#no payoffs whatsoever

[lwiann]

Still so baffling to me how you cant completely ally with gortash as durge with all that history. For a game that lets you do some truly heinous things.

#i dont wanna talk about how this game treated orin and gortash #they could have been such amazing villains if this game deleted the fucking painting quest or mystic carrion quest idk and focused more on #orin and gortash like #i love those two dont get me wrong but god for the biggest players in baldurs gate they are handled so poorly #if it wasnt for the durge story i would have not given a single fuck about them #because they just seem like mini bosses in the city #everyday i am disappointed that if you do ally with him #he just dies like that jfkdkgks that is the mastermind behind everything!!! why do you kill him off like that #no payoffs whatsoever #critical #i dont like when people defend it as #yeah because he got too ambitious and he just dies like that #maybe its just bad writing idk #love this game but gosh

[recurring-polynya]

Me, a person who has struggled to get up to 3k words per week for all of 2023: Oh, hey, it's almost November. What if I just pulled a NaNoWriMo and wrote 50k words. Then my fanfic would be nearly done.

#writing #love 2 keep painstaking records so that i am fully aware of my own abilities and constantly overestimate them anyway #why am i like this #i did nano once and it was very stupid #in the sense that i got the 50k out no problemo i think i even finished early #and it was not even close to a complete story and it wasn't very good and when i finished i closed the document and never opened it again #i mean. 50k is not a novel. it simply is not. it's a weird and arbitrary goal that means nothing #i mean. i am super good at achieving weird and arbitrary goals that mean nothing. i was so so so good at being in school #i just have to be careful of such things actually because i will waste all of my energy on them for absolutely no payoff whatsoever #it really would be super cool to write 50k words on my fanfic in november and also have a mental breakdown probs

[gentlethorns]

hmmm getting in my head a little bit about some issues i'm already seeing in my first draft that ik i'll need to confront in my second draft. but i genuinely just have to be like *sprays my overcritical mind w a spray bottle* no!!!!! let me finish the first draft first!!!!!!

#she bork #idk i think i'm getting ahead of myself bc again. work that is this consistent and like structurally solid is new and scary to me bc like #the greater the potential for a payoff the greater the potential for a fumble. the stakes are higher. while never being able to finish #anything was torturous in its own way it was easy in the sense that i never had to confront the idea of like 'what if i finish it and polish #the fuck out of it to the absolute furthest extent of my experience and ability . .. and it's still not good enough.' it was always just #like 'aw shucks! i've run out of steam once again. if only i could see something through to the end i could write the next great american #novel i just know it :/ ah well. try again next week!' but now nothing is in my way whatsoever so i'm like aw fuck that is so scary like if #nothing comes of this project it will be My Fault. also sorry this is all i have spoken about on here for like a month but i'm STILL not #done yapping about it and you all are my captive audience and WILL be forced to listen to each and every thought i have about this wip. #sorry but too bad #anyway once again offering that if anyone is curious about this wip i am open to questions or discussion. one thing about me (which i'm sure #y'all know by now) is that i LOVE. to yap #novel 2024

[dbphantom]

Thought process: wow I have so many tabs open on my Firefox what the hell was I do-

Carry on.

#The other 7 tabs were also H2O related. Namely Max and Gracie's pages as well as Charlotte's #I also had a really funny page open that described mako island completely incorrectly? Describing lost ruins from a bygone civilization #Scattered across the island. Which I guess could technically be from Mako Island of Secrets (with the merman chamber) but like... #The images they attached were of old decaying bridges and temples so I don't think so! #This fic has been a journey and a half #Season 2 is suddenly at least 5 episodes longer #In my defense I really think it'll be worth it for the payoff at the end. I hope. #I'm giving the girlies (me) everything they've (I've) ever wanted #Cruddy rambles #... It is essentially just the show but Lewis is a fish now #I love all the other merman Lewis fics too but they do tend to deviate from canon a lot. Which isn't a bad thing!! Just not what I'm vibing #With atm so I'm writing what I want #I mean it is a whole rewrite so deviating from canon is implied but y'know what I mean? I just want s2 but with a few tiny details changed #A lot of them tend to be removed from the '[generally] slice of life but with mermaids' style of canon #Which is what I'm really vibing with atm as I'm currently in a tumultuous period of my life #So like absolutely no hate to those styles. I fucking adore them (and am heartbroken one author who posted recently never came back after #I posted a comment on their work talking about MA Zewis 😭😭😭) because holy shit their stuff slaps hard as hell and I love all of them #I'm the number 1 merman Lewis fan #I Stan every single person who has posted art or writing for that style of au #Just to make it absolutely fuckin clear that I mean no hate whatsoever. I just wanna throw my own hat into the ring yknow?

[bruhstation]

at this point I don't think any of this is real like I can't believe this went from haha funny train human au to a fully fleshed out story where these humanised trains are suffering 24/7 /lh

I just love seeing characters get back to their feet even after going through so many losses. always gets me giggling and kicking my feet gayly like an emperor from 400 BC watching a fight to the death in the colosseum

#asks #anonymous #casa tidmouth #when emotional scenes got too long for my liking I just go ''Okayy who wants to get thrown around like a volleyball and lit on fire'' #also wouldn't it be extremely boring to see people suffer without any payoffs or light moments in between whatsoever?

[wulfhalls]

do you have any fav fics? or you don't usually read fanfiction?

gyzyms inception fight club au. game changing moment in writing. fanfic or otherwise. effervescent impeccable incomprehensible levels of talent ability and style. fucking insane. I don't even think it's on livejournal anymore but I still have it on my kindle thingie from licheral 2012 that I only keep around so I never lose it. 2010 ish inception fic hits different they don't make em like that no more.

#asks #who remembers everything london can do to u. the only valid people who ever watched sherlock were the sexi ones #who cared about moriarty exclusively and headcanoned michael fassbender as moran for 2 years straight with no payoff whatsoever #i could still recite paragraphs of that fic fr 😭😭

[duckdotcom]

this website is full of some of the greatest writers ever to use their talents for evil and chaos with no payoff whatsoever

[colorful-horses]

Been watching that new Hazbin Hotel show as it's coming out (🏴‍☠️) and I'm pretty disappointed with it. I'm not super familiar with the Everything about it, but I remember watching the pilot way back when and liking the premise.

I hadnt kept up with it after the pilot because I wanted to see it with fresh eyes. Now that the show is coming out, somehow I feel like an outsider watching it lol. It presents a lot of concepts, but it just assumes the watcher is already familiar with the characters, and it makes the pacing reeeeally odd. It's all payoff, no buildup (unless you count the years fans had to wait for it as 'build up'). I feel like I REALLY need to look for supplementary material to understand what's going on,, like.... why was there a whole emotional power ballad for a character who was only introduced 10 minutes prior?? Was I supposed to know who she was?😭 (her heels were cool though)

Tonally it's strange, too. It feels like an adult show written for teenagers a lot of the time, which is the BIGGEST disappointment. I was really hoping for more thoughtful explorations of the characters, but we really only get that for Angel Dust and like .... no one else lol. (Sir Pentious is the 👏FUCKING👏BEST👏)

Charlie and Vaggie feel ESPECIALLY underbaked. Considering how overtly sexual the show is, it's SHOCKING how little chemistry they have. Like, it's not there at all. I watched the show with a friend who had no knowledge about Hazbin Hotel whatsoever, and during episode 4, she asked me,"So why is Vaggie helping here?" which I feel is the best example I can give for how poorly developed their relationship is.

I like the music. The song transitions are usually really jarring (Respectless and Hell's Greatest Dad come to mind) but the songs themselves are usually bangers. I'm a big fan of Loser, Baby.

The designs are ..... not for me. But that's not necessarily a criticism. A lot of the character designs feel very dated, but I respect them for sticking so hard to the aesthetic they present, even if its not for me. I wish there was more outfit and body type variety in the characters, but literally EVERYONE says that, so I'll just leave that there lol.

Overall I think this show is a shining example of why """"filler"""" episodes are so important. If this were a 12 or even 24 episode season I think it'd be way better, but as it is, they're trying to cram like 15 different character arcs + a dramatic overarching story into 8 episodes, and it's really REALLY suffering for it.

#please dont read this as a hate post please dont read this as a hate post please dont read this as a hate post #ive just been watching it and its stuck with me but in a disappointing way #i cant say i like it. but its interesting to pick apart #for every element i really enjoy theres two that i really dislike. strange viewing experience #thats all. thanks for coming to my annual Syrup Watches A Weird Piece Of Media And Talks About It For Tooooo Long tedtalk #not art

[shinelikethunder]

favorite genre of pan for True Detective s4 so far is "the case plot was a poorly-constructed convoluted mess of plot holes that took a hard turn for the ridiculous at the end, it kept flirting with the supernatural and teasing cosmic horror without ever committing to a satisfying payoff, the whole thing was a vibes-based vehicle for the head writer's pet fixations, its messaging was ultimately just Not That Deep, and the only things rescuing it were nice visuals and the fab chemistry between the leads....... but the thing that really made me hate it is that it had nothing whatsoever in common with s1"

like. look me in the eye and tell me you were watching s1 for the fucking plot and i'll show you a shameless liar in the mirror. just be honest and say the vibes were not vibing for you and that that is the real test of how watchable any given season of True Detective is gonna be, because most of the other reasons to pan s4 specifically by comparison to s1 are not going to make it look like you have a stellar grasp of what s1's strengths and flaws really were.

#true detective

[imnotnice]

i’m so worried that the actual valid reasons to be mad at izzy’s death are going to be drowned out by all the numbskulls talking about “bury your gays” and “killing disabled characters is inherently ableist.” (there are ableism problems in the writing, his death is not one of them) that’s not what’s wrong here. the issue is it’s a wild choice that was barely set up and had no payoff whatsoever.

in my opinion, izzy’s life had barely begun. he had just discovered an interest in performance and makeup, he was adjusting to life with a prosthetic leg, and he had finally started to work through past trauma. his life was tragically cut short by some guy we barely knew shooting him in an act of cowardice and desperation. this might have been effective narratively, except it wasn’t. his death was more about ed than it was about izzy. the tragedy of this moment, that izzy still had a crew that loves him and a life to look forward to, that he was dying still believing that he deserved the abuse he went through, none of that was remotely acknowledged. in that moment it was all about ed and what izzy’s life meant for ed’s character. so, this isn’t a moral problem, it’s mostly a writing problem.

and maybe they’ll make it work in s3 and bring him back as a seagull or undead sea creature or give him more consideration/mourning. but until they fix this unsatisfying mess they’ve created i’m gonna be disappointed and a little mad. i just hope everyone is mad for the right reasons. because one the worst feelings as a fan of media is seeing two fellow fans who are both wrong argue about something you care about.

#our flag means death #ofmd s2 e8 #izzy hands #our flag means death spoilers #ofmd s2 spoilers #this is the only post i am making about izzy #i’m not even really that mad i was literally just shocked #it was not a decision i had considered them making at all #because it doesn’t make sense #praying for buttons magic to do something

[chaifootsteps]

I realized something about Ozzie's. most of the reason the episode worked and feels like it's one of three best episodes of HB (the other being truth seekers and harvest moon maybe coming in third) was because it seemed like it was paying off the plot that had been set up in season 1 to that point - Blitzo taking his stalking of M&M too far, Blitzo being confronted with the fact that his new life was pretty empty of any real bonds or intimacy despite his attempts to form them and Stolas reaping what he'd sown in regards to Blitzo not trusting he would ever want anything but sex.

but then you realize that Viv isn't capable of writing payoffs or conflicts competently, so moments that feel like a status quo change - M&M feeling like Blitzo has gone too far, Stolas&Blitzo's "relationship" being exposed in a prominent Hell club - have no consequences whatsoever. the same is true of Truth Seekers in hindsight - Blitzo hasn't changed his treatment to Moxxie in any substantial way (look at how he yells at him in exes and ohs and insults him pretty brutally in unhappy campers) since they both promised they'd try and work on it, and it's been what? like nearly ten episodes since then?

The same is true with Stolas & Blitzo. it felt like it worked so well in Ozzie's because it was paying off a season's worth of setup of Stolas using and demeaning Blitzo, and Blitzo being unable to put up with it any longer when Stolas suddenly acts like he has romantic intentions. but from what I remember Viv liked a tweet where someone said the moment was just 'Blitzo being annoyed Stolas tried to act romantic after the fact [when he didn't stand up for him in the club]'. And that's a legitimate thing for Blitzo to be annoyed about but not only was the scene very much not written that way ("don't act like what we have is anything but you wanting me to fuck you. you make that really clear, all the time") but it's a far weaker argument scene if so and a complete waste of the setup.

and in hindsight it's also clear that even if Viv had written the scene at the time to call Stolas out, her intentions for the argument in season 2 are much different - to end the Full Moon deal, not by making Stolas do any actual character development but just by retrofitting New Perfect Stolas onto the antagonist we started out with and acting like he meaningfully changed, when no one in this show ever meaningfully changes (closest they've managed is Blitz&Fizz making up, but Blitzo didn't do a whole lot to repair that relationship and was barely written as being in the wrong to begin with). I'll be surprised if the argument comes up in the Full Moon episode at all, especially since the show already half-assed a payoff to it in the form of Stolas' on screen for one second manipulative non-apology via text - they'll probably just beeline to holding Blitzo responsible for Stolas sexually coercing him and also for Stolas being the one to fail to protect his own magical grimoire properly

It's true, isn't it? Ozzie's was, in a lot of ways, that last shining moment of hope for the writing in the series. It felt like things coming together, like Viv finding her feet.

It wasn't.

#Anonymous #helluva boss critical #viv stuff #actual blog post

[yiangchen]

and another thing about the 2,199 radio calls! this whole plotline wasn't something that the writers had to do...like. clarke wasn't entirely alone. she found an orphaned little girl and became her mother. madi became her whole purpose. madi kept her sane. narratively, that would have been enough. narratively, bellamy keeping her sane as well didn't need to happen. i mean, you could make the argument that clarke holding onto hope that her friends would come back to her is essential to her character as well. and yes! you would be correct. but there was more to it than that. the writers didn't have clarke calling raven or monty or harper or murphy or emori. the writers had clarke calling specifically bellamy and only bellamy. the writers chose to highlight the dedication and love and trust that clarke had for bellamy specifically and her faith that he specifically would return. he didn't come back after 5 years when he was supposed to and she was still calling him, and only him, for another year and 7 days until he finally did. clarke never lost hope because of bellamy. madi gave her purpose, but bellamy gave her hope. something to believe in. and it is absolutely wild that after all of that...there was no payoff whatsoever. biggest letdown of all time. in any show ever. i know that they didn't end up together, and yet, i'm still questioning it?? you're telling me that a relationship between two characters that had this much build up didn't lead to anything?? you're telling me that she had this much love for him and still shot a bullet through his heart?? sounds fake but okay!! i have watched the scene with my own two eyes, but it will never feel real to me. that was an entirely different show. clarke called bellamy for 2,199 days. 2,199 days!! what was the reason?!?!!

#sometimes i get the urge to rewatch and i have to tell myself IGNORE the urge #please GOD ignoreeeeeee #bellarke #t100

[transmutationisms]

caden caden caden i am SO EXCITED to hear your thoughts for this episode. consider this ask an open prompt to say literally anything at all about it whatsoever <3

ok here goes. this was the payoff of an idea the show has been exploring for nearly four seasons now: that spectacle and showmanship can become reality, or more to the point, there is no essential difference between the two in the first place. politics is a particularly effective, and off-putting, demonstration of this process: the whole episode is driven by the tension between the created narrative and the material events, and through waystar's machinations, the dichotomy between the two can finally be totally collapsed and the country brought into line with atn's story of a mencken victory.

this is genuine, if genuinely repulsive, performative speech: a discursive practice that enacts or produces what it names. very few people are empowered such that they are capable of performative speech: presidents, lawmakers, judges, &c are the classic examples. and, in a world in which politics is not just a show but a profitable one, a company like atn can also join this list. this is not the first time we've seen atn use language to alter reality (for example, logan ultimately evaded the cruises scandal largely by pressuring the president through the manufacture of bad press) but it's a new height of brazenness for the siblings. what the show suggests is that the electoral process—the voting, the polls, the campaigning—is theatre, and what appears at first to be theatre—the television cameras, the graphics, the anchors touching up their makeup—is the speech that actually makes events happen, functioning of course as a mouthpiece for possibly the most powerful family in america.

succession has always been interested in the power of speech and the significance of language—"words are just complicated airflow" is from the second episode. the way characters talk is frequently bullshit, like tom and greg making up corporate-speak jargon in 'argestes' or kendall promising eternal life in 'living+'. they use profanity and metaphor to talk around their feelings, or as games in which the object is to assert dominance and the specific argument at hand barely matters. so much of the dialogue is 'meaningless' on the lowest level. yet, bolstered by a family dynasty and uttered by an anchor on an atn camera, words become not just meaningful but actually constitutive of reality. what kendall didn't understand in episode 2, and what logan understood instinctually but probably never in so many words, is that what constrains the reality-making capacity of speech is not some impotence inherent to language itself, but the social power structures its speakers exist in. speech in the hands of the powerful is itself also a technology of power.

ultimately this sort of tension between speech and event, or spectacle and reality, is why the show has always depended on the roys being a media family specifically. the commentary here is not just on a vague or generalised definition of capitalism, or on the effect of profit motives on politics. succession is specifically interested in how a corporation like waystar becomes successful by capitalising on the total spectacularisation of life, and how waystar can then use its position to create spectacle that is constitutive of a new reality without needing to be reflective of a preexisting one. it's a kind of frankenstein's monster: a beast raised by electricity whose powers far exceed what it was meant to be endowed with. this is why, as much as logan disdained certain cultural products and media (plays, music), he always valued the atn mouthpiece. what the siblings produced in this episode, and what logan valued atn for being able to produce, was not 'news' in the sense of being a reporting on reality, but 'truth' in the sense that the company simply willed it into reality instead.

#atn bts shots my beloved. #tripping the light fantastic

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

I think people who are mad at Fyodor and saying he underestimates Chuuya forget something though - Chuuya's capable of all these impressive physical feats and stuff, but at the end of the day, he's not particularly smart. He's always easily manipulated by Dazai, Ranpo was able to trap him in a book by simply goading him, Mori is able to keep him in line despite Chuuya being way more powerful, etc. Idk I think the fandom put Chuuya on a pedestal for some reason but he has weaknesses too.

"people who say he underestimates Chuuya" as if... I am not one of those people...? I made a whole analysis on this anon??? I'm a bit confused why you sent this to me...

I'm going to assume this was sent in good faith and that you haven't read the light novels, because it becomes very clear from those that Chuuya is actually perfectly intelligent. I'd say probably above average, if I'm being honest - he picks up new skills very quickly with no formal education and he's really quite intuitive. It's just that the poor guy is constantly surrounded by strategic geniuses, and due to his hot-headedness, he comes across as less intelligent by comparison.

If he's so smart, why then is he always tricked by Dazai? Well, everyone is tricked by Dazai. It's kind of Dazai's whole thing. He runs circles around most people. He pranks and torments Kunikida, Atsushi, Sigma, and the list goes on. This has little bearing on Chuuya's intelligence, and is much more to do with Dazai's intelligence. Besides, this kind of becomes a moot point when their plans are very much a team effort, made and carried out with barely any verbal communication whatsoever. When it's time to get serious, Dazai is far from leading Chuuya - they're in step with each other. Chuuya keeps up with Dazai, and is capable of challenging him. That's why the partnership works.

Why was Ranpo able to trap him in Poe's book? Let's take a step back and think to the build up of that. Firstly, this is during Cannibalism arc, where each side had two days to save the lives of their respective leaders. Chuuya's family is under threat, and so he's already under a lot of stress. Second, Ranpo is well-known for being an intentionally irritating little toad and he knew just what to say to make Chuuya lose it - ordinarily, Chuuya is actually capable of keeping it together, but Dazai makes him angry enough to explode. Finally, I sincerely doubt Chuuya expected to get sucked into a book. There's no way he didn't think the goading was a trap, but really? He couldn't have known that and likely assumed his ability was strong enough to handle anything Ranpo threw at him.

So, there's a weakness of sorts, and it's actually highlighted by Hirotsu in Fifteen. Chuuya tends to jump into things because he expects he will just be able to "handle things", which is a consequence of growing up with a powerful ability. Hirotsu warns that people who overly rely on their abilities end up in trouble. This scene was likely a form of payoff for that warning. Either way, I'd expect he won't make that same mistake twice.

Why is Mori able to keep him in line? He isn't, because he doesn't have to. Chuuya serves under Mori because he sees Mori as the successful leader that he wasn't. To Chuuya, Mori has what he doesn't - he respects him and thinks he can learn from him. Chuuya sees the Sheep's betrayal as his own personal failure as their leader. This has nothing to do with intelligence, one way or the other.

Moreover, I think it needs to be said that Chuuya is often well aware when he's being manipulated. He's not oblivious, it's just that there's often nothing he can really do about it. For instance, he is very aware that Fyodor's intention in Cannibalism is to make the agency and mafia fight each other, but as they only have two days before Mori dies and that isn't enough time, he opts for the most direct and immediate course of action.

So, there's another weakness - Chuuya's really not a long-term strategist. He doesn't play the long game like Mori, Dazai or Fyodor - he prefers to sort things out as quickly as possible. However, I need to stress that this does not make him unintelligent or never strategic in the short term.

And that is all that is needed to turn the tables on Fyodor - Fyodor devalues everything about Chuuya other than his ability, but it is always Chuuya who wields that ability, not Dazai. I don't think anyone expects Chuuya to come up with a master plan to completely destroy Fyodor's plans for good... but I fully expect Chuuya to clothesline the guy after the way he continues to refer to him like he's little more than a tool. He's done it before.

Actually, I think I'm just going to wrap this up with a quick list of moments I can think of off the top of my head that demonstrate Chuuya's intelligence.

Every piece of media: Chuuya near immediately pieces Dazai's manipulations together in retrospect, from start to finish.

Main manga: Chuuya is sent to negotiate with the Agency, implying he learned negotiation well from Kouyou.

Fifteen: Chuuya awkwardly tries to shift the investigative focus away from Arahabaki and onto the Old Boss. While this doesn't change Dazai's focus, Dazai ends up entirely unsuspicious of him because he thinks Chuuya just wants to beat people up.

Fifteen: Chuuya expressly warned the Sheep against venturing into Mafia territory to avoid extra aggression.

Fifteen: Chuuya knew the entire time that Randou was the culprit and was gauging how much Dazai knew about his own connection to the Arahabaki situation.

Fifteen: Chuuya goes back to investigate the arcade, suspecting Dazai of having tampered with the game, and was correct in his assumption.

Stormbringer: Chuuya escapes Adam by entering a dark tunnel then hiding to give the illusion that he ran all the way through it. It works and Adam runs right past him.

Stormbringer: Chuuya fakes out Verlaine into thinking he's going to attack N while gearing up to attack Verlaine instead.

Stormbringer: Chuuya fakes out Verlaine again so Adam can launch a surprise attack with an anesthetic.

Dead Apple prologue: Chuuya pieces together Dazai's clue from a single piece of dialogue.

Dead Apple: Chuuya near instantly predicts the course of an incoming grenade while on his motorcycle in motion to ride the shockwave and avoid getting hit.

Also, I think it's important to note that Chuuya's ability is gravity manipulation, not telekinesis. He's not moving whatever he touches - he's manipulating one of the forces acting on it. This means he needs to adjust in the moment to other forces acting on the objects in his surroundings, which can and do change - my first thought was of wind affecting resistance. Either way, he's actually having to juggle a lot of sensory information in the heat of a single moment and that's very difficult to do.

If anyone wants to add any "Chuuya is not dumb" moments that I have missed, please feel free to in the tags or the comments.

Anyways, I hope this answered the initial question, anon!

#thanks for the ask! #anyways i'm tired so i hope this was coherent! #bsd #bsd meta #bsd chuuya #storyrambles

[mdhwrites]

How does no one talk about this? It's from a summary of the final Post Hoot and like... How is no one talking about this? Or ever talked about this?

They had no OUTLINES. BY THE END OF S2A, THEY HAD NO OUTLINES! Like not even a "This is the general idea of what S2B will look like." Sure, that still needs to be filled in but they literally confessed to writing Yesterday's Lie, to getting that episode done, with literally NO PLANS on how to follow it up. You know, despite leaving it on a fucking cliffhanger.

How does anyone still think you can defend the show with the shortening when Dana herself admitted you can't. We didn't miss out on anything after all because there was no grand plan to miss out on. It was just all vapor. All half baked ideas.

And I really want to emphasize that she's stating that this was the case WHILE THE HALF SEASON WAS FINISHED. She had NO ONE working on the next half pre-emptively? No plans whatsoever for where it was going to go? Yesterday's Lie ends on a giant cliffhanger that demands to be answered and changes the very perception we have of the main character... And you're telling me you had no clear plans for what you were going to do about that?

The shortening is not an excuse. Period. Dana admitted herself, even if she didn't mean it that way. And for a show that constantly kicks payoffs down the line like TOH did, like stuff with the palisman or Willow and Amity's friendship, that makes this all the more inexcusable.

TOH could have only ever survived for so long like this. The shortening didn't hurt the show. It's simply why it has a better legacy than it would have if it had wasted more of our time.

======+++++======

I could do an entire blog on how much this picture explains so much about some of the truly bizarre elements of S2B. Also yes, I do hate that she goes on to say in this same post-Hoot that she had plans for X elements or the like because you JUST admitted you didn't. They may have been things you wanted to do but you literally can't say they would have happened. Not when you didn't even have an OUTLINE.

Part of my rage about this btw is that I have spent so much of this past week proving why issues run deep with the show and that the shortening didn't matter while meanwhile they just straight up ADMITTED it didn't.

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

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

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#the owl house criticism #toh critical #toh #the owl house

[therealvinelle]

Tom Riddle but he takes time after school and gets a muggle science degree through sheer stubborn determination, because damn if he isn't going to learn how all those bombs work. Still Voldemort?

Those who remember my Tom, possible creator of requirement rooms (or who have read this blog at all) post, will know that I like my esoteric Tom theories.

In other words:

Who's to say he didn't?

A bit about Tom's prospects

As an orphaned child growing up in poverty in the 1930's, Tom would have had no prospects, no future, nothing whatsoever. Being the lowest of the low in a rigidly classist society he was never going to get into any of the good schools, no matter how well he applied himself, and he wasn't going to get a prestigious job, nevermind a well-paying one.

If he hadn't been accepted into Hogwarts, I imagine he would have ended up on the fringes of society, using his abilities and underground network to become that guy you pay to make your problems go away. I... can't think of a more lucrative, nor a more probable, venue for Tom, not when every conventional path would have been infinitely harder and with less payoff.

I also imagine that he knew this even then, that even if he hadn't formed the specific plan of becoming the neighbourhood witch he knew he was going to have to figure something out if he wanted to live a comfortable life.

Along came Hogwarts, however, and with it the promise of a future Tom could never have hoped to touch otherwise.

When plots thicken

Tom would have had two problems, though.

The first: Hogwarts does not teach a Muggle curriculum, nor does it provide diplomas the Muggle world would accept.

The second: Expulsion leads to the confiscation of your wand, and the student is forbidden from practicing magic. In other words, the past few years' worth of education will be completely wasted, and the student will be unemployable in the wizarding world and completely without qualifications in the Muggle world.

To a pureblood, or even half-blood child, this would be harsh but survivable: I imagine the student either finds work the way Hagrid and Filch did, doing something non-magical within the magical world, or they become the family hanger-on, the one who never moves out but who, in a world where food can be duplicated indefinitely and expansion charms exist, never becomes much of a burden either. Put differently, if expulsion ruined the lives of wizard children irrevocably, it would only have taken one pureblood child being expelled for the rules to be changed (remember, the school board and the Wizengamot are made up of the wizarding world's most influential, and Wizarding Britain being what it is, these people are all related).

To a Muggle-born, however, there would be nothing. Their only network in the Wizarding World would be their peers, who themselves are teenagers and can't take responsibility for them. They would have to return to their Muggle parents and- figure something out, it's not the Wizarding World's problem.

An expelled Muggle-born is, essentially, made Muggle again. (Make of that and the punishment for expulsion being what it is what you will.)

Tom Riddle, having no family to take him in should he be expelled and having been told in no uncertain terms by Albus Dumbledore that Hogwarts has a no-tolerance policy, and being from the working class which is disproportionately punished by law enforcement, would realise in time that attending Hogwarts means putting all his eggs in one basket. If he gets expelled, his options would be the sea or joining a crime syndicate.

But if he doesn't, then he loses out on the greatest opportunity to come his way and declining the school invitation might get his wand confiscated and him prohibited from practicing magic anyway. Certainly, the Wizarding World won't be as forgiving of him practicing magic openly among Muggles the way they were when he was a child. In other words, making a living off his magic in the Muggle world is no longer a feasible future for him.

He has to attend Hogwarts, and hope to God that he doesn't get expelled (cut to Dumbledore side-eyeing his spotless behaviour because way to be a sociopath, Tom).

(And let's keep in mind that everything went well for Tom at Hogwarts (basilisk incident excepted). He made prefect, Head Boy, and had top grades in every class. He still wound up working at Borgin and Burkes in the "So you thought merit mattered in the Wizarding World" of the decade, and only achieved greatness under a different identity with no ties whatsoever to Tom Riddle.

There was never a future for Tom Riddle in the Wizarding World.)

And this is where we enter headcanon territory: because I think Tom, who famously made a horcrux when he was fifteen and then five (or more! Who knows!) more horcruxes just in case, would have a backup plan.

Mrs. Cole, can I attend summer school?

I don't know what Tom might have said, how he did it, or anything, really. I don't know enough about how British schooling in the 1930's and 40's worked, period, if private exams were offered and how much they might have cost. Considering how there have always been children sick or otherwise unable to attend ordinary schools, I should think the possibility would have been there, though difficult if not impossible for Tom to attain.

Or it might have been as simple as telling Mrs. Cole that the school is teaching him nothing useful and clearly only exists for the wealthy to network, and hopefully he'll be able to network himself into a job that pays the bills but uh it would be nice to have actually learned algebra. Please sign him up for private exams.

Or something.

Regardless of the how, I believe that Tom would have done everything within his power to get exams in Muggle subjects. He would have had to study on his own, and perhaps not get any exams at all while he was at Hogwarts but be knowledgeable enough that he could take them as an adult: should Hogwarts for whatever reason not work out for him, he would depend on this.

My, that fellow's magic is quite something, isn't it?

Purely headcanon now: but Tom is noted again and again as being a true visionary, someone whose magic is unlike anything anybody has ever seen before.

I therefore raise the following theory: Tom's mysterious years where he was completely under the radar and no one knew where he'd gone, those years where Dumbledore could only shudder at what dark arts he was leaning, might just have been spent learning the wicked ways of physics.

Quite relevant to this theory is my belief that magic in the Harry Potter is not at odds with the laws of nature, but laws Muggle scientists haven't uncovered yet. But as wizards have become further removed from what magic truly is, choosing instead to swing their wands and spout nonsense Latin hoping it'll make their chair levitate across the room, their understanding of magic and ability to form it becomes increasingly distorted and obscured.

Tom, who would have the background for this (And who screams STEM. You don't become a powerful wizard and innovator if you wouldn't in some other universe be a programmer or a physicist), who would find himself in a world where every source of knowledge he sought out was less able to answer his questions than the next, might just have decided to find his own answers.

And what better place than to start with the basics, learn what the Muggles have uncovered and build from there?

I'm a Tom Riddle has an MA in physics truther.

#tom riddle #harry potter #harry potter meta #harry potter headcanons