#the plot armor some of these characters i love have is making me resent them for real | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cantsomeoneelsedoit · 5 days

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Ch 54: Hope

Tozuka likes to visually contrast his characters and this chapter has some great moments. I love how the light plays on their faces on this cover-- Juiz looks divine and Billy looks human.

Billy's friend is named Tella, and it's kinda obvious what his Negation ability is. I love how his antenna looks like the Under logo. In just a few panels, we learn a lot about him.

Tella is extremely loyal to Billy and follows him unquestioningly. As the radioman, he would've needed to stick close to Billy constantly during their mercenary days, so they were already quite close before Under began. If Billy is concerned that Tella could be an easy target for Juiz's ability, it's because Tella's loyalty to Billy is especially strong and pure.

Juiz plays narrator in this scene, standing straight and tall as she explains Billy's plan while he sits in silence, mostly avoiding eye contact with her.

What does Billy want to do with Ark?

The only way he could've thought that would make a decent trade is if he doesn't really know how the Loops work...

Juiz doesn't hold a grudge against him for the rebellion. She'd rather keep working together to collect Artifacts so they can reach their true goal of killing God.

Billy looks surprised that she'd offer to forgive him. His eyes look like he can't forgive himself, either.

Billy is unshaven-- scruffy, even--sitting down and side-eyeing Juiz. His face is drawn with a lot of worry lines and tired creases. Juiz's face is as smooth as a doll's and her eyes look straight ahead.

OK, first of all THAT HEART! What's that?! We've seen all of the other Artifacts in this panel, but the little heart is something new. I really hope it's a D. Gray-Man reference, but it could be Sailor Moon or something entirely different. It kind of looks like folded paper, so maybe it's a Valentine??

And the lore keeps coming! The Artifacts were created by God to defeat God?! Is God just that much of a masochist?

If UU is a metaphor for writing and God is the author, then it would make sense for them to have given the characters tools they could use to challenge the plot and to keep things interesting. A little bit of danger and tension to move the plot along...

It's curious how they seem to be parts of a suit of armor. Are they intended to used by one character who wields all of them or divvied among many characters? Does each Negator have an ideal Artifact?

Back to the conversation, IMO Billy's right to be resentful of the way Juiz has hidden this info for so long. These people were trusting her with their lives, and yet she was the only one who knew the whole story. I don't blame him a bit for being pissed. As a mercenary, he trusted his crew fully, as we can see with Tella.

Juiz has a traditional, top-down style of leadership that depends on a hierarchy (despite the fact that it's called a Round Table). She gives the orders, and the Union follows them even if they don't fully understand the situation until after the mission. When they report to her, she says things like, "That's what I thought..." but there doesn't seem to be any reason for her to have been so cagy.

Billy asks her how she even found out about the origins of the Artifacts, and she opens an entire new can of worms by talking about Ark.

EXCUSE ME?!?

The loops don't just go on forever?! Ark has a limit? Why? How? WTF even is Ark?

I love this page.

The backgrounds, the expressions, the clothes and hair--even how tightly their coats are fastened is contrasted here. It gets even more topsy-turvy because both of them are acting outside of their usual personalities: Juiz has begun to be honest with Billy while he's let his cool, no worries, gunslinger persona slip into a slightly vulnerable, sullen, and wounded version we've never seen.

What will happen when Ark runs out of gas? Does that symbolize an author giving up on writing a good story? What happens to God if this world is destroyed for good? What happens to Victor?

Juiz tells him that Ark can only take one person and informs him that there's no way he could make enough progress to gather Negators and Artifacts in just one attempt. After all, she's looped enough times that she knows what would change about the world and what wouldn't, along with how to use all the Artifacts.

For the first time in the conversation, Billy stands and meets her gaze, demanding to know why she kept all this info to herself.

Now she's the one avoiding eye contact.

(Also, it kinda sounds like she explained it all to one person, but it didn't work out so she just never tried to tell anyone else. Is that true? She never explained everything to anyone except Victor? Not even in any of the other Loops?)

Victor such a bossy pants. (Also that flashback in black and white representing their black and white outlook...)

I wonder what happened that made Victor say it was all too much for her. What was the straw that broke the camel's back? Could it have been that Juiz and Victor had some major setback or defeat? Was it that the Lincoln assassination wasn't prevented??

Or was it that Victor somehow knew that the Ark was running out of fuel, so he wanted Juiz to go live a regular life and just give up on the idea of killing God? Maybe he thinks ignorance would be bliss and the Negators should just do their best to live normal lives without worrying about all this stuff going on behind the curtain.

Juiz is so pretty I can't even

He just wanted her to be happy and not have to live with the burden of being the leader of the Negators and having a near-impossible mission Groundhog Day existence. That's really sweet, but... killing God would allow everyone to be happy and live without so much suffering.

FINALLY, Juiz tells Billy that she'll tell him everything. It's cool how she extends across two panels on this page like she's stepping outside of her usual comfort zone.

How much does Juiz really know about Billy's ability? Was she already aware of it from previous Loops? How much does she know about the potential of all the abilities?

FUUKO IS THE ONE! Victor knows it! Juiz knows it! Andy knows it! Akira knows it! Fuuko is our special miracle girl! And with that revelation, Juiz asks Billy to rejoin her.

But Billy seems uninspired. And his expression changed to something more certain and determined.

He calls out to Tella to pass him a cube, and Tella immediately springs into action. He's so incredibly dependable, PLUS this means he's been listening to the entire convo and was never out of the loop (hehe) on what was being said. It implies a level of transparency he has with his team (or at least with Tella) that Juiz didn't have with hers.

I love his line here. "You've always been right. But that's not good enough." Absolutely ice cold.

UMA Burn eats the cube and begins to transform. Meanwhile, Juiz pulls out her own pokeball and feeds it a cube. Spoil, that delightful imp, immediately begins trash talking. Bless him.

Billy and Juiz face off with these almost-smiles on their faces like they both knew it would come to this. They each know the other is too stubborn and idealistic to back down.

And they're not just going to let their UMA battle it out, since they each draw their weapons. Juiz admitted earlier that Billy's power was more useful than hers. Does she really think she can overpower him here? And will we be getting more sassy Spoil one-liners?

Masterpost

#undead unluck #overreading undead unluck

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exobrasiloficial · 1 year

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Things i liked in hotd:

Most of the costumes are much better than the ones in GoT. They gave us vibrant fabrics, weird cuts, funny looking heraldry, everything a medieval setting needs. And dont even make me mention the over the top armors looking straight out of the book pages.

Casting was spot on for all the characters. I thought i wouldnt like matt smith as daemon but he does a good job. Highlights for me were paddy, olivia, emma and ewan.

The dragons' designs are amazing, they all look beautiful and unique and COLORFUL and each has a distinct personality. Overall a huge improvement over GoT's copy paste trio. I especially loved the idea of making different breeds, that was something i wasnt expecting.

Im gonna sound like a broken record, but i cant get over aemond's character design, he just looks so cool. Such a refreshing design for the series. Im glad they embraced the over the topness instead of going the euron route like in GoT.

The emotional core of the story is very good. It was gut wrenching to see rhaenyra and alicent go from loving, to falling out, to almost reconciling and now to deeply resenting each other, all bc of wrong decisions and situations beyond their control.

Things i didnt like:

Alicents costumes are beautiful and i live for the headpieces, but some of the fabrics and styling looked a bit too modern to my tastes, to the point of bothering me. There were a couple of dresses of hers that reminded me of cersei's styling in s6 onwards, which i dont like.

Whats up with the foggy, greyish filter they use? Ngl i much prefered the high contrast and warm lighting of the early seasons of GoT. Also, the extremely dark night scenes where i cant see shit is a HUGE no for me, have they learned nothing from the long night fiasco?

Time jumps. Yeah, ik, everyone dooked on them, but it cant be overlooked. The time frame depicted in eps 6 and 7 SHOULD have lasted longer and not just bc of the amazing kid actors. We needed more time to get used to all the new characters and relationships they presented. I would have loved to see more of the politics of the kingdom now that alicent has not one but 3 sons, as well as the dynamics between all the children and their relationship with the adults. What did rhaenyra feel for her siblings? What did they feel for her? Did rhaenyra have more supporters then? Did the population know of the bastard rumors? We DONT KNOW.

Far too many ignored and rushed characters. Laena, laenor and harwin were used as simple plot devices. Halaena and especially baela and rhaena have very little to no personality and we know nothing about how they feel about the events and other characters. That is a direct problem of the nature of the book being adapted. Asoiaf has many characters, but each serves a purpose and makes an impact. F&B doesnt have characters, it has a bunch of names grrm crampled in there so he could make a dragonrider civil war.

I already mentioned it, but we DID need to see rhaenyra and her siblings properly interact. Some will say the wars in asoiaf can be impersonal, like tywin and robb having the biggest rivalry in the first half of the story and never once sharing a scene, but that doesnt work here. The dance of dragons is a family infighting and the show goes out of its way to portray it as an event caused by human relationships getting in the way of politics and vice versa. We needed to know what the two monarchs fighting for the throne think of each other. Think of stannis and renly, for example.

There are more but i'll have to rewatch to properly talk about them

#04 #bea hate watches hotd #long post

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autumnslance · 3 years

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Character meme: Thancred

Give me a character and I’ll break them down:

This got long cuz I tend to ramble about this dude.

How I feel about this character:

This utter absolute godsdamned bastard of a man. How dare he.

When I really got into FFXIV finally (after only dabbling for a bit), the age gap of his listed 32 and my RL age at the time put the same distance as me and my own younger brother, and that is where Thancred fits. I was FINE with him as a total bro, as the local disaster, similar to a younger sibling I am both fond of and exasperated by. He has a lot of backstory, character development, and changes, even before Shadowbringers really brings his various issues and working through them to the foreground. I love snarky, sarcastic characters, using that to cover their pain and issues. Highly competent but still so full of doubts. Acting out middle child of the core Scions family (now the elder brother figure with Papalymo gone and his own sense of responsibility kicking in in healthier ways).

There's a lot there, and he hits a lot of character tropes I like as a writer and reader both. So for 2 full playthroughs, he was a colleague, a companion, a pal, a bro.

Now. Now when I make a fic writing WoL based off the lady midlander CGI model, now when I decide to make an ace WoL who won't get shipped with anyone cuz we so rarely see that, now when I decide to roll Aeryn through the MSQ and got to meeting the Scions and Ifrit's quest...

Sigh. Here we are, 3+ years and counting, and "Shippy Nonsense" has completely taken over my FFXIV posting and it's all that Damn Rogue's fault. I blame his bonus to sneak attack vs a WoL's smallclothes. I know he took that feat.

He’s still my bro that I am going to tease affectionately while my character swoons, but I am going to be amusedly grumbly about it forever.

(Also I still think his ARR model is Generic Anime Protag #3547 and isn’t all that visually interesting. I like bits and pieces of the HW mountain hobo look. I think his ShB model is better at showing his experience and personality, but still wish there were some adjustments.)

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Fellow Wolcred ships. I love you all. Also it just makes “sense” to me to ship WoL with a Scion over most other NPCs, and Thancred is definitely the default nice handsome male romance option like what one gets at the beginning of a Bioware game (looking at you, Carth, Kaiden, Alistair...). I just. y’know. Thought OC/NPC shipping was for other people, not me.

I have a soft spot for occasional Y'shtola/Thancred and Urianger/Thancred. I feel like he’s a person who’d only open to true romantic relationships with people he’s known and trusted for awhile, because of his own doubts and issues.

He’s totally a Bi disaster though; a lean toward women, perhaps, but certain dudes’ll turn his head.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Thancred & Minfilia for the found family brother-sister trope.

Thancred & Ryne for the same, with father-daughter flavor instead.

Thancred & Urianger for the best bros back and forth.

Thancred & Y'shtola for the best bros in a different way. I also include here occasional side-along headcanons for a FWB situation for them, safe comfort and release--especially after the Lifestream--but without romance; their love is platonic.

(I can’t quite see Urianger doing a casual FWB in the same way tho, he doesn’t strike me as the type; it’s all or nothing there.)

My unpopular opinion about this character

How I see the "temporary eye injury." How he likely wasn't as much of a slut as assumed--while he got plenty, he also used the flirting as a cover a lot (esp given how he drops the flirty demeanor entirely post-Antitower). How he likely wasn't as much of a drunkard in ARR patches as assumed, either; getting blackout drunk makes little sense when the issue was loss of control thanks to possession.

I also think many of the people who think it would have been “fitting” (or just wished for) him to die at the Trolley RP Duty in ShB missed some of the point of Shadowbringers’ overarching themes. ShB could certainly be dark at times, but overall was a story of hope and the differences between remembering the past versus being held captive by it, and the bonds between people. If it were a more tragic story with more pessimistic themes, then yes; Thancred dying then to protect Ryne with their issues unresolved would have been (heartbreaking but) fitting. However, that’s not the story being told; it’s him using that battle as catharsis to beat at his own issues and realize he really had repeated his original mistakes. To make his peace with Minfilia’s loss and then, in the end, work things through with Ryne and be the man he should have been for her.

Ryne gets the fairy tale ending of having her parental figure that she feared resented her tell her he was sorry and fix himself for her.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

We should have seen more of his and Minfilia’s found family relationship in game. There wasn’t a lot of room for it in 2.0, it could have been in the 2.x patches a bit more, but a lot about their relationship is described after she’s already gone.

Ran’jit was Thancred’s kill. There is no way that was originally written with the General porting out last second just for the WoL to suddenly be able to defeat his plot armor. The Trolley RP Duty has the foil character set up, the “last special bullet,” and the player is controlling Thancred at the time. It makes no narrative sense and stinks of executive meddling out of some fear the players would feel cheated by not having it be WoL who defeats Ran’jit, but it’s a serious misstep in the story. We could have, should have, fought suped-up Jongleurs as the speed bump boss to Vauthry, as those characters also were woefully underused.

I’m also hoping for more personal Scion history as we get to Old Sharlayan; while most of the older Scions are from or were educated in the Dravanian Colony, being around the culture and people again shall surely give us more information as to their academic backgrounds.

And we all always need more nutkin interactions and shenanigans.

#Final Fantasy XIV #Lyn Prompts #Thancred Waters #I love him and want to shake him for being Like That

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lightdancer1 · 2 years

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For that matter Zuko's arc as a villain has a similar and yet fundamentally different aspect to Azula's

Both in real terms end up rebelling against their father, both likewise are motivated by a deep and abiding desire to be loved and cherished by a man singularly incapable of doing either. These similarities are very important, because they hinge on how each of them really should be written and interpreted as well, fundamentally different people.

Azula has the official sanction of the Fire Nation and the two-edged sword of being Daddy's Preferred Child. She has everything Zuko foolishly thinks he'd want and would enjoy having if he did have it. Even then her actions go against the Fire Nation's creed and her most noticeable results with them go against the letter and the intent of Ozai's orders in bringing her brother home with his honor restored and Iroh back alive at all. Ozai was pretty clearly bluntly demanding Iroh's death and Azula explicitly refused to do this. She had literally nothing stopping her, even in a TV Y7 rating (just ask Jet). She did not do this when she had the chance.

Zuko is the angry ball of rage and resentment who was expelled by a parent he loves when he really shouldn't whose first and driving goal is to go home with his honor restored. Azula gives him exactly what he said he wanted, but by the time she does so Zuko has grown enough to realize that everything his uncle and the Gaang was telling him was right after all.

Zuko wanted to be loved and to go home, Azula believed she was loved and actually tried to save lives when if she fit the flanderized view of her character she had multiple opportunities to just shoot 'em (and as Aang could testify if she wanted to why would she resist, exactly? This is a show that literally briefly killed the title character. Zuko and Iroh start off as the least unpleasant villains and nothing obligates a show to give its villains plot armor at all).

Both of them are villains at different points in the show, both are fundamentally different to the culture around them. In one case this is recognized and the second major canon story (and due to author favoritism Zuko and his family overshadow literally everyone else in-story in the comics and that still irritates me even if I like Azula the best as a character as it's an entire world, not the Fire Nation Soap Opera). In the other case it's oversimplified by viewing words at face value when actions contradict them, and where the actions point to a separate narrative working in tandem with the Zuko-centric narrative that leaves Azula just as much an imperialist. Just the very model of what the imperialist society believed itself to be and the awareness of the contradictions in deed and rhetoric ultimately grinds her to bits under a millstone that was there all along.

It is entirely possible to have both of these views overlapping. Both Zuko and Azula are abused kids. Zuko's faults and he has a very great many of them, are given narrative favoritism by writer fanboyism where Azula's faults that in some cases are shown to be identical to heroic characters who are no less heroic for doing the same things and in other cases make her, not Zuko, the most 'heroic' of the villains in certain senses are held to make her a literally demonic force of destruction.

In reality everyone fighting for the side that introduced genocide as a final solution to winning a war are the bad guys by default. Because, lest people be shocked by this, the Fire Nation are 100% the bad guys and working for them at all, no matter how nice and affable the Fire Nation people are, makes them Villains with the capital V.

#atla #fire nation #the fire nation really is the bad guys #when Zuko and Iroh were fighting for them they were bad guys #when Azula was fighting for them she was also a bad guy #the problem is the fandom forgets season 1 Zuko and Iroh exist #zuko and iroh #zuko and azula

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otp-armada · 4 years

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If Jason wanted to convince me that Lxa was the love of Clarke's life, he wouldn't have killed her off, effectively cutting their love story permanently, with 4.5 seasons left of the show. Their arc, starting with their introduction in 2x07 and concluding with L's death in 3x07, is 17 episodes long, accounting for 17% of the entire narrative. If I generously add 3x16 to the count, an episode in which L is already dead in the corporeal world Clarke is trying to return to, it's a whopping, grand total of 18%. An 18% congruous with Clarke's intense connection to Bellamy and vice versa, which even A.lycia confirmed as romantic. Feelings romantic enough to spur the formation of a love triangle. An 18% ignoring Clarke's ultimate choice to go back to her people when L wanted her to stay.

CL is a chapter in the story begun and wrapped up in the first half of the narrative. And that's omitting further illumination on the finer details making CL so problematic for Clarke. Do you expect me to believe it was coincidental for CL to occur at a time when Clarke was spiraling down a dark path, commencing with Finn's death? Who played a hand in forcing Clarke's own hand, with Finn, and TonDC, and Mount Weather? Whose example inspired her to ensnare herself in armor and warpaint to be strong enough to save her people? Whose behavior did she emulate in the pushing away of support from her people? Who gave her a place to continue hiding from Bellamy, her mom, and her friends? A place to be someone other than Clarke Griffin? In lieu of facing her fears like the heroine she is? The purpose of CL wasn't to provide Clarke with a magnificent, fairy tale romance gone tragically wrong. I believe Jason's intent with the relationship aimed to further damage Clarke's psyche after L's death, to solidify the belief that her love is not only deadly to its recipients but renders her too weak to do what must be done for survival.

After 3x16, CL is an often superfluous namedrop or two per season for Clarke to briefly react to before carrying on with the plot. Season 5 aside, most of these references are needless enough to be able to interpret them as attempts at reparations for the L/CL fandom's benefit -and their views- without altering the course of the story. Crazy me for thinking it's not enough to constitute an ongoing love story. Crazy me for not thinking this was on par with interactions between living characters. Crazy me for thinking it doesn't befit a love story for the protagonist.

This sliver of the story is what Jason and the CLs would have us unquestionably believe is the pervasive love story of The 100's seven seasons?

Despite his lie and the constant gaslighting from the pineapple CLs, some of us know how to decipher what a temporary love interest is. Lxa? I think you know where I'm heading with this.

I'll acknowledge my admittedly negative appraisal of CL as someone who recognizes its value to the LGBT+ community and treats it as valid while not caring for L/CL on a narrative level. I felt, when swayed by L's influence, Clarke became the antithesis of what I found admirable about her. I resented Clarke's acquiescence of her power to the commander. I wanted nothing more than to remove the wedge L had driven between Clarke and Bellamy.

Let me try to give L/CL the benefit of the doubt for a minute. I don't hold L as responsible for Clarke's choices, but I recognize the prominent role she played in their upbringing. The push and pull was an intriguing aspect of their dynamic, as was the chance to meet a manifestation of who Clarke might have been if she was all head, no heart. Her fall from grace was arguably necessary for her to be a fully-rounded character, not a Mary Sue. It wouldn't be realistic for the protagonist of a tragic story about a brutal world to be a pure cinnamon roll. When forgiveness is an innate theme with Clarke, it would be my bias at work if I was content with her applying it to everyone but Lxa. Clarke saw enough commonalities between her and L to identify with the latter. When she extended forgiveness to L, I believe it was her way of taking the first step on the path to making peace with herself by proxy. None of this means I wanted them paired up. At best, I made my peace with seeing the relationship through to its eventual end. In time for L's death, ironically. My passivity about them notwithstanding, my conclusions are, however, supported by canon.

If I may submit a Doylist reason for romantic CL? Jason knew he had a massive subfandom itching to see them coupled, thereby boosting ratings and generating media buzz. A Watsonian reason? Without relevance, I think L would have been another Anya to Clarke. Grapple shortly with the unfair taking of a life right as they choose to steer towards unity, melancholy giving way to the inconvenience of the loss of a potential, powerful political ally. Romance ensured her arc with L would have the designated impact on Clarke's character moving forward in the next act.

For a show not about relationships, Jason has routinely used romantic love as a shorthand for character and dynamic development. It's happened with so many hastily strung together pairings. And when it does, everyone and their mother bends over backward to defend the relationship. It's romantic because it just is. Didn't you see the kissing? Romantic.

No, The 100 at its core is not about relationships, romantic and otherwise. But stack the number of fans invested exclusively by the action against those of us appreciating a strong plot but are emotionally attached to the characters and dynamics. Who do we think wins? Jason can cry all he wants over an audience refusing to be dazzled solely by his flashy sci-fi.

Funnily enough, "not about relationships'' is only ever applied to Bellarke. Bellarke, a relationship so consistently significant, it's the central dynamic of the show. The backbone on which the story is predicated. Only with Bellarke does it become super imperative to represent male-female platonic relationships. As if Bellarke is the end all, be all of platonic friendship representation on this show. In every single television show in the history of television shows.

Where was this advocacy when B/echo was foisted upon on us after one scene between them where he didn't outright hate Echo? When one interaction before that, he nearly choked the life out of her. If male-female friendship on TV is so sparse, why didn't B/ravens celebrate the familial relationship between Bellamy and Raven? Isn't the fact that they interpret Clarke as abusive to Bellamy all the more reason to praise his oh-so-healthy friendship with Raven as friendship? They might be the one group of shippers at the least liberty to use this argument against Bellarke, lest they want to hear the cacophony of our fandom's laughter at the sheer hypocrisy of the joke. Instead, they've held on with an iron grip to the one sex scene from practically three lifetimes ago when the characters were distracting themselves from their feelings on OTHER people? They've recalled this as "proof" of romance while silent on (or misconstruing) the 99% of narrative wherein they were platonic and the 100% of the time they were canonically non-romantic.

Bellarke is only non-romantic if you believe love stories are told in the space of time it takes for Characters A & B to make out and screw each other onscreen, a timespan amounting to less than the intermission of a quick bathroom break. If it sounds ridiculous, it's because it is. And yet, some can't wrap their heads around the idea that maybe, just maybe, a well-written love story in its entirety is denoted by more than two insubstantial markers and unreliable qualifiers. B/raven had sex, and the deed didn't fashion them into a romance. Jasper and Maya kissed but didn't have sex. Were they half a romantic relationship? Bellarke is paralleled to romantic couples all the time, but it counts for nothing in the eyes of their rival-ship fandom adversaries. Take ship wars out of it by considering Mackson. Like B/echo, the show informed us that Mackson became a couple post-Praimfaya, offscreen, via a kiss. Does anyone fancy them an epic love story with their whisper of a buildup? Since a kiss is all it takes, as dictated by fandom parameters, we should.

If Characters A & B are ensconced in a romantic storyline, then by definition, their relationship is neither non-romantic nor fanon. "Platonic" rings hollow as a descriptor for feelings canonically not so.

If the rest of the fandom doesn't want to take our word for granted, Bob confirmed Bellarke as romantic. Is he as delusional as we are? Bob is not a shipper, but he knows what he was told to perform and how. Why do the pineapples twist themselves in knots to discredit his word? If they are so assured by Jason's word-of-god affirmation, then what credibility does it bear to have Bellarke validated by someone other than the one in charge? They're so quick to aggressively repudiate any statement less than "CL is everything. Nothing else exists. CL is the only fictional love story in The 100, nay, the WORLD. CL is the single greatest man-made invention since the advent of the wheel."

We've all seen a show with a romantic relationship between the leads at the core of the story. We all know the definition of slowburn. We can pinpoint the tropes used to convey romantic feelings. We know conflict is how stories are told. We know when interferences are meant to separate them. We know when obstacles are overcome, they're stronger for it. We know that's why the hurdles exist. We know those impediments often take the shape of interim, third-party love interests. We know what love triangles are. We know pining and longing.

Jason wasn't revolutionary in his structure of Bellarke. He wasn't sly. Jason modeled them no differently than most other shows do with their main romances. Subtler and slower, sure. Sometimes not subtle at all. There's no subtlety in having Clarke viscerally react to multiple shots of Bellamy with his girlfriend. No subtlety in him prioritizing her life over the others in Sanctum's clutches. In her prioritizing his life above all the other lives she was sure would perish if he opened the bunker door. There is no subtlety in Bellamy poisoning his sister to stave off Clarke's impending execution. In her relinquishing 50 Arkadian lives for him after it killed her to choose only 100 to preserve. In her sending the daughter Clarke was hellbent to protect, into the trenches to save him. In him marching across enemy lines to rescue her. In her surrender to her kidnapper to march to potential death, to prevent Bellamy's immediate one. No subtlety in Josie's callouts. No subtlety in Lxa's successful use of his name to convince Clarke to let a bomb drop on an unsuspecting village. Bet every dollar you have that the list goes on and on.

There are a lot of layers to what this show was. It was a tragedy, with hope for light at the end of the tunnel. It was, first and foremost, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi survival drama. Within this overarch is the story of how the union of Clarke Griffin and Bellamy Blake saves humanity, ushering in an age of peace. In this regard, their relationship transcended romance. But with the two of them growing exponentially more intimate each season, pulled apart by obstacles only to draw closer once again, theirs was a love story. A romantic opus, the crescendo timed in such a way that the resolution of this storyline -the moment they get together- would align with the resolution of the main plot. Tying Bellarke to the completion of this tale made them more meaningful than any other relationship on this show, not less.

Whereas the trend with every other pair was to chronicle whether they survived this hostile world intact or succumbed to it, Bellarke was a slowburn. A unique appellation for the couples on this show, but not disqualifying them from romantic acknowledgment.

Framing Bellarke in this manner was 100% Jason's choice. If he wanted the audience to treat them as platonic, he should have made it clear within the narrative itself, not through vague, word-of-god dispatches. A mishandled 180-degree swerve at the clutch as a consequence of extra-textual factors doesn't negate the 84% of the story prior. It's just bad writing to not follow through. And Jason's poor, nearsighted decisions ruined a hell of a lot more than a Bellarke endgame.

The problem is, when Bellarke is legitimized, the pineapples are yanked out of their fantasies where they get to pretend the quoted exaggerations above are real. Here I'm embellishing, but some of them have deeply ingrained their identities in CL to the degree where hyperbole is rechristened to incontestable facts. An endorsement for Bellarke is an obtrusive reminder of the not all-encompassing reception of their ship. A lack of positive sentiment is an attack on their OTP, elevated to an attack on their identity. Before long, it ascends to an alleged offense to their right to exist. The perpetrators of this evil against humanity are the enemy, and they must attack in kind, in defense of themselves.

Truthfully, I think it's sad, the connotation of human happiness wholly dependent on the outcome of a fictional liaison already terminated years ago. I'm not unaware of the marginalization of minorities, of the LGBT+ community, in media. I haven't buried my head in the sand to pretend there aren't horrible crimes committed against them. I don't pretend prejudice isn't rampant. When defense and education devolve into hatred and libel for asinine reasons, though, the line has been crossed. You don't get a free pass to hurt someone with your words over a damn ship war. No matter how hard you try to dress it up as righteous social justice, I assure you, you're woefully transparent.

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jeannereames · 3 years

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1) I think it was Plutarch’s account, that after Hephaistion’s and Krateros’s famous clash, Alexander eventually reconciles them by telling them he loved them most of all men. Will you be expanding on Alexander’s and Krateros’s relationship in your future DwtL books? I remember you briefly touched upon them in Rise. Or like, is there any historical evidence that elucidates what their dynamic was like beyond/including the whole philobasileus thing?

Who Was Krateros (and what will I do with him in DwtL)?

I’ve always found it curious that, in most novels about Alexander’s conquests, Krateros tends to be a distant secondary character in contrast to others around Alexander, especially Ptolemy—despite the fact Krateros was more powerful than Ptolemy, and powerful at an earlier date.

I suspect it owes to the fact Ptolemy went on to found a dynasty and write a history. Modern writers feel as if they know him better. By contrast, Krateros died just two years after Alexander. So although he tends to have a better reputation among modern historians (which, I think, is not well-deserved), he’s never really received thorough treatment in much the same way (and for much the same reason) as Hephaistion.

He died too soon to become a major player among the Diadochi. But that means the people we know best from the era of the Diadochi were NOT the most prominent men at Alexander’s court. So don’t be surprised when Krateros pops up as an important secondary figure in the series with a more conspicuous role than Seleukos, or Antipatros, or Antigonos, who all long outlived him.

In part, that importance owes to Hephaistion’s role as protagonist. If pressed to name the chief protagonist of Dancing with the Lion, Alexandros or Hephaistion…it’s Hephaistion.

I don’t want to go into too much detail about future plots and spoil it—but if Krateros winds up Hephaistion’s bête noire, he doesn’t start that way. The details of their falling out is a driving point of the Long Plot (e.g., the plot across books, part of the overall tragedy of Alexander’s story). I’ll just say that, when I first saw Hamilton, the Musical, a lot of the Hamilton-Burr dynamic resonated because it reminded me of my vision of Hephaistion and Krateros.

Don’t overextend that, but it gives a general idea.

We have some hints that suggest, at least at first, Hephaistion and Krateros weren’t enemies. They may not have been bosom buddies, but I don’t think they were enemies.

I have a clear personal view of each man, based on the historical texts. Hephaistion’s personality I laid out in the first two novels. He can be touchy about his honor and how he’s viewed, and is 110% loyal to Alexander, but not a suck-up. The two just generally see things the same way, and will continue to do so (except in matters of religion, which does come to a head in one particular event I’ll not spoil). Yet in how to run the empire and how to Persianize the court, they’re on the same page and Hephaistion is deeply involved in court procedural renovations. This accords with what the sources tell us. Hephaistion followed Alexander in the changes, which is typical of how ancient sources would present it. Me, I’d argue he didn’t just “follow,” he helped Alexander come up with it. He understood the problem/hurdle as Alexander did and was a party to the solution of blending the two courts.

My Hephaistion is proud, and wants to be recognized for his contributions and ideas. He resents it when anybody suggests he’s just a “yes-man.” And no, that’s not because they were/are lovers. It’s because sycophancy is an easy way to insult your rival. 😉Nothing makes him angrier than being called a “flatterer.” His friendship with Alexander will go through highs and lows (because that’s human), but he remains mostly certain of his place at Alexandros’s right hand. That doesn’t mean he won’t get jealous, because he definitely has a jealous bone (which I think I pretty clearly established in Rise). Yet as time goes on, he settles down and his clashes with others stem from a failure by those others to recognize his place. Yet he understands his place—and ambitions—differently. He can act jealous and touchy, but not for expected reasons. My Hephaistion (and I stress this is not the historical person) just isn’t that interested in commanding others or occupying high office for itself. The kleos of it: glory He wants to help Alexandros make his new empire work, and gets really impatient with all the other “idiots” who can’t see what needs to be done to achieve that. He has ambition, but it’s north/north-west of typical.

Krateros is also pretty clear in my head, both as a fictional character but also how I think he was historically. He, too, is a deeply ambitious, and very capable. My fictional Krateros’s vicious ambition stems from being the “poor cousin” to Perdikkas and the Orestian royal house, needing to prove his place, not just get it as a right of birth—although he also gets it as a right of birth because he is not a commoner. In short, he has the resentment and envy of second-tier gentry, but the drive to succeed in Philip’s (and then Alexander’s) army where ability is recognized too. (I’d note that, after ATG’s death, Krateros [along with Ptolemy] joined Antigonos’s rebellion against Perdikkas as regent of the kings…which is why he died in battle fighting Eumenes, who was on Perdikkas’s side. Yet this is notable because he was almost certainly from Orestes…and thus, related to Perdikkas. We can debate who was higher born, but I think it was Perdikkas.)

Anyway, Alexandros recognizes both his ability and sympathizes with his drive to succeed because it’s similar to his own: the need to prove himself to his father, as prince.

That’s the fictional background of my Krateros, but the historical man was good at what he did, and knew it, and expected to be recognized for it among his peers: to stand first among them. Ergo, he was viciously competitive to rivals, but charming and charismatic otherwise.

How does that work? To those well above him in the power structure, he’s respectful and seeks their approval in order to receive advancement. So, for instance, he’s devoted to the kings (Philip, then Alexander) because they are Givers of Good Things (promotions, land, loot). He would have been a young officer under Philip, making him roughly the age of Ptolemy, Philotas, Nikanor, Koenos…maybe Kleitos (although I think Kleitos was a bit older), just as Leonnatos, Perdikkas, Seleukos and Hephaistion were coevals of Alexander.

So he couldn’t and wouldn��t challenge the “old men”: Parmenion, Antigonos Monophthalmos, Antipatros, etc. He even seems to have been an understudy to Parmenion. For instance, at Issos, he was in charge not just of his brigade but the whole left wing under Parmenion’s general command. He wanted to impress Parmenion and earn his support—not antagonize him.

Likewise, he had no reason to lord it over his infantry battalion, who would have been no threat to his ambitions. He needed them, in fact. By being chummy with them, he was far more likely to secure their loyalty—not unlike Caesar later.

It was those men who were rivals for positions he wanted who drew his special ire. Krateros would never get Parmenion’s spot while the old man lived, but Parmenion was old. Krateros could wait. After Issos, I expect Krateros saw himself as Parmenion’s natural successor. Yet Krateros was also unlikely to get Parmenion’s spot as long as Philotas lived. If we have only a sketchy idea of ranking order in the army, the whole Philotas Affair tells us/suggests the position of commander of the Companion Cavalry was the #2 position after Parmenion’s slot as viceroy to Alexander. Krateros may have served under Parmenion in charge of the army left side at Issos…but Philotas was still above him in the food chain.

Nikanor (Parmenion’s middle son) may also have been a hurdle, as commander of the Regular Hypaspists (as opposed to Royal Hypaspists), but he was younger than Philotas. Thus, Krateros would have started by removing Philotas, only worrying about Nikanor after—and as it turned out, Nikanor died of disease in late 330, deleting himself from the picture.

Our histories seem united on Philotas as arrogant and pushing his place: an obnoxious little brat, if also a perfectly capable commander. Ergo, Philotas provided Krateros with the perfect target, one unlikely to have staunch defenders.

So Krateros systematically went after him as early as the Egyptian sojourn, and possibly even earlier. Plutarch doesn’t always get things right, so we must be cautious about this, and Badian wanted to make the spying of Krateros part of Alexander’s big conspiracy against Parmenion’s family. Not at all. I think it was Krateros’s attempt to target the man he saw as chief rival.

At that point, Krateros would have regarded Alexander’s cohort as “the boys.” They didn’t have major offices, although were rising to some key junior commands. For instance, Hephaistion apparently commanded the “agema” (later term but good enough for this) of the Hypaspists. That’s the king’s own unit, who acted as his personal bodyguard in battle and actually ran with the cavalry squadron (!, yes in full armor). They would have been composed almost entirely of aristocratic young men: e.g., former Pages. So that’s a plum command for Hephaistion…but he didn’t command a whole SECTION of the army, like Philotas and the Companions.

Hephaistion, Leonnatos, Perdikkas, Seleukos…they weren’t a threat to Krateros. He could be friendly to them, may even have cultivated Hephaistion especially, for his unique access to the king. You may be thinking, Man, he sounds like a user! Well, yes. That’s how the Macedonian court functioned, although I think Krateros was more ruthless, and successful, than most.

Then he got an unexpected gift-horse: the Dimnos Conspiracy and Philotas’s casual (and deeply stupid) dismissal of the warning about it. Krateros went right for the jugular.

I want to make a point that I also made in “Crisis and Opportunity: the Philotas Affair…again.” We absolutely must resist looking backwards from the outcome to ascertain motives. When the scared Pages finally approached Ptolemy, who then went to Alexander and the other Friends, NOBODY knew what the outcome would be. It was not planned. It really was a crisis.

Yet Krateros saw opportunity in the crisis, and as a successful field commander, ran with it. So I see him, not Hephaistion, as the architect of the accusation against Philotas. HE had the most to gain (he thought), and if Plutarch can be believed in this, it wasn’t the first time he’d tried to bring Philotas’s snarky words and bad behavior to Alexander. As alluded to above, he’d paid Philotas’s mistress to report to him what Philotas said during “pillow talk” as early as Egypt. Now it could be (and quite probably was) that he saw Philotas’s bragging and claims to victories as a real threat to the king. (Kinda like shadow presidents in Mar-a-Lago.) People can have more than one motivation. They can even have a “good” motivation (protecting Alexander’s pride and reputation) alongside a “bad” motivation (making Alexander resentful of Philotas). Alexander’s pride was touchy too. 😉 Even if he blew off Krateros’s accusations at the time, we can imagine he was still stung. Seeds successfully planted!

We must, however, be careful not to read the final results back into the assumptions of the people at the time. Hindsight 20/20 and all that. I do NOT think Krateros believed this would result in Parmenion’s removal/death, although I do think he wanted to get Philotas arrested and executed.

Also, I do NOT believe Hephaistion had any idea he was about to be elevated to command of half the Companion Cavalry. He’d have had no reason to think he’d be leapfrogged over older, loyal men, such as Krateros…or Kleitos, who wound up as his co-commander.

Hephaistion’s motivation? Friendship. In “Crisis and Opportunity” I stressed it was friendship to Alexander, but I’ve also come to think that Krateros may have talked him into it, so also friendship, or at least alliance, with Krateros, who knew he could rile Hephaistion’s blood. He wanted that sheen of authentic anger. I want to quickly add that Koenos joined in with the torturers because he feared going down with the ship, as he was Philotas’s brother-in-law.

All this neatly explains why it was Hephaistion to whom Philotas appealed during his torture. Not because he orchestrated it, but because he had the least reason of the three to want Philotas out of the way. He was in it for passion and so, might then be moved to pity. Krateros was all-in from the outset, and Koenos had to be to save his own neck from Philotas’s arrogant stupidity.

So Philotas was convicted, executed, and then Alexander felt he must also execute Parmenion because he was sitting on Alexander’s all-important supply lines during a major operation. That is not a pretty picture and must be acknowledged as much. Philotas Did a Dumb, and lost his life for it. Extreme, but he dug his own grave. Parmenion was flat-out murdered. Realpolitik does not excuse the death of the man who’d sided with Alexander, put him on the throne, then advised him so capably.

In any case, from Krateros’s point of view, this was terrific. Philotas was out of his way, and so was Parmenion. Honestly, I doubt he wanted to see the old man dead instead of honorably retired, but it still cleared the way for him.

Then an astonishing thing happened!

Krateros didn’t get the Companions. Hephaistion did. And Kleitos. Of the younger generation, Hephaistion had just leap-frogged right over the heads of Krateros and all his cohorts. (Again, I think Kleitos was older; there’s no evidence of Krateros being at public odds with him.)

Just imagine how angry Krateros was!

The snotty little upstart! Who the hell did Hephaistion think he was?

So yeah, Krateros got what he wanted: Philotas out of the way. And in the process, he shot himself in the foot.

Plutarch tells us exactly why Alexander made the choice he did: nobody should have that much command authority henceforth, even his best friend. But he did want a man loyal to him in that position. I would not be at all surprised if—crisis past—Alexander recognized Krateros’s maneuvering for what it was…and didn’t indulge him. He wasn’t about to give out promotions for the backstage take-down of a fellow officer.

By the Battle of the Hydaspes against Poros in India (almost three years later), Krateros served the same position as Parmenion: hold the main army while Alexander leads the attack. Yet in between, Alexander had rearranged units. Even the Companions had not only been split, but divided further into six Hipparchies. Hephaistion’s was primary, but only the first of six. He was no longer overall commander. And that would have happened had Kleitos lived or died, as Kleitos had been reassigned as satrap in Baktria. Dividing the Companions had just been the initial sally to a more comprehensive reorganization and power redistribution.

Ergo, if Krateros had power, it would never be equal to Parmenion’s, and it seems to have been deliberately delayed after the Philotas Affair. Krateros dared not get mad at Alexander. Again, as king, Alexander is above these status wars, and the Giver of Good Things.

Another complication for Krateros: Parmenion’s death had angered Parmenion’s loyal men, some of whom Krateros had commanded…and Krateros had been part of Parmenion’s downfall, however indirectly. Wouldn’t it be convenient if he could shift the blame to Hephaistion?

So Hephaistion was now the chief man “in his way.” Plus (fair or not) Krateros resented him for getting the plum assignment, may have convinced himself that Hephaistion used the opportunity to sweet-talk Alexander into giving it to him. Even if he didn’t believe that, he could still have spread the rumor. It was advantageous, displacing soldier’s anger over Parmenion’s death onto Hephaistion. And it would rile up his own battalion/soldiers with indignation on his behalf.

“Stop the steal!” *smirk*

It all exploded in India. We’re not told when, but I suspect sooner rather than later—before the Malian catastrophe. My best guess is after the Hydaspes, possibly while everyone was relaxing for a while in Poros’s kingdom. Bored soldiers are gossipy soldiers, and get restless and pick fights.

Gregor Weber in his analysis “The Court of Alexander the Great as Social System” (Alexander the Great: a new history, 2009) suggested that Alexander encouraged such rivalry among his Hetairoi and Friends, and uses the H. and K. squabble as a peak example. To some degree, that’s true. Competition was endemic to the Macedonian court because it was endemic (maybe EPIDEMIC) to Greek society more broadly. Macedonian kings (not just Alexander) would have encouraged competition as a way of choosing the best officers. The Hetairideia I described in Dancing with the Lion—the Festival of the Companions with competitions—was a real thing. I made up a lot of the details, but we hear about it under the Antigonids, by which time it involved mock battle. But it was said to have been much older. There very well may be ties between the Hetairideia and the original Macedonian “Olympics” at Dion. E.g., the latter may have grown out of the former, but it’s all too vague to know.

Anyway, competition was natural and encouraged at court, but I disagree with Weber about Alexander encouraging THAT particular competition between Hephaistion and Krateros. Weber reads the clever “philobasileus/philalexandros” as encouraging. I see it (and Plutarch’s wording suggests) just the opposite. He was trying to lower the temperature in the room. It didn’t work.

We simply aren’t told enough about the swords-drawn brawl to understand what led up to it. E.g., who started it, as Alexander put it. I don’t mean (and don’t think Alexander meant) who pulled his sword first. He meant who STARTED it. I tend to read that “I’ll kill you both, or at least the one who started it,” as a veiled threat to Krateros. He would have damn well known who started it. He was telling Krateros in that public reconciliation, “Knock it off, dickhead, or else.” And I expect that’s also what he told him in their private meeting/confrontation.

There is more to this, but I’ve said all I want to, for the moment. Again, I’m working on Krateros and Hephaistion at present for a book chapter in a collection, and I’ll also be doing more on them both for a monograph. So I’ll just end with my take on the Indian conflict.

#asks #Krateros #Craterus #Hephaistion #Hephaestion #Alexander the Great #Macedonian history #Macedonian court #Craterus and Hephaestion #Krateros and Hehaistion #Greek history #Classics #Tagamemnon

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

Text

Amphibia Weekly Reviews: Bessie and Mircroangelo/The Third Temple “The Things We’ve Set into Motion Cannot Be Stopped”

Hello all you happy people. It’s been a long road, with an even longer road trip, but the season’s almost over: just two more weeks of Amphibia.. and with all the build up weighing down on our heroes two things are clear: this cannot end well for Anne or anyone involved, and this is going to hurt. It’s going to hurt a LOT. it’s going to be some...

... how have I not used more MST3K gifs. Questions for later. Point is with emotional pain immient, a revolution on the way this episode only ratchets up the tension.. while also sparing some time for makeover jokes and a breather episode about snail mentorships, fashion montages and giant crabs. I do love me some giant crabs. And i’ll tell you allllll about it under the cut.

Bessie and MicroAngelo:

This episode finds our heroes preparing for the third and final temple, loading up the wagon and preparing weapons, maps, potions, all that good stuff.

We end up getting two plots out of this. The first is the titular one: so Polly can help prepare, Hop Pop gives Bessie the task of watchin gher snail and certified cutie MicroAngelo, that tiny Snail who I assumed would disappear forever after his intitial apperance because that’s usually what cartoons does. But much like One Piece, Al Ewing and that owl what watches me while I sleeps, Amphibia never forgets.

It’s some Looney Tunes style shenanigans.. not the bugs or daffy, more on him later today, kind more the “Bigger more responsible party protects the smaller more vunerable or reckless one” kind you’d see eveyr so often. Tom and Jerry also really loved this. And Amphibia wears it well, with some good gags and really cute bonding and some really excellent animation on Bessie, giving the old girl plenty of life and animation. The only part I genuinely do not like is Hop Pop blaming Bessie for.. running after micro angelo afte rhe ran off. Aka doing the job you assigned her.

Someone i’m looking at. Regardless otherwise it’s just some fun, adorable slapstick with a downright precious ending. And hop pop DOES apologize.. and wish he was a cute snail. I do not have time to unpack all the implications there nor ponder what Hop Pop would look like in a snail costume. This week’s given my brain enough nightmares.

So anyway, our subplot has Marcy trying to give Anne a Makeover... and her past attempts with Sasha have been objectively horrifying so Anne is rightly scared, though the armorer who comes to help with it has a blue crab so tha’ts where all my attention. I fucking love crabs.. they just look so neat. Some see the fact a spider crab being out and about in animal crossing as horrifying. I see it as oh look at my cool terrifying crab friend. About the only crab I don’t like is this asshole.

And even then he can be VERY funny. .he’s just also an exploitative douchebag and having worked in food service, let me tell you I.. I get why Squidward is the way he is. That said Krabbyland is a masterpiece entirely because he’s such a terrible person, so it ballances out when the show’s doing it’s best.

Point is I like crabs and I like this subplot.. though mostly because it says a LOT about who Anne and Marcy are and where there at. Part of why Marcy is so gung ho about helping Anne is she figures this is her last shot to be whoever she wants to be. But really she’s just projecting: it’s been obvious since we properly met her that Marcy.. likes living HERE more than earth. On earth she’s an outcast: her hyperfixations, her tendency to babble about things she likes, her smartness... alll things that just make people turn away from her or pick on her on earth, with only two people relaly understanding and appricating her.. maybe more but we don’t know the situation with her parents yet. As someone who is a lot of those things, I get where she’s coming from.

So ending up in a world straight out of an rpg... she florished. Everything that made her life difficult at home suddenly made her florish: her skill with RPG’s meant she could blend in easily with the courtly high class of Newtopia, gave her a love of taking on missions, and allowed her to put her hyperfixation, knowledge and enthusasim to real world use, creating massive improvments in an already ritzy city. Everything that made her an outcast in our world made her a hero there. It’s why I worry about what’s to come: to both Grime and Andrias.. she’s the perfectly made pawn: too desperate to have Sasha back to see the kinfe he wants her to plant in Marcy’s, and too happy to be accepted to see the rpg convention, the benevolent ruler turning out ot be a puppet for the big bad, starring her in the face. Amphibia’s given her her freedom.. but it’s also left her very vunerable and may leave her alone.

As for Anne.. she realizes how far she’s come: from selfish and kind of distructive to selfless and self reliant.. and still kind of destructive but hey, you can’t cahnge eveyrthing about yourself. It’s why when given heavy armor.. all she needs is the core of it.. something simple to guard her but nothing too complex. She’s fine with who she is.. and it’s why she’s in the best place of the three girls. And why she’s left smack in the middle of the war to come. A war she can’t stop and that will leave her having to choose one... or do the right , hard thing and choose neither and try and free them from the bad influences they’ve embded themselves in. Either way this is going to hurt both her and the audience.

Final Thoughts: Bessie and Mircoangelo is good classic cartoon fun with a suprisingly deep subplot. Simple, but a nice pallete clensar, especially since the next episode is pretty tense and given it’s ending and eveyrthing that’s been building this season, it’s likely only going to get worse from here, so it’s nice to have a quick and breezy break before hell comes to frogtown.

The Third Temple:

Before we get to the final temple we get a flashback showing how Sasha met Anne and Marcy. The other two were playing on the swings when two big dillholes pushed them off and Sasha selflessly and fearlessly stood up to them. And promptly beat herself up more than the bullies who dodged her and eventually got so freaked out by whatever the hell this was they ran and a friendship was born. But noticably she’s a lot diffrent 7 years ago, aproximately, than she is at 13: she’s every bit as fearless and willfull.. but the compassion she once had got buried under a need for control. It’s easy to see now WHY Marcy and Anne loved her so much: she was their friend, their protector, she cared about them.. and while she never STOPPED somewhere along the way it became less about doing the right thing for the women she loves and more about getting her way.

And now the two have had time to heal from what their friend girlfriend became.. it’s time to rip that wound wide open as finally, after almost a season of waiting, Sasha reunites with Marcy for the first time and Anne for the second.

Naturally her return is in time for her gem to be charged, though our heroes unware of that didn’t seek her out before going in. This time Frobo’s riding claw though weirdly dosen’t come inside. Which is a problem with Frobo’s addition to the cast as the whole: they’ve kept him out of any episode since his induction into the family and only properly explained it once. It just dosen’t make a lot of sense to me; Yes he is massively powerful but his childlike thought process counters that. He’s easy enough to write in but is left out becasue the writers don’t want to deal with an extra character. And I had more than enough of that shit when watching Ducktales. I don’t need it when your main cast isn’t NEARLY as large or hard to juggle. It’s just galling to have spent an entire season showing he was following them, give him a whole episode.. and then just forget about him because i’ts convient. Hopefully he’ll play a bigger role as things progress and we find out where he came from because his misuse is a dark spot on an otherwise great second half of the season.

Frobo does get to prove himself useful though and open s the temple door he just weirdly dosen’t come along. But this does leave the door open for Sasha to come in as our heroes struggle with the first puzzle: Turns out this dungeon was built by a bro, seriously the temple languge is very broey and VERY hilarious contrasted with how normal for a fantasy setting the others were, as is fitting the strength gem, so our heroes have to compete feats of strength. Unfortunately this does not mean wrestling the ghost of Jerry Stiller to the ground but instead fighting some Lava Worms, and fighting just ONE of them and lifting the provided warhammers is a challenge for Anne.. and she’s the only one who can with Marcy not having enough upper body stregnth and the plantars all de-hydrated spongebob style.

So naturally Sasha ends up being their savor, easily dispatching them and getting some help from grime who while also dehydrated, is still phsycially strong enough to be of some help. Marcy is overjoyed to see her.. and is the only one. Given Marcy hasn’t been on the wrong end of Sasha and Grime like they have, it’s understandable: while Marcy’s grappled with Sasha’s actions and grip on her and Anne, it’s been clear it hasn’t hit her as hard as it has for Anne and she likely dosen’t get the full scope of it like Anne does. To her Sasha just made a mistake and she’s back now and tha’ts what matters. To Anne and the Plantars... sasha and grime tried to kill them and Sasha then tried commiting suciide to save them. The scars of that haven’t really healed for them, nor should they.

And given Sasha has spent the season clearly blamiing everything on Anne defying her and has been raising an army based on her resentment, and given she flew into a jealous blinding rage at finding her exes were fine and dandy without her she.. wholheartdly apologizes.

Yeah she apologizes.. but tellingly while she talks about her and Grime being left homeless following the battle.. she leaves out everything after: The fight with Yuan, the growing rebellion, driving her friends away, the horrifying army Grime now commands. Something’s off.

Anne naturally dosen’t trust her to do this herself and insists on coming along sitll. The next task is juts.. asking how much you lift bro, which Sasha easily passes by lifting, bro.

The final test in Jim Crunch’s Temple of Fitness, I mean who else could’ve wrote this, is of course a big fight with a giant statue of a toad, fitting how each temple so far was built by one of the civlizations: there were frog statues and symbols in the first temple, the second was guarded by a newt and the last now has a toad guard.Though curiously.. the test itself is wholly designed for a human. Before it wasn’t 100% clear even with the hyroglyps if the chosen ones had to be human or not.. but now it’s impossible to argue otherwise. There were hints : The fact the guardian pegged her as a possible chosen one on sight , the ruins in the background of the title cards which also depict the watcher with a thousand eyes (which is what i’ll be calling him till we get his, her , they or it’s actually name. ).. but here the chamber includes a gravity increase dbz style, meaning our heroines are the only ones who can stand as the Plantars and Grimes frog and toad bodies respectively aren’t strong enough to stand anymore. And while Marcy tries it ends up falling on Anne and Sasha with Sasha being Angry Anne doesn’t trust her.. and Anne not refuting it, pointing out she has EVERY REASON not to. As she puts it “it’s not just toad tower”. For most of their lives Sasha has been controlling, caring about what she wants and not what the people she loves wants. It wasn’t just the fight there... it was simply the wakeup call to how bad a person Sasha had been.

And for the first time in the episode.. Sasha is geniune, apologizing for what she did, and genuinely admitting how she treated Anne wasn’t wrong. it was something she coudln’t admit to herself episodes ago.. but faced with both loosing two more people due to her behavior, and having plenty of time to reflect on said behavhior.. she finally relaizes it’s her. Fuck man.. what else is there to say.

Oh right the giant monster thing, which Anne trusts Sasha to finish.. and we get anothe rDBZ homage as Sasha removes part of her armor, which creates a CRATER, which lowers her weight enough to fight the thing. She gets a thumbs up and the honor of recharging it.

Anne suggests opening the box.. but Marcy is VERY quick to shoot that down and suggest talking to the king. And while her reason SOUNDS good,, they don’t want to get warped somewhere ELSE at random.. it’s very clear from her actions and how quick she tried to stop it that she needs them to get to Andrias for whatever he’s talked her into. And I emphasis talked her into: Marcy trusts the king, and was in a very emotional place when he was about to talk to her at the end of season 2a... and he knew it. He knew she was at her most vunerable, most malable and trusted him completely.. and knew right then and there was his shot at getting vengance.. for him and his master. Whatever he has planned.. it’s not good. The mechancial lovecraftian horror he keeps in his creepy basement full of lost souls is a dead giveaway from that. But I don’t.. fault Marcy for it. It’s not just because I sympahtize.. to her Andrias is a good noble king trying to help her. He’s the kindly mentor she always wanted, a person who enjoys her skills dosen’t care how much she talks and has complete faith in her, something even Anne struggles with.

But it’s VERY clear, to me at least he’s been likely using her from the moment they met: to her sh’es just an optomistic pawn, someone gullible enough to do whatever he says. I’ve always felt that her “missions” probably had some darker purpose she wasn’t aware of: getting Andrias things he needs for his army, an army she has no idea is opressing people. She’s insulated from that and instead surronded by adoring people who accept her for once. Even going to wartwood, she hasn’t yet made the connection between the toad towers and what their purpose is. I think deep down she might suspect this stuff.. but she can’t ACCEPT that the one person who every had nothing but faith in her.. is a horrible person who opresses others and somehow has even WORSE plans in store.

Sasha likewise is facing the pressure of her parental figure.. while her patching it up with Anne was legitmate... her and Grime’s own plans rely on getting in there and Grime simply sees the other two as pawns , and just like the king he wants he wants to overthrow, their use expires once his plans in motion.

But the thing is.. it’s clear despite assuring Grime she’s still all in.. her face in the last shot, as seen above.. says otherwise. Her apology was legitmate, not just an attempt to get close to the one thing in her way of power, but what she’s come to realize: she’s gone from blaming Anne for it.. to realizing it was her. But she’s also stuck: while Marcy is unaware of the strings her pupeteer is pulling her towards.. Sasha is all too aware of what her mentor is planning. And the thing was she was all too willing to go for it. She blamed Anne for what happened at the tower, blamed Anne for turning marcy against her and blamed the plantars and co for turning anne against her. But in the harsh light of day... none of that’s true. Marcy dosen’t hate her, neither does anne, they didn’t turn against her.. they were just tired of her shitty behavior and wanted the friend they found that day on the playground back, the woman they loved who’d go to hell and back for someone and not the bitter, manipultive person she became. She’s once again realized it was her fault.. the question is if that’s enough for her to do the right thing or not. And the hardest question of all is IF not reblling isn’t the right thing. Wfhile the Toad’s probably shoudln’t be in charge either, Andrias REALLY shouldn’t. There’s NO easy answers here, no happy outcome that makes everyone live’s better. There’s no easy way out, no shortcut home.. just the louder and louder drumbeats of war and one girl’s decision of whose side she’s going to take.

Final Thoughts on the Third Temple: As with the other four sasha episodes thus far, this was frogging brilliant. Shoudln’t be a suprise and it makes me both look forward and dread the war to come

Next Week: The plantars try to bury the hatchet with Sasha and Grime, the girls enter a battle of the bands, and the finale comes ever closer.

If you liked this review follow me for more, and join my patreon. At just 2 dollars a month you get acess to my discord, exclusive reviews, and get me closer to my stretch goals. See you at the next rainbow

#amphibia #the third temple #bessie and microangelo #anne boonchuy #sasha waybright #marcy wu #bessie amphibia #microangelo #hopidiah plantar #sprig plantar #polly plantar #bro

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eldritch-elrics · 3 years

Text

svsss: journey through the mausoleum (plus, zhuzhi-lang is a himbo)

got to chapter 65 last night!

as usually i have a lot to say i guess jkdhgsds i think putting stuff under cuts makes people scroll past these posts more? but also i don’t really want to be too annoying with my Many Reactions so cuts are a good way to go

tldr: loved the mausoleum arc, big fan of tlj, communication is good, and i have a new favorite scene in the book

binghe is extra as FUCK for bringing in all those rhino pythons

so i maintain that tianlang-jun should have been foreshadowed more/is introduced too late in the story, but other than that i think he’s a really fun villain and i’m a fan

for one - he’s the only one who’s able to hurt binghe :0 harm the protagonist...

which creates some Very Good Tension

count number one of zhuzhi-lang being a himbo: trying to sacrifice himself for tlj while being threatened

“is zzl really a himbo” you ask. well, yes. is he dumb? very much so. is he nice? absolutely. is he hot? well, i have no idea. i forget if he’s described as attractive or not. but, i think he can be if he wants. does being a little bit evil negate his himbo-ness? idk! i’m sticking with my assessment

i think i have a bit of a soft spot for evil henchmen

zzl also protects sqq from the corpses <3 good for him

it’s always fun to me when the system is like “wooo yay you fixed the storyline! cut the filler!” because 1. love seeing sqq lay waste to pidw and 2. the implications?? once more i am wondering WHY is the system so interested in making pidw a better story. (and the fact that it’s still calling his adventures in this world a story.) are sqq’s adventures being written down and serialized in the real world? are we as readers supposed to believe that scum villain, as a text, is a direct result of sqq’s “editing” of pidw?

uh, back to the plot

binghe wasted spiritual energy trying to preserve the mushroom/plant body :( come on man...

i really like the whole stretch of plot when binghe’s unconscious. it’s just so tense!! really well-done in my opinion - this is the first time in a while we’ve got a sense that lbh is in danger, and sqq is also running low on energy and stuff, so they’re both in bad places and the stakes are high

PLUS the hurt-comfort of it all. sqq trying not to hurt lbh’s body :(

the whole part in the coffin!! excellent. and the convo with meng mo... sqq calling himself lbh’s shizun finally...

cuddles <3

dying at lbh’s fuckin. boner. and the system’s REACTION it’s so EXCITED i am just. holds my head in my hands. i can’t deal with this novel

the confrontation with qiu haitang and the old palace master was very cool and intense. though i have to say i’m not really a fan of either “angry unreasonable woman” or “bitter disabled person” as tropes/archtypes (especially how sqq was reacting to the palace master’s condition). and poor qiu haitang! i have no idea if there’s any way to set her mind at ease other than revealing the whole transmigration thing. i do hope she’ll turn up again and get a better ending?

so the plague city sqq callout party is once again not directly lbh’s fault! the old palace master is the one to blame!

SO ONE OF MY FAVORITE PARTS IN THE BIT I READ LAST NIGHT. is. sqq realizing that he could utilize lbh’s plot armor to his advantage. but then deciding that he doesn’t want to take that risk. doesn’t want to use lbh’s body as a prop!!!

character development :D

he’s really starting to see lbh as a person as opposed to a character! and being less selfish/survival-oriented...

man. sqq, almost beaten, lying on the ground holding binghe in his arms........ :(((

so is the implication that lbh injured/took revenge on the old palace master because the palace master was being creepy to him about his mom? it’s a bit vague but that’s my theory. weirdo old man...

speaking of people lbh killed. maybe it will be revealed that gongyi xiao is actually alive too :( i’m still salty about that

SO MUCH DEMON BLOOD. poor sqq

so i don’t think i got how sqq was able to free himself from zzl’s blood manipulation? was it because binghe woke up and subdued it?

binghe waking up was a lil deus-ex-machina-y lol i would have liked to see some sort of trigger for it (even a cheesy one). like i get why he’s ok and no longer hurt (protagonist powers!) but like, gimme a reason for the shift to happen at that precise moment...

but AAAAAA FINALLY THEY ARE TALKING

lbh realizes how much sqq went through to save him :( and he’s so happy he didn’t get abandoned!!!! aaaaaa my poor boy

i like crybaby lbh much more than i like cold/cruel lbh lol

i do agree with sqq’s assessment though - lbh keeps doing the thing where he cries and apologizes but doesn’t actually change. he’s slowly getting better about it but that’s some development i’d like to see

so tlj.... DOESN’T want lbh’s body? i stg his motivations change every 5 minutes. that’s one other thing i don’t really like about him. is the “trying to steal lbh’s body” thing just gonna go nowhere? f...

ALSO SQQ GETTING OUTRAGED ABOUT TLJ CALLING HIMSELF MORE HANDSOME THAN BINGHE

binghe dumbass moments <3 gave him the sword...

..........zhuzhi-lang vore.......

zzl, while healing sqq’s plant arm: don’t worry i don’t want to fuck you unlike LUO BINGHE.

sqq: OKAY??? THANKS

i really hope there exists shipfic of sqq and zzl. like i don’t ship them at all but they just get into so many Situations that i cannot help but think about it. like it would make a funny crack premise

you know what? sqq deserves his own harem. it could consist of lbh, lqg, sqh, zzl.....

SQQ CANNOT CATCH A BREAK. TLJ IS A FAN OF RESENTMENT OF CHUNSHAN

modern au tlj is the dad who is way way way too supportive and thinks sqq would just be a wonderful husband for his son~~

interested in tlj’s intention to unite the human and demon worlds. like on the surface it sounds like a good idea right? peace and harmony and reconciling differences and stuff. but tlj’s plan is certainly not well-thought-out, and i’m sure his intentions also skew towards a sort of “merge them so they’re both easier to rule over” thing - which i don’t think is confirmed or anything, it’s just my suspicion

both tlj and lbh have a sort of entitlement thing going on - “i’m powerful so i can do whatever i like / take for myself something i love (whether that be humans or sqq).” which is then backed up by the power the system allows them as final boss and protagonist respectfully

speaking of lbh taking whatever he wants: stop kissing sqq without asking him aaaaa!!!! we know you love him and it’s sweet but please bro

him going all that way to reunite with sqq though <3

and then zzl comes in and i just.

this scene is simply the best

the slapstick of it!!!! i wanna see it animated so bad holy shit

the scene was good when it was just “sqq hides lbh under the bedcovers and he’s having none of it” but then it just kept escalating...

sqq and zzl’s convo is so suggestive too...

zzl himbo moments again?

AND THEN TLJ WALKS IN

“no need to explain, i understand everything” OK BRO.

LIU QINGGE IS HERE <3

tlj fanboying over him a little lmao

tlj, upon realizing that lbh had been in the bed with zzl and sqq: oh, you guys were having a threesome?

i cannot deal with this. i’m gonna do some sketches from this scene it’s so funny

#my post #svsss #finn reads scum villain #svsss spoilers

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bestworstcase · 3 years

Text

farran rereads lost lagoon: chapter 13

- *sigh* dahlia.

- i’ve got to admit, at this point i really just... don’t care. about these characters. my vague memories of thinking this was an alright book but not really my cup of tea and with some very questionable moments wrt to the handling of the saporian issue have morphed pretty rapidly into. i flat out do not like it. there is no aspect of this story that i’m enjoying. the characterization is poor, the plot is falling down, there’s no tension, the prose is passable at best, and i’m getting very tired of reading conversations that feel like they were written by an AI. so i’m going to press pause here, because i don’t want this reread series to just turn into me bitching about the things i don’t like, and do a little autopsy.

let’s talk about varian and the seven kingdoms for a minute.

for the uninitiated, v7k was a varian-centric tts spinoff comic proposed by a couple of tts storyboarders, which disney chose not to pursue. it was developed as a fan project for a while, fell by the wayside for other projects. semi-recently the plot outline, some worldbuilding notes, and character concepts were all made public and the crew members involved gave the fandom carte blanche to do whatever with it.

now! the interesting thing about v7k, and the point of this little tangent, is that because much of the development process happened during s1, a lot of the worldbuilding is contradicted directly or indirectly by tts canon and some of the characterization choices feel... incongruous with the way tts s3 ended. i’m not going to get into that too much, but it seems to me that v7k and lost lagoon have a problem in common, and that problem is that they are stories that diverged from the main trunk of the story that inspired them but are still pretending to be canon compliant, to their own detriment.

some of you may remember og bitter snow, which began as a pre-s3 speculative fic about what cassandra might have encountered in the HOYT and spiraled into a kind of cass-centric s3 rewrite... which stalled out about a quarter of the way into the story i had planned because i ran into a similar problem: i was writing a s3 au that was ostensibly canon-compliant for all of s1 and most of s2, but the direction i wanted to take the story just didn’t fit naturally on top of canon s1 and s2... my options were to start retconning things from canon after ~20k words of implying canon compliance, or to force the story i wanted to tell to stay within the boundaries set up by s1 and s2, and i didn’t want to do either of those things, so i stopped and started over completely from scratch with benighted.

v7k began with the intention of being licensed fanfiction, and lost lagoon is licensed fanfiction, so they both needed the disney stamp of approval, and that meant they couldn’t take the revamp bitter snow approach of going ‘my city now’ and just changing whatever pieces of tts they needed to to make their own stories make sense. they had to fit their stories into the canon framework as best they could while ignoring or glossing over the inconsistencies and pretending it all fit together in a logical way.

and i think this is why lost lagoon is so very boring.

lost lagoon is marketed as a prequel to tts s1, but that’s not really what it is. only the first third of the novel actually takes place before tangled: before ever after. the rest of it is supposed to take place in the empty spaces between episodes of s1, and—because this is licensed fanfiction that needs to meet a certain threshold of being plausibly canon compliant—that means it can’t do anything that would meaningfully disrupt the story of s1. the events of lost lagoon cannot be big enough to influence any of the episodes of s1 that take place concurrently. the plot of this book must be absolutely self-contained, or else the thin illusion of canon compliance falls apart.

hence: rapunzel has no problem keeping the lagoon a secret from everyone, despite her refusal to keep the black rock excursion a secret mere pages later. hence, the ultimate reveal that the secret ‘power’ hidden in the lagoon is that it represents shampanier’s and der sonne’s love. it’s hard to have an interesting plot about intrigue and mysteries and such when you have to tip-toe through a series of light-hearted fluffy character establishing episodes instead of just writing your own story.

so i do have some sympathy for ms howland. i do. i think she probably did the best she could, story-wise, within the restraints that were imposed on her by the existence of tts itself. i would probably write a boring story given those same restraints to.

*deep breath*

- anyway, cass and rapunzel do market stuff, the dahlia jealousy subplot gets seeded, and then we head to xavier’s, where he shows them some daggers whose key features are being extremely light and able to “cut through armor as though it were paper.”

no 💜

- blah blah they ask xavier about the henge(?), it’s a saporian “ceremony circle,” blah blah. they show him the lost lagoon book and he waxes on about how rare and special it is and how “even those cartographers who made it their life’s mission to chart every inch of this kingdom” couldn’t find the cenote that cass found in a matter of hours because she is just! that! special! gag.

- xavier gives the date of the saporia-corona war as “more than two hundred years ago,” which i am taking to also mean “less than three hundred years ago.” i had actually forgotten that the gave a semi-hard date for all this nonsense so. ha. ha ha. ha. this is fine

- in this telling of the tale, shampanier steals der sonne’s journal with the intention of using the tunnel maps to invade the capital city, but she finds his confession of love at the end (“he was head over heels for this strong, intelligent woman” GAG). frankly this makes a teeny, tiny bit more sense than the story as told in under raps, where shampanier and der sonne duel for hours before she... randomly reads the journal? but then again—if shampanier herself infiltrated the coronan palace to steal herz der sonne’s personal journal, why did she not simply assassinate him in his sleep?

- xavier describes shampanier as “the ruler” of saporia, implying saporia was an autocratic stratocracy. remember this. it will be important later.

- der sonne and shampanier’s marriage heralded an “era of unity” during which they “joined the countries together to create corona as we know it” and there was an “explosion of romantic poetry” during this time, with the lost lagoon being “one that really captured the people’s imagination.”

- the only thing i’m going to say about the saporia stuff for the time being that is that if this doesn’t scream conquerer propaganda, i don’t know what does. but we’ll get there, don’t you worry.

- they are interrupted by the entrance of xavier’s assistant, marco, who is so transparently a bad guy that i really can’t do anything but laugh. xavier is like the ancient power is definitely one hundred percent not real and cass immediately bustles rapunzel out of there because she’s annoyed, which is fair, i’m also annoyed.

- there is a character named monsieur lafleur and i am choosing to believe that this man is tromus, because this book is sorely lacking in the demons department.

- queen arianna randomly walks in at the end of the chapter to make cassandra nervous and remind us all that cass is worried about her role in the black rock excursion getting out. i resent this scenelet because it reminds me that i could be watching tts instead. i miss tts cass. a lot. but anyway that’s the end of the chapter.

#lost lagoon reread

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aros001 · 3 years

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Going in blind: Watching season 2 for the first time. Random thoughts.

Huh. Only 7 episodes. Not complaining necessarily. For series with an ongoing plot I've definitely become more in favor with their seasons only having as many episodes as they need rather than them having to stretch themselves out to full up a certain number of episodes, which can lead to padding and just bad character moments.

Episode 1: Jeez. Catra visiting Shadow Weaver's cell just to rub her success in her face and verbally abuse her back for once. It's like a twisted version of Zuko and Ozai from ATLA. Catra's upbringing under her was abusive but this is far from a healthy way for her to deal with it. She's basically deliberately swimming in her resentment.

Episode 2: It's not that I'm rooting for her but by-golly was it fun to watch Catra act like just the absolute worst she could while she was Glimmer and Bow's captive.

I touched on this in season 1 but part of the drama of the heroes feeling guilt over leaving Entrapta behind is kind of lost on me a bit simply because it was her own fault it happened. She deliberately went back into the purge room because of her machine obsession, which then closed on her and erupted in flames. It was more than reasonable to assume she was dead and no one but her was to blame, so I'm not really able to be invested in their guilt over it.

That said, weirdly enough I do like that her "abandonment" doesn't seem to be even a blip on the radar for Entrapta herself. She hasn't joined the horde because she resents the heroes or felt left behind, she simply is so obsessed with machines and experimentation that she'll be on the side of whoever lets her do the most of that. Like, it's selfish and irresponsible but it's very in-character and I'd far rather have a traitor motivation be based in that over something stupid like a misunderstanding.

Episode 3: I love the mental image of Shadow Weaver thinking up princess-themed ghost stories to tell Adora as a child.

So, if the previous She-Ra Mara separated Eternia from the other realms/planets/whatever she did and that's what cut off the She-Ra line for 1000 years, I'm guessing Hordak may be from the time before that happened, thus his drive to create portals and calling Eternia a backwards world. Either he's naturally long-lived or his technology is extending his life.

Episode 4: You know, you could maybe argue it was vague enough that it could be taken other ways but I'm definitely getting some vibes here that Scorpia is crushing on Catra. She literally refers to the two of them as soulmates at one point. I know she says she's trying to be friends but this feels a level beyond that.

Fun little reference to the original She-Ra cartoon thrown in there (and maybe Cowboy Bebop...? James Bond...? What was Glimmer's art style supposed to be?). I like how it is more like just playful ribbing than anything outright dumping on the original. Again, I've never seen original She-Ra but whenever remakes/adaptations go out of their way to trash to the original I always kind of wonder why they bothered doing an adaptation if the original is just that bad? Also, I was having trouble sleeping so it was about 2am when I watched this episode and the very Eartha Kitt Catwoman Catra made it very difficult for me not to lose my **** and stay quiet. With how much of a contrast that version is from the one in this series, that was hilarious. Bonus note, it's a nice touch that Frosta's version of Catra is a pretty crasher in that sweet suit, since that's the only impression of Catra she's ever had.

Adora being a chosen one is definitely elevated up simply by how much the pressure of what she's supposed to be is getting to her. I'm likely going to keep making Avatar The Last Airbender comparisons throughout the series but that's partly because I went into this series figuring it'd be at least structured similar to ATLA (season 1 being more episodic and a little more kid-friendly as it builds up the world before getting more serious later). Adora and Aang are interesting to compare here. Aang's worries early on were less apparent because he was more in-denial/choosing not to think about his problems that much, which fit with his character as a free-spirited Air Nomad. While Adora is much more military-minded. She can't keep herself from thinking about her problems and trying to prepare for the worst-case scenario. And jeez, that idea of who/how Catra is in her mind. Not only beating her but making her watch as she takes everything she cares about away. Not Shadow Weaver, not Lord Hordak, but Catra. That whole Lion King Mufasa/Scar moment between them in episode 11 and their fight in the S1 finale really did a number on her mental image of her old friend. Not reasonably so.

Minor note: I'm sure I'm the only one who got this impression but by the look of it, the way the robot's eye moved, and the music, after getting the soda spilled on it that little spybot gained sentience for half a second and then immediately died. It was so darkly comedic I had to laugh.

Episode 5: So that red disc is basically She-Ra's Red Kryptonite, having an effect on the mind rather than the body. The drunk Adora joke doesn't really do it for me but it did get some nice interactions going between Scorpia and Sea Hawk, two characters I certainly wasn't expecting to bond. I did really like Catra's panic when berserker She-Ra nearly beheads her. The implication is that is Adora really wanted to kill her Catra would already probably be dead. It's a thing I like about powerhouse characters like Superman or Aang, who could just demolish everything around them and don't simply because they're a good person...which in turn makes them the scariest person on the planet when they're well and truly ticked off. I'm not going to lie, I do kind of want to see a She-Ra version of Aang when Appa was stolen or when Superman fought The Elite.

Also, Catra's line of "I have control over Adora. I'm not giving that up for anything.". There's a lot to read into there.

Episode 6: I guess my prediction was sort of right. Shadow Weaver became basically a magic parasite and while it did increase the power she's capable of the implication seems to be that she needs a constant fix of magic to keep herself going, thus her attachment to the Black Garnet.

Have we seen Micah before? Given how long ago the flashback seems set, the fact that Shadow Weaver didn't kill him and thus he probably becomes someone important later in life, I'm guessing he's Glimmer's dad and the queen's late husband, since I think he's the only important male character whose face we haven't seen yet. Also, he's voice by Ezra from Star Wars Rebels and that cracks me up for some reason. It's the exact same voice and a relatively similar character.

I compared Catra and Shadow Weaver with a kind of twisted version of Zuko and Ozai and that definitely still fits here. Both Catra and Zuko confront their parent and call them out for the inexcusable abuse they put them through but while that moment was the start of Zuko's upwards journey this and SW's betrayal seems like it's going to cause Catra to spiral even further. Makes sense why Adora leaving affected her so much. She's probably the only one Catra's ever had that she could consistently trust and rely on, even if she did somewhat resent her.

Not surprised Hordak is getting along with Entrapta. She's not socially aware enough to be scared or intimidated by him, so she'll speak frankly, and since all she wants to talk about is the machines, experiments, and how they could get them to work Hordak probably doesn't take much issue with that. She's producing results, which is what he cares about, thus also why Shadow Weaver and Catra started losing favor with him. I wonder if Catra is going through imposter syndrome? Shadow Weaver had that line that Entrapta earned her place next to Hordak and, if you think about it, Catra hasn't really "earned" anything. We saw that she didn't really take her training or studies that seriously, showing up late to combat practice and even getting partial credit for what Adora beat. She wasn't promoted to Force Captain because of her own abilities but because Adora had defected when she was supposed to get that title. She's come close to a few victories but never really had any except for Glimmer and Bow's kidnapping...whom she then basically let escape when she returned Adora's sword to her. She doesn't have the slightest clue how the horde's bureaucracy works when trying to get things done, like simply getting troops armor. Given how much better than her Adora always was and how little she herself has to her name, I wonder is subconsciously Catra believes she doesn't deserve her current position and thus why she's fretting so much over trying to prove herself.

Episode 7: Am I mistaken or did Bow's parents say that he's the youngest of TWELVE siblings? I was going to ask whether Bow was adopted or if his dad's used a surrogate or if maybe there's even just simply magic in She-Ra's world that allows two people of the same sex to have a child together but now I'm just focused on the 12 kids thing. I get nervous just imagining myself having more than one. You should see me when I'm with two cats. I have to pet both of them because I'd feel like I'd be making one feel left out and like the other is the favorite. I'm a mess with kids.

The dad with dreadlocks (Lance?), his design looked familiar to me and I finally realized it reminded me a of a fanart design for a human Grim from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Very different voices between those two characters though.

I wonder if there's any significance to the robot protecting the crystal having the same design as those in the artic in episode 5? Obviously both have the connection to the First Ones but the robot in the forest who was also protecting First Ones' tech had a more insect-like design over these more worm/Graboid ones.

I'm kind of curious what Hordak would have done if Catra had told the truth. Given his interactions with her and Shadow Weaver he doesn't seem like the time to tolerate failure but I suppose the implication here is that he at least would respect those who own up to their failures. Or I suppose more simply he was just testing to see if she would lie to him and since she did there's little merit in keeping her in a position of authority anymore where she could lie about important things again.

Season 2 verdict: Still enjoying it. Another person on this reddit recommended I view seasons 2 and 3 as one since they are basically just one season split in two. I was going to do that but this ended up longer than I thought I would, so I'll just do 2 and 3 separate to keep them semi-organized and easier to read.

I think overall Catra is my favorite character since she has the most interesting backstory, interactions, and just general path through the story out of everyone. She's like Pearl from Steven Universe or, well, Zuko. There's just so much baggage there that she's trying and kind of failing to deal with. I'm always invested in whatever's happening when she's onscreen. Hordak so far is a good big boss villain for Adora to face but Catra is a good archenemy for her.

Original Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/PrincessesOfPower/comments/o027y3/going_in_blind_watching_season_2_for_the_first/

#she ra #she ra spop #random thoughts #reddit repost

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howtowhumpyourhiccup · 4 years

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Whumptober Day 17: He Knows

Summary: Written for Whumptober Day 17. Set during RttE. A Hiccstrid AU. When Viggo knows something about Hiccup that the Dragon Riders don't, he's all too eager to share it with his young rival.

Rating: Mature

Characters: Hiccup, Viggo, Astrid

Pairing: Hiccstrid

Words: 4 264

Fandom: How to Train Your Dragon

Prompt: “Blackmail” + “Dirty Secret”

Whumpee: Hiccup

Author’s Notes: This is actually based in an AU/UA that I've posted one one-shot for before and do plan on writing a main fic for because there is just so much drama and plot that can be made with it.

The continued usage of the wrong pronouns is on purpose.

Constructive criticism is appreciated!

Enjoy!

NOTE: The Rape/Non-con warning is there for a correct warning. Nothing explicit happens in this fic. What does happen is unwanted touching above the belt, above the chest even, but still unwanted.

Ao3 Whumptober Fic

Ao3 Original Fic

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"I can't imagine how awful it must be to be in your position."

Hiccup looks up from the shackles binding his wrists at those words. They are the first spoken since Ryker has pushed him into this chair in front of Viggo minutes ago. There's been a tense one-sided silence of Viggo giving him the usual "did you honestly believe you would get away with this" speech with Hiccup not even giving him the time of day. But at those words, he has to look up.

They haven't been spoken with the kind of sympathy you'd expect to hear them be spoken in. Instead, Viggo gazes back at him with a smirk and that alone is enough to make him angrier than he already is.

"What position?" Hiccup asks, tone short, and showing the way he feels.

"Well, born the way you are, I can't imagine you have it easy." Deciding against giving him a straight answer, Viggo continues to use hints instead of giving him a straight answer.

"Berk no longer takes an issue with me being a runt." Hiccup replies and Viggo gives him that look, one of those he doesn't like. This one makes him feel like he's being played with.

"How does it feel knowing that your father, the Chief, will never truly accept you?" He asks and at this point Hiccup is confused.

Whatever gave him that idea? The relationship between him and Stoick is the best it's been since ever and Viggo shouldn't be able to know about the years before Toothless. And even if he did, that wouldn't explain why he thinks this.

Noticing the confusion Hiccup fails to hide, Viggo continues.

"You have to hide yourself, do you not? Can't imagine that must be pleasant." Viggo's fingers won't stop moving as he speaks and Hiccup almost finds them distracting. Is that what it's like talking to him? Is he that distracting, too?

"I don't know what you're talking about, I'm not hiding any part of myself." Hiccup denies what he thinks is an ungrounded claim.

"Good job, Hiccup, you almost sounded believable. I had no idea you were capable of such lies. How many times did you have to tell this to yourself before you started to believe it?" Viggo congratulates him on an acting job well-done and Hiccup isn't sure why.

"Repeat what? You're not making any sense." In the back of his mind, the very, very back, Hiccup feels like he knows exactly what his captor is talking about. But the last thing he wants to do, however, is admit to it.

Viggo readjusts his position and leans back in his chair, his expression hardly changes.

"Does it frighten you knowing you'll have to pretend you're a Chief someday? For the rest of your living days, I suspect? I assume this masquerade started because Berk's line of Chieftains has been entirely made up of men at this point. Bad enough they would get a runt for a Chief someday, but a female one? Now that must've stung." So this is what this has been all about, Viggo finally reveals the truth behind the lies Hiccup has supposedly been telling.

Pressing his lips together, Hiccup looks the other way, unable to bear that look of satisfying victory on his opponent's face. Viggo, meanwhile, is simply enjoying this little interaction.

"Are you suggesting that I'm... that I'm... You're-you're ridiculous!" Hiccup spits his denial at him, evidently shocked at this reveal.

"Can't even say the word, can you? Is that how far they've gotten the stubborn Hiccup Haddock the Third? You can't say "woman"? "Girl"? Or even the word "female" when it comes to yourself? You disappoint me, my Dear Hiccup." Viggo asks with mockery. This is still nothing more than a game to him, as everything always is with this man. A kind of frustration only he can make Hiccup feel burns within him.

But at least there's that one thing that doesn't change. Doesn't matter who he represents as Viggo still won't stop calling him "Dear".

"How did you know?" He asks, dropping the act as it's no use to keep it up.

Spending years in hiding, he doesn't exactly show it much. He's not like Astrid, who expresses her femininity with her clothes and her grace and her statements. He's not like Ruffnut, who would scream her pride as a woman from the rooftops if they hadn't explicitly told her several times to stop shouting in the middle of the night.

As far as he knows, he doesn't act, sound, or look all that different from his guy friends. And even after the months spent on the Edge together, they still have no idea what he truly is. So how did Viggo know?

"I simply have a keen eye, my Dear." Yeah, sure he does. It took the Dragon Riders ages to correct him on his pronouns before he finally started to call him...

Oh.

"So you've known from the beginning? Why keep it to yourself all this time?" It is a good question. If he really is as observant as he claims, why hadn't he brought it up sooner?

It's not like this is the first time he's been captured by the Dragon Hunters, so why wait until now? That something might've changed scares him the most.

As if having been invited to talk more about his discovery, Viggo stands up and walks from behind his desk.

"It was odd for sure. Is this simply who Hiccup Haddock is or is there something deeper going on? It didn't take much digging before I concluded that's exactly what's going on here." It is the intro to whatever speech he has prepared, the moment he's been waiting for, what he probably specifically captured Hiccup for.

"Berk has been keeping its dragon secret quite well, despite your theatrics." Hiccup rolls his eyes. Sure, he might have a bit of a dramatic flair going on, but it's not all purely theatrical.

"Did you know that your tribe's allies still refer to you as "the runt of Berk"? "Stoick's little embarrassment"? "Stoick's mistake"? I can't imagine any of those things being said about the Dragon Rider, especially about the Dragon Rider who ended the war with the dragons. That was you, wasn't it? Isn't that how you lost your leg?" So he knows about that, too, not that he's too surprised about this one.

Viggo has come to pace behind Hiccup, his hands behind his back. His footsteps are slow, relaxed, and yet somehow methodical as well.

Hiccup tries not to let it get to him, not that or the nicknames he used to hear so much growing up. He's always despised peace treaty signings for this exact reason. That and that his father expected him to keep the visiting Chiefs' spawn entertained and most of them loved to bully Berk's runty heir. The things they used to say to him, even in his own tribe, they still affect him to this day.

"But that everyone, even your allies, felt secondhand embarrassment for you and your father wouldn't explain your need to hide, so I dug a little deeper, a little somewhere else, and then I discovered Berk's lineage. No female leaders in your nearly 400-year-old history?" Viggo asks, the sound of his footsteps on the wooden floor accompanying him.

Hiccup's silence means he's hit the nail on the head. It's the lineage, that is why he needs to hide.

His hands land on the back of the chair and Hiccup visibly tenses up as a result. His hands intertwine, legs press close, shoulders move up, jaw clenches, within a single second, Hiccup is one human-sized ball of tension.

"This is why I can't imagine how awful it must be in your position." His voice is so close, he's looming over him and that, as well as the nature of this conversation, sends chills down his spine.

Hiccup wishes he could retort, sass, say anything, but his throat has closed up.

"Berk isn't the most progressive of places, is it?" Hiccup's silence keeping its hold on him, Viggo continues to talk.

But this time, Hiccup manages a response.

"And your tribe is? Where are your warrior women, Viggo, because we haven't seen a single one so far." Hiccup moves to the side, away from Viggo. He doesn't need to look to know that his smile is still there. He's not going to respond to that one.

"What do you want people to call you? Are you truly satisfied going through life as someone you're not?" Satisfied? Of course, he isn't satisfied.

He's never told his friends this, but he's jealous of his female friends. Astrid, Ruffnut, Heather, he knows at least two of them were never ostracized for being a runt and for being useless. And they certainly haven't needed to prove their worth by fighting a dragon nearly the size of a volcano, lost a leg, and trained the dragons of Berk only to be forced to continue to hide.

He's resentful, too. Yeah, he's resentful. Some might claim he isn't capable of such an emotion, but that nagging feeling choking his heart is a familiar one.

As if able to tell the rush of emotions, Viggo leans in just a tad bit closer and suddenly his hands are on his shoulders. Not even on the pauldrons, but on the armor itself, close to his neck. There's a slight trembling he has a hard time suppressing. He does like that Viggo thinks he can just invade his personal space like this.

"Can I make you an offer?" The older man leans in closer, his lips right next to his ear.

"What about a place where you don't need to hide? A place where you can just be yourself, the woman you were meant to be from birth. Strong, intelligent, powerful, a true Mistress of Dragons." A place like that doesn't exist, not for him, but Viggo isn't quite done yet.

"A place next to me." And there it is. The tone in his voice always dips when they're alone, but this time it dips even deeper and Hiccup isn't sure how to feel about it. Afraid? Something else?

The suggestion isn't as tempting as he'd like it to be, however, because the Grimborns and their men still hunt dragons for a living, some even for sport. That isn't a community he can even consider living in.

But it is nice to dream, though. A life where responding to "she" and "her" instead of "he" and "him" is possible.

If only he hadn't been born an heir to a tribe that couldn't possibly accept a Chief that is both a woman and a runt. If only he hadn't been born an heir.

"Are you thinking about it? About what you could become? What we could become?" Viggo's hold on him tightens, but not in an entirely uncomfortable way. Or rather, Hiccup supposes it isn't supposed to be discomforting.

"What's in it for you?" Hiccup forces himself to bypass the lump in his throat in order to ask. Because Viggo isn't offering this out of the kindness of his heart.

"New opportunities." That's the only answer the man will give him and Hiccup is left to guess what exactly these opportunities may be.

So he's no longer interested in beating them or having a truce then? Viggo has never hidden his interest in his young foe, but has never made this offer before.

One hand moves closer to his neck, fingers curling so the back of them can caress his skin. At the same time, his index finger and thumb grab small locks of his hair to play with. The other hand, it moves down just a bit and sneaks the tip of his finger beneath his armor. Hiccup's breathing grows labored.

There's a sense of excitement that he doesn't like. Because these are kinds of touches he doesn't let the Riders do in fear of being discovered. Not even Astrid, his girlfriend, can get too many touches in. The Riders, not knowing about this secret, believe it's because he just doesn't like to be touched. They respect this, whenever they remember to.

This must be why Viggo's fingers have this effect on him, because of how touch-starved he is to protect this secret his forebears forced onto him. That just makes him hate it even more.

"Are you thinking about my offer?" He repeats his question in that same low tone.

Hiccup's hands may be shackled together, but he's not tied to the chair, so he brings an end to this conversation by getting up before those hands can travel a little further. He could sense their intent to, could feel his armor lift just a tad.

Now pouting, Viggo watches Hiccup walk away from him.

"That won't happen. You hunt dragons and I save them. Don't forget that we're at war for a reason, Viggo." He tells the other, turning his head sharply to look at him from over his shoulder.

"This-this-this... fantasy! This fantasy won't work out. It will never work out! So don't bother trying to get me to your side, no matter what type of deal you try to make with me, I refuse to take it." He raises his voice, ignoring the stinging and the burning in his throat as the urge for tears wells up within him.

A fantasy, that's what the idea of him ever being himself, herself, is. A fantasy. Nothing more, nothing less.

Swallowing and taking a breath, he pushes that realization to the back of his mind. His mind.

But Viggo straightens and his amusement is gone as he approaches. Hiccup's stubbornness and his refusal to show his fear in the face of his enemy doesn't allow him to back away, but he can feel his heart thumping inside his chest.

"It wasn't a fantasy, far from it, it was a fair deal to save you from further humiliation. I'm sure you've suffered quite a bit of that in your young life, I had simply assumed you didn't want any more. But I see that I was a fool." The game picks right back up where it left off and Hiccup is left to wonder where it'll go this time.

He hasn't only declined, but essentially made fun of it, too, and that can't feel good to a man as prideful as he is.

"What do you mean?" He tries to keep his voice strong, unwavering, but he can't help the sense of anxiety that he feels when he asks.

"I have this information, do you expect me not to use it? I'm sure there are tribes, both ally and foe, that would be very interested to hear about Berk's heir. I'm also quite interested in knowing how Berk is going to react. Do the Riders know?"

"NO!" At that, Hiccup has quite the reaction and Viggo maliciously smiles once more.

The rational part of him knows his friends will accept him and won't reject him for this, but even so, that fear lingers. It's been ingrained into him since birth that nobody wants a runt, let alone a runt that's also a... So there is still a part of him that wonders how they are going to be any different from the rest.

Hiccup looks down, ashamed for the way he responded. He has just given the exact reaction Viggo is looking for.

"How about an ultimatum? Join me or the Dragon Riders will know. Refuse a second time and Berk will know. Refuse a third time, your allies. Can you guess what will happen if you refuse for a fourth time?" Viggo asks, satisfied with this perfectly cruel choice. He has always loved a good game. So long as it's in his favor, of course.

Hiccup stares at him, unable to hide his fear and the growing tears.

This is the day he has always been afraid would come, the day someone finds out and uses it against him like he has been warned it would. Ever since taking on this role of protecting dragons and facing countless of enemies, he has been afraid. Even before Toothless, when he was just Berk's embarrassment, he was afraid.

And now it's here.

If anybody finds out, he'll be shunned and bullied and belittled and thought of as worthless all over again. He can't bear to go back to those days. He can't bear being hated again for being born the way he is.

And yet...

"I guess you're going to have to... tell them." He can bear to see the Hunter harm dragons even less and so he refuses and in his mind doom himself to a life branded as the shame of his father. At least he'll still have Toothless.

Though not happy with this answer, Viggo isn't surprised.

"Shame, we could've had something great together, could've created some greats things, but you leave me no choice." He tells him. Hiccup casts his gaze downwards, a sense of panic is threatening to choke the breath out of him, but he has given the Hunter Chief his answer and he doesn't plan on taking it back.

"Shame, a real shame," Viggo remarks some more. He'd given Hiccup the chance to change his mind, but it didn't happen.

Then, as if sensing the dreadful end of this conversation, an explosion rocks the entire ship that they're on, throwing the two off-balance.

Slamming into the older man, Hiccup, and Viggo both make a tumble towards the floor, one ending up on top of the other.

"Dragon Riders!" The call is faint, almost too soft to hear, but it's Hiccup's cue to get out of here.

Using his cuffed hands, Hiccup strikes upward against Viggo's face with such force that it breaks his nose powered by nothing but the want to escape. He leaves the man no choice but to take a moment as a burning pain burst free.

Hiccup takes this opportunity to run, climbing to his feet and going for the door.

Toothless has to be here on this ship, too, they've been captured together.

As luck would have it, while he runs down the corridor, Toothless appears and their gazes meet.

"Toothless!" They meet each other halfway, both running to reunite and the dragon pushes the flat top of his head into Hiccup's torso, urging him to grab hold for as much as his tied wrists allow it for a brief hug.

"I'm happy to see you, too, Bud. We have to hurry and leave."

"Just what I was thinking." Astrid pops up as well, having been the one to free Toothless and letting him guide her straight towards Hiccup, always homed in on him.

"Come on," Axe in one hand, Astrid grabs one of Hiccup's in her other and pulls him along towards the deck of the ship, dodging Hunters and bracing for impact with each hit delivered by the other Dragon Riders.

They reach the deck soon enough and while Astrid and Stormfly reunite, Hiccup climbs in Toothless' saddle and the four of them take off towards the sky, the others providing them with cover fire.

"Dragon Riders, we're heading back to the Edge!" Hiccup orders. There were only two ships and they're both sinking, no use sticking around.

"Wow, we're happy to see you, too. Just a nice "Hello!" would've been fine, though." Snotlout teases Hiccup from on top of Hookfang. From what he can see, Hiccup is fine, so he thinks he's allowed to.

"Snotlout!"

"No, Astrid, he's kinda right. I'm happy to see you guys, too. Now let's go home." Hiccup stops Astrid from lecturing the other Rider. Barf and Belch, Ruff and Tuff, Fishlegs, and Meatlug join back up with them and the group heads for home.

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The Dragon Hunters didn't get too far away with their prisoners, but still, it took a good hour of flying before the Dragon Riders arrive on the Edge.

The six Riders and one Dragon are in the clubhouse now, removing the cuffs and cleaning the chafing that they'd caused on his palms. Or Astrid is. Snotlout and the twins are off to the side, declaring their undying hatred for the Hunters while Fishlegs prods Toothless incessantly for possible injuries that may need treating.

"But I need to take a look at you!" Fishlegs exclaims when the dragon moves away again, much to Toothless' annoyance as he just wants to be left alone.

Astrid, who had been watching the rather amusing chase around the room, looks at Hiccup to see his reaction only to find none.

He's been down ever since his rescue. And though, being kidnapped can't exactly be called pleasant, Astrid feels like something else might be going on here.

She dabs his palms with a clean cloth soaked in water a few more times before she speaks up.

"You're not going to say anything?" She asks gently.

"Hmm?"

"About Fishlegs and Toothless."

At this, Hiccup looks up to see what's going on, Snotlout and the twins betting in the background how much longer it'll take for Toothless to get angry.

"Fishlegs, he's just tired and wants to be left alone. So leave him be." It may have sounded a little sterner than he intended it to, but it only further validated Astrid's assumption that something is up.

Turning their attention back to his stinging hands, she has to ask.

"So what's wrong?"

"Why do you ask?"

"I just feel like something is the matter. You know you can always tell me, so do you want to talk about it?" She offers herself up as a listening ear.

"Nothing is wrong, just the usual Viggo with his stupid threats." Hiccup tells her, deciding against sharing details about their talk for reasons that are obvious to him.

"Oh no, what was it this time?" Astrid asks, remarking on this being a very frequent occurrence.

Hiccup looks her in the eye and seemingly thinks about something for a good few moments.

Should he tell her?

He stares at her fiercely blue eyes, the long blond hair he loves so much, can feel her hands caring for him as she waits for an answer. Then he looks around the clubhouse, gazing at each of his friends when he finds them. Fishlegs, Snotlout, Ruffnut, and Tuffnut, just joking around and relieving the stress of the day.

He doesn't need to look at Toothless, who has settled on the floor behind him now that he has some peace. He has known from the start, all the dragons have, and they don't care what he is.

Looking at them all, fear wins. He's been so long without this, friendship, fun, just people who like him, you name it. He realizes he doesn't want to lose any of it.

"Hiccup?" Astrid says his name, thinking he's lost in thought.

"It's really just the usual, truce, or die." He tells her and if he reaches far enough, he can explain his lying as being technically not lying. Because what was basically a marriage proposal from one enemy to another is like a truce and revealing a secret such as his to the world is like a kind of death.

"Are you sure? We all know Viggo isn't pleasant to be around, especially for you. So we'll understand if you feel a little awful. Or a lot." Astrid tells him, lifting a hand to lay on his cheek.

Hiccup's eyes flit towards it as its warmth ends up on his skin and he needs to keep a hold on his breath, having a hard time keeping it under control. It's the biggest drawback to a lack of physical touch, the fact that every little thing makes his skin burn with a desire for more.

Astrid suddenly remembers Hiccup's believed aversion to touch, but before she can act on her realization and pull away, Hiccup leans into her hand. So she keeps it there, smiling as every little moment she gets to have with her boyfriend like this is a precious one.

But she has a point, he does feel awful. Viggo's offer and following threat aside, Hiccup hasn't been able to get his touches out of his head. He hates how they made him feel, still make him feel, Astrid's in comparison are much more enjoyable.

And then there is that deep, dark part of him that wants more.

Noticing Hiccup savoring her touch, she grows a little more daring and places her free hand on his other cheek and Hiccup takes her wrist and keeps them there, sighing in content.

Her hands are warm, they're soft though still calloused, and they belong to his girlfriend.

This moment makes Astrid wonder just why Hiccup doesn't like to be touched if he's taking such delight out of this. To her, this just screams a desire for more, and she's sad that he won't allow himself to have more for reasons he hasn't shared with them yet.

Meanwhile, Hiccup is savoring every second he gets because he knows this may be one of the last times he will get to enjoy it. There is no doubt in his mind that Viggo will make good on his threat and that means all of this, Astrid, the Gang, might end soon. It sounds like nonsense, but this fear is real to him.

So he holds Astrid's hands, hoping he can enjoy her warmth just a little while longer before he inevitably loses it all, all over again.

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horde-princess · 4 years

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A Meta on Catra’s Relationships with DT, Scorpia, and Adora

I’m so excited to write this finally ljsdflkj okay so. I’ve been thinking about why the creators would choose to center a whole season around this new character Double Trouble. They drove the plot and played a major role in a really important part of the story, Catra’s redemption. So I wanna think more about the purpose of this character and go deeper into a couple of their scenes with Catra.

tbh Catra and DT’s very first interaction says it all: DT literally takes the form of Scorpia and tells Catra “I’m about to become your new best friend.” As the season goes on, Double Trouble replaces Scorpia as a sort of artificial confidant for Catra. But it blows up in her face and the purpose of the whole thing is to shed light on Catra’s main internal conflict: her desire for love vs. her fear of heartbreak/vulnerability.

In other words, I believe Double Trouble was introduced as a foil to Scorpia. But if we think about how Scorpia is also a foil to Adora, then that means DT is like... a foil to a foil. So they’re not directly associated with Adora but a lot of what they do relates back to her. Yeah there are a lot of layers here lmao but basically what I’m gonna analyze is how Catra’s relationships with these three characters intertwine and build off each other in season 4 to set the stage for Catra’s redemption (and catradora endgame hollaaa)

So in the beginning, Catra and DT both understand their relationship to be a business arrangement. When does that start to change for Catra, and why?

Catra’s History With Betrayal

Just think about Catra’s relationships at the start of s4.. After the portal, Adora had basically severed whatever was left of their relationship, and that was shown to be weighing on Catra all season. Scorpia and Entrapta were the only other people she cared about, but Entrapta betrayed her (first by monopolizing Hordak’s attention then by refusing to open the portal), then Scorpia dared to question her decision to send their friend to die and her presence became a constant reminder of Catra’s guilt. In fact, the mere mention of Entrapta’s name in 4x03 causes Catra to snap and yell at Scorpia “we are not friends!” ... which of course isn’t true. Catra may think Scorpia’s annoying but she confided in her, her loyalty made Catra feel like she could trust her.. and that’s exactly why Catra always tried so hard to push her away. All the betrayals in her life scarred her so deeply that she wanted to avoid emotional intimacy at all costs. I’m about to get Jungian up in this shit bc we see a deep disconnect between Catra’s outward actions (her conscious) and her inner desires (subconscious) this season and it’s this i believe that leads to her breakdown in 4x10. It’s an unsustainable way to live.

Why Catra Trusted Double Trouble

So by 4x04, Catra had sabotaged her only two relationships. She was utterly alone, and vulnerable, and Double Trouble was in the right place at the right time offering their loyalty to her.. so Catra did what any emotionally stable person would do and subconsciously used a hired mercenary to try and fill the growing void in her heart. I don’t think Catra actually cared about DT much at all, like sure they got along and that matters on some level, but I think it’s more that Catra was in a vulnerable place and DT was the only one around.

So why does Catra trust Double Trouble when she won’t let herself trust anyone else? I’ve seen some posts saying it’s because Catra is self-destructive--i.e. she only seeks love from people who won’t give it to her because she doesn’t believe she deserves love--which is super true.. but I think her motivations can be better explained by saying that Catra knew from the start that Double Trouble didn’t really care about her, and that’s why the partnership was attractive to her (at first). She thought it would be safe--no vulnerability, no risk of heartbreak. But the truth is Catra’s just not as disaffected as she wishes she was.

The moment Catra really let her guard down was when Double Trouble saved her from the collapsing building in 4x04.

can we just!! talk about this scene!!!! the way her voice shakes when she says “saving me” just, oh my god... like what a touchy subject for her, right? Shes spent her whole life resenting how Adora was always trying to “save” her from everything. I’m not sure but I think White Out (2x05) was the only other time Catra thanked someone for saving her life, and she just says “thanks for getting us out of there.” So her use of the word “save” here is special and it illustrates how deeply vulnerable Catra feels this season, and more importantly it’s a sign of character development! It’s no coincidence that the theme of saving is connected between DT, Scorpia, and Adora. It’s leading up to Catra learning to replace her resentment towards Adora with something closer to gratitude.

But while the scene connects these relationships, it also highlights their differences. After Catra displays an astounding amount of vulnerability with DT, they coolly reply “well, I live to serve... for a price, of course.”

This right here is the first step of Catra’s breakdown. Suppressed desires making themselves known, one half of her heart rebelling against the other. She was pushing away her real friends and finding hollow companionship with someone she thought she wouldn’t get attached to, but it happened anyway.

The difference between Double Trouble and Scorpia must have become glaringly obvious to Catra in that moment. Whereas Scorpia was loyal to Catra out of love, DT was mostly interested in getting paid. And she was surprised by how much that hurt. She fucking hated how much it hurt, you can see it written all over her face. It’s why she fails Scorpia’s little test in 4x06. Because of Double Trouble, Catra’s true desires were threatening to break free, so outwardly she fights against it and acts more resistant than ever to being friends with Scorpia. She castigates her, calls her annoying and incompetent, harsher than we’ve ever seen... but she didn’t expect Scorpia to hit back (we did, tho. Scorpia’s an icon).

In four words Scorpia teaches Catra a hard lesson about what it means to earn someone’s loyalty. She knew she must’ve really fucked up if she somehow managed to push away the most loyal person in all of Etheria. And again the fake nature of Catra’s relationship with Double Trouble provides a reference for her to see why Scorpia’s loyalty, based in love, was so valuable, and why she shouldn’t have taken it for granted. It also relates to Adora because, similar to Scorpia, Adora had been trying so hard these past 3 seasons to connect with Catra, but she refused to forgive her and her behavior eventually forced Adora to cut ties. So Scorpia calling her out pushes Catra towards accepting some personal responsibility for everything that happened with Adora, too. Man there are just.. a ton of implications here.

Then Catra gives Hordak a fun pep talk but really it’s just her self-projecting all over him:

At this point her hateful actions and her goal to conquer Etheria are extremely out of line with her true desires and we can see it’s really affecting her mental state. It wasn’t just one thing or person that caused her breakdown, it was a combination of Adora severing their relationship, and Scorpia’s disappointment in her, and Double Trouble’s indifference towards her. All three of these situations were playing off each other and chipping away at Catra’s carefully crafted armor, revealing a desire to be loved hidden underneath... which she continued to fight against for as long as she could. Adora and Scorpia were playing their roles in helping Catra learn to take responsibility for her life, but those relationships wouldn’t have been so effective had it not been for how they were contrasted with Double Trouble’s indifference. Anyway have I mentioned how amazing and complex this show is????

Catra Loses DT and Scorpia Around the Same Time

4x07 is the last time Catra talks to Double Trouble before they get captured by the rebels. Coincidentally, Catra realizes that Scorpia left her just one episode later, which once again points to a connection between these two characters. From 4x08 to 4x11 Catra is completely alone, feeling like she has lost everyone in her life. It sets the stage for her meltdown in 4x10. But my fave part about Scorpia leaving is how it changes the way Catra thinks about betrayal.

Even if Scorpia didn’t tell Catra where she was going in the note she left, Catra had to have assumed she was leaving to join the Rebellion because where else would she have gone right? So the two people Catra loves most have now BOTH abandoned her to join the rebellion. I don’t even wanna think about how triggering that betrayal must have been for Catra.. I don’t wanna think about how the next time Catra sees Scorpia she’s going to be a full blown princess with powers and everything, just like what happened with Adora.

But there’s a key difference between Adora and Scorpia. Catra knows at this point that Adora didn’t want to leave her behind, but she did anyway to pursue some destiny that Catra wasn’t a part of, which left her feeling betrayed. Scorpia, on the other hand--the very definition of ‘loyalty’--left her specifically because Catra pushed her away. Her fear of vulnerability manifested as anger towards someone she refused to admit that she cared about, and it pushed her away.

Once again I think Scorpia is teaching Catra a lesson about taking responsibility for some of the shit in her life. It’s a privilege that Adora lost after being careless with Catra’s trust, and thus Scorpia was the only one in a position to reach Catra and help her. But I think that the things Catra learned from Scorpia are going to play back into her relationship with Adora and allow them to reconcile (when Adora deals with her own issues too).

We can also say a little about how Double Trouble’s betrayal contrasts with Scorpia’s and Adora’s. I think their complete emotional detachment is the perfect frame of reference for Catra to be able to acknowledge that even though Scorpia and Adora left her, they DID love her, and they never stopped trying to reach out to her--at least, not until Catra crossed a line with both of them. At some point, Catra went from being justified in her feelings of betrayal to overdoing it, placing too much blame where it didn’t belong and closing the door to forgiveness. So I think that’s the role that Double Trouble played there, helping Catra see that difference. Like even if someone leaves you, hurts you, it doesn’t always mean they don’t love you. Relationships take work and understanding and forgiveness and you have to learn how to handle that or you’ll always be alone. Scorpia’s the pure embodiment of that lesson, and she’s lighting the way for Catra to navigate the much more nebulous waters of her grudge against Adora.

Double Trouble’s Betrayal

So now Catra is feeling abandoned by Scorpia and Double Trouble (her only friends) and we see the disconnect between what’s in her heart and the front she’s been putting on come to a head in 4x10 when she has that meltdown. She’s kind of losing it because her fear and heartbreak are driving her down a path that she doesn’t actually want. It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion. In 4x12 she continues to hold on desperately to the idea that beating Adora will make her happy, because at this point she doesn’t see any way to turn the car around.

There’s an absolutely fantastic scene early in 4x12 that sets up Double Trouble’s betrayal beautifully, like really it’s a masterpiece. Catra’s childhood friends walk in on her in the locker room and they’re laughing and joking around and for a second it’s like... Catra longs to be a part of that again.. To have friends, to be happy. But then Kyle accidentally kicks one of Scorpia’s old doodles (a painful reminder that she’s gone) and Catra freaks out and attacks them. Kyle’s like “we used to be friends, why are you treating us like this?” So she lets them leave, feeling alone and miserable, and THAT’S when Double Trouble waltzes in... having had just made a deal with Glimmer to double cross Catra.

God it hurts so much. The contrast between her pushing away Scorpia and her real friends, and then her childlike relief upon seeing the person who just sold her out.

This scene gives me fucking chills with the nightmare-ish music and everything.. It’s like, at this point DT is just fucking with her, they’ve already got Catra figured out. This face touch is so cruel and fits with the show’s motif of manipulative affection, too. For me it felt very disconcerting to see Catra like this... unaware that she’s been defeated yet she’s so emotionally vulnerable here, she’s like putty in Double Trouble’s hands. Scorpia leaving cracked her open and, as they’re the last person left standing with Catra’s trust, Double Trouble’s in the perfect position to come in and break her.

So the next episode 4x13 has that crazy scene where Double Trouble totally obliterates Catra and I’m not even gonna talk about it lmao because yall have already done a great job analyzing it. But I do wanna draw attention to the fact that this is the only thing she says in this whole scene:

Can you believe that’s what mattered the most to her in that moment? Not that literally everything she had been working for for the past 4 seasons had just turned to dust before her eyes, but the fact that this random mercenary she hired betrayed her. And there was no anger at all, just... heartbreak.

And then look at what she says to Glimmer afterwards (setting aside the fact that Catra is basically giving up on life...) she says nothing about the war, nothing about winning or revenge. The only thing she’s thinking about is how lonely she feels.

So by the end of Season 4, I think Catra did finally figure out what she truly wanted in life. She didn’t want to be on top just for power’s sake, she wanted people to respect her, to love her, so that no one could hurt her anymore. But she was so obsessed with winning that she ended up losing everyone’s respect. Wow haha if only she could get a second chance to earn it back the right way.... like say if, idk, she was trapped in space jail and forced to team up with her sworn enemy to survive and they came out best friends or something <:)

To sum up, Double Trouble’s role in Season 4 was to break Catra’s mask and force her to consider what she truly wants. I think their betrayal taught Catra to really appreciate what a terrible mistake she made in pushing Scorpia and Adora away. It taught her the difference between someone leaving her because they don’t care about her, and someone cutting ties with her even though they do care for her very deeply, they just couldn’t take Catra treating them like crap anymore. It showed her that what Adora did was nothing like what DT did. That’s what a betrayal feels like when the person doesn’t care about you. Someone who doesn’t care about you isn’t going to beg for your forgiveness for 3 seasons and risk being obliterated from existence just to get you back.

But the real beauty of season 4 was how Catra hitting rock bottom had almost nothing to do with Adora. With the help of other friends Catra has begun to find her own reasons to change, she’s acknowledging her guilt and heartbreak and discovering the person she wants to become. She’s learning to take responsibility instead of just blaming other people. And this character development had nothing to do with romance, just like how Adora breaking free of her destiny and learning to let go of control had little to do with Catra. I love the different perspectives on love that they give us with Catra, Adora, and Scorpia. I love how this show takes the “love conquers all” trope and subverts it, saying that sometimes.. love breaks you. Sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes it’s used as a weapon. Sometimes you have to let go of people you love, but it opens up space for you to figure out who you are and what you want and to conquer your own demons. You’ll come out the other side with a better understanding of what real, healthy love is supposed to look like. And maybe in the end, the love you always sought will find you again, in its own time, in its own way. 💘

#OK THIS IS... A LOT. EVEN FOR ME LMAO #she ra #meta #season 4 is my fave so far i just had a lot of feelings to work through ok #would love to hear what yall think xoxo happy new year's!!

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jq37 · 4 years

Text

The Royal Report– A Crown of Candy Ep 1

There Is Strength in Sweetness

Much like the years, the seasons of D20 start coming and they don’t stop coming. Fantasy High: Sophomore Year is barely in the record books and we’re already jumping into our new season--the Game of Thrones/Candyland mashup: A Crown of Candy!

If y’all have been with me since Sophomore Year then you know that I did very in depth recaps of every episode with a very specific format but I’m gonna try something new for this season.

The format might change a little between episodes as I figure out what works best so bear with me but the plan is to do more highlights and opinions than a blow by blow. But, like, we’ll see what happens.

So, anyway, saddle up your Meep and let’s visit Candia--one of the six kingdoms of the land of Calorum (aka: a fridge. We see you Brennan, it’s a fridge). Twenty years ago, the Ravening Wars wreaked havoc but they’re currently in a time of peace which (mostly) everybody is psyched about.

Meet the Family

This is not a new observation but, while most seasons of Fantasy High focus on found family, this season is all about family-family, specifically, the royal family of Candia and their associates.

We’re first introduced to Murph’s character--Sir Theobald Gumbar (Level 3 Eldritch Knight)--who is the a huge, golden-armored, gummy bear, leader of the Tartguard, protector of the royal family, and the logical endpoint of Murph’s lawful good predilections. Sir Theo is, of course, on time with bells on for the big Saint’s Day/Coming of Age birthday party for the twin princesses of House Rocks. Unfortunately, he’s clearly never seen The Little Mermaid because when the heralds announce the princesses, they don’t show up. Frustrated, he goes to try and find them.

The first place he checks is with Zac’s character, Chancellor Lapin Cadbury (Level 3 Celestial Warlock). He is (in no particular order) the royal tutor, a chocolate bunny, an official of the main state sanctioned church of Calorum (the Bulbian Church), and a pompous ass. Oh, one more thing? He and Theobald can’t stand each other. There is nothing funnier than two very proper grown men who hate each other's guts. Sir Theo shows up to his classroom where the princesses are having a lesson--or at least they’re supposed to be. Further inspection shows that they’ve just left two straw dummies in their place. Classic.

So, we pan out to the city to meet my favorite characters so far (I absolutely play favorites but I also disclose when I’m doing it so I think I’m in the clear) the twin princesses/chaos gremlins--Jet and Ruby Rocks (both level 1 Rogues) played by Emily and Siobhan. Theo may not have seen The Little Mermaid but the twins have def seen Aladdin, because their number one pastime seems to be escaping the palace to roam the city--hilariously illustrated when they chuck a gem into a peasant's bag and his reaction is a super nonplussed, “Guess the princesses escaped again.” They’re got the Disney Princess-itis really bad because both of them feel stifled by palace life and want more--specifically, Jet wants to be a warrior and resents having been born in peacetime (especially since she’s slightly older and in line for the throne) and Ruby wants to run off and join the circus as an acrobat. They are total twin BFFs to the point that their Thieves Cant has been reskinned to Twinspeak which is a detail I love so much (and that will become unspeakably tragic if something happens to one of them Brennan).

Jet gets a letter from her secret crush Thad, an Avocado from Fructera (these are the sentences I am being forced to write this season folks) and schemes with Ruby about how they can get to Comida (the capital city) to meet him--possibly by sweet talking Theobald which is easy because he’s so thirsty for respect. Sure enough, Theobald and Lapin soon find them, following their path of destruction and the princesses are brought back to the castle.

Back at the castle, we’re introduced to Lou’s character--King Amethar Rocks (Level 3 Storm Herald Barbarian)--who is having a somber moment, surrounded by the statues of his four older sisters who died in the Ravening Wars, leading his reluctant taking of the throne. He’s interrupted by Lord Calroy (his right hand guy and a full ass talking slice of cake because Brennan is trying to break me this season but I refuse to give him the satisfaction) who lets him know that his daughters have escaped and his delighted reaction immediately lets us know which side of the family they take after.

Finally (at least wrt PCs), we meet Ally’s character--Liam Wilhelmina of House Jawbreaker (Level 2 Ranger) who is a political prisoner/ward of House Rocks and a soft, outdoorsy, mountain kid who is perpetually followed around by his pet pig--Peppermint Preston whose death will absolutely force to me to Google “Best Denny’s Parking Lots for Fistfights.” He misses his dad but not his dick brothers because Ally isn’t allowed to have a fully happy family in any season. Liam is from the disgraced House Jawbreaker and his brothers seem to expect him to try and off the King while he’s in their orbit. While he’s in the woods, looking for seeds (as one does) he finds and accidentally breaks an important looking teacup, which we’ll get back to.

The other important character we meet this episode is an NPC--Queen Caramelinda, mother of the princesses, wife of Amethar, and keeper of 100% of the impulse control of House Rocks. She’s the main disciplinarian to Jet and Ruby, the clear decision-maker in the kingdom, and the only literate one out of her and her husband. She also seems to be the only character that respects Lapin’s authority.

An Inciting Incident

So, with all our characters assembled, all that’s left is the plot hook which Caramelinda provides in the form of a personal letter from Emperor Gustavo--the head honcho of the entire realm and his old friend--to Amethar. He’s not doing well health-wise and he needs to name an heir that’s not related to him at a big tourney that he’s personally inviting Amethar to. Amethar is a little slow on the uptake but Caramelinda eventually connects to dots for him that it seems very likely that Gustavo is going to name him emperor.

Amethar is not vibing with that information at all but Caramelinda basically holds him by the ear until he reluctantly agrees to go--though he insists that Ruby and Jet also come along to keep him company. Caramelinda only agrees on the condition that Lapin goes with. She also invites Liam (who is caught off guard but game) and Sir Theo is basically going by default. Caramelinda is staying home to hold down the fort but the talking slice of cake is going because Brennan hates me and doesn’t want me to be happy.

The traveling party is chosen, the twins have been gifted with sick, inherited weapons from their aunts: Flickorice--the Twizzing Blade (Jet) and Sourscratch--the Puckering Bow (Ruby). It’s almost time to be off, but there’s still one last thing to get to before we leave the twins’ party.

Lapin, feeling the pull of something broken (told you we’d get back to it) subtly makes his way outside, but is followed by Jet and Liam. Now, if you remember, I said earlier that Lapin is an official of the Bulbian church. Which is why it’s so surprising for Jet and Liam to see him talking to the Sugarplum Fairy, a deity of the Sweetening Path--a non-sanctioned more animistic religion that really only has sway in Candia. He fixes the teacup and then she appears, telling him that he’ll need to be wary once he leaves her sphere of influence and that boldness will be required in the days to come. Lapin, who seems to be having this conversation very begrudgingly, asks if she’s asking him to do anything in an official capacity and she smiles and says that she’s not asking for her third wish(!). Then what does she want? She wants him to know that there is great risk in what he is doing, but not acting is the greater risk. The coming challenges will be great, but he must protect the royal family or all is lost. She wouldn't have used her second wish to bring him to them if that weren’t the case. They hustle back and spill this to Ruby, obvs.

Anyway, onward! The next day, the caravan is set up and--with a warning about a sugar free chocolate warlock (ominous, as sugar free chocolate always is) they’re on their way to meet their escort out of Candia. Ruby decides to do her acrobat thing and is hanging out on top of the carriage instead of inside it as she and Jet “subtly” (read:not at all) bring up the Sugarplum Fairy to Lapin to see if he cracks.

Suddenly, the caravan stops. There’s a tree felled in the path, which really only means one thing in this kind of story.

Ambush.

Ruby, outside of the carriage and unprotected, takes 16 points of damage and is fully down with a failed death save due to some unknown effect. The carriage is riddled with arrows.

Everyone rolls for initiative and that takes us into a new (sure to be recurring) segment I’m calling:

Things I’m Concerned About

I’m concerned about Jet and Ruby (and not just because I’ve been worried about Ruby for a while due to things the cast has said and because she fully *died* this episode). They have their genres so wrong. They think they’re Disney movie protagonists but they’re in Game of Thrones and they don’t know it. Being Wrong Genre Savvy is a BAD position to find yourself in. Carriage surfing shenanigans don’t fly in a world that wants you dead.

OK, Carameinda. I’m inclined to be pro-Caramelinda. Like, she’s the hardass but she needs to be because Amethar isn’t helping run the kingdom. If this was a different story, she wouldn’t give me any pause but I read Macbeth and feel some light Lady Macbeth vibes. Gonna be keeping an eye on her.

Calroy and Sir Toby (didn’t mention him, he’s a slightly lower ranked Gummi Bear guard and friends with Theo). In a story like this, I’m looking for the possible betrayals before I get blindsided and the only people who can really betray you are people who are supposedly loyal to you. Calroy had a little aside with Amethar about how he shouldn’t be the Emperor if he doesn’t want to be--which isn’t wrong but is also something someone angling to keep him off the throne for other reasons would say--and Sir Toby decided to stay behind to help hold down the fort--again, either an innocuous decision, or angling to be left alone and to his own devices.

Whatever is going on with the Sugarplum Fairy and Lapin? Do not care for that one bit. I understand that a Warlock pact is mechanically very similar to a Paladin oath and a Celestial Warlock pact is even moreso but guess what? Still don’t trust it. I know Ruby’s Arcana check said that she’s generally a chill spirit but I still don’t trust it. And getting Wishes from your follower? Weird and suspicious. What’s your game, lady?

Emperor Gustavo apparently has a daughter who is barred by law from taking the throne when he dies. That sounds like a very strong motive for *something* at some point down the line.

I’m a little concerned Jet is being catfished by this Avocado. First of all, not a sentence I thought I’d ever write. Second of all, I’m probably just being paranoid. But that feels like a great way to get a princess alone for kidnapping or shanking or something.

Update: Brennan did an AMA and, regarding the previous bullet point he said, and I quote, “You are right to be concerned!” so now I’m concerned about that too! Fun!

I’m concerned about the mechanics of how a slice of cake person works. Slice implies a full cake. Where is the rest of the cake Brennan? Where is it? And, like, Brennan said on the post-show stream that we’re making the “what do they eat?” question weirder than it actually is because we’re made of some of the stuff we eat but hey Brennan? If I could pick a flesh toned and textured apple off a tree? That would be weird, OK? And I’m sorry for everyone else who had to picture that but it had to be said since Brennan is insisting on walking us down this garden path.

I’m concerned about whatever the hell is happening with Liam. Disgraced dad, mom is a shaman of the local fringe religion (Sweetening Path, like Lapin), and his brothers want him to shank the king or something? No way this ends in smiles for everyone.

Brennan said Pyramid of Food so I’m concerned about fruit rollup mummies.

OK but more than anything, I’m concerned about the death rules of this game. Death in D&D is cheap but, in a campaign like this, it can’t be. I’m not super well versed in GoT but it’s my understanding that resurrection in that series is possible but rare. Brennan said he specifically didn’t let Ally stock certain healing spells and that’s very telling about how things are gonna be handled. I guess we’ll see in the upcoming battle episode how that works but my general thought is, I hope everyone made interesting backup characters.

Five More Things

So, my thoughts on the new characters. I love Ruby and Jet with my entire heart. Watching Emily and Siobhan roleplay sisters and enable each other and hype each other up is so fun--or it would be if I wasn’t low key bracing to lose one of them sooner rather than later. Zac playing against type and Murph playing to type are both fantastic. I want nothing more than for Theobald and Lapin to continue sniping at each other. I hope that’s the first PvP fight of D20. Amethar is a lot of fun but clearly in over his head and I’m interested to see where he’s pushed. Liam is literally just vibing. Hope he doesn’t have to commit regicide!

God, the House Rocks PCs are such a disaster family. I love it. The moment when Calroy comes in and is like, “The princesses have escaped,” and Amethar breaks into a grin and is like, “Dude, that’s so dope!” I was like OH, so it’s *all* of them, huh. But, honestly, this should have been on the “Things I’m Concerned About” list because come on. They’ve not all gonna make it. And then we’re gonna have to watch the remaining family members react to that? Oh no.

Love Ruby’s bow. I have a player in my game who also has a magic bow that produces energy arrows because, truly, who has the time to deal with the logistics of how many arrows you had left after last fight? Magic arrows. Boom, done. Next.

Getting bagged on by your Patron for not having a spell when she’s the one who gives you your spells is so funny. Also, Mending isn’t a Warlock spell which makes it even funnier.

**I’ve given myself a 3k word limit on all of these to try to put some boundaries on myself but, Lol, prize to the first who guesses closest to the first episode I break that rule.**

#a crown of candy #a crown of candy spoilers #dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #the royal report #listen I don't hate calroy #I hate the *implications* of calroy

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boneswriteswords · 4 years

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How do you think was the childhood in the sewers four our beloved turtles? (maybe a short head canon? please and thank you^^)

AN: Hi! I am a hundred years late but what else is new? Thank you for sending in an ask. I went with the head canon route because lazy. This also took me forever and they didn’t turn out to be fun head canons and I am sorry about it. I can’t make nice things.

Childhood Headcanons

Michelangelo:

- Mikey was very decisive and sure of himself as a kid, even when he was feeling insecure. He was very much like Othello – he was sure that he was feeling unsure and secure in that he knew he was feeling insecure. He had no issues expressing how he felt, able to search inside himself to put a name to the chemicals firing off inside his brain. He was good with making choices – even if the choices themselves were very bad. From a young age, he made the choice to see and search out for the good. He lived in darkness and dampness but he would not allow it to control him.

- He wondered what it was like to have a mother. He loved his dad but it wasn’t the same. He craved a feminine touch – a gentle hand with a soft voice and a soft place to lay his head when everything got loud inside his skull. He’d never tell his dad – would rather sew his own mouth shut before he ever said anything that could hint that his dad wasn’t enough for him – but he couldn’t help staring at mothers and their children through the openings to the sewer and wondering what a mother’s love felt like.

- He got really into art when he was about 10. He found a couple cans of spray paint that some dumb kids had left behind after being caught vandalizing and he sat at a dead-end of the sewer, testing what he could do with them. He had a limited palate but he managed to create really cool art pieces. Whenever he needed a mental break, he’d take his bag of cans and skateboard and go find an isolated area where he can create. As he got older, he uses the murals as a way to find his way home.

Donatello:

- Donnie struggled in his really early years and was incredibly withdrawn, even from Splinter. He was born a genius, able to make connections that were beyond his age very early on and it came with the pressures of being a ‘gifted child.’ His body often felt heavy and ducking into his shell to hide when it got too much for him to move was common. He spent a year or two resenting his brothers – the teenage angst came early for this boi – because they weren’t making the same connections that he was and he had issues reconciling that he could see things they couldn’t, not yet.

- People think Mikey is the biggest video game nerd but they would be wrong. That title belongs to Donnie. The moment he got his hands on a game station, it was over. He revamped it, acquired some games for it, and played it for daayyyys without interruption. He was fascinated by the technology and one of his favorite things to do to this day is beating games and then taking them back to his lab and reprogramming them with more play, more side quests, more characters, more scenes, just…more. It is one of the ways to test and improve his skills without killing himself with deadlines.

- Donatello was obsessed with fire. He isn’t sure when his search for warmth became more but he remembers the freezing temperatures in the sewers, especially during winter time, and the way his blood slugged through his veins. He created fire in an attempt to warm up their den one evening and, while he did is safely, he felt a compulsion to watch and to touch, feel the burning break through his skin to light up his bones. He didn’t and he made sure Mikey didn’t accidentally flail into the fire but, even as an adult, he can’t help but feel it call to him.

Raphael:

- Raph was the kid that fluctuated weight as he grew. One month, he’d be short and chonky and the next he’d be an inch taller and thin. It made him really self-conscious because his brothers grew into their bodies a lot more gracefully than he did, going through a small awkward phase before settling with the ease of a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. His body angered him, especially when it made him lethargic, because he ate the same amount and trained the same– if not more – than his brothers. It wasn’t until they hit their midteens when he got big. His shoulders expanded. He got even taller. Muscle replaced the baby fat. He lost the weird second chin flap thing that was along his jaw. He full on Neville Longbottom-ed in the span of six months and he was finally able to feel comfortable in his skin….even though he still doesn’t get how big he actually got at times and has fallen over many times.

- He sang in the shower. A lot. Once his voice stopped cracking and the deep timber set in, he liked murmuring song lyrics while he scrubbed himself down. A lot of the songs were very uncharacteristic for him - love songs and soft melodies meant for lovers to sway to on the dance floor together.

- Raph was scared a lot of the time. Just because he lived in the shadows doesn’t mean he wasn’t scared of what was in there with him. He flinched every time he caught movement he couldn’t identify. As he grew, he realized that facing the dark was the only way he could really know what was there. There were times where he went too far, moving to fast, and he had to scream for his dad to come find him between panicky, stuttering sobs.

Leonardo:

- He was a curious boy. As a result, he was the one who lost his innocence first. Before he felt the pressures of leadership and being the eldest on his shoulders, he liked to wander the sewers, going a little farther every night. Closer to the lights and the sounds he heard some nights that filled his mind with vastness. He discovered people before his brothers. He watched as a young woman was dragged into an alley by her boyfriend and beaten to death, the blood pooling under her body drowning the daydreams he kept close to his chest. He walked back to the lair changed, the urge to protect blossoming under his skin and spreading across his chest like armor.

- Leo loves to read and it was something him and Donnie bonded over as they grew up. A lot of the books they got were busted with missing pages and dented spines and scribbled to hell so they filled in the missing plots with their own, battling knights and overthrowing kings (Donnie was adamant that the kings were bad because of taxes) and brewing healing potions. After a while, Donnie became immersed in his science and Leo drifted into training but some of Leo’s favorite memories are when he and his brother were rogues in a forest surrounded by nymphs napping in the sun.

- He spent years learning control because he didn’t have much of it as a kid. Splinter focused on teaching him meditation the most out of his children because he required the most reigning in. Raph lashed out in large bursts and fizzled, Donnie snapped harshly and retreated to think, and Mikey cried it out but Leo was a different story. He couldn’t stop when he started and he couldn’t let it go. He fixated in unhealthy ways and Splinter had to find a way to stop it before he got out of hand.

~~~

End

~~~

#tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #headcanons #michelangelo #raphael #leonardo #donatello #My writing #imagine #tmnt headcanons

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irikahkrios · 3 years

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2, 3, 5!

2. You can redesign the canon outfits of three characters. Who are they? Bonus, what would your redesigns look like?

okay i'm gonna go with the obvious answer here and say miranda, jack, and samara. with the common thread being "for the love of god PLEASE let these powerful deadly women wear something other than boob straps and painted-on-looking catsuits."

for miranda it would definitely have been cool to have her in something a bit more structured and uniform-like in me2. but i know everyone and their mother has complained about miranda's catsuit, so i'm actually gonna focus on me3 and how she really should have gotten new clothes. i mean, she's in hiding, sneaking around the galaxy evading her former employers and desperately trying to find her sister, and she's....wearing the exact same very recognizable catsuit from the previous game, just with the cerberus insignia removed? i think it would have been cool to see her in something a bit less polished and put-together, and a lot less obviously recognizable. let her pull shepard aside on the citadel, a mysterious figure wearing a hooded jacket or something? maybe some sort of....asymmetrical hooded sci-fi trench coat? god i dunno. i can sort of picture it in my head but it's hard to put into words. also let her tie her hair back and wear flat shoes you cowards

this might be cheating since it's an existing outfit (but i made this ask game so whatever), but jack's alternate dlc outfit is already so much better than the Boob Strap and i would have preferred it as her main outfit. that cool sorta-punk, sorta-biker look? fucking excellent. it fits her vibe so well. the sunglasses are kinda silly and i'll admit i don't care for them, they're the one thing keeping me from putting her in that outfit every time i play (i usually will put her in it until i get her loyalty outfit though), but everything else about it is *chefs kiss*

i do like mods that put samara in the asari commando armor, i think it's definitely better than her canon armor, but i don't entirely think it fits her vibe. i do enjoy how ornate her armor is, in that aspect it really does feel like something a member of an ancient sect of warriors would wear. but the rest of the design is just......oof. as for what i would prefer, there is this one concept (in two different colors) on her page in the art book that i think is really cool, it captures that same ornate design vibe while being....a lot less grossly oversexualized.

it's still not as armored as i would like (and it still has the high heels which are a pet peeve), but it's a far more interesting design overall. i can see the lighter colored one as her regular armor, and the darker variant as the loyalty mission reward recolor.

3. Think about your least favorite character in the series. Hypothetically, what changes could be made to their character that would make you like them better?

i really wouldn't hate liara half as much if she wasn't shoved in your face to the extent that she is. the games just consistently present her as Shepard's Best Friend, as the single most important squadmate in shepard's life, and the writing generally assumes that her strong attachment to shepard is reciprocated, resulting in all this forced dialogue that makes no sense if your shepard felt neutral on her or straight-up disliked her. i would be able to tolerate liara a lot more if i could set boundaries with her. i want to be able to establish that she and my shepard are not close, and i want that decision to be respected by the games instead of being constantly railroaded into dialogue that implies a deep intimate connection that simply isn't there in my canon. the more the games pushed liara on me, the more i pushed back against her, and i'm at the point now where in my headcanon version of the games, she isn't even a squadmate in me3. i definitely wouldn't have gotten so frustrated and so actively resentful of her as a character if bioware had given me any kind of choice in how my shepard interacts with her.

5. What's a scene you would have liked to see in the series?

i want more scenes, specifically in me2, of the squadmates interacting with each other. me2 has this great setup with one of my all-time favorite tropes, the Morally Ambiguous Ensemble Cast Who All Have Fucked Up Issues, and then has the audacity to NOT do a found family plot. i want the me2 squadmates to be found family SO BAD and i end up having to write that plot in my head because the game sure as hell doesn't give it to me. i want something like the movie night scene in andromeda, something where all your squadmates get to hang out together and have banter and be a family. i want a scene that shows how this group of people has become Home. we deserved that dammit, me2 had the best squadmate roster in the series but the least amount of interactions between said squadmates and frankly i think that's a crime

admittedly we do get something kind of like this in me3 with the citadel dlc, but i would argue it isn't quite what i'm looking for, since citadel is more of a love letter to the trilogy as a whole and i would have preferred something that was just for the me2 roster. also thane is my favorite me2 squadmate and one of the characters i would be most interested in seeing interact with the others, and he's not in citadel because he's fucking dead. so, yeah.

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