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spaceorphanssecondbreakfastclub · 5 months

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SO's Bookclub: Nobody's There (and final thoughts on Joan Lowery Nixon)

Title: Who Are You? Author: Joan Lowery Nixon Genre: YA Mystery

Goodreads Summary :

How did Abbie Thompson end up a sidekick to Edna Merkel, Senior Citizen Pseudo-Sleuth? It all started when Abbie was so furious at her father for breaking up their family that she acted without thinking and was arrested for malicious mischief. The judge decided to give Abbie a chance at a clean record and arranged for her to volunteer in a program in which teens are matched with the elderly.

Abbie's "friend," Mrs. Merkel, is a cranky, difficult woman who's a member of the Buckler's Bloodhounds. The Bloodhounds provide the police with information about scams or frauds in the community. But Edna Merkel is too active a member, and after she brags that she's on to something big, she's attacked and ends up hospitalized. Suddenly the private investigator game is real and, with the help of Mrs. Merkel's indecipherable notebook, only Abbie can figure out who did it. But will Abbie get to the assailant before the assailant gets to her?

Review:

I know I stated that I had two more of these to go but this one kind of broke me. I do own one more of these - but it sounds so awful I have no desire to read it. There are actually possibly two other suspense books that Nixon wrote after that one that sound even less like her usual writing that I didn't bother to pick them up used. But this one kind of feels like I need to stop -- the experiment hasn't been fun for a while, and this was the most tedious, lukewarm experience of reading middle grade fiction.

The above summary kind of tells you all of it. A young woman named Abbie (who is supposed to be 17 but acts like she's 12) is having family issues. We're in Texas again, and this time daddy is a big douche, walking out on the family for a younger woman. Mom is understandably emotional - but kind of useless in the way so many of these mothers are in these books. It's hilarious that Abbie's bad behavior is throwing rocks -- because she had to be a delinquent but not do something so bad that she'd be labeled a 'bad girl'.

She starts hanging out with a stereotypical mean old woman (is Mrs. Merkel supposed to be a take on Miss Marple? Possibly but she is so irritatingly annoying). The thing is - there's no real mystery here. Abbie and Mrs Merkle fight for a majority of this book, Abbie wines about her family issues, and they kind of dance around crime issues until Merkle gets knocked on the head about 2/3rds of the way through.

We then go on a red herring chase after her nephew until there's a twist ending in that -- it's someone we've barely seen in the novel and it's all over some valuable trinkets Mrs. Merkle has.

It's just bad. It's just so bad. There's no personality to it. The novel takes way too long to set up its story, spends way too much time on Abbie's family drama, there's zero suspense in it at all, and zero mystery as nothing is really solved except in the last chapter or so.

I get that Nixon was nearing her death at this time, and she really was out of her heyday of writing campy 70s and 80s suspense thrillers. But it's kind of a shame these books go out so weakly. They were never the epitome of good writing - but they were at least fun. And they stopped being fun, well, around the time I stopped buying them. Maybe young me understood more than she knew.

I have to add - since I'm always watching for Nixon tropes - the insertion of a love interest here is so hilarious. There's this guy named Nick who keeps asking Abbie out. And it feels so obligatory. Abbie keeps thinking about how she should say yes, and at the end - she does agree to go to prom! But it's so forced. Almost like a mandate that there should be some sort of romance in the novel, even though it's so completely half baked and Abbie is just so not interested. I think one of the funniest aspect of all these novels is the reluctance to really have a romance in them.

Overall, this book just isn't great. There's nothing interesting going on here, and it's a shame that it's merely a shadow of the types of books Nixon used to write.

Rating : 2 stars.

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Reflection Time

I contemplated doing a whole different post for this, but I'm not sure I have enough to say (nor do I think that many of you are interested).

I do not regret reading through my Joan Lowery Nixon collection. It was a lot of fun to look through what I used to read as a preteen, and was nostalgic for a time when these campy thrillers were the norm. Interesting, too, that these were a step above the Christopher Pikes and the RL Stines.

But I think what really made the books work (or fun in rereading) was that they were set in that particular time period (mainly - the 80s). There was some genuine creepiness to be had before technology could help us, and Nixon, despite her wooden characters and her substandard, cliched plots was actually really good at making a book suspenseful no matter how ridiculous the premise was.

I think what kind of deflated the project was getting into the late 90s, when Nixon was at the end of her life, and kind of churning out the same product without any of the time period trappings, which made the books dull and repetitive.

I think something else interesting coming out of this reread was not realizing (as a kid) how many of the tropes were redundant. Nearly all of them are in Texas. There are definitely issues within the family - that dad is usually that wealthy cowboy oil guy. The mom is always so fragile. Sometimes there's a younger sibling whom the girl has to be strong for. And, more so in the beginning, there was that strong matriarchal figure. Plus, there's always the struggle of whether to go to school or not.

And, as I reflected about, the hilarious obligatoryness of needing a love interest - whether it was relevant or not. And how the guy was usually dumb or the villain of the piece.

So, I guess that's that...

I kind of kept a best to worst ranking as I went along, so for those of you who like a good list, here it is:

The Name of the Game was Murder

A Deadly Game of Magic

The Weekend was Murder

Whipsers from the Dead

The Haunting

Shadowmaker

The Dark and Deadly Pool

Murdered, My Sweet

Secret, Silent Screams

The Ghosts of Now

The Seance

Who Are You

Spirit Seeker

Don't Scream

A Candidate for Murder

Nobody's There

The Island of Dangerous Dreams

The Specter

The Other Side of Dark

The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore

The Stalker

While I do think The Name of the Game was Murder is probably her best written book, I think A Deadly Game of Magic was probably the most fun book to read -- and the only one I think I'd pick up again casually. The Stalker was probably on of the worst books I've ever read - but the last few I did for the project were the hardest to get through.

Will I ever read through these again? Meh - let's see how I'm feeling in my 60s. Should you read these? Maybe only if you're my age and want to remember what books were like of this time period.

Thanks for following along - and now back to a world where I'm reading more adult books I actually like...

#sbc bookclub #books #book review #joan lowery nixon #nobody's there

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qlala · 3 years

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Hi here's my money for that Barry and Len "guilt versus shame" essay. Thanks! 💰💰💰💰💰 (I drew the dollar signs on the bags myself. I'm crafty)

Anon when I said essay, I meant essay. But alright. Here you go. for you and your hand-drawn dollar signs. Come, take this journey with me. (A journey of character analysis for fun—please, no one take this as reliable psychology.)

As I said, I consider the main conflict between Barry and Leonard not one of good versus evil, but of guilt versus shame. Specifically, the difference between them is that Barry is a character motivated by guilt, while Len is motivated by shame.

(And to get this out of the way - I’m not talking about sexuality, but how Barry and Len relate to the world and other people. I don’t think Len is the least bit ashamed of his sexuality; Wentworth Miller has always said that Len is someone who knows exactly who he is, and I think that’s true).

A more accurate way of talking might be to say that guilt-driven characters are motivated by love, while shame-driven characters are motivated by respect.

I’m going to start with Barry, because guilt-motivated characters tend to be much more straight-forward than shame-driven characters. Barry grew up (with some bumps along the way) in supportive, loving homes. His parents, and later Joe, always treated him with love, which allows Barry to love himself and other people.

Treating children with love is the most basic respect their guardians can afford them, and they’ll always have that basic core of respect to fall back on in the face of outside adversity. (Barry is remarkably hard to ruffle with insults—antagonists always have to target the people he loves, because he just… does not rise to the bait when it’s just his own pride on the line.)

This kind of early exposure to love and respect are fundamental to being able to feel guilt about harming others later in life. Barry was raised to respect and love other people (in the general, “love your fellow man” sense), so he would feel guilty if he hurt someone innocent. The core sense of self-respect and self-love that Barry developed in childhood means Barry’s sense of self can always take the hit when he feels guilty about hurting other people.

Guilt makes us feel, temporarily, unloveable. But because Barry was raised to feel fundamentally deserving of love, he can afford to feel briefly unloveable when he hurts other people—it just means he needs to make amends, and then he’ll be worthy of that love again.

That’s why Barry’s a guilt-driven (or love-driven) character: when he interacts with the world, the thing he’s most afraid of losing is love. He’s never been put in a position where he feels like what he’s missing is respect.

And that’s where he and Len differ. Len’s not guilt- or love-driven; he’s shame-driven.

Len appears to feel zero guilt for hurting innocent people, at least when we first meet him in season 1. And the reason for that is Lewis. As I mentioned, love is a prerequisite for guilt. And unlike Barry, Len wasn’t brought up in a loving home. I highly doubt that Lewis’s love for Len was ever freely given, even before he became physically abusive. And if it was, that sense of self was absolutely ripped away from Len when that abuse started.

As I mentioned, treating children with love is the most basic respect their guardians can give them. By withholding that love, Lewis taught Len that he was inherently worthy of neither love nor respect. Raised in that environment, where violence was the way Len saw power exerted over others, the natural response was for Len to seek out respect, not love. He had nothing to gain from loving others—and therefore, from feeling guilt—because he’d already been taught he could survive without love. What he couldn’t survive without was respect, because disrespect meant becoming the object of violence—first from his father, and later, from the criminal justice system.

(Prison is a conversation for another day, but suffice to say, the dehumanizing treatment incarcerated people face parallels that childhood lack of love, robs them of the self-respect and self-love they need to have healthy relationships with other people, and increases the likelihood that they’ll commit violent crimes, not reduces it).

So Len did whatever it took to survive, and survival meant accumulating respect. There’s an obvious cure to this obsession with respect, of course: 1) love, and 2) safety.

Now, as eager as I am to jump into how Barry helped Len break the cycle of violence, Barry’s not the source of love I want to talk about here. Barry comes in later; when I talk about the love that saved Leonard, I’m talking about Lisa.

Because, listen—I’m as exhausted as you are by the trope of “female loved one is male character’s humanity,” especially where, like in some of the Flash comics, it means killing off Lisa to make Leonard a more ruthless (and, I guess the the theory goes, interesting?) villain. But Lisa isn’t just some crack in Len’s armor; she fundamentally changed Len’s life when she was born.

Len was already somewhere between thirteen and sixteen by the time Lisa was born; for the sake of convenience, let’s put him around 15. (For some more detailed meta about the Sniblings' ages, check out this excellent post by @coldtomyflash). If Len was five when Lewis went to prison, and ten when Lewis came out a much more violent man (see: everything I said about prison earlier), that means Len experienced several years of incredibly traumatic treatment before Lisa was born.

He and Mick were in juvie together at least once when Len was still young enough to be “the smallest kid in there,” and Len was nearly killed. Mick saved him, yes, but the experience had to further numb Len to guilt and reinforce that violence and respect were the only real paths to survival.

And then, Lisa. Len clearly, canonically loves Lisa from the moment she’s born. We know nothing about either of their mothers (and it is pretty likely, given the 15-year age gap between them, that they have different mothers), but they’re clearly both out of the picture—Lisa says Len raised her. Len raised her! Fifteen years old, three years away from being free and clear of Lewis’s house forever, and Len stays to raise her.

Lisa is absolutely the one person keeping Len from sliding fully head-first into the path carved for him by Lewis and reinforced by the prison system. He is still primarily shame- and respect-driven—we see him kill people without any guilt, hell, he tries to derail a train with children on board in season one just to see what Barry will do.

But Lisa taught Len that he’s deserving of love and capable of loving others, and because of that, Len cannot, will not respect Lewis for his violence he rains on them both.It leaves open a door in his mind: Lisa doesn’t deserve to be treated that way, which could mean, if he could ever afford to consider it, that he didn’t deserve to be treated that way, either.

It’s why Barry is so unbelievably smug at the end of “Family of Rogues.” He’s figured it out; he wouldn’t put it in terms like guilt and shame, but he’s cracked it all the same. He always knew Len was like him, was someone who had been forced into violence by his circumstances, and now he has proof. Barry is remarkably unconcerned that Len shot Lewis; he’s briefly surprised, sure, but by the end of the episode he’s visiting Len in Iron Heights and goading him about the good in him.

And that’s where Barry comes in. He’s the crucial second ingredient to that cure for shame—he’s the safety.

He blazes into Len’s life and praises him for things no one else ever praised him for: for his morals, for his mercy, for the way he loves Lisa. He gives him an acceptable out to stop killing (he appeals to his vanity, says he’s good enough at what he does that he doesn’t need to hurt innocents, and they both know it’s an excuse), and he makes it clear that he respects not Len’s capacity for violence, but his desire to escape the need for it.

He also offers Len protection to start making that transition. Len knows, even if neither of them say it, that Barry would drop everything to help him if he called. When Len’s reluctant do-gooding puts him in harm’s way, like with King Shark in ARGUS, Barry does drop everything. He gives up a tool that could save Iris’s life to save Len’s instead. This is not me hating on westallen at all—Barry’s sense of obligation to Len is just that strong. He knows he’s put Len on slippery ground by helping extract him from the safety net he’d built himself out of violence.

And that’s Barry’s guilt drive in action—because yeah, he loves Len. He cares about him, and he respects him, and that’s love to Barry. He just wants to give Len the chance to love people that way, too. And in the end, Len, despite all his misgivings, ends up letting him.

#and then he. and then he d. he di-#i'm going to go stare into the ocean #leonard snart #barry allen #coldflash #to an extent. and that extent is that i think they should kiss on the mouth #lisa snart #the sniblings #abuse mention tw //#meta #i might get into how barry's childhood tracks a little closer to len's than i gave him credit for in this post but like #another post for another day

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girl4pay · 3 years

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This might be a big question but what would be the ideal way for the raven king to have ended in ur opinion. Bc it doesn’t make sense as is and thematically falls apart I feel but I can never quite figure out what the actually most narratively satisfying thing would be

lets get married. okay keeping in mind i haven't read the series in full in a couple years my core issues with trk are: i think gwenllian was criminally misused, i think adding in laumonier and blue's dad made very little sense and i think doing the gansey noah and cabeswater deaths back to back the way they were was a terrible way to handle a climax. you don't need blue's dad and you don't need laumonier. too many random new parents and men who are absolutely vestigal. gwenllian should be blue's mentor, you focus the piper plotline completely on a professional antagonism between her and henry's mom who can act as the antithesis to piper's greed and recklessness. the grey man is the reader's familiar link between Crime and Magic here, so you can still have him face the challenge of his old life threatening his new life by having to forge an alliance with seondeok to take down a shared threat.

gwenllian as blue's mentor would come with a similar but almost opposite effect to persephone's mentorship on adam: blue isn't getting stranger, she's getting angrier. this witch who knows what she is keeps getting mayo in her hair and her teachers don't understand her and her family is being evasive and the boy she loves is going to die. also a demon is clouding her perspective, but she doesn't really know that yet. more adam and blue scheming to keep gansey alive. more research and bugging relatives and desperately looking into rituals while it becomes clearer to the reader that adam is losing his agency and blue is losing her clearsightedness. gansey's panic attacks begin to attune themselves to the moments where noah is not himself as well. his chest hurts, he can't breathe - it feels like something is sucking away at his heart. at the same time adam is still trying to help ronan with waking up the dreams, and blue is getting closer to gansey and henry, trying to imagine a future that feels like her own when she has the weights of her confused identity and her fate hanging around her neck.

i would have ronan and gansey's relationship blow up here: between the hospital and aurora's death, maybe after his birthday party, ronan finds out - probably through declan, to add insult to injury and even more fucked up brother resentment - that gansey is trying to buy him a diploma. actually definitely just after the night of truth bullshit for prime outrageousness lmao. it goes nuclear. blue is, catastrophically to gansey, on ronan's side. adam is, infuriatingly to everyone, judgmentally neutral. things progress as they were except instead of henry getting kidnapped we get a very reluctant henry passing a message to tgm - things have progressed past the point that is acceptable with piper, and his mother wants to meet. also the visit with gansey's family is tense - they love her and henry, and they just can't understand what's gotten into gansey, who's distracted and snappy, and when helen confronts him, he blows up at her, saying a lot more about his worry for ronan and his fear about what will happen to him than was revealed in the initial fight. they're siblings, their relationship can handle it, but there's still an overarching sense that she doesn't really understand, because gansey is still holding his real fear of dying close to his chest.

cut to auroras death and the grey man having to leave maura with this tragedy to join seondeok - a king, joining a king, doing what needs doing, instead of just a continued trope about being made for violence or whatever that was. there scene with ronan at the bmw goes more or less the same. gansey goes off on his own because he feels isolated and like the burden of fixing all this lies on his shoulders, gwenllians weird witch pep talk goes to blue instead. here is where you would insert cool fun shit about what being a mirror actually means! all of them reunite as in canon, ronan and gansey reconcile after ronan is like you dumb motherfucker i need you here you're my brother and gansey says some self sacrificing shit and blue and adam make it clear without Making It Clear they are going to stand by him, because they still don't know he knows he's going to die.

here is where we reach the core difficulty: i think the death kiss is incredibly stupid and i don't know how i would write around it. i know how i would finish trk from here, but the kiss curse would not show up at all. i like the kiss curse as a concept but it just doesn't make any sense in the narrative of agency trc constructs and i think it limit's blue's storyline. so without considering the kiss curse: as the demon hijacks adam and tries to use blue as an amplifier to spread to other ley lines, everyone realizes the stakes. everything cabeswater has touched, everything the ley line has touched is at risk, and the ley lines are ALL CONNECTED. blue and adam have been skirting around the realization that the demon and cabeswater are like mirrors the whole book. you can't have one without the other. there is no corruption without something to corrupt. the way cabeswater focuses the ley line for ronan is how the demon has been getting power too, but it's a self contained loop, consumption instead of guidance. kill cabeswater, kill the demon. gansey asks it, realizing in a way they others don’t seem to that he and cabeswater are linked, and the others act. there's a little giving tree moment between ronan and cabeswater, which will surely not contribute to any farreaching survivors guilt that might show up in a sequel series. here is where blue being a mirror comes into play. when neeve was trying to see farther than she could, she used a mirror and it sent her there. the demon is trying to consume beyond it's bounds. a mirror sends it inwards. here blue sees the moment of violence that birthed the demon, and she's terrified and it's tragic. it's a very bildungsroman moment of grief and terror of what will come after for everyone. death of the child birth of the man etc. noah, perpetual child, gets laid to rest with cabeswater, but without cabeswater the ley line floods. here is where gansey dies: without noah fighting his hardest to keep him going, because noah loved him, because cabeswater needed him, his heart simply stops. here is where blue kisses him, because it doesn't matter any more, because he dies even though she didn't, because she's seeing without the demon clouding her for the first time in what feels like the longest time and all she can see is grief. shit gets magically weird with adam and ronan too, and it's henry who grounds them all, who is used to enforcing practicality on the unknown to keep himself safe. with his help the three of them dream something to save gansey. ta da!

i feel like this would also feed much better into the theme of the dreamer trilogy of like opening ley lines etc bcus trk completely glosses over what happens to the ley line without cabeswater there, and adds to it making sense that ronan thinks opening the ley lines is a good idea - he saved gansey with it! what more could he do! whereas adam felt overwhelmed and out of control and spends the next year trying to construct and repair his own real life conduits and safeguards on the ley line as ronan builds lindenmere. what are your thoughts did i miss anything that you were like absolutely not hate that need it to be gone

#trc

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im-like-if-a-girl · 3 years

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*THE* mean-girl-dean-girl's Supernatural reboot MEGAPOST!

I'm gonna stick a little "keeping reading" here because hoooooo boy, this is a very long post.

Let's start with

Plot

Season 1

Dean kills John while they are out on a hunt in a crime of passion, but Dean doesn't remember because he blacked out. Cue Dean going to Stanford to get Sam and tell him "Dad's on a hunting trip... and he hasn't been home in a couple days."

The audience doesn't know what happened to John, but slowly figures it out with Dean and Sam as Dean slowly remembers what happened that night.

The entire first season, the boys are following the trail John left and fighting monsters as well. They find out Dean was with John, Sam realizes Dean has an unreliable memory, they have heart to hearts about their childhood and the fire, they find John's body, "how could you kill Dad?" but maybe Dean didn't kill dad, whooaaaaaa, misdirection.

It was actually good ole yeller eyes (Azazel) and he made it look like Dean killed John.

Okay, now let's move on to the first episode

Not sure how the opening would work, I would like the story of the fire to be revealed over the course of the first season, but maybe the opening scene could be a little bit of an establishing character relationships and backstory, idk, I haven't thought that far yet.

I'm thinking maybe it's like, Dean gets back to a motel room covered in blood and he listens to a voicemail on his phone from John saying he was on a hunt or something, I don't really know lol.

HOWEVER

I do know that after the intro rolls, we get a scene of Sam waking up to his alarm and "Nine to Five" by Dolly Parton starts playing.

Y'all know where this is going.

Cue a montage of Sam's normal Stanford college life (him sitting through lectures, walking through the campus with friends) spliced with scenes of Dean absolutely slaughtering a nest of vampires (or some other monsters, whatever works best.)

But

Now onto

Characters!!! (And descriptions)

Dean Winchester

Some lovely person on this site made edits of Dean with platinum blond hair and it made me feel some kind of way so we're doing that, homie's gonna have platinum blond hair

Side note about the hair, later when the brothers are running from the FBI he dyes it a dirty blond/light brown (insert jackles hair color controversy here) as a disguise.

He also gets tattoos because we were robbed.

Speaking of tattoos, concept: when Dean comes back from Hell, all of his tattoos are gone. His body is a clean slate, devoid of tattoos, scars, etc. So he gets his tattoos done all over again, which he doesn't mind because he made some bad, drunk tattoo decisions in his youth.

(And before you ask, yes, he does get one for Cas, either a bee or Cas's name in enochian, something cute.)

Dean goes to therapy after Sam gets sent to the Cage.

It's actually court mandated because he got in trouble, lol, he would never go to therapy on his own.

Along with the hair, Dean gets to be the grade A twunk we all know he is.

Sam Winchester

His hair gets longer in every scene he's in

No jk, but imagine

King of Microaggressions

Sam starts off like the sweetheart he is in season 1 but in later seasons he starts enjoying killing a little too much...

It's that demon blood, ba-by!!!

He brings up issues of morality to Dean, i.e. killing monsters who aren't hurting anyone. (Yes I know this is contradictory to my previous statement, but these two facets of Sam can and will coexist.)

Sam and Jess's relationship is explored further, meaning we'll need to start with a different inciting incident, but that's fine, I think everyone can agree fridgings are *(thumbs down)*

Sam doesn't truly know what happened the night of the fire until later, and then he understands why Dean is so protective of him.

Jess

She gets to live beyond the first episode

She is also trans

No, I don't feel like I have to explain myself and I won't 💜

She urges Sam to join Dean in a search for their brother, kind of gets pulled into the hunter lifestyle by association lol.

She dies on a rusty nail after fighting vampires on a routine hunt with Sam

No jk!!!

But imagine....

She's amazing and I love her and Lucifer also uses her as leverage against Sam and possesses her because I think that'd be cool.

She supports Sam 100% and also she and Dean are buddies, pals if you will.

She meets Cas Thee El and immediately she Knows, that is a homosexual.

She dies still so that we can have a Saileen Endgame but she's not dying the first episode or in a fridging. Not on my watch.

Castiel

He gets to keep his raw, light-fixture-exploding power.

I want more of that "I pulled you out of hell, I can throw you back in" energy except over dumb shit like Dean not cleaning up after himself.

He looks like a Dilf in every scene he's in, yeah, that's right, dilf with a capital D for *(GUNSHOTS)* *(gets sent to horny jail)*

Claire

She gets pink hair

And more time with Cas

And maybe a nose piercing

Feel like she should be able to kill a couple angels onscreen, punch a couple homophobes

She gets to meet Jack and teaches him swears and fun slang words.

She deserves it.

Jack

I says "that's my baby and I'm proud."

Jack starts off as a baby, but like Amara he grows up super quickly.

Like, baby to 11 year old in a couple days or less.

This is because Jack's emotional age on the show is on par with that of a 5th grader.

It's at this point when he's a young kid that he runs away from the Bunker and shenanigans ensue.

It's also at this point that Dean threatens to k*ll him.

(Still not sure if I want that in my Supernatural (threatened infanticide? In my Supernatural? It's more likely than you think) but we'll see. We'll see.)

Throughout a majority of season 13, Jack is like an 11 y.o. kid

Season 14 he's like a 16 y.o. teenager

Season 15 he's 21, you get the picture.

Listen, I love Alex Calvert a lot. He's great.

But Jack is a child and should be a child.

Kelly Kline

Kelly, baby, stay right where you are, you're perfect.

Eileen

SHE DOESN'T DIE

SHE GETS TO BE IN THE FINALE BECAUSE SHE'S AMAZING AND I LOVE HER.

BLURRY WIFE WHO? I ONLY KNOW SAILEEN ENDGAME!

She teaches Claire and Jack swears in sign-language. Castiel is not impressed.

John

J*hn W*nchester stans, DNI.

He's dead.

We only see him in flashbacks and only sometimes hear his voice in voice overs.

He's not "down the road" from Dean in Heaven, in fact he instead gets to wander around in some Purgatory like Hell for the rest of his time :)

People who get to say "fuck" on the show:

Cas (but only Once)

Jody

Bobby

Now onto other things

I want more of

Ghostfacers

(they need more screentime because I love them)

Dean/Benny

We know they had a thing.

They definitely had a thing.

Demon Dean

Again, I feel like more should've been done with this. All that build up for what, 2 episodes? was not utilized well at all.

Dean's Bisexuality

Straight Dean truthers DNI, my Supernatural is a show about love and being true to yourself

You think Supernatural is a show about 2 straight brothers fighting monsters?

Naw bitch, this is a show about the Gay Experience

He will get to have relations with men on this show.

Of course, only after John dies does he, y'know, display it. Maybe he kisses Cas on his dad's grave just to fuck John over, make him roll in grave.

We all agree John would be/is a homophobe piece of shit, right?

Okay, glad we're on the same page.

Dads

3 men and a baby with Jack is what I'm saying.

I love it when the Trio are father-figures to younger troubled characters they see themselves in, even better if it's like reluctant-but-loving father figure, oh, that trope gets me every time :'^)

Dadstiel and DadDean are my favorites, but I like it when Sam plays "Uncle Sam" to kids too lol.

"Fellas, is it gay to want a tight knit family with your husband, his son, his vessel's daughter, your brother, his wife, your cop mother figure and her wife and their adopted daughters? Asking for a friend."

Garth

Biggest flaw of Supernatural was underutilizing Garth.

I will never not be bitter that Garth was only in like, 7 episodes out of the whole 15 season series.

Every episode with Garth gets immediately 5 times better.

I love Garth.

Follow ups on characters who had entire episodes featured around them and then just... vanished???

This is mostly about Jesse, the magic kid whose imagination ruled an entire town like, his daddy was a demon and nothing came of that kid??? Only one episode about him?? No follow up???

KID CAN MANIPULATE REALITY AND WE'RE NOT GONNA GET A FOLLOW UP ON THAT?????

Uh, there was that one episode with Ennis the guy whose girlfriend was killed by a monster? I think?? Who we never see again, that was weird.

Tamara from season 3, episode 1.

And of course-

Cassie

She was so cool, and then we never saw her again :////

She gets to be a badass.

Religious imagery

As a former Catholic school student who has become for the most part, disillusioned with religion, religious imagery in TV shows like Supernatural make my brain go "brrrrrr."

Fun episodes!!!

Like, after season 6 or so, there's a drop in funny episodes

I'm talking Changing Channels, The French Mistake type stuff. (Scoobynatural is an outlier and should not be counted.)

So anyway

In my version we would have more fun episodes

I'm thinking

GENDER-SWAP EPISODE, BABY!!

(why they didn't do that in the original, we'll never know.)

An episode where Dean gets to wear eyeliner

That's it, end of post.

I want less

Racism

Yeah I feel like this is self explanatory, nearly every reoccurring character in SPN is white, and black side characters normally die in the episode they first appear in, or they'll be featured as a villain (Uriel, Raphael, Billie, etc)

Also there's a lot of... uh... asian fetishism featured in the show (what with "Busty Asian Beauties) that's really gross, also Kevin was a bit of a stereotype...

Also also it's super yucky how they kill the gods from other religions like???? Uh??? That's super disrespectful, let's not do that????

I know Supernatural is like, inherently racist because monsters are a separate race that are seen as some dangerous "other" that must be eradicated by hunters in a form of genocide-

Okay we won't get into that but

Still

Stop killing all your POC

Fridgings/Unecessary murders of female characters

I know Supernatural starts with a fridging, so this will be a hard thing to remedy, but

One death that really pissed me off was the death of Charlie

Yeah, that was pointless and we're not doing that. Charlie gets to live and be an awesome aunt to Jack.

And also Claire

Charlie Bradbury Superiority

Charlie and Garth get to meet because they're nerd/geek solidarity.

British Men of Letters

I fucking hate these guys

They're "litcherally" the worst.

The worst part is that the actors they have playing the British AREN'T. EVEN. BRITISH.

And you can tell

Uh, and that's all for now, I'll add more later.

tag list for people who liked my "if this post gets one like I'll post my SPN reboot masterpost" post.

@darianyunidi @sarasidlesaid @crazybananaalpaca @playfulpanthress @ultfreakme @fififeelsmellow @heller-char @luna8eaton @princessmeganfire @insanebot109 @queenofnightsnow @mongoose-underthehouse

Thank you for the support, hope the wait was worth it.

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elionwriter · 3 years

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May the 4th be with you all! Ok, so I am late for that. Let's make this a return of the 5th post then. Anyway, I decided to make my personal

TOP 10 CHARACTERS AND RELATIONSHIPS (Part 1)

Fair Warning I'm only considering Canon Characters no legends included ( sorry Starkiller)

1) DARTH VADER

You know a character is powerful when the sound of a metallic, heavy breath approaching is all it takes to start shaking in your boots. Darth Vader with his complex history, his powerful aura and controversial morals is probably one of the main reasons Star Wars became as popular as it is in the first place. What's not to love? His look is amazingly sinister, powerful and iconic; his 'I can't be bothered' tone and attitude while giving displays of ruthless power is chilling and the fact that there is a scared and subdued part of him that's screaming, desperately clinging to light and hope as Luke sudgests is heartbreaking! This is a character that by every intent and purpose was supposed to be the hero, was groomed from childhood to be it and instead found himself turned into the villain and trapped into his worst case scenario. From the moment he discovers that Luke is his son an internal battle starts raging between his loyalty to the emperor, his desire to pull Luke to his side and a selfless paternal instinct to save his son. The fact that he ultimately does indeed prove to be the "chosen one" by killing Palpatine is too good. The fact that Darth Vader has some of the best lines in the series and that in videogames he is a Boss you're glad to be handed your ass by and is LITERALLY unbeatable even with mods are just a few of the reasons why I believe Anakin Skywalker's Sith persona is far more appealing than his Jedi one.

2) DIN DJARIN & GROGU

I know I'm not original but there truly is no better way to sum up these two than "Clint Eastwood in space with a baby and the baby is an irresistibly cute bean with a bastard personality". This sentence alone should explain why they deserve this spot on the list. Add a wicked theme song, a tired 'sigh' and a sweet cooing sound in lieu of catchphrases and one of the coolest Mandalorian armours ever and you have some instant fan- favourites! If Jedi are mystical and fascinating, Mandalorians truly are the ultimate badasses of the galaxy far far away. Nobody proves that better than Din Djarin himself. Also, his interactions with Grogu, Ashoka Tano and Luke skywalker are testament that putting these two powerhouses together is one of the best team-ups you can possibly make. Din is the "reluctant hero" trope personified and the fact that he is surrounded by heroes with a mission and a destiny to fullfil makes him all the more endearing. Get you a man who is perceived as a merciless walking, killing machine and turns out to be a shy, introvert, pure hearted mess with the driest sense of humour possible. Din is a private and secretive man of very few words, to the point that the viewer learns his name at the end of season 1. His absolute adherence to the Mandalorian code make him appear very standoffish and unapproachable. It's the child that slowly, figuratively and physically, makes him come out of his shell and sets him on the path for his own, true purpose. One cannot help but feel and want to know more about Grogu as it's revealed how much suffering and tragedy had to endure. Din's need to protect him becomes the viewer's. While the faith of these two is unsure I can only hope they'll be reunited soon. I'm really curious to know where their stories are going so to quote from Palpatine: "We will watch your career with great interest".

3) LUKE SKYWALKER:

The hero of heroes, the true main protagonist of the story, which amazingly turns out NOT to be the prophecy's "chosen one". While Mark Hamill himself mockingly said in an interview that "even the droids have better lines than me" I think it's safe to say there are plenty of reasons to love Luke Skywalker. His kind and sweet personality, his initial excitable and boyish attitude and his steady evolution in Jedi Master are just a few of those. Luke is the embodiment of hope. When everyone else is ready to sell someone short, Luke sees the best in them and holds onto the hope they'll come around and make the right decision until the end (He tries to kill his nephew and becomes an old shrew? Never heard of it!). His kindness however comes with a wellspring of untapped power and unbreakable will power. He is respectful of his teachers without ever letting their opinions dictate his actions if they feel wrong. The fact that he ultimately strays from the main action to face a more personal quest confronting Vader and the Emperor and doesn't actually save the day only add up to his charm rather than detract from it. While his relationship with Han Solo and Chewbacca is always amusing and heartwarming, it's the growth of his connection to Leia, from teenage crush to deep sibling love, that really sticks. What's for sure is that few things are as satisfying as seeing him brandishing his lightsaber and laying waste of everything around him. Summing up, I believe Luke's charm lays in his inheritance of his father's looks and talents but his mother's heart and strength!

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mega-ringsandthings-world · 3 years

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Hi, I am the anonymous who asked for people who like single Katniss.

(I guess I will call myself Pepper in future, I am too much of a coward to send an direct ask )

It is just when I carve for Hunger games contents, all it seems is things I don't like. All hg fanfics and analysis being about Katniss' love, her kids and all just wears me out. And there doesn't even seem to be any Peeta×Gale shippers (At least they will leave Katniss alone and out of the mess) Especially if you just change the gender, Gale seems to be Peeta's type. (Don't know about Gale)

You are the first one whose opinions seems to resemble mine and thought you would know someone like that. (Your "Capitolite" post is the one that lead me to your tumblr, loved it).

I rather read a fic or analysis about Katniss living with her sister and being in friendly terms Gale and Peeta than the epilogue Collins (I think she aimed for a sad one, but people ignore it because "she is married and have kids isn't it the ultimate happiness") gave us. The whole love triangle was unnecessary. At least she could do is turn it into a poly relationship or avoid either Peeta or Gale falling in love with Katniss. Then she didn't have to rush up thing and chuck Gale out at the last moment.

And I do agree (a little) with your posts about Peeta. Where my disagreement come (this is going to be very controversial) is on the fact that Peeta had strong feelings (of any type) for Katniss before the arena.

Just come on, who remembers the crush you had when you were 5. Especially when it is goddamn stranger (not really a stranger, but you get my point, Peeta doesn't know Katniss enough for those feelings to settle in.)

Then why does he seem to know so much about Katniss? Remember him saying that his father said that he had a crush on Katniss' mother. It is not the sort of thing you forget and does leave an impression on you. I think his feelings for Katniss was somewhat similar to the one Katniss had for at the beginning, a mild affection mixed with some curiosity. He kept tabs on Katniss the same way she did to him. It is possible that he heard more about her from his father.

And I think on the interview, Peeta decided to play the tragic lover part, which is going earn him a lot of sympathy (And sponsors). I don't think he remotely thought of Katniss involving in his plan and probably thought that her indifference and her presumed relationship with Gale is going to play in his advantage. Haymich is the one that wanted to make it a two way. And in the arena, Katniss taking care of him seem to have made him fall in love with her. (I could be very wrong as no else seem to have this opinion and it's been a while since I read HG). And him distancing from her later struck me as an I-am-sorry than a dislike for her not returning the feelings.

His many bizarre I-have-a-crush-like actions (I don't remember them all, lol) could be chalked down to the ones of a person desperate to live. (I remember his mother telling him that he will not live, that can do a number on anyone. And Haymich doesn't seem very supportive of him)

I think their (not necessarily romantic) relationship was of mutual benefit and satisfaction though not necessarily healthy.

Anyway thanks for reading my rant (?).

Hi Pepper! So, I'll start off with saying that it does wear me out too. The story of the Hunger Games is a very rich story that goes beyond just a YA book, and yet in it's media and it's fanbase, it seems to be all about the romance, and most of the content is soaked in the starcrossed lovers bit. But to be fair, I have seen some GaleXPeeta content, but I never gave it a passing glance since it's not my cup of tea. Although, Gale being Peeta's type is an interesting thought, but Peeta certainly isn't Gale's type. Gale loved Katniss because he grew up with her and they shared a social class and experiences. I'm glad found someone of (sort of ) the same mind as me! I always wished to find more hg fans who think like me.

The ending didn't fit right with me, Katniss still seemed too restless to settle down and she never wanted kids. So I didn't like it. I think the ending was too rushed, and we could have benefitted from a longer epilogue or even another book going into more detail about Katniss's future. But we were never going to get a poly relationship, within the story it would not have worked, and the author isn't someone who does poly relationships. A lot of what is wrong with the books is because of the author's viewpoint. Okay, I see your reasoning on Peeta, and it's an interesting viewpoint! And I share many of your thoughts, but I see it just a bit differently. It was very clear that he remembered Katniss and loved her, or rather he loves the idea of her he has in his head. Katniss remarks often on how he sees her differently than how she actually is. And Peeta is very smart, he knew from the beginning how to play the game. He figured telling people about his love would make the gamemakers go for a couple angle, and that would be a way to save Katniss, plus getting both of them out alive. And he was right. He's not the type of person to act out of desperation, even in Peeta's lowest moments he never acted desperately. Katniss says herself that Peeta was playing the game, and she was right. The problem is that he presumed Katniss had a secret affection for him. He thought she loved him deep down like he loved her.

But she didn't. She had zero affections romantically for him besides a sense of obligation and curiosity because of the bread. In the arena he seemed thrilled that she was finally "coming around." And he definitely got angry at Katniss when she revealed she had just been faking, she says herself that he was pushing her away and acting coldly and unfair. He would pretend in front of the cameras in order to keep himself and her safe, but then not talk to her, and it's only until a whole six months later that he finally admits she was right to pretend to keep them both alive.

Their relationship was necessary to keep them both alive, and they would have been wonderful friends. But Katniss should never have been with him romantically. As @kapriccosa says, the way that Katniss is written as needing Peeta to survive and find peace (plus having his kids when she was clearly reluctant to) is a trope that really isn't the best.

Katniss needed to be free as she could of any entanglements that had the taint of the capitol, she needed to be able to figure out who she was when she didn't have to be preforming for cameras and or surviving. And it's really irritating that we didn't get the slightest bit of that.

#the hunger games #thg #katniss #peeta #gale #anon

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hobbitkiller · 4 years

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She-Ra, Supergirl, and Tangled: A Tale of Three Female Relationships: Part 2

*SPOILER WARNING FOR SHE-RA, SUPERGIRL, AND TANGLED: THE SERIES*

For those of you just tuning in, I’m taking a deep dive into 3 female relationships in 3 of my favorite tv shows that all turned into toxic messes at some point. The point of this series of posts is to exam these relationships, where things went wrong, whether there’s a chance for redemption, and what conclusions, if any, we can draw from these relationships about media’s representation of female characters and female relationships.

Oh, and shipping, ‘cause this is tumblr after all...

So, in Part 1 I gave a summary of the female relationships in question in these three shows (Adora and Catra, Kara and Lena, Rapunzel and Cassandra). I also summarized how these relationships began and when they started to go wrong. If you already know that stuff because you love these shows too, you don’t necessarily have to go back and read it, but doing so is always encouraged.

In this installment, I will be exploring 3 themes related to the festering resentment within these relationships: Mother Knows Best, Chosen Ones, and Itty Bitty Boxes. Follow the jump to get started!

PART III: MOTHER KNOWS BEST

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I’ve heard a few people claim that Mother Gothel is not a top tier Disney villain. She doesn’t have the following that characters like Scar or Maleficent have. However, at the same time, I’ve heard many people saying something along the lines of “This is my mother.” There’s something uncomfortably familiar about Mother Gothel in Tangled. I recognized the same putdowns and microaggressions that I used to get from my stepmom in Gothel’s targeted jabs at Rapunzel’s confidence throughout the movie...all done with a smile and “It’s for your own good” attitude.

A lot of media focuses on the relationship between fathers and sons. Mothers in Disney have historically been silent or dead. (Except Perdita. That bitch was awesome).

This, of course, makes it interesting that 5/6 of these characters have verbally (and in some cases physically) abusive, manipulative mother figures. And for Adora and Catra and Rapunzel and Cassandra, that mother figure is the same.

Here are our three abusive mothers:

Shadow Weaver who raised Adora and Catra:

Lillian Luthor who is Lena Luthor’s adoptive mother (and played by the absolute joy to watch that is Brenda Strong):

And, of course, Mother Gothel who kidnapped and raised Rapunzel for most of her life and is the SPOILER biological mother of Cassandra:

There are, of course, good mothers sprinkled in. Rapunzel’s biological mother, Queen Arianna is great once she actually gets lines in the TV show. Lena’s birth mother was also, by all accounts, a very kind and loving person. Kara has two moms, and while both have flaws, both are inherently good people (particularly Eliza Danvers, her adoptive mother).

However, in spite of the presence of some positive examples of motherhood, the relationships between all three of these pairs is heavily influenced by the three narcissistic women above.

All three of these women are dishonest, withhold affection only to give it away as a special treat, and actively manipulate their children. Yet, at the same time, the children can’t help but seek approval. Adora and Catra both feared and desperately sought approval and affection from Shadow Weaver. Lena tries to cut ties with her family, but keeps being drawn back in when Lillian admits pride at her accomplishments or that she does, in fact, care about her. Rapunzel sought affection from Gothel growing up because she was her one human contact, and, when Cassandra learned the truth of who her mother was, Cassandra desperately wanted some validation that the mother who abandoned her loved her on some level.

These mother/daughter relationships scarred 5/6 of our characters (Kara has her own hangups about her mother, but not on the deeply psychologically scarred level as the other five.)

Adora is mockingly called paranoid by Shadow Weaver for understandably thinking the woman who lied to and manipulated her her entire life was up to something. Catra pushes everyone in her life away emotionally for fear of being hurt (only to create a self-fulfilling prophecy when they leave due to her behavior). Lena is constantly scared of being “betrayed” and manipulated. When she’s hurt by Supergirl asking Lena’s boyfriend to snoop on her, she says it was “something my mother would do.” When she and Kara first became friends, Lena was reluctant to do so because of the trust issues from her family (Lex Luthor is obviously also a manipulative, abusive jerk). Even Rapunzel, the embodiment of sunshine, has lingering trust issues. In the Season Three episode “Beginnings” she explains to Eugene that one of the reasons she likes Cassandra is because Rapunzel spent 18 years with someone who lied to her, whereas Cassandra was forthright and said what she was thinking.

Cassandra’s mother issues are a little more complicated. When she was four, Gothel abandoned her in order to kidnap Rapunzel and Cass was adopted by the captain of the guard. Cassandra has deeply repressed this memory by the time we meet her when she’s 22/23. Then, she’s given a glimpse of what life was like with Gothel:

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Early in the series, Cass talks about how her father instilled in her the value of “earning my keep.” It’s clear here, though, that love as a transactional relationship had been instilled in Cassandra early in life: “And when it (love/affection) came, it came with strings.”

This transactional view of relationships is something shared by all 5 members of our “bad moms” squad on at least some level. Adora constantly feels the need to fix things and be useful to her friends. Catra thinks if she just wins enough or is good enough, maybe Shadow Weaver will finally love her. Lena’s approach to relationships largely revolves around buying things for them and trying to unilaterally solve their problems for them without their input. Rapunzel has to go through an entire episode to learn that you can’t buy friendship through doing nice things, and that she doesn’t have to. Cass ties her self-worth deeply to her usefulness to others. They all struggle to find internal validation at times.

The other way mothers play a part in the downfalls of these relationships is the element of competitiveness. This is an issue with Adora and Catra and Rapunzel and Cassandra. As previously stated, both of these couples share a mother figure. And, in both of these couples, there is a deep resentment on the part of the non-golden haired child toward the other. Shadow Weaver did not hide that Adora was her favorite. She frequently praised Adora while berating and abusing Catra even when both had done equally well. Even when Adora abandoned Shadow Weaver and Catra for the rebellion, SW was more concerned with getting Adora back than appreciating the loyalty and accomplishments of Catra.

Mother Gothel literally gave up Cassandra to take Rapunzel.

Both Catra and Cassandra feel completely overshadowed by the blonde in their lives, and part of them can’t help but think that, if only Adora or Rapunzel were out of the way, or had never existed, maybe they would have been chosen as the favored one.

This, of course, brings us to our next topic:

PART IV: CHOSEN ONES

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I’ve never been a big fan of Ron Weasley. I didn’t read the Harry Potter books until I was in my twenties (yes, compared to many of my readers, I’m old), and I think this lead to me being less charmed by his humor or bullying of Hermione than I otherwise might have been. I found his temper aggravating and he is just...the worst...in the sixth book. Like, he purposely starts dating someone to punish Hermione who had already asked him to Slughorn’s party because Ginny pointed out that Hermione had probably kissed the guy she was dating TWO YEARS AGO. No, seriously, read that book again. That’s what happened. Then the seventh book happens and it turns out Dumbledore KNEW Ron was going to ditch the team at some point...

That being said, as I sat down to write this novel-length meta, I found myself thinking about what it’s like to be the support team for the “chosen one.” In the seventh book, Ron could have stayed at home with his pureblood family. He would still be in some danger due to their involvement with the Order of the Phoenix, but it would have been a lot safer than traveling around with “Undesirable No 1.″ Yet, because he loves Harry, he chooses to go on this mission.

In the three pieces of media we’re discussing, 2/3 have literal chosen ones--characters with specific destinies of supernatural origin: Adora and Rapunzel. Kara also largely fits into the trope as someone sent to earth from afar to “save us.” As I somewhat jokingly said in the first part, all three of these pieces of media feature a blond super-powered person who needs to save the world.

Can you imagine what it would be like to be the best friend or “sister” of the person who’s “burdened with glorious purpose”?

On the one hand, it’s constant fear over that person’s safety and wellbeing. On the other, there’s a bit that can’t help but feel resentful. Imagine having a friend that overshadows every accomplishment you’ve ever had seemingly by virtue of just who they are.

Now, of course we know that it’s no easy road being a chosen one. There’s a lot you have to sacrifice, and it usually involves injury, near death, and a boatload of trauma. And the support teams know this. For some, it’s never an issue. But for others...

In She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Adora, to Catra, always had the presence in her life of a chosen one, even before she got the sword and became She-Ra. Shadow Weaver had sensed something powerful about Adora when she was a baby, and thus treated her as the “Golden Child” to Catra’s “Scapegoat.”

This idea of the “Golden Child (GC)” versus the “Scapegoat (SG)” rolls a bit into this issue with “chosen ones.” In toxic, narcissistic families, parents often hold up one child as the great one while the other is the one to blame for their problems. Think Olga and Helga in Hey Arnold! (Is that reference too dated for some of you guys? Man, I’m old. Also, I remember finally being old enough to realize Helga’s mom was an alcoholic and it blew my mind.) This also usually entails encouraging a level of competitiveness between the siblings.

In some ways, it’s like a “chosen one” is the whole world’s golden child. Anyone who researches this dynamic knows it’s abusive to both the GC and the SG, which is clearly displayed in She-Ra when Adora is stressed by the pressure of expectations and the knowledge that her mistakes will most likely be taken out on Catra. That doesn’t change the fact that Catra resents the positive attention (the adoration if you will) Adora gets--that, no matter what Catra achieves, it will be nothing compared to Adora. This resentment is a big part of what fuels the escalation of their personal conflict leading to one of the saddest pieces of animation since Fry’s dog died sad and alone on Futurama. In the Season 1 episode “Promise.” (This is, by far, the best episode of the series), Catra airs all of her feelings she’d been repressing about what it felt like living in Adora’s shadow--how it made her feel like a “side kick,” something Adora never consciously tried to do and is shocked to discover.

Cassandra on Tangled:The Series has similar feelings about her role in Rapunzel’s life. Not only is her best friend the one with the magic hair and great destiny, but she is also her boss and monarch. Aside from the two songs I included in my last post, “Waiting in the Wings” and “Crossing the Line,” this conflict is best demonstrated early in Season One in the episode “Challenge of the Brave.”

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Cass didn’t suffer abuse in quite the same way Catra did (though Gothel was the worst mom for her first 4 years), but she does feel disrespected and overshadowed by Rapunzel even before learning about Gothel. In “Crossing the Line”--a song many likened to “Let it Go” when they first heard it, Cassandra lays out these feelings further:

There’s a line between the winners and the losers.

There’s a line between the chosen and the rest.

And I’ve done the best I could,

but i’ve always known just where we stood.

Me here with the luckless.

You there with the blessed.

Now, when this song first came out, there were negative reactions from some fans. How could Cassandra call someone who had been kidnapped and locked in a tower with the neglectful and verbally abusive Gothel for 18 years “blessed”? But, from Cassandra’s perspective, Rapunzel still gets everything, power, respect, etc., purely because she was born a princess while Cass has worked incredibly hard her entire life to achieve one goal, becoming a guard, and is constantly denied.

With Lena and Kara in Supergirl, the resentment, again, is mostly between Lena and Supergirl for most of their relationship. Multiple times during the show’s run, Lena has expressed concern about human’s relative helplessness in the face of aliens like Supergirl who have power. This is why Lena sees some of her shadier actions such as making Kryptonite or trying to give humans super powers as justified. She doesn’t go to the extreme levels of hatred that her brother Lex does, but that distrust in those who are naturally more powerful runs throughout the family as does the resentment that aliens have seemingly usurped the leadership role among humanity that should have belonged to the Luthors.

What makes this interesting is that, in most of her relationships, Lena, as a billionaire, is the more privileged and powerful one. This is really best demonstrated in her relationship with James Olsen, whom she orders around as his boss while buying him expensive gifts and going behind his back to fix his legal problems. And for much of their relationship, this is how Lena sees her relationship with Kara. It’s not a manipulative or cruel thing. Lena just sees Kara as her adorkable reporter friend who is hapless in the face of danger.

Then, all of these preconceived notions come crashing down when Lena learns that Kara is Supergirl. Suddenly, she learns that her hapless friend was actually playing her the whole time--that she was stringing Lena along and pretending to be only human.

Lena’s resentment may not be as explicit in this case as Catra’s or Cassandra’s, but it is layered within all of the emotions Lena Luthor is pretending not to have.

This, of course, leads us to our final subject for today.

PART V: “ITTY BITTY BOXES”

I’ve mentioned a few times throughout this novel-length meta the word “repressed.” Catra, Lena, and Cassandra are not good at expressing their emotions in a healthy manner. Much of this can be blamed on the aforementioned mother figures and the trust and intimacy issues that having narcissistic, abusive parents can lead to.

Narcissistic parents often place the burden of maintaining the emotional wellbeing of the family on the children. It is your job as the child to make sure they don’t get upset. It is you who has to keep the cool head and maintain the facade of positivity. Parents like Shadow Weaver, Lillian Luther, and Mother Gothel do not see it as their responsibility to help their children regulate emotion or address it. To them, “negative emotions” are character flaws.

Of course, anyone who’s watched Inside Out knows that emotions aren’t inherently good or bad and feeling, addressing, and understanding them are vital to good mental health.

Too bad Inside Out wasn’t there for Catra, Lena, or Cassandra growing up.

Instead, each of these characters has learned to bottle up and hide emotions like sadness, fear, hurt, and true, deep anger. Lena even outlines her approach to such feelings when helping Brainy, an alien who is basically like an organic computer, solve a problem:

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I was not the only person that was reminded of this gem after that scene:

Putting emotions away in an imaginary box is a real technique for keeping yourself from becoming overwhelmed in a situation where you need to focus. However, “forgetting the box existed” is not the appropriate use of the boxes. They need to be opened, and the feelings addressed.

Catra is interesting, because in some ways she’s very vocal about her frustration and anger. Yet, that surface level frustration manifests in yelling at her friends and subordinates over their job performance or just being a general jerk. It’s not an expression of her true, deep feelings. Catra doesn’t let anyone see the deep levels of hurt she feels when Shadow Weaver manipulates her to join Adora. Instead, she just almost destroys the world...as you do. Season 4 in particular features a Catra who is more mean to her friends than ever before, yet she is still repressing so much of her true feelings to the point of mental and emotional collapse.

Cassandra also struggles to express her feelings, particularly to Rapunzel. Part of it might be because Rapunzel is her princess, and it’s not Cassandra’s place, but it’s also something she struggles with in general:

The above line occurs in an episode where Rapunzel knows Cassandra is mad at her and keeps pushing her to share her feelings. As we can see, Cass is not a big fan of that. Even though they talk at the end of the episode, it’s clear that there are still some hurt feelings on Cassandra’s side that she doesn’t express until she has electric blue hair and is singing a rock ballad about “Crossing the Line.” This is also fascinating because, as previously stated, one of the reasons Rapunzel likes Cassandra is her honesty. But, like with Catra, Cassandra can be honest about surface level annoyances, but intensely represses anything deeper.

All three of these characters let their emotions fester until they become deadly infections that poison their relationships, not just with their best friends, but with everyone. Many of these relationships could have been diverted from their dark paths if there had been more honest and open communication both between the characters and internally. If Lena acknowledged the real reasons why she was hurt when learning Kara was Supergirl, if Catra had been honest about feeling overshadowed and pitied by Adora, if Cassandra had expressed the pain she was feeling in her relationship with Rapunzel, things could have been different. Instead, those feelings have turned toxic.

NEXT TIME IN THE NEVER-ENDING ANALYSIS:

Blond Bulldozers

I Don’t Care (I ship it)

Just going to do 2, because 3 subjects were a bit much.

Hope to see you there.

#she ra #spop #adora #catradora #catra #shadow weaver #supergirl #supercorp #kara danvers #lena luthor #lillian luthor #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #rapunzel #tts cassandra #cassunzel

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alexsfictionaddiction · 4 years

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Review: Beach Read by Emily Henry

We are in the midst of a rom-com wave right now and I’m welcoming it with wide open arms. Some of my American friends have been raving about this cute new release for a while and curiosity got the better of me, so I dived in headfirst with a splash.

Romance writer January discovered an earth-shattering secret about her father at his funeral and apparently her mother had known all along. With a looming deadline and her agent on her back, she escapes to her dad’s beach house to try and hash out the rest of her book. Then she unexpectedly bumps into Gus Everett, an old college rival, also struggling with his next literary novel. In an unexpected twist of fate, they challenge each other to write a novel in the other’s genre mostly to prove that they can and to force each other out of their mutual creative rut. At the end of the summer, two books will be finished and absolutely no one will be in love...

In spite of her own recent break-up and revelations about her dad, January is a typical soft, hopeless romantic. Romance novels got her through some of the toughest parts of her childhood and the fact that she wants to be that therapy for other people makes me love her so much. I was wary of her venturing into a romantic relationship with Gus at first and was worried he’d hurt her (a fear that Gus himself actually shares). However when their friendship started to develop, I started to see how they could be good for each other.

Just as January is what you’d expect a romance writer to be, Gus is what you’d expect from a literary fiction author. He’s brooding, slightly aloof and has more than a few common literary snobberies. Around halfway through the book, we learn about his childhood and his recent troubles and his character begins to make sense. He holds himself to a very high standard and I think this is why he is reluctant to let his guard down, even when he begins to realise his feelings for January. I saw him as a bit of a Mr Darcy figure, who I knew would melt eventually.

‘And other times, we’d sit in silence, not quite together but definitely not alone.’

Emily Henry writes romance beautifully. Gus and January’s feelings are so slow-burning on both sides and there’s an air of suspense about watching it unfold. They have a lot of snarky banter, as they both embark on each other’s research trips and slowly become immersed in the other’s version of writing. Writing is something that is so personal, which is something that every writer on the planet understands. Allowing someone else into that world and trusting them to write within it is possibly one of the most romantic, intimate things that a writer can do, so as soon as they both agreed to do exactly that, romance was inevitable.

Beach Read also addresses sexism and gender discrimination within publishing as well as common misconceptions about the romance genre. Romance is chiefly written by women writing female protagonists and happy endings. This leaves it wide open to ridicule and dismissal by many writers and readers (predominantly men) of ‘serious’ literature, who feel that romance writers don’t produce anything of ‘substance’. I’ve never read a novel that tackles these very real issues so explicitly, challenging any potential readers who may hold these attitudes. It reads almost as a call-to-arms to end these outdated and wrong assumptions about a whole genre, to which Beach Read belongs.

Quotes like this reminded me of my own experience of falling deeply in love and tears actually formed in my eyes. Although I could relate to that feeling fully, I don’t think I could ever have put it into words in quite such a beautiful way. It really made me sit back and a sudden understanding of what it really is to fall head over heels for someone dawned on me. As regular readers of this blog will know, I’ve been separated from my boyfriend for eight weeks due to the lockdown, so this realisation struck a nerve (in my tear ducts!) in a really timely poignant way. Stock up on tissues if you think you may react in a similar way!

Beach Read has all of the regular ingredients of a classic rom-com; a damaged hero with a touch of the Byronic about him, a soft idealistic heroine and plenty of awkward but cute incidents. There is the added extra of the tension-filled hate-to-love trope, which has been become pretty popular in both YA and women’s fiction titles. Yes it’s predictable and you may occasionally roll your eyes but if you’re looking for something to fly through and cheer you up, you need look no further.

Beach Read by Emily Henry is out now in eBook and will be published in paperback by Penguin on 20th August 2020.

#beach read #emily henry #rom-com #romance #review #books #book review #bookworm

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prncessjosie · 4 years

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&&. announcing her royal highness, ( joséphine dominique anne de saxe-cobourg et gotha ), the ( 20 ) year old ( princess ) of ( belgium). she is often confused with ( dove cameron ). some say that she is ( aloof & naive), but she is actually ( friendly & optimistic ). ( OOC: EMILY / 25 / GMT +10 / SHE/HER )

( hi, i’m emily, come n love my babe )

( also quick warning: there is discussion of childhood illness (that is poorly researched as hell, i apologise for that) & stuff in here so if that’s triggering for you please just skip to the tl;dr at the end for the basic idea, or just message me! )

the backstory

princess joséphine was born under an unlucky star. she was born over two months early, when her mother - the crown princess anne of belgium - was only thirty weeks pregnant.

a difficult pregnancy led to an early c-section in the hope of keeping both mother and child alive

and in many ways it was successful. both survived the traumatic experience, but the newborn princess was too young, and her lungs were under developed.

she was diagnosed with chronic lung disease, and spent the first few months of her life in the hospital, where doctors and nurses and her parents worried whether she would be strong enough to survive.

but her parents were royalty - her father then the crown prince albert of belgium - and no expense was spared on the tiny baby christened joséphine’s health.

it took over a year before she could breathe without help, and most of her early childhood was marred by her inability to live a normal, healthy life.

running around like other children simply wasn’t an option ; too much exertion would have her gasping for breath, and her family became protective of their precious little princess.

any minor cold or flu would put her in a hospital bed, sometimes needing a machine to help her breathe.

she was watched constantly, wrapped up in cotton wool by all those around her who wanted only to see her safe.

slowly but surely, though, the princess began to get better. her lungs became stronger, and with each passing year she found herself able to do more and more.

what once would’ve caused her to need an oxygen mask now only gave her the slightest shortness of breath.

by her early teens, her health was almost the same as any other her age. but the struggles of her early life were hard to forget.

her family were protective, reluctant to let her take risks, and joséphine started to believe they were right.

staying safe was better than the alternative ; she’d seen enough of hospital rooms to last several lifetimes.

she kept herself away from the public eye as much as possible, not wanting anyone to see her weakness.

the present

josie has grown into an idealistic young woman

her health is fairly stable now! she really only has problems if she gets some kind of respitory illness - which is why she’s very careful about washing hands lmao

she’s a bit of a dreamer who likes to see the best in everyone ; she wants the world to be a better, more peaceful place and hates that they’re at war

the recent loss of her mother & her father’s coma have hit her hard. josie’s family have always been the people she spent the most time around, and it’s difficult to think her mother is gone and her father might never wake up

she’s proud of her sister, though, for stepping up in such a difficult time. josie’s certain that in her place, she’d never be able to rule anything. thank god she’s the youngest child, and will probably never have to take on any kind of power

she can be very naive ; an incredibly sheltered life has led her to not always knowing things. it can make her seem kind of dumb, sometimes - but don’t be fooled. one of the few activities josie was allowed to do even when she was sick was read, and over the years she’s learned a lot. she’s very book-smart, just not great with real life stuff sometimes

she’s also got a bit of a hidden adventurous streak that she’s tried to suppress but is starting to make itself known. there’s a lot she’s never really experienced, and josie is beginning to see how much she’s missed out on by being kept safe. it’s making her want to explore all kinds of new things, just because she can - but she’s nervous of the potential consequences of going too far

some TROPES for josie:

ILL GIRL ; The ill girl is almost inevitably a sympathetically cute girl.note The disease can be anything from anemia to organ failure. Smart writers avoid such specifics, making it a Soap Opera Disease. It will never disfigure or impair her cuteness, but usually prompts an older brother or sister figure into shady business to help pay the medical bills. Or prompts them to rush into some dangerous/brave deed while she cheers them on. ]

HAIR OF GOLD, HEART OF GOLD ; The character is a blonde. Therefore, obviously, she is young, beautiful, pure, kind, and innocent, and the innocence can range up to Virgin Power. If she fights, it's reluctantly and she tends to avoid violence where she can.

CAGED BIRD METAPHOR ; Many, many years ago, some artistic young woman destined for marriage looked at a pet bird in a cage and thought, "Look at this beautiful creature of the sky, confined to a cell that we may be entertained by its song... I know how that feels!" And thus this trope was born.

WIDE EYED IDEALIST ; A character far too idealistic for their own good.It may be the Naïve Newcomer who Jumped at the Call — he or she has a huge stack of comic books/movies/bards' tales, and thinks they're pretty Genre Savvy. Unfortunately, their universe is more toward the cynical end of the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism than the stories they know. Alternatively, they might just be generally nice people whose idealistic attempts at solving the problems of their world turn out to go horribly horribly awry as no one else plays by their rules. Usually used as nothing more than a device to highlight the realism/grittiness/cynicism of the setting.

BABY OF THE BUNCH ; Being the youngest of your group typically comes with some perks and challenges. On one side you're probably the cutest, have a pass to act immature, people like taking care of you, and you can embrace your fun side, knowing that the elders are there to handle the serious stuff. And if there's anything you're naïve about, you have plenty of others to give you the realest unfiltered advice without the generational gap and detachment that your parents or the Old Master have. On the other end, sometimes people don't take you seriously. There you're kinda stuck because no matter how old you get, you'll always be "the baby" in their eyes.

AND josie’s pinterest board is right here for all your aesthetic needs: https://www.pinterest.com.au/queenemilys/soon-youll-get-better-josephine/

TL;DR - princess josephine, sickly child turned sheltered young woman with curiosity about the real world. also dead parents so she’s probs sad, just for the record!

if you made it this far congrats ur a hero. i’m open for any and all plots, so please like this post if you want me to slide into ur dms to do that! or just message me any time.

#hshqintro

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cherrycoveredpythia · 5 years

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Extended thoughts on Brave the Tempest

2017’s Ride the Storm closed out the four-book arc that also included Hunt the Moon, Tempt the Stars, and Reap the Wind. In these books, Cassie battled Ares and his minions while drawing closer to Pritkin and eventually hunting him through time and space. She learns more about her abilities while trying to save his life, and also becomes a reluctant power player in supernatural (and inter-dimensional) politics. Without her faithful companion by her side, she becomes more confident in her own powers and resourcefulness. Of course, she’s still Cassie, so all her discoveries and victories are slapdash and hard-won. But they are still victories. She’s a daughter of Chaos, give her a break.

Brave the Tempest focuses on Cassie’s political duties and her complicated feelings about being a leader and a “hero”. She’s now slain two gods (with help), but that doesn’t result in easy respect from the witches or the vampires. The witches see her as a tool of the Silver Circle, while the vampires see her as an extension of Mircea. They are all so wrong.

Cassie has to demonstrate her full strength to convince these factions to cooperate with her. It works, but nothing is ever simple. In the long run, who will love her and who will fear her?

She’s becoming more like her mother every day.

Overall feelings

There are some amazing, joyful moments here. Please understand that I adore these books and characters, so I say this with love…

… but the book felt disjointed to me. We buzz back and forth from the witches to the vampires to the demons, and then go to Faerie and Victorian England. We get emotional scenes with Mircea, Pritkin, Marco, Rhea, and Rico. Augustine brings home a kidnapped fae. Tami needs to hire some staff but no one will take the job. Fred is a spy. Cassie is exhausted. I felt kind of exhausted too.

Important plotlines: Cassie’s growing pains with her powers, the political trouble with the witches and vampires, and the imminent invasion of Faerie. And then there was the timeline rupture. The rupture was terrifying and the fight with Jo in Victorian London was a full-on horror show. Cassie learned more about Pythian spells and then linked up her powers with Pritkin through the Lover’s Knot spell. She’ll probably need these tools for the coming showdown. She and Pritkin are even more powerful together than they are apart. And they are both forces for good. But will everyone see them that way?

I think Karen is just laying out all the pieces for the next arc. It’s a little messy right now, but it will all fit together soon. I’m glad that Shatter the Earth is coming in December. If I had to wait another two years for the next book, I would be upset.

Favorite moments

Pritkin flirting and Cassie retaliating during S’mores night. Especially the marshmallow at the end. Goddamn.

The Dickening.

Everything related to Saffy and Vi, and seeing Saffy and Rhea becoming friends. I think she is a great influence on Rhea.

Pritkin and Cassie’s meeting with Adra. I high-key love Adra. He’s a really interesting foil for Caedmon, who leads their alliance with the “heavenly” planes. Caedmon is manic and charming, while Adra is pleasant and even-keeled. Except when he forgets to animate his glamourie. I reallllllly want to know what Adra looks like under there, but I figure he’s a Lovecraftian monster that would drive us insane.

Adra shading Pritkin for never attending demon council meetings like other “heirs apparent.”

Cassie nonchalantly offering to bring Adra to the vampire council.

Gertie nonchalantly easing Pritkin out of the room and shifting him to the depot.

Cassie borrowing Pritkin’s powers to suck the energy out of Jo.

Big events and revelations

Pritkin is not shy and neither is Cassie. I thought we would get some pussy-footing about their relationship, but we DID NOT. Pritkin came on strong and Cassie reciprocated. I wish I had a chance to read Siren’s Song first. They had some time to let the tension build and I *do* love a slow burn… torture me, baby!

Ancient Horrors! Children of Tiamat/Tethys! Pritkin is 1/16th divine! Kind of a watered-down Ancient Horror, if you will. Minus the tentacles.

Lover’s Knot

Fucking Jonathan

Invasion of Faerie needs to happen ASAP

Jo is more dangerous as a ghost because ghosts can absorb infinite power. (Can we turn Billy Joe into a super soldier???)

MIRCEA THE BOLD!

Cassie agreed to go find Elena because she’s afraid that Mircea will do it himself. And she doesn’t want to kill him.

Fred is a spy working for MARLOWE! And I guess his master power is camouflaging his aura.

Rico is from Napoli (this explains a lot, because I was confused when he said putanas instead of putane. Dialect!)

NEW PYTHIAN SPELLS: Shards and Chimera!

Young Agnes is a real bitch.

The pros

I said this in a separate post, but I’ll say it here too. Cassie and Pritkin are back together and their relationship is so healthy and mutually supportive that it makes my heart ache. This is real #relationshipgoals. They are confidants and protectors and cheerleaders for each other. They don’t keep secrets or manipulate or gaslight. We need more of this sci-fi/fantasy and romance. There are too many dark, brooding male love interests who are borderline abusive. (Ahem, Mircea.)

MORE LGBT REPRESENTATION!

The emergence of Mircea the Bold. I like Mircea as a character, but not as a love interest for Cassie. I’m happy to see him going through this transformation. He’s becoming more open and genuine. He’s not going to win Cassie’s affections, but I do think that he’s going to redeem himself in Dory’s eyes.

GERTIE IS BACK! And *not* as a roadblock. She’s a powerful woman who helps other women, and I am all. about. that. mood.

The cons

TOO. MUCH. RECAP. Especially recap that broke up highly emotional moments. I don’t care if you are trying to explain things for new readers. Fuck ‘em. Anyone who buys a book, discovers it is part 1000 of an ongoing series, and tries to read it anyways… is a psychopath.

Too many plot-lines

I miss Rosier.

We all knew that something was up with Fred, but I don’t think that his revelation as a spy got as much weight and screen-time as it deserved.

I feel like the “wrap-up” with Jonathan felt rushed. He’s supposed to be terrifying but I’m like “meh, whatever, Jonathan, small fry compared to Apollo and Ares.” But I think she’ll get back to it in greater depth in the next book, so I can deal.

Can we PLEASE have some consistency about Agnes’s age? We see her as a teenager in late 19th-century London, for god’s sake. She must have been *at least* 130 years old when she died, and that’s being charitable. Previously, Cassie has said that Agnes was about 80. Lies.

The questions

1. My BIGGEST question. Cassie is changing. Not just maturing, but changing on a metaphysical level. The coldness, the hunger… I’m frightened for her. It’s not withdrawal from the Tears of Apollo and it’s not normal exhaustion. I have some theories.

Her divine side is becoming stronger and she’s beginning to require life energy in the same way that her human side needs food, water, and sleep. Why is this happening now? Maybe the Tears of Apollo are part of the equation, albeit indirectly. She’s been using more and more Pythian power thanks to the potion, and perhaps that has awakened her divine side more strongly. This is a little worrisome because she may have to feed on a regular basis to stay functional. Can she get all the energy she needs from incubus sex or from the Lover’s Knot? What are the moral considerations here?

Less likely, but she might really be pregnant. I’m not a huge fan of this idea, but Rosier does mention in Reap the Wind or Ride the Storm that the incubus-child feeds on the life energy of the mother as it grows. That’s why his attempts at procreation failed until he impregnated Morgaine, who was part royal fae and part divine. If this is the case, Cassie might be having life-energy cravings instead of food cravings. Or maybe this is the divine/demon/fey version of morning sickness? Pritkin, please start using birth control.

2. What happened with Pritkin in Siren’s Song? Does Jonas know his true identity now?

3. So who is Pritkin’s divine great-great grandmother? Any speculation?

4. Cassie begins to wonder if any of the gods might be open to diplomacy. This must go somewhere. And it’s true, there are a number of gods in the pantheon who are traditionally friendlier towards humans than others. Athena is the first that comes to mind. There’s also the mythic trope of the Trickster/Fire-Bringer who helps humanity: Prometheus, Anansi, etc. And there’s Loki, who doesn’t so much love humans as he loves to trouble the other gods.

MVPs

Ok, Cassie is the real MVP, as always. But barring her, I’m awarding this prize to the no-nonsense, sisterly duo of our hearts: Gertie and Hilde. They are officious and annoying, but that’s because they tell you what you don’t want to hear, and they are RIGHT. They are so right.

#btt spoilers #brave the tempest #my disorganized thoughts #please feel free to disagree and discuss #cassie palmer #karen chance

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ariadenassau · 4 years

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AMERICANA TASK 001

LAYER ONE : THE OUTSIDE (OOC)

name: Ariadne Marie de Nassau

meaning of name: Ariadne is a Greek name, meaning “chaste” or “most holy”. Marie is a French version of Mary, and the meaning is debated, but can mean “sea of sorrow” or “rebellion”. Her last name, de Nassau, is literally “of Nassau” — she is a part of the House of Nassau.

aliases: Aria is her nickname from childhood and her preferred name.

place of birth: Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

race: Caucasian

nationality: Dual citizenship with France and the United States.

gender: Cis-female

sexuality: Mostly heterosexual

profession: A freelance journalist

eye color: Dark brown

hair style/color: Straight, chestnut brown hair to her shoulders, usually partly braided or in a plait.

height: 5’4” (164 cm)

clothing style: Simple, tailored, and clean-cut, Aria dresses in neutrals and soft materials. She's partial to creamy ivories and tans as opposed to bright colors, with the occasional baby pinks. The only jewelry she wears is a simple gold pendant and a sapphire ring, her birthstone.

best physical feature: Her eyes — both soft and piercing at the same time, the eyes are truly the window to Aria’s soul.

appearance: Very soft and muted, yet luxurious. Aria is from wealth, which shows, but she never flaunts it. She doesn’t wear much makeup and avoids showing too much skin. She looks professional and pretty, but not someone you’d turn around and look at twice in New York.

weight: 110 lbs (50 kg)

complexion: Fair during the winter, slightly tanner during the summer, as Aria darkens easily under the sun.

build: Slight and petite, she is quite skinny and small, without very many curves.

voice: Gentle, she rarely speaks over a shout. She doesn’t like to yell and upturns the ends of her sentences, as if she’s always a bit unsure of herself. She has a slight British/European accent from her upbringing abroad.

LAYER TWO: THE INSIDE (OOC)

fears: Spiders, roller-coasters, and disappointing her parents — although she is working on that last one,

guilty pleasure: The Bachelor. Aria will never admit to watching them, as she finds the entire idea trashy and degrading, but somehow, she turns it on every week when its airing with popcorn and a glass of wine.

biggest pet peeve: People who chew on their food loudly (bad table manners in general, really.)

ambition for the future: To find out who was behind Abby’s killing and write an entire expose on it.

one bad habit: Popping her pimples and skin blemishes.

one good habit: Washing the dishes immediately after she uses them.

one habit they can’t break: Her daily iced coffee (or two) from Starbucks.

one they’ve broken: Chewing on her nails.

LAYER THREE: THOUGHTS (OOC)

first thoughts waking up: “I need coffee.”

what they think about the most: Deep-set anxieties about her future and identity as an individual person.

what they think about before bed: All the errands and things she needs to accomplish tomorrow.

what they think their best quality is: Intelligence and writing ability.

what they think would completely break them: Finding love, and then losing it.

what they think was the best thing in their life: Discovering that she had a long-lost sister, and getting to reconnect with her.

what they think was the worst thing in their life: Losing that long-lost sister.

what seemingly insignificant memories stuck with them: Her childhood piano teacher smacking her fingers when she’d play the wrong notes.

LAYER FOUR: WHAT’S BETTER? (OOC)

single or group dates: Neither — Aria hates dates.

to be loved or respected: Respected.

beauty or brains: Brains.

dogs or cats: Dogs.

coffee or tea: Coffee.

showering in the day or night: Showering at night.

taking baths or taking showers: Taking showers.

tv or movies: Movies.

writing or reading: Writing.

platonic or romantic love: Platonic.

iced tea or lemonade: Iced tea.

ice cream or smoothies: Smoothies.

cupcakes or cake: Cupcakes.

beach or mountains: Mountains.

LAYER FIVE: DO YOU? (IC)

lie: “Yes — it’s a way to get information that I want out of people. But I never lie to hurt anyone.”

believe in yourself: “I hope that I do. I think that I do. Maybe not.”

believe in love: “I think love is out there, but I don’t know how to find it or if it even exists for me.”

want someone: “Maybe.”

work so that you can support your hobbies or use your hobbies as a way of filling up the time you aren’t working: “Well — neither. Writing is both my work and my hobby. So I guess I lucked out.”

have something you’re reluctant to tell people: “My ‘royal’ status. It doesn’t mean anything.”

have an opinion about sex: “It’s something lovely that can make two people’s bonds stronger, but... I don’t know. I don’t think I have a strong opinion either way.”

have many friends: “I have many acquaintances from work and school, but close friends? Probably not.”

have as many friends as you want: “Yes. I’m a bit of a loner, you see.”

have something to make a scene in public about: “God, I hope not.”

have something to give your life for: “A hundred percent — my career, my writing, and figuring out what the hell happened to Abby.”

have major flaws: “I… get too attached to people. It goes along with having such little close friends. The friends I do have, I keep very close to my heart, which means when I lose them… well, my world falls apart.”

have something you pretend or try to care about: “Um — politics?”

have an image you project: “I think I try to come off as more self-confident than I am. I’m also very polite to most people, even if I don’t particularly think the person is deserving of it.”

have something you’re afraid of: “Isn’t everyone afraid of something?”

think you’re polite or rude: “Definitely polite.”

LAYER SIX: FAVORITES (IC)

favorite color: “Hm. I love baby pink, but I also love cream and ivory as well.”

favorite animal: “Polar bears. They’re so majestic!”

favorite movie: “Lost in Translation. It was such a beautifully shot movie!”

favorite game: “I don’t play very many games.”

sound: “Oh! — the sound of sunny winter mornings back when I was in school in Gstaad. You can hear it when you open a window; the chilly breeze, the sound of snow underneath people’s feet… I miss it.”

song: “It changes, really, but I can always listen to anything by Frank Sinatra.”

band: “Is it cliche if I say The Beatles?”

outfit: “Well, it certainly depends on the season, but for the fall and winter, I love my tan crepe pants, an ivory cashmere turtleneck, and my Acne leather boots.”

place: “Switzerland. I spent most of my years there, and the landscapes are so beautiful.”

memory: “I think the first time I met Abby — I was so nervous, and I just saw her, and we talked for hours in her room afterwards. Her parents made hot cocoa, and we just sat there, laughing, crying… it was so wonderful, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

person: “Abby. Or my mentor back at Harvard. She was the one who helped me curate my writing to what it is now.”

show: “I don’t watch much television.”

LAYER SEVEN: AGE (OOC/IC)

age: 29

date of birth: September 2nd, 1990

day your next birthday will be: Thursday.

zodiac sign: Virgo.

age you lost your virginity: 18.

does age matter: “Age certainly matters if you’re younger, but once you pass twenty-five or so… who am I to judge?”

LAYER EIGHT: PERSONALITY (OOC)

moral alignment: Neutral Good.

enneagram: 4 - The Individualist

four temperaments: Melancholic

tropes: the soiled dove, the lost soul, the contrite, the taciturn

archetypes: The Sage/Innocent

tarot cards: Temperance

compassion: yes.

empathy: yes.

creativity: yes.

mental flexibility: at times, no.

passion: yes, for the right things.

stamina: yes.

physical strength: not much.

battle skill: not at all.

agility: a bit.

strategy: she’s always planning for her next move, so yes.

teamwork: yes, but she needs to be the leader.

strength: so much emotional strength.

intelligence: yes.

wisdom: partly, but still trying to find it.

dexterity: none; Aria has a rare muscular dystrophy that degraded the muscles in her hands and fingers.

constitution: a hundred percent.

charisma: only on certain occasions; otherwise, Aria is quite aloof.

LAYER NINE: FINISH THE SENTENCE (IC)

i love: “... good food. Can you blame me?”

i feel: “... lost.”

i hide: “... my feelings, my emotions, my thoughts.”

i miss: “... Abby.”

i wish: “... that I could know where life is taking me.”

i hate: “... people who think they can take advantage of my kindness.”

LAYER TEN: FAMILY (IC)

relationships: “I had a boyfriend. It’s awkward to talk about really, but he dumped me. Quite an awkward situation.”

parents: “My father is Prince Jean Louis, sixteenth in line for the throne in Luxembourg. My mother is Princess Charlotte Julie, formerly Charlotte Julie Vanderbilt.”

siblings: “Just Abby, who was fathered by my father and another woman. She was given up for adoption when she was a baby, which is why I never met her until I grew up.”

children: “No — although, maybe in the future.”

favorite childhood memory: “Oh — my childhood wasn’t that fun. But I guess, early on, my parents did take me out on trips on the boat in lakes in the South of France. Those were always nice.”

favorite childhood toy: “My stuffed bunny Juliette. I still have her.”

embarrassing story: “I fell asleep once in a bowl of yogurt in class. I was so tired staying up studying for an exam, that during it, I was eating my breakfast, and just… fell asleep.”

favorite family member: “Abby. I’m not very close to my parents, or anyone from my family, really.”

#americanatask001 #( there are things no one knows but she keeps them close to her heart | about. )

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lycorogue · 5 years

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Who Wants to Meet My OCs? (Part 2 - Gyateara)

First and foremost, I meant to have this whole series to be sort of churned out the same day/week as Part 1. Life.... didn’t let that happen. I then figured “okay, I’ll update the series every Sunday” and then yesterday came and went...

Regardless, from the NEXT POST onward, I’m aiming to update every Sunday. Now, back to the series itself.

Ever since at least November, I’ve wanted to do individual posts for each of my OCs so you could meet them all. Well, I’m finally getting off my butt and working on this massive project (we’ll ignore that I’m spending hours working on this instead of my ML fanfic.... >_>).

In Part 1, I gave a broad overview of this whole Meet My OCs series, as well as gave some generic IRL background to the two main worlds my OCs hail from:

1) Gyateara

2) Glitches

Well, in this part of the series, I’m going to stay IRL as I explain where each individual OC within the Gyateara universe came from. If this is interesting to you, feel free to check below the break.

If you’d rather just skip ahead to the character bios themselves, my first one about my Glitches character Willow should be up in two weeks (sorry for the wait).

If I’m talking about Gyateara characters, I should probably talk about the one that first birthed the world:

Amara Yori

Amara was my first-ever D&D character. I had known of the game for ages since my father used to play it frequently (and apparently roped my mother into at least running the monsters so she’d be included; ignoring that she’d rather not be included XD).

I really got interested in D&D when I was a teen and saw the gorgeously stylized covers for AD&D ver 3.5. My father had passed away before officially introducing me to the game (although we did used to play Dungeon all the time, so that was a start...), and none of my friends were going to touch that “nerd culture” with a 10ft pole, so I simply admired the books, but never actually played. Then I went to college and managed to Nerd Out.

Hubby (then boyfriend) offered to help me build my first-ever character, but in 2004 the D&D 3.5 expansions were so massive I had far too many choices to choose from.

So Hubby had me go through some of his extra minis, and let me pick out one that I really liked. With his help, I ended up with the 2003 version of the Wood Elf Skirmisher.

Based solely on this mini, I started building Amara.

Hubby suggested that I try out the Scout class for my first one, since I couldn’t choose between a Rogue, Ranger, or Druid, and Scout is sort of in between at least the Rogue and Ranger classes. For whatever reason - I can’t remember it now - I also decided I wanted to play a half-elf.

Upon reading the generic backstory description the D&D books had for the Scout class, I figured my character needed some sort of Tragic BackstoryTM that would explain her scouting skills. Things like trap finding and dismantling, masterful rope use skills, hiding and tracking skills, and connection to animals.

I was in a big The Vision of Escaflowne kick at the time - which shows up in a couple other characters’ backstories - and was fascinated with the history between Van Fanel’s parents. Van’s human father Goau stumbled upon Varie, a Draconian woman, in the woods one day. Draconians have the ability to manifest feathered wings which allow them flight. It was rare to see a Draconian, and her beauty - with her wings shimmering in the moonlight as she waded in a small pool of water - mesmerized Goau. He instantly fell in love and brought Varie home to be his wife. The duo seemed to love each other deeply. Amara’s parents, on the other hand....

I’ll get into more when I break down their actual bios, but I took the idea of “Human stumbles upon exotic non-human in the woods and instantly marries her” and twisted it slightly. Amara’s mother was very much emotionally, and possibly even physically (I haven’t confirmed this yet), abused by Amara’s father. Amara, being a half-elf, also had to deal with abuse at the hands of many of her fellow clansmen - both the human and the elven clans; pretty much exclusively because she was a “half-breed” (Yes, I was really into InuYasha then too).

As I kept building Amara, I kept adding more and more tragedy to her backstory. I do enjoy what I created, but, especially after reading a lot of posts here on Tumblr, I’m afraid her history is nothing but a giant knotted ball of cliches and tropes. For now, though, I’m running with it. Perhaps I can figure out work-arounds later....

I never did get to play more than a session or two with Amara before the game disbanded (which seems to be a repeat thing with my gaming group), but she still lives on in my mind, and eventually in Gyateara.

Natalie

As I mentioned above, The Vision of Escaflowne very much inspired me while I was working on the earliest bits of Gyateara. Therefore, Natalie is your basic Isekai protagonist.

For those who don’t know the term (I didn’t know an official genre term existed until about a year ago), Isekai refers to a subgenre of fantasy/speculative fiction where the main character is abruptly teleported from their world to a new one; usually one with a fantasy setting.

It’s a massive subgenre and includes most of the fantasy animes I’ve watched:

InuYasha

The Vision of Escaflowne

Fushigi Yuugi

The Devil is a Part-Timer

The Rise of the Shield-hero

The Saga of Tanya the Evil

The Familiar of Zero

How to NOT Summon a Demon Lord

Sword Art Online (technically)

.Hack//Sign (technically)

Digimon (first season, specifically)

Psyren (manga)

The list can go on, but that’s not the point of this post. Getting back to the actual point, I clearly enjoyed this genre without even realizing there was a term for it, and created my own Isekai story. Natalie is from our world, but is abruptly teleported to Gyateara’s main Northern Isle, where she must save the country from being destroyed by a power-hungry, put painfully charismatic, villain.

I had taken elements from Kagome (InuYasha), Hitomi (The Vision of Escaflowne), Miaka (Fushigi Yuugi), and I think I had Ariel (The Little Mermaid) in there as well at one point. She was - and still kind of is - just “Generic Isekai Female Protagonist”, which is one of the main reasons the story she was in failed so soon into NaNoWriMo back in... 2014, I think. Almost a solid decade after I started dreaming up her Isekai story. She definitely needs to go back to the drawing board a bit to be properly fleshed out.

Connor

He was from the same story as Natalie. Connor was a denizen of Gyateara’s Northern Isles, and became Natalie’s traveling companion as he helped her try to find a way home. Ya know, that old Isekai chestnut. I even leaned heavily into the cliche and had the two of them fall in love throughout their journey. Which would lead to a third-act twist of “Okay, we can defeat the villain, but then what? Could they stay together? Would Natalie stay on Gyateara? Will Connor instead try to go home to Earth with her?” Real original. I know. Add in that Connor was a sort of Frankenstein’s monster of a character. Grab a snack, this is going to take a minute...

Connor’s traits included:

The basic backstory and drive of the player character in the video game Fable, in which his father was killed, his mother and sister tortured (and presumed dead, only to be proven still alive and captured), his home village burnt down, and he was taken in by the local guild so the guild master could train Connor to become the hero the GM believed Connor was prophesied to be.

The half-demon traits of InuYasha (InuYasha), which transformed him into a sort of were-cat. His mother, a full-demon, could become a 15ft (4.57m) tall panther with split tails. Connor’s half-demon heritage was hidden from him, and he only transformed under extreme moments of stress.

Yes. The “love interest is the only one who can snap the protag back from a monstrous rage” trope was heavily evident throughout the story.

His overall look was inspired by Link (Legend of Zelda video game franchise). His basic fighting style - swordsmanship and expert archery - was a sort of tag-teamed “thieving” from Link as well as Van (The Vision of Escaflowne).

A highly resistant, and begrudging submission to become the Hero of Prophecy lifted off of Tamahome (Fushigi Yuugi).

I know he was much more influenced by Van from Escaflowne when I was first making him. I even used Van as a reference guide when I tried to create character head shots of him. I just can’t recall now what else I swiped from that character.

I feel like there are also other male anime/video game protags I swiped traits from, but I can’t recall them anymore. Regardless, I threw them in a blender, and poured out the mixture that became Connor.

Jolene Crisslebalm

Ah, the character whose last name I always have to look up, because I can’t recall how I spelled it. Good starting point, right?

I am a very reserved person. In particular, a very sexually reserved person. But I do enjoy sex, and I love the act of flirting, and the “thrill of the chase” when it comes to dating, so a part of me always wonders what I would be like if I had let go of my reservations and just enjoyed the carnal pleasures of life.

So, two characters in particular - Willow (from Glitches) and Jolene - are my exploration of that Path Not Traveled.

A friend of mine was hosting a D&D campaign via Roll20.net, and wondered if I wanted in. I hadn’t been involved in a D&D game in a year or so at that point, and I’ve enjoyed playing a couple of one-offs with him DMing, so I leapt at the chance to join. I had almost always played a form of Rogue class (hence the internet persona) in previous D&D campaigns, so I decided to stay the course, but with a twist I hadn’t tried before.

I wanted Jolene to be a sort of reluctant adventurer, preferring instead to be a cat burgler, but I also wanted that sexual/sensual exploration of character. So, she was a traveling prostitute (not exactly legal without proper ties to a brothel; much like a Sex Trade Guild sort of thing), but she also used her “alone time with clients” to scope out the place to see if it’s worth robbing.

Fast forward about 3 years, and I end up watching the first episode of the Freeform Marvel series Cloak and Dagger... where I saw Tandy doing the same thing, but roofying her targets instead of sleeping with them first... Great minds, and all that?

Eh, Jolene figures “might as well make money off of them before coming back and robbing the rest... less to carry later...”

In the end, while Jolene had an.... interesting run... and one I actually did enjoy role playing, even if it did leave me a bit frustrated afterwards (a good frustrated?)... Jolene just didn’t fit the world the DM created, nor did she fit in quite as well as I would have hoped with the other players.

They were all AMAZING players, by the way. Some of the best role players I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, and such fantastic writers as well. BTW, we wrote out everything in the Roll20 chat log instead of verbally playing or using video-chat. I must admit, I was quite envious of their skills. It was just a tighter knit group, and I wasn’t able to feel out their play-style well enough to continue with the group. Eventually they all had to go their separate ways anyway when their schedules no longer lined up.

Still, I LOVED Jolene, and she was the D&D character I had the joy of running the longest, so she NEEDED to live on. She did, in my first NaNoWriMo “win”. I managed to hit those 50,000 words, but I still had about 3/5ths of her story to write.

See, while coming up with Jolene’s jaded attitude towards love and her pull towards a more hedonistic lifestyle, I went with the good old cliche of Heartbreak Was The Culprit. (With so many cliches in my character builds, is it a wonder why I just stick with fanfiction... the characters are already created...)

Jolene had her heart broken five times between the ages of 13 and 21. She was the type who fell quick into love, and fell HARD into it, and always felt intensely betrayed by her lovers when they left her. To be fair... they did routinely leave her for a woman of better social standing, or - in her youth - someone more willing to put out, or just straight up abandon her without so much as a farewell note. Eventually, she gave up on trying to find love, and joined a brothel, and then the thieves guild, and then headed out on her own from there.

The DM thought it unlikely that she was a prostitute for the better part of 5 years without a single pregnancy, so he rolled for it, and Jolene had one miscarriage, one still born, and one healthy child she gave up for adoption. I was not expecting to include that in her backstory, but it actually worked fairly well.

And all of that was the subject of my NaNo project: Lost Loves and Paramours. Jolene’s full biography leading up to the campaign: every man she fell in love with, every person she slept with, the one client who tried to murder her to avoid a scandal of his lust getting the better of him, the pain of her miscarry, the devastation of her stillborn, the heart break of giving up her surviving child, the struggles against a stalker, and her over-all YOLO attitude.

(Bitmoji is a beautiful thing...)

Well, second long post of this series is now complete. Next week, I’ll talk about the IRL inspiration for my Glitches characters. Thank you so much for indulging me on these epic ramblings.

#writing #LycoRogue writing #OCs #Meet My OCs #character creation #IRL character inspiration #writing process #cliches #long post #Gyateara #Amara Yori #Jolene Crisslebalm #Natalie #Connor #series post #2 of 17?#LycoRogue original

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astromechs · 5 years

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Do you plan on seeing A4 the day it comes out? Also, (you’ve probably answered this before but) top 3 favorite ships/characters and why?

i totally plan on it! i’ve been to every mcu movie opening weekend, if not opening day, since iron man in 2008, and this, like infinity war, is something i definitely think i’ll need to see opening night (my new work schedule permitting, but definitely at least sometime opening day for sure) – 1) because it’s the Event culminating all the years i’ve put into marvel at this point, so i definitely want to be there, and 2) to avoid being spoiled, lol.

also, for top 3s! i’m gonna largely focus on marvel/mcu, because that’s where my brain is these days, for the most part, but i have a lot of thoughts and feelings about each entry, thanks so much for asking 💕

top 3 characters

1. gamora – she’s one of the most interesting characters in the mcu to me, and she’s also very inspirational. all the steps she’s taken to define herself as a person and break free from the shadows of her abusive adoptive “father” are incredibly brave, and she has such a pure and beautiful soul – and also very realistic character flaws. i love her.

2. peter quill – i see a lot of myself in peter, and i relate to him pretty strongly for that reason; we both tend to rely on pop culture and humor to process things and deal with the world, we’re both guilty of hiding behind humor to put some distance between us and authentic interactions/relationships with others, and we’re both, as adults, still trying to figure out how tf to deal with the death of a parent we were very close to, but we’re also both people with huge hearts who have a lot to give, i think. watching him go through his character arc has sort of helped me to process some of my own shit…. and, like, all that personal stuff i just unloaded aside, he’s a really great character, and so refreshing as a male protagonist for a lot of reasons (namely his emotional tendencies, as well as how, through his character arc, he’s confronted toxic masculinity directly).

3. nebula – i find nebula to also be a very interesting, and incredibly underrated, character. her anger is so, so justified, and i’ve loved watching her evolve from someone who’s used that against literally everyone in her life, to someone who’s started to learn to let something else into her heart besides that. her sister bond with gamora is my literal favorite mcu relationship, with all their complications and ups and downs. it’s rare that we get to see an arc like that between two female characters onscreen, and i always want more.

top 3 ships

1. peter/gamora – i’ve waxed poetic at length about them, but i really genuinely adore their dynamic and how it’s been built up over the course of three films now. these are two adults who are products of similar, but also different, childhood traumas, and in adulthood, are still in the process of figuring out how to heal from them. in their own ways, they’re each trying to learn how to be people (gamora, how to be something other than the weapon she was molded to be, and peter, how to actually be a real person who lives in reality and doesn’t refuse to do anything but cling desperately to a fantasy version of the past as a way to cope), how to live, and together, they’re better at it than they were alone.

let them have their happy ending, marvel, or else.

2. scott/hope – the ant-man movies are my favorite mcu franchise after guardians, and some of these characters would definitely be listed as favorites after i got through my guardians list. there are also, yeah, certain tropes that i’m weak to that are common to both starmora and scott/hope, but i love scott/hope specifically for the dynamic that these two unique characters have.

hope has had a lot of anger, resentment, and distrust in her life, starting from when she was 7 after the “death” of her mother and her relationship with her father started to become strained – which sort of extended to pretty much every other relationship in her life. dealing with parent death is hard at any age, especially that young, so it’s easy to see how hope became such a closed-off person who’s reluctant to trust people. scott, on the other hand, is wide open; he’s not particularly great at pulling off actually being a criminal in large part because he’s a horrible liar, and what you see with him is what you get… he has a big heart, and it’s out on his sleeve 24/7. the two personalities tend to balance each other out, and circumstance aside, you get a functional partnership that helps both of them to grow as people – hope to be more functional in her personal relationships, old and new, and scott to consider the consequences of his decisions.

3. mantis/nebula – this ship has so much potential, and i love that potential. neither character is going to be in a place to be ready for a romantic relationship anytime soon, but they’re both the product of living through years of being used as tools by “father figures” who abused them. there are levels on which they can really understand each other.

#asks #answered #anonymous #wow i wrote a lot #i'm so sorry.....

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midorikawa-lettuce · 6 years

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kay so for those of you who don’t know, my M.O. is to take things that have skeletal or shallow lore and over complicate the whole damn thing especially with specific mythos, creation stories, and deity pantheons, so Tokyo Mew Mew is no different; under the cut commences my long and convoluted bits of lore that I have headcanoned and fanoned the shit out of for this series

Ryou says at one point that he thinks it was “no accident” that Ichigo and the girls were the ones who became Earth’s defenders, after Masaya turns out to be Deep Blue. So time to extrapolate the fuck out of that.

All of the Mew Mews are very heavily coded, both in the anime and manga, to correspond to one of the four natural elements. Mint is Air, Lettuce is Water, Pudding is Earth, and Zakuro is Fire. In the manga especially, even, each of them uses the Mew Aqua to cleanse their specific element (Mint cleans the air from the Chimera Moth, Lettuce cleans the ocean, Pudding saves Tokyo Dome from collapsing due to instability in the earth, and Zakuro destroys the dome that causes an intense heat wave in Tokyo).

Then there’s Ichigo. Ichigo doesn’t correspond to one of the natural elements, but she does correspond to a somewhat common trope in five-person-elemental-teams: in other words, Heart (Captain Planet is that you?). This is furthered by the fact that in the manga, when she uses the Mew Aqua, it’s to save Masaya’s life, the person she loves. I would actually almost hazard to say that she’s meant to represent the whole of the planet itself, or even life itself, as her use of Mew Aqua in the manga also restores plant life to the earth, and restores life to others (the Mews, Masaya, and the aliens). In other words, Ichigo is the Sailor Earth. (How’s that for a Sailor Moon plot twist?)

Now what the fuck does any of this have to do with anything in this post about made-up lore? Well, I’m getting to that. Let’s put together a few more concepts first.

First: Mew Aqua. It’s both a liquid and a crystal, said to have been created by the aliens, the previous inhabitants of earth, but for an unknown purpose (I haven’t yet finished my rewatch of the series, but to the best of my knowledge, they never fully address why it was made). It’s an incredible force that can cleanse the pollution of the earth and restore it to its natural state, influence strange phenomenon like the sudden overnight sprouting of an entire forest in the middle of a city, and even restore life. That is a pretty INTENSE thing that these aliens made....and if they’re the ones who made it, and the aliens want it so that they can use it to restore Earth to what they want, why didn’t the aliens fleeing the original destruction of Earth just...use Mew Aqua?

The final concept I want to bring up before I move onto my actual lore is where Masaya/Blue Knight/Deep Blue fits into all of this. Masaya is effectively a member of Tokyo Mew Mew, as a complement to Ichigo. They’re not just a good couple, they’re a battle couple too: their attacks work together and Masaya is automatically tuned in to whenever Ichigo needs help. But we’ve already got a blue member of the team (Mint) so why the heck did they decide to color code Masaya and Deep Blue as well, blue? There were other colors available, like red or black, that might have even looked more aesthetically pleasing overall. It’s also important to mention that Kish, Pai, and Taruto refer to Deep Blue as a “god.”

So where the fuck am I going with this? Let’s start with this: I don’t think Deep Blue is the only god in this series. Warning: as we go ahead, I will stop referring to this as headcanon and start talking about it like it’s a legit theory. It is not. I just don’t want to keep saying “this is what I think” over and over again.

Deep Blue as a god, first. So, back to the question. Why is Deep Blue, well, Blue? Because Deep Blue is the sky.

Where Ichigo represents the earth as a whole, the planet itself, the terrestrial body, Deep Blue/Masaya is the complementary opposite: the sky and the atmosphere that surrounds the planet. The Mews then each represent a major part of the make-up of the planet in a more specific, lesser form: once again, Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire (take a drink if the song got stuck in your head).

It makes sense again when you look at Kish, Pai, Taruto, and their people. They specifically worship Deep Blue as a god, and if Deep Blue is the god of the sky, then their abilities are in keeping with this. They can fly, they don’t require oxygen to breathe and seem perfectly all right with varying pressure, allowing them to live quite comfortably in any part of the atmosphere, and they can teleport, moving between the air from place to place. All things that make sense for a people who are beholden to a god of the sky.

This is where my “”creation story”” comes in. Deep Blue is the sky, and Ichigo represents the Earth. Deep Blue is a god who lay partially dormant inside a human until he could be awakened. Masaya is human, but contains the remains of an ancient god of the sky. If Ryou is correct in that there was no mistake that it was Ichigo, the one who loved Masaya, who became a Mew Mew to face him, then why couldn’t Ichigo be the same way? Why couldn’t Ichigo just so happen to be the reincarnation/vessel of the remains of the god of the Earth?

So I suppose this is where the story starts. A very long time ago, when Kish’s people still lived on the earth, there were gods that lived among them. The most revered were the Mother Earth who granted them life, and the Father Sky who enfolded them. Also worshiped were the ephemeral and alien forces of Water, Earth, Fire, and Air, which had no shape or form but rather took the visage of the creatures that best represented them, and flickered from form to form when it suited them. Father Sky was known as Deep Blue, and Mother Earth was known as μ (Myu/Mew). It was said by their people that Deep Blue and Mew were in love.

By some strange, unknown catastrophe, perhaps by a mismanaging of Mew’s bounty or some unforeseeable disaster, or perhaps by some strange quarrel between Mew and Deep Blue, the planet underwent a series of natural disasters, making it nearly impossible to live on. It’s not certain what caused the rift between Mew and Deep Blue, or if in fact there was a rift at all, but something violently drove them apart. The peoples of the planet made reluctant plans to flee for a new home. The strain of their people leaving them behind was too great for the gods who depended on their people’s belief. Deep Blue went with them, but he was shorn in two, as the atmosphere could not fully leave the planet behind. Half of him went with the fleeing peoples, dormant and dying, and ensuring that no planet they found could ever be a happy home enfolded by a forgiving atmosphere. The other half fell back down to the earth, and was hidden among the souls of the creatures that still clung to life on its surface.

Mew, as the Earth itself, could quite obviously not be taken away with the fleeing people, no more than a planet could move out of orbit. But the loss of Deep Blue was so terrible, so painful, that she could only cry. And from her tears, which scattered across the whole of her, came the liquified crystals that would later be known as Mew Aqua.

As time passed, the earth settled once again, and creatures began to flourish. Humans evolved, and among them, the lasting spirit of Deep Blue began to slowly reawakened. After many thousands of years, when humans matured, the sleeping Mew sensed the approach of her love: the aliens were once again reaching out back towards the jewel they had left, and Deep Blue’s awakening self turned his eyes back towards home as well. But the thousands of years of sleep, and the ragged tear that had split him had caused Deep Blue to become angry and resentful. He no longer cared for either his people or Mew, but rather wanted to destroy that which he had been unable to keep.

Mew could sense his malice, and out of love for the creatures that were born on her soil, she did what Deep Blue’s spirit did. She consigned what remained of her faded self to the souls of humanity. Some years later, the new host of Deep Blue’s soul would be born. Near the same time, a girl with the soul of Mew would also arise. The souls of Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire were not human enough to be passed into a human soul, but they could give their blessing, and so they, too, blessed several humans with their hopes.

When Deep Blue and his people returned to the Earth, there were warriors waiting to meet him, to protect the planet from his yet hidden, murderous rage. Deep Blue did not remember everything, but he did know with a fiery instinct that these warriors were specifically his bane -- which is why he focused all his efforts on just them, on just their city, on just collecting the Mew Aqua, the tears of the one he had once loved, to facilitate his awakening.

I’m going to drop my narrator voice now and just say: this is a lot of shit that I had way too much fun crafting and I really fucking want to write fic about this but i need to figure out how to streamline it into a usable setting that won’t make me want to die with how much work it is, and for now i just want to dump this world building on SOMEONE because it’s been in my head for weeks.

that’s all i have now anyway thank you for reading this ridiculously long and unnecessary fake lore post

#tokyo mew mew #headcanon #fanon #lettuce talks #long post

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nebulawriter · 6 years

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The Christmas Prince: Blind Review

Okay. So this has been in my recommendations on Netflix for a while and it always looks so strange to me. I thought I’d put it on and see what it was about for a night in.

It started out with some classic pictures of new york with the MUSIC from Jingle Bell Rock, but with weird different lyrics pulled from other christmas songs.

Strap in folks. We’re in for a ride.

Well this is starting out like every romantic comedy ever. But kudos to ‘Ugly Christmas Sweaters of the Stars’

Aldovia is definitely just Not-Genovia. My goodness.

Why...is...is this junior editor at a fashion thing covering an international scandal thing? Why aren’t...you know what, nope. nope we’re just gonna ride this out.

I mean I can already see the formula played out for this rom-com but lets see if there are any surprises

Oh my god.

This guy is the ultimate gay friend stereotype

Okay I like the dad.

OH MY GOD the exposition in this movie is just...so on the nose. Just.

That was the prince, wasn’t it

Like I get that this foreign wedding isn’t the sexiest thing for an american paper...whatever this paper is...but like. I feel like they would either depend on another paper for the news or like. not send a writer at all if they didn’t have one.

THE ACTING IN THIS MOVIE MY GOD. “More like he’s avoiding the press” *head bob*

THE EXPOSITION IN THIS MOVIE

wow this is. I mean, it’s not like ridiculously laughably bad but its just...not good.

What are the stakes for why she can’t go home empty handed? I’d have thought she’d WANT to go home, seeing its christmas and she was reluctant to come. But its not like this is her LAST chance at the big break. And him not showing up is still news like, write about that???

THIS ENTIRE PLOT IS BASED OFF OF PURE COINCIDENCE

AAAAAAAA

Aww cute lil girl.

OH MY GOD SHE BROKE A VASE

IS THIS ABOUT TO TURN INTO OURAN HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB

That castle is definitely a model.

THE STAKES HERE ARE SO LOW. And why does this level of infiltration need to be necessary for such a low level story?

This acting is going to kill me.

This is either disability representation or disability porn and I’m leaning towards the porn.

was that supposed to be her finding him attractive?

This is either bad acting, bad writing or both. I’m inclined to think both.

DICK JOKE

oh god. this is every goddamn romance movie except with so little romance.

What’s the story they’re investigating? The guy said they’d be having the coronation. Like. Thats the story.

Let me guess. The evil dick cousin takes the throne if the prince abdicates oh my GOD this movie is painful.

Alright, they’re leaning away from the porn part and moving more into the representation for disability.

ANOTHER DICK JOKE

YOU COULDN’T HAVE FOUND OUT ABOUT THIS LINE OF SUCCESSION THING OFF GOOGLE OR SOMETHING??

Oh my god a cocky vulnerable asshole he’s literally EVERY Rom com hero oh my GOD

SHE HAS NOT SHOWN ANY SIGNS OF ATTRACTION

and how much does gay bff know about royalty?

I get it. Simon’s an asshole.

This acting.

New woman. The rival lover?

This movie is every rom com. Every. Single. One. I’ve never seen them so thoroughly condensed.

BROOKLYN NINE NINES UP! MOVIE BREAK

okay back to hell

Ah yes, the love rival whom the mother approves of, but the boyfriend doesn’t love anymore.

she’s...writing...those notes are terrible

I....do like the little girl. Still trying to figure out if they’re just using the disability for sympathy points. But like. She does have a character and I do like her, so I’ll go with it.

Either way its still the best part of this movie.

im so bored.

this prince. is so. boring.

WHAT THE HELL KINDA CHRISTMAS GAME IS THAT

How did THAT reporter get so close to the princess?

Like doesn’t she have guards?

you know, come to think of it, there are probably no guards in all of Aldovia

Richard ain’t gonna show.

Called it.

Oh my god why are they surprised Prince Flake disappeared?

yup, he’s ACTUALLY cute and charming. Of course.

What I want: They change the laws for Emily to inherit the throne, but the Queen rules until she turns 18.

Yup. There is 0 security in Aldovia

Sledding is cute.

Literally just...cut the prince out of this movie. Just completely.

Just make it about the sister, and how there’s no direct male heir.

I’ve seen plenty movies where the women is just a sexy lamp but honestly the guy here is so easy to remove from this romance.

This could be such a sweet platonic sister-y movies.

This is....cute but doesn’t provide any dramatic tension really. Like, at all.

I hate her notes so much. Partially cause they’re like mine, but she’s a reporter she should know better.

I mean, they’re friends now, right? Why not just ask prince (Or Emily, honestly) why he doesn’t want the throne.

ARE THERE NO STABLE BOYS HERE IN ALDOVIA EITHER????

YOURE TRUSTING THE HORSE TO KNOW WHERE ITS GOING????

Have you ever even ridden before?

what...what is happening.

Does the prince come to her rescue.

Alright, that shot was stolen STRAIGHT from Beauty and the Beast.

THIS WHOLE SEQUENCE IS LITERALLY JUST A SCENE LIFTED FROM BEAUTY AND THE BEAST!

Did they just forget to write a scene and so inserted one from another movie and then write around that?

oh my god this was so boring I almost missed the heart to heart.

oh, emotional truths in movies are never good when it starts with “You’ll just think I’m a spoiled rich kid anyway”

well, I mean, if your father wrote your mother a riddle that you can’t figure out....I’m assuming SHE can. Right?

that almost-kiss was so forced.

We’re nearing the part where ‘everything goes wrong’

Wait a sec, this is deviating a bit

HO CRAP

How’d she get all this.

Why tell your best friends about this whole thing? Prince was adopted. Huh.

Again, stakes. Why do we care that her ‘career’ will be made.

oh my god. of course. The accidental ‘saw the other girl kiss him’ moment

oh my god.I eye rolled so hard it hurt

“If you like the way you look that much, then baby you should go and love yourself”

YOUR GOING. TO EXPOSE THE STORY. THAT HE WAS ADOPTED. BECAUSE HE KISSED ANOTHER GIRL?????

I give up.

Thank you, dispensary of fatherly advice.

well. one thing taken care of.

What happened to the horse who bucked her off anyway?

Ah yes. The good ole romcom trope. “There’s something that I need to tell you” Man swoops in for kiss.

my god

Sigh. The rival and the skeevy cousin team up.

oh no they’re going to find the adoption papers. Dickholes.

Dammit they successfully made me hate them for hurting the good guys. Fuck.

Him being adopted explains the GIANT AGE difference between him and his sister, though

What did he say? What...what’s happening?

yeah yeah, the son is afraid of not living up to his dad

OH MY GOD THE PALACE IS TOTALLY A MODEL

.....I do like the little girl.

Seriously why isn’t this story just about the little girl?

Get rid of the Prince he’s unnecessary

Make it all about ableism and sexism and blah blah and people trying to deny Emily the throne. Maybe even make HER the adopted one and talk about not-blood families and their importance.

Ah, the makeover section of the romcom has started.

oh look, its her in an updo and a fancier dress.

Oooh, smokey eye too. nice.

Honestly I didn’t think the love rival was so bad at the start. but I think they just didn’t know what to do with her so decided to make her a stereotype.

Call him Dick.

(his name is prince richard. they should call him a dick.)

I enjoy that she’s wearing sneakers under her dress, I admit.

Does she even know how to dance?

I guess so

Or not, they clearly choreographed this right before shooting.

everyone else in the scene is clearly professional dancers, and there the main characters are. Swaying.

Seriously? One song in and they go to the main event?

The cousin and the rival are going to do something dramatic, aren’t they?

Is this like a marriage? I don’t think people dispute coronations during the ceremony.

Okay, but they need time to like. Verify things right?

Like. Why does everyone suddenly believe them? and...I just...what?

WHY WOULD SHE ADMIT THAT RIGHT NOW IN FRONT OF EVERYBODY?! COME ON THIS SHOULD GO SOMEWHERE PRIVATE RIGHT? WITH LIKE?

Oh god this is so...artificial and junk.

‘things just got so out of hand’

i admit, it’s a PRETTY model of a palace.

this whole thing is just. so contrived.

Really? ‘why didn’t you tell me?’

Wasn’t a royal birth like....news? in this country?

Aw, mother/son seen. good.

They got married before the coronation?

What happens if the time runs out? Like. Will they just. Not have a king anymore?

Like what kind of stupid rule?

Seriously, the dad character, his entire dialogue is just fatherly advice.

Okay. So what I’m getting here is the king hid something in the acorn ornament he made? but. Why did he hide it?

Oh wow, there actually ARE guard in the country.

they might not have a dungeon, but they have jails, surely?

WHY DID HE PLAY WITH RIDDLES!! THE DEAD KING IS AN ASSHAT!!!

hey, there looks like some equality with gender in the quorum of kings council. but like. Its really white.

See, Emily continues to be the only good thing in this movie.

This whole thing is so arbitrary, why not.

Oh look and now he can be king. Why didn’t he want to be king before? Anyway?

Seriously Sophia, make sure he’s King BEFORE you marry of him, geez.

And he’s king. Cool.

But where’s the girl? :O

now he has to chase after her and they kiss and then happily ever after. Right?

okay, so she made it to New York. Cool.

Do they not like puff pieces? This is the obvious blah thing.

Girl that is a dream job for a wanna be journalist in your 20s. Good lord.

AHHH I HATE THIS

She has a date? oh. Setup. got it.

These side characters have no depth at all. They are black best friend and gay best friend.

Where is he. There he is.

THEY LET THE KING OF A COUNTRY WANDER THE STREETS OF NEW YORK WITH NO GUARDS????

oh, just skippin straight to the proposal. mkay.

THEY MET TWO WEEKS AGO

hehehhehe my brain had a dirty thought.

there it is

I can feel Elsa shouting “YOU CANT MARRY A MAN YOU JUST MET”

I could have sworn that ring was purple a second ago. now its blue,

3 minutes left. please let most of those be credits.

ah yes. Circle cam around this OBVIOUS STAGE SET

No new york street looks like that.

AND WE DIDNT EVEN GET TO SEE EMILY AGAIN.

Welp. Can’t say I didn’t know what I was getting into.

#The Christmas Prince

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