#or severance s2 spoilers without context

[iamdispleased]

severance spoilers without context

[daturanerium]

severance s2 ep7 spoilers without context

[deesynt]

ok guys important Severance question (no S2 spoilers pls thx) do innies know what a furry is? If a furry gets severed does "furryness" manifest in the innie without the cultural context? Does this vary from person to person? Discuss.

[friendship-switchblades]

severance s2 finale spoilers without context

[starmapz]

Hiiii! I have another song suggestion for the wyk playlist. Crossfade - Cold

"Looking back at me, I see that I really never got it right. I never stopped to think of you. Im always wrapped up in things I cannot win."

I feel like this perfectly encapsulates wyk!Sukuna. His struggles with himself blowing up on reader. Not necessarily because it was her fault, but because he was stretched thin with his own emotions and kind of took it out on her. Plus his ever-going struggles of feeling like the world is working against him. (Him having to grow up and become a fatherly figure at a young age, that presentation he missed, the custody battle, etc.)

"You are the antidote that gets me by. Something strong like a drug that gets me high."

This to me encapsulates the feeling he gets when reader places her hand on him somewhere and comforts him. Reader has a way of calming his nerves with just a touch. Plus reader helps him with his anxiety/panic attacks. This is what I was feeling with the song 'High Enough' when I suggested it (wyk!heartbreak ovulater anon here again, hiiii!)

"What I really meant to say is that Im sorry for the way I am. Never meant to be so cold, never meant to be so cold."

I feel like this is him after he realizes he cant just blow up on reader, because she is NOT gonna put up with the unfair treatment.

"Maybe in a different light you could see me stand on my own again. Cause now I can see you were the antidote that got me by."

This to me is him after their big fight. He got another chance once she helped him get the illustrator job and he wants to prove to her that he can be better. He realizes how much he wants AND needs her.

Okay, sorry for the long ass submisson lol. Much loveee babes 🤎🤎🤎

hiiii nonnie, it's good to hear from you again love!! 🫶

sorry for the late reply, i have no clue how but i gave myself some sort of wild neck injury and sitting up makes me nauseous so i've barely been able to check tumblr long enough to reply to anything 😩

anywayyyy OUGH this one hits so hard for sukuna's emotions, the parts you highlighted seriously work perfectly for those points in the story

also this part:

maybe in a different light you could see me stand on my own again cause now I can see you were the antidote that got me by

reminds me of a line from severance (which i've been watching recently) that inspired a conversation i wanna write in a later chapter. the mc says something along the lines of: (i think this is relatively spoiler-free without context but spoiler alert jic for severance s2!)

bargaining. do you know what that is? you think of all the things you would do differently if you had the chance to bring someone back. drink less, listen more.

which is referencing one of the stages of grief but i love the concept regardless since sukuna sort of does go through that with reader and i have a scene in mind for it that would work so well following these sort of ideas and wishing someone could see that you've changed for the better.

pleaaase never apologize, i love hearing from you!! sending lots of love nonnie, i adore this rec <33

[chena-h]

Ugh, I feel like rambling a bit about Twin Peaks The Return tonight.

Spoilers under the cut, I guess?

Eh, mostly wanted to get my thoughts and memories about my initial response while watching.

So, for context - I had decided to watch Twin Peaks several years ago after listening to discussions about the show from my favorite lets players. From everything that they had mentioned - the murder mystery, the meta commentary on tv shows, the series' influence across media (in particular, video games like Persona 4 and Life is Strange), the show's legacy as a spiritual successor to The X Files, and the reputation of David Lynch, I was more than intrigued to see what was going on.

Even though I went into the series knowing it got cancelled after S2, I was very excited! I don't think I'll ever forget the sense of awe and wonder I felt while watching this series for the first time. I hadn't seen anything from Lynch before. I'd heard plenty about how challenging his films can be to engage with, but as Twin Peaks was made for TV, his style was somewhat watered down. It was there, beyond a doubt, but watching Twin Peaks wasn't on the level of, like, watching Eraserhead. That's not to discredit Twin Peaks or say it lacks depth. I think I mean to say that it's one of the more accessible entries in his filmography. Accessible in the sense that no matter how little a person actually "gets" the meaning behind everything that's going on in the show, there will be at least one aspect of it that the viewer can connect with in a meaningful way.

I'll be honest, part of my intimidation with talking about my thoughts on Twin Peaks stems from my scant knowledge of film theory. I don't know much about the language of film and television to recognize techniques or to understand all the references the show makes, but even so I felt like I was able to get, at least on an emotional level, some of the big ideas Lynch was getting at.

I enjoyed the show thoroughly (even when it got bad lol), and when I got to the final scene in S2 I was like biting my nails. Like, damn! So many cliffhangers and we're just never going to know what comes next.

It took me a while to watch Fire Walk With Me. I love that film, to pieces, even the parts that made me extremely uncomfortable. There's just this care and empathy that comes off strong during the scenes those scenes that I really appreciated. On its own, it's an incredible movie. As a part of the series, it's a stellar complement. It honestly surprised me to hear that the movie got backlash from fans upon its initial release, but considering some of the things I'd heard about the initial audience reception for the show, that put things into perspective.

So, yeah, years went by. Then the news about Lynch trying to get funding for S3 came around, and fans started getting excited. When id heard that he got picked up by either Starz or Showtime or whatever, I got really excited! I was like "finally! The third season, AND it's Lynch without the restrictions on his expression from having to work with a TV network. It's gonna be Lynch at his most Lynchian..ahhhhhh, I can't wait!"

Then, it came out, and, man, I could tell from the jump that it was going to blow me away. Because my takeaway after watching the first two seasons, the movie, and then hearing the discussions about what went on behind the scenes, was that if Lynch were to have free creative reign, so to speak, he wouldn't necessarily give the fans what they wanted. No, he was going to do so much more because he has a lot to say, and hes a competent enough filmmaker to get all these ideas across. And now there were no TV execs to filter out his weirder ideas.

So, the show starts, and it's very...meandering. very slow (though it does pick up sometimes). And I. Loved it! Like, at that moment it clicked for me that The Return was going to be more than just a continuation of the series. To paraphrase that one quote from the One Armed Man, Lynch means It like he says, like it sounds! The show, in large part, is about Returning to Twin Peaks, and breaking down what that can mean on multiple levels. It's Dale finding his way out of the Black Lodge to confront Mr. C. It's the Where Are They Now of the cast from the original series along with the Next Generation. It's going back, way back, to the birth of BOB, the miners, and that giant bug! It's about light, dark, and the balance between the two. And last, but perhaps most importantly, it's about Laura. It's about finding her in a world where she no longer exists (because what does it mean for Laura to exist when her case got solved, audiences moved on years ago and now everybody streams their shows and movies on demand) , and in doing so, trying to recover the original series core meaning - Laura, her murder, and the ripple effects it had on the world around her.

Ooh, I remember the chills I got when, towards one of the final episodes, we get that scene with Dale going back in time to the moment right before Laura goes into the shed(?) and he takes her hand to guide her to safety. Like, on the one hand, I was like oh!!!! He's doing it. He's (finally) saving her this time. But then the rest of the show plays out, and-

It's like Lynch is beating you over the head with what he's saying at certain points.

And I think one of the things I love the most about The Return is how painstaking it is to actually get to the scenes that continue or feel like the original story. Cuz, at times, it's like the show, similar to characters like Diane/Naido, is suffering an identity crisis of sorts. Because the show is being made in the context of Lynch returning to this series after 25 years from its abrupt cancellation. It's Lynch coming back to this world decades after whatever happened during S2's production that made him walk out for the bulk of it (including the pressure to reveal Laura's killer). It's figuring out where and how the characters - both old and new - fit after all this time. And, to me, one of the most brutal examples of this struggle is Audrey.

Now, admittedly, Audrey is one of the characters I struggled to connect with in the original show. I think it has largely to do with her not having as strong a personal connection with Laura as some of the other characters, like Donna or Bobby, do. While I did enjoy her scenes, I was often left wondering why the show was focusing on her. Then she meets Agent Cooper, and she begins to get involved with the investigation, leading to her finding the connection between the perfume department at the mall and One Eyed Jack's. I think she really started to catch my eye during the scene where she interrogates the interviewer for the perfume department and more or less barrels her way into getting a "key" to access One Eyed Jack's.

In retrospect, I think it's interesting that it took Audrey actively walking into a hostile environment for her to really grab my attention.

I'd known about the original plan for the A/C romance before I got into the show. Tbh, I'm kind of glad they didn't become canon. Apart from it being a squick for me, I just prefer to read Coop as aromantic. While it's definitely a shame that the writers botched Audrey's storyline after the romance got scrapped, I have a major soft spot for that scene where Coop kindly says he'd prefer to be her friend. I just feel that after all Audrey went through while she was held captive at the casino, that was a nice moment that still touched on what they originally intended for those two.

But back to Audrey in The Return! So, yeah, there's this struggle playing out on screen on a meta level of "What Is Twin Peaks?" I think that's a major factor that contributes to the slow, plodding, wandering feel of S3's pacing. Then we get to Audrey, who's stuck inside with her husband, Charlie, as she yells and rants at him about wanting to go out. I remember sitting at the edge of my seat during these scenes. Looking back on it now, it almost makes sense. Because with Coop stuck in The Black Lodge - and at one point written into nonexistence - along with Laura's murder having been solved, what is Audrey's story about? Without the core of the original series to tether her storyline to (or the romance that might've sprang from that core), where does she go from here? And Lynch gives us an honest, albeit difficult answer - nowhere. Her story has nowhere to go. Because Laura's murder was never meant to be solved. This wasn't supposed to be a crime procedural. This wasn't meant to be a "who done it" of the week type of show. But it's too late. The killer was revealed a long time ago. The case was closed. Coop, at this point, is gone. She can't go anywhere. And for an adventurous, action-driven character like Audrey, that's the worst possible answer to get. So she raves and yells at Charlie to take her out. And, after what seems like forever and a half, she does! She eventually goes out to the Roadhouse. And the band? They're playing her song! And for a brief moment, Audrey gets to revel in that environment. She's back in that dreamy atmosphere of Twin Peaks that she (and the audience) know and love. But then soon, much, much too soon, the moment passes. Audrey looks around, and she realizes something's wrong. There's something in the air and it's not right. The world outside doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel recognizable anymore, so she rushes to Charlie, pleading with him to take her back, only there's no going back. Time has passed. But she can't be written into nonexistence like Coop. She's forced to live in that reality and then BAM! We're hit with that shot of her in the all white room, staring at her own reflection and her arc ends. And that's the last we see of her.

It sucks. It's shocking. It's dissatisfying. It's a miserable, inconclusive ending for a character who, honestly, went through a lot of difficult shit in the original series already. Like, my jaw dropped after that final scene. And yet, I liked it! It's a bad ending that left me bummed out for this character that had so much going on, but I can't say I hated it. Because, even with this ending, I got the sense that Lynch put some serious thought into the various meanings behind Audrey's arc in The Return. It's more than just a Fuck You to the fans who wanted the loose ends of her story after S2 to be wrapped up neatly. It's him grappling with this character that was once so important to the show and trying to give her meaning once more.

I talk a lot about Lynch in this post, but everything from the acting, the cinematography, the costumes, the music (Julee Cruise, Angelo, I will love your work forever) is all so magnificent. It all comes together so cohesively. Ah. I just love The Return!

[sevensided]

STRANGER THINGS + TROPES: A rant and some predictions

I feel like people forget how and why Mike 'fell in love' with El in the first place. S1 clearly sets the Party up as misfits, with Dustin being the only character to show active interest in girls (Nancy phone scene, anyone?). El is a super-powered girl the same age as the Party with a mysterious past who may or may not be involved with some freaky government shit. Sorry, are we forgetting who Mike Wheeler is? Of course he'd be interested in El. And El, who has never known love or affection, becomes attached to Mike for similarly obvious reasons. The scene in S1 when El gets dressed up is so telling, because it's the shift in Mike from 'This is El, my friend', to 'Oh, El is a girl'. S1 is the season where it's most obviously drawing on a lot of existing material to build the story concept, so having the stereotypical double-take when the previously asexual female lead gets a makeover to become an acceptably feminine love interest fits within that framework.

Running parallel to this story and rising to prominence most clearly in S2 is the Mike/Will friendship. I won't go into why and how this friendship is a True Companions trope, except that, again, it's clearly playing off other romantic friendships in media like Frodo/Sam: friendships that go beyond ordinary friendship to something approaching, but not quite arriving, at romance. Mike and Will's friendship also supports, conceptually, the broader themes of the show: friendship, love, and family. Their bond embodies the underlying purpose of the show.

But I think it's important to underscore the climate in which these two relationships were formed, and I can see how and where the Dufers might decide to deviate from these preestablished tropes to develop Mike and Will's friendship into something more.

The first tell is that El and Mike are each other's first love. S3 demonstrated that Mike and El did not know or understand how to develop healthy boundaries. As a way to underscore this tension, the story emphasises the sex differences between boys and girls - set in the context of a season driven by the trials of puberty - and Mike and El end up playing out some tired cliches about relationships that speak to their respective immaturity and emotional underdevelopment (because, spoiler alert, they're kids). It's their way of coping, because how else can you make sense of a relationship forged through the tribulations of an inter-dimensional war? In many ways, Mike and El also fall into the Childhood Friend Romance stereotype, where they stay together because 'it makes sense'. It's safe. They might be growing up but they don't have to grow up.

A few times I've suggested that Mike/Will represent a subverted trope. The obvious narrative path for Will is that he gets sidelined as the gay best friend who loves Mike enough to support Mike/El, at his own expense. If - and this is a big if - S4 decides to flip that by neutralising several story components and subverting viewers' expectations, then that would be subversion on multiple, including meta, levels. As an example, ST is an homage to 80s media, and science-fiction and fantasy are genres with specifically siloed tropes that are difficult to break, partly because of the audience's expectation and savviness with those genres; it's why a lot of crime fiction 'feels the same' - because it is, because that is how the genre has crystallised and it is the format audiences are interested in. ST have subverted some genre-specific tropes already, but Mike and Will's relationship turning romantic would epitomise that shift.

Now, I've joked before about how ST is about the power of friendship... but in the case of both Mike/El and Mike/Will, it really is. Will and El give Mike different things - things that he draws strength from and needs. In other words, he can't operate without their friendship. However, if El shifted from love interest to friend, and Will from friend to love interest, that would retain and strengthen the core concepts of the show while subverting multiple tropes (I've used individual links here just to prove my point).

I'm saying it now, I'll put money that there will be a scene where Mike has to 'choose' between El and Will, and whoever he chooses will be the person who he has loved all along. I'm calling it.

Another poignant distinction between Mike/Will and Mike/El is the way their respective relationships play out. The opening to S3 featured Mike and El heavily making out to the point it had become a problem within the Party. In contrast, the climax of Mike and Will's story in S3 was emotional and poignant in that it foreshadowed Will's coming out arc in S4. Foreshadowing can be used as a strict narrative device, but it was purposeful that Mike was the person to argue with Will; it was Mike who was the source, or at least near the source, of Will's inner tension. Whatever the end result, this positions Mike as a central force in Will's story. In turn, that means that Will is a force in Mike's story, too. El can, more or less, handle things by herself. Mike and Will, however, need each other, and the story shows us over and over that they have a bond that surpasses any other in their respective lives.

Where is this post going? I'm not sure, but I needed to rant about it. Tl;dr ST is original in many respects, and it is an excellent (and one of my favourite) shows. But it is also riddled with tropes (some necessary, some less so) that are begging to be broken. The Duffers clearly know how to subvert these expectations (see: Robin/Steve), so it would not be a stretch of the imagination for the story to do it again.

I only sincerely hope that they do decide to do something new, instead of sticking to formula in an already formulaic genre.

[decepti-thots]

☕️starscream not being in earthspark? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ like that the show might focus on festering antagonism between sounders and megan

I think anyone who seriously believes Starscream isn't gonna be in Earthspark is kidding themselves tbqh? The stuff we've seen is overwhelmingly from what seems to be very early on in the series. A lot of the early trailers' footage seems to straight up be from the opening two parter, even!

Starscream is always in major TF series, because Starscream is one of their most overwhelmingly popular toys across basically every incarnation of the franchise. He shows up in Beast Wars more prominently than almost any other G1 character- only Ravage beats him really. It's much more likely that his role in the series is prominent in a way that requires context/set up later on to me than that he's not gonna show up. They might be holding him back for series two, of course- I can absolutely see that, because it's the sort of thing that drums up hype for a new series, and fuels online speculation. But Starscream is gonna be around, because the day Hasbro lets them make a major series without their easily recoloured, hugely popular plane toy of choice is the day hell freezes over, hah. It's the nature of the beast, by which I mean producing fiction as an advert for Hasbro's toyline.

...I will put some speculation under the cut, mild spoilers for the first episode:

So we know that Starscream was like. AROUND as of the flashback in episode one. He's there in his G1-style glory for the backstory sequence. My theory has always been that he's gonna pop up later on as a Decepticon antagonist to put a different spin on Megatron being (while still a 'con) a Good Guy TM in this show. 'Starscream is trying to lead the Decepticons while going up against Megatron' is low hanging fruit for this set up as far as putting a new twist on a classic dynamic goes. Plus, you finally have a way to make Starscream a credible threat without undermining Megatron as a big bad!

I've got several theories as to where they might take it, but god knows if any of them will actually happen, or if there are even plans set in stone yet. (As I said above, it's totally reasonable to think he could be a good hook for the already-greenlit S2, tbh? And I have no idea what the production schedule there looks like.)

[fangirleaconmigo]

I like hearing the thoughts up people who watched this season 2 of twn so I'm very excited to see your thoughts!

Thank you, nonny! Sorry for the delay. I had so many feelings after I watched it that I've just been silently processing and stewing.

I think TWN season 2 is a very different experience depending on whether you've read the books and are attached to the characters as written or not. It also depends on your expectations of fantasy action shows.

I used to waitress, and a restaurant owner I worked for once told me that the most important element of how someone evaluates service is their expectations going in, and I still think about that a lot.

Spoilers, and extremely critical thoughts under the cut. (Some positives too.)

Before you hit 'keep reading' I also want to make clear that this is all personal. Other people are allowed to feel differently and are no less valid. We are all unique mixes of culture and experiences and identities and will by nature see this all differently. That is fine and good. In fact, that's what makes art, and our interactions with it, so fascinating and dynamic. Now, here goes.

If your expectations are...a fun fantasy action ride, I think it fit the bill. The Witcher S2 was better than the average fantasy show.

The cast is phenomenal this season. I think the acting leveled up all around. (Myanna Buring just slayed me, so did Anya, Joey, Mimi, Henry, Freya, Anna, they were all amazing)

The locations are stunning.

The monster fights are fun.

There's more magic, more sign usage, and lots of intrigue.

There were some characters that were magical onscreen together. (Yen and Jaskier, Yen and Tissaia, Fringilla and Francesca, Geralt and Istredd were fucking delightful, and I did love a lot of the Geralt and Ciri scenes. )

Yasen Atour was a delight the little we heard from him

The bruxa was fantastic, Ep1 was great.

I was shocked and pleasantly surprised that we got the Rience torturing Jaskier and Yen saving him scene.

Ciri training!! Wooo!!

Nenneke! Wooo!

Also, I loved a lot of the new (non book) plot points even some others didn't.

For example, I thought Yen losing her magic was a great opportunity to show how resourceful, gutsy, brave, and brilliant she was without magic. She was a force of nature and I loved watching her go.

I also loved everything they added about her mixed heritage.

I loved the Sandpiper concept.

I love that they gave Istredd his own plot points apart from Yen. I think when you make 'exes' (and in the context of the show, one of the few men of color) into cardboard cutouts its unsatisfying. So, I appreciated that they gave him a real role.

I appreciated that, unlike the games, they actually kept Triss's scars, and didn't try to force the love triangle that a lot of fans seem to want. So, on one hand, there was a lot to like.

However, on the other hand, if you you want consistently good writing when it comes to character work and relationship development, we didn't get that, whether you've read the books or not.

TWN pretty obviously comes up with the plot, then stuffs 90% of the relationships and character development into the cracks. Then they step back and go...Ehhhhh it’s fine.

In response to critiques that the show lacks organic character and relationship development, the showrunner essentially said on social media that the books are too slow and you can't just have people hanging out and getting to know each other in a tv show. (In fact, according to the showrunner herself, several conversations that do happen in S2, only happened at the insistence of Henry Cavill)

I think that's dismissive of a vast middle where you can have conversations AND action. There are shows and movies that do so just fine. It's tricky, and it'll never be as deep as the source material, but it can still be great and satisfying. But you do have to put a bit of trust in your audience.

Also, it's not just time spent. It's cohesion and consistency. So whether the character/relationships ships work for you (with all the jerks forward and backwards and jarring missing bits) is whether, through your personal experience, you can fill in the blanks with your own imagination. If you can, you may not even notice. If you can't, you're left scratching your head.

(For just a few examples, why didn't Yen and Geralt talk about the wish???? She was devastated and dumped him for it and now they're kissing? It's resolved?? When?? Why aren't we taking her feelings of betrayal about that seriously? I want that conversation!

What happened to Tissaia's dimeritium poisoning from the prior season? Jaskier's burns from the prior scene? Why in season two, does this supposedly epic male friendship still feel so one sided and thin?

Fil is Francesca's husband???? Why did I not know that until the moment the baby emerged?

Why did Lamb blame Eskel's death on Ciri BEFORE we knew she was attracting monsters? Etc etc etc).

Further, relationships go through hamfisted conflicts, since the only bumps and barriers they seem to be able to conceive of are assault, consent violations, and betrayals, which they glide past as soon as they need to move the plot along.

(That's why when people were like..."Geralt and Ciri didn't have a bonding arc. It was flat." I just feel like...shhhh don't let them hear you. They'll have one of them horrifically betray the other and call it an arc. Let's just leave it, I'm begging you.)

Also, they have the showing and telling working at odds with the story. They tend to TELL the foundational stuff, ie, who people are, how they feel about themselves and each other. Then they SHOW the “exceptions”. And yet, showing is so much more powerful!! Therefore, the exceptions become the rule in the eye of the viewer.

(Geralt SAYS that Kaer Morhen is protected and secret because of pogroms against witchers and threats of genocide, but then you SEE it as party central, like everyone in the continent goes through there to be drugged or killed or just to pick up a vial and be off.)

The actors valiantly elevate their scenes emotionally to imbue them with nuance and contradictions and emotion. (Myanna and Joey were both fucking heroic in imbuing lines with meaning that wouldn't have been there without them.) But they can't do it all.

The show also continues to raise interesting social themes it doesn’t quite know how to land and lay out amazing characters it doesn’t quite know how to truly value. TWN and race or TWN and sexuality could fill up several other posts.

So, if you want a fun action fantasy show that you don’t want to think too hard about, you’re golden. It was 10/10. I have shows like that. I watch and I refuse to read the source material or think about things like plot holes or inconsistencies. If you're watching The Witcher like that, you are blessed.

If you want a GOOD show with quality character and relationship work, it was a 7/10, and it was only that high because Henry Cavill is powerful enough to push for script changes on set.

(The showrunner said she had written a joke for after Roach died and he pushed for something heartfelt instead. Also, Henry said that the script called for a sex scene for when Geralt and Yen reunite, and he and Anya pushed for that sweet family scene with the three of them actually bonding. Also, Geralt's lines to Ciri from the books were added at his insistence. I think the writing would've been a 6/10 at best without him.)

NOW how was the show for me?

Well I'll let you guess.

I read the books between S1 and S2 and fell in love with them. I watched the showrunner tweet that she'd read Blood of Elves twenty times and was taking it seriously as an adaptation. That she wasn't going to have to make up much because there was so much there. She said she heard all of the constructive critique about how the relationships were treated S1.

So, I am a book fan, and I had hope. Expectations. Not that they would be duplicated exactly, but that the spirit of the themes and the characters would be treated respectfully.

I also happen to be a person who has written several hundred thousand words of fic about Eskel, (and read more) because I connect with him and love him in particular. One of my most popular witcher posts is the character analysis I did of him.

I also happen to be a person who loves Yen and Ciri's relationship so much it almost hurts. I could probably write a Phd thesis on what that relationship means to me.

I also happen to be a person who loves Kaer Morhen more than is reasonable, and was so excited to see it onscreen. (It was aesthetically pretty! Beautiful gowns sets. But I was more excited for the wolf witchers inside of it.)

Those were my most anticipated pieces of the story going in.

Now, I know I said that I'd let you guess how I like it, but when have I ever shut up about anything? Well, I loved ep 1. I recapped and reviewed it and gave it an A. Then, the rest of the season happened.

And for my favorite, most anticipated characters and relationships, other than some good Geralt and Ciri moments, it was character assassinations and missed opportunities.

I'm sure there are those who would disagree with me. I'm sure they could make cases for why it made sense for Yen, the woman who never let down Ciri a day in her fucking life, would turn her in to the deathless mother (changing her mind when it was too late, and only because Ciri's power made her 'special'). How it made sense that a woman who, even though she struggled being vulnerable and committed romantically, always always worked in Geralt's best interests behind the scenes, would betray him in matters of his own daughter.

I'm sure they could make a case why Vesemir, a man who passed through a long hard journey and rocky moral past, to become the moral center of the world of witchers, (I could bring book quotes to back this up if anyone is interested in my Vesemir thoughts) would betray Geralt and accept 'consent' from a traumatized, grieving, child.

I'm sure they could claim that one gauzy flashback of Eskel being nice to Geralt once in a hallway made up for what they did to that character. I'm sure they could explain why the misogyny of how the sex workers were treated, and why they were in Kaer Morhen in the first place didn't take the entire concept of the witchers out back and shoot it execution style.

But I'd disagree with all of them. Very strenuously. Very emphatically. I may still write some specific critical posts about TWN and Yen and Ciri, or Eskel, or the witchers in general, just to get these things off my chest.

It's actually turned the show into something a lot more difficult for me to interact with. I have to work a lot harder now to separate out the good and still enjoy it. I still adore the cast, and love parts of the show. But dear anon, that shit felt fucking brutal. I stared into space for an uncomfortable amount of time after finishing the season. I considered deleting all my witcher social media and abandoning my wips. I texted my friends. When my son asked how it was I said very slowly....well...it gave and it took away. I didn't know what else to say.

I calmed down. I'll keep watching the show. I'll keep loving and hyping the cast. But now I have a fundamentally conflictual relationship with the show. And now my expectations are on the floor. They are subterranean. Maybe having zero expectations, no matter what is promised to book fans on twitter, will help. It's all about expectations, after all.

I hope my feedback isn't too much of a downer. I'm sorry if it is and you regret sending your ask. D: I try really hard to see the positives of things and to be fair and to consider other perspectives. But there's no way around how fucked over I feel as a book fan of witchers and of Yen and Ciri's relationship specifically.

But thank you for asking and feel free to ask for clarification on anything or for any sources cited. XD

[katkonstant]

This frame right here. I could write essays about this expression on Tissaia's face. This is the face of a woman looking at her daughter burning down a house she's been trapped in and is so proud to see it.

Let's put the situation in context. [SPOILER WARNING FOR S2E2&3]. Tissaia is aware of several things in this moment. Yennefer is as powerless as she's ever been. Yen, who craves power and autonomy more than she wants to even live, is without it, and she is being asked to play the role of minor character. Yennefer had been so obsessed with her legacy in season 1, yet she willingly gives up the glory of Savior of Sodden. Why? Because Tissaia asked her to. Tissaia is aware of this fixation; aware of what that kind of recognition would mean to Yennefer. And the cherry on top of this shit sandwich is the Brotherhood, backing Yen into a corner and demanding she prove her loyalty. She hated seeing Yen torn, pushed and pulled, by the whim of these men. Your pain is my pain. So Tissaia knows more than anyone - Yennefer of Vengerberg will be no man's tool. She will survive. Maybe alone, maybe powerless, maybe for decades. But Yennefer will be free.

And so with all this in mind, Tissaia watches her with a smile. Watches, pride and relief on her face, as Yennefer chooses the only path she's ever believed in - herself.

The Witcher, S2 E3, 2021

[dystopiandramaqueen]

S4E9 Advice for Spoiler Interpretation

Friends.

Spoilers are a double edged sword.

For me to watch The Handmaid's Tale- a deeply triggering and horrific show- I need time to prepare, pull back a bit and protect my tender heart. So the punch to the feels doesn't hurt quite as much.

Some shows aren't this hard to watch. Stranger Things. Empire. Shadow and Bone. Bridgeton. Supernatural. Vampire Diaries. Yaknow. Almost every other TV show ever.

Shows like THAT- I never wonder if my characters are gonna die or get seriously hurt. I know shit will work out. We don't have that luxury in this show.

The problem is, spoilers themselves can be emotionally upsetting.

Because spoilers don't tell the whole story.

Much of the content in The Handmaid's Tale is NON- VERBAL. Inferred. Unspoken. Between the lines.

A couple examples:

The spoiler version of Nick and June's arc:

"They were in the same room. Then they left the room."

It's not that simple. There is so much unspoken between Nick and June that we see in their facial expressions. Right? When they're together in a room, they're exchanging support, love, messages to be careful.

The spoiler version of Nick's S2 arc:

"Nick gets married to a 15 year old, fucks her, and she is executed for cheating on him."

Is that what actually happened? I mean... technically yes?

But when you say it like that it sounds like he's just another henchman in Gilead.

This "spoiler version" leaves out the following facts:

Nick did NOT consummate his marriage for weeks.

He had no intention of consummating his marriage.

He would rather die. "I can't." Physically and mentally. Firm No.

In the end June begged him to not get executed and he can't say no to June.

He still asked Eden for consent. She gave verbal consent.

He checked in after.

When Nick saw Eden kissing another boy her age, he smiled. It made him happy to see her having normal romance.

Nick did NOT beat Eden for kissing another man. Remember that Fred beat Serena for forging his signature, and cut off her finger for reading.

Nick did NOT report her. SOMEONE ELSE caught Eden and turned her over to the Eyes.

Nick gave Eden several plausible ways to avoid her death sentence. As an Eye, he knew what someone has to say to live. He gave her the cheat code. Her integrity wouldn't let her use it. But Nick tried to save her life.

It's still horrific and I still hate it. But it's not fair to just say "he fucks her." Way more to it than that.

Full Disclosure. I've have had three (3) major meltdowns over spoilers this season.

The first was "Nick arrests June"

Ask @nickblaine and @splitscreen I almost quit the fandom when I was given that information WITHOUT THE CONTEXT AROUND IT. Now? I'm glad he did. If anyone else was leading the party when she reached for the gun, she'd have been shot.

The second was "June fucks Luke."

I was like WHAT SO NICK MEANS NOTHING TO HER????

Well after watching how much adrenaline June worked up dominating Serena Joy, I'm not surprised she needed to physically dominate a man to calm down.

That was not lovemaking. She needed to ride a dick. It could have been anyone. June needed to assert dominance, and in Gilead that is done through rape. Fucked up.

The third is this "Nick is married" shit.

I don't want it. I hate it. The Eden storyline was fucking traumatizing. I don't want my poor son to have to go through that again. It's also really really triggering for me for personal reasons.

But I'm glad I know.

So I can pull back emotionally.

When Max layers on nuance and face acting, I have no doubt it will feel beautiful and affirming and bittersweet like everything he does with this character.

So in conclusion:

It's ok to look for spoilers.

It's ok to hate the content of the spoilers.

It's ok to emotionally distance yourself.

It's ok to watch other things that aren't so fucking awful.

But please don't take it to heart until you see Max deliver it.

I promise the emotional impact will be nothing like the spoiler version.

[atalana]

[copied over from my cr blog, also this is gonna get long, i’d apologise but im not sorry]

okay, so

this is a rant probably about 7 years in the making, bc when i first watched lok i had not done any music study, i had not done any composing of my own, my knowledge of music theory was at a primary school level and i still thought tv soundtracks were just made by one person composing a whole cache of music and then the audio editors pick and choose what track to place where

(spoiler alert that’s not how film and tv scoring works, i have now done a music composition course where we had to score a short film, among other things, and i have so much more respect for tv composers jesus christ)

but this one stuck out to me even way back then, bc me barely knowing what a leitmotif was was like “hey this one little refrain keeps popping up whenever bolin does lavabending, and i like it, i’m gonna see if it’s on the soundtrack”

it was not, and that’s sort of where i left it back in 2014, but i actually did a rewatch of lok pretty recently out of nostalgia, and then noticed it even more

and to explain why (and this is also a little bit why five’s stuck out to me in tua, i’ll get to that in another ask), let’s cover, leitmotifs, and tv scoring in general

so a leitmotif is basically just a short musical idea that represents something in a piece of music. when i studied motivic development we were encouraged to make that motif four notes or less, and then develop it into something longer (aka a theme), because if you can constantly come back to a really short idea while keeping the piece moving, that’s what makes a piece of music memorable

(you can ignore those rules on purpose but that’s a different essay)

so the most common way that a leitmotif shows up in soundtracks is to represent a character or a location - you play the motif when that character shows up or when you’re in that location and boom, the audience associates that motif with that person place or thing, and you can then use this to tell the audience things without actually telling them. for example, star wars playing the imperial march whenever someone does something darth vader related - darth vader isn’t on screen, but you can feel his presence, because his music is playing

and if we were a film score, where we have two hours to show one particular character’s development, great! we give them a simple motif, and then as they grow as a person we change their motif to reflect what is happening to them, until we end up with something that communicates on a subconscious level how much they’ve grown. we toss in as much symbolism as we can, and we have a really great soundtrack that’s instantly memorable

tv scoring, is harder. partially because of time constraints (have you ever composed half an hour of original music a week, and had to make sure it fits perfectly with every beat of what’s happening on screen? these guys have), partially because there’s a much larger focus on ensemble casts

so what atla and lok do, for the most part, is not score individual character motifs for everyone. this is fairly common in tv soundtracks, instead we score ideas, concepts, and feelings - these’ll come up a lot more and give you more information than just “oh hey this character’s on screen”

the avatar state, for example, has the strongest and most recognisable theme across both shows. i’m linking an atla track in here because it has the best example but you’ll know this shows up with korra too - and with particularly important moments for wan, for kyoshi, etc. they also appear in the opening of both shows, four strong notes that start and end on the same note (in the case of what i’m linking, it’s an F#)

the first part of this track is the more uncertain, pensive theme that comes up when both avatars are feeling doubt/worry/sadness, but then it transitions into the more recognisable four. worth noting though, those are both basically the same motif. if i write them out back to back, you’ll notice they both have four notes and start and end on F#. if i had to guess, four notes four elements, and it comes back to the start because the avatar is a cycle.

korra has a theme for when she’s fighting, but not an individual character theme. the airbenders as a concept have a theme, republic city has thematic instruments, as do some big name characters, like iroh and his tsungi horn (this is also a cross-series thing, he’s always playing it in atla, it shows up when zuko has to make big moral decisions, and when we first meet iroh in the spirit world in lok, it shows up there too, to let the audience know who this is before we properly see him)

so, if korra doesn’t get a single theme and instead has several for different aspects of her life, and mako and asami follow along with the mood of the story like all the other characters, the fact that bolin has a personal leitmotif at all, let alone a solid, developing one, is pretty remarkable!

now, granted, it mostly starts with book 3, before then he was like every other character, but it has clear symbolism through those last two books! and, initially i thought it was related only to his lavabending, since that’s most of when it shows up, but since my rewatch, i’ve started calling it his hero theme

see, when people wanna criticise mako and bolin, usually the comments they get are that bolin’s too immature and mako’s too serious/uptight. but like, that’s how they work, you can’t analyse either of them without the context of the other. since they were little kids on the streets, bolin chases his heart and mako makes sure they don’t die from it, that is their entire childhood. and neither would have got here on their own because mako wouldn’t take the necessary risks and bolin wouldn’t take the necessary precautions. (like. remove either one from the equation and they’d still be working for the triple threats bc s1 and their flashback miniseries make pretty clear that bolin got them out and mako kept them out)

and then book 2 proves it! because it splits team avatar up, and what happens? bolin is totally taken advantage of by varrick and used as a pawn in his evil plan and mako ends up in jail

so what’s book 3, to them? it’s, being able to find themselves without having that codependency. mako no longer has someone to protect, which is what he’s based his whole life around so far - bolin’s doing fine and he’s no longer dating either korra or asami. and bolin’s trying his hand at some of that responsibility (look at how he immediately adopts kai who is explicitly them but younger because he wants to be the older brother for once). most importantly, they find the rest of their family, and stop being defined by being orphans. they don’t have to be that singular piece of a puzzle, they can just be themselves. and that’s where bolin’s character really starts to shine, because that’s when they bring in the bending plot, and bending, perhaps more than any other character, really gets to the heart of who bolin is

if you want more of my thoughts on that i have an essay here, but tl;dr: bolin’s an extremely powerful earthbender, but he’s not a metalbender because metalbending requires you to double down on the earth characteristics and think like an earthbender, and bolin doesn’t, he’s too fluid for that, which is one of his major strengths, so of course he can lavabend

and finally - to his motif itself! (as a note, i’ve put all of these in the same key to show where it repeats, but there’s a variety of keys used in the show)

as far as i can find, it first shows up in s3e8, when bolin stuns p’li with this well placed shot

[Edit: it first showed up in the s2 finale, but again in a simplified version and again with him doing something heroic with earthbending, so we can still start the analysis here]

mako volunteers bolin for that job, because he knew bolin was capable of it. why? because bolin landed an identical shot earlier in the episode, after trying to metalbend, getting frustrated he can’t, and cheating with some extremely well aimed earthbending. it’s just a short refrain and you barely notice it, but it’s the first connection of this motif with the theme of bolin’s bending

it looks like this, and it’s always played on a trumpet, which is part of why i call it the hero theme, because, if you’re looking at music from a western perspective, trumpets were used to herald kings, and then used to represent military glory, and then when superhero themes started happening, they used trumpets too - it’s basically western music shorthand for hero these days

(it’s also symmetrical so that helps with the good vibes)

and he’s saving everyone here, so it’s linked to his bending, but it’s also linked to his heroism

it ties the two together, and they are tied together.

when’s the next time it shows up? episode 10, when the brothers are in prison in ba sing se, and bolin tries to metalbend them out. again, he’s doing this to save people, and this motif gets a few notes added on to the end in a raising pattern - they’re inspiring, but they don’t go anywhere. which is exactly what happens in the scene, because he’s trying to go about this in the wrong way. mako believes in him, but it won’t (and doesn’t) work

it appears in episode 12 when bolin saves everyone from ghazan destroying the temple, in a more fancy orchestral remake of the first version - it’s impressive, but it hasn’t actually developed yet, it’s just his discovery of it

the book 3 finale already has its own fucking amazing soundtrack, i love that entire episode’s score, but it gets its own moment there too, and the first real development!

because what we hear is not what we’ve heard before. we know it’s the same theme, because it’s using those signature trumpets, but it’s the second part of this phrase, the answer to the question supplied by the first one. why? because bolin’s figured out who he is and he’s starting to use it. it still hasn’t settled yet though, it’s early days and he’s still just turning ghazan’s lava back on him, so again, it raises, leaving it on a question mark

it doesn’t appear in s4e7 when he lavabends as a warning against the escaped prisoners, because he’s using it as a threat, not to help people. but it does later in the episode when he uses lavabending to save them from kuvira. and that’s when we get the first full phrase, question and answer

it keeps the first motif identical, takes out the first note of the second, and ties them together - except now it’s not open ended, now it knows where it’s going - it’s been three years, at this point bolin is confident in both himself and his bending

and then that phrase appears all over the place in the finale, because all bolin does is save people - everyone from the exploding building, he slows the giant mecha with lavabending, he saves opal, he slows the giant mecha again by collapsing a building on it, and most importantly, he’s the one rescuing his brother this time, instead of the other way around (though that one doesn’t get a motif appearance bc admittedly a fuck ton of other things are happening in the soundtrack at the time)

so to that question asked in book three - who is bolin when not next to someone else? well, funnily enough, we saw it in book two as well, just in a warped way, playing nuktuk. it just wasn’t truly him because it was created by varrick, and he needed to get away from varrick too. the question put forward by the narrative is who is bolin, and the answer given by the music is, he is a hero. and i don’t know why bolin is the only one to get a theme like this, but i think it may have something to do with the fact that, while everyone in team avatar has been a hero and saved people, he is the only one who has, from the start, solely been motivated by wanting to help people. he follows his heart, and his heart cares, about everyone. it’s been the driving force behind almost everything he’s ever done. and i love him so much

[k-s-morgan]

I still think that it's the time gap which is making things warped. More fanfiction and gossip is being spread instead of real news .. even the actors and creator don't have anything new to say so they are putting things in different ways. Or it is a marketing. Hugh in 2013 said no it's not sexual. Bryan and Mads have also clarified as bromance. But the discourse and expectations are changing with time as more people are shipping them as sexual pair, even ignoring abusive overtones.

Not exactly. The interviews about the romantic aspect started emerging right after S1. Sexual subtext was very vivid in S2 and Bryan actively drew attention to it as the show was airing. Mads always saw it as romance but for him, the words ‘bromance’ and ‘romance’ are interchangeable. The talks about kissing and sex were already being held then in different contexts. Not sure which 2013 interview you mean, but:

1) Hugh hates spoilers and is always very careful not to talk about anything even potentially spoilery.

2) The story evolved naturally. The relationship might have easily not been conceived as sexual - in fact, that’s what Bryan says, but it started to develop in that direction since S2.

3) Bryan admitted himself he was wary of discussing anything related to romantic aspects in S1 because of the unequal power dynamic. Without having S2 and S3, S1 can be seen as Hannibal being a predator who abuses Will for the sake of abuse.

4) Hugh implied that he sees the relationship as not necessarily sexual several times. That’s fine, it’s his view on it. But he did push for closer physical intimacy.

Will and Hannibal are already canonically in love despite the abusive tones you mentioned (and I’d argue about the use of the word abuse. It’s a dark and unhealthy relationship,sure, but for abuse, there has to be a victim, and Will and Hannibal are not, especially past S1). Why would the addition of the sexual side change anything in this regard? Do you think they can be in love but can’t have sex?

And note that sex itself is up to interpretation. They certainly didn’t have it in the show at this point, so you can imagine their relationship staying platonic. That’s the beauty of S3 ending - we can all have our own versions) 

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

what more can you do?

WOO! this week’s episode was sad and weird and badly paced and startlingly, unevenly mature in true titans fashion. i loved it (with reservations)! let’s talk about it in excruciating detail:

SPOILERS ahead.

1. i can’t say that i’m awfully thrilled about the show following up on a character’s literal suicide attempt by... not addressing said suicide attempt at all. maybe it’s the awkward way an entire episode’s worth of flashback was shoehorned in between the end of 2.07--where dick literally talked jason off the ledge while in the throes of a psychotic break of his own--and the beginning of this one, but it’s honestly not just bad storytelling, but irresponsible storytelling. 

1.5. in a general sense, tho, the tableau at the beginning of the episode is so egregiously unfair--so shockingly, plainly one-sided, with a slump shouldered dick facing the world, only kory on his side, that it’s quite apparent that it’s the lowest these heroes can go. and i do think their individual reactions to dick’s confession provide an interesting insight into their characters. hank and dawn have been operating alone for so long, each a reminder of their traumas and losses and very human frailty to the other, without even the resources that dick and the batman enjoy. it’s been them v the world for so goddamn long; is it any wonder that they were looking for the first excuse to bail out of there, to not Deal with the idea that what they were doing to deal with their traumas and guilt was clearly not working, and dick was--and has been always--so willing to be the scapegoat? hank punching dick was utterly unwarranted--but i can accept that as part of the unaddressed emotional outbursts arising out of years of accumulated head injuries from both college football and vigilantism. (this isn’t to excuse what he did but to contextualise it within hank’s history and personality.) their instinct when facing ugly truths is to retreat to what they think is familiar and what they need--except, as hank realises later in the episode, that’s exactly what’s fucking them up further.

rose is understandably upset at being lied to about her brother’s death and the titans being complicit in the same--but i’m curious that her reaction was to merely leave and not try and fight them. maybe after being defeated by dick while sparring and nearly being killed by rachel she was sensible enough to realise that she couldn’t take them on all at once? i don’t know--she’s curiously been a bit of a cipher this season. jason leaving with her made sense tho--unburdened of the weight of being the team’s scapegoat, understandably miffed at dick for keeping a secret that nearly cost him his life and left him with a great deal of trauma, just Angry at the world in general, he gravitates towards rose, the only other outsider/rebel who tried to reach out to him when everybody else shunned him or looked at him like an impostor. i think the decision was more impulsive than anything--they still look confused and uncertain in the taxi as they leave the tower behind. but--i don’t know. theirs is the storyline that i’m the most perplexed about. we just don’t have a lot of information about either of them, rose especially. 

(a part of me still thinks she’s slade’s mole in the tower. but why would she leave if she is? to keep up appearances bc to react in any other way to the news of her brother’s death would be suspicious? maybe she left because her job is done and the titans were splitting up? maybe she was part of the long game to seduce jason over to slade’s side--seeking revenge for dick swaying jericho over to the titans’? am i going to stop asking myself questions in this post? am i ever going to write a review that’s not just stream-of-consciousness nonsense? only time will tell.)

DONNA. oh, donna. her decision to leave seems to me a logical continuation of her s2 arc that i’d talked about in a previous review--paranoid, insecure, retraumatised, and taking out her frustrations on jason and dick. it’s also very interesting to me that she complained to rachel about dick treating them like “soldiers” and only told them things that he deemed that they “need[ed] to know.”  it was because of jillian and whatever mysterious business that themyscira was conducting in sf that she and garth and slade ever landed up in that airport at all; even worse, jillian deemed it was something that donna didn’t need to know until it was too late. donna lost so much in that fiasco--the man she loved, her friends, several members of her amazon family, and her sense of purpose, her belief in her strength and her destiny and her faith that other people trusted her as a warrior and as a leader. she’s projecting all that pain onto dick--who again, doesn’t deserve all this shit but takes it anyway because of his own issues.

1.8. and, like. as much as jericho’s death became the Traumatic Event that overshadowed almost everything else in dick’s life for the last five years and helps explain a lot of his hang-ups right from s1, it just doesn’t have the same significance for the others. don’t get me wrong--i’m sure hank, donna and dawn are devastated and guilty about the part that they had to play in manipulating jericho and his eventual death. but their issues with each other, with the titans tower and with their past run deeper and in different directions, and i think all of that came into play when they each decided to go their separate ways.

1.95. idek what the fuck is going on with rachel. i felt every ounce of dick’s heartbreak and devastation when she got up to leave with donna. for all that she saved dick in the first episode of this season, she still hasn’t reached the point where she’s willing to unburden her emotions and issues on him. it must be frustrating and sad for her to realise just how much dick didn’t trust her either. but there’s something else going on as well: maybe she’s realised she has no real control over her re-emerging powers, and, carrying on with the fatalistic attitude she had at the end of 2.05, she wants to spare the titans the chaos and darkness that she carries around with her. (she’s used to running away at this point, after all.) she goes with donna bc donna knows her the least: it would therefore be easy to fool her and escape. 

2. more faddei! and kory backstory! \o/ 

it’s curious that they never once bring up trigon, because s1 gave the impression that she’d come to earth with a specific mission to seek his portal out and destroy it before he could, y’know, Fuck The Universe Up. faddei makes it sound like kory just went on this fun little sabbatical before taking up royal duties, which kiiinda undercuts a lot of what was cool about her s1 arc. i realise you aren’t entirely happy with your freshman season, titans, and s2 looks like it might be a soft reboot, but you don’t have to mutilate it like this!

but seriously. the stakes just got upped exponentially for kory, and it would be really interesting to see where she goes from here. apart from a promise to rachel, she doesn’t really owe the rest of the titans anything--not that i think she views relationships in such transactional terms, of course. on the other hand, abandoning her responsibilities on tamaran has led to its takeover by an unfit leader and the deaths of several of her family and friends. the choice shouldn’t be a choice at all. she should go back home. and yet--she waited too long, and the choice has been taken away from her. faddei is dead, both of their ships are destroyed, and she is stuck on earth, grieving and frustrated and furious. kory is usually very clear headed about exactly where she stands emotionally, but after such a big event, she must be feeling so much pain, guilt, sorrow, anger, even resentment. it’s so easy to look at kory’s level-headedness and open, empathetic personality and use her to prop up other characters, but i hope that this isn’t always the case, and that she’ll be allowed to really work through these emotions while somebody else looks out for her. 

2.35. (the little snippets of faddei and kory just enjoying the shit out of the Little Things that humanity has to offer is just... it filled me with so much warmth. i wouldn’t mind an entire episode of them just chilling and exploring and annoying each other with badly-applied out-of-context pop culture references)

2.5. blackfire! i don’t know much about comics!blackfire beyond “she was starfire’s sister, Evil, and possibly sold her sister into slavery??? yikes” so i’m just going purely off what the show has revealed about her so far. it was honestly disconcerting to see so many references to her possible disability (?) and to see both that and the efforts to accommodate her spoken about in... i want to say mocking way? i don’t know. i just saw a murder mystery/thriller movie today where the serial killer was revealed to have been both disabled from birth and mentally ill, and maybe i’m just feeling extra sensitive to the truly disturbing and pervasive trope of having disabled characters be Evil--and tying their Evil to their disability. 

2.8. anyhow, blackfire appears to have accumulated a fair bit of power in the time that kory’s been gone: not only can she remotely possess other tamaraneans but she can blow up their ships too. (and didn’t faddei say that she had goons on the ground, looking for starfire?)

2.9. it’s a Lot to deal with this late in the season. maybe kory will leave for tamaran to deal with blackfire once and for all at the end of the season. and if titans ends up cancelled, wouldn’t that be a bittersweet ending.

(wherein ‘bittersweet’ translates to ‘devastating’ ofc)

3. oh where do i even start with dick

his worst fears came true. after his confession, not only did his old friends up and leave, but so did rachel and jason, which he found more heartbreaking than anything else. utterly consumed by guilt and convinced more than ever before of his culpability, he actively seeks out ways to self-flagellate, first by going to adeline to apologise, then by banishing himself, then by making sure he is punished (tho i have my doubts on that last one; will elaborate a little later). after watching him have an extended psychotic break and dash into not one but two suicide missions, watching dick grayson do this to himself feels like watching an extended feature on human suffering. it’s not fun, or pretty, and i can feel it reaching its nadir so that dick can bounce back up again, but i hope it happens soon.

(dick’s natural tendency to internalise guilt and responsibility into a hard little diamond core at his centre and his long training with batman with all the emphasis on secrets and subterfuge with a healthy underpinning of paranoia ironically means that he does so much goddamn emotional labour for this team. he’s the glue that keeps them together, that gives them purpose. he’s trying so hard to do good by everybody that he isn’t really able to achieve it with any of them, which leads to another self-flagellating spiral and him determining to try harder and the cycle just keeps going on. only kory seems to have ever broken this cycle, because she’s never demanded anything of him, nor he of her. it’s really sad to think how bereft dick feels right now, and more than that, how it’s stopping him from being there for the people who really do need him and trust him, like gar and rachel.)

3.25. adeline makes a very good point about how merely apologising doesn’t mean you’re owed forgiveness, and that seeking it out after all these years is a self-serving exercise in itself. but i can see dick taking it hard, especially after discovering that she’s letting slade--the man who actually killed her son--recuperate at her home. (and let’s be clear: however good her intentions, she participated in lying to her child about the truth of what his father actually does. wow, jericho was really just fucked over by pretty much every one he loved, wasn’t he?)

but i am glad to see dick isn’t so far gone that he takes the blame for jericho’s death in front of slade. he’s very aware that slade has permanently broken the team and very aware of the threat slade poses if they ever try to get back together again, but he’s not going to completely surrender every last shred of his self-worth and dignity to this man, and that was refreshing to see.

3.5. so he banishes himself to the farthest place he can think of with nothing more than the shirt on his back and a single duffel bag. it’s so over-the-top yet so... dick grayson.

3.8. BUT WAIT! ~PLOT TWIST~

ok so here’s what’s happening, all right? strap in:

a) jericho is one hundred percent inside slade. i have no doubts about this. adeline knows this too. it’s why she was so even-keeled while talking to dick, why she confidently said that jericho loved dick, and why she said “they” might be willing to forgive him. i’m thinking when slade crawled back home, jericho took advantage of his father’s momentary weakness to tell what was happening to his mother. 

b) jericho tried to communicate to dick. i saw something somewhere which said that slade had gestured something very specific in asl while conversing with dick? i’m willing to believe that was intentional.

c) when dick was turning to leave and slade called him one last time and gave his “banishment sentence” jericho likely jumped bodies from slade to dick

d) so why did dick get himself arrested at the airport?

- dick was going through, as others have speculated, a dissociative episode. given how he’s exhibited signs of mental illness throughout this season this isn’t that far out of the realm of possibility, but it’s a weak and redundant narrative bridge and wasn’t shot in a way that suggested that it was a mental break. so i’m ruling this out.

- jericho took over. maybe he felt that this was the only way he could force dick to stay in sf. maybe some of his father’s anger/resentment leeched into him and he wanted to dick to experience some actual punishment instead of scarpering again. maybe he was overwhelmed by dick’s own self-flagellating tendencies and chose the shortest route to maximum pain. maybe it’s a combination of all three.

- dick finally got his brain into gear and realised at the last minute that jericho had possessed slade and was trying to tell him something. why he then proceeded to get himself arrested instead of running out of the airport is a mystery.

personally, i’m leaning towards the ‘jericho possessed dick’ possibility.

4. gar is such a sweetheart and i am so glad that he took centrestage this episode, even though, like always, it was to support another character and ended up with him crying and begging for help from an unresponsive dick. *sighs*

4.5. much like dick himself, he’s trying to do good by everybody, only to end up badly misjudging a situation, and all alone. 

5. oof. this has gone on for far too long and i am Tired. more thoughts to come later, because right now my brain is as disorganised as... as disorganised as a titans episode. hah! self-burn!!!

[joneswuzhere]

in anticipation of episode 4.14, i watched ‘how to get away with murder’ s1

here’s my thoughts on how rd might be playing out an homage to the show, and on what these parallels might suggest to expect from the whole ‘jughead dies’ plot

below are complete spoilers for ‘how to get away with murder’ s1, a few spoilers for s2 and s3. and also. spoilers for donna tartt’s ‘the secret history.’ cool ok here we go

- first. we’re abbreviating the title to htg

- second. htg’s plot is pretty convoluted and out-of-order, so it’s hard to mention one thing without having to explain four other things. riverdale’s format is so chill in comparison. i apologize for repetition and confusing timeline discussion

- also, maybe u watched this show! or maybe u want to. or maybe ur impatient and just here for riverdale lol. i’m not going to make u scroll through a whole plot summary of htg’s first season. BUT i did write one up here if that’s something u want to read. it will probably make the following easier to understand, but i’ll do my best to make it accessible without that

- third. like i said, my goal here is finding potential parallels and, based on that, speculating on what rd is doing with this plot. i have no conclusions but i do have some thoughts and maybe you do too

- ok the basics of htg:

- this show is the visual inspiration for rd’s flash forward hook, as well as for the murder cover up in the woods.

- the show structure is: a main timeline, intercut occasionally with flash forwards to a murder that happens at the midseason point. similar to rd

- a difference: in rd, the flashes jump to different points over a period of days - burning their clothes, the search party, body identification, then the arrests, the line up, and then back to the ‘death’ scene. in htg, all the flashes jump to different points during one particular night, and only deal with the groups effort to dispose of the body and evidence.

- where was i. oh, but there’s 2 murders in htg. murder #1 happened before the series start point. in the main timeline, the investigation into murder #1 builds up to the midseason climax that results in murder #2 (the one the group is covering up).

- after the timeline has caught up to the midseason murder, then the flash forwards are replaced with flash backs that begin to reveal past details about murder #1.

- so right away, what stands out to me is the possibility that, once the main timeline catches up to whatever happens to jughead in the woods, rd will continue to follow this format. but what would rd flash back to? hang on,

- the genre here is inverted detective story, where instead of finding out someone was killed and following along to find out who did it,, you learn right away who’s doing the murdering and how. the mystery lies in whether they’ll get away with it and/or what led up to that point.

- in htg, murder #1 is a regular mystery, and murder #2 is inverted. in rd, jughead’s death is an inverted mystery, and there’s several other regular mysteries/deaths: chipping’s suspicious suicide, the old generation of the quill & skull society, + the missing kids that jughead and betty are investigating

- so it may transpire that we see flashbacks to those missing students, like moose or the stonewall 5. or maybe context on why chipping jumped, what dupont said to him. or a glimpse into fpj1′s time at stonewall. i’m spitballing

- hm a note on genre here: maybe there’s a conversation to be had about inverted murder mysteries and perfect murders (recall, the theme dupont assigned for the class). like, crime fiction specifically told through the perspective of getting away with it. (a perfect murder is specifically a murder that resists all explanation. no suspects, no evidence)

- ok. the first half of htg s1 is the lead up to the night of murder #2. the second half of the season focuses on how participating in and covering up a murder is affecting the people involved. grief, guilt, anxiety, nightmares. strain and changes in their relationships with each other, friends, and family. again, perhaps we’ll see rd focus on this in a similar way.

- hey btw, does that sound a little familiar to u? it might if you read the secret history. we already know this book is one of the influences behind rd’s s4 plot, but i was surprised at how much overlap is apparent between htg’s plot and the book plot. i made a chart about it lmao. more on that later

- what else fits into a parallel between rd and htg?

- some similarities between characters. htg has a group of law students from privileged backgrounds who are super competitive with each other, similar to the stonewall kids. and there’s the one outsider student who gets into the class last minute, is far less privileged, and who has a tragic past and a head for snooping and investigation.

- there’s a student/teacher affair that gets violent. it goes down pretty much the opposite of in rd; the girl gets pregnant, is totally in love, suggests the affair should be revealed to the teacher’s wife, and then she goes missing and turns up dead (murder #1)

- also, unlike rd where we have only donna’s word, in htg the affair is confirmed, and revealed through a bunch of evidence - dick pics on phones and postmortem pregnancy results, etc

- some other minor details from the show that the rd writers may have reflected upon:

- a window jumper suicide. circumstances very not the same tho

- a blink-and-miss-it scene with a dog named mr. chips, which is the nickname of the film character who rd’s mr. chipping is probably named after (goodbye mr. chips)

- also, ok. the 2 murders story is the show’s long A plot, but each episode also has a short B plot in the form of court cases that annalise and her group of student/interns work on. (btw lead character annalise is a criminal defense lawyer & law professor). details worth mentioning from some of these subplots:

- there’s a case involving cult brainwashing. a former devotee is charged with something terroristic with a bomb she did years ago, idk. annalise has her visit her old cult leader in prison to ask him to help her by testifying that he forced her to participate. this backfires - she falls back under his sway, he escapes custody during the trial, and they run away together, abandoning the family she made after leaving the cult

- in this ep the patty hearst trial is mentioned - the difficulty of trying to legally prove someone acted under duress, or prove they were brainwashed. and how trying to claim both at the same time is a terrible legal defense

- in another case, a woman is charged with murdering her housemaid while sleepwalking. she resists help from annalise bc she feels so guilty. the woman says ‘can u imagine waking up to realize that you killed somebody you loved? that’s what i did.’ except she didn’t; they figure out she was being framed by the real killer, her husband, who was jealous bc he thought he was the only one sleeping with the maid but he found out his teen son was too. yikes

- there is so much cheating in this show smh. anyway,

- these subplots are interesting to compare to rd, but sort of trivial in terms of htg’s overall plot. so what happens in the A plot after murder #2?

- a catch-up if u skipped the plot summary: annalise keating, lawyer, professor, is the central character. she’s direct, takes no shit, and puts up an emotionally impervious wall that keeps almost everyone out. but it’s also apparent from ep1 that she’s really suffering - her marriage is falling apart, she’s cheating and finds out her husband, sam, is too. they agree to repair things and sam seems to be making a big effort, but she keeps catching him in lies that point toward murder #1.

- in the latter half of the season, while she’s helping make sure the kids get away with murder #2 (they accidentally kill sam while pursuing him as the murder suspect), annalise’s grieving process is a focus. there’s an emphasis on her appearance as her armor, guarding her complicated grief over the trauma of her loss and the destruction of her trust. her cold exterior is both a protection and, at the same time, a point of suspicion for police, lawyers, and public who wonder how she can be so unaffected. meanwhile, in private, she has a total breakdown.

- this builds from a parallel that’s played with throughout the season - annalise’s control of her image vs hiding or confronting the truth. like, at one point, it’s evening, she wipes off all her makeup and pulls off her wig, then turns barefaced to her husband and asks him bluntly for the truth, why she caught him in a huge lie. and the flip side, later walking around with her whole look in place, as if nothing is wrong, is part of her effort to cover up the murder.

- i bring this up bc it reminds me of something that (the brilliant, the illuminating) @bettycooperoutfitwatch​ talked about in her 4.05 post, regarding That Sweater.

- in this post, at the flash forward arrest scene, she points out ‘it’s betty cooper in disguise as betty cooper.’ which, like. i’m floored by this observation

- the persona betty originally created to conform to her parents’ unattainable expectations of perfection and normality, now (not for the first time) dialed up and re-purposed to try to disperse suspicion???? love this

- annalise and betty are very Not alike as characters. but it seems that betty, like annalise, will be involved in the murder of her loved one. i’m interested to see if rd will follow htg’s emphasis on emotional turmoil and pretense in the aftermath of trying to get away with something horrible

- oh but that reminds me, i promised a chart

- i haven’t read the secret history and i have no desire to, but i foraged enough details to be able to point out some bare bones similarities going on here. it’s important to include this bc, at the moment, it complicates any attempt to figure out which, if either, inverted murder plot rd might be paralleling at any time.

- in other words, all my speculations here about htg parallels might be worthless bc i might be looking at the wrong text. it’s cool, i think that makes it more fun

- book spoilers in here. sorry it’s small, u can try to zoom in here

- please feel free to jump in with corrections or more details if you’ve read the book

- [update as of 2/25: i’m reading the fuckin book after all, so i may make another post with an updated chart at some point. maybe]

- last thing. in htg, the inverted mystery (whether or not the kids get away with it) is resolved by annalise planting evidence that frames someone else (whom she chooses bc she’s confident she can get him safely out of the charges). the bottom line there is: someone innocent is framed for murder #2.

- and then a new development - one kid involved in murder #2 freaks out and may decide to turn the others in - leads to a 3rd death. hm (post s4 update: that’s jonathan i guess)

- actually no, the real last thing. wikipedia says there’s a subplot in htg s2 that involves blackmailing annalise and others with uhhhh creepy surveillance videos of them, some that incriminate them in murder #2.

- and then, in s3, drawn out over another series of flash forwards, there’s a character death reveal... of the guy who’s most in parallel to jughead.... lmao. and speak nothing of s6. so like, there’s definitely potential for more or continuing parallels here

- i kind of hope not though, bc i don’t have it in me to watch more of this show. it’s Very high strung, i can’t deal with it (post s4 update: no i never watched any more of this show but yes, that was all definitely used by rd)

- bonus: wait do u want some of my opinions on the actual show?? favorite characters: annalise, bonnie, and oliver. i liked the fast pace but the constant tension stressed me out. also, not enough lesbians; i kept expecting bonnie and annalise to kiss. the guy who plays wes.... not a very good actor, is he? viola davis though: amazing. that’s all. watch if u like stress. sorry i spoiled everything

[ayankun]

real quick before I get into season 6

So this is my second time watching Season 6 and I’m p. excited.  This last week or so I’ve been dredging up bits and pieces, but most of it is a blur.  It seems the memories that lasted this whole year were mostly of the huge armored truck and the nonbinary character who works at *spoilers*’s tech startup.

I’m curious to see if the second time through it’ll settle in like it belongs.  I remember Season 5 really didn’t make any sense to me until I saw it again.

But really I’m just excited that in 11 hours I can watch the new stuff?!

But first, before I forget, here’s my last thoughts on Season 5.

So remember how I was surprised at Season 1′s structure, that it folded up nicely down the middle with some pretty tidy symmetry?

None of the other seasons do that.

Instead, I remember particularly strongly how jarring the end of the Ghost Rider arc was in the middle of Season 4.  And then again when the (what I’m calling) Kasius arc also wrapped up mid-season.

I’m not sure when I read about it, but it probably was circa Ghost Rider, that they’d intentionally decided on what I’m pretty sure they called “pods” of episodes, these seasons-within-a-season sort of narratives.

Season 2 sort of kicks it off, what with the race to Terragenesis taking eps 1-10 and the Afterlife/splinter SHIELD stories filling 11-22.  Then Season 3 has the monolith/Maveth mystery to start, followed by Hive & the Inhumans for the second half.  S4 is super poddy, obviously branded as Ghost Rider/Agents of Hydra, and S5 also splits neatly into future!Lighthouse and present day!Lighthouse.

Two points to make on this:

Kasius is such a rockstar villain that I feel really bad for Hale/Ruby/Talbot.  They’re so apples and oranges but having the highlight come first allows for unfavorable comparisons to be made.  It’s like asking any well-to-do Kree to compare Xandarian snail to oops all berries.

Good thing they’d had all this practice writing complete stories in 12 eps, since I’m hoping Season 6 (and obvs Season 7) will still feel as fully formed as their longer antecedents.

Anyway, that first point is my major point for S5.

S3 already feels like the second half of S2, and its internal halves are the most similar to each other as any of the other “pods,” so it’s not like people have a reason to go around saying “I liked the first half of the season waaay better than the second.”

(although I might.  I might say that, actually.  but not because the halves were branded separately from one another)

And S4, though the two halves are barely identifiable as coming from the same show much less the same season, they’re both good.  Robbie Reyes is perfect.  The effort to incorporate new MCU topics/aesthetic from Doctor Strange is great.  Robots who just want to be a real girl is my JAM.  All the Framework cameos really make my day!  And then Robbie Reyes comes back all deus ex machina (ironic) and saves the day, and

it makes sense that he does because the function and nature of the Darkhold was well established in part 1 and

it’s GREAT that he does because he’s perfect and we miss him.

Then here comes S5.  I really really respect so much about the creative decisions that took the story where it went (ie, outside Papa MCU’s sphere of interference), and getting to reuse the same set in a different context while minimizing “on-location” shoots is just technical and financial genius, okay. 

But there’s so much about the first half, in the future, that compels me waaaaaaay more than the gritty anger of the second half. 

Kasius, WOW what a villain.  Dominic Rains, everyone.  I have nothing unkind to say about the performance, the character, anything.  Impeccable.  Spectacular.  Perfection.

The mystery of the season opener!  We had the tag scene where Coulson’s “in space” and plenty of time to ruminate on the how and why, especially with Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 coming out right as S4 ended and Thor: Ragnarok literally sizzling in the theaters at the same time as this season started.  They answer the question by the end of the episode, but not before several characters come up with and pursue several different theories, and that’s fun.

What a way to capitalize on the Inhuman storyline your show’s been about for years now, without forcing Papa MCU to contend with all this good work you’ve been doing.  Just go somewhere he can’t reach you (the future), and then un-write all of it anyway.  V. tidy.  Extra style points will be awarded.

LEITMOTIFS.  If y’all’ve seen BSG, then you know Bear McCreary is a master of the art.  But this season has so many good themes, my friends.  The Daisy/Quake theme that’s been knocking around for a season is here in full force, and Sinara’s is the best bad guy theme you could have wanted, and dearest sweetest Flint has the best great guy theme you ever heard.

Just, while we’re here.  Sinara.  She says nothing for episodes (it feels like, I wasn’t counting) and her first line is a scornfully growled “compassion.”  Give it up for Florence Faivre !!!  She hardly has any lines but you always know exactly what she’s thinking and what she’s about.  Sinara and Kasius have the richest on-screen chemistry of anybody on any show from any era fight me on this I dare you.

Mack’s coming down from his second life in the Framework, and that suuuuucks that these folks never have a moment to rest before barreling into their next story.  But he gets to be a father to Flint!  And Yo-Yo gets to be a mother!!!  UGH why couldn’t they have brought Flint instead of Deke lololol oh well.

I think I know another reason why Lincoln seems overhyped to me.  That other Inhuman, Ben I think his name is?  He’s in like two episodes, serves a narrative purpose, and is disposed.  I know Lincoln’s in like 18 times as many episodes but they have the same exact overall impact on my brain-hole.  Imagine if it was Ben that came back with them instead of Deke.  That’s how I feel about Lincoln.  Like, how did this obviously disposable character make it this far?

Then you have Deke.  You love to hate him.  He’s a very well-fashioned character who is flawless in making you feel the way the showrunners want you to feel.  That’s the kind of character that gets killed off twice and still comes back, and it doesn’t surprise you.

So, Enoch.  Enoch is everyone’s favorite character, right?  Right.  Give me genderless robots with a soft spot for humanity ANY DAY.  PLEASE where are they I need them.  (I’m un-repressing memories of S6 and I feel like somehow I should be careful what I wish for)  Man I remember with 1000% clarity the absolute glee I felt sitting down for the opening montage of S5 the first time, how ballsy weird it was, just watching this freaky bald alien of a man go swimming with some fun electro pop number playing in the background.  100/10 please make more television like this

 More monoliths!!  The time one is so pretty!

(remember when there were more monoliths and no one knew where they came from or what they did but then it didn’t matter because they got instantly exploded?)

The low-key obvious answers to the season’s questions, what with the Inhumans running all over the shop, Quake there to tear everything down and Flint there to put the pieces back together I’m not crying you’re crying

Oh man, and Simmons getting to mentor not one but two Inhuman youths to be confident and trust in themselves and their powers.  What a ways from the fear-panic response to Daisy when she turned.

Also, yeah, it has to be said, this show’s blatant “you’re different and that’s okay” agenda sits very well with me.  Agents of SHIELD says LGBTQ+ rights!

So anyway, part 2 falls a little flat for me because its strength is its themes, but I’m not really compelled by the stakes and definitely not by the villains and not really even by the intra-team drama.

Obviously S2 touched on parenthood, but it was pretty specific.  S5 digs in and brings us a lot more on the topic.

Kasius desperately desires his father’s approval but very deeply despises the methods and the people who earn it.

Hale was indoctrinated by Hydra and was very earnest in wanting to uphold the values of the organization, until the organization (and Whitehall) shared with her their narrow appreciation of the gift of her loyalty.  Even then, she struggles to make sense of this loyalty, only realizing too late that being a good Hydra pawn and a good parent are categorically mutually exclusive.

Ruby, obviously, is like a mini-Kasius, the brave-faced rebel who wears her mother’s disappointment on her sleeve like a badge of honor to pretend that it isn’t crippling her.

The Von Strucker kid, boy is he messed up (and his Hydra dad had something to do with it)

((echos of Ward are still heard even this far after his demise, and we know what his father figures were like))

Poor Talbot, got some brain damage and some Hydra conditioning on top of that, cracked that noggin wide open.  He just wanted to do good by his family.  Just wanted his son to know he loves him.

Polly and Robin.  The daughter who needs constant special care because she’s stuck inside her own mind and the mother who’s been through hell and back and still manages to do her best.  Even when she knows she won’t always be there for her daughter.  Even when she knows she’ll be replaced.

May getting a glimpse at the life she and Andrew once talked about.  Getting a chance to do right by that little girl.

Mack recovering from getting that same glimpse, from the echoing memories of a life time spent with his greatest regret erased.  Being roped into being a thug and threatening that dad without knowing the meaning behind his threat -- being told that people like him don’t deserve the privilege of parenthood.  But then getting to know Flint, and having Yo-Yo at his side while they fast track this kid through all the things he’s gonna need to know in order to be the Big Damn Hero the world needs him to be.

The timey-wimey promise that FitzSimmons will one day be parents to a brilliant daughter who will unfortunately give birth to a Deke.

Coulson and Daisy.  Another parent placing enormous expectations on his daughter, desperate that she be ready for his responsibilities because his time is running out.  A daughter who mishandles these expectations and refuses to stop fighting a losing battle, not because she’s not ready to step up, but because she doesn’t want to face the fact that she’s losing the man who raised her.

Anyway, aside from all this good Theme work, part 2 wades perfunctorily through musty remnants of the previous season, from The Doctor to The Russian.  Which makes sense, because that season ended in a way that left so many loose threads -- but then this season comes along and summarily ties them up, all cute little bows, the lot of them.  Dusts its hands.  Nothing to see here.  Move along now.  Time’s up.