#he’s out here unknowingly playing gay characters | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chaifootsteps · 4 months

Note

Studio Anon here, after a while of lurking/doing my own thing. Luckily my emotions are much more in check and I’ve strayed from Viv stuff for a bit to relax and hang out with my loved ones! Coming back and seeing Viv throwing a hissy fit, Raph wanting to look/act like Angel (my goodness-), and somehow people still defending episode four is… really comedic, actually.

Everything is awful but man, somehow it just keeps getting worse!

Anyway, just writing my own general feelings on this and the ideas I had for a rewrite long before everything went to hell. I never really was interested in HH until maybe Helluva Boss’ trailer dropped. I found it strange that HH wasn’t even out yet but somehow this ‘spinoff show’ was already made and posted in the public. I thought it was really weird tho, considering HH is owned by a company now, technically, while HB is sorta just there? I only watched since it’s animation and I felt like I had to support it.

Buuuut the longer I had to stare at HB’s ugly designs (and seeing the new ones for HH) I simply wasn’t interested anymore.

I guess I dodged a bullet because jesus it just gets worse.

I don’t know how, genuinely, Viv is a shit artist and writer? She went to a prestigious art school for as far as I remember and got her shows made and animated. I’m studying myself, and god knows I’d want my stories out there! It’s clear that Viv has some idea of what she wants to do, but that’s the thing-,

All she had were concepts (also publicly displaying her fetishes in the public, which is also its own can of worms).

I know in my right mind I couldn’t send people out to work on my stories since they’re heavily in development- even then my character designs are complicated as shit so I wouldn’t dream of anyone animating. Viv’s style being the way that it is + her general palettes being Just Red makes it hard to focus on or do anything with.

I also don’t know how Viv is able to just show off her rape fantasies out there and I’d rather not talk about it (sex-repulsed and all), but the general lack of focus and priority in gay ships is really disgusting.

So, as a writer, I made a general outline of what I’d make Hazbin Hotel and/or Helluva Boss be about.

Redemption is an easy theme to work on for both. ‘Sins of the father’ as a trope could work too. I’ll just use HH for now, as this post would be lengthy should I cover both.

General worldbuilding; due to Lucifer’s habit of toying with human life, comparing them to nothing more than insects, God punishes him and Lilith (who could’ve been some kind of angel too? I know she’s from a different religion entirely, so let’s say she was a random angel) by sending them to Hell to deal with the worst sinners. He and the princes of hell (how do they not address this in Hazbin?), scorned and disgusted by Heaven, try to be controlling over their own citizens. Mimicking/acting out their anger towards God by playing God in their own rings. They’re evil and horrible leaders. Lilith makes Hell feel like a home for her and Lucifer at least, bearing a daughter to restore some humanity within the Pride ring.

So Pride, at least, is less threatening now that Lucifer has a daughter.

The other princes could then ‘rightfully’ call out Lucifer’s behavior, maybe serving as some antagonists for Charlie as she tries to convince them to bring their sinners in for redemption.

So TLDR; the princes and Lucifer have internal problems that Charlie would try and resolve somewhat since she believes in redemption.

Going off to the main story, Charlie is told of Heaven being evil and awful for what they’ve done to her parents and believes it until she meets V (or Ex-Overlord Vaggie in this rewrite). V was recently cast out of the other Vs and was maybe slated to die in the extermination until Charlie unknowingly saved her from her fate. Maybe we could even get a hint of V being an angel/exterminator before with one hesitating to kill her off. The two talk and when Charlie mentions Heaven being an ass, V could tell Charlie about Heaven being good, eventually causing Charlie to start thinking about redemption, and start the hotel.

V is given more thought in the story as Charlie’s love interest and the gateway to her learning more about the two sides. Charlie is so used to Hell being the way that it is that she never considered redemption until she hears and talks to V more. The two try and kickstart some sort of redemption but V is hesitant in getting redeemed and asks that, since Charlie is the princess of hell, they could ask Lucifer for a sinner or two to redeem.

Very loose from here, but after some talk, Lucifer gives them a rundown hotel to make their own, the Vs find out and gets Lust Sinner Angel down to take them out, but is charmed by the idea of redemption. Nifty, Alastor, Husk, and Sir Pentious are all from different rings and it takes Charlie a lot to convince the princes and to try and reconnect them to Lucifer, who seems to be caught off guard with how much Charlie is willing to give this a shot. Lilith on the other hand gets suspicious of V, which could lead to Lilith exposing V of being an exterminator and, “Messing with our daughter’s head so she’ll get killed in the next extermination!”

So drama with the parents, the princes, and struggles with redemption.

It all crashes down on Charlie and the Hazbin crew as they’ve began to grow closer on one another, V especially. The other princes could then be more empathetic (they aren’t as prideful as Lucifer, and Lucifer might love his wife more than his kid tbh) and try to reconnect with Lucifer in the same way Charlie connects to the other ring sinners.

Slowly but surely, the crew better themselves, and before the next extermination, the Angel Gabriel (ain’t he the whole Angel with the flaming sword?) flies down to see Charlie doing her best. Drama here, tension there, V is the first to get ‘redeemed’. Uh oh, angst!

V, after all this time, doesn’t want to be redeemed if that means she can’t stay with Charlie, which is why she was hesitant. Lucifer and the sins come in, try to kill Gabriel or something and there’s signs of a war, but Charlie stands her ground and tries to find some way to get both sides to work together on something, at least.

So. Purgatory.

I haven’t been mentioning Lilith much but she very much loves her daughter, and having enough pride in her (Charlie) ideals to make things better, to give people a chance at redemption, reminds her of her angel days. That peaceful life.

So she agrees.

The Hazbin crew get to work with her in purgatory, V gets to be all happy and cute with Charlie, and everyone learns to try and be better.

There. That shouldn’t be too hard. Maybe a little complicated but those are my surface thoughts. What do you and the others think?

#Anonymous #Studio Anon #image reply #viv stuff #actual blog post

47 notes · View notes

dizzybevvie · 1 year

Text

Ok me and a friend got talking and. heres (some of) the things I personally would do if tasked with rewriting Mystreet.

[very brief mentions of Katelyn, Garte + the Lycan parents :>]

Im totally stealing this idea from @bread--squid--uwu but Aph's name is Aphrodite now. Makes sense with the guys all being into her, still keeps the nickname, makes sense for Sylvanna etc

Reducing the ages. It makes noooooo sense to me that theyre all like, 35. They're fresh out of college, like 21-23.

Magic would either be a big part of the world building or removed entirely. Not a fan of the soft magic system. If removed, Lucinda would be a more like, herbs + the moon kinda witch you know? She also likes DnD

knowing more about peoples backstory! Laurance in particular has such little clarification on his family and upbringing

We get to know about all the shady goings on of the Ro'Meave household because theres no way Garte is a good man i do NOT trust him

Katelyn + Travis don't get back together

Aphmau goes to a different college to the others and meets Aaron (max of 2 years older) there because I'd personally like it more if the rest of the group didn't know him beforehand! That way Gar and Laur are able to be upset with the idea of him. I like the idea that they get so in their own heads that they plan out a whole argument that Aaron just. doesn't take the bait on at ALL and they realise that maybe theyre in the wrong for jumping to conclusions.

The ultima Werewolf thing would have to be totally revamped idc. I dont remember how its explained in the show, but I like the idea of it being a curse on the family possibly by Lucinda's ancestors. (Melissa + Lucinda could have a moment too!)

KC has like a common Japanese name because it reflects her fear of being forgettable (?). Also she is actually asian

CHARACTERS HAVE LAST NAMES. Except for Lucinda because again, I want the magic to be more prevalent and I think its cute that shes kinda the odd one out

Zane is Autistic and its discussed! I want Garroth to learn to respect his boundaries

On the same note, Garroth and Zane actually make up. I think Zane and Laurance being worsties is fun but the brothers need to be on neutral ground at LEAST.

Aaron is introduced early on. I don't really care how, but him being introduced half way into season 1 is partly the reason Aarmau is so rushed

People have identities. Not everyone needs an exploration or a label, but at the very least, Katelyn is Bisexual throughout the series and Garroth, Laurance, Melissa, Lucinda and Teony are some flavour of gay

Teony is more relevant. she doesn't have to be in the main group but I'd love to see her more like she works at the mall or smthn

The Garroth/Laurance/Aph dynamic changes majorly. They still constantly are trying to one-up each other by sweeping her off her feet but its more playful than anything serious. They get super competitive abt it but its still a but of fun. Whether she likes either of them isn't important. What is, though, is that Gar + Laur are absolutely unknowingly competing for eachother's attention. Maybe theres a cringy little moment where theyre like, "Well I would take her to get SUSHI!" "well I would- wait I LOVE sushi!" you know what I mean? also they actually have a conversation about the kiss at the play instead of just incoherently screaming (theres also some of that tho)

The Lycan family dont get a redemption arc

Dante and Aphmau need something because they could be sooo good but their dynamic is lacking so theyre cousins now. Maria and Sylvanna are sisters or something i dont know.

Also, Gene doesnt have that weird thing going on with Aph in high-school. He's now her friend who gives her a twix sometimes and hisses at Ivy

Totally biased but Id really want Garroth and Laurance's queerness explored. If its a first for either or both of them, how they feel about it, how they're navigating it. I want them coming out to not be a big deal but I want it to be a realisation.

I dont remember who came up with this but Laurance had Cadenza dye his hair ginger for a while because he wanted to feel like part of the new family? adorable. love it. Also Caleb doesnt exist purely because he throws a wrench in the adoption thing

The street has a name. I dont care what but it has a name

Id do something different with the maid cafe, not sure what yet. I dont think Aph would own it, though.

Aphmau's character is more of what it was in season one. Like the girl you call when youre drunk at 2am and she makes sure you get home safe and then brings you sweets kinda vibe? shed get you out of a tough situation

Aaron + Aphmaus relationship is a more relaxed version of what it was in season one, too. They can be romantic or platonic, but they like watching movies and teasing each other not. doing whatever they do in s3 and onwards.

PEOPLE SAY SORRY.

Dante & Travis: The Show is a podcast that Dante and Travis run twice a week. Its world renowned (16 regular viewers)

Garroth is british. Britain exists in this universe and any towns/cities/villages Jess named are somewhere within the USA

Laurance characters get consistent colour pallets.

Dante is trans literally just so i can fight off Squid's Two minute Two Dick Dante agenda (/j)

#me rn clenching my fists and trying not to start developing a rewrite #thats it for now but theres definitely more #thanks to anyone who inspired any of this lmao #apollo says stuff #squid tag #mystreet #aphmau #aphmau mystreet #aphverse #aphblr #laurance zvahl #laurance mystreet #aphmau garroth #garroth ro'meave #mystreet garroth #aaron lycan #long post

91 notes · View notes

inventedfangirling · 8 months

Text

ONLY FRIENDS EPISODE 8 LIVE REACTION POST

I AM SO SO NOT READY for raymew...more like im not ready to see Sand hurt but arggghhh lets goooo

ohno ray seems to have not been a great influence on mew

okay i LOVE how protective cheum seems over mew but hello where was all this love and concern for ray all this while like whats that about !??

my gawd First is so dang good in this scene with Khao not like im surprised but gawd the hurt is hurting and it is not one bit comfy but again nobody should expect messy gays the show to be a comfort watch lmao

OHMYGOD why is everybody so good at their jobs...we barely knew anything about plug and yo's relationship but was that scene IMPACFUL or what!!!

no matter how much mental torture this may offer, its great that we also have guaranteed quality performances like wow what a pleasure it is to watch them perform

i get that top seems to be very much in love with mew but him acting all holier than thou about smoking PLS bit rich coming from somebody who literally cheated on him like WOW yes mew TELL HIM

I ADORE TF OUTTA HIM BUT PLS NO NOT FIRST SINGING

my gawd ray getting on my nerves he's so selfish wanting to have both mew and sand and using his cuteness to get his way like excuse me who allowed you outta my pocket and into the world where you can hurt sand GET BACK IN HERE!

my gawd ray using all his perusasion moves and then some but sand standing his ground multiples times im SO PROUD OF HIM 🥹

ray did not just use orphans to get sand to agree like arrest him milord its too much!!

oh damn top approaching cheum for help, man clearly serious about his concern (pretty obvious/out there prediction based on how you think but mewtop endgame methinks :3)

okay papang's character CLEARLY has just work on his mind SURE completely his excited thirsty looks giving NOTHING away

STFU did i just see boston looking at a selfie of him and nick while drinking alone in a bar WOW did not think i'd have lived to see this day lmao

is it just me being too sandray biased or did raymew not have much chemistry in that library scene...the way ray said you look delectable felt mechanical sorta like its something he just read off a script in his head and not what he thought of right then...probably also due to it being early days together but also i did NOT hear ray say that he doesnt want a band anymore...i simply didnt hear it...it makes me feel NOTHING

why the fuck have all these people been invited these two self destructive boys have evidently NO clue in life...as expected i mean lol otherwise whats the fun in a show about a bunch of well adjusted adults with entirely healthy relationships lmao

STFU did mew just try coke NOMYGAWD this is gonna be such a train wreck of a party I CANNOT

gawd pretty boy ray (SO PRETTY but also)whipped af he's gonna hurt so so bad when he realises mew has been knowingly or unknowingly using him to get over or spite top

zjnsnsjs what was that laugh mew did when ray asked if cheum invited top...book looked so HOT and MY GAWDS TOP GUN TOP AHRJMSNANSKAKA

is ray thinking what im thinking?? that mew is showing more emotion in the past 1 minute than he did the entire time they were together and it was entirely directed at top!?

ahjansnnsjsjs mew you menace that was such a badass move im gonna forgive you for using ray and making out with him for a hot second cos WOW

sand nick moving on buddies CUUUTE if only the moving on was working out for either of them 🤧🤧

wow nick has got some guts walking upto ton like that after having secretly recorded him and ruined his friend group...im dyingggg at his (desperation dressed as ) confidence

not to get distracyed but that teeny glimpse of neo's forehead through his fringe making me wanna scream...he looks so so sooo goood argh WHY DO THEY COVER IT UP HUH FOR WHAT?? FREE THE FOREHEADS!!!

2 freddie mercury's making out at a halloweeen party...woulda been such an iconic moment...ray playing spoilsport boy you better get back in my pocket (THREAT)

AABNANAN RAY DID NOT JUST SAY WHAT I THINK HE DID MY GAWD HE'S SO!?????

When tf is ray gonna learn not to kiss people without their consent he making me madder and madder!?!?!

holy fucking shit sand's expression after ray said "you love me" !?????? im so devastated at that milli second of a reaction FIRST IS SO FXKING GOOD!??

"you're mine no matter what!????" um how DARE he!????

YES SAND GOOD ON YOU IM SO PROUD OF YOU ray you better count your days im coming for you😤😤😤😤

mew breaking up with top cos he cheated on him to be with ray who has "always" been faithful to him and this always faithful guy just decides to offer himself to his "fuckbuddy" and some other random dude from the party so easily?? gawd i feel bad for mew.

i know mew is going through hell and sorta acting out...but my gawd unhinged mew is so hot????? i feel like my brain is turning to mush everytime he does something wild

pls that bgm in the topmew scene...no matter how this scene ends...they have to be the endgame i really dont see a way around it

cheum deciding to draw boundaries and blaming ray for showing no concern for her and ruining things while the police are literally checking the room for drugs after having pinned ray down is just the sorta shiz the show promised and it has delivered so good i could scream into my pillow for hours

2 seconds...thats all it took for khao to make an impact with that scene...he's MAGIC i tell you

cheum and april should just run away together just for a while give themselves some peace of mind

pls the romcom music for topmew its driving me insane.....this was supposed to be my sandray WHERE DID IT ALL GO WRONG

sandnick cuties I LOVE THEIR DYNAMIC ARGH...whether its kept as moving on partners or new found besties or even fwbs...i am full on supporting that shiz...sand deserves some fun too

cant believe boston was the least active character today...i almost have humane feelings towards him wow

sghahnsnznsjwjzjjsjsjsnjs omygod next episode preview ducking hell

Forget everything i said about sandnick and arresting ray and being mad at him...i am still mad but ahhh sandray my babies WE ARE SO BACKKKK....they better have a proper talk so ray can apologise and start off on a proper note or else imma lose it again but ahhhhhh i havent smiled at a preview in a loooong time fuckkk feeels goood😭😭😭

#only friends the series #sand x ray #only friends #i am SO NORMAL about this show

8 notes · View notes

allwaswell16 · 2 years

Text

This is a fic rec of One Direction fics in which Louis is the younger character in a pairing or the youngest in the group as requested in this ask. You can find all my other fic recs here! If you enjoy the fics, please leave the writers kudos and comments! Happy reading!

-Larry-

🖤 Say Something by @kingsofeverything

(E, 105k, a/b/o, alpha Louis, omega Harry, older Harry, mpreg Harry, accidental pregnancy, heat, insecure Harry, lawyer Harry, theatre manager Louis, age difference, smut)

When his doctor suggests a heat and rut matching service, he signs up out of necessity.

🖤 Off The Record by Tomlinsontoes / @pianolouis

(M, 90k, actor Louis, publicist Harry, enemies to friends to lovers, pining, tattoos, pining, younger Louis, eventual smut)

Louis is an out of control teen heartthrob, Harry is hired to get him back on track and they both hate each other while they secretly don't.

🖤 I'm On the Hunt Now (I'm After You) by @afangirlfantasy

(M, 56k, a/b/o, alpha Harry, omega Louis, soulmates, wolves, mating, marking, supernatural elements, pack dynamics, angst with a happy ending, mpreg Louis, smut)

an AU where Alpha Harry and Omega Louis have a lot more than falling in love to deal with after The Mating Ceremony.

🖤 Spoonful of Sugar by zanni_scaramouche / @zanniscaramouche

(E, 47k, series, mob boss Harry, enemies to lovers, size difference, age difference, injury, violence, smut)

To keep his family safe he’s forced to trust the man that failed to keep his promise two years ago, the resident drug lord he’s unknowingly been working for, Harry Styles.

🖤 Two Steps Behind by sacredheart

(T, 38k, younger Louis, childhood friends, hurt feelings high school au)

Louis is two years younger than his neighbors, Harry, Liam, Niall, and Zayn, and he grows up bending over backwards to get their attention and acceptance. Especially Harry's.

🖤 Epiphany by Jennifer_Kaid / @poetsreprieve

(E, 30k, historical, 1980s, Italy, writer Harry, student Louis, romance, cuddling, stubborn Louis, insecurity, age gap, angst, hate to love)

It was the summer of 1984 when Harry inherited his grandfather's estate and wealth.

🖤 honey, make this easy by sweetums / @darlou

(E, 25k, uni student Louis, nanny Louis, art dealer Harry, grief/mourning, kid fic, sexual tension, age difference, sex tapes, public sex, smut)

Needing help, he hires Louis as a nanny and the boy turns out to be help in more ways than he expected.

🖤 i'll find a home inside your heart by pleasinglouis

(E, 25k, silver fox Harry, real estate agent Louis, doctor Harry, age difference, smut)

the Silver Foxrry fic

🖤 sweet like cherry vodka by dilfrry

(NR, 8k, sugar baby Louis, sugar daddy Harry, silver fox Harry, uni student Louis, light dom/sub, CEO Harry, age gap, fluff, smut)

the Silver Fox Sugar Daddy Harry x Uni Student Sugar Baby Louis fic

🖤 may we all have a vision now and then by momentofclarity / @gaycousinlarry

(M, 4k, gay bar, American au, older Harry, first meeting, fluff, vulnerability, age difference, feelings, kissing, smut)

On a cold December night, Louis meets Harry for the first time.

-Rare Pairs-

🖤 Little Lion Man by Writcraft / @writsgrimmyblog

(E, 123k, Louis/Nick Grimshaw, Harry Potter universe, coming of age, magic, supernatural elements, homophobia, kink exploration, hurt/comfort, character injury, soulmates, smut)

As Louis tries to negotiate coming of age, sexuality, first times, homophobia in the wizarding world and his growing feelings for Nick, a new evil emerges which puts Louis and Nick in serious danger.

🖤 Pretty Little Plaything by Phillipa19

(E, 55k, series, Zayn/Louis, silver fox Zayn, age gap, sugar baby Louis, falling in love, insecure Louis, dom/sub, rich Zayn, jealousy, charity events, marriage, past abuse, smut)

Louis is Zayn's little toy, his precious pet, to play with and keep safe.

🖤 I'm Ready for the Worst by @lululawrence

(NR, 26k, Louis/Greg James, canon, age difference, older Greg, secret relationship, angst with a happy ending, emotional hurt/comfort, flirting, famous/famous, fwb, friends to lovers, humor, anxiety, grief/mourning, no smut)

Greg had never been able to put a finger on what it was exactly, but he’d been enthralled and hooked from the first moment he’d seen his bright smile and flamboyant mannerisms.

#ficrec #1dsource #tracksintheam #trackinghome #trackinghappily #1dficvillage #phillipa19 #gaycousinlarry #dilfrry #pleasinglouis #darlou #poetsreprieve #zanniscaramouche #afangirlfantasy #pianolouis #kingsofeverything #writcraft #lululawrence

99 notes · View notes

arceespinkgun · 11 months

Note

My issues with IDW1's portrayal of queer relationships are a lot more simple. I loved the WLW relationships and thought they did fairly well. It is important to note however, that I am neither a woman/woman-aligned person nor WLW (although I haven't heard any or much criticism from that demographic with the portrayals, besides the lack of fanon content for them in comparison to MLM relationships)

I, however, have many grievances with the MLM representation and the narratives they chose to give them. I understand that in the "grand scheme" of things, no one by the end of the war was "good" but a lot of the MLM characters did terrible things even before the war broke out (whether intentionally or not, through their inherent ignorance and how the system functioned)

There seemed to be a theme of MLM characters being acknowledged as downright monsters or their monstrous being dismissed and the common factor was that they were MLM. One option could be vaguely interpreted as saying “The only thing worse than a war criminal is a MLM war criminal" (whether the authors intended to or not, and they definitely didn't), whilst the second option glossed over character complexity and their active contributions in a prejudiced society in favour of highlighting their queerness. Frankly, I don't know what's worse because at least the first option is in your face and is brought up/criticised, whereas the latter goes unchallenged due to simply being representation that isn't blatantly offensive/damaging

Well, this turned into a whole essay....

(Warning: I make some really harsh criticisms of both IDW1's WLW and MLM representation in this post that I feel like could potentially make people upset. Please know that there are many romantic relationships from IDW1 I like and that I'm glad representation was obvious and present in the series—but I do feel like the patterns probably unknowingly perpetuated by the series deserve critique. My intention is not to make anyone feel like they can't enjoy something.)

I've been thinking about this ask to try and figure out what I think was going on, and this is what I've come up with. First of all, I'd like to say that I personally have plenty of issues with the WLW representation in IDW1, even though I enjoyed all the individual relationships in that category. Second, I understand why you'd say it comes across like "The only thing worse than a war criminal is a MLM war criminal," because of things like Prowl's and Tarantulas's past relationship being both obvious, yet also only implied and referred to through symbolism and innuendos related to horrific acts (for example, Tarantulas's infamous "Come; I want to show you something naughty" line is referring to a completed torture device). Or because of strange details like Ultra Magnus's first condemnation of Megatron when he thinks he's betrayed them being the mild and personal, "He's a serial abuser" of all things. And while I agree that in a lot of instances, writers' choices to have certain really despicable characters be queer (often intensely and obsessively so) was distracting and a really odd choice that added basically nothing to the narrative while from a reader's perspective, playing into offensive stereotypes (also ableist ones because my goodness are so many of the most violently, unforgivably evil villains in late-phase IDW1 mentally ill, disabled, and MLM), I think there's a lot more going on. Because then of course there are plenty of MLM characters the writers want us to root for, whose relationships are shown to be good (even though you or I may disagree). So what does that mean? And how do the WLW relationships factor in by comparison?

Well, here's what I've come up with. I think the trend you're seeing might be that IDW1 generally filters queer relationships through these two sets of stereotypes:

1) Lesbians get married after their first date, and their love is pure, redemptive, and stable.

2) Gays are messy, dramatic, and potentially predatory.

Now to be fair, I don't think this framework was intentional. And these stereotypes aren't reflected in the stories of every single writer. But if you view IDW1 as a single text and try to figure out what it's saying about queerness, the differences in WLW and MLM representation seem pretty obvious. More below the cut:

For example, the only 100% confirmed WLW couple we actually see fall in love and get together is Arcee and Aileron, and while I enjoyed all of their moments together, it happens super quickly, and neither of them had other partners beforehand. Arcee was written with many, many transmisogynistic stereotypes in many of her appearances, but her romantic life was not complicated in this respect. She and Aileron never hit each other in anger like a couple like Cyclonus and Tailgate did, for example.

Every single other confirmed WLW couple was already together by the time they made their debut, and the struggles their relationships face are almost all external. And there are enough WLW ships in this canon that this pattern is really obvious. We don't get to see a love story or longing and desire with Jumpstream/Dust Up, Greenlight/Lancer, or Anode/Lug. Plus, note that if you look at Lug's and Anode's arc, it's the story of two lesbians who end up settling down and deciding to raise a family after a life of danger and adventure.

Think of all the things we DON'T get with the WLW representation (but were involved in the MLM representation). Having a string of partners who didn't last due to death or divorce. Relationships being strained by addiction. Grooming, physical violence, analogues of sexual assault, and mental intrusion towards a partner or potential partner. Nearly getting everyone killed to impress someone who's never noticed you. Queerness being associated with torture. Obsession with someone ending in your own and others' violent deaths. Do I necessarily wish any of this stuff had been attached to WLW relationships? No!!! I think most of these things are rooted in offensive stereotypes. But given that this is how MLM relationships were portrayed, the inequality there contributes to assumptions about WLW and women in general.

And there are things with MLM representation that aren't bad that really show how lacking the WLW rep was. Think about this—we didn't even get something as basic as Drift's and Ratchet's bickering "will they or won't they" romance arc with any WLW representation. That's how little drama and desire was permitted to WLW (I love Lug's bickering with Anode but they were introduced as a married couple).

Now, I can think of one big exception to this rule, and it's IDW1 Elita-1. She's menacing, powerful, tyrannical, somewhat bigoted, has a big redemption through death moment. But the thing is, as far as I can remember, Elita was only vaguely lesbian-coded, and she wasn't obsessively fixated on another woman or anything the way characters like Tarn, Pharma, etc. were obsessively fixated on other men.

And when it comes to why queerness was often focused on above other horrible things characters perpetrated, I think the answer is embarrassingly simple. The writers who wrote the edgiest shit like dramatic gays™️, possibly out of internalized homophobia. Many of the story elements reek of the type of internalized homophobia that results in people thinking MLM stuff is sinful and dirty (Pharma's last words before the drills go into his brain, anyone?)... even though IDW1 also tries to showcase positive MLM relationships at the same time.

I think some people may wonder after reading this post, "But didn't the TF franchise already improve when it comes to this stuff, like in IDW2? Why discuss this and criticize it so harshly?" My response would be to say, yes, it did improve! I'm glad we got to see women like Road Rage and Nautica falling in love over a longer span of time and we got to actually see, you know, Road Rage pining! And I'm glad we got to see Blast-Off have a positive relationship instead of the one involving violating his love interest's mind in IDW1. But I think it's important to know what was lacking in earlier series to remember what to avoid and continue to improve on in the future. We don't want to forget how bad things were in IDW1 and let the bar be on the ground it's so low.

There is a lot more I could've talked about here, like about specific problematic elements in individual relationships and how they relate to offensive stereotypes, or more about transness, or something about how specific writers' takes differed. But I think this tackles the general pattern you noticed.

#my analysis #transformers idw #long post

8 notes · View notes

inevitably-johnlocked · 2 years

Note

ALSO!! Hello again! do you have any fics of the sherlock characters watching the show? im a complete sucker for those kind of fics!

Hey Lovely!!

Ahhh, hmm. I don’t think I have EXACTLY what you’re looking for, but the closest I can come to is this one:

Anchor Point by trickybonmot (E, 49,856 w., 80 Ch. || Truman Show AU || Psychological Drama, Suspense, Slow Burn, Dark Characters / Fic, Alternating First/Third Person, Protective John, Anxious/Worried Sherlock, Tender Moments, Love Confessions, Hand/Blow Jobs, Cuddling, Jealous John, First Kiss/Time) – The world tunes in nightly for Sherlock, the ultimate in reality TV: Sherlock Holmes, a real person with a legendary name, unknowingly lives out his life in a staged setting contrived by his brother. Things get complicated when a retired army doctor joins the show to play the part of Sherlock's closest friend. This fic borrows its concept from the 1998 film, the Truman Show. However, you don't need to have any knowledge of the movie to enjoy this story.

They’re all characters in a show about Sherlock’s life, essentially.

And these ones have them IN a TV show:

The Newlywed Game: Johnlock Edition by patternofdefiance (E, 9,020 w., 7 Ch. || Fake Relationship, Fake Marriage, Friends to Lovers, Humour, Romance, Smut, Case Fic, Self-Esteem Issues) – John and Sherlock pretend to be married in order to be contestants in a Newlywed Game. Of course it’s for a case. Of course it doesn’t stay that way. Part 8 of I Blame Tumblr

Bakers with Benefits by Raina_at (E, 88,130 w., 14 Ch. || Great British Bake Off AU || Strangers to Lovers, Switchlock, Friends with Benefits, Mentions of Alcoholism / Past Drug Use, Banter, Flirting, Fluff, Light Angst, Semi-Public Sex, Past Sherlock/Victor, Mutual Pining, POV Sherlock, Obsessive Sherlock, John’s Bum) – Sherlock Holmes has a successful YouTube baking channel, but what he really wants is his own bakery. When an old friend sends him a call for the very first Great British Bake Off, he seizes the opportunity to finally win a sponsor for his bakery. Here's the plan: Win Bake Off, get the bakery, don't fall in love with the handsome Army doctor at the neighbouring station. Easy.

Performance In a Leading Role by Mad_Lori (E, 156,714 w., 21 Ch. || PODFIC AVAILABLE || Hollywood / Actor AU, Secret Relationship, Falling in Love, Slow Burn, Romance, Coming Out, Fluff and Angst, Pining) – Sherlock Holmes is an Oscar winner in the midst of a career slump. John Watson is an Everyman actor trapped in the rom-com ghetto. When they are cast as a gay couple in a new independent drama, will they surprise each other? Will their on-screen romance make its way into the real world? Part 1 of Performance in a Leading Role

Mise en Place by azriona (M, 161,004 w., 28 Ch. || Restaurant (Kitchen Nightmares) AU || Sherlock is Gordon Ramsay / Celebrity Sherlock, Restauranteur John, Harry Plays Prominent Role, Alternating POV, Mutual Pining, Cranky Sherlock, Bed Sharing, Slow Burn) – John Watson had no intentions of taking over the family business, but when he returns from Afghanistan, battered and bruised, and discovers that his sister Harry has run their restaurant into the ground, he doesn't have much choice. There's only one thing that can save the Empire from closing for good – the celebrity star of the BBC series Restaurant Reconstructed, Chef Sherlock Holmes. Part 1 of Mise en Place

more 1920s research links

very loose overview of New Orleans race relations 1890-1920

how NOT to write about Voodoo

reminder that "alastor did magic in life" is a headcanon until we SEE him using magic before he died—also "Voodoo" is a religion not a magic power

how Alastor avoided getting caught as a serial killer

I doubt Alastor was famous enough for queer historians to have discovered he existed, only niche radio broadcast historians know about him

Alastor was raised to be courteous to (respectable) women, but not to genuinely see them as equals in a modern sense

1920s hair facts and headcanons on Alastor's hair

scene from one of the above fics of baby Alastor being haunted as shit

Alastor is a hedonistic thrill killer not a mission-oriented killer

his killing method was shooting from a distance, like hunting game

Alastor was kinda psychic in life and his psychicness interacted with radio signals

this includes developing a hella accurate sense of time

Alastor's always been hella into Mardi Gras

here he is in a ridiculous Cajun Mardi Gras costume

how the Great Depression probably affected Alastor

Alastor feels 0% empathy for other people but 500% empathy for fictional characters in musicals

For Sir Pentious:

he was so infamous that today he's a common character used in historical fiction in the same way that Victorian-era historical fiction commonly uses Queen Victoria as a character

(and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle references him in a Sherlock story)

(and he really did call himself Sir Pentious in life)

(and every character who lived after him had to study him in school, including Vaggie writing a paper about him and Alastor was cast as him in a school play)

(and now let's talk about historians dying and meeting the people they studied in Hell)

he has a son who's probably now in heaven

Sir Pent is trans

no seriously he has a son

Sir Pent has a chain of deadnames he used before settling on "Sir Pentious" and all of them are snake puns

one of Sir Pent's chosen names

based on Victorian sexual mores Sir Pent probably got kinda homoerotic with some dudes

this is just big Trans Sir Pent energy

what did Sir Pent look like (and Alastor)

I don't think Sir Pent used a wheelchair in life (but do think he had to for a while after he died)

Sir Pent is Pussyeating World Champ no I do not accept arguments

Sir Pent and his wife were very loving until his wife went "nope, you're planning world conquest, that's too evil for me"

he rigged his clothes to self-combust so he could choose death if he was ever on the verge of capture

his wife was named Helena and here's why

this is his self-destruct binder/corset

the one headcanon everyone shares

Sir Pent ain't Jack the Ripper

And there's a ton more headcanons on @dontasktheradiodemon my Alastor ask/RP blog but listen, I just went through 42 pages of one tag and it's 3 a.m., I'm not going to comb my roleplay blog for every premortem headcanon I've ever mentioned about him over there. It includes stuff like "he did deliberately shitty horoscope readings on air" and "the first time he summoned a demon he was on the Western Front and also coming down with Spanish flu so he's not sure how much of the ensuing chaos was real vs fevered hallucinations or how much was the Germans' fault vs the imp's" and "he lived a few years in New York and did drag."

These are not the only headcanons I have. These are just the headcanons I've been asked about or made time to type down. (And not counting all my postmortem headcanons. Or the premortem headcanons sprinkled into postmortem fics.) Feel free to ask me for more. Ideally with a topic you'd like to hear about; otherwise asking me "do you have any headcanons?" is like walking into a library and asking "do you have any books?" Gimme a section to start with.

#alastor #sir pentious #hazbin hotel #headcanons #reference #anonymous #ask

113 notes · View notes

dreadlockholiday · 3 years

Text

Stucky Fic Rec List #1

by @dreadlockholiday

Hello! I've been reading a lot of wonderful fics lately so I thought I'd make a rec list they all very much deserve to be in! <3 If some of these creators I didn't tag have a tumblr, please let me know.

Note: these are all COMPLETED FICS.

Rec List #2 coming next Monday!

🍄 Dreaming of Him by Loneliness_of_Evening - [Mature; 36,5k words]

[Modern AU; Nanny!Steve x Mobster!Bucky; Bottom!Bucky; Major Character Injury; Car Accidents; Recreational Drug Use]

New York City hosts millions of different people living vastly different lives. Some people are nannies who dream of being artists, and some are mobsters who dream of being more than the big guys’ drivers. A chance meeting—rather a chance game of nose goes—brings these two people together, and a simple knock at the door becomes fate. But can fate avoid disaster? Or will they both be left alone with only dreams?

💐 Cape Jasmine (I Love You In Secret) by @donbeavers - [Mature; 19k words]

[Modern AU; Office Romance; Secret Admirer; Misunderstandings; Implied Bottom!Bucky]

Cape Jasmine: I love you in secret; I am too happy; you are lovely; a transfer of joy

The last thing Bucky Barnes expected at 26 whilst living his gay and very single life was to find a bouquet of flowers on his desk on Valentine’s Day.

But it seemed like he had unknowingly caught the eye of somebody. Someone who loved to send him many flowers and beautifully written letters.

If only now he could figure out the mystery of who was behind it all.

💸 a fistfull of dollars by Ginny_Potter - [Explicit; 5,7k words]

[Pre-War; Explicit Language; Internalised Ableism; Explicit Sexual Content; Mentions of Prostitution]

Bucky cocks his head to one side, questioningly. “Would you?” he asks.

“What?” It’s almost a squeak now.

“Pay me that much.”

Or, in a fake it till you make it scenario, Steve and Bucky keep paying each other for a sweet, sweet time.

🐚 Part of Your World by @greyhavensking - [Teen; 7,4k words]

[Fantasy AU; Mer!Bucky x Prince!Steve; Drowning; Suicidal Thoughts; Happy Ending]

Crown Prince Steve Rogers has known all his life to avoid the perilous sea, lest he fall victim to the dangerous Mer who occupy the wild waters. But in the aftermath of his mother's death he finds the only thing that can soothe his aching heart is the siren song of the sea, and in his grief he's heedless of his mother's warnings, walking the beach every night in order to feel something other than dark and lonely and lost.

He is not the only one escaping his tumultuous thoughts these nights, though, and nothing -- not even his mother's well-meant wisdom -- could have prepared him for how this meeting will change his entire life.

🚕 Taxi by @oh-i-swear-writes - [Teen; 5k words]

[Shrunkyclunks; Taxi Driver!Bucky; Meet-Cute]

Bucky Barnes was, he hoped, a good taxi driver.

He's so good, he actually tries to return lost property that ends up left in his car and... well. It has some unexpected consequences involving a National Icon.

Enough said.

🍩 Ollie Meets Bagel by thedishandthespoon - [Teen; 5,5k words]

[Shrunkyclunks; Skater!Bucky; Meet-Cute; Mentions of Mental Health Issues; Blushing Steve Rogers]

He was a skater boy, Steve said let's get bagels, boy.

Steve wants to start doing this twenty-first century thing properly. He gets help in the form of skateboarding, skateboarders, bagels, and Sam Wilson.

🍸 That Girl's A Genius by jehans, art by @capdeady - [Explicit; 18,9k words]

[Canon Divergence; Oblivious!Steve; Sub!Bucky; Bottom!Bucky; Brief Bucky/Nat; Pegging; Feminization; Lingerie; Jealousy; Happy Ending]

Natasha looks up at Bucky with an evil look on her face, and before Bucky has a chance to say hello or ask her what she’s doing here, she smiles like a shark and says, “I have a plan.”

Bucky lets her in.

“A plan for what?” he asks, gesturing toward his sofa to invite Natasha to sit.

“To get Steve to pull his head out of his ass,” Natasha answers, “and finally act on how he feels about you.”

Bucky stares at her, blinking. “How he what?” he squeaks. Very dignified.

Steve waffles, Bucky pines, and Natasha schemes.

🍽️ You Make My Heart Skip A Beet by @musette22 - [Teen; 3,8k words]

[Shrunkyclunks; Chef!Bucky; Meet-Cute; Awkwardness; Fluff and Humor]

“I made soda bread.”

Steve lets out the 6’2” supersoldier equivalent of a squeak. “Oh, I love soda bread,” he says eagerly, rolling forward on the balls of his feet like he does when he gets excited. “My mom used to make it all the time when I was growing up.”

The tips of Barnes’s ears turn red, and he mutters something that sounds suspiciously like, “I know.”

🌍 summer slipped us underneath her tongue by cydonic - [Mature; 10,7k words]

[Modern AU; Tour Guide!Bucky x Himbo!Steve; Meet-Cute; First Dates]

Bucky is a tour guide who enjoys sharing the rich history and culture of each city they pass through with a bunch of early-20's college students who just want to know the cheapest place to get drunk.

Except for Steve, who asks Bucky for a personal tour around his hometown.

The rest is, as they say, history.

+ Bonus Series

🌠Top Down Dynamics by SucculentHyena - [Explicit; 2 works; 6,2k words]

[Canon Divergence; Dom!Bucky x Sub!Steve; Bottom!Bucky; Top!Steve]

-> Sweetheart, Ease Down - [1,7k words. Cock Warming; Restraints; Crying; Praise Kink]

-> Acquired Uses - [4,5k words. Service Top!Steve; Pet Play; Edging; Overstimulation]

#stucky fic rec #fic rec #stucky fanfic #rec list #dready's fic recs

129 notes · View notes

hiiraya · 3 years

Text

i like you (more than i thought i would) (rewrite)

masterlist

pairing: robin buckley x reader

words: ~2,101

warnings: mostly fluff and being a gay mess

requested: nope :p

a/n: we've reached 200 of you wonderful people following this blog!! thanks for taking time out of your days to read the mess i post ♡

“If you think I'm believing a single thing you just said to me, you're out of your mind.”

She said, shaking her head at the taller boy as she wiped the counter.

"I'm telling the truth!” He persisted, glancing around the room before leaning closer to her to whisper, "you know, she's gay too."

She only rolled her eyes in response, turning away from him to start sorting the returned vcr's that had come in.

It hadn’t been the first time Steve had tried to play a prank on her, and she was smart enough to know when she was being played with.

"Yeah, okay, dingus."

He huffs when she dismisses him again, throwing an old receipt that was laying around on the counter at her, sticking his tongue out like a child.

"Believe it or not, Buckley, it's true. My sister - my twin sister - is coming to have lunch with me today."

"I guess I'll believe it when I see it."

Even though she told him that she didn't believe him earlier that morning that he had a sister (a twin sister to be more exact), Robin had been on the lookout for the other Harrington sibling.

If she even did exist.

Imagining a more feminine version of Steve, she had to wonder if you two shared the same personality. If you were just as confident and outspoken as your counterpart, or if you were the complete opposite.

She didn't really know what to expect, but when the time finally came and you walked through the door, all expectations Robin had flown out the window.

While Steve's style was more casual with his plain t-shirts, light-washed denim jeans and thin bomber jacket (Robin swore she'd never seen him wear any other jacket) - you on the other hand, were the complete opposite of your brother.

There you were, wearing a black t-shirt with some rock band that Robin had never heard of before, paired with black jeans that were ripped at the knees. The worn leather jacket around your shoulders making you look so out of place, yet the air of confidence you had around you made it feel like you owned the place.

The similarities were there, it wasn't hard to see that you two were clearly siblings, but that didn't stop Robin from glancing back and forth between the two of you.

“You ready for lunch, Steve?” You questioned, pushing the sunglasses currently resting on your nose up to your hair as you walked to the counter where Steve and Robin currently were. ”I’m not waiting all day for you."

Your older brother tutted and shook his head, and Robin could only stand there in shock because no way were you two related.

Absolutely no way.

"I'm still older than you, Y/N/N," He chided you playfully, before turning to face her. "By the way, this is the Robin I was telling you about.”

You turned your gaze to her direction and nodded your head in acknowledgement of Robin’s presence. She said nothing as you rested your forearms on the counter, the action alone making her cheeks heat up because how can one sibling be so smooth and the other so hopeless?

Also, Steve had told you about her?

“First of all, you’re only older by 20 minutes,” You retorted, narrowing your eyes facetiously at your older brother.

"And secondly," You begin, turning your attention back to Robin (who at this point was still standing there with her jaw lax at the interactions between the two of you). "It's nice to meet you."

If you were shocked by Robin suddenly grabbing Steve by the arm and saying yeah, wow, okay, Steve can I talk to you for a second? you didn't show it, allowing your brother to be dragged away to what you assumed was the back room.

"That's your sister?"

Steve had the audacity to look smug, and if it wasn't for her having a mental panic she would've punched him in the arm to get rid of the smirk on his face.

"I told you she was real."

She could only huff in retaliation. He was right. He did tell her that you were real, but he forgot to mention just how much of a character you were.

Besides, wouldn't it be a little weird to be attracted to her co-worker/friend’s younger sister?

"Fine, she is real, but you didn't tell me she was--"

"The complete opposite of me?" The taller boy teased, thoroughly enjoying watching this flustered side of Robin come to light. "Wouldn’t have guessed that bad girls were your type, Robin."

If Robin wasn’t red before, she definitely was now.

"It’s not my fault your sister is hotter and has more game than you do, Harrington.”

Robin followed Steve back out to the front, still obviously flustered that Steve had easily called her out on her visible attraction towards you.

Unknowingly to her, the taller boy already had something planned up his sleeves.

“I’m ready to go for lunch, but I just have one question for you, Y/N/N," He says, clapping his hands together as he approached you.

"Are you free on Saturday?”

Robin watches you look up from where you had been sitting, eyebrows furrowing in question.

“Yeah, I guess? I’m going to be in town for a little while. Why?”

Instead of answering your question, Steve nodded before facing her, that annoying, knowing smirk back on his face.

"What about you, Robin?"

“Yeah?"

The two of you could only watch as Steve grinned, the expression on his face only making you more confused while Robin felt the heat in her cheeks rise once again as he made eye contact with her.

"Perfect! Unfortunately, I have a shift on Saturday, but you two have fun on your date.”

“Date?”

She expected you to refuse, after all, who accepts to go on a date with someone you've never met before?

She expected you to roll your eyes and berate your brother, Robin already imagining how you would tell Steve to stop playing around, I came here so we could get food.

Honestly, she expected you to do anything other than say yes.

But when you only shrug your shoulders, and turn to face Robin, you surprise both her and your brother by tilting your head to the side and smiling.

“I've never turned down a date with a pretty girl," You say, with a grin that could rival the sun (but Robin thinks she's a little biased when she thinks that). "What do you say, Robin?”

She looked at Steve (who merely winked at her, and she knows that he's deliberately playing match maker) before back to you.

It didn’t help that you weren’t bad to look at, scratch that, Robin knew she was attracted to you the moment you walked into the store.

One date couldn’t hurt right?

"I guess it's a date.”

I'm going to kill Steve.

She doesn't normally wake up with murder on her mind, but the fact that your date was only a few hours away, she couldn't help but blame the nerves on the person who had set up the whole thing.

As much as she wanted to call you throughout the week and cancel the date, very much regretting the fact that she agreed to this date without a second thought, she knew that Steve would talk her ear off about how she ditched his sister and frankly, she’d rather just get the date over and done with if it meant he would shut up.

So when you showed up at her door at exactly 6 o'clock and not a minute late, just like you told her, Robin tried to ignore the nerves that had been present ever since she woke up that morning.

“Hop on.” You told her while holding out a black helmet. You were still wearing that worn leather jacket (what was it about the Harrington's and never owning any other jacket?) that made her speechless the first time she saw you.

“You want me to get on that?”

She watched you glance down at the 1982 Triumph motorbike that you were currently straddling, before looking back at her with a raised brow.

“Yes? Come on, I’m won’t let anything happen to you.” You say, gesturing to the helmet again while you gave her a comforting smile.

You only smiled wider when she took a step further, helping her put the helmet on and securing it on her head. Robin hoped that you couldn't see the way her cheeks had heated up when your fingers brushed against the underside of her chin, but the way you were still watching her with an admiring smile on your features.

“I’m holding you to your word, Harrington.” She mumbled, taking your offered hand to help her get on the seat.

“Just keep your arms around me, and we’ll be there before you know it.” She heard you say while you position her arms around your waist.

She couldn't help but lean into you when you situated her arms around you, the closeness of your bodies making her heart race a little. For someone who looked so intimidating on the outside, the more she was around you the more she could see that it was just a façade.

"You cold, Buckley?”

She watches you secure your bike and put the helmets away, all while having a smirk on your face. If she ever doubted you and Steve were siblings before, the smirk definitely said it all.

The sun had gone down by the time you arrived, and it didn’t help that the wind whipping past while you were driving made it feel like Robin had just walked into a freezer.

"Shut up."

You let out a small laugh, but nevertheless you shrug off your jacket. Taking a few steps to stand by her side, draping the heavy fabric over her shoulders.

“There, now you won’t get cold.”

Robin swore she’d blushed more around you in the thirty minutes she'd spent with you than she had in her whole life.

She felt her pinkie brush against yours, and before she could think about whether or not you would think it was too forward of her if she were to hold your hand, you had already laced your fingers with hers, the warm of your palm tethering her to the moment.

“Rides first then food? That way we don’t throw up anything we eat.”

All she could do was nod and let you lead the way.

Maybe it was because you were Steve’s sister, or that she barely knew you that Robin doesn't want to admit just how much she doesn't want the day with you to end.

Maybe.

The blush that stained Robin’s cheeks from the moment you helped her put the helmet on refused to go away even after hours had passed since then.

As much as she tried to deny it, she loved being pampered by you during your time together.

The whole night you were there by her side. With you hand in hers, or on her side, or on her arm, you made sure that she knew that you were by her side the whole time.

For all your tough guise you liked to show, you sure weren't afraid of looking like a complete fool trying to win her a big bear in one of those impossible basketball games where the hoop is too small for the ball to fit in.

She liked you.

More than she'd liked to admit.

But she had to remind herself that you weren’t staying for long. That no matter how much fun she had with you, you wouldn’t be in Hawkins forever.

"Are you staying in Hawkins for long, Y/n?”

With her hand still in yours, she tightened her grip just a little while she met your eyes.

If you could hear the reluctance in her voice you didn’t show it, only squeezing her hand back in return.

"I wasn't planning on staying for long," You admit.

“I’ve never really been one to stay in one place for too long but something's telling me that maybe I should."

She could practically hear Steve already teasing her for being ‘lovesick’ for his sister, but with the way you were looking at her now - with such warmth, like whatever was budding between you two was something that you wanted to last.

"You should."

If the smile you gave her, told her anything, it was that she wanted this to last too.

#robin buckley x reader #robin buckley imagine #robin buckley x harrington!reader #stranger things imagine #my state's back in lockdown for 3 days #so now i have time to write and post #hopefully open requests once i finish all the rewrites #which should be soon

156 notes · View notes

fictional-semantics · 3 years

Text

fictional-semantics: writeblr (re)introduction!

hi everyone ! So I’ve been getting some new followers recently, and I kinda realized that I never actually did a writeblr intro, so here it is!

who am i? i have no fucking idea bro

my name is gray!

i’m a student, and a queer bag of gender-dirt (she/they pronouns are what i go by)

i’ve been on this hell-site for about a year and 3 months now.

my favorite genres are fantasy, contemporary, mystery, and anything dark academia. on top of novels, i also write music and slam poetry

i have 4 WIPs (currently) and im outlining a 5th

in other words, i hate myself! :D

about my writing

- most of my wips are fantasy, magical realism, urban fantasy or literally anything that has fantastical elements

- I like playing with moral compasses and complexes

- I’m a sucker for a good found family trope (bonus if it’s dysfunctional)

- like me, most of my characters are ✨QUEER✨, sarcastic, and emotionally damaged

- character arcs and development are things I try to focus on

- and I LOVE symbolism

what have i written?

// for the lost (working title) //

a dark academia fantasy that revolves around six unlikely friends-- a charismatic shapeshifter with haunted eyes, a transgender elemental with clouded loyalties, an untrusting and intelligent archer who never misses a shot, a deaf swords-woman who can hear everything but the world around her, a healer with anger issues and something to prove, and a boy whose magic is the very thing that ruined his life-- as they race to to unravel the cause of the mysterious disappearances of their fellow magic users. but one of them harbors a secret turmoil that may consume them all, and nothing is as it seems...

central themes/TW: mental health, aftermath of trauma, slow burn, queer rep, dark fantasy, murder, ANGST, LOTS OF SYMBOLISM

status: querying!

beta reading: complete

intro post: here

// above heroes {formerly the archetype file} //

a superhero/mystery YA novel that follows a forensic science major as he decides to track down the superhero that killed his father before vanishing. but he knows that the hero isn’t truly gone.

in order to unmask him once and for all, he enlists the help of his best friend, his ex boyfriend, and a reluctant vigilante who wants nothing to do with the murky schemes they unknowingly unearth. and as loyalties are questioned and as strange clues begin to piece themselves together, it becomes apparent that there’s more to his father’s death than meets the eye, and beyond anything he ever dreamed.

central themes/TW: enemies-partners-to friends-to enemies-to-lovers, be gay do crimes, murder mystery, ANGST

status: drafting

beta reading: accepting applications!

intro post: here

// hao’s house of souls //

a light fantasy revolving around the slowly crumbling life of Poe Thisbe, an aspiring botanist as she finds herself forced to work with a soul eating wizard and his magical hybrid charges in order to free herself from a dangerous bargain. but in the process, she discovers there’s far more to any of them than meets the eye— including herself

central themes: fairycore gays, flower symbolism, enemies to lovers, found family, plant magic, strange dreams, mythological and magical creatures, witty sarcasm

status: drafting

intro post: here

// anaklōthō (working title) //

a story retelling the myth of achilles. the trojan war is still brewing under the streets of new york, and achilles has just been reborn. but his host isn’t going back into battle quietly. lots of sun symbolism and lots of greek words. mythology retellings in modern society. hopefully some pretty prose :3

status: planning

// as i fall //

a dark academia fantasy featuring a castle that comes alive, and the ghosts within that decide that justice is overdue. time to possess a mortal girl

status: daydreaming

and I have some other stuff that I’m planning to talk about later.

so uh that’s basically everything !

tagging some mutuals: @aelenko @writing-with-melon @andiwriteunderthemoon @writingbyjillian @peepos-prose @reininginthefirewriting @wordsbynathan @the-starlight-chills

if you’re a writeblr, interact so i can check out ur profile and shower you in enthusiasm :3

#writeblr #writeblr intro #writeblr reintroduction #writeblr community #writing #original writing #creative writing #writers of tumblr #fantasy #feel free to hit me up #wip intro #writeblr introduction #my projects

154 notes · View notes

pridewhatpride · 3 years

Note

omg pls talk more about GX rival shipping once the transfer students come

Dear anon, I love you for asking this of me, but I have to wonder if you want everyone who follows me to start hating me.

Long post coming up? You know it. I apologise to all Johan fans, he's great and I loved him and his deck as a child. Now I'm just salty because he's too perfect. Warning because this is a mess of unrequited feelings and it's an all around bad time if you ship anything in gx. I did mention I do not practice self care in a previous post of mine. Enjoy your pain c:

So here are my bad takes of the day, under the very handy cut!

You see, gx rivalshipping becomes a lot more complicated and angsty when the transfer students arrive. The dynamic changes. If there is a dynamic at all. I mean, imagine yourself in Manjoume's shoes. You've lowkey had a crush on this dumb guy who kind of ruined your life (but actually improved it and freed you from the restraints your family imposed on you), just to watch a handsome scandinavian dude who is a lot more muscular than you are and maybe a little bit nicer, maybe just waltz in and completely captivate said dumb guy's attention. Just when you had managed to admit your own feelings to yourself.

Johan comes in and steals the room, everybody loves him, he's good looking, charismatic, kind and has a magical exclusive shiny sparkling deck at his disposal that he uses as if it was the most natural thing in the world, like he hadn't received approval Pegasus himself on top of the duel spirits. And Judai clearly can't get enough of it, because he's always seeking him out, ever since the duel they had in front of everyone, and Manjoume finds that he's really annoyed by it. He wishes he'd been chosen for the demonstration, deluding himself into believing that if he'd won, Judai would have never started caring so damn much about Johan. But a part of him knows he would have probably lost and that even if he hadn't, Judai would have not cared about the outcome at all. It's nice to think that winning a card game can solve all your problems, but, while Manjoume has only ever experienced how much losing one can mess with your life goals, he isn't stupid enough to think that winning would grant him happiness. Not anymore. No well-thought-out strategy can rid him of his bad temper and his worthless pride.

The thing is, he can't really hate Johan, because nobody can hate Johan. He's just the perfect picture of everything Manjoume isn't and, going by everyone's reaction, the fact that 'everyone is unique in their own way and worthy of love' is absolute bullshit. There clearly is an objective better one of the two and Manjoume is very aware that he isn't it. And he'd probably begrundgingly be cool with it, after all he'd accepted that Jaden was braver than him, that Asuka was emotionally stronger and more resolute, that Daichi was smarter, not to mention how much plain better than him his fomer upperclassmen were. Forget about pros like Edo, whom Judai had stood on equal grounds with. But Judai is clearly playing favourites, too, hell, he hardly even acknowledges Manjoume.

He finds himself forcibly removed from his already shaky position as rival, because now Johan is there to take it up, on top of the titles of 'best friend' and 'emotional support and crutch' and 'maybe something else I'd really rather not know'.

Manjoume just generally hates it all. He might have changed and improved himself, but there is no saving him from the fact that some people were just better. That doesn't stop him from trying. But again he finds himself pitted against Judai, the irony of his fate never giving him a moment to rest. Manipulated and turned into the enemy of those he cares about, again.

A part of him despises how good it feels to learn that Johan has gone missing, but Judai is screaming like his arms have been torn off and while he hates that it's all for Johan, he hates that Judai is in pain even more. Judai had saved him before and it's only right for him to return the favour. So he insists on helping him on his stupidly risky plan to save Johan. And it's all to get the old Judai back.

...The rest, from Manjoume's perspective is a mess. His feelings of anger stem from the hatred he harbours towards himself and the bond between Judai and Johan. He'd been trying to help, he had, he sincerely had, but everything just swirled together and the next thing he knows is that he is shouting at Judai because it suddenly made sense to guilt trip him over the fact that he'd abandoned his friends, he'd abandoned him as soon as someone better had come into the picture. And it was Judai's fault for letting them- him believe that he cared when he didn't, when he couldn't have cared less, because clearly he had one priority only and that was Johan. They had come to help and it still wasn't being appreciated.

Disappearing is a relief, for a moment, but then he finds himself in another hellish place and he can't help but think that it's retribution for being so upset over something that has nothing to do with him. That's right. It's his own fault for making Judai, his only real friend (aside from Fubuki, sorry for breaking the immersion, but I love Fubuki), carry the burden of the stupid hopes that came with his feelings. Judai has no fault. Johan has no fault. It's his own for desiring something that would always be out of reach.

As he is tortured by his own thoughts and regrets in the other dimension, Manjoume silently wishes his words meant nothing to Judai, that he'd be spared the pain of betrayal. He wishes Judai can achieve his goal.

When Shou appears to him, he knows there is no time to waste. If he is alive, the others are, too. Judai would want to know that they are safe. So he asks Shou to carry his message, along with his good luck wish. He hopes it's enough to make up for his mistakes.

Next thing he knows, they are back at DA, Judai is nowhere to be seen. Manjoume mourns the loss of his first and only friend and curses himself for tarnishing that memory. (Judai's return and season 4 would be too much to cover, this was only Manjoume's pov and I might as well just rewrite the entire show at this point.)

So what about Judai?

I personally want to believe that he genuinely does like Manjoume at some point. But as much as it pains me to admit it, season 3 just wrote Manjoume off from the list of main characters and relegated him to 'he's your funny comic relief, nobody really gives a shit about what he thinks or feels, so why should you, the spectator who has grown to love him, care at all? Also here's his sticker that confirms that Judai going after Johan makes him really angry for some reason, make of that what you will c:' (fuck the writing staff, I'm not even sorry).

Judai is so clearly smitten with Johan. It seems to me that his refusal to accept Manjoume's help that one time on the cliff shows that Judai doesn't really understand the way Jun operates. He probably labeled him as just someone else who counted on him to be saved. And sure, Manjoume is saved by Judai in multiple occasions, but he doesn't ever really... ask for it? Or more importantly expect it. He doesn't get himself into situations he can't handle because Judai can save him anyways, the trouble just kind of happens at him and more often than not he's only involved by accident, because he happens to be close to Judai.

The problem still stands, as season 3 starts, Judai is very much burdened by everyone's expectations and Johan is a breath of fresh air and the only one Judai actually considers a friend and an equal. It's heartbreaking that he felt that alone.

They get their gay 'have we met somewhere before moment', they duel gaily, they homoerotically tell eachother how admirable the other is, they shamelessly flirt and whoohoo Judai has an unofficial boyfriend and who can blame him for concentrating on him along with wanting to escape the pressure his former gang unknowingly laid on him.

But yeah, Judai in season 3 has a one track mind and it's hard not to see it as romantic. Does he know it is? Maybe? I honestly don't know. I feel like Johan is the one of the two who is aware of the implications of their interactions. Which also kind of brings me to say... does Johan think that all of Judai's friends are horrible people? Because he never once comments on how Judai distances himself from them once he arrives. He probably thinks they were never good friends in the first place.

Judai probably excuses his attentions towards Johan with the fact that they are alike because they can see spirits, but then he rememebers that so can Manjoume and maybe he feels guilty for a second, but Johan cracks a joke and Judai laughs and thinks to himself that Manjoume is probably happy to have the peace and quiet he so often claimed to want.

Like... I think a part of him would get that tightness in his chest because it's like he's betrayed someone, but he knows he hasn't, because there isn't any actual mutual agreement he's going against. So he lets himself fall deeper into the comfort of Johan's presence. Johan is, to Judai, the ideal person. He is exactly who Judai wants to become. Judai admires him very deeply and strives to be more like him, but he falls gradually into despair as he learns, once Johan is gone, that no, he can't be like him, because Johan is so much better than him, and if he doesn't get him back soon he might even forget what he was like in the first place. Johan can't be erased, can't be forgotten. And Judai feels like he's vanishing already, so he throws himself into a wild interdimensional manhunt to save his hopes for the future.

Turns out that wanting to do good doens't always result in a good outcome. That's what Judai learns when Manjoume lashes out at him just seconds before disappearing. Along with the others, too. Judai doesn't even have the brain power to compute that some people are still there, that he can still save someone, because he realised then that he had focused so much on Johan that he'd completely overlooked the fact that while his friends relied on him a little too much, they hadn't meant any harm. And if he'd just told them, maybe they would have been fine, they could've cooperated- but Manjoume had told him that he was a traitor, that he'd doomed them with his irrational behaviour.

Manjoume's last words to him had been spoken with hatred and Judai realised only then that he had misread him entirely. He lets despair and self hatred take over as he realises that if he had managed to hurt the ones he cared about so easily, discarding them for the new good thing, he could just keep doing that. And it would stop hurting, eventually.

I like to think that Manjoume really does have an impact on the awakening of the Supreme King. Yeah, I know he only turns once Johan's death is mentioned, I know. I just suffer from abandonment issues and can't stand that Manjoume dying in front of him is more impactful to Judai than a guy who literally can't be trusted saying "Joke's on you, the one you're looking for is in another castle already dead."

So yeah. That's the angsty overview.

TL;DR Johan is an Adonis, Judai is smitten and Manjoume is very very heartbroken. But actually so is Judai. Because while being with Johan feels right, there's someone whose absence feels wrong, but he doesn't allow himself to dwell on it and everything goes to shit. All around a bad time for everyone and they'll have a lot of talking to do once they properly reconcile after graduation.

#blame anon not me #i advise you don't read this even if i spent actual hours on this #projection time #ygo #yugioh #ýgo gx #yugioh gx #judai yuki #yuki judai #jaden yuki #manjoume jun #jun manjoume #chazz princeton #gx rivalshipping #mentions of spiritshipping #like it's basically canon in the show no way around it #ulri doesn't like johan and it's time to get cancelled for it #enjoy your pain anon #i'm legit so fucking sorry

29 notes · View notes

lea-andres · 2 years

Text

While we're discussing how disasterously gay the Sonic girls are, here's one of my favorite Sonic characters playing D&D headcanons.

If you were to ask Sonic (the forever DM, lol) which campaign he's running is the most chaotic, he'd say the Curse of Strahd campaign he's running for Amy, Tangle, Whisper, and Jewel. The ONLY REASON they're the worst is because he made the terrible mistake of showing them the picture of Ireena Kolyana in the book, and they all agreed she's hot and are trying to score with her. (And not in a "they're duking it out for her affection" way. In a "trying to form a harem" way.)

If you're unfamiliar with Curse of Strahd, the whole campaign is happening because Strahd is trying to force Ireena to be his evil vampire queen, SO THEY'RE UNKNOWINGLY TRYING TO STEAL THE MAIN BAD GUY'S GIRL AND SONIC CANNOT WAIT TO REVEAL TO THEM HOW MAD THEY'VE BEEN MAKING STRAHD LOL.

Sonic also can't wait to show them Ezmeralda, because he's pretty sure they're all going to try to bag her too. But Ez is a badass vampire hunter, so she's far less disasterous to hit on. 😂

#sonic headcanons #amy rose #tangle the lemur #whisper the wolf #jewel the beetle

10 notes · View notes

jyndor · 3 years

Note

if you don't mind elaborating, how does the fandom infantilize Bodhi? I'm genuinely curious because I don't want to make that mistake even unknowingly

hey anon good question! I tried to answer this quickly but I can’t help myself I’m wordy.

so you know how people will say things about characters like “uwu soft smol baby boi”? when someone assumes a character is soft (and lbr childlike) when they are queer (and also this goes for asian men and neurodivergent people) and then like plays up that softness and smolness and uwuness? that is infantilizing a character.

and fandom’s characterization of bodhi can sometimes fall into that soft, smol shit. and given that bodhi hits at least two but probably three of the groups most often infantilized (mlm, neurodivergent/mentally ill people, asian men) we need to be extra mindful of how we talk about him. because whichever way it cuts it can be offensive.

I’m not sure which part of bodhi fanon came first - that he is soft and smol, or that he’s gay and/or ace (which are the most common ways I see him represented). I wasn’t in rogue one fandom spaces until maybe a couple years ago so I don’t know how that evolved. if it was just like queer people headcanoning a character as queer and then everyone going with it, hey cool that’s the dream LOL but usually what happens is not that. usually what happens is that slash shippers, mostly straight women tbh, take a template of their favorite kind of slash ship (usually based in stereotypes about mlm) and then shove two men into that template even if they don’t really fit it.

and bodhi does not fit the smol soft thing. he just doesn’t. like if you watch the film, he’s a fairly extroverted guy, brave as fuck. I mean he defects from the empire because he wants to get right by himself, that’s amazing. he is witty, like actually pretty funny. when he gets tortured by that thing which should have been deleted tbh, he’s out of it for like ten minutes onscreen and then pretty much seems to have no real leftover symptoms from something that was supposed to turn his brain to soup. he does seem to have some anxiety and may be a little scatterbrained, but it’s hard to tell if that’s from the torture or if it’s just part of his personality.

yes, he’s vulnerable and honest and good. yes he is sensitive to others’ emotions. and yes I think he’s queer as fuck. these things can all co-exist. but if you look at a male character who exhibits those traits and think “gay” because of those traits, and usually it’s subconscious, that is infantilizing and homophobic. and if you look at a man played by a british pakistani actor and think “soft smol boi” that is infantilizing and racist.

and quite frankly as someone with mental illness I loathe when people assume we need to be coddled, so thinking he’s smol and childlike for maybe having trauma or anxiety? infantilizing and ableist.

in rogue one fandom it’s so weird because for once the mlw ship is actually the most popular ship in the fandom. so slash shippers aren’t really the ones making most of the content. usually bodhi/[insert man here] and chirrut/baze are secondary to jyn and cassian (which I would like to discuss on another day because we do need to address that), so their most obvious characteristics are what get highlighted. bodhi often is incredibly anxious and defenseless - which aren’t necessarily infantilizing on their own. not everyone likes to fight (jyn and chirrut) or is a master assassin (cassian and baze) and bodhi isn’t seen in the film doing any of that so it stands to reason that he might not be a seasoned warrior XD

but when it’s the ONLY thing someone says about bodhi, like the only thing we see him do is get bullied by other rebels (for reasons~ even though like many of them are defectors and also I can’t imagine that the rebellion is full of bullies but idk) and the others have to protect him from harm, that can come off as infantilizing. it depends on how it’s done and how he reacts.

anyway I hope that helped.

#anonymous #asks #bodhi rook #rogue one #fandom critical #fandom racism #ableism #homophobia #if anyone has anything to add lmk #also i am neither a mlm nor an asian man so like ymmv #with how much you care about what i have to say XD #also also please do not look up infantilization fucking christ i found a whole new bunch of blogs to block

32 notes · View notes

rachelbethhines · 4 years

Text

Tangled Salt Marathon - Rapunzel’s Return Part 1

We’ve finally made to season three and the entire reason why I made this review series. This season features some of the worst writing I have ever witnessed in a television program. And this season kicks off with the third worst episode of the whole series. Rapunzel’s Return is the iceberg that sinks this show and manages to assassinate everyone’s character.

Everyone’s.

Summary: Inside the House of Yesterday's Tomorrow (as seen off screen in "Rapunzeltopia"), Cassandra is greeted by the Enchanted Girl, a spirit who reveals that Cassandra is the biological daughter of the late Mother Gothel, who abandoned her on the night she kidnapped infant Rapunzel. Enraged that Rapunzel has been (unknowingly) overshadowing her for the entirety of her life, and that she will always be unfairly overlooked, Cassandra snatches the Moonstone Opal, absorbs it, and declared Rapunzel's destiny as her own. She manages to escape from the group and cuts all ties with them, with Rapunzel unable to wrap her head around the entire situation. The group returns to Corona and find that it has been taken over by Varian, who has aligned himself with Andrew and the Separatists of Saporia to erase the King and Queen's memories and enslave Corona's citizens.

Plot Hole Number One: Why Would Cassandra Just Blindly Follow A Ghost While Trapped Inside a Haunted House?

Outside of that one snarky remark, Cassandra never stops to question the literal ghost who is bossing her around. The ghost she met in a creepy haunted house. A haunted house that she was already suspicious of before ever going in and that has tried to kill her and her friends many times now.

Cassandra, the most distrusting and cautious of of individuals in the show thus far, just suddenly decides to leave her brain behind from this point forward for no given reason whatsoever.

If you have to dumb down your main character and have them behave OOC in order to get your plot rolling along, then you haven’t a good plot.

Plot Hole Number Two: Cassandra Sees for Herself How Awful Gothel Was to Her Here, So Why Would She Obsess Over the Woman?

Forgetting for a moment that Cass very well knows that Gothel treated her best friend like shit and tried to murder her other friend, Eugene, as evidenced by Quest for Varian; Cassandra can see for herself right here that Gothel is a crap person who never treated her right.

I mean there’s denial, and then there’s flat out stupidity. Cass being hurt by the this reveal is one thing. Cass believing that Gothel really loved her and blaming everyone else for her death is totally another and not based in any kind of sensible logic.

Plot Hole Number Three: Why Would Gothel Even Have a Child to Begin With?

Look, I’ll accept that the flower can deage Gothel enough for her to get laid and bare a kid, but that only brings up the question of why she would keep said kid?

She kept Rapunzel cause she needed her powers in order to stay alive, but Cass? What reason would she want to have Cassandra around? A baby can’t do chores for you and it's a hell of a lot of work to raise one. Plus the show repeatedly tells us over and over again that Gothel doesn’t really love her or even likes having her daugther around so... yeah, what is the point of this? Why didn’t she just drop Cass off at an orphanage to begin with?

You can’t make this type of reveal and have it go against the what we fundamentally know about the characters without explaining why they would partake in such actions.

This is Manipulative Writing

But of course the real reason why this flashback and “twist” exists is just to manipulate the audience into feeling sorry for Cass. It’s not here to actually enhance the story, further the characters, nor answer any mysteries in any real way. That’s why it’s such a poor plot point.

It’s setting up the viewers to have a bias so that they’ll more readily forgive Cassandra for her irreprehensible actions later. In short, it’s the same bullshit that the writers pulled for Frederic back in season one. Only it makes even less narrative sense here because this ‘tragic backstory’ is so divorced from later events in the story.

It’s also flat out lazy because all it’s doing it slapping Rapunzel’s backstory onto Cass instead of letting Cassandra be her own character with her own battles and character development to have.

And before you say, “well that’s the point”, then let me tell you it’s a stupid point. One that makes zero sense for the character and is insulting to the audience’s intelligence.

Plot Hole Number Four: Why Didn’t Gothel Just Stay Hidden Till the Soldiers Left?

Hell, why did Gothel even come back here? We already established that she doesn’t really care about Cass and it’s a plot point that’ll only be further reiterated as the season goes on, so why? Why would Gothel behave like this? How does this help her in her goal? Gothel’s suppose to be smart remember?

Plot Hole Number Five: How Does Any of This Logically Help Zhan Tiri?

So Zhan Tiri is the blue ghost girl and while the series tries to keep it a secret reveal for later, it’s pretty obvious from the get go, so I’ll just be calling the character by her name.

Anyways, Zhan Tiri’s plan is to show Cassandra her past, in order to make Cass angry enough to steal the moonstone and fight Rapunzel, so that the two powers fighting each other will then release her from her interdimensional prison.

Now ignoring how literally none of that was set up nor previously established, and ignoring that Zhan Tiri’s disciples were trying previously to stop the sundrop and her friends from getting to the moonstone, thereby undermining their master’s plan; just how exactly is any of this suppose to work?

Why would showing Cassandra how her mother was a shitty person somehow make Cass angry at Rapunzel, angry enough to try and kill her even, and somehow keep her angry for months on end, in order to fulfill this clearly illogical action that holds no personal benefit to herself?

I don’t mind Cassandra becoming a villain; I just want it to make sense.

This does not make sense.

Not only does it require incredible leaps of logic and Cassandra acting out of character to work, it also depends far to much upon conquincidence and things playing out just in exactly the right way to benefit Zhan Tiri and her poorly laid out plan.

Would it not have made more sense for this “evil master manipulating worlock” to just, you know, lie?

Like shouldn’t she be trying to make Gothel look good? Shouldn’t she be trying to make it all seem like Frederic’s fault (which it mostly is anyways)? If you want Cass to attack Corona and turn against Rapunzel, then why not lie about their involvement or tell some half truth?

Or better yet why not make Gothel and actual complex figure for real?

Ugh... I got to move on from this point, but believe me, we will be back to this dumbfuckery in later episodes.

Plot Hole Number Six: You Can’t Just Ignore that Cap Exists and Is the One Who Raised Cassandra for Most of Her Life

Like I’m sure finding out that you mom was a piece of crap who abandon you hurts, but that doesn’t automatically erase the fact that Cass’s dad was there for her, raised her, and loved her for the majority of her life. I’m not saying that Cap is perfect, but he at least tried to do right by her (and is consequently the best parent in the show) and Cassandra is old enough to recognize that fact. Pretending otherwise is a disservice to everyone. It’s a disservice to the Captain, to Cassandra, to Rapunzel, to Gothel, and to the viewers watching along with this BS.

Trauma Doesn’t Make You Suddenly Stupid

Look, I’m not downplaying Cass’s trauma here. She is allowed to feel upset and yes trauma is painful and effects us all in different ways. Also yes, past trauma can carry on through into adulthood and still harm you.

However that’s not an excuse for hurting others. Cass’s trauma isn’t any less traumatic than any of the other characters’, but neither is it somehow more important than any of theirs. She doesn’t get a free past to step on people just because she was sad once.

Cassandra is, once again, old enough to know this and more importantly smart enough to realize that what happened in the past, if even true, has nothing to do with what she is currently dealing with right now.

Like why is she believing any of this? Why is she still listening to the suspicious ghost that she met in a magical house that’s tricked her and her friends numerous times before? Why would finding out her mom was shit make her turn that anger against her best friend? What does any of this have to do with her current struggles with trying to build up her career or staying friends with Raps?

Remembering past trauma does not make your brain shut off. Even having a mental breakdown or panic attack still does not render you completely senseless and anything done under extreme pressure like that is temporary. You don’t wind up acting bananas constantly for over a year.

As a woman who suffers from complex-PTSD and is an abuse survivor myself, Cassandra’s story is deeply offensive to me. Not the least of which because it actively dumps her down.

This Is the Point Where Cassandra’s Character Gets Assassinated

Like I said in the opening, everyone’s character gets assassinated in this story. Cassandra just happens to be the first to die and it’s right here with this line.

Not only is this line incredibly cringy and poorly worded, and I have to just feel sorry for the VA here cause there’s no way to make this much stupid sound good, but it’s also completely divorced from what’s going on.

Cassandra is suppose to be explaining to her friends why she’s stealing the moonstone and her answer is “I’m this dead bitch’s daughter”? Like oookaaay, and that has what to do with it exactly?

Did Gothel have any connection to the moonstone? Does stealing the moonstone somehow bring her back or fulfil her revenge? What does grabbing the moonstone actually gain Cass and what does that have to do with her dead abusive mom?

The reason why Cass doesn’t work as a villain because she has no goal nor reason for doing what she does. She just lurches from plot point to plot point with no idea of what she is doing nor why she is doing it.

But watch as the show keeps digging in its heels and keeps insisting that Cassandra’s connection to Gothel is totally a sympathetic motive even as it makes less and less sense every damn time it's brought up.

What Does Destiny Even Fucking Mean Any More???

What Destiny?!

There is no damn destiny. There is no prophecy to fulfil, no world to save, no consequence for just having everyone sitting on their asses for two whole seasons. And even if there was a destiny to even steal; why would Cass even want it? What does actually she gain from any of this? And how does any of it connect back to Gothel?

This Should Have Been the Point of Resolution Not the Inciting Incident for Their Break Up

Look no idea is without merit. You can make the stupidest sounding idea engaging if you present it right.

This was not presented right.

If Cassandra being Gothel’s daughter was to hold any meaning to the story, then it needed to be what brought her and Raps back together again, not what broke them apart.

Rapunzel says it right here. Logically this should be common ground for the two of them. There’s no real reason for Cass to direct her anger at Rapunzel over this.

But this show doesn’t care about logic, reason, or treating it’s audience with intelligence. It’s just flashy bullshit “drama” that pretends to be deep but is really a shallow puddle once you stop to think about it for two seconds.

Let’s Talk About “Sisters”

Cass’s face just says it all doesn’t it?

The creator, Chris, wanted to make a story about two “sisters”, because he has two daughters and he thought that would be inspiring and speak to little girls everywhere.

It’s a nice sentiment. Shame he’s so utterly incompetent at it.

There was no build up to them being sisters. Instead all we got was a bunch of meaningless parallels and a very toxic friendship. Even with the Gothel reveal the connection to them being siblings is tenuous at best because there’s no biological relation and more importantly, they weren’t raised together.

Chris is basically trying to rip off the likes of Frozen or Guardians of the Galaxy here with Raps and Cass’s relationship but it doesn’t work when the two siblings in question didn’t actually grow up together. There’s no reason for Cassandra to project her anger at their abusive parent on to Raps because that parent wasn’t the one to actually raise her. And on top of that, said abuser is dead, and both her and Raps have separate guardians in their lives, so the jealousy angle doesn’t work either.

And to make it all the more confusing, Chris failed to inform his crew of this brilliant plot twist, so we now have two seasons of gay baiting put in by the storyboard artists hitting that Cass is in love with her “sister”, And because the hardcore Cazzpunzel stans are the only fanbase that hasn’t given Chris the boot, there’s still even more gay baiting to come.

Why are We Victim Blaming a Baby?

Seriously, Cass? You are twenty four and have a brain. Why are you blaming someone for being kidnapped as a baby? What kind of sense does this make?

Worse, there’s plenty of real shit Cass could get angry at Rapunzel over and this is what you go with show?

If anything Rapunzel should be the one who is pissed here. Cass got to escape and lead a normal life with a loving father all because she got kidnapped as baby. And now said bitch is trying to gaslight her while stealing the very thing she’s been risking her life to grab for a year now.

No You Haven’t Cass

Once again, you got to live a normal life with a loving Dad. You had plenty of chances to build relationships and further your career for 18 years while Rapunzel was trapped in a dang tower, and Rapunzel returning from said tower didn’t cut you off from anything. In fact Rapunzel being rescued from the tower actually presented more opportunities for you and you spent all of season one climbing up the ranks.

There’s Nothing In the Show to Back Up This Statement

Nothing is at stake. There’s no threat here other than Cassandra herself. Cassandra is dranger to the world here not the moonstone. If you wanted it to be the other way around then you should have kept the rocks active during season two.

So Why Didn’t We Go With the Original Set Up From Season Two?

As said before, there are real reasons that were set up during season two that could have motivated Cass.

Rapunzel is irresponsible and can’t be trusted to save the world

Rapunzel is a shit friend and Cass is better off going her own way and leaving everyone high and dry.

Cass’s hand was injured by Raps and the moonstone might be able to heal it

Cass sees the injustice in the class system and wants to fight back against the royals in order to help everyone, not just herself.

Cass might believe she’s stopping Zhan Tiri and not realize she’s being manipulated by her instead

Or is playing along with Zhan Tiri under the idea that she can stall for time figure out how to stop her.

Cass wants to play her and use the power of the rocks to save people only for it to go wrong later.

Possession (which was the original idea in the concept stage)

Like I said, there were plenty of ways to make this work. In fact some are so dang obvious that you’ll hear Cass fans try to claim that a few of those are what her real motivation was despite the the show clearly going against them later. The “fighting against the class system” is a real popular one despite the fact that Cass herself attacks a bunch of poor people repeatedly and doesn’t seem concerned about anyone but herself.

But I digress.

The real reason why we have this bullshit is cause Chris doesn’t want to hold his favs accountable. Rapunzel’s flaws can’t be called out in any meaningful way and Cass gets a convenient scapegoat in Zhan Tiri.

In short both Cassandra and Rapunzel have their agency stolen away from them by the narrative, while still trying to pretend that they’re “strong independent women”. Even though those two things aren’t compatible at all.

What Exactly Have You Been Denied Cass?

Remember Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?

Lance, Eugene, and Lady Caine were all denied physiological and safety needs while growing up in an orphanage and then later on the streets as a thieves.

Rapunzel was denied psychological needs while being raised by her abuser.

Varian was denied everything on that dang list.

Cassandra tho?

Trauma or no trauma, Cass was still raised in a safe and loving environment for the majority of her life. She, at best, has been denied “self-fulfillment” needs and even then that’s a stretch cause throughout season one we see her time and time again gaining what it was she wanted.

Cassandra isn’t anything special. She’s not suffered any more than anybody else in the show and in fact has lived a pretty cushy life when all is said and done, especially when compared to other characters in the show.

The worst that she has to complain about is working a crappy job for a little while and having a shit mom that she can barely remember. Boo Fucking Hoo.

Note How Easy It Is For Cass to Control the Rocks Here

The show can’t even keep Cassandra’s powers consistent. Like everything else about the character, Cass’s powers come and go as is convenient for the narrative with little explanation as to why.

This Song Doesn’t Work Because It was Cut In Half Due to Time

I’ve talked about the problems with this song before in my songs from TTS ranking list. It’s choppy and consistent. Yet it only feels that way because it was cut down. It’s missing a full other verse, second chorus, and a bridge.

Which is inexcusable because there’s so much dang filler in this show!

We could have had time for the full song if they had just cut one of the non-essential episodes and made all of this a full episode on it’s own. Just save the Corona and Varian stuff for later if need be.

The management of this show is just atrocious.

Why Wasn’t This the Cliffhanger for Season Two?

Speaking of making all of the Cassandra stuff it’s own episode... Everything we just seen should have been in season two.

It’s more connected to what happened last season, it flows better, it would have had more time to breathe, and it would have given us more time in the Dark Kingdom. Given as that this is what season two was building up too, it would have been more satisfying there.

And if the writers still wanted a cliffhanger to end the season in order to draw crowds then this right here was it.

So We We Spent A Whole Season Getting Here and We’re Just Going to Leave Now?

The Dark Kingdom is Wasted!!!!

And because the Dark Kingdom is a bust, the entirety of season two now feels even more pointless.

Chris said he cut the Dark Kingdom stuff because it didn’t interest him.

Chris is a fucking fool.

Ignoring that different people will gravitate towards different things and you need to keep that in mind when writing for mass audiences; you don’t spend valuable time setting things up just to drop them later.

If you didn’t like that particular plot thread then you needed to just not bring it up to begin with. Once you’ve put it in there you need to commit to it.

Behold the Only Thing Useful Shorty Does This Whole Season

There is less Shorty overall this season which is ultimately a good thing, but it does highlight what a stupid decision it was to bring him along to begin with.

I mean did we really drag him around for a whole season just for this? Couldn’t some other Pub Thung or townsperson have found them? One that could talk.

Adria Gets Put on a Bus

Adria doesn’t get assassinated like some of the other characters, but she does get unceremoniously shoved off without any real closure. The character will return later in the season, but brainwashed and without any lines. Which is doubly insulting to the VA who voices her.

And Here Is Where Lance Gets Assassinated

Lance is drastically dumbed down in season three. Even more so than in past seasons. You could call it flanderization specifically, more so than assassination, but the effect is the same. Lance’s character is effectively dead from this point onwards.

Also this should have ended the Lance & Adria ship in the show for good. She flat out rejects him here, but nope.

Eugene is the Only Person Acting Like a Real Human Being This Episode Thus Far

Edmund spent his whole life protecting the moonstone. He lost everything to it. He was convinced that letting Rapunzel take it would be best only for her to lose it right afterwards. And what does he do? Immediately become the “comedicly bad dad” in show oversaturated with both comedic foils and poor father figures.

Meanwhile Eugene is the only one properly responding to what is going on. Don't expect that to last.

I Thought You Left Cass?

Remember that foreshadowing with Quirin way back in the pilot?

This is just that, but dumber.

There’s no reason for Cass to hang around out of sight only to stare menacingly at Rapunzel and company as they leave. It’s just a lazy hook to get viewers to believe that there might be more going on with Cass then what we’ve been told. There’s not.

So This Map Proves That the Dark Kingdom Is North East of Corona

Continuity and worldbuilding in this show is utterly garbage, so I’ll latch on to any little scrape of info that we get.

According to the map shown here, the balloon is heading Southwest back to Corona. That means the Dark Kingdom is Northeast.

So if Corona is somewhere in Northern mainland Europe that means the Dark Kingdom is either in a Nordic country (Norway,Sweden,Finland, ect) or Russia.

Meta Jokes About Being a Bad Writer Doesn’t Excuse Bad Writing

Get use to this. Season three is full of meansprited meta jokes that try to defend against the quite frankly valid criticism that the show has received. Or more specifically the criticism Chris had received.

Most of season three was written during the hiatus of season two back when Chris was seeing backlash from the fans due to his PR fiasco and that’s not even taking into account the crew walkout after season one.

Not only is that too late to be writing your final season, but it’s also reflective of how Chris can’t handle critique with grace nor listen to other ideas as jokes like this are in poor taste.

Everyone Acts Shocked Here but Honestly this Fits King Frederic’s MMO

This is the same guy who prosecuted poor people for eighteen years with his crack down on crime, and thrented the life an orphaned teen. Is anybody really surprised by this?

I Thought Your Real Name was Hubert?

I guess he just prefers the name Andrew. I don’t know. But what do know is that “the devil is in the details” is a thing my animation teacher in college use to say repeatedly, and no one working on this show seems capable of remembering or keeping up with details.

Why Are There Only Five Saporains?

Saporia was set up as an entire race of people who’d been displaced from their homeland for generations. They’ve been living as nomads for centuries according to season two. Why are there only five of them in this episode?

How did they overthrow a kingdom with only five people? How do they maintain hold of it with only five? How do they expect to further their bloodline and culture with only only five of them?

Why did we waste money on a bunch of one off villians that we sent packing in season two and not built more Saporian models instead?

Like you could have had the core five here, as like leaders, and then imply that there are more of them with background citizens and guards ect.

NO!!!

WE DO NOT IMPLY THAT A 15 YEAR OLD BOY WAS LOCKED IN A JAIL CELL WITH A GROWN MAN FOR NEARLY A YEAR!!!!!

I.... What?!

Who the fuck thought this was a good idea to put in a children’s show?

Did no one behind the scenes stop to think, “Hun, maybe we shouldn’t suggest that a teenager was trapped inside a small enclosed space with no way out twenty for hours a day with an adult who attempted to murder his girlfriend when lying to her stopped working. Perhaps someone might get the wrong impression.”?

Like I hate censors as much as the next person, but editors work in the business for a reason, and that reason is to pull the artists aside sometimes and go “Hey, that shit don't fly with normal folk.”

What’s worse is I don’t think the writers were even trying to be shocking and edgy here. I just think they were careless. They needed a quick exposition dumb to explain how Varian and Andrew know each other, and didn’t think through the implications of that line nor considered how Varian’s age changes the context of his situation.

Which is beyond inexcusable because it’s so damn lazy!

You wouldn’t need rushed exposition had you actually took the time to set up this plot point back in season two. Heck, you wouldn’t have needed to even set this plot point up had you not cut Varian’s original story out at the last minute. Finally, you should care enough about your characters to at least take their age into consideration when writing their development.

There’s also the fact that it makes most of the ‘heroes’ look like assholes.

We’ve seen these dungeons several times throughout the show. We know of their poor conditions. There’s little light, the food is slop, there’s no way to stay clean or use the restroom, prisons are never let out for exercise, ect. Like these are medieval style dungeons that are considered inhumane my modern audiences.

Just because the show tries to play off the horribleness of it for laughs doesn’t mean the audience is going to find it funny that they traumatized a fifthteen year old with it.... again!

Moreover Frederic had promised last time we saw him that he would give Varian help. He idea of ‘helping” Varian is supposedly to throw him into a nasty jail cell with a violent criminal? WTF? And there’s no indication that he tried anything to save Quirin either.

Not to mention that none of the mains act surprised by this revelation, nor comment about how awful Varian’s treatment is. As usual for them.

It’s just sicking and most of the atempts to explain away this line by the fans have been super pathetic.

“Frederic was giving him therapy while in jail” - there’s nothing to indicate therapy exists in this world and even if this were true it would be undermined by stupidly throwing him in a cell with Andrew.

“It’s not literal, Varian was in a separate cell” - once again there’s nothing to back this up and even if that were the case it’s not that much better because it’s still a dungeon cell with zero privacy and Varian would still be close enough to Andrew to talk to him thus invading his personal space to some degree or other.

“Well he tried to help but Varian wasn’t cooperative” - still not an excuse and there’s nothing on screen to back up this headcanon.

“It’s someone else’s fault.” - Who’s? Frederic is in charge of everything. The buck stops with him. If a guard did this without his knowledge then that means Frederic neglected his duties and his promise anyways.

“Well maybe it’s true, but Varian did a bad thing and teens who do really bad things get sent to prison in the real world too” - Not an argument. Teens aren’t typically jailed with adults and the conditions for modern jails are at least somewhat better than those in Corona. Plus kids being sent to jail in any form is major topic of controversy in today's time. I’ve already covered why trying teens as adults is a vile abuse of power in the real world; I shouldn’t have to mention that the current government throwing children in cages is a bad thing as well!

“Well that’s just part of the time period” - Doesn’t make it right, and sadly it’s not something in the distant past either. It’s currently happening right now in the US. It was happening when this episode and season was being written. The writers unthinkingly threw in a very real thing that affects hundreds of thousands of children and didn’t bother to follow up on it or comment about how wrong it is.

There’s just no excuse for the way Frederic and Rapunzel treat Varian in this show. There’s just not, and some of y’all really need to stop trying to do so cause it means you’re inadvertently condoning real life abuses of power.

You can like a character and except that they’ve done wrong. That’s a thing that you can do, you know.

Let’s Talk about Character Design

For the most part the art direction in the show is top notch. It really is the best looking animated show on tv today, and the character design is usually of this same quality. But they really dropped the ball with Varian’s design here.

The structural bones of it isn’t bad. Taken on it’s own it would be fine, but good character design is supposed to give context and enhance the story and this doesn’t do that.

We’ve haven’t seen Varian in a year, but instead of visually showcasing the passage of time by having him physically age we just get season one’s design but in bargain bin hot topic clothes and a drawn on barcode.

Even the color palette is wrong.

Varian’s is suppose to feature blues and earthy browns to go with his eyes and hair but instead we get bright reds, neon chimballs, and sharp contrasts with blacks and whites that just clashes with his base colors.

And what does any of this tell the audience? How does it add to the story? What can we glean from his new design about what transpired in the last year?

Nothing.

At best it just reinforces that villian Varian is a try hard edge lord, but we already knew that. We would have known it even without the villain arc cause he’s a teenager. Not that he looks it. The boy is supposed to be either 16 or soon to be 16 and he still looks fucking 12.

What’s more they spent money on this. They made not one, but two new models with two new outfits, but they couldn’t be arsed just to make him a little taller? And no, he’s not actually any taller in season three. He was always Rapunzel’s height regardless of animation errors and squash and stretch techniques.

It’s a waste. Just like nearly everything in season three.

This Is Such a Cop-out

Speaking of things being a waste. Wiping Frederic’s and Arianna’s memories is taking the cowards way out. It’s them escaping any sort of meaningful consequence for their past actions and robs them of the chance to grow and develop as characters. All cause Chris didn’t want to deal with people pointing out the bullshit his self insert caused.

Well guess what, I’m still pointing out Frederic’s BS, only now I’m extra angry cause I was robbed of a genuine character arc, so fuck you!

Was Varian Actually Needed for This Plot?

No really. What does Varian even do here? The wand of oblivium is Saporian magic and they could and apparently did wipe the king’s and queen’s memories without Varian’s mindwipe concoction. That alone apparently gives them the power to run the kingdom.

All Varian does is give them some alchemy based weapons and a bomb he accidentally invents. Both are things that the Saporians could have made themselves given how they know apothecary according to Rapunzel Day One.

I’m currently in the middle of writing an AU fanfiction where Varian winds up in another world before the events of this episode, and let me tell you it is incredibly easy to write him out of the majority of season three without changing the plot much.

Given how Varian is meant to be a main character this season, that’s not a good thing.

So How Come None Of the “Heroes” Give a Shit?

Like I said above, none of the protagonists show the least bit of concern for what Varian is going through. Even though ignoring his needs is precisely what lead to this mess in the first place. It not only makes them look heartless, but it also makes them look plain stupid as well.

Why is it so hard to just even pretend to care about the fact he’s been orphaned? Half of them are orphans themselves for fucks sake!

Varian’s Not the One in Charge Here Rapunzel

I know Varian is the bigger threat and has more of a personal connection to Raps, but it’s pretty clear that Andrew is the mastermind behind this coup. What good does shouting at Varian do? What makes Rapunzel think that any of the Saporians would listen to him even if he did change his mind? What makes her think ordering Varian around after she helped ruin his life would get him to change his mind. Like, my gosh is Rapunzel dumb!

Why Are We Victim Blaming a Child Soldier?

That’s what he is at this point. He’s a weapons specialist for a rival kingdom fighting for control of the government. A government that has abused its own people leading to such an uprising.

A teenager may not be as blameless as a baby but it's still beyond callous and cruel to blame kids and young teens who join extremist groups in war torn lands out of desperation.

Is This Suppose to Be the Inciting Incident for Varian’s Redemption, Cause If So, That Makes No Sense

This look of regret is the only indication that Varian is questioning where he stands before his redemption in part two. Except there he points out that he’s been thinking about it for while now, even before Raps showed up. Only there’s nothing to suggest why Varian would suddenly change his view point and motives. So the audience is still in the dark about his thought process even with this “hint” and I use that word loosely.

Conclusion

So that’s the end of part one. I hope to have part two up before the week is out.

#tangled #anti-rapunzel #anti-cassandra #anti-tangled #varian #tangled the series #rapunzles tangled adventure

112 notes · View notes