Two new WoT theories about Galad, one Watsonian and one Doylistic.

Doylistic: People super underestimate what a minor character Galad actually is, probably because Sanderson promotes him in ToM/AMoL. His first PoV in the RJ books is the KoD prologue, and otherwise he only appears on-page 1) when Rand visits Caemlyn, 2) when Egwene and Nynaeve go to the White Tower, 3) the infamous quarterstaff duel, and 4) when Elayne and Nynaeve run into him in Samara and he's become a Surprise Whitecloak. Everything else is people talking about him! Given the repeated hints he's romantically interested in Egwene and/or Nynaeve that go absolutely nowhere, plus at least one prophecy/viewing that does the same, I think that RJ may have rejigged his role in the story around TFoH.

He's a goldmine of interesting connections to main characters (Rand, Elayne, Egwene) that don't pay off, and when he does take centre stage in ToM it's about his relationship with Morgase (established, significant to him, but SHE is quite a minor character) and a new enemies-to-allies arc with Perrin which...comes out of absolutely nowhere if we're being honest. Perrin already had a Whitecloak to have an enemies-to-allies arc with! He didn't need another one. Justice for Dain Bornhald. RJ kinda moved away from the Arthuriana stuff by mid-series and I think Galad, Walking Arthurian Archetype, suffered from that.

Watsonian: I will make it super-clear that I think everything that follows is because RJ simply wasn't thinking about Galad that hard outside of his role as the Galahad archetype. NEVERTHELESS.

As @butterflydm noted elsewhere, there's not a lot of reason for Galad to be at the White Tower (much less to argue to stay there when Elayne leaves, as he does) and the more I think about it...for someone who is nearly 30, he's extremely adrift from all the normal markers of adulthood and status in his culture. Morgase doesn't appear to have given him any significant responsibilities within Andor, even though he's treated otherwise as her son. He doesn't seem to have inherited estates from Tigraine or Taringail that he could be administering (a la Gareth Bryne in retirement in TFoH). He's arguably in line to be High Seat of either Mantear or Damodred, or even a candidate for the throne of Cairhien, but he's not apparently considered for any of those. Readers are often surprised at how old he is because he's presented as equivalent to Elayne and Gawyn, literal teenagers not yet old enough when the books start to take up their future responsibilities outside of the emergency situations that later occur. Notably, although Galad expresses clear romantic interest in multiple women through the series he's not married or a parent, though again he's more than old enough. (That last is definitely a Galahad-archetype thing.)

So my "canon doesn't support it but canon leaves room for it" new theory is that this is actually on purpose, because like spare sons of royalty before him he's an incredibly tempting target for conspiracies, especially out of Cairhien. He has a close and loving bond with Morgase but she is very politically pragmatic and likely wouldn't want to put him in a situation where he could become the focus of plotting like that. And also...he would righteously report every plot to her unless and until someone managed to convince him that Doing The Thing, whatever it was, was actually the morally correct course of action. Valda achieves this pretty quickly, so it's clearly a possibility!

So, to sum up: Galad is unmarried, uncommitted, and available to be sent to the Tower in TGH because he's too much of a political hot potato to do anything else with. If he was bonded by an Aes Sedai that would probably be a perfect long-term career for him from a political perspective. Ironically puts him in a position, after all these years of Morgase protecting him, to be radicalised by Valda.

For the character meme, obviously: Nicky & Joe 😘

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!! thanks so much for the ask I immensely appreciate it!!!! <3<3<3<3<3<3

(also I went FAR OVERBOARD with this, I speak far too much when given the chance. Sorryyyyyyyyyy)

Joe:

First impression: Well, if it isn’t hot-but-dull Jafar. I know he’s gay in this one so that’s a plus point, but I’m not holding out much hope. He looks extra cute and fuzzy here though, that’s neat. (I want to clarify that I formally apologize to Mr Marwan Kenzari for having ever thought he couldn’t act, shame on me).

Impression now: *sobbing* He’s so GOOD and he’s so SOFT. He’s so full of love and passion and he can barely keep it inside and I’m honestly overwhelmed by how much I love this guy. Like, he’s so full of emotion and it’s so clear in his face at any given moment and that’s no weakness, that’s his strength and I just. Ugh. It’s so refreshing and great. Love is stored in the Joe. I wish real life had people like him.

Favorite moment: okay so it’s hard to decide because all his moments are great, but I’m going to go with the moment in which he waits for Nicky to wake up after Keane shoots him. You can see how he can barely keep inside the fear and panic he has when Nicky isn’t waking up, and then, when he does, Joe takes a moment to look aside and exhale before grasping him. Like he physically needed to let it out. I’m not sure if I’m explaining myself properly, but those couple seconds of body language fascinate me.

Unpopular opinion: It is entirely possible that it shows up in some secondary material that I just haven’t seen, in which case I’m dumb and I’m sorry for this, but I don’t think Joe is necessarily a poet? Like don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the idea of poet Joe and I do think he probably has an easier time around words than the rest of the Guard, but I’m not too sure where the idea came from? I think his speech in the ban comes out of the pure, raw love he has for Nicky more than any formal education he might have had about any of it. He’s just that passionate. I mean, not that I think it’s wrong of anything. I just think canon doesn’t give any indication at all about it. (plus comic Joe said something along the lines of ‘brewing the stew of love’ which is the most hilariously unpoetical thing ever lmao).

Favorite relationship: uuuuuhhhhhhhhhhh is it cheating to say Nicky? I’m gonna go with Nicky. I could go on for quite a while about his relationship with Nicky and I’m gonna spare us all having to go through that but I will say that as long as Joe and Nicky are alive the concept of romance just simply cannot die. They singlehandedly keep it alive and flourishing. 100000/10 best love story ever, I accept no criticism.

Favorite headcanon: Joe is a man who is, at any given moment, 110% in control of his own emotions. Like, he’s a emotionally driven man, no doubt about that, but he’s not impulsive in the least. When he was shouting at Booker, it wasn’t impulsive, he was angry as hell and decided to let him know. Then during the escape he shut it off and didn’t let it get in the way of cooperation, then let it out again. It’s like he has a valve on his own emotions that he willingly manipitales when he deems it right. He is very aware of his own emotions and just refuses to repress it for things like, pretending that what Booker did wasn’t that big of a deal, dude knows he’s entitled to be upset about it. Most emotionally mature and stable man on Earth.

Nicky:

First impression: I thought he looked soft and also sort of awkward-looking, but in a good way if that makes sense? tbh I expected him to be a nice character that didn’t get that much depth because he’d stay in the sidelines and only have a handful surface traits.

Impression now: I LOVE how hard it is to pin Nicky down as just this or that part of his personality, the way fandom usually does with characters. He’s soft and kind, but he will stay his ground and not let anyone walk over him. He believes in doing good as the purpose of his life, but he won’t hesitate to commit murder (Gotta wonder how exactly his moral code works). He’s warm and welcoming, but also sort of reserved and not saying much about himself. If you try to shove Nicky into any of the usual fandom archetypes, you’re missing at least half of his character.

Favorite moment: As with Joe, I have a hard time picking up just one single moment, bit I’ll go with the moment he brings up Malta. His whole demeanor while in the lab is fascinating, but I think it’s that particular moment that probably defines Nicky best. They’re in a very though and uncertain situation, and he brings up a fond memory to raise spirits, his own but mostly Joe’s. Idk, I feel like it shows that a) he’s very aware of how other people are feeling/thinking and wants to make it better, and b) he has, at his core, hope (in this specific situation, hope that they’ll make it out, but it relates to his belief that they have a purpose).

Unpopular opinion: I tbh don’t think that time in Malta was a sex thing at all. I in general don’t read them as a particularly sexual couple, but even if they were, I doubt a sex vacation, of any kind, would be something that stands out that much in a relationship this long. Whatever Malta was, it’s a secret between them and I honestly like that.

Favorite relationship: See, this is why I felt like saying Joe’s favorite relationship was Nicky felt like cheating. Because I’m going to answer the exact same thing. I mean, is there any other option, really. Really. The answer is no and we all know it. Anyway. Joe and Nicky lucked out in Immortal roulette and tbh who can blame Booker for being a little bit bitter about it. Anyone would be jealous of such PERFECTION.

Favorite headcanon: Nicky is the most spiritual member of the Guard (Nile is probably on par with him or even more, but she probably has a few years of faith crisis ahead of her). He has a solid belief in purpose and goodness which is much more firm than his original sense of faith, after centuries of questioning it. I also think that while he probably still maintains a somewhat christian view on faith, the years have eroded away specific religions from it. He’s sort of agnostic, but not in a ‘I don’t know if there’s a higher power’ way, but in a ‘I know there’s a higher power, but I don’t care what name it has’ way.

Both

Idea for a story: Okay I’m doing this one like this because it’s literally the same answer for both lmao. Excluding pieces of character exploration and missing scenes and stuff, I’ve got a fic (on semi-hiatus until I finish my exams) about ‘what if instead of speedrun enemy to lovers, they were DUMB and spent like 400 years pining for each other and not seeing the other is in love too’. I’m also lowkey thinking up a Dragon Age AU, which is more of an entire-cast thing that just these two, but of course their storylines in it go inherently together. It’s probably too big a project for me actually carry out lmao. But it’s there in my mind, I have backstories and character classes and everything in the works. Maybe someday.

instead of working on any of my other projects, my gift to you all today is headcanons about what halloween costumes the gang would wear

no reader this time!

Dutch insists on hosting the party, with almost no pushback. He wanted to do a themed party at first, but then no one could agree on a theme, so he got a little huffy and let it go. He dresses up like a classic vampire with a huge cape and one of his more playful suits, covering his face in white make-up (which he doesn't seal so by the end of the night it's runny, but he looks pretty good at the start of the party) and with a pair of plastic fangs that make him a little hard to understand the entire night.

Arthur, John, Abigail, and Jack are the first to arrive, before the party actually starts, so they can help dutch set up all the decorations and make sure the food is ready. Arthur is dressed like Frankenstein('s Monster), with surpising detail on his make-up and care to the prosthetics; it also gives him an excuse to 'borrow' one of John's jackets, making himself seem even bigger as it's ill-fitting. He also uses the costume as an excuse to not actually dance, when that starts up.

Abigail and Jack are in matching costumes, with her as a witch, complete with faux spiders hanging from her hat, milky white contacts (that susan makes her take out after a few hours when her eyes start getting dry) and emerald green skin. Jack is dressed as her black cat. Inititally the costume had been purely an outfit, as Abigail didn't want to put any make-up on him, but he'd started begging when she put hers on, and he ends up with a pink little nose and black whiskers. He also picks up the habit of meowing at people

John overheard Abigail talking about her and Jack's outifts and decided he wanted to coordinate his costume as well. Unfortunately he misunderstood just what she was going for, and ends going as Harry Potter. Abigail loves it anyway.

Hosea tends to center his costumes around what Jack's interests in recent years, since he usually takes him out for a second trick-or-treating in his and Dutch's neighborhood, and this year he's been noticing all the superhero trends. Namely he ends up as an unintentionally relevant Captain America, and Arthur and Mary-Beth end up tiptoeing around bringing it up all night.

Charles had been characteristically cagey about his costume, deflecting with a shrug or a 'dunno' whenever anyone asked, but when he comes up dressed like a mummy, he doesn't make a big deal about it, like they knew already. He doesn't do the the classic 'just tp around self' thing, but instead has one of those body-suits with a bandage-pattern on, and elaborate costume jewelry. He also has thick eyeliner, flashy blue robes, and the classic king-tut headdress.

Susan shows up to the party towards the beginning in her normal clothes, heading up to Molly's part of the house after she greets everyone, a large bag in hand. When she comes down, dressed like Maleficent with her hair tucked under the headpiece, and a fake crow on her shoulder. Molly helped her with the make-up, as well as the finishing touches on her costume, but mostly she'd just wanted moral support. Brushes off compliments with a huff, and before the end of the party she's taken off most of the make-up, since she'd been getting hot

Molly doesn't come down to join things until an hour or so after they've started (a little after Susan), but when she does, she's dressed in an elaborately crafted costume as the Creature from the Black Lagoon. She'd locked herself upstairs to perfect the make-up, blasting tutorials and jenna marbles videos to help boost her confidence as she had considered, when she wasn't ready 'on time', just giving up and half-assing it, but when she is finally satisfied with the costume she looks camera-ready

Mary-Beth ends up reusing the cosplay for her self-insert-turned-oc lord of the rings character from the sci-fi convention she last attended. She's a little embarrassed at reusing it, and apologizes at first, even though it's stunning, and everyone else insists, when she mentions that it's reused, that it's very apropriate, and stunning

Someone (Sean) promised to do a two part horse costume with Kieran, but then completely forgot and Kieran ended up coming as the back end, alone. He isn't all that upset about it though, and ends up holding the costume up with a borrowed pair of suspenders, turning it into more of a satyr costume instead

Strauss, not having realized that Dutch had already picked his favorite costume, shows up as a vampire as well. He's more of an 'authetic' vampire instead of Dutch's more stereotypical look, which seems more and more cheesy as the night wears on, especially next to Strauss' and his extra ex. His outfit is close to something his canon counterpart would wear, if frillier, and he also has his fangs glued onto his teeth, as opposed to simple plastic fangs, so he's actually understandable

If you thought Simon would show up as anything but a pirate, you're kidding yourself. He does it every year, but he does a different costume instead of just reusing the same one. This year he's an 18th century quartermaster and his saber is real metal, if blunted. He's a little more jolly than usual but gets somewhat cross if people give him grief for using the same concept yet again

Sean made a big deal about not doing anything edgy like in years past, and then showed up dressed exactly like Dutch. Hair slicked back and dyed, faux facial hair and beauty mark, he even 'sneaks' into Dutch's wardrobe to borrow one of his hawaiian shirts. He swears its a compliment, but then whenever Dutch's back is turned, he's doing a bad impression, much to the gang's delight

Karen and Tilly have a more subtle matching outfit concept- Karen dressed as a slutty nurse and Tilly as her zombie patient. Tilly's fake wounds aren't as elaborate as she'd initially wanted, but they last much longer than they would have otherwise, and when she acts the part of the costume, limping and tilting her head to the side, she looks very creepy.

Lenny's costume was originally Dorian Grey, but since there isn't actually a lot of physical components to the outfit, and the story is as much abt the portrait as it is the man, he doesn't really get recognized that much. Halfway through the party he gets Arthur to go out to pick a different comstume, and comes back as Dr Frankenstein! Will spend the rest of the night making obligatory 'Frankenstein-Frankenstein's Monster' jokes and goofing off with Arthur

Sadie wasn't exactly... thrilled about the idea of this part of halloween, just because she's not keen on the idea of a revealing costume from the store or putting together something elaborate (and expensive) that she's only going to wear once. As it is, she shows up a little late to the party in an impromptu lumberjack costume (with real axe!) and everyone ends up lowkey drooling over her anyway

Bill's werewolf costume is similarly half-assed, to... less than impressive results. The tears and fake fur glued to his old flannel aren't exactly as well done as they could be, and the cheap plastic fur starts to itch after a bit, but he's recognizable enough, and he ends up having a lot of fun

Josiah has something of a tradition of showing up in elaborate costumes of obscure characters from something he's become interested in, and not having the gang recognize him, much to his frustration. This year he's dressed up as Cecil Baldwin from Welcome to Nightvale, and gets mistaken for Eridan Ampora, 'someone from harry potter', and like three youtubers.

Swanson had been making on and off comments about dressing up as a demon when asked, but at the last minute chickened out and decided to do an angel instead. Unfortunately, the last-minute planning means that there weren't a lot of options available, and he ended up getting more of a sexy costume than he'd wanted. With a pair of white long john's underneath, the 'dress' doesn't come down to his knees and he feels incredibly awkward, but he sticks close to Strauss and Simon and is more relaxed by the end of the night

Javier doesn't initally come in much of a costume, just more elaborate make-up than usual and a little more black than he would otherwise wear, but when he sees everyone else's costumes he heads upstairs to piece something together from Molly's costume collection. When he comes back down as a sexy vampire, shirt pulled open and a trail of costume blood dripping down his chin, using a pair of glue-on fangs she'd gotten for Dutch (that he refused to use). Dutch is utterly exasperated at this point, and goes off to fume with Micah, but everyone else  applauds him for the quick turn-around.

Micah shows up to the party in a full-on fursuit. He gets upset when Arthur doesn't immediately know its him, and then starts complaining about how hot the costume is about half an hour in. He ends up switching with Uncle halfway through the party though, who forgot to get a costume and hanging out in the kitchen listening to Dutch complain, dripping with sweat. Uncle spends the rest of the party half in the fursuit, napping on the couch

‘game dedede’ is not a good person to ship escargoon with and here’s why

im glad my escargoon analysis resonated with lots of people. i saw some comments on it, which i feel the need to reply to because they’re on my post. a small few comments have been about the main focus of this whole multi paragraph crazed yammering; game dedede

(content warning: i talk about the horror comic killing stalking for four paragraphs. wow i bet this content warning doesn’t give mood whiplash at all)

now, game dedede isn’t much of anything. he’s a non-character, as he has no discernible personality in the games that isn’t really much of anything more than a catalyst for people to project a personality onto. as are all the game characters, because kirby isn’t focused so much on plot and indepth character development as it is about the gameplay. nintendo’s always been good at gameplay,  so they have basically stuck to what they’ve known and sprinkled small plot bits around places and entirely discarded anything other than hints personalities so that way they have an excuse for pure gameplay and fun to occur. it’s the same way with mario, and zelda, and usually basically all of their properties. yes, even pokemon, though usually when pokemon gets too plot heavy we get games like sun and moon, which are basically just cutscenes upon cutsc- 

what was i talking about? oh, right, game dedede.

game dedede is usually seen by the fandom as a variety of things, but the main one is nice. and by nice i mean he is usually portrayed as someone who is typically valorous and is doing the right thing, not someone who is necessarily pleasant, though some like to make him pleasant or jolly. if you know me or have even been on my blog even once on pc you’ll notice the cool deviantart stamp i got from one of my friends. i fully agree with the things it entails; dedede not being your typical uwu ‘do nothing wrong’ monarch that he’s often now plastered as because he did the whole ‘i help this cat’ in rtdl or because he wanted to keep nightmare from coming out of the fountain in nightmare in dreamland and.. whatever the name was of the game that it was a remake of.

people usually want to be able to root for the protagonist, and since dedede was a protagonist and / or in the right in a few occasions, we want to see him as a good guy doing good guy things. and there’s plenty of different ways to take that, as there’s both evidence for and against him being a morally light character. but that’s not really the point of what i’m talking about here. regardless of your own personal opinion on how ‘game dedede’ morally is, he is not a good person for escargoon to be with. there’s a reason why i said someone should be shipping him with an oc rather than game dedede, and it’s precisely because ‘game dedede’, even if he somehow zapped into the anime verse, would not be good to ship with him.

and it’s not based on chemistry or because game dedede is secretly or openly evil or something like that. it’s purely because escargoon is still a victim of abuse. and if you’re someone with a few braincells you want him to get out of that abuse and go find a new husband who’ll love and care for him. for escargoon to get game dedede seems to make sense at first because escargoon is so devoted to the anime one, but when you look at it, it’s not healthy at all.

this is essentially taking escargoon’s old abuser, wiping away all the ‘sins’ of his character just to make it so escargoon can date him. just so he can date an idealized version of his abuser. this person is quite literally just his abuser but with a mental coat of paint. 

allow me to draw comparison.

i’m going to go off here about a comic that i warned about at the top of the post. i’m not going to go too indepth about it due to the sheer nausea i might cause people if i do. it is a rather extreme example sheerly due to the content of said comic, but i can’t think of another better one off the top of my head. there’s a comic named killing stalking which was a big note for socio-political talk i think a few years back. it was a horror comic about a killer and a stalker wherein the murderer takes the stalker in, breaks his legs, and keeps in his house. the stalker, who already had sexual interest in his kidnapper, is abused due to various here and there reasons, and then after a while the comic begins the two’s sexual-romantic yet still abusive relationship. here’s the thing. the two of the characters are both men, so the relationship is gay.

many took to tumblr and various other medias smacking the comic for the display that it created (the comic chock is full of fairly nauseating things that are worth calling disgusting, but are expected of a shock horror comic) and the association it made between gay men and murderers, as well as making gay men look predatory and dangerous. normally said comic wouldn’t have been much of a problem or very noteworthy if it were about a straight pair, but it was about this Evil Gay Murderer Pair, so it was a source of controversy like shit is an attractor of flies.

despite the controversy that the comic had gotten, and the treatment in-canon it had of its characters being very clearly evil and in the wrong and clear deservance of being detracted, something strange happened. not in the comic, but in the people who decided to support said comic. people decided to support it for a number of reasons, one being that ‘oh it’s a horror comic i like horror despite what controversy or effects it may have on people’. i remember seeing it once, on my dashboard, i think. or back in the day when i was trying to figure out what the fuck was going on with this comic that everyone on my dash was just going to town on. people were shipping the two main, gay characters with eachother. and they weren’t doing it in a way that was ‘oh the murderer is so hot look at him in all this blood’ sort of way. it was in a much more.. ‘cozy’ position. it was fluffy. it was shown as cute. at first i thought it was because people were fucking weirdos, but i remember this one caption that has been recalled in perfect paraphrased clarity to me.

‘some people make aus to make their ships more angsty, but i’m out here making mine healthy lol’

people were taking the murderer, the main person who was causing the problems in the comic, and turning him into a loving husband for the stalker (who was shown as very mentally ill and in desperate need of love and attention). people were making the pairing that the comic itself showed as horrifying and awful to be fluffy and cute and devoid of any problems. so that way the victim was no longer hurt. it was an au. the murderer had a new personality, he was a changed man who never hurt anyone, so he was perfect for the stalker. that way, the ship could be had but there would be no issue whatsoever.

and to be quite honest, that’s what we have here. we have an offshoot of that. though obviously the source material is much less dangerous in our case, we still have a victim in desperate need of love in an abusive relationship with someone who hurts them. then, we have people shipping said victim with a new version of that abuser just to wipe the slate clean. just to keep the ship going without anyone objecting to it, because it can all be explained away as an au or what have you. though, i’m sure the ship in killing stalking was very much bashed by people (at least, i hope it was), while this one isn’t.

i can hear my strawman in the replies already going ‘well thanks for the tangent. but ching, game dedede’s a different person. he is legitimately a different canon than anime dedede, meanwhile this is people making things up that the canon doesn’t support. if you dated a twin you won’t apply the sins of the twin on the other one, would you?’ and if this were a real life situation, you’d be correct. 

it’d be wrong to place the sins of one twin onto another sheerly because one was an abusive asshole. but since is a real life scenario, putting a victim of abuse back with someone who looks exactly like their abuser would most certainly create extreme fear and panic in that victim. it wouldn’t matter if one of the twins hasn’t done anything, the potential relationship would forever be ruined and it’d be out of their control. and no one, no self respecting person, should ever have a victim date them if they look exactly like said victim’s old abuser. that’s just asking for mental troubles and constant panic attacks.

but that’s if this were real. it’s not real. this is video games and cartoons. it doesn’t come down to that, it comes down to us and what we decide to do, and what we decide to ship. these are not real people. we are putting them together for our own amusement because you’d think they’d get along. and doing this with a ship like this with game dedede says, to me, "I do not care if it is abusive in canon, I want to ship it anyways without any problems or people calling me out, so I’ll make it so people can’t do that by stripping the abuser of their abusive characteristics and make it so this abusive ship is all sunshine and rainbows". this is especially poignant if escargoon is stripped of all his abuse as well, allowing for him to be shipped more easily. it is quite literally going ‘nope’ when one is confronted with the very real trauma of a character and discarding it. don’t get me wrong, some things in canon should be discarded in some sources of entertainment, but a character’s abuse being discarded entirely for the sake of shipping just does not sit well with me.

of course, people who ship it are absolutely not thinking this maliciously when they ship discountdesuka, but that’s what it is irregardless of what they are thinking.

‘game’ dedede / escargoon is a ‘what could’ve been’ situation. 

it is an idealized version of dedesuka, one which throws a key aspect of escargoon’s out the door purely for the fluff and the cute gay moments that could’ve been. and sadly enough, it’s probably what escargoon dreams and hopes could happen (which is arguable because escargoon gets suspicious whenever dedede is nice to him), but it never does.

i understand why people do it. i know they don’t have some secret plan to be evil by creating secret abusive content that has hidden messages in it so everyone will ship abusive ships or something ridiculous like that, and if you thought that i thought that you’re very wrong. 

in some’s cases (as shown by the tags on my escargoon post), they want to reclaim a relationship which was blatantly homophobic in execution and turn it into something better. others just want a cute ship because their version of ‘game’ dedede is morally better than his anime counterpart, and wouldn’t hurt escargoon. they want to make wholesome content to drown out canon’s shows of abuse and negativity. which is understandable to want, but to show respect to the concepts the show puts out, isn’t something that should be embraced with ‘game’ dedede/escargoon. 

but there is no undoing what anime dedede/escargoon is in the show, and what it means to give escargoon over to ‘game’ dedede instead. ‘game’ dedede / escargoon is not abusive by any initial means, but it is still something that should not be shipped regardless.

it is disrespect to escargoon’s status as an abuse victim to  ship him with the same exact person who abused him and say it’s okay because ‘he has a different personality’. 

i am begging you. please ship escargoon with your oc or some other game character.

The a-yuan broke my heart, I was crying like the final flashback battle all over again but they were happy tears, ya know? THE LEG HUG!!! Also is it just my dumb self or was his costume slightly different between the walking and then the final playing in those final 30 seconds? Not lying it's perfect either way but oh if it's like a little while later I can't with my child. Also oh my goodness can that boy smile like a sunbeam, my heart has been restored from the PAIN, SO MUCH PAIN.

Also with bby!Nie I literally called it, I knew something was up I was screaming and hollering. Don’t get me wrong there’s enough in the flashback that yeah they’re all dumb together but there’s enough hints there, just enough. It was very well done that section. I’m being extremely vague in case the other anon’s still around. I literally love everyone on the show even though in some cases I really shouldn’t because… jsdjcsd they belong in the garbage can.             

Don’t get me wrong I sympathize with them very deeply in some cases but in other cases like dude I wanna slam dunk them in the garbage where they belong for very good reasons. They seem to have added a lot more gray into the live drama from what I hear, which makes it a bit easier in every case but the consent issues (oh god the consent issues, that’s not going to be fun). I’m glad I might still get to try the AD! Apparently it’s the same voice actors so it’s like a rewatch but more canon ;)            

THE. LEG. HUG. he’s just such a precious baby duckling! and he’s ALIVE! and my god lan zhan fucking RAISED HIS CHILD FOR HIM like that is devotion right there and he did such a good job he turned out so well like even before knowing WHO he was he was ALREADY everyone’s favorite of the juniors.

if you’re talking about between lwj and wwx walking away and then the final thirty seconds with the silence and then the music then yeah it was a different costume. so even after lwj and wwx split to fulfill their own separate duties in the end they still come back together like, lwj tracks him down and finds him again (presumably when his duties are finished and the cultivation world has recovered from that chaos) because they’re fucking cultivation partners and after they do what their honor and goodness demands they finally get their happy ending of just wandering around and doing good together and it makes my heart so full.

nei huisang!!! my little dark horse! yeah i don’t want to spoil it but hot damn.

and yeah i’m not gonna judge you for loving the garbage people like, book jin guangyao is actually one of my favorite characters. (i just find him so fascinating because so much of him is so understandably human that, a few of his crimes aside, i can actually totally understand him. so you end up asking like, what was the tipping point? what number of his mistakes or which of his crimes took him from redeemable to unforgiveable? in a universe a little bit to the left could he have been a force for good or do you side with nie mingjue’s opinion that after his first crime that he could never be anything else?) i like that in most cases the villains in this story are so very human rather than a caricature, like aside from wen ruohan and wen chao they actually have reasons behind the bad things they do besides just ‘oh well they’re an evil character.’

as for the grey morality, the live-action actually took away a lot of that in my opinion (likely due to censorship reasons, so i wouldn’t blame the production for that they very obviously tried as hard as they could to be as faithful as they could) at least as far as the leads go. it’s like they polarized it so like wwx was better and jgy was worse, but at the same time those changes made some of the minor characters a little more gray though i guess because they were minor it was okay? skip these parts if you’re wary of spoilers.

**the villains are more evil, the heroes are more pure. like the show glosses over it but in the book one of jin guangyao’s biggest contributions to the cultivation world is a watchtower project where small groups of cultivators rotate through garrisons spaced out along the countryside in order to make it easier for the people under their protection to get help and to reduce reaction times when they detect surges of resentful energy. like, he fought a lot of the sect leaders on this since setting up garrisons could (and likely was) a first step towards consolidation of power, but at the same time it did protect the commoners and rural areas that a lot of the others deemed unimportant enough to really care about. but because that distracts from his misdeeds the show left it out to make him more explicitly evil. (also the whole NOT MENTIONING THAT HIS SON WAS CONCEIVED BEFORE HE KNEW SHE WAS HIS SISTER AND THEN HE NEVER TOUCHED HER AGAIN, WHY DID THEY HAVE TO TAKE THAT OUT AND MAKE HIM COMMIT INTENTIONAL INCEST??? anyway i’m fine it’s cool whatever) but for the most part everything he does isn’t about power just for power’s sake the way it seemed to be for wen ruohan or jin guangshan, it’s the impulse of someone who was abused and powerless amassing power because maybe if he gets enough he can finally keep himself safe (and the tragic thing is that it will never be enough because he cares so much about what everyone thinks about him that he could never achieve what he would view as “safe”)

and the live-action absolves wei wuxian of…basically all his crimes except maybe having a bit of a temper and a sharp tongue. the whole ancient ancestor of a destroyed clan creating yin metal? the wens already practicing demonic cultivation with xue yang? none of that was in the book. wei wuxian wasn’t just a demonic cultivator, he was the genius who invented it. xue yang didn’t even come in until much later as an imitator. it’s like the difference between someone who uses a gun versus someone who invented the gun and introduced that kind of harm into the world. and no one interfered with his usage of the tiger seal at the pass with jin zixuan or at nightless city. wei wuxian really was just emotionally compromised and he lost control and yeah it wasn’t intentional but it did kill people and it was very much on him.**

so like, there’s a lot more grey in the novel and who you decide to hate and who you decide to forgive is very much of the “when is a monster not a monster? oh, when you love it” variety. so if that’s your bag you might really enjoy that novel.

yeah the consent issues… the consent issues feel in my opinion  like…unnegotiated kink? at least that’s kinda how i interpreted it to get through the sex scenes (and also i’ve read in this series of posts that some of those consent issues are exacerbated by the translation and were not necessarily in the original text). like from POV you can tell that what he says and what he wants are two different things and he definitely wants, but it is not something that would be okay to do in your real life as opposed to in fiction without a pre-scene negotiation and a safe word so the lack of that might be a trouble spot for some people. and if you’re sensitive to that then definitely skip the incense burner extras. if it’s something you’re worried about then i’d say read that series of posts to make an informed decision.

and the voice actor for the AD is the same for wei ying, but different for lan wangji. but the same for some other actors. the live-action took a smattering of different people from the AD and the donghua. but it’s really good and it follows the book canon super closely and the scenes they add are really good.

okay i’ve blabbed on enough at this point i apparently like hearing myself…type? that expression works less well in this context. but yeah, done now lol