"Why does everything need to be Gay now it's so shallow to make men attracted to each other when they could be Pure Platonic Friends -"

oops sorry I can't hear you over the sound of me Doing What I Want Forever because I have been watching movies, TV, and animation since the 80s and have watched enough shallow heterosexual romances that would have been stronger as mlm-wlw solidarity friendships to fill the space between stars in a galaxy

I kinda feel like either I missed a good chunk of WEDNESDAY or people online and I must have watched different shows. In the past days since the show came out I've seen many a person complain about it - especially on Tiktok. Now obviously nobody is obligated to like this latest take on the Addams Family comic strips but like... a lot of people seem to forget that the movies, iconic as they were, are not the original? Also I've seen a lot of people be mad especially about how Gomez and Morticia were portrayed. A lot of them especially complained about how unsupportive they were and - I dunno, maybe it's me, but I didn't see that at all. Gomez literally states "Anything for our little girl" and he and Morticia are still encouraging and loving. I'd say its more that the show is told from Wednesday's perspective (Wednesday, who actively rejects her parents for now because, shocker, she's a teenager trying to figure herself out)?

I really don't know, maybe I missed something with the show. But I have been an Addams family fan since about age 9. My father especially had me watch the movies as a child because he said I reminded him of Wednesday. I watch the '64 TV series every year for October. I read some of the original comics. I adore the Addams family, and I was mlre than sceptical going into this new show - and I love it. I think it is a great modern take that stays true to the characterizations I have grown to love from the original source material and previous adaptions.

Also - I've seen many voiced complain that Wednesday was "too soft" or "too tame" and that Pugsley was too "whimpey" - first of all, personally I'd say letting piranhas loose on a swim team is not "tame", and secondly, Pugsley always was a bit softer and whinier than his sister, even back in the 64 show when he was still the older sibling.

I've alluded to tri. having some very troubled production behind the scenes, and among everything that apparently went on back there, there seem to have been at least two major bottlenecks: 1) the fact that the director (who, based on his own statements about deliberately not consulting source material, most likely didn't even watch Adventure to begin with) kept asking everyone to make things more "mature" without being clear on what that actually meant, and 2) the fact they ran out of budget and had to rewrite the entire plot halfway into it. Even the most brilliant of creators probably wouldn't be able to work at their best under such conditions.

But conversely, this also means that there were some excellent people involved in production whose efforts probably haven't been as appreciated as they should be! So I want to take a moment to spotlight some people I want to give props to:

Ayana Yuniko and Nakanishi Yasuhiro: These two scriptwriters were childhood Digimon fans who were thrilled to be on the project, and their enthusiasm clearly shows in every interview they were in. Ayana even made keen observations like noticing that the Adventure kids aren't as super-tight as people tend to make them out to be (something I've pointed out myself, and something that generally only tends to crop up among fans who have studied the series closely), and Nakanishi stated that she would slip him detailed notes about the characters and their relationships.

Both of them stated they were trying to portray the Adventure characters in a character-accurate way but kept getting their scripts rejected for not being "mature" enough, leaving them unsure about what they were supposed to do. Their roles on the series were also limited; Ayana was on parts 1, 2, and 4 while Nakanishi was on part 4 only, and they were sharing the scriptwriter role with multiple others (even within a single movie). But if I were asked to pick who on the staff list I would want to see come back for another Digimon work, it would absolutely be these two.

Kakikara Yuuko: The one in charge of overall writing for the series. tri. had a total of five scriptwriters and could have up to four(!) on a given movie, so because of that, her statements on the series and its story direction have been a bit difficult to tell whether it was her idea personally or whether she was delivering the writing room's discussion result. But one of her final statements on the series basically amounted to "I'm grateful if you even came to watch it to the end at all," and she was quite humble about saying she felt things could have been done differently; considering it sounds like she had a hard time keeping everyone and everything in order, I can only imagine she went through a lot trying to make sure everything ended safely. Incidentally, her writing portfolio is also quite respectable (and even includes kids' shows).

Suzuki Takaaki: The person with the job of "setting researcher", i.e. the one with the job of looking into the lore. Sadly, it seems like most of his ideas didn't make it into the final series (possibly because of the budget loss-induced rewrite), but his one solo interview indicates that he put quite a bit of conscientious thought into how Digital World lore works, including the idea of an EMP weapon that would affect Digimon easily but not humans (an idea that doesn't pop up among fans as often as you'd think, and took up until last year to make it into actual Adventure material via Takeru's 02TB in-universe fanfic).

Sakabe Gou: The person in charge of the series BGM. We haven't heard a lot from him, but the little we have indicates that although he also had difficulty understanding what the director was asking for when he wanted "mature" music of some kind, he himself put some very thorough thought put into the composition. In particular, he went into detail regarding the music used at the beginning of part 4, which seems to be a fan-favorite track from what I've seen (it's also my favorite too!). Sakabe also has an extensive and respectable portfolio outside Digimon; in particular, he's very highly regarded in Kamen Rider circles, so if you have a friend who's a fan, it might be a good idea to ask them about it!

Lots and lots of random spoilerific things about Star Trek comics

Gold Key's old run was written by people who had never actually seen the show. Later they involved fans like Doug Drexler to make things a bit more authentic

This however made them, IMHO, amazing

Blond scotty. Wearing green.

Voodoo planet, with papier mache versions of Earth landmarks which, when blasted with a death ray, cause the real ones to collapse

Spock learns voodoo to combat this threat

The Enterprise completely razes a planet of hostile plant spore things. Like full on extermination of all life

There's a locked room on deck 7 full of evil Vulcan spirits. A yeoman blunders in and all hell breaks loose

Kirk doesn't know what a god damn black hole is

Spock is kidnapped by aliens, has their entire knowledge downloaded into his brain which makes him into a bobblehead for awhile

The Enterprise is briefly taken from Kirk and given to Captain Zarlo, who is a total bellend

Spock forgets to have pointed ears sometimes

The old UK newspaper comic strips were even worse. The first few issues feature "Captain Kurt" and he wears a red shirt. Bailey is also a lead character, giving away which one episode they had knowledge of

Depictions of the Enterprise in their very first strip will shock and horrify you, but after that the art becomes amazing and maintains a very high standard

Marvel did a series following The Motion Picture, and it was a vast improvement, although they technically had rights to the movie and not the series, which led to a little weirdness. Tons of references still were snuck in, though

There's a series of Book and Records, which you can listen to on YouTube and are goofy fun. The Enterprise desperately needs a meal in the art, though.

They draw Romulans as green wizards

They didn't have the rights to Nichelle Nichols or George Takei's likenesses, so get ready for White Uhura and Black Sulu!

They didn't have the rights to The Animated Series either, so M'Ress is a human with weird face paint and Arex is substituted for just some guy

There's an unlicensed Chinese adaptation of The Motion Picture's novelisation (made with zero prior knowledge of Star Trek), which features an all-star cast like O.J. Simpson as Decker and James Brolin as Kirk. It's called The Star Trek, which is a better name than The Motion Picture, IMHO.

DC comics' first run is considered some of the best Trek ever. They're made with love and a deep knowledge of the source material

You know how Star Trek III takes place right after II? WRONG. It was several months later and the crew (with Saavik taking over from Spock) had tons of adventures in the interim. It just seemed like it was right after😂

Before Worf and long long before Ash Tyler, Kirk had a Klingon on his crew

He was a cowardly Klingon named Konom who fled the Empire

He fell in love with a human woman named Bryce

They adopted an albino Klingon/human child with dwarfism which they named Bernie

Kirk has an unhinged, insubordinate crewman on board named Bearclaw and they hate each other

Tension escalates and eventually there's a stabbing

Sulu/M'Ress happens and I don't think people knew what furrys were in the 80's

You know how Spock comes back at the end of III but isn't his old self until the end of Star Trek IV? WRONG AGAIN. He came back just fine, and lost his marbles following an incident months later that just happened to line everything up to make it all seem like it was right after.

After STIII, Kirk becomes captain of the U.S.S. Excelsior NX-2000 and Spock becomes captain of the U.S.S. Surak. We get a few issues exclusively focusing on Spock's ship and his band of merry weirdos.

The U.S.S. Surak keeps changing design, starting off as a sort of Oberth-class ship, then randomly becoming an Excelsior-class ship and finally ending as the warp sled shuttlecraft from The Motion Picture

The Surak's crew include a giant chicken man, a Vulcan hating racist lady and a balding man with a bicycle

They all die horribly and a massive reset button is pressed so everyone is exactly where they were at the end of Star Trek III

In order to make that work they had to bs that the Klingon Bird of Prey was hidden in Excelsior's shuttlebay all this time despite it being way, way too big for that

There's a full on mirror universe invasion

Kirk becomes a celebrity from saving the galaxy all the time

Mr. Arex comes back and becomes chief of security but doesn't really do much

HORTA CREWMEMBER. It's as amazing as it sounds

The first Next Generation comic miniseries was made with knowledge of the first 2 or 3 TNG episodes and nothing else

Everyone is hench as fuck. Picard has washboard abs and bulging muscles

Data is emotional and Troi feels the emotions she senses a la "Encounter at Farpoint"

Wesley is drawn as if he's 10

The B-shift con and ops team are a husband and wife who wear caped superhero versions of Starfleet uniforms with bare legs.

They argue. A lot.

The crew meet an alien Santa Claus and Q loses his powers years before "Deja Q"

The whole Q Continuum visits the Enterprise and they're all John De Lancie but in Starfleet uniforms of every colour under the sun.

After that initial miniseries, the Next Gen crew lose a lot of their muscle mass and start resembling their on screen counterparts a lot better

Picard had a brother who fell down a hole and died as a child. Q offers to rewrite history so he doesn't die. Claude Picard grew up to be Space Superhitler and turns Starfleet and the Federation fascist.

Before all this Q turned Jean-Luc into a goat for the lolz

Marvel's The Early Voyages was very literally Strange New Worlds before Strange New Worlds.

They have a pyrokinetic security officer named Nano and he's awesome

Marvel lost the Trek license quite suddenly, and so the series ends on a cliffhanger where Admiral April is up to something iffy.

Marvel did a Starfleet Academy series featuring Nog and its utterly fantastic

A female Andorian cadet tries to make Nog feel at ease by greeting him in the nude, but Nog fails to take it as an innocent gesture and she immediately sends him flying across the room

Romulan agents with split personalities in Starfleet Academy!

They visit Talos IV and get help from Captain Pike, who's still alive

IDW comics did a prequel to the 2009 reboot where Picard is an ambassador, Data is captain of the Enterprise-E and Nero has hair. It was co-written by the movie writers and was considered sort of vaguely semi canon ish for a time

They originally wanted the Romulan supernova to destroy a lot more, including Earth and have Nero kill the TNG crew. It was the Star Trek Online devs that got them to scale things back because they'd have no universe left to set their game in.

Nero's ship looks like it does because after Romulus was destroyed he took it to a secret Romulan base and had it equipped with reverse-engineered Borg technology

You thought DC struggled to keep ship designs correct? IDW's comics keep using traced fan art from Google Images, and fan art (sometimes with unique ship designs) has shown up on multiple occasions as the Kelvinverse U.S.S. Enterprise

In one IDW TOS comic, the bridge is totally covered with TNG LCARS graphics.

In another, an Orion ship is a gigantic Stargate sticking out of the middle part of Battlestar Galactica.

Wanna see Kelvinverse versions of TOS episodes? That was their first comics run, picking up after the 2009 reboot movie. They start off very faithful and as the series goes on things diverge more and more

To the extent some stories have very different backstories and outcomes

We visit 2 Kelvin mirror universes and a genderswapped universe too. No, Kirk doesn't do what you're thinking.

Q visits the Kelvin Universe and brings the crew forward in time to their version of Deep Space Nine

Nero's time in Klingon prison (from the Star Trek 2009 deleted scenes) and escape is fleshed out

Nero meets V'ger.

Nero mind melds with V'ger.

V'ger turns away due to the sheer force of Nero's hatred.

I wish I was making that up.

Klingons get their hands on Narada's technology and go to war

We get a Khan backstory where the Eugenics Wars are a full on nuclear conflict and "Khan" is the title that little Noon Sing adopts when he takes power

After being revived in the 23rd century, Admiral Marcus has Khan surgically altered to look like Benedict Cumberbatch as part of his John Harrison cover identity

They did a series of shorts called Waypoint, and in the first one Geordi is captain of a future Enterprise and his crew is made up of holographic versions of Data and it's a really sweet concept (this was several years before before ST: Picard brought Data back twice)

There's a prequel series centred around Number One where nobody manages to say her name before being interrupted. If you put the bits together it seems her name was Eureka Robbins. Of course, this is long before novels and SNW made her Una Chin-Riley.

Avatar Netflix Season 2 Will 'Condense' Original Storyline (Exclusive)

Season 2 of Avatar: The Last Airbender will follow in the footsteps of the first season's storytelling "condensing." 

Each season of the animated Avatar series had twenty episodes, most of which followed their own adventures. When it came to the live-action show, the first season only had eight hour-long installments.

This led to many elements of the original storyline getting condensed, such as the combination and relocation of a handful of plot threads to the team’s stay in Omashu—meeting the Mechanist, Jet, Bumi, and venturing into the Secret Tunnel.

As one might imagine, these types of changes did not always land well with audiences.

Season 2 Will Condense Original Avatar Storyline

Speaking with The Direct at Paleyfest 2024, Avatar: The Last Airbender Seasons 2 and 3 executive producer Jabbar Raisani confirmed that they will need to condense some of the original story as the Netflix show moves forward.

Raisani pointed out how their handling of Seasons 2 and 3  which will conclude the live-action series - will be "a lot like Season 1," which also means "some condensing" has "to take place:"

"I think it's a lot like season 1. There's a lot of content in the animated series. And we will be looking at all that content. But we don't have the number of episodes that we have in the animated series. So, certainly, there will be some condensing that has to take place."

While speaking to The Direct about the possibility of more original moments in Season 2 for his character, Uncle Iroh actor Paul Sun-Hyung Lee shared that he "[does not] know how they’re going to remix the stories" going forward:

"I wish I could; I have no idea what they have planned for us... I know we're getting an opportunity to finish telling the story. Obviously, the animated series is going to be the template for us. But other than that, I don't know how they're going to remix the stories. Nobody tells me nothing. So I'm just gonna show up. And yeah, hopefully, we get a better, clearer sense of where we're going with that in the future. But right now, I have no idea what's going to happen."

While the original animated series has been finished for nearly two decades, the story of those characters will continue in a new animated film called Aang: The Last Airbender.

Currently, not many details are known about the project, but fans do know it will follow team Avatar as they are older following the events Avatar.

As for whether its story will have any influence on future episodes of Netflix’s The Last Airbender, Raisani admitted it will not, at least "not at this point:"

"No, not at this point. We are really looking at the animated series at what came before and less of sort of what they're currently doing on the new movies."

As for whether or not he would be interested in potentially adapting Legend of Korra for live-action, he firmly responded:

"Certainly, I'd be interested in anything that is in this universe."

[ Avatar 2025 Movie: Last Airbender Release, Cast & Everything We Know About Adult Aang Film ]

Remixing Season 2 Episodes Was Inevitable

When it comes to adapting the source material, condensing is unavoidable. Avatar: The Last Airbender fans shouldn't be surprised the same will be happening for Seasons 2 and 3.

Simply put, 20-minute bite-size adventures do not work well for the more extended episode structures of the Netflix show. If the original episode is a self-contained, isolated story, odds are it may not make the cut—or be weaved in with other plot threads.

Hopefully, at the very least, fan-favorite episodes such as the desert spirit library and how Appa got stolen can see the light of day in live action.

One thing that will make it notably more difficult to stick to the original episodes, though, is how behind on Aang’s bending lessons he is. Book 2 is all about him learning earthbending from Toph—however, in the live-action Last Airbender series, he hasn't even started lessons for waterbending.

The show is ahead of the game when it comes to Azula’s storyline, however, as she doesn’t originally appear until Season 2. That alone could save some episodes from the chopping block.

Requests are allowed right? If so I like to request at least 1 wholesome I guess… please

Yandere game show host x winning contestant reader

(Naming the host jack)

I have tried and failed to write this for few days, THE STRUGGLE

I have never watched a game show, bear with me, I made the yandere male by accident do forgive me I will watch brother bear as a reward for writing this, I hope you will like it Yandere male game show host x gn winning contestant reader

There are no warnings needed this is pretty chill.

Requests are open

You can’t believe you are doing this.

Game shows were not really your thing actually, but your life was missing something. A little bit of excitement and maybe love. It sounds embarrassing, and maybe it is but you don’t really care.

The theme was a slasher movie, but that didn’t tell you much really.

You even met the host, Jack, and you two talked for hours. Jack being Jck didn’t give you a lot of spoilers because “It would ruin the surprise”. Man, all you wanted was to mentally get ready for what’s about to come really. When you voiced out your worries, Jack hugged you and told you that everything will be fine and he will make sure nothing happens to you. It made you feel better, you smiled and hugged him back. Man you miss him. You look in the mirror, they took the theme seriously, you look like you just crawled out of the 80s. You liked the golf sweater especially, no one will notice if you happen to ‘borrow’ it. The turquoise, green and purple mixed really nicely and the material wasn’t itchy. To go with that you had bell pants.  When you made sure everything was in place you headed to the door that would lead you to where the game would be taking place. It was still quite empty, it wasn’t surprising since there were still a few minutes of free time left, so like a good person you were. You decided to check the place out.

It was a singular room, black and small. It surprised you honestly. How would you all be able to even do anything here? Then you noticed the door, damn you curiosity, you are sure as hell going in. The door led you through a long corridor and when you finally got to the end of it, no surprise, you saw another door. It somehow felt like this whole corridor was sentient and made you want to consider your choices but curiosity once again won and you opened the door and ended up outside. It was nighttime, and the only source of light was the full moon. Talk about the atmosphere, you continued onward, at this point you are starting to think that you might have wandered off the set. Checking the watch to make sure you still had time to go back you looked around, you couldn’t see the building, nor the door. You were surrounded by the forest and night. It was eerie and almost calming. For a moment you felt like the world stood still, well that was before a rustle came from behind you. Oh hell nah, you aren’t checking it out, you think before walking in the direction from which the sound came from. That’s called being a hypocrite. When you finally go close enough you are pretty sure you saw a person looming in the shadows of the trees. Man is that a knife? Oh holy shit it’s a machete. That had you worried for a second. Wait, a machete? Your smirk fell as the person raised it in the air. Ah man is that the part you die in? You turn around and start running in the direction you were going previously. The person behind you ran after you. At least he is not fucking around. You try your best to lose him and after a while you did. You also almost ran into a lamp, but that’s besides the point. You even found a small cabin and when you got into it you saw 5 other people sitting in a circle looking at you like you were crazy. You were sweaty, trying to catch your breath, pointing in the direction of the woods. “We know, congrats on getting away” someone said, you looked in the direction of the voice to see a young man, with that black outfit he just blended into the darkness. One of the people in the circle actually made an effort and got up to hug you, you didn’t have energy to hug her back. “Yeah, congrats on winning the first round or well two, haha.” she smiled apologetically. “I’m guessing you didn’t expect the chase, give me a sec I will grab a sleeping bag for you. You thanked her, you sat on the ground since your legs refused to stand any longer, someone even joined you and a familiar scent of perfume hit your noise. “Jack..?” “Sup, be quieter please” “You shouldn’t be here” You whisper yelled at him. He only chuckled at that.

“I found a cool spot you wanna see?” he asked, but then dragged you away anyway. You didn’t even have a chance to respond to him.

Soon you found yourself outside, Jack dragging you away from the cabin until you found a clearing. “Here you can lay on the grass” He let go of your hand and laid on the patch of short grass and patted the spot next to him. You did the same. “What the fuck dude”  you groaned.

“I know right? He is terrifying” “You shouldn’t even be here you are the motherfucking hooost, what have you gotten me into??” “A game show- Ow” You kicked him.

“Why the fuck are you in here and why did you drag me HERE” “Because this is the dead spot, plus I wanted to talk to you”

“Sure you did”  You stare at the sky, eyes slowly focusing on the dark. You are finally, once again, met with the beauty that comes during night. You are even able to see stars.

“Sorry for the scare y/n, but hey you will be seeing more of me” he hummed

“How so?”

“Well, you told me how scared you were so I will come by now and then to make sure you are okay and well, oh and congrats on winning the rounds by the way, I knew you could do it”

“Thanks, I almost pissed myself”

He cackled and you joined in,

“Dead spot?”

“Yeah, the hunter won’t come here and there is no cameras, you can chill here if everything gets overwhelming”

“Thanks Jack, after this is over I am beating you up”

“I hope so”

Spec on what Tommy's (possible) sexuality might be?

In relation to some spec I'm seeing going around about how Tommy identifies his sexuality, I'm so curious to see what that's gonna be and how he came to figure it out.

Here's what we know:

Tommy had a girlfriend in Chimney Begins because Captain Gerrard asked Tommy when his girlfriend was coming by the station to cook them all dinner. But then again he was kinda cagey in answering the Captain about her coming.

In Hen Begins, Sal insinuates that Tommy is "more of a Team Jacob kind of guy" aka Gay because Tommy finds Kristen Stewart "too broody". Tommy takes this in stride, sending Sal a joking air kiss, but it's by far the biggest hint we've gotten about Tommy possibly not being straight during the time he worked with the 118. However this line was likely originally intended to show casual workplace homophobia in order to make Hen uncomfortable, and not really to be like "oh hey Tommy's queer". But it ends up working out for the writers that they already had this tidbit in here.

In Bobby Begins Again Tommy tells Hen and Chim "I'm telling you, single is easier. Having the scars impresses women, getting 'em freaks 'em out." Which heavily implies dating/being attracted to women. In the same conversation, he later brings up a quote from Fight Club the movie, and in case anyone wasn't aware, has long been interpreted as a queer allegory due to large amounts of homoerotic material in the source material and film adaptations.

All of that being said, there are arguments for Tommy possibly being bisexual, or possibly being an in-the-closet gay man. Whichever direction they choose to take Tommy will be telling for the future of the plot for different reasons.

If Tommy ends up being bisexual like Buck, then more than likely they'll end up having a lot of parallels to experiences Buck has had in the past, further cementing to the audience that Buck has been bi this whole time but just didn't realize it. It could also parallel Buck's current situation (hiding him and Tommy from Eddie + the 118) and possibly the catalyst for Buck to come out to the rest of the 118.

But, if Tommy ends up being gay, and had to hide it and/or repress it for most of the time he had been with the 118, that could prove very interesting for the ways in which he strongly parallels Eddie.

7x04 spent a lot of time hammering home to the audience that Tommy is extremely similar to Eddie. I wouldn't be surprised if they take this a step further by having Tommy have a queer experience similar to how many of us believe Eddie's to be. That being growing up in a hypermasculine environment, filled with shame and plenty of reasons to repress and/or keep that information to himself. And only figuring out who he is later in life.

Personally, I would prefer it if they went this route with Tommy. Not only because I think it would strongly parallel a possible queer Eddie storyline, but it would also provide a contrast for Buck. By that I mean if Tommy says "well, my relationships with women never felt right, and I realized later it's because I wasn't attracted to them at all" then Buck can firmly place himself in the bisexual category in contrast by clarifying that he was and still is attracted to women, but now realizes he likes men too. And it doesn't hurt that it could be possible foreshadowing for Eddie, and/or parallels to Eddie's storyline with Marisol in the episode with something possibly not feeling right between them.

Either way, I'm excited to see to learn more about Tommy in 7x05. I'm also hoping for a bit more acknowledgment for how shitty he was to Hen and Chim in the beginning. It's a good way to show 10+ years of character development in one convo.

Everyone has my absolute sympathy for trying to sort this stuff out, because there is so much source material to sort through and so much of a game of Telephone being played (ie, one person says something they believe to be true, the next person picks it up as hard fact and repeats it as such, then the next person also believes it but adding a bit of their own assumptions to what the previous posts said, on and on until we get to where we are now in fandom) that it can be hard to sort it all out. My best advice is to just start paying attention to sources on things--like when someone posts a quote from Wild Space, I automatically think, okay, that's in the Legends continuity, because I've looked up which books are in which continuity enough to know that.  Once you start doing that often enough, you start naturally understanding what comes from what continuity. Like, for a specific example--the idea of Jedi aging out at 13, when someone posts about that, where does that come from?  It's always sourced back to the Jedi Apprentice books, so, okay, that's a Legends thing!  Can you think of any time that came up in the movies or in TCW?  If not, then it's not Lucas' continuity and it never happened there.  In fact, The Clone Wars (Ahsoka's 14 in the movie and said to be on the young side for being a Padawan) + Disney (the Dooku: Jedi Lost audiodrama has a 16 year old Initiate who will have to wait another year before trying to be a Padawan again) both show that's not part of those continuities. That's pretty much it, I just constantly go after the source, figure out where something is from, and if I can't find a source, it's probably Legends or fanon.  (Which is no shade!  People should do what they want!  But I do like knowing what's fanon and what's not.) For the Jedi stuff, I can definitely help you out--I have a Jedi reference project, which is a collection of citations from Lucas continuity + Disney continuity (if it's quoted from Lucas, the movies, or TCW s1-s6, then it's Lucas continuity, everything else is Disney on that list) and Part II has an intro section that lists the different continuities as I see them. But I would say the primary differences between Lucas/Disney and Legends Jedi are: (None of these are value judgements!  I have read so many good fics that mix and match all of these things and I hope people continue to do what makes them happy, re: what goes in which continuity!) - Aging out does not seem to exist, the AgriCorps do not exist in the same fashion if they exist in Disney canon. - While Bant and Siri have been recanonized, Garen and Reeft do not exist in Disney canon, nor does Feemor or Komari.  Rael Averross is Dooku's other Padawan in Disney continuity, he does not exist in Legends. - Male Cereans are not endangered, Ki-Adi-Mundi is not married in Lucas or Disney canon. - The post-ROTJ world is massively, massively different, like Luke married Mara Jade and they had a son, Ben Skywalker, Han and Leia had three children (Jacen & Jaina the twins, Anakin their youngest son), Luke trains more Jedi as adults, while in Lucas' views and in Disney, he trains younger students. - The clones are not Mandalorian, in Lucas canon and Disney canon, they consider Kamino their home and they've never spoken any Mando'a.  Honestly,  I'm not sure any Mando'a has ever been spoken in any of Disney's stuff?  (Also, Mando'a was heavily linked with Karen Traviss' writing and, given that she's a Trump supporter and anti-BLM irl, some people really don't want to touch her stuff.) - The Jedi meditation mantra of "there is no emotion, there is peace" is purely a supplementary canon thing, it started in an '80s roleplaying book for the OT, then made its way to PT Legends stuff, and is referenced in Disney's continuity, but it does not exist in Lucas' continuity at all.  Also the "emotion yet peace" version is a prequels era thing, a lot of people will say it's an "older version" of the Jedi Code, but the only time we see it is during the Clone Wars (from the Kanan comics' flashbacks). - Grey Jedi do not exist in Lucas Canon or Disney canon.  I’m not sure if they’re around in some form in Legends (a lot of wild stuff happened in Legends), but they seem to be actively impossible to have in these canons, given the story group’s commentary about how you cannot use the dark side without consequences.  You can’t be a Jedi and use the dark side, pretty much. Oh, no, I'm kind of stuttering to a stop on trying to think of more major differences between the continuities, because honestly I'm better at answering direct questions than trying to come up with something.  (And even then, if I can't write a 25k essay, I feel bad, like, "Is this enough??  Or am I FAILING  here??" because sometimes Star Wars just Does Not Give Us Answers.  orz)

I don't know if anyone else feels this way but I think a big reason why I'm so chill about the changes made to the PJO show from the books is because I kind of look at each other as their own seperate canon.

Like, I read a lot of anime and manga, and anime adaptations have a huge habit for changing plot points for various reasons, and as a fan of said anime and manga, I've found that I can enjoy both versions of the same story even with the differences when I look at them as their own universe or canon. That's not to say I don't want them to be faithful or true to the source material, but if a scene or situation plays out differently for a logical or entertaining reason, than I can still appreciate that deviation from the manga even if I still like the other original version of that part more. And I can even like the reversal way if I feel an anime does something better than even the manga. But if I want to, I can look at certain moments as more canon than others because I got 2 different versions of that same scene or moment.

And, I don't know, I kind of apply that reasoning to the PJO series as well, mainly with the books, the show, and even the musical (not the movies put that right back where it came from). So far I'm loving the TV show, and while I miss some of the things they changed (like the pink poodle), this adaptation really is doing a great job with staying true to the heart and spirit of the original book that I personally am not even really bothered by the changes, especially when I remember that the books will always still be there with it's own version, or canon, of events.

Like, I will say 1 thing I adore in the books that isn't really in the show is the fact that a lot of Percy and Annabeth's "rivalry" during TLT has more to do with the rivalry between Poseidon and Athena. I just really like on how this adds a level of "forbidden friendship/love" to their relationship 'cause I personally eat the forbidden relationship trope up, especially when it's done well like with Percabeth.

Yet, even if this isn't really the reason percabeth have beef with each other in the show, I can still appreciate and enjoy that according to the show's canon, they have issues because they genuinely have problems with each other as actual people rather than their parents' rivalry, because at the end of the day, that's the PJO TV show canon, and I can always turn to the books for that version of Percabeth's "rivalry", as that is the PJO book canon.

Same goes for the characters too. I will always have and love my dark haired Percy and blond haired Annabeth in the books, but I can also welcome and love Walker's Percy and Leah's Annabeth from the show. And so far, they along with Aryan are KILLING IT as those characters.

I can love both versions of the characters.

I can love both versions of the same story.

I can look at both versions as they own seperate canon or mix them together if I so wish too (especially since both versions of PJO are written by the same guy)

And that's ok. The adaptation doesn't have to be a complete copy of the books. It doesn't have to have things play out eactly the same way. The characters don't have to look exactly the way they are described as in the books. And that's ok. I will still always have the books to love and appreciate, but I can also start to love and appreciate the new adaptation for it's new spin and twists to the same story that sets it apart as it's own canon while still staying true to the spirit of its predecessor.

Anyway, sorry if I'm not making a lot of sense. I just think the people complaining about the changes in the show are looking at it all the wrong way. The show has it's own canon just as the books have their own canon, or even the musical. At the end of the day, isn't that kind of cool to have different versions of the same story and characters? Doesn't it give you so many more options to look at the story in different ways that you can prefer or choose from? Doesn't it give you new versions of canon that you choose from? And really, as long as the PJO adaptation, or any adaptation for that matter, stays true to the heart and spirit of the original story and characters, do the changes made really matter?

Jen Tortures Herself With Every Dreamworks Animated Movie Ever: Prince of Egypt

Papa Bless (literally) its time for me to talk about one of my favorite animated movies, nay, one of my favorite MOVIES ever made. Prince of Egypt is a work of art. Hands down, it is one of the most incredible movies I have ever seen. I'm not even religious (I did grow up Christian and am now a Filthy Heathen but that's beside the point). The real point is that this movie is one that I think can be enjoyed by anyone reguardless of religion. At its core, they took a simple biblical story and turned it into something with raw passion and emotion and art. And I simply adore it.

Every time I watch this movie, its such an experience for me. I always fall in love with new things, from the fantastic character designs, to the insanely lovely animation to the beautiful songs and score to the way the story is told and the emotions the characters go through with it. Everything in this movie feels huge, weighty, and important. It's very respectful to its source material while making changes that make it work better as a film, particularly the brotherly dynamic between Moses and Rameses that adds a whole new layer of drama onto the story.

As for that story, we all know the Exodus story by now so I'll spare you on that and discuss the things the movie does on its own. That dynamic between Moses and Rameses is at the heart of the movie and it really is just a devestating tragedy to watch them break apart and become enemies because of the huge responsibilities thrust onto both of their shoulders. The fact that tragedy ends on such a heartcrushing note too its just... god. (literally god, get it? cause this is all his fault lol jk ok)

Moses is fantastically written, a great main character to follow who has compelling drama, at first about his true identity and how he struggles to comes to terms with it and then grappling with having to oppose Rameses to set the Hebrews free. Rameses himself may just be one of Dreamworks best villains, you really do feel bad for him but you also know he's bringing so much of this suffering on himself because of his own stubborn pride. The rest of the cast is also fantastic, Tzipporah is lovely and really fun, Miriam is an absolute sweetheart, Aaron is a sassy little loser but I love how he comes around in the end, and well, God is God (the burning bush scene tho, can we talk about that? fucking INSANE)

The MUSIC man, each song is SO damn good its hard for me to even pick a favorite. Deliver Us is such a strong opening, a wonderful way to set the stage that makes the stakes feel high right from the start. All I Ever Wanted is a great way to show the life Moses always knew cracking from the inside out. Through Heaven's Eyes is just a bop with a lovely message about change and growth. Playing with the Big Boys is delightfully sinister and the Plagues, oh GOD THE PLAGUES???? INSANE MAN SO DRAMATIC AND INTENSE AND THE IMAGERY IS JUST??!?!?! BRUH! When You Believe might be my favorite though, it starts out somber but grows into this hopeful triumph of excitement and relief and its absolutely beautiful.

This movie is so beautiful to look at too! The composition of some of these shots, the storyboarding, the facial expressions, the set pieces, the movement of the animation, its all so expertly crafted, so entrancing to watch every second of it. Like I said at the start, this movie truly is an utter work of art in every sence of the word.

I've been gushing about this movie for long enough I think, but I can't help it! It's honestly that good! And its so hard to believe that it came hot off the heels of a trash heap like Antz. Like bruh how were they cooking that shit and the godsend that is Prince of Egypt at the same time??? Insane, utterly insane. This studio is ridiculous.

Anyway, Prince of Egypt is the GOAT and I will fight you if you disagree.

Overall Rating: 10/10

Verdict: Tzipporah marry me pls

Previous Review (Antz)

Next Review (Road to El Dorado)

I’m writing this while walking to work so forgive me if it’s not entirely coherent. I think it might benefit some people to have a reminder that books and show/movie adaptations are different. Reading the book might mean you know the framework for the show/movie but it does not make you An Expert on the show/movie.

First and foremost, I’m not going to say don’t post spoilers, but I will so do not go onto someone else’s post and post spoilers. You would not like it if someone came into your house and spoiled things for you. Do not do that to others. It is not only incredibly rude. It is entirely selfish. Which brings me to my next point.

If reading the book enhances your experience, if it’s something you enjoy, I’m glad! I am so incredibly happy for you. It does not make you smarter or inherently more informed than the people that choose not to read for whatever reason.

You might know what happens and have more knowledge about the story as a whole but that does not mean that people that are posting predictions or speculations don’t know what they’re talking about. I know a lot of people that watch these shows have some sort of degree in writing or literature or visual media. Gonna use myself as an example here, I have a degree in writing. I am decent at analysis. I mostly post silly little shitposts or memes but all of my posts are operating from a place of being informed.

I am capable of predicting what’s gonna happen. I am aware of narrative structures. I’m aware of plot devices. I’m aware of the common tropes in the shows I watch. And that doesn’t matter! Because that is entirely Not The Point. I don’t care if I predict accurately. It’s not about the what happens. It’s always about how we get there.

Of all of the shows that are airing and I can pretty much tell you what the ending of each of them is going to be. Even without reading the novels. That does not make them any less enjoyable for me. It makes them even more enjoyable. Cause now I get to watch for the details. I get to watch and see how this show has decided to show the journey of the story. And sometimes how they completely rewrite expectations. Some of the things I have watched have been very, extremely good at subverting tropes and expectations. Things can veer off in directions you don’t expect even if you’ve read the novel. Simply because it’s a different story. It is imposssible to do a 1 to 1 adaptation. As much as we might want it. It is simply not possible.

I have read a few novels that the shows are based on. Every single show has made drastic changes to the source material. So while you might have knowledge of what’s to come in the novel. You might have the ability to spoil everyone for what’s coming, even you can’t be 100% sure until it happens. And condescendingly telling people it’s so obvious when you have future knowledge is incredibly unacceptable.

This has gotten very long and I am actually at work now and should probably actually do my job but I just need to reiterate. Reading the novels is fine! It’s fun! I am genuinely so happy people are reading and enjoying themselves and also enjoying the shows! That is wonderful! But do not ruin or attempt to ruin someone else’s enjoyment simply because you think you know more. Make posts about the differences on your own blog. Talk about spoilers with friends that have also read the novel. But do not go onto a stranger’s post and post spoilers because you might be ruining the media you love for that person without even realizing what you’re doing.

I recently read a post on how Peter Parker can be interpreted as jewish, which got me thinking: when did Matt's catholicism become important to his characterization? Was it always part of his background?

To be flip: Catholicism became important to Matt's characterization when Chip Zdarsky sat down at his computer to write the first issue of the current Daredevil run.

Obviously, I'm being a little reductive. This is a concept that has existed for years...but it's tough to pin down when it started, where it came from, or why the heck it is so pervasive, because the actual comics material to back it up is (or was, prior to the past few years) minimal-to-nonexistent. My initial answer would have been that it has never been important to his characterization and was only tangentially implied to be part of his background until recently, but I know people will disagree with that assessment, so I am going to elaborate.

This is something that has always baffled me as a Daredevil fan, obsessive completist, and someone who feels like they have a decent grasp of Matt Murdock's character. Every time I hear someone claim that religious faith is an important DD ingredient, I wonder if I've stumbled into an alternate universe containing a completely different set of Daredevil comics. It's a little old now, but The Other Murdock Papers wrote a great essay on this phenomenon, which also addresses some other popular DD misconceptions (like the idea that Matt is sexually promiscuous). I want to single out one point she makes in particular, because it addresses a possible source of misinterpretation: "There has been plenty of religious imagery in Daredevil, particularly in stories like Born Again. Religious imagery doesn’t make the main character a regular church-goer, however."

As she mentions, the idea of a devoutly Catholic Matt Murdock mostly seems to exist because some key creators with big platforms like to think it does and have put it out into the zeitgeist, essentially making it a thing through word-of-mouth. She points out Kevin Smith and Joe Quesada in particular, whose actual run on the comic doesn't support this characterization, in my opinion (the whole point of "Guardian Devil" is that Matt has been poisoned with a neurotoxin that makes him think and behave irrationally, so that when someone tells him a baby is demonic, he believes them). However, Kevin Smith also had ties to the 2003 movie (he was even in it!), which does lean into the idea of a religious Matt. I have heard Charles Soule talk bafflingly in interviews about the importance of faith in Matt's life, without elaborating on how he reached that conclusion. And of course, the Netflix show heavily utilized this characterization-- though, I will emphasize, with a clearly-delineated in-universe excuse: Netflix Matt was orphaned as a child and raised in a church-affiliated orphanage, by nuns. 616 Matt was not (and hell, even Netflix Matt was presented as being pretty much non-practicing as an adult). Despite this blatant multiversal distinction, the further validation of this characterization by the show-- putting the idea of devoutly Catholic Matt Murdock into mainstream media and birthing a crowd of new fans unfamiliar with the comics, for whom this is a key part of his character-- seems to have prompted the recent batch of DD writers to aggressively integrate it into their runs. Soule did it first, and now Zdarsky seems to have made it his main reference point for writing the character (when in doubt, have Matt think about "doing God's will" or have Foggy joke about so-called "Catholic guilt"!). Thus, what was essentially just a fan theory with powerful fans, based on a few panels here and there, has circled around and made its way more fully into the source material...at least for the moment. The most Catholic Matt in all of Daredevil comics, by a wide margin, is the one who exists right now in the Zdarsky/Checchetto run.

All of that being said, I do not have a religious background myself, and so my ability to identify subtle signs of faith in fictional characters is probably not the best. But being a nerd who has obsessively read and re-read every issue of Daredevil, I feel I can at least make some concrete overall claims about the on-panel contents of the past 58 years-worth of DD comics:

Matt Murdock does not go to church.

We don't really ever see him pray.

He isn't concerned about things like "sinning" in a religious context, and breaks legal and moral laws all the time. (For example, as touched upon by The Other Murdock Papers, he has happily slept with most (if not all) of his romantic partners and has only married one of them. It's my understanding that practicing Catholics have a rule about that).

He has, famously, had many, many, many experiences with pain, grief, fear, and hopelessness, and in 99.5% of cases (see below for exceptions), God has not come up in his thoughts and reactions.

If I can go on a slight tangent, this gets into something that I've always found compelling about long-form media like Big Two superhero comics, which is how much of the character interpretation and even the sense of "canon"/continuity comes down to the reader's personal preferences, both conscious and subconscious. There is so much material, and so many opportunities for varying interpretations of that material, that two fans can love the same character for completely different, even mutually exclusive, reasons. I've thought about this a lot when it comes to the question of Matt and religion in particular, since it is such a muddled and contested subject. I do my best to treat this topic objectively, but I am nevertheless biased (as is The Other Murdock Papers, and as are Kevin Smith, Joe Quesada, Charles Soule, and Chip Zdarsky) in part because my preferences have impacted what I actually remember from my DD reading/re-reading. As a fan who does not connect to this characterization, find it interesting, or-- to be honest-- particularly like it, my tendency is that when I come across one of the few scattered panels that hints toward it, I either diminish it as an out-of-character quirk of that particular writer/run or just forget about it completely. However, a Daredevil fan who does enjoy and identify with this characterization will see those same few scattered panels and grant them huge importance. If you asked that fan this same question, you would likely get a completely different answer, and possibly examples that I've forgotten about because I subconsciously didn't assign them any significance. They might even have a completely different answer for when this characterization originated. Maybe Matt makes an offhand religious reference somewhere in the Stan Lee/Gene Colan run that I wouldn't even think to go back and include. It's all subjective, even something as seemingly irrefutable as panels (or lack thereof) on a page. On top of everything else already mentioned, I think this is a key reason for the huge discrepancies surrounding this question. The people who like devoutly religious Matt really like him, and the people who don't really don't, and there are so few pieces of actual evidence that it really does come down to personal preference.

But anyway, none of this is what you asked! Regarding an on-the-page origin, the earliest place I remember noting some indication of Matt at least possibly having some kind of religious background is in Daredevil volume 1 #169 from 1981, when he and Detective Nick Manolis are discussing whether Daredevil should have killed Bullseye:

Matt: "Nick, men like Bullseye would rule the world-- were it not for a structure of laws that society has created to keep such men in check. The moment one man takes another man's life in his own hands, he is rejecting the law-- and working to destroy that structure. If Bullseye is a menace to society, it is society that must make him pay the price. Not you. And not me. I-- I wanted him to die, Nick. I detest what he does...what he is. But I'm not God-- I'm not the law-- and I'm not a murderer." Daredevil vol. 1 #169 by Frank Miller, Klaus Janson, Glynis Wein, and Joe Rosen

I don't think you have to be religious to say something like that last line, but it can easily and reasonably be read that way. However, I would not call Miller's run the origin of this characterization.

Another formative example that comes to mind is from O'Neil's run, also from the early 80s. One issue (#194) presents a self-contained story of Matt encountering a Christian-based cult of sorts, in which Matt demonstrates a familiarity with the Bible:

Matt: "Okay, I'll go. But what about Jeremiah?" Nahum: "He is smitten. He has been judged. The Book says--" Matt: "I'll tell you! The Book says, 'Wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself.' You'll find it somewhere in St. Paul." Daredevil vol. 1 #194 by Denny O'Neil, Klaus Janson, Glynis Wein, and Joe Rosen

These are, as stated, scattered panels in otherwise non-religious runs, though (as mentioned) the Miller/Mazzucchelli era does make thematic use of Judeo-Christian religious imagery.

Personally, I would designate Ann Nocenti's run as the true origin of this characterization-- and in fact, Zdarsky has named her run as a key source of his inspiration. Nocenti leaned into Christian themes and imagery as well-- which, again, does not inherently make the characters Christians-- but there are also a few memorable moments that suggest Catholicism has/had more than a passing presence in Matt's life. He actually does Confession at one point, for instance, when his life has been destroyed and he is feeling lost and regretful-- though we also learn that this is not habitual for him; that he hasn't done this sort of thing in "many, many years":

Matt (thinking): "Rustling. Stiff, starched cloth. One humble heartbeat. He's in there. Smells of incense, of piety. Holier than thou. Holy water? No. Plain old tap water. Crumbled host, spilled wine on his robes. Plain flour and water. Store bought, inexpensive wine. His body. His blood." Matt: "Father... Forgive me Father...for I have sinned. It has been...many, many years since my last confession. I have...over the years, used my fists to get what I want. I have beaten many men." Daredevil vol. 1 #267 by Ann Nocenti, John Romita Jr., Al Williamson, Gregory Wright, and Joe Rosen

Matt also gets pulled into Hell in this run (which is an established setting in the Marvel Universe) and yells at Mephisto, giving us this line:

Matt: "But there is another watching you-- and he forgives you, and I forgive you, and we all do for all time--" Daredevil vol. 1 #282 by Ann Nocenti, John Romita Jr., Al Williamson, Gregory Wright, and Rick Parker

With Nocenti's run as the foundation, we then have DeMatteis' run. If Ann Nocenti originated the concept, J.M. DeMatteis leaned in hard (well...harder, anyway). One issue includes a spread showing, blatantly, a sequence of Matt kneeling in church at various points in his life. Later, in the wake of a huge mental breakdown after a repressed memory emerges of a murder he might have committed, Matt has a moment with his mother, Sister Maggie, in which he asks for forgiveness, which she tells him that only God can give (a pretty cold way for Maggie to treat him, but that's a conversation for another post). He then jumps off a building with the intention of committing suicide, before giving us this narration:

Caption: "No! He's many things-- but he's not a coward. And this is surely a coward's death. Maggie's right, he realizes. I've got to find my own way. My own penance. My own road to redemption. And that's between me...and God." Daredevil vol. 1 #348 by J.M. DeMatteis, Cary Nord, Bill Reinhold, Christie Scheele, and Michael Higgins

There are a few other moments here and there, but if we're talking about origins, I would, in summary, point to Nocenti in the 80s as an instrumental starting point, to DeMatteis in the 90s as her primary successor, and then to Soule and Zdarsky, who have solidified the concept in a major way during the past few years, taking any implied religiousness in Matt's backstory and bringing it into his present characterization.

there are times where showrunners drop the ball so astronomically it's hilarious, and i'm not talking about when they actively ruin their own characters or story arcs. i'm talking about when they could have grasped some juicy character/actor and they didn't until it was too late lmao.

i am of course talking about two shows: the gilded age and turn washington's spies. i know the gilded age producers were screaming crying once they realized that tom blyth hit it big in the hunger games movie and they had wasted his appearance on a one episode, throwaway role as the would-be fiance of a protagonist's daughter just a year before. they uploaded the singular scene tom blyth had in the show on their tiktok as soon as TBOSAS came out. they knew what they missed out on lmao.

and turn...oh turn. there are so many things i like about you and so many things you could've done better. and yeah i'm biased but not having alexander hamilton be in the show from the get-go was a mistake. he was one of the rare outsiders who actually knew about the culper ring! if there's any aide de camp or figure you want to add to the relationship with ben tallmadge and washington, it's probably him. i need to find a source for it but apparently tallmadge and hamilton stood guard for andre the night before his execution, and they all talked pretty openly - nathan hale was brought up, and hamilton said that tallmadge never talks about hale because it's painful. i don't know, that's some very interesting, potentially historically accurate material right there. in your grasp! the show focused a lot on the french alliance, well who in the aide de camps spoke a lot with the french? hamilton + laurens + lafayette (to some level tilghman though i think he did translation). it was right there.

and the potential comradeship and also conflicting jealousy/contrast you could've elaborated on between tallmadge and hamilton. because lafayette is in the show, very clearly friendly with washington! how nice would've it been to add hamilton, a person who relates more with the show's tallmadge and sees the flaws in washington; and is yet someone who actively rejects/doesn't want washington's affection the way tallmadge does (but perhaps gets it more).

turn premiered in 2014 and i'm wondering if by then the producers had at least heard about a hamilton musical being made. because by mid 2015 (after season 2 premiered) it was a done game and everyone and their cousin knew about the musical. so they added hamilton to the last few episodes of season 3 and gave him some lines in season 4. i wonder if the producers sat there and remembered the conversation they had back in preproduction of season 1, like. "should we add hamilton?" "nah, he'll make things complicated. nobody cares about him anyways!"

ugh. such a waste.

✿ This looks like fun! ✿

[Fandom game post here]

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

Seiji Katayama x Nicholas Cox (Fence)

Draco Malfoy x Harry Potter (HP)

If you want to read my Fence related answers, jump to letters: M N O R S T V or Z

B - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind.

Nastu Dragoneel x Gray Fullblaster (Fairytail) - I’m mainly a gruvia shipper BUT I came across this brilliantly written gratsu fic a few years back and it rewrote my brain chemistry entirely.

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

I don’t like saying mean things.

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

Shinsou Hitoshi x Kaminari Denki (MHA) - Monoshin has my heart <3

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

I wrote about an established relationship where character A wanted to give character B a gift. A asks B’s bff what to give him. Bff tells A to give B a rock. A proceeds to spend the day meticulously picking out a rock to give to B. A later presents this perfectly picked out rock to B, and B loves this little gift. This story oddly resonated with a lot of people in my old fandom lol. Moral of the story? People love rocks. Give your friends rocks. They will love you.

F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom?

About a decade? I started watching Pokémon for as long as I can remember (still love it!), but I fell out of the fandom when my parents stopped paying for cable.

G - Have you ever had an OTP? If so, do you remember your first one? Who was in it?

Zutara. Zuko and Katara were everything to me. Fire and water? Their antagonistic relationship? There was so much tension there. It just made sense to me.

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?

The first half of my life was dedicated to TV shows (when I had cable). The rest of my life is dedicated to printed material (books, manga, comics, etc).

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

No. I only joined this platform about two months ago. I haven’t come across any negativity on this side of tumblr.

J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr. (You don’t have to care about it or follow it; it just has to be something that Tumblr made you aware of.)

Little Goody Two Shoes (indie game)

Temeraire (book? I think?)

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

Juvia Lockster or Flare Corona (both Fairytail)

L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves. (Characters you’re neutral about are fair game, as are characters you merely dislike. Characters that you absolutely loathe with the fire of ten thousand suns are exempt, as there is no point in giving yourself an aneurysm over a character that you hate.)

Can’t think of a character I actively loathe or dislike at the top of my head.

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

Sungchul Park (Fence) - He seems cocky and I like that.

Luna Lovegood (HP) - She’s just got the VibesTM you know?

N - Name three things you wish you saw more of in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

Nicholas coming over to visit the Katayamas for winter (or summer!) break.

I want to get severe secondhand embarrassment from something that Nicholas does in front of Seiji. I want to fluster that boy so bad. I want him to feel so embarrassed he could melt into a puddle of liquified Cox. And after all of the chaos I want Seiji to find that Nicholas actually looks rather cute when he’s blushing and flustered :) I’m evil.

‼️ MORE ‼️ BLUSHING ‼️ NICHOLAS‼️

I also want to explore more of Nicholas’ (fandom assumed) fear of the dark.

Would love to see more of Nicholas being vulnerable around Seiji.

I want to see more of the Leventis/Levantis twins (I’m writing something myself, but still. Would love to see others interpretation of the boys)!

Nsfw-wise… I’d like to see more bottom or submissive Nicholas. I think fandom has mostly pegged him for a dominant top lol.

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

Kiss Me - Sixpence None the Richer is how I envision Robert Coste and Nicholas’ mother’s relationship to be like in one of my unfinished pieces. An au where Nicholas doesn’t know who his father is and has a loving relationship with his mom.

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas).

Needing to make dinner but the jar of sauce won’t open so character A visits their neighbor character B and asks for help in opening the jar.

Character A is staring at character B while walking down the sidewalk and accidentally walks into a light pole. A scurries away in embarrassment while B finds that kinda cute.

Accidentally blurting out a romantic confession whilst in the middle of an argument.

Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that I’ve abandoned any fandoms, just outgrew them (show finished), left due to circumstances (no more cable or show on hiatus), or lack of inspiration to continue writing. It feels wrong to say “abandoned” because I still love these fandoms and would still go back to consume their content. I’m just not actively involved anymore.

Kuroko no Basuke. Miraculous Ladybug. Fairytail.

R - Which friendship/platonic relationship is your favorite in fandom?

The Leventis/Levantis twins (in my own personal interpretation of them). I have a sibling so I’ve mostly based their interactions on my own. The kind of relationship where you annoy each other but love each other fiercely.

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

I think that Seiji would own a dog.

Also!! Headcanon that Seiji runs warm and Nicholas has wonky blood circulation which leads to wearing tank tops and shorts in the winter but hoodies and sweatpants in the summer.

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? 

Seiji is a dog person.

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

Reese from Scarlet Hollow - I yearn for starving artists. And he likes horror movies? Score! He’s also a little shy but also very cute. 10/10 would romance again.

Sebastian from Stardew Valley - Quiet loner that enjoys tabletop games similar to D&D? And he rides a motorcycle? Brb swooning at his feet.

I can’t pick a favorite from Fence ;v; I love Nicholas but I also love Scott and Thomas and Sungchul and Nate aaaaaaaaa

V - Which character do you relate to most?

In Fence? Nate Spencer. I was originally going to say Nicholas but after further evaluation I realize that I am in fact Nate. The kind of person that brightens up the room but also tends to gravitate to one person in particular despite getting constantly ignored (Aiden sksks).

W - A trope which you are virtually certain to hate in any fandom.

No happy ending. Hurt no comfort. Break-up fics.

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

Enemies to lovers. Rivals to lovers. Sickfics. Inexperience (first kiss, first times). Not actually unrequited love. Secondhand embarrassment. Sex pollen/lust potion. Truth serum. Party games (i.e. truth or dare).

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (i.e., fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)?

Call of Duty.

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go! (Prompts optional but encouraged.)

I’m surprised by the lack of rarepairs in Fence. There’s so much potential with the amount of characters that have been introduced so far, but I guess I can see why. Nichoji are just so throughly entwined with each other it’s almost impossible to envision them with anybody else. Other than that, I would gander that there’s more interest in the main ships than exploring newer characters and even newer relationships. (I aim to change that though, a new rarepair is on the horizon!! Hopefully by Valentine’s day 👀💘)

I’m also rather surprised by how active this fandom is despite the small size of it. It’s nice and cozy here though and I like that.

This fandom is actually making me want to try drawing again. Just speaking out to the void here lol. I was pretty decent at drawing chibis when I was younger. Blushing Nicholas here I come… ✍️♥️✨

Rollacoaster catches up with face of Halbrand and The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power, Charlie Vickers

Shedding the mystery of his character, The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power's Charlie Vickers talks on playing Halbrand, the pressures of his craft and what can we expect next from the Middle Earth star.

Nice interview with some great photos 🔥😍

This year’s hotly-anticipated return to Middle Earth saw a staggering quarter of a million viewers settle in for an Orc-infested ride into all things mythical, with 30-year-old actor, Charlie Vickers, leading the foray. Introducing Hollywood’s newest name, assuming the role of Halbrand, the lost king of the fictional Southlands.

After several auditions – seven, to be exact – and months perfecting the Middle Earth common tongue, the Australian actor wasted no time in syphoning the armour of the cunning character. Vickers might be worlds apart from Halbrand’s machiavellian self (spoiler alert: later to be revealed as Sauron), it’s not Vickers’ first rodeo fabricated a character far from his day-to-day life, playing Guglielmo Pazzi in Medici: Masters of Florence as well as Dan in Palm Beach. Sizing up a plentiful roster, the rising star reflects on the pressure that came with signing onto the major movie franchise and setting his heights high for what comes next.

CATY PENZA: Before we start talking about all things Lord of the Rings, can you tell us a little bit about how you got into acting? What has your journey been like?

CHARLIE VICKERS: I never really considered acting as a possibility at first because I didn’t believe it would be a successful career for me. It wasn't until a couple of years into me studying at university that I realised maybe I could have a go at acting because I didn’t feel any passion towards what I was doing. So I flew to Sydney and auditioned for a drama school and got selected. That’s kind of where everything started unfolding.

CP: Growing up, were there any actors you looked up to?

CV: I was in Melbourne and I went to see a production of Richard III and the leading actor was Ewen Leslie. I definitely look up to him, even though I’ve never actually met him, but his performance was a real catalyst for my career. I’d love to tell him that one day.

CP: Hopefully he reads this interview and finds out!

CV: Yes! That would be incredible.

CP: You play Halbrand in The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power, how did you come about getting cast for the role?

CV: It was a long audition process for me. I auditioned maybe six or seven times over a period of six months. I originally auditioned for another character three times, and then got moved to audition for Halbrand. It was a long process, I even flew to Spain to test shoot with J.A. Bayona, who directs the first two episodes. It was a pretty amazing day and it was the last piece of the puzzle to getting the role.

CP: What was it like switching into the Halbrand persona? Did you have to do or think about anything in particular?

CV: I spent a lot of time researching source material. Because he’s an original character, I wanted Halbrand to fit into that world and make sure he had all the talking elements. Halbrand is also very different to me, so I had to tap into things that I wasn’t necessarily used to tapping into. It was so interesting watching the show and seeing that difference.

CP: What was your reaction like when you saw the show for the first time?

CV: It was pretty amazing. We saw it for the first time as a cast in Los Angeles, with a screening of the first three episodes. It was so overwhelming and incredible to see the scope of the show and all my friends performing.

CP: Given The Lord Of The Rings’ hugely loyal fandom, were you at any point nervous about taking on a role in this spinoff show?

CV: Obviously there is a huge amount of pressure and expectations that come with being a part of a world that is so important to so many people, but that’s almost a good thing. Signing onto the show though, there was no hesitation. I didn’t know the full ins and outs of what I was signing onto, but there was still no doubt I wanted to be a part of it.

CP: And how has your life changed since the show’s release?

CV: I don’t go out into very busy settings that much, but, the few times I have been, I have been recognised and everyone has been very kind so I guess in that sense it has changed. But besides that, I tend to lead a quiet life so it hasn’t changed that much.

CP: Speaking of which, what does an average day in the life of Charlie Vickers look like?

CV: My work days and my days off are very different. On a work day, I’ll be picked up very early in the morning and I’ll film all day. But on a day off, I need sleep. Minimum nine hours. I do some exercise when I get up, have lunch and then just sit at my laptop and do some work. I also spend some time with friends and family and if I’m by the coast I’ll also go for a surf, but if I’m in London then I just try and do something fun for the day.

CP: You definitely cannot surf in London.

CV: There is a wave pool I think! But right now it’s limited, yeah.

CP: Where do you envision yourself as an actor in 10 years time?

CV: Working on a project of this magnitude has been amazing, but it’s also given me the desire to work on things completely different in the future. Smaller projects, like independent films or mini-series. I always look for new adventures in my work and I’m open to them in whatever form they may come.

CP: Finally, is anything else currently in the works?

CV: I filmed a mini-series in Australia based on the novel by Holly Ringland titled The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart. It’s a story about female resilience and generational trauma. I play the father. It’s a spectacular story and it will hopefully come out next year.

Ask No Omen

“Without a sign, his sword the brave man draws, and asks no omen, but his country's cause. ”

Sam blinks and elderly Steve seems to have merged into thin air. He stares at the vacant space beside him on the bench, knuckles clenched around the edges of the heavy case. Its circular shape is familiar, and yet entirely alien to him. He stays that way for a minute, ten minutes, maybe. Bucky, probably still gazing forlornly at the platform, or the bench, doesn’t approach. Banner mutters under his breath about five minutes, just five and pushes every button on the keypad with furious fingers.

Silence falls amongst the group, save for the quiet sound of Bucky trying and failing to privately cry. He said he was gonna miss him. Sam thinks, and looks away from the dejected face of the man who is slowly but surely becoming his friend. His tamped down sobs sound loudly in the empty space, the only other background noise the rustling leaves in the wind. Then, all at once, the portal whirs to life and a figure forms from millions of sparkling atoms in a nanosecond. Steve gapes at them all: Bruce’s wide, open-mouth (also green inside), the shock shining in Sam’s expression, the way Natasha seems to shrink a little behind him. Bucky looks as though he’s been slapped across the face, and his cheeks glisten.

“Oh, hey…” Steve steps in, forcing down the urge to fling his fists around. He can't fight this, the source of those tears. He’s the cause. He’s made Bucky cry. His fingers brush them away. “I know I promised to knock the lights out of anyone who hurt you, Buck, but I already wrestled myself once and I just got back.”

Bucky chokes on a watery laugh, and claps Steve on the back a little too hard. “Fuck you, Rogers. Seriously,” His hands slide down his shoulders and curl tightly around his hips. “I can’t believe you did that!”

Steve’s pelvis seems to gravitate closer to Bucky of its own accord.

“What, you really thought I’d leave you? I told you what I was doing!” His fingers card through the hair falling just before Bucky’s eyes. “End of the line. I’d never go back on that.” He adds seriously, getting his own grip on Barnes’ waist, thumbs swiping over the outline of his hip bones.

“But… You were late.”

“Only by a few minutes. Turns out Schmidt was still alive, sort of-”

“No!”

“Yes! And no one thought to tell me that the Guardian of the Soul Stone was my fucking wartime enemy?” Steve throws his hands up, shooting a glare at the rest of them. “Good thing I know how to piss him off already, it came in handy getting Tasha back.”

“Yea- How did you…” Bruce cuts in, but he falls quiet when Natasha, finally unspooked, throws her arms around him.

“I thought… I thought you really did it. Went back to Peggy with the extra particles.” Bucky sniffs, and hugs him tighter.

“Uh- what?” Bruce lifts his chin from Natasha’s hair.

Steve shakes his head, once, firmly. “I did. Got that last dance. She showed me pictures of her wedding, her kids, her “husband,” her new flame who’s a movie star. Hell, Buck, she won an Oscar, and she knows how to make pasta from scratch! How would I have lived up to that?”

“You’re right. You burn toast, Rogers.” He says it so lovingly, though, that Sam, who’s been inching closer to the portal, feels like he should take another step back and give them some privacy. Damn.

“Captain America. War material yes, domestic husbandry material, no,” Steve agrees with a sigh. “Anyways, it was tempting. To-to stay. I mean, it was familiar, it was Peggy… But after everything that’s happened- I’m just not the guy she fell in love with anymore. She’ll always love me. The me she knew. And I’ll love her as I remember her. But she’s moved on. She wanted me to do the same. And that time, it wasn’t any more familiar because I slept through it. This is home now.”

He meets Bucky’s eyes with a shy, soft smile. “So I completed my mission. Returned every Stone to its proper place. The only thing I really changed was Nat.”

His shoulders square, and he raises himself up to his full height, imposing against some unseen challenger. “I returned the Stone, and neither the one who paid for it, nor the recipient were the one to use it. Tony-” Steve’s voice still breaks a little on the name. “He took a free ride. Clint didn’t. And I brought it back, which is more than Thanos could say. So… It was only fair.”

Steve preens a little as Bucky laughs incredulously and socks him in the arm. Leave it to America’s Most Righteous Ass to figure out how to best the very order of the universe.

“So- You didn’t tell Peggy where you… were?”

Steve’s smile twists into something more delicately sad. “No. I figured… Better to leave things as they are, rather than wishing for more I could never have. We don’t trade lives. Maybe Cap was supposed to come back when I did, to save all those people when they needed me. He could have done a lot of good in the last century, but then who’s to say what would have happened when the time to assemble came around? If we weren’t all together… Maybe nobody gets saved.”

“So OG Cap’s still frozen?” Bruce confirms.

Steve nods, growing a little uncomfortable. Sam’s temples throb with an oncoming migraine. He’s still dumbly standing there, holding the shield. He averts his eyes, shifting the case under one arm to wave a hand in front of their starry eyes.

“Wait…” Sam cuts in, with an unimpressed expression. “So, if you came back here… And you didn’t wake up yourself in the ice...”

“Uh huh…” Steve nods, sounding lost.

Sam shakes his head, running an hand across his forehead and down to rub at the back of his neck. “Then who the hell was that old guy, man?”

Steve falters, his bemused expression going from blank to rigid. His back stiffens and his hard eyes scan the area, fists balling at his sides. “What old man, Sam?”

Sam’s eyes go wide. “Oh. Uh… The old dude. He was just here. And he was, well, he was you. But like, ancient.”

“Right.” Bucky cuts in, one hand still scrubbing over his wet lashes. “I figured it was you, Stevie. I mean he looked just like you… and he had the shield.”

The disappointment in his voice is gone as quickly as it came, replaced with the bright surprise of having Steve, his Steve, in his arms again.

“He had my shield?”

“Shiny and new, doesn’t look a year over 1945.” Sam replies, unzipping the case to flash the vibranium. All three men have become pictures of tension.

“What the fuck?” Steve breathes, staring around at the empty grass before them. Back behind them, Bruce and Nat look as equally lost standing by the portal.

“Uh, guys, is everything okay?” Bruce calls out. “Because, seriously, I’m pretty intelligent and I have no idea what the hell is going on right now.”

“Let me get this straight.” Sam starts, holding up a hand, and laughs a little at the irony of the statement. “Did you give me the shield, this shield-” Sam lets it fall to the pavement with a sturdy thunk. “To become the next Captain America or not?”

Steve’s eyes nearly pop out of his head. He clutches Bucky as though to hold himself up with one hand, and his chest with the other, like he still has arrhythmia. “What? No!”

A wounded look flashes across Sam’s face, and then Steve slips into further panic.

“No, no! Sam!” He backpedals. “You’d be a great Cap. Honestly, I think that would be a great idea… I haven’t wanted to be him for a while now, being truthful. What I meant was that definitely was not me who told you that before.”

“Then who the hell was it?” Natasha chimes in, already sounding on the alert and back to her old self.

They all hear the off-kilter and slightly over dramatic giggling as it echoes around the trees, sending at first a cold shiver down their spine, and then a spike of dread through their veins. Steve just feels tired, honestly. He sags a little against his best friend, whose confounded face, void of recognition, still peers around the vacant park. The laughter gets louder, and a golden helm flashes through the branches of one of the trees.

“I always was good at impersonating you, Captain, but I think this was my best yet!”

Sam looks down with a scream; a thick white snake slithers around his arm, the empty case unzippered at his feet, kicking up dust where it fell.

“Loki…” Bruce growls, clenching his huge teeth.

The god in question flashes them a cheeky grin, vanishing in a spark of blue light before any of them can draw a weapon. Well, Bucky throws a knife with one hand, but it hits the tree behind where the trickster squatted a moment before and lodges itself into the rough wood.

“God, was he always that annoying?” Steve barks, and Natasha rolls her eyes with a shake of her head.

“Ugh. Yes. I call not having to deal with that particular loose end. I died already.” She tosses a tiny grin at Steve, a secret smile of a moment shared between them upon her return.

“I thought you’d do anything for family.” He quips back, pulling her into another hug, one arm around her, the other draped over Bucky’s shoulders.

“Yes. But I’m hungry as hell right now, and exhausted. I want a peanut butter sandwich, and Clint, in my room at the base immediately. He can tell me the story before I take a nap.”

Bruce whistles like it pains him. “Yea… We sort of lost the complex.”

“It blew up.” Sam helpfully supplies in a deadpan, waving his arms, sans snake, in the motion of a large cloud.

Natasha, to her credit, doesn’t seem very surprised.

“And Tony…”

“I know.” Natasha stops Bruce, laying a hand on his meaty forearm. “Steve told me. I’m sorry I missed the service.”

“We’re just glad to have you back.” Steve says quietly, muscling her into the waiting car. He knows this isn't the end, that it's going to kick in soon. Natasha’s alive, everyone’s alive, thanks to the Iron Man’s sacrifice. And he’s going to have a lot of explaining to do… To baffled Bruce, to Scott, to Hank Pym. But for now, his friend needs to eat. He wonders if that old place still has shawarma. They could get it in Tony’s honor.

Later, when everyone’s stomachs are sated, and Natasha’s curled under a heavy blanket on Sam’s couch after a much longer processing session by all, with tears and curses and happy shouts of elated disbelief (everyone hugs Natasha about a hundred times, including Clint, who shows up immediately, and won’t let go), Sam and Steve are out on his porch, watching the cars lazily snake down the streets in the golden glow of the setting sun. He’s got a glass of sweet tea, an old addiction he picked up from Riley, in hand. The cool frost on the glass trickles down his fingers.

“Did you mean it? About me… Taking the mantle?”

Steve eyes him for a moment in contemplative silence. “Yes. I can’t think of anyone more deserving, or capable. You did much more for me when I came back than just fight in my battles. And that’s what really proved you were right for the job.”

Sam seems a little stunned, or flattered, or both. He ducks his head with a slightly crazed chuckle. “Well, I’ll be damned. Sam Wilson, Captain America. What’ll you tell the world?”

“I gotta tell ‘em anything? Maybe they’ll just think I died… I know I’m good at speeches, but I’m a little tired of my every other word being a monologue for someone else’s sake.”

Sam nods, knowing it’s not his decision to challenge. “But you’ll be around… In case-”

“In case the world needs me? I’ll be around. I’m not actually gonna die. But I was a wanted man… And the lack of a shield or a star spangled suit didn’t seem to stop me from helping others.”

“No, man. In case I need you.” Sam’s voice goes serious, vulnerable.

“To what? Kick your butt on a race course?” Steve smirks, nudging him with one shoulder. “As your mentor, you don’t need me. You’re doing a pretty good job on your own. As your friend, always. I’ll be here for a long time it looks like.”

Sam thinks back to when he lost Riley. He can’t imagine losing him twice, but Steve did, with Peggy. With Bucky too. With his actual timeline. Given the chance, he turned away from a do-over in his life, forced himself to face his problems head on. Sam’s pretty sure he’d make the same choice, but he knows it couldn’t have been easy. Maybe that’s what Steve sees in him. But before he was Cap, he was Cap’s friend. His best friend, maybe, besides Nat and Bucky. So he gives the hand beside him a quick squeeze. If Steve wants to talk about it, he knows Sam’s there. But if he doesn’t, he won’t push him. So that’s why what he says next is: “And what about the… Shield and all that?”

“Well. New Captain America. Means new shield, new suit. New incarnation. Seems best to leave it up to you to decide.” He looks Sam in the eye. “You get to define the mantle now, bud. Don’t let it define you like I did.”

Sam nods, a little bit overwhelmed with emotion. He’s already thinking about plans for a new shield. Maybe still using vibranium, but ethically sourced, not smuggled, this time. Maybe if he works it out, T’Challa and Shuri would be more than happy to provide. And wings… He thinks he might miss those if they weren’t worked into the design. Steve beams at him, happy to see him already losing himself to his thoughts.

“Happy daydreaming, Cap.” He murmurs, with one last squeeze, and the sound of the screen door sliding open again as Steve Rogers heads back inside.

reblogs are appreciated :)