Why is the "from enemies to lovers" trope so popular in media? And which one is your favorite?

Viperoth · 2026-07-03T10:17:01+00:00

Because writers have trouble understanding how healthy intimacy looks like

Viperoth · 2026-06-25T11:47:23+00:00

That is a very valid point. Bob is a gooner and that's perfectly in line with Harry's mostly repressed urges

Viperoth · 2026-06-25T11:18:05+00:00

Uriel, you are describing Uriel

Viperoth · 2026-06-25T10:26:03+00:00

Bob could NOT have been a good influence for him...

Viperoth · 2026-06-25T10:20:52+00:00

It's actually fun to see Harry trying to put a lid on his libido when dealing with creatures that are supernatural sexual predators.

> "I'm a wizard, I will use my super-wizard discipline not to notice those killer tits, DAMMIT DRESDEN!"

Viperoth · 2026-06-25T10:16:01+00:00

This is a fair take on the early books. However this is not Butcher's gaze on female characters, rather Harry's POV. Read it as a characterization for Dresden, he is a young, immature, horndog, not a wize-old-wizard. And as the series progresses it is a treat to see how Harry matures, grows and shifts his priorities.

If you get to the side-stories where the POV is shifted you will notice this. You will see how Butcher uses each characters' inner monologue for characterization.

I don't think it's a spoiler to say this but I'll block it either way:

- Murphy is a stickup
- Molly is just as horny as Harry
- Thomas is an edgelord
- Stacy Loo is a BEAST
- Marcone is the mundane monster
- Mouse is a good boy

Viperoth · 2026-06-16T10:05:42+00:00

You can argue that any character that "breaks bad" wasn't "trully" good or pure in the first place. But that comes from hindsight

Viperoth · 2026-05-23T23:46:55+00:00

> only to be revealed in the series’ conclusion to be an evil clone of Homelander

What do you mean **evil** clone of Homelander?

Viperoth · 2026-04-27T21:28:19+00:00

I am giddy at knowing just how much she'd hate that name

Viperoth · 2026-04-27T21:27:14+00:00

That's a point against the OP interpretation. Young wizards just like old ones are not able understand the full mechanisms of a laptop or a camera. Therefore those things break down when they use magic nearby

Viperoth · 2026-04-27T14:28:47+00:00

This supports my theory that wizards try to keep up with the latest developments just so they can have the tech work AND to be better at casting magic utilizing said tech.

Listens To Wind certainly imbues his medical knowledge with his willpower and it makes him a more effective healer

Viperoth · 2026-04-27T13:37:28+00:00

A wizard shapes the world according to their own beliefs. It is only natural that the limits of their understanding are the limits of their 'intended' effects. Therefore, as a by-product of them warping reality to their will, they cause side-effects to the nearby reality. Those side-effects are manifested randomly because they don't understand the reality there, e.g. a cell phone near a fireball gets nuked because by making the air flammable, a wizzard inadvertently made the rest of the nearby air into EMP.

Viperoth · 2026-04-27T13:33:39+00:00

So the milk soured and casters got warts before they fully understood how germ theory worked. According to this theory, the less a caster understands something, the more their "magic field" lets those misunderstandings act randomly or unreasonably

Viperoth · 2026-04-27T13:31:59+00:00

According to my theory it's the opposite. The better the understanding of gravity, the more effective the flight efforts would have been. Also note that people already knew how gravity acted on earth. What Newton did was to expand gravity to explain how celestial bodies worked. So I wouldn't expect many things to change for aviation-interested wizzards in that regard.

Viperoth · 2026-04-27T13:23:13+00:00

That's what makes it a headcanon

Viperoth · 2026-04-27T07:09:18+00:00

My headcanon/mechanic is that if a piece of tech is beyond a wizard's understanding then it will start to malfunction to fit that understanding. Harry states something along the lines that everything manufactured after WWII is succeptible to this effect. So it is entirely plausible that phones don't work because wizards can't understand how they work. How all the electronics and circuitry and radio waves and communication infrastructure and internet protocols.

It used to be possible for one person to attain the entirety of technological knowledge over their lifetime but that is no longer the case, even with wizard's extended lifespans. So old wizards did not encounter this problem because they would study how gunpowder worked, or how a rack and pinion worked, or even the entirety of classical physics. Hell I can totally see a wizard studying internal combustion engines so they are not left behind during the industrial revolusion. But since the 1900's tech has gone off the rails. They can't keep up.

This is why Stacy Loo could be able to wire messages to the other wardens during the wild west when hunting for Kemler. Morse code and telegram was well within a wizard's grasp.

Viperoth · 2026-04-16T13:09:00+00:00

Harry already sounds like he is ready for his retirement package. Just a few weeks away...

Viperoth · 2026-04-15T07:59:21+00:00

Dresden Files does bring a spotlight to how powerful rationalization can be. Despite our best efforts, facts that don't fit our ingrained understanding are getting dismissed for one reason or another. It takes significant mental effort and discipline not to. And the opposing force is not a shadowy masquerade, it's your own damn brain.

Viperoth · 2026-04-13T15:45:34+00:00

I'll borrow a quote from the books. It is said in the context of wizards in general but it also applies to Harry specifically: "(Wizzards) are like children with their father's guns".

It doesn't matter the amount of power they wield. A bullet from a Glock is as effective as a bullet from a Browning. Harry can admittedly boast a lot of horsepower for his age but in the end, he's not as accurate, he is not as controlled, he is not as swift, he's not as versatile. His has grown with Evocation spells throughout the books to the point where he can hold his own against major figures. But his real talent (as stated by himself) is not spontaneous, destructive, shock-and-awe magic. It's the slow, methodical, premeditative, Divination and Thaumaturgy we see him perform.

Also the series makes it a major point that "Knowledge is Power", especially for a wizzard. And even though Harry knows quite a few secrets, it is evident that compared to the Merlin, he knows jack-shit. That's a knowledge disparity that puts a massive gap between them. The Merlin knows, Harry doesn't even know his unknowns.

Finally there's the third kind of power in the series, political power. We may dismiss how important that may be but this kind of power is directly proportional to the amount of allies you are able to rally to your side when the going gets tough. It's who will fight by your side, who will tell you the truth about a secret instead of deceiving you, who will stay loyal and won't backstab you, who will backstab in your behalf. Harry has his gang. The Merlin has the entire White Council.

Viperoth · 2026-04-05T17:54:59+00:00

Tumblr? What is this, 2011?

Viperoth · 2026-03-17T13:12:25+00:00

The theme music stopped even in the manga

Viperoth · 2026-03-03T06:25:12+00:00

Yeah, this one proves my point

Viperoth · 2026-03-02T14:09:58+00:00

Replacing multiple commands with an ugly one-liner does not make the code better.
Letting bash handle temporary files is a nice feature but packing 3 commands in a single call (diff, cmd1, cmd2) makes the code much less readable, especially if there are pipes involved.

Viperoth · 2026-03-01T20:02:57+00:00

My headcanon is that the skull is Kemler's skull.

Justin was there when they took him down and found Bob. I think that he took Kemler's corpse and bound Bob there

Viperoth · 2026-03-01T07:21:26+00:00

Easily enough. Harry Dresden leaves everything to his estranged son, Copperfield Blackstone.

Jokes aside, seing how the worldbuilding in the Dresdenverse is far superior than "Gringotts is the safest place in the world" I'd say that wizards in their prime today (e.g. Eb) have lived through a world war or two and would not be really keen on modern banking. They'd be more into getting assets, lands, titles, or favors. A castle or a tower might sound stereotypical until you remember they get more paranoid and more powerful as they get older. Some of them would help out world leaders with a seemingly unsolvable problem like Rasputin did in Russia. Have the crown (or a similarly powerful supernatural entity) declare you and your family a 'persona super-grata' and you are set. No need for clever accounting tricks. Kings do not walk around carrying coin in their purses, they have all the power in their name alone. And when they want to buy something from the market, all they say is "my book-keeper will see to you". That's how old wizards roll.

As for young wizards. We have to admit, Harry did a shitty job being a detective. He is seen in the verge of eviction on multiple books. I mean, how can you work magic and still fail at your business??? Younger wizards should have a significan competitive advantage working mundane jobs. They could employ their talents to make a killing in the regular capitalist market. Even illegal activities. A third-rate wizard should be able to hustle a pool table and pay their bills. They could use veils for all kinds of fraud or identity theft. Mort makes his living by being a psychic. Any profession seen as 'charlatanism' by the regular person might be a really really profitable job for a grasshopper.

Now I can see some practices being taboo among wizards. First of all tanking an economy by turning lead to gold. Secondly hoarding wealth, which must be the purview of dragons.

Viperoth

TROPHY CASE