#also yeah the flashback takes place around the end of season 3 in my mind i cant remember if we know it to be canonically different anyways

[groove-mp3]

BLACK SAILS 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY WEEK ↪ day two : favourite dynamic [ long john silver / captain james flint. ]

"you heard him."

[leonardalphachurch]

How do you see the timeline of rvb? Here's how I see it. 3 years of freelancer flashbacks, then after a year season 1, then after 3 months seasons 2 3 4 5, then after 18 months season 6, then after a month seasons 7 8, then after a month seasons 9 10, then after 6 months season 11, then after a month season 12, then after a month season 13, then after 10 months season 15, then after a year seasons 16 17. So between start of freelancer and end of 17 there's been 8 years. Thoughts?

i have a problem in that i want there to be a more substantial period of time between the moi crash and out of mind but i don’t want there to be that much time between the moi crash and season 1. but, like you said, season 4 (and therefore oom) happens a couple of months after season 1. the idea of york only bumming around for about a year just feels so wrong to me… like if i had it my way he’d have been chilling with delta for like 5? at least 3. because like. i feel like blood gulch should be a thing where so much happens in such a short period of time that it’s so so impactful to the characters (especially tucker who i’m ngl i kinda base the timeline around what works best for his character arc to me) but like… gah. i think a big part of the problem is that the pfl flashback arc just has a completely incomprehensible timeline. how much time takes place between scenes? man i’m getting myself worked up about 9 and 10 again lol. like if they didn’t retcon it, if alpha was just being stored at sidewinder for a while we could make that a longer period of time… like i guess he still could be but. hey like. why didn’t the meta just go. take alpha at the end of 10. like. he was right there. what was the… what was stopping him. could you. it get alpha out unless he wanted it? is that why tex left him? i don’t know man. i hate that they were in a spaceship. 9 and 10 feel so like. dreamlike? ephemeral? nothing feels grounded. i guess it does work as them being memories. they feel like memories. disconnected sequences of important events.

what were we talking about. oh right the timeline. yeah yours works. we give 2-3 months between 6 and 7 since season 6 is 1 year after the war and the season 7 trailer says it’s 1.25 years after the war. and season 6 is probably like a couple weeks to a month? did you know valhalla and high ground (the place church was) have to be like. incredibly close to each other. because wash gets south’s recovery beacon and is able to get to her from valhalla to high ground before the meta is able to kill her. that’s so fucked up. tex literally crashed like 30 minutes from where church was. ugh. anyway we give around 3 months between 8 and 9/10. one month just feels too short for them to run from the law, find new bases, have blues establish some kind of routine wrt wash, and then have carolina show up and then do a whole adventure to find and break into the unsc storage facility to save epsilon. but i don’t know if it’s a full 6 months to season 11… maybe like 4? there’s some amount of legal bureaucratic nonsense they have to deal with, and they are on chorus for an amount of time before we meet them in season 11… 6 months just feels a bit too long for tucker and wash’s dynamic if that makes sense? like they’re clearly closer than they were in 10 but there’s still a wall there and even if wash is being kind of a bitch i still feel like. that amount of time of just chilling together would change tuckers time a little bit from the “all i have is you” thing… like if we say there’s ~three months worth of legal bs to deal with and then ~a month of crashing on chorus and establishing themselves at the crash site like. that to me feels like the amount of time that would establish wash and tuckers relationship to where it is. though i guess you also do have much less time after season 8 so they presumably have zero relationship development to you during that time. which i don’t think doesn’t make sense we don’t exactly see them interacting during 10. oh i definitely put a few months between 12 and 13 though. like they seem really established there, and the space pirates are like. genuinely kind of losing at this point. which is why locus and felix go recruit the prisoner ship. the others i’m less sure on but i do think there’s a larger timeskip than a month there. maybe even between 11 and 12 too but i won’t die on that hill. and then obviously the 15-17 timeskips are actually told to us lol

wow i fucking. rambled huh. tl;dr decent timeline. i actively disagree with the amount of time between 6-7 and 12-13 but everything else is small discrepancies i won’t die to defend. well i won’t die to defend any of this. it doesn’t matter that much.

[bereft-of-frogs]

Ok so I've definitely entered my 'blending headcanon and critique to make The Acolyte make sense to me' era because I loved enough of it to really want to be able to rewatch it, but I'm struggling with a few things, mostly about the ending. The first to tackle: what was up with Sol's sudden pivot into obsession with the vergence in the finale?

That's an easy fix: make Sol obsessed with the vergence from the start.

Ok, maybe not such an easy fix because this requires us living in the alternate universe where there is a secretly good 12 episode cut of the show that understands how to work in flashbacks as a B plot properly and not just dump them in two clumps without any framing device. (I can't believe my framing device theory wasn't real lol that seemed like such an easy setup.) We'd really need more of the flashback way earlier to avoid the mistake of introducing these big concepts in episode 7 of 8. (Bonus, imagine how much more devastating a betrayal Aniseya's death at Sol's hands would have been if we'd gotten more time with all of them on Brendok.)

Anyway yeah, in the secretly good 12 episode season, we're introduced pretty quickly to past!Sol and his main two character motivations: 1) his desire for a student (also sets up a good dark mirror with Qimir) and 2) his conviction that a vergence is what cause the resurgence of life post-hyperspace disaster, and these two motivations interplay with each other throughout the narrative. This would make Sol's relationship with Indara more interesting, if it brings them into conflict. Because Indara doesn't seem to be convinced the phenomenon is caused by a vergence (she says as much in the scene around the fire) and Sol disagrees with how she's handling Torbin's restlessness. (I've defended her in the past, I won't reiterate here, but see this post for my defense of Indara lol.) It makes sense too, given that he's the one that brings up the vergence in the first place, in that scene at the fire. And in the early parts of the present narrative, maybe we get an early throwaway line, in place of one of the 'we were stationed on Brendok', could be something like 'we were searching for something important...but that doesn't matter now' to signify it was something on Sol's mind but not give away the whole truth right away.

While the murder investigation, etc happens in the present, we're cutting back occasionally to the flashbacks, where Sol comes across the girls playing. I think Sol genuinely did feel both a connection to Osha and concern for their safety, so that's where motivation #1 (a padawan) starts to take precedence over motivation #2 (the vergence). But #2 is still there, coming up again in the first confrontation, after Indara asks about the girls' father and Sol starts to suspect they were created by the vergence. This could explain why he insisted on both girls being tested (at least in the episode 3 dialogue, that's cut from 7 for some reason). The interplay between these motivations would also explain why he rushes into the fortress when he senses Osha's distress, but the first words out of his mouth to Aniseya are to ask how the girls were created.

In the aftermath of the ensuing tragedy though, when faced with the guilt of killing Aniseya and choosing to save Osha over Mae, after his confrontation with Indara...he realizes he fucked up big time. He has to let go of his fixation on the vergence in order to make things right with Osha and focus entirely on motivation #1: raising and training her. And besides, there's no proof of the vergence remaining because the main evidence was the blood test proving they were the same consciousness, but without Mae it just looks like they mistakenly ran the sample twice or something. So he lets it go. He just focuses on Osha and buries all that stuff about Mae and the vergence down deep, as the darkness he never faces, and hopes it never comes up again.

And then Sol chills out even more! Ten years pass and he realizes he also made a mistake getting so emotionally attached to Osha and acting out of that possessive attachment. So when she decides to leave the Order, he lets her go with love! He matures and moves into a more stable position as a master, he becomes a teacher, he gets a padawan in the traditional way, everything seems good. I bet he felt a certain amount of relief. Guilt, yes, but after so long I bet it felt like it was all in the past and he's a different person now, what happened was sad and horrible but there's nothing to be done so he just focuses on being the best Jedi he can in the present.

Until of course, everything gets completely upended again by the revelation that Mae is not dead after all. She's alive and coming for revenge. There's definitely some of the 'oh shit I fucked up even more than I originally thought' panic, and freaking out that the Order is about to find out the truth of what Sol did, but also all the vergence stuff gets dragged up again. Because now he might be able to prove it. I think for a while Sol suppresses that thought, and really believes his actions during the investigation are motivated by good. He wants to capture Mae alive, he doesn't want another Jedi who might be willing to eliminate her to stop her because he genuinely wants to save her and find a way to make what happened right -- but he also needs her alive to prove she and Osha are one consciousness. He wants to warn Torbin and Kelnacca that Mae is coming for them -- but he also needs them to testify to the vergence on Brendok 16 years ago. Why else is Sol so insistent on talking to Torbin? If it was just a case of apprehending Mae, they don't need to talk, they just need to stake out the temple and wait to catch her in the act. What other subject would he be so certain Torbin would break the vow of silence for?

But then Khofar happens and goes so horribly wrong and so now Sol's in a full downward spiral, with even more blood on his hands. I don't think he really wants to hurt Mae in that final episode, but he's just cracking under the weight of all the deaths he's directly or indirectly responsible for, and he's left with nothing but the vergence. Everyone is dead and he feels he had a hand in all of it. He’s the last one alive, other than the twins, the last thing he can cling to is going back to the start, proving this vergence exists, because maybe then it will all mean something. And his unhinged behavior in the finale is the culmination of all that guilt and grief and being left with nothing but the obsession with the vergence beyond any rationality. (Until the real final culmination, when he comes back to himself for a moment at the end and tells Osha it's okay while she's killing him.)

I've still got some stuff to wildly invent explanation, like why the vergence was so important in the first place, what it actually was, why Koril was so scared of the Jedi finding out about it, but I think this helps me wrap my head around some stuff so I can rewatch the finale without being like 'huh?' I think this also fits with the duality themes, that Sol's motivations were never in balance, in the end he wasn't able to reconcile his obsession with the vergence and his genuine love for Osha and regret for what happened to Mae. I do suspect it would have (imo) worked better if they'd given some of Torbin's last minute 'we have to prove the vergence' motivation to Sol. Because the series as it stands, doesn't have much setup for that obsession with either of them, but for Torbin it has neither setup nor payoff, at least with Sol then it would connect to why he's scrambling to get them to Brendok in the finale. It also makes sense to me to sort of just re-order than scene in the forest to have Sol be the driving factor to getting them to go back to the fortress, especially because he ALSO thinks something is wrong. It's that double whammy motivation that leads them into the catastrophe. There are definitely still holes and this isn't so much a 'this is what I think the show was trying to do' and more a 'let me rearrange this into a shape that will allow me to watch lightsaber duels without thinking so much.'

ANYWAY tldr: introducing the vergence and making it a more significant part of Sol’s character arc much earlier would have solved a bunch of issues AND be a really compelling narrative where it combined and conflicted with his other main motivation, a genuine love and connection with Osha and deep regret for what he did to Mae and their mother. They just biffed it a bit by only bringing up the vergence in episode 7 of 8.

really tldr: I know I'm doing the 'every day Star Wars fans come on here and say some version of Star Wars would be so good if it was good' but I mean I've been doing that for like 25 years at this point and I find it fun so. Continuing. XD

[not-tallytals]

LMK SEASON 3 SPOILERS

Alright since Flying Bark obviously wants me to go insane over Wukong and Macaque (their huge fallout specifically) the rest of you have to suffer with me :p

Okay so my hot take on their fallout is that it was all a hallucination. Never happened. There was no fight to the death. Just- just bear with me because things are gonna get

Wukong and Macaque had a very intense verbal argument right around the time Wukong got kicked from the jttw group after their encounter(s) with the White Bone Spirit. There wasn’t some huge battle, just a lot of yelling. They never once laid a physically violent hand on each other.

We’ve all seen Shadow Play, right? Wukong is wearing the golden circlet (a cursed headband) throughout the entire play. Including when he supposedly abandons Macaque. Further proving that this fallout between them happened during the Journey.

Wukong was in an impossible situation. He had to choose between his closest friends and what he knew he had to do, which was to go back and continue the westward journey. Also during this time, Wukong is trying to become a better person. He’s been treated like a volatile monster pretty much his entire life up until this point, which is something that has deeply upset him repeatedly. So factor that in with the obligation he feels to the jttw crew, and yeah. Difficult situation indeed.

In the end Lady Bone Demon sees two powerful demons who could and totally would end her entire existence should they recover from their fight, so to make sure that doesn’t happen, she shoves Macaque—who’s in a Not So Good headspace—right into his villian arc. She doesn’t put anything in his head that wasn’t already there (yet). She really just hypes him up and pushes his growing resentment towards Wukong into full blown rage, taking “Wukong had to leave” and turning it into “Wukong choose to leave.”

So, now that everything is set up, here’s where shit gets real. That epic battle between Wukong and Macaque? Completely staged by yours truly, LBD. Wukong and Macaque haven’t mention any huge battle between them, which is odd because it seems like a big deal. So as far as we know there was just that previously stated argument and a general lack of communication. Lady Bone Demon is the one who showed us the flashbacks of their battle.

LBD is known for her mind games, so who’s to say this fight actually happened in the Monkie Kid timeline? Macaque only thinks that Wukong killed him. He thinks that Wukong left him without a second thought. He thinks that Wukong is the enemy. Macaque was never fighting Wukong in that scene, he was fighting Lady Bone Demon, who is also notorious for her shapeshifting and use of disguises to trick others.

I honestly just think it’s fishy that LBD shows up like this, out of no where, and “rescues” Macaque. Especially when the chains that were brining him down looked suspicious like they were made by her. Also, she shows up right where Wukong was, like he wasn’t even there in the first place.

Not sure how to end this, or if anything made sense, but yeah! That’s my stupidly detailed theory that sounded a lot more put together in my head. It really just boils down to the fact that no one besides LBD has mentioned a physical fight between Wukong and Macaque. Sure, there’s Shadow Play and that one frame where Macaque mistakes MK attacking him for Wukong, but that episode covers Wukong leaving Macaque, not their battle.

Of course, this also sets up some pretty funny scenarios, because Macaque swears up and down that he fought Wukong and Wukong is just standing there like “….n-no? you didn’t? are you okay???”

[majorsoapfan]

The Umbrella Academy Season 3 Episode Titles Analysis

Now that the episode titles for season 3 have dropped, I’ve spent the last few days wondering and theorizing just what they could mean. Most of what I’ve gotten so far rests on symbolism, headcanons, potential theories and a lot of googling, but we all need some way of staying sane until season three drops, right?

Now this is just what I’ve come up with so far, I could be massively wrong in all of these, but these are just my predictions based on what I know of the characters and plot so far, previous ways of naming episodes and the very little I know of the comics.

Meet The Family

Now this one is very self-explanatory and we’ll most likely get to know our birdies very well in this episode. We’ll probably be seeing a flashback to the Sparrows as children fighting crime - maybe already being better at it than their Umbrella counterparts were when they first started.

I’m hoping that we’’ll see another montage of introducing the siblings as adults like we saw in season one with our Umbrellas - which had been so helpful to me at the time as I had started watching the show about a week before season two dropped. I had known absolutely nothing about the show when I started, I had only clicked on it because Robert Sheeran was in the card as Klaus with his pink umbrella and I thought he was pretty. I became a massive fan all because I had thought Robert was pretty and I was bored.

So yeah, I loved the initial introduction montage of the siblings as it helped me figure out who was who quickly without wasting time. And I think that doing something similar for the Sparrows will also help give a better and quicker insight into their personalities and how they work when we see them in episode one.

The World’s Biggest Ball of Twine

If you google ‘ball of twine’ it does mention that this is an archetype for an odd roadside attraction. Now if we’re going literal here, there are plenty of such attractions in the States, including one of just this in Texas, where our dysfunctional family had been last season. Maybe an indication of a road trip or even them fleeing the Sparrows and New York in order to regroup and figure out their next step without the birds circling in?

Ball of twine can also mean wrapping really strongly around something, especially as the material mentioned is usually very strong and durable. A ball of wool isn’t the episode title after all. Now this could mean maybe a family or an emotional issue that is massively at play here. Or more likely, the Umbrella’s and more specifically Five, are trying to figure out their exact steps and actions in the 60′s and just how badly they changed the past and future, both in the general sense of the world and for their own personal lives.

Ball of Twine can also mean wrapping around something tightly, so maybe a trap is being put in place or enacted. Either for the Umbrellas by the Sparrows, or the Umbrellas are trying to lure their counterparts into a trap to regain the upper hand.

Pocket Full of Lightning

Now the first thing that comes to mind when I think of this title is something like this being described or mentioned regarding a character and their abilities. Now the characters that come to mind immediately when referenced to this are either Vanya or Christopher. Or maybe it may have something to do with a team-up, more than likely the Sparrows and what can happen when they team-up and combine their powers.

But lightning also has a lot of symbolism in many different societies and periods and in all honesty, I feel like I have to mention this. Symbolism includes but isn’t limited to: illumination, destruction, punishment, inspiration and revelations. Lightning is also highly associated with the King of the Greek Gods Zeus. Maybe Marcus or Reginald?

Marcus is after all described as a natural leader after all, gaining perhaps a Zeus like image in the public eye?

Whereas Reginald on the other hand would definitely see himself as being as King and acts like it at times, using his children as his soldiers to advance his agendas. Zeus isn’t a very kind or forgiving God either so unlike Marcus maybe this has something to do with the Hargreeves patriarch?

Kugeblitz

Thank you Tumblr for having already given me the definition for this episode title when I had first found out the episode titles so I know that it means a black hole formed from radiation.

Luther and Five when I think of this title in terms of its definition a kugeblitz has me thinking of both space and science, as both topics are highly associated with these characters. Black holes have ties to space which Five who’s powers are teleportation and Luther who spent four years up in space both have ties to a title like this.

But of course we can’t forget the actual alien in the family Reginald Hargreeves. A black hole could be a reference as to what happened to his original planet, or maybe signalling a potential threat later on in the season. Will it cause another apocalypse or a warning for an alien invasion perhaps?

But it also might have links to a well known Umbrella Academy villain, Dr Terminal. I haven’t read the comics so I will admit to a lack of knowledge on this villain although I will Google him later. But as the season will be focusing on the Sparrow Academy and potentially any previous villains, Dr Terminal seems to be the most well known in the fandom and thus the most likely to make an appearance, whether in flashbacks or in person. A few people here seem convinced that this episode title will have something to do with him in some form.

Kindest Cut

When I think of this episode title, my first thought goes of course, to Diego. People can often get cut with knives and they are of course Diego’s preferred weapon of choice.

Maybe however they are referring to another powered sibling and what harm their abilities can cause. Top contenders after Diego of course, are Vanya whose power we know can cut after seeing what she did to Allison at the end of ‘The Day that Was’ in a moment of anger.

But if we go with the Sparrows then Alphonso is at the top of my list. His character sheet is mentioned as him bearing the scars from his years of crime-fighting. His power is assumed to be the voodoo from the comics and if he can transfer the injuries he obtains or inflicts on himself to others, this may be what this title means.

But, and this theory I think is the one that I’m most obsessed with right now, is that the episode title could be an adaptation of the saying ‘unkindest cut’. The definition for this is ‘a cruel or devastating injury or insult inflicted on you by a supposed friend’. 

If we go by current timeline we’re in then my money is that Five may be joining the Sparrows either under duress or having worked out an agreement with Reginald that his siblings would be spared if he did. Only his family might not be aware of what Five has planned and agreed to and would only see the apparent betrayal of what they have all gone through together as a family. Of only seeing their brother join the team that probably want them dead.

But this betrayal may also be coming from the Sparrows and Sloane perhaps. Sloane is an inverse of Five in a sense in that while Five is driven by his desire to save his family, Sloane often feels like hers are holding her back from experiencing her dream of leaving. Maybe she betrays the Sparrows in some way by letting an opportunity to capture the Umbrellas flee or seeking them out as allies.

Marigold

According to what I can glean from the comics, marigold refers to the balls of light that eventually became the 43 super-powered children. So could we be getting an explanation as to how these supers came to be and why?

But like with episode three’s episode title, I can’t not mention the symbolism connected to this title. Marigolds often have conflicting symbolism today. In modern western society their bright colours often have them being associated with the sun and positive emotions and energy such as happiness, optimism and good luck. Not what I think the episode will be about.

But on the darker side of things, which is something that I do think has more ties into what to expect, is that they also refer to jealousy, grief, despair, mourning and cruelty. It is a flower associated with death and the Day of the Dead in Mexico and is said to offer protection from evil spirits. This connection with death is what I first thought of when I saw the episode title and the most obvious character associated with Death is none other than our ghost-boy Klaus Hargreeves.

Klaus as a character has a lot of ties to death naturally and I did see a post on here describing how Klaus will be entering the fourth stage of grief which is depression for both Ben and Dave during season three. This makes sense as they are now both gone in a way that not even his powers can reverse nor can he summon their spirits. Marigolds can often symbolize a despaired love and strong passion as well as well as pain and grief, so it could be a reference to Klaus’ depression over permanently losing both his closest brother and his love. But the main reason I do think that this episode does tie in heavily with Klaus is that it’s a mid season episode and so far that’s usually when Klaus undergoes most of his development. Maybe it’ll continue that way in season three.

Of course if Marigold will also represent a despaired love there are other options in the Umbrellas other than Klaus and Dave: Diego with both Eudora Patch (who is possibly still alive in this timeline) and Lila Pitts still bouncing around the timeline. Allison dealing with leaving her 60′s husband Raymond Chestnut and maybe trying to track down her ex Patrick to find out what happened to daughter Claire in this timeline and Vanya with love Sissy Cooper. Or maybe even Five and Dolores or possibly a love interest for Luther could be a reference to this title. 

Explaining how the Umbrella and Sparrows came to be wouldn’t take the whole episode giving us time for some potential (doomed) love.

Auf Wierdershen

This is very likely to be a Klaus focused episode, even if Marigold isn’t.

The episode title is German for goodbye and Klaus is the character most associated with Germany. Klaus is the only character to have spoken German during the shows events so far and his name is of German origin (interestingly enough, all of the male Sparrows bar Ben, have their names tied to Germanic origin. Meanwhile, Fei’s name is of Chinese origin, Jayme has both Spanish and Hebrew roots, while Sloane is derived from an Irish surname Ó Sluaghhadáin). Not only that but it is considered fanon that Klaus was born in Germany just like Diego and Vanya’s roots are considered to be Mexico and Russia respectively. 

Not only that but he literally has ‘goodbye’ tattooed on his hand.

‘Goodbye’ has many different interpretations for what this could mean especially if this is a Klaus centric episode like we are assuming. And like I mentionned above with Klaus going through the fourth stage of grief in season three, this might be the episode where he moves into the fifth and final stage: acceptance. Perhaps by having one last talk with Umbrella Ben in the afterlife or by trying to track down Dave after Vietnam and discovering he (seemingly - I do have hopes for Commission Dave later on) did live a long and happy life after the war. 

Mending fences with Ben and both getting the chance to air their genuine grievances with one another and mend their relationship from the horrific state it was in at the end of season two might help Klaus find closure. Klaus and Ben both love each other but they crossed a lot of lines and hurt each other deeply with their behaviours last season and they deserved the chance to try and fix the issues as well as say a proper goodbye to one another. This could give Klaus the opportunity to say just that as well as moving into accepting Ben’s death once and for all.

And when it comes to Dave, maybe just knowing that Dave moved on can help Klaus move from depression into acceptance. He was more than fine with stopping Dave from enlisting in the army during season two even knowing that it would mean that Dave would never meet or fall in love with Klaus. He was willing to sacrifice his chance at love with Dave if it meant that Dave would survive. Perhaps if he knew that Dave had been happy and safe in his later life he could then move on and say goodbye? 

And maybe by coming to terms with the departure of two of the biggest influences in his life, motivate Klaus to embrace a new outlook and control of his life and his powers?

Wedding At The End Of The World

This very clearly has ties to the very first episode of the show which is ‘We Only See Each Other At Weddings and Funerals’. Both have marriage and death connected in their titles. The characters that we know have been married so far out of our Hargreeves family so far is Reginald and Allison.

Reginald was married on his home planet when his wife died. Not a lot is known about her other than she was the original owner of Vanya’s violin in the original timeline. Maybe we’ll get information on her and just why Reginald left his home planet?

The next character married so far is Allison who so far has been married twice already (maybe they’re going three for three this time?). And judging by the episode title in season one, that event was the last time the Umbrella Hargreeves (bar Five) were all together as a family until they arrived for Reginald’s funeral. Maybe there’s a link there.

Or maybe this is referencing a whole other wedding that may be happening during the events of season three? I wouldn’t be surprised if Five reunites with Delores and decides just to get married to make it official. To paraphrase Klaus, it’s probably one of the healthiest relationships that family ever had regarding love.

Six Bells

Now this tile had me stumped for a good bit and it will probably make more sense when season three does drop and we watch the episodes, but for now I can just theories on it.

Bells have often been associated with religious services, which may tie in with the last episode, but can also be rung for important events or in deference of important people.

But what is really getting me is that the title is six bells and there are six Umbrellas left so far. Could the bells be in reference to something regarding them, some sort of trap perhaps? Which will definitely tie in in some way to the seasons finale:

Oblivion

Now like episode one this one seems fairly self-explanatory. This seems like Hotel Oblivion is finally coming into play here, meaning they are probably switching the order of stories from the comics. But the question is: if it is Hotel Oblivion, did the Umbrella’s enter the Hotel/prison out of free will or were they trapped here by the Sparrows? Anything goes at this point considering that it’s the last episode of the season.

But when it comes to the Hotel there are so many possibilities as to what happens here:

- Are all of the Umbrella’s trapped inside or did one escape and their other cell mate is a Sparrow perhaps (Sloane maybe for trying to leave the Sparrow Academy?)

- How will this set up the cliff-hanger for season four? Will all or some of the Umbrella Hargreeves be trapped in the hotel once the season ends and that helps set up the tension for the next season. Or maybe a break out of prisoners just like in the comics occurs and the Umbrella's are forced to deal with it?

-Where will this leave our Sparrows at the season end, because I know that we’re going to get attached (I know I will). Will some of them come with us into season four? Maybe they are split into two teams as the season ends, each containing a mixture of both Umbrella’s and Sparrows?

Well that’s all I have, maybe I’m right about some of it, maybe I’m all wrong, just need to wait until season three to find out.

[tl-notes]

Kobayashi’s Maid Dragon S2 Episode 3 Notes

Sparrows! Specifically the Eurasian tree sparrow, known in Japan as the suzume. You can just about see them all over Japan, all year long—but that doesn’t mean they aren’t a season word!

Depending on their depiction, they can be used as a season word for most times of the year, but a major one is “late spring,” as that’s when they’re out and about finding food for their baby birds. You can also see in the art they look a little floofy, indicative of the winter coat they haven’t fully shed yet; suzume in summer have a more sleek look. Here’s a shot of them from late summer last season:

And from closer to winter here↓. Quite fluffy.

As a quick refresher, 季語 kigo, or season words, are words/phrases/concepts used to give a sense of season to a haiku (or other poem/work of art), which is what part of what differentiates them from a senryuu. They were used pretty frequently in a lot of episodes last season, but a bit less so this time so far.

Where Lucoa and Ilulu are talking about a “right” here, the Japanese word is 資格 shikaku. While this usage is similar to “right” in English, the connotation is a little different as the word actually means more “qualification.” 

Whereas a “right” is generally something you have innately in some sense (e.g. if you make art you automatically have copyright over it, you have human rights just for being human, etc.), a shikaku is something you earn (e.g. if you study and take a test for certification program and pass, you’re rewarded with a shikaku.)

Ilulu’s response to the question here is 

そういうのは違う。小林がくれたあの言葉はなかったことにはできないから。

One way in which this differs from the English is that she’s not saying it would be right or wrong, but rather not the solution she’s looking for—because it would also mean undoing the words Kobayashi gave her, and that is something she doesn’t want to do, no matter what.

In contrast the English feels more like she thinks it would be wrong to do that, and even if she did it wouldn’t let her escape what Kobayashi said to her. (That would make more sense if Kobayashi had called her out on being evil, but that’s not really what went down.) An alternative wording might be something like:

“That wouldn’t solve anything. Besides, I don’t want to erase what Kobayashi gave me.”

This line is: 小林さんのようにはいかないなー

This is perhaps just my interpretation, but the English here sounds like Lucoa once convinced/helped Kobayashi in some fashion previously, is trying it again with Ilulu, but failing this time. (I don’t that’s ever happened though.)

In contrast, I think the Japanese is saying that Lucoa is trying to be like Kobayashi (e.g. when helping alleviate/solve Tohru’s various worries), and it’s not really working for her. I.e. “It’s not working like when Miss Kobayashi does it.” 

Ilulu’s line about “I don’t want to ask Kobayashi about it because she’d probably solve it too easily" seems to support that reading; the dragons know Kobayashi as worries-solver.

The English here has Lucoa saying she’ll go talk to Kanna/Saikawa, and casually telling Ilulu to wait in the bathroom. But Lucoa doesn’t actually talk to the kids, and even if she was planning to, why would Ilulu waiting in the toilet do anything?

The answer is that Lucoa is actually telling Ilulu to talk (to an unspecified subject, assumed to be Saikawa, since she’s a human and thus someone Ilulu feels guilty about interacting with; Kanna she’s more fine with, as a dragon). And instead of “Go ahead and wait in the bathroom,” it’s more of a “Go wait in the bathroom and see what happens,” with the implication Lucoa is going to set something up. 

And she does!

“I won’t lie about X, but Y is a different story.” This seems to imply she will still lie about Y? That seems a bit odd to me, especially when she just lied about X (those feelings) to Kanna/Saikawa minutes ago. 

The Japanese says something a bit different though.

The core of the middle line here is 気持ちに嘘をつかない kimochi ni uso wo tsukanai. Because the に, the particle indicating “direction,” is attached unadorned to "feelings,” it is saying not “lying about X” but “lying to X.” This construction, to say one is lying to a feeling, is fairly common in Japanese media. It’s basically equivalent in English to lying to yourself about those feelings.

(for “lying about X” you’d change the に into a について or similar)

So basically she’s saying she won’t pretend, to herself at least, that she doesn’t want to play. But that’s a separate issue to whether she has, as she said before, the “right” to play after what she did. 

You could maybe put it sort of like this:

“I won’t lie to myself about my feelings anymore. But that doesn’t mean I can act on them after what I did.”

I feel extremely silly even pointing this out, but the beam here is 尿意 nyoui, which is the urge to pee, not necessarily actually needing to pee. Hence why she seems to stop needing to as soon as she gets to the bathroom and walks straight back to the living room with Ilulu after they talk.

“Be deceived” here is not 騙される damasareru, lit. “be deceived,” but 騙し討ちにあう damashi-uchi ni au, which is like being hit by a sneak attack, being stabbed in the back, etc. In a fairly literal sense in this case too, as they’re talking about actual combat.

I mostly bring it up because it feels like there is not much difference between “being deceived” and “being tricked,” despite those being portrayed as polar opposites (deceived by hostile dragons, tricked by kind Kobayashi), so it might have been wise to differentiate them more in the translation.

E.g. perhaps “She had to change to avoid a knife in the back.” (though dragons don’t use knives, so maybe a claw?)

Another pretty minor point, but the “doesn’t know right from wrong” is 分別のない funbetsu no nai, where funbetsu means not so much “knowing right from wrong,” but a more encompassing sense of discretion and maturity.

I mostly bring this one up because it struck as me awkward to say Ilulu explicitly shouldn’t know right from wrong, since that would be going backward to her be okay destroying the city again. Instead it’s more that she shouldn’t need to feel weighed down by what’s “correct” or what she “should” do. One possible alt example:

“So go back to being a kid, and worry more about what you want to do than ought to do.”

(Lucoa also changes from a narrative tone to a more conversational tone at the end, in conjunction with the visual shift away from the flashback, so swapping the “she” to “you” might be appropriate.)

Note how Kanna shuffles the cards here. Depending on where you’re from, this may seem like an odd way of doing it (unless you watched Yugioh maybe). A lot of places with majority English speakers tend to use the overhand shuffle or riffle shuffle, but in Japan (and many other Asian countries) the most common shuffle is the one on display here, known as the Hindu shuffle. 

~The More You Know~

The act of handing over a piece of candy like this has been used as imagery in other places in the show as well, though I’ll leave thinking about what it represents to you.

“Blanket” is futon, which is used to refer to both the “mattress” part and “blanket” part of a full futon, the traditional Japanese bedding (not the same thing as the sofa/couch mattress you might hear called a futon in some places).

I mostly mention because just “a blanket” kind of sounds like they’re going to leave them on the floor, but they’re actually going to get the equivalent of a guest mattress (+blanket) to put them to sleep in, as it’s late enough for this to turn into a sleepover.

Just as a bit of trivia, the word she uses for “onlooker” here is the same term as the “spectator faction.” In the manga Tohru interjects with “Aww, come on, why not Chaos faction instead?” 

Also as a side note to this whole bit about Kobayashi wearing a maid outfit; recall this scene from early in season one, where Tohru found an outfit Kobayashi had bought and stuffed deep in a closet:

Relevant! Anyway, back to the actual episode now:

If you felt like this exchange felt a little disjointed, especially given Tohru’s tone of voice: the idea is that Lucoa is saying Tohru really goes to extremes when it comes to matters relating to Kobayashi, which is implying that it seems excessive to call so many people over for a relatively mild issue (not that she necessarily minds though). Tohru’s response is a slightly defensive “yeah I know, but thanks for coming over anyway.” 

(They’re saying it in ways such that you have to read between the lines a bit though, so it may not come across as easily in a translation.)

The word for “cold” here is 水くさい mizu-kusai, basically meaning “watered down” (like beer etc.), and used frequently to refer to a person/actions/words that the speaker considers too reserved for the relationship they have with the other person.

So it’s similar to cold, but cold in the context of already warm relationship. If talking about a stranger or someone you don’t get along with normally, you shouldn’t use 水くさい; you can just say 冷たい tsumetai (lit. “cold”) or similar.

In this context you could probably have her say “No need to apologize, Kobayashi-san.”

Also I like how they swap around the honorifics (Miss, Lady, -san, -sama, etc.) based on the speaker (I think differentiating between dragons and native-Japanese-speaking humans?). I would say it works given the setting, but that’s just me.

The text there says “Money Street.” It’s probably obvious, but it’s based primarily on Monopoly, which is semi-popular in Japan (though not to the extent as say in the US). 

Just some trivia, but the “sales pitch” for the game in the Japanese market is more that it’s an educational game that teaches investing and negotiation skills. (The origin of the game in general being an educational tool about exploitation of tenants by landlords, so not quite the same thing.)

Japan also has Momotarou Dentetsu (”Momotetsu”), which is a video game series that’s been around since the NES and is broadly similar to Monopoly rules-wise.

I just want to point out, amid all the riches, the bag of potato chips and other junk food in the back there.

Mini-trivia: the cardboard boxes in the background there seem to be a mix of the Amazon logo and the Seino Transportation logo, a Japanese shipping company with a kangaroo logo.

You probably noticed it without me pointing it out, but I enjoyed the fact Elma got corn starch* all around her mouth from the daifuku and then immediately got told to go play with the kids while the adults are talking.

*It may seem like powdered sugar if you’re used to donut holes, but daifuku, like most Japanese sweets (wagashi) generally, is not heavily sugared and not even particularly sweet by the standard of most “sweets” (which is part of the appeal for many). The skin of the daifuku is powdered with corn starch or similar simply to make it less sticky.

Kobayashi’s “do that” here is やろー yarou, which can mean “let’s do X” (which is a construction often used to tell/suggest someone to do something, without really including yourself in the “us”). 

However in this case—especially given Kobayashi’s pronunciation and tone of voice—I think it’s actually a homophone of that, a form of 野郎 yarou, a word for “guy” with often negative connotations, like saying “son of a” or “asshole” etc. 

The idea, I think, being that his immediate agreement of “Oooh, right I didn’t think about you wearing it,” comes with a heavy implication of “yeah you’re right, you couldn’t pull off something cute like that,” so she’s replying with a (mostly good-natured) “oh you fucker.”

This giant 完 kan means “the end,” used like “fin” at the end of a story or game etc. It’s also frequently used in “fake end” jokes. E.g. a show about a sentient zombie might start with the main character getting hit by a truck and dying immediately. The end! ...Except not, and they wake up as a zombie.

So here, the original goal was “make a maid outfit for Kobayashi to wear.” Then Georgie convinces Kobayashi that anything is a maid outfit as long as you are a maid at heart, so really, she’s already wearing one! The end! ...Except not.

Here’s some extra, probably needless, context on this “annoying”: it uses the word 面倒くさい mendokusai, which is basically used to describe something as annoying, a pain, etc. When used to describe a person like this, one of the ways it can be taken is specifically that the person is really fussy about details that others wouldn’t really care about—which describes Kobayashi about maids pretty well. 

So just for clarity, it’s not necessarily “I became an annoying person who is a maid otaku,” and can be more of a “within the context of my maid otaku-ness I became annoying.” Just to kind of shed some light on the extent of her self-deprecation here.

The word Kobayashi uses for “helping with the housework” is 家事手伝い kaji-tetsudai, which is a noun* that means “a housework helper”... here, basically a more bland way for a native Japanese speaker to say maid. 

Hence why Tohru reacts with “Oh, don’t call me that, call me a maid!”; Kobayashi went as far as to acknowledge her clothes as a maid outfit, but not quite as far as calling her maid outright. That’s our “annoying maid otaku” doing her thing. 

*It can also be verbed.

These neighborhood notices, 回覧板 kairan-ban, ~lit. circular notice, are a method used by local governing organizations to distribute information or forms etc. For example, about an upcoming neighborhood event to pick up litter.

The general idea is that one person gets the notice, reads it, signs it, then goes and passes it to the next household in line. It saves paper versus sending everyone a thing in the mail, encourages interaction between neighbors, and is more likely to be read than a flyer/email, though some people consider them a pain and they generally feel a little dated.

The phrase for “piercing noise” is  劈く金切り音, tsunzaku kanakiri-on, ~lit. “ear-piercing sound of tearing metal.”* 

“Was it that loud?” in the Japanese is a little different, そんな音してた?, meaning “was it making a sound like that?” 

I’m mostly just bringing it up to say that the “Sasakibe’s cooking isn’t just loud, the sounds don’t even make sense” gag is alive and well this season.

*The “sound of tearing metal” phrase can also used idiomatically for some types of high pitched sounds, but I imagine it was chosen very deliberately here.

It’s probably obvious, but this is a reference to the music video of the OP for season one. You can see it on the official channel for the band, fhána, here.

The season two music video is here, and it seems to have decent English subtitles for the lyrics if you’re curious what they are.

The adjective here is ニヒル nihiru, an abbreviation of nihilistic. It can be used as actually “nihilistic” like in English, but it can also be used more colloquially to describe a person with dark vibes. It can almost be a compliment!

“Sleeping” here is 惰眠をむさぼる damin wo musaboru. Damin is not just sleep, but “worthless” sleep—not like a nap because you’re tired. Musaboru is a verb for ~gorging upon on something (often metaphorically, not just food).

The two words are somewhat frequently used together for, basically, lying around the house doing nothing all day. And not in a particularly flattering way, so it’s pretty funny for her to just be like “yeah I do that as a hobby I guess.” 

It doesn’t mean the same thing, but it’d be like saying your hobby is loitering. Maybe could have translated as like “Hobbies? Vegetating.” or “Procrastinating?” or something, though I don’t know if those would have the right impact...

Kanna’s word for “idol” here is アイドル aidoru, i.e. idol in the pop culture sense.

Tohru’s word is 偶像 guuzou, or idol in the religious sense.

(Tohru swaps to the pop culture “idol” when she starts talking about Kobayashi though.)

Kanna’s “lost it” it here is 大変 taihen, a pretty common, almost generic word used as an intensifier (greatly, immensely, seriously, terribly, really, etc.) in both positive and negative ways. E.g. “thanks, you really saved me!” or “that was extremely rude.”

When used alone, like here, it usually implies something bad has happened, like something has befallen Tohru and/or she’s in some sort of trouble. Hence why Kobayashi immediately rushes home worried and bursts through the door like this—and loses her tension when she sees Tohru is fine, just... extreme(ly annoying to Kanna and Ilulu).

You could maybe say e.g. “Something’s wrong with Tohru!” to keep that double meaning open.

(”Lost it!” also makes sense for Kobayashi to be worried about, but the type of worry is somewhat different in that case; “oh god what is she going to do” vs. “oh god what happened to her.”)

The “lick” here is べろ bero, an onomatopoeia for licking that’s also used as slang for "tongue” (noun).

A bero chuu, as in the chorus here, is slang for a French kiss/deep kiss/tongue kiss.

~The More You Know~

The text here says “If your total assets are above one billion, proceed towards goal.” 

Only billionaires can win...

Here is 私のものはカンナのもの, lit. “What’s mine is Kanna’s!”

This line is a reference to a catchphrase of the bully/antagonist in Doraemon, Gian: “What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is mine.” 

His line, and character, is so well known it’s spawned the term “Gianism” to represent that sort of self-centered philosophy: everything is rightfully mine to take, even if you think you lay some claim over it.

It’s interesting that the inversion of Gianism, i.e. “what’s mine is yours,” is the only way Kanna and Saikawa are able to overcome the rules, beat the billionaire, and win the game.

Solidarity forever.

[echo-bleu]

As my Encanto hyperfixation goes away (I went from 100 to 0 surprisingly fast given that it hasn’t been replaced), I find myself looking at all the fanfic loose ends I’ve left lying around. I am quite determined to use this in-between-hyperfixations time to work on my original project, Singer Street, and I’m half-hoping that the next hyperfixation might be on that project. I may or may not be procrastinating on that by taking a look back ( @t-lane-writes i might need a kick in the butt) but at the same time I think I need this to be able to move forward.

This is going to get rambly so I won’t make you all scroll past :D

Over the years I’ve left a bunch of unfinished fanfics behind as I moved fandoms, and I regularly get sad that I couldn’t finish them. That’s especially true of the more advanced fics in which I poured a lot of energy and time and emotions. I’m constantly wondering if I could just make a little effort and finish them just so I can lay them to rest.

- Gifted fics: Nope, not gonna happen. The Underground is technically unfinished but it ends in a really good place. I think I might edit the end note and mark it as complete actually, just so I can say it’s done. All We Stand To Lose... it ends terribly but I really had no precise ending in mind and I can’t get back into this one enough. If You're Still Breathing was never meant to be a full fic anyway. I’m way too far from these characters now even though I still love them, and my writing style has evolved too -- not to mention that the fandom is fully dead.

- RNM fics: The fandom is still alive and I still have friends there but... I pretty much hate what the show has become. Season 3, which was awful imo, did give me enough of a boost to continue the one unfinished fic that still had a real place in my heart, our hands clasped so tight. I think I’d like to bring it to an end, because I’m actually pretty close and I still like it. It took the backburner again when I blocked on the flashback chapter and then fell headfirst into a new hyperfixation, but I’ll give it another try at some point. There’s maybe 3-4 chapters left to write (3k-ish words each) so it’s not a lot, and I feel like it’s worth it. The other WIPs I can barely remember and none of them were advanced enough anyway.

- Shadowhunters fics: I was looking at my folder the other day. There are so many fics I started and didn’t finish. There are a few one shots that I’d like to just clean up and bit and post as very short fics/snippets just because they’re pretty good, and it doesn’t matter than they’re not really finished. I might give this a try today. Beside that, the only really advanced WIP I had is the time we've been given. I don’t know about this one. I like it, but it’s maybe not close enough to my heart to actually put in the work to finish it. As it is, it was maybe halfway done with the plot I’d planned. I could maybe cut some stuff and just give it a nice epilogue -- I’ll have to look at what’s possible there.

Oh, and I also have sparks filled with hope, my mutant AU that I never posted. Um. It’s pretty advanced but it’s been so long since I even thought about it. Yeah, that one’s not going to happen.

- Hamilton fics: This is the fandom I’m kind of reverting back to now. It’s a bit frustrating in the sense that the fandom is so small now that it barely feels worth it to post fics at all, but those characters are the ones on my mind, though not in a hyperfixation way anymore. So. I have one fic that’s finished and awaiting betaing, part of the the things we used to know series. I meant that series to be a lot longer but it’s fine as it is. I have one project that I still vaguely wonder about that I don’t think will ever see the light of day unless I get a sudden burst of inspiration, I think I can lay that one to rest too.

And I have Eyes On The Horizon. It’s my most advanced fic, I’ve written almost 80k but it’s nowhere near done. It’s been read by a total of two people so far, it’s the first long fic I’ve written without posting anything. It’s proved to me that I’m capable of writing something without constant feedback (I’ve had amazing feedback from my beta and it’s been enough). It’s taken the backburner during Encanto phase but I still really really love it. So I’m on the fence about it. Basically I see three possibilities. 1) Start posting it, keep working on it on and off and hope for the best, knowing that it’s unlikely that I’ll ever finish it. 2) Chop it into parts. As it is, it’s too long, the pacing doesn’t work really well, and I have too much planned. It’s basically three different genres and three different novels into one. So I could simply finish the act I’m in, which would make it a character-focused kinda slice of life thing, and tell myself that maybe one day I’ll write a second part with the more plot-focused part. 3) This fic is barely fanfiction as it is, it’s so far from canon. If I can find a way to tighten the plot and to change the worldbuilding enough that it’s fully original (here it’s not really the Hamilton part that’s a problem, but the Sense8 inspiration) I could rework it into an original novel, and I think it could be really good. But there would be a lot of work and a lot of questions to ask myself, too.

I... don’t have an answer to that one yet.

- Encanto fics: I essentially have two, and a third that I barely started and that will not see the light of day, that’s okay. Nothing In This World is very advanced but also not even close to the end, but I don’t want to abandon it completely because I think it’s one of my best works yet. I’ve really reached the depth of nuance and emotional complexity that I want to be at with this one. I think I’m going to try to tighten the plot a bit more to make it shorter and keep going, but definitely not as intensely.

The Pirate AU isn’t going to be written. I’m still drawing the characters, and I’m going to try and do the whole family. I’m shelving the fic (I only wrote about a chapter). However, I’ll keep the plot in the back of my mind because I definitely want to write an og story like that someday. Not the exact same, but there are elements I really like.

- Original projects: Singer Street is my current project. It has a full plot, it has all the character it needs, I JUST NEED TO WRITE IT. STOP PROCRASTINATING ECHO.

I had this one post-revolution fantasy project that I’m shelving for now, but the good thing about og projects is that they’re not subject to fandom whims. I might go back to it. I might transform it into something else.

And I have Eyes, if I decide to turn it original. I really could. I’d need some solid reflection about one specific representation-related aspect of it, and to really figure out what’s important and what I want to say.

So, to recap.

- Maybe finish Hands (shouldn’t be that much work) - Have a look at which SH one-shots I can post as is or with minimal work, maybe look at Time, then shelve everything else - Post that Things we use to know fic whenever possible, then have a serious look at Eyes, which might require rereading it and talking it over with my wonderful friends/betas/writing buddies - Try to keep going with Nothing, but don’t force it - WRITE THAT GODDAMN NOVEL, COME ON YOU CAN DO IT

( @t-lane-writes is going to be very cross with me about this, I should only be thinking about Singer Street. But. At least my mind is a little clearer.)

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

[this week’s T5F was requested by anon]

Top 5 Worst Choices That Didn’t Matter

“This game series adapts to the choices you make. The story is tailored by how you play.”

......Yeah okay, Telltale. 

There are a lot of important choices to make over the course of the twdg series, but as we all know, not every single choice matters. One of the biggest things people tend to complain about Telltale games is the illusion of choice and “my choices don’t matter! We all get the same ending anyway!” which is fair, I get it. 

I personally try to look at the choices in a more positive light. Like, yeah it doesn’t matter if you cut Lee’s arm off or not. No matter what, you can’t save him and he’s going to die at the end of S1. Except that choice does matter, just not in the way we wanted it to. It matters because it shapes the story we the player want to tell. 

Who is your Lee? Is he willing to do anything to rescue Clementine? Including cutting his own arm off if it means giving him just enough time to get to her, even though it’s going to hurt like hell and could possibly leave him worse off? 

Or is your Lee someone who won’t risk that, even if there is the smallest hope that they cut it off in time and he could live? He’s willing to let the infection spread and kill him because he needs both arms and all the energy he has left to get to Clementine?

Sure, it doesn’t matter in the end-- Lee still dies, but two armed Lee isn’t the same man as one armed Lee, and that’s important to your story. Plus, that choice is memorable as hell. 

But these kinds of choices that are impactful to your story in various ways? Yeah, we’re not talking about those today. Nope. Today we’re talking about choices that meant absolutely nothing. They never came back, they didn’t impacted the story in a meaningful way, they’re forgetful, and they’re just the worst. I don’t like ‘em.

Before we get started, just wanna shoutout @pi-creates​ for helping me bounce all these choices around and reminding me of so many things I forgot.

5.  Telling Clementine to bring AJ back to Richmond

One of the last choices you’ll make as Javier Garcia happens during a conversation with Clementine. The two are talking about AJ and Clementine’s wondering if she was a good mom [which still don’t love the direction they went there for okay ANF] and Javi has the choice to tell her to bring AJ back to Richmond, or to leave him at the ranch. 

And funny enough.... this means nothing. It does nothing. It’s said and nothing is remembered. Clementine never brings AJ back, she never mentions Javi telling her to bring him or leave him... all we get is a single line in TFS during the ranch flashback where Clementine says that they can’t go back because it’s a warzone that way.... but she says that no matter what. 

It also doesn’t help that this come at the very end of the season but isn’t a huge choice the affects the endings. I dunno if they were trying to plant ideas that “Ooohh this choice could decide whether Clem sees the Garcia’s ever again! Clementine’s story isn’t over y’all! The Garcia’s could come back and we could see Richmond again!”

But then TFS happened and they were like “Ha, that’s stupid, no one likes the Garcia’s.” and they are never mentioned by name again. 

4. Helping Sarah in the green house

Ugh, okay.

So, there’s this point in S2 where you’re trapped in Howe’s and put to work in the green house with Sarah and Reggie. Y’see, Sarah isn’t doing so good at this. Carver got pissed at her for talking earlier and forced Carlos to slap her... which he did, and it knocked her on her ass, and now she’s in shock. 

Then ya got Reggie who keeps talking about how he’s on thin ice with Carver but also he’s this close to being let out of the holding area, so behave and all will be chill. He gives you a task to trip and pick berries or whatever, when you notice that Sarah is just kinda standing there.

So you got a choice: Do you focus on your own work, or do you help Sarah out?

Well, it doesn’t matter what you pick. 

It.... it literally doesn’t matter. Sure, you could argue that it helps Sarah out and adds friendship points with her.... except no, not really. It’s never brought up again. She doesn’t even guilt you if you don’t help her, which is something you’d expect from these games. 

Oh, and Reggie dies no matter what. Yeah, Carver comes in and thinks a couple of berry bushes is the perfect reason to throw this man off of a rooftop... but then he doesn’t do anything to Clementine or Sarah either way. He doesn’t get mad if you help, he doesn’t go after Sarah if you don’t.... and it’s never mentioned again. Reggie’s death is, but your specific choice isn’t.

3.  Stealing from Arvo 

Oooooh boy, gotta love the Arvo choice. 

So, you and Jane are trying to find a safe place for Rebecca to have her baby when you see this kid walk up carrying a bag. He’s pretty harmless, and he’s more scared of you than you are of him. Jane gets the jump on him, and you check out the bag he’s carrying. 

Turns out, he’s got a shit ton of medicine.... medicine that your group could really use. Arvo panics and begs you not to steal from him, claiming it’s for his sick sister. You gotta decide if you want to rob him or not.

And it doesn’t matter. 

The best I can do to defend this is by kinda comparing it to when you steal from the Stranger’s car in S1. It’s more of a moral choice to shape Clementine, y’know? Except it doesn’t really do anything..... Clementine isn’t branded a thief after this, she doesn’t go around just stealing shit [though she can steal Pete’s watch but that’s another story]. But if you do want to keep stretching, then the next entry on this list could be seen as a continuation of Clementine’s thieving ways if you so choose.... but that choice is here, too, soooo take that for what you will. 

If you steal the medicine, you have this pill bottle that you can give to Rebecca but that barely matters, too. They don’t help or harm her when she’s giving birth, they do nothing for AJ, and no matter what you do.... Arvo’s squad ambushes you.

And it means nothing.

Arvo will always claim you stole from him, even if you didn’t. Rebecca will always die and someone will always shoot her, causing a shootout to happen where no one in your group dies.

Yeah, no one but Arvo’s squad dies. Mike gets shot, and so does Luke but that’s it. 

Oh, and stealing from him is never brought up again after that.... because it doesn’t matter. 

Even if they did something where if you stole from him, then one of your group members dies because of some bullshit reason, then it would mean something but as it is now? Nothin’.

2. Injecting AJ with medicine 

Oh hello, ANF, you’re back. 

This flashback is annoying on so many levels... Alright, AJ is sick and everyone has told Clementine that there’s nothing anyone can do to help him, but she gets her hands on the name of a medicine she thinks will help. So she sneaks around and finds the medicine, but of course, she can only give it to him as an injection. 

Instead of doing the smart thing and taking the medicine and moving away from the group to give to AJ in a safe location where she won’t get caught, she sticks around for Lingard to wake up, and he’s high outta his mind so that’s fun. 

He tells her that it’s not going to help him and to just put it back. She knows what they do to thieves around here but he won’t tell anyone. It’s up to you, do you put it back or inject AJ?

Well, guess what? 

Clementine gets caught either way and the drugs are either in AJ or smashed on the floor, David becomes a flipflop with his “We shoulda abandoned AJ long ago to die >:O but also you can’t take him because he’ll die out there!” and they kick Clementine out for being a dingus. 

And here’s the kicker.... AJ is alive no matter what. He gets through whatever sickness he had and went to the ranch. You injecting him or not did nothing... no side affects, nothing. I’m sure they didn’t want to go super dark by killing AJ off [except they kinda did since there’s a lot of scrapped concepts with a dead AJ] depending on if you injected him or not..... but at least it would’ve been something. Hell, maybe no kill him since we need him for TFS, but maybe it would affect if he went to the ranch or not to begin with. Maybe if he got worse, they sent him somewhere else and that would affect where Clementine went to get him back for the flashbacks in TFS.

Again, you could look at this as what Clementine would be willing to do for AJ........ but it doesn’t enhance the story in any meaningful way.  It affects what Clementine you get in the end, but that’s just some text on the screen. 

I dunno, this choice could’ve done something... that’s all I’m saying. 

1. Teaching Sarah to shoot

Once again, Sarah finds herself on my dumb lists... and not in a good way. Sigh. 

Alright, you wanna talk about the worst choice that meant absolutely nothing? Nothing at all? 

You get back to the cabin in S2 after leaving either Nick or Pete, and Carlos asks you to watch Sarah while they go out to look for the rest. You find Sarah, you can take some pictures, and then she asks where her dad is. 

She gets anxious and sits on the floor....but then she does something interesting. She pulls out a gun she found. It’s not loaded or anything, but she asks Clementine if she can teach her how to use it.

And you’re probably thinking, “Oh, that’s a good idea. She should know how to use a gun, but her dad is too over protective. This could help us in the future.” or “Oof, no, Sarah isn’t ready for a gun. What if that comes back and bites me in the ass? What if she shoots someone I don’t want her to shoot?”

Well, don’t worry your pretty little head because nothing comes of this.

Nothing.

You teach her to shoot, and it does nothing. She never picks up another gun ever again, she never does anything with what you taught her, and nothing happens. 

Just.... wow. 

At the very least... with the other picks on this list, you could stretch and make some sort of excuse for it having an impact on the story.... but this doesn’t do anything to further your relationship with Sarah, Carlos never finds out about it, there’s never a point where Sarah admits she found the gun, she doesn’t use it, she doesn’t give it to Clementine or anyone else to you, and it does nothing.

This scene could be completely removed and it wouldn’t change anything... which honestly, is something I can’t say for the rest of these dumb choices. 

That’s what makes this the ultimate pointless choice. 

---

Dishonorable Mentions

-Asking to go with Mike at the end of S2. Arvo will shoot Clementine no matter what and it’s dumb. -Keeping quiet about Mari when David asks you to. It doesn’t affect anything other than David being upset for two seconds, but you get thrown out and it doesn’t matter. -Trying to help Christa in S2 ep1. Either way, she gets shot at and you never see her again and it just doesn’t matter. -Honestly 400 Days.... just all of it. The only thing you get is pointless cameos if you get everyone to go with Tavia.  -Being nice to Larry. He still treats you like shit and accuses you of being a bitch to him anyway soooo.... yeah.  -Fixing the swing in S1 ep2. If you don’t do it, then Andy will.

----

It’s pretty telling that this T5F is just S2 and ANF choices.... sigh. Like sure, there are a lot of choices that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things in S1 and TFS but most of those I can justify as being there to shape your story and are impactful in different ways..... but boy, there’s just something about S2 and ANF and their choices, isn’t there? 

Anyway, what do you guys think? Do you agree with my choices or nah? Do you have a choice you don’t like and think is meaningless that wasn’t on the list? Lemme know, I’d love to hear it! 

Have any suggestions for future T5F’s? Feel free to send ‘em in! :D

—

Next week’s T5F Top 5 Reasons Javier Garcia’s Pretty Great

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak]

And now I’ve watched episode 3 of Walker because of reasons. (You guys asked, that’s reasons.) #2

If you guys haven’t seen part 1, go see it immediately. Because of reasons. This time, reasons is Slutty Glitter Cowboy Stripper. No, it’s not a joke.

Yeah, I’m not sure what’s happening either.

I can’t believe they’re airing cowboy strippers in Supernatural’s air slot and Dean Winchester isn’t there. I think this is why they had to kill Dean, because otherwise he would have ripped through the CW’s show layout and appeared in Walker sponteneously, instantly adopting Walker’s entire family and friends as his own and single-handedly implementing the depolicement of the state of Texas, with Castiel rolling his eyes at him in the background while he murders ICE agents at the US-Mexican border.

*slides the CW a twenty euro bill* so I have an idea for season 2 of Walker

Anyway, there’s this lady Walker and Ramirez are doing a stakeout on, a woman called Torreto who is presumably part of some criminal organization since they’re doing a stakeout on her, and who’s bisexual given she was being entertained by a lady and a guy at a strip club. Which is like, fine, not problematic at all, alright.

So the stripper straddles her and is like ~wanna come with me in the back, and she’s like ~maybe another time, and he’s like ~torreto i saw cops outside you probably wanna come to the back with me, and she’s like ~mmm yeah that sounds like a good idea. We were rooting for you, slutty glitter cowboy stripper! We were all rooting for you! Or not.

Meanwhile, Walker has horrible car manners.

Also, he asks her how her parents were to her growing up, which is a question you normally ask to people you’re not close to when you want to do some small talk. For some reason she brings up a friend she had some ~crazy teen years~ with, called Garrison, which doesn’t make me think of angels in Supernatural, no, I am a normal person.

But then people start coming out of the strip club, but not Torreto. So they go in.

Torreto is not there, so Walker just stops the first person he sees and he’s literally like ~excuse me, do you know if there’s someone in the back. The visual is hilarious

“Excuse me, sir, have you seen my brother from another show, I suspect he might be here”

Give me a spinoff about this strip club.

Anyway, the guys answers, “No, why, you two interested?” to which they immediately answer “no!” at the same time, and share a look which makes me think we’re supposed to be like ~~ooh, talking in unison moment! or something...?

Meanwhile their truck gets stolen, and Walker yells that his bobblehead is in there. Cue disgruntled Jared face.

Oh man. We are at the title card. It’s less than 6 minutes. This will never end.

It was night, now it’s day, and Stella and August are walking around Austin. He’s mimicking David Attenborough, describing the teenagers around them as though he was doing a documentary about animals.

Two girls approach them, bringing up a party that’s taking place tomorrow. She says it’s not the best idea with her court date approaching. The girls are like, your dad can figure something out, he’s an elite ranger or something and also owes you for disappearing for a year. She’s like, he’s being kind of cool, I don’t want to ruin this, and the girls ��call BS” because this is like “the best party of the year”.

Ruby, the girl August has been hanging out with, appears and August goes from “nah the party is not my thing” to “I’ll totally be there” in like 0.02 seconds.

I cannot overstate how much I am not interested in high schooler drama.

Meanwhile, at the Walker Seniors’ place, Walker’s parents are preparing the table for a family dinner. From their banter we can infer someone’s who ~is like family although he isn’t “blood”~ is coming for dinner and Grandpa Walker doesn’t like him at all and actually expects the guy to steal their china and bourbon. “It’s been years, could you please give him a chance?” Grandma Walker says, and he accepts, although she grabs the fancy bourbon from behind his back.

Meanwhile, at the police station, all the cops are having a briefing about Torreto, the woman at the strip club. She apparently steals weapons all over Texas and sells them over the border at triple the cost. Remember that Torreto escaped from Walker and Ramirez because she stole their truck while they were inside the strip club. Ramirez is worried she’ll already become the laughingstock of the precinct.

Uh. James plays security camera footage from outside the strip club. Walker and Ramirez’ truck was stolen by Torreto and the cowboy stripper himself.

Obviously the other cops laugh when Ramirez admits it was her truck.

James tells them to find Torreto, find the truck, and find out who the naked cowboy is.

I have a bad feeling about this.

Then Walker drives home, and as soon as he gets out of his car, you know how in the Supernatural pilot Dean gets into Sam’s apartment and wrestles him before revealing it’s him to ~test if his fighting skills are rusty and laughs when Sam realizes it’s him? Alright, now think intensely and guess how Walker’s like-a-brother best friend is introduced. Think intensely! It’s really difficult to guess!

Something something about violence and male intimacy except this is too ridiculous to, you know, write something serious about it.

“Oh, man!” the guy laughs, lying on the ground where Walker threw him. “The look on your face!”

“You son of a-”

“Oh, c’mon man, don’t talk bad of a mother I never knew.”

I’m facepalming soooo hard. This is the first thing we learn about him (well, after the fact that he definitely stole something from the Walkers’ house in the past), that he never knew his mother!

HOLY FUCKING SHIT

GUYS

I AM SO SORRY

I am faceblind I didn’t realize

THE GUY IS THE STRIPPER

I REPEAT

THE “DEAN BUT IN JARED PADALECKI’S MIND” CHARACTER IS THE SLUTTY GLITTER COWBOY STRIPPER

THIS IS NOT A DRILL

I SWEAR MY HANDS ARE COLD AND CLAMMY

I AM EXPERIENCING EMOTIONS NO WORDS EXIST IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TO DESCRIBE

Oh my god guys. I am so sorry.

“You did your touchdown victory dance before you stole my partner’s truck!” Walker exclaims. “I should arrest you right here and right now!”

The guy acts like he has no idea what Walker is talking about, and says he’s in town to see his best pal.

Walker keeps accusing him, but then his mother appears, super thrilled to see him, and Walker lets is go.

They’re at dinner (NotDean brought wagyu steaks, which obviously means he does crime for a living) and Walker’s mother tells him to say grace, which he does in a semi-serious, semi-mocking way. Obviously NotDean does not believe in god, but he’s grateful for the people around him.

Stella calls him uncle, in case you missed that this is supposed to be a friend whom Walker loves likeabrother.

He talks about jobs he did here and there, and Walker and his brother tease him asking if he’s been to some prisons around the country. Stella doesn’t get the joke and NotDean explains it to her, adding, “now, from what I hear, I’m not the only outlaw in this family”. Grandpa Walker leaves the room.

NotDean asks Stella if she’s going to the bonfire (the party they were talking about earlier) and tells her that her mother started the thing when they were young. She didn’t know that. This is supposed to be a Meaningful moment.

Meanwhile the stolen truck is found... at Walker’s ranch. Gasp! What a shocking turn of events.

NotDean gives Stella advice on how to act in court to get on the judge’s good graces, “which means acting”. “Please don’t get legal advice from a criminal” walker’s brother Liam says. Is the gay brother also a NotDean of sorts, to be fair? Well, CriminalNotDean tells her to dress her best and cry. ActualbrotherNotDean tells her to use the correct legal arguments. Walker just stops them, quoting something Ramirez said earlier in the episode, “nobody benefits from the easy route”. Stella is like, what does that mean, which, mood, but Grandma Walker interrupts bringing in a plate of different hot chilis. Apparently they have a tradition of a competition. Which we don’t even see. Boo.

Ramirez finds the truck... right outside the Walkers’ house. Grandpa Walker, who’d gone outside, points a rifle to her and she explains what she’s doing there. They introduce themselves and she is like, sir why is the man who stole my truck inside your house? “Wife invited him to dinner.”

She’s like, I need to arrest him. But he’s like, I bet there’s not enough evidence to arrest him, or my son would have done it. Join me for steak and burbon in the bunkhouse! As one does. So they have wagyu and bourbon together, and she asks him what’s the guy’s story.

So NotDean and Walker grew up together, NotDean had a rough life, “my wife has a soft spot for strays, she can’t give up on him”. But Grandpa Walker doesn’t feel the same. He tells her that she cannot arrest him tonight, but it’s only a matter of time before the guy gives her enough rope. He adds that Walker has a blind spot for faces from the past, and needs someone to fix that.

Meanwhile dinner’s over and NotDean calls a uber. He and Walker arrange to meet the next day and hang out like old times. Eventually, Walker tells him that if he is involved in this case, he will have to take him down. “Theoretically, if you catch me.” They do a manly hug with manly pats, and the guy leaves. “Theoretically, go to hell,” Walker says after he’s left.

The next day, NotDean brings Walker to a storage in the middle of nowhere... full of cursed objects, no wait, wrong show. What’s inside the storage is the red Mustang. Walker is shocked that he hasn’t lost it in some bet - which apparently is how he got the car from Walker in the first place. Now NotDean says that, after everything Walker’s been through, he deserves a chance to win it back.

Glowy flashback of Walker and his wife in the car, right after the scene in the beginning of the episode. They bet it during poker night, decision of Emily, because Walker is “starting to get attached to her”. Emily teases him for calling the car a she, and Walker decides to call the car Stella.

They gave their daughter the name of a car they lost at poker.

Oh. She tells him she’s pregnant.

So, apparently, they had their first daughter when they were broke, to the point they had to try and get money at poker for a bigger place and baby things. That’s... kind of irresponsible.

Meamwhile, Ramirez goes to James to tell him about the thing, but James already figured NotDean was involved, because apparently stealing things and returning them is just something he does. “Why are you so calm about this?” she asks. He says because they cannot pin anything on him. Questioning him could scare the big crime lady. So he tells her to just keep an eye on him. “Walker, Torreto or Hoyt [NotDean]” she asks. “Yes” he answers.

Blah blah. I apologize, I’m being too detailed. I’m just bored by this. Ah, a butcher’s truck was stolen right after the strip club thing, guess where NotDean got the wagyu steaks.

Walker and NotDean go to the bar with the bartender who’s their friend, and NotDean flirts with her. They start playing poker, when Ramirez arrives, and has some banter with NotDean and spills some glitter on him that she found in the truck. He buys her a drink and she arrests him for trying to bribe a police officer. Walker is shocked.

At the precinct, he says they cannot prove he’s working with big crime lady. But she brings up he stole the wagyu steaks.

She calls him out for trying to be everyone’s friend even if they do something wrong, also with Stella.

She says she can hold NotDean for 24 hours, long enough to figure out the big crime lady’s plans. Common trope in cop shows. Arrest someone without proof, you have to release them after 24 hours, but the cop finds proof and bam, forgiven for arresting someone without proof.

I know you’re bored, I’m bored too.

Actually, nope, it goes differently and kind of worse. In the interrogation room, Ramirez offers NotDean a deal: he tells her where the big crime lady’s weapon deal is happening, and walks free. He points the location on a map and he compliments her. Walker is watching from the cameras and is shook.

Meanwhile the bonfire is happening, and Stella is there with her girl friends. So is August, breakdancing to impress girls. We don’t care.

Meanwhile, a lot of cops in serious cop gear surround the location NotDean pointed at. Nobody’s there, though.

What is there, is the red Mustang with the creepy bobblehead in it and a letter from NotDean that says he gives him the car back because it was always his wife’s.

Walker figures out where the deal is actually happening - the storage where the red Mustang was before.

Meanwhile, at the bonfire, August is drunk on booze he stole from Grandpa Walker and brought to the party. He asks Stella if she’s trying to drive their father away, breaking the law and all, he asks if she wants him to leave again. Then he throws up. She calls Walker but he obviously doesn’t answer. So she calls her uncle, who’s doing shopping with his partner or something. They’re buying cake? Doing cake testing for their wedding? Maybe.

Meanwhile, NotDean calls Grandma Walker to tell her he cannot go mushroom hunting with her tomorrow but needs to leave town, and he’s sorry to let her down again. She tells him that just because his family’s bad, doesn’t mean he is too. “You saved my boy, and I’ll never forget that” she says. Oooh, that’s so intriguing!, nobody says. They share a cute moment and then he hangs up, while the weapon deal goes down around him.

Uncle Liam and his partner pick up the kids, and Stella asks him if he’ll be in court with her tomorrow. He says he can’t, because it’s her father’s decision to make.

August turns up music and they all sing in the car. It’s funny how everyone’s got better chemistry with everyone else except with Walker. I know it’s, like, on purpose for plot reasons, but still, Walker’s interactions with everyone feel so stilted compared to anyone else. And it’s not the other characters are that compelling.

The police arrives at the location of the weapon deal, and NotDean gets arrested trying to steal the truck again. Ramirez gives a speech how that’s hard but it’s the right thing to do. Walker makes a comment about tough love, implying Stella needs to get that too.

The next day, they leave for Stella’s court thing on the red Mustang. It took Walker three episodes, but now they also have a cool classic car to show off! Yay! *eyeroll*

Meanwhile, Grandma Walker and Grandpa Walker have a conversation about their failing marriage or something.

Ramirez goes to the bar to apologize to the bartender for arresting NotDean. They have a drink together and if lesbians were watching this they’d start shipping them, but no lesbians are watching this. They’re wiser than me.

Stella got like a gazillion hours of community service and her license suspended. She’s upset, but since she has her license for one more day he teaches her how to drive the Mustang.

Wait. Americans don’t learn to drive normal cars when they get their license?? They only learn to drive cars with automatic gear?? What the hell??

They drive while August runs after the car to get over his hangover or something.

Would be a cute moment if the entire thing wasn’t so cheesy and weird.

Well. We know NotDean is a recurring role so we’ll see more of him. (Well, I’m not sure I will be there to watch, because this is boring af.)

This episode used all its interest coins in the strip club scene and then became dreadfully boring. I don’t even have some witty line to close this post.

This was a rollercoaster that went my brain go through a blender in the first six minutes or so and then killed the remaining braincells through boredom.

That’s it guys. What can I say. This is the CW’s Walker. Yee.

[kin-cosmic]

i just finished kid cosmic season 1 and..

[spoilers obviously]

man..ONLY 10 episodes? I mean I guess it’s getting a continuation so that’s good. anyways heres my thoughts of the overall season and show

so from the animation alone? fucking beautiful.

people said before that it reminded them of gorillaz and I didn’t see it, but NOW I do. it’s so fluid, and it can be chunky at times, but like, spider-verse type you know? anyways it’s just perfect, it’s fluid, it REALLY fits the hero-comic style of the show. and the BACKGROUND ART. GOD. I WOULD JUST PAUSE AT TIMES AND JUST OBSERVE. OF HOW TRULY BEAUTIFUL IT WAS FOR ME. ITS SO COOL.

ok now for the characters themselves? first off, the kid, he’s just perfect, he’s so pure. everything from his tragic backstory to the connection of his scar? yeah. deep. but THATS what makes him so flawed, and ngl i feel like I relate to him there. the show is OBVIOUSLY revolved around him, cause. kid cosmic. but obviously for not TOO long, cause the OTHER characters, that are ALSO great.

like JO! ok, as a teen, i feel like they kind of captured the characteristics of what a teen would “act” in situations on these, so when jo would just stammer and go insane, i RELATED to that sm! anyways she’s a good character! definitely the mom friend of the group, I see her as kid’s older sister, and she’s badass >:)

MOVING on to rosa! I ALSO related to her too, bonus start off because she was hispanic! as a mexican person, I was REALLY HAPPY to see someone cartoon, on screen, that RESEMBLED me you know? anyways besides that, she’s adorable, she can be a perfect kind of that “toddler-annoying”, and ironically SHES the muscle of the group, but yeah, she’s adorable, she’s such a cool chaotic baby! <3

NOW WITH PAPA G. MAN. he’s like, my PERSONAL favorite character in the show, though I WISHED he had more screen-time but the time I HAD with him, I just, loved him, so much. first off I thought it was already amazing how STRIKINGLY similar he is to WANDER. like. they’re the same person i stg, i wouldn’t be surprised if his design was at first a humanized version of wander DRAWN by craig, if you don’t believe me? watch woy, or just SIMPLY OBSERVE the hat. he EVEN says quotes that wander would say and EVEN said when he was in space that “he thought it was a flashback” THATS EPIC. anyways from his character, he’s ALSO the heart of the group, he is so caring and sweet, and especially to kid, and the fact that he is old, idk why that makes his character even MORE great, because he is ALSO so chaotic and ecstatic for a old ass guy . he also gives kid GOOD advice since, he lives with him, like the “freaking out, breathe it out” quote? swag af. anyways as you can tell, he’s my favorite character lol. i love papa g sm. OH YEAH, HIS NAME REVEALED TO BE GEORGE TOO SO . BUT YEAH, LOVE THIS OLD DOG.

SO ALSO WITH TUNA SANDWICH. not much to say here, id say he got the LEAST screentime , makes sense, cause he’s just the cat, but like at episode 8, he starts TALKING, and it’s just 😳 I was SUPRISED, this kinda overhauled his character, anyways besides that and his kinda useless power imo? he’s an adorable old cat, i almost cried when I saw him as a kitten and ALSO saw BABY KID. like that’s so cute how he’s attached to the kid, and THATS how he uses his power in advance, huh, guess it’s not that useless after all? anyways cute cat, funny too, he fucking cursed too so..

now to the side characters? i wasn’t expecting chuck to TURN good? like ok? 😳 i thought he would just be that stereotypical villain throughout the series in which i can love sometimes, but that wasn’t the case? first off his voice change? I feel like that was good! his stitch voice is cute btw lol. and him having MORE screentime too? following along with tuna? ALSO good! also tom kenny did a good job with his performance of him! now the other side characters like jo’s mom, thought she was ok, I wish the others like rosas parents were in it more you know? also the ACTUAL villain? the biker guy, kind of weak, but he was ok too.

now to the plot, I was EXPECTING for this show to be STORY-DRIVEN, and not like a reset cartoon episode like craig’s LAST cartoon was, and wasn’t let down a bit! the pacing goes by fast, but it says EVERYTHING it needed to be said, and it’s TO THE POINT. like the little details too? such as the foreshadowing when jo saw a glimpse of the newspaper about the car accident in the first episode? oof. then it being EXTENDED where to the point the kid gets flashbacks and cries? that hurt, but that was IMPORTANT to the story kinda, it’s also WHY papa g did that fake robot thing, kind of dick move george, but HEY! he did it for his grandson! besides, it never hurts to he- ok I’ll stop LMAOO, anyways i thought the story was good, so was the pacing

i got SO ARTISTICALLY inspired by the art style and the background art, like GOD, where’s the background artist @ ? I GOTTA KNOW, i STILL LOVE IT SM. FROM THE SIMPLISTIC AND SORTA GRAINY LINEART OF THE DESIGNS TO THAT COMIC FEEL? IT FELT NOSTALGIC SOMEHOW NGL. AND I THINK THEY CAPTURED THE FEEL OF THE SETTING TOO.NEW MEXICO MAN. NOT OFTEN YOU GET CARTOONS THAT TAKE PLACE THERE

MAKES ME HAPPY TBH! anyways

the art style was cute imo, great shit here my dude,I already can’t wait for the continuation, it actually ended in a cliffhanger so that’s kinda poopy. but yeah! craig and his crew went ALL out on this show you can tell! his wife and son even worked on this, EVEN ANDY BEAN! a person that WORKED with craig in woy! It’s great! i almost recognized ALL of the voice actors too, except jack fisher, I had NO idea who he was, but to KNOW an ACTUAL kid CAN give good performances? really says something, HES A PERFECTLY good example for a kid voice actor, he was great! as for the others, and the STARS TOO? such as KEITH FERGUSON, AND FRED TASTIACORE, AMANDA C MILLER, GREY GRIFFIN, KEVIN MICHAEL RICHARDSON, PHIL LAMAAR AND EVEN RICH FULCHER!! they were no joke, and obviously GREAT! im surprised keith can do such a good old man voice, wait never mind, he’s done the “orlando-bloo” voice before and that’s kind of a old voice? idk. but here we are.

overall. this show? i rate it 10/10

cant wait to see more of it!

it’s already such a comfort show for me!

i love it sm!

tysm craig for giving me ANOTHER of your cartoons to simply OBSESS over for, you’re the best man! you’re my idol!

k well I guess that’s all. sorry if it was a lot. i just. wanted to say something long about this show.

k well BYE BYE 🧡💜‼️

[sepublic]

Isaac’s Coming-of-Age Moment

           I find Isaac’s talk with the Captain in Season 3 weirdly… sweet, in a sense?

           Like… I kind of get this vibe from Isaac during their conversation that he’s basically some hot-headed, emotional youth, who is confused in a lot of ways, basically a teenager, and he just really needs some actual guidance, a positive adult/parental figure in his life that he can actually count on! Which, I don’t want to infantilize Isaac, but then again he does refer to himself and Hector as children who need to grow up in Season 4, so maybe I’m not too far off.

           I dunno, I just get the feel that as someone who’s been alone for a LONG while, without any real positive interactions with people or older figures… Isaac’s just in a kind of generally moody, angsty sort of headspace akin to an angsty teenager, obviously unreasonable in some regards, but not truly, his feelings are valid and you can tell that by the end of the day, he just wants to be left alone and in peace.

           So it feels really sweet to have Isaac actually like- Talk to an older figure who for once is acting as a mentor, passing on some real wisdom and guidance. The Captain can tell that Isaac needs someone to help him through what is a VERY confusing part of his life, a part that will decide a lot for him –again, like a teenager- and he’s very patiently and considerately advising Isaac; But at the same time, he’s not condescendingly lecturing him either. The Captain shows Isaac a lot of respect and consideration, and is both talking to him as an equal, but also as a mentor if that makes sense.

           And to me, that’s just really nice and heartwarming to watch, because with Dracula also in mind, I’m lowkey getting the impression of Isaac as this like; Jaded youth who secretly yearns for approval by someone for once, we can kind of see this from his abuser in the flashback. 

          Isaac hasn’t quite completely gotten over this, but with the Captain, Isaac can finally get that validation and support that he really needs and craves from an older figure, in a way that isn’t toxic and unhealthy. And I love Dracula and I will always applaud his decision to save Isaac’s life at the end of Season 2, how THAT led to Isaac learning to live for himself, I will forever love that moment even more from now on;

           But I think Dracula and I can both agree that he’s not, like. The healthiest role model nor person for Isaac to look up to, nor dedicate himself towards. Really, nobody is the healthiest person for Isaac to dedicate himself towards, he needs to live for himself after all! So it really was for the best that Isaac had himself cut off from that sort of toxic dependency; Dracula is an ENORMOUS step-up from Isaac’s abuser, sure, but he still represented Isaac’s refusal to really value himself, only just in relation to others.

           Anyhow, I really appreciate that talk where Isaac low-key finds a bit of a Father Figure in the Captain. Maybe I’m just protecting a little, but I found it very endearing how the Captain talks directly to Isaac as a person, in many ways he’s kind of firm and fair, but in a way that shows that he actually CARES about Isaac, and not that he’s just trying to get his own way. 

          Like, the Captain is interested in seeing Isaac prosper, but he’s not toxically dedicating himself to Isaac, the way Isaac would’ve done to Dracula’s memory; And that ability to help others and invest in them, while still being yourself, was no doubt enlightening for Isaac.

           Just… that side-eye glance of Isaac’s bear the end, actually stopping to think and consider, when the Captain tells him that hey, you can be a ruler! An almost endearing kind of immature desire to deny this in a rather “It’s not a PHASE” type of way, but it is in fact clearly getting to him, whether he likes to admit or not, and it’s kind of flustering Isaac. When the Captain gives him no shit but still treats him like a person. In general, all of Isaac’s interactions in Season 3 came from older figures who were a lot more experienced than him, which I think just adds to this idea that… 

          He really is kind of young and inexperienced in a lot of ways. And he really needs some second opinions to surround himself with, perspectives that are at times differing; Which I think is a neat contrast with Carmilla, who mostly relies on an echo chamber of her sisters and isn’t very receptive to different opinions.

           But yeah, Isaac is an utter mood, basically a moody, edgy teenager, who just needs some love and cherishing, some real mentorship and guidance, provided with actual respect and consideration, so he can get through what is an incredibly confusing AND formative period of his life. 

          It makes me all the more happy that it turns out for the best for him, and I really want to see a fic where like; Him and Hector encounter Dracula and Lisa, with all four on healthier terms, and Dracula’s sort of joy at seeing his other two sons being happy and living for themselves like he’d hoped- While Hector and Isaac are lowkey like, “See Dad! See how we’ve really become our own person, isn’t that really cool?” In that sort of excited, endearing way where they show a lot of respect and admiration, and place a lot of faith and trust in Vlad’s opinion. 

          Because even if they aren’t dependent on Dracula’s opinion, it’s still nice to see him validated and swell with pride, to actually see his Forge Masters get along as he’d always hoped. Like a sort of Coming of Age moment where they happily reflect on how much they’ve grown, to people who’d really respect and appreciate it, telling them that hey, your love for me, it paid off- It really meant a lot and I’m happy to tell the both of us that it wasn’t for nothing, it really meant SO much to me and helped, thank you!

           It’s just… Really endearing how we can see Isaac comfortably, in a safe space and level of interaction that isn’t plagued by threat nor violence; Afford to get snappy with someone else, like he can actually express his feelings at the Captain, but he doesn’t have to worry about holding himself to a subordinate level like with Dracula. Isaac can just be himself without having to constantly brace himself for the possibility of conflict or bloodshed, he can just comfortably exist in this space with a stranger and actually, fully, talk with someone who he feels actually gets and understands him on some level.

          Isaac is in a good environment where he can just let himself out, and it’s incredibly refreshing to watch- It was no doubt extremely cathartic to Isaac, I imagine. And it really stands to show that just as Lisa advised Dracula, traveling around the world really can be good for your health, for opening your mind and worldview; So it’s sweet to see that Dracula ended up passing on and applying Lisa’s wisdom to his low-key son, and that wisdom DID end up working out for him in the end! Thanks, Lisa.

         Now I can only imagine Isaac talking to Lisa about this and feeling really grateful, because she ended up inspiring HIM as well… And Lisa just looks wryly at Dracula like, Oh so you DID take my advice, and not only that, passed it onto others as well?

         And THAT just makes me imagine an older Isaac who continues the cycle of not abuse, but growth and guidance, who sees himself later on in another angry youth who reminds him a lot of himself, and then guides them to be more constructive- Because believe it or not, this wise King DOES understand what it’s like.

         He chuckles to himself when he realizes how the tables have turned, how HE’s the one giving The Talk to some kid, and he kindly, nostalgically, gratefully reflects on the Captain’s wisdom, and how it lives on through him and now this youth. Isaac and the kid are not so different and this realization of similarity and common ground just helps Isaac with accepting that human part of himself, and reaching out compassionately.

         Isaac is joked with and given much-needed fun and levity, while still taken seriously and respected as an individual; And I’m sure it means a lot to him, not that he fully realizes it yet. The Captain really expresses faith and belief in Isaac to grow up and support others through his own wisdom, the Captain sees himself in Isaac and that’s really fascinating- How this stranger is acting on this empathy to talk to Isaac and relate to him, to humanize him as a person for once. And it’s kind of shocking for Isaac to realize that others can actually relate to and see themselves in him, this alleged ‘monster’ and ‘thing’.

         It’s just neat to see an older figure express belief and expectation in Isaac to be something good because he thinks the best of him, rather than Isaac dedicating his belief to someone else, and it kind of inspires and incentivizes Isaac to do better with his life. That maybe he CAN grow and this isn’t the end for him, and one day teach others- Because maybe he DOES have something valuable to offer! The Captain recognizes Isaac as someone with potential and growth, and the ability to nurture and be positive, and I love that. 

         Especially with how Isaac dedicates himself to Dracula and his ‘wisdom of ages’, only for the Captain to turn around and suggest that Isaac himself has his own knowledge worth passing on, and that’s more than enough reason for Isaac to live for himself, then. It’s very nice to see Isaac lowkey latch onto a positive authority figure and actually be emotionally rewarded for it like he needs and deserves. And it’s even sweeter how Isaac leaves the Captain with an amicable farewell wave, and even AFTER an immediate negative experience, Isaac still decides to do better, showing that his lessons really can apply and retain underneath hardship.

         Isaac is challenged but in a healthy way that he can actually engage with and really apply himself towards, because he is a very clever person, he’s allowed to think and be rewarded for it. And it makes it all the more interesting how Isaac in Season 4 does see himself as a holy figure in a sense, not necessarily out of arrogance I feel, but from a real understanding that he’s worth a lot himself. And now Isaac can embrace happily his own self-value and what he has to offer, and his ability to do good, that maybe he ISN’T a monster but in some ways a hero, imagine that!

           (Actually, maybe Castlevania really IS a Coming-of-Age tale in a sense. Hector and Isaac’s growth are obvious, we know Trevor and Alucard is admittedly kind of emotionally stunted teenagers who learn to open up and trust, and even Sypha has her moments where she sees how the world can really suck –like the end of Season 3- before deciding for herself to have agency and initiative, and not be a bit player in someone else’s story regardless, in addition to openly defying some Speaker traditions like a rebellious teenager, because good for her! A narrative about really learning to take initiative and control of your own story, to live life for yourself, DOES seem very Coming-of-Age now does it?)

[rinharu-purple]

Hi, nice to meet you!

As a fellow Gavin stan, I found your analysis quite interesting and I'm very happy that someone finally understand the other side of our ginkgo boy... Idk whether you play in CN server or MLQC. I'm just curious, what do you think of Gavin in S2? Because I hear that everything is gonna be different. Also, the latest main story in CN server--do you think the story will be more angst?

Thank youu..

Waiting for more analyzes from you ❤

Dear Anon, 

Thank you very much for your kind words and I’m also happy to meet you ^_^

Please excuse my belated answer. I waited specifically for cheri’s translation of the S2 CH11, so that I could give you a worthy answer <3

I play MLQC, because I don’t understand Chinese (yet), so I am following @cheri-translates on a daily basis for the season 2 material. (Thank you cheri, you’re the best! (ɔˆ ³(ˆ⌣ˆc) )

From what we get so far, Gavin shows some differences in his aura and character in S2 due to two main reasons:

1) He didn’t have the extreme teenage drama from S1 (except for his mother’s passing)

2) He and MC were companions during high school, so their relationship has a healthier fundament.

The events of the second season take place in a “parallel universe”, therefore MC’s relationships vary from those in S1. But also the Loveland City they are in is a different one, with different players but also different villains. So things DO change in S2 in general.

What do I think about Gavin in S2?

I - AM - IN - LOOOOOOOVVVEEEE - WITH - HIM!!! <3 <3 <3

Gavin was the main reason I watched the anime and downloaded the game in the first place. He was a very caring, understanding, talented and *ehm extremely good looking guy. He still is btw. This guy has a very big heart and is the most human among all LIs if you ask me. But sometimes I had the feeling in S1, that he wasn’t reaching to his full potential. His love for MC was at times awkward, mainly because he doubted himself a lot and was underestimating himself in many topics with regards to MC. His past with his father and brother was also weighting on him big time. Thus affecting his actions to a great extent. Gavin’s potential was bound by ball and chains and he didn’t seem to be able to free himself from them. And yet, he was a resilient guy, who made peace with his past, always finding the love&faith in his heart and following his own path. Those unnecessary insecurities caused by his experiences were Gav-babe’s downside in S1.

In the second season, we meet a very self confident Gavin who doesn’t get worked up in front of MC easily, let alone shy away from her. On the contrary, Gavin is teasing MC shamelessly and even toys around with her as he lets her hover over the ocean. Would you ever think that S1 Gavin would dare to do that? :D He interrogates her just for the kicks even though he doesn’t suspect her one bit, or asks her if he should detain her, since she looked like she was asking for it (I really recommend you to read the scene in CH11). Gavin is carefree towards MC and this makes him unbelievably attractive. Sure, I was surprised at first as I saw him immobilizing MC after meeting her for the first time after many years and was afraid, that he would be hostile towards her. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case...so far.

In S1, Gavin and MC were already in a harmonious relationship and were moving forward side by side gradually. But they were also having difficulties in terms of protecting each other from harm’s way and hiding their dangerous missions or wounds from each other. Which didn’t go along with a healthy relationship, even though they came a long way by the end of the S1. Plus, their positions weren’t even equal in respect of being a couple since Gavin was quite the simp and was insecure at times about his interactions with the MC. There was a teenage Gavin in him, who was telling him that he wasn’t good enough for her, that he is useless, that he is worthless. Therefore he always had his gloves on, so the speak.  

These insecurities are downed to a minimum in S2 and Gavin no longer has the self loathing inner thoughts, so it feels as though, he is the real Gavin. The Gavin who he could be, he should be. Up to this point (S2 CH11). I feel like we are watching a Gavin who’s reached, or is reaching, to his full potential. 

In S2, we see him co-operating with MC right from the beginning with little reluctance at first, which is natural since -you know- they are working for the opposing sides. But then we saw in CH11, that they make one hell of a team! In all honesty, Gavin and MC don’t even need to talk to each other to understand what the other thinks. We witnessed many times in S1 when they were thinking/saying/doing the same thing at the same time. But this time, they are aware of the fact that they can see through each other without words. Moreover, they banter with each other by calling one another out. Which is mostly Gavin calling her out btw. This almost flirt-like sweet bantering makes their interaction all the more titillating to me. The chemistry between them is very evident and Papergames makes sure to let us producers know, the attraction is mutual and on equal grounds. Maybe its only my opinion, but I find S2 Gavin way more sexier than the Version 1.0. But its probably because I find self-confidence to be the sexiest trait a person can have. 

On a side note, Gavin also doesn’t display jealousy as in S1 and I believe this also has to do with his self confidence. Jealousy is an emotion which arouses from lack of self-confidence and trust. And the level of trust Gavin and MC share in S2 is off the charts, dare I claim.

One might even say, that the tables have turned in S2. MC has her memories from S1 whereas Gavin has started having flashbacks or dreams about their past just recently. Because of that MC already carries her romantic feelings from S1, she is the one with denser emotions in the new chapters and is rather insecure in front of Gavin. Thus making herself vulnerable for his “toying sessions”. Gavin on the other hand is beginning to explore his heart’s desires towards MC only piece by piece. He cares a great deal about her and is drawn to her inevitably, but can’t quite put his finger on it. His body and soul is already reacting to her, but his mind is a little bit slow on this front. But as stated in R&S “Inevitable”, his heart is destined to get drawn to hers. 

Whether the story is going to get angstier...Let’s not fool ourselves, Papergames has the word angst in block letters carved in marble in their office. So yeah, I am pretty sure that the story is going to get angstier. But I haven’t seen anything as angsty as in S1 CH13, 14, 15, 18. Those chapters were really hard to read, but let’s wait and see.

Another important point about Gavin’s character in S2 is related to his position. He is now the Commander of the STF and therefore carries a heavier responsibility than in S1. We see in every chapter how strategically he is acting and picking the best option in which nobody gets hurt. He is still a maverick and does things in his own way and yet he is now well aware of the fact that each of his actions are affecting great numbers of people. With his subordinates he shares special bonds all the while keeping them disciplined and whatever he does, he prioritizes everybody’s safety equally (only with MC as an exception).  Of course, this was one of his strengths also in S1, but in S2, he can have a bigger impact, since he has more resources to do so. He has become the perfect leader.

Which can be tied to his balanced temper. In S1 there were times, where Gavin wasn’t able to control his Evol and caused mayhem. We haven’t seen any uproar like this in S1 so far. Gavin is in control of his Evol, his emotions and his blushes...hih...well... almost. But he certainly blushes much less in S2. 

So to sum it up, yes, Gavin is different in S2, but in all the good ways and I couldn’t find anything that goes in the wrong direction so far. We have a more mature, confident and experienced Gavin in S2 and I can simply say:

AMEN

I hope my answers can help you with your questions and you can always feel free the contact me if you have any questions...be it anonymously or not.

Have a nice weekend dear anon! d=(´▽｀)=b

[eldritchw1tch]

i don’t want you like a best friend: a tswift-pimms playlist

i don’t want you like a best friend: a tswift-pimms playlist 

link

this is the pimms playlist i spent more than a year working on from like, 2018 to the end of 2019! as such, it only contains music up through lover, not anything from folklore or evermore. @permets-2​ finally poked me into posting the liner notes, which I gave up on because tumblr formatting was fighting me, so please know i haven’t actually looked at them since 2019 and there might still be missing things? idk.

this playlist is absolutely dedicated to my beloved @faiasakura​, who did her own version of an all-tswift pimms playlist completely independently (we actively avoided comparing notes, lol), which can be found here!

i don’t really go here lately but i hope this is of interest to someone!

Prologue

1. Don’t Blame Me (reputation)

for you, I would fall from grace

Just to touch your face

If you walk away, I'd beg you on my knees to stay

…

Lord save me, my drug is my baby

I'll be usin' for the rest of my life

Act 1: The Q

2. Gorgeous (reputation)

a crush

Ocean blue eyes looking in mine

I feel like I might sink and drown and die

…

You're so gorgeous

I can't say anything to your face

'Cause look at your face

And I'm so furious

At you for making me feel this way

But what can I say?

You're gorgeous

3. Treacherous (Red)

something magnetic, pulling them both in

And I'll do anything you say

If you say it with your hands

And I'd be smart to walk away

But you're quicksand

…

Your name has echoed through my mind

And I just think you should, think you should know

That nothing safe is worth the drive

And I will follow you, follow you home

4. Dress (reputation)

a shared and precious secret: love, desperate and messy and everything. But also: the scrutiny, the frenetic anxiety, the fear.

I’m spilling wine in the bathtub

You kiss my face and we're both drunk

Everyone thinks that they know us

But they know nothing about—

All of this silence and patience, pining and anticipation

My hands are shaking from holding back from you

5. Tied Together With a Smile (Taylor Swift)

the pressure builds; jack’s anxiety gets worse

Hold on, baby you're losing it

The water's high, you're jumping into it

And letting go, and no one knows

That you cry, but you don't tell anyone

That you might not be the golden one

And you're tied together with a smile

But you're coming undone

6. Long Live (Speak Now)

the glory, the playoffs, the memorial cup: the golden boys of hockey, on top of the world

Long live the walls we crashed through

All the kingdom lights shined just for me and you

I was screaming, long live all the magic we made

And bring on all the pretenders

One day, we will be remembered

…

Hold on, to spinning around

Confetti falls to the ground

May these memories break our fall

7. State of Grace (Red)

the 34 days, inside kent’s euphoria

This is a state of grace

This is the worthwhile fight

Love is a ruthless game

Unless you play it good and right

These are the hands of fate

You’re my Achilles heel

this is the golden age of something good and right and real

8. Cruel Summer (Lover)

(that golden season and its dark underbelly)

So cut the headlights, summer's a knife

I'm always waiting for you just to cut to the bone

Devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes

And if I bleed, you'll be the last to know

-

Said, "I'm fine," but it wasn't true

I don't wanna keep secrets just to keep you

And I snuck in through the garden gate

Every night that summer just to seal my fate (Oh)

And I scream, "For whatever it's worth

I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?"

9. Haunted (Speak Now)

the overdose: kent finds jack on the bathroom floor

Whoa, holding my breath

Won't lose you again

Something's made your eyes go cold

-

Come on, come on, don't leave me like this

I thought I had you figured out

Something's gone terribly wrong

You're all I wanted

10. I Know Places (1989)

kent in the waiting room, holding on hope

Something happens when everybody finds out

See the vultures circling, dark clouds

Love's a fragile little flame, it could burn out

It could burn out

…

Lights flash and we'll run for the fences

Let them say what they want, we won't hear it

Loose lips sink ships all the damn time

Not this time

Act 2: The Fallout

11. The Story of Us (Speak Now)

kent goes to the draft; jack won’t answer his calls

Now I'm standing alone in a crowded room

And we're not speaking

And I'm dying to know

Is it killing you like it's killing me?

Yeah, and I don't know what to say

Since the twist of fate, when it all broke down

And the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now

…

The battle's in your hands now

But I would lay my armor down

If you say you'd rather love than fight

12. Last Kiss (Speak Now)

jack and kent, the same realization from opposite sides

So I'll go sit on the floor

Wearing your clothes

All that I know is

I don't know how to be something you miss

I never thought we'd have a last kiss

Never imagined we'd end like this

Your name, forever the name on my lips

13. Death By A Thousand Cuts (Lover)

Starting to live with the devastation and the broken heart

Saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts

Flashbacks waking me up

I get drunk, but it's not enough

’Cause the morning comes and you're not my baby

I look through the windows of this love

Even though we boarded them up

Chandelier's still flickering here

’Cause I can't pretend it's okay when it's not

It's death by a thousand cuts

14. If This Was A Movie (Speak Now)

regrets and memories

Last night, I heard my own heart beating

Sounded like footsteps on my stairs

Six months gone and I'm still reaching

Even though I know you're not there

I was playing back a thousand memories, baby

Thinkin' 'bout everything we've been through

Maybe I've been going back too much lately

When time stood still and I had you

15. Cold as You (Taylor Swift)

the grief and pain become anger and bitterness

And when you take, you take the very best of me

So I start a fight cause I need to feel something

And you do what you want cause I'm not what you wanted

…

You put up walls and paint them all a shade of gray

And I stood there loving you and wished them all away

And you come away with a great little story

Of a mess of a dreamer with the nerve to adore you

Interlude 1: Jack

16. I Almost Do (Red)

kent doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does (but jack doesn’t either)

I bet you think I either moved on or hate you

‘Cause each time you reach out, there’s no reply

I bet it never, ever occurred to you

That I can’t say hello to you

And risk another goodbye

…

Oh, we made quite a mess, babe

It’s probably better off this way

And I confess, babe

In my dreams, you’re touching my face

And asking me if I want to try again with you

And I almost do

Act 3: Coming of Age in Vegas

17. New Romantics (1989)

vegas; teammates; living in the moment; drinking, dancing, and self-destructing

We're all here, the lights and boys are blinding

We hang back, it's all in the timing

It's poker

He can't see it in my face

But I'm about to play my Ace (ahh)

We need love, but all we want is danger

We team up, then switch sides like a record changer

The rumors are terrible and cruel

But honey, most of them are true

…

Heartbreak is the national anthem

We sing it proudly

We’re too busy dancing (yeah) to get knocked off our feet

Baby, we're the new romantics

The best people in life are free

18. Begin Again (Red)

kent starts to move on

And you throw your head back laughing like a little kid

I think it's strange that you think I'm funny 'cause he never did

I've been spending the last eight months

Thinking all love ever does is break and burn and end

But on a Wednesday in a cafe, I watched it begin again

19. The Way I Loved You (Fearless)

all the drinking and dancing and dating still feel empty and hollow; he just wants to feel again; he just wants that love back

I miss screaming and fighting and kissing in the rain

It's 2 AM and I'm cursing your name

I'm so in love that I acted insane

And that's the way I loved you

Breaking down and coming undone

It's a roller coaster kind of rush

And I never knew I could feel that much

And that's the way I loved you

…

He can't see the smile I'm faking

And my heart's not breaking

'Cause I'm not feeling anything at all

And you were wild and crazy

Just so frustrating

Intoxicating, complicated

20. The Lucky One (Red)

kent parson: the loneliest boy, so alone at the top of the world

You had it figured out since you were in school

Everybody loves pretty, everybody loves cool

So overnight, you look like a sixties queen

…

And they tell you that you’re lucky, but you’re so confused

'Cause you don’t feel pretty, you just feel used

And all the young things line up to take your place

—

Another name goes up in lights

You wonder if you’ll make it out alive

21. Come In With The Rain (Fearless)

(starting to move on is not the same as letting go)

I’ve watched you so long, screamed your name

I don’t know what else I can say

…

But I’ll leave my window open

'Cause I’m too tired at night to call your name

Just know I’m right here hoping

That you’ll come in with the rain

Act 4: Implosion

22. Out of the Woods (1989)

memories he can’t escape of a love like a car crash

The night we couldn't quite forget

When we decided, we decided

To move the furniture so we could dance

Baby, like we stood a chance

Two paper airplanes flying, flying, flying

And I remember thinking

-

Are we out of the woods yet? Are we out of the woods yet? Are we out of the woods yet?

…

You took a Polaroid of us

Then discovered (then discovered)

The rest of the world was black and white

But we were in screaming color

23. Red (Red)

Kent decides to go to epikegster

Loving him is like driving a new Maserati

Down a dead-end street

Faster than the wind, passionate as sin

Ending so suddenly

…

Remembering him comes in flashbacks and echoes

Tell myself it's time now, gotta let go

But moving on from him is impossible

When I still see it all in my head

In burning red

Loving him was red

24. The Last Time (Red)

didja miss me? (something tentative; something a little bit hopeful on both sides)

Find myself at your door

Just like all those times before

I’m not sure how I got there

All roads they lead me here

I imagine you are home

In your room, all alone

And you open your eyes into mine

And everything feels better

25. The Archer (Lover)

kent tries to extend an olive branch but it’s still covered in thorns

Combat, I'm ready for combat

I say I don't want that, but what if I do?

'Cause cruelty wins in the movies

I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you

…

I've been the archer, I've been the prey

Who could ever leave me, darling

But who could stay?

…

And I cut off my nose just to spite my face

Then I hate my reflection for years and years

26. Bad Blood (1989)

jack’s answer to kent’s wounded lashing out

Oh, it's so sad to

Think about the good times

You and I

…

’Cause baby, now we've got bad blood

You know it used to be mad love

So take a look what you've done

’Cause baby, now we've got bad blood, hey!

27. Breathe (Fearless)

kent, driving away from epikegster

I see your face in my mind as I drive away

'Cause none of us thought it was gonna end that way

People are people and sometimes we change our minds

But it's killing me to see you go after all this time

…

And we know it's never simple, never easy

Never a clean break, no one here to save me

You're the only thing I know like the back of my hand

…

And I can't breathe without you, but I have to

Breathe without you but I have to

28. All Too Well (Red)

despite all the pain, there’s an irresistible nostalgia for what they had all those years ago—for when things were so much simpler

Maybe we got lost in translation

Maybe I asked for too much

But maybe this thing was a masterpiece

'Til you tore it all up

Running scared, I was there, I remember it all too well

And you call me up again just to break me like a promise

So casually cruel in the name of being honest

I'm a crumpled up piece of paper lying here

'Cause I remember it all, all, all

Too well

…

Time won't fly, it's like I'm paralyzed by it

I'd like to be my old self again

But I'm still trying to find it

Interlude 2: Kent

29. Fifteen (Fearless)

a memory, a reflection

'Cause when you're fifteen and somebody tells you they love you

You're gonna believe them

And when you're fifteen and your first kiss

Makes your head spin 'round

But in your life you'll do things greater than

Dating the boy on the football team

But I didn't know it at fifteen

…

When all you wanted was to be wanted

Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now

Back then I swore I was gonna marry him someday

But I realized some bigger dreams of mine

Act 5: Moving On, Growing Up

30. Clean (1989)

finally learning to be his own person, separate from that shared past

There was nothing left to do (Oh-oh, oh-oh)

When the butterflies turned to

Dust that covered my whole room

So I punched a hole in the roof (Oh-oh, oh-oh)

Let the flood carry away all my pictures of you

…

The water filled my lungs, I screamed so loud

But no one heard a thing

…

Rain came pouring down

When I was drowning, that's when I could finally breathe

And by morning

Gone was any trace of you, I think I am finally clean

31. 22 (Red)

friends and freedom, and real joy in that this time around

It feels like a perfect night

To dress up like hipsters

And make fun of our exes, uh-uh, uh-uh

It feels like a perfect night

For breakfast at midnight

To fall in love with strangers, uh-uh, uh-uh

…

Yeah

We're happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time

It's miserable and magical, oh, yeah

Tonight's the night when we forget about the deadlines

It's time, oh-oh

32. So It Goes… (reputation)

[a doomed love can still be a good one]

'Cause we break down a little

But when you get me alone, it's so simple

'Cause baby, I know what you know

We can feel it

…

And all the pieces fall right into place

Getting caught up in a moment

Lipstick on your face

So it goes…

…

I'm yours to keep

And I'm yours to lose

You know I'm not a bad girl, but I

Do bad things with you

So it goes…

33. Dancing With Our Hands Tied (reputation)

[a doomed love can still be a good one]

I, I loved you in secret

First sight, yeah, we love without reason

Oh, twenty-five years old

Oh, how were you to know?

…

Could've spent forever with your hands in my pockets

Picture of your face in an invisible locket

You said there was nothing in the world that could stop it

I had a bad feeling

…

I'd kiss you as the lights went out

Swaying as the room burned down

I'd hold you as the water rushes in

If I could dance with you again

34. Wildest Dreams (1989)

[a doomed love can still be a good one]

He's so tall and handsome as hell

He's so bad, but he does it so well

I can see the end as it begins

My one condition is

…

Say you'll remember me

Standing in a nice dress

Staring at the sunset, babe

Red lips and rosy cheeks

Say you'll see me again

Even if it's just in your

Wildest dreams, ah-aah, haa

34. Shake It Off (1989)

At the top of his game, at the top of his sport, and actually happy at long last

I never miss a beat

I'm lightning on my feet

And that's what they don’t see, mm, mm

…

But I keep cruisin'

Can't stop, won't stop groovin'

It's like I got this music in my mind

Saying it's gonna be alright

…

'Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play

And the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate

Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake

I shake it off, I shake it off

Heartbreakers gonna break, break, break, break, break

And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake

Baby, I'm just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake

I shake it off, I shake it off

35. Holy Ground (Red)

Remembering with enough distance and experience to appreciate what was, not ache from it

Spinning like a girl in a brand new dress

We had this big wide city all to ourselves

We blocked the noise with the sound of, "I need you"

And for the first time, I had something to lose

And I guess we fell apart in the usual way

And the story's got dust on every page

But sometimes, I wonder how you think about it now

And I see your face in every crowd

…

'Cause darling, it was good

Never looking down

And right there where we stood

Was holy ground

Act 6: Reunion

36. ME! (Lover)

reconnection, reconciliation, re-appreciation

I know I tend to make it about me

I know you never get just what you see

But I will never bore you, baby

(And there's a lot of lame guys out there)

…

'Cause one of these things is not like the others

Livin' in winter, I am your summer

Baby doll, when it comes to a lover

I promise that you'll never find another like me-e-e

37. This Love (1989)

an unexpected reawakening

Tossing, turning

Struggled through the night with someone new

And I could go on and on, on and on

Lantern, burning

Flickered in my mind, only you

But you were still gone, gone, gone

…

Been losing grip, on sinking ships

You showed up just in time

…

This love is good, this love is bad

This love is alive back from the dead, oh-oh, oh

These hands had to let it go free, and

This love came back to me, oh-oh, oh

38. End Game (reputation) (ft. ed sheeran as jack)

After all this time, there are things they aren’t ever going to let go of again, no matter the trouble they bring

I got a bad boy persona, that's what they like (what they like)

You love it, I love it too 'cause you my type (You my type)

You hold me down, and I protect you with my life

…

I don't wanna touch you, I don't wanna be

Just another ex-love you don’t wanna see

I don’t wanna miss you (I don't wanna miss you)

Like the other girls do

I don’t wanna hurt you, I just wanna be

Drinking on a beach with you all over me

I know what they all say (I know what they all say)

But I ain't tryna play

…

I wanna be your end game (End game)

I wanna be your first string (First string)

I wanna be your A-Team (A-Team)

I wanna be your end game, end game

39. You Are In Love (1989)

something real; something sacred; something to build a life on

You can hear it in the silence (silence), silence (silence), you

You can feel it on the way home (way home), way home (way home), you

You can see it with the lights out (lights out), lights out (lights out)

You are in love, true love

You are in love

…

You kiss on sidewalks

You fight and you talk

One night, he wakes

Strange look on his face

Pauses, then says "You're my best friend"

And you knew what it was, he is in love

40. Change (Fearless)

when the two biggest hockey players of their generation come out of the closet—together—are in love with each other—it changes more lives than just theirs

So we've been outnumbered, raided, and now cornered

It's hard to fight when the fight ain’t fair

We're getting stronger now, finding things they never found

They might be bigger but we're faster and never scared

You can walk away, say we don't need this

But there's something in your eyes says we can beat this

…

'Cause these things will change

Can you feel it now?

These walls that they put up to hold us back will fall down

This revolution, the time will come

For us to finally win

And we'll sing hallelujah, we'll sing hallelujah

Oh, oh

41. Call It What You Want (reputation)

When it stops mattering what anyone else thinks

All my flowers grew back as thorns

Windows boarded up after the storm

He built a fire just to keep me warm

All the drama queens taking swings

All the jokers dressing up as kings

They fade to nothing when I look at him

And I know I make the same mistakes every time

Bridges burn, I never learn

At least I did one thing right

I did one thing right

I'm laughing with my lover, makin' forts under covers

Trust him like a brother

Yeah, you know I did one thing right

Starry eyes sparkin' up my darkest night

…

My baby's fit like a daydream

Walking with his head down

I'm the one he's walking to

So call it what you want, yeah

Call it what you want to

42. Lover (Lover)

love

We could leave the Christmas lights up 'til January

And this is our place, we make the rules

And there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you, dear

Have I known you 20 seconds or 20 years?

…

Can I go where you go?

Can we always be this close?

Forever and ever, ah

Take me out, and take me home

You're my, my, my, my lover

43. New Year’s Day (reputation)

love

You squeeze my hand three times in the back of the taxi

I can tell that it's gonna be a long road

I'll be there if you're the toast of the town, babe

Or if you strike out and you're crawling home

…

Don't read the last page

But I stay when it’s hard or it’s wrong or we're making mistakes

I want your midnights

But I’ll be cleaning up bottles with you on New Year's Day

44. Daylight (Lover)

Building a new life in the daylight

My love was as cruel as the cities I lived in

Everyone looked worse in the light

There are so many lines that I've crossed unforgiven

I'll tell you truth, but never goodbye

…

I once believed love would be (burning red)

But it's golden

Like daylight, like daylight

Like daylight, daylight

…

I don't wanna look at anything else now that I saw you

I don't wanna think of anything else now that I thought of you

I've been sleeping so long in a 20-year dark night

And now I see daylight, I only see daylight

[vrylium]

THOBM S1:E4

While I’m here I’d like to obnoxiously discuss why Episode 4 of Bly Manor is my favorite, regarding the portrayal of Dani’s inner struggle with her sexuality, through a point-by-point chronological analysis.

Part 1: First Flashback

The episode opens with a flashback to Dani’s childhood, revealing the owner of the glasses as Eddie. Dani says she needs to go home, but Eddie insists she stays. At this point, persuading her to stay is relatively innocent. Some day, it won’t be.

We then leap to the moments before Dani and Eddie’s rehearsal dinner. Eddie asks if she’s ready, and Dani hesitates, giving a weak “I think so,” which Eddie brushes off without much concern, perhaps chalking it up to stage fright.

Dani does not speak at the rehearsal, but Eddie does. In his speech, he reveals that Dani had to dare him to kiss her, presumably because she couldn’t do it herself. He calls her “Danielle”, never “Dani”. Additionally, Eddie spent their adolescence and early adulthood asking Dani to marry him, each time receiving a “no” until Dani finally caved in. Why Eddie is so surprised about being dumped later on is beyond me.

Eddie’s mom, Judy, catches Dani escaping the dance floor and gives Dani her old wedding dress. Dani holds the dress in front of herself before a mirror and Judy asks her to say, “Good morning, Mrs. O’Mara,” in reference to both the first time she met Dani, and Dani’s wedding day when that will also become her name, too.

During this segment, both Eddie and Judy insist that Dani knows what she wants. Judy even encourages her to speak her mind. This puts some responsibility on Dani for her predicament, and it’s not entirely undue. Dani is passive. She is trapped, yes, but she has also taken no measures toward freeing herself.

Part 2: Day of the Funeral

The flashback ends and Dani’s in her room at Bly, getting ready for Owen’s mom’s funeral. The timing of Dani remembering her impending wedding on the day of a FUNERAL is incredibly telling, as is the obvious link between Judy’s dress and Dani’s only black one.

Jamie comes in, and when Dani expresses her reservations Jamie doesn’t pressure her to go if she’s not comfortable doing so. Jamie’s, “I don’t need you to be my date to Owen’s mom’s funeral” suggests they’ve discussed going together, probably sometime that same morning, but Jamie doesn’t trap her in that arrangement. She readily gives Dani a way out and doesn’t shame her about it. (Compare to Eddie and Dani before the rehearsal).

Dani asks Jamie to help her out of the black dress (just the zipper!). The point of this isn’t merely sexual tension, it’s also symbolic of Jamie freeing Dani from a life she equates with death. Eddie’s specter shows up, right on schedule, to guilt Dani for her intimacy with Jamie.

Part 3: The Kitchen & Dani’s Nervous Episode

Jamie returns from the funeral to find Hannah, Dani, and the kids preparing supper in the kitchen. Jamie eerily foreshadows the struggle she and Dani will face in their future relationship, as well as her own character development, when she discusses care for someone with a terminal condition.

Jamie catches Dani staring at her. Dani averts her gaze but keeps glancing back even as she approaches the kitchen sink. Eddie makes an appearance, as expected, and it thoroughly rattles Dani because his form has become physical as he places his hands on her hips. (It may be somewhat of a stretch, but the physicality of Eddie might imply that Dani's private thoughts toward Jamie were trending toward the ‘physical’). She excuses herself in a panic; it’s all coming to a head because she’s starting to realize what this means for herself.

Part 4: Second Flashback

Dani’s getting Judy’s old wedding dress fitted. Judy and her own mother watch. For such a short scene, this one is DENSE. Allow me to draw your attention to a few spicy quotes: “Luckily, Danielle does not share my taste in men.” - Dani’s mother. “Well, lucky for Edmund; he’s the lucky one in this equation...” - Judy. “Danielle’s father helped pick [my dress] out, and look how THAT turned out.” - Dani’s mother. Everything here has double meaning. From the obvious implication that Dani doesn’t have a taste in men at all, to the more subtler “THAT” referring to both Dani’s mom’s bad marriage and how Dani ‘turned out’ (to be non-heterosexual).

The tailor flirts with Dani. Or seems to. Either way, Dani hones in on it; how she compliments her shoulders, gives her a smile, lets a hand linger on her lower back. Dani sees their reflections together in the mirror.

When Dani resurfaces from this flashback she looks solemn, even grim, with realization. She’s still looking at Jamie, but now she understands why.

Part 5: Third Flashback & The Bonfire

Dani joins Jamie, Owen, and Hannah for a bonfire outside. She spaces out and recalls the night Eddie died. They went to dinner that night. Dani nervously bites her fingernails and Eddie says, “Hey, easy. You’re going to hurt yourself.” Dani replies, “I’m sorry. I keep trying to stop.” Some more subtext there. It should also be pointed out that Eddie doesn’t even ask what’s wrong, or if she’s okay. He just assumes it’s the stress of planning their wedding. Little does he know, Dani’s about to break up with him. She almost doesn’t, at first. She tip-toes around it. “I thought I wanted it. I wanted to want it... [there’s] so many people to let down...” Then Eddie says, “For a second it almost sounded like you didn’t want to get married at all,” and the opportunity is finally right in front her, put in words, because she hasn’t been able to do it herself.

They talk in the car. Dani says she didn’t want to hurt anyone, because she still loves Eddie, just not like that. “And it’s just what we were doing... If I could just stick it out, eventually I would feel how I was supposed to.” They’ve been physically intimate, but Dani’s been unable to feel any emotional connection.

Angry and hurt, Eddie exits the car, gets hit by a truck, and dies. This is the source of the guilt that haunts Dani. She blames everything on herself. If she had just married him, or had the guts to be truthful about herself earlier, Eddie would still be alive. This is her flawed logic, and it sabotages her every time she tries to move forward. She sees Eddie in reflections because she can’t bear to confront herself.

Back at the bonfire, they toast the dead. Jamie toasts the late Wingraves. Dani, too, surprisingly. What’s important is that she praises who Dani is: “a bit of a weirdo, but stronger than she thinks”. It’s brief, but significant when you contrast it with Eddie’s speech at the dinner rehearsal, where he gives no real indication that he even knows who Dani is. To him, Dani is Danielle, “this amazing, beautiful girl” and while those are nice things to say, he speaks nothing of Dani’s character. 

Part 6: The Greenhouse

Dani and Jamie sneak away to the greenhouse, where Dani elaborates about her fiance and confesses how she still ‘sees’ him. Jamie doesn’t say she’s crazy, instead focusing on what matters: that Dani’s surviving. Jamie knows grief and trauma. She knows how it can fuck people up in different ways, from first-hand experience. It’s acceptance and the peace of being heard and seen that compels Dani to kiss her. She doesn’t have to dare Jamie, she doesn’t passively wait for it to happen, no, she takes the initiative to make a move first because for the first time possibly ever, Dani knows what she wants. But her guilt’s still there. It ruins the moment when she sees Eddie again.

Part 7: Drunk Dani Putting the Past to Rest

After drinking courage into herself and nearly getting fucking bodied by Viola on her way out, Dani tosses Eddie’s glasses into the bonfire and confronts his ghost a final time. She knows what she wants, but she first needs to make peace with the past and with herself. 

In conclusion: This episode was a true delight from a critical point of view. Dani’s journey from realization to self-acceptance was filled with subtlety and heart the whole way through and I had such a good time picking out the parallels, subtext, and symbolism. I know S1:E9 is probably more popular, because yeah, that all happened, but S1:E4 was so well-written, personally relevant, and teeming with storytelling devices that the writer in me could not for a second consider any other entry as my favorite episode of the season.

[roccinan]

1/? simply because you have the most galaxy brain thoughts ever,,, what do you think would've happened if they waited until s5 to reveal sergio and andrés were (half)brothers?

i do know that when my fam started watching lcdp at first i was so put off. like i watched ep 1 and the prof creeped me out. ""berlin"" creeped me out. e v e r y o n e creeped me out. and i was cringing so hard becz of the short lived romance angle with alison parker. i literally did not watch s1 at all xcept for like sneak peeks. highlights being the scene where berlin discovers monica is alive and does his dramatic door by door thing? that was so SUSPENSEFUL even tho i had no idea what was going on. DOMINGO DE RESURECCION remains forever iconic.

2/? And OF COURSE the group bella ciao dance when they hit earth (hahah i thought the banda were actually like a "found family where they all love each other LOL") i am a SUCKER for found family. but anyhoo when i properly got intrigued was s2 when tokyo was kicked out (the music from that scene is still my favourite) it's just so dramatic..!! why am i telling u all this again? right, i haven't slept a wink and it's nearly 7 am pls forgive me if these rambles make no sense. i have a point with this.. i'm going somewhere

RIGHT. so when the fam actually rewound the ep cz i wanted to know WHY berlin did that (didn't fully realise how batsht crazy he can be), the russian roulette scene played. and pedro's acting. MAN. and like just that ep they made a point of showing us these flashbacks where sergio and andrés hug....

Hi anon! Thanks for stopping by- sorry took me a while to get back to you, will do my best to answer this string of messages (got all 4 parts)! Glad you like my thoughts XD

Firstly, I believe Andres/Sergio would be the biggest LCDP ship if the writers were evil enough to wait until s5 to reveal that they’re brothers asdfasdf. They’re already the two most popular male characters anyway. 

It’d be especially crazy because it’s not like they tell the actors these things beforehand either. So that means there’d probably be a Serdres vs Berlermo vs Serquel fight every 5 minutes. I mean, even if not everyone agrees on everything in the lcdp fandom, it’s the most “peaceful” one I’ve ever been in because no character really gets in the way of any other ship (like even with helermo and berlermo there’s no true conflict since Andres is dead). But with Serdres in the mix?? CATASTROPHE. Everyone out here writing essays about how much of a bastard/bitch/homewrecker/motherfucker that Andres or Sergio or Martin or Raquel is. Never a moment’s peace!! so basically, a regular fandom lmao.

Then when we find out they’re brothers, it goes from catastrophe to Apocalypse. Suddenly serquel and berlermo have the upper hand. Everyone would double down and harass the crew/cast into whatever’s going on.  Plot-wise, everything is the same though, just without Andres calling Sergio “hermanito.” Fandom however, would be a minefield! And I’m glad that’s not the case because I’d probably be an unfortunate serdres shippers XD No joke, my mother and I thought they were a couple in S1. So bullet dodged!

Secondly: haha, everyone creeped me out in S1 too, especially Berlin, I hated him, but thinking back, I think I mostly hated the fact that I didn’t hate him as much as I should have. I’ve made peace with it now but oh boy, was he a controversial figure in my head. I actually like the professor on sight though! IDK why, maybe because I thought his plans were cool or because of Alvaro’s delivery. I was afraid of an Alison Parker romance thing too- like, I do feel like she had a storyline that got dropped, but that part was quite cringey and overall unnecessary to the plot. Same with Ariadna, which was even cringier and even Less necessary to the plot. 

Domingo de resurrecion was iconic though yes! And even with all that said, I genuinely enjoyed parts 1 and 2 because it was so different from anything else I’d seen. Not content wise, but maybe tonally? IDK, they were just really bold with a lot of things, like being objectively unafraid of having the protagonists (plural because all of them did LMAO) do objectively shitty things. Really kept me in suspense from beginning to end! 

I’m usually a big fan of found families too! The funny thing is, then banda never struck me as a “family” until season 3. In 1 and 2, I was wondering what felt different about this show; then it hit me that these people remained colleagues to the end. Like, they backstabbed each other (repeatedly) and everyone was quite selfish, and only the bonds that were already there stuck. They were the opposite of a found family LOL But I think by S3, they went down the found family route and I didn’t mind because it makes quite a lot of sense for them to feel that bond after the Mint heist and almost dying/living together (and having witnessed 3 deaths together on the team). But I still doubt Berlin and Palermo were ever really part of this found family, with good reason XD

LOL the scene where Tokyo got kicked out is also among my favorites!! It was so funny and dramatic, and it was like, wow we can go anywhere with this now! Don’t worry- your rambles and thoughts are always welcome :D

I’m rolling over how you watched the Tokyo expulsion scene before the Russian Roulette scene haha. Also yes, PEDRO. Berlin may have been “controversial” to me at first, but I became Pedro’s fan from day one! Also the Hug is probably what made me like Berlin (despite my determination to hate him rip) in the first place. 

3/? ... and like now that i think about it... tokyo had real guts huh. like she KNEW berlin was close enough to el prof to know his name (fhshshs imagine if she'd heard andrés saying 'hermanito' it's unrealistic that she didn't TBH. i mean obviously they decided to make them brothers only towards the end but like in canon universe. how tf did andrés de 'i raised my bby brother since he was 12 and i'd actually die for him and his stupidly brilliant plans' fonollosa go 5 months without slipping up once and calling sergio hermanito. or like,,, i like to imagine sergio kinda gave him lots of leeway(?) sergio's a lil oblivious too but like i'm sure half of it is.. that's my dumbass older bro shut up i'm not being partial you all have city names .. andr-berlin, pass the salt. like OOF. + sergio also knew his big bro was dYiNG so like. i'm sure they were sneaking in some quality time (i hope they did 😭 gosh imagine if sergio really did not ever consider the possibility of andrés dying in the heist so he'd tell himself he needs to perfect the plan now & anyway he'll have enough time to spend w/ his brother post heist in philippines. and then ... that happened :/

Tokyo has guts in place of braincells you bet that she’d do something like this, consequences be damned XD I also think it’s unrealistic for Andres not to slip up, but I have a feeling nobody besides Tokyo really tried to spy on them in private. I headcanon that Andres instead slips up and does things like ruffle Sergio’s hair or adjust his tie when other people are around. I also think Tokyo was convinced that they were a gay couple when she saw them hug XD And if Sergio never went on to tell the banda that Berlin was his brother, everyone would be giving Palermo such awkward looks after Nairobi accused him of being in love with Berlin LMAO. 

I agree! I also imagine Sergio giving Andres leeway because he’s just so used to interacting with his brother that way haha. So either he’d go out of his way to ignore Berlin in front of everyone else or IDK, borderline telepathically communicate with him. Not even “pass the salt” has to leave his mouth- Berlin just puts salt into his food and cuts it up for him, in front of everyone who’s just staring like O.O

I actually do think Sergio never considered the possibility of Andres dying in the heist because he was just that confident in his own plan. Plus, Andres was probably the one person he expected to survive. And a lot of it has to do with Sergio’s attachment to him + Andres’ own habit of downplaying any illness/injury over the years, which I think is safe to believe canon. He was really in no condition to be in the heist, let alone lead it. Just the fact that he needs to take those injections is a big sign that he shouldn’t be there, but Sergio didn’t catch it because he’s human and blinded by faith :’) So yeah, I think Sergio was planning to spend proper time with Andres in Palawan and at Toledo, they just settled for those little moments by the fireplace. 

4/? what always also just GETS me in the feels is that el prof was shown to be this in control creepily calm dude who is miles ahead of everyone. + in the 1st Toledo class itself we see how detached,, like how impersonal he is, how professional - choosing frickin CITY NAMES?! no 'personal relationships' ? (after recruiting his older brother, a father son pair, and war cousins... oh sergio 😂 he's such a frickin nerd and i love him) but like the earlier seasons really emphasised how robotic and down right COLD he can be. it still sometimes bothers me that he put the button in the car. he lead the police to his own damn brother, his blood, who took care of him and adopted him and was terminally ill and like - UGH i try to rationalise that sergio is that cold and unbothered. or that he has strict morals. but it still bothers me becz that button really sort of tipped andres' already unstable sanity. like andrés tells denver someth like you've robbed my future and after that he just seems so much more suicidal and accepting that he can't get out of the mint alive - WHY SERGIO WHY. I KNOW THAT AT THAT POINT YOU BASICALLY DIDN'T KNOW ANDRÉS WAS GOING TO BE YOUR BROTHER YET BECZ IT WASN'T WRITTEN IN THE SCRIPT BUT WHYYYYY

That’s so funny to me too LMAO No personal relationships, then he recruits these guys. Sergio, hello?? Also can’t forget how he just recruited his own girfrleind in the second heist too. Buddy! Love this nerd.

I don’t think that cold aspect of Sergio went away in later seasons either; he just had more opportunity to show a more open side of himself + without Andres, he had to metaphorically leave his comfort zone without a safety net. But in earlier seasons, he really did seem heartless at times XD Then again, we can argue that the same goes for Andres.

To be fair, I didn’t feel sorry for Andres over the button thing lol, but once the brothers reveal happened and all of Alvaro/Pedro’s headcanons came out and we know everything Andres did for Sergio, it makes what Sergio did REALLY harsh. We really just have to explain it through Sergio’s strict morals and him believing this to be the best non-fatal punishment for Andres, who at that point had convinced him he killed a hostage. And because he knew the television interview was coming up, maybe Sergio assumed Andres would use it to “clear” his name anyway. And empathy isn’t one of Sergio’s strong suits either, so through that lens, I can rationalize it.

Also it was lowkey funny to me how Andres was there like DENVER MUST DIE until he found out Sergio put the button there, then he was like “oh hermanito, you and your practical jokes <3″

Still, like you said, Andres and Sergio weren’t brothers yet at this point. They were probably supposed to be lovers lmao and had a dysfunctional Hannibal Lecter x Will thing going on. But because they made #hermanos canon, that button moment just feels very out of place now, especially given how much the two genuinely love each other.

Guess we could also say that Sergio’s just generally kinda bratty with Andres XD Like, he knows no matter what, Andres would forgive him anything. That’s how I see it anyway! 

[teamsarawatshusband]

Word Of Honor - 1st watch insta thoughts - Episode 1

K, before I get started, here's what I know about "Word of Honor" prior to watching it, based on random unexplained gifsets on my dash: Not much tbh. I know there's this one guy that is a bit more tanned and has a beard. And there's some smirky guy. No idea what else he does, but he seems important. There's also swords cutting fabric, i'm thinking sleeves, because cut-sleeve? Way to be subtle. Oh, and there's two girl assassins. I have no idea who they kill or what their motives are. But they look fierce. That's literally all. Oh, and it's on my dash so much that I just HAVE TO assume it's BL. Because... my dash has tendencies.

Okay, here we go.

Episode 1

I'm skipping the intro, because I don't wanna be spoilered.

Oh, somebody explains the background story. That's nice. I have no idea, because the subtitles are going by so fast, but something about 5 lakes and an armory which is like a treasure. K, Glazed armor is important for... whatever reason.

Wow, they have nice trees.

Ninja people on roofs. Magic lanterns. Oh no, they broke the paper windows :( Lots of fighting. Why on earth are they going back and forth between fast movements and slow-mo? That looks so weird. Ah, yes, fighting on rooftops. I've seen better. Just saying. Probably gonna make so many enemies saying that. Oh, already the first fabric cutting. Was it a sleeve?

K, so the one guy is the leader of the window of heaven, whatever that is. And people are shocked to see him. Is he a good guy or a bad guy?

He looks sad. Does he even wanna be there? Oh, he's helping the bad guys? Is he our tragic hero? Now I didn't catch his name.

Oh, girl, there is no way you sat down alone in that room and your robe fell all pretty around you like that.

She brought back somebody's body to tragic hero roof guy. And now he wants her to kill herself. This makes no sense, wth. And she actually goes and drinks the poison. Hm, and now they're talking about the dead guy, so he must have been important too. He's burried at the Four Seasons.... Hotel? Probably not hotel, I didn't catch that right, I guess.

She has some wooded thing in her hand.

Oh, flashback to a pretty guy carving it. Is he the dead guy?

And the other guy in the flashback is tragic hero guy, just younger. Are they the lovers??? :O Wait, was the dead guy in love with poison girl?

Tragic hero guy is visiting some older guy at some place. Ah it's four seasons MANOR. Ok. And tragic hero guy is some sort of lord. WTH is this window of heaven thing? Is it like a magical place? Is tragic hero lord poisoned or something? Oh, and the old guy is kinda pissed at him for some reason, they don't say why. He wants his nails done or something. That's... probably not right.

Eww, no, he wants nails stuck into him. And they’re not nails, they’re actually screws, but okay. Anyway, weird. I really don't get it. Were they friends before? But then why does the old guy not wanna serve tragic hero lord guy anymore? And why is tragic hero lord guy going around dooming everybody to die?

K, so the nails make you lose your senses and mind and then kill you after 3 years. Got it. I like how they give little explanations in between the story.

Everybody's dead except for tragic hero lord guy. Is he staying alive to suffer on purpose or something?

Some palace, looks a bit like Koi Tower to me. Some guys talking about somebody spitting blood. Tragic hero lord guy maybe? (who else is left alive anyway?)

:O He's got the nails himself? WHY??? Ok, he's definitely a masochist. Who on earth puts nails in sloooooowly in order to not lose all their senses at once?!

Wait who's the mirror guy? Was that pretty flashback guy? Seems like it. (Sorry, I'm faceblind - not even joking, I really am and utterly bad at recognizing people) Oh no, and now tragic hero lord guy is crying. We're only in episode 1... why are there tears already?

And why are they all talking about 7 nails, and he only has 6 nails showing. Where on earth did he put the 7th nail? Do I even wanna know?

It's constantly snowing in the outdoor scenes, that must have been annoying. At least all the extras get to wear hats or helmets.

Okay, tragic hero guy goes to the palace. Talks to the... guy there. Whoever he is. Ooh. Tragic hero lord guy is getting naked. In front of... ah just to show off the nails. And palace guy is shocked. Oh, tragic hero lord guy gave himself ONLY SIX nails. K, no search party needed, whew. And now palace guy is super pissed. Because he... doesn't want him to die? So... he threatens to kill him? What?

Does tragic hero lord guy want to be killed right away or want to be given that 7th nail? I don't understand. Also, side note, what's up with those other scars that he has?

Now that other random side guy gets promoted and gets to take tragic hero lord guy's job. Did tragic hero lord guy get the 7th nail or not? What? None of this makes any sense.

Oh, it stopped snowing.

And he went... somewhere.

And is doing arts and crafts.

Oh, he's putting on a mask. Wait, is he the tanned beard guy? :O Oh. But why? He’s going into hiding?

Whoa, those statue mountains look AWESOME. 10/10 for scenery!

Wait, who are all those people fighting now? Some red guys with masks. And they're falling off the edge like lemmings. And some giggly guy on wires.

He's a ghost? What? And he stole something.

If he's a ghost, why is he bleeding?

WHOAH, what a cool film set with the stone statues holding up the stone ceiling. Is this a cave? or just a valley? Is this some magical place? Anyway 10/10 again!

Some guy playing with nuts. Hehe.

And lots of people with lots of make-up. Ah, more ghosts, okay. Why is nut guy in red not showing his face to the camera?

Oh, they're talking about glazed armor again. Like in the intro story. Did they steal it? Who are the ten devils? Are they all ghosts? I'm so confused.

Okay, new location.

Wait, did they film this at The Untamed's Caiyi Town? :o Sure looks just like it.

(not my gif, I googled and found this on @elvencantation​’s tumblr.)

Ok, tanned tragic hero lord guy is an alcoholic. Seems faintly familiar.

Oh, and there's smirky guy that I know from the gifs on my dash. With a very prejudiced and talkative purple girl.

Everybody who's wearing white also carries a fan. Both smirky guy and the kid that just walked in. Who is he?

Ooooh, purple girl can fly jump. Is she a cultivator? ARE there cultivators in this series? So far, nobody has flown on any swords.

And how did smirky fan guy know that tanned tragic hero lord guy is not a beggar? Does he know him? Does he recognize him? I bet he gets a kick out of being so mysterious.

Oh no, purple girl broke the rice sack. What a waste. :( And now she kicked tanned tragic hero lord guy right into the salad bar.

At least the kid is trying to stop her. Yeah, somebody has to. Ooooh, she's got a whip. Niiiiiiice! But now she BROKE the salad bar, that is just WRONG!

Ok, so... if alcoholic tanned tragic hero lord guy made that mask in order to go into hiding, he maaaaybe shouldn't be fighting so well in front of EVERYBODY to see. Just saying. :O Somebody stopped the whip before it hit alcoholic tanned tragic hero lord guy.

Oh, end of episode. Ok. So what have I learned? I still don't know who is who. Or why they do the things they do. I don't know how they're connected either. Hmm. But I wanna know who stopped the whip. Probably smirky guy, I guess. But, in any case, the last shot makes me wanna continue watching. Cheap trick, but it works. Yes, definitely gonna keep watching!