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usernamesuggestionsarefunny · 6 months

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My avatar tla hot take ACTUALLY UNPOPULAR and not just minority opinion is that Azula is a terrible addition to the series. On her own? Oh, her character was great, complex, etc. She is a queen, a great diva, wonderful villain, interesting, deserved a great redemption too (She is 14! A baby!) etc. She just would have suited a magic girl show, a horror movie (in the typical scary, powerful little girl fashion), or a darker, more mature show with more characters like her, meaning child prodigies, better.

Combined with the rest of the atlab story? Kinda makes me laugh. She is such a ridiculous addition that makes it obvious this is a kids’ show. When I first watched the show, Zuko's father and the fact he had branded him was such a serious “oh shit” moment. Like, that is a father whose expectations are truly ridiculously high. It was scary. I mean who could meet them?

Zuko, whether a villain or an anti-hero, was a special, unique character the first few episodes because he was intimately acquainted with the scary main villain in a way no one was.

Then comes Azula. Come at me to debunk me (I may not even try to argue because this is such a weird opinion in the fandom, for real I haven't heard it) but she feels like a writer self-insert. Not a little kid’s writer self-insert, mind you, she feels like a well-written, dark, and complex self-insert or oc written by a talented fic writer in her 30s with years of experience that may become an original writer someday, but an oc nonetheless.

Azula feels like “oh, Zuko could never live up to his evil father’s ideals? Oh here comes my oc Azula, despite being 2 years younger she is soo much better at firebending and does everything better, even being evil, she is the main villain’s golden child and sidekick! And the sister of the main antagonist who interacts with him constantly!” (oh isn't that so cool?) “oh shit wait she needs flaws otherwise she is a villain Sue, let's see.… perfectionism! Perfect flaw! and at the very end after needing a 2 against 1 setting to be defeated she has a mental breakdown, perfect!”

“But gifted children and prodigies exist!!” you may say. Yesss I knowww. She is both too dark of a concept and too corny for atla. I see the flaws and contradictions in the ~vibes~ Azula gives me, thank you anyway. But regardless of rationally being aware of this, the reveal that this powerful character that comes to replace Zuko in causing the gaang trouble (Because let's face it, the beginning of Zuko's redemption arc and needing an even bigger bad to replace him and shock the viewers by how much more dangerous/powerful they are is the whole reason for Azula’s existence) is his 14-year-old LITTLE sister is so… dorky and laughable for me personally. And not only because of her gender in case you come to attack me from that angle. Zuko's prodigy little brother would perhaps have been an even worse and more ridiculous big bad replacement (Girls being shorter is understandable, but with a little brother we would visually see how much Zuko would be able to beat him if this weren't a kids’ show with magic, it would be even harder to suspend my disbelief to). Like, I am sure the reasons I hate the concept are the very same reasons some others love it, but you are telling me that the one capable of fulfilling the evil child burner father's expectations is… simply some rando younger child? It is not that Ozai was a freak who wanted the impossible, it is just that Zuko wasn't it. It is corny, it is dumb. It is so obviously meant for kids. Thanks, I hate it.

Azula also combines in a very weird and bizarre way with Zuko's tragic origin story (Also it is just another source of angst that is completely unnecessary, that distracts from what his father did to him and never living up to his expectations or being too compassionate for his own good, now there is a little sibling in the way being better than him at everything). Call me crazy, but Zuko as an only child, or at least a child without crazy op YOUNGER siblings would have had a MUCH more interesting relationship with his father. Perhaps an even ANGSTIER and more complex relationship where his approval is just within reach but also not quite there. Where it seems conceivable and yet out of reach. Where Ozai is the type of abuser who gives him praise when he does something right just to tear him down mercilessly when he doesn't.

What Zuko has in canon with Ozai and Azula is also interesting, painful, and angsty, but it is “never be able to be this other random younger child who happens to be a prodigy so what is even the point of trying when dad always reminds me of how meh I am compared to her” instead of “never be able to be like my father who is putting all his hopes and that of his empire on me, who at times seems to care so much”. That last one is much more compelling for me personally for a character that ends up being the opposite of his father and learns being like him is not a good thing, it also gives Zuko a good, believable reason to keep trying to please his father: there is actually a chance, there is no one there who has already won the race. Oh my, his search for the Avatar would have made so much more sense without Azula why does Azuka exist in this universe whyy 😭

Don't get me wrong, the sibling rivalry and abusers putting children against each other, having a golden child and a scapegoat, is realistic in many families, but from a storytelling perspective I find it VERY whatever, MEH. Like, the moment Ozai burns Zuko would have been a much greater instance of utter betrayal and shock if Ozai actually acted at times like he had some hope in his son instead of being constantly comparing him to his sister. Now everytime I am made aware of what Ozai did to Zuko I am like “duh” what were you expecting, Zuko, baby? It is still evil as fuck, but no longer shocking or a wtf moment, it is just the boring, edgy and predictable culmination of Ozai already having a “better” child he prefers to succeed him, a total overkill, and in fact, knowing Ozai, he should have done so earlier or straight up had Zuko killed, it makes no sense he is still alive when Azula is a much better successor from his perspective. It means nothing and Zuko should of fing course be traumatized and emotionally and physically distraught by the damage done to him by his own father, but he should not longer logically be that shocked or struck dumb. From a fictional, storytelling perspective, for me personally, the moment loses a tiny bit of its power, at least from the betrayal-someone-who-should-care-for-you—hurting-you—instead aspect.

If I had been there to write the ~big worse bad before Ozai~ meant to replace Zuko as he begins his journey of redemption, I would have chosen something much more serious (I get “abused child soldier” is serious, duh, I just mean serious in a way that makes me fear for the gaang being faced not with a peer but with someone bigger and much more experienced, and not just distract myself with how horrible it is that a “father” makes a 14-year-old girl into a soldier for an invading army). I would have chosen an equally or even more powerful, ADULT, right-hand man (or woman) of Ozai. If it really had to be a sibling of Zuko, it would have been a brother or sister 5 years OLDER, and that is AT THE VERY LEAST, perhaps the son or daughter of a minor wife or concubine (To fix the issue of why they are not the heir and why Zuko could be jealous of their much better skills while at the same time still having a good reason to keep trying to earn their father's approval, which is that there is still time to learn and improve as the younger party, this could have also made Ursa more sympathetic since the “evil” sibling is no longer a child of hers that she emotionally neglected). This could also give the character depth in the sense that they hate the fact they have no claim to the throne despite being older and “better”. They could still care for Zuko while having a love hate relationship with them, a sibling rivalry, Ozai turning them against each other, same as Azula, without taking away from Zuko's interesting relationship with Ozai (I just want his urge to overpower his better sibling to come from a place of his father actually expecting him to do it and be mad he doesn't instead of just Ozai putting all his hopes on the other sibling and Zuko for some plot related reasons still wanting his father's impossible approval despite never being able to earn it because Azula is there, better at a younger age, is that too much to ask? Like at this point Zuko should be smart enough to see that firebending skills are inborn and related to ~fantasy-version-of-genetics~, he should logically have seen it is not his fault and stopped trying to be Ozai or Azula MUCH earlier).

So in summary, believe it or not, I like Azula. I like the whole child prodigy golden child psychologically groomed and abused by evil father angle and I would love a redemption arc for her. I just don't like her AS an atla character. I feel like she does a disservice to Zuko by even existing due to how complex and interesting yet overpowered she is, actually. She ruins his motivations imo. Ironically enough, Zuko does not do a disservice to her, he makes her more interesting because he is a warning of what could happen to her if she is not perfect, he makes her vulnerable. But here is the deal, this would work better if she was the protagonist.

Edit: I just realized it is not just Azula who does a disservice to Zuko's story, it is the whole “Ozai straight up hated the little fucker since birth and tried to kill him before as a child therefore what he did to him was not a consequence of Zuko being compassionate as fuck, Ozai might as well have been looking for an excuse”. It just cheapens it immensely.

Zuko caring for those soldiers still counts just as much (of fucking course), but it would have been more poignant story-wise for his suffering to have also be a direct consequence of his first signs of goodness + his father being an abuser pshyco and not just the latter + Ozai always hated him because Zuko is the good guy and his father’s empire is evil so we need a way to make the children see Zuko is good and not like the rest from the beginning in a painfully simple way by making Ozai inherently hate him or smt because abusers “loving” their children in fucked up ways is too complicated

#atla #atlab #anti azula #not really #this is not about what she does in world or her character but her character combined with that of others #also I had a hard time explaining my issues with her in the overall narrative #avatar the last airbender #this probably sounds written by pre banishment zuko lmao #but I stand by it #the gaang #this is more anti zuko than anything #like baby boy after that burn that should have been the end of his arc #there is no longer a compelling reason for him to keep trying #he just comes across as dumb #azula literally takes away his reason for trying to please his father #I hate the fact she was written in this show #she should have been in another story 😭#also I know Zuko's actions come from a place of trauma but bitch I am no psychiatrist #I want him to make sense too #atla critical #azula negative #azula critical #but aang is 12 and more powerful than everyone!!#shh he is the avatar #he gets a pass

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elllteo · 4 months

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🎹 🙌 🍀sends u these for whichever oc u wanna do!!!!!!!!!!!!

WAHOO LETS SEE

🎹 : Do they have any hobbies?

Matteo - He writes his own music and also plays a few instruments! He wanted to go into music production for college, but that never worked out. He also really likes to write - he writes buffy the vampire fics, and many of them are self insert or smutty LMAO. He'd get into x-files too once someone showed it to him :)

Ellis - He does embroidery! His mother taught him and he's really into it. He also watches trashy soap operas - and he draws, but most people don't know it and wont get a chance to see it. He's very good - he would've done something more arts or sports related if his father hadn't pushed him towards being a detective u_u

Blake - He cooks (if you consider his chefly abominations cooking). He doodles. He games like a gamer. He causes fights on purpose. But more than anything. He likes to take pictures :)

Vance - Classical music enjoyer and also Hyperpop enjoyer. Hobby wise....he works. gfkjshdf He's worse than Ellis.

Julia - Walks...she likes to wander a lot, but in doing so, she often gets lost. fgkjshdflgk They've had to track her down a few times before her phone battery died. Dangerous game she plays.

🙌 : How many siblings do they have?

Matteo & Blake - Siblings!! Except they have like 5 more half siblings they don't know about and probably never meet!!! Thanks mystery-dad! :D

Here's them being stupid little rat-creature-babies when they're supposed to be in BED

Ellis & Erin - They're the only siblings they have. And also really the only close family left, either. Sadge :(

Travis - He has two sisters who are twins...I still need to make them tho so shhhh FGFKLSJHDF

Vance - An only child if you don't count...whatever she is. Or the ones before.

Julia - Her mother and fathers least favorite only child.

🍀 : What inspired this oc?

Okay this is a fun question bc I drop the Matteo lore every chance I get bc its so funny to me. Ferret inspired little man. But the truth is, the others...all came about because the world Matteo resides in, needed them?

LIKE GFJKSHGFL He is the sun around which the ocs I have created rotate even if they don't really ever interact, bc through him I start thinking about gaps in the world or things that would be fun to add. He's the filter and everyone who appears is condensed little nuggets of an idea.

Vance exists because he needed a Boss. In needing a Boss, Vance's storyline also very nicely added up to being a catalist.

Julia exists because the plot needed a hook. Because of that, she's developed into something more, and my wife and I are actually in the middle of reworking her purpose to better fit agency into her whole situation.

Others came about for similar reasons - what is this story missing, and who can I fit into it to help fill it out?

From there idk. I just take elements that feel like the right "vibe" from the mental library in my brain and fiddle with it until it looks/feels right....it's not often a very directly-inspired-take??? Moreso I'm not often entirely aware of the influences going into the oc, bc I do it based on vibes KJKJGHSLKDJF

I hope that helps bc I don't really have direct inspiration for other ocs!!!

Vance looks like slender man I guess but that's more an unintentional side effect of him being Wrong and arriving at the same kind of place. Divergent evolution or something??? LMAO

#answers #ocs #oc stuff #ellteocs #teehee #my art #long post

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gnomey22 · 9 months

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The Realms of the Fey

As in, the two renditions of the Realm of the Fey arc within Failtopia. I have opinions on them.

In Season 1, it lives up to pretty much exactly what you'd expect from the worst area of the game. The Fab Fairies are great, and Rose is a likeable character (until her corruption arc, but that doesn't happen until later). That's about all this arc has going for it. The team dynamic is literally just "Stop quarrelling with the damn flower -> stop dating the damn flower -> the damn flower -> Joker, who barely exists." and it's really difficult to get invested in. Rose just being some normal bitch who got in way over her head in an identity theft scheme and not knowing what to do about it is a very fun idea for a character, and although it could've been expanded upon further, her descent into believing in her own power too much is quite interesting, even if it kind of destroys her general likeableness. Pirahnyawn is the resident healer, but he doesn't give two shits about the party he's stuck with for the foreseeable future, so he intentionally does a terrible job, fights with Failboat constantly, and has a very flimsy relationship with Rose. He's a fairly well-written character, but he's a complete asshole, and it's hard to buy him having any genuine friendships across the team. Unlike Erica, he never grows out of his distaste, because he never had any hope in working together like she did. Joker isn't even a character, he's a one-off joke that had to be kept around until the end of the series without doing anything, and I hate that for him, he deserved better. This arc has some good writing, but it's hard to get into when all of the characters are 1: terrible people or 2: even a character.

In Season 2, this arc blows my expectations out of the water and becomes my favourite of the six! (By which I mean, both Greenhornes, both Neksdors, and both Realms of the Fey.) Bo is a direct parallel to Rose, but her character goes down a wholly different path with the "cautiously hiding her true self behind the Princess class" gimmick, and the ghost-assassin thing adds a whole new layer that makes for great interactions with the actually-already-likeable protagonist! Chat is literally just a self-insert for the live chat of all things, but their drive to make every situation more fun and interesting, while having zero boundaries or self-awareness of how they come across, makes them an actually compelling character, and their constant support of Bo is what leads her down a better path than Rose, who only had Pirahnyawn for support, and he never really showed his care for her that much. Chat, in complete contrast, shows it too much, although through dangerous means, while Bo struggles to show anything about herself. Chat's idolisation of her prompts her to open up, just slightly, and their friendship allows her a safety net in case her other attempts at friendship go wrong. Ironically, she actually feels safer because of Chat's influence. Her and Mar trying their best to keep Chat under control while sustaining their weird needs makes for an actually entertaining trio dynamic, and that's not even talking about Bill. His drive to help anyone and anything with the limited resources he has, taking every situation with a brighter perspective while still remaining relatively calm and reasonable, is great at making him stick out from the rest of the team (something he's all too used to, a driving factor in why he tries so hard to bring everyone closer together), but plays very well off of the other members when they do interact with him. Joker, meanwhile, has zero defining character traits to speak of, and never feels involved with the rest of the team's constant bickering. Admittedly, the Fab Faires are worse than Season 1, but Mar learning to deal with their horrifying faces, despite his instinct to cast judgement due to his past, is nice to see.

I'm tempted to label this an analysis, but it's really not, these are just sleep-deprived ramblings because I don't think I've been posting enough on this site. My point is, Pirahnyawn is a bad person, and the second Realm of the Fey arc needs so much more appreciation.

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getallemeralds · 2 years

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the KG masterpost

aka "icarus and pat collectively lose their minds"

the core concept here is basically like. what if all the AUs of somebody were literally the same person? in the sense of like... you bump into somebody in one universe, hop to the next one over, and when you find them again they recognize you even though there's no way you met before-- or you're just minding your own business when somebody runs up and claims to know you and, when you press them on it, they get embarrassed and say "sorry, i mixed ya up with the other you". slightly different appearances, vastly different backstories, different nicknames, but still the same person.

side effects of existing like that: easily overstimulated, memory constantly scrambled because of remembering Literally Everything From Every Version Of Themself, extremely confusing to be around. depending on the setting, either they mask it or they just don't give a shit because This Is Already So Goddamn Weird

tl;dr: local teenager breaks reality and now exists in several dimensions at once. this is a problem. (or, we tried to make all of our old rp self-inserts canonically the same character, ran into Several Issues with logistics, and somehow exploding the fabric of spacetime was the best solution we could think of)

(individual KGs in vague chronological order under the cut because this post is MASSIVE)

KG / PRIME: human, usually. (sometimes a catgirl?) they/he/she. the "original" KG, template for all the others, and the core of this mess. goofball with phenomenal cosmic power. got isekai'd into the original version of our long-running RP multiverse and then oops! all KGs! a side-effect of the Isekai Incident is that Prime kinda is just vibing somewhere outside of reality and is basically just in noncanon scenarios for comedy reasons, which they are very aware of. they're the reason why the other KGs are fourth-wall aware because they're kinda clipping through it and just have to deal with that. does not like shoes because they're hard to draw

SELF: Persona 3! she/her, is so old that all of my art of her was in mspaint. is the reason for this mess because initially i didn't make any distinction between Self, Plus/Minus, kh!Katie, and Prime despite them all having different backstories and powersets. persona was Nekomata i think? the "SI" literally stands for "Self-Insert", so uh.. she's Self now. this is the first time i ever drew her in a reasonable outfit. was, unfortunately, a Fucking Weeb because i was 13. there's info on her out there somewhere but i don't want to look for it or else i'll explode

PLUS and MINUS: Mega Man Star Force! she/her (individual), they/them (plural). basically "what if Gemini Spark was me" except.. i didn't know i was a system yet.. so this specific iteration of KG is very weird to look back on lmao. absolutely horrible plural rep but they were somehow instrumental in me figuring myself out so they get one (1) rights. there's also a version that has a fan FM-ian partner instead but then they got reworked into an unrelated oc. has lightning powers even when not wavechanged i think? Plus is harmless, Minus is teenage angst and a boatload of trauma incarnate

kaoticGenome: homestuck! human, she/her. breaks the mold and has different initials (not counting chumhandle)! originally thought her last name was Grant but it got revealed to be something else when she learned about her session's ectobiology stuff. which included "one of the genetic samples for her and her brother was the past self of the first guardian before he turned himself into a FG", it was ~2010, it was a Whole Thing, she's very disappointed that she didn't "inherit" any powers from it (and then i realized she's biologically related to Ninten and had a 404 error). was the Scribe of Dawn before we knew what the canon classpects were, probably a Heart player nowadays. very good at being the goofball but was usually the straight man. was like the only KL-era KG that wasn't interchangeable with the others but HAHA NOT FOR LONG

KATIE: Kingdom Hearts! human, she/they/he. this design was "ica wanted to draw a smash sona that's 'KG but ica's mains put together' like how Spark is pat's mains put together" and then i realized the sora half of the equation is Basically the Kingdom Hearts KG that never got a unique design so uhh. she's them now! design liable to change. is the weird outlier of "doesn't have a unique nickname" because even Katie A. has her chumhandle, but also her Nobody is named Teixak so uhhhhhh. speaking of, she kinda got upstaged by her Nobody lmao. keyblade wielder solely because i was playing Days, had a crush on Roxas (i was 13).

LANDIA: Minecraft! catgirl, they/he? last of the "original era" but they predated us knowing minecraft storytelling was a thing so they didn't have anything going for them besides shitposts until we brought him back a literal decade later. kinda part of their own sub-group of KGs because there's like 3 Landias running around. predates the existence of dogs. leans hard into being a comic relief background character. currently planning to fling themself into the deep dark for fun and profit (there will be no fun and no profit). resident self-proclaimed memelord

FOXCAT: Sonic! Outsider foxcat, she/they. shapeshifter and realitywarper due to being an entity from another dimension masquerading as a normal mobian. has made it her life mission to bother as many au Tailses as she can (mostly bothers T1 because he's Their Best Friend). has Klonoa's hat because Zephyr exists. may or may not know blood magic because of a one-off joke. is difficult to place chronologically because this design is new but got retconned into taking the place of proto-SK in a specific RP arc, which KINDA makes her the first KG (besides Prime) but not really..??

KAY GEE: Stickmin! they/them, first fully "new" KG after establishing the bizarre convoluted multiverse stuff. older sibling to a CCC agent while also being somewhat on the run from the CCC itself because of having similar time anomaly / "retry" powers as Henry. does not take things seriously at all because of just being able to rewind and try again. keeps getting reminded their actions do in fact have consequences. is in SO much trouble

ZEPHYR: Klonoa! four-eared cabbit, she/her, lovable pest. grew up in breezegale as one of the various phantomilians you can rescue. she's friends with Klonoa and causes problems on purpose because it's funny. Dream Traveler status debatable. also difficult to place chronologically because despite being VERY old she got retconned into being part of this mess wayyyyy later (which is why she has a fully unique name). currently Fucking Haunting Me because tying her in to the KGs ended up being an accidental explanation for Foxcat's hat and then i went on an unhinged rant and started this masterpost

..this isn't even all of them, i just hit image limit

#leo chirps #leodoodles #leos ocs #oc: KG #this took FOREVER. holy hell #im not even done! there's even more of these guys!! fuck!!!!!!!!!#ill reblog this later with everyone else hrk

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shkspr · 3 years

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hi. on your post where you may or may not have ended on 'moffat is either your angel or your devil' did you have maybe an elaboration on that somewhere that i could possibly hear about. i'm very much a capaldi era stan and i've never tried to defend the matt smith era even though it had delightful moments sometimes so i wonder where that puts me. i'd love to hear your perspective on moffat as a person with your political perspective. -nicole

hi ok sorry i took so long to respond to this but i dont think you know how LOADED this question is for me but i am so happy to elaborate on that for you. first a few grains of salt to flavor your understanding of the whole situation: a. im unfairly biased against moffat bc im a davies stan and a tennant stan; b. i still very much enjoy and appreciate moffat era who for many reasons; and c. i hate moffat on a personal level far more than i could ever hate his work.

the thing is that its all always gonna be a bit mixed up bc i have to say a bunch of seemingly contradictory things in a row. for instance, a few moffat episodes are some of my absolute favorites of the rtd era, AND the show went way downhill when moffat took over, AND the really good episodes he wrote during the rtd era contained the seeds of his destruction.

like i made that post about the empty child/the doctor dances and it holds true for blink and thats about it bc the girl in the fireplace and silence in the library/forest of the dead are good but not nearly on the same level, and despite the fact that i like them at least nominally, they are also great examples of everything i hate about moffat and how he approached dw as a whole.

basically. doctor who is about people. there are many things about moffats tenure as showrunner that i think are a step up from rtd era who! actual gay people, for one! but i think that can likely be attributed mostly to an evolving Society as opposed to something inherent to him and his work, seeing as rtd is literally gay, and the existence of queer characters in moffats work doesnt mean the existence of good queer characters (ill give him bill but thats it!)

i have a few Primary Grievances with moffat and how he ran dw. all of them are things that got better with capaldi, but didnt go away. they are as follows:

moffat projects his own god complex onto the doctor

rtd era who had a doctor with a god complex. you cant ever be the doctor and not have a god complex. the problem with moffats era specifically is that the god complex was constant and unrepentant and was seen as a fundamental personality trait of the doctor rather than a demon he has to fight. he has the Momence where you feel bad for him, the Momence where he shows his humility or whatever and youre reminded that he doesnt want to be the lonely god, but those are just. moments. in a story where the doctor thinks hes the main character. rtd era doctor was aware that he wasnt the main character. he had to be an authority sometimes and he had to be the loner and he had to be sad about it, but he ultimately understood that he was expendable in a narrative sense.

this is how you get lines like “were the thin fat gay married anglican marines, why would we need names as well?” from the same show that gave you the gut punch moment at the end of midnight when they realize that nobody asked the hostess for her name. and on the one hand, thats a small sticking point, but on the other hand, its just one small example of the simple disregard that moffat has for humanity.

incidentally, this is a huge part of why sherlock sucked so bad: moffats main characters are special bc theyre so much bigger and better than all the normal people, and thats his downfall as a showrunner. he thinks that his audience wants fucking sheldon cooper when what they want is people.

like, ok. think of how many fantastic rtd era eps are based in the scenario “what if the doctor wasnt there? what if he was just out of commission for a bit?” and how those eps are the heart of the show!! bc theyre about people being people!! the thing is that all of the rtd era companions would have died for the doctor but he understood and the story understood that it wasnt about him.

this is like. nine sending rose home to save her life and sacrifice his own vs clara literally metaphysically entwining her existence w the doctor. ten also sending rose with her family to save her life vs river being raised from infancy to be obsessed w the doctor and then falling in love w him. martha leaving bc she values herself enough to make that decision vs amy being treated like a piece of meat.

and this is simultaneously a great callback to when i said that moffats episodes during the rtd era sometimes had the same problems as his show running (bc girl in the fireplace reeks of this), and a great segue into the next grievance.

moffat hates women

he hates women so fucking much. g-d, does steven moffat ever hate women. holy shit, he hates women. especially normal human women who prioritize their normal human lives on an equal or higher level than the doctor. moffat hated rose bc she wasnt special by his standards. the empty child/the doctor dances is the nicest he ever treated her, and she really didnt do much in those eps beyond a fuck ton of flirting.

girl in the fireplace is another shining example of this. youve got rose (who once again has another man to keep her busy, bc moffat doesnt think shes good enough for the doctor) sidelined for no reason only to be saved by the doctor at the last second or whatever. and then youve got reinette, who is pretty and powerful and special!

its just. moffat thinks that the doctor is as shallow and selfish as he is. thats why he thinks the doctor would stay in one place with reinette and not with rose. bc moffat is shallow and sees himself in the doctor and doesnt think he should have to settle for someone boring and normal.

not to mention rose met the doctor as an adult and chose to stay with him whereas reinette is. hm. introduced to the doctor as a child and grows up obsessed with him.

does that sound familiar? it should! bc it is also true of amy and river. and all of them are treated as viable romantic pairings. bc the only women who deserve the doctor are the ones whose entire existence revolves around him. which includes clara as well.

genuinely i think that at least on some level, not even necessarily consciously, that bill was a lesbian in part bc capaldi was too old to appeal to mainstream shippers. like twelve/clara is still a thing but not as universally appealing as eleven/clara but i am just spitballing. but i think they weighed the pros and cons of appealing to the woke crowd over the het shippers and found that gay companion was more profitable. anyway the point is to segue into the next point, which is that moffat hates permanent consequences.

moffat hates permanent consequences

steven moffat does not know how to kill a character. honestly it feels like hes doing it on purpose after a certain point, like he knows he has this habit and hes trying to riff on it to meme his own shit, but it doesnt work. it isnt funny and it isnt harmless, its bad writing.

the end of the doctor dances is so poignant and so meaningful and so fucking good bc its just this once! everybody lives, just this once! and then he does p much the same thing in forest of the dead - this one i could forgive, bc i do think that preserving those peoples consciousnesses did something for the doctor as a character, it wasnt completely meaningless. but everything after that kinda was.

rory died so many times its like. get a hobby lol. amy died at least once iirc but it was all a dream or something. clara died and was erased from the doctors memory. river was in prison and also died. bill? died. all of them sugarcoated or undone or ignored by the narrative to the point of having effectively no impact on the story. the point of a major character death is that its supposed to have a point. and you could argue that a piece of art could be making a point with a pointless death, ie. to put perspective on it and remind you that bad shit just happens, but with moffat the underlying message is always “i can do whatever i want, nothing is permanent or has lasting impact ever.”

basically, with moffat, tragedy exists to be undone. and this was a really brilliant, really wonderful thing in the doctor dances specifically bc it was the doctor clearly having seen his fair share of tragedy that couldnt be helped, now looking on his One Win with pride and delight bc he doesnt get wins like this! and then moffat proceeded to give him the same win over and over and over and over. nobody is ever dead. nobody is ever unable to be saved. and if they are, really truly dead and/or gone, then thats okay bc moffat has decided that [insert mitigating factor here]*

*the mitigating factor is usually some sort of computerized database of souls.

i can hear the moffat stans falling over themselves to remind me that amy and rory definitely died, and they did - after a long and happy life together, they died of old age. i dont consider that a character death any more than any other character choosing to permanently leave the tardis.

and its not just character deaths either, its like, everything. the destruction of gallifrey? never mind lol! character development? scrapped! the same episode four times? lets give it a fifth try and hope nobody notices. bc he doesnt know how to not make the doctor either an omnipotent savior or a self-pitying failure.

it is in nature of doctor who, i believe, for the doctor to win most of the time. like, it wouldnt be a very good show if he didnt win most of the time. but it also wouldnt be a very good show if he won all of the time. my point is that moffats doctor wins too often, and when he doesnt win, it feels empty and hollow rather than genuinely humbling, and you know hes not gonna grow from it pretty much at all.

so like. again, i like all of doctor who i enjoy all of it very much. i just think that steven moffat is a bad show runner and a decent writer at times. and it is frustrating. and im not here to convince or convert anyone im just living my truth. thank you for listening.

#sorry if this is repetitive or makes no sense or if i got some details of the show wrong #i simply couldnt be bothered to put too much effort into this post #lest it become a research paper and take me several weeks to answer #anyway thats all my opinions #dw #ok to rb

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missskzbiased · 3 years

Text

Betting Big

Summary: As the one and only Seo Changbin, you would never think that you would be willing to pay for someone to go out with you. At least not until you met her. To be honest, not even after you met her but here you were now… Agreeing with splitting the money from a bet that you never made… And all this for what? Just to get a chance to make her fall for you

WC: 1,5 K

Genre: Romance, Fluff

AUs: High School, Fake Bet

Pairing: Seo Changbin X Fem! Reader X ???

Rebloggable Masterlist // Main Masterlist // Tag List

Warnings: none

Notes: This is in “Changbin’s POV” although written as Self-insert

This is going to be a miniseries, I guess. I’m not sure how many chapters I want to make. I’d like if you guys could vote on this:

Minho as BFF to lovers for the Triangle

Han as Friends to lovers for the Triangle

No Love Triangle at all

///

Everyone but you wanted to be the popular guy.

Not because you were above things like wanting to fit on the wild battlefield that high school was or because you didn’t need people’s approval to feel like a whole person, and even less because you hated being under everyone’s eyes… No. You were petty enough to admit that you loved the attention. The reason why you weren’t like everybody else was that you were the popular guy that everyone wanted to be. That’s right… You were what every single one of those kids wanted to become and you didn’t need to do anything to have your way.

At least, that was what you believed exactly thirty seconds ago.

The silent pause following your invitation wasn’t expected, and neither was the way her judgmental eyes scanned you from head to toes. There was this foreign feeling of being embarrassed, and that sudden urge to shrink and hide from the crowd that you didn’t allow to show on the surface. You were too cool for this. So you settled for clearing your throat, leaning on her table in what you hoped to be a flirty way, and glanced at your friends’ table in search of some sort of silent moral support that you were so in need of right now.

You could say that you weren’t the most subtle human being in the world or else her eyes wouldn’t have snapped right to where you were looking at. As the bunch of overly stealthy people that you definitely were used to be with popularity clogging your better judgment, the four of your friends stared right into her eyes; the expression of a deer caught in headlights plastered over their face. If you had any hopes of not humiliating yourself to that strange girl in the corner ─ who you happened to have a big, fat crush on for at least one year now ─, they were immediately crushed by your own best friends.

Very well.

At least, it couldn’t get any worse than this, right?

Then you learned the valuable lesson of not speaking too soon.

“You want to go out with me?” That wasn’t the kind of incredulous tone that was meant to hide one’s excitement… It was more like that bewildered contempt that one cannot hide at all.

She couldn’t even process the fact that you were bold enough to believe that the mere thought of dating you could ever have crossed her mind… And once more, the humiliation hit you like cold water coming directly from an angry, merciless waterfall. Was that how normal people felt in their daily lives? Jeez… It was so much better to be popular! How do those kids even handle that? Definitely not the life for you.

Your internal rambling had you missing the slow shift on her expression; rejection dissolving to give way to some kind of resigned interest: “How much?” She spoke up in curious confidence, and you must have been too lost on your thoughts because you had no idea of what she was talking about.

“Excuse me?” You blurted out ever so eloquently.

“How much is into this bet?” She asked as if it was the most reasonable thing in this world, and the lack of response had her scoffing, to further prove your point, “Really? You expect me to believe that the most popular guy in school would come all the way to my table, conveniently under his friends’ eyes, just to ask me out on a date with no second intention?” She raised her brows amusedly, chuckling at what seemed to be the best joke she had ever told anyone “Right” She huffed, crossing her arms and tilting her head to take a better look at you.

That was the moment of the truth.

You could either tell her that she misunderstood everything and explain how much you really liked her ─ which would put everything at risk because she clearly didn’t believe you could like someone like her ─ or you could play along with it and score a chance to win her heart on a date.

The answer seemed to be pretty obvious to you.

“Yeah, right” You laughed dismissively, pulling out the chair so you could sit down beside her. There was no sign of resistance in her face; moreover, there was a shimmering curiosity dancing in her expectant eyes, “You totally caught me…” You admitted grudgingly, shrugging to show her how much you didn’t care about it. Fun Fact: You actually did! And you would very much appreciate her to know that… Damn it! What the hell were you getting yourself into?! “So… Should we split it?” You suggested nonchalantly ─ just like the smooth son of a bitch you were.

“What about fifty-fifty?” She proposed shamelessly; face twisting in a funny expression that tried to say that she didn’t care about it either but giving it away that she did, “How much is in for me? Like… A hundred bucks or something?” She leaned back on her chair before shrugging, not willing to admit that she was interested in this.

“You’re good” You chuckled while nodding in agreement; mimicking her as you leaned back on your chair, “Sounds great, right? Getting a hundred bucks to date this hot stuff here?” You grinned as you gestured at yourself, getting nothing but an unimpressed look from her.

“Look, Changbin…” She began hesitantly “If we’re going to make this work, it might be better for you to let me do the talking, okay?” She smiled sarcastically, looking at you with a mix of… You weren’t even sure what. Was constipation considered a feeling? If so, she looked constipated by your existence, “I’m not gonna lie… I want the money, and as long as we don’t have to do anything stupid like kissing or having sex, I think I’m in” She simply agreed while looking into your eyes.

She had such pretty eyes… The most beautiful eyes you have ever seen… The type of eyes to hold so many emotions that you couldn’t help but wonder if those would ever be directed at you. Right now, you could see they were. However, the usually captivating trait wasn’t that heartwarming now… Not when there was nothing but pained resignation in them… Not when they made so damn obvious that she didn’t like you back… Not when they shift to sheer excitement to the sound of someone else’s voice.

“Hey” Was the single word that brought her to such a state of happiness; eyes twinkling and a genuine smile cracking on her face as she looked to the guy talking to her “What’s this?” He asked while gesturing to the both of you before squinting his eyes in suspicion “This table has always been our, shortie, fuck off” He scoffed; sitting down as if it didn’t even cross his mind that you could stand up against him.

“Short—?!”

“Shut up, Minho” She rolled her eyes, even though you could see the amusement in them, “He’s here to ask me out on a date” She clarified nonchalantly; eyes attentive to his reaction.

“Of course he is” He snorted, shaking his head in disbelief while poking his food.

“I am” You stated seriously while boldly offering him The Look, “Is that a problem?” You arched your brow in a silent challenge.

“I don’t know…” He dropped his fork; eyes connecting to yours with such a murderer intention that for a second you considered just playing it off as a joke “Is that a problem?” He asked back, studying your face.

Thank Lord you were a proud Leo or else the “No, Sir” on the tip of your tongue would have slipped just like that from your mouth. Instead, you just returned his glare, choosing to be silent so you would not show him how much he scared the shit out of you. The silent battle was promptly cut off by the damsel in distress herself, a not-so-subtle kick under the table that had Minho wincing on his seat.

“No, that’s not a problem” She stated firmly enough to end the discussion “I’m going out with him” Even though you were aware of that, it still made your stomach flutter.

“Okay” He said bitterly; lips twitching slightly “So that’s not a problem” He forced a smile, picking his fork and scrambling his food mindlessly.

“Great!” You offered her a bright smile, too excited to hide your true feelings.

“Great” She stated monotonously “So… See you later?” She arched her brows as if to say that it was time for you to walk away.

“Of course” You agreed promptly “I can walk you home later… So… We can arrange the details” You suggested hopefully, and she seemed to embrace the idea.

“Sounds like a date” She smiled.

“Yeah” You chuckled; rubbing your arm before waving at her and heading to your friends’ table.

Well… Getting a date: Checked.

Having your feelings reciprocicated: Hm… On progress?

First confession meeting any of your expectations: Hell no...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rebloggable Masterlist // Main Masterlist // Tag List

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

#skz fanfic #skz x reader #changbin x reader #skz fluff #districtninewriters #changbin fluff #skz scenarios #skz imagines #stray kids scenarios #stray kids imagines #stray kids fanfic #seo changbin fanfic #changbin fanfic #seo changbin x reader #changbin scenarios #changbin imagines

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antiloreolympus · 3 years

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10 Anti LO Asks

1. Are death gods like a class lower than Olympian gods? Minthe says that Hades can buy all the suits in the world and still stink of death and Apollo refers to Thanatos as Poor Man’s Heremes and also reeks of death. Do they smell bad, or do people just hate them for existing? You’d think they’d be a little more fear controlling death/underworld

2. for the person saying "come on, persephone being a self insert isn't bad" completely misses the point. As a young writer I used to have self inserts until I realized that my favoritism overshadowed the narrative and didn't allow for my characters to experience consequences or be in the wrong. This is how creator's pets get made, and no one likes those because they ruin the story and take away attention from other (more interesting) characters! (1/2)

We are clearly seeing this in LO. Persephone is essentially a perfect little goddess who keeps getting powers, is probably going to be revealed as one of the strongest goddesses, and her issues (sans the two giant ones we know what it is) almost never personally affect her. No one gets angry at her in a meaningful way unless the narrative wants us to demonize them, and when they suddenly "see the light" and go to her side, they're rewarded! THAT'S why persephone as a S.I is bad

3. Ok. I think Daphene and Thanatos are the best ship. I would read this story...also,Thanatos is the grim reaper...how metal would be if he take down LO Apollo and LO Hades? Yes, I'm aware this would be impossible in the.original myths but HEY why not? RS is not caring for the source material

4. RS’s writing is such a mess of contradictions between actuality and intent it’s hilarious: 1) Hades is supposed to be seen as a good guy yet is portrayed as a tyrant who somehow still manages to be a Gary Stu. 2) Persephone is simultaneously overpowered (fertility goddess powers) and powerless (is just a college kid) to the point where she’s viewed as a spoiled rich brat living consequence-free and destitute young woman left with no options but to marry to get out of trouble

3) Artemis is supposed to represent a separatist feminist yet is depicted as foolish, British and out of the loop for humorous effect by the poss poor excuse of a comic which calls itself ‘a feminist feeling’. 4) The lack of time skips coupled with RS’s need to give HxP as many ‘cute’ moments as possible makes the comic’s progress feel slow for the reader when it’s actually progressing at breakneck speed if you go by the character’s timeframe.

5) Wants to treat SA with nuance and sensitivity (RS almost manages to do it at first) but then uses Persephone’s rape as trauma porn, a means for pushing her closer to Hades while reminding the reader of his differences from Apollo and a means of furthering the side plots (Artemis’s descent into depressed confusion, Eros and Psyche’s romance, Hera’s quest to get the mains together).

5. i genuinely do not want to see whatever reason rachel thinks up to have zeus and demeter not like each other because it's either going to be a "shock" incest twist (unlikely) or it's going to be something akin to how she made apollo to persephone and maybe zeus stole her "fertility" and thats why she couldnt have persephone naturally and why demeter isnt a fertility goddess but persephone is. like no writing choice is good in this so i guess brace for the worst from her in this regard.

6. i honestly get sad looking at old LO art because not only is all the charm gone, but the colors also got way worse. hades used to be this subdued, rich dark blue with icy blue hair while persephone was a nice shade of pastel pink with magenta hair, but now theyre all one shade of neon. there used to be choices put into the art but now its just lazy. like hades looks like a blue highlighter, and persephone like her personality is only one nauseatingly bright shade and thats it 😞

7. i feel like if at least the writing in LO was good the art would excusable, you know what i mean? and the same can be said in reverse, but both are just so bad (or was never good to begin with) that it just seems inexcusable? like at least put effort into one, not half assing at best for both.

8. i mean for all we know bc thats how how psyche normally looks the braids are just a nymph disguise that basically pops away once shes human looking again. regardless the whole thing is nasty once you think about it and idk what we expected from a white woman to begin with. she thinks persephone revolving her whole world and being dependent on hades is feminist and making a canon bi god a r//pist is groundbreaking too like ....

9. lets add to the psyche is black-coded discourse: anyone want to mention how nasty it is she was literally sold off to a WHITE MAN for eros to save her from (ignoring the fact he proceeded to lie to her while having a sexual relationship), made her loving parents into abusive assholes, and psyche just happens to be the only character who is illiterate despite being a princess? the whole thing reeks of internalized racism on rachel's part, and her now giving her braids kinda makes it worse, tbh.

-----FP Spoilers-----

10. Is it me? Or in the fast past episode were they showed one of the muses Polymnia (or Polyhymnia) they mixed her with Clio??? Because Zeus calls her "the goddess/muse of history" but Polymnia is acutally the muse of hymns, CLIO is the muse of history, how did they get that wrong? Her name literally means "a lot of hymns"! And why is there a muse in this??? Even she says that she shouldn't be there because she doesn't work in anything similar to law, did Zeus really asked her to make a POEM in a TRAIAL??? For what exactly? Make Persephone look bad?

#anti lo #anti lore olympus #lore olympus critical #lo critical

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skullsandwineglasses · 3 years

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Lost Romance Final Review (Taiwanese Drama)

I wrote about my first impressions of the drama after watching the first three episodes, and my first impression about it being cringey still stands even after having finished it. But, I admit that I did end up enjoying it despite my qualms. My thoughts about the whole drama are below.

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

The fictional world

The ML’s fictional persona (Situ Aoran) is hella douchey, and the drama only gives an explanation for why he was like that in the final episode. Essentially, Situ Aoran is the worst version of He Tinxing that he’s tried to hard to suppress and overcome over the years. It’s the version of him that’s childish, immature, arrogant, irresponsible, unreasonable. And yet, the FL, Zheng Xiao’en, still falls for this version of him. It’s a story about unwavering, unconditional love no matter who you are. On the other hand, Xiao’en begins as a “villainous” person in Aoran’s eyes, and yet, he learns to fall in love with her as well.

But, this meant that for the first 15 episodes of the drama, which is basically three quarters of the drama, I was constantly annoyed by Aoran/the fictional ML. Even when he got together with Xiao’en in the fictional world, I found it hard to ship them. Yes, Marcus Chang and Vivian Sung have chemistry, but I just didn’t enjoy the romance in the fictional world all that much.

I wasn’t hooked on the drama until episode 8ish when he finally showed some signs of liking Xiao’en, and then it picks up in episode 10 when he finally starts to take more initiative. But for the most part, it was Qingfeng, the second ML was the one who stole the show.

I’ve never had second male lead syndrome before, but I think that’s because in most dramas I’ve watched, even though the second male lead may unconditionally devoted to the FL, the ML still somehow does more.

But in Lost Romance, because the ML keep was dismissive, insensitive, and kept inadvertently hurting the FL, you end up finding that Qingfeng is actually someone who is dependable, supportive, a ray of sunshine, and an all-around better person in Xiao’en’s life. Not only that, but he’s hella charming as well. Simon Lian has such as mischievous glint in his eyes, and he carries himself with easy confidence. He flirts with Xiao’en, and she doesn’t even realize it. He’s a fictional character who’s become self-aware, and this sense of awareness and wisdom that no one else in the fictional world has makes him an even more attractive character since he’s able to see through everyone. What’s more, he goes against the script and falls for Xiao’en even when he isn’t supposed to. Him falling for Xiao’en made more sense than Aoran falling for Xiao’en.

Xiao’en and Aoran’s romance in the fictional world was very predictable. She lives in his house as a housekeeper, and he slowly warms up to her, but denies his feelings. When she leaves, he begins to miss her and gets jealous whenever she hangs out with the SML. He falls for her because she gives him a sense of safety and comfort. He feels at home with her, a feeling that he was deprived of since he was young. But because of this, it felt like the only reason he fell for her was because of what she can provide for him. And Xiao’en fell for him because he at first reminded her of He Tianxing, and then because he’s role as the ML in the story. And then she fell for him for real, flaws and all. But I guess this is a reflection of how love develops irl where both parties are able to offer something to the other in the relationship.

Qingfeng’s feelings for Xiao’en felt more pure and altruistic, which albeit makes it unrealistic, but I guess it suits his character, since he is an idealized fictional character after all.

The real world

Because Qingfeng is a fictional character, he has no real-world counterpart, so we don’t see him again after episode 15. He gets his “happy ending” in the last episode when the author finally finishes his story and he’s reunited with his storyworld sweetheart, but I still felt like there was no proper closure for his character. He finally developed real feelings, but then he’s forced back into his scripted role.

I liked how the ML and FL’s real life personas were different from the fictional world, and the drama takes a more serious tone when they return to the real world. He Tianxing is much more kind, considerate, and thoughtful than Aoran. His costuming also changed to reflect that: he no longer wears an earring, his hair is combed up instead of hanging over his forehead, and he doesn’t wear flashy rings and necklaces. He’s much more down-to-earth and humble, and you start to like him more.

Xiao’en is also much more mature. She isn’t fawning and lusting over him like in the fictional world, and she doesn’t force herself onto him, or to make him remember her. She knows that she loves Aoran, and tries to keep her attraction for Tianxing separate because she still hasn’t yet figured out whether they’re the same person. When her bestfriend asks her why she doesn’t assert herself more to jog his memory, Xian’en says that this is real life. It isn’t like the fictional world where you can be shameless with no consequence.

This means that the romantic dynamics become reversed in the real world. It’s now Tianxing’s turn to pursue Xiao’en, and Xiao’en resists. And I admit, it was cute. We get to see Tianxing fall for Xiao’en for herself and who she is as a person, and not because she’s his housemaid and lives with him. He becomes curious about her: he buys and reads all the books he’s edited, he asks her questions about her childhood and upbringing, and asks her about her feelings and opinions on things, he asks her about her memorable experiences. In the real world, he actually cares about her, not just what she can offer him. We also see Xiao’en learn about Tianxing and fall for his real-life traits. It’s an opportunity for them to truly learn about each other and fall for each other again.

The part when Tianxing reads the novel and regained his memories felt too abrupt and easy. It would have been more fun for the memories to come back in parts over time and him trying to figure out the pieces of the puzzle. It would have also have been nice to see him spend more time trying to convince Xiao’en that he really does remember and isn’t just regurgitating details from the novel. In other words, I’m a masochistic viewer and would have appreciated more drawn-out angst, but they quickly resolved this plotline within through a single gesture in the scene.

Tianxing’s relentless and determined pursuit to win over Xiao’en was cute, but only the context of this drama. He overtly stalks her using a drone, but as payback because that was how she stalked him at the beginning. A part of me knew that in any other drama, this would be creepy and overstepping boundaries, but I still couldn’t help but smile at these antics in Lost Romance. Maybe because Tianxing was reversing their roles and now he’s doing the heavy lifting to win her back, but in any case, it worked and was charming.

The family business drama

Honestly, I couldn’t care less. I skipped most scenes whenever the real-world family drama was shown, and I was still able to understand what happened in the end. The evil sister stops being evil and realizes the error of her ways (and actually has a pretty sympathetic backstory to explain her previous actions and motives) and joins forces with the ML, her younger half brother that she had wanted to kill, in order to take down a once-trusted employee who is now trying to take over and destroy the family business.

These scenes dragged out the story, but I guess they served as a reminder that the real world is still alive and kicking while the ML and FL were in a three-month long coma.

Questions

Like with most fantasy dramas, you end up accepting the plot holes and rolling with them. But there are still a few questions I still can’t get over:

1. How exactly did He Tianxing and Xiao’en end up in the fictional world of a random novel together? Why was only Xiao’en self-aware but Tianxing wasn’t? Was it because Xiao’en was editing the book so she already knew part of the story? Why did Tianxing fall into Situ Aoran’s character and why didn’t he have agency over his actions and feelings until later, while Xiao’en was a self-insert with full agency?

2. Why were only Tianxing and Xiao’en inhabiting fictional bodies, while the other characters only had the likeliness of people from real life but not the “soul” (since the characters were still conscious in real life)? Were Tianxing and Xiao’en projecting their memories of the appearances of the people they knew onto the characters in the storyworld, thereby creating a jointly shared fictional world? For instance, only Tianxing knew Chuchu irl, but Xiao’en didn’t, so he projected his image of ChuChu onto the character that Xiao’en could also see? But the fictional world was shown to be a parallel universe that had real consequences in the real-world, so the explanation for the appearance of the fictional characters can’t just be due to Tianxing and Xiao’en projecting their memories. These characters truly exist as separate, alternate entities in the storyworld. So, what exactly are these characters? Souless entities?

3. Qingfeng says that he floats from one story to the next. So why are some fictional characters fully fictional like Qingfeng, but other characters have real-life counterparts?

4. Why and how does the novel change irl when the fictional world changes? It’s also a pity that the author is completely uninvolved with all of these shenenigans, and it’s unfortunate that her novel is being using as the ML and FL’s playground. She basically lost control of her own story.

Overall impressions

It’s refreshing for a cdrama/twdrama, and they managed to keep Qingfeng’s identity a mystery for good part of the plot to keep you guessing. But for the most part, it’s another predictable, tropey modern romance drama. Even when they tried to subvert the tropes, their method of subversion was predictable. The chemistry and comedy was good, so I’d recommend it only if you have a high tolerance for cringe, since the cringe never really ends but does get better towards the last act of the drama when they return to the real world and gets more serious.

I think I’d give this drama a 7.5, mostly because I gave My Girlfriend is an Alien an 8. So if I gave Lost Romance an 8, I would bump MGIAA an 8.5 to keep it relative.

Both dramas feature a ML who deals with memory loss. The arc in Lost Romance was more serious and emotional since the FL is heartbroken over the loss, but the part where the ML regains his memory was a bit rushed. The arc in MGIAA is more comedic, but the part where he regains his memory had a bigger emotional payoff since memory loss was a major problem that the ML had been trying to overcome throughout the drama.

Might be an unpopular opinion but I think might have enjoyed this more than the Romance of Tiger and Rose. The Romance of Tiger and Rose was good, but it wasn’t very memorable. I watched it last summer, but I barely remember any details about it besides finding Zhao Lusi to be really cute. I think this drama made me feel more emotions: from frustration to embarrassment to relief to having butterflies to angst to sadness to amused.

Aoran/Tianxing and Qingfeng are also more interesting than Han Shuo. I guess I’ll wait 8 months to see if I still feel anything for this drama, or if it fades with time too.

Some other interesting notes

I had thought this drama was filmed in 2019 until I saw a sign on a bus that said “No boarding without a mask”. Turns out it was filmed in April 2020 or so, and then released in June. I was surprised that this was filmed during the peak of the pandemic when most western countries were in lockdown, but I understand that Taiwan already had things under control by then. But still, even if there wasn’t a pandemic, they filmed this in only 2-3 months, which is a quick and impressive turnaround time to film and edit a drama (even if it’s only 20 episode long). There was no indication this was filmed during a pandemic, except for the bus sign, and also the people walking in the background at the temple. You could tell many were wearing masks. Meanwhile, it’s been over a year since the pandemic started, and I’m still stuck at home, schools and outdoor activities are still closed where I am, and it just feels like my life is on hold. And yet, they filmed an entire ass drama during a pandemic. I still can’t get over that.

I haven’t watched a Taiwanese drama in a while, so there are some notable cultural differences I noticed between Taiwanese dramas and cdramas when I watched Lost Romance.

1. The uncensored intimate scenes 2. Swearing (?). Can’t remember when exactly, but I think Vivian Sung at one point said “wo kao” when she woke up and stumbled to the bathroom 3. The casual (and accurate) integration of English words and phrases. You can tell that Taiwan is much more open and comfortable with sprinkling English into their everyday vernacular. Hong Kong dramas do this as well. You see this less so in cdramas. English and other foreign languages are only used when the character is speaking to a foreign character. 4. No use of heavy filters and diffusers. Cdramas tend to look very glowy and dreamy, and they seem to use wide apertures to get a bokeh effect. Lost Romance had a more down-to-earth look. Granted, at points it did look a little dated, but I still appreciated this more toned-down, natural look. 5. LQBTQ+ references. Not only was there an accidental kiss scene between the FL and SFL, but they also mentioned how one of the male characters might be having an affair with a man. While there are BL idol dramas in China, all of the relationship dynamics are usually only heavily implied. There aren’t many explicit references to LGBTQ+ relationships in cdramas due to censorship. 6. References and homages/parodies of kdramas. Have there been cdramas that pay homage to foreign dramas as much as Lost Romance? 7. Original, non-dubbed voices. Yes, there are plenty of cdramas that use the original voices of actors, but there are also a lot of cdramas that use dubbed voices. Sometimes I’d binge watch 3 cdramas in a row, and the FLs and MLs have the same respective voice actors across all 3 dramas. The reason why I chose to watch Lost Romance was because I wanted to watch The Legends, but the FL uses the same voice actress as the FL in MGIAA, which I had just finished, so I needed a drama in between with different voices to help cleanse my palate. 8. Excessive cuts/commercial breaks. Always right before a character is about to say something pivotal, it cuts to a themesong break, which was really annoying. It really ruins the mood and suspense of the scene. And when it cuts back, it replays the last 20 seconds of the scene, while you’re on the end of your seat, yelling at the screen to tell them to get on with it and get to the point.

Anyway. Time to watch Cafe. Waiting. Love for Marcus and Vivian.

#lost romance #浪漫輸給你 #cdrama #twdrama #marcus chang #vivian sung #宋芸樺 #張立昂 #taiwanese drama

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rachelbethhines · 4 years

Text

Tangled Salt Marathon - Secret of the Sun Drop (Part 1)

Were now at the season finale folks and it’s the beginning of the end. This is the series’ highpoint, it’s all downhill afterwards. However, while this episode is good, it’s still got flaws so let's get to it.

Summary: On Rapunzel's nineteenth birthday, Frederic tightens his grip on the Rapunzel and the kingdom, while Varian makes his move to attack.

More Indication of the Timeline

Remember, Varian said that it would be matter of months until the rocks reached the island in QfaD and today is the day that they reach it. Now Raps is saying that Frederic has been lying to her for months. At least since TWoRR, which makes more sense if you remember that that particular episode was meant to slot between QfaD and this episode.

The show has a bad habit of making the passage of time an important plot point but failing to showcase how much time has past. Showing episodes out of order didn’t help, but even more than that the audience shouldn’t have to rely on one line exposition to gain knowledge of what’s going on. The show fails to use actual visual indicators of what’s going on. There’s little visual change in seasons, next to no change in character models, and all we have are made up holidays to go by.

Also yes, Rapunzel has left a fourteen year old alone for three months. This isn’t something that can be excused. Seriously, stop trying to do so people. It just makes you look bad when you do.

Wow, Way to Victim Blame, Raps.

“Unstable”? We’re seriously going to use ableist terms to describe a grieving young teenager who’s been persecuted and neglected for months on in?

And Rapunzel knows he’s been persecuted and abandoned for months at this point. She’s read the note. She’s been attacked by same the guards that attacked him. She’s heard the rumors. She seen his father’s corpse. She has just admitted in this very spiel that Frederic has been lying. She knows how people are unfairly treated by Corona’s legal system and that ‘treason’ is a death sentence to anyone but herself.

Yet, all she can do here is whine about how all of this only affects her. This entire speech is just me, me, me, and I, I, I. Don’t tell me she’s a kind and compassionate person when her hypocrisy is made into a fundamental plot point for the season’s main conflict.

But let's get to the real reason for this little recap. It’s to create bias in the viewer.

The viewer is aware that Varian might be up to something, but Rapunzel logically, should not be. Varian technically hasn’t done anything wrong yet. The worst he’s done is feed people truth serum, which is no different than Xavier drugging folks with the mood potion. Given how Raps didn’t care about Xavier doing that she shouldn’t care about Varian doing it either, especially since it didn’t physically harm anyone. Also Varian very much is in the right to take the flower and she knows the only thing he’s going to use it for is to free his father and possibly stop the rocks. He’s been very upfront about that.

Also don’t you dare bring up the stupid reprise! Intent isn’t action. You can't condemn people for having negative thoughts. You can only condemn people for acting upon their negative impulses, which, once again, has not happened yet.

Furthermore, Rapunzel isn’t privy to Varian’s innermost thoughts and hasn’t been present for those instances where he did voice negative intent. Ergo, him singing a misplaced reprise does not excuse her behaviour.

The characters in the show treat Varian as a villain before he ever actually becomes a villian, and that’s only because the creator wants you to side with his self-insert instead of actually addressing the moral conundrums that he’s written into the show.

Does Anyone Else Besides Me Find the Glorification of Classism In the Show Disturbing?

So supposedly all of these gifts have been given to Rapunzel by the regular citizenry of Corona. There might be a few from a couple of lower nobles or royals from outside of Corona, but for the most part it’s implied that all of theses presents are from poor people.

Rapunzel is a princess. She’s literally the richest person in the whole kingdom and holds people’s lives in her hands. Giving a thoughtful gift because you like her is one thing, paying tribute to her very existence just because she technically owns you is another.

Keep in mind people have been brainwashed for nearly two decades to worship Rapunzel. They’ve made a holiday out of her birthday. Later on we see the townspeople defend the King even when it’s been proven that he’s done them wrong. They follow Rapunzel blindly through out season three. ect.

The people of Corona are dangerously loyal to feudalism, royalty, and authoritarian rule long past sanity, and given the other authoritarian messages in the show, it takes what is meant to be a sweet scene of a girl who grew up with nothing suddenly gaining acceptance and turns it into a creepy endorsement of the class system.

More Evidence that Frederic is the Worst

This scene makes it clear that Frederic is the one who is threatening Cassandra here, not her dad. It was never Cap who held the convent thing over her head. Now you can hold Cap accountable for choosing loyalty to the crown and his job over his daughter’s well being, but that is one of the few things that is actually addressed in the show, in this very episode in fact, so why would you?

Also, why only now? Frederic has known about Cassandra’s involvement since TWoRR when he first read Rapunzel’s diary. It’s strange he’d go out of his way to silence Varian for months on in but waits until the last episode to persecute Rapunzel’s bestie. You could argue that maybe he didn’t wanna risk tipping off Rapunzel but then why didn’t this happen during TAR instead?

Once again the writer is playing favorites in order to create bias. It’d be suddenly a lot harder to excuse Frederic if he was hunting down Cass along side Varian as she’s a main character and you couldn’t keep that as a ‘read between the lines’ scenario. Which, incidentally, is why we never get a Varian focused episode to show his time on the run. You couldn’t get away with having the main character siding with your dictator self-insert if you actually visually showed him persecuting a helpless child.

Don’t Expect This to Go Anywhere

Rapunzel is rightly angry about this clear abuse, but then never brings it up ever again. It’s completely forgotten about after this point. Frederic is never held accountable for his actions.

This is the Point Where Varian Actually Becomes a Villian

Not the flower, not the truth serum, not the damn reprise, but here. This is the point where his actions cross the line. Violence, particularly violence against people who aren’t currently hurting you, is wrong. Varian is a villain, he does do bad things, and I’m not going to ignore that.

However, knowing where, when, how, and why he becomes a villain is extremely important in not only understanding the story but in also navigating the moral minefield that is this show.

Because Varian is still the victim even as he slides into the role the antagonist. There’s been no change in the power dynamics. His life is still under threat from the king. Every action he takes is a step to either free his father and/or defend himself from a corrupt government that would see him hanged just for daring to defy it’s dictator.

People defend Varian to this day, not because he has a tragic backstory, but because he’s been forced into a dangerous situation with little way out. There’s nothing else he could have done that wouldn’t have lead to his eventual untimely death. Because indirect violence is still violence. Frederic is no less evil just because Varian fights against the king’s indirect violence with direct violence.

Varian’s Life was Forfeit the Moment He was Turned Away During the Storm and This is the Show Confirming That

This is a grown man, with all the power in the world, threatening a child. A child who he has cannonly persecuted for three months before this incident. A child that was neglected by Rapunzel despite him being her responsibility.

Any excuse you give to defend either Frederic or Rapunzel is already made invalid by the simple fact that they are both adults and Varian is not. They are both in charge here, not the fourteen year old.

We do not hold people under legal voting age to the same standards as adults for two simple reasons. One, they are powerless in making the laws that they are accused of breaking, and two, they haven’t reached the point of development where they can take care of themselves and be expected to make rational decisions within a functioning society. Now we could have an argument all day long about the pros and cons of when the rights and responsibilities of adulthood should be granted to people (16?18?21?), but at fourteen/fifteen, Varian isn’t there yet regardless.

You can not in any good moral consciousness hold people lacking rights to the same responsibilities as those with rights.

That isn’t to say that kids can’t do bad things. They obviously can and have before. But when enacting judgement and the punishment that goes along with that, you have to keep their lack of rights in mind and make the sentence proportional to both their age, circumstances, and their crime. This is why courts that try teens as adults are absolutely vile. I do not care what crime they commited, you don’t do that.

I’m not criticizing Rapunzel and Frederic here because I personally dislike them or something. I’m criticizing them because I’m opposed to the messages that they become mouthpieces for. When you defend these two characters you defend their stance to persecute and abuse a child. Ergo, you spout the same authoritarian beliefs that are currently tearing my country apart and I will hold you accountable for it.

Like them all you want, but liking a character does not mean blindly going along with their bullshit.

This Still Abuse

In fact it’s the same abuse that Gothel did to her. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now and there’s no excuse for that.

What a lot of people don’t seem to understand is that you can be both a victim and a bully at the same time. What differentiates Rapunzel, Frederic, and Varian from one other is their level of respective power in the situation and how their trauma actually impacts the rationale behind their actions.

Frederic is the most accountable in this whole conflict because he’s the one with the most power and because his personal trauma isn’t grounds for what he does. They’re a reason that’s been given, but past trauma isn’t an excuse to hurt others who had nothing to do with that trauma. He is, ultimately the instigator of all of the conflicts in season one.

Rapunzel is not as accountable, but she’s not entirely blameless either. As both an adult and a princess, Rapunzel held the power to save Varian and stop things from getting this far and she choose not to do so. Rapunzel’s trauma is a reason for why she fails in her responsibility but it’s still not an excuse as Varian has nothing to do with her personal insecurities. He’s not responsible for getting her to fix her shit and had he done nothing she would have continued on ignoring both his and her own problems. Frederic’s abuse would have still been there with or without the black rocks or Varian’s involvement. She’s not deserving of how her father treats her, but neither is Varian deserving of how she treats him.

Varian is the least accountable. Sure there are somethings that he does wrong, but as a child he holds no power in the situation. His only means of fighting back is his own intelligence, but being the smartest person in the room isn’t necessarily a power imbalance. Also his trauma is currently ongoing and his actions are directly tied into making his abusers stop. Because yeah, both Frederic and Rapunzel are abusive to Varian. Neglect is a form of abuse.

Eugene is the Only Person in this Situation with the Right Response, Shame It Won’t Amount to Anything

After all this, Eugene has no reason to ever trust Frederic again. Neither does Rapunzel, nor the rest of kingdom. He should have been shunned from here on after. This isn’t promoting ‘cancel culture’ or whatever, this is acknowledging that ‘forgiveness’ isn’t and shouldn’t be a shield from the personal consequences for your actions.

But Frederic is the Creator’s Self-Insert and Therein Lies the Problem

I keep calling Frederic the creator’s self-insert not because I’m making assumptions or accusations but because this is something that Chris has admitted to publicly on numerous occasions. If you want a reference than just check out his interview during D23.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ECeflBTS58

There’s also more confirmation on his twitter and in other interviews. Though I’d personally recommend that younger fans stay away from him and his twitter, given his past behavior. (more on this later)

Chris has also publicly made excuses whenever criticism of Frederic has reached him. The same excuses that he then puts into the show itself. That’s why he and the show is so desperate for Varian to be the hated villain instead and goes out of its way to create a bias in how characters and conflicts are presented.

Look, having a self-insert or a character you relate to isn’t in of itself a bad thing. Nor does having such a character mean that you personally avocate all that they do. I mean Varian is my favorite character in the show, partly because I’m a political activist, but that doesn’t mean that I approve of attacking government officials in their homes or something. Yet, if you want to make your self-insert likable to the audience then why on earth would make them an abusive dictator and then never hold them accountable to that?

I cannot say what goes through Chris’s mind nor what his actual beliefs are, but the very fact that show won’t acknowledge corruption for what it is and constantly excuses abusers is worrisome enough on its own. It either means that Chris is woefully incompetent, actually encourages authoritarian thought, or some combination of both. Add in his bullying of younger fans, to the point where his was kicked off the Tangled discord, and what is left is not a flattering picture of the man.

The Show Completely Assassinates Arianna’s Character Here

You’re telling me that the Queen has no power? You’re telling me that the only mother in the show is going to stand aside and do nothing while her only daughter, who has been missing for 18 years, is abused? You’re telling me that Arianna only exists in the story to excuse her husband’s actions? You’re telling me that this ‘strong, independent, badass’ woman you co-opted from the movie is only here to be subservient to a man and you’re going to act like this is a good and noble thing, that it’s ‘true love’? You’re telling me that if she’s not only willing to do this, right now, then she apparently has done it before in his 18 long years reign of terror and oppression?

Fuck whoever wrote this! This is an insulting to women everywhere and a slap in the face to people who were actually victims of abuse.

This is Enabling Abuse, Don’t Do This!

BULLSHIT!!!

This is the line abusers feed their victims all the damn time!!!

The movie smartly made the decision to keep Gothel’s personal feelings towards Rapunzel ambiguous. That’s why she is one of the best villains in Disney history. If we only look at the movie than she may have ‘loved’ Rapunzel too. Who knows? It doesn’t matter.

Abuse Is Abuse Regardless of the Abuser’s Reasons or Personal Feelings Towards Their Victim

Many abusers think that they love their victims. It’s a lie that they sell to both themselves and their victims. But it’s a twisted, toxic, and possessive ‘love’ that doesn’t actually care for and respect it’s recipient. Ergo, not love at all.

There’s not enough words to express my disgust with this exchange. There are children watching this. It’s directed right at them and sadly, yes, there are undoubtedly some watching who are trapped in abusive homes. The show just reinforced the beliefs of those abusers and helped to keep those children trapped in that situation by confirming what they’ve already been taught.

This is beyond irresponsible, and someone higher up should have stepped in before this. It’s clear that this show lacked any sort of real oversight. You have a million dollar series being showrunned by two newbie producers with zero writing credit and no one thought that there should maybe be a senior executive and editor involved?

That’s Not Enough

Admitting that something is wrong, right after excusing it, isn’t enough. You need to show the characters taking action and changing their ways. If Arianna truly believes that this ‘isn’t right’ then why does she not do anything about it after this conversation?

So What Did the King Do to Monty?

He runs off the tell the king the very thing that said king has gone to great lengths to hide and has yet to admit his involvement in. Also Monty doesn’t re-appear until after Varian blows Frederic’s cover. So what happened in between now and then? Did Frederic persecute Monty as well, lie to him, or did Monty not ever reach the King before the scandal was revealed, because any one of those answers would conflict with Monty’s actions later in the story.

Watch as Cass Forgets Her Motivation

We’re at the end of the first season and the audience is only just now getting this important insight into the deuteragonist, a reveal that’ll only be walked back on in later seasons.

If Cassandra’s whole motivation and reasoning is just to earn her father’s approval, which she does gain by the way, then how come she gives a crap about what other people besides him thinks? If being a guard is her true goal then why is she after praise from strangers constantly? You don't get praise from being a guard. It’s a thankless job and she should know that from see what her dad has to do all the time to stay in Frederic’s good graces. Also why not make her dad more central to her arc and resolution, then?

What I’m getting at is that Cassandra isn’t consistent. What she wants changes conveniently to suit the story’s needs rather than being based in any actual logical progression of events. Often flip flopping from one supposed ill-defined goal to another and back again; till in the end she winds up with no goal at all.

Set Yourself Free is the Only Point Where Rapunzel’s Arc Works

This is the only lesson that Rapunzel actually learns. How to be assertive. This is set up, is build up to throughout the season, and then culminates into this climax/reveal. For once there’s an actual resolution here to a previously established problem. A resolution that isn’t then walked back on. Rapunzel remains assertive throughout the narrative and grows no further past this point. There’s nothing else learned, even as she takes this lesson and runs it into the ground by overstepping her bounds and going into full on bully mode in later seasons.

Undermining Tension

I talked about this in What the Hair, but Cassandra conveniently ignoring orders without consequence, or even any real effort on her part, showcases that the convent was never really all that much of a threat as it was built up to be. It goes from being a ‘threat to her safety’, a basic need, to a ‘threat to her sense of belonging’, a psychological need. One is less of an immediate threat to her physical being and ergo holds less tension.

Even Hookfoot Admits He’s Useless to the Story

Look, pointing out the flaws in your story doesn’t make them any less of a flaw. I like Hoofoot, but he adds literally nothing to the series. There’s was no need to include him if you weren’t actually going to tie him to the plot. Just like Monty, Friedborg, Willow, and Axel; Hoofoot is a character who could have been exercised from the show and it wouldn’t have changed much of anything other than to give more screen time to the actual plot and main characters.

And for those who want to come at me for saying they should get rid of the tokenistic disabled rep, just remember there was no reason why Lance couldn’t have served both functions in the story. He could have been both disabled and black, while carrying all of Hookfoot’s episodes and being part of the ongoing plot. Much in the same way that Xavier and Monty should have been streamlined; combining both Lance and Hookfoot into one person would have left us with a more rounded character and a more focused show overall.

Varian Isn’t Lying Here

Look, just cause he’s the villain doesn’t mean he’s exaggerating the truth. Someone on tv tropes tried to claim that Varian was being unreasonable in accusing Frederic of ‘villfing’ him, but uh, no, that’s exactly what the king did. We got the on screen evidence for it back in Quest for Varain. It’s also true that he’s been keeping the rocks secret, lying to the populous, and has thereby endangered many of his citizens.

Cap is the Only Parent on this Show to Get Called Out, Recognize his Failings, and Actively Change His Ways....and the Show Still Messes this up by Having Cass Apologize to Him?

Cap is the best parent in the show, hands down, but that’s a very low bar to clear. What makes him the best parent is that he admits his faults and goes to great lengths to fix them. He never goes back or reverts to old ways and doesn’t offer excuses for his behavior.

But the show seems to think that you should forgive dad’s just because they’re dad’s, not because they’ve actually done anything to earn that forgiveness. That’s why Cass interrupting Cap’s apology to apologize herself doesn’t work here. She, and no other other child on this show, owes him (or any parent) such an apology and Chris can go stick a rusty nail up his butt for ever suggesting otherwise.

Oh, Look, Cassandra Getting What She Wants, Again

What is this? The fifth or sixth time now that Cass has been rewarded by the narrative? Gee, it’s almost like she doesn't really have anything to complain about in seasons two and three.

Varian isn’t Harming ‘Innocents’ Here

Remember when I said that Varian is both the victim and the villian? That’s reflected in who he actually attacks. Arianna, the guards, Cass, Eugene, ect. are all enablers for his abusers. They’ve knowingly chosen to side with a dictator who has repeatedly done unacceptable things. The guards and the main cast at least are very well aware of the truth. As to whether or not Arianna knew of the full details behind Varian’s treatment, she does know about Frederic’s past actions and has excused them for years.

That doesn’t make Varian treatment of her, or others like her, right, but Arianna isn’t blamess either.

If you’re a person with power who is attached to a system of government who goes on to uphold corruption, and remain silent in the face of that corruption, you become a part of the problem. You become the oppressor even if you’re not directly involved in the more violent events yourself or even personally hold the views of the person committing those violent acts.

A queen is responsible for a her people and she abandons that responsibility by staying with Frederic and supporting him.

Turning his Pet into a Mutant Monster is the Only Time Varian Hurts Someone Who Isn’t Involved

As I said, Varian is a villian. I’m not going to act like he doesn’t do bad things or that all of his actions are justifiable. The reason I’ve gone into great detail about Varian’s reasonings into what he does isn’t to excuse his actions; it’s to point out that ‘heroes’ are every bit as much to blame as he is.

Everyone is at fault here; not just Varian, not just the King, not just Rapunzel ect. But the show forces Varian to carry all of the blame regardless. Which is why the show fails. You can’t set up a morally complex situation like this and not follow through on it completely. Failing to do so winds up reflecting poorly upon the writers and those that try to excuse them.

Conclusion

Dang, this took forever. This is why I’m following Disney’s lead and splitting the review into two parts. Come back tomorrow, where hopefully part two will be up.

#Varian #tangled #anti-tangled #anti-rapunzel #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #king frederic #queen arianna #cassandra

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jcfoxington · 3 years

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@sambambucky : “pls... Pastels, Peaches and Pain??? among us first draft??? marvel meets warframe meets a bunch of tumblr posts (it’s not an au!?!??!)

hi jo !!! Pastels, Peaches, and Pain is one of those sambucky wips i have mostly fully fleshed out in my head because of one (1) extreme moment of clarity after a rogue ‘what if’ tangent thought but havent written anything of yet out of restraint / knowing i need to finish at least one of my current sambucky wips before i start it or none of them will get done

this was the rogue tangent thought: “what if Sam is haunted by Figaro’s ghost and has been since he was a kid?”. i’ve changed the ghost cat to not be Figaro but that’s the premise !

i refer to the fic as the cat fic ‘cause the whole plot is based around sam’s ghost cat companion insisting he adopts nat’s cat Liho after endgame and then Figaro later and then [insert redacted because plot spoilers but just know it relates to Alpine]. no im not projecting my feelings about cats idk what youre talking about

here’s some note snippets just for you:

the cat, inexplicably, takes a liking to bucky, which is really annoying bc sam doesnt know how to explain to him that all the oddly soft gusts of wind are actually sam's dead cat insisting on getting pats

bucky getting shade thrown at him by said ghost cat during all of tfatws + them making up (and not out. yet)

starts when sam's a kid & follows him as he grows up w/ a ghost kitty as a companion only he can see & interact with + angst with an undertone of comedy + getting together

he whispers to ghost kitty, who simply mmrrs happily

for the among us first draft thing, what basically happened is i saw this tweet and this video and my brain latched onto these dynamics so hard i had to write about them.

here’s a sketch of my two main imposters, Black (left) and Cyan (right):

and here’s a snippet:

The thing having Cyan pause and stare out at the asteroid field is how the colors stretch to family. When they and Black came aboard, they had thought every crewmember was an adult working on the planet-change project. That the patch of off-white with a black something-pattern-or-shape signified status. In a way, Cyan supposes it does, but just not the way they expected. They had expected it to show what rank an individual held within the hierarchy of the crew, from deckhand to division leader to captain, not to show that you're family of the crew and not actually part of the crew itself.

There are innocents on this ship. Children. It was not something any of them had anticipated, and not something Cyan had been prepared to deal with. They and Black boarded this horrible place to eradicate a threat, believing each and single one of the humans were accomplishes and dedicated to the goal of destroying Cyan and Black's species, and their planet. But, now?

marvel meets warframe meets a bunch of tumblr posts... doesn’t have a wip title or seperate document for itself yet cause it’s been stuck in my ‘story ideas’ document since its creation. so ‘marvel meets warframe meets a bunch of tumblr posts’ is literally just me describing the vibe of an original world gjkerfkds

the world came to be for two reasons. firstly, i want to do make take on a superhero universe because the plot and complete lack of communication in both the dcu and mcu piss me the fuck off. secondly, needed a place to dump ocs with elaborate backstories or fantasy / sci-fi abilities that dont fit into any of my existing worlds

which sounds super competent but trust me, it isn’t. it didn’t gain any solidity at all until i decided to do a personal ‘how different can i make spn castiel look & still retain the same vibe?’ challenge. i have my own cas now

however, the reason i said ‘marvel meets...’ is because i’ve snagged a couple of different things from the mcu, most notably: enemies to reluctant coworkers to lovers, yes our best friend have the same name. no they’re not the same person, secret evil org is controlling the government, and the assassin that tried to kill you several times is now your best friend

warframe was added to the world because i got attached to my Volt build, gave them a name, and have some headcanons idk what to do with because i refuse to interact with that fandom. also because the friend i made through discussing warframe lore + plot dicked me over so it feels Bad to create for

the glue to this whole mess is that one “in every friend group there’s a mean bisexual, an even meaner lesbian, a she/they, a he/they, a himbo, an astrology bitch, a short king, and a token straight” tumblr post. my main group of superheroes ala the avengers consist of these people. the token straight is the only one i havent figured out who is yet

ever since i figured that out ive been throwing story / character ideas and weirdly specific aesthetics from popular tumblr posts into this world’s notes. here’s some examples:

sword grandmas

that trope where someone’s really nice and acts super well-adjusted to society but then they do something super whack and dangerous and you realize ‘oh they’re secretly a little bit insane, actually’

anti-gay group’s leader’s wife leaves him for another woman

superhero who swore to be the best hero [city / planet / solar system / continent / ????] has ever seen ever since he lost his wife. not because she’s dead but divorce just sucks & the hero-to-be is terrible at coping

dishevelled swamp witch

that one person who runs around with an amulet all the time & isn’t aware it’s cursed

an exasperated, tired superhuman assassin running after their husband and their husband's best friend. their husband and said husband's best friend both have wings. chaos ensues (yes, this one is a sambucky post)

ask me about my WIPs!

BONUS:

@sambambucky : #i want to have a coffee and listen to synopses of all of these.... #i miss the discord wow #WRITING TAG #waitttt time jumping dream movie? lmao I'VE READ THIS LIST FORTY TIMES and every time i rediscover something i wanna know about #outfit doodlesss ugh i need to go

couldnt not respond to your tags because they make me go ghrkjfnerknf but in the good way. we miss you too jo !!

the time jumping dream movie was one of the first vivid dreams i had and the whole thing was so stupidly coherent and whacky i had to write it down. it grew plot, a queer love dynamic, weird sci-fi apocalypse elements, anti-military propaganda, questionable science, and a sequel while i wasnt looking and now i just. have to make it a real movie or i’ll combust

outfit djoodlles.png is only on there because my best friend sent me a ‘draw this outfit’ meme and space kitty, my current character brainrot, stole all the outfits for himself. otherwise, that file just sits there until im feeling like designing an outfit or wanna see how a stupid thing looks on my oc patrick

here’s one of the two poses-to-doodle-outfits-on of space kitty ive made so far:

and here’s one of those stupid things on patrick (that then turned into an actual outfit of his because i have no self control):

#.jax speaks #.my art #.my writing #tysm for the interest jo !!!#if you have literally any questions or if youre serious about the synposes thing...#i love rambling abt my stupid brain people #i WILL answer all your questions #even if the answer is 'good question! ive got no clue'#.patrick mortensen #.space kitty #.pastels peaches and pain #.the among us thing #.marvels meets warframe meets tumblr posts #.time jumping dream movie

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awed-frog · 3 years

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what YA book did you read? 😂😂 (so that i can avoid it if needed)

Look, I’m on book 2 of 3 of Annette Marie’s Red Winter Trilogy and I chose it because I wanted something light and mythology-oriented I could listen on my exercise bike, and it’s not bad, exactly, but it sounds unsettlingly & creepily like fanfiction? And I’m not really happy if I think this was published and marketed for teen girls?

[spoilers]

Like, for one thing - this possibly isn’t the writer’s fault, but a corner of my mind is unfortunately very aware of the fact this thing is a furry’s dream come true. Most characters have animal shapes but most of the time they’re humans - with fox ears and possibly a tail when they’re upset or annoyed. And I’m not an expert on Japanese art, but I checked and it looks like this is a modern interpretation of what kitsunes and other demons are supposed to look like. And as I said, maybe it’s not meant to be seen this way but if I read about a beautiful boy with fox ears, I’m seeing a furry. So there’s that.

Kitsunes in 1840:

Book concept art:

More importantly, there’s a lot of weirdness about sexuality. For instance, our [self-insert protagonist] is clearly dying to have sex with this (ancient & murderous) fox demon because he’s hot af and drips lust with every breath he takes, but this is never clearly articulated and I don’t understand why. Maybe it’s because it’s aimed at a teenage audience, but if so, the writer could have chosen to not describe excruciating horniness, like, every other paragraph? And there are other (and better) ways to talk about forbidden physical longing from the point of view of someone who’s too innocent to even know what she wants, anyway. Tracy Chevalier’s Girl With A Pearl Earring comes to mind. Plus, what’s deeply annoying is that the main reason [self-insert character] and Fox Boy can’t have sex is not because, uh, he’s a thousand years old and w.e.i.r.d. and out of his foxdamn mind, but because sex is inherently BAD and will RUIN this girl so much a literal goddess will never come to Earth and save everyone if she (the girl) is not a virgin anymore. Which - ew.

And on top of that, there are generous helpings of my least favourite trope in all of earthly existence - ‘My Unkind & Deeply Sarcastic Lover Who’s Only Decent To Me To The Point Of Stalking Hurts Me A Lot But Poor Darling He Can’t Help It’. This seems to have become okay with YA publishers and even a fan favourite after Twilight came down like an avalanche of gull shit on the whole genre, but this book clearly revels in it. I lost count of how many times this girl’s been scratched, bitten, hugged too tight, kissed painfully, even had her literal soul sucked out of her mouth by her immortal mammal lover, and it. never. stops. Just two pages ago, he even offered her to his friend so he too could suck some soul out of her, and tbh it was a bit disturbing. The fact the audiobook reader is perpetually out of breath and using a high-pitched tone that makes [self-insert character] sound twelve rather than sixteen makes it so much worse.

Anyway, I don’t know. I’m sort of not paying attention to this stuff so much because I’m old as the hills and have seen it all before, but I don’t think it’s exactly appropriate for young girls who’re only just experiencing their first relationships and learning what they should and shouldn’t tolerate from their romantic and sexual partners. I still remember a horrifying discussion I had with one of my students back in the day - this girl had zero experience of anything and was an avid manga reader, and once she’d raved on and on about some story which featured a slave girl and how she was mistreated and humiliated for, like, 84 volumes - but at the very end, her thin, witty, razor-sharp cheekboned master had freed her so he could marry her or some shit and somehow that minimal gesture of decency and barely moral behaviour had made it all okay. I tried telling her why I didn’t like it one bit, got nowhere.

Tbh this makes me appreciate Jonathan Stroud’s writing even more. I read two of his series and he never does stuff like this - not even once. He manages to write people with tragic backstories who’re real and complicated and ironic and partly traumatized and yet don’t act like dicks and hurt others ‘because they can’t help it’. I’m actually sort of worried by how normalized that’s becoming? Then again, I’m sort of worried about most things these days, so who knows.

#ask #annette marie #red winter #sorry if anyone liked it #i mean i'm liking it #i'm just a bit creeped out

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protectwoc · 4 years

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why all reylos are racist

y’all can go ahead and cancel me now because some of you are not going to like what i have to say and i am completely okay with that.

this recent gq interview with john boyega has incensed me. hearing all the things he went through, from disney and from “fans” and with no support from anyone… i’m livid. sometimes when i think about it for too long i start shaking, i’m so furious. and the response from the reylo fandom has infuriated me to a degree i honestly didn’t know was possible.

some of you may have seen my recent tumblr rampage. it’s reylo bullying hours here on my blog, and i’m not sorry either. one person threatened to post screenshots of my comments, which like… okay? i know what the fuck i said, it wasn’t that long ago. in fact i was going to include the screenshots in this post right here, but they blocked me before i had the chance. sorry. i’m sure somebody has them. anyway…

over the past two days in the star wars fandom we have seen something unprecedented: an outpouring of support for john boyega. both reylos and anti-reylos have joined forces to voice support for john in the wake of the gq interview (and the blm protests, let’s be real, some of y’all would not have given half a fuck if it wasn’t suddenly cool to be antiracist). and this showing of unity is one of the most rage-inducing things i’ve ever seen in a fandom (which is saying something; i have seen some shit).

reylo fandom, full offense intended, but where the fuck do you get off? you’re supporting john now? where was this support when tfa came out and you couldn’t stand the thought of him next to your white-girl-self-insert? where was it when tlj came out and your boy ryan completely sidelined him? where was it earlier this fucking year when y’all twisted a harmless joke (like yall haven’t spent years writing reylo-throne-room-sex-meta BULLSHIT) and ignored the vile racist shit coming from your own fav’s mouth? but you’re supporting him now? now that being antiracist is trendy? fuck outta here with that bullshit.

your fandom is the reason for the vast majority of the absolutely subhuman treatment john has endured over the last few years. your fandom influenced ryan (yes i know what his name is) to write tlj the way he did, you have behaved indefensibly here on tumblr.hell writing and drawing and fantasizing about all sorts of racist bullshit, and y’all have STAYED in his twitter mentions spewing hatred seven ways to sunday. but NOW, without a shred of self-reflection, you’re supporting him? now his experiences are valid?

the way that your fandom refuses to take accountability for its actions makes me see red. y’all stay on some “not all reylos” nonsense and i am SICK OF IT. i’m only gonna say this once, and i want you to hear me: you cannot be a reylo and be “antiracist”. you cannot participate in a fandom that has behaved the way yours has and say “blm, uwu acab.” you can’t. like do you think black people are dumb? that we can’t see right through you? we can.

“but rae,” i hear you whining. “you’re gonna say just because i like two characters together i’m a racist?” and of course not. that would be ludicrous. i think just because you knowingly engage and participate in a fandom that has racism encoded in its dna, you’re a racist. i think because y’all are in bed with racist harassers, racist trolls, and racist content creators, you’re a racist. that’s what the fuck i think. y’all lost the right to “it’s just a ship” me the instant you dragged john boyega into this.

here’s an example: i watched tfa about three days after it came out. i watched the first half, saw the obvious relationship set up between finn and rey, and thought, “aw, cute.” then i watched kylo and rey fight, watch him offer to teach her, and thought, “... interesting.”

when i got home i checked tumblr for finnrey content, saw the outpouring of love from black fans, all the cute fanart and fics blooming, and smiled. then, slowly, guiltily, i searched “reylo.”

BOOM. racism. the things i saw in the tag that night are tattooed on my brain. reylos rejoicing about the obvious rey/kyle pairing because “sw would never put her with that monkey finn”. calling him an “oaf”, “useless”, “bumbling”, “stupid”. reylos joking about how “when they talked about the Dark side, [they] didn’t think they meant that kind of dark.” “woke” reylos pretending to ship stormpilot in an obvious ploy to get finn away from kylo. and in between all of that, cute ship art. fun fics. talented gif makers. and nobody saying shit about the reprehensible behavior going on in their tag.

reylo is built on a foundation of racism. from that first week, racism has been woven into the fabric of your fandom, and it’s been going unchecked. and i don’t mean calling out other reylos. that’s not enough. i mean taking actual steps. y’all have been sitting in a cesspool of racism for five years, and its time for you to get the fuck out or shut the fuck up about being an “ally”. y’all need to leave this fandom.

don’t agree? here’s another story. in 2017, when i still watched supergirl (before i grew taste) i shipped karamel. for those of you who don’t know, karamel is the ship of kara zor-el (supergirl) and mon-el, her second love interest. when supergirl was moved to the cw for its second season, the decision was made to abruptly end her romance with jimmy olsen, played by mecahd brooks (a black man) and replace him with mon-el, played by chris wood, a white man, who was revealed to be, among other things, an alien slaveowner, as well as a playboy and all-around terrible person. and i shipped them. look, i’m not defending myself, but i never really bought the chemistry between jimmy and kara. even though mon-el’s introduction and the way that they carelessly disregarded kara’s feelings for jimmy made me uncomfortable, i thought the way melissa played her attraction to chris wood was more believable (and again, i’m not defending myself, but they are now married so it’s not like i was wrong). so i shipped them. simple as that, right?

well, no. not really. because the inherent racism in the way the writers wrote out her admittedly sweet romance with a black man in favor of a white slaveowner jerk kept bothering me. and finally i decided that it made me too uncomfortable to participate in. i never really reblogged any karamel fandom stuff, but i completely divorced myself from the fandom. i stopped reading karamel fic, and i switched to reblogging exclusively jimmy/kara content until the fandom died out/i stopped watching. i made a choice that real life racism is more important to me than a fucking fandom or a ship, and then i acted accordingly. simple as that.

and i’m not saying you have to stop liking the reylo dynamic. i still like the chemistry between kara and mon-el. i’ve shipped problematic ships before (bamon comes to mind) and i don’t think there’s anything wrong with that (to a point). but there’s a difference between liking a ship dynamic and engaging and contributing to a fan culture of racism. you have to stop participating in the fandom. y’all are in bed with people indistinguishable from confederate-flag-waving-all-lives-matter-touting racists and you don’t feel the need to get out of that environment? there comes a certain point where you have to decide if fandom bullshit is more important to you than fighting racism, and unfortunately, reylos have chosen wrong. that, ladies and gentlemen, is why all reylos are racist, regardless of what they say. roll credits.

except i have more to say, so i’m gonna say it. first of all, i’m not trying to hold myself up as some kind of paragon of virtue. i’m not holier-than-thou because all my ships are “woke” or whatever. chemistry is subjective, and we’re all going to be attracted to different ship dynamics, and there’s nothing wrong with that in theory. what matters is the execution. i finally had to say one day, “you know, this ship and the racist baggage it carries is actually less important to me than battling systemic racism on every level, including the fandom level”. y’all thought being antiracist was gonna be easy? that you wouldn’t have to make some actual changes, to make some actual sacrifices? sorry not sorry to disappoint. and if i, a normal-ass person with flaws and problematic thinking that i’m still dealing with and the whole ine yards, can make that decision, then other people should be required to as well.

(what really irks me is that the karamel fandom wasn’t even really that bad! i definitely could have gotten away with being a karamel stan in 2017. thankfully the supercat and supercorp shippers were doing the lord’s work and bullying them into submission (don’t think i’m letting y’all off the hook either, y’all have got some racism to deal with as well but that’s an essay for another day) but like most of the racism happened at the writing level; the fandom itself wasn’t engaging in racist clownery on the regular. but like the reylos are. y’all see racist bullshit coming from your neighbor, fav fic writer, artist, gif maker, whatever, and don’t say shit? don’t feel the need to distance yourself from them? gtfoh.)

i made this argument earlier when i was on my rampage (which i’m still on btw so don’t clown in my inbox, you will get your shit rocked) but i’m going to make it again because i feel like its important to note. when i pointed out that existing in the reylo fandom while you are aware of its racism makes you complicit in that racism, a white reylo told me earlier that (paraphrasing, my memory’s not as good as it used to be and i did mention that they’d blocked me) “you don’t solve a problem like systemic racism by ignoring it. leaving the fandom would be allowing it to happen.” when i pointed out that that’s police officer rhetoric almost verbatim, she (a white reylo) admonished me (a black woman) not to compare police brutality to a “ship war.” lmao.

look, clearly y’all need a refresher on what “systemic” means. it means, quite simply, that there are systems, large and small, allow for racism to exist, and it also means that allowing for racism to exist on the small scale means expecting it on a large one. like you think police officers spring fully formed from the head with racist ideals already ingrained? no! they learn it and learn to justify it with “well just because my friend made a racist joke doesn’t make me a racist” and “just because i laughed at my friend’s using a racist term in my video game doesn’t make me a racist” and “just because my friend is a racist doesn’t mean i’m a racist” and then we have people watching their coworkers kneel on a man’s back for 8 minutes with no remorse. i’m not gonna solve police brutality by fighting reylos on tumblr, but fandom racism is real racism with consequences on our world, and i don’t tolerate ANY type of racism. and the fact that you are so willing to not just tolerate it but justify it should say something to you.

and not all reylos are like this. similar to cops, good reylos don’t last. i have seen people grow so disgusted by the racism in the reylo fandom that they publicly turned their backs on it, and those reylos i respect. you’ve heard of “the only good cop is an ex-cop” well get ready for “the only good reylo is an ex-reylo”.

(and also like far be it from me to justify a cop but one could at least say they have their livelihoods to think about (not like they couldn’t just pick a nonmurderous profession but i digress) but you reylos can’t even choose between taking a stance against the hateful and unjustified bullying of a man who had the audacity to… get a job (?)... over a ship? come on now.)

the point of all this is, for all their posturing about “being antiracist” and “fuck 12” and “support john boyega”, reylos have decided that a relationship between two fictional people is more important than all the black and brown people who are hurt by that decision and the consequences of that decision. and before y’all pull some “b-but there are POC reylos!” (stop fucking using poc as an adjective, its a noun, it stands for person of color, please use it as such) internalized racism is a thing. busting out your token “reylo of color” (see how easy that was?) is not going to change my mind. all reylos are complicit in the racism of their peers, and being complicit makes you culpable. full stop.

and that is why the public support of john boyega from the reylo fandom has me seeing red. renounce your fandom or keep that man’s name out of your mouth. anyway, this was long and ranty and entirely stream-of-consciousness and i’m refusing to edit it so it’s probably completely incomprehensible to anyone besides me but if you made it this far thanks for reading ig. all reylos are racist, blm, fuck 12, acab, stan john boyega, don’t clown in my inbox unless you’re coming to bully me for being a karamel shipper, which i deserve (or do, i couldn’t give less of a fuck). good night.

#john boyega #anti reylo #raetalks

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raggedydocs · 4 years

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Why is everybody suddenly turning on the Thirteenth Doctor Era? During this season's broadcast there was nothing but good reviews and now all of a sudden every other blog is like "I personally love Jodie but the writing is terrible" and I'm like what the bloomin' heck -- this season was awesome!

To be honest, your experience of the reception to Thirteen’s era so far is clearly more positive than mine because from the start it has always appeared as if people’s attitudes towards it have been largely divisive – at least from what I’ve seen. I’ve been trying to articulate my opinion surrounding the fandom’s reactions to this era of the show ever since 2017, but seeing as it looks like this era could last for another few years, and with this ask popping up, I feel like now is a good time to talk about it. Excuse my rambling (although I feel like that’s pretty standard with my blog now 😂).

The fandom has always been pretty opinionated when it comes to new Doctors being announced. I mean, for a show whose very existence is down to its ability to change and quite literally regenerate itself every few years, its die-hard audience really seems to struggle with this every time it comes around. At least for a little while. Every Doctor gets the typical “they’re too young!” or “they’re too old” or “the show is dead to me now” or “bring back [insert previous actor]” and then after a while most people grow to love them just as they loved the previous incarnations. It’s a cycle that most fans are self-aware of and often joke about. With Jodie though, this response was different. Heightened. And the anger and uncertainty wasn’t simply because of age, appearance, qualification or whatever superficial concerns that people tend to have. It started to be centred around gender, and I think that’s where the toxicity started. Jodie being the first female Doctor was HUGE, at least it definitely was over here in the UK, because it reached pretty much every news and media outlet that we have. There’s a whole argument I could have about whether a woman leading such a monumental television show like Doctor Who should be such a big deal, but I think either way, when a show with over half a century of history changes the gender of its main character for the first time, the buzz it generates is kind of inevitable. But it’s an unavoidable fact that ever since Jodie’s announcement there has been a group of people who from the very beginning, before they had seen anything of what Jodie has to offer, decided that the show was dead to them. Why? Because she’s a woman. And even to this day they remain very vocal of the fact, which does beg the question of why they are so bothered when they apparently don’t watch the show anymore. But what do I know?

Of course, there are also a lot of people who dislike this era for reasons that don’t necessarily concern Jodie’s gender. As you mentioned, this tends to be because of the writing or Chibnall’s general methods of showrunning, but if anything I would say that this was much more prevalent in Series 11 than Series 12. Series 11 was a hugely divisive series. It stripped back a lot of what made Doctor Who what it had become since the reboot; there were no story arcs, no familiar monsters or lore, very little to tie the show back to what had come before it. Apart from some beautiful visuals and stand out episodes (as well as some fab performances from Jodie), Series 11 felt to some like it was just sort of...there. No fanfare, very little threat, and nothing particularly memorable other than (in my opinion) the historical episodes. And even though I think Series 11 is hugely underrated, I definitely agree that in certain aspects the series just felt like it was lacking. It was great for new viewers, but isolated the old ones.

Series 12 generally seemed to have a much more positive response and the fandom really felt like it was alive again when it was airing. I think a lot of this was down to Dhawan’s Master being introduced in the first episode, as well as the Timeless Child arc. It was a brilliant twist and brought about excitement for what the rest of the series had in store, something that Series 11 simply didn’t do. And apart from a couple of flatter episodes, most of the episodes were genuinely really enjoyable to watch and very well received. In fact, I would argue that the sentiment towards Series 12 and this era overall would be much more positive if it wasn’t for the Timeless Child revelation. Although I personally quite like the way it expands the lore of the show and don’t particularly see it as ruining anything, it was a demonstration of Chibnall’s divisive showrunning. From the very beginning he has always been about bold moves and earth-shattering changes and this is something that I actually quite like about this era; I think it keeps things interesting and fresh. But it isn’t very palatable and that’s where it upsets a lot of fans. As I’ve said before, even the changes in Doctor Who can be too much for some people, and I can respect that, even if I don’t necessarily agree.

That being said, obviously this era has its supporters, and a lot of people like me can still enjoy what is being put out there whilst having our own criticisms. I think Jodie is an incredible Doctor who deserves so much more credit for what she does and I’m so glad that she seems to be sticking around. And I’m also always going to be intrigued by what Chibnall has up his sleeve for the next few years.

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screechthemighty · 3 years

Text

I can’t think of a title for this, and therefore feel weird posting it to AO3, but I also didn’t write over 1k words of Caustic getting dunked on not to share it, so...here’s a thing I wrote. Maybe I’ll post it to AO3 later if I can think of something for a title. Also, this is the closest to writing something canon-compliant you will ever see me write.

CW: Racism/xenophobia, character hate (Caustic), google translate/Papago Korean and Hindi (open to corrections, alleged translations at the bottom).

----------

Getting paired with Crypto and Caustic was the worst thing to happen to Elliott all week.

It was bad enough that he wasn’t overly fond of either of them (Caustic less so than Crypto, guy gave him the creeps), but they’d been glaring daggers at each other since the whole Crypto is the traitor! No, Caustic is the traitor! thing that had gone down back on Talon. It threw off the vibe. Elliott found himself nervous-rambling more and more as the match went on, which just got him some daggers of his own, which just made him nervous-ramble more, and at this rate it was going to be a miracle if they actually won.

I can’t work under these conditions, he thought as he crouched behind cover, eyes desperately scanning the new environment. Caustic had already put up traps around the room and Crypto was flying his drone around, trying to figure out how screwed they were. They knew it was going to be a bloodbath—there were way too many teams left and it was a late-game ring, that always ended badly—but if they could just avoid the worst of it…

“Have you found anything yet?” Caustic said, in a tone that could only be described as sneering.

“ 나는 여전히 일하고 있다.,” Crypto responded absentmindedly. Elliott didn’t know what that meant, but if he had to guess based on context, it was probably something like, Hold your horses, I’m trying. This part of the map must’ve been absolute shit for drone flying. Too many buildings. “ 왜 현수막을 못 찾겠어 …”

Caustic scoffed. “Fine. Hide behind your language then, coward.”

Elliott froze. Oh, boy. If the vibes had been bad before, they were worse now. Crypto’s gaze snapped up to meet Caustic’s with a glare that was the reason the phrase if looks could kill existed. “I’m still working,” he said slowly, like he was talking to a toddler. “I can’t find a banner. But I haven’t found any evidence of squads nearby.”

“That’s good, right? That’s great news!” Words flew out of Elliott’s mouth before he could stop them. “Not dead yet, right, buddies? Eh?” Crypto had turned his attention back to his drone, leaving Caustic to glare at Elliott. “No? Okay. Shutting up now…”

Once Crypto finally found a banner and confirmed they were in the one tiny portion of the remaining map that didn’t have any squads nearby, and pinged the next ring location, they pushed ahead to set up a possible ambush. Everything was in place, gas traps and drones hidden in little nooks to catch anyone fleeing the ring, and Elliott had even found a triple take, which was pretty great. He was just starting to get into the groove of an ambush when…

“I want to make something clear.”

Uh-oh.

Elliott turned around, bracing himself for an argument. That sounded like an Elliott did something stupid voice from Crypto, and he wasn’t even sure he had done anything yet. Elliott was relieved—then terrified—to see that tone was actually meant for Caustic.

“I’m not hiding behind anything.” Crypto didn’t even sound angry; he just sounded cold. “You might still be hung up on Talon, but I have other things to worry about. I have absolutely nothing to say to you and I’m not going to deny myself my own language to soothe your pointless paranoia. 걱정이 되면 한국어를 배울 수 있다*.” And then, because this situation couldn’t possibly get more intense, Crypto stepped right into Caustic’s personal space. “And if I wanted to call you a small-minded xenophobic viper, you would know my meaning very plainly, Doctor Nox.”

Having four older brothers meant Elliott was pretty good at smelling when a fight was about to break out. And this was definitely, dangerously close to coming to blows. “Hey, uhhh, friendly reminder, all three of us get in trouble if you two start friendly firing,” Elliott said, physically inserting himself between the two of them. That involved getting way closer to either man than he really wanted to, but it was better than the alternative. “So maybe, crazy thought, Caustic can apologize, and we pretend it didn’t happen for another five minutes?”

“I have nothing to apologize for,” Caustic said.

“I don’t want his apology,” Crypto interjected.

“Whatever! I don’t really care! Just don’t kill each other! Okay? Anyone wanna help me actually do this ambush or what?”

They backed down after that. Elliott doubted anything he’d actually said changed their minds. They were probably just sick of the forced physical proximity, but he’d take it as a win. Okay, only a partial win. He was still stuck on a team with the two of them and way too many other people in an increasingly small ring.

“Hey, Crypto, how do you say I’m gonna die in Korean?”

“You’re not going to die,” Crypto sighed. Then, “But it’s 난 죽을 것이다.”

“…y’know what, I’ll work on that pronunciation later.” Or he’d forget the second he was out of the ring. That was more likely.

Shockingly, Crypto was right. He didn’t die, because they somehow won. Crypto and Caustic must’ve turned that latent aggression they were feeling for each other against the last of the competitors. That was fine by Elliott. As long as they weren’t killing each other while he was on the team.

Of course, when it was over, he immediately dished to Ramya about what went down.

“That rubber-coated tosser said what?!”

“Yeah, it’s weird, right? If Crypto had something to say, he’d just say it. Trust me, I know he hates me.” Elliott didn’t think Crypto had ever talked shit in Korean—though it’d probably be pretty obvious from context if he did. Wouldn’t be the first time Elliott had been called a dumbass in a non-English language. “And if I’m understanding what Gibraltar said, Caustic threw him under the bus, so what’s the deal? If you start shit, you don’t get to be pissy if you get shit back. That’s like…the rules.” A brief moment of self-reflection said that was probably hypocritical of him to say, but at least Elliott had some awareness of how shit worked. Again. Four older brothers. He knew the score.

Ramya snorted dismissively. “You really think a guy like Caustic thinks the rules apply to him? Or that it’s just about whatever happened on Talon? Speaking of...” Caustic was lurking nearby, stalking down the hallway as if this were still the arena and he was looking for his next victim. “Hey, Witt, watch this. Doc!” Ramya waited until Caustic was looking at her, then did that thing Brits did that looked like a peace sign but was actually basically the middle finger. “ अपने आप के लिए, गधे हो अपनी राय रखें।.**”

Caustic froze, eyes narrowing as he ran over whatever it was Ramya said. Elliott was genuinely nervous he was going to do something about it, but Caustic kept on walking, scoffing noisily as he went. “गधे!***” Ramya called after him.

“Uh, are you sure that’s a guy who want to be antagonizing?” Elliott asked nervously.

“What’s he going to do about it? Try to hurt my feelings? Call me ignorant? Hah!” She went back to her project. “Joke’s on him, I speak three languages and know how to make a gun from scratch. What does he do? Make fart bombs?”

“Wait, three?!”

“…eh, two and a half. I haven’t spoken Punjabi in a while. I’ve probably forgotten some bits. Point being, he can’t say shite about me.” She grinned mischievously. “And he’s going to have to get used to not knowing what I’m saying about him.”

Oh, no. “I shouldn’t have told you about this,” Elliott groaned. “He’s going to think I’m an accessory. I don’t want any part in this.”

“Too late.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

He really didn’t. That was the worst part.

Oh, well, at least Crypto would probably find it funny. Elliott might not have been friendly with him or anything, but he had to admit: after Talon, the guy could probably use something to cheer him up.

What any not-diagetically-translated lines are supposed to mean even though they probably are wrong because Google Translate (hopefully the copy-paste of the Korean and Hindi are like...readable).

*“If you’re worried, you can learn Korean.”

**“Keep your opinion to yourself, asshole.”

***“Jackass!“

Also, technically Crypto said “Why can’t I find the banner” not “I can’t find a banner” but I don’t think he’d give an exact translation of him talking to himself anyways, just the gist of what he meant.

#apex legends #my writing #my fanfic #disclaimer: author is white and not a minority language speaker #so as always take my take with a grain of salt #but as a covert crypto stan I wanted to give him a chance at a rebuttal #since the writers aren't backing down from the line #also Rampart is an agent of chaos and I don't write her enough #character hate #caustic hate

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ahkaraii · 4 years

Text

Belatedly answered ask responses

Thank you for anyone who has sent me stuff!! I LOVE reading them and I’m so sorry I’m awful at replying, but know that I love each and every one. Here’s my attempt to answer a whole lot :D

@doki-dream Thank you so much for enjoying my DBZ comics!! DBZ was my earliest “fandom”, as it were, from over twenty years ago, and it was so, so special to me as a wee child. I think it’s obvious how heavily I project onto Gohan, haha! But now that I’m an adult, it’s really fun to weave in all these ideas I had as a kiddo into a more seamless interpretation that works with the existing canon. I hope you continue to enjoy my interpretations <3

@half-devil-in-red-leather Thank you so much for sticking around with me for so long!! :D :D DMC still has a very dear place in my heart, and always will. As for Trunks and Gohan -- they were my favourite characters, too!! Gohan moreso than Trunks in my case, but I’m awfully fond of all iterations of my purple-haired boy, and someday I’ll get around to drawing all of my Mirai!Trunks headcanons :) Trunks and Goten are fascinating to me as well, because they’re a Unit, yanno? In canon they were rarely seen without the other, and so their development as people is undoubtedly tied together, too. The differences between Mirai!Trunks and main-timeline!Trunks is FASCINATING, and speaks a lot to what are “core” characteristics of Trunks and what are things he’s adapted from his close peers over the years. Anyway, I love Trunks and Goten and Gotenks and rest assured I’ll be posting a lot more about them in the future.

@vejigante Unfortunately I still haven’t watched Dragon Ball Super beyond the two movies (Battle of Gods and Broly) so I’m preeetty much out of the loop as to who these guys are. Maybe someday :0

@katerchip :D :D :D =happy=

@yusuke96universe I don’t exactly take suggestions, mostly because I kinda draw whatever I feel like in any given moment, and drawing something based on someone else’s idea or suggestion is almost always stressful (”what if they don’t like my take” “what if I drew something they find gross” “what if what if what if” etc), but I can safely say I, uhhh, actually don’t know much about Tien??? I’ve skim read the original Dragon Ball manga, but I never watched the original Dragon Ball anime, so Tien is one of those side characters I don’t have a very good grasp on, or, frankly, much interest in. Maybe someday!

@shika-boom Fugaku and Shikaku were not friends, per say, but they were always peripherally aware of each other. They’re both clan heirs, for one, so you gotta know who’s who. Shikaku has always been a nosy nin who collects secrets, while Fugaku’s shameful secrets have always been painfully on display, so it’s not like they didn’t butt heads now and again growing up. I talk a little more about the topic here (x).

@darkblades75 Thank you!! You can read the manga online here (x).

@hydrabellwolf Raditz is an interesting character I’m still getting a handle of, in my own interpretation, but I think he essentially has little to no attachment to his birth family and as a kid he probably thought Goku was pampered trash because Gine kept his pod at home. I don’t think Raditz ever made the connection that Gine sent Goku out to save him from the massacre, so I don’t think Raditz realized Gine “spared” Goku and didn’t think about him (Raditz).

Afterward, he only ever remembers Goku might still exist when he realizes he needs someone he can ally with against Nappa and Vegeta (after establishing he’s Alpha Dog, hence him stealing Gohan and talk-posturing at Goku instead of properly fighting from the start), so it’s not so much familial piety as it is convenience because he’s outnumbered and outgunned and outbullied by the only couple other Saiyan survivors.

@wardstoneus That’s a story for another day, and details I probably won’t get super into because I’ve learned my lesson about delving into unnecessarily dark themes in an ambiguously exploitative way. But, yeah, I have lots of Thoughts about Raditz’s distinctive hairline and how that looks more like Vegeta than it does Bardock, and how exactly that could’ve gone about.

It was not a consensual thing :/ Gine had a rough life, and not just because she was weak and also not very Saiyan like. Bardock married her to protect her after she was pregnant, and he got demoted to low class because of it. (That’s how I explain to myself how Bardock was apparently super fucking strong and yet inexplicably deemed low class).

@loyaltykask Tbh the only other Sakumo ship I find mildly interesting is Sakumo/Tsunade (you can kinda tell why I drew them together in the Five comic in the first place xDD), but, naturally, my take on Sakumo and the Sakumo that gets shipped with Orochimaru in fandom are very different characters with very different pasts that made them that way :’D So if I separate my take and just take fanon Sakumo as it is, there’s lots of interesting fics with him and Orochimaru and such. I don’t tend to read them though, because Orochomaru is never in character (as I interpret him, anyway), and that can be tiring XD

@pretty-rage-machine Thank you!!! I’m sorry (not sorry) that I jump around fandoms so much, my creative brain is stupid and it latches onto new things every 2-6 months without control and I’ve learned to just go with the flow, it allows me to create faster and better works if I let myself explore whatever topic has captured my interest at any given moment instead of forcing it to stick to one thing. Luckily, I am not a professional artist; if you are, don’t do this xDDD Maintaining discipline and motivation beyond personal whim is important in any job!!

That being said, yay!! I’m glad you like my stuff regardless of how much knowledge you have of the canon I’m messing with. Hearing my characterizations are grounded and relatable makes me happy <3<3

@poly-hebdo Thank you!!! :D :D Once again, I apologize for jumping fandoms like the attention deficit fella I am, but I’m glad you’re still digging my works regardless of the fandom!

@jkl-fff Ahh thank you, friend!! (Side note reply: I watched DBZ:A yeeears ago, and I have to rewatch it again STAT because I actually have gotten mentioned by MasakoX (voice of gohan and goku in DBZA) a couple of times now, once in one of his videos and twice on his twitter feed, so I’m like HOLY SHIIIIT!!!! because that’s some Senpai-Noticed-Me shit and eeeeeeek).

It may be obvious by now but I HEAVILY project onto Gohan, he was basically my mental self-insert as a wee lad, so my characterization of him is heavily tinged by that selfish nostalgia; part of the reason I’ve been drawing these comics is to seamlessly integrate that mental image of Gohan I have living in my brain to the actual existing canon, to make him a plausible version of Gohan that can exist between the pages. From that, a fascinating little narrative has been born and I’ve been having fun detailing out the characters that exist around the Gohan I’ve created :D Thank you for enjoying my hot take on it!!

And YES LAWD I am all for bisexual Gohan, he and Dende were totally a cute first romance thing as teenagers, though naturally it had to come to an end as they moved on with their lives -- Dende to proper ascetic Godhood, and Gohan to a more normal human highschool life. Maybe someday I’ll get into the nuanced complexities of that, though I probably won’t post it to twitter, where the audience there seems to crave more canon straight stuff than any wistful doomed gay sideplots (that seems more a Tumblr thing). Ahhhh so many ideas, so little time XDD

#ask responses

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