#what that actually means is that there are even MORE Elena verses :)

[sergeantpixie]

tell me about whichever WIP isn't about elena gilbert if you can

Anon I know you're trying to be mean but a) I have no shame about how many Elena verses I have, that's my Girl, and b) I am so delighted to be able to talk about the one verse on that list that has nothing to do with Elena Gilbert, that's why I put it there! So thank you!

"I am willing to take more hurt if it's from you" is a project I've been working on for so long and I'm finally making some real progress on it which feels amazing! It's my Alison DiLaurentis/Aria Montgomery (Pretty Little Liars) fic that is supposed to be as canon based as possible, just using the subtext between the two characters to create a story where Alison and Aria were secretly hooking up before Alison disappeared.

Instead of giving you the full pitch on why they make sense as a ship (and why they are basically canon, or at least Alison having feelings for Aria is) I'll just refer to a post where I went off in the tags about them because it says pretty much everything I would say about it here: this post.

In summary: When Alison asked Aria if she knew why she picked her, the answer is: Ali's obsessed with Aria.

The premise of the story would be Alison and Aria's relationship being Rosewood's best kept secret, then when the liars discover Alison has been alive all this time, Aria feels compelled to confess what happened between them all those years ago in order to get ahead of Alison and prevent her from using that to alienate her from the other girls. (Alison is still Alison, I have no interest in changing that.) It's the girls' reaction to that as well as an exploration of Aria and Alison as characters. And maybe Ezra really is A but that might just be implied we'll see.

Between Jake, Ezra, and her first love’s girl-Jesus resurrection, Aria’s love life has never been more complicated, and that’s like, really saying something.

the tiniest excerpt :)

@randomestfandoms

#asks #tag games #anons #thanks anon! #wild that you wanna insult me for loving a character on the loving a character website lmao but thanks for the opportunity to babble! #idk if you got the memo but I have too many WIPs to include them all so I just chose the ones I'm actively working on rn #what that actually means is that there are even MORE Elena verses :) #and also quite a few more that have nothing to do with her #even a few in the tvd verse which will be a first for me #I am willing to take more hurt if it's from you #alia #also maddie idk if you are at all interested since we usually just talk about deanlena but just in case! #maybe the story I have done the most research for? idk I just find them so fascinating and wanted to prove that it's quite easy #to make them a canon ship #so first I had to watch the show to figure out every relevant episode and make an outline #(and take some notes) which I finally finished this past fall (it's just s1-first few episodes of s5) #and then I'll be rewatching all of those episodes in order to par it down to an actual coherent plot #I thought about putting a longer excerpt (maybe even smth from my version ezra's book) but that one always makes me giggle so

[la---ra]

#2. Arrogance

Thursday April 12 2023

All my life I have tried to avoid it, and yet I am overwhelmed by it. I have always known that arrogance is one of my biggest flaws. Perhaps this blog is the utmost proof of it.

The people in my life have frequently pointed to my insecurity as a sign that I am [too] humble, that I should "be more confident." In actuality insecurity is only indicative of arrogance. When I feel most insecure is when I am most arrogant and self-involved: those are the moments when I am certain with every fiber of my being that I am important and interesting enough for people to be staring at me, judging me, laughing at me, thinking of me.

Once those moments have passed and I have gathered myself, I know that of course no one was looking at me, no one was thinking of me, and most people care very little what I do or say. But somehow I find myself lost, time and time again, in the delusions of arrogance. I am filled with the anxious and utmost certainty that my humiliating existence warrants deep and precise attention and judgment from others.

No matter what I hope to say or try to write, there is always someone who has done it better than I could ever aspire to. Here's Elena Ferrante in an interview:

"Writing is an act of pride. I’ve always known that, and so for a long time I hid the fact that I was writing, especially from the people I loved. I was afraid of exposing myself and of others’ disapproval. Jane Austen organized herself so that she could immediately hide her pages if someone came into the room where she had taken refuge. It’s a reaction I’m familiar with: you’re ashamed of your presumptuousness, because there is nothing that can justify it, not even success. However I state it, the fact remains that I have assumed the right to imprison others in what I seem to see, feel, think, imagine, and know. Is it a task? A mission? A vocation? Who called on me, who assigned me that task and that mission? A god? A people? A social class? A party? The culture industry? The lowly, the disinherited, the lost causes? The entire human race? The elusive subject that is women? My mother, my female friends? No—by now it’s blindingly obvious that I alone authorized myself. I assigned myself, for motives that are obscure even to me, the job of describing what I know of my era, that is—in its simplest form—what happened under my nose, that is to say the life, the dreams, the fantasies, the languages of a narrow group of people and events, within a restricted space, in an unimportant language made even less important by the use I make of it."

I frequently think of the verse in Ecclesiastes: "Of making many books there will be no end." It's true. There is always the pressure to be original and novel especially with forms of expression like writing. I have felt that pressure my whole life, but I also initially turned to writing as a way to release the thoughts in my head and to order and understand them. I try to remember that writing for me is not and should not be about striving for originality, novelty, or even creativity. There is nothing new under the sun. I write so that I can understand and think more clearly. Joan Didion said: "I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear." Flannery O'Connor said: "I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say."

[liberty-belle-a]

// My Rambling Thoughts on Episode 3x08

All right. Finale. Let’s go.

Ryan!!!! Hi, Ryan! Maddie needs threads with the half-brother. Like these two really need to have a conversation / bonding time.

OMG THE CONFLICTING PROTESTS. 

Wait. Wait. Are they...was that to knock Maeve out...or kill her? THEY BETTER NOT KILL MAEVE.

I actually feel really bad for Soldier Boy. He looks so conflicted.

Oh thank god. She’s alive! GO MAEVE!

Bless Frenchie. Putting weapons in drugstore perfume bottles.

Oooooh he’s not doing well. I love how Ashley brought the Deep for back up. And to throw under the bus.

Noir’s back! With pissed off forest friends! Is there a petition to make Noir a Disney Princess. Because I feel their should be.

WHY IS NOIR SO WONDERFUL. He is def one of Maddie’s favorites. Even if does, occasionally, throw her junk food in the trash.

Oh, Butcher. Wanting to protect Hughie. But from WHAT???? WHAT ARE YOU UP TO, BUTCHER???

As FUCKED UP and TOXIC as Homelander is cause OH MAN is her a psychopath, he really REALLY just wants to be loved. Like to a psychotic amount and will do psychotic things to get the adulation he feels he is owed...but it gives me a LOT of feelings about him and Maddie. Because he would love her in her own way. And everything he did would be to protect her and see her carry on his legacy and yeah....

STARLIGHT CAME TO GET HIM. 

Ahhh. He saved him from taking more V.

PIZZA ROLLS!!!! Now I want pizza rolls. 

Hughie having revelations and apologizing to Annie. Good, Hughie.

MAEVE!!!!! Just chilling with Marvin. MADDIE WANTS TO HUG HER MOM SO MUCH. SOMEONE LET HER HUG HER MOM.

Damn, Kimiko.

Hughie, you precious cupcake. Determined to see the good in people. 

I need all the threads with Maddie and Soldier Boy. ALL OF THEM. I need these two to meet.

Also I want to watch the Soldier Boy story. I love how in real life he was the anti- Steve Rogers. A rich boarding school kid. 

Also Maddie would love to punch Soldier Boy’s dad in the face. Maddie would love to punch a lot of people in the face.

“I always assumed I had a few.” “I always wanted them.” LET HIM HANG OUT WITH HIS GRANDDAUGHTER. 

Noir’s lines are pretty much his version of DID I FUCKING STUDDER.

Oh shit. This cannot end well. 

Now Maddie wants to hug her Da...WHAT THE FUCK DID HE JUST DO???? THE FUCK. No. I do not accept this. Noir is not allowed to die. NO. Canon rejected.

AND THE SAD ANIMALS. WHY AM I ABOUT THE CRY. 

FRENCHIE IS NOT GOING TO SHUT UP ANYMORE. (And now I need someone to play that song from the musical version of Heathers for him).

MAEVE, COME GET YOUR BABY PLEASE BEFORE THE TOWER BLOWS UP.

A-Train’s face at the whole ‘fucking an octopus’ thing.

I TOLD YOU ALL SHE WAS GONNA HAVE A BREAKDOWN. 

I legit need LOST HIS SHIT Homelander with Maddie. Who at this point is probably locked in her room. For her own safety. 

OH GOOD. SO MADDIE WOULD BE HANGING OUT WITH RYAN. CAUSE 2 GRANDKIDS TO HOLD OVER SOLDIER BOY’S HEAD. 

Seriously, tho. Someone just let Maddie and Ryan hang out. 

WHY IS THIS SHOW MAKING ME CRY. WHY. 

Then they go and have Jensen call someone a pussy and I’m cracking up.

Well that’s a team up no one saw coming.

How are there still 20 minutes left in this episode. MY GOD. SO MUCH IS HAPPENING.

Notice how Maeve is the only person Homelander even hesitates to fight. 

Soldier Boy was about to go John Walker on Butcher. 

FLASHDANCE!

MADDIE DOES NOT APPROVE OF ANY OF THIS.

“Fuck you shiled, bitch!”

YEA, HUGHIE!!!!!!

WTF. WTAF. 

NO NO NO NO NO.

NO. 

NO.

NO.

DISAPPROVED. I mean, I knew it was coming because she announced she wasn’t coming back for Season 4. But DISAPPROVED. 

RYAN MY PRECIOUS ANGEL. The amount with which Maddie loves her half-brother. I can’t even tell you.

BUTCHER!

I both reject canon and need threads with Maddie dealing with the loss of her mom. I will probably make canon a side verse. And keep Maeve alive in my main cause Maddie needs her mom.

So Butcher is dying. :(

MAEVE IS ALIVE!!!!! And normal. And with Elena. Okay. Screw that. I need Maeve and Elena taking Maddie away from all this. Allowing her to be normal. Basically give me all the variations of this ending. Maddie thinking her mom is dead. Maddie going with her. Maeve remaining with the Seven. ALL OF IT.

ALL OF IT.

THE PAINTING. I CAN’T DEAL WITH THE PAINTING. And the Deep eating his feelings.

OOOOOOH. So she’s gonna be VP...

And Homelander’s fans are still out there. “True Patriots”. 

TODD NO! BAD TODD!

And yeah. The amt with which Maddie would have been paraded about...this kind of just proves that. Also no. NOT LETTING THE LITTLE BROTHER BECOME THE NEXT VERSION OF HOMELANDER. Nope. Not happening.

#(ooc: behind the curtain) #the boys spoilers #the boys season 3 spoilers #kerry watches season 3

[elizabethvaughns]

what are your top ten musicals?

1. if/then

i mean, duh. this is predominantly an if/then blog, after all. one of the main reasons (out of several) i absolutely adore this show is that it puts a woman front and center in its story. as a matter of fact, all of female characters are so wonderfully fleshed out and none of the main female characters are one-dimensional. on the flipside, taking the male characters in consideration, none of them really exhibit the misogyny and the characteristic machismo that men typically exhibit in popular media that i absolutely loathe. i mean, yes, lucas was an asshole to beth after he found out that she aborted the kid. but important thing here, is that (a) lucas was portrayed as the asshole in this scene, and (b) his issue was that "it wasn't fair for [beth] to make that decision without [him]". his main issue wasn't that beth aborted the kid, it's that he saw a chance to start a family with the woman he's been in love with for over twelve years and she took a decision without even involving him. and the argument, while understandable, but still invalid (because it's beth's decision throughout!!!), was just…a product of life. and stephen—while he did kiss beth and push her away (because he was married), he was still overall respectful of her after "what the fuck?". and josh is a himbo and david's also overall pretty respectful in the scenes that he's in.

and i just adore the musical because of the timelines in general. neither liz-verse, more focused on romance, or beth-verse, more focused on career, is treated as more important. liz isn't treated as stupid because she decided to focus on her relationship with josh. the fact that she didn't get the job at the DCP isn't even related to the fact that she decided to pursue a relationship with josh. and beth—beth vaughn, my love, my light. even though she has no time for romance, she does fortify her relationships with her friends—with kate, anne, and elena (and lucas, to a degree. i still feel that liz's and lucas's friendship was stronger, though). and platonic love is often overlooked in media. which if/then doesn't do. (and speaking of friendships, beth and lucas's friendship breakup is treated well too).

and speaking of love, or more specifically the romantic kind. the LGBTQ representation in this show is pretty good as well. ignoring liz's one biphobic comment (i mean, ma'am, your best friend is a whole-ass bisexual right there. you know that. you dated him in college. you just set him up with a guy.), it's pretty damn good! kate and anne? iconic, chef's kiss, you go you funky lesbians. lucas and david? adorable go off. and lucas? absolute (canon, might i say) bicon right there.

and the acting. unparalleled. all of the characters are so well portrayed by their actors it's unreal. and the chemistry that the actors have with each other. it's so fucking incredible i'd imagine it'd have been a pretty great experience to see this live.

in the end, the book is spectacular, the music makes me want to cry, the whole show is incredible, send me an ask if you want me to drop a link to my favorite bootleg(s) and/or the libretto.

2. falsettos/the marvin trilogy

now i'm tired after waxing poetic about if/then for over 500 words. so i'll try and make the rest short.

i guess what i have to say about falsettos is. i have loved this show ever since i watched it over two years ago (fun fact: i forced my friends to watch it with me when they came over for my bday in 2019).

it is an incredible show. full stop. it's funny, it's a tearjerker. all the actors (in the obc, in the revival, etc) are so talented. the staging is so amazing (i mean. the block—or the lack thereof—in the revival. it's genius).

and the character development of marvin (and whizzer, for that matter) is so incredible. and i love all the characters in general. it's just. great.

3. rent

rent was actually the show that really diversified my musical taste.

i love the music. it slaps so fucking hard. i love the characters. they're all assholes, but they're lovable assholes, you know? (except benny he's just an asshole).

there's nothing more i can think of atm but i will wax poetic if i think of anything.

4. the prom

the music's great. (i love "dance with you" and "it's time to dance" so much!!!)

also i love greenelan so so much.

5. she loves me (2016 revival)

it's so funny!!

and the set is really something to behold

and the chemistry between zachary levi and laura benanti as georg and amalia is pretty damn great

and i love ilona in general

love me a good enemies to friends to lovers story

6. hadestown

it's such an incredible musical. and everytime i listen to the soundtrack i get chills. and i've loved it since....since april 2019, actually.

orphydice <3. also eurydice <3.

also persephone <3

also love me some 'fuck capitalism'

7. waitress

love me a funny musical that's centered around women.

i absolutely adore the relationship that jenna, becky, and dawn have. and the soundtrack is so hauntingly beautiful.

8. wicked

love me a musical that's centered around women full stop

i love elphaba, she's so incredible. when i first listened to this musical freshman year, i ended up seeing a lot of myself in her.

and elphaba's relationship with glinda <3 (romantic? platonic? i don't really know. either way, it's pretty great)

good character development?? love me some good character development

anyways i don't really know what's gonna happen with the wicked movie. in the end, hope it doesn't turn out bad and completely detract from the musical's main themes as musicals-to-movies so often do. (and the book. it's so different from the musical it's unreal. i still adore both, though, for differing reasons).

9. legally blonde: the musical

elle woods my love

anyways. incredible funny musical centered around women you get the gist

but it's so good i'm obsessed

elle and vivienne? i'm obsessed. elle and paulette? i'm obsessed. that scene where elle helps paulette get her dog back from her ex? or that scene where paulette and vivienne try to coax elle out of the supply closet before elle reveals that she hasn't actually given up? i'm so fucking obsessed.

it shows that you don't really need to change something about yourself to achieve your goals. and that's such an important message.

and emmett? love that he drinks his respect women juice. and laura bell bundy and christian borle's chemistry is unparalleled

10. something rotten!

if you can't tell, i love funny musicals. it's so self-aware and that's incredible

also, portia brooks.... <3 and bea bottom.... <3

#long post #thanks for the ask anon i spent way too long on the explanations #sorry if the explanations at the end are shorter than my if/then explanation i'm just really really passionate about this musical #the numbering of this list past number 3 is bound to fluctuate but i think this is a pretty good representation #ask #dear friend #if/then #falsettos #rent #rent musical #the prom #she loves me #hadestown #waitress #wicked #wicked musical #legally blonde the musical #something rotten! #musical theatre

[cursedbcrn]

Okay this is by no means extensive and rn it’s limited to TVDU characters because that’s the easiest off the top of my head. These are just ideas I’ve thought of recently and if this is helpful / people like this spitball format, I might make more posts like this in the future. If you’re interested, let me know and we can do a thing.

Caroline replaces Alaric after he gets the boot from the honor council. Maybe she gets a firsthand look at the damage Alaric has caused, from the curriculum to eroding the trust from the students, and also how he’s pitted the twins against Hope / treated her like a guard dog over the years. Realizing that she’s made mistakes but can still turn around and try to make amends. (imagine how that changes everything in the future seasons, like would Hope still beat her up to “send a message” after she flips her humanity? Would Alyssa still want to send her to the prison world as revenge as well? Dealing with nh!Hope? Possibilities!)

Alternatively, Caroline who follows the plotline as in canon and returns upon hearing about nh!Hope (or what she did to Lizzie. Alaric too ig).

Resurrection threads. Hayley, Klaus, Elijah, Stefan, Cami, literally anyone who died and for whatever reason. If it’s not Hayley or Klaus, maybe she tried to get them and something went awry, but now they have them? Idk, just resurrection threads. 

Kai wreaks much more havoc in the prison world arc. Probably will end up with Kai dead or back in the prison world tbh ( or some other plucky happy ending ) but also the sass, banter, and absolute brutality. ( no Hope/Kai please )

Either Landon or Lizzie (or both) for the canon verse. Landon would be romantic turned platonic after 2x08, and Lizzie would be platonic the whole way through. I love both ships romantically and platonically, but I have yet to be able to play them out in a platonic way and I think there’s so much depth and potential and I just love deep platonic friendships okay?

Can someone please spare a Rafael for my crops, they’re dying. ( Yes, I know I already play Raf with Ace but also I wanna play Hope - and no, it’s not the same )

Actually, I will take literally any rarepair ship for Hope (i.e. Hope/Jed, Hope/Cleo, Hope/Maya, Hope/Ethan, etc.) like I would legitimately be interested to see how we could make it happen. 

My entire kingdom for a Marcel. What is he doing during Legacies timeline? Did something happen? What did he think after she flipped her switch? Hope needs her big brother.

So....... how do Damon and Elena feel when they hear that Hope Mikaelson is going to be attending SBS? Because you fucking bet your ass that Alaric ran his mouth to Damon, even though he wasn’t allowed to. What was the reaction when she was seven? What about when the Malivore monsters start showing up? When she goes full tribrid? 

Obligatory Hope and the twins were raised by K/laroline or H/ayoline AU. 

Any version of a verse where one of Klaus, Elijah, or Hayley survive, while the other two die. Bonding over survivor’s guilt, swapping stories, trying to move on. 

Canon-divergent AU where Hope actually manages to leaves Mystic Falls after she sees Josie and Landon kissing at their movie night. Anyone from the Super Squad meets her again 5 years later (say..... right before the Merge?)

My Triad verse maybe? Like......... supernatural creatures getting hunted? Hope suddenly reappearing after 12 years and the ripple effects of that nexus vorti which rips open Malivore from the inside, spilling out all these legendary monsters and also Triad is still a menace and idk maybe Josie also comes back from the dead somehow because Hope exists again and-

Okay wait I’m going to add to this, but consider that this changes everything so anyone can be dead or alive, but people still don’t remember Hope. So just imagine the heartbreak of Hope finally running home to see her parents but they don’t remember her at all

More to be added maybe? Idk are these ideas interesting to anyone but me?

#[ wishlist. ]

[ishenwulf]

why do you ship steroline and klaroline (not why you ship both, but your reasons for shipping each)

I do actually ship them for similar reasons tbqh lol. I think both ships have great chemistry and both ships add to Caroline’s overall story in their own way.

Let’s start at the beginning of her story, because it’s relevant to seeing the impact of both Klaroline and Steroline. In the pilot, Caroline’s main purpose was to get REJECTED by Stefan, to be the one who never measures up. Following this we see her get abused by Damon, be a point of comparison for when he tells Elena “I wanted it to be real with YOU.” In many ways, her main purpose was to be a prop that makes Elena POP. Even when she and Matt got together, her Elena-related insecurity was a heavy feature in the relationship.

Then she got turned into a vampire and all of her shippy storylines started to revolve around her vampirism in some way. As a result, her storylines became more about HER rather than Elena. However, you cannot deny that she was still firmly a secondary character, who got a secondary character love interest in Tyler.

Enter Klaus. Let’s take a good look at Klaus. He’s a main antagonist within the verse, firmly tied to the core mythology as an Original Vampire, and is incredibly powerful. As far as juicy love interests go, he’s a huuuuge catch. I don’t mean in that he treats people great, obviously, but I would say that doesn’t matter when it comes to desirability if you look at which men get shipped and with which intensity in any given fandom.

Klaus explicitly showing interest in CAROLINE was a massive shake up regarding what people expected from him or the verse. I remember those times in fandom very clearly, because at the time I was confused by it. As far as I was concerned Klaroline had sizzling chemistry and the hook of Klaus ~showing Caroline how great vampirism was and how it opens up the world for her was positively intoxicating. Yet people seemed confused? The very fact that someone like Klaus should even NOTICE Caroline, let alone be interested in her, seemed completely illogical and implausible to large parts of fandom. Back then I didn’t understand that this was because Caroline had reached out of her “designated tier”. Klaus was far too important and powerful for a female character that had started out as a prop girl. Comparatively people were far more open to the possibility that Klaus would be hung up on Elena’s Petrova Doppelgänger face, or even obsessed with his sister (who was only a recurring character but ~Vampire Royalty~ as an Original).

You see, status matters. It matters to fandom and it matters to the writers, because it kept opening more doors for Caroline as a character and as a love interest. People say Caroline started being “just a love interest”, but I would argue that for female characters it is almost impossible to separate the two. Look at Elena. Arguably, the main story was ABOUT her being ~a love interest. People see and feel her as a well-rounded character in the first 3 seasons, when she had THE MOST high-cachet love interests (Stefan, Damon, Elijah, you might argue Matt as well) and they complain about Elena being reduced to a “mere love interest” as that number shrunk and she was eventually only left with Damon. A little more on that later.

You could literally SEE the effect Klaus’ interest had on Caroline’s position on the show. Here’s what Carina Mackenzie said about Caroline’s style and dress in 3x14:

Because there’s this unspoken rule that the main female character and/or the most desirable female character gets to have the prettiest dresses. It’s not something fandom doesn’t realize on some level either because there were multiple instances where Rebekah stans complained about this, both re: 3x14 and 4x19.

#klaroline #tvd #this died in my drafts #I don't entirely remember where I was going with his #but alas #I like the part tha t I did manage to write #so why not post it #years after the fact #where most ppl don't gaf anymore #x'''''D

[laufire]

i definitely think clarke is an example of a villain protagonist, and fandom’s need to see her as a hero is due to the need to see protagonists as heroes. my only stipulation is that i do think fandom is capable of acknowledging that certain protagonists are villains, but only under certain conditions. like fandom can only acknowledge a character is a villain if the story really really really explicitly frames them that way. like people are willing to acknowledge that characters like (1/2)

(a few of these seem to have been lost to this hellsite’s void, sorry :/)

walter white, don draper, tony soprano, dexter morgan, the “it’s always sunny in philadelphia” protagonists ect are horrible evil people. (although even with them, there stans who engage in ridiculous apologism, ie the “walter white did nothing wrong” crowd, but i do feel like most of the audience gets that these characters are evil? maybe i’m being to optimistic, or maybe it’s just because i avoid r*ddit lol) but i think in these cases it’s mostly because the framing is so blatant, like (2/3) 

like the writers basically have to beat you over the head with the fact that the main character is a horrible person for them to get it. but with characters like dean winchester, elena gilbert, and clarke griffin, the fandom largely sees them as good people, (who may be morally ambiguous sometimes, but only because they CAAARRRE SO MUCHHH) and i think it’s because the narrative framing is different than what it is with a character like walt. that’s not to say that the narrative always (3/?) 

frames characters like elena, clarke, dean, ect as good people. i think the narrative sometimes engages in apologism for dean/elena/clarke, and sometimes it acknowledges how terrible they are. i think that for characters like dean/elena/clarke the framing is often much subtler than for characters like walt/don/dexter/tony soprano. i also think sexism/white female fragility plays a role in how fandom perceives elena, clarke, and jessica jones are perceived by fandom (4/?).

This is all true, but I also think there are other factors at play. On is the kind of people these two groups are -I’m less familiar with some of the others mentioned above than I am with The Triumvirate of Doom LOL, but I’d say that (maybe with the exception of Don Draper? I really need to watch Mad Men one day. I remember liking the pilot) they are fundamentally different TYPES of ~bad people. Dean, Elena, and Clarke are empaths, subconcious manipulators; to different degrees of efficiency, and Dean and Clarke use hard power more than Elena, but they’re specifically people who are difficult to parse, and difficult to accuse. They’re the kind of people who trade in social graces and do it well, often coming out of shit smelling like fucking roses. The others are excused by fandom, but Walter White, Tony Soprano and Dexter Morgan’s whole deal is different.

On top of that, there’s a matter of distance. Those you mention are all from mundane worlds, worlds like out, commiting violence in a mundane way. Dean kills monsters, Clarke commits large scale genocide by levers in a distant sci-fi post apocalyptic ‘verse, Elena even has other supernatural beings commiting supernatural violence for her. I know I myself react worse to more “realistic” violence.

And regarding the ‘verses, I think we run into an issue of the perception each of these gets, the depth people are willing to assign to each of them. Nevermind that The Vampire Diaries or Supernatural have been the two most cynically honest shows about the worst of human nature I’ve yet to encounte;, for a lot of people they’re just ~silly genre shows, the first a ~silly girly show, even. The acts committed in those universe is horrifying to the extreme, heightened forms from real-world equivalents, but easy to dismiss for a lot of people because of its source. Which annoys me, ngl, because I don’t think without characters like Elena we’d get some of the female antiheroes we have now, for better or worse; or without shows like Angel for the male ones; Angel was definitely a precursor to the Tony Sopranos of tv, IMO.

There are issues with framing in each of the shows and it matters, but there have also been moments where they have been absolutely ruthless about who Dean, Elena, Clarke, etc. were at their core, and the audience insists on keeping their eyes closed to it anyway. So framing can’t be the only issue.

fandom NEEDS to see white female protagonists as good people. i think this is because of the notion of white female innocence and purity, how white cis women are seen as inherently good and kind, and needing and deserving of protection from white men. of course fandom woobifies the shit out of white male characters too, just look at dean winchester and dean winchester. however i genuinely can’t think of a example of a white female protagonist who was explicitly framed as terrible person, (5/?) 

and where most of fandom fully acknowledged her shittyness. the only real example i can think of is dee reynolds, and like that doesn’t really count because iasip is a deliberately absurd bizare sitcom where you really aren’t meant to take the characters actions seriously. the show isn’t grounded in reality and it’s not meant to be. also dee is nothing like elena or clarke, and iasip is nothing like the 100 or tvd so i’m comparing apples to oranges. (6/?) 

maybe blair waldorf from gossip girl? i actually think she has a lot in common with elena and clarke, it’s just expressed in different ways. but maybe that’s due to the fact that serena was technically the female protagonist (even if the writers blatantly favored blair), and blair was introduced to the show as an antagonist for serena. although there was a fuck ton of blair apologism in the gossip girl fandom so who knows. (8/?) 

i have seen daenerys targaryen referred to as a villain (even before the second last episode), but in her case i actually feel it’s somewhat unfair. i mean obviously burning down kings landing was a villainous act, but on the whole i see her as more of a mix of an anti-hero and an anti-villain. like of course she has done many horrible things, but she isn’t terrible in the same way elena and clarke are, like she is a different type of character than them. (10/?)

i also feel like the got fandom wasn’t as pro daenerys as the tvd fandom and the 100 fandom were of elena and clarke respectively. (maybe because daenerys shared protagonist status with the stark family?). (omg i am so sorry this ask was so long! i seriously thought this was going to be two parts, maybe three tops lol) (11/11)

I’m not too familiar with Blair and only half-familiar with GOT and its fandom, although yes, I would consider them slightly different cases than Clarke or Elena, on first sight.

White female fragility definitely plays an ENOURMOUS part in these characters’ perception. A lot of the Clarke vs. Bellamy discourse was profoundly racist, for example. And do not get me started on Jessica Jones and how the show portrayed, and the fandom received, her dynamics with black men.

#anonymous #replies #talking to the void #my thoughts #fandom nonsense #the writing tm

[maticide666]

my eurovision top 39 songs (finally)

anyway i finally got my top 39 completed. under a read more because it can get kinda long with the commentary i added klfdja;sflk (and by that i mean VERY long, maybe a wall of text if i have a lot to say about the song.)

none of this takes rehearsals into account.

basically, 39-37 i don't like, 36-35 are meh, 34-25 are decent, 24-18 are good, 17-12 i enjoy listening to a lot, 11-4 i love, and I would pay for votes for top 3 if i could.

39. Azerbaijan - Efendi - Mata Hari - Honestly, I kinda want to like this song. The instrumentation is nice, especially with the Azeri instruments. Efendi's vocals are ok during the verses. However, her vocals during the MA-MA-MA-MATA HARI part makes this song utterly unlistenable for me. It is just so distracting and ear-grating. Not great for my sensitive ears. And that is without taking anything else into account.

38. Estonia - Uku Suviste - The Lucky One - For some reason reminds me of a boring modern country song. Bland af. At least the melody of the chorus is nice.

37. Cyprus - Elena Tsagrinou - El Diablo - Discount Lady Gaga at the best points of this song. Feels like three songs at once. Also, the lyrics seem like they just went all "What Spanish-sounding words sound spicy? Taco? Tamale? Mamacita?" As a Spanish speaker and as someone of Mexican descent who enjoys those foods, this annoys the living shit out of me. At least I can make El Diablo/Fallen Angel memes out of this. (Honestly, I don't mind the gratuitous Spanish with the words El Diablo.) Also, this song got real old real quick.

36. Slovenia - Ana Soklič - Amen - The gospel vibe is nice, but there is just too much Christianity in it for me to enjoy this song. Sorry, Ana.

35. Moldova - Natalia Gordienko - Sugar - Sounds like a sugary version of Siren Song by MARUV. Kinda boring, but enjoyable in the right circumstances.

34. Georgia - Tornike Kipiani - You - Good to listen to when mind feels blank. At first I kinda liked this song, but nowadays this song has lost its charm. This won't sound out of place alongside boring 70s slow classic rock songs.

33. Austria - Vincent Bueno - Amen - Not something I would listen to regularly, but still nice. For me, easily the biggest downgrade from 2020.

32. Greece - Stefania - Last Dance - Pleasant to listen to, not much else.

31. Portugal - The Black Mamba - Love Is On My Side - Good song, but not my cup of tea. Unfortunately, some great songs have to be near the bottom of my ranking.

30. Germany - Jendrik - I Don't Feel Hate - A fun song to listen to. The novelty wears off after a while. The feel good vibes and ukulele are nice.

29. Israel - Eden Alene - Set Me Free - the song release version was bland and boring, but the revamp. Now THAT is good stuff. The song doesn't seem so empty anymore. I miss the key change from the original, though.

28. Spain - Blas Cantó - Voy A Quedarme - A very emotional and beautiful song from Spain. Again, not usually my cup of tea. However, the melody somehow gives me a nostalgic vibe.

27. North Macedonia - Vasil - Here I Stand - DAMN Vasil has a lovely voice. Nice that he's showing it off here. Too slow of a song for me to enjoy regularly, though.

26. Albania - Anxhela Peristeri - Karma - I don't have much to say other than this song is nice.

25. Bulgaria - VICTORIA - Growing Up Is Getting Old - Pleasant to listen to, but depending on my mood I think this is a beautiful song but not my cup of tea or a complete snoozefest.

24. Serbia - Hurricane - Loco Loco - Fun song, but it feels like something is lacking, and I can't quite put my finger on it.

23. San Marino - Senhit - Adrenalina - Once the initial hype from Flo Rida being on the song died down, this became another typical Eurovision bop.

22. Sweden - Tusse - Voices - At first I thought the song was completely unremarkable and couldn't understand how this won Melodifestivalen. Nowadays it's a nice song to chill to. I gotta respect a perfect televote score from the national final.

21. Ireland - Lesley Roy - MAPS - nice.

20. Croatia - Albina - Tick Tock - Grew on me slightly. Shoutout for including a verse in Croatian.

19. Switzerland - Gjon's Tears - Tout l'Univers - Another grower for me. Doesn't hit as hard as his song from last year, but I dig it.

18. France - Barbara Pravi - Voilà - Lovely chanson right here. I wish it didn't take forever to pick up, though. I was about to completely give up on this song in the middle of my first listen. I'm glad I didn't.

17. Belgium - Hooverphonic - The Wrong Place - Classy. Not much else to say.

16. Ukraine - Go-A - Shum - I'd definitely go rave to this song. I kept finding this song hard to rank due to the white voice. I couldn't decide if I absolutely adored it or if I found it grating. Maybe I just wasn't feeling well when I first thought about it.

15. Lithuania - The Roop - Discoteque - Lots of fun, doesn't have the charm that On Fire had last year. I would dance to this song.

14. Poland - RAFAŁ - The Ride - I actually kinda like this song???? Even with Rafal's vocals??? I know he has political controversies, but I can't help but think this song is nice. A better, less controversial singer would benefit this song, though. I'm not counting the revamp just yet since it was released too recently.

13. Latvia - Samanta Tīna - The Moon Is Rising - This song gives me nostalgic mid to late 2000s hip hop vibes. The guitars in this song are lovely.

12. Romania - ROXEN - Amnesia - Definitely something that can put me in a trance if I'm in the right mood.

11. Czechia - Benny Cristo - omaga - Nice, catchy, I would dance to this.

10. Malta - Destiny - Je Me Casse - Damn, Destiny has a lovely voice! And the song itself is wonderful. I'm not a fan of the amount of Swedish talent being used instead of Maltese talent, but I really do enjoy listening to this.

9. Denmark - Fyr og Flamme - Øve Os På Hinanden - another really fun song! This really grew on me. Nowadays if I want to listen to a Eurovision song, this is one of the first songs I think of.

8. The Netherlands - Jeangu Macrooy - Birth of a New Age - I can vibe with this. You can hear the passion in this song. I wish I could let my body do the talking right now, but y'all can't see that with just a tumblr text post.

7. Russia - Manizha - Russian Woman - I was NOT expecting this to come out of Russia when it won the national final. I wasn't expecting to like this either. The message is great, the instrumental is great, everything about this is brilliant.

6. United Kingdom - James Newman - Embers - A funky song. I LOVE James's voice. Massive upgrade from last year in my opinion. I'm a sucker for brass in an upbeat song. Unfortunately, I have had the staging kinda spoiled and I am VERY skeptical about this coming out of bottom five. I'm done with the BBC.

5. Australia - Montaigne - Technicolour - There is a Lot happening in this song and I am all in for it. I'm kinda terrible at parsing lyrics, but it's a non-issue when I can follow Montaigne's voice and forget about the lyrics. Ironically enough, it's Montaigne's voice that also worries me this Eurovision season - mostly whether she was able to pull off her live on tape performance off.

4. Iceland - Daði og Gagnamagnið - 10 Years - I didn't think Daði could pull it off against this year, but he did it. I like this just a little more than Think About Things, which was my favorite song last year. I'm still a little gutted that this pandemic robbed him of a probable victory, but I've made peace with it. I still need to learn the dance moves, though.

3. Italy - Måneskin - Zitti E Buoni - FUCK YEAH A KICKASS ROCK SONG IN EUROVISION! This song gave me massive rock en español vibes on my fist listen, and honestly this is something I would bang my head to if I had the same body I did when I was 15.

2. Norway - TIX - Fallen Angel - I was not expecting to like this song much, let alone becoming THIS obsessed with TIX. In fact, he wasn't even on my radar for winning MGP. I listened to Ut Av Mørket for the first time and thought something like 'this is boring af, but at least it's in Norwegian'. And then he changed it to English, which I wasn't a fan of at first. And then one day the lyrics clicked - especially with my own struggles with mental illness. To this day this is one of only two Eurovision songs to actually make me cry. Even now he still isn't my MGP winner (that honor goes to JORN), but he has definitely won my heart.

1. Finland - Blind Channel - Dark Side - To say that this song kicks ass would be an understatement for me. This song has just the right mix of rock, pop, and even metal. Ever since I found out that this song would be in the national final, I knew that it would be my favorite this whole Eurovision season regardless of who won UMK. Yes, my jaw dropped when I saw the lead Blind Channel had in UMK. I literally cancelled my plans to watch the MGP final live because of these guys. I am not disappointed. Even Måneskin couldn't bring these guys down in my ranking. And while the lyrics might be a bit iffy, they did get me through rough times. I hope these guys are able to bring rock music back like they want to. But for now, I will give them my (useless tbh) douze points.

#eurovision #esc #this post took me two days #and even longer to actually rank everything #mostly because half the time i couldn't decide which song i liked more #so something gerbear's sorter couldn't help with #i'm tired rn #of course my top 3 is predictable

[beansprouts]

Bean's Eurovision 2021 Song Ranking: Part 1

My first eurovision post got a handful of notes, so as I teased, here is my full ranking of all 39 songs in this year's Eurovision Song Contest! Separated into a handful of parts for my own sake, and to build hype :)

>Part 1< | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

A few mentions before I start: (1) I live in America so I won't be voting; I technically could by manipulating SIM cards but that feels against the spirit of the thing, (2) I made this ranking based on the songs themselves before we knew how they would be staged at Rotterdam. (3) Some of these opinions are spicy, especially here in the bottom of the rankings. music is inherently subjective. please don't yell at me >///<

Ranking Numbers 39-30 Under the Cut (in reverse order)

39) El Diablo - Elena Tsagrinou [Cyprus] We start this list already spicy, since El Diablo is some folks' top choice to win. I will not deny that the chorus is catchy as hell, but like... that's what you get when you directly rip off Lady Gaga. The verses, though, are not just bad, they are actively offensive. Did everyone putting El Diablo as their number one miss the lines "Hotter than sriracha on our bodies / Ta-taco tamale, yeah that's my mood / All this spicy melts my ice edges" ? Yuck, no thanks. Oh, and in case you want some cringe to go with your racism, there's a fucking squirrel/elmo voice at the end. I thought we had outgrown that in the mid-2000s? It doesn't even accomplish anything rhetorically (but that checks because there's absolutely nothing artistic about this song).

38) Amen - Vincent Bueno [Austria] I'm sorry, I know I'm biased but I just can't take seriously a song that starts with "amen....I guess." It's too trite. It is literally preventing me from even engaging with the rest of the song. I have a feeling this will rise in my ranking after the contest itself because Vincent Bueno is a very good singer and performer, but for now I can't. Sorry.

37) I Don't Feel Hate - Jendrik [Germany] For an escapee from the lanky whiteboy youtuber cloning facilities, Jendrik seems nice enough. But he cannot be absolved of his responsibilities for this sparkly fecal matter of a song. It's the same kind of fucked up "let's reduce bigotry to hatred and pretend it can be ignored" as Taylor Swift's You Need to Calm Down. Privilege songified. I Don't Feel Hate only escaped being last in my ranking because the ukulele solo and whistles are stupidly catchy.

36) The Lucky One - Uku Suviste [Estonia] Cheesy and depressingly heterosexual. I am asleep.

35) You - Tornike Kipiani [Georgia] Remember how in my last post I mentioned not liking ballads, and prefering higher energy numbers? This is definitely that kind of ballad. I find it hard to rate because I feel exactly no emotional response to it whatsoever.

34) omaga - Benny Cristo [Czech Republic] Poor Benny Cristo. I actually really liked his song last year, it was cute and genuine, all the things that omaga just....isn't? Like, here you've named your song after an "oh my god!" exultation of love, right, and yet the rest of the song is so incredibly vague that it doesn't feel like there's any love involved in the process whatsoever. It's the kind of pop song that Bo Burnham was satirizing with Repeat Stuff, a plastic mockery of a real emotion. And almost a bop.

33) Embers - James Newman [United Kingdom] I've been told this is the UK's first time trying in a while, which is a little yikes for me, chief, because this is one of the most generic pop songs I've ever heard. Feels like it was written by a Markov generator. I mean, it's not...bad, it's just kind of, like, a Times New Roman of a song.

32) Here I Stand - Vasil [North Macedonia] When I saw NikkieTutorial's interview with Vasil I instantly felt horrible that I placed him so low in my ranking, because the dude is so charming and seems like such a true artist. And yet, despite knowing I enjoy it while watching it performed, I have forgotten this song existed and had to look it up to remember it so many times. Even now I can't recall anything from the melody. I'm sorry Vasil...

31) Voy a quedarme - Blas Cantó [Spain] This is another perfectly unmemorable ballad, but I gave it more points for being in Spanish.

30) Amnesia - Roxen [Romania] I'm a bad Romanian-American for putting Roxen so low. But I have my reasons. It irks me that people keep comparing Roxen to Billie Eilish... Billie's music is avant-garde, it's shock value, it's edgy and off-kilter and violent at times. There's nothing edgy about Alcohol You or Amnesia; they're just repetitive piano pieces with slightly unconventional song structure and a juvenile sense of melody. Have we so lost our sense of genre that any young girl singing about her emotions is Billie Eilish now? If Roxen is emulating the style of any Top 20 American artist, I would say that's Christina Perri. Like A Thousand Years, Amnesia is emotional but not raw, and as such feels a little boring. And unfortunately Roxen kind of mumbles, so she doesn't even have Christina Perri's vocal prowess to lean on... That being said, I actually do like the lyrics themselves. As poetry I like Roxen's work. And Amnesia resonates harder than Alcohol You does (at least to me). I'm not going to say that any of her songs are bad, I just don't vibe with the style very much.

#esc 2021 #eurovision #beansprouts commentates #music review

[infinitestarsintheskye]

The Lady and the Chauffeur Name Thing

So at the end of my LAST installment of my FS Downton Abbey AU, Christmas at the Abbey, I promised that if ONE person wanted an explanation of the many new names that popped up I would write it. Well many weeks ago now the lovely @valentinaonthemoon asked for such a list, and I am a woman of my word, even if I completely forgot about and only remembered about it just now. I’m going to pop it under a read more bc it is going to get LONG  and also contain ALL OF THE SPOILERS for that series. 

OKAY SO

We’ll do this in birth order I think. Nicknames are in () 

Eilidh May FitzSimmons, born December 12th 1919 - The first of the many babies!! As many of you will know if you have been following me for a while, Eilidh May was, pre-finale of course, my utter ride or die name for baby girl Fitzsimmons. I think I have like three or four fics with this particular name in it, I loved it so much. Eilidh is the Scottish variation of Helen, and means sun-ray, which ugh wouldn’t that just be so perfect for a little FitzSimmons baby. I was just utterly in love with the idea of FS giving their baby a Scottish name (as you will see in the NEXT FS baby) and the fact that this had a space/star/sun/celestial twist to it just absolutely SOLD IT for me. I should add, for all my non-scottish followers that Eilidh is pronounced Ay-Lee. I have no idea how gaelic pronunciation works, I just know how to say it.  Her middle name, May, doesn’t need much explanation. I just loved the idea of them giving their little girl a middle name after someone on the team. 

George (Georgie) Lincoln Campbell, born 2nd October 1921 - Okay ngl, I got real lazy with this name. Mary and Matthew’s (who Daisy and Lincoln were in the place of in this fic) son was also named George, and I liked it, I thought it would be cute if he was called Georgie, as a bit of a variation. His middle name comes from his father, obvi, who, in keeping with BOTH canons (the noise I made when I figured out I could do that I swear. I’m so sorry Lincoln it was just far too good an opportunity to pass up), I killed off on the day he was born. My apologies. 

Hamish Phillip FitzSimmons, born 6th January 1922 - Oh this name. A lot of people REALLY don’t like this name, which is fine. As I said with Eilidh, I was really on a kick of giving FS babies Scottish names. I originally dismissed Hamish, and it just wouldn’t leave me alone, and just utterly grew on me. I actually went to school with a Hamish, he was a fair few years below me and he was just the tiniest, most adorable little toot! From what I can gather, Hamish is an anglicised version of Seamus or Seumus, which is the gaelic version of James, which is a very long and roundabout way of honouring Fitz’s middle name, but I still love having that connection. The middle name, Phillip, again, this name was a love of mine before this fic came about and it just seemed so natural to me that they would name their son after Coulson, and there was just no other name I liked so much with Hamish 

 Kathleen (Kathy) Skye FitzSimmons, born 30th May 1925 - I have no really grand explanation for this name, other than Kathleen is a special name to me, and I love using it in stories. It fit in well I thought with the 1920′s style of naming (yes I did that extensive googling) and as I say it is a very dear name to me and FitzSimmons are deserving of it. Skye, again, I’m just going through the checklist of names from the team. This was in NO WAY  a narcissistic naming, I promise, I just really think they’d give their child that as a middle name, as also this was my way of slipping a lil bit of Scottish into her name too. Just a smidge :)

 Hazel June Sousa, born 14th October 1926 - Oh Hazel. Hazel is just a name I really love. It is also the name of a dear friend of mine who I don’t get to see very often, and I just love it. Honestly I was just trying to find names that worked with the last name Sousa and Hazel just popped into my head. Again it works with 1920′s naming trends, (again with the googling) and yeah I just really love it. The middle name June comes from the fact that in this fic, Daisy and Sousa get married in the month of June. I thought that was a nice way of honouring their relationship, through their daughters name :)

Finley (Flint) Alphonso Mackenzie, born 28th May 1927 - So Mack and Elena adopting Flint is basically canon isn’t it??!?!? He is their son I will have no arguments. SO finding a name that Flint would work for as a nickname, bc lets be real no one was naming their child Flint in 1926, I had to find a roundabout way, was NOT EASY. I still have no idea how Flint could come from Finley, but it is close enough to make sense. By the time I got to Flint I had already named five children and was getting a bit lazy, and so his middle name is just the same as his fathers first name, which is still a very common middle name tactic. 

Emily Lorna FitzSimmons, born 12th October 1927 - Again, by the time I got to poor little Emily, I had named six children already. Emily I just like. Every Emily I have ever met has honestly been the nicest and sweetest person I have ever known. It has a good track record for me and it just sounds so nice with Fitzsimmons. Lorna, Lorna comes from my own personal headcanon for Fitz’s mum’s name, and so I think that’s where Lorna comes from, as a way of honouring Fitz’s mum.  It is also believed to derive from the name of the Scottish town Lorne, so snuck another bit of Scotland into baby FitzSimmons’s name :) 

Arthur (Archie) James FitzSimmons, born 14th August 1929 - If you all cast your minds back, at the very start of the Lady and the Chauffeur, I named Jemma’s dad, Lord Shieldshire, Arthur Simmons. So this was my way of honouring dear old Donk, but they call him Archie, just so he’s his own wee man. James, again, got a bit lazy, same middle name as Fitz. Also v Scottish name, we are 5/5 for Scottish baby FitzSimmons :)

Eve Margaret Sousa, born December 24th 1929 - Eve, well, she was born on Christmas Eve. I cast around for ages trying to find Christmasy names. She was Robyn for a little while, I considered Noel, but that felt a little too contemporary, so she was Eve! And yes, Margaret is my little wink to Agent Carter. I couldn’t help myself. 

Violet Faith Mackenzie, born 6th April 1930 - I actually had a lot of fun finding this name. I briefly considered calling her Hope, but no, that felt a little too on the nose for me. The name Violet comes from obviously the little purple flower, but the flower itself means hope, which I liked. Out of the three surnames, I feel like Mackenzie is the easiest out of all of them to find names for, (maybe it’s because I’m Scottish and know a fair few people with that Mac/Mc sound at the start of their surname) and I played around with a few possibilities, but honestly I just fell in love with Violet. Faith comes from the fact that faith is very important to both Mack and Elena and I wanted to consider that and honour that in the naming of their little girl. 

 Edward (Teddy) Donald FitzSimmons, born December 1st 1932 - The last (for real this time) little FitzSimmons baby of this verse. Blame Fitz being forever broody and Jemma just loving their babies so much, and also being an easy burst when it comes to Fitz and their babies. This name, boy oh boy, this name was HARD. Girls names for FitzSimmons babies, for some reason, easy as pie for me, I have a list as long as my arm of girls names I love for them. As for boys names, Hamish is the only one that has really stuck long term for me. All of the names I found for this poor wee boy that I liked were just a bit too modern, so I had to go searching again. I saw Edward, realised it could be shortened to Teddy and fell in LOVE. Only in this verse would I really get away with calling a baby Teddy so I took the chance and ran with it, and now little dark haired blue eyed Teddy FitzSimmons runs around rent free in my brain. His middle name, is not really obvious why I chose it at first glance. Again I struggled. I couldn’t really find any more Scottish names that I liked, or at least ones that i could give poor Simmons a fighting chance of pronouncing properly (Lachlan is still on my list and I have NEVER heard anyone not Scottish pronounce that first syllable properly). So Scottish was out, and so I went to my next mainstain of family names. And Deke or Enoch were the only two male names I hadn’t touched. Enoch was going to be impossible to find a link (trust me I tried) but DEKE, comes from a common nickname for Donald. So Donald he was. 

I hope you enjoyed this little (haha) list! I just love putting thought and meaning into names, and this kind of gives you a little glimpse into my naming process. Yes I know I will be a nightmare if I ever have children. That is a whole SEPARATE and ever changing and evolving list. 

#skye rambles #fitzsimmons #skye writes #the lady and the chauffeur #Christmas at the Abbey #tlatc #cata

[klaroline-fantasies]

Review

I decided I’d do a review on The Wolf for KCFanficWeek Day 6- CANON

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Side Note: This is not the opinion of everyone who’s read her story, this is just my take on the story because I can’t send her this in an ask, tumblr doesn’t give us enough words. 

1. I consider Yokan to the the unofficial queen of Angst. 

Like seriously, if any unfortunate thing happened to any of the writers of Anne with an E, she could definitely replace them. In fact, she’d make me cry more.

Her writing gives you a indepth view of everyone’s feelings, emotions, thoughts and their thought process to their actions. I LOVE IT. It’s so heartbreaking. When she updates, I have to prepare myself to read that update cause 1. Her chapters are amazingly long, because of how indepth she goes into everything. 2. I’m forced to take my time and go through everyone’s thoughts and emotions as she wrote them. It’s like a frigging boat ride into Klaus, Elijah and Caroline’s mind.

2. This story (in my personal view) portrays Klaus to perfection. In fact, as a writer, I always knew that Klaus was paranoid and impulsive, but reading her Caroline and seeing in my mind how accurate everything he says and does is made him truly understand just how monumentally paranoid and terrified he is at his core. So I owe you a huge thanks for opening my eye to something about Klaus that I’ve begun to understand. He’s paranoid, he’s impulsive, he’s bitter, he’s mean...but more true to his character, when Caroline speaks he listens. Because even in TVD, as much as Klaus tries to show her just how much of a monster he is to prove to her that the goodness he shows her isn’t there, he never seems to cross that line with her. He toes it, but it’s almost as if he would rather show her the goodness he thinks isn’t there than to kill the hope she has that he truly isn’t far gone.

3. Caroline as a witch!!!!

It’s been done in various different stories but never in a canon-verse (none that ive read). What I love most about Caroline’s character in The Wolf is that she has a backstory to go with the fact that she’s a witch, and you did it in a way that almost makes it like she and Klaus could relate to each other in a way, whether it was done intentionally or not...GENIUS!

4. I love that you’re making is as CANON to TO while including Klaroline in between the madness of season one with the witches and marcel and giving us what Julie Plec denied us. Trust me, if she had done what you had done, The Originals would still be running, it’d have so much views she wouldn’t dare end it at season 5. I personally stopped watching the Originals after S01E15 because learning that Claire Holt was leaving the show for a while made me feel like the show was gonna be a vampire parody of Two and Half Mikaelsons, the whole haylijah of it etc etc but I love all the twists and I LOVE THAT in the last chapter you didn’t do what the show did in regards to the epic confrontation that happened between Rebekah and Klaus. (we obviously on the same wavelength where that was concerned) 

5. I LOVEEEEEE the way you portray Elijah in this. It’s like my second favorite thing actually. I’m a huge advocate for Elijah so anything with Elijah wins me over halfway. I completely understand how he grows his attachment to Caroline and how he confused his emotions. He frustrates me sometimes that he hasn’t figured out how confused he is, but you gotta love that his heart is in the right place. Because even understanding that he has feelings for her (even though he really doesn’t, he’s just confused) he still chooses to be happy for his brother and Caroline. Now about that almost kiss...a bit peeved by Elijah for it but you made up for it with her response to admitting that she was in love with Klaus. You even opened my mind to the possibility that maybe Elijah never really truly loved Tatia, because clearly Tatia was with Klaus first and he admired her from afar but now im wondering if Elijah simply confused his feelings of being enamoured by her for making his brother who has suffered happy for having feelings for her. I wonder...but for those who be mad at Elijah, NOT MY BABY HES JUST CONFUSEDDD!! I also lowkey think he spends too much time around Klaus but truthfully I can never think of Klaus without Elijah by his side.

6. The Klaroline interactions are amazing and so true to the couple because they rarely share moments like the moments they shared in season 5 of the originals, they’re always in a state where Klaus is being an ass, Caroline is telling him how wrong he is, he continues to be an ass and she puts her foot down, and him trying to find a way for them both to get what they want without sacrificing his ego or reputation. Then there’s those rare moments like Caroline pissed that Elena stole her prom dress or them trying to find the places where the sacrifices for Silas were going to take place, that little thing between them when she was trying to decifer the words on the sword, or even the entire episode where Caroline and Klaus went on a date to the Miss Mystic Event. You managed to mix it up perfectly.

Lastly, im pissed that there’s no season 2!!!! The possibilities of where this story could go is literally endless and I can just picture them with all the chaos I heard happened in season 2 and the seasons after that. Like pretty pretty pretty please consider doing it!!! I’m also slightly pissed that it’s not rated M but I considering the genius of the fic and understanding how taxing doing smut scenes can be (me personally cause I have a pending smut scene to write and I literally haven’t written it and 2 months have passed.) I can forgive it cause the story doesn’t need it, cause its that good.

I can’t wait for the next chapter to find out how they’re going to come to some resolve or come together especially seeing how Klaus was affected by Caroline’s stand-off with him. I could feel the defeat in him when I read it. 

When The Wolf is over, I’m gonna miss your writing so much like seriously I need your writing in my life. Could you do some KC short story about them having divorced for something and them going through the angst of everything that happened and finding their way back to each other. It doesn’t have to be a lengthy story in regards to chapters just something so I can continue to be blessed with your amazing creative brain!

.

.

A/N- This is just my personal thoughts on the story and I wanted to do this to show her my appreciation!

Find her @galvanizedfriend​

Read The Wolf :

Here (FF.NET) and here (A03)

Keep writing xoxo Cindy

#kcfanficweek #klaroline #review #mine #this is basically a big I LOVE YOU to Yokan #I hope it motivates her #or at the very least she likes it

[insomnihan]

han’s Entire Thoughts and Feelings on Dreamcatcher’s “Deja Vu”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

MY TIME HAS COME 2.0!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FULL INSOMNIA MODE DONT. LOOK. AT. ME.

there are no read mores here so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

ALRIGHT SO-

THE SONG OKAY LETS JUMP RIGHT INTO IT i wasnt expecting something lowkey sad BUT im not mad at it!!!!!!!!!! i had conflicting emotions when i desperately wanted to cry but also headbang?????? HOWEVER thanks to force and air the tears in my eyes were drying as i headbanged- LIKE this song really PUT ME THROUGH IT like that chorus didnt have tO DO ME LIKE THAT™!!!!!!!!!!!!! BUT THEN THE VERSES AND THE PRE-CHORUSES WERE SLOW (and the bridge but bridges be like that in nearly all songs) WHICH IM ACTUALLY REALLY INTO it was like being in a roller coaster with the verses being the slow hill and the chorus was the fall THAT PIANO GOES HARD...................... but like in a soft way????? DONT ASK ME WHAT IM SAYING IS IM A HOE™ FOR PIANO THOSE DRUMS DURING THE CHORUS STOP IT I CANNOT I FELT THEM VIBRATE THROUGH MY BONES

like i DEADASS have nothing to criticize or change about this song its PERFECTLY FINE AS IT IS (except for like more gahyeon and dami????? pls??????)

siyeon starting the song.......................... thank you.............. I STILL STAND BY SAYING I WOULD LISTEN TO HER VOICE FOR LITERALLY FOREVER HER VOICE DURING THE CHORUS QUEEN OF SINGING CHORUSES OH BUT THEN THAT HIGH NOTE ARE YOU KIDDING ME??????? SHE DIDNT HAVE TO KILL ME LIKE THIS BUT THANK YOU SO MUCH I- and now....... im in the deja vu P L E A S E

gaaaaaaaahhhyeeeeeooonnnn her voice is so pretty!!!!!!!!!!! BUT I WANT MORE!!!!!!!!!! HOWEVER youre the second one to sing with this beautiful gentleness of a part and to be honest this part paired with siyeon starting it really eases you into the song and its quite the blessing to hear thanks- and then yknow this part right after handong........................... Heaven™

SPEAKING OF HANDONG LISTEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE AMOUNT OF LINES SHE HAS MAKES ME WANNA CRY OKAY THIS PART RIGHT HERE............................. PLS.............. (i think its just me but theres a smaller voice singing like right under her voice????) HER PRE-CHORUS PARTS ARE LITERALLY THE BEST PARTS IN THE WHOLE SONG TO LISTEN TO pls believe me when i say this its NOT bc shes my ultimate bias like i genuinely like her parts the most

sua pls i was already prepared for softer vocals and you really gave that to me and then this is absolute perfection they were beautiful and amazing OF COURSE got me feeling like i was floating on actually clouds god TAHNK YOU AND THEN YOU JUST HAD TO HIT ME WITH YOUR PART RIGHT HERE???? i understand its just the chorus but I Felt That™ okay!!!!!!

JIU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i stand by saying how your voice be powerful as hell still even during these lines VERY short but VERY effective and very good leading into the chorus i love- and then your bridge....................... B I C T H really put me in my feelings but i welcome it with EVERY FIBER OF MY BEING and with open arms.......................

YOOHYEON AKA THE OTHER QUEEN OF SINGING CHORUSES I MEAN..................................... I LITERALLY DUNNO WHAT TO SAY!!!!!!!!!!! LIKE THEIR BEAUTIFUL SOUNDING HER VOICE GOES WELL WITH THEM like i really like the parts she sings after siyeon like................. Y O O F if a feather became a voice-

i need more dami too..................... P L E A S E like obviously with their other songs i was expecting dami to be in the second verse and with a smooth rap section and the former was correct HOWEVER to my pleasant surprise SHE SANG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! her singing voice suited this SO MUCH and im actually glad there wasnt a rap part at all in this song especially that SECOND PART.................. Heaven™ 2x

my favorite lyrics (x): i know i said handongs were my favorite to listen to but i like these lines dont hurt me

난 이 숨결이 허락되는 날까지 As long as I can breathe 다신 너를 놓을 수 없어 I can’t let go of you again 우린 모든 순간 함께 할 테니 We’ll be together for every moment 내 곁에서 beside me

THE DANCE OKAY IM GONNA DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT ill be referring to THIS PERFORMANCE can we pls talk about how loud the fanchant is im crying and really take it in and all of their talented glory ANYWAY OF COURSE the choreography F UKCING SLAPS just so many different position changes and just alwaYS SO IN SYNC WITH EACH OTHER ITS INSANE ill just list them briefly and keep the points short this is long enough:

THE BEGINNING AND THE END BEING THE SAME...................... CERTAINLY DEJA VU-

SIYEONS TUTTING THING THANKS

handongs majestic spin

this and this with how the formation changes and how their arms swing AND the kick

ALSO in those parts in the last bullet i dunno why but i like that move jiu does when she sings IT HITS

i recall sua spoiling literally the first move of the chorus dance in that vlive THE CHORUS DANCE ALL THOSE FORMATION CHANGES LITERALLY MESS ME UP and THIS most important move in the entire choreography and they line up and its SO COOL to look at

when they lie on each other doing yoohyeons lines

handongs part again when theyre in the line and how satisfying it is to watch

THE ENTIRE BRIDGE

LITERALLY THE ENTIRE DANCE FROM START TO FINISH

QUEENS OF STABILITY

sidenote: can we talk about how handong and dami?????? literally spin during their parts????? and they sounded super clear??????

THE VISUALS SO.......................... if you had asked me two days ago (maybe a little bit of yesterday) about how i felt about this video.................. i wouldve mentioned some unpopular opinions regarding the videos look............ i mentioned to gwen @loonapunk that i wasnt TOO into it............ BUT- after finally sitting down to do this long ass post i dont hate it!!!!!!!!!!!! i think bc i have to remind myself that this song (album???? well song-) is for that kings raid game and all the visuals AND story are based off that????? i dunno BUT WHAT I DO KNOW IS I LIKE TO WATCH IT

IM TOO BIG STUPID™ TO COMPREHEND THIS STORYLINE AND COME UP WITH MY OWN THEORIES EVEN NOW AND I WOULD L O V E TO EXPLAIN IT TO YOU BUT THIS IS LONG ENOUGH AS IT IS SO ILL REDIRECT YOU TO THEORY POSTS (TWO (2) FROM MY GALAXY BRAIN MOOTS) THAT I LIKED:

@highsomnia NITAS POST WHICH I PERSONALLY FOUND ENJOYABLE TO READ SO IF YOU COULD READ THIS YOU SHOULD ALSO READ THAT

@in-somnias ELENAS POST WHICH WAS ALSO AN INTERESTING READ RIGHT HERE

AND THEN THIS ONE THAT WAS ORIGINALLY FROM TWITTER i dont follow her so im not gonna @

AIIGHT IMMA GO CRAZY WITH THESE SHOTS (with only small one/two sentence captions this is LONG ENOUGH):

BICTH I SAW THIS AND KNEW I WAS GONNA GET GOT™ like its just super duper INCREDIBLY PRETTY TO LOOK AT

THIS WILL BE FOREVER ICONIC™ DONT ARGUE WITH ME

this is what the calm before the storm looks like

went back to the mv film making video and turns out they got slippers on under that table love that for them

how in the hell am i supposed to interpret this exchange

okay longer section i think im supposed to interpret this more as a sister bond than a romantic one?????? i remember being taken aback and believed this to be something gay BUT 99.9% OF INSOMNIAS say its gay subtext so ill just put it like that i dunno but like i just wanna say they have beautiful smiles and im love them!!!

a youtuber reacting to this mv saying it just looks like theyre shading each other.................... anyway-

i CANNOT i repeat I CANNOT EXPRESS TO YOU how Shook™ i was when i saw this for the first time i basically jumped out of my chair i couldnt i-

this mv really led me to believe jiu was the evil one.............................

POETIC. CINEMA.

THE WOMAN. THE MYTH. THE LEGEND. THE FIREBENDER. THE WOLF. LEE SIYEON. pls light me up

Symbolism™................ SYMBOLISM I CANNOT COMPREHEND GO TO THE THEORIES

MORE SYMBOLISM GO TO THE THEORIES

T H E M

NOT ONLY IS THIS VIDEO SUPER AESTHETIC™ BUT THE SEVEN (7) MOST BEAUTIFUL WOMEN IN THE WORLD BLESSING US ONCE AGAIN WITH THEIR PRESENCE AND ALLOWED THEIR ROYALTY VIBES SHOOT INTO THE MESOSPHERE INTO REAL LIFE KILLING ALL OF US

THE DANCING SCENES WITH THE TEASER OUTFITS...................................... AT EASE.....................

LITERALLY NO COMPLAINTS MOVING ON:

JIU

L I S T E N KIM MINJI YOURE A FULL PRINCESS this pink fluffy dress with the flower crown in this picture............................ i may have cried- like a lot of people were trying this look to persephone and im HERE for that concept for her and like the white outfit AND black outfit is probably super symbolic again im too Big Stupid™ anyway when i saw that black outfit in the teaser........................... i was attacked jiu with a sword is just EVERYTHING i wanted and more

SUA

LITERALLY I CANNOT- her hair being wavy looks SO GOOD on her THIS BLACK DRESS WITH THE FLOWERS she is always a Serve™ WE KNOW THAT but her visuals just HIT DIFFERENT this time lighter colored hair really suits her and then of course she looks FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC in the dance scenes in the white and the black that low pony tail pls

SIYEON

purple on this woman just shoulders and collarbones out being Beautiful™ ALL THE WHILE staying ON BRAND with herself and was wearing pants good for her G O D i just love the way her hair looks in the white and gold outfits like it just LOOKS PRETTY to me i dunno how to describe it also her with a pony tail WHAT ARE YOU SO PRETTY FOR-

HANDONG

i just................... want closer shots of this.................. CLOSER SHOTS IN GENERAL OF HER ACTUALLY like LOOK HOW BEAUTIFUL™ SHE LOOKS HERE I WANNA SEE MORE OF IT??????? PLS??????? nothing gets me weaker than her hair being styled exactly like in the picture i just love that her royalty and regal vibes and looks were FINALLY realized and WAS BROUGHT TO THE FOREFRONT

YOOHYEON

THIS MV MUST CONVINCE ME SHE IS EVIL BY SHOWING HER FOREHEAD first of all the first outfit turning her into an Actual Entire Princess™/Queen™ that red one i dont really understand SHE MAKES IT WORK THO THEN THAT BLACK OUTFIT LISTEN yo it was like getting hit by a whole truck full speed i wasnt ready and i just wanna admire that yoohyeon and gray colored hair is an actual match made in heaven i just have to say-

DAMI

i love this suit and the patten on it so much this outfits color (what is that teal????) and her hair color is such a GOOD PAIRING and on her SHE JUST KILLED ME WITH HER SOLO SCENES i wish i had more to say about her and her outfits but what else can i say other than that she is INSANELY ATTRACTIVE AND I WANT HER TO STEP ON ME???????

GAHYEON

she really broke my neck when i saw her the first time LIKE DEADASS LOOK AT THIS PICTURE i had fallen for her and i cannot get up when i saw this outfit in the other shots like the black top and the see through sleeves but her skirt is like different colors she really Served™ in this outfit bangs usually look cute but in her solo parts she was coming for my heart like miss lee gahyeon pls-

BONUS TIME: B-SIDE TRACKS (just short thoughts and point out specific parts i liked lmao)

Intro:

their intros always slap are you kidding me-

The curse of the Spider

i wasnt ready for this bop to slap me in the face on my spotify that chorus didnt have to do that to me THAT GUITAR DIDNT HAVE TO DO THAT TO ME i love the way dami and handong sound in this song i mean wrow-

favorite lyrics (x):

소름이 끼칠 만큼 It’s chilling 도망치고 싶어질 it makes me want to run away 그런 두려움일 테니 such is this fear

Silent Night

B I H C T i knew when i heard this in the highlight it was going to be my favorite one IT REALLY WOKE SOMETHING IN ME these lyrics i cant- gahyeon and handong hurted me with their lower registers Y AL L YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE HURTED ME THAT D R O P DID

favorite lyrics (x):

겨눈 칼 끝은 a blade directed at someone 결국 돌아오게 돼 eventually returns 더 다가오지 마 don’t come closer

Polaris

this song is as if i was wrapped in the thickest blanket i got and im resting on the softest bed in the world with a fireplace going nearby and i could finally rest peacefully bc the lord knows i need it- i really cried a little bit listening to this pls leave me be i legit cant pick a specific member i liked the most for this song i just love it and everything it got

favorite lyrics (x):

그게 너라서 행복해 I’m happy that it’s you 그 많은 인연 속에 Among those numerous connections 수많은 사람 중에 Among those numerous people

LIKE im so completely satisfied with every song on this album and im completely in love with it!!!!!!!!!! the only ‘issue’ i really had was with the mv visually but as you read i warmed up to it lmao LIKE IM JUST SO PROUD OF THESE WOMEN AND HOW TALENTED AND HARDWORKING THEY ARE like i have to say the japanese release?????? and this????? being so close to each other????? you telling me they learned TWO (2) different choreographies one after the other???? i absolutely love this album and i desperately desperately DESPERATELY want so much more success for them bc ITS WHAT THEY DESERVE!!!!!!!!!!!!! this is supposed to be just about the overall mv and deja vu but i might as well just type what i feel lmao

IN CONCLUSION: MY INSOMNIA ASS IS BOTH ALIVE AND DEAD BUT MOSTLY ALIVE I LOVE THIS IM STREAMING

i have to bring this back its relevant again:

#THREE (3) DAYS IN THE MAKING #it took longer bc ive been having the worst stomachaches rn #it probably shows in this post lmao #but anyway Y E A H im love them #LETS GET THIS BREAD #if you read all of this i appreciate you #dreamcatcher #han.txt #han's mv afterthoughts

[elizabethvaughns]

so i've been mulling over this for quite a bit now, so i might as well articulate my thoughts and get them out onto this blog. so i was just thinking: subjectively or objectively, which one is better? the if/then dc preview or the broadway production? long post (1750+ words), so i'm putting a read more break <3

now, objectively at the very least, i know i have to say it's the broadway production. why wouldn't it be? it's a lot more polished, it's...the final draft, of sorts, of the production. we all know the final draft is usually better than the rough draft. but here's the thing. when it comes to an artwork that has several different versions, one tends to gravitate toward the version they saw first and have a certain bias against all the other versions. if you saw the bway version first or the dc version first, you probably like that one more. now i'm not saying this bias is conscious by any means. absolutely not. however, when one falls in love with some media, in my case at least, they take it in over and over and over again. and then they get so used to that one thing that all other versions seem weird. i can pinpoint two non-if/then instances in my life where such a thing happened.

in the summer of 2018, i watched the RENT movie on netflix. now i was fully intending to listen to the obc soundtrack before watching the movie, but i never really got to it. anyways, that movie was like love at first...watch to me. oh man, i loved it so, so much. so i downloaded the soundtrack on my phone and, you guessed it, listened to it over and over and over and over again. one fine day, (about a few weeks after, actually) i realized i never actually had listened to the obc soundtrack. so i did. and it sounded...odd to say the very least. i mean, some of the voices were different, sometimes the lines were changed, all in all, a confusing experience. to say the least, if you asked me back then which version i preferred, i would've readily said the movie version. but now, three years in retrospect, i'm not so sure. the obc version is a lot more...complete, i like the vocals more, and i'm now salty that "christmas bells" as a song was cut. evidently, i like the obc version more(but i still love the movie version hell it's still one of my comfort movies).

in the fall of 2019, i listened to falsettos. i actually listened to both the obc and the 2016 revival cast recordings. i guess that lessened the bias a bit because i was exposed to both versions at about the same time. on the fateful date of 2 october 2019, i watched the falsettos revival proshot. that's when i truly fell in love with this musical. but, even so, my initial exposure was to both recordings so even though i had a slight bias toward the 2016 version, i still loved both of them.

now, back to if/then. i actually find it difficult to pinpoint where exactly my exposure to if/then started. was it the very first time i heard about it in 2018 when i read a very meta RENT fanfic on ff.net where elizabeth made an appearance and i thought "what the fuck"(pun very much intended)"is if/then" (psst if you find the fic could you please drop the link in the replies meta fic isn't really my shit but i want to reread it for nostalgia's sake)? or was it the very first time i listened to the obc recording in 2020? or was it the boot of a broadway production that i first saw on 13 march 2021? whichever one i pick, they all lead to the same conclusion: i naturally gravitated(and sometimes still do) toward the broadway production because it was the first version of if/then that i was exposed to.

now sometime in early april 2021 over my spring break, i watched a recording of the dc production. i knew beforehand that this production is a preview, after which some changes had been made, resulting in the broadway show. since those changes were obviously made to better the production, it would be a logical conclusion that the very presence of those changes entailed a...worse production (not considering the fact that the interpretation and the very liking of art is entirely subjective). one could say i entered the watching experience with an unconscious bias, of sorts.

from the very first note, i was caught off-guard. i didn't know they changed this much. when i watched the bway production, i was just enjoying it for all it was worth. but when i was watching the dc preview, i was comparing it constantly to its broadway counterpart. oh, david's shirt colour is different here. oh, anne's wearing a pantsuit instead of a dress(cute). oh, time for hey kid! oh wait no they put "the moment explodes" right here. also, i was just humming along to the songs, just mouthing along the lyrics(because i have them all memorized), and every now and then and getting thrown way off-track when the tune remained the same but the lyrics changed. most notably, in "walking by a wedding" and "you learn to live without". all in all, i had what one could consider negative opinions about the dc production because of that bias.

but then i watched it second time. a third time. a fourth, fifth, sixth time. and over that time, i fell more and more in love with that production. as i've said before, the interpretation of art is wholly subjective–what one may consider a shortcoming of a particular piece, another may consider a strength. let me take the placement of "the moment explodes", for example. in the dc production, it's before "some other me". therefore, the line "every friend i ever knew or thought i did" doesn't hit as hard because we don't know her situation with lucas yet. even so, "some other me" hits twice as hard because lucas is an even bigger asshole now. in comparison, however, "the moment explodes" is after "some other me" in bway as you all know. so the aforementioned line holds a much greater significance when compared to its dc counterpart. however, one could also consider that line (in the dc production) as a sort of foreshadowing for the reveal in "some other me" of the new normal of beth and lucas's friendship (or the lack thereof).

obviously, some changes were most definitely welcome, "this day" to be more specific. of course, there was that little reprising of "what if?" near the end of "this day" in the dc production which i really loved, but all in all, the mood of "this day" was much more fun and enthusiastic in bway as opposed to dc, which in my opinion is an excellent way to start an act. in contrast, some changes were...not as welcome. i don't know about you, but personally, i really enjoyed two cut scenes from "the story of jane"("no more wasted time" dc version). first, the scene where kate brings her kindergarteners to beth. it was fun to see higgs squirm. second, the scene where elena and beth's interaction parallels beth and stephen's in "map of new york". narrative-wise, i think that it is an incredibly important scene as we get to see two sort of boss-employee relationships mirrored to each other, only beth does it well as a boss (if that makes any sense). we see beth as passionate but still sort of hesitant in mony but she grows to be more self-assured by nmwt, and i think the aforementioned scene only cements that notion as beth takes on the role of mentor for elena. also, "the story of jane" was a really fun song and, as much as i love "no more wasted time", i wish it still contained elements of "story of jane". and while i did enjoy the reshuffling of "the moment explodes" such that it became clear when beth and lucas made up in the bway production, they were ultimately still...not talking during "you learn to live without. as a result, we miss that one scene from the dc production where lucas and kate attend beth's awards ceremony and shoo stephen. and need i talk about the lucas/david duet verse("you get that we're connected, / i feel like you get me") in "ain't no man manhattan"? honestly, i feel like dc anmm was, all in all, better than bway anmm–especially that one verse where lucas sings to this other dude about how everyone is connected(no, not the one to stephen, the one after that. the one that ends with "[something something] / who you helped get elected").

also the situations with stephen and with kate/anne in both timelines were relatively clearer in the dc production. even so, the actual distinguishing of the timelines was better in the bway production.

in conclusion, the relative merit of each production(broadway vs. dc) is really up to the interpretation of each viewer. scenes that may seem weak to one may be considered narratively important to another. both productions have their own merits and flaws.

to me, both productions are equally good. my previous assertion/assumption that the final draft is always better than the first is not necessarily true. some things that you think were actually pretty good get lost in the editing process. some other things that should've been cut (ahem ahem, kate's referrals to lucas with "she", ahem ahem, liz's "i don't believe in independents like i don't believe in bisexuals. pick a side" line) get left in there. art is subjective. the editing process is subjective. in the end, though, the only thing that matters is that you enjoy what you're watching and find personal fulfillment in it. and i do! for both of these productions. for both of the productions, i'm smiling all the way up to "here i go". i'm slightly saddened during "you don't need to love me". i'm empowered by "the story of jane"/"no more wasted time". i'm grinning in liz-verse all the way up to "i hate you". i feel like sobbing during "some other me". my throat clogs up when "i hate you" starts. i'm actually sobbing by the time "you learn to live without" ends.

...you get the gist of it. all in all, both of these productions are phenomenal and i'm grateful for their existence and to have been able to watch them in the year of our lord 2021.

i love this show so much i swear.

i talk a bit more comparing broadway and dc here.

my other ramblings essays:

if/then appreciation

"what if?" vs. "what if?(reprise)"

character analysis of lucas

#if/then #broadway vs dc production comparison

[fearfollow]

▌real name: audrey mccarthy (one day maybe i will actually change this to her canon name but uhhhh. not today) her real name is also audra denbrough because it’s been legally changed but ▌single or taken: taken, usually by bill denbrough (but that’s verse dependent) ▌abilities or powers: a skilled actress and model. audra also has a good voice! she’s naturally pretty photogenic and conventionally attractive, which has helped with her career because unfortunately modeling and acting to a pretty far extent place a lot of stock in your looks. audra is also really emotionally perceptive which is good for acting and just a general skill she has. she’s very nurturing and caring, which i would also count as a skill. ▌eye colour: blue ▌hair colour: currently dyed blonde, naturally a reddish brown ▌family members: elena ‘laney’ mccarthy, sister. bill denbrough, husband (verse dependent). bob and lydia mccarthy, parents. ▌pets: none :( ▌something they don’t like: uhhhh paparazzi and tabloids. this started because they targeted her a lot when she and bill got together because bill isn’t considered conventionally attractive/in her league and they were like calling her a golddigger, but also because she genuinely hates the way celebrity lives come under scrutiny and that people’s careers can genuinely suffer because of bad press which can often be? straight up false. (it should be noted that audra is nice to paprazzi if they’re not being aggressive/hounding her. if they see her out in public, she’ll be kind. she will not tolerate, however, paparazzi showing up at her home or anyone asking her questions about her marriage/her addiction, esp. like negative leading questions and she WILL yell at them about it.) ▌hobbies/activities: cooking, reading, watching tv, honestly audra probably knits ▌ever hurt anyone before: yes. ▌ever killed anyone before: no. ▌animal that represents them: a doe. (but like... a doe that will absolutely fuck you up) ▌worst habits: overthinking, giving in to her anger/saying things she regrets, nail biting ▌role models: bill, costars that have taken her under their wing (like omg sally field, say) ▌sexual orientation: bisexual. ▌thoughts on marriage/kids: in canon, audra is married and has had trouble conceiving, but she does ultimately want kids if its a possibility to carry them herself and would totally go for adoption otherwise. (obviously in most verses this also depends on bill’s feelings). she wants to be married to the person she’s with eventually, and that person can vary based on verse. if she’s single it’s often in the divorce!verse where she and bill split up, so her view on marriage gets a little more cynical lol. ▌fears: audra is afraid of being rejected and afraid of failure, both of which feed into each other. she very much thrives on like? feeling loved and successful and generally Good. it’s part of why she’s so caring in a way? both because she doesn’t want other people to feel rejected and because she wants to like? ensure she’s worth something to people. audra is also afraid of losing the people she loves (more so after the events of canon). i could also see her being afraid of bugs, especially things with long/many legs ▌style preferences:   audra doesn’t have a terribly loud or bold sense of style. her personality is bold enough lmao. she really likes pastels and earth tones? so depending on her mood you will probably find her in light greens, pinks, blues. white and gray as well. other times she wears a lot of maroon, army greens, darker yellows and brown and black of course. audra tends to like slightly more form-fitting clothing, but she does like some more flowy things? she favors sweaters and leather jackets and tends to follow more classic trends like white t-shirt with jeans and boots as opposed to more time sensitive trends like tiny sunglasses. i mean she’s 40 she doesn’t feel like experimenting lmao ▌someone they love: her sister laney, no matter what. audra is 8 years older than laney and she is just fiercely protective of her. they aren’t perfect, they fight sometimes, but ultimately they would die for each other. laney’s an architect and audra is so wildly proud of her–– when she has the money, she asks laney to design her and bill’s house. ▌approach to friendships: audra falls into the mom friend role a little bit, but she does also have like? party girl energy? obviously since she’s sober in most of (actually probably all of) my mainverse threads, it’s not literal? but like audra will take you out dancing or like encourage you to do something extravagant for yourself or take some risk you’ve been wanting to take. she’s a super supportive friend and she’s not afraid to delve into emotional stuff. she can get really goofy though (see any interaction w/ @trashmcuths​) and she’s also insanely tactile so watch out. she also tends to bond fairly quickly, even with costars she knows she might not necessarily stay close to. might as well make the time count! ▌thoughts on pie: she likes pie! apple’s her favorite. ▌favourite drink: water, tea ▌favourite place to spend time at: audra honestly just really loves spending time at home. she loves travelling but is a homebody at her core, probably because she is away from home so much. all the better if she’s there with a loved one! ▌swim in the lake or in the ocean: i think audra has a soft spot for lakes, having gone to one a lot when she was a kid ▌their type: hmm...  i don’t know if audra has a concrete type? to be honest? she probably is drawn a little bit to people who are a little more lowkey to like? balance out her energy? but honestly like if she connects with someone, it probably means that they have a kind heart and that’s the main thing for her. i think she’s also definitely attracted to people who can be vulnerable. ▌camping or indoors: audra enjoys camping once in a while, but she is mainly an indoorsy person!

tagged by: @armsdealing <3 (sorry this took fully forever lol) tagging: truly anyone who wants to, tag me in your post!!! 

#; about #armsdealing #thank you so much for tagging me also omg! <3 #god i love my bABY #i really would die for audra oof

[canallynwrite]

for the book ask! 3, 27, & 36!

[3] WHAT BOOK ARE YOU PLANNING TO READ NEXT?

well, first off i gotta finish my current books (aka six of crows and given to the sea) before reading anything else. however, i do plan to read the rest of the grisha verse, the throne of glass series, and some of marie lu’s books (possibly), as well as doing some research for my wip. (i have an entire pile of books on ancient greece/greek mythology just waiting to be read!)

[27] IF YOU COULD CHANGE ONE THING ABOUT MAINSTREAM LITERATURE WHAT WOULD IT BE? (I.E. MORE DIVERISTY, BETTER WRITING, BETTER PLOT.)

more wlw, please! there are definitely some out there but i won’t rest until we actually get some more rlly good, mainstream books with proper rep. aside from that, though, i guess i’d like better written characters. most ya protagonists don’t move me at all, and then there’s a sizable portion that i outright HATE so it’s kinda hard to properly get through the books. i’ve only read a few books with protagonists i actually like recently (the false prince, six of crows, greenglass house) and fewer yet have made me emotional (’this is where it ends’ really came after me with that ending, tho. i still mourn for tomas). 

[36] NAME A BOOK YOU CONSIDER TO BE TERRIBLE OVERRATED.

anything by sarah j. maas! the first time i tried to read her the throne of glass series, i barely got a fourth of the way in before celaena’s conceited, annoying attitude got to me (pray tell, WHEN does she do any actual assassining? the majority of the book is her fantasizing about how she could totally kill this one guy in .02 seconds but SHE NEVER DOES IT. the rest of it is her failing to be competent, with a side-dish of a girl hate. i don’t get nehemia either, though she’s leagues better than celaena. idk, she just didn’t seem to have the temperament for being a diplomat or whatever it was she was doing. however, her character made a lot more sense than celaena’s and she actually has reasons i can get behind). i went back at finished it on an ebook, and the ending was completely dull. did anyone ever doubt that celaena would live? honestly! tbh, i would have preferred it if celaena did die from kaltain’s poison (what kinda cool-ass plot might that have opened up!?) and that whole deus ex machina fight with elena helping and nehemia preforming magic right IN THE FRONT WHERE EVERYONE COULD SEE (like her cloak would cover up that bullshit, pffft). i just,,,, it was a ride that i hated. kaltain also didn’t deserve that ending, mark my goddamn words. i’m almost done with the assassin’s blade, and i’ll admit the plot is much better and she actually does assassin-y things, but i still don’t like celaena’s character (so annoying and arrogant and contradictory), and, maybe i’m the only one to think this, but celaena and sam’s relationship doesn’t make any sense to me. what, despite her being an absolute jerk and openly antagonistic to him he falls in ‘love’ with her and then after one mission and one summer apart he can confess to her and suddenly she loves him too and he’d beat up arobynn for her??? what chemistry was there? i didn’t see it! sure he gave her music, but they grew up hating each other??? idk, i just didn’t get the hype. the only characters i liked in tab were ansel (because basically her entire character is fit for me to love, i mean: charismatic, friendly-but-manipulative red haired girl with cool armor and a tragic backstory fighting for revenge against the people that killed her family but having to struggle with her dark side and the body count she’s beginning to leave behind???? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP FOR THAT), and captain rolfe. rolfe won my heart in like two seconds with his “i’m the world’s greatest pirate, and i’m afraid of a great number of people. that’s how i’ve managed to stay alive for so long” line because that is some GREAT logic and it makes me so fucking mad that celaena doesn’t have it! honestly, the way she talks about the pirates in comparison to arobynn’s “educated, and oh so refined” assassins makes me so angry. it doesn’t matter how smart you are, celaena, y’all do almost the exact same kinda job as rolfe! the hypocrisy is astounding, imo. everything else in it focuses on sam and celaena, which, tbh, i can’t stand. i don’t understand why they got together in the first place, and the way celaena fantasizes about killing lysandra before they do makes me want to scream.i’m like, halfway through the crown of midnight, but i absolutely hate it. the only way i’ll finish it is if i get a ebook on my phone or smth. the only reason i’m keeping tab on my shelf is because i absolutely love the chapters that rolfe and ansel are in.

as for the acotar series, i tried to read the first book, and got like halfway through before i just stopped reading it. it was so boring??? there was nothing notable about feyre or tamlin (lucien was somewhat interesting tho?), and literally nothing interesting happened in the plot except romance, and it wasn’t even good romance imo. i think something was about to happen at the point i stopped reading at, but tbh i just don’t care enough to continue on. the characters were boring and i’ve heard enough bad things about the future romance *cough* rhysand *cough* to make me keep away.

like, i just don’t get the hype around her books! all of the conflict is just there to make the story look pretty and provide a backdrop for wish-fulfillment white-feminist-y fae porn. when you think about it, the characters barely every have proper reasoning behind their actions behind what would make them look “cool” and “badass”. i’m just,,, so tired,,, of them. 

and this has been a really long post, and for that i am sorry, but i have a lot of feelings about sjm and her books.

#ask #bookish asks #ya literature #ya #anti sjm #does that apply? #this isn't really an sjm-centered post #but i hate her books

[sulietsexual]

not gonna lie i'm super surprised you don't consider delena to be abusive in any way. however, i think it's great that you didn't let other people's opinions sway your own judgements, which can be hard to do when you go into watching a new show where everyone seems to have similar opinions. i know you're probs bored of answering tvd asks, but if you have time would you consider writing WHY you don't think delena are abusive and why you like their dynamic? thanks :)

Okay, before I get into my answer (which will be rambling and long and probably not make sense to anyone but myself and possibly @we-pay-for-everything because we seem to have similar takes on Delena) I need to clarify that when I say that I don’t find Delena abusive that doesn’t mean that I think it’s a good or healthy ship. There are a lot of aspects to Damon’s behaviour and to the relationship which make it a pretty unhealthy ship and I would never try to pretend otherwise. But I don’t feel that Damon is abusive towards Elena (even if he does cross some lines) nor do I feel that the ship is abusive as a whole. 

I was caught in a very abusive relationship when I was younger and while that by no means makes me an expert on the subject it does mean that I tend to recognise and identify abusive behaviour in fictional characters and react badly to said characters. I don’t react the way I normally would to an abuser when it comes to Damon in regards to Elena. 

Now, I make this distinction because there was a relationship of Damon’s which triggered my reaction to abusive relationships and that was his early relationship with Caroline, which was textbook abusive. Caroline was raped by Damon and compelled to be under his control. He emotionally and verbally abused her by calling her names and telling her she was worthless, he controlled her by compulsion, made her do things she didn’t want to do, separated her from her friends and caused her to feel extreme trauma and fear. She was terrified of him and he made her feel unsafe, while at the same time she felt that she was attracted to him and that made her hate herself. Damon was Caroline’s abuser and treated her appallingly. But he doesn’t display this same behaviour with Elena.

Damon never rapes Elena. Her never compels her in order to physically take advantage of her (with the exception of an early Season 1 episode where he tries to make her kiss him and this is more an attack on Stefan than Elena and he never tries this again). In fact, the one time he does compel Elena is to make her forget his declaration of love because he recognises that she is with his brother, that his brother is the better man and that it would be unfair of him to put her in a position which might make her uncomfortable and divided. That’s pretty much the opposite of abuse.

Damon doesn’t physically harm Elena or threaten her the way he did Caroline. He doesn’t make her fear for her life, he doesn’t emotionally abuse or manipulate her and, as said before, he doesn’t force himself on her or rape her (physically or by compulsion). In fact, when he discovers that she’s sired to him he refuses to even kiss her until the sire bond is broken, recognising that it would be wrong to be physical with her when she has no agency. Again, pretty much the opposite of abuse. He tries to break the sire bond to set her free, not wanting her to be compelled to be with him.

Now, none of this means that Damon didn’t display some pretty shitty behaviour at times or that he never crossed lines or didn’t hurt Elena or that he was even good for her. He encouraged her to feed and kill when she became a vampire, knowing that she would feel torturous guilt over it, he allowed her to feed from him without informing her of the intimate nature of vampires drinking from one another, he turned off her humanity which allowed her to become a ruthless killer. Even before that he crossed quite a few lines such as walking around naked in front of her, lying in her bed and letting her think he was Stefan and the aforementioned attempted compulsion to get her to kiss him. But, for me, none of this constitutes abuse as none of it truly victimised Elena or traumatised her in any way. Damon’s a shit person, a bad influence and an enabler but he’s not Elena’s abuser.

Before I started watching TVD there were two incidents which I constantly heard about which antis would use to prove Damon’s abuse - the fact that he snapped Jeremy’s neck after Elena rejected him and the fact that he forced her to drink his blood so she would come back as a vampire after Klaus fed off her. What I didn’t have was the context for either scene and once I did, both scenes became vastly different to what the fandom had convinced me they were.

When antis talk about Damon snapping Jeremy’s neck because Elena rejected him, they seem to fail to take two very important factors into account - one, that just one or two episodes before, Jeremy had expressed a desire to Damon that he wanted to die, because he wanted to feel nothing, because the world was too awful and feeling nothing was better than feeling something. Damon even parrots this back when he is about to kill Jeremy and even though Jeremy has since changed his mind, Damon is so deeply identifying with what Jeremy said previously that he’s almost killing himself through the act of snapping Jeremy’s neck. He’s killing someone who, in his mind, wants to die and if he can’t give himself that freedom, he’ll damn well give it to someone else.

Secondly (and this is more important as it directly ties into Damon and Elena’s relationship and dynamic) I firmly believe that Damon snapping Jeremy’s neck was in response to Katherine rejecting him, not Elena.

Damon has always loved Katherine and always desired that she love him back, something which she did but would never admit. Earlier in the episode in question, Katherine and Damon engage in physical intimacy, during which he practically begs her to admit that she loves him, telling her that he will leave everything and everyone behind for her and be with her forever, if she will just give him what he’s always wanted - an admittance of her love. Katherine refuses and twists the knife even further by saying that it will always be Stefan, not Damon. 

This devastates Damon, to discover the woman he loved and longed for for over a century never felt the same way. So he gets drunk and goes to Elena, not to confess his love for her (because I genuinely believe that he doesn’t actually love Elena at this point) but to use her as a Katherine substitute, to somewhat desperately try to prove that someone could choose him over his brother. And - again this is important - he doesn’t react badly until Elena says the exact same words as Katherine “It will always be Stefan”. Hearing the same words which Katherine said and already in a very heightened state of emotion (remember that it’s canon in this ‘Verse that vampires feel emotions at a much more intense level than humans) Damon kind of snaps (no pun intended) and he takes it out on someone whom he believed wanted to die. 

I don’t see this as abusive towards Elena as A) she wasn’t the person harmed - Jeremy was and B) this wasn’t a response to her rejection. Was it a horrible and completely effed-up thing to do? Sure but no one’s denying that Damon’s a horrible and effed-up person. In fact, this isn’t the last time he snaps someone’s neck because he’s pissed off (poor Alaric). And Elena is rightly angry at him for a decent time afterwards. But, again, this action doesn’t victimise Elena it victimisies Jeremy and it wasn’t Damon trying to force Elena to love him or him reacting to her rejection and as such I don’t think it counts against the relationship. Also, given that, like, two episodes later Jeremy’s trying to get “Big Brother” advice from Damon, I think it’s fine that Elena eventually forgives him, given how easily Jeremy - the actual victim - moved on.

Now, regarding Damon to force Elena to drink his blood. First of all, I find it very interesting that no where did I ever read or discover that Stefan also forces Elena to drink his blood with the intention of turning her into a vampire, and he does it in just as violent and forceful a manner as Damon - possibly even worse given that he does it at the site of her biggest trauma and then threatens to drive her off a bridge, the same bridge where her parents died. And he does all to piss of Klaus. He threatened to kill the woman he supposedly loves just to get revenge on Klaus. 

Damon, on the other hand, is trying to save Elena’s life. I’ve seen a lot of antis saying that Delena shippers shouldn’t use that as an excuse but my response is why not? People do crazy, stupid and reckless things when someone they love is in danger. Stefan agreed to follow Klaus and kill countless people just to save Damon’s life and no one is running around screaming about that. What Damon did by feeding Elena his blood did cross a line and took away her agency but he was desperate and trying to keep someone he deeply cared about alive at whatever cost. I don’t really understand how anyone could fully fault him for that.

As for why I enjoy the dynamic, maybe because it’s just so interesting. Damon and Elena have a connection from very early on in the series. Elena is one of the first people to actually see and acknowledge Damon’s emotions and losses. She expresses sympathy towards him when she learns that he also loved Katherine and Damon’s expression when she does says it all - he’s never had anyone consider him before. Everyone has always focused on Stefan, no one has fully considered Damon’s suffering. But Elena does.

There’s something dark and twisted about Damon and Elena. You can see how much she’s drawn to him, even when she’s with Stefan and, as Rose points out in Season 3, Damon challenges her and her worldview. He pushes her and brings out darker, more emotional responses in her. When she becomes a vampire, he is the only one to allow her to give in to her darker, vampire urges. One of my absolute favourite scenes in the whole series is Damon and Elena feeding, getting high off blood and dancing. It’s seductive and dark and oh so very vampire-y. I love that Elena can give into those darker urges with Damon, even if it’s not necessarily good for her.

Wow, that got really long. Hope it was coherent and cleared things up for you!

#delena #tvd #tvd meta #the vampire diaries #we pay for everything #answered #Anonymous #meta