talked about this enough yet #send in other asks if you want i'm absolutely insane #sorry if there's typos i am not reading through this again #if i'm incoherent you'll just have to deal #asks #s2 asks

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artemisdesari-blog · 3 years

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Why I Find Tauriel Problematic; An Essay On My Thoughts, Feelings, And Why Ambivalence Has Turned Into Frustration and Distaste

Although I have only been back on the fanfiction horse for about two years, and what a wonderful two years those have been, my brief stint writing fanfiction for The Hobbit has shown me a great deal about the fandom, and one of those things is that Tauriel is something like Marmite. For those unfamiliar with Marmite, it is a British salty yeast extract spread that is either utterly delicious or utterly vile depending on the tastes of the one eating it. The marketing slogan for it is “You either love it or hate it”, so even the manufacturers are aware that enjoyment of their product is a very subjective thing. Tauriel seems to polarise the fandom almost as much as said yeast extract, although there is a little more mid range ambivalence towards her as well. For me, personally, I prefer to pretend that she never existed in the movies at all, something that I will get into at a later date. That ambivalence has, sadly, shifted to distaste.

It is no secret that in popular literature and culture there is a very glaring absence of strong female characters. To the extent that when your Captain Janeways, Samantha Carters, Natasha Romanovs and so on pop up they become worth commenting on. Tolkien, of course, is no saint where this is concerned. It is glaringly obvious that for every Lúthien, Galadriel, Arwen and Eowyn there are dozens of male characters who play far greater roles in the saving of the world. In fact, The Hobbit is without strong female characters entirely, being a novel completely dominated by the male Company of Thorin Oakenshield, including the title character. Considering who Tolkien is supposed to have originally written the tale for, the source myths that he referenced and prevailing attitudes of the time, it is unsurprising. In fact, that characters like Eowyn and Galadriel pop up at all, not discounting Lúthien whose romance with Beren was said to have some inspiration from Tolkien’s own marriage, is impressive all things considered.

With that in mind, let us consider the matter of Tauriel. She was not in the book, and while I can see why the studio wanted her added to the film they later made decisions about her which sat, and still do sit, very poorly with me. Generally speaking, as a writer, I prefer to try ignoring the fact that she exists in the movies, even if I reference the movie appearances of the dwarves to avoid writing about too many bearded males with white or blue or blond hair. If I do reference her it is usually in passing and with no intention to do anything further with her other than acknowledge that she was added to the cast. Frequently, however, I get asked the questions “Will Kíli and Tauriel be forming an attachment?”. “How do you plan to handle the romance between Kíli and Tauriel given the relationship you’ve been building with X character?”, “Why do you dislike her so much?”. I’ve even been accused of disliking her from the misogynistic view point of “the evil female who corrupts the helpless males,” which is frankly offensive and not at all the case.

To the first two questions: she is not book canon, I do not need to address the so-called romance because there is nothing in Tolkien’s canon to support her existence and thus the romance. To the last question… well, that one is a little more complicated and requires an in depth examination of her introduction, actions and interactions with Kíli, as well as his personality as established over the course of the films since we have precious little to go on in the books.

First, let us look at Kíli. He is a flirt. We know that, we see him flirting with various elves during dinner in Rivendell. Beyond that, however, we see very little of his tastes or preferences, although it is probably fair to assume that he is probably something of a romantic as well. As much as he is a main character, he is still more of a background character compared to Bilbo and Thorin. It is, after all, about the hobbit of the piece. He is young, either just about to turn 77 or not long having done so and that makes him young enough that we get the impression that he and Fíli both are still of an age where it is perfectly natural to idolise their uncle and be desperate for his approval. We see that the few times he is dressed down he feels it very keenly. We also see that he is playful and open, perhaps the most playful and open of all of them except, maybe, Bofur. He is curious, perfectly capable of giving his all when it comes to a fight and Gandalf refers to him as one of Thorin’s best alongside his brother and Dwalin.

We also see him flip from open and loving, though perhaps infatuated is a better word, to cold and murderous in a moment, so we can probably include passionate in all things in that as well.

Now, let us look at Tauriel. Unlike Kíli, we have no set age for her. We know that she is young for an elf, but the ages given range from somewhere around 600 to 1,400. There is one quote placing her at 1,347 but it is in a sea of conflicting information. Regardless, she is young, she is idealistic and curious. She has never left Mirkwood and has dedicated much of the last few decades to attempting to curb the influx of giant spiders which are spreading from Dol Guldur while arguing with Thranduil; who wants his borders kept clear but refuses to deal with the source of the threat. An attitude not unfamiliar to many of us, sadly. She has the friendship of a prince of Mirkwood but is declared not good enough for him. Also, not an uncommon attitude in those who could be thought of as nobility.

She, like any being that has literally had hundreds of years to practice, is incredibly good with her weapons and pings and flips around like the others of her kind. Given her youth and position we can conclude that she is considered unusually skilled for her age but she still has the advantage of living forever, unless she tires of life or is killed, to keep improving her skills.

Finally, let us look at the history between elves and dwarves. It is not a pretty one. They come together for the sake of occasional trade, or to face the threat of Morgoth, and later Sauron, and their armies, but otherwise they keep to themselves. The dislike is clear on both sides and occurs well before the day Smaug arrived in Erebor, during the First Age in fact. So it will be difficult for this young pair to overcome millennia of bad feeling between their people, some of whom actually remember the events that set the dislike in stone. Legolas and Gimli are later understood to be among only a very, very, few who become close enough to be considered great friends. Much of fandom would probably cheerfully have them be a great deal more given Legolas snuck his dwarf into Valinor after Aragorn’s death.

To the shoe-horned in romance, and I do mean that in the literal sense. Evangeline Lily has been heard in interviews to say that she was wary about the fan reception of Tauriel from the start and that she signed on under the explicit understanding that there would be no romance or love triangle. And at the end of the initial shoot there was not. When they came back for studio shoots and reshoots, however, she was presented with a list of scenes that had been added and some that needed to be reshot to accommodate, you guessed it, a love triangle. She was signed in, she had taken the money, done the work and was boxed into a corner. The love triangle went in and it became the part of the films that polarises the fans the most. Besides, if we want to ship something, we do not need to have it spoon fed to us. Bagginshield is the most popular ship in the fandom and we only get the odd hint towards it here and there. Then look at the multitude of other ships. We did not need to be given something we can make up for ourselves.

That out of the way, let us look at their meeting:

The Company is beset by giant spiders, destined to be dinner, confused and disorientated and more than a little desperate, weakened due to lack of food and the weird miasma of Mirkwood which has been playing havoc with their minds. None of them are in good shape but, as they do, they fight on anyway. They need to survive and reach the mountain so that they can take back their home. Enter the elves, arrows whistling, blades crunching into thick spider exoskeletons, performing all manner of acrobatic leaps and twists to avoid getting bitten or killed. It is impressive, eye-catching even to the older dwarves, and would likely be even more so to a pair of young dwarves like Fíli and Kíli. We do not see Fíli’s reaction, he is too busy frantically looking for his missing brother who has been cornered by a spider.

Enter Tauriel, who refuses to give him a knife to defend himself with and help her deal with the stragglers because she believes he may well be an enemy. She is, in fact, somewhat derogatory towards him. I would not say that Kíli is charmed, although he is certainly impressed, because were he charmed I do not believe he would have such a massively discontent expression on his face as she takes him back to the others. I suspect that, much like in Rivendell, he would have put more effort into turning on the charm.

As the dwarves are led away, we get the first indication that Tauriel has noticed him; she comments that he is not entirely unattractive for a dwarf due to his lack of beard and the fact that he is tall for one of their kind. Legolas is unimpressed, but we expect that.

Once they reach the cells we see the dwarves desperately attempting to avoid being locked up. Most of them are attempting to force their way free, Fíli appears to be in the process of having yet more knives removed from his person while he huffs and sulks, and Kíli is watching as he is taken to a cell of his own. A solitary one at that. Fíli and Kíli, it could be argued, are a little bit co-dependant. Not horrendously, but they have been watching out for one another over all the rest from the start, they are brothers after all, and in the life of a dwarf five years is not all that much of an age gap. So we can assume that Kíli does not really want to be locked up on his own, he is a social person regardless it would seem and I suspect that being alone would be a special kind of torture for him. He tries stalling.

“Aren’t you going to check me? I could have anything down my trousers.”

I’ll give Tauriel this, she is quick witted and this is possibly one of my favourite exchanges of the films. Her reply; “Or nothing” is cool, a little bit cutting and gives no indication of any sort of interest at all. If anything, she seems a little exasperated with all the fuss the lot of them are creating and she simply wants to be done with it. Away Kíli goes and off she goes to report to her king.

Who proceeds to compliment her on her good handling of things so far, order her to make it better faster, reject her proposal for exterminating the source rather than simply dealing with the fallout and then tell her that no matter what else she has done, she is not good enough for his son. Oof. She hesitates before replying, stumbles her way through a response and seems genuinely upset about it. Regardless of whether her feelings for Legolas are of friendship or if she had been hoping for a little more as well, being told something like that had to hurt.

We next see Tauriel patrolling the cells. Some of the dwarves are making noise, most seem pretty resigned, Kíli is fiddling with his promise stone. Which he promptly drops and loses through the bars, only for it to be stopped by Tauriel who demands to know what it is. As you do. Kíli, as you do, replies that it is a curse stone and any who is not a dwarf who looks upon it will suffer greatly. I forget the exact quote, I could look it up but I’m not feeling quite that dedicated to making my point here. Tauriel hesitates. I will not say that she is alarmed, she seems to take his words with a pinch of salt, but she is definitely wary and we have to remember that she is a very young elf who has spent all of her life in Mirkwood. She has not interacted with dwarves, has no reason to have done so and so she has no idea if what he is saying is true or not. And we have no idea how many of the old stories about elves and dwarves she has heard, although we know it is enough for her to have a generally low opinion of them. Her hesitation is enough to cause Kíli to come clean, perhaps fearing that she will take this precious memento of his mother from him. You can see the moment that Tauriel decides to return it, the flicker of surprise that a dwarf would mention a parent with such apparent fondness and it makes me wonder what stories she has been told about dwarves and their emotions. Regardless, she gives it back and the two begin a conversation which starts with Kíli’s opinion on starlight and moves on to become centred around Kíli’s travels.

It is a good, safe, sensible conversation which would ring no alarm bells. In fact, the only thing that hints towards the idea that we should be looking for a romantic angle is the shot of Legolas looking down upon them with a disgusted sneer.

This is where I began to feel uneasy with the direction the story was taking. Legolas is clearly jealous, Tauriel has clearly been hurt by the callous words of Thranduil and there was, perhaps, a little bit of flirting going on between the bars. This is Kíli after all. One thing we forget, however, is that she is his jailor. She is in a position of significant power over him. Let us flip the genders. The one behind bars is female, the one who holds the keys and is showing a marked interest in her is male. This is a familiar trope, and one which many of us shudder back from due to the power divide and the vulnerability of the female character, no matter how kind the male one seems. Why, then, do so many of us ignore the reverse scenario? Why is it alright for a woman, or elleth, in a position of power over a male, and especially a young one who might well be looking for a way out and a way to keep his friends and family safe, to pay such marked attention to a male captive?

The answer, of course, is that it is very much not alright, but we let it slide because it is not the reverse and society seems to have this thing for women in power seducing helpless males.

So, they have got their flirt on, spent an unspecified length of time languishing in the cells and now it is time to escape. The book would have us believe that they spent a month or so in the cells and rode their barrels out with relative ease. No gates, orcs, arrows or chases through the rapids. I can understand the movies needing something a little more dramatic. It would have been a dull escape otherwise, but we can already see the shift in Tauriel when the dwarves escape, even though she has known them at most a month, and the film makes it seem like they have only been in there a day or two which is what makes her actions later make even less sense than they would had she known Kíli a month. She hesitates. Her prisoners have escaped, her king is going to be very displeased, and still she hesitates.

I refuse to get into the thing with the morgul arrow, I find it very hard to believe that Sauron would have allowed the use of those and thus tipped others who were not Gandalf, Saruman, Galadriel and Elrond off to the fact that he was on the move. I am not even entirely sure they were a thing in book canon which is neither here nor there. It is believable that Kíli would have been hurt, that is a risk in every combat situation, and I will leave it at that.

The dwarves escape and head to Lake Town with Kíli in increasingly poor shape, Tauriel and Legolas take an orc to Thranduil for questioning which results in the elf king ordering the gates sealed. He wants nothing to do with whatever quarrel is between the orcs and dwarves. I hardly blame him. Legolas and Tauriel both object at different times and get shut down, and Legolas goes to obey his father’s orders, only to realise that Tauriel has already run off after this bloke she hardly knows.

I love Kíli, I do, but at this point he holds about as much of a permanent place in her life as the bloke I started to play Dungeons and Dragons with three months ago does in mine. And she probably knows him about as well as I do that guy.

She is idealistic, young, desperate to see the world. I get that. It is as good a reason as any to want to go out there and save it given that she is, to borrow from Guardians of the Galaxy, one of the idiots who lives in it. But saving the world, or that corner of it, was not what set her off in Thranduil’s throne room. Being told that Kíli was going to die slowly and painfully was. As much as the scene argues that she is going out there to save the world because she believes that they have a responsibility to do so, she has also already shown that Kíli is one of her primary reasons.

Four years ago, my then four year old, looked at this whole mess and said “But Elsa says you can’t marry a man you just met”. Where she got the idea Tauriel wanted to marry Kíli, I do not know, but that observation stuck with me.

Anyway, because this is getting rambling, stuff happens, the dwarves have a feast, Kíli gets left in Lake Town with Fíli while the rest go on to Erebor and Tauriel fights her way into Bard’s in time to get some athelas to heal Kíli, although not without a little bit of dithering about before hand as she tries to work out what, if anything, she can do to help him. It is not the first time we see the calm, collected and confident character we were introduced to take a backseat before she pulls herself together but it is quite prominent. Kíli, while being healed, spouts off some romantic gibberish about him and Tauriel being worlds apart from one another and wondering if she could have loved him.

It is very sweet. It is also delirious ramblings. I have said some things while feverish and sick that have had my Significant Other raising his eyebrows at me. It is not meant to be taken really seriously. For all we know, five minutes before he might have proposed marriage to Óin or been hallucinating a fight with Smaug. It is sweet and romantic, as we might believe Kíli to be, but can it be considered a true declaration?

Incidentally, this part is one of the changes that makes me really quite angry. Fíli and Kíli were always supposed to be at Thorin’s side when they entered Erebor. He leaves Kíli, and therefore Fíli, behind with barely a twitch, and callously does so after making him struggle his way to the dock and the waiting boat in front of the population of Lake Town who are waiting to see them off. It raises questions about whether the gold obsession that plagues the line of Durin had already started to set in, but I think it was a decision made to give a greater sense of peril to the scenes in Lake Town when Smaug is razing the place.

Either way, I do not like it.

The morning after the night before dawns, Kíli seems none the worse for wear after his near brush with death, though we know that Frodo was heavily weakened after his own such encounter in sixty/eighty years, depending on if you book or film timeline it. He is saying goodbye to Tauriel and effectively tells her he loves her by calling her “amrâlimê” which most of us here know means something to the effect of “my love”. Watch Fíli behind him, rolling his eyes and shaking his head as though this is not the first time he has seen his brother act like this. Fíli is the Darcy to Kíli’s Bingley, except maybe this time it really is not love at all and Fíli is right to be wary and frustrated. It is also the time we see Kíli go from adoring puppy to murder hound in about 0.6 seconds with the arrival of Legolas. This time he is clearly infatuated, but I would still hesitate to say “in love” for a couple of reasons. The first is that they really hardly know each other, and while love at first sight is a wonderful idea it is not necessarily the strongest foundation for a relationship. Especially one with such incredibly strong Romeo and Juliet vibes. The second is that she has saved his life twice at this point. It is a known phenomenon that when someone does such a thing gratitude can be mistaken for powerful love.

In fact, Aidan and Evangeline have both reported to have said that had Kíli survived the pair of them would have very rapidly recognised that this is not love at all. It is gratitude and infatuation and not something which could withstand the judgement of both of their peoples.

Here, they separate, and neither mentions the other at all. Tauriel is cast out of Mirkwood, Legolas vows he will not return without her which is a whole other host of problems on its own, and they go forth to Gundabad to see what the orcs are up to.

It is bad news, but then these things usually are.

Things go horribly wrong in Erebor, words and Arkenstones are exchanged, hobbits are nearly flung from very high places and battle commences while Dwalin attempts to knock some sense into a gold consumed Thorin. You can see why Kíli will not have had time to think about Tauriel at all.

With the battle joined, it is fight or die. Kíli is unaware that Tauriel is anywhere on the field, or that there is a trap waiting for him in that bloody tower and Tauriel… well she panics. Seeing that Thranduil is intending on withdrawing for the good of his people she stands before him and pulls a weapon on her king demanding that he stay and fight and help the dwarves. If not for the fact that Legolas comes and takes her toward Ravenhill I think Thranduil probably would have crossed a line into kinslaying right there and then. There is only so much disobedience and, frankly, treason one can endure from a subject before something more permanent needs to be done about them.

They get to the tower, Fíli is already dead and Kíli is desperately trying to hold his own against an ambush so that he can avenge his brother. And Tauriel, for some unfathomable reason, races through a tower full of orcs screaming his name. That… that is not how you do these things. At all. By doing that you draw the attention of every creature that is currently free to track you down and kill you.

Moving on.

Watch them fight against Bolg together. They do not do it well. Kíli is fabulous next to Fíli, and probably Thorin and Dwalin and any other dwarf for that matter. He probably would not do too badly with one of the Men beside him but the elvish style of combat and the dwarf style are very different and it does not mesh well for these two who barely really know each other. Legolas and Gimli fight in many of the same battles, but rarely side by side and they are certainly more in tune with one another than these two are. In this case, Tauriel is definitely panicking and I wonder if she would have done the same if it had been Legolas she was fighting with.

Somehow I doubt it.

Anyway, eventually they are overwhelmed, longing looks are exchanged and Kíli is killed. Tauriel breaks down to Thranduil who declares that it was clearly real love.

I just, there is so much wrong with this I hardly know where to start.

A lot of time is dedicated to this addition. It drives a wedge between Thranduil and Legolas that we had no reason to suspect existed, it deprives him of one of his loyal guards and it does absolutely nothing at all to affect the outcome of the quest for Erebor in a positive way. It adds nothing to Kili’s death, it does not make it any more of a tragedy than it is in the book. In fact, if anything I think it takes away from it a little bit. For those not in the know, in the book Thorin is felled on the field, fatally wounded by Bolg who is then crushed to death by Beorn. Fíli and Kíli, who do not wish to see their uncle’s body taken and desecrated, and likely hoping that there was some small chance he could be saved, fight over him as guards until they are overwhelmed and die side by side before help can come. It is, ultimately, a terrible waste of their lives. Thorin lives long enough to apologise to Bilbo in one of the healing tents, much as he does on the side of the mountain in the film, and then he dies.

So Tauriel has made no positive impact upon the outcome, it could be argued that her moment of hesitating to threaten Thranduil could have been the moments where she and Legolas might have reached the tower fast enough to save possibly Kíli, perhaps even Fíli, we will never know. What we do know is that the addition of the love triangle added extra time which could have been given to any of the rest of the Company, most of whom were given very little at all to do other than carry on in the background. We could have spent more time with Bilbo, who got shunted aside for the Legend of Legolas parts and, of course, the love triangle additions. We did not even get the funeral in the theatrical release!

It seemed to primarily be, well, filler. And the studio’s bizarre opinion that they were not going to get female viewers if they did not stick some form of romance in there. It seemed to almost be an attempt to mirror the Arwen, Aragorn, Eowyn triangle from the Lord of the Rings, except they missed the mark there spectacularly. Arwen knew very well what she was giving up in marrying Aragorn, and she ultimately made the same choice that her uncle had made thousands of years before as had her very nearly ultimate grandmother (bar Melian) before that. Tauriel could have had no concept at all of what she might have been tying herself to. And that does not even get into the political ramifications of it had Kíli survived, or if he and any one or both of Fíli and Thorin survived.

This next is, of course, speculation, because we have no real way of knowing.

Tauriel has sacrificed everything, her home and position for some dwarf she hardly knew. They think it is love, but in the coming weeks with Kíli dedicated to the mountain, whether alone as king or with his uncle and/or brother, distance begins to grow. Tauriel is an elf, she may have fought in the battle but she is still not completely trusted. Rumours from those who might have seen her interaction with Thranduil during the battle start to surface. Kíli might overlook them for himself, but could Thorin or Fíli? If they were to send Kíli to do something that Tauriel would not like, could they trust her not to do the same to them as she did to Thranduil? She owes them even less loyalty than she did him and she threw it all to one side in a heartbeat. If Kíli is the only one of the younger two who survived, where does that leave the succession? If he and Tauriel cannot have children together the throne is not secure, even if they could with all the millennia of bad blood between elf and dwarf will the general populace really accept a half elf on the throne? Especially one who might live forever. The answer there is very likely to be no, which will cause more problems further on and puts Dáin and later Thorin III Stonehelm on the throne again. So there was no point saving Kíli if the original timeline would come to pass anyway, if with a few more hurdles and a heap more unrest thrown in. In other words, it would cause a lot more contention than it would solve.

If they did grow apart, as the actors have stated they would, I think Tauriel would have come to resent Kíli for his role in her decisions, even though she was a grown elleth and perfectly capable of reasoning out possible consequences for herself. Evangeline says that Tauriel went back to Mirkwood after the battle and I suspect Thranduil forgave her out of pity and because he knew she had learnt a terrible lesson. I doubt, though, that she ever regained his trust, and I very much doubt she ever rose to any real position within the kingdom again. If Kíli had not died, I suspect her reception would have been less forgiving and more in the nature of “well if it isn’t the consequences of your actions” before being thrown from her home in disgrace.

Either ending is unhappy for her.

This whole diatribe actually makes it sound like I quite like the character, and there are some small parts of her that I do like. The film needed a strong female character, and this is perhaps one of the reasons that one of the more popular genderbends in the fandom is female Bilbo. Because either way, the story still works. And all the initial stuff with Tauriel worked. Her early interactions with Kíli, that snappy comeback which is actually a favourite because as a response to someone intending on unsettling her it is perfect, even that little bit of wanderlust that she lets seep out. Where it falls apart, and where my dislike stems, is the introduction of the love triangle, the huge power imbalance between them when it begins in the dungeons of Mirkwood, the fact that gratitude and love are allowed to blur over the line with no one questioning it. Except, perhaps, Fíli, who is the long suffering older sibling accustomed to his brother becoming infatuated with this or that pretty face or great warrior.

Had it been left at the wanderlust and the whole bit with the delirious confession been done away with, she could have still been great. Had she kept her head a bit better upon seeing Kíli fighting Bolg or even had a material effect on things for good I could possibly, possibly have overlooked how it all began. But that moment in the cells set my squick metre off and coloured my opinion of it from there. And even repeat watching has not helped me to see it in a positive light. It was filler, time wasting, and I find it hard to like a character who was introduced as someone that girls could look up to, and who became, instead, every cliché female love interest that I feared she would. They set her up, let her and us down, and as a result I prefer to pretend she never existed, or gloss over her entirely.

And because people are always asking me what my problem with her is I’ve grown to despise her.

Kíli is a grown dwarf, he is perfectly capable of making his own decisions and thinking for himself. Tauriel does not manipulate him into having feelings for her, she seems to be made uncomfortable by the confession in fact, but just as he is capable of thinking for himself, so is she. And I question every decision she made from the moment she locked him behind those bars, because that is where the Tauriel that Kíli met in the spider’s nest begins to vanish.

She could have been a great character and she did not need a love interest, or to become one, for that to happen. The studio handled her poorly, and that is why I would prefer to ignore the fact that she, and that stupid love triangle, ever existed.

#thehobbit #WhyTaurielisaproblem #Because I feel she is #fandom ramblings

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