you ever read the most popular fic in a fandom and finally understand why the common fanon characterization of your favorite character is Like That

˚₊𓆩༺🎸༻𓆪₊˚ — summer of 22', choso kamo

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐈. — WHO THE HELL LISTENS TO CLASSICAL MUSIC?

ᩍ before reading please be advised of the following warnings — female reader, written with black reader in mind, humor/crack, noritoshi & choso are cousins in this cause i said so, profanity, this is quite self indulgent and kinda my own assumption & characterization of modern day choso, mentions of choso having a scar, mentions of character death (reader's mom), record shop boss!geto lol, two idiots that bond over music | mdni, taglist, masterlist, other creations

chapter playlist | are you with that by vince staples, wait a minute by willo, the less i know the better by tame impala

JAPAN WAS VERY DIFFERENT FROM THE STATES. A huge cultural shock compared to your busy lifestyle in New York City. You still could remember your father’s long lecture about being aware of your surroundings, don’t talk to strangers, going with your instincts in some locations, and so much more. You would think you were still that young sixteen-year-old girl who was raised by their single dad after the death of her mother, but you were of age. In the fall you would be a graduating senior at Julliard, living alone in a lovely apartment in New York City, teaching dance classes when you had free time, and doing many adult types of activities. You were a functioning young adult whose father still wanted to shelter you away from the world as if you were a hopeless Rapunzel. 

It took some convincing for your father to let you go to a ballet convention in Japan for the summer, especially if he was going to be funding it. You planned to rent out a room, get as much knowledge as possible at this convention so you could be prepared for your senior year at Julliard, and then return home. Your father didn’t agree with that plan. He only agreed when your godmother Utahime Iori agreed to keep an eye on you. 

Utahime Iori was an international ballet superstar and your late mom’s best friend. They met when they both were competing for the lead in Swan Lake, which was given to your mom. But your mother stepped down from the role when she became pregnant with you. The friendship between the two still blossomed from your mom being in the front row on the opening night to cheer Utahime on to your mom even keying Utahime’s boyfriend's car while six months pregnant with you. Utahime would always admit to you that your mom felt like she was her twin flame. They were insufferable when they were apart and together. Such a close bond and your mom’s death took a toll on Utahime. It hit her like a truck hitting a concrete wall at full speed. It sucked Utahime’s love for ballet right away, but the woman still stuck by your side during the journey of your ballet career.

She held your hand as the people around you threw pity your way during the funeral. She defended your passion for dance to your father as if she was defending an important law case. She did your hair for recitals. She stayed up late helping you come up with your Juilliard audition piece. She played the role of your godmother so well that you knew deep down your mom was smiling down on the both of you. 

You were so excited to spend the summer in Utahime’s home country. You knew she was going to want you to practice for the ballet convention because every summer—a dancer is chosen to dance an original piece in front of many known people. From choreographers, dance tour coordinators, and of course, famous ballet royalty. You didn’t want this spot to be given to you considering who your mother was and the fact that Utahime helped fund the convention in the first place. She told you specifically that you won’t get special privileges, that if it’s a better dancer—they will not think twice about replacing you. That’s just how wicked the world of ballet was. When it came to ballet, you didn’t have time to cry about not getting the lead in a dance when the time you were feeling pity for yourself—you could be using it to make yourself better. Those were the words your former ballet instructor explicitly told you and those were the words you kept in your head up to this day. 

“We need to lay down some ground rules,” Utahime stated as she placed a plate of food in front of you.

“Please don’t tell me, my dad gave you some rules.” You whined.

“No, these are my own rules,” Utahime said. She sat down at the table clearing her throat. “Practice comes first. I don’t care what you’re doing, I text you to come practice…come! This is not like the states, the dancers here sleep, eat, and breathe dance.”

“Okay.” 

“No big distractions. I understand you most likely will want to mingle, you’re my very beautiful goddaughter—but please remember what you’re originally here for.” Utahime adds.

“No Summer flings, gotcha!” 

“Okay, I didn’t say that. Just be mindful of who you are flinging with.” Utahime corrected.

“During your free time, please don’t associate yourself with the wrong crowd,” Utahime adds. “A ballerina with a criminal record isn’t cute no matter how good you look in your mugshot.”

“Don’t get arrested, noted. Any other rules?” You took a bite out of your food.

“Enjoy your summer, but please be mindful of what you’re here for. If you get to dance an original piece, it will look wonderful in your portfolio for when you graduate next Spring and that’s the endgame.” 

“Of course! So, can I go exploring?” You eagerly asked. You gave your godmother those innocent puppy dog eyes that she has seen so many times since you were younger.

“Fine, but please be safe. I will be stopping at the dance studio, so when you’re done exploring—meet me there.” Utahime says.

You pushed yourself out of your seat and would go over to Utahime pulling her into a hug. Mumbling many thank yous and even kissing her cheek. “Thank you! I promise I’ll be at the studio at a reasonable time!” You yelled as you were going to leave. 

You didn’t even let Utahime get a word out before you’re heading out of Utahime’s apartment and essentially you're home for the summer. You walked towards the elevator as you were walking, your face was buried in your phone updating your father on how you were doing. Even though he was most likely sleeping soundly back in New York, you still didn’t want to have him so worried during your three months here. You never understood the protectiveness your father had over you. Although it was a duty for fathers to protect their children as if their life depended on it—your father took it a little too far. Especially after your mother’s death, he once tried to take your love of ballet away from you. Arguing that it was the reason that broke your mom down and he refused to let you follow your mother’s dark path. Whatever that meant. Your mother’s death was a hushed secret that no one wanted to talk about. No one talked about what pushed her to do it, not even Utahime. 

So what exactly did your father mean by ballet being why your mother took a dark path?

When you made it to the street, you opened Google and decided to search if any record shops were nearby. In the guest room, you were staying in, Utahime mentioned it being a record player a close friend gave to her and you were eager to use it during your time here. However, she didn’t have any vinyl records at all. She claimed that her career pushed her away from home quite often, so what was the point of buying vinyl records for a record player that only was collecting dust in her guest bedroom? 

The first record shop that popped up was Suguru Records. You clicked on how far it was and wasn’t much of a walk. You placed your earbuds in your ear and soon Jazmine Sullivan was blasting through your ears. You took in everything around you as you were walking. From the architect of each building to the locals that are out and about. You enjoyed this atmosphere so much better than the busy streets of New York City during the rush hour of going to work or coming home from work. It was a soothing atmosphere and it made you even more excited to spend a summer here. Granted, the stares you were receiving as you were walking to your destination—it wasn’t anything new from the stares you received when you went to different ballet events around the world. 

When you finally got to the record shop, you entered it with a smile. The scent in the store was comforting, homely at most. The first thing you noticed when you entered it was empty. To you, that wasn’t good considering that anyone could come in and take what they wanted and leave. You figured that the familiar bell that would annoyingly ring when the record shop door would push open would cause the employees to hurriedly run to the front of the store. You let your fingers brush against the records as you walk down a random aisle specifically looking for the classical section. You can already imagine how beautiful the tune of a popular classical song humming out the record player while you practice in the living room of Utahime’s place. But as you walk around the record shop, you didn’t even see a section for classical music. However, you did pick up a couple of your favorite R&B albums as you were snooping around.

You heard the familiar bell and your eyes darted to the door and you saw a man with long black hair carrying a box into the shop. He had gauges in his ears and if you were being honest, if you looked closely—he looked familiar. As if you saw him on a magazine cover or something. When his eyes met yours and then scanned over the shop, he let out a sigh before slowly dropping the box he was carrying near the register. “Welcome to Suguru Records, I’ll be right back.” He flashed you a kind smile before disappearing in the back. 

You heard some ruckus in the back and what you assumed was the guy who greeted you voice, “I told you two gremlins to stop leaving the front end unattended!” 

Soon the gentleman returned with two guys. He had a grip on the back of their work uniform shirts as if he was a father pitbull lifting his pups by their fur to help them get around better. One of the guys looked at the long-haired gentleman and gave him a deadpan smile, “It’s a slow day and it looks like the customer doesn't even need help. You said it yourself, if it’s slow—Choso and I can work on our music.” One said.

The man let go of the back of the two guys' shirts and he would push one of them towards you. “Noritoshi, you start unloading that box near the register. Choso, you go help the customer before I fire both of you.” 

Noritoshi was near the register mumbling something under his breath before his boss glanced in his direction. “Do you have anything to say, Noritoshi?” The long-haired gentleman asked. 

Noritoshi shook his head, “Oh no, just asking if you were stepping out again, Geto?” He forced a fake smile.

“Yes, an old friend is in town. So please be sure to lock up when we close.” Geto pointed his finger at him and then at Choso before he exited again. 

You went back to looking through the records before you could hear someone clear your throat. When you glanced up, there he stood. The one who the guy called Choso, stood right in front of you. His hair was tugged into two ponytails. But it was one unique thing about him that caused you to stare at him as if he was the most attractive guy you’ve seen. A birthmark decorated his face that imprinted from his cheeks across his nose and on his other cheek. It was quite a unique birthmark, something you had never seen before. “Since that guy that just left signs my checks, I am here to ask if you need help with anything.” His monotone voice trailed off as he was avoiding as much eye contact as possible. 

“Oh yes—do you guys have anything from any classical composers?” You asked and you watched Choso’s face scrunched up in pure disgust. 

“Classical?” Choso asked. 

“Yes, I’ll take anything at this moment.” You said. “My godmother has this record player and I just know a classical record would sound so good on it.” 

“Classical?” Choso repeated just to make sure you understand what you just said. 

“Yes, did I not say it loud enough?” You asked in a frustrated manner. 

Choso held up his hand in a defensive mood and would glance over at Noritoshi who was unloading the box of new vinyl records they received. “Hey, check in the back to see if we have anything for the classical genre!” 

“Classical?” Noritoshi looked up and you wanted to question if the two were related with the way Noritoshi mimicked the exact face of disgust that Choso did. “I think we have some stuff in the back though.” 

Noritoshi waltzed into the back to search for the small number of vinyl records they did have. They weren’t selling, so Geto simply thought they were taking up space from other vinyl records. 

You felt the vinyl records that were once in your arms getting gently pulled from your arm. Choso would flip through your options and you watched as he was looking at your vinyl records quite impressed. He held up the vinyl record for Lucky Daye’s Painted, he had a sly grin on his face. If you were bold enough, you would admit that sly grin on his face was cute. 

“I have this one.” He said. “You have nice music taste, minus the classical thing.” He snickered before he handed you the records back.

“You don’t look like the type to like—“ Your words were cut off by him.

“Lucky Daye music?” 

“Yes.” You admitted as you pulled your records closer to your chest.

“Music is something so magical and versatile. It’s a bit insane to stick to one genre isn’t it?” Choso asked as his back leaned against the record case behind him. His arms folded over his chest and you instantly noticed that his broad arms flexed in his black uniform shirt that had Suguru Records on it. 

“But doesn't that contradict you making that face when I mentioned classical music?” You asked, your perfectly arched eyebrows raised at him.

He chuckles at your statement, “I guess it does…” His voice trails off as his dark-colored eyes gloss over your plump lip gloss-covered lips while he is searching for your name. 

“Y/N.” You answered. 

“I’m just curious as to why you would be interested in classical music?” Choso walked towards the register with you not too far behind him. “You don’t look like the type of girl who-“ 

Now it was your time to interrupt him, “See, you’re contradicting yourself again. You just said that music is such a special thing that you can’t just stick to one genre. Judging a book by its cover, something I did a few minutes ago.” You said.

Choso chuckled as he was beginning to ring up your vinyl records. “I guess we judged each other then.” Choso's eyes met with yours. 

“Yup.” You answered before immediately breaking eye contact. Your cheeks felt so hot at the moment like you were standing outside in ninety-degree weather without water.

Noritoshi came back with a box of vinyl records. “These are the only ones we have. I’m pretty sure Geto put them at a discontinued price also.” He placed the box on the counter. “If we were the managers, we would give you this box for free.” 

You giggled at his comment before flipping through the box. “It’s okay.” You picked three random types of vinyl and placed them on the counter. “I’m sure I’ll  probably buy them all by the time the summer is over with.”

You paid for the records and Choso gave you the bag with all of them on it. It was a cute black reusable bag with the store’s logo on it. Choso leaned against the counter and placed his head in the palm of his hand, never actually taking his eyes off of you. There you were completely avoiding his eye contact. 

Noritoshi was looking through the box of classical music vinyl records. “So, are you saying you actually enjoy this stuff?” He asked while flipping through the box of classical records. 

“I’ve listened to that genre since I was in my mother’s stomach. It’s practically imprinted in my brain,” You admitted as you could feel your phone vibrate in your back pocket.

You quickly looked at the text and saw Utahime’s S.O.S text message. She must have needed you at the dance studio. “But I have to run, godmother needs me. I think I’ll see you guys around.” You began to walk towards the exit but Choso’s voice stopped you & caused you to turn to look in his direction.

“Yes, you will.” He admitted with a smile.

Your cheeks burnt, your words got stuck in your throat, and your brain turned into complete mush. You couldn’t say much, but you returned the smile before eventually leaving the record shop as flustered as a teenager in a cliche Netflix-produced romance movie. 

“No distractions this summer, Y/N. No distractions this summer, Y/N.” You repeat to yourself as you are walking back towards Utahime’s place. 

But as you continued to walk, you could hear someone yelling your name. When you turned around, Choso was jogging up to you to catch up to you. 

“You should come out and see me perform,” Choso was fishing in his jeans pockets until he pulled out a tiny folded-up piece of paper.

“You’re a singer? You continue to shock me, but then again that’s me judging you by your looks again,” You admitted.

“I’m in a band. Well, it’s only Noritoshi and me right now. We’re still looking for other members, but I would love for you to come.” He finally unfolded the paper to reveal a flyer. He extended the paper for you to grab.

“I’ll see if I can make it. I’m going to be quite a busy girl this summer, so I don’t want to get your hopes up.”  You said as you took the flyer from him. Your eyes scan over the flyer that looked like he kept it as a souvenir more than to promote that he was performing. 

“You’re only going to be here for a summer?” Choso's eyebrows raised at you.

“Yeah.” You folded the paper back up to give back to him, but he motioned for you to keep it just in case you could make it.

Choso heard Noritoshi calling him from the front door of the record shop and he would slowly walk backward with a smile. His eyes you couldn’t read just yet never looked away from you before he’s parting his lips to speak.

“That gives us three months!” Choso says as he was walking backward.

“Three months to do what?” You asked out loud.

“Three months to get to know each. I’m kinda intrigued on why you’re a classical music fan in this year of 2022.” He yells back at you before giving you a sly wave and heading back into the record shop.

You turned around once again, flustered as ever. You couldn’t even hide the foolish smile on your face at the moment. 

This was going to be an interesting summer.

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tags. @maydayaisha + @spiderpunkfien @bbytamaki @honeybleed @luvliv4lifexoxo @smileyy-cakee

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Maybe some yandere legend headcannons with a reader that dotes on him as they are aware of the things he does for them but loves him back close to a yandere degree and shows public ways of claiming him to other people like sitting in his lap or kissing him so much to the point he turns the same color as his hair.

Legend is like that fugly little rat in the corner that I tried hating but now he's just my baby boy.

Fugly ass rat (affectionately).

This was written under the idea that Reader, when paired with Legend like this, takes no shit. Eats name and takes ass. Stays in drugs, doesn't do school. You know, the Cool kid.

The Cheaper Things in Life

��❥・So, Legend isn't used to open affection. And I know the obvious route is that he's against it, he hates PDA, yadda yadda yadda, BUT-

(It's my comfort character and I'll mis-characterize him if I want to-)

・❥・Hear me out. It's the exact opposite. With the Yandere mindset, Legend is constantly reminded that things can be torn away, just like that`, constantly. Marin was a grim reminder of this fact. Honestly, Legend swore of love entirely because of the trauma the loss of her left him with.

・❥・But then you, in all your divine glory, come bulldozing into his life, probably flipping off his trauma along the way, and throwing him on his ass along the way.

・❥・He didn't even know how to react when you went right up into his face, barking at him to back off from the taunts when he pushed a little too far one too many times.

・❥・He had been stuck falling for you ever since.

・❥・It took a lot of pride time for him to apologize to you, but he did so, gently asking if you could give him a do-over. And to his surprise, you eagerly agreed, holding out his hand with a wide smile. Reintroducing yourself as if every syllable wasn't already branded onto his tongue.

・❥・He played along however with a small tilt to his lips and a cheeky bow-- even going as far as to take off his hat and holding it in the hand that folded against his torso.

・❥・From then on, your interactions become much more amicable. He'd even go as far as to say (Heart-racing, soul cleansing, spirit leaving-) friendly.

・❥・You seem to be a relatively affection 'friend' however. He can't number the amount of times you've bounced up to him, pressed a sin stained peck to his cheek before bounding off with a laugh on your lips and his hat on your head, leaving him sputtering for a second.

・❥・Or how many times you've come to lean on the back of his chair, arms wrapped loosely around his shoulders as one of the others goes on about a battle plan.

・❥・Or how many nights you've spent cradled in his close embrace, muffling your sobs into his shoulder as you mourn your life previously lived and have broken his heart with your cries about you miss it.

・❥・He would do it all over again, in a heartbeat though. He would fight Hylia herself should you wish, just to minimize your anguish.

・❥・That all being said, he can't even find himself to think of you two as friends anymore. What sort of friends do that? None that he knows of (Never mind that he never lets anyone close enough to do that sort of thing).

・❥・So you must not be friends! You must be too shy to call him otherwise! Which just wouldn't do. How could he let everyone else know you were his and his alone and he would die to keep you by his side or pit his blade against anyone who dares to try and take your place were taken?

・❥・He's the one to ask you out, sitting on a high enough branch that the others couldn't hear you, but you could still watch over them.

・❥・He took a mental picture of your red-cheeks and flustered expression as you stumbled over your words before ultimately nodding slowly.

・❥・After that, it was as if you had been dating for years rather than hours, days, weeks, etc. He just made it so easy.

・❥・You spoke of him with such awe and grace, like you believed the hero title bestowed upon him. You spoke of the little things he did like they were worth tenfold what the monumental ones were.

・❥・And it was so perfect. You didn't care for all the heroics or the adventures, you cared for him. You didn't care if he could take out armies of bokoblins, no, you cared much more when he took the time to fix a hole in your pants. You didn't care if he had solved more puzzles than he cared to remember, but you did care when he took the time to set your bed mat out near the fire before you got ready for bed to ensure it was warm enough for you before nightfall. You didn't care for all the trinkets and rings and items he had that did incredible things. But you did care when he let you lay against his chest, watching him work through more sewing work, with some tune hummed under his breath.

・❥・Golden three above, he couldn't get enough of you.

・❥・At first, he assumed that you were taking your time to warm up to him, and he was giving you your space to do so lest he chase you right out of his arms and into someone else's He wouldn't let that happen, he wouldn't, not again, not again, notagainnotagainnotagainnotagain- . He was fine with that.

・❥・But when he's talking to some unnamed daughter of a merchant, who's much to talkative and trying way to hard to show off her chest to him-- something he took no interest in, not when he had truly ethereal you-- he figures that no, you are in fact holding yourself back.

・❥・You had gone off to some stall, looking at an assortment of fabrics with Legend following obediently after you, aweing over the different textures and colors as he stood on watch. That was when this...wench appeared, twirling a long lock of red hair around one of her fingers. He merely scoffed at her, turning his attention back to you. You were carefully examining two different red fabrics, pinching them closer together to view them side by side. You had an absolutely adorable little pout on your face that he just ached to kiss. He went to do just that before this HARLOT was getting in his way.

・❥・Could she not get the hint?

・❥・Scathing insults laid on the tip of his tongue, waiting to be fired before your hands, soft and understanding, full of nothing but pure love in touch alone, landed on his bicep. Your gaze was sharp and dangerous, honeyed lips leaking venom as you feigned innocence, asking what she was doing.

・❥・He knew he was completely ruined for anyone else when your smile turned razor edged, now a full blown smirk, and your tone remained saccharine sweet.

・❥・He was down so bad.

・❥・You, without breaking so much as a sweat, much less this character you had donned, tore this witch to absolute shreds, watching with some sort of amused glint in your eye as tears welled in her eyes before she was storming off in an embarrassed huff before you were dragging him in the opposite directions, completely oblivious to his lovesick gaze.

・❥・"Their fabrics were cheap anyway."

・❥・Great Din's tits, he was going to marry you someday.

So we can all agree that the Sun and Moon fandom is dying right?

There is a quiz at the end of the post.

Me myself and many others have left. Whether it is due to the rising toxicity of the show or the fans. At this point it is simply a creative backdrop. Something you take ideas off of instead of something that you enjoy and turn into a AU. And at this point if you have it as an AU. You feel as if you need to somehow say it's separated or is only based off of the good old days.

The fact that there is a difference between the good old days and what has happened is sad. I will admit I haven't been here forever. I wasn't here since the beginning. I wasn't watching the episodes upload as I watched. But I did do my best to watch every single lore post I can find. Anything that wasn't a standard gaming episode. So I can at least say that I tried to follow the story.

And to put it slightly the story has gone sour. Characters have stopped feeling right in their actions. Underlying messages have started to get toxic. Many bad guys have gotten so characterized that them being bad guys doesn't feel right. Are good characters no matter how developed they get either regress due to plot convenience. Or have died and basically reset the storyline.

The story seems stuck. There's some gems here and there but it seems like they can't figure out the next story action. And even if they do, it gets so much hate from the fandom that it struggles to continue. It feels like they continuously reset and reset to try and find a story that the fans will enjoy. It's not working unfortunately. There have been many retcons due to this. And there has also been many splits.

And this is not even mentioning the toxicity of the fandom itself at this point. That's basically split itself in two and the other will hate the other. This happened most obviously with the Moon X Solar argument. Where you either enjoy it or you don't enjoy it. It has caused a multiple splits because of differences in morals. It's just created a hostile environment between fans.

And I'm not making this post a point fingers at the whole argument. I've researched it and I know why some people believe it's okay. Whether it's because they believe solar never really wanted to be a part of the family. Or the simple understanding that by most laws, incest between adopted family members is okay. I understand that people have reasons to like it. It doesn't mean that these reasons are shared though. It doesn't mean that the moral implications of that relationship don't affect some people. And neither side is willing to come to a mutual agreement.

This is also not bringing up the fact that the whole villain versus hero argument is starting to become even more split. Sun, Moon, Lunar, Earth, Solar are both currently on the good side. While Eclipse, Blood Moon, and a couple others are still obviously on the bad guy side. But Eclipse and Blood moon have started to become more and more relatable. People can no longer look at those characters and just imagine the villainy part. Especially when the heroes decide to mock the suffering that they did to the villains in the first place.

That is my personal scare between the fandom right now. I can't look at eclipse and not deny that Moon's actions were the reason of it. I can't look at moon and justify years of abuse. Whether it was old moon or new moon at this point. I can't stand and justify treating blood moon as a villain has tested its limit. I can't deny that blood moons actions are more so based on need than actual want. And the creators forcing that idea backfired enough that they barely have him as a character anymore.

There is a split between people who want to support moon and sun with all their actions. There is a split between people who think solar should be considered a part of the family or not. There is a lack of storylines that don't have half of the community hating upon it. There is a lack of feeling an actual tug of conflict in the stories due to the villains being so understandable. There is a hostility between the fan base because of all of these.

I put out a poll a long time ago. Asking people why they basically watched the show anymore. The general consensus was they were just watching the show because they needed to. Because they felt obligated to follow the plot wherever it went. I feel like the fan base that is following the show for their own enjoyment is slowly disappearing. And this is not talking about the amount of people that have straight out left due to all the reasons above.

Whether it is the show's fault for not being able to supply the engaging store anymore that people can enjoy. Or it is the fandom for it's toxic split between the morals of adoption incest, or the feeling that the villain shouldn't be getting as much hate as they do. The show was currently dying on both sides honestly. And the only reason many are continuing to watch the show, is the hope that it will get better, and the need to supply their AUs off of it.

How many of your friends have left because of these reasons? How many of them have had the conundrum of feeling like they need to stay because leaving feels like a betrayal to others or themselves.

How many of us are only holding because of nostalgia?

It feels like nowadays people either choose to blindly follow due to an overall support or question constantly if they should. It feels as if artists that give the show their thumbnails now, are the only people that do stuff happily with it. A conspiracy part of my brain wants to say that's only because not supporting it would mean they wouldn't have there art publicly endorsed. But that's only conspiracy and no fact.

The show has lost its splendor. As of now it's really only a character backdrop to some. A list of events and ideas that you could pull and twist to fit something kinder or better. It's like as if we're using the Sun and Moon like Robin Hood. Stripping it down to the basics just so we can share our twist of the same tale. I have heard many times from people that AUs are more enjoyable right now than actual Canon. I myself have said for multiple stories that they do not follow past backup eclipses death. Which in my opinion is when the show really started to go downhill.

I'm going to ask this question again. Because I feel as if it is important for people who read this post to see it under a newer light.

I will note. If you reblog this post just to argue that it's not dying, That solar X moon isn't incest, that characters like eclipse and blood moon should be treated as the absolute villains they are, and seeking Sun and Moon are evil is dumb. I will not respond. To be honest I will not respond to many reblogs of this. I'm simply putting this information out earnestly as my opinion. I am not here to hate on the artists. I am not here to hate on your difference in opinion. I am not here to say that the show writers are dumb or money monsters. This is my opinion. And if you wish to fight it, then you are not willing to accept differencing opinion.

hello do you have any v2 headcanons. i love the Heem

v2.....my tragic little child i DEFINITELY have thoughts....

tbh something about v2 just REALLY gets to me, and i think it's just the fact that this thing never had a chance - it was created to recoup losses on the v-series when the war ended but that was desperate, unworkable, and so it got shelved while the new peace continued undisturbed without it. and when humanity is lost, it goes into hell with the rest of the machines but what can it do when faced by something like v1, a being that was made for this? v2 is in v1's world, it has to meet it on v1's terms, and so it could never succeed. like everything in its life, it lost before it even began, already obsolete before it can prove itself.

i've talked about it before of course, but v1 is the machine turned animal, it has embraced its errors and has spun off from its programming long ago, while v2 is digging its nails into its protocol, doing everything it can to stay "sane" when nothing in the world is. v2 forever wants to be the enforcer of peace, it still wants to show what it can do even though there's no one to see it now. in a way, it lives in a fantasy, proving something only to itself by somehow trying to find a way to enact order in hell. it never got its chance and so it's taking it now, in a dead world that can't be at peace where it will never be acknowledged. and its programming is going bad too, it's culling any code that could be errant without much oversight because it wants perfection...and its convinced itself this isn't for survival, that it's not scavenging for blood but instead bringing back the new peace. it destroys other machines and it slaughters husks, but only because they're hostile, they insist on engaging, and at this point it doesn't really understand they can be no other way. and as far as v1 goes, it isn't fighting it just to prove it can win, that it was always the superior model, but because a war machine is its antithesis. if v1 exists, there will never be peace.

and it gets stuck on that.

it challenges v1 a second time not just from hurt pride, but because every bit of its programming has fixated on it and the alarms are constant now, the war is advancing and it's killing everything in its wake. v2 is failing. it finally has its chance, and it's letting everyone down. and too, a lot like what i discussed with gabriel, this is leading to a breakdown in its identity. its potential was a promise, it was a dream it had, it ran so many simulations of the good work it could do, would do, but v1 tears it apart, it shatters what holds up its mental framework. and so v2 really can do nothing else but challenge it again. it needs to win, to stop the war, to be the machine it was made to be decades ago, to be who it always imagined itself to be. but that second encounter proves it only ever really was imagination. it was never true. it aspired and it fell short, the world it made for itself fell apart just as it died.

its life is just so unfair, and that kind of thing really gets to me with ai characters ;o; BUT i want to end this on a...lighter? note, and also give a more proper list of headcanons rather than just characterization so!!

v2 is very skilled with modifications and building due to it trying to find purpose when its usage for the new peace was falling through. it wants to do whatever it can to remain relevant, so it used its incredible mind to devour information on hardware construction and how to improve machines. it didn't really ever get the chance to show this off either, however, since no one ever knew it taught itself so much and so never asked for its help.

it's probably obvious, but v2 is a much more introspective being than v1 and it has a more powerful imagination. its mind is modeled quite similarly, but it had the proper limitations placed on it and it was given much more exposure to human thought models to help it relate to people better. so v2 is actually kind of dreamy and spends a lot of time in its head (but don't mistake this for sensitivity - v2 is a dreamer, but it has an extremely tough shell and it doesn't share its deeper internal life. both because it never wants to project weakness and because well...its strong imagination isn't really shared with other machines. they wouldn't get it).

however, much like v1, v2 is naturally very curious and it needs a lot of stimulation for its massive mind - it enjoys playing and it automatically understands how to limit itself unlike v1. it's quite competitive and it would endlessly challenge someone to another round after another round if anyone would humor it. and although it's sort of supposed to be programmed to not win every time, it's found ways to circumvent that.

talks. talks a lot. it has so many thoughts and it wants to articulate every single one!! it also quickly forms opinions of anything and everything, so that's even more to say!! mostly this is talking incessantly to the terminals, who are as quiet as ever but obviously very much enjoy the company. it also speaks many more languages than v1.

v2 has good posture. just. it still stands upright and any modifications it makes are seamless (v1, by contrast, has a goofy neck and silly posture because of weird code and weird modifying on its part)

it has a sense of aesthetics, another thing many machines have no concept of. it can actually look at any of the art in hell and get something out of it, and it alone understands the surrounding area as "unpleasant". additionally, this led to some of its agitation in limbo, as it was an exceedingly uncanny place (creeped out not in a fear sense but in a "thanks! i hate it" sense lol)

Okay so since whenever we do post day I fic, it won't be until after the event, I'm going to throw down a couple of my favourite Zeb episodes.

There are three that come to mind right off the bat that I particularly enjoy seeing Zeb. I'll list them leading up to my favorite (It's Alex fronting atm)

Afternote: went over board a bit and included favourite emotional scenes, so this is a Day I & II post.

So here we go @zebappreciationweek

Favourite Episodes + Scenes (Alex)

3.) s2e10 - The Future of The Force

Even though this one isn't Zeb-centric, perse, I still enjoy seeing some of Zeb’s development, seeing more light be shown on his character and his internal conflict.

2.) s1e3 Droids In Distress

I greatly enjoyed that much about Zeb had been covered in the episode, that we got the chance to learn a good portion about him right off the bat.

1.) s2e14 Legends of the Lasat

This is arguably my personal favorite episode. This one hit hard and intense and we were given so much more about Zeb and honestly made me want for more. (I need it, give it to me now.) Not just was the story telling of this episode amazing, but the music had no right to hit as hard as it had (it did and it should do it again).

Now time for some ✨️Honorable Mentions✨️

s1e4 - Fighter Flight

Seeing this one after watching Droids In Distress, I had been thrilled to get more characterization on Garazeb Orrelios. This is also one of the funniest episodes to me while it was still packed with development and laying down the world.

s1e2 - Spark of Rebellion: Part 2

This one became one of my favorites with Zeb during the 2nd complete run-through of the show and the scene of Zeb alone after having lost and left Ezra behind hit me so much harder because now I had more context of just how hard that probably hit Zeb. The start of rebels, if I'm remembering correctly, takes place just a few years after the siege and fall of lasan. And up through to s2e14, Zeb is still very much in a deep level of guilt and regret about his failure to protect his people and his planet. So having seen that and gone back to this episode, to *that* moment, the solitude and guilt absolutely came crashing back down on that man.

s2e5 & s3e14 - Always Two There Are & Warhead

These two are thrown as a pair in this moment because of the fact that they both show how resourceful and intelligent Zeb is. Exactly why he is unquestionably and undeniably Captain of the Honorgaurd. There may be areas Zeb is weaker in, but he has just as many, if not more, strengths and his intelligence and ability to think on his feet is most certainly a strength.

s2e17 - The Honorable Ones

I feel like this one is probably self explanatory and has probably been hashed a hundred times by so many other people. But, this one is very much a cumulation of above reasons, and adding in the fact that Zeb has an open mind and an open heart. Even though he's not at all thrilled to have to be stuck with Kallus, as the night goes on, he does take in what Kallus tells him just as much as Kallus does for Zeb. This was a major development for both their arcs. Zeb has just started learning how to forgive himself for his failure on Lasan, he may not be able to change what's happened, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a future. He learns that there is more to Kallus than what he originally thought. And even if that "there's more" doesn't change kallus, it's the fact that even having one moment where they had to work together and were forced to see each other in a different light that helped in their development. Even if that moment died there on that moon, the affect would have still lingered and followed them.

There's definitely more, but I got through the bulk of what I wanted to touch on.

TEN LINE TAG GAME

Rules: share the first lines of ten of your most recent fanfics and tag ten people. If you have written less than ten, don’t be shy and share anyway.

thanks for tagging me @marshmallowgoop !

in no particular order:

1. Conan knocked on the door of the Shumaker's house, staunchly ignoring the way that Hakuba-slash-KID’s gaze was boring into him like Conan was a top-of-the-line safe door and there was a 1412-karat jewel KID was trying to steal on the other side. [newest unposted chapter of too many questions in my head, in which Conan wakes up in 221B Baker Street with no idea how he got there.]

2. It’s really weird, seeing someone else wearing your face. [imposter syndrome, a timkon-slash-tim&kon bodyswap oneshot]

3. Jack Callahan doesn't know what he's expecting when he stumbles down the stairs of the rickety old townhouse the realtor has called "historic and charmingly rustic" and his husband had called "pretty run down and definitely a fixer-upper, but if you like it, Jack..." to answer the knocking at his door at two o'clock in the morning, but it certainly isn't Martha Kent, the veterinarian who lives on the outskirts of town and mostly keeps to herself, clutching a small bundle of cloth to her chest. [hematyke, a oneshot about Kryptonian biology featuring baby Clark and his dietary needs]

4. "This isn't going to work," Ran says plainly, setting a file filled with neatly stapled sheafs of paper on the table between them. [funny how the tables turn, a shinran oneshot I wrote for divorceweek. can i call it shinran if it's established relationship but they’re getting divorced?]

5. It was, in fact, an idea; Kaito would give him that much. [newest unpublished chapter of i see murder victims, in which Kaito can see ghosts now, unfortunately.]

6. Tim glanced from the now locked door to the cereal bar in front of him and then back again. [newest unpublished chapter of stuck on rewind, in which post titans tower Tim gets shrunk/deaged and now looks like hes five]

7. As much as Bruce hates to admit it, it's impossible to be prepared for everything. [superbat wip that may never see the light of day (pwp except now there's way more plot than i was expecting)]

8. You can't stop thinking about Superboy and how sad he'd looked. [newest unpublished chapter of can't help but to hear, in which a goon pranking the batmobile is the a-plot, robin going missing is the b-plot, and the c-plot will be revealed next chapter]

9. There is a boy in the Batcave, and Batman does not know how he got in. [untitled sequel to ‘til the end of the night (i’m holding out for a hero), the lonely place of dying rewrite where Tim is a ghost]

10. One thing that people don’t seem to understand about Jon is that he spent most of his formative years trapped in a volcano. [untitled oneshot trying to give some depth to Jon's characterization in Superman: Son of Kal-El]

tagging @summerbummin @yin1se4 @animikachu @beedok @kuroko99 @cherry-j4m @joisbishmyoga and anyone else who wants to do it!

hi i just went on a binge spree of reading all ur izumi fics and can i just say i LOVE ur characterization of shouto (chews on my walls) he's so cheeky at times yet still a dumbass who's still learning to socialize and he's so funny when he doesn't mean to be! also they way that u show how he feels safe with izumi with how he falls asleep on her on the train always made me melt. WAAAAAAAAAA

the way u write their banter feels so natural for siblings yet still showcases their underlying feelings and apprehension for each other in a way that always has me excited to see their next interaction yet at the same time dreading what angst shall befall them next (falls to my knees inside a walmart) i spent like 3 days reading non stop and my eyes r lowkey straining to see my phone screen from all the crying i did + staying up til like 4am but it was so worth it.

i'm excited to see how their reunion with touya will go in WHD and i am even more ready to witness endeavor's suffering ❤️ even if he's trying to atone i'm glad that u stuck with the idea that izumi doesn't have to forgive him because she doesn't! u never have to forgive the people that hurt u. also the fact that touya returned izumi's medal to her and it resolved some of her insecurities on being a hero really solidified my love for the way u write the todorokis

BITW also made me mf BAWL the relationship between toga and twice and izumi was so so so good and it's easily one of my favorite league fics!! it humanizes them so well and really sends forth the message of the world within bnha not being as black and white as many fans may think. toga and izumi being bts fans of all things was so cute and it rlly shows just how human they are with their own hobbies and interests outside of being a hero or a villain. showcasing all might's failures as a mentor was also greatly appreciated and i love the subplots with all the students. u ignited a newfound love for momo within me and got me thinking abt uraraka with more respect than i have before. girlbosses everywhere so true !!!

ok i'm gonna stop now bc this is getting way too long also sorry this feels like it was super all over the place but i just wanted to say u don't have to reply to this i just rlly needed to get all my feelings out so i can go back to playing stardew without feeling restless. thank u for ur work !!! i'm excited to read any further updates from u :>

Hello!! I've likely reread this a million times by now, so thank you for sending it. WHD does take me a bit longer to write these days because I want to pay particular attention to how Touya's story plays out and often that ends up holding a lot more weight than I expect, but it always lightens the load when I remember how much it means to my readers.

Having a lot of siblings actually makes the Todorokis so easy to write--it's often the other characters that Izumi interacts with that are harder to write. Shouto particularly is my favorite and comes to me a lot easier than people like Bakugou and Midoriya.

Tbh, BITW is something I wish I had done as a long-fix rather than a short one-shot, but I was and am happy with how it turned out, so thank you go enjoying it and letting me know how much you enjoyed it.

Here's to lots more chapters and more of Izumi in the future. I hope you had fun playing Stardew and I hope that your eyes have recovered from the strain (thank you for being so dedicated and going through that long journey!) ❤️❤️

*kicks ur door down, slams twenty dollars onto ur desk* I need some info.

im gonna send u a different ask for each question lmao SO.

I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT A MOMENT OF POTENTIAL REMUS!!! how did he get here!!! may i question u on his childhood perhaps?

how did he become an assassin? for how long? and will he still be a cryptic little shit in this universe like he is in some of your other fics? (im assuming not because he’s actually human now and not a borderline possessed figment of someones imagination but. still. i might as well ask)

*I accept the twenty dollars and immediately lick it before tucking it into my shoe.* That can be arranged.

I love remus so much you don't understand he's so sdSJHBSKSAKFKSGGS yes yes yes. Funky trash assassin with weirdly impressive emotional intelligence who is also a father. Racoon man, dumbly smart, soft, but good at murder, equals kinda hot ngl.

also love how excited I get over every single character lolllll. You mention any of them and suddenly they're my best and most favorite blorbo. I am aware of this flaw, it simply cannot stop me.

In all honesty, I don't have a ton of detailed backstory for Remus besides the fact he was unhinged and broke many many laws. His back story is actually pretty similar to my canon!Calypso backstory, but the favored child was his twin and they weren't particularly rich, and he did fake his death, but he was older, and it wasn't because he was locked in a basement for petty theft as a 10 yr old. Okay so maybe it's somewhat different.

I'll summarize by saying he was happily a problem child, very smart, and enjoyed chaos. He got into tons of fights for the hell of it, and ended up faking his death for good in highschool (and again later for funsies)

He would end up running away and accidently meeting a younger Janus while Janus was pulling a job. Jan was still new to his recent profession, which was a form of vigilante-ing and careful assassinations. Remus figured out what was happening and obnoxiously followed and pestered Janus the entire time before saving Jan's life towards the end of the job.

Janus never ended up shaking Remus, tho he tried for weeks to lose him, Remus popped up no matter what he did. Eventually, Janus just accepted it and brought Remus home to meet Virgil, who was thoroughly confused. From then on, the three were a weird little mismatched family.

They meet when Remus was about 18, and Janus was 29, and Virgil was 17ish. When A Moment with Potential takes place, it's about 10 years later

Remus' natural skills and grey morals had him catching on quickly and progressing Janus' growing operations. It only took him a few years to become increasingly well known for his brutal yet frighteningly strategic fight style.

Remus is indeed a bit of a cryptic lil shit, just not in the same way as like,,,, Low Battery!Remus, who is an all knowing menace. Here, he's just a menace. He's very intuitive, logical, and observant, he just doesn't care too much unless it benefits his tiny family. he's super hard to read and harder to control, giving him that cryptic vibe, but he doesn't know everything, he's a bit more affectionate, and he is wrong sometimes.

I apparently have a bit of a trademark for writing Remus as mentioned above, like a 'cryptic little shit' but that's only because I have no idea how else to lmao. I'm not really vulgar by nature, and I don't struggle with intrusive thoughts, which makes it harder to pull from my own life (which is exactly what I do with literally everything I write to some capacity) so I took some creative liberties with Remus and just stuck with them. I personally don't mind when fics feature out of character characters, as long as those new/altered traits are consistent and deeply incorporated into the story, which I try my hardest to do. with Remus, apparently it worked out because people adore this guy. I get so blushy and dumb, but people have really liked my Remus characterization, which honestly, dude, just thrills me. It's pretty damn cool, cuz I love him too <3

for the Bingo oh I wonder what your thoughts on Pluto >:3c wanna enable you to talk about him ehe >:D

I've done him before but since it's a new bingo and the last one was from awhile ago, I thought I would do it again.

I could have technically scratched off more of the boxes but I decided not to because that would be too many circles.

Since I don't feel like doing anything productive, I'll actually go through every single box that isn't repeated.

(Edit: Removed color coding but it was unintentional because tumblr just removed it for some reason :/ Don’t know how to add it back now so it’s stuck with just bolded text)

Everyone but me is wrong about them <3: Not enough people think about him for me to disagree with others so I can happily not check this box. I also haven't heard other people's head canons for him so I can't say whether or not they are wrong.

I'm obsessed with their character arc: What character arc :'(

They got done dirty by fans: There are some works that I've seen that make Pluto the absolute worse human being on the planet and as much as it makes me sad, it's also understandable since he doesn't get much characterization in the first place.

They got done dirty by the creators/Not enough screen time/Wasted Potential: This one is obvious and needs no explanation.

Too much screen time/Overrated: You would have to be tripping on stairs to think he had too much screen time or was overrated. Pluto has like what, less than ten fans including me and a lot of them have disappeared from the Beyblade fandom since then :(

Adoption Papers: If I could steal him and make him my OC I would.

I am constantly going insane: I mean anyone following me can see it for themselves lol

They work better as part of a dynamic: Pluto doesn't exactly have much of a "dynamic" because of how little he appears and the fact he's always in the temple. One of the headcanon/story things I like to personally add myself is the rivalry between Pluto and Dynamis. It sort of makes sense considering they are opposites in sorts of ways. I wish Beyblade did more with them.

The popular ships for them suck: I've seen only three ship pairings for Pluto and it's Johannes, Rago, and Dynamis. As you can tell, I prefer Johannes but I can see Dynamis being one as well(there were some really cute Pluto Dynamis fics on pixiv that were really wholesome). I'm not personally a fan of the Rago ship but I'm not going to freak out if someone likes it (I don't know how to feel about Pluto being with someone who can step on him like a bug :/ )

Constantly listening to songs holding them like a paint swatch: I do this with every character I'm obsessed with(mostly with my OCs only but Pluto is fancy enough to get this treatment).

I want to study them like a cockroach: He's so mysterious and unusual. Like, so many questions can be asked about him. How old is he even? Is he like every other character and has dead parents? Did he even really do that much behind the scenes of Dark Nebula and Hades Inc. or did he sit in his temple all day? I want to know.

What's wrong with them (affectionate): He's so stupid and I love him for it.

What's wrong with him (derogatory): I was about to check this one off but most of the time when I make fun of him, it's only cause I think he's the goofiest lil' guy. I couldn't actually hate him.

I would never want to meet them: I'm such a boring person irl I don't see why we would have a reason to oppose one another.

They've never done anything wrong in their life <3: He's probably done many things wrong(He's the leader of a doomsday cult) but I'm always one for villain characters so it's okay :3

My opinions would be received by most fans as akin to hitting a wasp's nest with a baseball bat: I've had a good experience in the Beyblade fandom so far and haven't encountered that many weirdos(yet) but unfortunately I have had some experiences where people were kind of rude to me about liking Pluto so unfortunately I do have to check this box. (I will clarify that the person did apologize but still. It has made me rethink how much art I really want to upload of him at times)

This is the best character in the work: I mean I love Pluto and he's my favourite character ever but is he the best character in the work? Yes and no. No because as you know he barely does anything. There are many other characters that are objectively better(imo I love Dashan, Ryutaro, and everyone in Team Dungeon)

I like them but I don't really think about them much: Yea sometimes I wish I could not think about them much but that clearly isn't the case.

I don't really have much to say about them: I have too much to say about them. I'm using every fiber in my body to not put him in literally everything.

I actively dislike them: No.

Biting and killing and maiming them and death and violence: He has already died twice. He doesn't need to die more times. I was about to jokingly check this box but it made me a bit sad so I didn't.

Anyway, HSM2 is about internalized homophobia, and no one can tell me otherwise.

High School Musical is one of the most beloved franchises in the world. Teenagers all over the world grew up watching Troy and Gabriella harmonize together. Three movies, and nearly a decade later it’s still beloved by all. The first film easily forgotten in the ashes of the early 2000’s, the third film stuck in a purgatorial limbo of the rather unfortunate late 2000’s. The second film on the other hand sticks out between the ruckus. 

The second High School Musical film takes place at Sharpay and Ryan’s family country club, during the summer between junior and senior year. The Wildcats are working summer jobs on the country club, often forced to the beck and call of Ryan and Sharpay themselves. Sharpay uses all her prestige to help Troy with college instead of starting at the bottom ( or rather, in the kitchen washing dishes) with his friends. In the time she’s helping Troy, she is also pushing her brother away; replacing him with Troy in their musical number for the talent show, and refusing to hang out with him in preference for Troy. Ryan becomes vengeful to his twin and starts hanging around the Wildcats in the kitchen. At first, he was met with some distasteful looks and words (most of which from Chad). With the help of Kelsey, and her neutral party, Ryan fits in smoothly with the other teenagers, eventually giving the WildCats all dance lessons.

 Throughout the movie, the main conflict continues to be the internal conflict of Troy Bolton. He debates over and over again if he should go through with Sharpay’s shenanigans, or if he wants to “listen to my own heart.”  This of course involves Gabriella, as she is Troy’s love interest. She’s not in the second film except for the beginning, then, where she leaves in the middle of the film - in order to create angst for Troy - then when she shows up again in the finally to sing/rejoin Troy. 

The conflict in the second film  is the combining of Troy’s two worlds. His first - his main world in the first movie, that hence became his secondary world - which is represented by Chad. Then his secondary world - which becomes his main world in this movie - which is represented by Ryan. Chad represents Troy’s masculinity, or his more idealized version of himself. Ryan represents Troy’s femininity or his current version of reality. These two worlds collide in the iconic song “I don’t dance”.  

Since this movie - and hence this scene - came out in the early 2000’s, a lot of the innuendoes went over people's heads. Luckily, as the children who watched this movie grew older and more experienced, and the world became more accepting, we’re able to see this song for what it is. 

Before getting into the lore and symbolism of the iconic “I Don’t Dance” sequence, context is needed. For most of human history, homosexuality was seen as a sin in all places except ancient times (see: Greece and Japan). The modern age is the most accepting on all fronts, such as sexual orientation, race, and religion. In the early 2000’s, High School Musical director Kenny Ortega was not publicialy out yet. He wouldn’t be till 2014. 

Originally, while writing this, my first thought was  that Kenny - the director - would be using Troy as a y/n type character to project his insecurities and struggles with masculinity, and what that means in defining his orientation and societal views that would be placed upon him. Then, it came to me later that this is in fact not the case, Troy (and Gabriella - who is in fact a y/n character for the female audience) is more of a character for a man of his time, confused with his own ideals of masculinity and the views of society because, “oh god, I can’t like theater/drama because only queer people and girls like it!” The second point is pushed further with the Troy and Sharpay sub-plot. Sharpay tries to further Troy’s career as a basketball player, though that’s not what he wants anymore, and Troy is no longer sure if that is what he ever wanted to begin with (enter the song “Bet on it” and the hilarious meme “no dad, I’m giving up on your dream”). 

Keeping these things in mind - Kenney’s queerness, and Troy’s struggle to realize you can in fact sing and be a heterosexual, wow, revolutionary - it became clear to me that Kenney’s y/n characters were Ryan and Chad. 

For those who aren’t into the arts, or find them too difficult after a singular attempt thinking they could write a world class novel on the first go, let me be the first to tell you every author has a y/n character. First, for those who don’t know what y/n stands for, it’s a popular fanfiction trope where a writer will write a story about a character dating, being friends, and so on, with the reader. The y/n stands for “your name” so anyone can be the main character in this story at any time. For a writer of mainstream fictional work, such as High School Musical, Game Of Thrones, Lord Of The Rings, Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, even most comics. Now, most writers or directors aren’t going to be as obvious as having a character not named (or named y/n) or even named Jane (looking at you Jane Austin), the y/n character of many mainstream authors/directors/comic artists and so on is usually the character they feel or have given the most attributes similar to themselves. 

It’s the same reason people have favourite characters. You see a fictional character and you either 1. Want to Bob the Builder them, 2. Some sort of weird sex thing, or 3. See more/the most of yourself in this character. Number three - thankfully - is usually the main reason. Some people just create their own favourite characters. An even easier way to think about this, is just projection baby, that’s psych 101.   

Before I went off on a small tangent of fictional works and how human emotion plays into creating them (except anything Disney has made in the past decade, and no you can’t change my mind on that) I mentioned that Chad and Ryan are Kenney’s y/n characters. As a queer person myself, it’s clear for me to see the different struggles each of these characters face and how these reflect the queer experience. 

So, let’s finally get into it. 

Ryan, without it being explicitly said is clearly a character of what people in the early 2000s think a gay man is. He is effeminate, wearing bright coloured outfits with lots of accessories - namely his signature hats - he is also in the theater department doing musicals, and passive/subservient to any of his twin sisters' wills. Yes, now we know gay men aren’t just feminized men, but in the early 2000’s a gay man who can do "masculine" things like change their car oil, like sports, and so on, break the "effeminate" stereotype thus confused many cishet people. Sharpay is painted as more confident - or, for sake of comparability - masculine to her twin in the first movie, and most of the second movie. Making Ryan a bit of her dog who would do anything to get by - painting Ryan as lesser than human, once more, playing into the homophobia of the early 2000's.     

Despite the clear stereotypes playing into his character, Ryan is consistently one of the most confident characters in the movie. The other, being his sister of course. This confidence in himself is what gravitates the other characters towards him, either by being intimidated (Troy, thinking Ryan and Gabriella were a thing), or admiration (Chad, by the end of “I don’t dance”). 

Chad, on the other hand, is a whole different ball game. While he is confident in the first movie, and the first portion of the second movie, he begins to break more and more when Ryan becomes a more integral part of the Wildcat group. To keep in mind, Chad is also the most vocal about his distaste for Troy’s artistic past-time. When the other Wildcats join Ryan and begin learning how to dance for the talent show at the end of the movie, Chad is also the most vocal about his distaste. The baseball game where “I don’t dance” takes place, is the climax of Chad’s arc and his turn towards acceptance to Ryan/Troy’s hobbies. 

Of course, there is more to the “I don’t dance” sequence than just Chad’s realization - the exact one Troy comes to terms with in the second movie as well - of “oh my god I don’t have to be gay to enjoy stereotypical ‘feminine’ things.” That is the main part of the song though, that and all the sexual tension. 

Going back to what I’ve stated previously, Chad and Ryan are Kenney’s projection or y/n characters. Let me do a small recap before we get into the nitty gritty of the famous “I don’t dance” video. 

Thinking back to the first few paragraphs, I stated that Kenney wasn’t publicly out till 2014, about 7 years after the second movie came out. This could be due to the fact that a) it’s the early 2000’s and everyones still very homophobic, or b) self-doubt that comes with the queer experience. The most likely reason is a mixture of both of these. Because of this, Ryan is the more self-assured version, or idealized version of Kenney that he wants to be. Ryan is confident, never being swayed about his lifestyle (could be read as: sexuality) even though Chad - and most of the wildcats in the first movie - put him through relentless “teasing” and humiliation. He’s confident, almost to a fault, he’s sure of himself, and yet still reaches out a hand to Chad and the other wildcats to show them that they’re just being, kinda dick-ish. 

Every queer person wants to be Ryan. Despite his heavily stereotyped characterization, I personally believe he is one of the stronger written characters in the movies, mainly due to Kenney putting the time in to really make Ryan feel like a real person, to give himself some sort of relief of his own anxieties, a chance to see the world through a person who truly has no fear. Unlike Kenney himself. 

This is where Chad comes in. 

Chad is seen as “confident” in the first movie, the second Troy “leaves” basketball though, all that confidence comes crashing down. His best friend has another hobby - one he thinks is “not right” (it’s okay, you can say gay), - they wont be spending all their time together (first, can you say dependent relationship much, yikes).Chad’s defining characteristic up until their fight that instigate act three of the second movie, is being Troy’s best friend. I’m going to take this as if this were truly the case, and not a decently written character arch. Some people base themselves around their friends and their whole identity on being a friend, that they lose sight of themselves, this mainly in high school of course, when your whole world is really nothing but school, and friends. Newly developed independence is there, but that’s scary, so instead of worrying about the future, cling to something that’s reliable. I’ve seen this happen, mainly at the end of high school, when the “real world” is coming a bit too close for comfort. This could generally be the case if a person is lonely, but for timeline sake I’m going to say Chad has got some anxiety about graduating (considering the second movie takes place the summer of junior year). 

His lashing out at Troy’s hobbies and at Troy’s neglectful friendship, make more sense with that background, and are seen more in the second movie where Troy begins spending all his spare time with Sharpay (trying to collect that BAG!). Chad - and others (read: father) - insists that music is not a feasible career option, and Troy should just stick with basketball (like...that is a feasible career option). The tension Chad creates in the studio only grows when the other wildcats decide to take up Ryan’s offer for dance lessons and move from the kitchen, to helping out with the talent show. (Next essay idea: how high school musical two was really about class all along, cause Jesus). 

 Chad is the less obvious option for a y/n character. Though again, the 2000’s were not as cool people like to pretend they are. Chad - for Kenney - represents what he actually feels, this fear of being rejected for how he is and how he chooses to live his life/lifestyle, so he sticks to something reliable. Ryan is new, and exciting, and confident in a way that Kenney/Chad wish they could be, but in order for that to happen they need to understand that maybe people are complex creatures, and can enjoy multiple hobbies (aka: the same lesson Troy is teaching the viewers, but far less boring). But, for Kenney/Chad facing that thought and that realization is scary, and thus, they lash out at anyone (read this paragraph as: Chad mad jealous of Ryan cause Ryan bomb as fuck). 

All this build up, finally comes ahead in the employee baseball match 

                                                       ******

The baseball game is probably the most memorable scene in the whole High School Musical franchise (minus Sharpay’s “Fabulous” solo, but that’s also from the same movie, and it’s kinda rude to give what’s already the best more points); the tension in the scene, and what it implies makes it the best written segment of all three movies, let alone the most entertaining. 

Some things to keep in mind from our background information: Chad is missing his bestie and struggling with what being “masculine” really means for him and others. Ryan of course makes this confusing, because the traditional method is being thrown out the window. In short, Chad has internalized homophobia, and Ryan being open - or as open as Disney would let him - is causing all sorts of problems. 

Despite the song, “I don’t dance” being logged into our collective skulls for all eternity (you’re probably humming it right now, sorry about that), the very brief interaction of Ryan and Chad before the game is lost on the public consciousness. The two are clearly comfortable with each other, though the distaste seems to be on Chad’s side more than Ryans. So, the two start playfully jabbing at each other before deciding to do a bat toss to see who will be in the outfield first. 

Before they begin the bat toss, Ryan says “You don’t think dancing takes some game?” Chad then very clearly checks him out, doing a simple but effective ‘drag-your-eyes-over-them-top-to-bottom-then-smile’ and says “you got game?” (Seen in gif below) 

I don’t know how much you know about sex metaphors and how many of those baseball has in it (seriously though, it’s a lot), but with the bat toss, Ryan’s hand ended up on top, and Chad’s under Ryan’s. Let’s ignore this for now, it’ll be implied again later. Ryan’s team starts out in the outfield because he won the bat toss, and hence, the song officially starts. 

The first lyrics (ignoring the chores of “hey batter batter, hey batter batter, swing”) is 

I'll show you that it's one and the same

Baseball, dancing, same game

It's easy

Step up to the place, start swingin  

This part is sung by Ryan, who is taunting Chad out in the outfield. Before the game, as stated, Chad was taunting Ryan about his lack of “game” (both sexual and not sexual metaphor are implied), and now, Ryan has turned those tables around. Baseball - is seen as more masculine than dancing, not as masculine as football or basketball, but it’s up there. Chad is someone who cares about his masculinity, enough to the point that Ryan playing baseball makes him loose his mind. Makes him question his own personal definition of masculinity, if you will. 

Ryan says, “baseball, dancing, same game,” impyling that, to him, baseball and dancing are one and the same. That is baffling to Chad, cause well, how can something meant for girls even be close to something meant for boys. 

Chad comes back with: 

 I wanna play ball now, and that's all

This is what I do

It ain't no dance that you can show me, yeah

This only proves my previous point. 

I had a conversation with myself about this, and I’ve decided not to include it in this essay, but a second essay may or may not be possible. Basically the premise - the dancing/”musical” moments of High School Musical are conjured up images by those meant to see them (ie: like a visual hallucination, but, not really) but this scene kinda poo-poos that idea. 

Now, the thing I am talking about is Ryan and Chad’s  peacocking at each other during the time they sing these lyrics. The movements they’re making could be mistaken for dancing - as we automatically assume it is because of the title and themes of the movie - or it could be them just getting ready for the baseball game. Ryan swings his leg over the pitcher's mound, tossing the ball up and down into his glove, making wavy hand gestures, etc. Chad brushes off his gloves, swings his legs, hits the bat on each foot, and so on. 

For the peacocking, Chad makes a mock of the ballerina foot stance before strutting over to the home plate. Ryan laughs at this, which earns quite the smirk from Chad himself (see gif below). 

This is when it becomes a conversation.   

You'll never know - R

Oh I know - Ch

If you never try - R

There's just one little thing - Ch

That stops me every time, yeah - Ch

Come on - Ch

When Chad says “Come on” it’s when Ryan throws the baseball at him, starting the game, and giving Chad’s team their first strike of the game (get it, it’s funny). Now, obviously we need to talk about the “there’s just one little thing that stops me every time.” As a queer person, I assure you, two of the things that kept me from living my Best Life were 1) my own ignorance of what asexuality was and 2) the fear that everyone I love would hate me for who I am, and what I have no control over. 

Sorry to get deep like that on main, but, can any other queer person say different? Obviously, your first point may differ, but my point still stands. In the video/scene there is a very short moment (to which I have condensed into a gif for you all, you’re welcome, and I’m sorry about the quality in advance), of the camera moving over to Chad’s team (or his friends in this case since it’s an employee baseball game) as he says this line (gif below). 

I will not be explaining the use of subtly in this essay, but I’m sure you get the metaphor Kenney is trying to use. If not, let me spell it out for you in very simple words. This song has a lot of sexual innuendos (as mentioned pervious with the baseball bat scene and still, more to come), with that in mind, and clearly queer themes at play (as mentioned before, again), this scene only shows Chad isn’t as straight as he leads on. His fear/phobia of Ryan/the arts come from a much deeper place. 

In shorter, and much simpler terms: Chad queer. 

But, let’s get back to the boy's conversation. 

I don't dance - Ch

I know you can - R 

Not a chance, no - Ch 

If I could do this, well, you could do that - R 

Translation: “If I can do this weird, sweaty, dirty, Male thing without blowing a fuse, you can and should be able to dance just fine.” 

But I don't dance - Ch 

Hit it out of the park - Both 

I don't dance - Ch

I say you can - R

There's not a chance, oh - Ch

Slide home, you score, swingin on the dance floor - Both

I don't dance, no - Ch  (This is just the chores, you’ll see it multiple times throughout the essay, I just figured if the song is going to be in your head, go all the way right). 

Two-steppin, now you're up to bat - R

Bases loaded, do your dance - R 

Here we are with the baseball metaphors you’ve all been waiting for ladies and gentlemen. Girls, gays, and non-binary pals. For those who have somehow managed a sheltered existence with access to the internet, lemme help you. Ryan is talking about “loaded bases” both in the context of the game (where it shows each base has one person from Chad’s team on them) and in the term of sex. While you go out there dating - while it’s mostly douche bags and people using it ironically - your nosey friends may ask you how far you got. 

“First, second, or third base?” They may ask. Or something like, “oh wow, did you get to home plate/base?” These are simply the rankings of the stages of a sexual relationship. First - kissing, sometimes just handholding, Second - making out, some light groping, Third - full on groping, no clothes come off, but it gets close. While each person has different boundaries, these are the general accepted definitions for the bases. 

Home base is obviously full blown sexual intercourse. Since Chad has his “bases loaded” it means he’s done all these things before, just never gone completely to sexual intercourse with someone - in the terms of the song and the history we’ve already established, it’s most likely a male character. This is only proven by Chad’s uncomfortable nature towards Ryan (internalized Homophobia, thank you, returning theme) but his easy, and cocky personality towards everyone else. “bUt thAt DoEsnT pRovE” hush, that’s the final cherry on top. Remember this conversation. 

It's easy - R  

Again. Previous points have been made.  

Take your best shot, just hit it - Ch 

I've got what it takes, playin my game - Ch

So you better spin that pitch - Ch 

You're gonna throw me, yeah - Ch 

I'll show you how I swing - Ch

Ah, the famous “I’ll show you how i swing” a very strong baseball metaphor for everyone. Keeps queer people from defining themselves to dangerous (straight) people, and, well, that’s it actually. This term is mostly used by bi/pan people, though if you want to stay in the closet or are in a dangerous place, it is also used to subtly tell other queer people you are in fact, not straight. My favourite is when this term came into play when President Buchanan got elected in 1856 (for those that don’t know, he’s the first and only gay president). 

You'll never know - R

Oh I know - Ch

If you never try - R 

There's just one little thing - Ch

That stops me every time, yeah - Ch 

This is again, the same lyric as before it doesn’t pan, and the tone is much different. The camera stays on Chad as he says this line, meaning he’s reflecting, he is now his own problem, the person that is keeping him back. His friends are not on his mind anymore, which is good, Ryan’s Gay Propaganda has been working. 

Come on - Ch

I don't dance - Ch

I know you can - R

Not a chance, no, no - Ch

If I could do this, well, you could do that - R

But I don't dance - Ch

Hit it out of the park - R

I don't dance - Ch

I say you can - R

There's not a chance, oh no - Ch

Slide home, you score, swingin on the dance floor - Both 

I don't dance, no - Ch

Lean back, tuck it in, take a chance - R

Swing it out, spin around, do the dance - R

I wanna play ball, not dance hall - Ch

I'm makin a triple, not a curtain cal - Chl

I can prove it to you til you know it's true - R

'Cause I can swing it, I can bring it to the diamond too - R

You're talkin a lot, show me what you got - Ch

Again, like the beginning of this song, this is a heavy base for flirting and sexual tension, which this song is drowning in. 

Stop swinging - both

Hey - both

This is the part where they all start a flash mob in the middle of the baseball diamond. Again, alluding to the conversation I had to myself earlier, this only proves my own theory as no one takes notice of this. But, that’s not this essay, this is where I mention how close Chad and Ryan are at the end of the group dance.  

Come on, swing it like this - both

Oh, swing - both

Jitterbug, just like that - both

That's what I mean, that's how you swing - both

You make a good pitch but I don't believe - both 

Here is yet another (and the final) sexual innuendo. This is actually a rather quick one. Pitching in queer culture is considered the person who tops (because queer people even had to straight-ify their sex lives to “top” and “bottom”), this is the person who is giving, if you know what I’m saying. 

I say you can - R

I know I can't - Ch

I don't dance - Ch

You can do it - R

I don't dance, no - Ch 

 Here is where that mosh pit ends, and how they get a little too close to comfort. 

Nothing to it, atta boy, atta boy, yeah - both

The rest of this song is simply a mash-up of the baseball game being finished, and this lovely gem. 

Now, clearly, Chad’s self conscious nature towards his sexuality is gone, he’s sitting close - if not squishing - Ryan, and talking to him like they’ve been friends forever. Take note of the change of close, most likely due to all the tension at the end of the song, and maybe a little of Chad’s own natural human curiosity built in. Now, I leave you with this note: 

If there is anything that confirms all this more, its Chad’s girlfriend wearing the pride colours. 

Also note: this could also be seen as a friend helping his bro discover his sexuality and fighting internalized homophobia, but, that’s ignoring the sexual tension, so go off I guess. 

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.  

Watch the full thing here

I’m one of those few Loki stans and Thorki shippers who liked both Dark World and Ragnarok. I actually liked Ragnarok and it isn’t a coincidence that it inspired what’s now the most kudosed Thorki fic on ao3. But when I watched the Loki show I was like…this isn’t the Loki storyline I fell in love with. There’s something so lifeless about the show and so removed from what made Loki great in Thor 1, Avengers 1, and Dark World.

Nonny, I'm sure, if you are on my blog, you are aware that I definitely don't share your opinion of TR and I take major issue with your assertion there but if we get into that we'll be here all day. Different opinions of any piece of art are fine and valid and all that and liking TR is your right. But I do think it's a little funny that someone who liked TR would be upset about the Loki series since it was blatantly obvious from the very first moment that this is what they were setting up with TR. Like. Y'all had to have noticed that? Marvel had long been looking for an excuse to tear down the Thor franchise as it existed and to barf up something shallow, trite, and "funny" in its place, and people applauding TR just gave them exactly the excuse they wanted.*

If all dissent about the movie hadn't been so fuckin viciously shouted down, if more people had been able to express misgivings about the new direction they were going in without being declared haters of fun and enemies of the fandom, maybe things would have been different. Probably not, but maybe. (And there are many fans who absolutely would have stuck around and kept creating content for the prior characterization if the fandom environment hadn't gotten so toxic toward any different opinions... but that's another topic, I guess.)

*And before anyone tries to come at me about the first two movies having been box office flops, that's just blatantly false. They were in approximately the middle of the pack in comparison to other single-franchise MCU movies in the same timeframe (i.e., same level of broader cultural saturation and popularity of the MCU), despite Marvel having deliberately sabotaged just about everything about TDW through their waffling, midstream changes, and micromanaging. And, another fun fact, TR made less money (inflation-adjusted) than Iron Man 2, which is another MCU movie that gets shit on about as often as TDW. Not to mention that EG is by far the most profitable MCU movie to date, and are we claiming that's an amazing piece of cinema that is truly superior to what came before? Please.

(Of course, the next most profitable movie was Avengers 1. So it's not like they weren't aware that OG Loki, charismatic villain and morally grey foil to the heroes, was super popular. But they tried tearing down the existing characterization and backstory of the Thor franchise in TR like they had long wanted to do, and people ate it up, and here we are.)

I have read your thought about the Batfamily, now I really want to know your thought about the one who started it, the Batman himself. We can't ignore the fact that Bruce is abusing his children, but there's also some moments where he's being a good father to them. But some of his act doesn't make sense.

He's beating his children, then calling them his son after. He act like a mad man after Damian's death (yeah, they did Jason dirty in here), feeling sorrow and desperately wanting to ressurect him, but then neglecting him continously in the future. I didn't know much about Cass, Bruce seems to always be a good father to her. But her fans once pointed that Bruce (or DC) is too hard on her to not killing/too soft on the others, because the other batkids has killed some villains while under Batman and still got to continue putting on their costumes.

What is exactly Bruce character? How is his relationship with every one of his children?

I feel like Batman can't be in a good relationship with one of his children without destroying his relationship with the other. I always love parents and children relationship in comics, but with batfamily sometimes it just so 'fanon-y' and some are hurtful.

I stopped reading Batman book for a long time. And come back reading that wedding and city of bane arc, because I want to know how they killed Alfred. And honestly those run are terrible. The issue basically just a batcat fanservice, with the worst Batman and Catwoman characterization ever. The batkids didn't even got many appearance and treated awfully as if they are just extras, even if they all are capable and have connection with Alfred.

Hey there Anon!

My thoughts on Batman and Bruce have changed over the last few years, he wasn’t the character that introduced me to DC comics but what I got to read from him at the time seemed good. As time went by, I started to feel like the whole concept of Batman was overrated and he kinda tired me in entertainment such as movies and all that. He never truly was a character that I actually liked so by the time that I read Under the Red Hood I knew that I liked Dick and Jason better than Bruce.

Batman was interesting but I was completely indifferent about Bruce. That whole thing changed around the time that the New 52 was sort of ending, there I started to heavily dislike Bruce and then that turned into pure hate. Now, I am just tired of the guy and every time that he appears in Dick or Jason content my day is ruined.

I hate that DC has been writing Bruce as an abusive and manipulative person and father to his “kids”, he has done a lot of wrong to them in comic history but all went to shit (in current comics) when Bruce tried to manipulate Jason into reliving the day that he died and his resurrection in Batman and Robin vol2. #20 and when he beat Dick and manipulated him into becoming a spy after telling him that he had told everyone that he was dead in Nightwing vol.3 #30.

Bruce was a horrible human being in the pre-New 52 timeline too sometimes, mostly towards Dick but in a way, it felt like Dick was able time and time again to get away from him a little bit. Now none of his kids are given the opportunity to turn their backs on Bruce, they are kept in his surroundings no matter how abusive he becomes towards them.

My biggest problem with Bruce’s abusiveness is the fact that the writers never treat it like he acts in an abusive way, they never make him apologize or have an internal discussion where he realises that he was in the wrong. “Bruce is a horrible person to his sons but it doesn’t matter because he is right and he is Batman so that’s that”, that’s the message that I feel DC is selling us. Bruce never receives punishment or is called out for his behaviour, Dick was never able to tell Bruce that what he did to him was unforgivable, he never got the chance to explain to anyone that he didn’t play dead, and when he came back from Spyral he took all the shit from his “family” himself.

Sometimes DC does something even worse, they try to hide Bruce’s neglect with things that never happened like they did with the Ric thing in Dick’s case. Dick was passed around from villain to villain when he was most vulnerable and at the end of it all DC had the guts to say that Batman had been watching over Dick all the time. Like, why lie in such a blatant way? Does Bruce enjoy watching his son suffer from a far or was he too much of a coward to tell Dick that he was a shit father, got stuck in a hole and then decided to play “Cat and Bat” with Selina instead of caring for any of his children?

The situation with Damian’s death and resurrection was a whole thing that was meant to prove that Bruce loved Damian and considered him his son. But in their effort to make Bruce look like a good father to Damian they completely destroyed his relationship with his other kids and that was also the start of Bruce referring to Damian as his ONLY son. And like you said after Damian was resurrected Bruce ended up neglecting him afterwards which ultimately led Damian to run away.

His relationship with Cass and Duke is something that I cannot explore because I am not into those characters and they are involved in books that I am not interested in. So I cannot say anything about that.

With Tim it’s complicated because I feel like his relationship with him was never actually father/son it was more like mentor/mentee and that seemed to work better for them, ever since they started the whole family thing Bruce started to act a little bit too rough towards Tim and that ended with Bruce punching Tim during the “City of Bane” arc. Bruce never apologised or was shown realising his mistake, but DC made sure to explain that Bruce was going through a rough time so that’s why he did it. It was pure rubbish and I dislike it a lot.

I answered an ask a while ago about how I thought Dick and Jason could become family the way that DC treats the “Batfamily” within comics and I came up with the idea of the “Dickfamily” because I felt like DC made a big mistake the moment they revolved the Bat family around Bruce and not Dick. Bruce is a character that is known for being lonely and for being surrounded by darkness that he only manages to escape through the light of Robin (Dick Grayson because he was the first), he was always depicted as someone who is hard to work with and considers his teammates only co-workers and not friends. He is a difficult person to connect with, so why on earth did DC come up with a family surrounding that man? (I actually know the answer to that question and it is: money, DC did it to sell more comics under the Batman name but we are going to forget about that here, let me be petty).

Why would DC make it all about a man that doesn’t connect or goes out of his way to say that he “works alone” when Dick Grayson is standing right there? DC hates that they created a character like Dick because he is just better than Bruce at everything, he just is, he is better family to Alfred, Jason, Tim and Damian, he was even written as a better father to Damian than Bruce ever was!

Bruce is just not a people person or a person that forms strong bonds with people. And that makes the whole “Batfamily” concept suffer and come off as something forced that doesn’t actually work.

Tom King was one of the writers that tried to kill the concept of the “Batfamily” with Bruce and Selina becoming a couple and by continuously saying that Selina was who was the most important person in Bruce’s life and the one that made him a better person. All Tom King did with that is make fans and non-fans of the “Batfamily” feel rage. Like, I might not like the “Batfamily” but there is no way that Selina comes first to Alfred, Dick or Damian, there is just no way and if that were actually true then that’s boring.

All the writers that have pushed the “Batfamily” concept (try) do it in a way that makes it look grand and of actual essence but without putting any work on it, if you ask me the “Batfamily” (if there has to be one) should only include Bruce, Alfred (he do be dead though), Dick, Tim, Cass and Damian (I suppose Duke too, I don’t know much about him). The “Batfamily” has to be small because that way you can actually build relationships and make them matter. Having Kate, Steph, Jason and so many others involved in a concept that was made to fit around Bruce looks stupid! Bruce has had almost zero connection to Kate and Steph in the last ten years and Bruce’s “relationship” with Jason is a complete joke!

Bruce is just not the character that is meant to be surrounded by too much people, and he is not a good person towards his family so the whole ass concept should be thrown to the trash and finally let it die. But money is important and if there is something that DC will never stop doing, is milking Batman for content that can be (sometimes) pretty basic.

All in all, I think Bruce sucks and that his “kids” shouldn’t be dragged back to him ever again or at least for a long while. All of them would actually benefit from not being involved with anything relating to Batman. Dick could benefit from Bruce and other Bat-related characters staying away from him and letting him live his life in Bludhaven. And Jason? My sweet Chonky? He would be in such a better place if Bruce disappeared from his life, imagine the actually good books we would have if Jason was free to act the way he was meant to do as the Red Hood…

(We saw a little bit of that in the back up story of Detective Comics by Rosenberg, Batman is still involved but he and Jason are definitely not on the same side of the story! So excited for Task Force Z!)

I don’t know If al that I just said answers your question but I hope you have a fantastic week Anon!

Circe by Madeline Miller: a review

As you might have noticed, a few of my most recent posts were more or less a liveblog of Madeline Miller’s novel Circe. However, as they hardly exhausted the subject, a proper review is also in order. You can find it under the “read more” button. All sorts of content warnings apply because this book takes a number of turns one in theory can expect from Greek mythology but which I’d hardly expect to come up in relation to Circe. I should note that this is my first contact with this author’s work. I am not familiar with Miller’s more famous, earlier novel Song of Achilles - I am not much of an Iliad aficionado, truth to be told. I read the poem itself when my literature class required it, but it left no strong impact on me, unlike, say, the Epic of Gilgamesh or, to stay within the theme of Greek mythology, Homeric Hymn to Demeter, works which I read at a similar point in my life on my own accord.

What motivated me to pick up this novel was the slim possibility that for once I’ll see my two favorite Greek gods in fiction, these being Hecate and Helios (in case you’re curious: #3 is Cybele but I suspect that unless some brave soul will attempt to adapt Nonnus’ Dionysiaca, she’ll forever be stuck with no popcultural presence outside Shin Megami Tensei). After all, it seemed reasonable to expect that Circe’s father will be involved considering their relationship, while rarely discussed in classical sources, seems remarkably close. Hesiod’s Catalogue of Women and Apollonius’ Argonautica describe Circe arriving on her island in her father’s solar chariot, while Ptolemy Hephaestion (as quoted by Photius) notes that Helios protected her home during the Gigantomachy. Helios, for all intents and purposes, seems like a decent dad (and, in Medea’s case, grandpa) in the source material even though his most notable children (and granddaughter) are pretty much all cackling sorcerers, not celebrated heroes. How does Miller’s Helios fare, compared to his mythical self? Not great, to put it lightly, as you’ll see later. As for Hecate… she’s not even in the book. Let me preface the core of the review by saying I don’t think reinterpreting myths, changing relations between figures, etc. is necessarily bad - ancient authors did it all the time, and modern adaptations will inevitably do so too, both to maintain internal coherence and perhaps to adjust the stories to a modern audience, much like ancient authors already did. I simply don’t think this book is successful at that. The purpose of the novel is ostensibly to elevate Circe above the status of a one-dimensional minor antagonist - but to accomplish this, the author mostly demonizes her family and a variety of other figures, so the net result is that there are more one dimensional female villains, not less. I expected the opposite, frankly. The initial section of the novel focuses on Circe’s relationship with her family, chiefly with her father. That’s largely uncharted territory in the source material - to my knowledge no ancient author seemed particularly interested in covering this period in her life. Blank pages of this sort are definitely worth filling. To begin with, Helios is characterized as abusive, neglectful and power-hungry. And also, for some reason, as Zeus’ main titan ally in the Titanomachy - a role which Hesiod attributes to Hecate… To be fair I do not think it’s Hesiod who serves as the primary inspiration here, as it’s hard to see any traces of his account - in which Zeus wins in no small part because he promises the lesser titans higher positions that they had under Cronus - in Miller’s version of events. Only Helios and Oceanus keep their share, and are presented as Zeus’ only titan allies (there’s a small plot hole as Selene appears in the novel and evidently still is the moon…) - contrary to just about any portrayal of the conflict, in which many titans actually side with Zeus and his siblings. Also, worth noting that in Hesiod’s version it’s not Oceanus himself who cements the pact with Zeus, it’s his daughter Styx - yes, -that- Styx. Missed opportunity to put more focus on female mythical figures - first of many in this work, despite many reviews praising it as “feminist.” Of course, it’s not all about Helios. We are quickly introduced to a variety of female characters as well (though, as I noted above, none of these traditionally connected to the Titanomachy despite it being a prominent aspect of the book’s background). They are all somewhat repetitive - to the point of being basically interchangeable. Circe’s mother is vain and cruel; so is Scylla. And Pasiphae. There’s no real indication of any hostility between Circe and any of her siblings in classical sources, as far as I am aware, but here it’s a central theme. The subplots pertaining to it bear an uncanny resemblance to these young adult novels in which the heroine, who is Not Like Other Girls, confronts the Chads and Stacies of the world, and I can’t shake off the feelings that it’s exactly what it is, though with superficial mythical flourish on top. I should note that Pasiphae gets a focus arc of sorts - which to my surprise somehow manages to be more sexist than the primary sources. A pretty famous tidbit repeated by many ancient authors is that Pasiphae cursed her husband Minos, regarded as unfaithful, to kill anyone else he’d have sex with with his… well, bodily fluids. Here she does it entirely  because she’s a debased sadist and not because unfaithfulness is something one can be justifiably mad about. You’d think it would be easy to put a sympathetic spin on this. But the book manages to top that in the very same chapter - can’t have Pasiphae without the Minotaur (sadly - I think virtually everything else about Pasiphae and Minos is more fun than that myth but alas) so in a brand new twist on this myth we learn that actually the infamous affair wasn’t a curse placed on Pasiphae by Poseidon or Aphrodite because of some transgression committed by Minos. She’s just wretched like that by nature. I’m frankly speechless, especially taking into account the book often goes out of its way to present deities in the worst light possible otherwise, and which as I noted reviews praise for its feminist approach - I’m not exactly sure if treating Pasiphae worse than Greek and Roman authors did counts as that.  I should note this is not the only instance of… weirdly enthusiastic references to carnal relations between gods and cattle in this book, as there’s also a weird offhand mention of Helios being the father of his own cows. This, as far as I can tell, is not present in any classical sources and truth to be told I am not a huge fan of this invention. I won’t try to think about the reason behind this addition to maintain my sanity. Pasiphae aside - the author expands on the vague backstory Circe has in classical texts which I’ve mentioned earlier. You’d expect that her island would be a gift from her father - after all many ancient sources state that he provided his children and grandchildren with extravagant gifts. However, since Helios bears little resemblance to his mythical self, Aeaea is instead a place of exile here, since Helios hates Circe and Zeus is afraid of witchcraft and demands such a solution (the same Zeus who, according to Hesiod, holds Hecate in high esteem and who appeared with her on coins reasonably commonly… but hey, licentia poetica, this idea isn’t necessarily bad in itself). Witchcraft is presented as an art exclusive to Helios’ children here - Hecate is nowhere to be found, it’s basically as if her every role in Greek mythology was surgically removed. A bit of a downer, especially since at least one text - I think Ovid’s Metarphoses? - Circe directly invokes Hecate during her confrontation with king Picus (Surprisingly absent here despite being a much more fitting antagonist for Circe than many of the characters presented as her adversaries in this novel…) Of course, we also learn about the origin of Circe’s signature spell according to ancient sources, changing people into animals. It actually takes the novel a longer while to get there, and the invented backstory boils down to Circe getting raped. Despite ancient Greek authors being rather keen on rape as plot device, to my knowledge this was never a part of any myth about Circe. Rather odd decision to put it lightly but I suppose at least there was no cattle involved this time, perhaps two times was enough for the author. Still, I can’t help but feel like much like many other ideas present in this book it seems a bit like the author’s intent is less elevating the Circe above the role of a one note witch antagonist, but rather punishing her for being that. The fact she keeps self loathing about her origin and about not being human doesn’t exactly help to shake off this feeling. This impression that the author isn’t really fond of Circe being a wacky witch only grows stronger when Odysseus enters the scene. There was already a bit of a problem before with Circe’s life revolving around love interests before - somewhat random ones at that (Dedalus during the Pasiphae arc and Hermes on and off - not sure what the inspiration for either of these was) - but it was less noticeable since it was ultimately in the background and the focus was the conflict between Circe and Helios, Pasiphae, etc. In the case of Odysseus it’s much more notable because these subplots cease to appear for a while. As a result of meeting him, Circe decides she wants to experience the joys of motherhood, which long story short eventually leads to the birth of Telegonus, who does exactly what he was famous for. The final arcs have a variety of truly baffling plot twists which didn’t really appeal to me, but which I suppose at least show a degree of creativity - better than just turning Helios’ attitude towards his children upside down for sure. Circe ends up consulting an oc character who I can only describe as “stingray Cthulhu.” His presence doesn’t really add much, and frankly it feels like yet another wasted opportunity to use Hecate, but I digress. Oh, also in another twist Athena is recast as the villain of the Odyssey. Eventually Circe gets to meet Odysseus’ family, for once interacts with another female character on positive terms (with Penelope, to be specific) and… gets together with Telemachus, which to be fair is something present in many ancient works but which feels weird here since there was a pretty long passage about Odysseus describing him as a child to Circe. I think I could live without it. Honestly having her get together with Penelope would feel considerably less weird, but there are no lesbians in the world of this novel. It would appear that the praise for Song of Achilles is connected to the portrayal of gay relationships in it. Can’t say that this applies to Circe - on this front we have an offhand mention of Hyacinth's death. which seems to serve no real purpose other than establishing otherwise irrelevant wind god is evil, and what feels like an advert for Song of Achilles courtesy of Odysseus, which takes less than one page. Eventually Circe opts to become mortal to live with Telemachus and denounces her father and… that’s it. This concludes the story of Circe. I don’t exactly think the original is the deepest or greatest character in classical literature, but I must admit I’d rather read about her wacky witch adventures than about Miller’s Circe. A few small notes I couldn’t fit elsewhere: something very minor that bothered me a lot but that to be honest I don’t think most readers will notice is the extremely chaotic approach to occasional references to the world outside Greece - Sumer is randomly mentioned… chronologically after Babylon and Assyria, and in relation to Persians (or rather - to Perses living among them). At the time we can speak of “Persians” Sumerian was a dead language at best understood by a few literati in the former great cities of Mesopotamia so this is about the same as if a novel about Mesopotamia mentioned Macedonians and then completely randomly Minoans at a chronologically later point. Miller additionally either confused or conflated Perses, son of Perseus, who was viewed positively and associated with Persia (so positively that Xerxes purportedly tried to use it for propaganda purposes!) with Perses the obscure brother of Circe et. al, who is a villain in an equally obscure myth casting Medea as the heroine, in which he rules over “Tauric Chersonese,” the Greek name of a part of Crimea. I am honestly uncertain why was he even there as he amounts to nothing in the book, and there are more prominent minor children of Helios who get no mention (like Aix or Phaeton) so it’s hard to argue it was for the sake of completion. Medea evidently doesn’t triumph over him offscreen which is his sole mythical purpose. Is there something I liked? Well, I’m pretty happy Selene only spoke twice, considering it’s in all due likeness all that spared her from the fate of receiving similarly “amazing” new characterization as her brother. As is, she was… okay. Overall I am definitely not a fan of the book. As for its purported ideological value? It certainly has a female main character. Said character sure does have many experiences which are associated with women. However, I can’t help but think that the novel isn’t exactly feminist - it certainly focuses on Circe, but does it really try to “rehabilitate” her? And is it really “rehabilitation” and feminist reinterpretation when almost every single female character in the book is the same, and arguably depicted with even less compassion than in the source material?  It instead felt like the author’s goal is take away any joy and grandeur present in myths, and to deprive Circe of most of what actually makes her Circe. We don’t need to make myths joyless to make them fit for a new era. It’s okay for female characters to be wacky one off villains and there’s no need to punish them for it. A book which celebrates Circe for who she actually is in the Odyssey and in other Greek sources - an unapologetic and honestly pretty funny character -  would feel much more feminist to me that a book where she is a wacky witch not because she feels like it but because she got raped, if you ask me. 

Circe evidently having the time of her life, by Edmund Dulac (public domain)

I'm okay with a bunch of disorganized rambling honestly 😂. But if I had to narrow it down then I guess I want to know about main and side characters and how they compare to the original?

I know that tumblr is the Prime Site for disorganized rambling, but I have perfectionism issues. But that is a great question, nonnie, and I will be happy to ramble is a slightly less disorganized fashion.

When reading Maximum Ride as a somewhat-formed adult who discovered they enjoy English classes about 3.5 years ago, I noticed that JP, when writing, doesn't understand consistency. At all. Which means, in many ways, I have a free sandbox to work with.

Spoilers for my rewrite WIP, because I strongly believe that if a story would no longer be good if one had spoilers, then it wasn’t a good story in the first place.

I'm trying to keep the backstories the same, plus or minus the scientific method and a few characters (RIP my OCs. I want to bring you back so bad but it wouldn't fit with the thematic narrative). I've mostly kept their (starting) abilities the same, too. Without further ado, I'm going to introduce some WorldBuilding. (If I'm good at nothing else, I'm good at world building)

First off. Logically.

How are they getting Cable?

How are they getting internet?

How are they getting money to eat and stuff?

JP's answer: handwave it off. Sometimes you need to ignore logistics for the sake of plot. This is an answer I'd accept from an author that I like, such as Julie Kagawa, that makes amazing worlds, characters, and narratives that I will happily handwave a few things that wouldn't work in the real world. James Patterson, on the other hand, did not make any of that; he made a cool concept, some good rough-draft characters, and nothing else, and therefore this is an unforgivable sin.

Wasp's answer: They are not getting any of that.

Introducing Cottagecore.

The house is off the grid. Solar Panels and a wind turbine create electricity. They have their own well. They grow their own food, raise livestock for eggs, milk, and wool, and trap fish for meat. They get money through dumpster diving and pawning. They still have to steal half of the necessities they can’t make themselves. They do have a TV, but it can access about three channels on a clear day. Internet is only a thing when they go to the public library.

Giving the flock a background that’s heavy in farming and livestock rearing shores up the plot holes mentioned above, but in my opinion, ties the flock more tightly to the environment, thus giving them something tangible to lose when they have to leave the E-shaped house. Because they’re not just leaving a house and a safety net— they’re leaving their entire way of life with no promise of getting it back. It also gives them a tangible connection to the earth in case I want to actually pursue the global warming themes.

Main Characters

Maximum “Max” Ride (Birthname: nonexistent)

First off, I'm letting her be Latina, James Patterson.

In the original, Max was very much the headstrong, independent, action girl. Leaning into Strong Female Character (TM), but overall she had a strong, solid foundation and enough character consistency through the first three books for me to not have to just make an entire new character. However, I felt that she was, in some ways, a bit too Action-Girl and Strong and Capable. Yes, Max is incredible and competent, but she’s also fourteen. She’s a child.

In the rewrite, Max’s character is still headstrong, independent, capable, and sometimes not the best at listening to others. All of that’s the same. But she’s that way not because of girlboss energy, but because there’s no one else to do it. She doesn’t want to lead, necessarily. She wants to get some rest and let someone else handle the problems life keeps throwing at her. But she knows if she did that, the responsibility of leader would fall to Fang and Iggy, and she can’t ask that of them. She doesn’t want to place that burden on anyone else (Look, there’s a reason I chose Ayano’s Theory of Happiness as one of her signifier songs, okay?). Her narrative is very much centered around burden, and also around loss. She lost her cultural heritage when she was taken away from her birth family, she lost her childhood to being a leader, she lost a good deal of her friends to the school (RIP my OCs), she lost Jeb, and then she lost her stability. And she’s going to lose a lot more before the end of the story. So a lot of her character arc deals with learning that there are some things she can’t fix, some things that can’t be recovered. She can’t get the E-shaped house back. She can’t get her Little Baby Angel back, even after they rescue her. She can’t get her friends back from the school. And instead of working so hard to recover those or find something to replace them, she has to learn to live with that sense of loss and move on with her life without feeling guilty for leaving things behind. And she has to learn that asking for help and sharing her burden is selfish or weak.

Other changes I made that don’t necessarily fit into her narrative arc, but you asked for rambling so rambling you shall get:

Max hallucinates, because mental illness is also a prominent theme in the rewrite. She doesn’t have a psychotic disorder, but her C-PTSD causes visual/audio hallucinations, especially when she’s stressed or sleep deprived. 

Max ends up having a Gender Discovery throughout the story and goes by He/She pronouns eventually. I don’t know when, but it will happen.

As far as genetic modifications/special quirks go, she can fly faster than the rest of the flock, but not 300 miles per hour. She averages about sixty mph with diving speeds of 240. She cannot breathe underwater or shut down her organs on command. She also has the Super Special Power to predict the weather, but that’s not because of genetics, it’s because she has chronic pain in her right arm that gets worse when weather fronts change.

Her favored weapon is her trusty rebar that she picked up from a condemned building. I think she’s going to name it eventually but I don’t know what yet.

Fang (Birth name: Gabriel Xue)

In canon, Fang is characterized in early books by being the “dark, strong, silent type”. He’s probably the most reserved member of the flock, to the point of falling into the Brooding Mystery Man trope in parts of the book. They care a lot, but they’re not the best at conveying that, especially with the younger members of the flock, and at times their high empathy leads them to making mistakes. Despite the high empathy, he’s often compared to a robot due to his lack of expression and external emotions.

Well, first change is that they’re not a man, so jot that down—

If Max’s narrative is centered around burden and loss, I would probably say that Fang’s is centered around humanity and moving on. None of the flock was treated as human while in the school, but Fang was more often than not treated like a wild animal due to “behavioral issues”, and therefore had and continues to have a difficult time considering themselves real and alive, let alone human. This manifests through a several different ways— where in canon Fang definitely had a ‘fight’ reaction, in the re-write they have a ‘freeze’ or ‘shut down’ instinct. They’re selectively mute for multiple reasons (including derealization, jaw pain, the fact that they didn’t learn how to speak until they were 10, and genuinely forgetting it’s something they’re capable of), a period of Cotard’s syndrome, and a tendancy towards self-loathing and self-sacrifice. In short, Fang is still halfway stuck in the mindset that most of the flock grew out of when they escaped in the school, and doesn’t know how to move past it.

Much of their character arc revolves around not necessarily seeing themselves as human, but learning to treat themselves as human even when they don’t feel like one (or even feel real), and knowing that just because they don’t feel human all the time doesn’t mean anyone else can treat them the same. They never start easily expressing their emotions, and they’re always going to be selectively mute, but they learn to accept that those aspects of themself aren’t character flaws or signs that they’re sub-human. 

Other additions to Fang’s character include:

They don’t get their hair cut in New York. It stays long through the entire series. They have the longest hair in the flock by the end of the series, and they can wear it in so many styles.

Fang uses they/it pronouns because themes of reclaiming the weapons used against it and, more importantly, Gender.

They’re actually really good at spelling compared to the rest of the flock, because they and Iggy communicate with Print-On-Palm when they’re nonverbal, and they’re nonverbal for some pretty long stretches of time. 

They and Max have... zero romantic tension. At all. There is none. The number of times Max calls them her sibling/little sibling in the first arc alone is staggering, and that will not change.

Igneous “Iggy” (Birthname: Jamsetta “Jamie” Griffiths)

I’ve talked about Iggy before. Canon doesn’t give us much to go off of, but from what’s shown, he’s smart, sarcastic, has sharper edges than Fang and Max, and also has a sizable ruthless streak. So that’s what I have to go off of.

The big difference between Iggy and Fang&Max is that Iggy has a much better memory of the School. Most of the flock have areas (months or years) that they don’t remember, or people that they’ve blocked from their mind, but Iggy... doesn’t. So he’s the one that remembers all of the other AVIAN test subjects that were old enough to have names and identities but died due to complications. Max might have the burden of leadership, but he has the burden of memory. And that has lead to both a massive fucking guilt complex, because why did he survive when they didn’t, and, as mentioned above, a ruthless streak that he doesn’t shy away from.

Which is to say, by the end of the story, Iggy has the highest kill count.

I love, love writing Iggy next to Max and Fang. I love writing Iggy next to Gazzy and Nudge. Because, I say this with all of the love of the world, but Iggy is not a good person. He is loyalty and love incarnate, and the world can burn down if he and his siblings are safe. Max and Fang will always try to save as many people as they can. They will wonder what’s wrong with them the first time they kill and don’t have a mental breakdown about it. They are good in a way that Iggy is not. He’s okay with killing Erasers. He’s okay with killing humans. He’s okay with killing people who might not necessarily deserve it, if they show themselves as a threat or are simply in the blast radius. He knows perfectly well that most of those Erasers he’s murdering are four and five and he is okay with that, because a lot of the AVIANs were that age when they died. (Yeah, in the rewrite it’s not Fang who has an issue with Ari; it’s Iggy who wants the 7-year-old wolf-boy dead.) 

And this is, of course, juxtaposed with Iggy being really, really good with Nudge and Gazzy (especially in the beginning). Because, again, he actually remembers being a child. He remembers a lot of kids that died and is therefore fiercely protective of the kids that didn’t, as well as fiercely protective of the innocence that he never got. So he’s the one that cooks their favorite foods when they’re having a bad day, always makes time when they want to talk about something, and convinces Max to let them go to that toy store in New York because, yeah, he Max and Fang aren’t kids. They never were. But Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel can be. (And if he has to be a murderer to preserve that, then he’s perfectly okay with that.)

He and Angel don’t get along very well, though. The telepath doesn’t like hanging out with the person with the most clear memories of the school.

Other additions:

Iggy is trans and says trans rights

He also has paranoid episodes, because C-PTSD. Sometimes they’re very helpful. Sometimes they are not.

I actually decided that he’s one of the flock that doesn’t meet their parents. I know in canon he did, but I always found that very clunky because it didn’t add to his character. He was one of the characters who, until it was convenient for the plot, seemed to care the least about his family. I’d much rather give that to a character whose arc would benefit from it.

Iggy! Gets! Older Sibling Rights! Seriously, he’s two months younger than Fang, he is just as capable.

Iggy does not know braille because Jeb decided it wasn’t necessary for him to know. Iggy is also the best speller in the flock, because Print-on-Palm was the only way to talk to Fang for a solid year. Yes he mocks everyone over this.

Iggy is the only member of the flock that enjoys swimming and can take into the air from water. Everyone else in the flock is incredibly jealous.

Nudge (Birthname: Monique Robinson)

If Iggy is defined by his memories, Nudge is his polar opposite. She was seven when she left the School, but she has next to no memories of it. She is missing a lot of time in the first year she escaped. And that causes... a lot of things. It makes her feel disconnected from her older siblings, it gives her the ability to function in society in a way the other’s can’t, it lets her feel less grief over the ones that didn’t make it and she doesn’t remember, it makes her feel guilty that she doesn’t remember what she’s old enough to know. 

Basically, in order for me to keep the character of Nudge as I saw her (more extroverted, not afraid of the world, fascinated with humans like her siblings aren’t, desiring to fit in instead of isolate), I had to put a little bit of distance between her and the flock. Of course, she loves them— that will in no way change— but she’s old enough that she should remember the school (and her dead friends) unlike Gazzy and Angel, but she can’t, and she very much fears forgetting the flock if anything happens to them. So she’s trying desperately to keep the flock close and wants desperately to experience the world at the same time, and doesn’t know what to do when she can’t have both. That’s her biggest character conflict throughout the series, along with that in-between area where she’s not quite where her older siblings are but understands so much more than Gazzy and Angel, and where she stands in that.

So yeah. Nudge’s journey is that in looking for belonging in the world, in her family, and in herself.

This is why she’s one of the ones that gets to find her parent, James Patterson. 

Other additions include:

She never straightens her hair. Never. Her resources at the E-shaped house aren’t perfect, but she still has learned how to take care of her hair and has a few styles she cycles through.

She becomes the default person Max sics on people when the flock is trying to befriend them. Also their de-facto diplomat around strangers.

As in canon, she does take some time away from the flock to expirience ‘normal life’. This does not last long due to the stress of being separated from her siblings/not being able to help them and [REDACTED]

Nudge is... not the only person in her head. I’m not focusing on it much because she doesn’t actually know and neither does the flock (I don’t know if they ever figure it out during the series, either), but she has dissociative identity disorder. She’s not aware of her alter(s?). Her alter isn’t super aware of her, either. 

The alter that I’ve developed is named Oxy and is not super aware of the outside world. In her eyes, she’s still seven and they’re still at the School. She would not recognize the body as her own if she looked in a mirror.

Nudge actually leaves the flock for a while to pursue her dream of living a normal life. She deserves it. She learns how to make muffins and the basics of software development. These things are unrelated.

Gasman (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

Honestly, writing Gazzy is kind of hard for me. Partially because I’m not great at writing kids, and partially because I feel like he’s a pretty surface-level character in-series that... isn’t super compelling in canon. But even if that’s the case, I try to treat all of my characters with respect, so here we go. In my rewrite, he escaped when he was four, which was half a lifetime ago for him, so his memories are ill-defined. Therefore, he managed to circumvent a lot of the trauma that the rest of the kids have, and not in the way Nudge did, which is by creating an elaborate blockage in her memories. 

Which means Gazzy... really doesn’t know how to deal with all of this traumatic stuff happening. So much of his development turns out to be a coming-of-age narrative. Learning how to deal with the horrors of what his siblings grew up with. Learning the fears that they had the entire time. Losing his innocence when everyone around him never had it in the first place, and being so terribly alone because of it. Because, really, how can you explain such a deep loss to people who never had what he had? How can they help in a way that matters?

Also, relationship-wise, I’m slowly deteriorating the relationship between him and Iggy. Slowly. Or, changing it, at least. Gazzy hero-worships Iggy in-series, and for good reason, because Iggy is super cool, especially in the eyes of an eight-year-old, and especially when Iggy has taken care to cultivate parts of his behaviors to be child-friendly. Part of growing up is seeing the flaws in your heroes, and Gazzy has to learn how to deal with it. End of the series Gazzy is much less closer to Iggy than beginning of the series Gazzy, and neither of them are really okay with that, but they learn to live with it, because that’s really all they can do.

Notes:

I’m keeping the mimickry! It plays a bit of a bigger role because that’s how Gazzy learned to talk. I’m debating whether or not he has his own voice or if he just borrows the flock’s as he sees fit. He also uses it to scream really loudly and occaisonally burst the eardrums of Erasers.

At one point he cosplays as Jessica Jones. No you don’t get any more context than this.

He has a horrible sense of fashion.

I’m changing his name eventually because it sucks. He’s either going to change it to Gannet, Garrison, or Ivy Mike temporarily, and permanently to Zephyr. (I never said I was going to make his name GOOD, because he’s eight, but it’s changing. You’re welcome.)

Angel (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

It’s just... a completely different character, at this point. I’ve changed so many things about her in an attempt to make her consistent and act like a six-year-old and work in the whole “telepath before she has a solid sense of identity”, so it’s a different character. Also, I’m tired of writing coherently or in paragraphs, so have some interesting facts.

She has epilepsy! Super severe epilepsy! I think she might also develop juvenile MS in the future because her brain has so many scars from being a fucking six-year-old telepath. There’s no way she could get out of that unscathed.

She has more memories of the school than Gazzy, but only because she keeps accidentally reading the minds of Max, Fang, and Iggy. On a related note, she interacts with Iggy as little as possible.

The mind reading means that she has a hard time developing as a normal child with a normal sense of identity or reality. She can’t tell how much people are individual people and how much they’re just extensions of her. Conversely, she can’t tell how much of herself is actually her instead of the thoughts/opinions/identities of someone else. It’s... kinda fucked? But also super not-her-fault. 

She’s albino because white wings. Also, because I thought it was cool. This also means that her vision sucks, though. Also she has the biggest straw sunhat and the most stylish sunglasses a six-year-old can have.

She’s responsible for Max shaving her hair off.

She has the highest swear count because I think it’s funny. She’s the only person allowed to say the fuck word in writing. Everyone else can only say ‘hell’ and the occasionally ‘damn’ but she can say whatever she wants for dramatic and comedic value.

She is NOT THE FUCKING VOICE, J*MES P*TTERSON.

Honorable Mentions

Jeb

I’m skipping Jeb because of how little I care about him. He’s a little bitch, next character.

Ari

STILL HASN’T BEEN REVEALED AS AN ERASER. I’ve been writing for 50,000 words and he’s over here saying ‘nope nope not yet, not dramatic enough’. He’s had speaking lines but has refused to make himself known to Max. I am so frustrated with this seven-year-old wolf-child that I’ve already considered how I would kill him, if I decide I want to kill yet another child in my writing.

So, my main thoughts for Ari is that he... really just drew the short end of the stick in every possible way. While Jeb didn’t sign him up for Eraser expirimentation, he didn’t do anything to stop it, and pretty much cut his losses when he realized this expiriment made a wreck of his ‘perfect, unflawed’ son, because Jeb doesn’t consider children of any species to actually be humans. So, Ari really hates his dad, which makes things complicated, because he also really loves his dad and really wants his approval. 

Which means that he also really hates Max, because she’s the child that always got Jeb’s time and attention, even when Ari was human. I think, on some level, he knows that trying to tear Max down to a less-favored level isn’t actually going to help his situation— infighting for the love of an abusive parent won’t make them any less abusive— but he’s also seven, and his development is already severely stunted due to becoming an Eraser, and he doesn’t see ‘leaving ITEX’ as an option like the Flock does. ITEX is his everything. It’s all he’s ever known, and they tell him he’s doing the right thing, and he wants them to love him. He wants his father to love him. He knows that if he ever questions ITEX, his father will never love him. So it must be his older sister that’s ruining his life and being a horrible child, and once Ari drags her back down to his level, Jeb will realize who the best child is and love him properly again.

Ari, on an even deeper level, does care for Max quite a bit, because she’s his older sister and he wants that to mean something in a way that ‘Jeb being his father’ obviously doesn’t. He wants what she made for herself, and he hates the Flock because she loves them and obviously doesn’t love him. 

Ari, if anything, is the product of neglect, and both loves and hates everyone who shows a chance of caring about him. And he’s seven, so he can’t notice these patterns, let alone break them.

So. Notes!

He doesn’t look like an adult. I thought that was gross and unnecessary. He’s seven, but he looks closer to thirteen or fourteen. Still young enough that he looks like every Eraser’s little brother, and the Erasers high-key treat him like it.

On a related note, he’s the only Eraser who can talk. The others don’t have the mental capacity or vocal structure to replicate human speech, but they can understand language (at about the level of a two or three year old) and are very good at nonverbal communication. This is why Ari managed to climb the ranks despite only having three years of “service” and also looking like a tween.

He doesn’t have an expiration date because that is SUCH a stupid plot point.

I’m giving him a chainsaw! I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but he deserves to have a chainsaw and GODDAMN I will give it to him.

Emergency and Gene

The OCs that I love and also killed pre-series. They don’t have any scenes, because they’re dead, but their deaths greatly effected Max, Fang, and Iggy, and they are very commonly referenced. Their voices are probably Max’s most common hallucination, to the point where she sometimes pretends they’re ghosts that she can talk to. They’re not ghosts. They’re dead.

Dr. Valencia Martinez

I’m actually keeping her pretty close to canon— loving, supportive, the type of person to take in a gsw victim with minimal questions. The difference is that rather than kindness fueling her actions, it’s incredible guilt. She has three goals surrounding Max: Give her as much support in any way she can, teach her as much about chicane culture as possible, and never let Max know that she’s her birth parent.

(She’s probably going to fail at AT LEAST two of those, but it’s the thought that counts.)

Notes:

She has a pet fox named Robin Hood that she rescued from an exotic animal salesman that got arrested.

I think I’m going to kill her. I don’t know yet, but it’s on the table.

Anne Walker

Y’know, the fake FBI Agent. Who’s not actually a fake in my story because I hated that plot point. She’s genuinely an FBI agent who put the Flock into pseudo-witness-protection in order to build a case against the Institute of Higher Living, accidentally got attached to her prime witnesses, raised them for a few months, realized a [SPOILER] and promptly had to let them get the hell out dodge.

I really like the Anne Walker that lives in my head. She is a VITAL part of the Flock’s development, their mental/emotional recovery, and adding to their safety net to fall back on. She serves them as their first adult role model, and is the first adult to show them what parent/child are supposed to look like from a healthy perspective. Though she has several fuck ups, she becomes someone that the Flock genuinely trusts and loves, which makes it all the more difficult for them to leave when [REDACTED].

Notes:

She and Max do butt heads initially, because Max is paranoid and also afraid of becoming uneeded. This ends up being incredibly important because Max needs to learn how to live and find meaning in life without being the designated Leader/Parent/Big Sister

Anne, at one point, sits the entire flock down to teach them about consent, which was something no one ever talked about with them before. She goes in talking specifically about consent in a romantic/sexual sense (because they’re fourteen and that’s something they need to know), but quickly turns into a full-fledged no, people are NOT allowed to do that to you, what the FUCK.

She’s responsible for giving the flock a laptop. It’s because Angel is online schooled (bc telepathy makes actually learning difficult) and was therefore provided with a computer.

Anne is also allowed to swear, but only when it’s funny.

Michael “Grey” Rivers

Aka Grey from the Sewers Aka GR3Y H47 Aka Mike from the Bronx Aka Gifted Child Syndrome Incarnate Aka Would-be-in-MIT-if-his-parents-weren’t-horrible. He’s my son, your honour.

Basically, his backstory boils down to him being a genius, getting into MIT at 14, his (horrible) parents wanting a perfect child who could “make it out” of the Bronx and represent his family/neighborhood/borough to the world. When he inevitably failed their expectations due to stress, a schizophrenic-spectrum disorder that completely alienated him from the rest of his support network, and refusing to take his psych meds because the side effects were horrible and they made it harder to think (and therefore pass his classes), they kicked him out. He fully intends to go back to MIT when he turns 18 and has control of his finances/scholarships/medication/therapy.

So that’s how the flock meets him. 

Mike ends up in a very prominent support role for the flock both in technological persuits (helping them track their parents, helping them get information from ITEX, trying to disable Max’s chip and failing multiple times until it becomes a matter of personal honour—), in helping the older members of the flock figure out how to deal with hallucinations/delusions (because he’s actually been to therapy, unlike them), and in being one of the only people who talks to them and helps them without any ulterior motive. He’s not trying to build a case against ITEX/The Institute of Higher Learning, he’s not double crossing them, he’s not plagued with guilt. He just genuinely wants to help them, and they genuinely want to help him, and that’s their first introduction to a healthy, non-codependent relationship.

My many disorganized notes on Michael Rivers:

He’s from specifically Morris Heights, Bronx, NYC.

He would say that his last name is actually Rivera, but his grandparents changed it to Rivers so it would sound more English, and his family has been in America for so long that he doesn’t know much about any Latino heritage he may or may not have. He identifies as African American, not Afro-Latino. He’s just bitter that his family felt the need to change their surname to have better opportunities in New York.

Nudge aggressively befriends him pretty much the moment she meets him, bullies him into teaching her how to code, and he very quickly adopts her as his pseudo-little-sister.

His delusions in the book seemed to involve government conspiracies, but as that’s the one delusion that is proved correct in the book, I’ve decided it would be best if his delusions and reality intersected a bit less if I don’t want to write him having a manic/paranoid episode in the second scene he has screen time. So his delusions are more based on “none of this is real”, “someone is recording everything I do and setting me up to fail” and “my ill-wishes on people can and will come true if I dwell on them too long.”. Government conspiracies are one of things he is skeptical about because he thinks most conspiracies are either “CIA admitted to this twenty years ago” or “antisemitism”.

He’s taking online free college classes that don’t actually give him any college credit, but they have good information and help him feel like he’s working towards something. He plans to double major in computer sciences and electrical engineering, minor in marine biology. He’s wanted to join NOAA since he was twelve and he is nothing if not stubborn.

There you go. These are my characters, now. I have custody.

Cats Historical Hypothesis

So, who wants to hear about the potential history of a few seconds of the 1998 version?

Too bad. This is my channel and I can do what I want.

So, I’m gonna talk about a brief moment that occurs in the 1998 version, as well as a few others and guess about its origins. Why do some productions have it and some don’t? Where did it come from? This is speculation based on comparing 14 different versions (Broadway Revival, Buenos Aires, 1998, German Tent Tour, Hamburg, London circa 2002, Madrid, Mexico 1991, Moscow, Paris, UK Tour 2013, US Tour V, Vienna, and Zurich), and whatever historical trivia I can find on the wiki. This is called a hypothesis for a reason. It’s not proven fact. It’s an educated guess.

Anyway, here’s a screenshot of the thing this essay/tangent will be about:

I’m too lazy to get a version I didn’t type on.

I’m adding a cut for people who don’t care to more easily scroll by this thing.

So, some productions have a joke at the beginning of Gumbie Cat where Misto strikes a pose or otherwise attracts attention to himself, assuming that Munk will sing about him before anyone else, only to quickly realize that that isn’t the case and react accordingly. The exact way this plays out varies between production.

Out of the 14 productions I’ve compared, this gag appears in: Buenos Aires, 1998, Paris, US Tour V, Vienna, and Zurich (where it’s actually more sad than funny).

The fact that all three Vienna-based productions I have access to used it makes it highly likely that it originated there. If it came from Broadway, more of the other Broadway-based, but not Vienna-based productions would have it. But, Buenos Aires and US Tour V are Broadway-based. Where did they get it from? And what about 1998, which is primarily London-based?

So, if you’re looking for something, it helps to look at where it’s not. Buenos Aires was mainly based of the 1991 Mexican Tour, which didn’t include this gag. Hamburg is based on the 1985 Sydney production, which was Broadway-based, and also didn’t include this gag. The London version didn’t include the gag on its closing night (from what I can tell. The bootleg isn’t good quality.)

So, this gag probably originated into Vienna and was then inherited by Paris and Zurich. Zurich, Zurich’s Misto in particular, has a connection to Broadway. Most likely, the Broadway production didn’t include this gag at first, but when Lindsay Chambers, a Zurich Misto, moved on to play the role on Broadway, he brought the gag with him.

This would explain who Buenos Aires includes the gag when Mexico doesn’t. In 1991, Chambers hadn’t yet been cast as Mistoffelees anywhere. But, by 1993, when the Buenos Aires production started, Chambers was playing Misto on Broadway. Though Buenos Aires was mainly following Mexico, changing Broadway trends might’ve led to some changes being made to Misto’s character to match. Buenos Aires Misto does seem to be played a bit younger than his Mexican counterpart, which was another Zurich element Chambers probably brought to Broadway.

As for 1998, Jacob Brent, who played Misto there, was Chambers’ understudy and his version of the character is similar to Chambers’ because of that. Brent probably brought the gag to 1998, and since the gag works well on film, where Misto’s facial expressions can be in close-up, the team decided to add that in.

Then there’s the US Tour. US Tour V started after the Broadway version ended and mostly stuck to whatever the Broadway production was like when it closed. The Chambers/Brent version of Misto was probably kept to the end of that production, and the tour kept that characterization. It was basically the Official Broadway Misto Characterization by that point. And the gag in Gumbie Cat was part of that.

No purely London-based show used this gag. Brent played Misto in London after 1998, but there’s no surviving footage of this. If that gag ever was included in London, it most likely didn’t stick. Even if I’m wrong in my interpretation of the 2002 footage, later London-based productions (UK Tour, German Tent Tour, Moscow) don’t use this gag. Misto’s role in Gumbie Cat is a bit different in those productions and the gag doesn’t fit there.

So, how did all of this happen in the first place? Where did Vienna get this from?

Well, Vienna was in many ways a compromise between London and Broadway, which were both very early in their runs. Vienna’s Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer put the Broadway melody into London’s context, for example. In London, at first, Misto sang lead in Gumbie Cat. This wasn’t changed until over a decade later. On Broadway, that singing role was given to Munkustrap. Vienna went in this direction, but a gag about Misto being the center of attention at the beginning of the number might’ve been a nod to the London version. Vienna was the third replica production, which means that before they came in, the number of replicas where Misto sang Gumbie cat and replicas where Munk sang it was a 50/50 split. It took a minute for Munk and Misto to figure out which one of the them would be singing this time.

Another factor is that Vienna Misto is completely mute. Up until this point, both London and Broadway had large singing roles for Misto, so this was a major change. One of the things that changed was how Misto was introduced to the audience. Singing Mistos usually sing The Invitation to the Jellicle Ball. This calls attention to Misto. He’ll be important later, so we want the audience to pay attention to him. This also served as an Establishing Character Moment. In London, it showed that Misto and Munk were both the narrators. Each one took half of the number. On Broadway, this was Misto being theatrical and putting himself in the spotlight, because he’s Like That.

But, Mute Misto needs a different Establishing Character Moment. In Vienna, this gag showed that, though he didn’t sing, Misto lived for the spotlight just like earlier versions did. When Paris aged the character down, it became more about Misto wanting to prove himself or trying to help, though different versions imply different motivations.

Singing has something to do with this. When Misto is mute, he has fewer opportunities to blatantly attract the spotlight. This element of his character has to be downplayed. It often seems like the Mute Mistos of Paris and Zurich want to be Singing Mistos but can’t. They try to get into the spotlight, but have no idea what to do when they get there.

From the way Zurich Misto responds to realizing that Munk isn’t singing about him, he seems like he just got confused. Though he didn’t sing the Invitation, he still danced with Victoria and was part of this opening act. He helped Munkustrap and now he’s right by his side, looking for acknowledgement. It’s not his turn, so he doesn’t get that acknowledgement. He thought this would go differently and his response is confusion rather than embarrassment. Instead of living for the spotlight, Zurich Misto wants to help and he wants the important people in the tribe to acknowledge him.

1998 Misto sings the Invitation. He’s been established as enjoying the spotlight. So, at the beginning of Gumbie Cat, he tries to stay in the spotlight. While Zurich Misto assumed Munk would acknowledge him for being a helper, 1998 Misto, according to Jacob Brent, who has described this bit in detail, assumed that because he’s a magical prodigy, it was only natural that he’d become the center of attention immediately.

Basically:

Mute Misto + Gumbie Gag= “Didn’t I do a good job? Why are you ignoring me?”

Singing Misto + Gumbie Gag= “Bitch I’m fabulous! Now you’re gonna sing about how great I am, right?”

So, though the gag was made as an Establishing Character Moment for Mute Misto, a Singing Misto version was created. The implication is that Mute Misto has low self-esteem and seeks validation, while Singing Misto aware of how special he is, proud of it, and wants others to acknowledge it.

So, there’s a lot to be said about a few seconds of content.