Pardon the atrocious quality bc I took these screens on console, but I was doing Deep Dives and got this dialogue for the first time. And HOLY FUCK SOMEONE FINALLY SAID IT. THANK YOU SLOANE. THANK YOU. I will forever be on the side of "the only way to defeat Xivu Arath is through sacrifice" and I can give 5 consecutive TED talks about it and I have been writing a fic about it for two years and everyone else can go home

10 characters 10 fandoms 10 characters

@aceofvase tagged me, hooray!

Ghostface (Billy Loomis/Stu Macher) (Scream)

Atem/Yami Yugi (Yugioh)

Eowyn (Lord of the Rings)

Guybrush Threepwood (Monkey Island)

Piccolo (Dragon Ball Z)

Ash Williams (The Evil Dead)

Sophie Hatter (Howl’s Moving Castle)

Simon the Ice King (Adventure Time)

Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III (Critical Role)

Griffith (Berserk)

I don’t know what that says about me, but I’m sure it’s a lot. I’ll tag @theonyxranger @krispykrememossnuts @primrosey and @spooksohana, but no pressure.

something along the lines of princess protection program of 2010s dcom fame. steve harrington prince of a small italian-adjacent principality forced to flee the country when a military coup takes place.

blah blah he's placed with the buckley family in hawkins, indiana. what i Think would be funny is if all of this is going on and the upside down is still happening.

like steve is obviously not disclosing his identity to anyone except for robin and the buckleys. and like this would cause a lot of shifts in the canon timeline but in my Head . just off the cuff no draft no braincell just gut instinct.

thinking of a steve harrington who relies on tropey examples of what he thinks american "commoner" school is like. he comes off kind of ditzy and a bit out of touch, but he's also hot and charming so he's pretty much a hit.

maybe steve and robin having a really bad first meeting and in retaliation robin comes up with some convoluted story about steve being her out of control drug addicted cousin who got kicked out of private school and sent to hawkins as punishment. or like some type of story along those lines but unfortunately it just makes steve more compelling.

eventually eventually they become the platonic soulmates that they were always destined to be and robin moves to the little italian principality and is finally able to regularly flex her italian skills

ALSO buckley family characterization something found family and the buckley adoption of steve harrington like... well yes....

BUT back to the upside down happening.

like i kind of want steve to arrive earlier, but i think narratively it would make most sense for steve to be the new kid in 1983. he lives with robin, but they're not really on the best terms because steve just so naturally fit in with the jocks and popular kids from the get go. and like. he's a spoiled kid who honestly robin is projecting onto because her dad is away fixing STEVE'S country like... it's a little his fault.

the timeline goes on as usual except like? idk how the barb and nancy party would work out while living with the buckleys, but perhaps it would have been held at tommy or carol's in this world.

i think it would be Hilarious if robin didn't find out about the upside down until season 3 like she did canonically, but in my heart i know that if steve came home all fucked up like he was after literally Any of the Seasons (???), she would not have been able to sit still. like regardless of the level of dislike that's someone she's been living with and Kind of Enjoys being around (reluctantly). so robin would be in the know sooner or perpetually pissed bc steve is remarkably persistent in keeping his mouth shut

maybe could cause more conflict in s3 with the russians and possibly knowing his identity but ALSO possibility for some type of robin buckley slayage a la her father like.... if that sentence made sense to anyone then it made sense to someone

but i think i think the funny thing is nobody else knowing steve's backstory or situation, just kind of assuming that robin's initial bitter story about steve being a reformed drug addict was the truth. Lol and weird dynamics with eddie munson bc uh oh... is this gonna affect sobriety or like his comfort or smth .... moment...

but mr buckley coming home and finding steve and being like :P hey you can go home now :P and steve breaking down crying like he never thought he'd be able to see the halls he grew up running down again. or see the ocean from his childhood bedroom again. or talk to the same neighbors he's talked to since he was five years old.

and everyone sans robin being like wow didn't know like. fuckin chicago was that meaningful to u ... damn... were u a fugitive or smth bc u had a car and a license.

the prince reveal would have me clawing at the walls gnawing my leg off i think ... eyes rolling to the back of my head i have no way to truly verbalize this

SpecReqs 2024

OK, so I was very busy and tired this year, and I wrote five fics for SpecReqs last year, so I, uh. decided to write six fics for @spectre-requisitions-exchange this year. Don't look too hard at that math.

First up, the actual assignment! let's blow this (human) popsicle stand for @depressed-sock (thanks to Ferus for the title). I was compelled by the idea of writing ME3 Multiplayer characters per their prompt - I've sunk so many hours into that gamemode - so I set up some OCs, a heist, and a story set on Illium in the background of the Reaper War, where there's just so much space to play.

Second up, the pinch hit! From: Ashley (Ashley/Female Shepard) for @kesla. I signed up for the pinch hit around two days before the deadline, and was casting around for a story structure that packed a full-sized punch in the not-so-many words that I had the time to write. And then I thought - well, I've always loved epistolary works, but I've never had the courage to write one. So, why not? If you liked this fic/Shepley epistolary be sure to check out Connection Lost by kesla - we truly had the same braincell on this one!

And now, to the treats. Firstly, twilight (Female Shepard/Samara) and dawn (CloneShepard/Morinth). Companion fics - designed to be readable alone but better together - showing two halves of the same story. There was something about Cloneshep/Morinth as a parallel to Shep/Samara that really dug its claws into me this year. Replacements doomed to fail by the narrative, women letting their duty take everything from them vs women clawing their way to anything of their own, and I'm glad I got the chance to write these!

Second, the meaning of safe (Ashley/Liara) for celeme. I set it in that period between ME1 and ME2 where Liara's changing as a person, and Ashley's growing into herself. I can't believe Liara wouldn't reach out - she really does need loyal help on her quest. So I wrote it! There's so much potential to this ship. I'm excited to try again next year.

And finally, Vignette #14 in C Minor (Sloane/Aria) for @thedaselcor. I didn't write a full fic for this one, but I was so compelled by their prompt I felt the need to do something - Sloane/Aria is really a genius pairing idea. Plus, I wanted to thank them for the code snippet that helped me add the attachment in From:Ashley.

See you all next year!

This game was such an incredible experience I loved everything about it from the art to the story to the music to just the entire thing! The narrative was super satisfying and left me in deep pain 😤👏✨ You guys did such an incredible job!!!

I was wondering if you had any songs you associated with each of the characters or music you liked to work to while working on this project? ^-^

The music I listened to changed a lot during production and a lot of the time had nothing to do with RL, and there's nothing really that stands out.

I fundamentally associate Yuma Sun's Violets to Stone with Bela, canon or otherwise. Disclaimer, the music video is explicit in more than one sense.

There were some other considerations for character themes than those that made it into the final game, and those that stands out are Neffex's Destiny for Daniela and Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy for Angie. Originally, each of the LIs also had individual horror themes, but most of them made its way into the game in a more generic use. Except for Versunken for Bela and Moonlight Menschen for Cassandra, both by Myuu.

For Alcina, I would just put on Diamond City Radio :| ngl. She's butcher pete, and y'all are her willing victims. Lynda Carter

Bela mostly calm classical music. Agnes Obel.

Cassandra also classical music but the more dramatic rather than chill pieces. Also classical covers of modern music. Ludovico Einaudi.

Daniela would get the sorta music I was listening to when I was still actively skating. So Thousand Foot Krutch, Zack Hemsey, Pendulum, Blue Stahli, Sum 41, Rise Against, Green Day, etc. pp.

For Angie, you have to listen to 8 to 10 hours of nyan cat or taking the hobbits to isengard. This takes you into the right frame of mind. Speaking from experience, you will lose 0 braincells doing this. Promise.

Donna, ambience tracks.

For Miranda, Cryo Chamber or smth idk. I can't just say classical music again. Calm and creepy background tracks.

arlanorr

for designing the stans i listened to some bimbo bussy bops (naturally), for alcina i listened to jazz, and for the others it was just all over the place 😭

oh for anamaria and dani i remember looping "Feels - Calvin Harris" for like 2 hours straight

idk how i managed to listen to the same song for 2 hours

in general i'd just pick a playlist that i vaguely associate with the chara's personalities and then listen to it. (so social butterfly charas = feel good playlists, donna = mitski 😭)

finch

jazz music, thats what i listened to when writing alcina's route. oh, lovefool for daniela, i think that's what it's called.

bee

I listened to a bunch of teen angst for Miranda.

I listened to like. Mitski for Donna

cinder

I'd give you an analysis, but frankly from what I've seen from your own "analysis" you're not very good at reading

also if you'd be so kind to tag this as mha spoilers, or screenshot this ask and put it under a read more so i dont spoil anyone who's interested in reading mha. it'd be greatly appreciated

(also thanks for getting rid of anon, this time i will include pics !)

anyway, this is the "straight dude who is having a typical cutesy high school het romance with a girl in a taken for granted het world." you're talking about;

also i wont lie, calling mha a het world when these are real dialogue is highkey stupid:

and i know the topic at hand is s/n/s and bk/dk but lets pivot to tg/chk bc theyre more relevant to what im saying

theres a lot to say but honestly, the manga speaks for itself :)

oh and also, you're right, bk/dk has no romantic subtext - it has romantic text. no subtlety needed! :) that is, if you have read the manga - my favourite example is this:

and then shgrk then proceeds to kill bkg, who "dies" (sort of) thinking about izuku in his final moments:

and then izk loses control when he sees bkg "dead" on the ground

and these are from recent chapters! imagine the rest of the series, ey

well! that got long. i'd tackle your crappy assessment of deku's character, but then I'd be here all day!

anyways, if i were you, I'd reread mha and really really understand the text you're reading. you might end up seeing something you missed at first!

Aiyyo someone got triggered! Hehehe. Ah it was inevitable that the moment I talked about MHA and rejected shippy head canons from the show, some delusional hardcore shipper would get all up in arms. Sigh.

You think what you wrote is analysis? Hehehe.

So just some random panels and chapter covers from the manga prove Bakugou or Deku is gay? Lol. I have seen fans like you in Naruto fandom as well. But you are right, I am not as invested in MHA, because it just doesn't have the versatility and genius of Naruto and Shippuden, it is actually quite a straightforward story and I don't need to burn a lot of my braincells to 'get it'. Lol. I am not saying it's bad, but as compared to its contemporary mangas, it just isn't at par for my tastes. It's good for entertainment but it doesn't affect me like other mangas that it takes inspiration from. Some silly shipper telling me I can't read, I would tell you my credentials but nah, too much work for disproving silly ass headcanons.

Fans make comparisons between Naruto and BNHA because Horikoshi is inspired by Kishimoto, definitely some similarities are there, but it misses on the most crucial point. Naruto and Shippuden are love stories. BNHA is simply your typical shounen manga. Naruto and Shippuden use the narrative tool of subversion to tell a love story in the restrictive genre of shounen. It has multiple layers and you need presence of mind to see them. Naruto is gay and you see comphet in his character, his interest in Sakura looks superficial from the beginning and then in kage arc, it is concluded as a mere cover to run from confronting his dilemma, and closetedness. His character is consistently shown as having an internal fight, a dilemma. Sasuke is just on your face, he is clearly shown as having no interest in women, but with Naruto he is especially intimate on his own accord. Ya know, using random panels ain't gonna help, you need to establish it in the narrative. Headcanons are all nice to entertain when that's all you watch media for, shipping. But please to be showing more maturity and media comprehension when sending me an ask, I am not very sympathetic to gaslighters whose heads are filled with shippy shit and cheap self gratification. When I talk Naruto, I make comparisons with other clearly gay media, and point out the common tropes, it's a result of expansive research. Not just random panels that prove nothing. Little one, you need more than that to prove your theories. I have watched a wide range of media, including gay media, your ask is just representative of your ignorance and lack of knowledge about how storytelling and character building works. Heh. Or do you think BNHA has its own concept of homosexuality, its own private language that cannot be compared with how other media establishes homosexuality in a given universe? Yeah, solipsistic ideas like that cannot be taken seriously.

Conformity is one of the pillars Japanese society is built upon, so it's not surprising that Japanese media talks upon how anything that doesn't conform to the norms is rejected. Their media is representative of their society. Mha also touches upon that and there's no surprises there, but again, you need more than that to prove it in the course of plot building and narrative. Some random out of context panel about some character saying something about conformity proves your point? You need to SHOW it and not just tell. But where other mangas, great mangas, popular and critically well acclaimed mangas have explored this idea in detail, MHA is just touch and go. It doesn't entertain a balanced proper discourse on it. It is truly shounen in that sense. Again, I am not saying it is bad, it is just more age appropriate. Which is totally fine. Do you know how heteronormativity is established in the narrative? Like this. Show me where this happens in MHA. Lol. Sweetheart, if the writer had made any attempt to write this world as heteronormative, where gay characters face challenges, I would have seen it. But mha is just not that deep. Sorry to burst your bubble. But that's just a fact.

Seriously, you are going to give me the example of Toga? I haven't gone through the recent chapters yet. I have only watched the anime. But it is clear that, that girl is medically insane. Her idea of liking someone is to kill that person and drink their blood, for her own pleasure. She ain't a homosexual, more like hemosexual. Hahaha. Again, you gotta show me the trajectory of her character, start with the base and show me how it escalates, how does she learn better about herself, her own feelings, the world from her perspective. No character is isolated, any writer who is talented enough to write multimillion franchise knows that. Don't project your assumptions on the story and the characters, work with what you have and draw the meaning from what's given, not the other way round.

There is no doubt Izuku and Bakugou have a strong relationship, even if it is mostly rivalry. But one can see that Bakugou cares about Deku and vice versa. Before telling me how to read, perhaps you should have done it yourself. Lol, I see this type of behaviour a lot from typical silly shippy shippers. "What, did you just say my ship makes no sense? 🤬"

Read.

Do you even know what subtext or text is? Hahah. This is text and subtext. So just because Bakugou and Deku talk about their rivalry in their vulnerable moments, that the audience knows as congruent since we have already seen they have a hot and cold relationship but that they are friends nonetheless, that proves they love each other romantically? You obviously don't know how romance tropes work. The dynamic between two men who respect and admire each other is always shown with a lot of empathy in Japanese media. It is one of the founding pillars of shounen, a genre meant for teenaged boys. They are certainly closer to each other than they are with women they are interested in, but a lot of fans such as yourself misinterpret it as romantic, because headcanon goggles. No, you gotta have more than that. Where Naruto and Shippuden have it in truckloads, none of that in BNHA. Deku is heterosexual af. If he is so interested in Bakugou, how come he reacts the way he reacts to Uraraka? Where is his conflict? Where is his dilemma? His affection and romantic interest in Uraraka is genuine and sincere, not a cover to hide his more private feelings. Unlike in Naruto's case. Kishi uses clever narrative tricks and tools to tell his love story in shounen and he does it skillfully. His motives and intentions are clear as water. He uses inventive smokescreens and red herrings to escape from being too controversial and colour inside the borders of shounen, nothing like that in BNHA. To begin with, Horikoshi doesn't even delve into the sexualities of his characters, because his story is not about that. There's no context, no set up, nothing. His worldbuilding is simply conventional, by which I mean heteronormative, there's no talk about sexual orientation of characters. You see the usual shounen perviness by Mineta and Kaminari and typical straight girls going kawaai over good looking boys like Todoroki, what impression does that give? If Horikoshi wanted to establish his characters being gay, he would have set up the context mindfully and carefully, like Kishi did. Gay relationships and characters can't be shown so explicitly in shounen as that would jeopardize its distribution in the west. Reason? Censorship. That's why Kishi had to be so careful, his target audience might not get it, but the adults do. Well, unbiased adults do, at the very least. So the boys in bnha are gay just because? Because you want them to be? Storytelling and character building doesn't work like that.

Seriously everything you think works as 'analysis' isn't even valid. I honestly didn't even want to respond to this ask, given it's so surface level and ridiculously simple minded. Perhaps you are a tween or teen who thinks every time two boys or girls smile at each other or rescue each other, they are gay and in love. Lol, watch gay media. Like actually watch it and see where your arguments stand in the scheme of things. I will tell you, nowhere. Juvenile kiddy stuff. I won't entertain anymore asks like these, they are a waste of my time.

Sorry if this is a little foggy and poorly worded, but I have been sitting on this thought all day, after working on a scene from Mamoru Hosoda's Wolf Children, and might as well put it here. The scene in question is the one where little wolf-boy Ame, sweet child who loves stories and picture books and who struggles to come to terms with his hybrid identity, one day while out in the woods with his sister and his mother on a sort of wolf-training excursion suddenly starts crying. And the reason why is crying is that, in all the picture books, he keeps seeing the wolf depicted as the bad guy that ends up shooed away or killed. And because of such representations, now he wants to repress his wolf identity, that has always been a lively and funny, although hard to figure out, part of his life. He is terrified of being what he is because the narrow representations that he has access to tell him that the world does not like people like him. It's a powerful little moment in a beautiful movie, that always makes me tear up, and if you missed it I highly recommend you watch it. If you are not into anime movie and just curious of the scene, I found a clip on YouTube:

Anyway, this scene made my lonely braincel twitch, and I was thinking, now that we are approaching the end of this glorious - as far as the mediascape is concerned - year 2023, that many people underestimate the enormous power of fantasy narratives in expanding the borders of gender (and minority in general) representation. Having an author canonically establish that certain fixed categories do not apply to one or more characters for in-universe reasons takes away that nasty oblique excuse that some people use to deny and disparage diversity in media (where I live they usually sound like "they only made this character a person of color to please the woke liberalsTM even if the historical context doesn't allow it", or even, comically, "it is narratively implausible that this character is or shows to be queer but they were forced to do it by THE GAY LOBBY" - yes, this is an actual conspiracy theory loudly promoted by Italian journalists and politicians, and yes, I am personally deeply ashamed by it). Obviously, almost none of said people has the faintest actual interest in narrative aspects, but they still use the excuse to pollute the public discourse and attack minorities. And I am aware that there is a possible dark pitfall here: in the best possible world, we should not need to take the route of fantasy settings to have something that should never have been denied in the first place, but from a pragmatical standpoint it does work. Having authors saying "nope, sorry not sorry, they are wolf-children / angels and demons / weird vampires / anachronistic pirates in a fantasy context so your self-proclaimed laws of plausibility do not apply and you can shove them where the sun does not shine while we enjoy the show and put this beautiful, funny, delicate, deep and sad things on screen", is like having a cultural picklock which is also a cultural battering ram thrusting the representation-door open. Shows like Good Omens, Our Flag Means Death, What We Do in the Shadows (and their fandoms with their massive collective creative endeavour), by offering the symbolic shield of a fantasy setting can establish a safe space where 1. queer people (especially young people but not only) can finally recognize themselves and stop feeling like they are alone and don't have the words and images they need to describe themselves; 2. not queer people can get used to a larger set of possible identities and not only realise that 100% of said idenities are in fact - hold on to your butts - still people with thoughts and feelings and needs, but also, through the power of mimesis, acquire a deeper understanding of forms of life that they don't directly experience. Including, hopefully, understanding how similar we all are when it comes to us being ultimately a bunch of naked apes who walk on this spinning rock trying to be as little miserable as possible.

Again, sorry if this sounds clumsy and blunt, given how delicate and complex this subject is (one does not simply walk into Mordor talk about the lives and needs of other people like that), but I had this thought stuck in my shallow brain wrinkles and I wanted to try and put it into words.

What do you think about the RW ships? just curious is all.

hmmm.. well! first i do wanna preface this with the obligatory "i'm not hating on anybody with this, u do u and i do me is my genuine philosophy. i'll respect u from the distance if you do the same for me"

aight so i'm not gon list every ship in the fandom that has spawned in outta the stardust n give my specific opinion on it, cuz i'm not exactly keepin up

the only two ships i don't mind n find cute on the paper are NSH x Moon and Arti x Gour cuz both of them have that Old People Love Each Other in Easy Peace Despite The Circumstances Surrounding Them kick to them. i'm a weak bitch for that type of troupe for romantic relationships. not gon do anythin with 'em in my own stuff, though

i find myself more interested in the entirely and wholly platonic interpretation of everything in the game. platonic love is a matter of course, makin the story flow feel more smoother to me for that while also stayin nicely close to that religious narrative of the game (u can fight me on this but the Ancients' religion isn't *wrong*. the bad thing that happened with it is that it was taken to extremes and variety wasn't allowed. i could tell you why riddin oneself of the third and fifth sin isn't a bad idea at all- afterall, i kind of live by that myself!- and what they probably meant by riddin yourself of the sins without the extremist approach)

for the other ships... 🤔

well, the iterators are far too rooted in my head as sibs to vibe with ships with them, but more properly told: • Suns and Pebs are too much of "teacher and naive student" to me and i also find this dynamic more interesting to explore. uuuuu how spicy it is to think of Suns brainwashing Pebs but meaning it well uuuuuuuuuu • Suns and NSH are... let's just say that if i was in NSH's place and Suns talked to me like that i'd slap them so fuckin hard n if i WAS in a romantic relationship with them i'd dump them then and there (not in a bitchy ex kind of way, i'd be still down to talk, but i can't imagine bein in a relationship where the other half calls the most likely inevitable death of your closest friend a "setback" to their brainwashing of that friend's little brother would be Very healthy) • n i think what is the only other iterator ship left, Sliver and Moon... i find it kind of silly, honestly? like as far as *i* know the main reason why that exists is cuz Moon remembers what happened with Sliver after being given her own pearl about some notes she wrote herself on Sliver despite being baround three gazillion bagillion braincells short. i don't really see that as a strong incentive to start shippin 'em cuz like. you give Moon a very solid memory jogger and right in her second set of monologue she states that Sliver is literally a legend among the itties-titties. the best i can compare it to a real life thing is asking an american if they have any idea who Abraham Lincoln was at all. or asking a slovak if they knew who Finally managed to solidly establish our language after centuries of oppression. like of Course you're going to know That even on ur deathbed??? those are incredibly important historical figures for you n your home!!! also c'mon she remembers the feckin bug pupae, if THAT stuck in there this big boy info is def gon be kickin around

as for the slugcats... well ehh..... you can probably guess from what i mainly draw that i'm not Too focused on the slugs, only maybe Hunter so my slugshippin lore knowledge is p weak. when i first saw the slugshippin take off before i started postin bout RW again i thought it was silly to ship animals n still kinda do? 🤷‍♀️ doesn't help that canonically they have no business meeting each other except Monk n Surv (that is a strong No to shippin) and Hunter's writhing corpse n Gour (we are Not ducks we do not support necrophilia). i generally like to stick to the timeline, personally. good world-building. i respect good world-building too much to deviate too hard

BUT! i am going to use my status as pre-Downpour RW veteran and tell you to not listen to the whiny wrinkly babies in the tag that wail about how slugshippin is ruining the fandom. fuck 'em bitches, you do what u wanna (within moral common sense)

@occasionalmaven replied to your post “the dresden files tv show will have you tearing...”:

As someone who’s never read the books or seen the show… do you recommend waiting to watch the show until I’ve read some of the books? 

hi! ​as someone who was in the same boat at the start of the year, and has since watched the entire show and read two of the books: not at all, you can jump into the show straight away if you want to! Dresden took the basic premise of the books and directly adapted a couple of them into episodes, but it mostly does its own thing with the characters and world.

personally I read Storm Front, the first book in the series, in parallel with the show. imo it was valuable in terms of adding depth to the worldbuilding (especially the magic system and its limitations) that the show couldn't fully explore within its 45 minute time slot. the tv version of Storm Front is a bit weird anyway, as it was cobbled together from the pilot episode and isn't representative of the show's final direction at all. I was actually advised to skip it entirely on my first run-through of the show - it doesn't fit tonally and interferes with the flow of the overall narrative. so I was able to safely take in both the book and show in parallel as I knew that the show wouldn't spoil the book's ending for me! it was a convoluted but cool way to enter the Dresdenverse 😭👍

but it's absolutely not necessary to read the books, especially as the show alters most things and introduces new overarching plots that are really unexpectedly good. it also expands upon certain book characters so drastically and so well that it's hard to believe that the version in the show is basically a tv original. Bob the Skull is kind of Dresden tv's version of the Cleonic Dynasty haha, a lot of people who don't like the show still think tv!Bob was a great idea. honestly the whole adaptation style is similar to Foundation - it's cool to have the extra context of the book, but it veers so far from the original stories so often that it's not as much of a help as you'd expect.

but yes please give this show a try! I compare it a lot to mid-2000s Doctor Who for a reason - it can be kinda goofy in tone and the CGI was made on a budget of approximately $3, but it's got so much heart and goes from "wacky supernatural romp" to "unexpectedly emotional character study" when you least expect. it's also very pretty to look at - it's shot and lit shockingly well for the budget, and everyone involved including the set dressers and cinematographers are clearly giving it everything. it's 12 episodes in a monster-of-the-week format so it's very zippy, and the acting is also fantastic across the board. obviously I'm biased as hell and think the Paul Blackthorne - Terrence Mann shared braincell double act is the best thing ever and only gets better as the series progresses. but even the actors who show up for a single episode are excellent! the one-off characters in episodes 3, 9 and 10 are among my favourites :3

blue guitar boy + 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 13, 18, 19, 25

have fuuunnnn answering

Rae, you glutton for punishment, you XD

Fair warning for those who maybe don't know the history here, this answer will be salty~

2. Favorite canon thing about this character?

His relationship with Marinette was short lived and stripped of any meaningful content

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character

That he got off essentially with no punishment for LYING TO MARINETTE'S FACE and keeping secret that HE KNEW HER FUCKING IDENTITY and she doesn't even get mad at him for lying about it, and the narrative doesn't punish him for it either in any meaningful way. I mean, I was happy he had to leave for a while, but then him learning Mirakungfu is just ehhhh I'd have preferred he just never found out and left anyway to go travel with Jagged. I also hate that Jagged is canonically his dad/a deadbeat dad. I liked Jagged significantly more before that was canon, but after that being canon it kind of ruined his character for me ngl...

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

Not really a song-song per se, but I think of jacksepticeye's Night in the Woods playthrough when he's like "why is there always some douchebag with a guitar who's like 'I sing about my feelings cause I play guitar'" and that is always the first thing that comes to mind when I think about him. Also, since seeing the Barbie movie I think of that one scene with all the Kens playing guitar at the Barbies, and I love that movie so much for pointing out how cringy it is.

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

They make him more attractive when they draw him than he actually is in canon

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

Literally everything else XD People who have been here a long time know about birthdaygate. I hate that they pretend he is better than Adrien, I hate that they act like the love square is toxic and their ship should have been endgame, I hate that they take key traits from Adrien and give them to the blue boy in order to make him more interesting but then shit on Adrien and act like he's the worst character in the show and somehow a creep/abuser toward Marinette/LB while propping up the blue boy on a pedestal as if he's god's gift to the fandom, I hate that they excused away him lying to Marinette about knowing her identity and even praised him for it when literally a season prior to that they shit on Adrien for finding out in CB and not telling her when she just literally had no idea and never asked, but when blue boy gets asked point blank if he knows, he lied and somehow that was perfectly fine and acceptable and they were glad he finally did something selfish/for himself for once. Literally, every time I read a take by blue ship truthers, I feel like my braincells die.

13. What's an emoji, an emoticon and/or any symbol that reminds you of this character or you think the character would use a lot?

I don't have much of a reason for this, but I feel like he would sign off most of his messages with a peace sign ✌️

18. How about a relationship they have in canon with another character that you admire?

That one episode with Juleka wanting to model was kinda cute when he was encouraging her

19. How about a relationship they have in canon that you don't like?

Marinette~

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

Listen, for those that are like why so negative about the blue boy, Cat? What did he ever do to you? I want it to be known, that my first impression of him was very neutral. I didn't love or hate him. He was just okay. I thought he was a little bland, but I was open to seeing where he would go. The fandom 100% ruined him for me entirely. Canon helped later in S4 as I've already talked about, but it was mostly the fandom. Birthday spamming bitches. But when he first debuted, I just thought he was kinda meh, which was a crime apparently. But since then I've been more open with my disdain, so idgaf about it anymore. He's still mid imo.

Send me a character and some numbers

previous anon again, I don't even remember what happened in nikolais book because it bored me to death and every character in it was insufferable and i never bothered with the sequel so what i truly think nikolais braincell or at least whichever one gave him his charm died in sab3 with the darkling

I really disliked the Nikolai duology because it kind of just felt super preachy in a way the original trilogy didn't? I mean, definitely there was some annoying stuff about "power corrupts" and "female ambition = evil" or "you should settle for a guy who takes 3 novels to finally see how amazing you are" or whatever, but you could possibly make a case for bad writing.

The duology is literally just Leigh being like "All the fans hated the ending and the canon romance. They clearly read the book wrong and now I need to make all my protagonists insufferable mouthpieces that tell the reader directly how to interpret other characters, events, and social issues because they're too dumb to have their own opinions on my work, obviously".

It kind of just...took her down a peg in terms of writing talent? Like, the original trilogy was pretty terribly written but then I was really impressed by how much she improved when I finished Six of Crows. But then the duology kind of backpedaled and revealed how really insecure she was about how fans reacted and interpreted the original trilogy? Anyway, the funny thing is that I wasn't really that much of a Darkling stan before but after reading Rule of Wolves, I was like "Damn, this nominal villain works way better as a tragic hero, actually". So her own frantic attempts to control the narrative directly influenced me radically re-interpreting her characters out of pure spite.

Once again what DM wrote

“Sources close to Styles reveal he is now 'ready for the next chapter' in his life, away from the spotlight. While Styles will no doubt continue to make music and is expected to further 'explore his acting opportunities', insiders warn fans not to expect any new projects in the near future: 'Harry no longer needs to prove himself and he is finally going to take some time to reap the rewards of his success. His 30s will look nothing like his 20s.'”

First of all - who are sources close to Styles? After h*livia bua there were sources saying how we will definitely see H hanging out with OW how much serious this relationship was for him 🙄.

Second - surely his 30s won’t look nothing like his 20s. He can’t play the image of a manwhore who slept with approx 456 women a year anymore.

Third - if he doesn’t no longer needs to prove himself, then why we have known about him every second or third week since HSLOT end? It’s quite the opposite, with H’sH his fame skyrocketed and they have to strike when the steel is hot. That’s why he’s always around, that’s why got stunt by the end of the tour and that’s why we’ll get new album and tour announcement this year - they need to keep him going when all attention is on him

Fourth - as you wrote Marte, she agreed to stunt with him in the first place to boost her career. We know it’s a stunt but even if they will try to sell us how she’s about to settle with him, what was the purpose for her in the first place when she’s about to break through the Hollywood? Hope it makes sence what I’m trying to say.

God I just hate these tabloid articles looking like a het harries wattpad wet dream fantasies. We know he will settle down one day with Louis but imo it won’t be the way that tabloids will inform us about it. See how Gemma got pregnant and gave birth and nobody knew about it (eventho some of us were suspicious after that one photo from wedding but we could only wonder about if she was or wasn’t pregnant at that time). Sources close to Styles won’t announce what H’s actual private life (“nobody knows about”) will look like in the near future and when he will actually settle down.

Hi, anon!

Sources close to Harry Styles is his PR company DawBell. They know everything there is to know about Harry Styles because they make it up to fit the narrative they want out there.

His 30's wont look like his 20's because he's aging out of the heartthrob age range. He's not curly headed, green-eyed with a babyface of an angel boy anymore, and with a horde of clamouring teenagers running after him.

They do want to strike while the iron is hot. He's on top of the world right now in his category. There is no competition. When you've worked so hard to get to the top you'd want to keep yourself there. Now it's the time to actually start to enjoy it.

TR settling down with H makes no sense. H is on top but she just started climbing. She's ambitious and have been given a real shot to make it further due to this PR relationships. Why would she settle down now and fade into obscurity? Makes no sense.

The Gemma part annoys me actually. Everyone who cared to know she was pregnant knew. She didn’t hide shit. She was pictured with a pregnant belly (pretty far along actually). That's not hiding. Some people dismissed it because they didn’t want to speculate, and that's fine. But everyone else with eyes and half a braincell could easily tell she was pregnant.

What they want out there gets out there, what they don't want out there won't. Easy.

okay so i've watched all 8 episodes of the sign and oh boy was i not ready for it. not at all :"

over all i love it. I really enjoyed watching it. the actors? ten out of ten. all of them <3 the plotline(s)? to be honest, I couldn't care less about most of the cop related plotline. it was sometimes just so confusing and the clues didn't really make sense. also I don't vibe with the cops are your knights in shining armour narrative. especially when they were solving the rin's case. it was really sensitive topic (im pretty surprised they chose this type of crime) and i just didn't want them to catch the brother until he killed that guy. and yes, they managed to get the guy behind bars and they looked genuinely sorry for the guy and somehow acknowledge that his sister deserved justice but than the talks about how they want to be cops and want to help...and not even word about how the cops are just as corrupt as everybody else? yeah i didn't vibe with that at all.

anyway. something i vibed with. the way they shoot the vision and memories connected with art. it was rather abrupt and it didn't really made any sense bc it was done just here but i really liked the way they used the space they were in for the visions. it was cool. ten out of ten.

the mythology. perfect. just perfect. i love the costumes for naga and garuda (and dr chacha's full black outfit). but they could give tharn a proper wig and not just the extensions bc it looks kinda weird and out of place (also babe would look so fucking good in a wig).

now the braincells and what characters do have them. i feel like not a single character in in possession of enough braincells to make them actually useful for the plot. for me, the only character that got some braincells was phaya and even with him they are hibernating when it's not case related. the fact that the golden girl had to tell him she is naga's sister? 2 + 2 phaya really? in your vision u see fishy lady that changes into tharn and u know that u and tharn are connected from your past lives AND u still need the golden lady to spell it out to you? and tharn? it feels liek the character is just useless to the plot? he is just....there....doing nothing. and I know he's scared and probably confused but come on!! *poking him with a stick* do something !! the character is giving me a dead fish energy :))

anywhosers. ep8 ending :)) so now phaya finally knows everything but he kinda d worded. big ouchie. need ep9 like right now

Heroes

Well, I’ve finally got some time off and I finally started Heroes.

Caps incoming bc ohhh this show is gorgeous and at least for ep 1 the writing is snappy, the symbolism palpable and the action and mood remind me of the best Wuxia classics.

We start out our story with a storyteller singing a song at night and a somewhat bedraggled looking Wang XiaoShi walking past, remarking that the song includes people he knows very well and that he is on his way to bury the most important person to him (contained within a black box he has fastened to his horse). They remark they met some 10 years ago and already I like the set up, bc I like stories within stories (well sorta, it’s not explicitly framed as such) and we go back 10 years when WXS was but a bright eyed and bushy tailed strapping young lad on his way to make his mark in the JiangHu.

Because this show is not subtle with its narrative set ups he is now charged with carrying a white jade box, the McGuffin that will bring us through the first episode.

WXS looks innocent enough but as the episode reveals he’s as deadly a fighter as anyone if the need calls for it, so him being sent off to deliver a message that might ~overturn the JiangHu at least feels somewhat deserved. 

Along the way he meets two new friends:

A pretty girl named Wen Rou, who knows how to make an entrance and

Bai Choufei (as we later find out his name is). I can already tell he’s going to be a Problematic (tm) fav, he’s got ambition and skill out of the wazoo and his broad shoulders are barly capable of holding on to the chip he’s keeping there when it comes to becoming famous.

Tavern shenanigans happen, as they must and mmmm the show really knows how to set up the wuxia mood.

This dude is a whole ass mood bc he’s got like the single braincell amongst the mob characters

More McGuffin related shenanigans happen and our main characters are in equal parts cute, hot and competent, although Wen Rou is not as competent a fighter as the other two guys, but she’s not without resources.

She is also ridiculously pretty and I cant wait to see the actress in Seven Lifetimes Love or whatever the english name is.

She also has no concept of personal boundaries, which is not sth that WXS seems to mind too much hahaha.

Thankfully BCF and WXS decide to be on the same side and then we get an incredible sequence with great visuals, editing and some neat wuxia fighting on top.

Honestly these caps barely do it justice because the scene is underlaid with a great sweeping acoustic OST.

Afterwards BCF and WXS go back to the (wrecked) tavern and BCF tells WXS he should ENTRUST HIMSELF to BCF which not being me he doesn’t jump at the chance to but WR also basically calls dibs on WXS hahaha.

Then some more SYMBOLISM happens (Lei Chun - the woman who basically organised the town massacre for the McGuffin loses her faceveil while looking at the sea, BCF catches it for one second before it’s blown away by the wind) and then our intrepid little trio makes the journey to the capital so WXS can fulfill his quest.

Meng Ziyi is also ridiculously pretty!

This is here because it always amuses me to think of the minutes when they’re crawling up/down these rocks to get to that place, must look so undignified lmao.

on their way they meet - of couse - the storyteller and WR tells him her two companions are gonna be FAMOUS some day and i’m sure she’s right.

Honestly, I've just completely checked out from the Twitter sphere and the commentary around f1. To a certain extent sports media is always rife with hit takes but there's so little going on this season that it seems like everyone is just picking fights with everyone to muster up engagement. Life's too short, I'll check back in to see if Ferrari gets it's shit together next year.

You're a stronger soldier than me 😭💪🏻 I know a few people who consciously took a step back from following F1 or at least don't follow as closely or intensely anymore, whether that's not keeping up with news and commentary or not watching most of the sessions and just occasionally catching a race if they can or whatever. On one hand I envy that kind of approach, but on the other I don't know if I could do it. 🤔

Idk maybe it's weird but I tend to operate on a basis of having one major hyperfixation/fandom at a time, with maybe some smaller interests more in the background. But once I'm into something I'm like 110% invested and so other stuff kind of starts going under the radar. I think for me to check out of F1 I'd have to have something equally compelling lined up as a replacement hyperfixation to eat at my braincells and so far I haven't found anything like that.

Although some part of me is kind of like, well, maybe if I did check out we'd finally get an interesting season, because I swear the best narratives and memorable seasons happen exactly when I'm in that stage of not watching or having an F1 hiatus 😭😭 I started watching in early 2015, from the very first race of the season, so literally just missed 2014 by a few months...then I checked out of the fandom and started watching more sporadically as the hype around Charles to Ferrari was happening in late 2018. Of course then I end up having a lot of regret and guilt over it, which leads to FOMO and this compulsion to keep watching just in case I miss something big again. 🙃

From a Ferrari/Charles POV it's definitely a rollercoaster from watching him be firmly in the championship fight at the start of 2022 to then Ferrari having another slump in form where they're realistically performing at the level of a midfield team, seemingly have no explanation for their problems, are in a year of messy transition, etc. You can say the same for the downgrade from 2019 to 2020, but the latter was a weird season in general and there were some extenuating circumstances. At least the season still felt fun and we had some surprising moments. That one weekend alone in Turkey was much more memorable for me personally than any of the races we've had so far in 2023, lol. But I do acknowledge that it's not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing and your enjoyment will largely depend on who you're supporting. If your guy is winning it all then ofc you're going to have a different perception of the season.

I think for me, I could even look past the Red Bull dominance, because it's not the first time we've had a basically guaranteed 1-2 (2015 and 16 especially were often criticised exactly for the predictability and repetitiveness on the podium.) But give us an element of surprise??? Some spice??? (Barcelona 2016 you will always be famous.) Where are all the compelling narratives??? Where are the tasty teammate pairings??? Ferrari's not providing much excitement when it comes to performance and results, but equally the lineup has very meh vibes for me. Plus the drivers that had become a staple of my F1 fan experience just not being there anymore (Daniel and Seb). In conclusion:

some thoughts, because i need to purge myself:

i wish we could see a more morally complex world, them being pirates and all. not saying it isn't, but narratively it seems we're too limited to Stede's sanitized (dare i say, romantic) version of piracy: one where you can afford not to kill others—need not cast away parts of yourself—in order to survive, where your reputation isn't relevant because you don't need to board vessels for loot. protagonist-centered morality isn’t necessarily bad, but it'd be nice if s2 could change that a bit, what with Stede finally getting the "it's not about you" treatment. and please more female characters 🙏🏻

Oluwande, my beloved, i wish i was this cool. i just, i'm in awe at his common sense, his cuteness, his empathy! taking no shit from anyone! ahhhhh

congrats to Jim for having actually intelligible Spanish, for once, in an English-speaking production. i'm a native speaker (greeting from Argentina!), but my gods, why productions usually make it so hard to understand the designated Spanish-speaking character? (i know, expose yourself to other dialects outside your own, but like, sound mix teams do your job i beg you)

no thoughts, just... Frenchie 💖

didn't care at first for Lucius (might've been the sideburns i'll admit ajslkjk), but having the emotional braincell in this ship made me really like him

neither did i care for Stede, but like ✨ character development ✨ and gods he's great. love him. hopefully, the narrative will continue to push the whole 'be a little less self-centred my guy' thing. also i'd like for him to interact more with people who aren't Ed (and Ed with people who aren’t Stede). look i love their scenes together, but it'd be nice to see them outside the romance angle y'know?

Ed, honey, love you but please grow a beard again. it looks so good! anyway, been reading meta/headcanons on his Ambiguous Disorder™ and who he "really" is, but i think the outfit invites a comparison to... Road Warrior. in a world of nightmarish seas roads where "only those mobile enough to scavenge, brutal enough to pillage, would survive" and pirates gangs "took over the highways ready to wage war for a tank of juice", ordinary men like Max (a cop scared that he was beginning to enjoy the rat circus, only a badge saying he's a good guy) are "battered and smashed". despite taking his revenge, Max is the shell of a burn-out, desolate man, haunted by the demons of his past, who wandered out to a blighted place and learned to live again. (and that's like the intro only.) anyway, he lives in the wasteland, helping out only when it suits him, uninterested in companionship or a chance to rebuild his life. ("come with us." / "what are you looking for out there? [...] there is a better way!" → "i never get involved") yet there is kindness: even when he's lost everything, he can still reclaim his humanity. so where am i going with this? no idea. maybe it's about Ed being a legend, about struggling with trauma but surviving no matter what, about choosing solitude, about enjoying the violence, about atonement. that he needs to acknowledge forging himself in fire and blood, instead of handwaving it. (...also the outfit is mmgh 🤤)

how could i not sympathize with Izzy when he's out there living a Greek tragedy, victim of his own hubris, destined to fail and realize all too late he's only got himself to blame. that he's superfluous, unneeded in any way or form... least of all by Ed. ("i need you here"? where was that sentiment after the duel?) because they're not even friends, if Ed's to be believed. at "stages of fucking each other over" and all that. could there be more to their 'dysfunctional love' than the Intricate Rituals™? if so, the self-sabotage is all on him, isn't it? and no matter how 'deeply in love' Izzy is, he'll have to admit defeat to the man who's bested him in every single way that matters, who loathed him—and rightly so everyone would tell him—at first sight. (if he even lives until that point. alternatively, he'll have to fuck off for good so everyone can live happily ever after.) to admit that whatever he and Ed have matters so little that being maimed while he's completely vulnerable is acceptable. so, yeah, kinda tragic. i'd love a redemption arc for Izzy. like if the repressed white dude with far more privilege, who is consistently bad at not really seeing beyond his own needs unless someone calls him out, can change for the better, why can't Izzy? (something something palatable forms of trauma, something something Die For Our Ship at play, something something Steddyhands please askjlskj)

all three of them (Stede, Ed, and Izzy) i love precisely because they're flawed so i just can't understand the necessity of certain fans to reduce three-dimensional characters to 'never did anything wrong' while demonizing the other, instead of accepting it takes two to tango, as they say