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sonianvmd · 3 years

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thh characters with a crush on you

warnings: none, maybe some swearing but otherwise nothing major

oH and mentions of murder and death but this is danganronpa so im going to assume u expected as much

a/n: so we kickin this blog off with a bang, writing for LITERALLY THE ENTIRE TRIGGER HAPPY HAVOC CAST LMFAOAOAOAO (excluding hifumi, yasuhiro, and the two despairs doe bc i’ve already made that clear)

also some character’s sections are shorter than others im sorry i just couldnt think of as many bullet points for them *tiktok cry emoji*

edit: I FORGOT CELSESTE FU K SORRY

spoilers under the cut!!

★ 彡 ★ ミ ★ 彡 ★ ミ ★

makoto naegi

when he realizes he likes you, he doesn’t necessarily panic or anything, but he does get nervous

nervous around you, that is

y’all saw how he was with sayaka

if he says anything that might sound intimate then he’ll immediately rephrase it or reassure he didn’t mean anything by it

he really only does have good intentions but his wording just kinda flops sometimes

he appreciates how you listen to him and value what he says

you don't make him feel dumb or inferior compared to a bunch of ultimates with actual talents

he’ll muster up the courage to tell you eventually

let’s hope his luck comes through 😁

byakuya togami

now when THIS man realizes he likes you, he a bitch nigga bout it 😐

he can't believe he fell for a common plebeian such as you

but it was hard not to

the way you preferred to get to the point

the way you were aware of your situation and didn't sugarcoat how you felt about it, although you certainly were nicer with it than him

he's ruthless

anyways

you knew your priorities and spent no time trying to use your resources

he noticed how much you had in common; in you, he saw himself

and we all know how this mf feels about himself 😐

he’ll be quick to defend you in class trials

he won’t realize he’s doing it but he just subconsciously protects you

but just because he doesn't notice it, don't mean the rest of the class brushes past it as well

yeah they on his ass LMFAOO

kyoko kirigiri

kyoko is very good at keeping her composure so she won’t be very obvious

she’ll probably just hang around you more

she’ll also defend you in class trials, calmly

“oh, it couldn’t have been [name]. i remember seeing them in their dorm around the time the murder took place.”

hifumi probably finna say some dumb shit like “aye what was you doin in their dorm doe” but anyways

she finds you respectable

if you have anything to contribute, she’ll let you take the floor

when she tells you, she’s very composed, but also very indirect LMFAO

she’s not too sure on how to express her interest in you but maybe she’ll go about it like “well, [name], now we’ve made it here, would you like to step back into the world with me?” or somethin else along those lines idk

take her hand

pls

toko fukawa

y’all know her whole “master togami” shtick

yeah so 😁😁😁😁

no but fr, toko ofc still has her borderline stalkerish 🧍🏾‍♀️ tendencies

she’ll often find herself staring at you, either in the library or in the morning meetings everyday at breakfast

but she isn’t as straight forward as she is with byakuya

i actually think she’d be mad shy and non confrontational

the whole thing she kept up with him ? yeah, never again

if you approach her first then she’ll be able to get a few words out but for most of the conversation, she’ll just nervously play with her braids

you’ll most likely put two and two together

unless ur a makoto kinnie bc then you’ll have to wait till someone else puts it in place for u but anyways

if you decide to approach her about it, you’ll kinda be backing her into a corner bc she’s just bad at deflecting things lmao

she’ll eventually confess (begrudgingly but hey i mean its better than nothing)

expect much stuttering and a gesture like giving you a small gift

and not to be that writer that uses japanese terms in english writing but toko seems like a tsundere but not really if that makes sense?? so she’d probably shove it in your hands and if you try to say something then she’ll just try to play it off as not a big deal lol

calls u a baka 😍😍

aoi asahina

i know y’all all see how she is with sakura

yeah.

aoi is the kind of person who’d like to spend time with their crush rather than shy away from them

she values you and your friendship very much

bring her donuts

just trust me bring her donuts

she doesn’t really realize she’s into you like that for a while but believe me, she is, the whole time

and yeah i think she’d be nervous to tell you bc that’s just natural but ultimately she’d be cool about it

uh oh looks like we goin for a swim

sakura ogami

similar to kyoko, she’s very calm

despite her big and bad appearance, she really is a sweet girl

she cares for you and your well-being very much

will indeed go on x games mode for you

the way she tells you is very sincere and well spoken

kith her

naow

im sorry this is like the shortest one i couldn’t think of much for her 😔😔

leon kuwata

flirtatious ass mf

and he’s lightskin

so this just cannot go well

y’all know that bit where it’s like the guy yawns and stretches his arms up and then wraps one around your shoulder

yeah that’s literally him LMFAOO

he’s very confident

he was fairly well known with the ladies at his old school so you know he’s rhockin wit it ‼️

but

you feel.. different than usual ??

those girls were just lil flings n dates bc he was nice enough to accept their confessions and it boosted his ego anyway so it was a win win

but you

he was genuinely interested in you since he had saw you the first time

he didn’t just acknowledge your appearance

he learnt about your personality and your hobbies and what you liked and such, and he really cared and wanted to hear you talk about it all

he felt the need to really make an effort to show you how much he respected and had affections for you

he doesn't tell you in a grand way

probably just asks you out to a movie or somethin

he's chillin

mondo owada

you know

for being the biggest, baddest, most respected biker gang leader

or just for being in a biker gang period

mondo’s a huge softie lol

yeah he gets violent but he’s a sweet guy who cares about and is loyal to his friends

so mfs need to be nice to you

or they gettin whooped

when he decides it’s time to tell you how he feels, he thinks over his words and he’s all confident there’s no way you’d reject him but then he sees you in the halls and goes 🧍🏾 LMFAOOO

he’ll push through but it’s like he’ll walk up to you and look away from you because he refuses eye contact and just go

“so y/n, would you wanna.. tch.. come to a drive-in movie with me or somethin’?... dumbass.”

real smooth mondo i think you got em good job

please tease him LMFAOO it’d be so funny

he’d probably yell but you can tell he’s not mad so you just keep going with it

but once you’re done tormenting him, you do agree to the movie, don’t worry 🙏🏾

also mondo would call his s/o doll

that is all

chihiro fujisaki

my fav dude in a dress <3

chihiro would be quite shy, but that’s just how he is tbh so no surprise there

he’s very kind so he’d check up on you often just to see how you are

he cares about you v much

the way he confesses is one that consists of a red face as he offers you a box of candy or something similar

and he’d feel honored that you reciprocate his feelings

he’d be very scared to tell you his secret but once he does, he’s delighted to hear it doesn’t make any difference to you

he doesn’t know how he got so lucky with you

not only because woooo they like me back but also because you like him despite,, well everything about him LMFAOO

sweet lil boy

i’d feel like he’d talk about you to alter ego a lot

and when u meet the program for the first time, he’s like “oh! you must be [name]! master’s told me all about you :)”

sobbing i miss him

kiyotaka ishimaru

okay here’s the thing

if taka were to like someone

i can’t tell whether he’d be more strict because he doesn’t want them to get in trouble (and also so it would hopefully divert any suspicion that he DOES like you since he treats you the same as everyone else, only more)

or if he’d hold back more because he favors them LMFAOO

so imma write a lil bit for both

in the case that he was even stricter:

he’d prefer to be around you because he believes the best way he can make sure you stay out of trouble is to make sure you don’t get into any in the first place

of course it’s impossible to monitor you every second of every day but he does his best to make sure you’re doing well

if he sees you do anything out of line, he’s shutting that shit down IMMEDIATELY

but in the case he let up:

he’d still lecture you but noticeably less than the other students

if your feet were resting on top of a desk, he’d ask you to move them and then leave you alone rather than yell at you and forcibly move them himself

if you notice his behavior towards you in comparison to the other students do not tease him about it he will go as red as his eyes /hj

either way he’s confessing to you with a polite but exaggerated bow while holding out a well thought out letter with both hands

sayaka maizono

she will tell you

idk why but i feel like she’d be straight up lol

she’d make sure she’s sincere

she is the ultimate pop idol and all so she wants to make sure you know that she really does like you and isn’t playing a sick joke on you or anything

ok bc

while i do think she’d tell you

i’d feel like she’d be a little indirect just to see how you feel

like she’d give you a free ticket to one of her upcoming concerts with a kind smile

and naturally, you're like :o

and of course you come to support her

and seeing you smile at her from the crowd and cheer her on was the encouragement she needed to push her to ask you out

for real this time

she asks if you wanna come to a concert with her and ur like “oh yeah i love ur shows!!” bc ur dumb and then she’s like “no i mean.. for another artist” and eventually it hits you that she’s asking you out and ur like “oH YEAH YEAH SURE THAT SOUNDS GREAT YEAH OK” LMFAOO

———

i really hope that this is good LMFAOO this is my first time writing for dr so 😃👍🏾

fun fact i finished toko’s section first and taka’s last 😁😁

and i’d like to thank @mius-imagination @bloodygir n the rest of the discord for helping me figure some of these characters out *simultaneously whips and nae naes*

bye ive been working on this for like weeks this took forever

———

edit: here’s a deleted section bc i kept blanking for this character 😍

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key-to-my-heart · 3 years

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S2 WISHFUL THINKING

hey hi hello! i haven’t really been active on tumblr but i wanted to get back into the swing of being active and posting often. so.

i decided i will take note of some of my predictions, hopes, wishes etc. for Season 2 of Rainbow High!

so i kinda wanna just cover the things we canonically have seen aka specific events and drama that has gotten introduced

- The New Roommates / Series 3 Girls

i feel like we will definitely see more of them within the coming episodes. rainbow high literally advertised the new teams as like… i think the second or third teaser for the new season

it’s interesting to me because. this makes me think of What The Runway Project is? what could it possibly be? i believe i made a post about this in the past but the main theory (and theory i believe the most in) would be a Stage Production of sorts. i mean… it makes sense!

the twins are both Performing Arts focus and are definitely the antags this season. so why wouldn’t they cause trouble in regard to a stage play? plus, bella is back. she’s literally a set designer! we have never seen her do any set designing (other than making a sketch) so it would be fun to see that! if river were to get more focus this season, he would definitely have an outlet to channel his Performing Arts creativity! plus… Daria is a song writer so like. imagine if we were to get music out of that? please. the possibilities are endless.

im also eager to see the series 3 girls dynamics. like are the rest of the girls (gabriella, georgia, emmy and daphne) all roomed together? do they get along? will they all be just as dramatic as stella, sheryl and daria’s dynamic?

but anyway. whatever the drama and the semester project is, the new teammates definitely seem to be playing a crucial role in this season.

- The Twins

i’m actually really eager to see more of them. i feel like not enough people are talking about them? season 2 is actually really interesting so far…. maybe more so than season 1… and i feel like we are going to have to thank the twins for that at some point lol

like. idek what they’re planning on doing but. i’m excited to see what it is! they’ll probably be involved in the semester project or at least causing problems to all of the roommates and teams. they’ll definitely have something going on with bella. and it seems that they have a good bond with karma (after the KWK we got). so maybe they’ll have input in any potential drama with Karma. which leads me to

- Karma VS. Violet

so. this drama has been teased at for like. ever. for what feels like forever.

this moment in Karma’s bio PLUS the commentary about violet from her and the twins in the recent KWK episode. but anyway. i’m actually super interested in whatever this drama could be??? like. why is karma watching.

we know violet adores karma, she really wants to have her in the vi life. so i’m sure she basically looks up to her! but like. will karma actually genuinely be nice with violet? keep a distance? make remarks like she did in her recent vlog? i don’t know. idk what to expect. of course it’ll have to do with vlogging or something.

- Bella

ok so there is a few things to note with bella. i’m still interested in if bella will accept to do an interview with Karma for her vlog? if so, i wonder how that would go. and i wonder how violet would feel about it. like the very last time bella was featured in vi’s vlog was on a bad note (even though they made up) but like. idk AAA

also i’m wondering how bella is gonna handle being back to rainbow high. because so far it seems she’s having trouble fitting in. will the key to her fitting in be Jade? will Jade help her figure everything out? or would it be someone else?

as much as i’d love Jade to be the reason Bella starts to feel more at home, i also love the other idea of Amaya being the reason bella feels comfortable again. Amaya was once the new girl (and of course in an awkward position because she was essentially a replacement for bella’s spot in the runway group) but. she didn’t fit in. she had to find her place at rainbow high… and it took her until the runway show to be able to truly feel comfortable.

and like. i’ve been rooting for bella/amaya dynamic for awhile now. i see a lot of potential in this duo. we know they somewhat have tension. i mean. bella had a really awkward confrontation with amaya and that was rly their first and last conversation. sure they’ve been around each other like in the music video, at the end of s1, and when bella walked into the girls dorm s2ep2 but like. that’s it.

SO ANYWAY. what i’m trying to get at is that these two definitely need to become friends. i mean. they have a LOT in common. i was talking about the new girl situation because i feel like they can relate in that way. they both had an awkward entrance into rainbow high and could bond over that. it took amaya awhile to feel at home at rainbow high… so maybe she could become friends with bella and help her feel at home! they’re both very determined leader types. they’re really passionate and! they have the same friend group! so why not become friends?

- Jade and Bella

of course i will wonder about these two! i have no clue what to expect with them. the fandom and myself are really really really wanting to see these two become a canon sapphic couple. i really want to see this happen! and mga knows this. mga knows we want to see jella happen. i mean, they literally snatched the ship name from us and plastered it into their vlogs. so they KNOW

anyway. these two are literally going through it rn. the way jade’s eyes lit up when she saw bella was back at rh. and now both of them are looking for each other and worried about each other. jade thinking bella is mad at her rn? please. i will sob. they are really holding off this jella reunion but i hope it’s for a good reason. i just want them to talk and have a good reunion… a hug……. happy tears, happy smiles…………..a love confession…

- Amaya

so i don’t really have much to say here but i’m just wondering about amaya this season. she’s definitely been advertised so much to the point that she essentially became like. THE main focus in season 1. this peeved some people but personally i loved amaya being like a sort of main character figure. she didn’t really take attention away from the other characters but also had that energy of being a main character anyway.

my point is, though, idk how she will play out in this season? like is she going to be as much of a main character as the main 6 are…. or will she play a bigger role? i have no clue. it seems bella is going to have a key focus this season, which makes sense, but it still just makes me wonder about amaya’s role this season

- Colin

i just hope this man does not get a development arc. i know some people want him to…. but i just. i don’t. i don’t understand. the point of him existing was to show that cheating is wrong and to display girl power. by teaching that skyler didn’t need a man to prove her worth. that she is her own person. her own strength! i really hope that colin and bella don’t have anything omfg.

- Winter Break

i’m really. REALLY excited for the winter break arc. it’s about time we get to see some backgrounds outside of rainbow high! plus the animated tidbits of ruby, sky, and violet in their wb outfits in the wb commercial was everything.

i’m so excited to see their new hairstyles, to see them with their snow gear and more. omg. of course i think the twins will be involved in this arc someone. krystal briefly mentioned the twins’ family having a ski lodge. and then of course we see sunny with her skis so like. yea!! i just wonder how these episodes would play out. or episode. but anyway like… will they just vibe? or will there be a problem of sorts? if it’s winter break then it probably won’t tie into school or like projects or anything like that

- Kia Hart

i’m actually hoping kia gets some focus this season. like. what is she going to do? is she going to pair another couple together? (if so, please be jella. okay wait seriously what if she is the key to reuniting jade and bella together… anyway) i just hope to see more of her and possibly more of her and krystal together haha. but kia just vibes so far, it would be lovely to get more of her!

- The A’s

so ainsley is finally beginning to get some attention! i really hope we continue to get more of her as well as avery, and aidan of course! we did get a bunch of content of aidan but you can never have enough honestly.

but i just wonder about how the A’s will be this season. like will they do anything significant? are bella and avery going to remain close? what is going on!!!

- The Malibu Line

so we literally know nothing about this except

but i still wonder like. if we will get to see anything about it at any point during the web series. perhaps it would be more of a summer thing. but it definitely means something if Bella is in it! (also i’m just generally excited for her new doll. omfg.)

- The Rock Line

so we also know almost nothing about this except

saw someone discuss that the music being heard during s2ep2 could be in regards to the rock battle. honestly. what if this is some sort of project? battle of bands or something? that would be cool lol. anyway i’m intrigued for this line mainly because of all the clothing leaks we have been getting omg.

- The Slumber Party Line

we have known about this for a little while (with the theory of the baby blue girl being in it) but i’m just curious as to who the characters are and if they will be in the web series at all.

- Jett Dawson

okay so. this is a big one. jett being a collector doll, i feel like she’ll definitely play a crucial role in the series. so like. who will she be to the main characters? it says she’s generally nice. why was she giving that look to the girls after their runway performance? IDK! i have no clue what to expect with her. i feel like the expectations i had for amaya (before we knew anything about her) will be put into jett because. the vibes i got from amaya ever since we just had her doll… i am also kind of getting from jett. so i’m eager!

#rainbow high #rainbowhigh #rainbow high dolls #rh: episode predictions #rh: theories

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unitchiefs-blackbirdphoenix · 3 years

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You may have seen this going around but people are hating JJ for snapping at Reid in 10x11. Like maybe she shouldn’t of done that but she was having a literal breakdown and her ptsd affecting her a lot. Not to mention that Reid did the same when Emily asked if he was okay when he was going through his drug addiction and ptsd after Hankel but yet no one gives him hate for it. Emily also snapped at Garcia in 6x17 when Garcia checked up on her. They two were also going through a lot but people still defend them while JJ who also did the same as them gets the most hate (which doesn’t surprise me with this fandom). And at the end of 10x11 JJ thanked Reid for helping her and in a way apologised. Also Reid, Emily and Garcia didn’t take it personally when they were snapped at as they could tell something was going on. When you’re going through something especially trauma it’s possible you may end up snapping at someone and we shouldn’t give them hate for it.

Sorry for this rant, I’m just annoyed that people are hating on JJ for going through something traumatic

Hi thank you so much anon!

I don't know exactly what happened recently regarding this situation, but after reading this ask, I 100% agree with you! You are more than welcome to rant about this because I feel the same way. I think I have seen something like this in the past, and I still don't understand the JJ hate, which I will get at the end of the post under the cut. (I also apologize in advance if this is all over the place haha)

I think JJ has the right to feel the way she feels in 10x11. JJ probably thought Reid means well when he was asking if she was ok, but it also seemed very clear that she didn't want to talk about it. She also didn't want them to cause a scene in a place where it's public. Like you said, it seemed pretty similar to the scene about Reid getting mad at JJ for hiding the fact that Emily was still alive. He didn't get much hate as JJ did in that moment, too. Even people were blaming JJ for "hurting Reid's feelings" because she had to protect someone very close to her and the team. JJ already felt guilty having to lie to the team and while Hotch wasn't the target of Reid's anger, he still felt responsible for his actions and Reid's feelings. In fact, Hotch has made that clear for everyone to tell him how they felt about Emily's return. Even in 7x02, Hotch tells Reid if he is angry, Hotch is willing to take the blame for it and that he shouldn't be angry at JJ, in which Reid bitterly responds: "I can't. I didn't come crying to your house for 10 weeks." Hotch was guilty for hiding it from the team as well, and people have aimed their anger towards JJ because she "hurt Reid's feelings". It also didn't sit right with me when Reid implied that he was going to blame JJ for his hypothetical relapsing (that may be poor writing but it still doesn't sound right).

JJ was dealing with something traumatic to her, and so she deserved to feel frustrated, angry, etc. because it is difficult to keep all those emotions, especially negative ones, shoved into a box. Even though one pushes their emotions down, there is going to be a breaking point and all of whatever they have been feeling is going to burst out of the bottle sooner or later. That's the case with JJ. She wasn't mad that Reid was checking on her, she was only mad that it was at the wrong time. If it was at a time that was decent for them (aka when it's in a quiet place like at the end of 10x11), then JJ wouldn't mind as much. Over time, JJ has worked to push her emotions away because of everything that's happened to her. It becomes both better and worse for her coping. Better because she is able to get a task done fast. Worse because she isn't confronting her feelings, which is unhealthy. At the end of 10x11, JJ has thanked Reid for helping her and didn't seem too angry at him anymore, and in a way, has apologized. She felt somewhat relieved that she finally told someone about what she was going through (even though her trauma was still not entirely resolved, in my opinion).

I think you've made some interesting points using examples of other scenes that have characters snapping at someone else for getting them to open up about something troubling them. Derek and Emily have snapped at Garcia, who was checking up on them during a time of distress. Both of them know she meant no harm as well and they were both frustrated and stressed in those two times. Garcia understood and was only concerned about them. Same with Reid confronting JJ about her trauma. Or even Emily with Reid when he was taking dilaudid. They all were worried about each other and wanted to be there to support their friends.

People have different ways of coping with trauma and shouldn't be judged for it. It is a step forward to help them deal with it, and hopefully, make them feel safe and comfortable to talk about it.

Under the cut is how I feel about the JJ hate, so if you want to read that, feel free to do so.

This is something I needed to get off my chest. I'm already getting tired of seeing the JJ hate on some posts, here and on other social media platforms. Oddly enough back then, there wasn't this much hatred towards her character. Aside from the confession in later seasons, JJ has gotten a lot of hate now that the show's over. I have noticed the common thread of the hate being connected to Reid's character (note: I really don't want to get into some sort of hate discourse thing so please don't come at me for this).

I have seen fans say that JJ's the mean girl of the team because she is "mean to Reid" or because "Reid said so". I disagree with this whole notion because everyone has treated Reid the same way JJ has, and JJ wasn't super mean to him. I've always seen them interact like siblings, so they had that older sis teases little bro vibes to me. They both cared for each other, as seen numerous times on the show (this does not mean I ship them). In the scene where Reid thought JJ was a mean girl, she was defensive because she was hurt that someone close to her would think that lowly of her. Reid didn't even know that JJ was offended by that statement, so he just carried on with it.

People have also said that JJ is "too bland" or "too boring" of a character. I like to dig into little details of the show and/or the characters themselves, and learn why they are the way they are. People don't often see why JJ is the way she is like they do with other characters. To say that JJ's only trait is "being a mom" or "being too sensitive" is stupid. I agree that JJ's character was done dirty by the writers and producers, though. With everything that has happened to her, it explains why she is the person she is on the show. When JJ was younger, she didn't have any role model growing up besides Roslyn. She came from a broken family, who was often emotionally and physically distant from everything and everyone. Because of that, it shaped JJ into the person she is today. This is one of the reasons why she hates talking about her feelings and opening up because as her mom said, "Avoidance is what this family does best, anyhow." Her whole life, JJ pushes herself to work hard that she's never learned how to give herself a break, especially when her mental health is going bad. She needs someone to rely on and that she can trust to vent about anything she's having a hard time with.

Another thing people have to remember is that Reid and JJ are two completely different personalities and their own characters, so comparing them with each other or even pitting them against each other isn't going to make things better for many, and people will continue to fight about this.

Admittedly, this is one of the reasons why I don't join fandoms often because people are there to enjoy and share their interests with one another. I am aware that I have stated my opinions from time to time, but to waste all that energy continuously hating on something others like, is tiring. I like when people post things they like, instead of posting their absolute hatred on something that others enjoy often. I usually don’t interact with posts that have hate on something I like that I've seen and I try to filter that out. (I’m sorry if my wording doesn’t make sense here)

#jennifer jareau #spencer reid #emily prentiss #penelope garcia #derek morgan #aaron hotchner #criminal minds #i'm sorry this was a long post anon hahaha #alyssa's asks

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verobatto · 4 years

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honestly, 100%: ... what's the chance you think we'll actually see Cas again?

Hi there! Okay I'm bad with maths and percentages, but possibilities are high high high!

And I can give you some clues here that convince me Castiel will come back for the final episode:

1) The story of the Empty is not over. The Empty is mad, mad at Cas, now Death and Jack. Jack is still out there so probably, he must be awake. And because the Empty has now Castiel, and there had been a lot of episodes foreshadowing Castiel's rescue from the Void.

I personally had compared the black woods with people lost in it (14x17 and 15x06) with Castiel's rescue. The dark Forest could be related to the Empty. And also the two mosntrrs that appeared in both episodes, remember one of them was a d-jin, a monster linked to dreams, just like angels sleeping in the Void.

2) The huge Destiel scene we have seen in the last episode is a common trope or common way to finish a long term slow burn story between two characters that love each other but never had been able to confess their love for each other (the cause of it can be fear to rejection for being unrequited, which I think suits Dean, forbidden love, lack of self confidence or self love, etc). In this kind of epic ending, one of the characters finds the way to confess his feelings to the other character in the middle of a distressful situation, and then something happens and the confession is not answered by the other character. But it gets soleved somehow, when they finally meet again. So,as you can see, this is half of the way to reach that ending. So yeah, this was INCOMPLETE, and it will be ended properly, because Dean and Cas need to find each other again.

3) Cas is a miracle: Several time throughout season 14 and 15, we had Cas healing a boy in the woods or waking up Donnie from his comma, and people calling it a miracle. The whole season 14 is foreshadowing sleeping beauties characters, people in coma, that awakes, as a foreshadow of, what I think, will be the return of Castiel. It will be another miracle.

4) Nick and Lucifer, as a dark Destiel mirror, showed us there's a way to open a gate to the Empty through a spell, using the bond shared between an angel and a human, also, they showed us, and this was pointed by @emblue-sparks in one of her observations, Donnie could act like a human anthem between our world and the other dimensions.

5) Heaven needs to be restored, which I believe Jack will do it, but because he can't create angel from nothing, he will take them from the Void.

6) The reset button theory is a very interesting theory because they could make everything to come back at the beginning, and then we could have Cas back through this theory too.

7) Dean's ILY journey needs to end with one I LOVE YOU TOO to his angel, is the only I LOVE YOU he didn't say yet, the romantic one. And Amara mentioning why he brought Mary back to life, is a reminder of Dean's ILY journey. He said it first to his mom, then to his dad, finally to his brother, and now is time to say it to Cas. And Everything was settled to make it LOUD. As I repeated so many times, writers had put the emphasis on it, first they put a mausoleum in episode 15x01 wit the name of CARVER on it, to drag us back to season 8, the crypt scene and the 'I love you' that never was. Then they gave us 15x09, the prayer and another 'I love you' that couldn't be, because Castiel stopped him. And now, he was too shocked to answer, so, Dean has those three words that will release him, just as it did with Castiel, and he DEFINITELY HAS TO FULFFIL THIS JOURNEY TO USE HIS OWN WORDS AND EXPRESS VERBALLY THIS I LOVE YOU TOO. So, i really believe is related to Castiel return.

8) The Profound Bond and the circle they have to close. I will try not to going so far on this, i will simply says Dean finding Castiel in 15x09 was a foreshadow of how he will find Castiel, using their bond, that's why Cas said : "You made it" when Dean found him, Cas was just there, sitting down a tree, waiting for him, because he knew Dean will find him, using their bond, the thing is, Dean doesn't know about this, he immediately asked confused 'I made it?' and it reminded me to 6x03, when for the first time Cas mentions their bond and Dean was having that WTF face.

There's a meaningful scene in 12x19 in which Cas heals Dean's elbow and he touches him slowly, almost rubbing his fingers, and they formed a circle, it was focused by the camera showing us it was important. So, that's maybe because just as Cas saved Dean fr hell, is time for Dean to save Cas from the Empty. Fulfilling that circle.

For all of these clues, i can conclude, Cas will return again, because the story didn't end in that beautiful scene we saw, it just started.

So i can't give you numbers, I just can show you all my observations and evidences of why I do believe Cas will come back. Despite of any malicious trolling you can find out there (remember propaganda to keep us talking and debating) i really think Cas will return.

Dean won't let this angel confess his love and then vanish. No way, no under his watch. And no after he finally saw Cas loves him the way Dean had always loved him too.

Thanks for the question 😘💕

#castiel #Cas will come back #Dean needs to verbalize his feeling to him

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spookyboogie3 · 4 years

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The trope Last Minute Hookup shouldn’t be used for LGBTQ+ relationships.

AND DEFENDING MY LAST POST ABOUT THIS.

I DO NOT hate any of these pairings. A good many of them could have been handled differently by the creators, writers, and networks. But this isnt me hating the relationships or characters or shows. Just going off about how they shouldnt have been tacked on at the end of their respective series.

As of writing this all of these shows have ended their original runs. Except for Supernatural which is on its last few episodes. And Supergirl, which announced its coming to end with season 6.

LGBTQ characters and relationships aren’t as common in the media as straight-cis characters and relationships. Sure things are improving but a lot of networks and writers still don’t fully understand why representation is important why they can’t keep using the same throwaway tropes they’ve been using for the straight-cis relationships.

You could name any piece of media and find and name one character that isn’t LGBTQ+, but you can’t do this with LGBTQ+ characters. We haven’t gotten to the point where they are as common as non-LGBTQ characters.

I have a whole paper I wrote on why asexual representation is important to have in the media and the same logic applies to any part of the LGBTQ+ or anything that falls under minority.

Back to the topic on hand. The trope of “Last Minute Hookup.”

Its exactly what it sounds like. Characters get to together at the very end of the story. These characters could have a on and off again relationship, lots of ship teasing, the classic “Will They or Wont They?” trope. What makes it different for non-LGBT characters in relationships to do this, we know what these relationships look like. Not to say the that both Non and LGBT relationship cant have similar struggles, however members of the LGBTQ+ community know how hard it is to feel like your identity and self matters and is normal.

I know that the whole “will they, wont they” thing is done for drama and networks and showrunners think if they give the fans what they want that they’ll start losing viewers and they have nothing to look forward to. Which is true to some degree. But most of this comes from the writers not knowing how to fucking write relationships.

Let’s just focus on whats it like to be in a non-straight relationship.

Heres an example: you have an action series, with 2 male leads and halfway through the show, they get together. Cool. Now you have a Battle Couple.

By making LGBTQ relationships happen at the end of a series that’s already had plenty of other non-LGBTQ relationships happen before it, it makes it look like the people in charge don’t care for it or were afraid of backlash. But it’s the end of the series so its not like they can get the show cancelled or anything. (The only people who are going to lash out at LGBT couple or characters are homophobic people, we don’t want them around any way so just make stuff super gay, so they’ll leave)

This is especially a problem when the writer and network have spent the whole series queerbaiting the audience with these characters.

Side note for anyone is doesn’t actually know what queerbaiting is:

It’s a marketing technique used in entertainment, which the writer or creators hint at but then don’t actually depict sex-same romance or LGBTQ representation. They do this to attract (bait) the LGBT/queer or straight ally audience into the show with the suggestion of representation but at the same time avoiding this as not alienate other audience members *cough* (homophobes) *cough*

Definition is from Wikipedia, not a reliable source says my highschool teachers and college professors but fuck em

The Legend of Korra is a great example of Last-Minute Hookup. Korra and Asami had VERY little ship teasing, and that was in the last 2 books/seasons. Any thing that was perceived as romantic came from the fans wearing shipping goggles. So to a lot of people just casually watching, yes this looked like it came out of nowhere. Nickelodeon had some serious balls to say how brave they were for putting 2 girls into a romantic relationship.

Theres a few problems with this.

A. It never actually aired on TV (to my knowledge). The last 2 seasons of Korra were put on Nicks website.

B. The confirmation that this Korrasami was canon had to come from the creators on twitter because of how unclear it was.

C. The show did the bare minimum when it came to hooking them up in the series. They walk off holding hands (very cute btw). They didn’t even get a kiss. Aang and Katara had a Last Minute Hookup at the end of ATLA after 3 seasons of ship tease and THEY GOT A KISS. Hell the original end of LoK*, has Korra and Mako kissing. *(the first season, they didn’t know they were getting more seasons at the time, no matter what you hear the writers say, they’re full of shit)

D. Anything continuation of Korra has come in the form of comics, which her and Asami are in a fairly well written relationship. Yes, they do kiss. Yes it would’ve been great to see this stuff happen in series.

A show that handles this a little bit better is Adventure Time. Not by much though. It implied several times that Princess Bubblegum and Marceline have history together and its shown more and more in its last few seasons that there is some ship tease happening. However its not until the finale where they kiss, and they are shown in the last minute of the show cuddling together in Marcy’s house. HBO has picked up Adventure Time and has a miniseries called Adventure Time: Distant Lands, where Bubblegum and Marceline’s past relationship is shown.

I had brought up in my original post about being upset with networks making LGBTQ+ relationships canon in the last season/episode. I originally had Catradora tagged. While Catra and Adora have history together, they did not become official couple until the end of the series.

Yes, I was wrong about the network making things canon in the last episode as they’ve always had ship tease with each other, and it probably was the writers’ intent to put them together by the end. They do technically fall under the Last-Minute Hookup, however.

I wanna talk about Once Upon a Time really quick. Fans of the show were hoping and wishing for an LGBTQ couple for the show as a lot of characters, especially Regina and Emma, have alot Ho Yay moments. The showrunners weren’t going to put those two together, for whatever reasons they may have for that (im indifferent on all the shipping going on with this show). The showrunners thought to put two characters together, and hoo boy did it not make people happy. The characters they put together are Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz and Ruby the red riding hood, which would be fine if they had properly been developed.

The entire episode they did this in was a mess. They stopped the current arc during the season 5 episode ‘Ruby Slippers,’ to go over the characters that haven’t been seen in years, Dorothy was introduced and last seen in season 3, and Ruby was introduced in season 1 and was last seen in season 5 before ‘Ruby Slippers’. The characters get together in the same episode the meet in and are never seen again. The characters barely interacted, barely got along, and showed little to no ship tease or interest in each other and BOOM they are in love and together aaaaaannnnndd they’re gone. Other than having One Million Moms, a Christian fundamentalist organization, protest against the show and want it taken off the air (yes this really happened). The fans weren’t please with this development of the characters either.

(also Mulan was right there and already knew Ruby from a previous episode, and Mulan already is established to like girls as shown by her being in love with Aurora. Don’t know why the writers didn’t just put these 2 together but whatever I guess)

So they tried again in season 7 with MadArcher. The characters of Alice, a version of Alice in Wonderland from another realm (its complicated) and Robin, the daughter of Robin Hood and the Wicked Witch (it’s also complicated). And the writers did a lot better here. Both characters were allowed to have time together and have a history together too and it was done over the whole season. Not just one episode.

Now even though the writers decided to do something different with the last season and it could be detached from the previous 6 seasons, MadArcher is not really a Last Minute Hookup per say but still falls under my thing about it being the last season so who gives a fuck if One Million Moms gets mad us and tries to get us cancelled again.

I would like to say I have never watched a single episode of Supernatural in my life. I may one day. But as of right now my knowledge of it is coming primary from what ive seen on tumblr. You know a great source for doing research and looking for reliable information among the piles of shitposting.

From what I know from fans, the writers of Supernatural have been queer baiting for years. I mean it’s the CW, I’m not that surprised. What also wouldn’t surprise me, that by the end of the series Castiel is back and he and Dean actually start and relationship or strongly hint at starting one. I actually fear for the writer lives if they threw out a confession scene after years of queerbaiting and potential ship tease (debatable) and they don’t put them together. Fans are going to be angrier than they probably ever have been with this show and the showrunners and writers really would be known for queer baiting.

From what I know about how previous shows have done and if anyone that has ever worked on this show wants to continue living, Castiel will be back from Super Hell (is that what yall are calling it?) and he will get together with Dean. And they will fall under the Last-Minute Hookup trope and my networks make LGBTQ relationships canon last season.

One last show I want to talk about is Supergirl, which in has been recently announced that the 6th season will be the last. The show started on CBS but moved to the CW after the end of season 1. So more CW bullshit. There is no confirmation about whether the CW or any of the Supergirl writers are planning to do this, its all speculation. Supergirl is more LGBTQ friendly than some other shows on the Network. One of the main characters came out a few years ago and had a girlfriend a season and has had plenty of hookups with other ladies around the Arrowverse. They even introduced a trans-woman superhero in the form of Dreamer.

Let’s talk SuperCorp. Lena Luthor was introduced in the 2nd season and has been a major character in Kara’s life ever since her introduction. Even if she isn’t involved in the plot, Kara always goes to her to talk and check in on her and worry about her. They are best friends. Since the 2 have met, there has been plenty of Les Yay going on. The writers seem to be aware of the fans wanting SuperCorp to be canon and they keep throwing in moments like Kara and Lena struggling together or Kara carrying Lena bridal style.

Why I bring this up after the announcement of Supergirl’s final season to start next year. We may get SuperCorp. Kara has a relationship with William in the show and not a single person likes this relationship. The writers may scrap it and get put Kara and Lena together for the final season. This is a big maybe though. The Supergirl writers and crew get called out a lot for queerbaiting.

Let me know if you guys have any other examples of last season/last episode LGBTQ+ hookup.

And please let me know if you see any mistakes. This was all done in one sitting so I may have some things wrong.

Also check out the video by @aretheygayvideos on this topic too.

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ververa · 4 years

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All or Nothing

A/N: So, I kinda turned it into a pretty long story. It’s far more longer than I’ve planned and I keep coming up with more and more things, that’s why I need to divide it into parts.

You really need to yell at me or something to keep it shorter and stop complicating thigs lol

Also I need to give a shout-out to @make--your--life--spectacular who is helping me a lot <3

Hope you’ll enjoy it. I promise things will be far more interesting in further parts.

Lana Winters x fem!Reader

Words: 2.053

Lana was the woman who broke the mould. She was the embodiment of woman’s strength. No wonder, she became a role model for young feminists, including you. You adored her from the moment you saw her on TV for the first time. She wasn’t even famous yet, and you already were her biggest fan. For some reason you felt like the two of you had a lot in common and would get on well with each other. Yet you were just a teenager – a rebellious girl who grew up in a very conservative family. It was always clear that you weren’t like other girls. You didn’t want to get married or have children. You wanted to study and explore the world. You wanted to change the world and inspire people the way Lana had inspired you. And so you decided to be a journalist.

It wasn’t always easy, but you were a fighter, just like Lana. And even though life lavished both of you with a lot of obstacles, you didn’t give up. You weren’t that type who give up easily. And even though, you had to go through a lot on your way to the aim, you knew it was worth it.

After publishing her book Lana was on top of everything. She was on top of her career, fame and life. At least it seemed like that. She succeeded and was in charge. Everyone not only wanted, but paid for listening to her. She got the power that was unimaginable and finally, for once, everyone was taking her seriously. You wanted the same thing for yourself. And who else could understand it better if not Lana Winters herself?

That’s what you thought going to a job interview at the magazine in which she was the boss. Little did you know that getting to Lana wasn’t going to be as easy as you had thought. She was a chief editor and didn’t bother to participate in the process of recruiting new journalists. She simply didn’t have time for it and didn’t really care. Lana was a busy woman. There were always a lot of thing she needed to do, a lot of places she should be at and a lot of things she wanted to write about. She rarely met with anyone, especially the ‘young staff’ - as they called it - because for her the best way to get to know them was by reading their articles. It was, in fact, that part of her job that she hated. She found them all incompetent and stupid. Their works always needed to be corrected or changed completely in order to make sense at all. Lana often complained that there were no real journalists anymore. And that’s when you appeared and became a member of the staff.

It wasn’t clear for you how or why you managed to get the job, as there were a lot of people who were more experienced than you, but you weren’t going to complain. Working for Lana Winters was like a dream come true. She was the person you looked up to the most, so you were ready to do anything just to meet her. You were young and full of energy. You wanted to change the world and you put a lot of effort into making it happen. Yet you weren’t really ready for a reality check. It was all going too well to be real, you thought, but you were an optimist, so you wanted to believe that after all you had been through it was finally going to be okay. Though, as usually, life wasn’t going to go easy on you.

As you got the job it turned out that you were not only the youngest one, but also the only female member of the staff. That made everything twice as hard, but it didn’t discourage you. You kept on doing your best, believing that it would lead you where you wanted to be. But still there was a long way for you to go before achieving anything.

It wasn’t all that bad at first. They seemed to be pretty nice and friendly, but you soon realized it was only an illusion. In reality they were all awful and treat you horribly. They didn’t take you seriously, even kind of discriminated you, simply because you were a woman. Instead of letting you write they treated you more like some servant. And you were well aware that you wouldn’t be able to achieve your goal if you kept on making tea or coffee. That’s why you decided to do something about it.

Since Lana didn’t have her own family she had pretty much time to focus on her job. She loved writing, but besides being the best journalist she also wanted to help her staff develop. Or rather make sure that her workers were good writers, because obviously, in Lana’s team there was no place for incompetent morons. Her time was precious, but giving her attention to that matter every weekend didn’t seem to be a total waste of time.

As a boss Lana was able to lay down her own rules. And she did make quite a lot of them. One of them was making you write an article for her every week. It was her way of checking if you were making any progress in your writing and if you paid any attention at all to the corrections she had made in your previous works. It also enabled her to keep track of you developing your writing skills.

Whether you liked it or not, all of you had to follow Lana’s rules. You didn’t mind, but the majority of your colleagues hated it. The pressure was enormous, you couldn’t deny it. Writing for Lana was really time consuming, which was the biggest problem for all your male friends, who always complained about it. You failed to understand why they were so ignorant and didn’t take it seriously. For you it was obviously a great way of improving your skills. You were also aware that if you want to keep working at the magazine and be able to work with Lana and not only for her, you needed to be better than the rest. You knew that to get her attention you needed to amaze her with your writing. Though it was pretty hard, taking into consideration that your colleagues pretty much excluded you from writing.

At the beginning you had no idea that Lana wasn’t getting your works at all. She was usually picking a few works every week and then sending them back to their authors with her corrections and suggestions. All your colleagues got their works checked at least once, but you had never got yours. That’s when you began to wonder why. You were furious when you found out that your so called friends were purposefully excluding your works. Though it began to make sense then. No wonder you never got your works proofread, since Lana hadn’t got to read any of them. You knew there was no use in confronting your colleagues about it. That wouldn’t change anything anyway. So, you decided to act the way they did. You couldn’t make them play by your rules, because treating everyone equally obviously wasn’t their thing, so you began playing by their rules. Except you were smarter than them and knew exactly that you were able to beat them even in their own game.

It was against your principles to do things like that, but since you joined the group of male writers you learned that if you wanted to achieve anything, you had to break the rules sometimes. You took the risk and replaced the envelope that your colleagues prepared - with the one that contained only your works, because you had to make sure that Lana would pick your article. It was very risky and there were only two options. You could either get all you wanted or got fired and be left with nothing, but you did it anyway.

You had always been rather a patient and calm person, but that two days of waiting were like a torture. You felt uncertain and didn’t know what to expect. Whether Lana would like your work or hate it? Whether she would be mad and fire you or not? Or what would you do if she indeed fire you? You hadn’t really thought it over and so you were dying of worry for a whole weekend.

But as Monday arrived you didn’t need to wait too long for getting answers to all your questions. Early in the morning Lana practically dashed inside - with the white envelope and a lot of different papers in her hand. She immediately had everyone’s attention, because she had never ever appeared in that part of the office where you were working. She put all her stuff on the nearest chair and spoke up.

“Who wrote this?” she showed you a file of articles

There was a moment of silence. It was hard to say whether she was happy or not and nobody even dared to look at her. You were about to confess it was you, but before you managed to one of your colleagues - the most annoying and self-important one spoke.

“It was me” he said

Apparently, following the “all or nothing” rule was a thing among you. Your heart was beating so fast that you were pretty sure you may faint. What would you do if she believed him? Though luckily for you, she didn’t.

Lana looked at him and a frown of disapproval appeared on her face.

“No, it definitely wasn’t you. I had seen your works before. You’re unable to form a grammatically correct sentence, not to mention that you have absolutely no idea what you’re writing about. Honestly, I don’t know how you managed to graduate in journalism without the ability of writing and having such a poor stock of words”

After that comment you became a little bit less stressed, you somehow found the nerve and addressed her.

“I wrote it” you said coming out from behind the desk

Lana turned around immediately as she heard your voice. She smiled with satisfaction, as she had already known it must have been a woman, who wrote the article.

“Well” she began “I must admit I haven’t seen such a great work in a while”

You looked at her surprised. For a moment you felt dizzy and didn’t know whether it was because you were talking to your idol or because all the stress and uncertainty were finally gone.

“Thank you, Miss Winters” you managed to say

“Oh, you’re welcome, sweetheart. Please, come to my office in an hour. I’d like to talk to you some more and get a few things straight”

“Of course” you nodded still shocked

Lana smiled at you and was about to take her things and make her way to her own office, when your colleague - the one who had spoken before - started an argument.

“It can’t have been her. That must be a mistake”

Lana stopped in her tracks and took a deep breath - she was already done with him, but turned to face him once again.

“Why is that?” she asked

“Because…” he started, but couldn’t find the words

“Yes?” Lana crossed her arms on her chest

“Because she’s a woman!”

“So am I. Is that a problem for you?”

“I mean no… But you... you are Lana Winters and… and…” he kept stuttering

“Listen to me” Lana said sternly “There’s no place for sexism in my team. Everyone is equal regardless of their sex, race or whatever. If you want to be noticed you need to be good at your job. That's how it works here”

“You chose her because she’s a woman and as we all know you like girls” he complained

Lana inhaled sharply. Her hands clenched into fists, but she remained calm.

“I see, you don’t get it. Well, I think in this case we won’t be able to work together anymore” she said

“W-what?”

“Which part you don’t understand? Clean your desk and get out!” with that Lana disappeared leaving everyone speechless

You knew that everything was about to change. All you had to do was to wait one more hour.

#lana winters #lana winters x reader #sarah paulson #AHS #ahs imagine #ahs asylum

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imacrowcawcaw · 4 years

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Hi I come with a rather silly question, but I was curious, according to your perception how would you describe the personality of every girl in the GVF fandom here at tumblr

That's not a silly question at all, I think it's great and actually quite creative!!!

It seems to me that there are a couple types, which is normal cause there's a lot of us lol. We're not all the same, even if we have some interests in common!

Types of Greta Van Fleet Fans on Tumblr as Observed By Me

Type 1: The Casual Fan

She knows their music, but it's not her favorite. She might reblog a few photos or funny things about the boys on occasion, but her blog is no where near dedicated to Greta and they probably aren't even one of her hyper-obsessions, just another artist in her library. She's more on the outs of the fandom; it's rare that she's tagged or mentioned in anything because not many of us know her. Greta Van Fleet is, most likely, an outlier in her music taste: either heavier than she's used to, or more classic rock when she's a straight up metalhead. All of this is absolutely okay! This girl is generally chill and sweet when she does get to interact, although if she ends up liking GVF more and wants to get "in" on the fandom it can be frustrating to make herself seen.

Type 2: The Die Hard Groupies

I feel kinda bad calling them this but, if given the chance, these chicks would become groupies in an instant. They love the band with their whole heart, and want to live a life of peace, sex, drugs, and rock n roll with their idols. But since they are contained to Tumblr at the moment, these ladies contend themselves with thirst tagging, sending various friends like @satans-helper and @dreams-madeof-strawberrylemonade naughty fanfiction requests and confessions, reblogging pictures of their favorite groupies from rock history, and, of course, listening to Greta Van Fleet (cause they do like the music, I want to make it clear it's not all about sex). It's a toss up whether this girl is open to any and all of the boys, or has a lane she will die in. Jake seems to be the most common.

Type 3: The Accuser

This can girl is much, much more common on Instagram, but I've seen a few here too... The Accuser takes "cancel culture" to the extreme and is canceling a person for something every single day (and encouraging others to do the same) despite the fact that she still likes them apparently (you'll see that she still posts about this person who is "awful")? She thinks the boys are abusing their fame by not promoting social justice very publicly at all times, she has problems with all their girlfriends, she thinks the album is taking too long and that they're being lazy; she goes on rants about symbolism in the songs, makes every conversation about social justice no matter the relevance, and picks fights about the most ridiculous things. (Again, this was on Instagram, but I had two girls fighting over which twin had the larger gay following and things got INTENSE). This girl is quick to anger and accuse, wants everyone to be on her side and thinks even minor disagreements are Literal Death, and still proclaims to love the band despite finding fault in everything they do. High probability she excludes Danny or hates him the most. Yikes.

Note: If you're mad at "The Accuser" one cause, hey, sometimes there are problems that need to be addressed, keep reading.

Type 4: The Defender

While I prefer this girl over The Accuser, she is also... not perfect. The Defender, in contrast to The Accuser (and probably fighting directly against her in a reblog chain no one else bothers to read cause ugh this again), thinks that the GVF boys are literal angels on earth who can do no wrong. She agrees and backs up every decision they and their management make, and always jump to their defense whether it’s music, looks, actions, or online activity being criticized. She is probably a pacifist, heavily dislikes fighting, and wholeheartedly believes in “peace love and unity”. I wouldn’t say that she is naive or irresponsible entirely, but she tends to ignore anything that she dislikes or else immediately jumps to the defense. Think One Direction fangirls circa the early 2010s.

Type 5: The Happy Hippie Medium

This girl is what I, personally, would consider an enthusiastic yet responsible fan. She generally stays outside of the drama because it has nothing to do with her, she thinks it’s too silly to argue about, or she just values her sanity and peace. She does, occasionally, chime in on matters that she thinks are too important to be ignored, whether it’s the wait time for the album or their social media presence, and she’s always respectful about stating her opinion. She loves Greta and posts quite a bit about them, including original content, but she also has other interests that she blogs about. It could be other bands, aesthetic photos, astrology, artwork, tv shows, activism, it doesn’t really matter, but you’ll find that her blog is an interesting and utterly disorganized haven of herself. Gives great recommendations on all manner of things, and has probably been to a concert and had the time of her life.

Type 6: The Obsession Blog

This is the girl - or, rather, the blog - that is 100% about Greta Van Fleet. Every bit of content that comes in or out is GVF related; she’s the one you go to if you want a certain picture or an ear to hear your fantasies. Even more so if her blog has a specific topic, such as a Sam Kiszka blog! (Or @gretavanfleetconfessions lmao shameless self plug). She probably also has one or more side blogs where she has other content she is interested in, as well as personal information. I am surprised at how often I follow both blogs without knowing it’s the same person!!!

-----

So, I think that those 6 types covers pretty much all the types of fans of GVF on Tumblr, or maybe more accurately their attitudes and content. I admit that I probably walk the line between “Happy Hippie ” and “The Defender”; I try to keep a healthy balance between my obsessions and a healthy amount of affection to GVF, sometimes that means ignoring stuff!

I have also noticed that there are things that a LOT of GVF fangirls have in common that aren’t band related, but make this fandom more vibrant and close nonetheless. Many of us:

are musicians

are writers

are artists (plugging @sphoox cause she’s my favorite but seriously all the artists rock)

generally like to be creative, whether it’s crochet or cooking or making moodboards

have other shared bands, such as: Led Zeppelin, Fleetwood Mac, Motley Crue, Guns n Roses, Nick Cave, Hanson, Harry Styles, Lana Del Ray, Twenty One Pilots, David Bowie, Pearl Jam, Metallica...

have other shared tv shows and movies, such as: Avatar the Last Airbender, The Witcher, Killing Eve, Mad Men, The Office, Parks and Rec, Labyrinth, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, The Adams Family, Pirates of the Carribean...

are interested in astrology and star signs

are interested in history

are interested in fashion

love to read and learn (not necessarily in school) and have all manner of knowledge

are in the LGBT+ community

are women of color, in and outside the U.S.!

are neurodivergent

love nature and being active outdoors

love and share various aesthetics, whether it’s cottage core or ‘67 hippy or 80s rocker vibes

I love this fandom community and hope I can remain a part of it for a long time! There are things that diversify us and things that bring us closer together, plus, of course, the four wonderful (and sexy) musicians that brought us all together in the first place. What type of fan do you consider yourself to be? Was I accurate (enough), are there more types? I hope I haven’t wildly offended too many people lol....

#greta van fleet #gvf #lulucrowproductions #my writing #gvf fandom #peaceful army #jake kiszka #josh kiszka #sam kiszka #danny wagner

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gemstoneconstellations · 4 years

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I love your fanfics! And I was wondering do you have any tips for original fanfic writing or just writing fics in general?

wow this actually ended up a lot longer than i thought it would, but here we go!

Original fanfics, hmmmmmm....

What I generally do is base things off of my own personal experience. Like all my iida fics are stuff that happened between me and my husband before we got married. Can’t help falling in love fic with bakugo, that was a previous relationship i had (which there is more to that story). Caught with todoroki..... thats how i got out of a ticket with a cop and how i learned that when i half check someone out and half start thinking about what i would do to that fine man in uniform (curse my uniform kink) that i glare/make a suspicious face. and when he confronted me about what i was doing, ready to write some kind of ticket for whatever i was doing wrong, i was so embarrassed that i blurted out that i found him very attractive and what exactly was on my mind and how i wanted to take that uniform off him.... that has happened with a emt too, i missed the green light looking at his bulging biceps after he rolled up his sleeves to write on a clip board.... he waved and i proceeded to squat in my seat and slam my face against the stirring wheel. escape artist cat was actually a dream i had, someone was taking off my cat’s pretty ribbon collars and putting ugly ones on her and i woke up sooooo mad, but i turned that dream into a romance story (reality kuiper was taking her collars off herself cause she was a brat) Stories about yourself, no matter how small you think it is actually has great potential to become a fic.

its also okay to borrow ideas from other forms of media. I do. example, Silk Maiden, based off of an old batman episode from the early 2000s. its completely okay to do that. I’m not saying copy and paste the exact scenes. Just take the premises and then change it. some examples, like the movie Brave is the Scottish version of Aladdin. the princess who wants to be free and live her life beyond her princess duties needs to get married and she is not having it and wants to change the rules and runs away to find something new. premise is the same but how the story is told is different, one denies every prince and find her own prince in the streets of her kingdom and the other finds a cake that turns her mom into a bear that helps them understand each other and appreciate each other more. a weeb example is isekais. There are sooooo many isekais. japan, Korea, and china are all mass producing isekais right now. the premises are all the same, someone from one world now in another world primarily thanks to magical truck-kun who is probably could be branded as a mass serial killer at this point. I read a lot and i love korean isekai romance novels. I have read an isekai where the character was a villain who then was reincarnated with the memories of her villainous previous life who decided to live her new life by repenting by helping others but guess what? truck-kun came in the form of a airplane crash and she wakes up again in her first life’s preteen body before she became a villain. I’m reading an isekai isekai, author of an isekai met truck-kun and woke up inside the body of one of her characters in her isekai novel. all the same premise but told in a different way. i want to write an isekai for bnha! take a premise and write what you wanted to see happen between those characters if they were in that situation.

same for some fanfics, like you read a fanfic and you like the story that you read but you wished for something more. You like the idea but you wished that it went in this direction or you wanted different types of interaction, its okay to write your own fic with the same premises. i’ve done that. (side note: but if you are gonna base off of it where a lot of the stuff is the same the give the proper credit where it deserves. no stealing peoples hard work) thats what fanfic was originally made for, fans wanted something more from their favorite works or wants something different (Thank you star trek fandom who started all this). I’ve read a lot of villain deku fics and i was craving a specific type of villain fic where “he really isnt a villain but is one but there is a reason why hes being evil cause it is for the greater good cause of deku’s savior complex and border line martyr complex he’s had since he was a child” with a side of “hero/villain romance”, “surprise quirk” and “badass” and a healthy scoop of “bakugo becomes a better person on his own without deku at UA through the power of friendship cause he has that potential without deku’s constant interference”. no one had what i wanted, so i started writing it myself.

also dont worry about being original. you can write a common idea that everyone sees a thousand times a day, like isekai, and people will love it. focus on how you are telling your story, dont put so much effort in being different. actually, common or typical tropes/ideas help make the story more relatable. two books can be equally as good but one person can like book A over book B because they felt more connected to the characters in it. they could relate to the emotions that were being conveyed.

now writing tips....hmmmmm well not everything works for everyone but this is what i do

I write notes down, lots of them. I have notebooks full of notes for my fics. some people can just sit there and start writing, but i like notes to keep me on track and remind me of stuff i wanted to add. Writing it down makes it easier not to forget, cause you are just lying to yourself if you think you’ll remember the idea for later. i got dialogue, scenes, plots, random quirk ideas, diagrams, (12) oc profiles, outlines, lists, and a event idea that i have that i want to do some day, all in my notebook. If you are going to write a long fic i strongly encourage that you do this. Outlines are your friend, they are bones of the story Ex:

Hero By Another Name original outline:

meet at a fire, firefighter impresses kiri who will later seek her out

kiri is becoming popular and wants to share the fame

they bond some how(?)

firefighter kiri, kirishima needs to wear a firefighter uniform

firefighter turns out to be a mega fan of red riot

photoshoot

kirishima finds out shes a nerd and is cool with it

firefighter is now popular

camping with baku or bakusquad?

miscommunication

kirishima does a big confession

I always start off with the key things i want for sure to happen. then i start adding to it. I write out the scene i definitely want to see or i can see clearly in my head. i just keep adding to it till its at least three pages long of just outline that has some images, random dialogue i want someone to say or little summaries of the scene i want.

its okay to jump around when you write. there are some parts that you know you need in a story to help it move a long but it can be boring. so i write one scene that i want to happen next and then i think of what needs to happen to get to that point. like how in hero another name where kirishima shows up unannounced to her apartment and finds out she hoards all his hero merch while not wearing pants. how do you make that not sound creepy and have kirishima be okay with it? by adding bits of how much of a fan she is through out the story! when they first have dinner together i threw in that red riot shirt to help break the ice and that he would then know that she was a big enough fan to buy his merch and that she admires him and that he is an inspiration for her. then later adding that interview where she talks about how she became his fan shows that she has years of dedication to him as a hero. so when he sees all the merch she has, it would make sense to him that she had all of that and not go “huh, will i be able to leave this place if i enter?”

if you dont know it, look it up. research. i wrote a fic before where the reader was pregnant the entire time, i started at two months to birth. I knew nothing about pregnancy on how it can affect your daily life and what it feels like beyond what health class and child development class taught me. So i looked it up. there is seriously so much that doctors look for during those many ultrasounds cause there are so many things that can affect your health and the baby’s and did you know there is pregnancy diabetes? you can become diabetic only during pregnancy, like after you give birth it can go away or stay, the human body is just tripy. but thanks to that research, people who have had children before left comments going “yessss, i remember feeling that” or “god, this was my sister in this scene, it sucks”. Its that relatability i mentioned before that really helps and it makes the story more believable.

(this is just my personal opinion mainly here feel free to ignore) when it comes to smut, write what you know and not what you fantasize about. im not calling anyone out but i can tell from how someone writes sex that they never had it and they are most likely younger than me. i’ve experimented a lot in my 25 years of life and i find myself going “oh sweetie, thats not how the vagina/anus works” when i read fics sometimes. there are guides online that are very informative and tell you what the feelings are like that you would expect. dont rely on porn too much on how sex works physically, maybe for dialogue. (i think of porn as just live action fanfics for the human mating ritual fandom). its okay to use other smuts as reference tools as well, especially if you dont know anything of the bdsm lifestyle.

beta readers help a lot. if you are unsure of ideas that you have, talk it out with a friend. I sometimes do this for myself or help others with their fics. its actually a lot of fun with a group of people where you just keep shooting off ideas together about stuff and just go all out fangirlling to the point you are rolling on the ground smiling. this can help with writers block or motivate you to keep writing. also having another pair of eyes to look at your fics, not just for corrections but for input on the story can help make it better. someone can see things from a different angle and point stuff out to you, plot holes or things that you can add.

im not sure what else to say other than stuff like format and spacing. sometimes i see people who write too long of paragraphs or there is no clear separation between them. thats killer on the eyes and makes me not want to read at all cause all i see is this wall of text thats just overwhelming. i want to call who ever formatted textbooks cause thats how they do it and it makes it so hard to concentrate on reading and absorbing the info. if i see fics with no clear breaks or long running paragraphs, i usually give up half way cause i just cant do it. its hard to keep track where you are reading and you start trying to focus on it too much that the story is just lost on me. it is hard on people like me who have dyslexia (who ever called it that is just cruel to people who have it cause you can never spell it without spell check and pronouncing it is just ugggh)

i hope this helps

#my weebs

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Why Wonder Woman’s Real Origin Story Lies in First Wave Feminism

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This holiday season, one of the few bright spots for families unable to go to theaters—and even those who did—was Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman 1984. An ambitious and vibrantly colored celebration of heroism in all its forms, including those that don’t end in fistfights, it’s a superhero movie that’s won as many fans as detractors. But while basking in the new spectacle is well and good, it’s also worth considering how it came to be. For even in this HBO Max tentpole, one can still see how the feminist movement of the early 20th century is grafted into the very DNA of the Wonder Woman character, her origin, and even her most contentious iconography… something that rarely gets acknowledged in the broader comic fan community.

The character of Wonder Woman was created by Dr. William Moulton Marston in 1941. A psychologist with an eclectic career, Marston went from inventing the lie detector test while still an undergraduate at Harvard in 1914 to being essentially blacklisted from academia by the age of 33. But of course his most enduring legacy came afterward; it came when he engineered a superheroine intentionally designed to be a great role model for girls and boys.

As Marston famously said, “Frankly, Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who, I believe, should rule the world.” However, the actual political and sociological influences on Marston and the women who helped him create Diana are often overlooked, even as the character has come to dominate pop culture.

Marston, rather infamously nowadays, lived a polyamorous lifestyle with his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston, and a second partner named Olive Byrne. Byrne is often credited in the 21st century as the inspiration for Wonder Woman (instead of a wedding ring, Marston gave her two bracelets that are identical to those worn by Diana Prince). Yet it is very likely that Holloway Marston had just as much influence. After all, she was a lover of Greek antiquity and until her death kept a book of Sappho’s poetry from the island of Lesbos within reach.

Still, it is Byrne’s influence that historian and esteemed Harvard professor, Jill Lepore, most untangles in her riveting portrait of the Marston family, The Secret History of Wonder Woman. Lepore, who holds the title of David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of History at Cambridge, zeroed in on Byrne’s relation to the early feminist movement at the turn of the century and its impact on Marston, recasting Wonder Woman as a bridge between the suffragist movement and the generation who grew up reading Wonder Woman comics before fighting for the “women’s liberation movement.”

Olive Byrne was born in 1904, the daughter of Ethel Byrne and the niece of Margaret Sanger, the latter of whom founded what became known as Planned Parenthood (Margaret also coined the term “birth control”). In 1916, Ethel and Margaret opened in Brooklyn the first United States birth control clinic, and received jail time at a workhouse for their trouble. There Ethel nearly starved to death while going on a hunger strike. During this time, a 12-year-old Olive Byrne was being raised in a Catholic orphanage because her father and grandparents had died, and Ethel Byrne was not interested in raising her daughter.

Despite their absence, Olive held her mother and aunt’s politics in high regard. And those ideals would reverberate in Wonder Woman comics too. They were thoughts informed by the circle of New York intellectuals and early 20th century socialists Margaret and Ethel interacted with in Greenwich Village. Among their contemporaries were Upton Sinclair, Emma Goldman, and a very notable Lou Rogers.

Lou was actually named Annie Lucasta Rogers, but because she was told she couldn’t get work as a woman cartoonist, she initially submitted her work as “Lou” via the mail. Her historic drawings of women being able to finally break off the shackles of patriarchy by using the right to vote are echoed throughout Marston’s Wonder Woman comics, just as much as the author’s own fascination with male and female domination and submission.

In the 1910s, feminists and suffragist literature was rife with Amazonian imagery that would live again in the pages of DC. For example, Max Eastman published in 1913 a book of verse called Child of the Amazons and Other Poems. In it, an Amazonian girl must confess to her queen that she has fallen in love with a man. Yet Amazonian law forbids any warrior to marry or bear children until she has produced significant change in the world. Thus the young Amazon abandons her romance, stating she won’t seek love again until “the far age when men shall cease / their tyranny.” This is echoed in Wonder Woman comics as Diana repeatedly, and flatly, refuses to marry Steve Trevor.

In one classic Marston story, a dopey Steve whines, “Angel, when are we going to be married?” Diana coolly fires back, “When evil and injustice vanish from the Earth!”

More appropriate still is Inez Haynes Gillmore’s Angel Island. Published in 1914, after Gillmore co-founded the National College Equal Suffrage League, Angel Island envisions five American sailors who are shipwrecked on an island that’s crawling with “super-humanly beautiful” women with wings. Driven mad by lust, the men capture the women and cut off their wings, leaving them helpless as none has ever walked with their feet. But eventually one of the angels leads a violent revolution “with the splendid, swinging gait of the Amazon.”

This too echoes early Wonder Woman stories of the heroine being chained or rendered powerless by men who would wish to dominate her in every sense of the word. It is, after all, the fate her mother Hippolyta had to free the Amazons from in bloody battle.

Men trying to chain Diana or rob her of her powers by either bounding her bracelets together or removing them was also a common occurrence in ‘40s Wonder Woman comics, particularly those authored by Marston. In one memorable Marston story, a man unaware that Diana Prince is Wonder Woman even chains her to a stove so she cannot leave the kitchen. Diana retorts with a smirk, “How thrilling! I see you’re chaining me to the cookstove. What a perfect caveman idea!”

The year of 1915, meanwhile, saw the publication of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland, another feminist tale of an uncharted utopia of only women. For thousands of years, this lost paradise’s women have reproduced asexually, not unlike how Diana is born to Hippolyta in the comics after the Amazonian Queen sculpts her out of clay. These women of “herland” know nothing of fear, war, or even basic concepts of property. Unfortunately, three male American students find them and fall in love, each marrying one woman. But then each is thunderstruck that they cannot consummate their relationship whenever they want. In this thinly veiled allegory about the need for birth control, two of the men are banished when one tries to rape his wife, and another expresses confusion as to how rape can be a crime in marriage.

“The women [of Herland] are Amazons because, in the nineteen-teens, reporters routinely used the name to describe suffragists,” Lepore said in a recent article in The New Yorker. “So did suffragists themselves in both the U.K. and the U.S., including Elizabeth Holloway.”

The writers of these stories were also contemporaries and even sometimes neighbors of Olive’s mother, Ethel. And just as Olive helped introduce a worshipful admiration for her aunt Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood to the Marstons, with whom she built an unorthodox home, so too did she seemingly inform (along with Holloway Marston’s love for antiquity) what became the Wonder Woman origin story, which was recently given new life by Jenkins and Gal Gadot in 2017’s Wonder Woman.

There is of course the question of whether the new movies fully embrace these legacies. Lepore, for one, is skeptical, writing in 2020 that “Patty Jenkins seems to be interested in history… But she’s apparently not at all interested in the history of women: it’s got no place in either of her two ‘Wonder Woman’ films, even though they both take place during major inflection points in that history.”

However, the hard-won victories of that history, and how Marston seeded the ideals of its first wave into his comics, is still inextricably linked to Gadot’s Wonder Woman. We see it when she stands with a near divinity over Chris Pine on a beach in the 2017 movie, unaware and undisturbed by the preconceived limits a patriarchal society would place on her; and we see it when Wonder Woman can defeat villainy and greed in Wonder Woman 1984 without having to throw a single punch.

So for whatever bondage iconography that also clearly seeped its way into Marston’s creation, there is a definite through-line of a century’s worth of feminist ideals that connect the fantasies of the suffrage movement to the icon of female empowerment that the women’s liberation movement claimed Wonder Woman to be when she was placed on the cover of Gloria Steinem’s Ms. magazine in 1972. And a hundred years later, it lives on like Amazons and angels on the big screen.

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The post Why Wonder Woman’s Real Origin Story Lies in First Wave Feminism appeared first on Den of Geek.

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raccoon-wizard · 4 years

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Two and Half Assholes

An entire one person (shout out to @jumpfiend) expressed their wish for me to write an angry essay about the long dead show Two and Half Men (2003-2015) and all the problems it has. Allow me to start by saying that I am by no means a professional critic and I have never really written an in-depth review of anything. But I have a lot of feelings that I need to get out about this shitshow, otherwise my head is gonna explode next time my father insists on watching it.

Just a warning, this is a very long post.

What is Two and Half Men about?

If I tried to write my own summary here, I would probably end up tearing it to shreds already. Instead, I’m going to borrow the annotation from IMDB.com: “A hedonistic jingle writer's free-wheeling life comes to an abrupt halt when his brother and 10-year-old nephew move into his beachfront house.”

That doesn’t really say much, does it now. Luckily, the same site also provides us with a wide range of plot (hahahah “plot”) summaries written by users. This one tells us a little more: “The Harper brothers Charlie and Alan are almost opposites but form a great team. They have little in common except their dislike for their mundane, maternally cold and domineering mother, Evelyn. Alan, a compulsively neat chiropractor and control-freak, is thrown out by his manipulative wife Judith who nevertheless gets him to pay for everything and do most jobs in the house. Charlie is a freelance jingle composer and irresistible Casanova who lives in a luxurious beach-house and rarely gets up before noon. Charlie "temporarily" allows Alan and his son Jake, a food-obsessed, lazy kid who shuttles between his parents, to move in with them after Alan's separation/divorce. The sitcom revolves around their conflicting lifestyles, raising Jake (who has the efficient, caring dad while having a ball with his fun-loving sugar uncle who teaches him boyish things), and bantering with Evelyn and various other friends and family. Other fairly regular characters include Charlie's cleaning lady Berta and his rich, self-confessed stalker neighbor Rose who often sneaks in to spy on Charlie.”

Now that’s much better. It gives us quite a decent picture of the show’s ensemble. At least for the starter episodes, this is pretty much what it is. But as the show progresses, we see that the characters have a little bit more depth to them. But not that much.

Let’s start with Charlie Harper, the “freelance jingle composer and irresistible Casanova who lives in a luxurious beach-house and rarely gets up before noon” portrayed by Charlie Sheen. (Is that man still a thing?) I think we can get a lot by taking apart this brief description of him. Freelance jingle composer pretty much means that he has a grand piano in his house and we can occasionally see him playing it while trying to put together words for a commercial for some random product. And that’s it. He has a few other musician friends who are just as big of assholes as he is, but we’ll get to that later. Other than that, we don’t really see him working at all. I think there is one episode about him writing kids’ songs because his girlfriend’s kid likes them. And one about him getting an award?? I don’t know man. The second part of that statement is a much more prominent “personality” trait of Charlie’s. In nearly every episode, we see him “dating” (meaning shagging and then dumping) another woman. I have mentioned in my initial post that this show is misogynistic. Don’t worry, I will also get into that later. For now I’m going to say that Charlie treats all these women absolutely disgustingly and we’re supposed to laugh at that. On the rare occasions we see him in a long term relationship (which happens twice I think? I’m not sure now), we get the stereotypical ball and chain bullshit. The woman takes all his freedom and tries to make him better. While I hate that trope with burning passion, I have to admit that in this case, she does have a solid point. Charlie is a pathetic excuse of a man who has to count on his good looks (questionable) and his riches. By the way, where did he even get them? Does composing jingles really make that much money? Is he that good of a gambler? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen another episode addressing the fact that the answer to both of these questions is no. Where the hell did this luxurious beach-house come from??? So many questions about a show that deserves so little.

Surprisingly, Charlie is the better one out of the two brothers. At the start, we really do feel sorry for Alan. His wife (who is a HORRIBLE person by the way) kicks him out and manipulates him into still paying for everything and doing many things for her around the house. Who wouldn’t feel bad for someone like this? He moves in with Charlie “for the time being”. Soon, we realise that he is not leaving the house anytime soon. He becomes a disgusting leech, a truly pathetic excuse of a man. And he doesn’t even bother hiding it. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to feel sorry for him or laugh at him, but either case doesn’t really work if you spend at least ten seconds thinking about it. How are we supposed to sympathise with a man that lives off of others and barely lifts a finger to change it? The worst part is, the show presents it as something completely normal. We don’t really see Alan’s actions turning against him, do we? Most of the time, whatever shit he does, works just fine for him.

Another prominent character is Alan’s son, Jake, who grows up throughout the series. A fat little boy, not exactly bright. A spoiled brat (if it’s the fault of Alan or Judith is questionable) that has everything handed to him, as Charlie points out in one episode. It’s another bad personality trait that we’re supposed to find funny. And at first, we kind of do. But once again, as the show progresses, it gets worse. Jake becomes the oldest kid in his class because he fails so many times. He only gets to start middle school because “he’s too big for the desks in his class now”. A bit of a watered down Dudley Dursley now that I think about it. It feels that the older Jake gets, the dumber he is. He eventually joins the military because he is too daft to realise. (If I remember correctly, that was done only so Jake’s actor could leave the show because he pretty much realised how bad it was.)

The main reason why I hate this show so much, however, is its way of handling female characters. There’s a few prominent ones - the aforementioned Judith, Alan’s ex wife, a cold hearted manipulative bitch, that also follows the trope of “I’m breaking up with you because I’m a lesbian” for a while, but then it’s never addressed again, not even once. Then we have Alan and Charlie’s mother, Evelyn, also a cold hearted bitch lacking any motherly instincts whatsoever that the men blame for how they turned out. Honestly, I can kind of see it. There’s Rose, Charlie’s neighbour whom he had slept with once and who’s been obsessed with him ever since, following him pretty much wherever he goes and inappropriately visiting him, usually in order to chase any woman that gets close to him away. We have Berta, Charlie’s housekeeper that I would like to believe is there to show the differences between different classes, as she has a large family to take care of, fending of her daughters’ admirers and dealing with drug and alcohol issues. But at this point we all know she’s only there so we can laugh at her struggles and the witty remarks she likes to make.

A special category of women in this show are the lovers and girlfriends. All of them end up either leaving the men for someone better (good for them tbh), or getting left by them. But remember, we’re supposed to always be siding with the men. The women are there for us to laugh at and hate. Rose the stalker? The only reason Charlie never gets rid of her is so we can laugh as she appears unexpected on his balcony over and over again. Are her apparent mental health issues ever addressed? Maybe once, but as a joke. You know, the classic ha ha ha ha look an insane person that’s hilarious. Judith the ex wife and her flock of weird friends (that Charlie converts)? Look, evil wives hating men, ha ha ha ha. Better run away from there, men, or they’ll eat you alive! Ha ha ha ha. Judith wanting support from friends and claiming she deserves to be happy is played off as something we scoff at. Chelsea, Charlie’s girlfriend and fiancée? The ball and chain thing, similarly to Judith, but not nearly as manipulative - this one we can see really means well and wants to help Charlie, but he’s a Man™ and cannot handle that, despite claiming to love her very dearly. Lindsay, Alan’s on again, off again girlfriend? Oof. Where to even start with that one. As most of the characters (save for maybe Judith), she starts off decent, despite her inexplicable desire for Alan. (Seriously though what in the world is up with that.) Also, now that I mentioned Alan’s weird sex appeal (not to me but to the female characters of the show, ew), what the hell was up with Judith wanting to suddenly fuck him again and HIM ENDING UP BEING THE FATHER OF HER DAUGHTER???? Was that the point when the writers just said “you know what, fuck this” or?

Some additional things the men on the show did to women:

Infidelity. Aka “ha ha ha many women want man what a lucky bastard he gets to fuck many women ha ha ha oh no he’s been caught ha ha ha funny”.

Infidelity with their friends/family members. I’m pretty sure this happened multiple times. One of the male protagonists gets a girlfriend. Girlfriend has an attractive daughter. Man sleeps with daughter. Girlfriend is mad. Man claims that it is actually a compliment to her because the daughter is just a younger version of her. Man gets upset when girlfriend disagrees. Poor man, girlfriend mean :(((

Another thing I would like to point out is the show’s dumbass approach to sexuality and gender. It’s the age old, straight men bullshit that lesbians = hot, gay men = ew. We see that throughout the whole thing a bunch of times. Alan ends up marrying Walden (whom I will talk about as well) so they can scam an adoption agency. That’s just wrong, man. That’s awful. And regarding gender, the way this shitshow handles trans people is disgusting. I can currently only think of one instance of this, but I have a feeling it happened multiple times, but with Charlie and Alan. They meet a woman, flirt, sleep together, all fun and games. But for some god forsaken reason, after all is done, the woman decides to be like “yeah by the way I used to be a dude” and?? Why?? First of, why would any trans person want to tell anyone their deadname and other things after successfully transitioning? I’m a cis woman, but this really makes no sense to me. Please correct me if I’m wrong on this one, but if you’ve spent years trying to pass as whatever gender you identify with, transitioned, you wouldn’t exactly go around sleeping with people and afterwards telling them about it, would you? And second of all, the entire reason why these characters appear are so we can be like “eww he slept with someone who used to have a penis eww” and laugh as they have a small crisis because of it. Just. Why?? I am aware that this is a thing other shows do/have done as well, but it really bothers me. And even when the guy decides to roll with it, all we get are those jokes that the woman is “more manly” than him. I remember vividly Alan hooking up with a trans lady and briefly dating her, only so we can see her pick a fight with a man, pay for their food and shit and Alan being flustered because he feels like less of a man. Again, please correct me if I’m wrong since my knowledge of gender is limited, but I’m about 97 % sure this is not how it works.

One would have thought that most of this would end after Charlie’s death. His place is taken by Walden Schmidt, portrayed by the angel that is Ashton Kutcher, a “billionaire internet entrepreneur who has recently been divorced and is now suicidal” (wiki). Before I dig in to how it actually got worse, let’s talk about Walden for a while. He really is a nice change. Walden is a genuinely good character, we see him working super hard and treating women well and just being great. I actually like him. The problem the show has when it comes to him is treating his suicidal-ness as just another little joke. Ha ha ha man wants to die man weak. Funny. But as we get over this part (rather quickly tbh), things involving Walden get actually good (besides the part where he sleeps with Alan’s mother). We do see some annoyingly familiar divorce related things, but in contrast to Alan, we see Walden actually get back on his own two feet.

Alan will forever be my biggest issue with this show. I don’t know if he gets worse or if it’s just the contrast with Walden that makes it seem that way, but he becomes a bigger and bigger parasite, exploiting Walden’s kindness, becoming a lover to his, at that point, former girlfriend Lindsay and somehow exploiting her current boyfriend? He just goes haywire is what I’m trying to say.

I’m not saying that people like that don’t exist. We see it every day, the rich playboys, the pathetic incels. They are everywhere and we totally should talk about them. But not like this. We shouldn’t feel like we should sympathise with them, we shouldn’t hate those that try to criticise them, or those who want to get rid of them. We shouldn’t laugh when they hurt people around them. Men shouldn’t want to relate to them. Characters like this should be presented as something we should avoid becoming.

“What’s your problem? It’s just something I watch to unwind,” my father scoffs at me as I complain about yet another evening we all have to spend listening to the nonsense Two and Half Men brings us. Yea, maybe for you. Maybe you know better than to treat people around you, especially women, like they’re just something you can play around with and then throw into the sewers. Maybe you give everyone equal respect. (No he doesn’t, by the way.) But you know, with the way this TV channel plays this show over and over and over and over again (five episodes a day, every day, and the second they get to the end, they just start over), there’s probably a number of young people who don’t realise how wrong it is and take what’s said there as something to live by. Maybe they’ll think that it’s okay to use people to their advantage. Maybe they’ll think like a rich entitled middle aged straight white man. That’s my problem. Even though the show ended five years ago, it still lives on our televisions and it still gives us wrong examples on how to live our lives. That’s why I hate the show. Not just the awful writing and “plot” holes. It’s the way it treats people and presents it as something that’s totally fine.

#tv #television #tv shows #comedy #sitcom #two and half men #jon cryer #ashton kutcher #charlie sheen #sexism #misogyny

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saintheartwing · 4 years

Text

Invader Zim: The Pigshit Troll, Part One

Dib didn't like Zim's creative writing stories, and he made that clear to everyone. Now everyone is sure he's the troll going around blasting other people's work and writing horrible, awful things. With his reputation cratered and people despising him...what's to be done?

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Creative writing! One of the best, easiest ways to express yourself in the school setting. It would be a nice and simple way to boost one's grade point average, too.

But it also told people a lot about the sort of person you were, and that was as clear as could be when it came to the "student" called Zim. Dib was very well aware of that. He scowled a bit as he looked through some of the stories Zim had written, all of them were made available on the school's website just like his was or Zita or Sara or his own sister Gaz's, and there were distinct personalities shining through. Dib had spent a long time reading them in his room, his black, scythe-like hair slicked back a little, adjusting his glasses, wearing his usual black jacket as he looked the stories over.

Gretchen had a lot in common with him. She too liked to write mysteries or science fiction tales. Stories of the fantastic. One particular story had a distinct "Carrie" esque influence, a rather homely-looking girl finding out she had psychic powers and was trying to learn "how to blow shit up with my MIND" as she kept saying to her friends and family around her. It actually ended up working, a Poop cola can shaking about on the table to a pineapple and a watermelon getting blown apart to, at long last, the principal's car going up in a glorious bang right before his eyes, thereby ensuring that she would never, ever again get sent to detention or his office for anything.

Sara's stories showed her strict Catholic upbringing, there was much emphasis on guilt, forgiveness, redemption and religion. She had, however, also shown a clear talent in action schlock, FUN action schlock. Dib was surprised to find himself enjoying her tales of the Saints that she'd adapted into stories for others to read, Saint Sebastian taking more arrows than Boromir in Lord of the Rings, Peter racing for his life to escape a hostile city that wanted to kill him, ducking down every grimy alley he could find, and, of course, her magnum opus was on Saint George, the famous "dragon slayer". Not only did she detail a fantastic fight, but George's refusal to renounce his faith, terrible torture sessions, being sliced and diced on a wheel of swords that STILL didn't kill him before finally being decapitated on a city wall. Sara had clear talent for gripping your attention.

Gaz however, loooooved to write horror stories. One particular story stood out. He was in it. Investigating a haunted house, Gaz had written that Dib had heard a grandfather clock chime when the house had been abandoned for over a hundred years, and the clock couldn't still be working. All of the parts were long since rusted and broken down. Then, he was chased by an axe wielding ghost, cracking through the floor, down into a big dungeon…where even more axe wielding ghosts laid in wait! The ending was a horrible twist one too. He woke up in his bed, all of it had clearly been a dream…until you saw the "OR HAD IT?" at the end, with a special illustration she'd made of Dib holding his own severed head up above his body.

But then it came time to Zim's stories. And were he not wearing that black fake hair and fake contacts, Dib knew the little alien invader would be grinning his zipper-toothed grin with a dark, smug light in his ruby/maroon eyes. That little green-skinned piece of crap.

Zim's stories had serious grammatical errors. Zim's stories had him winning all the time. Zim's stories had him doing disgusting, horrible things to humans and especially to Dib, and to his family. Zim seemed to relish in getting to write all of this down and he LOOOOVED seeing the look on Dib's face when Dib was looking at his smartphone, because he knew, he could tell when Dib was reading one of HIS tales. Dib had a unique mixture of disgust, anger, irritation and revulsion that blended together like a bad smoothie, and Zim was drinking it aaaaaaall in…and loving every second of it.

"This doesn't even begin to make sense!" Dib proclaimed, reading the latest story Zim had written. "Why would I ever, EVER help you…YOU…conquer the galaxy? I've spent my whole life trying to keep you from conquering Earth! Literally, years of my life! You expect me to just do a personality 180 and be like "Irken tyranny is fine"!?" He remarked aloud at Zim, giving him a dark glower. "Oh, and then there's this one, this one here…" He pointed at his smartphone screen. "This one just comes off like a torture porn. How did the teacher let you get away with it? It's just you torturing me for no good reason and rubbing your face in winning. And THIS one expects me to be HAPPY that you're conquering the universe using demonic artifacts so the Irken empire reigns supreme! And then you...kidnap my sister? And you murder people in front of her yet expect us to overlook all that awful stuff because you had a sad past? My childhood has sucked, I didn't grow up to be a megalomaniacal sociopath like you!"

"Bully for you." Gaz remarked with a grunt. "Dib, it's just some fanfics and stories, it ain't a big deal."

"Yeah well maybe not, but it's still gross to me, okay? And if he wants to write about it, I get to complain about it. That's my freedom of speech." He grunted back as Zim smirked and stuck his tongue out at Dib. He had a nice, easy way to get under the human's skin and there wasn't anything he could do.

Nobody had any idea how bad it was going to get.

The next day, their English teacher Nick called the students to pay attention at the front of his class as he walked in, his expression solemn, quiet and disturbed. "I found some…very insulting, horrible reviews put up on the school website, reviewing the stories. I would like whoever wrote them to come forward." He intoned, the rather hairy-armed and hairy-chested young man sighing as he folded his arms over his green t-shirt, Dib looking from him to Zim, then to the rest of the class as they immediately took out their phones to check.

Sure enough, the reviews were astoundingly cruel. They weren't even competently put together.

"THIS STORY IS PIG SHIT! THIS STORY IS PIGSHIT!"

"PIGSHIT FUCK YOUR PIGSHIT NARDS YOU DERPIN PAN!"

"THIS STORY IS PIGSHIT!"

"REVIEW MY STORIEZ! u/3211346 REVIEW MY STORIES OR I WILL FIND YOU IN REAL LIFE AND FORCE YOU!"

"Sheesh." Dib frowned. What the heck was all this? It was all in caps. And it had been left not only on stories done by his classmates, but on other classes too. It was odd…nothing linked them at all. After all, the classmates in the grade older than him were super focused on that silly show "Moon Sailor". And Gaz's class, except for her, had all written tales about "Nakuro the Ninja", they were reeeeaaally into anime and manga lately.

"I don't want to believe anyone in my class wrote these reviews but all of the English teachers are asking their students. So…whomever may be behind these? Step forward."

And that's when some of the kids looked right at Dib, murmuring and muttering amongst themselves as Dib glanced back.

"Why are you all looking at me?" He wanted to know, frowning.

"Your stories didn't get that many bad reviews." Sara remarked.

"I still got some, though!" Dib protested. "Besides, that's not a good enough reason to think I did it!"

"But you're always complaining about ZIM'S stories really furiously and being all pissy." Said Zita.

"Why would I leave an anonymous review complaining about his stories when I've always been open about the fact I hate him?" Dib inquired. "I'm gonna all of a sudden decide after years of complaining about him to hide my complaining behind a mask because…why?" He wanted to know. "Furthermore, all of the "pig shit" reviews are advertising someone ELSE'S stories, not mine! That's not my account he linked! And I'm not even interested at all in those ninja stories or those silly Moon Sailor tales, look at the ones I favorited or left signed reviews on, none of them are in those fandoms. I'm not interested in them, so why would I leave any kind of review, even a raging, hateful one on them? Wouldn't I leave one on something I actually care about enough to get angry or furious over?"

"Yeaaaah, but there's a LOT of hatred in these reviews, and you're the only one in class who gets THAT mad about Zim stories." Gretchen confessed. "It does look kinda bad."

"But whenever I complained about Zim's stories, it was because they were so mean and cruel and misanthropic and Zim was just getting away with being a jerk! I laid out all my points well. And I sure didn't just write in all caps and with bad grammar!" Dib added. "You can't just assume I did it!"

But the kids murmured and muttered amongst themselves as Dib frowned, turning away, Zim sniggering at his misfortune. "Yeah, real funny, Zim. Real funny."

The rumor spread through the school. Poor Dib kept getting really insulting messages left for him on all of his work. Even when none of it even MENTIONED Zim, he got the horrible reviews, accusing him of being a troll, of being "Pig Shit".

"Look at this!" He told the guidance counselor, Mr. Thildari….before he remembered the man with soft white hair and a soft yet dark voice was literally blind and couldn't see it. He wore a white long-sleeve shirt and white pants and sat next to Dib on bean bag chairs in the nice "safe space" he'd set up in his office.

"Could you read it aloud?" The man softly inquired.

"Yeah…sure." Dib sighed. "Heh-hem. "you bash stories all time about Zim, tbh and you bully authors here. you are just as bad as any villain you're bitching about so get the fuck over yoself you preachy hypocrite. if i see more writers quit their storys because you a sneaky, evil person karma will come for you. i hope you believe in Jesus because yo gnna need him and the good Lord to save your sorry ass from going to hell".

"My, my, how very rude of them."

"It gets worse. Some garbled nonsense here too. "nvkdfjsl:Derpin pig shittin h*** humpin nards suckin pan!" And THEN there's " You big fat white nasty smelling fat b*** why you took me off the m*** schedule with your trifling dirty white racist a** you big fat b*** oompa loompa body a** b*** I'm coming outside and I'm going to beat the f*** out of you b***". I mean really?! Oompa Loompa body?! Racist?! Where's all this coming from? And then this guy calls me the q word! What is WRONG with these people?!"

"There has to be some way to stop it." Mr. Thildari remarked softly.

"I don't know HOW. How am I supposed to convince them it isn't me?" Dib groaned, burying his face in his hands as Mr. Thildari gently stroked over his back, and quietly sighed. "What could possibly be good enough for them?"

"I wish I could tell you." The guidance counselor told him. "All I can do is promise you, I'll be here to talk to you. To be as a shoulder to cry on."

"I'm glad you're so good at it." Dib confessed softly as he wiped his eyes on his sleeve, sniffling a bit, trying to fight back tears. "People don't realize how…how fuckin' SHITTY it is. It's this daily grind, waking up every day to see nothing but shit flung at you just for having an opinion they don't like, for trying to make the world a better place, for trying to hold people accountable for the awful things they say and do."

"Well Dib, remember, Zim has the right to write stories, even if you think they're awful or dark or cruel."

"Yeah…sure. Doesn't mean I don't get to complain about them!" Dib muttered. "Everyone forgets that. They just want to be free to post anything up with no critique. But this? This isn't critique I'm getting, this isn't like me pointing out character inconsistencies or how meanspirited a story feels, this is just bashing, this is just trolling, this is just swears and vulgar crap and yelling. That's not free speech, that's like…HATE speech. So what am I gonna do…" He murmured, burying his face in his hands. "…what am I gonna do…"

…what indeed.

Author's Note: Every single review you see from "Pig Shit" and quoted by Dib is literally word for word either what I've received, or what I've been accused of writing. And Dib's views are my own. And that's all I will say for now.

#fanfic #the pigshit troll #pigshit #review #Invader Zim #Zim #Dib #gaz

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kuningannasansa · 4 years

Text

A musketeers rewatch (that nobody asked for) 1x08

In which Richelieu almost gets his husband killed

We start with Labarge (spl?) being escorted through the streets of Paris by musketeers. He is played by that guy who always plays violent brutes with few if any lines of dialogue.

Red guards show up and demand that the prisoner is handed over to them. Then Labarge beats the crap out of them until the musketeers intervene. Not before a red guard is killed thou. By another red guard attempting to strike at Labarge.

The dead man is called Captain Trudeau. And the red guard who killed him blames the musketeers.

Now they’re fighting each other! Male egos...

Treville says Trudeau was given fair warning and it’s his own fault he’s dead. Kind of harsh. Richelieu retorts that Treville had no business arresting a regional intendant without coming to him first. I’m really struggling to see Labarge in the role of regional intendant, but I guess that’s the point. Treville shoots back that he’s a violent criminal who subjected Gascony to a reign of terror. And Richelieu says that the man exceeded his authority and he was in the process of calling him back before the musketeers intervened. I know I’m supposed to take the musketeers side here, but I really see no reason to doubt Richelieu.

Treville is mad and says any of his musketeers could defeat any of the red guards and Louis immediately makes a bet! So there we are, that’s the plot sorted out. I love their bickering thou xD

Richelieu looks so panicked, poor dear! He knows he doesn’t stand a chance but he can’t afford to back down.

Constance and D’artagnan are being cute and domestic!

D’artagnan apologizes for the rent being overdue. Nice reference to the books! But in the books he doesn’t apologize, he is quite insulted that some commoner would even dare to bother him with such trivialities. Much more realistic to a noble of the era, but I guess not something a modern audience would sympathise with.

Here Bonacieux actually tells him off thou and that’s too far in the other direction, kind of takes me out of the story.

Treville is so excited about this contest! Bless!

The entry fee is 30 livres and our boys haven’t got it. It’s time to go womanizing! In the church.

Aramis knows all the women there, of course.

“It’s a requiem mass not a party at Madame Angel’s” - and then they cross themselves lol.

Labarge has destroyed D’artagnan’s farm “as a warning to other local landowners” because Dart’s father was “greatly respected”. But Dart had done nothing to him and his father is long dead? I don’t get this.

Porthos can’t lie for shit and Alice helps him out cause she fancies him! That’s cute!

Alice has put on a colourful dress and her maid is judging her.

Porthos says it must be great for her to have all of her husband’s things to remember him by and I thought he was talking of his own lack of things to remember his mother by but Alice responded by giving him her husband’s solid gold candle snuffer! So was he fishing for that the whole time? It really comes across more like he wasn’t but then took the opportunity.

D’artagnan proclaims he is ready and Athos just smiles. And proceeds to provoke him with tales of Labarge being comfortable in the Bastille with his “every whim attended to”. But we had a scene before of Labarge being fed disgusting prison food and talked down to by a guard, so not true lol.

Doesn’t stop D’art from barging into Richelieu’s office screaming thou.

Richelieu offers him patronage and D’art turns it down. This episode almost feels like the book.

“As a citizen of France I demand my rights” - you are a subject of the King. Shut up.

Milady overheard the whole thing!

“Your fascination with these musketeers seems inexhaustible.” - lol Armand, look who’s talking!

Milady: “I do everything for you.” Richelieu: “Permit me to doubt that.” - but in the last episode you trusted her to manage the Ninon thing even in the event of your death?

“There was a time I found your independence of spirit arousing. I must warn you, Milady, that time is now past.” - this line is gross and unnecessary. But also, what did she do between last episode and this one to change his opinion like that? I guess the writers just needed him to discard her for plot reasons, but it could have been better written.

Red guards arrest a protesting Bonacieux! This really is the book episode!

Bonacieux: “You want me to spy on him [D’art]?” Richelieu: “I can see you are a man of quick intelligence.”

Why is his office so huge and empty thou, with one little desk in it?

D’artagnan... steals a red guard uniform. And breaks into the Bastille. Wow, okay, totally forgot about that bit.

And he does the whole “my name is D’artagnan of Lupiac in Gascony” thing again. And tries to force a confession out of Labarge.

And Labarge would have killed him if Athos had not shown up.

Athos: “What did I tell you about thinking before you act!” D’artagnan: “I can’t help it, I’m not like you!” Athos: “You are, more than you know.” - oh, you mean you also didn’t think before you strung up your wife from a tree? Yeah, i see that.

A milathos scene! Athos says he won’t attack a defenceless woman and Milady laughs as though at the idea that she is defenceless, but it breaks my heart cause dude, you very much did do just that.

“I have to make a living somehow, what better patron could I have?” Milady says of Richelieu and she is right!

“I’m a soldier, just like you.” - YES! SHE IS!

She tries to come on to him for casual sex and he rejects her. With difficulty, but still :((

She gives him “fair warning” to stay away from her.

Papa Treville looks so proud looking at Athos and D’art training!

Richelieu tells Labarge that he “overstepped his limits” and “ruled Gascony like a petty tyrant”. Lebarge says he just gave people the needed encouragement to pay their taxes and Richelieu replies: “Perhaps if more of the taxes you collected had reached the treasury, I’d be inclined to overlook your excesses.” LOL!

Constance sells her stuff to get D’art the money. And then Milady gives it to him before she can. And D’art doesn’t decline even thou all he knows of her is that she left him to take the the blame for her murder and lied about Ninon. He literally doesn’t give a fuck as long as he can enter this fight!

Milady looks so pretty in this scene thou!

Porthos and Alice are getting on very well!

So Milady gave D’art some pendant with a flower on it together with the money as a “token of friendship” and now Bonacieux has nicked it.

D’art: “I found a patron of my own.” Aramis: “Wealthy widow?” D’art: “Not as far as I know.” - so like, with Milady telling her that her lover tried to kill her and Athos’s dead wife coming back from the dead to kill him and Athos clearly recognising the woman at Ninon’s trial, D’art still hasn’t had the penny drop? Or he has and just doesn’t want to tell Athos that he’s taking his wife’s money?

Aramis is the best shot, Porthos is the best at hand to hand combat and D’art does pretty well with the sword, but we don’t see Athos try that.

And Richelieu has commissioned Labarge! xD

Who beats the crap out of his other men. That can’t be good for morale! Like for real, what must the red guards be thinking? Richelieu has made a criminal who killed their captain the new captain! And mocks them publicly for not being as good as him in a fight!

The pendant is also now in Richelieu’s hands.

Treville was spying on Richelieu!

Bonacieux bought Constance a bracelet to celebrate his good luck of getting a contract. See, I love when the antagonists are not complete monsters and get human moments like this!

“Becoming a musketeer was the best thing that ever happened to me... until I met you.” - Oh Porthos! That was smooth!

And Alice offers to support him if he leaves the musketeers.

D’art is looking for his pendant and doesn’t tell Constance about it when she asks if he’s lost something. He knows he’s doing wrong but the glory is beckoning so he can’t help it.

Constance runs after him to give him a goodbye kiss and Bonacieux sees them. That’s what you get for flaunting your affair in the open street. I mean, even if he hadn’t been there, these other people are all her neighbours, who would gossip.

Treville nominates himself and the musketeers are like “this is bullshit”. I don’t blame them. But Papa is just trying to protect them and he knows he’ll get their resentment as a reward! So sad!

“Was your life so bad, Constance? Was I ever cruel to you, did I beat you?” - this is good writing. It would have been so boring if they had made him into a physically abusive brute.

Threatening her with killing D’art isn’t cool thou!

Athos accuses Treville of having a midlife crisis and wanting “one last moment of glory”. And when he leaves, Treville just rubs his face and he looks so tired!

And Constance breaks up with D’art! Meaning he loses the fight and her on the same day, I do feel bad for him.

Constance is right to point out that she has a lot more to lose here thou!

Treville’s plain brown tunic looks really bad without the cape over it. But the tunic he’s looking at in preparation for the fight looks better at least.

There are only two little stands of courtiers, but it could be worse.

“You only needed 30 livre, not a wife” - Aramis, you gentleman.

Treville’s fighting outfit looks good, I was right. But he is getting his ass kicked. What must Richelieu be thinking! I don’t think he knew Treville would be the one to face Labarge.

I went back to check and we don’t get his reaction to Treville’s name. But when Labarge is announced he doesn’t look particularly happy.

He also looks very distracted when the King addresses him during the fight.

Treville stops to grin at the King while Labarge is getting his breath back and Labarge attacks when his guard is down. He’s done for!

D’art steps in and in 30 seconds flat it becomes an all out brawl between the musketeers and red guards.

Louis says that Labarge broke the rules and Treville may nominate a champion. So D’art gets his turn to shine. But what rules? Attacking when Treville was not looking? Stepping on Treville’s shoulder with his foot? I guess Louis can make up the rules as he goes along lol xD

I feel sorry for poor Treville, being utterly humiliated!

And Labarge shouts that he did burn D’art’s farm down right in the middle of the fight. A confession in front of the King. He’d be dead even if he won!

D’art kills him and Louis declares the musketeers the winners. And takes the prize money for himself because “rules were broken and we do need to collect our taxes somehow.”

“I admire loyalty, more than any other virtue” - that’s true I think? I think it holds up during the show, but I’m not a Louis expert lol.

At least he makes D’art a musketeer finally! And D’arts teary face and all the hugging is quite moving.

Milady in her pretty red dress gets told off by the cardinal. I love how he says “comtesse de la fere”, but he does ask an important question. Why did she give D’art money to compete? Because Richelieu threatened her at the beginning of the episode and she was looking for a new prospect? She tells him she wants to bring him over to “their side” but that doesn’t square with giving him money to win his musketeer commission lol. Well, Armand, that’s what you get for threatening your employees I guess.

And Alice and Porthos break up because she can’t handle that much excitement and he can’t give up soldiering.

Porthos and Aramis share a cute moment.

D’art moves out with some poisonous words for Constance. I can’t really blame him in the heath of the moment, but if memory serves he never really apologised while she did.

And Constance sees him with Milady! And closes the curtain before she can see him tuning her down! Poor Constance!

And poor Milady! Her position with the Cardinal depends on this and he doesn’t give a fuck now he’s a musketeer.

Overall this was a very good episode. Such a relief after last time. Next up, the stupid assassination attempt on the Queen. Oh joy!

Red guards killed: Captain Trudeau

Women killed: none! yay!

Best dressed: Milady and Richelieu! Look, they match!

#i wish i could get a clearer picture but this scene is moving all the time ughh #the musketeers #milady de winter #cardinal richelieu #trevilieu #captain treville #porthos #musketeers rewatch

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sometimesrosy · 4 years

Note

Hi rosy i respect your opinion and everyone's too, but at this point that some of the cast and the crew still teasing or playing with the fans with all the damn ships knowing how they will react, i know for them does not count if the audience or popularity drops, but what it is true is that since s5 is gone down year after year and the fandom whom keept the show going and winning is been bellarke, the one that they had lost almost everyone in that fanbase. People need to chill yes in both sides.

So look, I’ve been vocal about how I’m not a fan of the way fandom treats the writers, showrunner, cast and crew of what is supposed to be our favorite show. The key to dealing with a show you don’t like is to stop watching, not harass the cast and crew or decide exactly WHAT they are and aren’t allowed to post on their social media. Just... we shouldn’t do that.

Teasing and playing on social media? I think that’s fair sm behavior. And it doesn’t matter what they say or not, they’ll still get hate for it. You’ve been paying attention, you can see that, right? They don’t need to have any more chill than they have. They didn’t do anything wrong. Not spoiling bellarke is NOT a betrayal of the bellarke fandom. Joking about B/E isn’t either.

Anyway, if you say he lost the bellarke fandom, you’d be wrong. Because I’m the bellarke fandom too, or part of it. We’re not a monolithic being. Some aren’t fans anymore. Some are still. I honestly LOVE the show and I love Bellarke in canon, in s5 and s6 and I think it will be great in season 7.

And the thing I have been wondering about for the longest time, as I’ve watched Bellarke get closer and more romantic in season 5 and 6, while the Blorke-antis who say Bellarke are dead and hate the show and JR now, is what is going to happen when Bellarke follows the narrative on screen and becomes romantic, with the kisses and the confession and the love scenes and maybe even marriage?

What is that fandom going to do when the thing that they have been resentful about, the ‘death’ of Bellarke, turns out to be false, and instead is just a narrative tool (all is lost moment, very common stage in storytelling,) that the fandom somehow convinced themselves was permanent, despite continuing forward motion on romantic Bellarke?

I get so many asks calling me delusional or a clown... so many, since I started here before s3. Constantly. I’m neither delusional nor a clown, but I don’t play the fandom games where you join a kru and share one idea and then attack anyone who doesn’t share it. And when those attackers end up being wrong about their theories, they have almost never come back to apologize for what they did, how they treated me or even admit that they are wrong. In fact, a lot of people just double down on their theory, even though it was debunked, and start blaming other people. They say JR is evil or someone is a lesbophobe or a racist or JR is a bad writer or the only reason they didn’t consider the real meaning is because the person who interpreted it that way was hysterically screaming “ABUSE!!” so of course it’s her fault.

What I’m asking is if all these people who viciously hate on JR and call him names because he didn’t give them romantic Bellarke in season 5 are going to say, “oh wait a minute, Bellarke was happening the whole time I said it was dead, which means JR was GIVING us Bellarke not betraying us so I was wrong and should try to make amends for what I did when I was misinterpreting Bellarke canon.”

hm.

History says no. That won’t happen. They will continue to be cruel and mean and negative even when they were given what they wanted all along.... because they’re SO CERTAIN THEY ARE RIGHT and they can’t be wrong.

That also means that all those Bellarke fans will think their own pride more important than their OTP or anyone else who they once branded a clown.

They’re going to miss the great Bellarke story because in season 5 they decided it was dead and thought they had a reason to start a war against canon Bellarke and JR.

Fandom exhausts me. It makes me sad. They could be enjoying themselves, either WITH the show or by letting it go and finding something new, but instead they’re too fixated on being mad at JR and acting like they’ve been betrayed which is cause for a war against him.

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teamhook · 5 years

Text

CS Pupstravaganza ~ Our Love’s Melody

Hello all! Well, who can say not to puppies? I can't. This is my contribution to the @cspupstravaganza

The song I used is Start of Time by Gabrielle Aplin. If any of you happen to ship Stydia as well, you'll recognize it.

Thanks to the pupper moderator, the lovelies over at Discord, and my Beta- @gingerchangeling

I've had this story in my drafts for a while, I just needed an excuse to really get into it. Thanks for the push.

Gotta tag a few people.

@searchingwardrobes @revanmeetra87 @ilovemesomekillianjones @hookedonapirate @seriouslyhooked @snowbellewells @kmomof4 @let-it-raines @shireness-says @profdanglaisstuff @xhookswenchx @kymbersmith-90

AO3

FFN

In their prime, The Scoundrels were a fan favorite selling out stadiums sadly that was 10 years ago. Now they play small engagements. Reunions, bridal showers, birthday parties and whatever event Liam could find.

Killian, however, would sneak away and play hole-in-the-wall bars or what might be considered dive bars. He wanted to get inspired to write one more hit. At least. He wanted to prove to all the critics that called him a "has been" that he was still pertinent. But that was proving to be an elusive goal.

Killian kept declining offers from all different types of reality shows including Dancing With the Stars to The Bachelor. His brother Liam would simply say, "Killy, you are an amazing dancer, You would win, and it would be good publicity for your comeback." Killian's simple response, "I don't need a bloody reality tv show to become relevant my music will show that."

The brothers talked for hours and Liam finally agreed to back off about Killian doing any sort of reality show. At least for now.

"Brother, tell me what I can do to help," Liam asked in defeat.

Killian smirked, "Do what you do best. I want to focus on writing for a while, can you get me some help with Jolly and maybe make sure my plants don't die?"

Liam ponders for a second, "I could get a dog sitter and maybe ask if watering plants would be an added bonus."

"Aye, sounds like a plan. Liam, doesn't that blonde have a dog walker for Olaf?" Killian reminded his brother of the icy blonde he may have a crush on.

Liam blushed at the mention of Elsa, his brother was right. She had mentioned she was going to get one. "I'll ask her if she has any recommendations."

It turns out that Olaf's dog walker was a close friend and had enough time to walk Jolly too. The plants were not a deal-breaker.

Through Elsa, Liam hired Emma to be Killian's dog sitter.

First day on the job. Emma arrived promptly to take Jolly on his walk. She used the key that Liam had left for her in the lobby. She walked in and is soon met with an adorable black labrador/spaniel mix. She scratched behind his ears and looked for his leash. He jumped around full of energy. "You are a cutie aren't you? Yes, you are." She thought his owner would have at least been more organized and left her what she needed to do her job.

She sighed exasperatedly at the inconvenience to have to search for it. She walked further into the loft. It was beautiful and she couldn't help but admire the decor and the personal touches.

She noticed the Grammy awards and as she leaned over to read the name she heard someone clearing their throat. Shit! She got caught snooping. Just her luck.

She slowly turned around to face the music.

"Hello. I'm Emma Swan, Jolly's new pet sitter." She quickly introduced herself. She really hoped that she hadn't overstepped. "I was looking for Jolly's leash to take him to the park." She looked at him and noticed he had fetched his leash. The traitorous dog's tail excitedly tapped on the floor.

"I'm sorry, Miss. Swan. I'm Liam Jones. I meant to arrive before you but I got stuck in traffic." He smiled for a brief second.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have looked for it myself. You must think I'm unprofessional."

"The fault is mine. I should have been here to show you around. Would you like a tour?"

"I think Jolly is ready for his walk and maybe a little playtime. Would you still be here in about an hour?"

"I will be. I need to discuss something with my brother."

"Okay, come on Jolly." She smiled nervously and she left to the nearby doggy park, with a happy dog beside her.

Sixty minutes later she returned with a very tired and happy Jolly.

Emma knocked on the door this time while holding Jolly's leash. The door flew open shortly after. Liam smiled fondly at her and the dog. "So did Jolly behave?" He reached to pet the dog.

"He is a very well behaved dog."

Liam smiled in agreement, "Lass, I'm happy you got along well. My brother was worried about Jolly, but he really needs to focus on his writing."

Emma responded, "Oh, so I will not be meeting him?"

Liam smiled, "you will, but he will not be around much. He needs to focus on this new music."

Emma smiled and looked at Jolly, "I have no problem with that. I will gladly take care of this cutie. That is… if the job is still mine?"

Liam locked eyes with the young girl, "It is, Jolly has taken to you." He eyed his brother's canine. The dog happily wagging his tail in excitement.

Emma hesitantly, "Your brother was some kind of big shot musician from the awards I saw earlier, is there anything I might have heard recently?"

"I'm afraid not. He hasn't written anything in a while." Liam slowly walked past Emma. He stood for a second and returned his attention to her. "Miss Swan please follow me." He guided her further into the spacious loft. Emma walked quietly behind him, admiring the view of the space.

*Days Later*

Killian left his private studio to take a break and spend a little time with Jolly. He was walking around his apartment in search of his dog. He stopped at the sound of an angelic voice. The only person other than his brother that had a key to the apartment was that dog sitter Liam had hired. He had a feeling it was more about having some sort of interaction with the pretty blonde he was smitten with. Killian couldn't understand why Liam was so hesitant about asking the girl out. "Bloody git."

He was transfixed by the lovely melodic voice. The song was nothing he had heard of before. He liked to be familiar with the new sounds and artists. Once he reached the source of his piqued interest he was captivated by the image in front of him. A blonde lass was watering his plants as she sang to her heart's content. She hummed a melody as she inspected the plants to have the correct amount of water. She was walking towards her charge to ensure he had enough water as her day was almost over. She got ready for her grand finale in front of Jolly, the furball kept wagging his tail in excitement. Killian had followed the girl as she flowed oblivious to her uninvited audience. Her song came to an end as she pets Jolly goodbye for the day.

Killian stood in place his eyes focused on the door that had just closed.

"Mary Margaret, what are you doing?" Emma asked her older sister as she entered the bedroom.

"Uh, nothing." Mary Margaret closes down her computer and blushes at being caught. She sits up straight on her bed.

"Oh my god, are you still trying to vote for that show "Then and Now" to do a special on your favorite band, the Scrounges?" Emma giggled at her sister's antics as she dropped down next to her sister on the bed.

"Ems, first of all," she sighed,"It's The Scoundrels and yeah, I am. I don't get it. There is no activity in their social media accounts and I would love it if I could hear them sing at my wedding." Mary Margaret gasps in excitement, "Do you think I can get them?"

"MM, I love you but do you really think David wants a boy band to play at his wedding. It's not just your wedding you know?" Emma says with a raised eyebrow.

"It's not a boy band, and besides Killian Jones has the best voice ever. It's so dreamy and sexy." Mary Margaret sighs contently.

"I guess if that's what you want. It's your wedding, your special day." Emma smiled fondly at her sister.

"Enough teasing and tell me about your first week at work." MM prodded as she focused all her attention on Emma.

"MM, it's not a big deal. Just dog walking and watering some plants for some big shot singer." She shrugged.

"Do you know who it is?" MM asked excitedly.

"I saw some Grammys but I didn't get a chance to read the name, the guy that hired me said it was his brother's place." Emma shrugged.

"Didn't you ask?" MM asked confused.

"I'm curious but on my first day I was caught snooping. I just didn't want to push my luck." Emma confessed blushing.

"Oh, Emma." MM hugged her sister.

"Then the awards were moved. I haven't seen them since. So I took the hint." Emma continued.

"That was unnecessary!" MM said upset.

"I understand, they have a total stranger coming into their home. I'm not mad." Emma smiled at her sister.

"What did Elsa say? Did she give any details when she mentioned the job?" MM asked.

"Elsa just said she was helping her friend Liam out," Emma answered.

"Liam is the one that hired you? And he did it so his brother could write new songs?" MM confirmed as she started putting some things together.

Emma answered slowly. "Yes."

MM gasps, "Oh my gosh! Hold on, I have to double-check something." MM grabs her computer, opens it and does some frantic typing, while Emma watches her. "Ems, is this Liam?" MM points at an old image of a guy that resembles Liam standing next to her sister's teenage crush, Killian Jones. Emma stares at the image trying to read the caption below the photo, Liam Jones brother of Killian Jones singer/writer of The Scoundrels.

"Holy shit! How did you know?" Emma squints at the image as she asks MM.

"Liam is not that common of a name and how many Liam's can possibly have Grammy award-winning brothers?" MM is jumping off the bed excitedly. "Emma you have to introduce me or at the very least get me his autograph!" MM squees with excitement.

"MM, I haven't met him yet. I don't even know if I will. He is always in his studio working." Emma answers her sister.

"Ems, please, please, I'm begging you!" MM begs.

"MM, I can't promise anything." Emma stares at her sister.

"OMG, tell me he still has the tight leather pants! He used to fill them up perfectly." MM sighs contently at the memory.

"MM, I have no idea. You make it sound like I go snooping around. I just take Jolly out and feed him. That's it." Emma's glare brings her sister out of her happy memories.

Routine is not a bad thing per se. Emma likes it that way. No surprises, she had given up on ever meeting Jolly's owner. Liam had said his brother was busy, and she had witnessed the locked studio door. What she doesn't know is that he has seen her once or twice.

Killian Jones has caught himself spying on the lovely dog walker a few times. While she hums to Jolly, she is completely unaware of his presence. He's still not sure if he should be insulted or not about that. However, he can't help but be entranced by her as much as Jolly is. He considers introducing himself a few times, but quickly decides right now is not the time to dwell. He needs to write one more hit song. His time in the studio is proving to be a waste of time.

He hasn't used a lyricist since Milah. They had worked so well together, and fallen in love. At least, he had. He was just a meal ticket for her. As soon as she got a better offer she left him behind. No amount of pleas on his behalf made her reconsider. She was gone. He didn't want to give another the same kind of power again, but he might have to. He was going to ask Liam to put out feelers, but the new lyricist had to be a man. That is the safest way- no temptation.

Emma opened the front door expecting to be greeted by her charge ready to go wagging his tail, but Jolly is not in sight. She started to panic, what if something happened to him? She tried to calm down, and strained her ears...for a second...then she heard faint whimpers. She hurried to find the source.

He could hear scattered barks and some whining. Bloody hell his head hurts. Jolly pressed his cold nose on his clavicle for a second and then the pressure is gone. Killian tried to open his eyes, all he could do is peek. He sees Jolly being pulled away by an angel. Sunshine engulfed the room as he realizes that he's sprawled out on the black leather sofa he had fallen asleep on after indulging in one too many rum glasses. He could faintly hear a soft voice call out for his dog. "Jolly, come on boy. Let your papa rest." The dog whimpered it's response, "I know, baby, we are running late for your walk. I'm sure you need to pee." Jolly finally relented and followed her to the door wagging his tail.

Emma and Jolly left the apartment. "Okay, Jolly let's see what you got buddy." She released the leash and Jolly trotted away to smell everything he could get his nose on but stayed close to her. He was very well trained. She had been surprised by how well he behaved. He must be very loved by his person. Hm. What an interesting way to meet your boss she thought. He looked slightly older than the posters her sister had, but she had to admit he was good looking. She could see some chest hair peeking out of his shirt. He must have taken a break from the studio because every time she picked up Jolly the door was closed with a light on meaning to not disturb. That light was always on. Her attention returned to Jolly. He was chasing a butterfly. She giggled because that dog was simply adorable. She feared she was getting too attached. What was going to happen when her services were no longer needed? After an hour or so Jolly got tired. He'd done his business enjoyed a treat or two. His head resting on her lap.

"Alright, let's take you home. Daddy should be ready for some love from you."

They return to Jolly's home and are greeted with a sour-faced man exiting the apartment.

Emma turned to Jolly who simply tilted his head. She opened the door and let Jolly enter. She was putting away Jolly's leash and filling his bowl with fresh water. She filled the watering pot and went to water the plants. She heard music coming from the living room. It was odd since usually, the place was quiet. It was a catchy melody. Without thinking she started singing softly…

It's like the sun came out

And the day is clear

My voice is just a whisper

A throat clearing made her turn her attention away from the plants to the source. There he stood, dark-haired with an unkempt scruff. A smile showing his teeth. Faded jeans with an old loved band t-shirt. He was scratching behind his ear.

"Hello, lass." with a crinkled smile, "I didn't mean to interrupt such a lovely performance."

Emma blushed, and gently put down the watering pot. "I'm sorry-"

"That was good. A lot better than that git my brother got. The best lyricist, my bloody arse."

"Oh, I didn't mean to overstep."

"You didn't. Listen to this and tell me what comes to mind, or you can sing it," he smiles as he picks up his guitar and starts playing.

She is still with closed eyes and she can't stop herself…

Louder than the screams you hear

It's like the sun came out

Emma pauses for a second to keep listening…

There's a ghost upon the moor tonight

Now it's in our house

She can feel his eyes on her but the music is still flowing through her…

Oh, today I'm just a drop of water and I'm running down a mountainside

Come tomorrow, I'll be in the ocean

I'll be rising with the morning tide

He is just staring at her, her words are perfect. "Lass, Where are my manners, we haven't been formally introduced, Killian Jones at your service." He bowed his head in an attempt to be charming.

She rolls her eyes, she guesses he has no idea she saw him earlier laid out on his couch drunk as a skunk, but she couldn't stop herself, "I know who you are."

"Ah, so you've heard of me. You haven't even told me your name." He smiles.

"I'm Emma, Jolly's walker."

He walks towards her and extends his hand for her to shake. As her hand lands on his, he pulls it to his lips and gently kisses it.

Emma's lashes flutter, and she slowly pulls her hand away from him. "Nice to meet you." She turns to leave.

"Emma, I have a proposition for you."

She pauses then turns to face him, "what kind of proposition?"

"Lass, I imagine you saw the idiot that left the apartment as you arrived?"

"Yes-"

"He was the lyricist my brother got for me. He is supposed to be the best but I beg to differ. He had no soul."

"I don't understand. What does that have to do with me?"

"Well, that verse was lovely, just perfect. I can't help but ask, have you done any writing?"

Emma looks around, "Hasn't everyone?"

"I would like for you to consider writing some lyrics for a song. I've never been very good with them myself."

"Yeah, I don't think so. I don't write lyrics."

"Lass, all I'm asking is for us to kick some ideas around."

"I'm sorry. I just can't." Emma bolts out of the apartment leaving a speechless Killian.

#Captain Swan #cs ff #cspupstravaganza #cs au #CS Crew #CS Mafia #cs ff au

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joannalannister · 5 years

Note

Do you think grrm could have based the targaryens on the aryan race? Their obsession with keeping their Valariyn blood pure, with being exceptional and special (superior = master race anyone ?). Their looks set them apart from the rest of westeros too, they're meant to have white hair (blonde hair) and violet eyes (blue eyes). They seem like a mix of colonizers and arryans the more deeply I think about them, a Targaryen restoration seems like the worst possible idea to me.

Why would you ask me, a Lannister blog? Me, a Lannister blog. Yet here I am hoisting the Targaryen banner; the things this fandom makes me do smh. Nobody’s even gonna read a post this long but I’m not doing this by halves.

So, GRRM has said that the Targaryens have an “obsession with the purity of their blood”. Let’s look at the text to get more details:

The tradition amongst the Targaryens had always been to marry kin to kin. Wedding brother to sister was thought to be ideal. Failing that, a girl might wed an uncle, a cousin, or a nephew; a boy, a cousin, aunt, or niece. This practice went back to Old Valyria, where it was common amongst many of the ancient families, particularly those who bred and rode dragons. “The blood of the dragon must remain pure,” the wisdom went.

The way the Old Valyrians maintained a “pure bloodline” was by marrying “kin to kin”. Marrying one Valyrian-blooded person to another Valyrian-blooded person was not enough in Old Valyria to keep the blood of the dragon “pure.”

What historical precedents could GRRM have been drawing on when he wrote that Targaryens “marry kin to kin”? Fortunately we don’t need to speculate, especially when speculation leads to … this anon. GRRM has told us that he based the Targaryens on the Ptolemaic dynasty, which ruled Egypt from 323BC to 30BC:

The Targaryens have heavily interbred, like the Ptolemys of Egypt. As any horse or dog breeder can tell you, interbreeding accentuates both flaws and virtues, and pushes a lineage toward the extremes. Also, there’s sometimes a fine line between madness and greatness. Daeron I, the boy king who led a war of conquest, and even the saintly Baelor I could also be considered “mad,” if seen in a different light. ((And I must confess, I love grey characters, and those who can be interpreted in many different ways. Both as a reader and a writer, I want complexity and subtlety in my fiction)) [SSM]

The Ptolemaic dynasty included Cleopatra, who married her brothers and whose parents were the products of incestuous unions to keep their Macedonian bloodline pure. Here is an interesting article comparing Daenerys and Cleopatra. Another fun article. (I am throwing this wish out into the void that I would like to see in-depth Dany-Cleopatra comparisons on my dash please.)

It’s interesting to me to read that the doylist reason GRRM chose to include interbreeding among Targaryens to accentuate “both flaws and virtues.” To me, GRRM has written ASOIAF as a story much larger than life, like the Paul Bunyan of fantasy, with impossibly large castles and impossibly vast geography and impossibly long seasons, an oversized place where GRRM’s characters do superhuman feats. GRRM’s characters have glaring flaws, but they also have glorious virtues to which I can only aspire. That’s the point tho. That’s one reason why we read: to see ourselves, only magnified.

Why do Targaryens have a tendency to interbreed and keep their Valyrian blood pure? GRRM says the Targaryens intermarried to avoid conflict. It’s a matter of common sense to avoid fights when giant fire-breathing lizards are involved, as the Dance of the Dragons illustrates.

The Targaryens are the extreme example of that policy [to reinforce the family’s bloodline]: they only marry within the family to keepthe purity of the blood, and that way you avoid the problem of having several candidates for thethrone or the rule of the family.

If you have a generation of five brothers and each of them hasseveral children (sons?), after two or three generations you could find yourself with thirtypotential heirs: there could be thirty people named Lannister or Frey, and that produces conflict,because all of them are going to get involved in hereditary fights for the throne.

That’s what originated the War of the Roses; An excess of candidates for the throne, all of themdescendants of Edward III. Laking an heir (like Henry VIII) is just as bad as having too many ofthem. If you have five sons and you want to avoid that kind of problem, maybe it’s not such abad idea to marry the firstborn girl of the oldest son with the third son (or with the firstborn of thethird son?), and that way you avoid fights and the bloodline remains united

Something to note about this SSM entry is that GRRM was discussing all this blood purity stuff in the context of Tywin. The asker was literally asking why Tywin married Joanna, and GRRM answered that it was a love match and to reinforce the Lannister bloodline. Now, why would GRRM jump to discussions of blood purity when Tywin Lannister comes up?? Why ever could that be??

I know why. If we’re looking for the family that was inspired by fascist ideology, we don’t need to look far.

This issue of blood purity is a way to maintain dynastic power in a feudal system.

Which is bad, in the sense that feudalism is inherently a bad system, especially in comparison to, say, democracy. Even Ned Stark’s benevolent feudalism is bad compared to democracy. Lemme say that again - Even Stark feudalism is bad.

There should be a populist revolution in Westeros and literally every noble should lose their aristocratic status and wealth and power, and all this wealth and power should be redistributed to the common people, and everyone in Westeros should be given equal rights and there should be free and open elections to choose democratic representatives.

But I suspect anon isn’t interested in TWOW detailing their fav aristos losing all their fancy jewels and samite, and I don’t think anon is making signs saying “Down with feudalism! Down with monarchy! Down with the aristocracy! Eat the rich!” Somehow I really don’t think that’s what this anon is campaigning for.

*~*~*~*~*~*

(Note to self: is there a correlation between real-world economic systems and the types of fantasy produced under those systems? In other words, does capitalism motivate medieval fantasyland? And how do real-world levels of income inequality influence income-inequality in fantasyland? These are questions I am interested in.)

*~*~*~*~*~*

Anyways.

If we accept feudalism as par for the course in medieval fantasyland, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing that the nobility wants to maintain their dynastic power in a feudal system. It’s what they do with that power that’s important.

As the original asker of this SSM question pointed out, marriages are a way of maintaining power and building alliances in a feudal system, but such marriages also raise up the lesser House and make it more powerful

For example, I believe Lord Roger Reyne wanted to marry one of his sons to Genna Lannister to gain more power in the Westerlands, but was thwarted when Tytos betrothed Genna to Emmon Frey instead. Similarly, the previous Lord Reyne, Lord Robert Reyne, arranged a marriage between his daughter Ellyn Reyne and Gerold’s heir Tywald Lannister. The Reynes wanted more power and influence in the west, perhaps even to go so far as to topple House Lannister and become the dominant House in the West.

The Targaryens face a similar problem, on a much larger scale. Whatever House they marry into, it raises that House up and grants them considerable power, potentially creating a disequilibrium point in the game of thrones and causing more innocents to suffer. (…honestly why do you think Tywin wanted his daughter to be queen?)

This is why the Targaryens (and all the nobles really) need to consider their marriages (or even mistresses) very carefully. If you choose your partner poorly, without concern for dynastic politics, it could throw the land into chaos. (See: Tytos Lannister, Rhaegar Targaryen, Duncan the Small, etc)

So, who are the Targaryens marrying? Because anon seems to be making the assumption that the Targs don’t marry outside their bloodline in any significant numbers, and I intend to challenge that assumption.

The Targaryens certainly do have a tendency to intermarry, as we see in The Sworn Sword:

Egg spoke as if such incest was the most natural thing in the world. For him it is. The Targaryens had been marrying brother to sister for hundreds of years, to keep the blood of the dragon pure. Though the last actual dragon had died before Dunk was born, the dragonkings went on. Maybe the gods don’t mind them marrying their sisters.

“The Targaryens had been marrying brother to sister for hundreds of years, to keep the blood of the dragon pure.” And yet, despite Dunk’s observation, the Targaryens have been marrying outside of House Targaryen for hundreds of years as well, suggesting to me that dynastic politics rather than blood purity is their greatest concern.

I will attempt to compile a list of people who are not of Valyrian descent who married a member of House Targaryen. I have not read Fire and Blood yet, so I hope that someone will let me know if I’ve forgotten anyone and I will edit this post to include them (I do not mind spoilers). Any corrections to this list are appreciated.

Ceryse Hightower

Elinor Costayne

Alys Harroway

Jeyne Westerling

Tyanna of Pentos (Tyanna of the Tower)

Argella Durrandon (who married Targ bastard Orys)

Rodrik Arryn

Rhea Royce

Alicent Hightower

Corwyn Corbray

Garmund Hightower

Rohanne of Tyrosh (who married Daemon Blackfyre)

Michael Manwoody

Ossifer Plumm

Ronnel Penrose

Aelinor Penrose

Betha Blackwood

Dyanna Dayne

Mariah Martell

Maron Martell

Jenna Dondarrion

Kiera of Tyrosh

somebody from House Tarth

Jenny of Oldstones

Lyanna Stark (I believe in R+L=J. I personally do not think R/L got married in the books, but even without a marriage I think this relationship should be included here. When Rhaegar chose someone to have his ice & fire prophecy baby with, he did not choose someone with valyrian blood.)

I think it’s also important to note that there are various Targaryens who wanted relationships outside of House Targaryen, but who couldn’t marry outside their House / couldn’t marry who they wanted, for various reasons. For example, Aerys and Rhaella did not want an incestuous marriage.

And gay marriage is not legal in Westeros but anyways:

Daeron Targaryen, son of Aegon V - in love with Jeremy Norridge

Rhaena Targaryen, daughter of Prince Aenys - idk if she was bisexual or a lesbian or what but Rhaena definitely liked a lotta non-Targ girls, and Westeros is a homophobic, misogynistic place that hates women and hates wlw so it’s not like Rhaena could have married any of these women

I am counting this as (at least) two non-Targ “marriages”. Fight me.

This makes a total of 27 non-Targ relationships.

There are also instances where a Targ has married someone outside of House Targaryen, but that person has some Valyrian blood. As mentioned above, tho, keeping the blood of the dragon “pure” is defined in the books as marrying “kin to kin” but I will keep this as a distinct subcategory for now.

Valaena Velaryon

Alyssa Velaryon

Jocelyn Baratheon (valyrian blood through Orys)

Corlys Velaryon

Larra Rogare

Aemma Arryn

Laenor Velaryon

Laena Velaryon

Alyn Velaryon

Daenaera Velaryon

Ormund Baratheon

Elia Martell

This brings us to a total of 39 non-Targ marriages. These 39 marriages do not fit the in-world definition of keeping the blood of the dragon ~pure~.

So how many Targ*Targ marriages do we know of exactly, so that we can figure out if blood purity was the main concern for House Targaryen?

Gaemon and Daenys

Aegon and Elaena

Aegon and Visenya(+Rhaenys)

Aegon and Rhaenys(+Visenya)

Aegon and Rhaena

Jaehaerys I and Alysanne

Baelon and Alyssa

Rhaenyra and Daemon

Aegon II and Helaena

Aegon III and Jaehaera

Aegon IV and Naerys

Baelor and Daena the Defiant

Aelor and Aelora

Aerion and Daenora

Jaehaerys II and Shiera

Aerys and Rhaella

I’ll list Targ*Targ affairs too to make it fair, since I included potential gay marriages above:

Aegon IV/Daena the Defiant

Brynden/Shiera

Aemon the Dragonknight/Naerys (this is only speculated and I honestly don’t actually think this was consummated but let’s throw it in here)

This is a total of 19 Targ*Targ relationships.

It is possible I’ve forgotten someone and I appreciate corrections.

So I have a total of 58 relationships here in my sample.

25+12+2+16+3 = 58

Let’s break that down:

~pure dragon blood~ relationships = 19/58 = 32.8%

~impure~ relationships = 39/58 = 67.2%

Roughly two-thirds of known Targaryen relationships do not keep the blood of the dragon “pure” by the book definition of blood purity.

If you wish to break the ~impure~ relationships down further:

Targ*Valyrian-blooded relationships = 12/58 = 20.7%

Targ*non-Valyrian-blooded relationships = 27/58 = 46.6%

At the very minimum, at least 46% of Targ relationships were not motivated by blood purity reasons. Note, I think this number is too low, because like Queen Victoria “the grandmother of Europe” and her descendants, the nobility tend to intermarry a lot (because of classism). People like Aemma Arryn have valyrian blood because everyone is intermarrying.

I will say again, roughly two-thirds of known Targaryen relationships do not keep the blood of the dragon “pure” by the book definition.

Targaryens intermingled with the people of Westeros, they didn’t keep their blood “pure”. This is a very different attitude from, say, the 20th century anti-miscegenation laws that made it illegal for people of different races to have sex.

I already pointed out above how GRRM has said these incestuous unions were motivated at least in part by dynastic politics. Could there be any other reasons?

Why did the valyrians before the Doom all practice incest? The “blood of the dragon” is not just about valyrians marrying valyrians, although that’s how anon is trying to spin it. The text specifically says that maintaining “the blood of the dragon” is about marrying “kin to kin.”

We do not yet know why the valyrians practiced incest. Why is it important that “the blood of the dragon must remain pure”? It has not yet been explained. But there are theories. @nobodysuspectsthebutterfly has already addressed this issue, so I will refer you to her posts: 1, 2 and her entire tag for #the blood of the dragon.

Why is it important that “the blood of the dragon must remain pure”?

I don’t know, but we’re definitely not reading books with magic. We’re definitely not reading books with blood magic. We’re definitely not reading books with giant magical fire-breathing lizards. We definitely don’t need easy ways to control those lizards. Definitely not.

I mean, we still don’t know exactly what “the blood of the dragon” means but I think what GRRM wrote with House Targaryen’s incestuous ~blood purity~ is something different from Aryanism.

Which isn’t to say that all this blood purity bullshit GRRM wrote shouldn’t be criticized. Placing importance on the ~purity~ of someone’s blood in any context is … not a good look. GRRM has been kinda playing this trope straight so far, but I am hoping he smashes it in future books; Tyrion is eager to ride a dragon, and A plus J does not equal T.

To quote what @moonlitgleek said:

I hate it when people start talking about percentage of Valyrian blood as if that’s the measure of who rides a dragon. Whip up your calculators, everyone. We need to figure out how much Valyrian blood it takes to ride a dragon, be the subject of prophecy or be a savior. Anyone below a certain percentage can not measure.

This blood purity bullshit is bad, I actually agree with anon on that. But I’m not sure why that means we should condemn the entirety of House Targaryen.

Especially when GRRM loves the Targaryens so much he keeps writing history books about them instead of finishing the series…

Like, from Fire and Blood, Jaehaerys I and Alysanne Targaryen are one of those Targ*Targ marriages that I admit help reinforce Targ blood purity. But this marriage was how Alysanne exercised her own bodily autonomy, by marrying who she wanted, because she and Jaehaerys had their dragons and no one was able to stop them. But anon … anon gonna call that Aryanism …

Anyways. I want to move on to anon’s other claims, but first I think it might be useful to define Aryanism, since anon seems to think it is about marrying brother to sister, which it is not.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Aryanism grew out of 19th century fascist ideologies. The term Aryan is related to the root -arya which is related to a Sanskrit word meaning “honorable, respectable, noble.” In the mid- to late-1800s, the term “Aryan race” was coopted by racists to justify their repellant “scientific racism” that claimed that “blond” Germanic / Nordic / Northern European people were a “superior race.” Note that “blond” is specifically mentioned by these ~scientists~ espousing their racist ideology. They claimed that “Aryans” were “natural leaders, destined to rule over” the other races. According to Jackson Spielvogel, Hitler described the Slavic peoples as “a mass of born slaves who feel the need of a master.” Himmler said, “whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only insofar as we need them as slaves for our culture. Otherwise it is of no interest.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Anon was correct that racial superiority is a characteristic of Aryanism.

But do the Targaryens consider themselves to be a superior race to the other peoples of Westeros, or other peoples in general?

GRRM says he wanted the Targaryens to be “a race apart”:

Speaking of Valyria… right from the start I wanted the Targaryens, and by extension the Valryians from whom they were descended, to be a race apart, with distinctive features that set them apart from the rest of Westeros, and helped explain their obsession with the purity of their blood. To do this, I made a conventional ‘high fantasy’ choice, and gave them silver-gold hair, purple and violet eyes, fine chiseled aristocratic features. That worked well enough, at least in the books (on the show, less so).

But in recent years, it has occured to me from time to time that it might have made for an interesting twist if instead I had made the dragonlords of Valyria… and therefore the Targaryens… black. Maybe I could have kept the silver hair too, though… no, that comes too close to 'dark elf’ territory, but still… if I’d had dark-skinned dragonlords invade and conquer and dominate a largely white Westeros… though that choice would have brought its own perils. The Targaryens have not all been heroic, after all… some of them have been monsters, madmen, so…

Well, it’s all moot. The idea came to me about twenty years too late.

What does it mean to be “a race apart”? Does “apart” automatically mean superior? To me, “apart” here means different or distinct. But does that mean “superior”?

I’ve already addressed the fact that Targaryens are on average twice as likely to marry someone outside their House than to marry a Targaryen, so I don’t think the incest can be used to say the House as a whole claims superiority.

There are certainly some Targaryens who view themselves as racially superior. Aerys Targaryen comes to mind; he said of his newborn granddaughter that she “smells dornish.” The Blackfyre cause is certainly racist (for example, Team Blackfyre did not like it that their ~precious white princess~ Daenerys Targaryen, was married to Maron Martell). There are many other Targaryens who were racist. But racism isn’t exclusive to members of House Targaryen. Many nobles in Westeros are racist: Joffrey, Cersei, Tywin - but we were talking about House Targaryen.

What of Daeron Targaryen, who married a Dornish princess, who surrounded himself with Dornishmen and women and artists and intellectuals, and he wanted to include all these people at his court? I don’t know where the textual evidence is that King Daeron adopted an attitude of racial superiority.

What of Maegelle Targaryen? Would you truly accuse her of an attitude of superiority? Maegelle was a septa who nursed children with greyscale, until she herself caught greyscale and died.

When Aegon the Conqueror became high king, he adopted some Westerosi customs to assimilate. For example,

Heraldic banners had long been a tradition amongst the lords of Westeros, but such had never been used by the dragonlords of old Valyria. When Aegon’s knights unfurled his great silken battle standard, with a red three-headed dragon breathing fire upon a black field, the lords took it for a sign that he was now truly one of them, a worthy high king for Westeros.

Aegon the Conqueror literally wanted to join with the Westerosi nobles and become one of them. Compare this to Tywin, who disparages nobles from another continent as nothing but "spice soldiers and cheese lords”. So who has the superior attitude?

And what of Daenerys Targaryen? Dany embraces the Dothraki customs of her husband. (Contrast this with how her brother Viserys belittles the Dothraki.) Daenerys befriends orphans, former prostitutes, former slaves, people of many different races. I don’t think Daenerys adopts an attitude of racial superiority. (It’s true that GRRM does fall into some racist tropes when he writes ASOIAF, but I don’t think this means that Daenerys supports Aryanism, or that GRRM was inspired by white supremacy when he first imagined Daenerys. (Like, srsly, wtf??) Daemon Blackfyre I can definitely see being inspired by white supremacist movements in the real world, but Daenerys?)

Anon accuses the Targaryens of being “exceptional and special”. idk I thought controlling dragons was special. Kinda like controlling direwolves is special. Controlling magical creatures is special. But I didn’t think controlling magical creatures made you a fascist or a supporter of Aryanism.

If you want to make the case for a group of white people in ASOIAF posing as ~the master race~, I would actually suggest the valyrians of Old Valyria. The sorcerer-princes of Old Valyria captured and enslaved people and used people to fuel their magical empire. The attitude of Old Valyria actually seems very similar to that Himmler quote I gave you above: “whether nations live in prosperity or starve to death interests me only insofar as we need them as slaves for our culture. Otherwise it is of no interest.” The dragonlords of Old Valyria definitely colonized other places and practiced imperialism.

But the Targaryens were like the hillbillies of Old Valyria. They weren’t very powerful. Shortly before the Doom they relocated to a rock in the middle of nowhere on the edge of the Valyrian empire, and then the Doom and the Century of Blood meant suddenly the Targs were on top by accident (and a really smart woman). It’s like an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard or The Beverly Hillbillies, and this is why Tywin and his ancestors before him were so fucking pissed, because who the fuck even is this hillbilly targ family with their ~dRAgoNs~ and their ~InCeSt~ that’s ~bEtTeR~ than our ~LAnNiCeSt~ and ~~~We were kings in Casterly Rock for thousands of years, so who the fuck are these hicks~~~

Anon mentions the characteristic silver-gold hair and purple eyes of House Targaryen. GRRM explains that he “made a conventional 'high fantasy’ choice, and gave them silver-gold hair, purple and violet eyes, fine chiseled aristocratic features.”

Is there racism in conventional high fantasy? Yeah.

Does ASOIAF have racist writing? Yeah.

Is GRRM playing some of those racist tropes straight instead of subverting them? Yeah.

Could GRRM do better? Yeah. GRRM himself thinks he might have made the Targaryens dark-skinned.

Despite GRRM’s racist writing, I don’t think this means that the Targaryens as GRRM wrote them are all, without exception, terrible people.

I would also like to point out that House Targaryen exhibits a variety of phenotypes. They are not all the same, they’re not all blond and fair and ~Nordic looking~. Here is a partial list of Targaryens without the traditional look. If someone has statistics on the percentage of Targs without Valyrian features, I would appreciate a link, but I’m math’d out right now.

Speaking broadly, House Targaryen has certainly done some terrible things. For example, I think the Targaryen conquest of Dorne was imperialistic. Many people have already addressed imperialism in ASOIAF in detail, so I will refer you to this tag.

Was Aegon’s Conquest of Westeros a good thing, or a bad thing? I don’t know. Truly I don’t know - there is good and bad both in what Aegon the Conqueror did.

GRRM says this about him:

“Aegon finally decided to take over Westeros, and unify the Seven Kingdoms (that existed at the time) under a single rule. There is a lot of speculation that, in some sense, he saw what was coming 300 years later, and wanted to unify the Seven Kingdoms to be better prepared for the threat that he eventually saw coming from the North – the threat that we’re dealing with in A Song of Ice and Fire.”

Individually, some Targaryens were certainly awful. Others were good and kind. Some of them were mediocre. I think we should evaluate these characters individually, instead of condemning an entire family. I think that is what GRRM is trying to get us to do, judge each character individually based on their crimes and/or their heroism.

“a Targaryen restoration seems like the worst possible idea“

Anon thinks the worst possible thing that could happen to Westeros is that Dany becomes queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

That’s “the worst possible idea” of what could happen.

The Others could win the War for the Dawn and enslave/murder every single living creature on Terros. That’s a distinct possibility.

But anon would rather have every single person on Terros die than for Dany to become queen of the Seven Kingdoms?

And people say this fandom isn’t misogynistic.

I really don’t think it would be a bad thing for a person as compassionate as Daenerys Targaryen to become queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

Westeros could certainly do worse than Dany. The Lannisters could stay in power, for example.

Cuz you know which family is repeatedly described as blond and fair and there is a LOT of uniformity in their appearance? Which family didn’t want to marry a Dornish girl? Which family described the Westerlings as “doubtful blood” and wouldn’t marry them? Which family had a common girl gang raped because the heir married her? Cuz it sure wasn’t Aegon V’s family.

Who said Lannisters are “worth more” than other people? Who captured and enslaved people at Harrenhal while burning their lands?

Tywin Lannister did that. GRRM ain’t exactly subtle about pointing out the fascist. It’s Tywin and Randyll and people like them who are the fascist who support Aryanism.

Daenerys is repeatedly in direct opposition to Tywin’s philosophies. Daenerys is one of the heroes. She’s a complex, well-written hero. She flirts with darkness but ultimately rejects it. She’s a grey, complicated hero.

This fandom doesn’t deserve Dany, but she’s gonna save the world anyway.

#daenerys targaryen #asoiaf meta #asoiaf #lannister thoughts #a song of ice and fire #dany meta #no pink hearts for you @anon #fascist masculinity in asoiaf #Anonymous #replies #cleopatra #racism tw

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