#otp: without you there's no reason for my story
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My Top 10 Favourite Male Villains of all time.
"How arrogant of you to think that any of us are anything but irrelevant". -John Greer, Person of Interest (2011-2016).
There comes a moment in a blog's life where some things are just long overdue, and while the argument could be made that this happened way too early, I'd say that as long as this helps me to find my groove, I am free to experiment as much as I want.
So..... Villains.
Gotta love them. As long as I do not meet them in real life. This post is in particular about male villains since I have one dedicated to their female counterparts in the pipeline so expect that to come soon enough and for this part to be rewritten. By the way, "villain" is a generalisation, I can totally put antivillains, antagonists or more general antiheroes in this list; your definition of "Bad Guy" can vary greatly and so can mine, someone like Walter White from Breaking Bad could have made it in here. My taste is very unusual, so prepare yourself for some unexpected picks.
Also, since these are meant to be some big celebratory posts, for the occasion I'll reveal my Italian heritage and translate every line of dialogue in Italian and publish it separately with a link, so that English readers who are learning Italian can exercise.
But first, some honourable mentions:
Oropo (Wakfu): Once you see the number 2 spot for both this list and the female villains list you might notice a certain pattern regarding my personal preferences when it comes to which characters I tend to gravitate towards the most, but while we're just talking about this guy, I cannot stress enough the amount of wasted potential that lies within his concepts and execution. Really needed two seasons of 25 episodes each to explore it to their maximum.
Tai Lung (Kung Fu Panda): Really like him, but not as much as others, I'll explain it better in one of the entries of my villainesses list. Also, unironically I feel like he's too sympathetic for his own sake and the movie's.
Bill Chyper (Gravity Falls): It's been way too long since I watched Gravity Falls, I really can't give you an accurate opinion on this guy anymore.
Flintheart Glomgold (DuckTales 2017): That season 2 episode. If you know what I'm talking about, you KNOW. Also the music for that whole sequence was a banger, really driving home the deranged nature of that twist reveal.
Big Jack Horner (Puss in Boots The Last Wish): I feel like when people praise Jack for being a breath of fresh air in a stale environment, they often forget just how good of a villain he was in his own right without the larger industry wide void of truly devious antagonists that act out of pure malice.
The Wolf (Puss in Boots The Last Wish): Two villain entries from one movie? Of course it was gonna be The Last Wish, what else could it be? Honestly I don't even wanna talk about this guy, you need to experience the movie for yourself.
Rob (The Amazing World of Gumball): Everything I have to say about this guy gets talked about much better by the number 6 Spot on this list, but as it stands Rob was my first villain OTP and the guy who opened the box of Pandora for me on what an antagonist could and should be, since then my perception of villainy only widened and now I enjoy their role in a story in much different way.
And now, with that out of the way, let's finally start with the ranking of my personal favourite male villains of all time.
Major spoilers down below:
Number 10: Silco (Arcane)
This guy is the reason that brought me to specify who or what counted for this list as trying to simplify Silco into one specific group of characters is a challenge that can only end in a misunderstanding of what makes Silco such a complex and fascinating character with an amazing character arc, that ends with him not being redeemed, mind you, but allows the audience to grieve in such a way that would make a side character death jealous.
When writing an antagonistic character, Silco is my goal and high standard, and just for that he deserves all of my respect and endless praise.
Now, admittedly, Silco's arc takes a while to kick in, but it works out to his advantage by the end of it since you don't realise just how much you've grown to care for him until he's dead and you're left with the surprise.
10 out 10, the nation of Zaun would have been much better (worse) with him than with Vander.
Number 9: The Riddler (DC)
The Riddler is literally my ride or die villain, when I'm in the mood for him, he's literally my favourite antagonist ever; when I am not in the mood for him, I completely forget about his existence.
When compared to many other entries on this list, Riddler is definitely more on the pop culture side of antagonism, and when you've been around for almost a century, you tend to have many different versions of the same character written by different writers, so I wanted to highlight here my favourite versions of him:
Arkham Games: He's hilarious. He's not my ideal Riddler, but whenever he comes on screen, his whiny rat's ass voice stimulates my pheromones.
Batman The Animated Series: I've heard somewhere that this version of him is disappointing, and to that I'll say... yeah, but only when he wasn't on screen, because otherwise, he kind of slayed.
Matt Reeves The Batman: This is the version that rekindled my love for him after so long. Out of every interpretation of The Riddler throughout the years, this is the one version that treated Edward more as a character rather than an obstacle for Batman to overcome, and for that I'll be eternally grateful.
LEGO Batman The Videogame: My very first introduction to The Riddler and the Batman universe as a whole, this version has a permanent place in my heart , I love how much information and emotion you can get out of him by just looking at his mannerisms and quirks alone; unironically, being silent helps him reach that quote on quote idealised version of Riddler that I was talking about earlier.
Number 8: The Snatcher (A Hat In Time)
There are many things that can carry on a villain in a story, their evolution, stage presence, complexity, thematic contrast to their counterpart, and so on and so forth. While an antagonist can check off many of these boxes simultaneously (like the one pictured), there's one box that is almost impossible to truly nail perfectly: comedy.
You see, comedy is subjective, and when your main antagonist is also the funniest part of a given story, it becomes hard to also match a sense of gravity and menace that allows them to also be an imposing threat, even harder is to give said antagonist depth and a tragic backstory.
But somehow, out of nowhere, The Snatcher from A Hat In Time manages to simultaneously be the funniest character in his section of the game, carrie said energy throughout the whole experience even down to the DLC, simultaneously strikes the balance between being scary, wholesome, sympathetic and tragic, exude an insane amount of charisma, all while having a deeply disturbing backstory that touches on some heavy themes and re contextualises his actions into something more complicated and out of a broken man, everything I just said + he's the biggest bastard in his videogame and never repents nor does he have his actions called out.
Snatcher really has all the right cards that make a stationary character work and uses them to his maximum potential, and it works because his character arc throughout the game is more about becoming affectionate to Hat Kid than it is about redeeming himself.
Lastly, his voice actor, Luke Sizemore, aka Yungtown, really sells the performance of this devious soul eating worm and burns his catchphrases into your brain for the rest of eternity.
Fool.
Number 7: Judge Claude Frollo (Hunchback of Notre Dame)
You can never say no to a classic.
There's nothing that I could say that hasn't already been said by thousands of videos on YouTube, but I'll try anyway: you see, Frollo is the reason why we need a new term to identify certain villains that aren't "sympathetic" but still make you feel some sort of human emotion and a form of "I wish someone could give you the care you need to fix your life", I guess the term empathetic exists, but when do you really see it used?
Now, don't get me wrong, Frollo is absolutely not sympathetic in the slightest, he wants to r##e a Romani woman that's way younger than him, but you can still feel that he's very troubled about it in the Hellfire scene and has definitely a lot of unidentified issues and internalised bigotry that could be worked through, even if it's too late to work through them right now.
In general, I feel like people forget that the main reason why past Disney villains worked had to do more with their human traits juxtaposed to their malice rather than just their plain wickedness, otherwise the Horned King from the Black Cauldron would be top of the Disney villains league and that couldn't be further from the truth.
We should really strive towards writing more villains like Frollo, less omnipotent beings that end up falling flat because they don't have much thematic relevance aside from being a threat (Bill Chyper works because he represents Ego and he's used sparingly) and more average vicious individuals who use their power and influence to get what they want.
All in all, if you've seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame, then you know why this guy is here.
Number 6: The Spot (Spider-man across the Spiderverse)
"You've hit me with a bagel!" It's still the greatest villain origin story of all time. There's truly something maniacal about this reveal, like the entire universe was shattered and reality was shocked at the mere realization that while Miles was having his coming of age moment back in the first film, this guy was having his normal life completely and utterly shattered by a combination of both our heroes stepping up to do the right thing and our doofus lack of foresight and self reflection; all of this stuff is hilarious and completely made up for the film but good god they did such an amazing job tying all the elements together in an unexpected way that makes sense and parallels the journey that our protagonist faced in the first movie.
Like with Rob from The Amazing World of Gumball, and a little bit like number 2 on this list, I just really enjoy the concept of turning background characters who had no relevance whatsoever into the big bad of the story who's been there all along and the heroes (and the audience) just couldn't notice.
With The Spot in particular, there's that sense of satisfaction of turning the wasted potential of a villain who has been underestimated for literal decades and treated as a "villain of the week" (God do I love the meta narrative of this movie) into an actual competent, well written antagonist that is aware of his reputation and strives towards bettering himself and his powers.
He's also the funniest character of his movie too and the voice acting of Jason Schwartzman only accentuates his mannerisms and pettyness.
He also has the coolest usage of portals I have ever seen and his whole "There's a hole inside all of us" is simultaneously hilarious and very deep personal information that can only be understood if you put yourself into his shoes.
Number 5: Lord Shen (Kung Fu Panda)
"Happiness must be taken. And I'll take mine"
.....
What a character.
What a movie.
You cause so much pain and suffering, because you don't understand the people around you, and then those people banish you, and you can't understand why, so you start to believe that they hated you.
They never loved you, so you keep causing pain and suffering but it's not that easy anymore; the guilt starts to resurface, all those bodies keep piling up, but you can't stop because then it would have all been for nothing; so you keep chasing those dreams of grandeur because that's all you have left; the emptiness in your heart can no longer be filled by love, so you try to fill it with something else.
You try to fill it with power. You try to fill it with glory. You try to take everything else for yourself so that you can fill that cup, but it doesn't work, because that cup has no bottom.
And so you're left... with yourself.
And the damage you've done. But now it's different; you've failed. You are left with nothing. Nothing.
And so you outrage, for the last time... And then it all ends. Forever. And you've finally come to accept this, after all....... Who could ever love you?
Number 4: Spamton G Spamton (Deltarune)
You know, in retrospect, it's kind of insane what Toby Fox managed to achieve when creating Spamton.
Not only because Spamton feels like the most insane combination of ideas ever conceived, but also because Toby Fox created such a complex character with such a complicated language and personality and then not only shafted it all aside for the players to go out of their way to interact, but also made all of this in what are officially 2 or 3 cutscenes at most (4 if you consider his shop encounter as one) and only one of them being truly mandatory.
You spend so little time with Spamton, and most of that time is spent fighting him, and yet by the end of it you've become enlightened by the knowledge of him, that after a while... you forget how scary it all was.
All the memes comparing Spamton with Turbo are 100% correct and justified, Spamton truly is Turbo but better; you go through an insane rollercoaster of emotions with this character that you are left absolutely dumbfounded when it all comes to a stop and you go back to play the rest of chapter 2 normally.
I'll admit, I've considered putting Spamton in place of the Number 3 spot on this list; but then I've realised that on an objective level, the next entry totally deserves to be ranked above Spamton; plus, with at least 5 more chapters of Deltarune on our way, whose to say that one of the next gremlins won't be able to dethrone even the number 1 spot?
Drumroll for our top 3:
Nox, the Watchmaker (Wakfu)
There will never be another experience in my life as cathartic as watching the first season of Wakfu for the first time ever again.
On a later rewatch, the initial problems of the problems you've noticed throughout the season become too apparent to ignore, but the first time everything that goes from the tournament to the finale is one of the best paced arcs of television, and everything that happens when the team reaches the Sadida kingdom is just peak Wakfu.
And the king, the culprit, the crown jewel of properly paced stories and arcs is no other than the sad clockwork dilf himself: Noximilliem Coxen the Watchmaker.
Arguably, the greatest sympathetic villain of all time. There has never been another case of a character who has committed such vile, unspeakable crimes, and yet still managed to make me root for them while simultaneously not putting down the heroes.
And let's not be mistaken here, Nox is pretty evil:
Aside from the generic murder, Nox also defiled and stitched together the corpses of multiple victims and turned them into his obedient puppets in order to commit even more murder and genocide in order to achieve his goals.
Also, this is one of the funniest crimes Nox has committed: he abused his dog. It's really not that funny nor that important in the context of the show, but if you look back at it from my perspective then it's really like: Oh yeah. That happened too. Lol.
Words alone cannot do justice to the treacherous, gut wrenching emotional rollercoaster that is experiencing his story for the first time. An hour long video essay would only serve to cover the basics and fundamentals, while for the real deal you need to watch the first season of Wakfu for yourself.
Number 2:
Bradford Buzzard (DuckTales 2017)
And now it's the perfect time to pull out my final wild card, the hole of the sink of my autism, the masterpiece of wasted potential that is Bradford Buzzard from the DuckTales remake of 2017.
When you'll also see the number 2 spot on my villainesses list, you'll come to realise that this spot is more of the "I really wish I could put this at number one but I can't because objectively he doesn't deserve it and the majority of things I love about him in canon were probably an afterthought and in fanon were never plausible to begin with."
And that's how I feel about Bradford Buzzard, an antagonist I spent more time thinking about than probably anybody else on the Earth.
The show runners were so genius for this: we are going to create an original character that will probably struggle to maintain a foot print on the franchise due to the way the Duck verse works, we'll give him an insanely cool backstory and motivation, all coupled with interesting character traits and ideology, we'll make him the ultimate foil to Scrooge McDuck that has been working with him for literal decades, we'll make him the one who has got the closest to isolating Scrooge and destroying his family, and THEN we'll turn him into a generic anime villain that shoots lasers and fumbles his own plan and loses because of insane plot armour and contrivance. Good job writers.
And now, for the one and only,
Number 1:
(Note: I specifically chose this picture to avoid spoilers)
Qilby (Wakfu)
Boy oh boy, where do I even begin with this guy, he's the first Wakfu related post I've made on this blog for a good reason, nothing can compare to the level of bastardy that this thumb sucking old fart is capable of putting you through.
If Nox is the single greatest sympathetic villain of all time, then Qilby is by far the greatest twist villain of all time, and the crazy thing is that he surprises you two times in a row, at first by revealing himself as more evil than you could ever imagine, and the second time by being more complex than you could have ever anticipated.
Let me paint you the picture: you just finished the first season of Wakfu after being drawn towards the show by the hype surrounding Nox, so you think to yourself "Oh, now there won't be any more thought provoking, well written antagonists" and you start the second season.
So far, everything is normal, even better of the first season in terms of engagement value, but you can't help but feel the lack of a Nox like figure inside of the story, but at this point, you just accept it.
Then the final six episodes roll around and OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING, HAS THE WHOLE SHOW JUST GONE INSANE? ( The answer being that it was insane from the start)
But hey.
That's just Qilby for you.
Good job, you old sad bunny man.
#top 10#big jack horner#puss in boots death#person of interest#john greer#wakfu#oropo#kung fu panda#tai lung#gravity falls#bill cipher#ducktales 2017#flintheart glomgold#the amazing world of gumball#tawog rob#arcane#silco#dc universe#the riddler#a hat in time#ahit snatcher#the hunchback of notre dame#judge claude frollo#spiderman across the spiderverse#atsv spot#lord shen#deltarune spamton#wakfu nox#bradford buzzard#wakfu qilby
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Reintroducing: Margaret “Maggie” Decker in Without You
tagging: @eddiemunscns @samwilsonns @foxesandmagic @fakedatings @sgtbuckyybarnes @ocappreciation
#ch: Maggie Decker#dick grayson oc#fic: without you#otp: without you there's no reason for my story#titans oc#oc appreciation#I'm finally getting better at making gifs#so of course I was gonna reintroduce my girl
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hey, hey, quick internet fandom ettiquete lesson; X has two hands jokes only vibe if you are talking to someone who is ALSO already talking about how X has two hands. Okay? Okay. It is in fact very rude to go onto other people’s posts where only one set of hands is involved to evangalise about two hands. When seeing ship art/fic of only half your ot3, it is proper ettiquete to simply enjoy the art/fic as it is, and if so inspired create/commission/seek out the ot3 content of your choice. This has been your quick internet fandom lesson, thank you for your time.
#this is one of those things that has been cropping up a lot lately and it's. not cool. don't do this okay?#bc no one likes being evangelised at; for any reason#i know its probably just because you love your ot3 and i 100% feel that. i have many an ot3 i adore#but to the person who reads your comment on the thing they put hard work and love into it just reads as-#-'the product of your hard work and love is WRONG you should fix it to MY PERSONAL STANDARDS'#you are not better than the singular otp sides of things and its *certainly* not a solution to ship wars#the ot3 is going to have a different dynamic than either side of the individual otps and thats simply not going to vibe with everyone#and thats okay!#long story short: enjoy your ot3. love it! and let others enjoy their otps in peace. tell them you like their art if you want!#just dont go on to say what you think is missing that the creator clearly never intended#stop talking to yourself flight#ngl this is like. at least half the reason i've kinda been shuffling away from srk#kh3 convinced me sr was endgame but i could have happily kept on shipping an ot3 without canon. i dont need canons permission to ship#but wow has the constant bombardment in almost exclusively sr fanworks of 'omg two hands' has really soured the whole thing to me tbh#stand au srk is kind of the only srk to me now
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Fandom grandma tales: how I survived canon ruining two of the ships I liked.
(Written after a discussion with some of my TROP fan pals about how canon can break your heart re: shipping, and how fandom manages. There are spoilers here for the entire run of Babylon 5, and for one story JMS wrote after it. yes, that story. sorry.)
Babylon 5 was a sci-fi space opera show that ran from 1993 to 1998. It is sci-fi of the era of 22-episode seasons, of huge ensemble casts with characters who get their own B- and C-plots, with an effects and casting budget that doesn’t always match its ambition, and - something it was quite pioneering in, at the time - grand pre-planned story arcs.
It’s the first fandom that I was involved with in internet spaces as it was running, or at least when its final season was (there’s Discourse and drama from earlier years that I missed). Its showrunner, J. Michael Straczynski - ‘JMS’ - was very active in (non-fanfic) fan community spaces, and you always knew exactly what he was thinking about things because he was part of the discussion around them. There was also fanfic, which he didn’t stop but didn’t go near on the grounds of legal liability for story ideas.
Most of the fanfic in the early days as the show was airing was focused around two big ships, of which one was canon endgame (Delenn/Sheridan) and one was canon all-ends-in-despair (Marcus/Ivanova). I, as a teenager discovering a developing online fandom for the first time with all the overwhelm and excitement that causes (ask me anything about what reading fic was like before the days of tags/ratings/warnings!) got into Marcus/Ivanova and also into one of the minor ships, Delenn/Lennier.
Delenn/Lennier was never, ever going to happen in canon. This is obvious; it clashes with Delenn/Sheridan which was JMS’s baby darling OTP, the show’s big love story. Delenn is married for the later part of the show. Lennier is her diplomatic aide, is absolutely devoted to her, and they have a very intense mentor/student relationship, which it seems is kind of standard in their culture (when Delenn’s own mentor died she went briefly insane with grief and started a genocidal war over it) but is still Very Intense. He is canonically in love with her, but that’s as far as the explicit canon statements go.
However. HowEVER. Canon also gives us, for that relationship, some wonderful ship fuel. Lennier knows about every bad thing Delenn has done, including all the stuff she doesn’t/can’t tell her husband. He’s her link to her previous world and culture and stands by her even when they kick her out. She says at one point, “without him, I would stumble and fall and never get up again.”
And then… we had Season 5, the final season.
Season 5, for various complicated production reasons, was operating a little outside of pre-planned story arcs and in this season the Delenn/Lennier stuff ramped up about three gears in one go. It was still very obviously never, ever going to be canon, and was almost certainly not intended by the creator (who wrote most of the episodes himself) to look like there was even anything there. At this point Delenn is married; any relationship with her aide would not only be going against the show’s OTP, but going against it in the sense where she’s cheating on her husband, and there is Just No Way JMS would have gone there. And yet! Season 5 gave us:
A scene where Lennier says he can’t stay, it’s too painful to be around her now she’s married, and she’s devastated and has the following conversation with her husband about it:
S: I got your message about Lennier. Is there anything I can do?
D [snapping]: Almost certainly not.
S: Is it because of me?
D: In part, I think so.
S: Yeah, I was afraid of that. Well, as we say back on Earth, three’s a crowd.
D: On Minbar, three is sacred.
S [slightly uncomfortable laugh]: Well, I don’t think I’m ready to handle that one, Delenn.
Delenn then calling Lennier back to the station to do some secret mission thing for her, which involves her sneaking out of her bed while her husband sleeps to meet Lennier in a darkened alley behind a bar, where she tenderly strokes his face and they have a whole conversation about whether her husband understands her or not.
A scene where Lennier comes back from his secret mission to meet both Delenn and Sheridan, Delenn goes to greet him with a hug, and Lennier does this very pointed step back and nod in the direction of her husband, and she pulls back and just sort of pats him on the arms instead.
I MEAN.
But, the issue here is not what fans did about it but what canon did about it. Canon did the canon equivalent of dragging that ship outside and shooting it in the head.
In the final few episodes of the entire series, Lennier tries to kill Sheridan, runs away in shame, and then someone finds his diary in which he’d been writing for ages about what a bad decision he thought Delenn had made and how her whole marriage was an awful idea. Even to this day, it’s fun/awful watching people go through a first-time watch when they get to season 5 and hit that. ‘Character assassination in the form of a diary’ was a whole thing for a while. It’s been 20+ years and the actor who played Lennier is stilll mad about it (not because of shippy stuff, but because he - correctly! - thinks Lennier absolutely would not have done that).
What *fandom* did, on the other hand, was Fixed The Problem.
Delenn/Lennier was not at all a big ship when the series was airing, and for a few years after. Then the fandom dynamics started to change. With less pressure on what canon was going to do, it felt like fandom had more space to play around with things it didn’t do. Fanfic got less interested in trying to fit within the overall story being told and started spinning off in all its own directions. And *this* ship started getting bigger and bigger. People did really interesting things with it, canon divergence went in all directions, everyone wrote a fix-it story of some variety, some authors did a great series of connected stories based on an idea that Minbari have three genders, the quality of the writing has been brilliant. And I think without that absolute whiplash feeling of what happened in canon, there would never have been this feeling of “well I’m not having THAT” which led to all this.
We did not need canon! Canon had done its thing. And canon had broken our hearts enough ways with many of the other stories it told (entirely on purpose) and we weren’t just going to sit back and let it ruin us forever.
By comparison, the other ship I was into was Marcus/Ivanova. This is entirely doomed. Susan Ivanova’s love life is just perpetually doomed. The first partner of hers we meet is an ex who’s interested in getting back together, but then it turns out he’s just using her to infiltrate the station for the fascist terrorist group he’s secretly joined. Then she falls for an archrival of hers, Talia, who works for Psi Corps, the organisation she loathes most of all things - but it’s okay because it turns out Talia is starting to question them too! Maybe these crazy kids can make it work! They have one night together and then OOPS turns out Talia was being secretly controlled by a sleeper personality implanted in her by Psi Corps the whole time. Ivanova’s love life is doomed.
So for two seasons, she has this sort-of-flirty, sort-of-bickery, sort-of-friendship going with Marcus, who is on the surface of it very much “why not fall in love at first sight like a true romantic, YOLO!” but it turns out is actually deeply messed up himself and full of survivor’s guilt and pain and, you get the clear impression, would have died of shock if she’d actually called his bluff on the OTT flirting and said “yeah, let’s go for it”. And then he sacrifices himself to save her life. It is a very tragic ending, it is absolutely the way he would have wanted to go, she wakes up both furious and absolutely distraught, says that the last thing she heard was him saying “I love you”, says she wishes she’d at least slept with him once, and says that in a way all love is unrequited. PAIN.
So, lots of fix-it fanfic, lots of ‘Marcus comes back to life’, lots of canon divergence AUs where he doesn’t die and they live happily ever after and both get over their huge levels of unresolved pain. Pretty standard for that kind of pairing. And as a pairing it doesn’t get in the way of any big canon pairings, it doesn’t imply anything icky like mentor/student power imbalances or adultery. And JMS clearly quite liked it. So that’s better, right?
NO. It was WORSE.
JMS wrote an Marcus/Ivanova story himself, published in one of the sci-fi magazines, to try to give them a happy ending. This happy ending involves Marcus, many many years in the future, waking up from the cryogenic suspension he’s in (it’s sci-fi, keep up, keep up). Ivanova is long dead, but he isn’t about to let this get in the way, so what he does is to *create a new Ivanova* by getting some kind of DNA + computerised memory/personality bank thing, finding a doctor who will clone her, putting himself back into animated sleep until the clone reaches the age Ivanova was when she died, then - THEN, I’M STILL GOING - takes her to a distant planet where, with her memories wiped and their spaceship having deliberately been crashed BY HIM so there’s no way back, they live out their lives in peace.
WHAT.
That pairing still does okay in fandom but it’s not really taken on a post-show world of headcanons and riffing on other people’s ideas and tropes in the way that Delenn/Lennier has (and we all just pretend that story never existed).
So! This has been my experiences in the field of What We Do When The Show Has Thoughts On That Non-Endgame Ship We’re Into. Fandom manages. Fandom will see you through. And in the words of Susan Ivanova:
Babylon Five was the last of the Babylon stations; there would never be another. It changed the future, and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future, or others will do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, for if we don’t, who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely places. Mostly though, I think it gave us hope that there can always be new beginnings - even for people like us.
#fandom grandma#fandom history#non-endgame ships#shipping#canon and non-canon ships#babylon 5#delenn x lennier#marcus x ivanova#that story's not canon if I say it's not canon#b5#what in the actual hell was that diary anyway#snarky bill mumy interview forever in our hearts#never have I seen a more perfect ot3 setup and YET
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Sunny Day Jack - Playful and Crazy
In the spirit of Valentine's Day, I've decided to just write something in the spirit of love. What better way to show myself love than with some sugary sweet self-indulgence with my OTP? I just let things flow wherever it took me with Alice and Jack loving on each other, without really fretting about any bigger purpose, polishing, or any real beginning or end.
No real warnings apply, just some sweet making out and silliness from a clown who has an appreciation for television and a ray of sunshine who drives him crazy. Who doesn't love to reference a good sitcom that they grew up with when the mood is right?
Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you all have a wonderful one and that you enjoy my story. Love you all and, as always, thanks for reading and sending me sweet comments!
@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur @kurokrisps
...
Alice ran her fingers through his blue hair. It felt soft and silky, not at all stiff like a wig or as if it was dyed. Jack let out a low, pleased rumble at the back of his throat as he leaned into her touch. His expression was one of pure contentment as his eyes drifted closed. His adorable dreamy smile seized her heart in a gentle squeeze.
“Alice,” Jack sighed. He shifted as Alice brought her fingers back to his forehead, nuzzling into her arm before pressing his lips to her wrist. “My sunshine…”
Alice shivered at the way his voice and warm breath caressed her skin. “Jack…,” she said softly as he planted another kiss there, then another. Slowly he worked his way down his arm, planting countless playful pecks that tickled and warmed her all at once.
“Cara mia,” Jack said with a playful note to his voice, his eyes dancing as he met her gaze.
Alice tried not to laugh, but it escaped her anyway in a snort. Of course this television clown would make a TV show reference. “You’re so cheesy,” she teased before breaking off into giggles as he peppered her with intentionally ticklish kisses.
“Querida mia,” Jack cooed in a poor Italian accent. His movements became a bit more exaggerated with every kiss, making the reference even more intentional, but each kiss carried his sincere love for her.
Alice giggled as she watched her silly clown perform, using her arm as a prop. “Do you even know what that means?”
“No,” Jack admitted playfully between kisses. “But I do know that it means you’re the only one for me, sunshine.”
Alice felt a flush of warmth that brought a rosy hue to her cheeks. “You’re the only one for me too, mi amor.”
Jack’s eyes sparkled with excitement, and he flashed a wide smile. “Sunshine, that’s French!” He practically attacked her arm with kisses. “You know it drives me crazy when you speak French.”
Alice fought not to laugh at his silly antics, giving him a smile that barely managed to hold onto its wry hook. “A-actually that’s Spanish.”
Jack paused for a moment, as if caught off guard or contemplating, before he went back to kissing her arm. “Alice, that’s Spanish! You know it drives me crazy when you speak Spanish.”
Alice couldn’t hold back her laughter that time, and every kiss only made her cackle even more.
It was only when Jack worked his way up to her shoulder and his lips found her neck that Alice started to go breathless for a different reason. Silly pecks slowly started to linger, his mouth gently sucking on her skin with every kiss that blazed a trail upward along the hollow of her throat. Gently, he raked his teeth along her skin before nibbling on a particularly sensitive part, eliciting a gasp that turned into an adorable almost mewling sound.
“God…,” Jack murmured against her neck, and Alice could feel his smile against her skin. “It drives me crazy when you make those noises for me, sunshine.” He leaned back just enough to see her flushed face, those plump pink lips that beckoned for his. “You drive me crazy… so, so crazy…”
Alice didn’t get a chance to respond before Jack claimed her lips with his. She moaned what would have been his name if his tongue didn’t slide into her mouth to twine with hers, making words impossible. She gave up on any sort of witty retort and savored the kiss instead, wrapping her arms around her lover’s neck to draw him closer.
It was only when both of them were left breathless and gasping desperately for air that they parted, mouths wet and connected for a moment more after that. Jack admired the haze of love and desire that clouded her bright blue eyes, taking pride in knowing that he was the cause of it. He was the reason she was so worked up. He was the only one she looked at that way, the only one who she would ever look at this way.
A part of Jack wanted to show off, to brag to the world that only he was worthy of Alice. He was the only one who could drive her wild and make her weak with need. Another part of him was greedy like a dragon with its hoard, wanting to lock her away in their own little world where no one could take her from him. Nothing would take his sunshine away from him. He’d never allow it.
It scared him sometimes how badly he needed her.
“I can’t help it,” Jack said softly, more to himself than her. “I can’t help but be crazy for you, Alice. I love you so much… I need you.”
His answer was a kiss, as Alice pulled him back to her. Jack melted into her lips, moaning as she took the initiative to deepen the kiss, sliding her tongue along his intimately. She twined her fingers through his hair, tracing hearts along his scalp and making him shiver as the kiss ended.
“I love you too, Jack,” Alice said breathlessly. She placed a kiss on his painted nose before giving him a crooked smile. “You’ve made my life crazy, you silly clown, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Jack chuckled as Alice teasingly poked her tongue out at him before he captured it with his lips, leading them into another deep, wet kiss. He pulled her close, savoring the warmth of her body against his, how her delicate fingers toyed with his hair and scalp.
“Good,” Jack said once they caught their breath again. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m holding you to that,” Alice said as she playfully, but gently, tugged on his hair for emphasis.
Jack shivered at the feeling and his smile took on a hungry edge to it, like a predator salivating over his prey. “You can hold onto me as tight as you want,” he practically purred before his voice turned teasing. “You can pull on my hair as hard as you like too. I don’t mind, you know~!”
Alice blushed harder at his suggestion and sputtered for a moment before she recovered. “You really are a crazy clown,” she said with a soft chuckle, before giving his hair a slightly firmer tug. “Just… let me know if it’s too hard.” Her smile faded just a little. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t,” Jack said. His voice was soft but full of conviction so strong that Alice couldn’t help but believe it too. “Don’t worry… I’m tougher than I look, you know. Besides, I’d enjoy it if you played a little rough with me sometimes.” He added a playful wink to lighten the mood. “I love how gentle you are with me, Alice, but I’d love to drive you just as crazy as you make me. I want you to lose control with me, go wild for me, want me, need me, until you can’t think about anything else but me… how much you love me and I love you.”
Alice let out a quiet chuckle at that. “Trust me, there’s no one else who makes me wild like you, starlight.” She punctuated her words by nipping at his lower lip before drawing back. “I’m crazy for you, Jack. I love you so much.”
“I love you too, Alice,” Jack sighed happily before he closed the distance between them in another kiss. He smiled against her lips as he felt her give his hair another, much more firm tug. He moaned her name in approval before drinking deeply of that sweet mouth that always knew the right words to say to fill his heart with love.
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So here's the thing : The Addams Family is a very difficult fandom to write for (speaking as someone who arguably have some experience of writing for this fandom) - seriously, it is really really difficult to be creative here and here's why - they are perfect family unit, loving and supportive and whats not. Good. Great. This is why we love them, right?
Gomez and Morticia? Couple goals. Madly in love and absolutely devoted to each other. As parents - A+++ parenting. Their children are supported and encouraged to explore their independence and individuality. Brilliant. Perfect.
So where do you go with it story wise, what new content can you create that wasn't already done and recycled? Nowhere. There's no story.
There's a reason why majority of fan fiction in the TAF fandom are one shot smuts or (very few) significantly AU chapter stories (this goes for my own writing as well) because those characters are too perfect and too cartoonish to work with outside of parameters of what was already explored in the 60s tv show and 90s movies.
So what do you do? You create artificial drama - artificial, even cliché conflict which in the Addams Family works primarily between two characters Wednesday and Morticia. It's artificial and ooc but it's practically the only way to create something tangible within this universe without going wildly AU.
Charles Adams created cartoons, and those characters are just that - cartoonish. There's no depth and no real character progression to speak of, nothing to really sink your teeth in. As a writer, you practically work from scratch - 60s Morticia and 90s Morticia are practically completely different, beside the fact that they are both devoted to their family, loving wives etc.) but essentially, Anjelica Huston created her own Morticia. So realistically, where can Catherine Z Jones, in her own portrayal of Morticia, go from there? Or Jenna in her Wednesday? What can the writers do with those characters that would please the fans but without copying from what was done before because what's the point of recycling the material again and again? What story can they create within this universe that would be new, not recycled, not copied from what was already done within the Addams Family but would be close to the original idea? Honestly, I have no idea. Which is why I'm far from criticising netflix's Wednesday.
Is the new show rocking my boat? No. I have no interest in the school life of a teenage Wednesday and her friends. Zero cares given. But I can still appreciate what they’ve done to create, arguably, a completely new Addams Family content that seems to resonate with a lot of young people, Wenclair fans included - it is really not bad. Not bad at all. Not everyone will like it and that's completely fine, because not all content is created specifically for us and you're not going to enjoy every incarnation of the Addams Family no matter how devoted you are to the fandom.
Now, Gomez and Morticia are my OTP. Do I want to see the adventures of teenage Gomez and Morticia in Nevermore Academy? Fuck no, because I'm an adult and TV show about teenagers, even if it's Gomez and Morticia, doesn't tickle me at all.
Ideally? I would love Gomez and Morticia focused live action movie that would cater to older demographic. I want it dark and I want it sexy and not at all a family movie. What are the chances of that happening? Probably zero.
But anyway, this is my take on this.
#the addams family#personal opinion#wednesday netflix#Wednesday 2022#writing#Fan fiction#morticia and gomez#addams family#morticia addams#gomez addams#wednesday addams#jenna ortega#catherine zeta jones#anjelica huston#wenclair
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Why Boom Still Can’t Get Buffy Right
My love for the Buffyverse is concrete but it has its limits. Yesterday I had a very unpleasant experience finishing yet another unimpressive Buffy run, courtesy of Boom Comics. It’s always disappointing to me because Buffyverse has so much potential and untold stories. It’s a goldmine that is constantly held back and simply can’t find its footing in the comics medium. Why is that?
Boom’s been rather relentless in trying to make Buffy work. Several years and runs later, there’s still no big WOW story that can attract readers and viewers alike. Not just that, but even seasoned buffy fans don’t seem very interested in continuous attempts at rebooting the Slayer tale. You can blame the word reboot (it does tend to scare people) but the real reason is still Boom’s inability to deliver a good captivating story.
Boom had tried reinventing Buffy, sending her back to school, developing alternate realities and futures. But in every iteration, Buffy and the Scooby Gang were plagued with the same mistakes over and over again.
Hey, I’m not sure what I am, so bear with me here
The characters from Buffy are some of the most well-developed characters out there. Each one has a point of origin, a story, and a final form. We love them because we know them. And we know them extremely well.
Let’s take the fan-favorite, Spike. We’ve seen his whole afterlife and even bits of his life. We know how he became William the Bloody, then Spike, a neutered vampire, and finally, an ensouled champion. We know how, and more importantly, we know why.
I’d hate to throw in one more why but there is a reason Spike exists in the show, and we know it.
When you read Boom comics, it feels like writers stick him into every arc just because they like him. He brings nothing to the story, he has no soul or chip yet chooses to join the scoobies. That does not look like the Spike we know. That guy was in s2-s4, not s5-s7. That’s the guy from School Hard or the one who got the Gem of Amara and happily marched to kill Buffy.
But there’s nothing stronger than the author’s desire to make things ‘right’. Hence this spike lookalike joining the team every time.
The funny part is, I can very well imagine a soulless chipless Spike who’s not a monster. If Dru sires him and never sees him again, if she never introduces him to Angelus, if he keeps on writing his bloody awful poetry only forever. He probably would’ve turned out like that poor librarian guy whose glasses Dru broke or like Harmony who still tried to be decent. But it’s the writer’s job to explain it, to write it into the story, not just throw a character into a book and see whether they swim or go down. They will always go down.
Spike is only one of the issues here. In the show, both Kendra and Faith exist to show us the perfect (according to the council) and the fallen slayer. Two possible realities for Buffy. They have their own arcs (well, Faith does) but the show is strong because supporting characters serve a purpose. Just like the people we meet in real life always serve a purpose for us. You might believe that one character pushing the development of another is cruel, but that’s still how good stories are made. That’s still why Buffy is popular 20 years after the show’s finale.
Kendra and Faith did that for Buffy in the show. In the Boom comics they just exist. They show up for no reason and they just hang around. You can take them out of the story and nothing will change. At one point in the initial reboot there were three slayers at the same time, and that felt more like a fix-it fanfic than a quality comic book. Unfortunately, some slayers have to die and some have to turn evil. Besides, without her rebellious personality, Faith is meaningless.
I have one more bone to pick. I know that Buffy and Angel (still the OTP of the show!) are a complicated matter to many modern writers. And readers, and viewers. There’s no place to hide from the creep factor and even though I will defend this ship till the day everyone finally agrees with me, I can’t deny its presence. But that doesn’t mean you get to discard this ship and separate Buffy and Angel into different books. One doesn’t exist or grow without the other. There is no Buffy in love with a vampire without Angel. There is only Vampire. Slayer. Dead vampire.
Without Buffy, Angel is not in LA helping the helpless. He’s in New York eating low rats. Before trying to launch two separate books, how about Boom launches one good one, that provides background, even if revised and adapted to the modern days?
I always worried what would happen when that b*tch got some funding
All this chaotic mess with the characters determines the stories Boom puts out. They tend to have an interesting start but by the time issue 3 comes out, it’s either Camazotz flying around Sunnydale, a giant crab taking over the main street, or whatever the hell Silas was (a soul eater?) Didn’t care for him much. Not even when we were evil.
More often than not Boom writers suffer from the same disease that plagued Dark Horse comics – scale. Just because you can do anything doesn’t mean you should. Comics allow you to draw literally any kind of baddie but you are playing within a specific world, and suspense of disbelief only goes so far. Besides, in the show, it all grows gradually. You go from the Master to the First evil. In the comics… seriously, what the hell was Silas?
From what I’ve read so far, Boom knows how to ask interesting questions:
What if Buffy went to school today?
What if Willow took over as the slayer?
What if Buffy was older?
Those are all good what ifs but Boom has a problem following through. They don’t know the answer to this question and it feels like they’re making it up as they go along. If I’m being honest, it even feels like they wrote random ideas on pieces of paper, through them in a hat, and started pulling each time they hit a wall.
Characters show up for now reason (hi, Tara from the latest run), they don’t feel like themselves, and the saddest part – none of it feels like you are getting your favorite show back.
These characters deserve better than that.
And there’s not a one who can say this ended well
At this point, I don’t know if Boom wants Buffy comics to succeed. I don’t mean to be this dramatic but every time someone mentions comics, fans think Dark Horse. Not because they are still considered canon, but because they had a connection to the beloved show. Boom comics don’t give you that, so you can’t look the other way when writers don’t deliver. It’s just how it works.
I keep thinking what Boom can do to get out of this vicious circle. And I do believe there If they want to successfully play in the Buffyverse, they have to seriously up their game. It’s not impossible either. I mean, Something is Killing the Children is being released by the same studio. And what is that if not a more gruesome version of Buffy? So it’s not exactly magic. It’s doable.
Personally, I still hold out hope that someone would dare explore the terrifying bloody past of the Whirlwind. Wouldn’t that be fun and gory? I’d like to see deep well-thought-through stories of past slayers. I’d happily read a well-illustrated comic run based on In Every Generation. And if we have to go back to Buffy variants, why not reinvent her story? But before we get to that, we’d have to work through every step of every character. Get them to where we want them, and start with a story that we want to tell, from start to finish. From her first day as a slayer to her last one (she didn’t have to empower the potentials after all).
That, of course, requires a lot of work. And if Boom isn’t ready to put in that kinda effort, they could just move from season 5, introduce a new slayer, and watch how her adventures unravel.
Buffyverse is a hell of a property and there are too many stories waiting to be written. I’m probably still gonna give it a shot whenever Boom comes up with something new. I just hope I won’t have to write yet another long read complaining about it.
#buffy comics#buffy x angel#buffy summers#buffy the vampire slayer#buffyverse#buffy x spike#buffysource#comics#comic books#long reads#boom buffy#boom comics#btvs#btvs comics#kendra young#faith lehane
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Sans Undertale.
the funny one. blue guy. skeleton dude. if u please
favorite thing about them: god how to choose. i love how contradictory he is. i love how much he blends into the background and has a net zero relevance on the game's story, and yet he sticks out like a sore thumb, both thematically and tonally. the judgement spiel makes him the direct deliverer of a core game mechanic, and yet he's... such an outsider about it. i love how morally grey he is. a resonance hybrid between a painfully selfless good man and a self serving bastard. he's the depressed nihilistic man. he is his girlfriend's manic pixie dream girl. he is just some guy. he is the last barrier against universal annihilation. he serves cunt (but only once). he parallels flowey in his refusal to engage the narrative, but whereas the narrative starts orbiting flowey instead, sans condems himself as the audience to the player's actions. #finalgirl. also it's still a theory, but if the otherworld stuff is ever confirmed ingame that will make him the most video game character of all fucking time. hands down. no competitors.
least favorite thing about them: every morning i wake up and i stare in the mirror and i ask myself "do i wanna fuck sans undertale??" and i hesitate. and well i could do without that kind of pressure
favorite line: "that's a promise" "besides. chances are... i've already tried to steer you in the right direction. so what can i say? what can i say that will change the mind of a being like you...?"
brOTP: i like whatever he and grillby got going on. that barman/regular comradery, the mood of the bar late at night and being the only client left. the silent vulnerability of it. it's all hypothetical since grillby doesn't really Have much of a presence in the game, but they obviously get along well. alphys too, what a pair of nerds. oh my god i didn't mention papyrus. oh well, they don't feel like a brotp tbh, it's like. they're halves of the same coin. sans inevitably implies papyrus in my mind, and vice versa. do NOT separate them.
OTP: do you have to fucking ask
nOTO: you know people usually put stuff like incest or age gap ships here because they make them understandably uncomfortable, but if there's a ""ship"" that i violently HATE re:sans it's. whenever they make him and toriel a mother-son dynamic. i am not talking about platonic or qpr soriel, i love those as well, they are besties first and lovers maybe, i mean SPECIFICALLY the take that she's his mother. no the fuck she's not. infantilization of sans and mommyification of toriel aside, that's the entire point of their friendship she is NOT his mother. they're on the same level, he is literally the first person she's gone eye to eye with as an equal in her centuries of isolation and THAT is what helps her snap out of her cycle. she is not his superior, he is not her protège. it grosses me out so much.
random headcanon: half decent singer, but hates to sing in public unless he's being a clown on purpose. used to sing papyrus to sleep as a baby. that's a pretty standard hc though, uhhhh.... he hates drinking. though he's surprisingly knowledgeable about corks, for some reason.
unpopular opinion: abby i'm so sorry i know u like it & i 🤝 about it in some cases ex: specific fics we both like, but he does NOT canonically have 1HP outside of a genocide battle. and i'd really appreciate it if people stopped pushing that hc on everyone else.
song i associate with them: Pinch me by the Barenaked Ladies, and If I Ever Feel Better by Phoenix. helplessness but silly and helplessness but funky. v sans songs
favorite picture of them:
heart eyes motherfucker
#gonna finish a couple of these before i do the fanfic idea one#answered asks#undertale#sans#mtt game show
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It's hard to find densu enjoyers. What's your favorite dynamic? And during which era do you like to imagine them together? Some people who write this pairing in modern settings make Sweden cheating on Finland for instance. It's as if each historical period demands a different reason for this rare pair to be together.
Thank you Anon for sending this ask about my OTP! I'll write my answer under the cut as I have far too many thoughts about these two.
Please appreciate this new and improved GIGABJÖRN this DenSu Swednesday.
The part of your ask where you said that some people who write DenSu in modern settings make Sweden cheat on Finland surprised me, because I have never seen this before. The only reason why I think someone would write this is because they're a SuFin shipper who uses cheating DenSu to introduce some drama into SuFin's relationship. There's no real-life reason why Sweden has to cheat on Finland to be with Denmark in the modern day, because they're all independent nations. Besides, both Finns and Danes make fun of Swedes. If their personifications shared the attitudes of their people, neither of them would want to be in a relationship with Sweden.
My favorite time period and dynamic for DenSu is the most vanilla one possible: modern era, happy monogamous relationship. I'll admit that I'm very bitter towards the old fandom's dynamic for DenSu where they were only violent towards each other. I like to write DenSu as the ideal relationship, so I want them to live in a time period where their countries don't have an active conflict against each other, where they can be open about their relationship and raise children without facing a lot of discrimination. Also, I write Mathias (Denmark) and Björn (Sweden) as human-like characters with unique personalities and life stories that have lived through their countries' entire history, as opposed to humanized versions of the countries whose personalities and lives are analogies for the country's history. This means that the history of their relationship will be influenced by their countries' mutual history, but it won't be determined by that.
Mathias and Björn are immortal magical personifications in my Nationverse, which is different from Hetalia canon in many ways. One of the differences is that humans aren't aware about the existence of magic and immortal personifications, which means that the personifications are not important figures in human society. They don't have a political role and they're not obligated to participate in every war and historical event that their country experiences, although they will be affected by these events in the same way as their fellow citizens. Another difference is that their health and physical ages represents the "conservation status" of their people and culture. Because their people and culture are not threatened in the modern day, their bodies are frozen at the peak of a human's health and strength, in their mid to late 20s.
Mathias and Björn were born when the ancestors of modern Danes and Swedes began to inhabit the land that would become the modern countries. They lived in their respective countries with their people, and they only started spending time together as children, after they figured out how to use their magical powers to teleport to each others' lands. Björn had an intense crush on Mathias but was terrified of others finding out about it, so he tried to suppress his crush by being an asshole to Mathias. Mathias obviously had to retaliate against this stupid kid who was being an asshole to him (and who he couldn't kill because Björn was immortal too). This was the start of their thousands-of-years rivalry.
As their countries formed kingdoms and started to have more frequent conflicts with each other, they formed a genuine hate for each other and challenged each other to fatal duels (being immortals, the loser would respawn). Björn's crush on Mathias only became more intense as they grew older, and Mathias also became attracted to Björn whose muscles only got bigger with time. Their duels with weapons evolved to fights with a suspicious amount of physical contact, but neither of them were willing to admit their attraction to each other because of the social norms of the time.
DenSu's fights ended in the 19th century when both of their countries lost a lot of their power and territory. As their countries experienced famines and mass emigrations, their health began to decline, and they couldn't stop thinking about the possibility of death if their countries' population and economy wasn't able to recover. Finally, they put their rivalry aside to support each other through their common struggle. I haven't decided exactly when the turning point of their relationship from friends to lovers happened, but I like the idea of Mathias living in Björn's house during WW2 after the annexation of Denmark. Living under the same roof as "friends" with intense mutual crushes led them to explore each others' bodies, and then...
The greatest strength of DenSu's dynamic is the physical attraction and passion they feel for each other. After all, if they can keep up a rivalry for thousands of years, they can turn it into love too. Both of them are the types of people who bond to one person very strongly. That person will receive their full love and attention, but they are expected to reciprocate just as much. This is no problem for DenSu, as both of them feel greatly fulfilled when they make their other half happy. While the term "opposites attract" is usually applied to DenSu, they are only opposites on the surface. They have different - nearly opposing - skills, interests and preferences, but their ethics, values, communication and thinking styles, goals in life and sexual preferences are very similar. This means that there's almost no "resistance" or "wasted energy" when they work together and interact with each other, because they can quickly agree on a common goal, know what their roles are and how to achieve their common goal. Each of them helps to compensate for skills that the other is missing. DenSu operates like a finely tuned machine with all of the parts in perfect synergy.
Scandinavian culture is reserved, so to the casual observer, DenSu doesn't even appear to be a couple, as they don't do PDA or sappy romantic gestures. The way they show love to each other is through silently doing favors for each other, remembering what the other likes, accepting their (few) differences rather than nagging the other to change. They keep the romantic gestures in private, and when nobody's watching, they are very touchy and "filled with desires" (Tumblr may not like the actual word). They're physically frozen in their 20s and have healthy diets and frequent exercise, so they get these "desires" very often. Despite what their physiques and body language would imply, Björn has a higher sex drive than Mathias, and Björn is a bottom. Mathias is vers and Björn will oblige when Mathias asks him to top, but he doesn't get any pleasure from it directly. He only feels the emotional pleasure from seeing Mathias being pleasured.
Finally, something I don't see being talked about often enough is the way Mathias and Björn verbally communicate with each other! Swedish and Danish are mutually intelligible, but the average Swede is not trained to understand Danish and will hardly understand anything. Danish comprehension of Swedish is better, but it's not great either. Mathias and Björn are definitely better than the baseline because of their thousands of years together, but they weren't together for most of those years, and they cannot fluently speak each other's language. Because of this, they modify their normal ways of speaking to understand each other better. They have memorized the most common vocabulary differences and false friends. When they talk to each other, they'll insert these different words from the other person's language, and speak in a more neutral "TV big city" accent without noticing. Björn's natural accent is not a big city one (he's from coastal northern Sweden), and I like the idea of Mathias making a special effort to travel to his hometown and study his dialect early into their relationship (before the invention of the internet).
More DenSu headcanons and essays to come. I'm thinking about creating a wiki dedicated to writing about my OTPs...
#ask#hetalia#densu#hws denmark#hws sweden#jämtlagd#I had a different initial idea for the thought bubble that Tumblr will certainly not appreciate#This ask is timestamped September 18 2023#I was just waiting for the right moment to post it#Actual reason: I wanted to draw something to go with it and only started working on Gigabjörn V2 Densu Edition last Saturday#This image is irrelevant because it's a combination of several unrelated ideas such as “draw DenSu and a holographic shirt”#The ideation of the drawing for this ask is where the unrelated ideas came from#It was supposed to be DenSu kissing among flowers. Then I wanted to have Gigabjörn‚ pink purple and blue‚ and holographic effects
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Maggie Decker and the four most important relationships in her life:
Hank Hall - “Older brother”
Gar Logan - “Little Brother”
Lorelei Grimes - Best Friend
Dick Grayson - Love of her life
tagging: @eddiemunscns @samwilsonns @fakedatings @foxesandmagic @ocappreciation @sgtbuckyybarnes
#ch: Maggie Decker#ch: lorelei grimes#dick grayson oc#titans oc#gar logan#hank hall#fic: without you#otp: without you there's no reason for my story
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I am incredibly amused that the end of s1 of My Dearest caused such an uproar that Nam Goong Min had to speak up and confirm that yes Gil Chae is the FL for s2 and the whole thing is a love story between JH and GC.
Now that I have cooled down from initial shock of end of s1, my thoughts can be summed up as they both need to really grow up and mature before they can have any chance together - him actually more than her (tho her too.)
They are little too much alike - their habit of lashing out as self-protection is not a recipe for long-term bliss. So far they are the epitome can’t live with you can’t live without you.
I mean, he would die for her (and almost did more than once) but that doesn’t mean he’d be an easy everyday person to live with. He has cut off his connection with any sort of proper society/hierarchy so thoroughly (he has no family, no permanent abode, no goal of having official position, no traditional values of obedience to royalty etc), he I think is genuinely incapable of understanding that she cannot do the same - she has family she needs to protect but also she IS enmeshed into societal goals and values.
The thing that he doesn’t get (and I don’t necessarily blame him, he’s a 17th century man not a modern dude) is that she will never be able to be free to the extent he is simply due to her gender. He can pack up his stuff and leave (in fact this is his default to deal with any trauma - to leave) but she cannot not just because this would be abandoning her family or even because she can be raped and murdered so easily but because in a society where women are either wives or whores doing so would make her an outcast to an extent nothing he does could make him.
Minglan is a very different drama but it’s a little like the reason it took Minglan so long to open her heart to Tingye - because the stakes are not the same. If you pick a partner wrongly, all the man is risking is his heart but for her it’s her whole life. GC can break JH’s heart. But JH can cost GC her life. And in her particular situation, her family’s life.
The thing is I don’t hate JH either (I mean if they switched OTPs yes I would but as is) - he’s not an enlightened saint but a traumatized period man. But the thing is the way they both are right now even if they somehow got together, I can’t see it working long term. They need to figure out a ton of stuff out first. And how to tell the whole truth even if it’s ugly or makes them vulnerable or causes problems.
PS I don’t really care if this drama is gonna go adultery route (tho I doubt it will) but man I am not looking to fandom fun that will ensue if it will.
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Can you recommend like a fun, silly, summery drama? I'm looking for similar vibes as Cheer Up or Age of Youth (female friendships are a plus). It's hard to find something without melodrama.
First off, I LOVE your user icon! (- ‿◦ )
And I definitely want to help you find something silly and easy to watch, especially as we enter the depths of winter! Some of these are a little less slice of life but still fun. Also I know you already watched/mentioned a couple of these but I'm adding them to the list for everyone else who might be game!
Light Hearted Fun K-dramas (little or no melo)
Soundtrack #1 (slice of life/romance) Best friends for almost 20 years, the two leads start having feelings for one another while working on a project. This drama only has a few episodes which is a shame because it's really cute! As a Park Hyung Sik Stan (sorry but Happiness broke me), he's great in this one and he hasn't lost all of his military weight yet which I LOVE :D
Fanletter Please! (slice of life/ romance) A sick child writes fan letters to her favorite star, an actress who for kdrama reasons is afraid of fan letters. This was a super sweet, short drama - I really liked it so much!
Into The Ring (workplace/romcom): The perfect slice-of-life rom com! Goo Se Ra has trouble holding down a job due to her passionate personality so after she loses her latest job working for the ML, she decides to run for a small government office position because it pays a salary. Literally she does it for the money which is just *chef’s kiss.* The show is about her dealing with local politics and it’s SO FUNNY and smart and the OTP is the best!
King The Land (rom/com): A cold chaebol hotel owner meets his match (literally and figuratively) who is a top notch employee. There's a lot of push pull and the ML (MY BIAS!) Lee Junho's character falls hard and fast. It does have slow moments but if you literally want to watch a happy couple be happy (plus the skinship is chef's kiss and there is so much of it) you'll enjoy this one.
Melo Is My Nature (slice of life): This drama is by far my favorite slice-of-life drama of 2019. Found family, strong and complex characters, I laughed, I cried. Plus a gay character that’s an actual character, with the gay as a casual side note (classy k-drama!!) It was just a perfect show for me. There’s romance, but all of the stories are super interesting.
Top Management (slice of life) I know this show is mainly on Youtube Premium BUT I just got an email from Youtube basically saying “hey we know you never want to pay to watch our shows so we’re just going to let you ok?” so that’s something… Adorable mini drama about a girl who can see the future and becomes the rookie manager for a kpop band. Fun and easy.
Business Proposal (rom/com) Seriously this drama is almost the exact same plot as The Secret Life of My Secretary. It's really fun and cute (just like the latter) and if you like one, you'll like the other ;-)
True To Love / Bo Rah Deborah (rom/com) Bo Rah is a relationship expert publishing her book. She works with a man who is her total opposite making it a cute enemies to lovers. Yoo in Ah is literally so adorable I love watching her! (If I'm honest I can't remember a TON about this drama but I do remember it being an easy watch).
Her Private Life (romcom): Park Min Young really knows how to pick dramas. I loved this one about a museum curator who is secretly a fangirl obsessed with an idol. It’s fun and fluffy but does have a very mild childhood trauma thing with his mother but I mean, 99% of dramas like this do? If you like this one, Touch Your Heart and Why Secretary Kim are by the same person and have similar vibes.
Touch Your Heart (rom/com) A sweet, silly and very mild rom com about a serious boss and his hallyu star secretary. This show was an obvious response to the chemistry that Lee Dong Wook and Yoo In Na had in Goblin so it was nice to see them together again. Yoo In Na is such a fun person to watch!
Fight for My Way (slice of life/romcom): I love this drama! Always a fave for me, this drama is funny and heartwarming! The leading lady is a strong female which I LOVE, and Park Seo Joon plays her really cute down to earth best friend. It’s a childhood friends to lovers trope with a group of regular people (no rich heirs in this show!) and has a happy ending and a lot of cute flirting, cuddling and kissing. Argh I love these two!
Age of Youth 1 (slice of life): Age of Youth/ Hello My Twenties is one of the best k-dramas that centers around strong female friendships. A group of wildly different girls find themselves rooming together in an apartment. Lots of romance too, but the girl’s lives and friendships are the primary focus.
Shopping King Louie (romcom): Ridiculously fun and lighthearted romp following a spoiled and useless chaebol with amnesia who is being taken care of by a country bumpkin in the city. Very low stakes, super adorable couple, and as many tropes as you can fit in your bag, this one is one of my favorites to recommend.
Eulachacha Waikiki / Laughter In Waikiki (slice of life comedy, romance) I hope you’re ready for a crazy amount of unlikely situations and nutty hijinks because this show is probably one the most silly ones I’ve ever watched. It follows a group of friends who own a hostel so it’s a slice of life drama. At certain points I was like “this is TOO silly” but I’m glad I stuck with it cause it was so hilarious. Plus, the baby is a star!
Wok of Love (rom/com) Despite the fact that the show was shortened by two episodes because of sports, this drama is a funny and quirky show worth watching. Many people dropped it because it was SO crazy for the first couple of episodes (it has a talking horse people!), but it does settle into a really sweet and fun story about a chef, a gangster and a rich girl and her family. If you love food, this show is for YOU!
And finally, if you don't mind a bit of melo, I highly recommend Run On!
Enjoy <3
#kdrama recommendations#kdrama recs#kdrama#king the land#i wrote this list right before bed and im not really awake#so how many typos will there be?#lee junho#on the list twice as he should be#soundtrack no 1#fanletter place#true to love#i love a list
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I LOVE your crocodad theory I'm an obsessed believer but did u ever get romantic vibes from crocodile & robin business relationship? Many people get lover vibes from them & I never understood why. They seem VERY strictly business/stab each other in the back relationship. (Plus crocodile is TERRIFYING).
I think Croco/Robin as a ship exists kind of like... out of circumstance? Kind of?
Quick disclaimer, I only got into OP in like 2008~ish at the age of 13, I can not comment what it as like being in the fandom before that because I wasn't there (and when OP began in 1997 I was like two whole years old). So whatever I say here doesn't come from like, a fandom veteran who knows the entire history of the OP fandom or anything. I'm just attempting to rub my braincells together here
Like in the year of our lord 2023 we have many wonderful Crocodile ships to classify as OTPs and NOTPs etc, but if we go back to like 2006 or so, long before the Summit War Saga was even a thing, try to think about what characters you would have shipped Crocodile with? Because for a long time, the only canon material Crocodile had appeared in was just the Alabasta Saga (+one brief cover story), and we don't really see Crocodile interact with that many characters during the story.
Like. Really the only character Crocodile has multiple, extended interactions with aside from Luffy and Vivi is Robin. All the other characters he interacts with maybe once or twice for very brief scenes, so based on canon material alone, there isn't much for fuel for shipping purposes.
It really wasn't until Marineford when we finally started getting other characters to ship with Crocodile, mainly the Ever Loyal Daz who seems to be willing to follow Crocodile anywhere (romantic as fuck) and Doflamingo after he and Croc tried to kill each other twice at Marineford (people seem to love a tsundere Croc)
And now with Cross Guild we also have Mihawk (and Buggy) as far as shipping options go. And of course there's MORE than just these ships, there's the more crack-leaning ships (like Dragodile and whatever you'd call the Cobra-ship) and some others (Jinbei, Whitebeard, Ivankov, Galdino, Luffy even) etc etc
The only difference is that Croco/Robin got to kind of be like, "the default Crocodile ship" for like 8 years without major competition. And because the ship has "history", even when new ships pop up the one that has been around the longest will still stick out.
Not to mention, although we have options now, even those have very little canon material to actually work with when compared to Croco/Robin. Like Dofuwani exists because the two had like three whole pages worth of interactions, but compare that to the screentime Croc had with Robin? It's not even a competition
Not to mention, Croco/Robin is just. Like it's kind of the mandatory het ship. Like there aren't many straight options with canon material to work with, and there's gonna be people who really want to have a het ship with Crocodile if you know what I mean.
But also, let's be real. There's a lot of straight women who're horny for Crocodile. Valid as fuck. And Croco/Robin could have like, a self-insert-y quality to it, like some people might be able to see themselves in Robin? Also valid.
And that can apply to some straight men too, like I'm sure there's cishet men who look at Crocodile with that "god I wish that were me" energy, who love seeing Crocodile ship fanart with Robin, as they can project onto Crocodile etc. This is also valid.
Point is that the ship appeals to cishets by simply being a het ship, but also it might make for an easy ship for a lot of straight people to project onto for one reason or another.
But to be fair, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I think Croco/Robin has the potential to be a really interesting ship.
Like they ARE the Baroque Works Boss Pair, literal partners in crime, the most powerful members of the secret criminal organization who run the whole operation, they worked together by themselves for four whole years, Crocodile protecting Robin by allowing her to hide under his wings. They were together, ready to take over an entire country and obtain a weapon of mass destruction
And then Robin betrays him. And Crocodile admits he never trusted her to begin with.
Like on paper alone, this is great material for a juicy romance.
Especially now when we understand why Robin was on the run and why she feared being betrayed, and how looking back at Crocodile's reaction when Robin "reads" the Poneglyph for him, he genuinely seems a little sad about her betraying him (mystery trauma etc).
This is a genuinely interesting character dynamic, like even without any romantic context I would love to see Crocodile and Robin meet again in the storyline and like, see what Crocodile thinks of Robin having joined the Strawhats vs what Robin thinks about Cross Guild, how the two might interact etc. They are interesting to me
Like personally, I agree, I don't think the two were actually ever romantically involved with each other (frankly I don't think Crocodile trusts anyone anymore enough to let them get close him like that, dude's been voluntarily celibate for like two decades lmao), their relationship was surely just business-only. And while the ship doesn't personally interest me (just kinda "meh" for me), I do understand why the ship appeals to others and why it's popular to this day
But yeah, I do think a lot of the reasons Croco/Robin is as popular as it is due to circumstance. It's been around the longest, it still arguably has the most canon material to work with, it appeals to lots of people. God knows shippers don't actually need the characters to like each other, otherwise people wouldn't be shipping Croc with Buggy as we speak
#Moon posting#OP Meta#Sir Crocodile#Nico Robin#Long post#I feel like I should tag this with the shipname because this IS about the ship but while it's not explicitly negative don't wanna bother pp#I don't know how this turned into a psuedo fandom history lesson (based on vibes alone and no actual facts) I am so sorry man#My brain just started running and I had to release the worms#Sometimes a ship that's just big scary powerful murder man and small murder woman makes brain go brrr#The appeal is not lost on me#(Personally I've just become an absolute sucker for CrocHawk. I am so invested in these two. Oda I need to see them more together)
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Have you lost interest in rusame?
I didn't lose interest in Rusame; I simply got tired of the same old narrative of the big Russian villain stealing and abusing poor innocent America and making him fall in love. Why not make America kidnap Russia just to show him all the shit he's missing and make him fall for America only to be discarded like in the real Cold War? That, or maybe focus on their cultural part, trades and spying, scientific challenges, and games? America literally inherited the English pendant for mind games, and he's good at them; he's not dumb at all, just oblivious because it suits him, and Russia adores any kind of game he can win (or try to win bc he's a bad loser).
And I don't mind that, really, but I simply cannot see that happening first because the hatred runs deep inside those veins, and they wouldn't forgive that or even fall for that (you would really have to make it pretty solid for it to happen, tbh). but they'd also turn the tables because they're matched and they're cultural beings. The fandom forgot that part, even when canon keeps showing that they hold no power above their bosses, they simply exist and go with the flow like any human does. What hurts us will hurt them, just like when they feel lonely and long for human things, they'll suffer and have a human response to these issues.
Another reason was because I felt that I couldn't really portray them properly; they're too OC or sound ordinary. I am editing old works, and trust me, I had good intentions, but it was crap...
And the third reason is that now I can only see them as a tragic pair. They had something; they really loved each other, but the feeling is gone because of several things, and now they're trying to reach that feeling because they're stubborn and won't admit defeat...
I grew jaded with my boys; I adore them to bits, but I also think they're not a true pair who holds love; they are mostly resentful now, and I guess I grew to resent that they're not right for each other. Don't mind me, I do think they can be great, but that would mean a big change of perspective, history, or a traumatic event to really make them bond and open themselves for the other (a nuclear fallout, a human au, or a long time without the other to rekindle the flame).
I still love them and have wips and stories with them that I truly want to finish, but it's taking a long time because I'm not feeling it. I want something more wholesome these days—some real love despite the circumstances—and I'm struggling to see it with them right now.
Sorry... I know, but I always said the OTP was the old married couple. These two were my comfort, but nowadays it's all too bleak and my own life it's making it hard to really take comfort on them.
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i like past blitzfizz but i dont think blitz is open enough with his emotions to be with fizz (or anyone tbh) right now. theres a twitter thread where someone pointed out that fizz is in the “hidden” folder on blitz’s phone compared to the public portrait in ozzie’s office. idk if ozzie wasnt open with his feelings at first either (keeping your romance a secret isnt a great look, even if there are logistical reasons for it) but like. at least he had a reason to hide it? blitz just seems too ashamed of it.
Ugh when people compare Asmodeus’ and Blitzos circumstances as if that’s a fair comparison, it annoys me to no end. The utter classism of it. I’m the one person who just isn’t that into the otp. It’s cute. But. Not my cup of tea. We don’t have to agree with each other. Maybe don’t make up false things like “he has no reason to hide it” just to support that though?
Can u send the thread cause I’d like to read about it at least the image part…not the frankly unfair portrait comparison. Which, if you aren’t taking a purely generous view and try a more sceptical one, you can chalk up to Ozzie being careless. Considering that this very behaviour put a target on fizz’s head. I don’t really find it endearing anymore. “Haha Oz is so bad at keeping it a secret” -yeah so fizz has to anxiously worry about keeping it secret himself, constantly. So much that he endured abuse to keep it. Plus he can’t be without fizz for one day and stares at it longingly. Which is just not that charming to me since fizz had to beg to be allowed out.
Uh ok? That’s the point, Blitz is on a very bad downward spiral right now because of Ozzies. Right off the back of the emotional torment of truth seekers. Who said the time is now?
Blitz ashamed of his feelings for. No reason….maybe a hint is on the entirety of the left side of his face. While Oz is privileged enough to not have anywhere near the amount of worries Blitz has. Maybe he didn’t want to come off as just another creepy fan, maybe he didn’t want to hold fizz back from his dreams (I’m betting on this one) maybe cash told him he wasn’t good enough. We don’t even know what the reasons are yet. We don’t know why he couldn’t go in there. Only that it was very very painful. After all Ozzie can just scream at his employees and servants to keep their mouths shut or he will, quote, break them. Like a coward. Let’s hold all bosses to the same standard. And if Asmodeus had accidentally injured fizz a similar way the shame would eat him alive too. Then people would talk about how romantic and selfless that restraint is.
I really really don’t care to hear about the same “it’s better if it’s isolated entirely in the past” opinion I’ve heard a million times it ignores the fact that they’ve never dated and there’s still unresolved feelings and throws away a better story.
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thank you @necroticyuzu for the tag! 💫 and thank you everyone who participated in my poll! I love talking about my little Tavs and I can’t stop making them so I’m always down to be tagged in these sorta things!
no pressure tags: @beesht @grandmother-goblin @auspex-author (yk I’m always down for Shior lore)
Name: Saoirse Nic’Phaid
Gender: female
Pronouns: she/her
Sexuality: mostly straight (but she’s working on defining it)
OTHER
Family: A complicated conversation. Older human father who’s unable to work, younger wood elf mother who abandons the family often, and an older brother Arthur who was tragically murdered five years before the events of BG3 took place.
Birthplace: Lower City of Baldur’s Gate.
Job: Criminal, I suppose? She doesn’t really have a traditional job. Instead, she’s spent most of her life stealing and then selling items to make a living. It even brought in more money than Arthur was making when he was alive and working.
Phobia: Thalassaphobia. She never learned how to swim.
Guilty Pleasure: Hooking up with problematic men. They oh-so-bad but oh-so-good in bed. Her own ex-boyfriend was a member of the Zhentarim, after all.
MORALS
Alignment: Neutral Evil - rather selfish in her actions, yet will help others who are similar her.
Sins: Theft. Lots of it. Jealousy, coveting what others may have knowing she could never have it. Will usually say whatever pops in her head without thinking it through first, which gets her in trouble. Can be very self-centered in different situations (ex. she refused to take poison from Nettie at the Grove after she didn’t help the party cure their tadpole)
Virtues: Loyal to those she loves, almost to a fault. When able to, very much a “steal from the rich to give to the poor” type. Believes honesty is the best policy (unless your life is at risk, then lying to save yourself is acceptable). Family is also very important to her, especially her father, and she tried to make sure he had well over a years worth of gold before going on the run.
THIS OR THAT
Introvert/Extrovert/Ambivert - Likes to be social but also enjoys time to herself. Tries to keep a healthy balance of both.
Organized/Disorganized - in some aspects of her life, at least. When it comes to her money, she’s very organized.
Close Minded/Open Minded - No defining reason. She just is.
Calm/Anxious/Restless - Being on the run for a crime she may (or may not) have committed, she is constantly looking over her shoulder to make sure she and her companions are safe (but mostly her).
Disagreeable/Agreeable - That is, if you see eye to eye with her.
Cautious/Reckless/In Between - After the loss of her brother, she was very reckless in her crimes and overall behavior, but she has calmed down a bit. She will still do risky things for the fun of it, though.
Patient/Impatient/In Between - Do not test her.
Outspoken/Reserved - Almost too outspoken for her own good.
Leader/Follower/Flexible - Because she’s very headstrong, she easily fell into the leader position of the party.
Empathetic/Unemphathetic - To those that are like her: who’ve struggled, who understand how hard life can be. Won’t listen to the sob story of some upper class elitist.
Optimistic/Pessimistic/Realist
Traditional/Modern/In Between
Hardworking/Lazy - But hardworking in the way that she’s taking from others… yeah I don’t like to think about the logistics of it too much.
RELATIONSHIPS
OTP: Don’t hate me. But. Saoirse is absolutely crushing on Aradin, despite how much of an ass he is. She thinks she can fix him. Maybe she can.
Other Ships: Hooks up with Rugan after rescuing him from the gnolls, which leads to an interesting throuple dynamic when they’re all in Baldur’s Gate.
BroTP: Surprisingly, she and Lae’zel get along swimmingly. Maybe it’s because they have similar personalities. She and Astarion also gossip about the drama between their camp companions, as well as tease each other over their romantic pursuits. Also apparently she and Shadowheart get along very well!
NoTP: Gale annoys her, but she also sees him as a powerful ally and a good companion. Thoroughly rejects any of his advances.
#bg3#baldur's gate 3#bg3 tav#tav tag#oc: saoirse#tav: saoirse#ranger tav#does she fix Aradin?#did she m*rder her ex boyfriend?#only time will tell
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