#literally been a villains only girl since I was 8

[grendelsmilf]

madame web was SO fucking funny i love that every single decision they make is certifiably insane but in a somehow very safe and pandering corporately-mandated way. here are some of my favorite choices:

an extended action sequence set to toxic by britney spears which stops in the middle to remind you that the year is 2003 so this song was actually just released

the villain goes to the opera, seduces an elegant woman with a single look, wakes up from a recurring nightmare wherein three teenage girls beat him up and kill him, proceeds to rant at this woman whom he’s just met about how hard it is to know how you will die someday, reveals that he is aware that she an nsa agent, and poisons her while he forces her to tell him the roughly 8 digit code that grants you access to every single security camera and government database in the entire world

one of the girls from girls is his assistant who tracks down three teenage girls for him by making composite sketches of their faces just via his own memories of his dreams. also, they are all wearing masks in his dreams, so how he was able to define all their features is extremely unclear

the fact that spidey powers originated from an indigenous tribe in peru does retroactively imply that every spider person within the spiderverse canon is performing an egregious act of cultural appropriation

adam scott plays UNCLE BEN, but because sony doesn’t have the rights to say the name “peter parker,” they are constantly finding ways to imply that he is, in fact, ben parker without outright saying it. we do see peter parker being born (i guess this spiderman was born in 2003?), but i’m not sure why we’re supposed to care since all of the girls (apparently) seem to have way cooler powers than he does

that said, we only see the girls use their powers in dreamlike sequences of the future. at no point in the present timeline do any of them use their powers whatsoever. except anya does have the power to be a #WomanInSTEM, so good for her.

dakota johnson’s cassandra webb, or “cassie,” (very normal thing to name your daughter who has spider-fueled powers of prophecy btw) cares for a stray cat who represents her own role as a “stray” as an orphan who grew up in the foster system (this is not subtle by the way, she literally says to the cat “gotta look out for fellow strays”). to illustrate that she is secretly a warm, nurturing woman despite her aloof and awkward veneer, this cat’s name is literally “cat.”

the villain of this movie never actually explains his motivation for seeking power beyond the fact that he had a difficult childhood. no details of his childhood are ever revealed. he is not given a single redeeming quality or even a reason to care about him. he is played by césar-winning and bafta-nominated actor tahar rahim in what i can only describe as the worst performance i have ever seen outside of a middle school play. he dies after being crushed by a giant letter S from a pepsi sign. you know. like a bug.

it’s never really explained why being bitten by a spider gives one prophetic visions, beyond the tenuous notion that to see the future is to “weave a web” of sorts. however, despite the fact that we establish that the villain can also see the future, despite having been bitten by the same magical species of spider, he never once is able to predict the future when it counts, such as foreseeing that he should dodge a falling giant letter S.

there’s an extended sequence dedicated to establishing that cassie’s colleague (who later dies in an ambulance crash) cannot grill for shit. as she sips from a refreshing can of pepsi-cola®️, she lambasts him for fucking up their burgers. this is the only piece of characterization they establish for him before he dies.

at the beginning of the movie, cassie receives a very earnest drawing done by a small child in thanks for saving his mother (she’s a paramedic). cassie very awkwardly refuses to accept the drawing, kind of just makes one continuous whine with the corners of her mouth until the entire family is weirded out enough to leave, and then complains that she has no idea what to do with the drawing, and will probably throw it out. we are meant to like this woman, probably.

cassie is a professional paramedic, but a hobbyist car crasher. she drives not one, but two stolen vehicles through the walls of buildings throughout the film, and it seems to be her go-to strategy in any fight.

cassie is allowed to fly internationally despite concurrently being very publicly wanted for the alleged abduction of three teenage girls. we never see her move through the airport despite the film heavily focalizing the issue of mass surveillance and preemptive criminalization in 2003 new york city, so i guess it just isn’t an issue for her. yet another win for white privilege

after cassie experiences a near-death incident on the job that triggers her latent powers of prophecy, her doctor recommends that she take the week off to get some rest and “watch old movies.” cassie clearly considers this to be sound medical advice, as in the consecutive scene, she is shown to be watching an early version of a christmas carol (in the middle of summer) and clearly feels a strong enough bond with scrooge that she feels comfortable speaking to him through the screen as if he were an old friend.

cassie has a vision of her mother researching spiders in the amazon before she died, and almost immediately yells “WHY DID YOU HATE ME!!!!”

cassie’s quest to save three teenage girls she doesn’t know ultimately results in the deaths of many more people, including multiple cops, train passengers, diner patrons, chopper pilots and people she may or may not have hit with her stolen taxi and/or stolen ambulance. but at least julia, mattie, and anya are safe!

after cassie is blinded and paralyzed(?), her entire personality does a 180 and she becomes a very creepy, ominous woman who serenely predicts the near future of her three adopted teenage girls, illuminated by a giant, weblike window. this is all done in service of setting up the sequel that sony clearly assumes is a given.

cassie attends her colleague/best friend’s sister’s baby shower (who happens to be played by emma roberts, and who also happens to be peter parker’s mother) and is for some reason corralled into playing some baby shower games, including “describe your fondest memory of your mother on a small strip of blue paper” (which cassie deliberately leaves blank, leading to a very awkward explanation of her mother having died in childbirth, but don’t worry, you’ll be fine) and “guess the name of my baby” (which is never actually revealed, because sony apparently has the rights to the name ben, but not peter).

anyone else really craving a nice refreshing can and/or glass bottle of pepsi-cola®️ rn, or is that just me?

#o #madame web #navya pls feel free to add anyth i might have missed #100

[myths-tournaments]

Awful Characters Round 2 Part 1 (2/8)

Propaganda under the cut!

IANTHE TRIDENTARIUS

Her number one hobby is ruining every person's that she knows life. Her second hobby is being soooo slutty about it despite looking like a literal wet rat. Her third hobby is having an extremely unhealthy relationship with her twin. Her other hobbies include cannibalism, wearing a maid outfit, being extremely convinced she is the main character, the badboy sexy love interest and the villain. 'Why', you may ask. Well, the answer is, for shits and giggles #justgirlythings i, aswell as literally everybody else in the fandom have gone through the pipeline from hating her to desperately wanting to fuck her. expect for i still fucking hope she dies and doesn't come back for good. (that would literally solve all of everybody's problems) as god intended (EXPECT FOR. one of her hobbies literally is gaslighting god) She is fucking horrible i will love her until i die and even after that

parks and recs jean ralphio voice she's the woooorst!! The moment she learns she has to kill someone to become a Lyctor (aka a more special necromancer), she doesn't hesitate to kill and cannibalize the guy who has been her cavalier since childhood… cavalier who she also totally bullied as kids, she was allowed to choose one guest for her and her twin sister's birthday party each year, and she would always pick whoever she thought her cavalier didn't want to see there! While other characters are shown to regret the process of becoming a Lyctor (which involves someone close to them dying)/were forced into it because of circumstances, Ianthe has absolutely no regrets, she believes she did what she had to do

The author once said of Ianthe: "I don't think she's been nice to anyone, if she has I'll go back and change it." She killed and ate the soul of someone she has known all her life so that she could become a necromantic saint and tormented him plenty before that. General negging, ganging up against him, always inviting people he didn't like to their birthday parties. She doesn't regret killing him. I think she is repulsed by the idea that his digested soul is affecting hers. She helped her crush lobotomise herself so she would be in Ianthe's debt, and later lied and said she didn't see the corpse of a woman her crush killed under her bed (why did she do that? I do not know). She has a bone arm because her original arm was cut off, she hated the replacement so her crush cut THAT off and grew her a new one out of just bones. She had it gilded and only after that did she decide to help her crush deal with the person who had been repeatedly trying to kill her. She wants so badly to be the main character but people keep interrupting her villain monologues.

she has her own content warning tag

She's such a bitch to everyone all the time, she causes nothing but problems, she tries to do a villain speech but fumbles it because her tummy hurt, she is the awfulgirl of all time

THE SKULL

he is an evil ghost who used to be an assistant to a mad scientist gravedigger. accomplice to murder and torture and general evil scheming. now he lives in a jar and is besties with a teenage girl. and by besties i mean he encourages her to kill people and constantly cheers when her friends almost die. overall a silly little decapitated head <3

It is literally a skull in a jar. (More context if you don’t know the books/show: it’s a ghost source that’s been trapped in a silver container so it can’t escape. And it’s exceptionally powerful which means it can actually communicate with mc.) It frequently encourages the mc to commit various morally reprehensible acts such as homicide (she never does). When it was alive, it was a teenage boy who was apprenticed to an evil scientist.

#awful characters tournament #tournament poll #awful characters round 2 #the locked tomb #tlt #ianthe tridentarius #lockwood and co #the skull

[ofbreathandflame]

Personally, I dnt see Nesta abusing Feyre because of how vague their history in their past home was like. They seemed on v equal ground wit the way they argued and fought. Feyre calls Nesta a burden then Nesta retaliates. Nesta warns Feyre about the old hag and Feyre brings up their past fight from the other night. Nesta tries to save Feyre and Feyre realizes there is more to her sister than she thought.

They always were at odds with each other but their never seemed to be any serious power dynamic between them. Neither was afraid of the other and both saw themselves in the other. I honestly think they both have stuff to answer for from their days in the cottage.

In SF, the book even says that Feyre wasn’t perfect and that she made mistakes but their past doesn’t have to define their future. Again, we dnt know what those mistakes could have been since there is such vague exploration of their dynamic back then. But passages in the books like these make me see that it wasn’t abuse between them. It certainly wasn’t healthy but definetly not so one-sided as many antis make it out to be.

hi anon!!

my response is loooooong 😭

i do really want to talk about this. i think the set up in the cabin is very important to the foundation of the sisters' relationship, and because its left as this gaping hole that lacks nuance and logic, it muddles the characterization going forward. a court of silver flames runs into trouble for this reasons, hence why is said it employs the use of 'placeholder' plotlines. to start, as many have stated before me, the set-up in the cabin makes no sense. none. not even a little. that matters for a lot of reasons but specifically because we can't really argue the validity of any of the sister's actions when the worldbuilding around them has none to begin.

its very hard to apply a real system of continual power, abuse, and neglect, when the circumstances around such dynamic is vague and uncommitted. the story doesn't want to commit to the consequences, but it also doesn't want to establish a relationship between the sisters without placing feyre as the permanent victim. so - it created an absurd scenario that doesn't make any sense. what i am saying is - the story has to go wayyyy out of its way to make elain and nesta 'villains' - to the point that the plot can't even support it. like for example, the girls live together in the cabin without feyre hunting for about a good 3-4 years. that means: someone clothed them, someone fed them, someone cleaned, someone took care of them. someone picked up the slack and its wasn't feyre. we know that mama archeron dies when the girls are 8, 10, and 11 - and the shortly after that, they lose their wealth. so - the girls are maybe 11, 13, and 14. literal children. and again - someone had to be taking care of them, a dynamic existed before feyre went hunting, but somehow never gets brought up. if the story is committed to this story, why doesn't it highlight nesta/feyre/elain's relationship in the moments where feyre isn't hunting? what was their relationship like? what was feyre like? these are perfect moments to establish the relationship. even if the sisters were lazy - what would they be doing all day? how would they even sustain themselves on meat all year long? even if the sisters were evil sisters there's little motivation for them to even be like this. the sisters are only three years apart. literally. when feyre was 8, elain was 10, and nesta was 11. thats not a big enough age-gap to even sustain partially of what the story argues about why the sisters have a disconnect. nesta would have been a BABY when feyre and elain were born - where is the motivation? how do elain and nesta develop a faction when they would have been mere toddlers when feyre came into the picture???

either papa archeron isn't a deadbeat or some mysterious force clothed, bathed, fed, and took care of them. like even the circumstances behind papa archeron being a deadbeat make no sense??/

and then there's the added layer of the suppose abuse the grandmother and mother were doling out to nesta, elain, and feyre. nesta was physically abused, and feyre was neglected to hell and high water - there's a plot pont to exploit right there. if the story wants to commit to nesta being abusive, but also wants her to be sympathetic, validating where her anger comes from, while acknowledging how it negatively affected her relationships with her sisters would be the perfect way to go. playing into the mirror sacrifices these sisters (youngest and oldest) made towards one another would have been *chefs kiss*. but again - the story leaned way too moral to even attempt a conversation like this. its willing to forgive the tamlins, rhys's and cassians, but not the women in the story. the thing is - the story doesn't commit to real faults with feyre - and it doesn't do that with nesta or elain either. they are only a standard to compare feyre against. and that's why the story cannot commit to a basic conversation between the sisters - there's nothing that exists between the except the drama. nesta has to atone for mystery reasons bc the story has rewrote their dynamic too many times. sjm acknowledges that the sisters are caricatures at this point of the story, but she doesn't rewrite the first book to accommodate her switch is plot direction.

nesta can't really tell feyre 'why she treated her x way ' bc the story doesn't know why either. a reason doesn't exist. elains book will probably have the same issue, on an even broader scale bc it doesn't actually have a reason these sisters chose to stare at a wall for 24 hours out of the day. the reason elain 'chooses not to help' is even more flimsy than the reason it gave nesta. esp bc the story later establishes that elain isn't even supposed to be a bad person, she can actually be caring. shes also a gardener so it also makes no sense that she would...cringe away from feyre bc of dirt???? that part makes no sense. she literally refused gloves at some point bc she liked to use her hands. she does so in the same book. and i don't even like this character but its the truth, and its why i cannot adequately take what the story argues about the sister seriously. nothing about what it argues makes any logical sense. it for this story...yeah that matters.

so....its valid that people don't take those chapters seriously. they are actually written with unserious intent. like how can i be angry at the sisters when the story argues they were essentially staring into space for eight years??? argues that papa archeron with 10000000 connections couldn't just....use those connections like he literally did near the end of tar and war? that the sisters could live off wild meat for years and still be alive? that toddler nesta and baby elain annexed toddler feyre??? its an unserious situation here. like feyre would rather -- @ 11, 14 or whatever age the story chooses to argue -- would immediately turn to the deadly woods and not yknow...an actual job??? mmkay.

#anti sjm: feyre archeron #anti sjm: nesta archeron #anti sjm: elain archeron #anti acotar #anti acosf #really pro archeron sisters (anti sjm) #for those who don't want to see anti content i do always put anti sjm in front of whatever so if you have the anti tags blocked #it should just block my posts #bc yall me going ham in the inbox - when you can just block me #queue #i hope i did this queue right bc it never works #also if u wanna block #do not reblog my post and then block me. #literally defeats the purpose of blocking in the first place #and will only bring more angry ppl. #so if u disagree just make your own subpost and im cool #its not fandom ettiquette and im tired of people doing this #should be 9:30 #thumbs crossed #anti sjm

[river-of-wine]

I read your post about the Resident Evil 8 villains and I agree with you about everything, especially about Donna. Her characterization in fanon is particularly frustrating to me. Honestly, I hate to say it, but I think it's because of a particular kind of ableism. It's like people saw the dolls and read the files about her mental illness and immediately went "oh she's just a poor baby who doesn't know what she's doing!!!" And completely woobified her. Which does not at all reflect her canon characterization. Like, mentally ill people can be tragic and complicated and still do really fucked up stuff. I think another element that often gets ignored when it comes to Donna and Lady Dimitrescu in particular is their wealth and status. Dimitrescu clearly comes from a long aristocratic bloodline, as she literally lives in a castle and makes repeated references to "the bloodline of House Dimitrescu." She had a position of power and influence even before she became one of Miranda's lords. She very likely already viewed the villagers and her servants as beneath her, and from there it was a very small step to treating them as livestock. While Donna isn't aristocratic, she still lives in a mansion and clearly comes from a family of some wealth and position, especially since she had servants too. She is a twisted take on the wealthy orphan trope. We know she's alone and her whole family is dead by the time she's infected, the gardener's files say as much. But she views other people as dolls, playthings for her to use and throw away once broken. The mannequin of Mia, the dolls hanging from the trees that were actually bodies, etc. She is detached and sees herself as above others in a way that is very different from Lady Dimitrescu, but present all the same. Wealth, power, and privilege also shape those two characters and create important context for who they are and what they do. (I could go on about how Moreau and Heisenberg represent different forms of toxic male behavior, but this ask is already really long.)

I have to also agree with you about Donna. Her and Heisenberg’s characterisations frustrate me the most because from what I’ve seen, their personalities and motivations get the most warped by the fanbase. The fact that Donna in particular is made out to be an innocent little baby who just didn’t understand what she was doing despite her being a grown woman who has done this before and is intentionally showing Ethan hallucinations that target his specific fears about protecting his family. Given the fact that Donna is the only lord who is to have specified some kind of mental illness in her file in another Miranda’s lab as well as, like you mentioned, her thing being dolls and those being considered a childish interest, it does feel particularly ableist for people to reduce her to that. The dolls honestly to me feel more like that frightening spin on childhood and fatherhood than anything, especially because Ethan has a daughter. Dolls are typically associated with young girls, and the fact that the dolls and Rose herself, or at least the hallucination, is what is attacking Ethan seems very thematically relevant.

Very good point about Alcina and Donna’s wealth and status! I hadn’t actually considered that about Donna, but I think a huge thing with Alcina is exploitation. Vampirism has often been used as a metaphor for exploitation of some kind, and her obviously wealthy status even before Mother Miranda only furthers this. She also seems to be quite high up in the hierarchy within the cult itself. The lords all have power over the villagers, but Mother Miranda seems to value Heisenberg and Alcina more than Donna and Moreau. The obvious thing is the maidens. She’s using her - presumably unpaid - workforce as a source of food, and she brutally takes what she wants from them and leaves their corpses to shamble around aimlessly. I think a lot of people forget how horrifying this concept even is because of how many people ship maiden ocs with Alcina.

There is also the matter of her daughters. I left this out of the original post because it’s more up to interpretation than the rest, but Alcina has never struck me as the caring mother a lot of people make her out to be. She does not, while her daughters are alive, show any motherly affection to them, and aside from her “how dare you talk about saving your daughter, when you’ve murdered mine?” voice line that she says during her boss battle, she never seems that upset? She has those remarks about the daughters after they die, but she seems very detached and unaffected. Even after finding out Bela is dead, she makes a phone call to Mother Miranda where she is remarkably composed for somebody who just learned of her daughters murder. She does nothing to protect Cassandra and Daniela, even sending Cassandra after Ethan purposefully, and her reaction to Cassandra’s death as well as her placing the same amount of anger in attacking Ethan for killing Bela as she does in breaking into her castle and trying to steal from her. Her daughters are not really children to her, at least how I interpret things. She’s using them to do her dirty work, going after Ethan despite the danger even going outside would present. The girls are swarms of flies, but she is lacking that connection she outlined in the files about the experiment that made them. She’s again using others for her own gain.

Obviously Alcina herself is also being exploited, but I think that adds an interesting angle. While a victim of Mother Miranda, she is taking advantage of her own swarm of victims.

Excellent point about Donna - it didn’t even properly occur to me that she had staff, and VERY TRUE ABOUT HEISENBERG! Moreau I’d have to think more about, but I’ve always noticed that about Heisenberg and people always seem to ignore it. His language towards Alcina and Mother Miranda is quite intentionally misogynistic. He’s a bit too fond of the word bitch. That and the fact that he’s dressed like a cowboy, such a classically masculine trope.

#sorry this isn’t longer!! I’m very cold and I feel stiff typing #re8 #lady dimitrescu #donna beneviento #karl heisenberg

[amerricanartwork]

Part two of this! Felt like I should get around to finishing these. I've already answered the second, but a lot of my thoughts for these go hand-in-hand so I'll kinda answer them as one here.

Also, I apologize if these seem a bit scattered. The questions are pretty broad in their interpretation, so I'm more just using this to get out some loose character thoughts I probably won't end up saying in other posts I plan to make.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

8. What are your opinions of Looks to the Moon (character)?

9. What are your opinions on Five Pebbles (character)?

To summarize what I said about Five Pebbles last time, I basically see him as another example of what I find to be a fascinating kind of tragic villain, where their bad environments combined with their own major character flaws essentially create a vicious cycle undermining all of their successes and worsening their failures more and more until they meet their demise in some way. But like I said before, I stated I also like the idea that Pebbles's own personality flaws and bad decisions, while still being the ultimate problem, were not the only things to blame for what happened to him, and as of now I think Looks to the Moon takes 2nd place in making the worst mistakes when dealing with him, only topped by Seven Red Suns.

I plan to go into it more later, since it's pretty crucial for an iterator off-the-string AU story I've been working on for a while, but I basically believe Moon's biggest flaw is being too selfless and making decisions based solely around what others seem to need while neglecting herself. In this regard Pebbles could actually be seen as more virtuous than her, because he's extremely committed to doing what he believes is right and follows through pretty much unconditionally, whereas Moon can only pursue her goals if it doesn't appear to do anything bad to other people.

Again, I'm gonna go into this more later, but for now I wanna give some out-of-universe thoughts and say that I would like to see more content showing off Moon's flaws and Pebbles's virtues. I feel like both of them can be a bit flanderized from time to time, with Pebbles being portrayed as overly mean or uncaring and Moon being cheery and caring with no flaws. So to help balance out their sibling dynamic better, I'd like to explore the idea of Moon making her own big mistakes, yet hiding it behind politeness and selflessness, and her eventually having to realize that Pebbles has some merits she could probably learn from!

Even despite that though, I really like Looks to the Moon as a character, and she's probably one of my favorite female characters in any story thus far! Firstly, I really feel for her struggle, not just in being collapsed by her own brother, separated from her friends and drowned constantly, but in (at least my headcanon idea of her) how much she enjoys in the world around her, yet doesn't feel like she can enjoy it fully. I get the sense that because of how old and broken down she is, she feels like "her time has passed" more-or-less, and it's no longer her right to exist for much longer. And that's just so sad! Like, poor girl's gone through so much and doesn't feel like there's anything she can do about it!

But on a more positive note, I think Moon is conceptually a really cool character, albeit in a different way to Five Pebbles. Rain World has always seemed to be largely about the feeling of existing in a strange world with a lost history far older and more complicated than you can ever understand, and I think no character symbolizes that idea of civilizations being lost to time than Looks to the Moon. Her primary utility is giving the player lore about the world, and with her broken down state and age old enough to probably have seen a good deal of Ancient society change over time, it feels all the more like I'm talking to one of the last remnants of a lost civilization. And on top of that, she literally is a broken down massively complex artificial structure, the pinnacle of Ancient civilization slowly returning to the natural ecosystem. And I especially mean that last part! Submerged Superstructure is one of my favorite regions conceptually because abandoned architecture being reclaimed by the wilds is a trope I find so beautiful and poetic, and I think it makes this region speak to that theme of Rain World even more so than Five Pebbles's Metropolis. Whereas Metropolis is still relatively barren and unchanged besides the dust, scavengers, and other occasional creatures, Submerged Superstructure is almost entirely flooded, filled with all sorts of flora and fauna, and yet you can still clearly see the identifying architecture of old sections like the Memory Conflux and Abstract Convergence Manifold. Looks to the Moon, both as a region and a character, is just so cool and beautiful in her ability to evoke such sadness to see this strange and fascinating world be lost to time, yet also a deep love of nature knowing that life goes on anyway!

Lastly, I just wanna mention how I love Five Pebbles and Moon's relationship and how central it is to the "story" of Rain World. As much as I love good romance, deep sibling bonds can be so heartfelt too, and it's continuously fascinating and melancholic and beautiful to see these two mechanical gods get humbled from their high status endure so much tragedy, yet still reconnect with each other in the end, if not physically then by mending their relationships and forgiving each other. Throughout everything we see happen to them they seem so interconnected, and yet, at least in my interpretation, they eventually come to learn that isn't such a bad thing after all! Once again, it serves as a reminder than even in this seemingly hopeless and dying world love goes on, like a great cycle! This is honestly part of why I've been hesitant to write my thoughts on this, because their story's ending in Rubicon threatens to make me cry every time I think about it because it's just so poetic!

So, in short, I like the idea that Looks to the Moon is pretty flawed as well as Five Pebbles, I empathize with her a lot, I adore her symbolism as a fascinating relic of a lost civilization, and I honestly think the story of her and Five Pebbles is perhaps one of my favorite parts of Rain World!

Thanks again for the questions, @tanyabadtime159!

#others: tanyaBADTIME159 #quetzalli answers #quetzalli's thoughts #rain world #iterator #rw iterator #five pebbles #rw fp #FP #looks to the moon #LttM #rw lttm #asks: scavworld's rain world questionnaire

[distinguished-slacker]

I am saying bye to any potential redemption of writing that Shinoa’s character could have ever had right now…

(OR how to completely destroy a FMC Kagami style…)

It’s just sad when I reminisce about those 2015 times and think about how, if things had went differently, Shinoa could have ended up there up in the podium with the other select few best written female protagonists of the shōnen genre.

I know many people use “x character has so much potential” frequently (including myself) but for me, Shinoa’s character is the biggest waste I came across in all these years of watching anime, and reading manga and LNs.

In shōnen, you usually have male characters who are the son of an important clan or the vessel of an important creature or something of that sort whereas female characters don’t really have much going on. At most they will be a girl from a noble family, but this is just for the rich girl archetype and the rich girl-peasant guy dynamics between fc and mc. The family in itself most likely is not relevant to the plot or to their character development.

That’s why Shinoa was something more unique. She is all what the male characters have in one. Her story is on par with that of Mika and Yuu. She is a member of the most influential family in the story, she is the sister of one of the central figures behind the apocalypse and the weapons the army uses, she is the vessel of the villain of OnS, and her past of isolation, experimentation and family abuse has massively shaped her personality which has been quite highlighted throughout the manga and the light novels (i.e. her dry personality, her self-deprecating comments, etc.).

However, all of these just went into the drain. Shinoa just lost all what made her interesting to me. Putting aside the fact that it seems like the Hīragi family lost their relevance in the story, Kagami placed more importance on Shinoa’s feelings for Yuu than her family situation for her character arc. The arc didn’t touch upon aspects like, what Shinoa wants to do in respect with her family? When it comes to her sister, putting aside that Mahiru seems quite secondary lately, the importance of their relationship to the story is past their expiry date. We didn’t even get a proper reunion of them or Shinoa being shocked to see her after 8 years. They had hours to have a talk (the car scene could have been a good setting for it since they had nothing else to do), and if they were to talk now, the timing would be just so off that it would just completely lose its emotional purpose.

As for her being the vessel of Shikama, well, what I need to say: her character arc was anticlimactic. The female protagonist being possessed by the most powerful being in the story would have been such a big moment for the story, Shinoa’s big moment, but that only ended up in disappointment for the expectations it created. From the build up to this moment to everyone being worried about her heart stopping and every faction sensing the awakening of the First, what followed after was very underwhelming. Literally after she gets possessed everyone of her squad goes on to do their own thing and the plot’s focus just shifts onto Guren and Yuu’s fight, and Mika’s death without first giving enough conclusion to Shinoa’s arc. Thus, one big event overshadowed another big one. Nothing really happened with the possessed Shinoa, just Shikama causing some ruckus around the city. We could have seen Shinoa struggling to regain control, her feelings while Shikama was using her body, her squadmates calling her to come back to their senses, a powerful scene of friendship but nothing of that sort happened. Instead, Shinoa came back just because of some sinful keys that Guren, Mahiru and Noya used, and then those three left and went to Mika and Yuu. So basically we are left with the impression that Shinoa being possessed by the First was something to take care off quickly, 10 minutes of sinful keys and onto their next task. This at least could have been used for a powerful Hīragi sisters reunion, but again it just didn’t happen, and even when she comes back to normal, everyone treats her as if they forgot she almost died. We see no reaction of Yuu and Kimizuki. We see Yoichi being relieved to see both Shinoa and Mitsuba alive, but there is no distinction between them even though Shinoa was in far more danger than Mitsuba. The only one we got a proper reaction from was Mitsuba, and instead of being a rare moment of female friendship in OnS, this was quickly played off as a boob joke.

Ironically, some of these moments I mentioned only happened when Shinoa got possessed for a second time. We see Yuu running to her in worry (the shoulder scene) and her being the one to fight off Shikama but this in my opinion was a very poor choice of timing. All of these should have happened when Shinoa got possessed the first time. A second possession just doesn’t have as much impact as the first one. Why do we see Yuu worry for Shinoa after her second possession but not after the first one? Overall, this makes his worry come off as cheap even if the author didn’t mean it just because the timing is so wrong. Her fight against Shikama was just frustrating to look at because it was all just a Mary Sue bullsh*t when we all know that it was the drugs holding Shikama back. Then, the author kills it by making Shikama abandon her as if she wasn’t actually a necessary piece in his millenia old plan, even though he has spent centuries looking for a vessel.

Overall, it feels as if Shinoa’s character arc happened not for the sake of her character development, but rather to use Shinoa as a means for other characters’ stories and plans. One example of this could be Mika and Yuu. Every scene with Shinoa (with or without Yuu) follows or is followed by a mikayuu scene that has far more emotional impact, and a lot of Shinoa’s actions and words parallel Yuu’s actions and words to Mika, as if to use her character to tell the readers that yes, Mika and Yuu’s relationship is a romantic one because if Shinoa has romantic feelings for Yuu, and she says the same words to Yuu that Yuu says to Mika, doesn’t it mean Yuu loves Mika romantically? Something of that sort… And these parallels are way too many now that it looks like Shinoa’s scenes are a cheap copy of mikayuu scenes.

I stopped liking Shinoa years ago but I still had hopes that after Yuu’s “rejection” she would have some time to calm down, let her feelings out and maybe talk with the rest of her squad for emotional support. After all, everything happened just in one day for her. I still had this tiny hope because Kagami said he was studying storytelling, and it’s not like we have many female characters in OnS, much less active ones and to be frank Shinoa is actually the only female in OnS that has been getting substantial screentime in these last years, as Mitsuba, Krul and even Mahiru have been quite secondary. So at least I wanted one positive input of female characterisation into the current OnS events.

What I did not expect was Shinoa going full obsessive rejected girl mode and threatening the life of her crush’s most important person while also starving the poor and hungry to death. This is such a massive downgrade for a girl who said that at the beginning of the manga that she didn’t want to be like her sister. With Mahiru it felt natural and well written because her character was established like that from the beginning but for Shinoa the writing is all over the place. Now not only she is a copy of Yuu, but also of Mahiru, and this makes her lose all her originality.

Her order of burning the food of all Ikebukuro’s settlements is not only inhuman but also plain stupid and unnecessary. It’s as if this chapter tries to make Shinoa look cool with her acting like the leader but all that comes out of her mouth is garbage. After all the interesting things that she lost, what remained for her was her role as squad leader. True, she stopped acting like a leader way long ago but as I said before, after Yuu’s “rejection” this time could have been used on her bonding with her other three squadmates. Kagami could have still had performed a minimal rescue of Shinoa’s character at this point. However, the writing failed when trying to make Shinoa take the spotlight in the group before working on her leadership abilities, establishing that she was smart or at the very least, form a bond of trust between Shinoa and the other three. That’s why these scenes don’t give the impression that the rest are letting Shinoa do the leading because they know how capable she is and place their trust on her, and rather it looks like simply a matter of screentime. It’s simple: Shinoa is the female protagonist, she speaks, those three are cardboad cutouts, they don’t get to speak. Take Ferid, Crowley, Mahiru and Krul conveniently out of the picture too. That’s why her being the leader now feels anti natural.

Now I feel like Shinoa’s character is completely unsalvageable. It looks like Kagami really embarked on a journey to make Shinoa as unlikeable as possible. Her character arc should be over by now; a good portion of the manga was spent on her and she is no longer relevant to the plot now that she lost Shikama, and the story from now on should be focusing on the main events. If I remember well Kagami said he wanted to give the Hīragi sisters a happy ending but if that means Shinoa will finally learn to move on, I must say that at this point is too late for it. Too much time of this manga was spent on ruining her character to make her a “good” character ever again.

I know it’s not only her that has been ruined by Kagami’s writing, but again, to me she had the biggest potential and that’s why it’s even sadder.

#owari no seraph #seraph of the end #shinoa hiiragi

[itsclydebitches]

They honestly could have made Ruby's ascension work if it was framed as a last resort.

Instead of being coerced into drinking the tea by Neo, have Neo mortally wound Ruby, and as she's fading away, Yang, Weiss, Blake, and Jaune make her a cup of tea from the Tree's leaves to find some way to save any semblance of her.

"any semblance" I see what you did there lol

But that's an idea, anon! I can buy that working as a solution, particularly in a version of RWBY that's done a better job with Volumes 7-8, specifically in teaching the girls that often you'll never have good options, only comparatively less shitty ones. Ruby ascending could be framed as a horrific choice based on all they've learned about the process, as tantamount to giving into the Cat's desires, as downright dangerous since they don't even know if she'll react the same way as someone from this world... but is all that worse than letting her die? If RWBY really has to delve into suicide allegories, there are compelling (and less insulting/triggering) questions surrounding our sense of self. Is it better to perish as you are, or live as a fundamentally new person? Does Ruby have a responsibility to continue this war, or has she earned the right to passively bow out now that Neo has forced her hand? I can imagine a strained, hectic, emotional scene in which the group agonizes over whether to give Ruby the tea or not. How far are they willing to go to save her? When does death become a mercy in the face of what "living" might entail, especially if they're not even sure if she'll ever leave the tree? Pit Yang's desperate need to save her little sister at any cost against Blake's horror that she won't be Ruby anymore; Jaune's total disgust over the Tree and his adamant refusal to do that to Ruby against Weiss' unyielding belief that surviving horrible circumstances is always the right call; those in the group who are still blindly optimistic vs. those who, in this moment when tensions are that their highest, are asking what they're even saving Ruby for. Salem is going to kill us all anyway.

I might be re-watching The Walking Dead atm. There are lots of great conversations like that in the show

Plus, something like this would have been even better if the show had actually done something with Penny's resurrection. Give me a version of RWBY where Penny died at Beacon, Penny 2.0 is built with her memories, but she's still her own person working with what amounts to her predecessor's data without having experienced any of that herself. Ruby then spends Volumes 7-8 grappling with this. How can she love her as Penny when she's not Penny? How can she reconcile getting to know someone new who remembers everything Penny did? By the time they're separated she's come to terms with this, has come to love Penny 2.0 as her own person, and it's this acceptance that allows Ruby to choose to ascend. While everyone else is fighting over what they think she should do, she uses her final breaths to make the choice for herself, the choice to live, with the faith that her family will grow to love her despite the challenge of accepting someone new as "Ruby." What happens to Penny via technology happens to Ruby via magic, a parallel wherein horrible acts by the villains force them both to change, but they wrest back their agency after the fact and choose how they'll embrace the change, even if they didn't want it. Ruby, kinda literally, trusts in the love her teammates have for her and drinks the tea, knowing that whoever she is afterwards will be someone worth becoming. Her family's love will make sure of that.

#rwde #rwby #mymetas

[somethingoriginal127]

i want to have a rant about the most unimportant thing in the world (this is going to be kind long so do what you will.)

what is with that trend that was happening where everyone started pretending we misinterpreted television show characters when really you just refuse to say you like a problematic character/ship??

i since her debut have LOVED sharpay evans to the moon and back. she’s pretty, she’s flashy, she’s fun, she is the drama. however, you are not going to convince me gabriella was the true villain of hsm and not her. like genuinely what are you people talking about she tried to steal troy for shits and giggles and was literally just jealous of gabriella because she didn’t try and still got picked. just because you feel bad for sharpay doesn’t mean she didn’t treat gabriella like shit unprovoked hello?? you’re still allowed to say you liked her?😭it’s not that serious.

NEXT idgaf how toxic they may have been down the line whatever you did not like dean and alex more than mason and alex. you. are. a. liar. dean was NOT better boyfriend. everytime i see someone say mason was so incredibly toxic and she should’ve just stayed with dean 4 of my brain cells shrivel up and die. (couldn’t even find a dean gif bc that’s how little he spoke to alex)

mason acted a fool TWICE in that relationship and they dated a long ass time and i know you don’t remember why her and dean broke up, let me spread the news: HE PAYED NO ATTENTION TO HER THEY WERE BARELY DATING😭

he treated her like a homie, didn’t prioritize her and they basically .. weren’t a couple. do you know who can relate to that? IDK BUT ITS NOT MASON GREYBACK🙄

how are you guys forgetting that the cuntiest disney protagonist who has never demanded anything less than princess treatment since her debut had a boyfriend who couldn’t deliver broke up with him immediately and made the next bf obsessed. put some respect on her name ?? it’s her whole brand ?? alex only hangs out w mfs who will wait on her hand and foot and reinforce her selfish behavior! duh! (she’s my favorite disney channel character of all time btw like raised me from the ground up)

now he (mason) did fuck up with the juliet thing (but that was like kind of a supernatural reflex thing) and being a flake in the end when he was mad at alex but i’m sorry dean was not even almost a better boyfriend than him. the only reason you’ve deluded yourself into thinking so is because someone on the internet said so and because you can’t remember a single dean and alex fight (the reason you can’t is because they didn’t talk to each other)

next : beck was not more toxic jade sorry idgaf. he was slightly too friendly with other girls but i would be too if my girlfriend made me that miserable like she was so so so evil to him all the time.

tori also did not have jade’s bullying coming jade like always was mean to her unprovoked. you can’t change the narrative just because you hate tori and love jade?

doesn’t matter to me though i loved beck and jade even though they were toxic. 8 year old me thought they were so entertaining.

^i thought this was peak romance idk

those are my hot takes that weren’t considered hot takes a decade ago. ty for reading if you did so. <3

#victorious #beck and jade #jade west #beck oliver #tori vega #alex russo #wowp #wizards of waverly place #mason greyback #mason and alex #alex and mason #disney channel #nickelodeon #hot takes #sharpay evans #hsm #high school musical #gabriella montez #i saw so many #SO many #tiktoks #about these opinions #like sorry you’re wrong

[teddy-tastic-the-toon]

Disadventure Camp Rant 🚧(spoilers for EP 8 below)🚧

Ok, SO- I had already expected Ellie to get the boot this episode, pretty much since the last episode. And, honestly? I'm glad she’s gone- but not because I dislike her!

First off, HUGE Ellie defender and lover of her character here- she's actually part of my top three and man do I love her design and motivation! She’s so real and desperate in a way I think many people can relate to nowadays. She’s obviously portrayed to be kind and caring person to all those who’ve met her outside of the game, even mentioned by Kai in one of his greetings! It’s also obvious how much she adores Gabby and I thoroughly believe that she would ultimately choose her if it came down to it.

Still- I can’t deny that her cut-throat competitive nature would have gotten the better of her at some point. She was becoming really harsh and Tess has a really good point, one I 100% agree with. The game was NOT good for her, and she honestly would have permanently burned so many more bridges if she’d have continued. Plus, it would be silly for her to win as she’s displayed her competative nature again and again, so it was she’d likely have been soon to go anyways. If she, by the slimmest chance, made it to the merge? She’d have been either an early vote if most of yellow didn’t make it, or an easy Villain boot if they did make it. The only one of the four remaining that would possibly want to keep her in would be Alec, but after last season’s finale? It’s be a long shot. The point is that there’s literally no way she would have won, so better now than later.

To get back on topic though- the biggest reason I’m glad she’s gone though? (hoping for) More Gabby character development/screen time! She was a pretty early boot during the first season and her character has been mostly revolving around Ellie thus far in All Stars. I'd simply love to see some more of her interacting with the other contestants and even just her on her own! She’s obviously got something up her sleeve, and highly potential allies to back her up! Villain Gabby arc? Uh- YES PLEASE-

All in all, a bittersweet ending for my girl Ellie- really hoping Gabby gets far! (Gabby for the win lol) Going to cross my fingers for a Gabby vs Grett ending, though that's 100% wishful thinking. Also though- SO psyched about the confirmation that they use pet names! I wasn't sure how cringy-cutesy I could get away with being when writing them but I'm glad it's cannon lol. They're so adorable- can't wait to see Ellie again in the finale! (kinda sad we didn't get her reading off the patrons, though hoping that it means there's a chance she’ll be back?? MAYBE???)

#disadventure camp #dc ellie #ellie disventure camp #rant post #i love her but damn she a bitch- #feel free to argue with me! #I'm kinda tired so I hope I articulated myself well here lol #Tired and chugging so much red 40- #‘top three’ you ask? (you didn't but I’m gonna tell you anyways) #season one girlies all-around for the win- but Ellie Gabby and Grett 100% take the cake in my eyes- #🫶🫶🫶 #Grett’s character development is so slay honestly #gabellie #(for prosperity) #uuuuh- yeah- rant over now lol

[crystalelemental]

"megazardx2: I’m so glad you enjoyed it, especially since you didn’t like the Gen 7 games much at all. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts!"

Then this is as good a time as any! Pokemon Sun and Moon anime thoughts, as much as I can stuff in there.

As mentioned in my last recap, the only history I have with the anime is vague recollections from the original seasons, and XY which we watched just before this. And of them, Sun and Moon pretty quickly got itself into top spot. I really like the friend group, and I think Ash works best as just some kid with the others. It feels much more natural to him than the big hero thing of XY, which was overplayed and frankly silly.

This hasn't really gone anywhere. The friend group remains the strongest aspect, I love them. Mallow's probably the favorite of the bunch, but there's not a single one I disliked. Lillie and Sophocles precious, Kiawe and Lana are hilarious, Mallow just vibes the hardest with how I am as a person so like...I get it girl. Even Team Rocket was far more tolerable this season, back to being mostly ineffectual villains with more mild goals and significantly fewer war crimes committed. Bewear helps a lot. I think the decision to swap out their old blasting off routine to Bewear's myriad entries was divine.

Nanu and Acerola had a great little arc. They were a ton of fun while present. I didn't really click with Olivia but she's fine. Same with Hala, who felt like he could've done more. I did wind up liking Hapu, which is very unexpected. Faba's alright, Wicke doesn't really do much, and I have many thoughts, none of them particularly nice, about Lusamine. That leaves the last two clusters.

Kukui and Burnet are a delight. They're adorable, they're hilarious, big fan all around. I am very glad they ditched Kukui's secret just before the final match, I don't know if I would've been able to stomach it through that. The Masked Royal thing was always a bit goofy, and this is naturally no exception. But their whole dynamic is cute.

Guzma. Ooooh Guzma. You got hit with the same bat as Lusamine. From a character in the main games with a lot of going on that you could infer, to...literally just some pissbaby loser who's mad he can't win. Dude, this is like the least compelling villain story. I do like the attempt to use Golisopod as a sort of showcasing of that same mentality, but it's a nice artistic touch on a generally bad approach. I do not like Team Skull at all in this. Or, for that matter, Ilima. Who I legitimately forgot about until this moment. Ilima just doesn't do much of anything. Oh, he's just soft-spoken and nice and talented and all the ladies love him. Sure. But he's no Ryuki. Who wins the award for funniest one-shot character in the series.

The Ultra Beast episodes were solid. I generally like the idea behind it. It's goofy, but it fits functionally. I don't strictly mind why they function in the way they do, but I'd be lying if I said the explanation being "It's the kid in Lusamine coming out" didn't rub me the wrong way given everything else about her character. Mostly I think what the anime nails are character moments. Sophocles getting over his fears and starting to appreciate battles, Mallow getting established as a talented chef in her own right with a strength in reading people's wants, Lana being...genuinely just talented at everything? Like, girl doesn't get enough time to shine because they often pass it off to Kiawe or Ash, but she's legitimately good at like everything they wind up doing.

The tournament was...interesting. I wasn't sure how much I'd like it, given how quickly they belted through top 16 and top 8. But admittedly? It works. It truncates a lot into the critical moments. Watching XY, the battles could be interesting, but often it's sort of a...going through the motions? Like okay, yes, Ash vs Sawyer was generally a good time, but there were plenty of matchups that amount to very little in the grand scheme. Ash vs. Alain, I would be willing to argue, is largely forgettable. Nothing all that interesting happens until the final Greninja vs. Charizard matchup, but I don't really respect Charizard, and I hate Ash Greninja, so it's not like I cared. But it's telling that the entire match and all the episodes in it could've been boiled down to about those 5 minutes with little lost in terms of impact or importance.

I think that's what Sun and Moon nailed best in this arc. The battles are just the parts that matter. Ash's Rowlet has one real rival, and that's Hau's Decidueye. Just do those two, and it's a nice, condensed fight. That ends kinda lame because man it really kinda feels like Hau should've won that, or they should've waited to call it a while so it didn't feel like taking something from him. Mallow has low confidence in her battling and tries to shy away from a battle she expects to lose, and Lana calls on her to make an effort. We only need the one Pokemon for that. Sophocles is learning to put his all into battles and wants to stand his ground against Kiawe, and again, we can do that in one. We need a showing of Guzma being a vicious trainer in how he battles, and boy do you get the point in the 1v1 with Lana. They do really well at linking up just the emotional connection part of the battle. Even in 2v2 matches this holds, as they quickly get to Kiawe's ace in Turtonator, and eliminate Scizor in two seconds for a story beat. It's well done! Even Kukui and Ash, which is a much longer fight, leads off the the big emotional showdown of Torracat vs. Incineroar, but both are recalled before a victor is decided leaving you waiting for the return and how that'll play out. Even after that, they manage to pivot into Tapu Koko vs. Pikachu, which was another battle that needed to finish (though I am slightly sad we don't know Kukui's actual sixth Pokemon).

The Pokemon just feel like they have real connections, not just within their team but with their rivalries. Which is...more than I can say for XY. Every major rivalry in Pokemon was Greninja vs. someone else's ace. None of that team mattered otherwise. They had cute dynamics, I really liked Hawlucha and Noivern. But what role did Talonflame play once it evolved? It ceased to matter. Why bring Goodra back? Ash just needed a sixth Pokemon, no other reason. Comparatively, when Naganadel comes back, it doesn't have a strict rival, but it's the first time it's battling and it came back through dimensions to see them again, and you get how much that means. This season did really well with connection and emotional impact for pretty much everyone involved, and it did it in a cute slice of life-y way rather than trying to big up drama to make someone matter. Which I generally vibe with a lot more.

I'm trying to think of other things to talk about but am kinda running dry. I'm sleepy, we did a lot of chores. The point is, Sun and Moon was really good. Big fan. Unfortunately, my wife and I discussed where to go next. And we have reached consensus. My wife never watched anything before this. And Journeys is more of a recap thing from all accounts, visiting characters and places from everywhere. So we will, unfortunately, be going all the way back to the beginning. I have acquired veto power over episodes if I remember them sucking shit. The original Kanto stuff is only two seasons, so hopefully this will go quickly, but from here it's sequential. I think the intent is to actually go through everything. Brace for impact. And salt. Because save for exactly five episodes I look back upon fondly, I don't know how I'm going to tolerate original Ash, or Brock and Misty.

#megazardx2 #pokeani

[winedark]

rules: list eight shows for your followers to get to know you better.

tagged by @alethiometry!! thank u bestie <333

tagging: @wolfhalls, @godsopenwound, @derelictship, @avgustea, @besukhov, @wolveswithoutteeth <3

(lets see if i HAVE 8 shows)

elementary. SHOW OF ALL TIME. it is truly the only sherlock holmes adaptation i've watched from the last 20 (30? 40??) years that feels like a modern adaptation and not a self-parody (miss sherlock excluded — i've yet to watch!). i never got the hate towards nyc being the setting except i guess america bad?? but it makes total sense imo and it breathes light into one of the most adapted books ever. jlm's sherlock is SO treasured to me, lucy liu's watson is just as dimensional as sherlock, girlboss moriarty, BEES, also the focus on recovery throughout the series gave it so much heart, its truly such a good adaptation. i know fundamentally its just some procedural crime show (and its biggest flaw is obviously the inclusion of ny-pd, s03 e08 you mean nothing to me) but i love her and i rewatch the first season pretty much every year. literally where would i be without her

the x files. mulder and scully have had an IRREVERSABLE impact on my fashion sense. i am watching every single episode with a notepad by my side and taking detailed notes of what they're wearing. i love this show so much, every other episode is outrageously problematic even for its time, but i'm obsessed. iconic theme tune (my dads ringtone btw). scully is one of my ultimate pop culture heroes but i think i'm more like mulder (my hero for being irritating). i think my favourite episode is wet wired. i've never seen anything past season 7.

the sopranos. WAIT! wait before u (understandably) judge me i promise its more than a dudebro mafioso show, i think the characters are all some of the best written characters i've ever encountered, and idk i don't watch a lot of similar shows but i don't get the impression that its about justifying the mafia lifestyle, quite the opposite. also the introspection that you see develop is phenomenal. what really floors me about the show is that the female characters are ALL so incredibly written, carmella soprano i love u 💍 i'm actually only half-way through this show so maybe the inclusion to this list is premature but i trust my judgement

succession. this show is constantly rotating in my mind like a slow roast. i'm also quite convinced that 90% of the fans are watching an entirely different show. is tom my favourite character YES but i hope shiv leaves him and he gets nothing in the divorce and he has to move back to iowa or wherever. he's the worst. marcia i love you

it's always sunny in philadelphia. embarrassing how many times i've seen seasons 2-10 but my brother and i's lexicon are primarily references from this show. i think my favourite episode is the cereal defense, it's so stupid.

1899. netflix i am gonna get you bitch 🔪 daniel crawling out of the atlantic ocean changed me

ummmm. i don't have 8 shows. can i leave this as a placeholder for yellowjackets because i see potential my loves <3 if not um. earth's greatest spectacles, the 3 part documentary series narrated by domhnall gleeson that changed my world. i think about it all the time. i love u new england i love u svalbard i love u okavango.

how to get away with murder.

this show has done so much psychological damage, charlotte and i watched it together and i've not been the same since. i don't even know where to start; why is your penis on that dead girls phone. season 1 part 1 being the best few episodes of television ever and immediately going downhill after. annalise keating will send anyone to jail. bonnie killing a 22 year old because why not. whatever the hapstall case was. michaela pratt's villain era (ilu). laurel's flop era. connor's haircut. michaelasher breakup on some random crossover episode in favour of a character who gets about 2 minutes screentime. guy murdered at the gay wedding. michaela growling at someone in a grocery store. connor being the ONLY person to get arrested for murder(conspiracy?) out of the k5, while arguably being the person most removed from committing actual murder (flop king). gay divorce. frank incest reveal based entirely on the ''foreshadowing'' of some throwaway season 1 line. franklaurel girlies found dead. whatever the fuck was going on in the series finale. i'm not the same

#beehive whispers #tag games #everyone point and laugh at my bad taste! #i tried to tag people i know watch some tv <3 but feel free to ignore if you don't fancy it!!

[astro-break]

Thoughts on the 12th ep of Hypmic Rhyme Anima+. Spoilers beware

Season 1 | Ep.1 | Ep.2 | Ep.3 | Ep.4 | Ep. 5 | Ep. 6 | Ep. 7 | Ep. 8 | Ep. 9 | Ep. 10 | Ep. 11

I love these two they're so stupid and cute ofc they're fighting about what place they're gonna open akira's ideals vs satoru's flashyness. i like how satoru is the one who dreams big between them while akira is more down to earth and focuses on the things that can make others happy too

ah so this is how they originally got arrested huh? metaphorically and literally stepping on their dreams damn

thats a tone shift damn i hate that this anime made me care for two gay dead people (so much that i accidently wrote a fic for them whoops)

genuinely i wonder what the IVs are for, it has to be important enough for kaibyakumon to hide them in his projections

like theres four of them. what do you need so many iv bags for mdude?

i still think the who will answer my questions is on par with roxas being a looser

like damn chiaro is very gay living on within his totally platonic bro friend who is modeled after the guy his original died with

good for him honestly, radical change very rarely comes from peaceful actions

damn another leader unit song? suckssss was looking forward to a nigumi

ah no fake out

oh heay hifumi got his jacket back and is straight to complementing his bestie

I like how MTC is taking a more leadership role in this since it is more military focused and they are quite literally the military unit

that would have been more poignant if we Saw how much shinjuku meant to him

Amanda squeakkkkkkkk shes best character ever

soccer idiot what a meathead

also i love the fact that jyushi thinks that the ball is jiro's friend

oh look at that thinking, Scuro does have have some brains in there

OH THEM!!!! ITS BEEN A WHILE I MISS SECRET ALIENSSSSSSS Iris being slay as always never flinching from samatoki shes such a badass

oh i do not miss rex www iris is as sassy as ever and i love her

i like how the villains are playing these smart, its good. just as i type that kaibyakumon does something idiotic by hiding in the most obvious place

oh wait there was that shadow in like ep2 or smth. that was him. that was kaibyakumon. H U H

ww i thought only gentaro got in

LETS GO OOOOO SCURO BBY YOU ARE DOING SO WELL OH YOU

suprised that they all survived gett in blown up by a bomb without any injuries wow

HAHAHAHA JYUSHI oh you lovable boy

haha kick like soccer ball

damn sheer dumb luck saved them huh unfortunate but at least best boy was the one to show the way

oh gods this is the chuuni group and i love it i love how gentaro is just playing along

with the power of music and gayness he will prevail!

damn hes doing it by himself no holograms needed! oh im proud of himmm what a strong boy!

i like his rap tbh its very much about unity and experience, everything he as both chiaro, scuro, akira, and satoru together make up who the person is, they will have their just revenge, they have learned from their mistakes and they will fight for what is theirs. its really good

also he refrences spawn camping www their combined version does seem like the toxic type of guy who would

awww the heroes too have the power of gay and music by their side

i find it hilarious how jyushi enunciates his team name www its true tho none of them have an ass to speak of

honestly? this one is better than the 3gumi one

oh he holds the mic to his heart …

damn ripp the artificial gays they were good. i liked them :((( wish they stayed alive D:

oh those eyebagsss they're heavyyy hes haunted by les horreurs!

oh he loves them, he loves his boyssssss hypmi really be burying their gays and letting their father mourn

lmfao did aliens really just knock out the chuuoku girls driving the plane and fuck off to bukuro love that iris is the one driving tho, love that for her

hah, not a bad episode, i didn't hate it but it wasn't great either. I enjoyed the gay things and the Secret Aliens cameo but overall just no much really popped out to me unlike ep 10

also i just noticed that sasara's suit the pattern is just overlayed on top of the suit not drawn on. cute

#hypmic #hypnosis microphone #Hypnosis Mic: Division Rap Battle: Rhyme Anima+ #hypnosis mic rhyme anima #hypmic spoilers

[intercoursefluids]

Believe Me Chapter 4

Am I annoying my Beta reader with how long it is taking for them to actually meet? Yes yes I am. Do I care? No, no I do not. Lol

Jon and Damian were currently in the room they had claimed for themselves in the suite Damian’s father had gotten them.

The plane had landed at 8 AM so they were stuck waiting until at least 4 PM to head to the bakery to speak with the girl's parents.

After everyone made it to the hotel, Bruce decided to take Clark around, trying to calm him down so he wouldn’t scare the girl when he saw her, leaving Damian with the same job for Jon.

“I’m gonna throw up.”

Damian sighed, looking away from his laptop on the website titled “The Ladyblog” there were more conspiracy theories than solid evidence but it wasn’t too bad, especially when he made it past the part where it was full of information that had nothing to do with the heros.

“You are not going to throw up. You are fine, Jonathan. Just nervous.”

Jon was practically literally vibrating from his nerves as he tried to keep himself seated on the couch.

“What if she doesn’t like me? What do I do then?”

Damian groaned, running a hand through his hair. 

They had been going back and forth on this for the past 2 hours.

“She will probably be very scared right now Jon, she is getting kicked out of her home remember? She is probably going to be lashing out like I did when I first came to live with Father. The best thing you can do is let her know you are there if she needs you but do not hover around her constantly.”

Jon sighed, melting off the bed and onto the floor by Damians feet.

“I’m still worried. I really want her to like me.”

Damian reached down, patting Jon on the head like he would Titus before going back to scrolling for information.

“She more than likely will like you when she gets settled, especially since you made me cyberstalk her to find out her interests and are now having me look for anything and everything that has to do with the “Hawkmoth” villain.”

Jon squawks in offense, glaring up at Damian from where he had wrapped himself around his legs.

“I just wanted to know more about her! It's not my fault she might be in danger here! And it's not cyberstalking, it's… gathering intel.”

Damian raised an unimpressed eyebrow, shifting the laptop to look Jon in the eyes.

“You are spending too much time with me. This is obviously cyberstalking and overprotectiveness on your part. I am merely curious about “Hawkmoth”. Speaking of which, I need to update my father.”

Damian stood, letting Jon’s head slide off of his lap to thump on the floor as he whines at Damian.

“I just want to make sure she’s safe, is that a crime? She’s my little sister.”

Damian pulls out his phone, leaning against the wall and looking at the puddle of his best friend on the floor.

“She is not your little sister. You two are twins.”

A muffled , “I was born 3 minutes before her.” reaches Damian as his father answers his call.

“Damian? Did something happen at the hotel?”

“No, I was just calling to update you. Jon is moping around the room, and I found some information on some villain named Hawkmoth. I was wondering if you were aware of this?”

Bruce sighs on the other end, already tired and wanting to go back home.

“Yes. I was made aware of him when some of the locals started surrounding Clark and I trying to calm him down before he attracted one of the butterflies. This is most certainly strange.”

Damian hums, he had heard about the “magical butterflies that would take over your mind and body”. He wanted to grab the girl and run back home already.

“Okay, I was just making sure you were aware. Jonathan is awake by the way, he has been panicking for the past 3 hours.”

Damian ignores Jon’s protest of “It was only like, 1 hour” (It was 2).

“Well tell him he needs to start calming down, we are on our way back to get you and then we will be going to her home to get her. We shouldn’t be too long, only long enough to grab whatever she decided to pack and then we will head back to the hotel and leave tomorrow.”

Damian told him he understood and walked over to the bed, tossing his phone down onto it and grabbing one of the pillows.

Damian throws it with all of his strength at Jon’s head, gaining his attention.

“Whaaaaaat? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

Damian rolled his eyes, reaching down to pull him off the floor and towards his suitcase to change.

“Our fathers are on their way back, you need to change too.”

Jon makes a face, grumbling as he moves to his bag.

“Why do I need to change? What's wrong with what I’m wearing?”

Damian moved to the bathroom, fixing his hair and washing his face to help him wake up.

“1) You stink. 2) She’s a fashion designer isn’t she? I highly doubt wearing a hoodie you haven’t washed in god knows how long isn’t going to impress her. You have superspeed, take a shower and get dressed.”

Damian looks up in the mirror, drying his face and staring at a seemingly frozen Jon.

“What's wrong now?”

Jon turns to Damian with tears in his eyes, holding a flannel shirt.

“What do I wear?”

Damian’s sigh was heard all the way back in Gotham.

Tag List:

@toodaloo-kangaroo

#maribat #ml x dc #marinette x damian #maridami #dc x mlb #mlb x dc #siblings jonette #siblings marijon

[metaphoricalcolours]

i've always been a huge fan of new who's holy trinity - nine, ten and eleven. i tried to get into twelve as well but he just didn't feel like the doctor to me and i couldn't stand clara so i just stopped watching doctor who, which has been my favourite show for nearly a decade. i decided to borrow season 8 and 9 on dvd last month to give them a decisive shot, resuming after 4 years. against all odds and what i, myself, would've sincerely imagined, they finally grew on me. both of them. in just 3 weeks, mind you! so i'm writing this after finishing face the raven, which i knew would be the episode where clara dies, thanks to a lovely spoiler on this very app. i knew i wasn't ready to see it happen though, and oh god - i was definitely not prepared for how it happened.

losing a main companion on doctor who is always upsetting, to put it mildly, but it was heartbreaking for several reasons this time. first of all, tell me this isn't twelve & clara's very own doomsday? this is literally ten & rose standing on darlig ulv stranden, knowing they're about to say goodbye but the expected 3 little words are yet again robbed from us. he was ready to say them this time!!

nothing new here, but this show never disappoints when it comes to speeches so we have clara basically telling the doctor not to let this turn him into another ashildr while he's - pardon the word - dying to save her. he always tries to save everybody, but this loss is obviously a much bigger deal to him.

now, this is where it gets specific. remember that part in the girl who died where twelve shows more emotion than he'd done in most of season 8 and is desperate to the point where he goes "i am so sick of losing people"? he was telling clara after failing to save... yes, none other than the person who'd turn out to be responsible for clara's death. hero-turned-villain, ashildr/me. a villain he'd encounter for the first time in the woman who lived, although they did agree on some sort of truce at the end of the episode, by which point i'm sure he'd regretted saving her at least once, considering how cruel she'd become, but that feeling must've gone past the point of no return when she not only lured him, clara and rigby in that hidden street out of the blue but also took the woman he loves. no, she might not have known that clara would take on the weight that was on rigby's shoulders but she had no reason to do everything that led up to that event. there was nothing the doctor could do to save clara this time, and that wouldn't have happened if he hadn't given ashildr the chip that made her immortal and turned her into such a cruel person.

another thing: he told clara not to run because he wanted to be with her till the very last second, which is pretty significant since running is what he always tells people to do. she went outside and he followed her. all he could do was watch her die and stand there with all the anger in the universe inside of him. he would've raised hell for her but she didn't want to see him like that in their last moments spent together.

this hug obviously means even more than usual, and we know what the doctor told clara after demonstrating an aversion for hugging in season 8: a hug is just a way to hide your face.

oh, sweet heartbreaking hints peppered throughout season 9.

#doctor who #face the raven #twelfth doctor #clara oswald

[rappaccini]

arachnophobia ch 8/epilogue fic notes

chapter title

from 'antagonist' by nova twins

fic title

from 'athena', also by nova twins

yes, nova twins songs were used for every title in this fic. once more, i love this band, their songs just fit the vibe, and i think their sound is accurate to what the spiderverse mary janes ought to sound like.

this one specifically reinterprets the arachne myth as one of pyrrhic empowerment. sure, she was turned into an insect, but athena's going to be afraid of her forever and arachne can spend the rest of her life tormenting her in revenge. she gets the last laugh.

initial quote

from the myth of arachne from ovid's metamorphosis.

aside from it being the literal origin myth of the spider in greek mythology, in context arachne's myth can be interpreted one of two ways: arachne was a spoiled mortal girl who insulted the gods and was punished by being made into a spider....... or arachne was the only mortal with enough balls to tell the gods they were tyrannical, specifically towards women, and her punishment is a sign that the gods are unjust.

tying this into the fic title: this is a fic about a girl who calls out the misogyny inherent in her placement in the story, which may or may not be considered divine, who is alienated for it and dismissed as a villain and nuisance, but uses that power to get back at the powerful people who disenfranchised her and become a constant thorn in their side. unlike in the myth, there's a happy ending to this one.

guin and stacy

'various aliases' -- didn't plan for this to have eight chapters so i ran out of codename theming. hopefully this slaps a band-aid over it.

it's a world with looney tunes logic. therefore, funky physics, architecture and tweety concussion birds.

i don't know if 65-venom is omnivorous, but symbiotes are often carnivorous. and since carnage is the more bloodthirsty of the 65-symbiotes, i figure it would make sense for that to translate to it needing meat.

guin and stacy were a riot to write. i figured they'd have a vibe kind of like ham and noir's.

spider-guin is real, and a minor member of peter porker's world. her personality is basically invented for this fic.

and detective stacy, spider-woman of earth 617 is a composite of:

what if? dark's spider-gwen, from an unnamed universe where peter dies on the bridge instead of gwen, and she takes up his mask and her dad's gun and goes to get justice, and along the way decides to keep heroing. i'm taking that backstory and powerlessness, and combining it with

gwen-617 (for which her world is named), the middle-aged detective who's mutualistically bonded with her venom, albeit fic-617 doesn't have a symbiote.

[hence the shoutout to getting a symbiote in stacy asking gwen for her firstborn]

(however gwen-617's canon personality's been distributed to a and b in terms of the dead dad angst, inspiration to change her fate after meeting another spider-gwen, and being a cosw mastermind.)

617 in particular is real fascinating from a meta perspective. in the comics, she appears at the very end of gwen's original run, in an extremely meta storyline where the watcher that forced the siat gwiles kiss is observing earth-65, and complaining that it's unoriginal and full of uncompelling characters, and that they ought to get rid of it. [... which feels like commentary on the members of the audience and possibly editorial staff who wanted to strip gwen of her world and just shove her into a relationship with miles already]

then gwen-617 literally crashes in to tell him to fuck off.

gwen-8 is very much what the spider-man writers want gwen to be: the ultimate prize. a spider-gwen who marries spider-man, has his superbabies, has no symbiote, and never says a word about how she feels about having to abandon everyone and everything she loves in order to have a life she wouldn't be interested in. and naturally they park her at age 38, so she's still fuckable. a palatable spider-gwen well within the male gaze.

gwen-617 feels like the spider-gwen creator's take on what he wanted gwen 65's future to look like: a woman well into middle age who's showing signs of aging, no longer in a leotard, still bonded to and deeply connected to her symbiote, single and childless, and a cunning, snarky detective who gets her hands dirty to protect her and other gwens' autonomy. a spider-gwen who gets to defy the gaze and exist on her own terms.

(also, she and gwen-8 are brunch buddies and the 8-kids love her. wholesome! the opposing visions of gwen's future get along!)

at any rate i hope gwen65's future does turn out like gwen617's. my big fear is her getting gwen8... which i'm like 60% sure is what'll happen to movie gwen. gross!

back to the fic.

8311's physics are brought up in web warriors iirc, where it's discussed that you can literally vaporize people if you punch them too hard. and weblines connect to midair! fun!

the booze is looney tunes booze. it works like it would in an old tom and jerry cartoon. stacy's been hitting it hard.

gwen617's world collapses in the comics too. i hope she survived it.

full fucking salt here: of course the world where spider-gwen gets to hit middle age, stay powerful, and not have to answer to a man about it is the world that gets canned. thanks marvel!

included here because it was a way to incorporate the spot, give gwen a moment of pity for miguel, and set up how far the society's fallen.

unnecessary detail that's nowhere in this fic but i believe strongly: guin's an adelie penguin, because they have strong fuck-with-me attitudes.

i figured a cartoon animal world wouldn't let its characters swear. guin would resent this strongly.

spider-guin writes dadcop fanfic in canon. since she's hanging out with a detective, i figure stacy would peer review it.

guin's place

shellsea= pun on chelsea.

spider-guin plays the drums for the mary cranes in the comics.

spider-guin is peter porker's crimefighting partner as well.

the pork her joke derives from me misreading 'partner' on the wiki as romantic and not hero related, and having a split second of pure panic at the thought of.... peter porking her.

very interesting that spider-ham doesn't seem to be a society member in the movies. in this fic at least, him sharing a world comfortably with a spider-gwen is one of the reasons why.

they accidentally kidnapped peter-73. oops.

peter and gwen-e's blocking is meant to resemble gwen and hobie's in chapter 5.

gwen's watching another reciprocal partnership between a gwen and a spider-man develop. this peter's like hobie and miles-8. he's giving her what she needs to save herself (a web shooter, a portal watch, a radioactive spider) and trusting her to use it.

and from a meta perspective: can this kind of relationship between a gwen stacy and a spider-man exist in canon? or only off-page, in imagination and fanwork, without writers and audiences to demand it take on the usual conventions?

gwen8's touching her hand because it's where the spider bit her. she's thinking the same thing as gwen b. they're the only two who've had this kind of relationship but have come to opposite conclusions about it.

gwen8 ultimately accepted the constraints of her narrative and only subverts in the margins. now that the cat's out of the bag, she's backpedaling.

gwen8 and gwen617 aren't quite friends in the fic, since they only just met and stacy's furious about the death of her world. and gwen8 is only interested in her self. she made no effort to stop the collapse, only to grab stacy and run. and she's guilty about it.

gwen457 is from the ultimate spider-man cartoon. in this world, she's another powerless girl who chooses to be a hero, even when miles is already spider-man. she builds herself a tech-heavy suit to compensate, and doesn't bother teaming up with miles. very iconic of her. hence, she doesn't do invitations.

i figured since she's building it from robocop parts and doesn't have a healing factor, it'd need to be armored. and since her wallcrawling is reliant on magnetic gloves and boots, they'd need to be pretty big to hold her weight.

457's lair is in a sewer. and she's a girly girl. thus, the perfume.

she also seems to be very young in the cartoon. adapted here.

in the ultimate cartoon, peter encounters an alternate world where he died and miles (and gwen) is spider-man. referenced here. i imagine ultimate cartoon pete was recruited, gwen noticed his tech, and since she's a whiz, reverse-engineered it. and she went exploring simply because she felt like it.

457 gwen uses homemade cookies to win over her father. i thought it'd be fun to nod at that here.

as the only daughter of a single cop dad, gwen probably took on a lot of household responsibilites at a young age. 457, given how insanely strong her willpower is to become a superhero with no powers, probably got a bit of that unusual maturity from that.

this scene's a full-circle moment: gwen at the very start of this fic meets a dead gwen-with-an-e and processes the implications in an icy graveyard. now she's found a living one, and they can unpack it all together. also in a location made of stone and ice, that's basically a big symbolic fridge.

gwen keeps getting killed in purple and green. big 👀 at the atsv concept crew only considering gayatri and gwen in those colors.

spider-girl was the original idea for spider-gwen's name. bad idea! thank god they didn't use it!

the argument

gwendolyne's only chill about this because she hasn't processed that this isn't a temporary adventure. she's getting it now.

earth-8311's mary jane is mary crane. and look i HAD to have a gwenjay pairing here somewhere. it was almost stacy, but her being single was too important (also, didn't love the implication of the one gwenjay getting lexa'd).

spider-guin is a creature of great violence. i feel this deeply.

what if? dark's gwen stacy isn't a killer. i feel like 617 gwen would though. and fic-617 gwen's just had the worst week of her life, so i think it's on the table.

and really: the original gwen stacy from 616 HATED spider-man for his involvement in her father's death. she went to her grave resenting him. she has the exact same motive harry osborn did when he went villain. it's wild that no one's thought of resurrecting gwen as a villain.

gwen8's only plan all along was to hide the displaced gwens. which isn't enough for gwen b.

she's also in panic mode because taking peter means that the society's going to keep looking for them. peter parker's too valuable to them. she wants him sent back fast, and the others scattered.

peter-73 is not down with this situation.

comics-gwen-65a is a social butterfly. she loves meeting and bonding with alternate gwens.

she also loves dumb puns. hence porker and gwenergy.

recluse is a very obscure spider-hero. it's also a pun on the spider species, and the word literally means 'hermit'

ham's babysitting the kids, like he does in the comics.

and technically gwen8 hasn't been made, since she's covered for by her reputation and her miles.

gwen73 is very much in the vein of gwen616 in terms of characterization. confident, spirited, a little annoying about it, but very endearing.

look using death imagery with the gwens is so much fun.

gwen8 is still ultimately... gwen8. she is the palatable, male-gaze spider-gwen. she's the one who survives by going along with what they ask of her. in a sociocultural sense, she's the woman who plays ball with the patriarchy and sneaks what privileges she can out of it. yeah, you'll survive, but you won't be happy. and you won't be able to protect anyone else from it, including your kids.

gwen8 is so focused on survival that she can't imagine never having to do that.

the entire conflict over whether to hide or disband is a bit of salt about the council of spider-women in the comics.

the council of spider-women: an all-spider-gwen secret society devoted to protecting their own... who don't lift a finger to help anyone else. they sit back and hide out during the inheritor wars, and they haven't been seen since the end of the latour run.

out of universe: the writers forgot about it.

in-universe: they know the other spider-heroes won't do shit to help them, and that cynicism is ingrained deep in the organization.

hey girl i get it. but this fanfic's trying to imagine a happier ending, so we have to defy that.

more salt! about the other meta gwen plots from the comics. currently she's had two back-to-back event miniseries about meeting a group of alternate gwens, where they just repeat the same shit about deserving better, then go right back to the status quo.

look there are a ton of great gwen puns.

>introducing the term 'rotten' to build up to its use in a few pages.

why's the death of gwen stacy the thing that holds the concept of canon together? it takes the most understandable human impulses: longing to be special to someone, to love them, to keep them safe, and it poisons them. it takes that someone, and dehumanizes them. once you accept that someone you love is just a martyr to make your suffering special, all the rest follows.

which means that if you disprove that idea, everything else comes down with it.

and as seen with hobie, peter b, miles, miles 8, ham, peter, on and on it goes-- it is possible to change. you just need to believe it's possible.

(which, meta again: it is possible for spider-gwen to be her own protagonist without having to wall herself off away from the spider-men. she can even fall in love with them without losing her agency. the only reason why she keeps getting shoved in the girlfriend box is because the writers and audience don't realize the girlfriend box doesn't have to exist at all.)

the cosw in canon are absolutely reclusive. here, they aren't. because they can never enact any change unless they let outsiders in.

jess's absence: refusing to go along with miguel's gwendetta is the first indication that the treatment of her can make the society fall apart.

but gwen isn't a wrecking ball. gwen stacy ultimately is not the character that can shatter people's expectations of canon.

what she is, though, is rot. there's something rotten about the way she's treated by canon, and by the people who consume it uncritically. and if enough of it collects, everything falls apart.

callback to earth-138, and the 'i'm not the only one' mantra from atsv. gwen's spent the entire fic learning everything she needs to create an antidote to the society-- she's studied the organization while shadowing miguel, and how to unravel them while spending time with hobie. she's gathered all the motivation, and now she has people to help her do it.

'because they don't see us as people, they won't see this coming'-- callback to chapter 4, when gwen decides to yeet miguel.

'no need to get spider-man involved...' -- callback to chapter 1, and gwen's very first impulse when entering the multiverse.

but they will let him in the room. the goal isn't just to secure their individual survival, it's to make it possible for them to coexist with spider-men as equals.

having to try, and getting back up after they fall, and trying again. bringing that back too.

gwendolyn's expression: callback to the end of 1, and the look hobie gets when he decides to help her.

starting a band

peter73's too much of a spider-man to stay away from his world forever. i figured he'd have to return.

the implication in him handing gwendolyne's hw in is that they're regularly in contact.

and she's a take on gwen616. that girl doesn't miss an assignment.

gwen in chapter 2 desperately wants a gwen to mentor. now she gets one.

in the movie, inside gwen's bass drum, beside her spider-woman gear and that polaroid, is a birthday present from her mother. it's where she keeps her most important possessions, the things that remind her of the people she loves.

gwendolyne was always going to go home, just like gwen does. she stays away to gain the skills she'll need to be able to protect herself if the society shows up again (i think they probably do). and as soon as she's got the hang of it, she's coming back.

anyway in earth-73, an invention for this fic, spider-man and spider-woman are a team. and it's possible for peter and gwendolyne to have a happy ending, or at least to fall apart on their own terms. whether they end up together or not doesn't matter as much as whether they get to exist in the same world. they do.

with the appearance of man-wolf, gwen b's continuity is starting to shift into the mcguire era.

harry woke up offpage after the mcguire run ended. he does here in gwen a's world.

starting a band-- from the bottom of my heart: there's nothing canon-busting or story-redefining about gwen stacy leaping into action for her male love interest. it's far more subversive for her to choose to save herself instead.

also movie gwen being unable to connect to her all-female band and trading them in for a group of mostly-dudes (and two girls who are only there for miles), who she only assembles for the male protagonist she's the love interest of? gag. no. don't like that.

so here, her band is made up of girls, and she assembles it for them.

comics-gwen loves and recognizes the value in all gwens. clones, alternate spider-gwens, ordinary gwen stacys, even villainous versions of her. small nod to that here.

but this fic needed to limit the cast, and keep the scope on spider-gwen specifically. justified in-story as them not wanting to pull civilians into a dangerous situation (and in a broader sense, canon being so trimmed and strict that gwens that aren't the girlfriend at all don't get to exist-- like gwen goblin).

the gwens:

13122: lego gwen! supposedly from an alternate version of legoworld.

17628/marvel spider-man 2017 cartoon: from a cartoon that's disliked by the fandom, this is a gwen who also gets spider-powers, is a geneticist and science nerd who works as a team with peter, miles and anya.

people really hate this cartoon. idk why, it's cute! lampshaded here as gwen8 and the society turning up their noses at it.

spider-witch: there's basically no info on her other than that she exists, is vaguely scarlet witch-adjacent, and is affiliated with evil; she's from a fighting videogame, that's really the best you can hope for with those. but the idea of a gwen-as-reality-witch is cool, extending the olive branch to every single version of themselves no matter how evil is important, and it was funny to me about there being a spider-gwen who's only lurking in the council discord, so to speak. just because she's a gwen doesn't mean she'll play ball with the others.

"we all have a little bit of villain in us" is a quote from the shadow-clones gwen mini.

TRN684/marvel rising cartoon: from a far more low stakes world, being that it's a children's cartoon, but still important. (fun fact: she's why all the new spider-gwens have pink dip-dye; the animators mixed her and gwenpool up and so the design alteration was made) also the second i saw those gliders on her suit i knew i wanted a line about teaching them how to fly.

18157/marvel action: these comics are aimed at a younger readerbase, so i figured making her the most inexperienced (pre-gwendolyne) gwen worked. this gwen's still got a punk/counterculture style, but is primarily a reporter. and this one's friends with her miles and peter. which is what gwen needs to see to finally restart her friendship with miles.

all were chosen for the fic because they have distinct enough personalities or looks (not too many alt-spider gwens do; there's mostly just an indication that she exists), and have something the team could benefit from.

and msm and action gwen were specifically included because i know they're looked down on in the fandom. no elitism about which gwen is better; all of them matter and all of them deserve consideration.

council

the council of spider-women were named before ghost-spider was made her new codename. i'll recontextualize that here as a tactical move: conceal who the council actually are behind the assumption that it could be a bunch of spider-women.

i'm thinking the council structure is in opposition to the society: invite everyone, no matter how 'lame' people find them, everyone votes on action and there's no true leader, no set hq either.

that being said, it's gwen's band. she's the protagonist, she's the one who spearheads the council's creation. if there's an informal leader, it's her.

hq: the suite is gwen8's. the garage is gwen684's. the warehouse is gwen a's. the bullpen is gwen 18157's. the biotech startup is 17628's. the sewer is 457's.

at any rate they're declaring war on the spider-society. they don't want to ensure the survival of all gwens, just a fighting chance. and with canon being shaped the way it is, that can't happen.

the gwens selected for this fic were also chosen for their skillsets. all the most fleshed-out spider-gwens that currently exist just so happen to have the right skillset to form a strike team. whaddya know.

instead of isolating themselves, they enlist allies.

the first is hobie, who loans his place for a meeting and offers genuinely useful advice, (... and stays after to do some non-pg13-rated stuff with gwen b,)--- a callback to 5's distraction conversation.

others include:

gwen's dad, who at this point is the dad of all of them.

gwen a's mary janes, who already know her identity and have helped her with heroing before

peter porker. (the hot dog discourse is hilarious. look it up)

miles, margo (after seeing gwen457 my first thought was 'these two would be great friends') and miles g.

miles-8 and peter-73. two more partners.

aunt may 457 is gwen's crimefighting partner in the cartoon. she's her 'guy in the chair' so to speak.

peter and miles 18157, teenage boys who are gwen's friends and competitors at the bugle.

peter, miles and anya 17628. peter and miles, who are friends and coworkers. anya, who is gwen's girlfriend, because the gwenya vibe in msm17 was off the damn wall.

=all people who care about their gwens and see them as people.

so many people care, they just need to know how to.

they won't win a fight head-on, so making the society so inconvenient thatit starts to implode is their strategy.

miguel's hair going gray: ref to chapter 3, where gwen wonders if her death will amount to a white streak in his hair someday. not quite death, but a ton of mayhem from a ton of gwens will do the job just fine.

weird fact about earth65 technology: all the phones have minesweeper installed. i like to think gwen8's bonding with her son via beating each other's high scores.

peter b can definitely tell something's going on, but he is keeping it to himself.

gummy spider surveillance finally pays off. also it's my way of trying to justify the more omniscient pov-- technically, if you squint, gwen's observing the society goings-on through her gummies.

the brunch club joke is from the comics. not shitty at all there, for what it's worth.

i simply think that detective stacy and spider-guin deserve to kill. that is all.

so. shit's rotting.

the society as an institution is irredeemable, but it's full of good people who are misguided and confused. and realizing how misguided they've been, and how harmful their actions are (so harmful that the ghosts of their dead first loves are trying to destroy them), is triggering an internal breakdown.

web imagery: miguel's portals look like an orb weaver's, so i figure that's his approach to canon-- neat lines that are easy to arrange in a pattern. so he wants the web/multiverse to eventually resemble that concept.

in reality, it's supposed to be messy and chaotic, and being manipulated so heavily is going to yield a violent counterreaction.

gwen doesn't trigger it. she's a gwen. canon can rot because of her, but it won't break open.

she's not the wrecking ball. miles is. he's the one whose creation blew open the doors on the idea that anyone can be spider-man and his story doesn't have to follow peter's.

(... but fwiw, the 'not the only one' section also refers to the spot.)

miles and gwen, together but not together, are what's necessary to break things open.

miles tangent

as stated repeatedly before, one of my goals for this fic was making sure miles still gets his canon arc. i think it's exactly what his character needs, and i don't want to flatten him or assassinate his character and throw him away after shooting gwiles dead. so he's still getting all his atsv development, just at a much slower rate and offpage.

it goes as follows:

may: he joins the society on a trial basis for a month (excused as 'well gwen's obviously an anomaly and yet she got to join, so miguel's clearly persuadable'). his first mission's still mumbattan, but it's really just gwen showing him the ropes; the spot just fell off the face of the earth or some shit, he doesn't show up here. miles spends a month reconnecting with gwen, peni and peter b, befriending pav, hobie, margo as well.

he still learns about the captain death event, but jeff doesn't get his promotion until august, so miles just thinks that his father's death is possible if he becomes captain. thus, he doesn't panic and try to get home to protect him; the threat is distant and it isn't even clear if it'll happen at all.

june: he shoots his shot with gwen and shoots himself in the foot. he avoids the hell out of gwen and hobie, doubles down on his friendships with peni and margo, and starts getting mentored by peter b. he also starts asking about the other mileses because his existential crisis is just beginning, and triggered by gwen: he fully assumes her rejection of him is a rejection of him and not a relationship with him. miles wants to be a great spider-man, and a great spider-man should be able to save his gwen, so he thinks she thinks he's bad at it (cue the dead dad angst). that combined with miguel's reluctance to let him in has him trying to figure out what about him is 'wrong.'

(... which leads to him learning about his anomaly status, and the prowler)

august: dad gets promoted. mumbattan happens-- but it's miles interfering with singh's death just because of dad angst and with zero spot involvement.

then he's suspended. something similar to the hq confrontation, but less severe, because the spot (a nuclear threat to the multiverse) isn't involved. i imagine miguel lays into him in front of everybody, and prepares to fire him, but peter b pulls rank to get it down to an indefinite suspension.

~during his suspension he, margo and peni head to earth 42 to meet his shadow self. as in canon, miles gets his ass kicked by g. and the girl who likes him has to call in friends to help. difference is, now the girl is margo and he went to 42 with her and peni. anyway he and g work it out. and miguel decides not to let him back in over this.

also he and margo get together romantically during this time. i love flowerbyte! good ship! it's what they need and deserve!

in january, he reunites with gwen on earth-73, formally quits the society and has enough closure to fully move on.

may: the spot turns up on his doorstep at the end of the school year as miles weighs how to break some coming-of-age revelations to his parents ('i want to be an artist, not a physicist', 'i have a girlfriend from another dimension now', 'i'm spider-man').

back to the plot

so. the spot turns up after a year of blasting holes in the multiverse, finally ready to get his revenge, and the society wants to stop it. they're spider-people; they want to help.

and they receive concrete proof that they aren't when miguel refuses.

peter b. seems like he was one of miguel's first recruits. and they were, at one point, friends. i figure that's why he keeps sticking around. he has trouble letting go.

jess, in contrast, is here for the mission. she cares about keeping the multiverse safe, and has finally had enough with the society's incompetence.

everyone gathers to protect miles's world, including his mentor, his friends, and gwen, who rallies a band of her own together to do so.

differences being: peter's the one who says 'fuck the society, we need to help him' because i'm salty about him being so hands-off towards this kid he mentored so well in itsv.

and gwen does not start her band for a spider-man; she does it for herself.

but using them to help him is important. it's gwen wanting to save her friend, but it's also all the spider-gwens acting to save a fellow anomaly and affirm his existence and status as the protagonist of his own story. it's that arc of self-definition miles had that their organization now has too: 'you should have the ability to choose your own destiny and not be punished for it too'.

plus stacy's got beef with the spot so it's personal.

the one-two punch of miles and gwen breaks the society: acknowledging that miles and his world matter and deserve to exist, and seeing with their own eyes that turning gwen stacy into an object was unbelievably wrong.

whiplash!

pavitr

this was supposed to be an epilogue, but it got tacked on. forgive me the pov shift.

so. final timeline update: it's been another month. it's june now.

jess is still at it. there is something valuable about the society intervening to send people back to their dimensions before they glitch. only now, the philosophy is more search-and-rescue than policing.

most people don't have portal watches anymore, so transdimensional travel has died down, but it's still around in some capacity.

pav's still hanging out with miles and hobie, albeit not together at the same time.

rotten foundation.

aside from showing the passage of time, it's moody as hell, and it's appropriate theme-wise for pav to be in the society ruins. he needs to humble himself, and to calm down a safe distance away from everything so he can come to the right conclusion.

i like to think hobie drops by the ruins sometimes too. hence the graffiti.

hobie's beheaded his pm and taken a step into his public era as spider-punk, but remains cognizent of the work still to do.

hobie's great at keeping secrets, but dude needs to work on communicating. it's one of his most compelling flaws. if the guy just told miles 'don't join the society, they're gonna hurt you' instead of dancing around it, so much shit could've been avoided. same goes for telling gwen he's working on a bootleg portal watch for her. i figure he keeps things from pav too.

so pav's been out of the loop re: gwen since august. given how things went with him and gwen and all the shit that happened afterwards, i think they were too uncomfortable to approach each other, then things got too busy with the council on gwen's end.

and ultimately, he had to come to her. he wasn't ready to do that until now.

he wants to be friends with her again, and to get that old friend group together and see if they still work, but something else has to come first.

(sidebar: pav came to the spot fight with peter and the society defectors, not gwen. she turned up later.)

he's mad about the mumbattan incident, but he also misses her, and understands why she did what she did. time's given him the perspective he didn't have earlier.

pav's innocence and naivete are some of his most winning qualities. they are also a serious problem, because yes, you shouldn't have to be traumatized to be considered legitimate or mature, but if you never have a hard time, you're not going to be able to empathize with people who are.

ergo, during the past year, pav's screwed up big with gwen (and miles, for that matter). he fundamentally could not understand where they were coming from, and couldn't give them the advice they needed.

he gets that now.

spider-man is a coming-of-age story, and part of growing up is making mistakes, suffering losses, having a hard time. and pav has to grow up at some point, so it's going to start getting harder for him. because he doesn't know what that's like, it's gonna hit especially hard for him.

starting with gayatri. the same old story's playing out, right down to the goblin and the bridge, and pav knows how this goes. and because he spent months convinced he'd be the exception, he did nothing to prevent this from happening.

but now that canon's in pieces, he's able to reevaluate, and let go of all those impulses that cause spider-man to fuck this up: he accepts that he might not be different after all, he might make a mistake, he might not be the right person to help.

in short, he woke up from the 'spider-man gets the girl' dream.

this section is meant to show a spider-man having that revelation.

gwen's appearance: time's marched on, and she's grown up.

(hair tangent: it's longer because time passed and the undercut's complete because she's fully through the door miles first opened. the dye's purple specifically because 1) gwen's original costume wasn't pink. it was purple. as she became more popular, they changed the accent to the Girl Color, which 2)... is the girl color. little girls are socialized to assume they should like pink most. usually, they switch to favoring purple first as they get older and start to question all the trappings of girlhood. gwen, not a girl anymore but not quite an adult, who's done the same. 3) the other spider-gwens who dye their hair all do it in shades of pink. gwen's taking another step towards being something unique. 4) it's the color of carnage's tongue.)

gwen's a step ahead of spider-man. pav's grown enough to be comfortable with that. he's okay with not being as mature as her, because he knows he'll get there at his own pace. and he doesn't want trauma to be what sends him there.

you know shit's bad when pav's hair isn't perfect.

callback to chapter 3: pav doesn't know if things will be different.

he's spider-man. he has to try-- but now he knows that he needs to try something new.

so: he's here to ask gwen to help him save gayatri. closure for him, and closure for her.

gwen hugs him because she does miss him and want that reconciliation.

spider-man catches gwen stacy one last time. then he lets her go, and defers to her judgment. and doing that works.

(i like to think that pav and gayatri will work out. he's bringing her what she needs to save herself, and he's going to let her do it.)

end quote

from jason latour's radioactive spider-gwen. spoken in context by gwen 617, as she (on behalf of the council of spider-women) encourages the watchers (in-universe, and you, the reader) to let gwen 65 develop as her own person, rather than repeating someone else's arc. or existing as someone's girlfriend.

#arachnophobia fic

[tojikai]

😯 my face the entire chapter. WTF WTF WTF. I got to get my thoughts out so bare with me.

First of all I want to curb stomp Satoru’s mom she’s such a bitch my god. I’ve been disliking Naomi but that was literally disgusting I had to put my phone down for a minute and the fact that she’s still trying to justify her actions 🤢 I also found it so interesting that for both his mom and Naomi they have painted yn as this villain to justify all of their actions like they have to team up to defeat her when she has literally done nothing to either of them.

Now Toji obviously they are going to argue especially with the circumstances of both but yn deserves nothing except kind simple love fr (I have been team toji since day one).

I’ve also liked that Gojo has finally started treating yn like a human and co-parent (not enough he needs to grow a pair and slaughter his mother) just hate that this change has only come about after his love confession. Although I still don’t want gojo and yn together I do want them to have a good co-parent and friend relationship for themselves and yui

NOW YN honestly I’m about to stop with the team toji vs team gojo and just be team yn to give this girl some damn self love. The lack of communication drives me insane literally screaming at my screen for her to just spill her feelings & thoughts out. Also just her lack of self defense she’s SOOO much better than me I’m cussing everybody out like how dare y’all talk about her like that especially with yui right there 🤺🤺. It’s both sad and frustrating even in ch.4 with the confrontation between yn & satorus mom and she said she wanted to have strength even if it was for yui and she still couldn’t do it. I want better for her fuck all the men and just give her & yui (+ gumi) a good life

you have officially become my fav writer making my fav series I do not think I’ve ever made an ask this long (sorry about this <3) because no other fic has made me want to throw hands but still cry like this one has 🤭🤍 still can’t wait to see how this ends! p.s. do you know how many chapters there will be?

chapter 4 is definitely frustrating 😭 just when i was writing it, i wanted yn to fight back🥹 she's not letting satoru's mother take yui of course but the fear in her brought weakness, thats why she just broke down at the thought of losing her child. and communication, ahhh her biggest enemy😭 even when during her satoru's relationship, communication was her issue 🥹 anyways thank u so much for the support, as for the number of chapters, let's just say 8-9 !!

#🍭—kaitalks #f: sundered