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nofomogirl · 4 months

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Good Omen's problem with having two canons

They're fundamentally different. That's the problem. That's my point.

For quite a while I focused almost exclusively on the new season of Good Omens, but now I am slowly delving into analysis that takes the entire show into account, and I've encountered a little obstacle. Namely, things from S1 can be really tricky to interpret.

Fair warning: this post is going to zig-zag between various points but I want you to trust me and take this scenic route with me. It will take us somewhere eventually, I promise.

The Arrangement

It's one of the core elements in the Good Omens universe and at the same time a perfect example of the issue I want to discuss. So let's have a closer look together.

In the book, the Arrangement is presented to us in two passages:

the first one, where it is first - very briefly - mentioned:

and the second one, where it is properly introduced and explained:

The Arrangement was very simple, so simple in fact, that it didn't really deserve the capital letter, which it had got for simply being in existence for so long. It was the sort of sensible arrangement that many isolated agents, working in awkward conditions a long way from their superiors, reach with their opposite number when they realize they have more in common with their immediate opponents than their remote allies. It meant a tacit non-interference in certain of each other's activities. It made certain that while neither really won, also neither really lost, and both were able to demonstrate to their masters the great strides they were making against a cunning and well-informed adversary. (...) And then, of course, it had seemed even natural that they should, as it were, hold the fort for one another whenever common sense dictated. Both were of angel stock, after all. If one was going to Hull for a quick temptation, it made sense to nip across the city and carry out a standard brief moment of divine ecstasy. It'd get done anyway, and being sensible about it gave everyone more free time and cut down on expenses.

In the show, the Arrangement is presented to us in two original scenes in the cold opening of S1E3:

(I am quoting most relevant dialogues only)

537 AD, Wessex:

C: So we're both working very hard in damp places and just canceling each other out? A: Well, you could put it like that. It is a bit damp. C: Be easier if we both stayed home. If we just send messages back to our head offices saying we'd done everything they'd asked for, wouldn't it? A: But that would be lying. C: Eh, possibly, but the end result would be the same. Cancel each other out. A: But my dear fellow... well, they'd check. Michael's a bit of a stickler. You don't want to get Gabriel upset with you. C: Oh, our lot have better things to do than verifying compliance reports from Earth. As long as they get paperwork they seem happy enough. As long as you're being seen doing something every now and again. A: No! Absolutely not! I am shocked that you would even imply such a thing. We're not having that conversation, not another word!

1601 AD, The Globe Theatre:

A: I have to be in Edinburgh at the end of the week. A couple of blessings to do. A minor miracle to perform. (...) C: I'm meant to be heading to Edinburgh too this week. Tempting a clan leader to steal some cattle. A: Doesn't sound like hard work. C: That's why I thought we should... Well, bit of a waste of effort, both of us going all the way to Scotland. A: You cannot actually be suggesting what I infer that you are implying. C: Which is? A: That just one of us goes to Edingburgh, does both. The blessing and the tempting. C: We've done it before. Dozens of times now. The Arrangement- A: Don't say that! C: Our respective offices don't actually care how things get done. They just want to know they can cross it off the list.

S2 doesn't actually reference the Arrangement. But it does reuse the dialogue about free will where the 1020 date is dropped. We will get back to it.

The challenge of adapting Good Omens

Good Omens shares a certain characteristic with all of Terry Pratchett's solo books I've read - it couldn't care less about "showing instead of telling". Which I love, just to be clear. A book is a written medium. It's made with words and one of words' major strengths is that you can use them to just tell things point blanc.

Good Omens does it a lot and it's fantastic.

Look at that second passage from the book I quoted earlier.

From just those few sentences we learn a lot about the relationships between:

Heaven and Hell (opponents and competition)

Aziraphale and Crowley (two individuals in the same position and in direct contact with each other)

Aziraphale/Crowley and Heaven/Hell (field agent and a remote HQ that are not in direct contact)

Aziraphale/Crowley and Earth (two individuals and a space they live in)

Heaven/Hell and Earth (a board where the game is played, only winning or losing matters, what actually happens on a board does not)

It's really an extra condensed worldbuilding gem sprinkled with humor, so it's no surprise it's become one of the most iconic passages from the book.

I mean, just browse through some interviews with David and Michael - especially the ones from 2019 - where they explain what Aziraphale and Crowley are about. You'll be hard-pressed to find any where they don't reference that specific paragraph, consciously or otherwise.

But it's only this neat on the pages of the book, where narration like this takes mere seconds to absorb. It's impossible to convey the same information in a visual medium with anywhere near the same efficiency.

The fact that the majority of Good Omens is like this was, in my opinion, a main challenge the adaptation faced. The book is very narration-heavy. It's full of fun facts about characters, side jokes, hilarious comments, etc. Some of that precious material was salvaged by introducing God as a narrator, but there was only so much of it you could squeeze into a TV show. The rest had to either be fit into dialogues or lost in translation from the written medium to the visual one.

Obviously, in the case of the Arrangement, it was the dialogues.

Book canon and show canon

We all know they're not the same. Neil Gaiman also pointed it out several times. But I think our mistake is that we still tend to think about them as complementary.

Look at the Arrangement again. The show canon seems to merely expand on the book canon. Add extra details and fill in the blanks. The Arrangement works the exact same way, except now we also know more about how it started.

If we compile what we know from the book with what we know from the show, we get a more detailed timeline:

Crowley first proposes the Arrangement in 537 (show).

The Arrangement starts in 1020 (book), ie. Aziraphale finally agrees to it (show - deduction); we don't know for sure if it's a "basic version" (not getting in each other's way), or a "full version" (doing each other's jobs) but we can assume it's the former.

In 1601 "full version" of the Arrangement is in place for some time (they've done it dozens of times) but Aziraphale still objects and needs convincing.

But read that description from a book once more.

Does it really fit into the version of events shown in the TV series?

The Arrangement in the book is something that just happened. A natural, and in a way inevitable result of Aziraphale and Crowley's circumstances. We are never told who came up with it first because it doesn't matter. Because it could have been either of them. Because after five millennia on Earth, they were both ready to do it. They were both of the same mind. For all we know it might have been an unspoken agreement all along!

But for the show, the creators had to come up with a good reason for the Arrangement to be discussed out loud. And what could be a more natural situation for someone to describe and explain an idea than trying to sell that idea to someone else?

For that practical reason - among many others, no doubt - the Arrangement is not only explicitly Crowley's idea, but an idea Aziraphale vehemently rejects at first. He needs to be convinced and even when he finally relents he's never entirely comfortable with it. He keeps objecting and it requires Crowley's constant effort for them to keep cooperating in any way.

The fact that Aziraphale is reluctant gives Crowley a perfect reason to keep convincing him ie. talk about the Arrangement. But the fact that he needs to explain and keep convincing Aziraphale means that Aziraphale is no longer a person who understands the same things and feels the same way.

That is a huge change.

Of course, you may say that what I've written about the Arrangement in the book is just my interpretation. It's true that technically there's nothing there that would contradict the events from the show in any way. The thing is, the events in the show aren't very compatible with the overall characterization of the ineffable duo in the book.

Evolution of Aziraphale and Crowley

You might have read that our leading pair was originally conceived as a single character that Neil and Terry eventually decided to split into two separate individuals.

My reaction when I first learned about it was: "Of course they were! That makes so much sense!" Because honestly, as a person who watched the show first and then read the book, I was surprised at how few differences there were between the two in the original text. If you squint your eyes really tight, you can see how book!Aziraphale and book!Crowley are two versions of the same character. They're far more similar than their show versions.

Most importantly, their attitudes toward Heaven and Hell are pretty much identical. Perfectly mirrored in every regard. What Hell is for Crowley, Heaven is for Aziraphale. What Hell is for Aziraphale, Heaven is for Crowley. In. Every. Possible. Way.

Allow me to present some evidence from the book.

Exhibit #1: the end of the scene where Crowley convinces Aziraphale to interfere with Warlock's upbringing

'You're saying the child isn't evil of itself?' he said slowly. 'Potentially evil. Potentially good too, I suppose. Just this huge powerful potentiality, waiting to be shaped,' said Crowley. He shrugged. 'Anyway, why're we talking about this good and evil? They're just names for sides. We know that.' 'I suppose it's got to be worth a try,' said the angel. Crowley nodded encouragingly. 'Agreed?' said the demon, holding out his hand. The angel shook it, cautiously. 'It'll certainly be more interesting than saints,' he said. 'And it'll be for the child's own good, in the long run,' said Crowley. (...)

When Crowley first points out that good and evil are just names for sides, and then insists it's something they both know, Aziraphale doesn't react in any way. That's because these aren't things that book!Aziraphale disagrees with. He does indeed know it and doesn't deny it.

Also, please note just how cynical the angel is here with his comment that influencing the Antichrist would be a more interesting project than influencing saints!

Both would be rather OOC for show!Aziraphale.

Exhibit #2: the scene just after Warlock Dowling's birthday party, when it becomes evident he is not the Antichrist

'You said it was him!' moaned Aziraphale (...) 'It was him,' said Crowley. (...) 'Then someone else must be interfering.' 'There isn't anyone else! There's just us, right? Good and Evil. One side or the other.' He thumped the steering wheel. 'You'll be amazed at the kind of things they can do to you, down there,' he said. 'I imagine they're very similar to the sort of things they can do to you up there,' said Aziraphale. 'Come off it. Your lot get ineffable mercy,' said Crowley sourly. 'Yes? Did you ever visit Gomorrah?' 'Sure' said the demon. 'There was this great little tavern where you could get these terrific fermented date-palm cocktails with nutmeg and crushed lemongrass-' 'I meant afterwards.' 'Oh.'

Can you imagine this kind of exchange in the TV series? Can you imagine show!Aziraphale being this realistic about Heaven, and show!Crowley so naive about it? There's no way.

Show!Aziraphale genuinely believes that Heaven is good at its core.

Book!Aziraphale knows Heaven isn't any different than Hell and would punish him just as ruthlessly and unfairly as Hell would Crowley.

Show!Crowley understands both Heaven and Hell on a very deep level and is highly aware of their true nature.

Book!Crowley buys a piece of celestial propaganda about ineffable mercy and actually expects Heaven to be forgiving.

Let the magnitude of that difference sink.

Exhibit #3: same scene, a bit further

'So all we've got to do is find it,' said Crowley. 'Go through the hospital records.' The Bentley's engine coughed into life and the car leapt forward, forcing Aziraphale back into the seat. 'And then what?' he said. 'And then we find the child.' 'And then what?' The angel shut his eyes as the car crabbed around the corner. 'Don't know.' 'Good grief.' 'I suppose (...) your people wouldn't consider (...) giving me asylum?' 'I was going to ask you the same thing. (...)'

This is just a cherry on top, really.

Yes, in the book, when things go pear-shaped, both Aziraphale and Crowley consider seeking asylum on the opposite side.

Do you need more proof that book canon and show canon really aren't as compatible as they may seem?

Free will

As promised, let's get back to that dialogue because while it may not be obvious at first glance it really illustrates perfectly the problem arising from balancing between two canons.

Here is the full quote from the book:

Aziraphale had tried to explain [free will] to him once. The whole point, he'd said - this was somewhere around 1020, when they'd first reached their little Arrangement - the whole point was that when a human was good or bad it was because they wanted to be. Whereas people like Crowley and, of course, himself, were set in their ways right from the start. People couldn't become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked. Crowley had thought about it for some time and, around about 1023, had said, Hang on, that only works, right, if you start everyone off equal, OK? You can't start someone off in a muddy shack in the middle of a war zone and expect them to do as well as someone born in a castle. Ah, Aziraphale had said, that's the good bit. The lower you start, the more opportunities you have. Crowley had said, That's lunatic. No, said Aziraphale, it's ineffable.

And here, for comparison, is how it was reused in S2E3:

A: There is a stolen body in that barrel! This is wicked! C: Oh, I'm down with wicked! Anyway, is it wicked? She needed the money. A: That is irrelevant. Look, I am good. You, I'm afraid, are evil. But people get a choice. You know, they cannot be truly holy unless they also get the opportunity to be wicked. She is wicked. C: Yeah, that only works if you start everyone off equal. You can't start someone off like that and expect her to do as well as someone born in a castle. A: Ah, but no, no. That's the good bit. The lower you start, the more opportunities you have. So Elspeth here has all the opportunities because she's so poor. C: That's lunacy. A: No, that's ineffable.

I'll be honest with you - I didn't like that scene in the show. It felt jarring and off. Aziraphale was acting like it was his first day on Earth and it was frustrating to watch.

Then, on one of the rewatches, just as I was rolling my eyes at "that's ineffable", a bulb lit in my brain. That line didn't work there because it wasn't created to be there! In the book and in S1 "it's ineffable" was kind of Aziraphale's catchphrase but in S2 it only appears this once. More importantly, in the book and S1, the fact that the angel would say that was all a build-up to the scene when he threw it in Heaven's face at the Tadfield Airbase. Using that word in S2 was like trying to make a running joke that has already reached its destination run again.

And just like that one line the entire dialogue didn't fit because it wasn't meant to be there. It was created for an entirely different context.

What's the difference?

Firstly, book!husbands' conviction was very shallow and it wasn't uncommon for both of them to spout slogans without meaning them. Therefore, book!Aziraphale's words didn't carry that much weight. The very fact that the conversation took place at the same time they formed the Arrangement tells us something about how serious he was. But show!Aziraphale's relationship with his beliefs is different, so when he says things like that it's a much bigger deal.

Secondly, the book explicitly states that Aziraphale and Crowley only developed free will on Earth, due to extended exposure to mankind. The show never really makes a stand on the matter but based on what we've seen so far I think we can safely assume that angels and demons are capable of making their own choices as much as humans do.

In other words, in its original context, the conversation was just Aziraphale talking about a concept he didn't fully grasp, quoting propaganda he didn't fully subscribe to. He was being ignorant and mildly obnoxious in an endearing way.

But using the same dialogue verbatim in the Resurrectionist carried a completely different meaning. Aziraphale who utters it in the show has no reason to be so ignorant about free will. Aziraphale who utters it in the show genuinely tries to defend Heaven. Most importantly, Aziraphale who utters it in the show, doesn't just idly bicker with his friend about general things but is judging an actual human individual that's right in front of them. That, more than anything else, makes it sound heartless and ignorant.

What is the problem with having two canons, exactly?

It's time to wrap things up.

In the opening paragraphs, I've mentioned that I've noticed the issue while interpreting scenes from S1, and yes, that was the case and I do believe that the existence of two canons is especially problematic for S1. That's because pretty much every scene in S1 is potentially like that dialogue about free will in S2, except subtler and harder to spot.

A grand majority of what we see and hear in S1 comes directly from the book. But while words and actions were kept, in some instances things that gave them their original meaning might no longer be valid in the show universe. Sometimes they easily take new meaning, and we don't even notice. But sometimes there's this dissonance that's not as easy to work around.

S1 deviated from the book and created its own canon. But the difference didn't seem to go very deep and it seemed perfectly reasonable to use some trivia from the book to shed some extra light on the content of the show. I used to do it in my head, even though I was aware of the changes that were made.

But S2 expanded the show canon so far beyond what was in the book that I'm really not sure it makes sense to compile them anymore.

There are a lot of things that were only explicitly stated in the book that I keep clinging to. But perhaps it's time to let go...

Thank you for your patience.

I know all of the above isn't exactly a revolutionary discovery, but I needed to get it off my chest before writing anything else.

#good omens #good omens 2 #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #good omens the book #differences between book and show #very long post #things I needed to get off my chest

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flower-boi16 · 2 months

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Lily Orchard's Double Standards in Regards to Hunter

So one of Lily's critiques of Hunter is that it takes him "too long" to break from Belos' control (four episodes into his arc to be exact...which is not even that long. Like, at all). Ignoring how little water this critique holds by itself, time to bring up...

Zuko. I have not seen Avatar the Last Airbender (I probably should lmao) but from what I've heard Zuko and Hunter have many similarities to each other, with a few major differences setting them apart. And Lily is known to like Zuko quite a bit...

...so...when does Zuko break from Ozai? Why, (from I've been told) it's mid-season 3...

...So Hunter takes four episodes to break from Belos in a single season and Lily complains about it being "too long", but when it takes Zuko almost the entire series to do the same for Ozai, she doesn't complain...

...that's...interesting...Oh, but I'm not done yet with the Zuko comparisons. In Lily's white favoritism video, Lily gets on Hunter's ass for kidnapping and almost forced a bunch of teenagers into the EC (conveniently ignoring the fact that he realized his mistake and fixed it two minutes later).

...even though Zuko did FAR WORSE than Hunter, yet NEVER gets of his ass for that. Oh, and apparently, to Lily, Zuko was never a villain and was "just an abuse victim escaping an abusive situation", yet she never applies this same logic to Hunter for SOME REASON despite their many similarities???

Then there's Amity, a character in the same show as Hunter who also has some similarities to him, being a deliberate parallel to him. Bringing up Lily's complaint about Hunter taking "too long" to break from Belos, she, like with Zuko, doesn't apply the same critique to Amity for some reason...? Like, if you're going to complain about Hunter not breaking from Belos fast enough, why don't you complain about Amity not standing up to her mother quicker?

Hell, why don't you apply this to ANY character with and abusive parent?

....Oh, I know the reason why, actually; Hunter is an "angsty white boy", while Amity is a white girl and Zuko is Asian. The reason why Lily doesn't complain about these things for Amity and Zuko but she does for Hunter is because of his gender and skin color/ethnicity respectively. She's directly holding a double standard that she doesn't hold due to them not being "angsty white boys".

I've said it before, but Lily's critiques of Hunter are entirely biased around him being an “edgy white boy” and double standards like these clearly show that.

#lily orchard #lily orchard critical #toh #the owl house #toh hunter #amity blight #avatar the last airbender #zuko

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raayllum · 5 months

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Been thinking recently about the idea in fandom that boils down to, usually, "the Character that Changes the most being deemed 'the most complex'" and that character development (i.e. character change) being held up as The Golden Standard of a Good Character and...

I fundamentally disagree, but first, a little bit more explanation about what I mean

Very often shows and movies, when being recommended on tumblr, are sold on the basis of having enjoyable/in-depth characters. Often times this also means conflating enjoyable with likeable, but that's a discussion post for another day. And even more often, it means there are characters who are seen as Deep because of how radically they change over the course of a story.

Lots of times, this falls into two camps:

Characters change radically, but early on in the story, and remain largely the same past that point of change (think anytime in a first season) until the end of the story

People recommending shows based on characters having traditional redemption arcs (enemy or bully to friend / good guy / love interest)

Now, I'm not saying that 1) character change can't be deep or 2) that character growth is bad. Neither of those things are true, even subjectively. What I am saying is that 1) character change / a character changing is not the same as automatically being a good, interesting, or well written character and 2) character growth is not the be-all-end-all of character writing. Yes, there can be problems with characters be overly stagnant, but typically that's only an issue if 1) a work is serialized and concerned with character development and they don't change at all, 2) a character never adjusts (rightly or wrongly) according to their mistakes, or 3) all of the above but they're a main character.

However, assuming that Character A has to be radically different at the beginning of a story in terms of their personality/values/etc. as they are at the end of the story is just... not how it works, necessarily. This is, I think, one of the reasons why antagonists who get redemption arcs tend to be more popular than heroes who had good values the whole time, because there's more opportunity to point and go "look, they've changed! they act on and have basic compassion now!" Which, fair enough, but again: other types of characters are fine too.

Particularly for characters fandom tends to have the hardest time with: paragons.

Paragons are characters who are usually the central hero, pretty morally if not entirely moral upstanding, and because they already start out in a place of "always doing the right thing," they rarely radically change by the end of the story. Instead, paragons are used to progress theme/messaging and inspire other characters around them to change (a good example might be Buddy from the Christmas movie Elf and to a lesser extent - as he's more transformative as a character - Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender, who's there to return childhood to his friends as an ideal and carry on Air Nomad values).

And for TDP, that's Ezran.

He's the youngest in the main cast and by far the most measured. While Callum and Rayla are off fighting, he keeps a level head. He assumes responsiblity largely without guilt, holds other people accountable most often without being cruel, he's kind and deeply compassionate, he shows regular empathy for his enemies even when he has to treat them like enemies, he loves his father but does not idealize him, he is king without craving power, he's trusting and honest and while he has his flaws (overly optimistic, his passivity, sometimes struggles to consider other people's emotions, naivety, etc), they - as of yet - are not overly connected to his sense of morality (which is a distinct difference compared to the rest of the main cast).

Now, TDP is less concerned with the theme of Childhood compared to something like ATLA, but Ezran being a child (again, in a way the rest of the cast is not) is also very important. Ezran, and Callum to a lesser extent, is the embodiment of the concept that children aren't born with hatred in their hearts; it's learned, or earned, through experience, society, and suffering. And as Ezran spells out for us in 4x03, he has suffered and been hurt - and he believes in breaking the cycle and believing in hope for a better future anyway.

Ezran's steadfast reflection of the series' core theme of "true strength - to break the cycle - is found in vulnerability, in forgiveness, in love" in both word and action does make him the closest thing to a paragon in the series. He's the one who finds the egg; he's the one who forgives Rayla and Soren; he's the one who still tries to help Claudia; he's the peacemaker, the literal bridge between peoples and species in spite of witnessing so many of their worst crimes/actions.

In both arcs, there tended to be a trio of characters who rapidly change, and a trio of characters who are more, comparatively, stagnated. Early S1 Rayla, Callum, and Soren are radically different in a ton of ways than they are even at the beginning of S3, but especially by the end. On the other hand, Viren - post 1x03 at least - Claudia and Ezran are far more consistent in arc 1; their circumstances change, but their viewpoints and realities and choices are largely the same from season to season - they just keep doubling down. This doesn't mean they don't change at all, but they don't radically transform - they just become more of what they already are.

I'd say that in arc 2, things have switched up, with Callum, Rayla, and Viren being the three who are radically transformed (thus far) with Soren, Claudia, and Ezran still being in the more stagnated corner. (For more notes on Claudia and Ezran's shared passivity, check out this pre-S4 meta.)

Ezran starts out the series as a good hearted, slightly mischevious little boy who loves his family and believes that people can be good. The point of the series is not to change these parts of him. It's to demonstrate the difficulties - losing both his parents, taking on the kingship, struggling to make the right choices, keeping his friends together, caring about peace and sentiment in a world that increasingly does not - of maintaining those positive traits, again, in a world that is determined to test those ideals and attributes.

Ezran is not here to be transformed by the storm, the same way his friends and some of his companions are. He is here to demonstrate the strength and necessity in weathering the storm so that the world cannot make you cold, or uncaring, or violent, even when those paths and emotions would be much easier to go down.

Good character development isn't about changing your character; it's about changing your audience's understanding and perspective of your character. Sometimes that means the character is also changing simultaneously, but that's far from a requirement for a character to be interesting. Like most things in writing, what it really boils down to is execution.

And I could go on about why I think people gravitate towards characters who start off evil (often part of imperialist empires or older, institutionally backed systems) and learn that the evil was wrong actually (and sometimes not even that) but that's a meta for another day, and this one is long enough.

TLDR; Ezran, like a few other characters in the show - antagonists and protagonists alike - is not meant to be a radically transformative, even though he very much has grown and changed. Instead, he's meant to exemplify the importance of not losing your sense of self in an increasingly cruel or difficult world, and what parts we should arguably try our best to hold onto as well.

#writing advice #tdp #as an example #analysis series #analysis #tdp ezran #ezran #the dragon prince #writeblr #i've always preferred paragons / non traditional redemption arcs so my preferences are #very opposed to general tumblr's but not at all surprising #also don't think i need to spell out why paragons would be particularly compelling for ND / autistic folks

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7grandmel · 2 months

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Todays rip: 23/02/2024

Through the F-F-Fire and the F-F-Flames

Season 5 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume D

Ripped by R.L.99

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In my excitement leading up to February 22nd and to finally get to write more in-depth about Kara's Flowers' meaning to the SiIvaGunner channel...it dawned on me a bit too late that I was ignoring another meaning to the very date before it. I'm still very proud of how the post on As Miku Collides connects together with Collision Clouds, but there was something far more important to remember from February 21st. The birthday of late ripper R.L.99.

R.L.99 is the second known SiIvaGunner team member to have left us in tragedy, and its always going to be a very difficult topic for someone like me, effectively an outsider, to approach. The first was Marrow, who I've written about thrice now with Telling Fish Tales, Turnabout Fishters and 8-bit Fish With Dreams - a true friend to the SiIvaGunner team whose contributions are too many to list, but had been present since the very early days of Season 1. I can't claim to have known the guy, nor ever claim to have felt the same grief that his friends did upon his passing - yet althesame, through how recognizable and frequent his contributions were, losing him did hurt. Yet with R.L.99, my heart sank for a somewhat different reason. I'd barely had the time to truly appreciate him before he was gone.

As a ripper, R.L.99's most defining trait lay in his ambition - he was always seeking to outdo his last work, always shooting higher, yet higher. Joining the team early into Season 5, his twenty-one contributions across the year, ambitious or not, all feel crafted to a sheen. In a Season that already had some of the strongest output in the channel's life, his rips often still managed to impress beyond those expectations. I described one instance of this occurring on my one prior post on the ripper, One Winged PSYcho - V.S. Sepsyrop, but it needs to be reiterated that this was effectively standard procedure for each of his big projects. But despite the reverence I hold for him now, I'd chosen the worst possible timeframe to begin distancing myself from SiIvaGunner - during Season 5, I was at my most disinterested in the channel's goings-on, and thus paid far too little mind to the incredible efforts the entire team were making during the year. I'd check in, add some rips to playlists, and check out.

When the news of R.L.99 broke early in Season 6, I didn't know what to think, because...I didn't know R.L.99. But as I looked through my own playlists, looked through his list of contributions - I realized that just about everything he had ever made had found its way into my list of all-time favorite rips. I'd loved his work without ever truly acknowledging or understanding who made it. Without ever having had the chance to truly show my appreciation, until it was too late.

Linked under his username credit at the start of this post, you'll find a Twitter thread I made two years ago now, the day the announcement was made. I wasn't able to appreciate him during his time, but on that day I wanted more than anything else for other people still like what I once was, people far too blind to the talent and care individual rippers put into their work, to know exactly what kind of legacy he left. And so, I put the thread together as one of my first-ever forms of written SiIvaGunner analysis, trying to concisely convey all the ways that R.L.99's work truly was unique - in all the ways I'd failed to pick up on before it was all too late. There was, of course, a lot missing from that thread - notably the as-of-then unreleased rips he'd made that would be uploaded the day after in his memory, culminating in the downright breathtaking Dancing Masked. Yet, I still want to dedicate todays post to a rip I'd heard from before that day, one of those rips I'd loved for so long without knowing the man behind it. A rip like Through the F-F-Fire and the F-F-Flames.

A hugely ambitious project, it feels difficult to find one rip that quite so concisely encapsulates all the qualities of R.L.99's work. A distinct love for the MOTHER series, a love for rip arrangements of popular music, a love for Rock music, and the aforementioned scope - it all culminates in a nearly 8-minute long tribute to the legendary Through the Fire and Flames by Dragonforce. Althewhile, it adheres incredibly well to the expected restrictions of a Game Boy Advance game, each of the shredding guitar samples used being from MOTHER 3 itself, with vocals authentically bit-crushed to match. It manages to rock out incredibly on its own, and that's without mentioning the insane details strewn throughout, such as the song's occasional bumps in tempo to match other boss music within MOTHER 3, or the other songs from MOTHER 3 that become referenced throughout the arrangement. Released on the date of MOTHER 3's birthday, much like Jesus of the Underground - it's a beyond impressive tribute, with love shown in every second of its runtime.

The fact remains, though, that I never knew R.L.99, and never knew Marrow either for that matter. There's far, far too many rippers that I've still not been able to express my full gratitude and affection toward, and many of which I'll likely never be able to reach. But that's part of why I want to run this blog in the first place - to give myself, and other SiIvaGunner fans that chance to show genuine, outspoken love for rips and the people behind them while we all can.

Rest well, R.L.99.

#todays siivagunner #season 5 #siivagunner #siiva #R.L.99 #mother 3 #mother series #earthbound #mother 2 #lucas mother 3 #ness earthbound #gba #game boy advance #dragonforce #through the fire and flames #guitar hero 3 #guitar hero #Youtube #Bandcamp

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falcqns · 7 months

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give me back my girlhood (it was mine first)

✰ 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Tim Bradford x Lucy Chen

✰ 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: Tim thinks Lucy has fully healed from Caleb. He is quickly proven wrong when they start dating.

✰ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Tim Bradford would burn the entire world just to see Lucy Chen smile, trauma, ptsd, takes place around season 5, canon divergence, hints to autistic!Lucy (meltdowns, going nonverbal, stimming, etc), Lucy had seizures after Caleb, Tamara is Chenfords kid, can you tell I have a soft spot for Tamara, Title is from Would’ve Could’ve Should’ve by Taylor Swift, tagging @natashasera

don’t forget to read and reblog, and i do not give permission for my works to be posted anywhere other than tumblr. thank you.

Tim thought that the transition from just friends to in a relationship would be easy for him and Lucy, but he was quickly proven wrong. He also thought that Lucy had healed from what Caleb and Rosalind had done to her, but once again, he was proven wrong. She may have healed enough to continue day to day life in her normal manner, but when it came to their relationship, almost everything triggered her, and it broke Tim’s heart.

The first time Tim had noticed that Lucy was being triggered was when they went on their first date. Lucy had ordered a drink, an old fashioned to be exact. She had taken a sip of it when it arrived at their table, and Tim saw how a line appeared between her two eyebrows.

“Everything okay, Luce?” He asked quietly, prepared to flag down the waitress and have her remake the drink if it wasn’t up to Lucy’s standards. Lucy nodded slightly, but pushed the cup away. As she did so, Tim saw her hand shaking.

“I-It tastes funny.” She whispered so quietly that Tim barely heard her. Tim moved closer to her in the booth.

“It tastes funny?” He asked, and she nodded, tears beginning to form.

“It doesn’t taste normal.” She said, her breathing picking up speed. Tim grasped her chin, guiding her eyes to his, and his stomach dropped when he saw the fear in them, realizing what was going on. Her drink tasted different to her, and it brought back memories to when she was drugged. Tim’s heart broke as she whimpered, tears beginning to spill over and roll down her cheeks, her breath speeding up.

“Luce, baby,” He whispered. “You’re safe. I know that what you’re feeling feels really real right now, but it’s not. You’re here with me, Tim, and you’re safe.” He said, still holding her face. “Can you nod if you can hear my voice, Goosey?” He said, and Lucy immediately nodded. “Good girl,” he praised, and smiled slightly when he saw her breathing slow slightly.

“Can you tell me something that you can see?” He asked, and her eyes darted around briefly, before settling on Tim.

“Y-You,” She stuttered, and Tim smiled.

“You can see me?” He inquired, and she nodded. “Good girl.”

He continued to quiz her on her surroundings until she was back in the present, and had calmed down. She was still upset, but Tim knew it was more out of embarrassment than anything. She had wrapped both her arms around his left one, and was resting her head on his shoulder, looking down at her lap.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. Lucy didn’t respond with words, instead she grunted slightly, and snuggled into his shoulder even more. “Baby,” he whispered, and eased his arm out of her grip, and wrapped it around her shoulders. “How are you feeling?”

Lucy, once again, didn’t respond, and buried her face in his chest. “Okay, okay,” He soothed, helping her get comfortable. “Do you want to eat, or do you want to go home?” He asked and Lucy shakily pointed to her plate, and Tim pulled it over, handing her her fork. Lucy then sat up, and slowly began eating her food. Tim went back to his own food once he was sure she was okay, but he kept his hand on her lower back.

—

Tim had also noticed that Lucy seemed to fear arguments and disagreements with him. It was something he had taken note of when she first came back to work after Caleb. She was quiet, only talking when he spoke to her, and then if they got in as much as the slightest disagreement, she would shut it down and just agree with him, no matter how he knew she felt about the topic. He thought that she was just taking time to readjust to their relationship being strictly Rookie-TO at work, but he realized as soon as they started dating that she had developed a fear of men, and a fear of upsetting them.

Tim had asked her what she wanted for dinner, and she had said she didn’t care, and that he could pick. Normally, Tim would be okay with that, but since asking her out, he had been making all the decisions in the relationship, in things that didn’t involve work. He had insisted that she choose, and she refused, and they went back and forth until Lucy completely shut down and stopped talking, which made Tim angry.

And he knows it shouldn’t have made him angry, but he couldn’t help it. He wanted her to be able to eat what she wanted around him, and he didn’t want her to feel like he was controlling her or the relationship in anyway. He knew that she needed to feel in control, and he wanted her to be able to feel that.

“Lucy, just tell me what you want to eat, and I will go and get it!” He said, exasperated, and Lucy shook her head aggressively, and turned away from him. “No,” he said, reaching out for her. “C’mon, talk to me, I just wanna help-“ he stopped talking when he saw her flinch away from him. He then watched through the reflection of the tv the fear that had appeared on her face.

She then whimpered, and then shot up, running to her bedroom, sobs falling from her lips as she went. Tim immediately followed her, instantly feeling shitty about the way he had talked to her. He felt even shittier when he walked into her bedroom and saw her hiding behind the chair in the corner of her room by the window, the soft grey blanket that he bought her her first night in the hospital after Caleb giving away her position, the material peaking out from behind the legs.

“Goosey,” Tim whispered, crouching down close to the chair, but also keeping his distance so that she didn’t feel trapped. “I’m sorry,” he started. “I shouldn’t have spoken like that. I didn’t mean to scare you. If you don’t feel like you can choose what to eat right now, that’s okay. I can choose for us.”

He paused, and waited to hear if Lucy would respond at all. After a moment, he heard her voice say something, but he couldn’t make out what she said.

“Can you repeat that, Luce? I didn’t hear you.” He said, and Lucy’s voice could be heard again, this time louder.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “Sorry I made you mad.” She continued, and Tim sighed, moving slightly closer.

“Goosey, you didn’t make me mad at all. I just want you to be able to feel in control of your body and your choices, thats why I wanted to know what you wanted to eat. I shouldn’t have pressured you like I did, and I should have listened to your body language.”

“‘m sorry, please don’ hurt me,” she sobbed. “Didn’t mean it, I’ll be good,”

Tim wiped away the tear that ran down his face after he realized that Lucy was having a flashback.

“I want you to listen to me, Lucy.” He said calmly. “You’re here with me, in your bedroom, in your apartment in Los Angeles. Caleb is dead, and you’re safe. He can’t hurt you anymore, I promise.” He soothed, and after a few more moments of silence, he heard a sniffle, followed by a small “okay,” and then some shuffling.

Lucy crawled out from behind the arm chair and looked up at Tim, slightly hiding her face behind her blanket. Tim gently held out his arms, letting her know she can come to him for comfort if thats what she needed. She slowly inched her way over to him, and fell into his arms. He wrapped his arms around her, and hugged her as tight to her body as he knew she liked, and stood up slowly, lifting her in the process.

He let her cry out her emotions as he slowly rocked her back and forth, hoping the motion would help her to regulate her emotions. She eventually calmed down, and she snuggled into his shoulder, sniffling slightly. He rubbed her back as he walked out into the living room, whispering in her ear as he did.

“Do you want me to choose what we eat? Would that make it easier on you?” He asked, and he nodded, taking a mental note of what to do next time she struggles like that. She needed to feel in control, but sometimes she needed him to make decisions for her, and he was okay with that.

—

The thing that triggered Lucy that hurt him the most was the sound of a tattoo gun. Before Caleb, Lucy loved tattoos, and loved getting tattoos. She had often talked to not only him, but to their fellow officers, about tattoo’s that she wanted and was planning on getting. Tim had known that she had been tattoo’d by Caleb, he saw it when he was in the ambulance with her, and they had moved her shirt in order to do an ECG after she had her third consecutive seizure. His heart had clenched seeing the black ink on her rib cage, and in that moment he had hoped that she was asleep when the tattoo had been done.

But of course, God must hate him, so she had been awake. Something he had no clue about until Tamara had asked them both to accompany her to her first ever tattoo appointment, where she was also getting a date, the date that the three of them had stood in front of the judge finalizing Lucy and Tim adopting Tamara.

Lucy said yes immediately, without even thinking. Tim knew why, of course. Tamara had been let down by everyone in her life, and Lucy was determined to never let her down. Tim didn’t think anything of it, and was even thinking of getting his own tattoo, with both Lucy and Tamara’s birthdays.

Everything was fine until Tamara was lying on the table, her arm out for the tattoo artist, prepped and ready for the ink. The tattoo gun began to buzz, and Lucy tensed up beside him.

“Are you okay?” Tim said under his breath to Lucy, resting his hand on her knee, his other hand holding Tamara’s free one.

“Mhm,” She said, eyes locked on the tattoo gun where it was permanently marking up her daughters skin. “Jus’ need to go to the bathroom,” She said, a little louder, and made brief eye contact with Tamara, clearly trying to tell the girl that everything was fine. Tamara nodded, her brows furrowing for a moment, but then relaxing after Lucy left the room.

Tim waited a few minutes, before following her. “I’m just gonna go check on Mom, okay?” He said to Tamara. “I won’t be gone long.” She nodded, and Tim left the room.

He looked towards the lobby, and could see Lucy outside, so he immediately joined her, where he found her near tears, looking up into the sky to preserve her makeup.

“Luce-“ He started to say, but Lucy cut him off.

“I’m fine.” She said, her voice short.

Tim shook his head. “No, you’re not.” He said, and grabbed her hand. “You’re not, and that’s okay.”

Lucy shook her head, and ripped her hand out of Tim’s grip. “No, its not, Tim!” She said, running her hands through her curls. “Because this is just another thing Caleb has taken from me.” She ranted. “I can’t even sit with my daughter while she gets her first tattoo, I-I can’t get any of the tattoo’s that I wanted to get, I can’t even listen to the buzzing noise of the gun because that’s what I woke up to after he took me-“

“Oh, Goosey,” Tim said sadly, immediately wrapping her up in his arms. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were awake when he did that to you. Had I known that, we could have explained to Tamara why you couldn’t go, or we could have brought your headphones-“

“I don’t need them!” Lucy yelled, pulling out of Tim’s arms, and crouching down, covering her ears wit her hands, her eyes squeezing shut. Tim sighed, and sat next to her, being mindful to not touch her until she asked or initiated contact.

“Yes, you do, Goosey, and thats okay.” He said. “I’m not going to judge you for it, Tamara certainly isn’t going to judge you for it, and any person with more than half a braincell wouldn’t judge you for it. I suggested it because when you do wear them out of the house, you are able to cope better, and that’s all I wanted. And as for him taking the ability to get tattoo’s from you, he didn’t. If you really want to get another tattoo, I’m sure we can find a trauma informed tattoo artist that is willing to work with you on this.” He explained, as he wrapped an arm around her after she removed her hands from her ears, and rested her head on his shoulder. “But it’s entirely up to you, okay?”

Lucy nodded, and sniffed. Tim kissed her on the head, and helped her stand up. She took a deep breath, and looked towards the tattoo shop door. “We should go back in,” she said, and Tim looked at her.

“Are you sure you want to?” He asked. “You don’t have to, I can go back in and you can wait in the truck if it’s going to be too hard for you.”

Lucy shook her head. “No, I-I think I was just a little unprepared, and that’s why it triggered me. I’m prepared to hear the noise, so I’ll be okay.” She said. “Tamara wanted both of us with her and I’m not going to let her down.” She finished, as she led him back inside, and into the room, where the artist was bandaging up Tamara’s tattoo.

“Can I see it, bubba,” Lucy asked, walking up to Tamara’s side immediately. Tamara holds her arm out, while looking up worriedly at Lucy.

“Are you okay, Mom?” She asked, and Lucy nodded, running a hand through Tamara’s hair.

“Yeah, baby, I’m okay.” She said, assuring the teen. “I don’t want you to worry, okay?”

Tamara blinked, her lower lip wobbling slightly. “I’m always going to worry about you,” she whispered. “You’re my mom, and I know I don’t know everything that you went through but I know enough to know that you got triggered. I didn’t even think about that before asking, I’m sorry,” she said, a tear falling from her eye.

“T,” Tim whispered, moving to her head and pressing a kiss to her head as he sat next to her on the table. “It’s okay. I don’t think any of us really thought about it.” He assured her, and Lucy nodded, sitting on the table as well.

“Yeah. It did trigger me, but I removed myself from the situation, worked through what I was feeling, and then prepared myself to come back. It’s okay, I promise.” She said, cupping Tamara’s cheek, and rubbing her thumb back and forth.

“Okay,” Tamara said, and as soon as Lucy seemed to be sure that Tamara was okay, she turned back and looked at the tattoo. “I love it, baby,” She said.

“Me, too.” Tim said, smiling down at his daughter.

“Now,” Lucy said, smiling up at Tim. “Your dad just needs to get one, and we’ll be all inked up.”

Tim shook his head but laughed along with his girls.

—

Lucy wasn’t fully healed from Caleb, but Tim was going to do everything in his power to make sure that one day, she would be. Caleb had taken a lot from her, but Tim was going to make sure that she was able to reclaim what he had taken, no matter the cost.

#natashasera #chenford #tim bradford #lucy chen #the rookie #the rookie fanfiction #chenford fanfiction #tim bradford x lucy chen #tim bradford x lucy chen fanfiction #chenford fluff #chenford angst #tamara colins #eric winter #melissa o'neil

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variousqueerthings · 5 months

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doctor who specials thoughts!

spoilers for most everything below:

obvs the plot was banging -- my partner didn't know the meep's a full-on war criminal evil emperor carnivore and I was trying not to giggle every time they called the meep so cuuuuute

the concept of transgender saved London! and donna noble's life! remember to thank a trans person in your life toay for saving people through the power of transgender!

but also specifically Donna's love for her daughter!

also Doctor preferred pronouns as any but specifically also "The Doctor" (definite article), fuckn good and correct

"you have weapons in your wheelchair!?" "of course, we all do" (from memory)

I know this is OG comic already, reallyreally enjoy the big bug beings aren't evil, and use stun guns -- an important way of gauging their character and whether the Doctor trusts them and solves the mystery. also the desiiiign of them!!!!! PRACTICAL CREATURE DESIIIIIIGN BOTH THEM AND THE MEEP!!!!!!!!!!

THE DOCTOR flopping about, RUNNING AROUND, CLIMBING UP THE WALLS, GETTING KNOCKED OUT! having just watched the entire of Eleven with all the "has a speech about how cool I am which makes the Bad Guys just give up for some reason" having this Doctor stalling for time and solving a mystery and then immediately knocked TF OUT!!!!!!!!!!

DoctorDonna BEstiESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! they're so!!!!!!!!!!!!! they're SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! next two episodes are gonna kill me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

still got the mystery of why the Doctor came back with this face, teaser about the Meep's "boss" (assuming Toymaker), and of course we know next to nothing about what will happen next week!

ohhhhhhh the new Tardis, she's so FLASH, she's so CLASSIC, she's so HAMSTERWHEEL!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know why I assumed Wilfred would be dead (well, they definitely counted on us assuming it), but it makes so much sense he wouldn't be when they fucking filmed with Bernard Cribbins!! Wilf will be coming up soon!

my couple of gripes are my feelings about UNIT as "uncomplicatedly good guys." I know there's a lot of different depictions of them throughout who (I've seen Two and Three + nu!who's depictions, and I prefer early seasons making it a more tempestuous relationship, especially with Three being sort of forced to work with them but really challenging their decisions and structures), but I watched the 50th anniversary the other day and that sees Kate Stewart almost blowing up London... once a military organisation, always a military organisation, and I'd like to see some future exploration of that. not that this episode was the episode to do so necessarily, but certainly in the future...

and the "male presenting" moment -- I see where it came from, it was the one misstep in threading trans/gender political and philosophical ideas into the text, had the vibes of "women and non-binary" type gendering, and makes you (me) go "what does male presenting mean? who is male presenting to you? do you mean man? do you mean "read as man"? are you talking about non-passing tans women, non-binary people with beards, trans men? and what does that have to do with your innate self?" it's some basic gender essentialism dressed up in progressive language. I'm going deep into this Moment, but it's also the only Moment, and I feel like it's interesting to hold it to a higher standard than I have previous Who. good intentions, this one is a miss

on the whole it's fucking BACK!!! TRANSGENDERS SAVE THE WORLD AND THE DOCTOR IS A BABY LOSER WHO FEELS SO MANY FEELINGS AND IS NO LONGER AFRAID OF EXPRESSING THEM AND DONNA IS ASKING WHY THEY CAN'T JUST HANG SOMETIMES AND SPILLS COFFEE ON THE CONSOLE AND THE TARDIS IS SO FLAAAAASSHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#doctor who #dw #doctor who 60th anniversary #im sure ive left things out guess ive gotta just watch it agaaaain

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cruelfeline · 2 years

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That last post made me think a bit more about the stark differences between Prime's lifestyle and Hordak's. Which I think deserves its own post. So!

Going back and looking at these two characters in terms of leadership roles is so fascinating, even years after the show's end. It's common knowledge that Hordak tried to mimic Prime in his attempted conquest of Etheria, but assessing the details makes it clear how practical and functional this mimicry is. And how different Hordak truly is from Prime, in terms of how he uses resources and what he prioritizes as a leader.

Horde Prime is god. Not only is he god, to his clones and - militarily - to the rest of the universe, he believes himself to be god. And he enjoys all the prestige that comes with that belief.

Like modern-day grifting megachurch pastors, he demands a higher standard of living than what his followers get. This means fine dining with clone wait staff. It means fancy furnishings to lounge about upon. It means an entire trophy room dedicated to showing off his accomplishments, macabre as they are.

Horde Prime doesn't do physical labor. His clones do that. He doesn't maintain his own form, doesn't even have a machine to do it for him. Again, his clones fill the role, very much acting as personal attendants - servants - while doing so.

Heck, he doesn't even press buttons on his own; Hordak does that for him.

Compare this to Hordak. Compare how Hordak lives, even as Lord of the Etherian Horde.

We never see where Hordak sleeps, but we see his inner chambers, his Sanctum. There's not a drop of opulence to be found. No gourmet food. No fancy furnishings. No hall devoted to showcasing his accomplishments in the form of polished trophies. There are only machines and monitors and tools designed to do a job.

He is Lord, but his surroundings are more befitting of a hard-working engineer than anything Prime has. This becomes even more true in season four, when Hordak works among the ruins of his old projects rather than insisting upon keeping up appearances and having things cleaned. Practical functionality is what matters; nothing else.

And when there is physical labor to be done? Hordak does it himself. He doesn't leave such work only to his subordinates.

Same with personal care. Of course, this is likely also a trust issue, but that is something that might have been circumvented with enough sense of entitlement. If Hordak felt others should serve him, then there's a fair chance he'd have made it happened. But he never did. Instead, his body is serviced by a (sadly glitchy) machine.

And when someone else does help with maintenance? It's Entrapta, and it's within the bonds of friendship rather than service.

My ultimate point here is this: Hordak and Horde Prime both hold the title of "lord" in their respective Hordes, but their relationship with that title could not be more different. Prime believes in that title. He believes that he is lord, king, god. He demands all of the luxuries that go along with that intensely elevated status. And he uses his resources, his spoils of war, to attain them.

Hordak holds the title, but he barely acts it beyond using it to organize others. He doesn't experience any of the "royal treatment" Prime enjoys. He doesn't demand unconditional service from others. And he doesn't bask in the polished glory of his accomplishments.

It's such a fascinating difference between them. One that highlights what their true goals are, what they desire within their core selves. Prime desires opulence and worship, whereas Hordak... Hordak works within the confines of concepts he understands in order to return to the only home he's ever known. But worship? Luxury?

Not even on his radar.

#hordak #horde prime

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knickynoo · 19 days

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Hi there! Me again.

I’ve been rewatching Family Ties (thanks again for showing me where!) and noticed something about Alex’s character that i don’t care for/think you have touched upon.

What are your thoughts on his views of women?The advice he gave Jeff on his date with Mallory appalled me. Do you think it’s just a product of the time- how right leaning people were expected/did to treat women? Or is it something deeper? I don’t understand how he thinks this way after seeing how amazing Steven and Elyse are toward each other. (Even if the kids are disgusted every time they kiss lol)

I would love to hear your opinion!

Hello! Nice to hear from you again :)

Yeah, so, a lot of the words that come out of Alex's mouth regarding women are 😬😬😬

I can't recall the exact advice you're referring to, but I do know it's bonkers. Something about how women want a man to make all her decisions or something? Boss her around and take charge? It's honestly not only some of his worst advice, but I also think it's one of the more outrageous things he says in regards to women out of the whole series.

It's especially weird considering he's giving advice on how his sister should be treated by Jeff! And we know that, while Alex isn't always the nicest to Mallory, he loves her very much and wants to protect her. I mean, there's an entire first season episode centered around Alex losing his mind over Mallory going out with a guy who Alex doesn't like or trust. He's so worried about this guy taking advantage of Mallory and not treating her right, then he goes and gives bananas advice to Jeff. So...what's the deal?

Honestly, I don't know, lol. If I had to guess, there are probably several different factors at play that contribute to those moments Alex says Horrible Things.

1. He operates with a set of standards and values from way before his time. The thing is that Alex isn't even a product of his time—a lot of the opinions he holds would be considered outdated in the 80s by the majority of people, regardless of political leaning.

I can't for the life of me remember the episode or the exact quote, so I'm going to butcher it I'm sure, but there's a scene where Alex is lamenting how no one holds the same values he does, and he and Steven have an exchange like this:

Alex: "I should have been born in the 40s."

Steven: "Even then, you'd be a little conservative."

Alex: "The 1740s."

Steven: "....Even then, you'd be a little conservative."

It's something like that. If anyone knows what episode this is from or what the exact line is, lmk because it's one of my favorites.

2. Alex is an extreme black and white thinker. I think this is the number one trait of his that impacts him the most across the board. So many of his problems boil down to him just not seeing nuance. It's not that he's unwilling to. The guy just can't.

It makes Alex very rigid in his thoughts on things, and that absolutely spills over into situations like when he gives advice to Jeff or voices any other wild opinion. He's going to automatically go to the extremes because that's all he can wrap his head around. In a relationship, men should have all the control. They should make the decisions and say specific things and so on. It then leads him to make generalizations about women and their roles.

I think he also finds some security in these thoughts, honestly. Alex clings to facts and things that he feels are concrete and reliable. We also know that he has a very hard time processing and acknowledging his emotions. Putting people into two neat piles is comfortable for him, and anything that doesn't fit into either of those piles is too overwhelming. Alex's world needs rules for it to feel stable to him. Unfortunately, a lot of those rules are...not so great.

3. Shock-value: This is more about Alex the TV show character rather than the "real life" in-universe Alex Keaton, but still. A good deal of his character, especially in the earlier seasons, hinged on him saying or doing things that got a reaction from the audience. You can't have a show about ex-hippy, progressive parents without someone for them to knock heads against. The early episodes in particular seemed to really lean into this, and I feel like he gets toned down slightly as the series goes on? Don't get me wrong, it doesn't go away, but he does grow.

• The "Ladies Man" episode has him realizing that, while he may not support a particular movement, he absolutely respects the rights of the women in the movement. Him jumping up to defend the woman being heckled by a guy, and then his little speech to the women at the end are two of my favorite Alex moments.

• After a very difficult adjustment period when he gets a new job and learns his boss is a woman, Alex ends up really respecting her and becoming friends with her. (Wow, this ep is uncomfortable for the first half, though!)

• Ellen in particular has an impact on helping Alex to see those "in-between" areas, in my opinion. Some heart to hearts with Elyse help as well, and it's clear through the series that Alex loves and respects his mother a great deal.

Idk if this response was coherent, but there you go, haha. Alex is such a complicated character, and whenever I write about him, I feel like I'm trying to untangle a gigantic mess of yarn. But I do love him! Sometimes he is a menace, though!! He should, perhaps, simply keep his mouth shut a lot of the time.

(Also, Steven and Elyse don't discipline him ever, so it's partly their fault if we're being real here)

What? Who said that?

Thanks for the ask!

#asks #family ties #alex p keaton #apk

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karalynlovescake · 1 year

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2023 writing list

Not exactly a New Years resolution, as those don't often pan out, but more of a personal checklist. Please feel free to stroke my ego by asking me about any of these. If I remember I'll update with links as I finish.

I did not expect to start writing again in 2022, and the fact that I did is completely because of Sandman and the amazing tumblr fandom for it. So. Things I would like to write/finish in 2023:

1.) Black Unicorn AU: it has languished while I put off rereading the source material and write other things. I know HOW it ends but I don't like the ending scene I've written and until I do it won't click. But no one else is going to write this one so we'll keep working on it.

2.) He Would Not Say That: which has expanded to the point where I'm overwhelmed by it and overthinking the morality of fucking your boyfriend's dream subjects, which is a buzzkill because it was supposed to be very un serious sex comedy. Hob would give Chidi Anagonye a massive stomach ache if I could justify the crossover.

3.) Crack one-shot: Come Live With Me and Be My Cat - a spin-off of love to Avelera’s amazing fic and inspired by that great picture that @twottie-m8 did of Hob throwing Cat!Dream at the Corinthian

4.) Some kind of SandOmens side piece PROBABLY attached to Least of These so we can have a good fun "you built a what to whom" reaction from Aziraphale and Crowley.

4a.) The Next Level - wrote this instead, a very soft fluffy little piece where Dream asks Aziraphale and Crowley for advice on being the type of friends who hold hands. We'll see if that scratched my itch to write SandOmens.

5) Actually, let’s throw The Least of These on this list. Didn’t include it before because I started it in Nov/Dec, but it was SUPPOSED to be a soft smutty 5k and now it is 25k and is more plot than smut, and has taken up more of my time than I anticipated

6) As of yet untitled longfic #1: if published will be two separate works, part one a setup of "Dream shows up every couple of years for sex, but in a different disguise every time because he thinks he's smart" and part two is your standard fishbowl rescue/let's rewrite season 1, because we like them. I want this to be better than I feel I'm capable of writing but I keep plonking away at it, and it's 16k words already, which is too much for me to give up on.

7) A Secret Third Thing: (not actual title) where I come to terms with the fact that in killing off Morpheus by having him put half his soul in the Corinthian I accidentally made an OC that I'm kind of interested in.

8) Honeymoon piece: I don't want to write the wedding, that sounds exhausting, but Hob wants to honeymoon somewhere he hasn't been where they can just be themselves, and Dream takes him to a little side project he, Delirium and Destruction started a few centuries back: a friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while everyone pretends to sleep. The King of Nightmares is a minor celebrity in Nightvale, and he gets to show off his new husband. Silly.

8a) I did, in the end, write a wedding, if a rather hasty one, so we have: Then maybe, maybe, maybe you'd stay which was written almost entirely in 72 hours in a tiny hotel room in a foreign country 6000 miles from home, after my husband's passport got stolen 15 hours before we were supposed to fly home, thus turning the end of our dream vacation into nearly a literal nightmare. Apparently I stress write. You learn things when you travel.

9) The Financial Crimes of Hob Gadling, only of I can think of a way to do it that shows off my special interest without publishing a "How to crime" guide.

10) Longfic #2, working title "All the Things That Lie Undone" - loosely based off the plot of a favorite out of print smutty historical romance novel. Basic plotline is worked out, but so far all that's written so far is the first two chapters and one sex scene.

11) Longfic #3 which has eclipsed all desire to work on Longfic #2, which will hopefully be my Centennial Husbands Big Bang entry.

12) Anything I want, there are no rules, I have permission to have fun and make myself feel happy.

#writing #new years resolution

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fluffykitteninabox · 1 year

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My very late thoughts on season 6 episode 11 (that turned into me gushing about the soundtrack oops!)

I'm going to start with some things that are probably going to be overlooked because everyone is focusing on Dabi which is very understandable but still..

First the animation was GOD TIER. The camera movement during Dabi's dance specifically was epic but in general this episode looks phenomenal. Kudos to the animators for bringing their A game. They deserve a raise (and also probably a vacation)

Second the voice acting. It was SO GOOD!! Dabi's voice actor absolutely killed it this episode. Hearing his full range finally after spending 5 and a half seasons with him ominously whispering every single line just ffgchcddidf.. he's so excited he's speaking faster than usual and you can literally hear the smile in his voice!! It's amazing. Shouto's voice actor should also be praised. The urgency, the panic in his voice omg!!

Ok now onto the actual episode related stuff.

The end of Uraraka's fight with Toga was great, and I feel kind of sad that this part of the episode is probably going to be forgotten because of all the stuff that happens afterwards. so I'm going to dedicate some time to it here.

Number one, finally FINALLY, they let Toga's nature play in full!!! I'm probably literally the only person on the planet who cares about this but whatever! Toga's nature is my favourite OST in the entire MHA soundtrack and I had been begging for it to be fully played since season 5. Up until now they had only played the first part. It was like they were teasing us. Toga's nature was like the carrot on a stick and I was the minecraft pig!!

In the end, I think them withholding it until now made the impact this episode more affective. You see, the song can be divided into two parts kind of. The first part has this quiet eery feeling to it. It's a simple piano accompanied with the sound of birds and laughter that becomes more and more manic as it continues.

The music builds and builds and it feels like a dam that is going to overflow until the second half kicks in. It literally feels like an actual kick. The song suddenly becomes loud and overpowering and none of the laughter that was in the background can be heard now. The dam bursts and everything it was holding comes pouring out.

And I think that perfectly describes Toga's character. As a child she was told that she was creepy because of her quirk and that she should suppress her feelings. She was told to not be herself, she was told to act "normal" based on the standards of other people. Even though in a superhuman society like that of MHA, every person has a unique ability and thus every person's normal is going to be fundamentally different from someone else's. Technically speaking there is no normal anymore. Deku even says in the first episode "Before we knew it the supernatural became normal".

Toga desperately tried to fit in by ignoring and pushing her feelings down further and further until she couldn't hold them in anymore and they exploaded out of her in the form of the incident at her school where she attacked one of her classmates. The reports from the people who knew her that we see during her flashback are all saying that this was a completely unexpected occurrence and they present Toga as an obedient child. The can't comprehend what could have caused this outburst, but in reality this was inevitable. You can't pretend to be something you're not indefinitely, you can't ignore your feelings and hope that the issues will resolve themselves. At some point you won't be able to hold it in anymore and it will come out like a volcanic eruption. The song itself foreshadowed this inevitability. The first creepy part of the song clues you in to what is about to happen. Despite the birds chirping and the child like laughter (things that are both usually associated with positive feelings) we never believe that this is a happy song.

This of course makes her a really great foil for Uraraka because Uraraka has been spending the last couple of seasons "pushing her feelings for Deku down" because she sees them as a distraction. Now do I wish she was suppressing her feelings on something other than romance, maybe something more personal to her character that isn't tied to Deku? Yes, yes I do. But this still works.. fine. (even though it would have been way cooler if this was tied how she views herself as someone coming from a low income family and how her personal motivation for becoming a hero has evolved during her time as a student, or her feelings about not being able to save everyone, which she had to face way earlier that a lot of her other classmates because of what happened with Nighteye.) but ok, her crush on Deku works too.

The important thing that we need to take away from this is that Toga has already learned the "don't push your feelings down, because they're going to come rushing back up and you'll regret it later" lesson, but Uraraka hasn't learned that yet. Even during their fight she says that these feelings should be pushed away.

Which is another reason why she couldn't understand what Toga was trying to tell her. Now in the anime they decided to make it a lot more obvious because apparently the dialogue in the manga was too subtle for some people and they didn't understand why the heroes should maybe try to help when the villains are literally begging them to understand and are actively asking for help!! I mean of course I'm sure the millionth time Deku punches the problem it will go away!! So they changed Toga's dialogue from the very vague "What do you wanna do to me?" to her actually explaining Jin's death to her and directly asking her if she would try to kill her too. Now that seems ok at first, until you realise that Uraraka's response now sounds incredibly cruel compared to the manga. This makes Uraraka seem kind of stupid to be honest, which I don't like but we have to make sacrifices for the stupid fans I guess.

So back to gushing about Toga's nature. I love that the second half kicks in exactly as Uraraka is about to use her "zero satellites" move against Toga. Up until this point in the fight Toga has been trying to explain her viewpoint to her and this is the final moment before Uraraka says "If you're gonna live as you please and threaten people then you also have to live with the consequences!"

This is the exact moment Toga realised that Uraraka didn't understand her and that there was no point in trying to negotiate.

It is because of that that she's now completely closed off. She doesn't trust Uraraka or any other hero and so that makes it a lot harder to save her now. Toga believes that the heroes want to kill her just like Hawks killed Jin, so she's treating her current fight as a fight for survival. This misunderstanding was again the inevitable outcome of this conversation, because of the opposing views each girl has.

Or at least it was in the manga, where Toga doesn't do a good job at explaining what exactly it is she's asking about. When Uraraka says in the manga "What're you trying to tell me?", her confusion is believable. When she asks that in the anime it looks like she's selectively deaf because Toga very clearly asks her "Do you want to kill me like Jin was killed? Am I going to be killed?". So when Uraraka treats this like a trivial question (the subtitles don't use the word stupid that was in the manga translation so I don't know if she actually called it a stupid question) and when she tells Toga that she has to "live with the consequences", from Toga's perspective she is confirming that she will in fact try to kill her.

The way the anime handles this makes it so that this could have been easily predictable. If Uraraka was paying attention to what Toga was saying she could have seen this coming, it's no longer an issue of miscommunication. But anyway it was still great to watch and Toga's nature elevates the whole scene in my opinion so it's fine. Basically the song is foreshadowing Toga's character arc. Her character has entered the second phase at this point

something something parallels of everyone in Toga's life failing to notice her inevitable breakdown and now Uraraka failing to notice too thus making it harder for her to save her in this final arc,✨✨symbolism!✨✨

ok I'll shut up about the song now i swear!

Another small change in this episode that I want to point out is that they revealed that Bastard Jeanist - oh I'm sorry I meant Best Jeanist, is alive at the beginning of the episode instead of leaving it as a twist at the end. I mean this doesn't really change much but you know.. missed opportunity for a shocking plot twist there. They don't show his face but it's really obvious from the clothes and.. you know, the belt with his initials in giant bold letters.

The anime also kind of confirmed something that I was suspecting for a while but I've never stated this publicly so you'll have to take my word for it, I called it!

Basically in the scene where Endeavor sees the fire in Sekoto and tries to search for Touya, the fire is red, not blue. Even though Touya's flames had already changed from red to blue at this point.

Now I don't think this is a mistake. Logically speaking a burning fire will start losing heat at some point especially if it's not consistently being fuelled. Since Touya is the source in this case, after he passed out next to the river he wouldn't be actively creating more fire. Naturally after the flames loose their intense heat they would go back to orange/red.

This is purely speculation on my part because I think it would be kind of stupid for the Todorokis to have the information that Touya died in a blue fire and then to not connect the dots on their own. I mean hmm a fire user with blue flames who is covered in burns and has the same eyes a Endeavor and seems to be about the same age as our dead brother/son who died in a blue fire would be if he were still alive. Yep, must be a coincidence!

But if they didn't know that Touya died in a blue fire, because the fire possibly changed colour by the time they realised what had happened, it would make more sense.

The scene doesn't exactly confirm my little theory, but I count it as a strong hint and in my opinion it would be a reasonable explanation.

Moving on..

Let's gush about the newest ost that came out of this episode

the theme that plays during Dabi's actual dance. One of the reasons this post is so late is because I wanted to listen to this without Dabi's monologue obstructing it. Alright first initial thoughts:

THIS SHIT IS ACTUALLY FUCKING HAUNTING!!

The fucking breathing at the beginning ZHXHFXUGCICJGXUFZHGXUC!!

The laughter!! It sounds like Touya is running around my head giggling! The fucking distorted screams OMFG!! And it also sounds like there's fire crackling sounds at the end too.

ok I'm going to try and analyse this like I did Toga's nature but keep in mind that this is extremely new, I've only heard it a couple of times and I'm not an expert in the technical aspects of music. Also depending how this will potentially be used in future episodes my reading on it might be changed.

We start with the heavy breathing accompanied by a lone piano (again)

something about pianos and sounding creepy

This gives me the feeling that this is Touya trying to survive the fire. The first image that popped into my head was Touya's burnt up body when AFO finds him

look at the "weez"

that's what it reminded me of. So I'm hoping this ost won't be tossed in the garbage and will be used again for other scenes they fit in like this once in the future.

The screaming is possibly Touya just screaming in pain from burning, but to be completely honest when I heard it in the ost it also reminded me of Rei for some reason. I think it's because it's so sparsely spaced throughout the song. It sounds more like separate moments of madness, than one long painful scream. I think that could be signifying Touya's declining mental state over his childhood. It makes sense that it reminded me of Rei because she and Touya are the ones whose mental stability got hit the hardest. Not saying the others aren't equally as traumatized btw.

The laughter could be because he's excited to finally bring this to light. He's happy to expose his dad's crimes to the world.

The song ends with the piano slowly fading and we're left with the sound of a fire crackling. This could mean Touya is now "dead" so we can't hear any more laughing or screaming. It's the aftermath of Sekoto, everything has been burnt and so the fire grows more quiet as there is no fuel left.

That's all I can do for now since this has only been used once. I might come back to see if it could potentially connect to something else if/when they reuse the song.

Anyway this whole thing is extremely late but who cares

I don't have a conclusion and I don't know how to end this

so...

if you made it this far, have some sparkles ✨✨✨

#mha #mha season 6 #toga himiko #uraraka ochacho #dabi #touya todoroki

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bestgilmoregirlseps · 6 months

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𝘐𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑜 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑦 𝑏𝑙𝑜𝑔

Hi! My name is Emilie and I'm a grade twelve student whose favourite past-time is to binge-watch and analyze tv shows. I really enjoy the aspect of exploring different topics and themes through the multitude of film genres as well as the entertainment it provides. Although I’ve watched several shows, there are only a select few that I believe have impacted my life or that I still find myself interested in. One of them is none other than the iconic dramedy Gilmore Girls. This early 2000s show starring Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel has become a fall classic over the years as it symbolizes the changes in weather. The series is set in Stars Hollow, Connecticut and its townspeople are constantly gearing up for a festival of some kind, most of them taking place during the colder seasons. The fashion, music and scenery present in Gilmore Girls are often associated with the coziness of fall and winter and I personally think it’s the best time to rewatch it. This blog will be all about reviewing and analyzing my top ten favourite episodes and will include many spoilers. Therefore, if any of you readers have yet to watch the show, I strongly suggest you do so before reading in order to fully comprehend what I’ll be discussing. The first episode that I’ll be reviewing is entitled “Kiss and Tell” and is the seventh episode of the first season (s1 ep7)!!

In this episode, the townspeople of Stars Hollow are decorating for thanksgiving and Luke, the owner of the town’s diner, refuses to put up any decorations despite the town selectman's efforts. Taylor Doose is a stickler for the rules and traditions of the town and argues with anyone who goes against them. He is by far one of the most obnoxious characters in the show as he is always holding meetings over ridiculous issues and scolding those who don’t meet the town-spirit standards. After school, Rory, the main character, goes to Doose’s Market to see the boy she has a crush on. Dean, the grocery store worker, kisses her for the first time while getting her a drink and she is so taken aback that all she can say is “thank you”. Rory runs out of the store without paying for her things and goes straight to her best friend’s house, Layne. She tells her all about the kiss and Layne’s very religious mother overhears the entire conversation. Later, when Rory’s mother Lorelai goes to Kim’s Antiques (Layne’s mother’s business), she finds out about this big milestone in her daughter’s life and feels upset that Rory didn’t tell her right away. Rory, on the other hand, is having a great time gossiping about it with Layne while they’re dressed up as pilgrims for the Cornucopia Can Drive. Lorelai and Luke go to Doose’s Market to see Dean and Lorelai tells him she wished her daughter felt comfortable enough to talk about her love life with her. When Rory comes back home, Lorelai immediately asks about the kiss and they argue over the way she heard about it. The two go to Doose’s once again to grab some snacks for a movie night and while Rory goes to the video store, Lorelai invites him to come over. Rory gets mad at her mother for embarrassing her by accidentally planning their first date for them. She starts freaking out about watching a movie with Dean, stressing about the way she looks and the way she’ll act around him. Although she is quite nervous, the movie night goes well and Dean kisses Rory again at the end of the night. Lorelai gives him a lecture about how loved Rory is by everyone in Stars Hollow and that he shouldn’t dare hurt her. The episode ends with Lorelai and Rory gossiping like she did with Layne about how perfect Rory’s first kiss was.

This episode is one of my favourites because of how nostalgic it is and how it showcases the close mother-daughter relationship Rory and Lorelai have at the beginning of the show. For context, Lorelai fell pregnant with her daughter when she was only sixteen and since her birth, they've had more of a best friend dynamic than anything. However, Rory gets scared when she has her first kiss and is unsure of how her mother will react considering what happened to Lorelai and her mother when she had a baby. I thought this episode perfectly displayed how hard it can be to parent your child the relationship doesn't often involve strict boundaries or rules. Lorelai felt betrayed that she hadn't been the first one to hear about Rory's first kiss although I think it was completely normal for her to keep it to herself. Being a teenage girl comes with a multitude of expectations and Rory was simply processing a major event in her life.

#GilmoreGirls #Fallshows #RoryGilmore #LorelaiGilmore

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postalninja · 8 months

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Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love❤

Ooo, thank you for the ask! But how will I choose?? I definitely have a recency bias with my writing, partly because I know that I've gotten better over time so some of my older fics aren't really up to my current standard in terms of things like pacing, especially. But setting that aside, there are still some of my early fics that hold a special place in my heart, so I'll try to pick from across the board. 1. Starting with an old fic, actually, The Measure of a Man (Octopath Traveler, Rated E) is still a favorite of mine, even after 3 years. I just really enjoyed the deep dive into Olberic's sense of self and exploring how, after getting married and starting a family, he would still have some struggles in terms of his purpose and his worth. It was kind of like taking his canon story and bringing it full circle (by the gods I love that man!) 2. Next, Sins of the Father (Skyrim, Rated M), my first novel-length longfic! I put a lot of work into this one, and it was the first time that I managed to successfully develop a plot with, like, a story arc and whatnot. Still very proud of how this one turned out, since it required a lot of playing with lore and developing the backstory of characters who didn't get much of one in the game (including my first fully fleshed out original character who really stole my heart) 3. Another favorite is Fashion Party Confidential (Drawtectives, Rated T) I had so much fun putting together what is essentially meant to serve as a bonus episode after season 2. I structured it similarly to a real episode, complete with drawings made by each of the characters and an original NPC for them to harass help. I re-watched the series before I started writing and felt like I had a really good grasp of the character voices, and I'm very happy with the dialogue and how in-character it feels. And I had fun with the fashion theme of the story, given my background in fashion design and the fact that it fits in canonically with York's story, as well as the opportunity to reflect the players' fashion knowledge - or lack thereof - in the drawings (sorry, Nathan)

4. Next is Would She Love Me If She Knew? (Octopath Traveler, Rated M) I debated including this one on its own or combining it with the sequel (which, spoilers, is also on this list), but I feel like they are different enough thematically that I can talk about them separately. This fic was me diving headfirst into the royal/guard trope and essentially writing an entire romance novel, lol! It took me 9 months to write and was (at the time) the longest thing I had written. By this point I was starting to get the hang of pacing things properly without rushing them, letting the story breathe and take its time getting where it wanted to go. And I have to admit that this is my favorite version of H'aanit and Olberic that I've written so far - I absolutely loved making them face adversity before they could get together, putting obstacles in their way so that they would pine and despair about ever being able to have a relationship. Oh, that delicious angst! This fic set a new bar for me, and I've become a better writer because of it. 5. And of course, the as yet unfinished (but so close!) The Head That Wears the Crown (Octopath Traveler, Rated T). More than two years in the making, and I'm still stuck on the climax of the story, argh!!! Nevertheless, crafting this one has been so rewarding, given that it ties into WSLMISK but uncovers all of the sinister hints that I left in that story of a bigger issue to come. There's a mystery to solve, a conspiracy to uncover, and so much goddamned trauma to deal with! Some of my favorite character development to date is in this story, and I can't wait to (somehow get through this writer's block and) hopefully give this whole thing a satisfying ending. I've learned so much about plot and how to do foreshadowing and developing a complex villain while writing this fic. And as a bit of a bonus... I'll just say that I have a new Octopath Traveler 2 fic that I am *nearly* ready to start posting (just waiting on feedback from my beta, which *should* happen today) that I am currently in love with. Recency bias may play into this, of course, but I can't wait to share it! It's a Castti/Osvald Gothic Romance AU titled Memories Seep From My Veins :)

#fic authors self rec ask #thank you anon!#octopath traveler #elder scrolls skyrim #drawtectives #octopath traveler 2 #postal ninja fanfic

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themattress · 1 year

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Battle of the Seasons

Once Upon a Time! I’ve gone over my opinion on this dozens of times by now, but given the subject matter I felt like it deserved its own “Battle of the Seasons” post, so here it is. It’s Season 1 (The Dark Curse Saga) vs. Season 2 (The Price of Magic Saga) vs. Season 3 (The Neverland and Wicked Witch’s Revenge Sagas) vs. Season 4 (The Frozen Storybrooke and Operation Mongoose Sagas) vs. Season 5 (The Dark Swan and Underworld Sagas) vs. Season 6 (The Savior’s Fate Saga) vs., regrettably, Season 7 (The Hyperion Heights Saga).

While judging on quality is certainly doable and how I’ve usually presented my ranking, for this post I’d rather focus on how well each season holds together when taken as a whole.

Season 1 obviously reigns supreme here. It manages to tell a complete, coherent and emotionally satisfying story in of itself, with every piece of the puzzle presented in both flashbacks and the present day narrative ultimately clicking together; nothing is wasted. Compare this opening scene with this ending scene, it’s such a great case of book ends, as is what starts with a dark cloud sweeping over everything to create a town where the clock is frozen at 8:15 ending with a different dark cloud sweeping over said town precisely as the now moving clock strikes 8:15, signaling a new beginning. The Dark Curse Saga spent the most time being fine-tuned before production, and it shows. It’s not perfect...but it’s close.

Every other season is nowhere near as stable, being either seasons where two story arcs are told in each half of the season rather than a single story arc (3, 4 and 5) or a single arc is told and botched due to showrunner Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis’ complete inability to stay on track with what they have without throwing new shit in that clutters things up (2, 6 and 7).

Out of the first kind, Season 3 is the best, which seems odd at first since the Neverland Saga and Wicked Saga don’t particularly have much connecting them story-wise, as the former is closure for all plot threads the show had been pursuing since Season 1 while the latter is something of a fresh start. In addition, the former is significantly stronger than the latter. But what ends up making the season work is the character arcs and themes, which do manage to span both story arcs in a very organic way. Themes of facing your past in order to shape your future, of learning from your mistakes and the mistakes of others, of making your own home, of family and love and redemption: they make the story arcs click together, as do the personal stories of Emma, Snow, Charming, Hook, Regina, Rumple, Belle and Neal (but not Henry!)

Season 5 comes painfully close to this same standard, with its two story arcs being even more interconnected than any other in this format. Unfortunately, it’s plagued by three glaring problems: several missteps in the first half come back to haunt the season in its second half, a number of character arcs presented in the first half don’t connect with those in the second half, and the two-part season finale is almost completely disconnected from everything that preceded it, being more of a lead-in to Season 6 than a satisfying conclusion to Season 5. Season 4, meanwhile, has its core problem summed up in one word: Frozen. Quality-wise, the Frozen stuff is the best part of the season, but when taken as a whole it’s got almost jack shit to do with the rest of the season’s narrative and even the entire series’ narrative, and the stuff that does matter narratively usually feels alien to the Frozen stuff whenever they end up sharing screentime together. The Author, the Queens of Darkness, Regina and Robin Hood’s star-crossed romance, Emma and her dark counterpart Lily, the Sorcerer and the Apprentice, the magic hat, Rumple’s backslide into villainy and how it affects his relationship with Belle, Snow and Charming’s dark past, Hook’s dark past, and Henry’s gradual coming of age...all of this is present in the Frozen Storybrooke Saga, but if you removed all the Frozen stuff that makes up the bulk of that arc from them, nothing much would be missing. It all just feels so shoehorned in...much like the Will Scarlet character from OUATIW does the whole season!

In some ways, Season 2′s structure is weaker than Seasons 6 and 7, since it ended up creating something of a double story arc situation by accident, with the first arc only being its first 9 episodes rather than the actual first half of 11 episodes, whereas Seasons 6 and 7 have a more deliberately distinct first half and second half for their story arcs. However, Season 2 still ends up getting the edge of Seasons 6 and 7 because everything that transpired in those first 9 episodes still end up mattering and continuing to develop through the next 13 episodes. Cora is still the Big Bad who seeks to influence Regina who is still fixated on Henry, Hook is still seeking revenge on Rumple who is still seeking to make things work with Belle and reunite with his son who ends up being Emma’s ex and Henry’s father, with Emma having to deal with that while still learning to bring out the magic in her and to accept Snow and Charming as her parents. Because of A&E’s incompetence, precious little of what happens in the first half of Season 6 and 7 end up mattering to the second half, and even much of what goes down in the second half isn’t important by the time of their finales.

And between Seasons 6 and 7, obviously Season 6 is the superior of the two, since it still connects to the show as it was - Emma as the ostensible lead who fought for screentime and relevance against Regina, Storybrooke as the primary setting, and a certain set of characters and plot points always sticking around for better or worse, while Season 7 is a failed attempt at a reboot that ended up instead being the final season, creating a huge whiplash effect and making everyone wonder why the Hell the show didn’t just end at Season 6, which at least seemed built like an ending. Not an especially satisfying ending, but an ending all the same.

So it’s Season 1 > Season 3 > Season 2 > Season 5 > Season 4 > Season 6 > Season 7.

#Battle of the Seasons #Once Upon a Time #ABC #Opinion #Analysis #Comparison

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takaraphoenix · 2 years

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Sometimes, I think about Scott Allie saying that he doesn’t think much about what year something takes place, in regard to the BtvS comics and saying he himself doesn’t believe the translation of show-year to real year was 1 to 1 either.

Only that it was though, time in the BtVSverse works exactly like in our real world.

Buffy dies in the season 5 finale, airing in May 2001, and her gravestone says that she lived from 1981-2001. We have the years of her graduation class too. Heck, the gravestone of Tara literally says the specific date that Seeing Red aired as her death day - May 7th 2002.

The thing that he brings up is how the characters didn’t really react to 9/11 in season 6, which started airing in October 2001.

And that argument just... stuck with me, because it’s so weird.

I do understand that Americans, even non-New Yorkers, had a very strong reaction to 9/11 that did outlast September by a couple decades.

But that’s the real world and we’re talking about a fictional world and I genuinely think that a group of young people who have faced the actual apocalypse, multiple times, and who have all had personal losses at the hands of demons are a bit more sanitized when it comes to a fully human tragedy that doesn’t directly affect them.

Not to mention that I have never seen 9/11 be brought up on TV for a longer period of time. I watched a fire fighter show that took place during it, and was set in New York, they dedicated two episodes to it and then mostly moved on. But, again, these were personally affected characters.

I genuinely don’t remember any show that took place in 2001 to actually dedicate time to a... reaction shot... to this real human tragedy? The only times it’s ever been brought up is if it directly affects its characters; either by them having been in New York during that time or having personally lost someone in the attack.

So if every random “modern day” set show from 2001 doesn’t have to dedicate time to discussing 9/11, I don’t entirely see why BtVS should have. This happened only months after the latest near apocalypse and Buffy is dead. Buffy is dead and they are scrambling to keep up the appearance that she is still alive, to keep the demons at bay.

Season 6 Scoobies, in particular, really had other things to worry about than to pause their plot to discuss the Twin Towers? And they had absolutely no ties to New York at all either. If any of them had family living in New York, or if a recurring character we’d known before had moved to New York, or heck if AtS took place in New York instead of Los Angeles, there would be a reason for it to come up, but New York is on the entire different end of the US and no character we know has any relation to it.

So why would that have come up. Why would these former child soldiers turned college student soldiers who just lost their best friend and are currently trying to prevent a demon uprising concern themselves with this...?

Again, I have absolutely no measurement how real Americans reacted to this during 2001, but if you’re talking about a fictional show, you ought to hold it to the standard of other fictional shows, who only bring it up as a point of discussion when it actually affected the story at hand, and you also ought to consider the personal situations of the characters you’re talking about - and neither of those really leave me with a feeling that I need to see Willow and Xander debate 9/11 while they’re patrolling the graveyard.

It’s just. It’s such a weird thing to say that you don’t believe BtVS runs on the same timeline as our world solely based on the fact that they didn’t have a proper reaction to 9/11 during its 2001 season.

#Buffy the Vampire Slayer #9/11

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roobylavender · 2 years

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okay final thoughts having watched winx all of the way through

the strongest characters individually are imo stella, musa, and sky. (1) love how stella craves love and validation and collapses in on herself bc all she’s received all her life is anything but, yet the people who drive her to rise above it are the ones who recognize she has humanity underneath her exterior left to spare—sky constantly believing she’s capable of good no matter how far she falls, musa knowing from the first that stella harbors wells of guilt. her slowly and steadily rising to the challenge of looking her mother in the eye with no fear in her bones to shake her. GOOD (2) musa as a mind fairy constantly having to sift through and filter out the thoughts and emotions of everyone around her despite having the propensity to care deeply is a really refreshing twist on the character! her season two plot with willingly giving up her powers to feel some semblance of peace not just with respect to the overwhelming thoughts but also the guilt she has over influencing her boyfriend’s feelings bc she couldn’t take constantly sensing his anger. perfection. (3) sky and his DADDY ISSUES. honestly i’m so impressed with how they managed to add depth to someone who was originally so bland like the fact that they took his general goodness and evolved it into a constant need to take care of and worry about others so he doesn’t have to worry about himself is simple but it holds loads of potential (esp with respect to his relationship with bloom but more on that later), even moreso now that he’s wracked with guilt over killing the father who abandoned him as a child to raise someone else, all to save the foster father who raised him bc he killed his bio father in the first place. i love MESS

aisha and flora and terra hold a lot of potential but i’m not quite sure they’re as well developed yet in terms of personal journeys. aisha seems to constantly be playing a support role to everyone else even though in the cartoon she was important enough to warrant an entire season long arc (which i hope they will adapt in some capacity!), flora is only now getting started (though i love where it’s going given the end of season two like yes go proactive horror queen), and terra’s coming out plot was lovely but we still don’t really have a sense of what she wants to do with herself personally aside from being desperate to fit in. i am also really upset that the fatphobia she experienced in the first season was more or less grazed over and hardly apologized for properly by any of the involved parties. maybe they decided to ditch using that as a plot point and if they did i’m glad but i wish if they included it in the first place that it was properly concluded

speaking of the fatphobia. riven. riven to me is one of those characters whom the writers meant to write as your standard redeemable bully slash fuckboy type except as always they went for overkill at the outset and then had to massively backpedal thereafter to allow the character to fulfill their overarching story needs. season one riven and season two riven are two whole different animals. season two riven feels way more reminiscent of the original character with his standoffishness and snark but nonetheless underlying good intentions. it’s absolutely shitty that the thing between him and terra has yet to be given proper closure bc season two riven is definitely capable of owning up to his prior comments. if he can fix his attitude with musa he can fix it with terra

i realize i haven’t talked about bloom yet. bloom is frustrating to me in the sense that she’s more a conglomerate of actions than she is necessarily a character. she’s constantly defined by her reactions to events rather than any standard habits or behaviors of her own beyond constantly steaming with tension. and that’s understandable to an extent given a huge part of her character arc is about desperately searching for her origins but it also gets tiring when there’s nothing else to her beyond that. she’s a character far more sustained by her relationships than she is by herself and atp i’m desperate for them to get over her origins closure by end of next season so we can actually move on to her being a real character

as for the romances. i feel a little bad for samusa now having rewatched the full first season bc the idea of their dynamic was not actually a bad one although it was incredibly rushed and so i don’t think there was much of an opportunity to actually grow attached to it. which is why what they’re doing with rivusa is fabulous bc the original cartoon setup for their relationship was terrible.. literally no substance just throwing two people at each other until they liked each other and then throwing drama in every now and then for funsies lmao. i’m glad that building a friendship first is priority here and that there’s that connection the two of them have between them with not wanting to be where they are but nonetheless having to take the hand they’re dealt in some capacity. and then them subsequently finding an unusual solace in each other’s company despite the initial antagonism. it’s very refreshing! as for skloom. are they still the basic bad bitch and useless boyfriend. yes. but i think they’re afforded a little more depth here primarily bc of the way this version of sky factors into it. the way his constant tendency to take care of and fix other people is juxtaposed against bloom’s almost reckless tendency to dive into problems headfirst makes their relationship very sweet to watch unfold bc bloom can clearly take care of herself but sky still wants to help as much as he can. and that’s all standard fare but it’ll be esp interesting now that they’re separated by the portal and sky will have to deal with not being able to help her and instead needing to focus on helping himself

the lack of budget and screen time is a serious point against the show. there’s so much plot they have to try to cram into sex or seven episodes so things at times move very quickly and clumsily. sometimes several weeks pass in canon that feel like only the difference between one episode and the next. it’s a show way more suited to longer episodes per season than it’s being afforded

almost every main cast member can act decently except for skloom’s. which makes their relationship in the show that much funnier bc you can tell they’re clearly going off of how in love with each other they are irl and if they weren’t their attraction to each other and compelling nature as characters would be incredibly weak. i mean tbf in sky’s case it already is all that man does is make pathetic puppy eyes at the screen and make me coo like the proud mother of an ugly pup. he’s lucky his character has that much substance bc he’s not the one capable of serving it

the lore is actually very interesting if a bit amorphous and disjunct. i think it’ll get better with time as the context around aster dell expands and i look forward to it provided they get renewed. i wanna see the witches and how they justify their existence compared to the original cartoon

#that’s about all i can think of for now i have a major paper due tomorrow so my brain is fried #to be deleted

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