#(This is also not a negative react to the ep it's actually one of my favorite 2020 eps to this day)

[koushirouizumi]

Me, as I prepare to (eventually) gif the entirety of DigiAdv 2020 Episode 36:

[astrolavas]

Hey Astrolavas, Idk if you still answers Ask. But I wanted to know what to expect or do you want to happen with Hunter in the last ep of How do you want his arc to end?

cracks my knuckles OKAY, SO...

when it comes to just watching and dreaming, i feel like he probably isn't going to have too much focus on him plot/character-arc-wise so there isn't going to be any main subplot for him, but i would love to see some particular scenes or things still.

we know he's going to go against belos again (not on his own but. he WILL confront him again) so that....... that's a scene that i feel like has so much potential to be so good and so satisfying.

belos creating hunter as caleb's next disposable copy, seeing him as only another number vs belos being defeated by his own "creation"... having that moment of realization and fear as he's going down, knowing that none of his plans succeeded and that hunter is going to outlive him. the sweet, sweet karma and irony of it all...

belos already losing it, seeing "ghosts" of caleb and the grimwalkers, just getting worse and worse in his obsession and pursuit for revenge. and now, with hunter having brown eyes... with belos not having seen "caleb's" eyes in almost 400 years............ this is just very interesting to me. see, i still miss his magenta eyes a lot sometimes </3 especially since they were his only "visible" grimwalker trait, but i feel like THIS might be why they changed hunter's eye color. belos seeing "caleb's" eyes on hunter, belos seeing eda with evelyn's haircut too, him just completely........ freaking out. AGH.

and all of this, the eye color change, along with the fact that belos keeps calling hunter "caleb", how no one- not even luz- has called him out on it as of yet... how when he sees hunter again, next episode, sporting the brown eye color at that, he's definitely gonna call him caleb again....... i'd rly love to see a throwback to either hunter's "my name... is hunter" scene with luz or his "my name isn't caleb, it's hunter" scene with emerald entrails. said in a different, more serious tone; in like a dramatic finale moment of confronting belos.... AGHGHHHH YEAH???? yeah..... that'd be neat.

besides that, i'd love to see more of his grief for flapjack.

we've seen him being very clearly affected by it in ftf, and the arc was semi-resolved for a moment with the "flapjack will always be with you" metaphor thing, but it was also... more about the problem of him pushing down his feelings. in ftf, he was trying to mask his grief and sadness with anger and coldness (a similar defense mechanism and behaviour that we've seen from him in s2a, or labyrinth runners, or like any instance when he's not feeling well. that's how he always reacts to traumatic events, negative feelings or hard moments in his life. it's what he had to do in order to survive in the coven). so he kept pushing people away, distancing himself from others, acting irritable, focusing solely on the mission at hand, just wanting to find belos immediately; thinking about literally anything but flapjack or what happened just a few hours prior, cuz it hurts too much to think about it. but just like willow had her arc of repression and finally realized she can rely on other people too and allowed herself to show feelings and vulnerability instead of letting it all consume her from the inside out, hunter similarly let himself show some of that vulnerability to his friends, he let himself think of flapjack for a moment, to truly miss him, and he realized a part of him is always going to be with him. (hunter and willow both actually struggle with vulnerability and repression but in totally different ways and it's also so interesting, but. that's an essay for another day so kxjsjsk)

but yeah, even though the initial stage of grief has been slightly resolved, and he can go on without as strong feelings of anger and without repressing what he feels, this is still only a start. because we see he misses flapjack, he's still gonna mourn flapjack for a long long time; he hasn't even had the time to truly go through it, and he probably will once belos is dealt with and everything kinda settles down, and he gets a true moment to breathe, goes back to a daily routine... and flapjack is not with him. like, that grief and hurt is still there, and it's not going anywhere, just moving forward.

so... i'd like to see one more scene dedicated to flapjack in the next episode. sth that'll be private, sth just between hunter and flapjack, sth quiet maybe. it can even be hunter talking to himself as if he was talking "to" flapjack (like in the "i wish you were here" scene kinda) or saying sth abt flapjack to belos, i'd just love to see more to feel fully satisfied, cuz it doesn't really feel "concluded" at the moment. (and on one side, sure! it's not going to be for a long while, but also.... sth more.. would be so nice) not sure if we're actually going to get a scene like that, however, cuz there's gonna be little time so h.......... but i would like it.

another thing i'd love to see is a hunter and darius reunion, and possibly even a talk.

there's!? so much they can talk about??!? their complicated past in the coven, darius' mentor, the previous golden guards, sewing, hunter's grief and how darius has experience with it too...... yeah. like, their arc doesn't feel complete, they haven't interacted since asias (the only episode they directly interacted with each other, in fact) and have only been mentioned by one another a few times and it's been merely hinted that their relationship has progressed positively behind the scenes. so, there should be a conclusion here. a reunion, a talk, possibly a future mentorship of sorts. that'd be cool.

now, as we're moving towards the end.......

i'd really love hunter to be adopted by camila. there are ofc other options but this one just feels so, so, SO good, and it fits the narrative so well, it fits the story so well, it's perfect for both him and the nocedas. UGHHH... so that'd be cool.

i know sth like this likely won't happen (cuz time restraints and all that), but imagining... the quiet after the Last Big Battle; after belos is defeated and everything starts settling down. everyone else reuniting with their families and hunter just... standing there; cuz he's not sure what he's meant to do now or where to go, now that everything is over. now that he can breathe, now that the world can go on. camila approaching him and inviting him to stay with them for good, because ofc there's NO way she's just going to make him move out or leave him be when he has nowhere to go, yet she still gives him a choice to decline if it's not sth he wants. but it IS what he wants... hunter just feeling happy but also being in such disbelief because whoa??!?...... aughhh you know??!? hunter noceda... camila, get hunter and vee those official adoption certificates ASAP.

as for the possible epilogue/timeskip/credits/future:

we know hunter wants to learn how to carve palismen. the clawthornes are palisman carvers, eda has that palistrom seed... a clawthorne woodcarving mentorship sounds too perfect, i'd LOVE to see it. i feel like hunter would love to be able to make palismen, whether it be for himself or others or just for the sake of creating and bringing new creatures to life... it could make him rly happy, imo. also the contrast between hunter peacefully carving palismen, maybe working towards making palistroms non-endangered again or working with the bat queen, just.. caring for these little beings... vs belos destroying, killing, feeding off palismen; to the point where they almost go extinct, trapping them in his mind, treating them like dangerous pests. life vs death... AGHGHHHH

we know he'd like to attend hexside and play flyer derby too! i'd love to see a snippet of him at hexside post-canon, maybe even in a multitrack uniform. and an emerald entrails comeback <3 with hunter borrowing (bird-shaped?) stringbean from luz for the games, or maybe even having his own new (wolf?) palisman, if enough time passes and it's sth he decides he wants.

and just........ some cool slife-of-life post-canon things. there are so, so many things he can do and so many things i'd love to see, agh....... yeah.

[watery-melon-baller]

so I was bored and reading through older Merlin fanfics when I got curious and wondered what exactly the oldest Merlin fanfic was, so I decided to do some digging! join me on this journey I made at 4am on my phone knowing full well I had to get up at 9am the next day

the shows first episode aired on Sept 20, 2008 so we are keeping that in mind when we search. also all fics I found here are linked at the bottom if u wanna go check them out :-)

First I decided to check ao3 since it's easy enough. there's 53k fics but this was the very first one in the Merlin tag

the author's note says that this was written immediately after the second episode which makes sense since this was 8 days after the 1st ep.

also love the my first work in this fandom tag. my guy. you're one of the the first people to write fic for this fandom, and THE first to post it on ao3.

next was fanfiction.net. Now I used to hang around on here quite a bit in my youth so I do know how to navigate it somewhat

merlin is the 12th most popular TV show on fanfic.net! With a whole 27.3k fics. I'm very interested by the fact that there's only 27k on fanfic.net while ao3 has around 50k fics (as of Oct 2023). I was expecting fanfic.net to have more fics, I wonder why it's the other way around this time. Maybe it's because by then ao3 was already in existence and established as a reliable place to post fic? I know lots of older fic writers only posted on ao3 as a way to have a backup of their fics? If anyone has any theories feel free to contribute!

and here's the first fics posted on fanfic.net! All by the same person on the same day. I'm assuming faults is the first one posted since it's at the bottom, but alk of them were posted oct 12, 3 weeks after the first episode aired. Pretty old, but not as old as the ao3 fic.

Finally I checked livejournal (shudders). I've used it a few times before but I was very unsure how to get around, and wound up just searching the oldest results for "Merlin BBC" (and here's the link to that if you wanna bounce arohnd and see old fandom stuff from the first episode)

The first (and oldest) post I found was someone reacting to the trailer which. fair. Just because the cgi is shit doesn't mean the show is (yes it does </3)

besides a few posts speculating about the show I also found the origin of the Merlin tag/community on livejournal, created just a day before the first episode aired. it also includes some lovely icons (and people made many many more after the 1st episode aired)

most of the posts after this were people's reactions to the 1st episode. a lot of them were positive, a lot were already shipping merthur, and a few were negative

this is my favorite review actually. understandable reaction.

and finally we get to our first fic on livejournal!! this one was posted Sept 23, just 3 days after the show and 5 days before the one on ao3 was first posted. it looks like we have our winner and this is the very first BBC Merlin fanfic ever written/posted!!

(I have no clue what other forums/websites were active at the time since I wasn't part of the fandom then. I checked these 3 websites because tbats what I know of but it appears that out of of these three livejournal has the oldest fic. If anyone knows where else Merlin fic was posted and can find an older one then this then feel free to share it but for now it's safe to say this one is the oldest fic in the fandom)

that concludes our journey folks! I've linked all 3 fics at the bottom if you're interested in reading them and now you can brag and say you've read the oldest fic in the Merlin fandom. congrats. i hope you had fun reading this

ao3 fanfic.net livejournal

[fangirleaconmigo]

I would love to hear your bitter rant abt TWN Eskel

Ok Nonny, duck and cover. Here it comes.

I tend to delay making posts like this because when I watch something (in this case, the botched Episode 2 of Season 2) and get pissed off, I like to calm down and think before I speak.

But then time passes, and it’s like….it’s too late. It’d be weird now. (this is actually the story of my entire life and communication style) But if you’re interested in my Eskel rant, I am happy to oblige.

Before I do, please know I am not just reflexively negative. I reviewed S2 Ep 1 and gave it an A. I posted a long ass blog post saying how much I loved it. The vast, vast majority of the space I take up on social media is focused on positivity and restraint. But I’m a human being too, and like anyone else on this planet, I cannot possibly be expected to love literally everything.

So DO NOT CLICK OR READ IF TWN CRITIQUE IS GOING TO BUM YOU OUT OR RUIN YOUR ENJOYMENT OF IT. Protect your peace. Curate your fandom experience. I want you to be happy and comfortable here first and foremost, I do not need anyone to read this who doesn't want to.

So, for me (book fan, fan of witchers and Eskel), Season 2 Ep 2 failed at everything it attempted regarding the parts set at Kaer Morhen. It failed at showing basic respect for the fans. It failed at telling the original story. It also failed at telling its own story. It also introduced brand spanking new misogyny to the story and to the wolves that was so goddamn disappointing to watch.

It failed at having basic respect for the fans. You can change almost everything about a story. But I firmly believe that the major things like deaths should stay the same. Killing off a character that does not die in the books is a dick move. You can only get away with it if your new story is so powerful and brilliant that it makes people appreciate it for what it is. But it didn’t do that either.

It failed at telling the original story: In book canon (on which the show is ostensibly based) Eskel is the gentlest, most gentlemanly witcher we ever meet! He is kind. He is mannerly. He is loyal. He is protective. I did a whole character breakdown here.

TWN made him a predatory, misogynistic creep. He is aggressive and shitty and creepy to Ciri. He even implies to Geralt that if he would have found Ciri, he wouldn’t have adopted her. He would have fucked her. Seriously I could barely watch, it was painful. I was ill.

But he was infected by the leshy! And we just wanted his death to have impact.

No! That story failed too! They threw the original story in the trash, then replaced it with a weak story that didn't work on it's own merits.

It failed because it did not establish Eskel as a character first. It did not establish his friendship with Geralt first. And no one in the story seemed to be surprised by his behavior. So there was NOTHING in that story that made me FEEL or SEE that it was unusual behavior for Eskel.

If a character is acting the literal opposite of their personality, people would have reacted! When he walked in acting like a giant weirdo Geralt would have hog tied him and performed an exorcism lol. He never once said what the fuck is going on with you. Neither did anyone else.

You can tell me that he was infected by the leshy and that this was unusual behavior for him, but if you show me the opposite thing, (no one taking much note of it) it is muddled, weak storytelling. The ‘after’ scene in the hall could not retroactively change the order in which people experienced his arc. Also, it couldn’t fix this glaring error.

So you’ve disappointed and screwed over people who love Eskel. And you’ve had zero effect on people who didn’t know Eskel. No one who was watching him for the first time gave a shit that he died, because from scene one he was a complete piece of shit. So his death didn’t even have an impact.

Its only job in the narrative was to be vague danger hits unexpectedly close to home making Geralt pivot from ‘hide Ciri away’ to ‘teach Ciri to fend for herself’. There were a million other ways they could have done that. It wasn’t powerful. It wasn’t necessary.

So why does that matter? I’ve seen people go “But he’s a minor character who cares?” I mean, if you don’t love that character then no, you don’t care. And you don’t have to! People connect to different characters. It is allowed. I am fully aware that this is largely a book reader complaint, and it doesn’t need to impact your enjoyment of the show. It shouldn’t! It is also an Eskel fan complaint (which includes lots of gamers), and not everyone is that either. You have my blessing and my envy to not care.

But I would like to differentiate between minor and insignificant. In the books, Geralt and Ciri are the main characters. (Geralt starts out as the main character and it kind of segues into focusing more and more on Ciri.)

And Kaer Morhen is essential to grounding, to defining, to understanding, and to humanizing both Geralt and Ciri. Kaer Morhen may only appear “live” in one book, but this place explains entirely how Geralt became Geralt. And it is (along with Yen) what gives Ciri the strength and resources to survive and vanquish her foes. She dreams about Kaer Morhen. She has visions of it. She recalls their lessons at the most pivotal moments throughout the entirety of her journey. Kaer Morhen may not be ‘on the page’ much, but it is at the heart of literally everything.

And Eskel is the witcher who (other than Vesemir) has known Geralt the longest. They are the same age. They were childhood best friends who played together. He is literally the only living person who was a child alongside Geralt. He knows him and anchors him in a way no one else could. He is singular and unique in that regard. There is something powerful about a story with beings who have been almost wiped out in genocides and are the last of their kinds. It defines Geralt in so many ways. And Eskel is an inextricable part of that.

And Eskel’s protectiveness of Ciri and his kindness to her, makes a huge difference in her life. Also, ETA: Eskel is the first witcher Ciri sees who isn’t Geralt and she is terrified because of how he looks. She is scared when she arrives at Kaer Morhen. But then she learns they are not scary. They are safe and they take care of her. So she learns not to be afraid or judge based on outward appearances. And that is because of Eskel.

So you can say that Eskel is a minor character, but you cannot say that he is insignificant to the story, because he is massively significant to the main characters.

And not only did this episode fuck up him, it fucked up that entire dynamic.

Kaer Morhen is a place of safety and family for Ciri and she calls upon it for strength for the rest of her life. And instead of Geralt walking in and saying “She is our destiny” and them pitching together to train and love and raise her, you have them ignoring her, being like ‘who the fuck is this’ and also sexually harrassing her? Like sobs What was the reason??? Then Geralt kills Eskel??? Kills him??? And Lambert is like…this is all Ciri’s fault?? What the fuck? We didn’t even know Ciri was involved yet. It was so confusing. I was like what the fuck are you saying, Lambert??? It was like a nightmare! Who are these people?? Lmaosob.

And Kaer Morhen itself, this mystical, melancholy place that is speaks of brothers lost that must be hidden at all costs, they bring like an entire group of sex workers there? Geralt can say the place is hidden. But if you show me that everyone and their mother parties there, I don’t feel it.

And the explanation of ‘they all somehow got black out drunk literally simultaneously and they get all the sex workers black out drunk and that is why not a single one of them objected to it, and then Vesemir was totally cool with it because that is both possible, and somehow makes it better?’

But even worse was the misogyny that was introduced. I’m gonna switch to feminist killjoy mode, and I know some of these things I absolutely hated, quite a few of you loved. And that is fine. I respect you and I love you and I would never tell people how to feel about it. But here is what I absolutely loathed.

As a feminist, one of the most important ways to tell if someone’s feminism is real is how they treat sex workers. Feminism is for EVERY WOMAN. ALL. NO FUCKING EXCEPTIONS. The minute someone is degrading of sex workers, I see their true colors. Their true colors are respectability politics, girlbossery, and dignity for some. It cuts through a lot of bullshit.

A lot of people see TWN as feminist. And there are FOR SURE some strong feminist themes that I appreciate. But in this episode it was just a big old rotten turd in that respect. (that’s the technical term).

They introduced sex workers so that they could show a naked dead female body. How regressive is that? What the fuck? They also introduced sex workers to act as a ‘scare tactic’ and ‘cautionary tale’ for Ciri. What the fuckkkkkkkkk man help me out here I’m crying.

And I will say that I adore 90% of what they did with Geralt and Ciri this season. I could write a positive post about that if anyone wanted to wash the taste of my disappointment out of their mouths. But again, I am focusing on this ep, and it was just a turd all the way around.

When Geralt stepped THREATENINGLY into Danica’s face because she implied Ciri could become a sex worker, what the fuckkkkk. I KNOW people think that is cute. I respect your point of view. I appreciate you. But I have to disagree. I hated it with my whole heart.

You add that to Vesemir’s little remark about Ciri dancing on tables that was supposed to upset Geralt, and we have more of the same.

Geralt HAS NEVER AND WOULD NEVER be the “I’m bringing a gun to my daughter’s first date” kind of dad. He’s never been the “I'm safeguarding my daughter’s vagina so she keeps her virtue” kind of dad.

Y’all. I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I hate it. It creeps me the fuckout. The ENTIRE POINT of Geralt’s relationship with Ciri is that he protects her AUTONOMY. Not her VIRTUE. Do we not see how those two things are literal opposites? Geralt cares about protecting Ciri. From having to kill people. From being traumatized. From being killed or forced to have babies against her will. Not from having fun (dancing on tables??!!). And his worst nightmare is not a sex worker.

HE GOES TO THEM!! He isn’t disgusted by them. To have him again, STEP THREATENINGLY towards Danica to show ‘oh he’s a real dad’ I’m sorry I despise it. I hate that model of fatherhood. The one that is focused on guarding virtue. And Geralt of Rivia baby I’m so sorry that ugly bitch (episode 2) did that to you.

I can have a sense of humor about myself ok I know I’m not in the majority. I know that’s the model of fatherhood that people like. They think it’s cute. But we are all individuals and have our own reactions to things, and that is mine.

I even hated how they had him not remember Danica. Every time she was on screen it was ‘haha see how crappy all these witchers treat them?’ And they also got them all black out drunk??

Holy shit you guys. This is what the creators of this show think the ‘rugged, rough around the edges’ masculinity of witchers is all about. Gahhhhhhhhhh.

And the one bright spot, Geralt and Vesemir, they ended up taking away from me when Vesemir betrays Geralt and TRIES TO DOSE CIRI????

So look. Again. There are so many things I do love about the show. I could wax complimentary about the parts I love if you guys want me to. I love SO MUCH about what they've done with Yen. The sorceresses. I love that they've given them genuine friendships. I could also talk about that. I am obsessed with Myanna Buring as Tissaia. We know how I feel about Joey's Jaskier. I mean it's not the cast's fault! I am fully, fully in love with Yasen Atour as Coën, he was absolutely perfect. I wouldn't be so into the fandom if there weren't many things that I love.

But the fact is, TWN just does not ‘get’ witchers. They do not understand their oppressions (class, mostly) or how power structures exploit them. They made this plainly obvious in the lore they created for the sacking of Kaer Morhen and the ‘Vesemir doses Ciri’ storyline. (that is a whole other post) They do not understand this model of masculinity. They made this plainly obvious with this episode.

Which, these are big things to not ‘get’ for a show that is called The Witcher.

But this is probably just fine for most people! If they have no strong attachments to the themes and spirit of the books, I'm sure it is fine. I understand that this is a niche nerd rant and that I feel passionately about something most people do not! That’s ok. That’s the nerd life baby.

This has been my rant.

[boysplanetrecaps]

Boys Planet Eps 9-10 Recap: Over Me

Hello, team BP! As you may know, I already wrote a recap/master post for episode 9, and another one for episode 10. This recap focuses just on the stuff that’s relevant to team Over Me -- their rehearsal period in episode 9 as well as their rehearsal footage and performance in episode 10. But you’ll have to get over the read more first. 

The Trainees

Here’s a list of the trainees in this group along with their rank as of episode 8 and their two previous missions:

Zhang Hao 2 / Kill This Love/ Tomboy Jay 12/ Love Me Right / Home Ricky 14/ Back Door /Rush Hour Chen Kuan Jui 22 / Kill This Love/ Butterfly Lee Jeong Hyeon 24 / Love Me Right / Gang

The First Rehearsal Segment

At 43:13 in Episode 9, we visit with team Over Me for about 4.5 minutes. 

The camera focuses on the Leader sticker on the floor, next to a bit of red fluff that must have come from those red fabric bands the boys are using in their dance. Looks like Yoon Jongwoo just took the sticker off and threw it, or dropped it, on the floor. 

Zhang Hao is saying, “It must’ve been really hard to be a leader of 10 people.” Already, there’s a lot to unpack there. They’re talking about Yoon Jongwoo, clearly. But saying it like that sounds like they’re excusing something about him, something negative about him. Right? Like the way that when the poor Supercharger group fell apart at the self-evaluation performance, the trainees said, “Oh, this choreography must be super hard.” You talk like that when you’re excusing something negative.

Remember how I said, when I talked about T h e  G r e a t  R e s h u f f l i n g  that I think they got rid of Jongwoo in part because they were just sick of him, and wanted Hao as the leader instead? I do think that happened. I think Jongwoo got stuck in a sort of negative headspace and people weren’t enjoying it. I think it was easier for Jongwoo to be the comeback kid than to be an actual contender. My take is that he’s climbed so high that now he’s scared to fall, and it’s making him act less friendly and warm than he used to. I could be wrong about all of this, of course.

That said, I think the PRIMARY reason they kicked out Jongwoo is that he was going to steal the show. As a result, the performance just won't be as good as it could have been. I feel sad about that. 

But as much of a bummer as it is, given the situation, I can’t blame Hao and the others for doing what they had to do to succeed. They didn’t create the situation; they just reacted to it. And I like Hao! I’ve liked him since the start of the show. 

The team nominates Hao to be the leader, and we’ve seen him do well as a leader in the past so it should go ok. After all, as he reminds us, he studied to be a music teacher and is “passionate about teaching others.” Aww, I get it, Hao. He promises to help everyone shine well on stage. Everyone but Keita and Yoon Jungwoo.

After electing Hao the leader, the team immediately also gives Hao the Killing Part. Lee Jungyeon gets to keep sub-vocal 2 that he wrote his own rap for, and as it turns out, he can also sing decently well (he’s a bit pitchy, but he has a nice tone and can probably work on it). We see almost nothing of Chen Kuan Jui this whole time, and he ends up with sub-vocal 4, so I guess Hao is taking sub-vocal 3 as well as the killing part. 

And Hao feels certain they’ll win first place. Well, I was pretty sure that whatever 5 random trainees ended up in this song, this would be the winning team, so there’s that. 

Again, we see absolutely nothing of them rehearsing. We didn’t see any of them rehearsing in episode 8, either. Is the show purposefully keeping the choreo a surprise until we see them actually doing it? 

Second Rehearsal Segment + Performance

Skip to 1:09:56 in episode 10 for the rest of the performance. 

So, I probably could have gotten this recap out sooner -- I was all up to date and I got most of all of this written -- but then I kind of stalled out because I just didn’t really want to talk about what happens with Over Me. It’s actually made me genuinely sad. My fella was like, you seem down, are you ok? And I had to be like, “I’m sad about what happened on my silly Korean reality show.” To his credit, he just listened and agreed with me a lot. 

What could it be? What could have made BPR-Noona so sad? Let’s back up to the beginning of the rehearsal footage! You’ll find out either soon, or next episode! Let me give you 30 minutes of random filler first! 

Oh no wait, I don’t work for MNET. I’ll get to the point fairly quickly. 

As the boys take the stage, the judges talk about how this is a sexy song, and how it’s difficult to  perform on stage.

We see that some people in the audience are holding up Lee Jong Hyeon signs so that’s good, because right now there are like, 5 or 6 really popular foreign trainees, so we’ll need to pump up any slightly viable Korean candidates to make sure to get them into top 9 to replace them foreigners!.... Sigh. 

They all introduce themselves, and the audience goes crazy. 

Back stage, Yoon Jong Woo graciously wishes them well. Also Park Hanbin is holding a tiny fan. There’s so much to love about this picture.

But soon we skip back in time…. 

We skip to a rehearsal with the judges -- they’re dancing in front of Solji and we see Solji look like this: 

She asks if they’re going to record like this, because their singing seems half hearted, almost like they’re embarrassed of how sexy the song is. Ricky says they haven’t been practicing the vocals, and we’re left wondering -- what is going wrong with their rehearsals? 

Because MNET is incapable of telling a story in order, we now do a flashback inside a flashback, because that’s confusing! 

We skip to the day before. The team is working on the “rotations”, which seems to be formation changes. It doesn’t seem to be going very well, and as they’re trying to fix mistakes, Zhang Hao wants to give every single suggestion a chance. It seems to be confusing and frustrating for everyone. In fact, Chen Kuan Jui ends up sitting out the hall, just needing a few minutes to himself to calm down. (Interestingly, CKJ and Zhang Hao speak Korean when they’re alone together; CKJ is from Taiwan, so his language is actually totally different from Zhang Hao’s, but it’s interesting that the language they choose is Korean.)

We see the team at dance rehearsal with one of the psychopath dance teachers. The choreographer of the piece is there, and she’s the woman who did the killing part in the demo -- I pretty much assumed that she was the choreographer, so good job me! They ask the team how Hao is doing as a leader, and they don’t say anything for a moment, so the psycho says, “Ah, I see,” and he’s kind of right. 

CKJ interviews that Zhang Hao isn't really doing a good job as a leader because they try every suggestion every time and maybe that’s not so great. Lee Jeong Hyeon says it was inefficient and Ricky says they still don’t know what to do. 

Hey maybe you shouldn’t have kicked out Yoon Jongwoo and Keita because things tend to work out better when they’re around 

The group rehearses their dance in front of psycho judge and they actually bump into each other and stuff. It’d be comical if the stakes weren’t so high. The psycho dance teacher is like, what the fuck? And for once I’m with him. They have no excuse. The choreographer doesn’t say a word the whole time (that we see). I think she’s kind of… over this. So to speak. 

Later on Solji meets with Zhang Hao, apparently at his request. (Can I request to meet with Solji? I just want to chat about like, singing and kpop and I don’t know, life? I like Solji.) He tells her that he’s just having trouble figuring out how to lead the team.

 She basically tells him worry less about everyone’s emotions, and to be more firm and more in control. 

Next day, Hao goes in early and rearranges the choreo himself. When the team comes in, he teaches the new rotations and they begin working on it. It seems to be working a lot better now. 

Later, we see them at the recording studio, which is something we haven’t seen with any other group. Ricky gets praised for his pronunciation (but not his  vocals in general, which I think also deserve praise) and Lee Jong Hyeon gets told he sounds really professional in both singing and rap. We don’t see Jay singing, because the show hates him. We barely even see him at all. 

Look at him tucked in a corner. Come on, Jay, push for yourself just a little, man! 

We skip forward and now it’s D-day. 

They come out and the stage is all draped in red fabric. 

To continue with your Korean reading skills, 팀 says "team", as in, the English word spelled in Korean letters. The thing that looks like a capital E is a T, the straight line is an i, and the square is an M.

Part of me wishes they’d just gone full tilt and decorated the stage with like, multiple beds. But I guess the gauze draped over pianos (?) was as close to that as they’d dare. 

There’s a cute moment backstage when Yoon Jongwoo tells Takuto to cover his eyes, and Takuto, possibly not knowing that they’re joking with him, says “I can watch sexy stuff too.” 

The performance begins. 

My take:

I’m sorry to be kind of negative in these reviews. I really think all 28 trainees are exhausted emotionally and physically at this point, just living off of adrenaline for three months, and it’s starting to catch up to them. And yeah, this performance wasn’t quite… quite.

Also, stylist noonas fucked over Jay. 

I have to mentioning the problem with his styling up top, because I think it’s at least PART of what went wrong in terms of the vote. He’s capable of looking so much better than this -- what happened here? They made his eyebrows too dark, I think? And the choker screws with his proportions in a really bad way. Plus his chest is so light -- he needed to have consistent coloring from his neck down to wherever you could see with the shirt open. I don’t know, this just is all wrong. I’m not a stylist so I don’t know how to fix it but I’d start by taking the choker off for sure.

As for the actual performances...

Did you ever watch the video for Love Talk by WayV? I might catch hell from N-Citizens for this but that doesn’t give me any sparkles in my pants. It’s more like I cringe so hard, I almost fold inward and disappear into subspace -- except when Ten is on screen. Ten’s the only one who seems completely at ease with the overtly sexy message of the song. (If you’re not familiar, Ten is the one on screen from 0:00 to 0:20, among other times.) Everyone else is trying to look sexy or “serious” or… IDK, undressed, whatever. But Ten, I buy. There’s a reason that SM gave him Birthday. Whether he specifically makes your pants sparkle, you have to acknowledge that he owns this concept. Most people simply do not.

It’s really, really difficult to sell sexy without seeming sleazy, or inappropriately aggressive, or even worse, sleepy. I think a lot of trainees think that just staring at the camera dead eyed is sexy but it’s really not. I don’t know WHAT it is, to be honest. I just know that Ten can do it, and Kai can do it, and Joohoney and IM from Monsta X can do it. 

On this team, Chen Kuan Jui can do it. CKJ was utterly fearless and completely, 100%, “in” the song. I don’t find CKJ sexually attractive in particular -- who knows why one does or doesn’t find a particular person sexy -- but his fancam is sexy AF. I wish we could see him more, that he wasn’t behind the other trainees. I wish it was basically just a CKJ dance solo. Heck, even my fella picked CKJ out as obviously the best dancer in this group, and when the song was over said, “I kept waiting for that one blonde guy (he meant CKJ) to do a dance solo and he never did.”

Ricky was really good too, of course. I still think he’s occasionally just a tiny bit stiff in his body, but in terms of confidence, comfort level with the song, and facial expressions, he does great. He knows how to smile in a sexy way -- I think that’s super important. And his vocals are also really good. He’s just sort of outclassed by CKJ, for me. Also, if you watch either of their fancams, it really looks like they’re in two different songs, so I wish the group had spent a bit more time figuring out what style of dancing they were going for.

If I was only allowed to vote for one person, though, I would have voted for Jay, because he’s the one who I would least want replaced by some other trainee for this performance. I think Jay’s vocals kind of make the song what it is. His dancing and performance commitment was absolutely up to par for a main vocal -- vocalists are given a bit of leeway in terms of dancing and he doesn’t even really need it, as far as I’m concerned.  

Lee Jeonghyeon did ok, I don’t know, I have nothing really good or bad to say. Sorry. He looked handsome. His rap sounded good for a rap, though I think I would have liked the song better without it. (I’m a big fan of letting kpop songs NOT have a rap break in them, sometimes.) All I can think is, the team kept him, and not Yoon Jungwoo? God, Jungwoo would have killed this. 

For me the biggest disappointment was Zhang Hao. I don’t know what it is, because I’ve liked him since the beginning, but this performance was just sort of… flat. I think he was too busy leading and he’s too tired and maybe a sexy performance just isn’t in his wheelhouse yet. I both believe and hope he can do better under better conditions, because I know he’s extremely talented, it’s just that for me, he didn’t do as well as I would have hoped. 

It’s not as if Lee Jeonghyeon or Zhang Hao did badly; they both did well. They just didn’t shine, to me, or put sparkles in my pants.

Afterwards

The judges are impressed. They have nice things to say about Jay -- kind of? LipJ thinks Jay should have toned it down. They say Lee Jeonghyeon was cool and very handsome and that Zhang Hao pulled off the sexy part well. But we hear nothing about Ricky or CKJ, even though the judges MUST have said something nice about them.  

So the boys go back stage to the folding chairs of doom to find out their numerical value, and then the awful thing happens.  

Jay came in last with 485 votes. 

Everyone is shocked. But Jay just nods. He says he expected it because no one was really cheering for him.

Look how sad and shocked everyone is.

And watching at home, I felt a little sick. What the fuck. What the fuck is wrong here. 

A vote that low is punitive, you guys. That’s what they do when they hate you, or when you are Takuto. Jay isn’t Takuto, so they must hate him. Why? What is going on? 

You know what? I don’t think I want to know. Jay’s vocals were so good. There was no reason for him to get such a low vote except that maybe people think he’s “ugly” (do they? IDK) or because he’s foreign or there’s some dumb social media drama or whatever. Maybe it’s because he’s too passive and it gives people the cringies? I don’t care. His vocals were great so shut up and press A. 

I do think, however, that all this doesn’t necessarily mean Jay is doomed. The audience that goes to see live performances are not necessarily a representative sample of the full Star Creator vote. Plus, I think as the dust settles around this performance, the injustice of Jay receiving such a ridiculously low approval score will become clearer and clearer, and people may switch their vote to Jay. All I know is that I’m going to be voting for Jay from now on, because this is some fucked up bullshit. I’m also going to try to give his fancam some views.  

Zhang Hao comes in first with 852 points, which ties Haruto. I don’t exactly agree; I think Ricky or CKJ should have come in first, but I get it, it’s fine. I don’t like, hate Hao or anything. I don’t think this was his finest moment but I actually think that no one has really had their finest moment in this go-round. 

Zhang Hao interviews, “It was harder than I thought. The killing part had so many parts, so my mind was all over the place. I was worried if I could take first place. But when I saw the results I felt proud.” Aw, that's good. You worked really hard, Hao.

And that’s the end of this recap, and the end of episode 9-10 analysis. Next up is an elimination episode with metric crap-tons of filler. I’m caught up  so I should be able to get a recap to that out pretty fast. 

See you all in the next one, and thanks as always for reading! 

[a-really-good-lawyer]

I've seen a number of discussions of the NMCU Daredevil ep Nelson V Murdock, some of which I couldn't understand, and figured I'd throw in my 2 cents so far as my feelings on one particular thing.

I really, really dislike what I call the 'BFF Secret Identity Reveal Fallout' trope.

I see it all the time, often as a key narrative beat when attempting to create tension or complexity. The hero has someone they care for or trust more than anyone else, but they keep the secret out of fear - fear of a number of things, but often at the core a fear of rejection. This might be amplified by the BBF previously expressing negative feelings about the masked persona.

Then the secret comes out, and just as they feared the BFF is angry, and at the center of the interpersonal tension is the fact that the hero lied, and that's the part that gets to me, because the reasons for why the hero lied seem to so rarely be taken into consideration - lying, especially to a loved one, is depicted as wrong in and of itself.

But here's the thing - lying isn't inherently amoral.

(I'll note here that I recognize this is an opinion - our personal morals are steadfast, connecting to our core values, which are actually the anchors of our identities/sense of self, but they're just that: personal, not universally absolute. What I'm expressing here is my own opinion.)

The concept that it is inherently amoral gets my back up, and I know it's because of personal experience (good times with trauma! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧), but I think my feelings are legitimate nonetheless. I know how it is to lie to protect yourself or others from harm, physical or otherwise; that there are times honesty is unsafe, or even simply unkind. I know how it is to lie out of fear of rejection - every time I come out to someone I feel it. I've learned the hard way that someone who has given every indication that they have zero issue with queerness and would be accepting of my queerness can end up not being accepting. It rips my heart out every time, and does nothing to help my own trust issues - this reminder that you can never actually know how a person will react to something, or how they'll treat you as a result.

I know how it is for a friend to believe that them showing me trust creates an obligation that I show them the same - the expectation that trust from one party should engender an equal degree of trust in the other, regardless of what is or isn't being shared or what either party's personal experiences have been.

Now, how does that apply to these fictional situations? Well, it varies depending on the story of course, but when the 'lesson' is just straight up 'lying is amoral' or even 'best friends should never hide things from each other', I grit my teeth. The impact of a lie on the person it's told to is put front and center, while the impact of revealing the truth on the liar is treated as secondary or even treated as moot. The liar broke The Rules by lying, and that makes them the one in the wrong, full stop.

I see that a lot in discussions of why or why not people consider Foggy's reaction 'right' or 'wrong', and rarely consideration of the shape his reaction took (whether the things he said were warranted, fair, or should later be discussed or apologized for). I see people saying that Matt's reasons don't matter, and that he was wrong for not trusting Foggy (and whew, the issue of Matt's ability to trust is a whole other thing, speaking of trauma). I also see people defending some things Foggy said on the basis that he was angry and had a right to be, when his right to be angry isn't actually the issue. If I say something unfair or unkind, etc, in the heat of the moment, it's my responsibility to talk that out with the person later when tempers have cooled, regardless of whether I was 'right' or 'wrong'. That's the kind of thing healthy communication and healthy interpersonal relationships require. All emotions are valid, but not all behavior rooted in that emotion is.

Of course, it's a very complex thing. Sometimes there isn't a clear cut 'person A was Wrong and person B was Right'. And what you lied about and why factors in, but that's exactly the point. My ex lying to me because of trauma-caused trust issues? Understandable. Him doing it because he was afraid I'd dump him when I learned he'd been cheating? Nope.

And then there's the 'you should have known it would be different with you' thing.

I recently saw a situation play out in a story where the hero brings up the BFF's previously expressed opinions on the masked persona and the BFF saying that the hero should have known that their opinion would be different as far as the hero is concerned - that their particular case would be viewed differently, an exception to the rule, so to speak.

I don't love that, either. 'It's okay because it's you' is a kind of exception that isn't the kindness it's so often portrayed to be. I've had people say homophobic or sanist things then tell me that oh, they don't mean *me* of course, because I'm *different*. My grandparents heard the same kind of thing all the time growing up, having friends say all kinds of antisemetic garbage in front of them and say, 'oh, but we don't mean you, of course'.

When I'm treated as an exception because I'm a 'good queer', it isn't a relief. That person still disdains what I am. Them saying that to me isn't kind, and I can't believe it to be kind in these fictional contexts. If the BFF can understand, accept, or even get behind why the hero takes certain actions - or even commits certain crimes - that should open the door to the possibility that there may be more to why other people do similar things. A more openminded viewpoint, such as a willingness to look at all the factors before rendering judgement, should be the result, not 'it's okay just this once because I care about the person doing it'.

My feelings about people equating criminality with amorality is a whole other complication when it comes to my thoughts on these situations. I won't get into that here, but I thinks it's another issue worth consideration.

I'm not going to write out my opinion on the Foggy/Matt conflict, though I do get into it a little in the fic I'm writing. I really just wanted to express my issue with that particular aspect of that narrative trope in general and how it's discussed, and the way the matter of trust and applying morality to distrust is often talked about, too. I may be expectionally sensitive to this kind of thing, or maybe I'm not. I'm not sure my possible sensitivity is the point, though.

Either way, it's a trope that gives me a lot of anxiety, and when I rewatch shows or reread stories I often find myself needing to skip those parts. That goes for fanfic, too.

[scripted-downfall]

So I’ve just started watching Supernatural season 11 and I’m about twenty minutes into episode two and I was wondering your take on Sam here. I just passed him praying acknowledging that he is the reason that a lot of people are dying. But he’s also stated, in the previous episode, that he’d do it again in a heartbeat. So I guess I was wondering your thoughts on this? And if you feel like the actions differ from previous ones in that Sam is willing to sacrifice potentially thousands of people just so he doesn’t have to lose Dean. In the past they’ve been willing to sacrifice themselves or hurt demons, but even with saying no to the archangels it was in part to stop a larger amount of casualties. Also I was curious to your opinion on the “cure” angle which felt to me as a way to be like ‘see sam isn’t a bad guy sure he caused this but he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else he wants to help’ even though be doing that more people potentially get infected and die in the process.

Hello, and thanks for the ask! (And idk if you've been here before or not, but welcome regardless!)

The delay in response is largely because I went back and skimmed through the transcripts for episodes 1 and 2 of the season, as well as past conversation with friends, to see what I said then and remember my opinion on this... and damn but I remember all this now and I thank you for the opportunity to respond! I'll probably address your points slightly out of order, if that's okay! (And apologies in advance; this turned out longer than I thought... here's a keep reading :) )

First, re. my general opinions about Sam in these episodes. This section pissed me off when I first watched it. (For reference, I wasn't live-reacting to the show; instead, I would watch the show, then go to Discord and rant at @typicalopposite about all the things that --- positively or negatively --- stuck with me. And ranting about s11 eps 1 and 2 took at least half an hour without her responding, more so if you add in her responses.) Warning for spoilers to the end of episode two; it's been way more than 20 minutes since this ask, so I'm hoping that's not a problem!

For one thing, he ticked me off with his dumb talk about "when did we change, Dean? Since when do we shoot first, ask questions later" with all the zombie apocalypse level shit going down. In zombie film archetypes, he's totally the annoying pacifist who views zombies as people too and then gets people killed as a result. AND hides his injury to the point that he starts turning and could, in theory, end up infecting someone. Yeah, it ends/ended up working out here, but that doesn't make it good logic/decision making, and, in a supernatural contagion like the one they were facing, they should not have tried for the luxury of a cure. Indeed, Sam probably got way more people killed in the meantime than he actually saved. And I'm not sure what he meant by, "I'm gonna do what I do best, Dean," but, whatever was actually meant, I find it immensely amusing that the line was followed by Sam drinking monster blood and then lying about it to his brother. Yes, I recognize that this was not the same as the Ruby situation, but the (probably accidental) implication is interesting.

It also pissed me off that they keep running with this idea of "we broke this." Like, no, false, full-stop, we did not break this. Dean repeatedly said he didn't want you do to what you were doing. NOWHERE did he say he wanted it to happen. He was actually taking steps to not break the whole thing. The only culpability Dean has in the MOC not being dealt with without releasing Amara is that he took that swing at Death (and that only happened because he couldn't kill Sam, or let Death kill Sam). But that wasn't even what removed the Mark? Rowena et al. working behind the scenes is what removed the Mark. And she was working under Sam's... idk, request? threat? supervision? Fill-in-the-blank, you know what I mean. "We" did not break anything; Sam broke the thing.

Which brings me to your point about Sam acknowledging that he's the reason people are dying but also being willing to do it again, and about his actions differing from the past... I'm honestly not fully sure.

In some ways, his insistence on removing the Mark (and staying to find a cure) is in-character. He's often depicted--- though not always (cough cough: Benny, Emma, the other characters he inexplicably decided weren't human enough to receive the same repeated chances he gave everyone else) --- as believing in nurture over nature. Just being a supernatural isn't the same as being automatically evil. And, if he stuck to that, it'd, frankly, be an admirable stance to take. (But, again, he doesn't stick to it --- especially whenever a non-human character is getting mutually close to his brother.) And, in this case, he refused to believe that Dean was ever "too far gone" to be cured, so... that tracks.

It also bears mentioning... Sam has a habit of taking action because he feels guilty, and that guilt leading him to not consider the consequences. Take post-s3-finale-through-s4, for example: Dean's gone, and he feels guilty about it, so he takes on his ill-advised-and-poorly-handled attack against Lilith, which ends up starting the apocalypse. (And let it be known that, for all I'm a Sam anti, I do recognize that he wasn't wrong in going after Lilith. He, Dean, Bobby, etc; they all thought that killing Lilith was the way to go. My problem with him is a) how he did it and b) how he treated his brother throughout the entire arc. Not the action. However, it's still an example of his guilt driving him into something that caused a lot of people harm.) So, in that sense, getting rid of the Mark continues tobe pretty in character. I don't know if it started out normal or not. (e.g. I could see that Sam felt guilty about the fact that Dean took on the MOC because he was cruising along in his, frankly, vaguely suicidal mindset after Sam cut him off, but I'm not sure I remember the scenes well enough to know if Sam's intent focus on finding a way to take off the Mark stems from that guilt, or idealism, or codependency.) Regardless, after Charlie, curing the MOC becomes less about curing the Mark and more about him working off the guilt about her death.

And, stemming off of that, this is another instance of him telling himself that he's doing something for his brother when he's really not. s4: he goes on a revenge quest to take down Lilith "for Dean" despite Dean coming back, being right there, and asking him not to. s10, pre-Charlie: he decides to take off the Mark even after Dean says he doesn't want him to do so. (I admit that this is an iffier situation because, like with Sam's Gadreel thing, there's the question of whether MOC!Dean has medical authority over non-MOC!Dean... but still.) s10, post-Charlie: he continues trying to take off the Mark despite Dean very explicitly and without any qualifications saying he doesn't want him to. Etc.

So, on the one hand, Sam's actions regarding the Mark --- and his actions regarding the zombie-virus-adjacent cure --- are kinda in-line with past behavior.

The line you isolated about how he'd "do it again in a heartbeat" (or whatever the actual quote was), however, is unusual. Usually, Sam spends the aftermath of a plan going wrong angsting about how much damage it did, with 0 ostensible willingness to do it again. No matter how committed he was to that path ahead of time, and no matter how many times he follows that same path (with different specifics) again later, he at least claimed that his guilt was so powerful that he'd never act similarly, he'd changed, etc. After the s4 finale, for an example, he apologizes more-or-less nonstop for some of it, etc. This time, though, he's blatantly saying that he'd do it again. And, for all he feels guilty, he's, for once, recognizing that he doesn't feel guilty enough to not do it again, and he's coming to terms with what that means. That feels different from his character in the past.

And, secondarily, the difference between this action and his past actions is that they knew removing the Mark would cause problems. With Lilith? Like I said, they didn't know it would cause problems. It's not really a surprise that he didn't stop because they thought it was the right course of action, and he always thinks he knows the best way to go. With the archangels, saying yes was a clear path to death and destruction, so it's, again, not really a surprise they both said no.

But here? (And, btw, I've made a previous post comparing the MOC situation to the Gadreel situation --- basically arguing that Dean gets vilified for Gadreel while Sam gets away with MOC no problem, called Actions of the Greater Greater Good, if you wanna check it out --- and I'm borrowing some of the wording here.) Good, bad, and neutral characters alike had warned them against taking off the Mark; these include but are not limited to: Cas, Rowena, Crowley, kinda Charlie, the Book of the Damned itself, Dean (through the Mark), the Styne family, eventually even Death itself. Sam also had to work with Rowena (clearly suspect with bad motives at that point) and drive off a high-powered ally (Crowley) in the process, while working with a book tied to dark forces. And so on. There was no "whoa, however could we have known that this was going to cause wide-scale problems", or, at least, there shouldn't have been. Sam knew what the costs could be and went on anyway.

That's the real character shift. He's actively taking on the consequences --- and potentially harming multitudes as a result --- instead of accidentally stumbling into it. So, yes, I do think his actions here are vaguely out of character; not in the fact that he did what he did, but that he did what he did knowing what could happen as a result.

Which is --- to attend to your final point about the cure, and to borrow your wording --- why I agree with you about it's a way to say "see sam isn’t a bad guy sure he caused this but he doesn’t want to hurt anyone else he wants to help." He's doing the whole try-to-do-something-good-to-counteract-his-guilt thing, and it's once again quite possibly causing problems (since we've no clue how many people he actually saved, and how many people died because he was obsessed with the cure instead of saving people who hadn't been infected at all). It's annoying and naive, in my opinion, and it did not exactly endear me to his character.

I hope that was a vaguely coherent way of answering the ask... I've been rambling with my computer keys for so long that I'm not sure it makes any sense whatsoever, but I'm hoping it does... I'd love to hear back from you if you happen to have a response, but no pressure; all the best!

[come-chaos]

I ended up liveblogging my entire rewatch of TBB S1 on Discord and the result was somewhat extensive, so I figured: why not stick it on my tumblr as well? Not because I expect anyone to read it, but because I’m very excited that having a week entirely to myself (I got covid for Christmas) resulted in me actually having the brainpower to form coherent thoughts about what I was watching. So here we go:

_________  

Ep 1) This is my favourite episode. I love the opening setting with the snowy wilderness, especially as so much of the series takes place in more urban settings or indoors. Having seen the entire season, I also really like how the conflict between Hunter and Crosshair is established here already.

– Tech has so many great lines in the first half of this episode. He clearly has strong opinions and feelings about everything that's going on. I really like the way he's written.

– The mess hall scene still cracks me up. Poor Echo and Crosshair. 🤣

– The combat simulation is also so much fun. Like [friend] said, it's great to see all of them working as a team. I especially like the way Tech and Wrecker work together here, and how Tech translates the hand signals to Wrecker into a reference that he can understand ("what we did on Felucia").

– "Every choice you've made since Kaller has been wrong." I would love to know exactly what's going on in Crosshair's mind. Is he dealing with any dissonance at all, or is this the only truth he knows?

– I'm still disappointed and confused by Echo's lack of robo legs in the prison scene, but that's the only negative I find worth mentioning.

– The soundtrack from just after the prison break and until they run into Crosshair is very minimalist and cool.

_________

Ep 2) Omega finding dirt amazing is still so heart-warming and heart-breaking and hilarious all at the same time.

– This episode has some nice Echo moments. I like his expression when Tech points out that they've become deserters and how strongly he reacts when Cut mentions Rex.

– "Clones wanted names instead of numbers, but now people are signing up to be given numbers." This is definitely the line I remember the most clearly from this episode. It says so much about where the Empire is heading, but it also hits extra hard because Echo is most certainly thinking of one very specific clone when he says that first part. 😭

– Echo and Tech is another duo I really like seeing work together! Something that stood out to me this time around is how naturally Tech covers Echo while Echo is working, even though Tech is usually profiled as someone who would typically be on the other side of that arrangement.

_________

Ep 3) In which Echo and Tech continue to be a moderately successful team with limited interpersonal patience and trust. 😂

– I'd forgotten how Hunter, Tech, and Echo just keep shrugging at each other when Omega wants to go with Hunter to track down the dragon. They were raised as soldiers, so of course it's hard for them to think of a reason not to let her do the same things that they do.

– This episode is better than I remembered! I originally got a bit stuck on the 'Omega saves the day' plotline, but there's a lot more going more going on here.

– Crosshair's Kallus moment is so sad. 😭

– Wrecker is so sweet in this episode. 🥺 I like that being a good caretaker doesn't come naturally to him just because he has more emotional awareness, but that we get to see him put conscious effort into it.

_________

[Here comes a side note I added:]

Something I've thought about repeatedly during this rewatch so far is how deeply I disagree with the notion that Tech is a stereotype. He's usually less emotionally expressive than the others, but he clearly has strong feelings about Order 66 and the Empire. He frequently talks over people's heads, but he's also able to facilitate communication between his team members ("what we did on Felucia"). He's the brains of the group, but he dual wields 17's like an ARC and has never been shown as anything less than proficient in combat. He's a little awkward with Omega, but is clearly shown looking out for her.

_________

Ep 4) In which Tech has to remind his team that they live in a capitalist society.

– Echo and Omega inspecting the clone trooper doll always kills me. 😭

– Hunter selling Echo is still way funnier than it should be. "Fine, but not at that price. I'm worth more than 2000." 🤣

– "You got me for a bargain." 🤣 🤣🤣

– It makes me weirdly happy to see Echo command his little squad of droid mechanics. He's taking control over a situation that must have been very uncomfortable for him. 🥺

– (What I really want to know is why Echo had a droid costume in the first place. There has got to be a story there.)

_________

Ep 5) In which Tech gets to berate Echo for leaving out information (about not having met Cid).

– "Or he was arrested for violating countless health code regulations." 🤣

– I love Echo's little smirk when he's stopping Omega from touching things.

– ... and how Wrecker holds out his hand for Omega to high five when Cid says that she's the brains.

– Returning to the opening of the episode, I like that we see the boys taking steps to ensure Omega's safety. They're learning from their mistakes!

– I know that the conversation about slavery seems like a missed opportunity to address the Republic's ownership of the clones, but I feel like Omega holding the clone trooper doll still kind of addresses it in a very subtle way. The clones clearly don't think of themselves as slaves, so it's not something they can talk about, but an observant viewer might notice the clone as an object in Omega's hands and put two and two together. Unless it's a coincidence and I'm giving the producers way too much credit, but I'd really like to think it was intentional. 😶

– Wrecker references a previous mission to communicate with the others - check!

– After mainly getting bonked in the head in the previous ep, it's nice to see Wrecker save the day.

_________

Ep 6) In which absolutely no one thinks it's a bad idea to let Omega shoot space arrows towards the door opening where anyone can enter at any moment. 🤣

– Echo is so sweet with Omega even though he has no idea how to train a child that isn't a clone cadet.

– Ah, yes, it's time for "is there an echo in here"! It's so silly and easily one of my favourite moments in the show.

– I like Trace and Rafa, and I think they have a fun dynamic with the BB. I wouldn't mind seeing them again in S2.

– Hunter is pretty cool in this episode.

– Actually, they all look cooler (and weirder 💕) when juxtaposed with some normal people. I love it when a show makes me shift to an outsider POV for a moment and lets me have a fresh look at the protagonists. (The upcoming Ryloth plotline would be the main example of this.)

– [Here I tagged a friend whom I had been talking about Tech with], another emotional Tech moment: Tech is clearly disturbed by the news that their attempt to retrieve the tactical droid came close to sabotaging Trace's and Rafa's mission for the rebellion.

_________

Ep 7)

– Rex is so good with Omega. 🥺

– There's a very satisfying hissing sound when Echo's helmet fits itself around his cybernetics.

– The Fives mention! I so hope that Echo and Rex will have another little chat about Fives in S2.

– The sound effects and music when Wrecker's chip kicks in are so good. Again, the soundtrack turns minimalist and industrial when the BB is in danger from one of their own. The result is super cool and I appreciate being able to enjoy the scene without having to lower the volume.

– As much as I think Wrecker gets hit too hard with the comic relief tropes (though it's perfectly understandable given that it's a family show), it probably serves to make him even more terrifying in these scenes. That, and the fact that the camera spends so much time at Omega's eye level.

– Ugh, this is such a good episode. Such an emotional rollercoaster.

_________

Ep 8) In which Echo takes a very sexy shot.

– Can anyone else make sense of the scene where they're heading back into the Venator and Echo looks like he's reaching out for Omega, but Wrecker notices and slaps him? It's so weird to me. 😂

– Poor Echo really wanted to go with Rex. 😔

– I like the scene with Tech and Omega, and I think a lot of other autistic people would agree that "What was the war like?" is a rather hopeless question to answer. 😅

– I think this episode shows that Tech's optimism, rather than overconfidence, is one of his main weaknesses.

– "I've never been inside an ion engine before" / "It'd be weirder if you had" 🤣

– The old Venator was such a cool choice of location. I love the visuals of the engine.

– The scene with Cad Bane and Hunter is pretty good and I like the soundtrack, but I do feel that it fits poorly in the episode, especially in the middle of all that Crosshair whump (which is glorious), though I suppose Hunter getting injured at the same time as Crosshair makes for a good way to continue to connect them in the narrative. Then comes the FPS view, which makes me claustrophobic and nauseated, so I'm probably biased against it, but I don't think it fits either. Opening the next episode with it might have worked a lot better! I do think it's fun that the producers dared to experiment with style and genre, and I certainly don't hate the result, but I wish it would have been put together more smoothly (though it's very possible that this would have required additional minutes that the budget didn't allow for).

_________

Ep 10) In which we are reminded that Echo's moral compass is actually biased, and Echo meets a Separatist who challenges that bias, resulting in ✨ character development ✨

– Echo sniffing the Mantell Mix is still so funny.

– "You and Omega loop back around" / "That would be impossible seeing as Omega is not on this mission" 😭

– I don't think I'm supposed to find the AT-TE's cute, but they look like big, friendly animals.

– "I never much cared for that vase" 😂

– Wrecker has some really nice badass moments in this episode.

_________

Ep 11) It's Ryloth time! I watched TBB before Rebels, so it's really fun to watch this again now that I know who everyone is and where they end up.

– I don't imagine Crosshair ever got to voice his opinions like he does on Ryloth when he was still a member of the GAR. Crosshair has so many reasons to stay loyal to the Empire, which is something I really like about the show.

– And here we go! The outsider perspective on the protagonists. The Marauder landing and the BB disembarking still gives me goosebumps. I'm such a dork. 😅

– Omega's and Hera's friendship is so adorable. I don't know much about children, but I feel like their scenes together are really well written.

_________

Ep 12) I still have an hour to go before this year ends (or I did when I started typing this), so let's finish the Ryloth arc before my parents call me and the fireworks start. 😆

– "Don't worry, we're defective too" 🥺

– Tech's optimism again! "Children often overreact."

– Meanwhile, Omega has finally got Hunter wrapped completely around her finger. ❤️

– Hunter senses the probe droid! We really don't get to see him use his abilities enough.

– Ahh, the staring contest between Crosshair and Howzer. It's the kind of scene that feels like it exists to inspire fanfiction. 😂

– I like Howzer just fine, but I have the weirdest case of jealousy when it comes to his imitation of Fives. I just don't like it when people act as if he's more amazing than Fives, because he isn't. He isn't. 😡 (🤣)

– Hera flying the shuttle is so funny, both the general chaos and Tech's reactions. "Yes, your dangerous and uncontrolled maneuvering is as confusing to them as it is to us." 🤣

– Also, I've been wanting to mention this for just about every episode, but I love how good of a pilot Tech is.

_________

Ep 13) Seeing as I'm now very much awake, I'll watch one more episode tonight.

– I love that the Weequay and the Ithorian apparently just follow Cid wherever she goes. I have no idea what their relationship with Cid is, but the three of them are clearly some sort of package deal.

– Echo's "the what?" when Cid mentions the hive is so funny.

– When Hunter keeps shielding Omega from the Pykes and the Pyke says they're going to keep her as a hostage and all the boys draw their blasters. 🥺😭

_________

Ep 14) I'm having too much fun. Just one more episode.

– Omega watching Hunter twirl his knife and trying it with her hyperspanner is the cutest thing EVER.

– The face Echo makes at Hunter when they're debating whether to help Gregor is amazing. Like the angriest puppy dog eyes. I'd love to think that he picked it up from Omega, who clearly has great success when using it on Hunter.

– "You did that on Skako Minor when you rescued me" still makes me emotional. 🥺

– "That's Captain Traitor" is still so funny.

– I really enjoy Tech's piloting in this episode, and the way he takes over from Omega is so sweet.

– Seeing Hunter all alone in the forest, ordering the others to leave him behind, still hurts.

_________

Ep 15) In which Crosshair steals the entire show.

– Echo is so sweet when he kneels down to check on Omega. 🥺

– The scenes with Hunter and Crosshair are so intense. "We didn't have a choice." / "And I did?" 😭

– Tech's "How could I possibly know that?" is so funny, and the way Wrecker just assumes that Tech knows everything is so sweet.

– I've been trying to figure out what the chain of command looks like when Hunter is gone, but I still haven't reached a conclusion. I would assume that Tech is in command, but he and Echo seem like they share the job?

– "You weren't loyal to me. [insert full speech here]" 😭 I just love Crosshair's entire thing in the training room. Just everything he says and does. The sequence where Tech sees the reflection in the knife is also amazing.

– I've said this before, but I'll say it again: Crosshair is right about Omega. If the point is to protect her from danger, then Hunter is doing it wrong. (And Crosshair knows this first hand. On Bracca, when he still had his chip, he ordered his troopers to aim for Omega. That wouldn't have happened if Hunter hadn't brought her there in the first place.)

_________

Ep 16)

– Ah yes, the poor clone who has to report on the destruction of Kamino.

– Ah yes, let's almost drown Crosshair. His life is the worst. And the way he rips his arm away from Omega the second he's free. 😭

– ... only to slide on his back across the floor and look super pathetic at Hunter's feet. Oh how the stickly have fallen. 😔

– The dialogue in the underwater tunnel is one of the best in all of SW imo. It just makes me really happy that these characters are allowed to be complicated and have complicated relationships with each other. And what Tech says to Crosshair is something a lot of people in this fandom need to get tattooed on the inside of their eyelids. You can understand someone without agreeing with them.

– Seeing Crosshair and Hunter stuffed into that pod together makes me feel a thousand emotions on top of the ones I was already drowning in. (Tech and Echo sharing one is also pretty cute.)

– "I can't see anything. / "That is a good thing." 😅

– The music when Omega goes after AZI is so damn good.

– Crosshair's reaction to all the others aiming at him after he takes that shot absolutely murders me. He's so resigned when he sits back down. No one even says thank you.

– Crosshair always seems to be the last to get up in this episode. It's not just that he actively keeps his distance to the others. He moves more slowly. Not to mention the way he almost falls apart in the lab before Omega approaches and he has to act functional again. He's not doing well at all. And with that, my fanboy batteries are fully charged and I'm vibrating at top speed in anticipation of S2. ✨

[djnusagi]

What is MANGADEX

I just put out a seven track album called MANGADEX that I’ve been working on since 2020 and I wanted to talk a little bit about the process behind it.

MANGADEX is about a particular part of my life. For a lot of my life, especially my adolescence, I was extremely antisocial, and I still am to some degree. I’ve known I was transgender since I was 12, and I’ve explicitly “wanted to be a girl” since I was 7. Like I was always a little bit “off” and uncomfortable with maleness and bad at performing it but when I was 7 I became obsessed with wanting to be a girl. But I didn’t know about trans people yet, and I knew enough to know that if I started telling people I wanted to be a girl it would go badly for me. When I finally learned what being trans was I told my parents. They reacted really badly but after a year they relented and took me to a “gender clinic”. That only made things worse. I won’t go into detail but I was like 13 and spent hours being interrogated by adults about my sexuality, masturbation, and all variety of unpleasant topics. Eventually they determined I wasn’t trans and I would  eventually grow out of.

After that I tried really hard to repress my dysphoria, which didn’t go well. It only got worse and worse as I got older. I became extremely withdrawn and antisocial, I never left my bedroom except when I absolutely had to and spent most of my free time engrossed in escapist fantasy through video games, anime and manga. I also used the internet a LOT. The internet was also where I read most of my manga and watched most of my anime, specifically through the websites MangaDex and kissanime.

In 2020 I had the idea to make two albums that would work as companion pieces. They would both be reflections on dysphoria, escapism and isolation. The first album, which I decided to call MANGADEX, would be a more positive album, focusing on the trying to find a way out of this state and what little good I could scrape out of it. This album was planned to be shorter (at one point it was a four track EP), with more emphasis on flashy sound design and high energy tracks influenced by dance music. The second album would be called kissanime. It would be longer (I’m anticipating about 10 tracks), with a focus on how fucking depressing and miserable this period in my life was/is. kissanime is going to be a lot sadder, with more atmospheric production (basically a bunch of Drain Gang type beats).

I’m aiming for a march release date for kissanime, but who knows when it’ll actually come out. MANGADEX was meant to come out in October and it just dropped a few days ago on December 2nd. If nothing else there’s a track on kissanime about aging and birthday’s that I wanna put out as a single on my actual birthday (March 6th) so hopefully I’ll be able to do that. I also have way more than 10 tracks in various stages of creation for kissanime, and I had to cut a track I was really excited for from MANGADEX because I just couldn’t figure out how to finish it. So after kissanime is out I’m gonna finish up all the leftover shit, maybe pad it out with some loosies, and call the resulting album nhentai (thanks to my friend PixelQuiet for coming up with that name, she’s a really cool gamedev and you should follow her)

But the thing about these two albums is that they don’t 100% represent where I am in my life anymore. The part in my life they’re about will probably always be with me to some extent and I’m honestly not fully out of that space yet. But when I started HRT in August 2021 it triggered a very slow move towards a more healthy social life and a healthier (though still extremely negative) relationship with my body. I’ve learned a lot about myself since then and I think I’ve grown a lot as a person. After I’m done with this series of albums I wanna do an album about where I am now. I’m stuck in my home town living with my parents and wanna get out. I’ve already begun writing for that album actually. I also want that album to be more guitar-centric and have sort of a post hardcore influence. Anyways, if you read all this then thank you. I hope you’re enjoying MANGADEX and I hope you enjoy kissanime when it finally comes out.

- V

[horn-of-leo]

i feel like i talk too negatively when going on rants here so i wanted to share good news :D

I rewatched the whole series again with my sib and it was honestly great to sort of go through the rollercoaster again, especially because she's never watched past the Sanctuary arc(I'm the only one who's watched it full through) so it was cool to experience it again with someone reacting for the first time plus we've made so many funny jokes out of the whole run

I'm gonna just be talking about the whole experience in here of what we've watched (cuz it will be the whole series)

Sanctuary Arc:

The good ol '80s anime, my sibs and I grew up with the English dub(the ADV one), and sometimes I see people saying it's bad but I don't think so, honestly tho this dub was probably the reason I had no clue everyone was supposed to apparently be young teenagers/adults since everyone voicing in this ver is obviously a 30+ year old man, I mean some characters do sound like they recruited the first guy they found at the office to fill in for the role and probably only told them the name of the character but never showed them what the actual character looked/should sound like(*cough* Camus) but other than that I think everyone does a great job. idk probably bias since I grew up with it but I'm telling you that no other dub will go as ham as the ADV one. It's such a shame they didn't at least get to finish the Sanctuary arc and only got up to 60 episodes. I actually got a little sad when we finished out the eng dub episodes too lol and I know there's the other one but I ain't watching it

ANYWAYS, it's honestly very funny to look at all of the fillers for this arc and just know the anime did not know what type of series it was going to be since the beginning, it's like they tried to do a villain of the week format since they had the basis of the mad grab for the Sagittarius helmet that was also apparently the most powerful cloth in the world and it turns you into a super saint that could destroy the world if taken into the wrong hands, and it's the only gold cloth in the world...until like another 20 eps in where they have to start writing around what they had and go with the manga continuity as best as they could

I really do enjoy the fillers that they have for this tho, because it not only gets the main five to like chill from doing the main plot for five seconds but it gets to add more character/bonding between them. One thing I really liked is that there is more development of Saori reaching out to them and making up for how she's treated them in the past since they're all already on edge with her since she was so spoiled and treated them like garbage when they were all kids. So to see them all gradually warming up to each other is great and it makes it more plausible that they'd want to still keep fighting for each other (as compared to the manga where they still hate her even into the Sanctuary arc and they only arrived to fight for their own personal reasons and tolerate her at best because she's Athena, it's so disheartening to read actually, like WHAT'S THE ACTUAL POINT THEN IF THEY DON'T EVEN LIKE HER???)

Another thing is that I really like is how they handled Shiryu's character arc when he lost his sight. As compared to the handwave from the manga, he's greatly affected by what's happened and might have to come to terms that he'll never be able to fight again beside everyone when something like the fight against the Sanctuary is so near. And it's a huge blow to the team as well that they basically just disband right there for a couple of seconds (but then get back a few eps later since the Algol vs. Shiryu fight was earlier and they still had a few more silver saints to get through).

So when the anime cuts back to Shiryu, it's shown he can't adapt to his life right away and is still suffering from ptsd of both losing his sight and the fear of being left behind that he's honestly lost hope that he'll ever recover. But after having his fight with Ohko(anime-only guy he's trained with as a kid) it kickstarts him find his drive to fight again and that even if he is blind, he's found out that it's not the end for him as a saint and his life in general too.

I did enjoy the other fillers about the others doing stuff too, though poor Shun having nothing to his name tho😭(he deserved to have something at least but I guess his character arc is a slow burn since he doesn't really develop as a character until near the end of the arc itself/later arcs)

Anyways on to where the ball really drops at the 12 houses arc:

No need to individually talk about every single battle lol cuz that would get so long and I don't really have anything else new to add while rewatching.

Personally, I think there's quite a dip to where the arc kind of peaks the first time around the Leo-Virgo temple where I start to tune out then basically get interested back around the last three houses where everyone starts to die for real. It doesn't help really that before Shaka's fight, we just have two long episodes of Ikki getting his ass beat and Shaka personally making sure Ikki is getting his ass beat which is a little funny and he was so petty for that.

But anyway after Shaka, it starts to drag a little going on with the Libra house then with Milo having the best anime original fight against Seiya/Shiryu to having the ugliest episode of the whole series.

Also sorry, I only liked the part where Seiya and Shiryu fight him, the actual fight between Hyoga and Milo I start to tune out. Honestly though, while the Milo vs. Hyoga is definitely one of the most disconnected fights of the arc, I did appreciate the fight cause it still is good for Hyoga's development (plus its probably to make up for him doing basically nothing the whole arc until now).

Skipping ahead to the fight against Saga, I remembered that Seiya has basically checked out since Aioria's fight(which I cannot blame since he did get super fucked up during so) but that last hour really hangs on for a good 6 episodes.

I think it was sad we didn't actually get to have the flashback where Saga turns evil since the anime team(godbless them) had to make up the craziest shit to fill in for the story, only for Kurumada to cancel out every single story plot they wrote so they couldn't possibly ever really try to even say it was Saga who was the pope for the last 13 years. Since they introduced Pope Ares as the first Pope's evil brother who has just recently took over shortly after Seiya left after earning his armor and was straight up evil for no good reason that it seems almost stupid any of the Gold Saints could even think he was a good person when the first thing acknowledged by both Aioria and Marin when he was introduced is that he was pure evil. Which isn't even the start of how they tried to write around that plot point for the anime afterwards where it gets even more confusing of where Saga really comes in the picture and basically settling that since it was a good 60 episodes ago, you'd basically have forgotten the lore they've written up to let it slide, which is fair tbh.

Also, I think the anime has a better conclusion to this arc since everyone joins up together to jump Saga at the end. Plus Saori got to roast him too so that was cool.

Asgard Arc

It felt very bittersweet to move on from the Sanctuary arc into Asgard. I wanted to give this arc a chance, unfortunately I still couldn't find myself really getting into it. Plus the subs are very bad around this part so it was hard to know what the characters names were and ultimately we just skipped around until there was scene that was either originally in the manga/final parts of the arc that carries on into the next one.

I guess it's not great for group watching when none of us are really interested since the changes of the artstyle/armor designs is a little disheartening to see. Plus the pacing was kinda of not great(?) like the cuts were way too fast or skipped to a wildly different scene from the last that we couldn't tell if we like missed an episode or it was the opposite where we just sat simmering at a scene of the characters acting like dragon ball characters for a good 5+ minutes for padding.

Personally, I do think the character designs are super great though and probably the only thing I wished that happened was that they all lived so their back stories wouldn't be completely useless to know (tho ig Siegfred could die since it had some reason to it, tho it's still kind of dumb how it happened) but I'd maybe have to go back to watch it myself to maybe appreciate it more but who knows? I just wish there are better subs out there that I could probably stand watching it.

Poseidon Arc:

Kind of a lukewarm arc tbh, I don't feel like I have anything else to add really on this rewatch.

I have my gripes about certain characters/stories in this arc and they've made some changes I definitely don't like. Main offender is the scene where Seiya take Poseidon's trident to shield Saori when this scene was originally supposed to be Kanon's redemption scene and ultimately it adds nothing because Seiya just walks it off. Though the only reason why I can guess they made this change was because I assume it would confuse people when Kanon comes back in the Hades arc and it turns out he survived but it wasn't known then and that arc wasn't animated until a good 10 years later. And I'm pretty sure the anime already knew it was wrapping up by then, so they chose to have Seiya take the blow and not seemingly kill Kanon and instead just left it more ambiguous if he was able to make it out of Atlantis or not when they sealed Poseidon. Though it's just my speculation.

It was a little sad to finally finish the whole 80s anime but I think it's good they at least got to finish up til the Poseidon arc. But other than that I think that they had a good wrap up with everyone being happy in the end and they gave Shaina great drip when they're all out in their normal clothes again, so bonus for that ending.

Hades Arc:

Man, this one was super long to get into. Gotta divide them up for each OVA. We're getting into the 2000s babey!

Sanctuary OVA:

I'll be real this one is literally so good. The opening, the animation, added scenes are super cool. The op definitely has that sad 2000s vibe but that's what makes it really good and it really captures the feels of the whole arc too and the song slaps so hard. I'll be real the 3D is a little cheesy and off-putting but they tried so I'll give it to them. I wish the OVAs all had the same quality as this one, it's really such a shame this one was basically as good as it gets Hades arc-wise. Personally, I think everything was done really beautifully during this arc, and I guess it helps that this part is mostly Gold Saint-focused. I really liked watching this part honestly, idk why it has this sentimental value to me, I guess it was just the opening lol. All the scenes just hit and its sad to me ;w;

It was a great comeback tbh, though I guess it's too bad that it's only downhill from here...

Inferno + Elysium OVAs:

I'll just combine the last two OVAs together, because not much good things to add afterwards. It's more of just getting through with it unfortunately. By here, I really can't get invested since technically everyone's character arcs are basically over other than just pointlessly fighting because they need to do so.

I think it was said that the animation studio changed or at least it wasn't the same one like in the first one, and it's super noticeable with how static everyone is and it really only gets worse in the Elysium chapter with its cheesy ass google slides transitions.

Personally though, I like the new voice actors (even if it's kind of sad we don't hear the old ones) but I don't think there's really a problem they've recasted them. I just think there is a point where it's very noticeable that the voice actor is too old for a role and it really doesn't fit anymore. Though the only one I actually have a problem with not fitting at all is Takahiro Sakurai as Shiryu(plus the guy sucks now apparently, but his pitch never fit Shiryu in the first place and that's my main argument).

I thought the opening is great and goes hard. I think it was good they decided to go for at least one upbeat song since most of the tracks are all basically ballads. Also the ending song for the Elysium OVA is so amazingly good, it's such a shame they didn't actually make a real animation to go with a song like that until the last episode(I mean if you just kind of count the slideshow of the characters as animation). This one plus the Inferno one didn't get an ending either unfortunately.

Maybe this was still kind of critical lol but it doesn't mean I hated it or anything, and honestly I think it's good I've found myself invested in something again after a really long time. I think honestly this show has really influenced a lot of stuff about my interests/my own art style too so I'm glad to rekindle my love for this series again!

Overall is the ending of Saint Seiya good? Absolutely not. But did I enjoy rewatching the series again? Absolutely :)

[theangiediary]

Happy wincest wednesday! What's your favourite funny episode of SPN and your favourite serious one?

Hello!

Funniest.. well this one's a bit tricky, because a lot of it is either dark humor and I get caught up in emotions (like Mystery Spot. Oh poor Sammy 😞), or it's "goofy" meta stuff I just don't like (French Mistake, Fan Fiction). But! If you're willing to count it: Hollywood Babylon and It's a Terrible Life are 💯🏆. 'Go Team!' little peppy Dean my darling beloved. I like the occasional EP where he's charismatic and happy and Sam's indulgent and in love 😭. So, controversial opinion but I also like Monster Movie (my Halloween rewatch).

Serious.. maybe The Girl Next Door (young Sam breaks my heart, and even though this is a top #dean-crit (negative) ep for a lot of people, I actually really.. enjoy? am compelled? by his actions here. They're jealous and hypocritical and brutal, and maybe it's just me reacting to fanon's interpretation of mid- late era Dean as a funny little bisexual guy who just wants to make pancakes with his "found family", buuut. Idk. I love it, I love my messy brother entwined bad boy.

Home of course. The reveal that Dean carried Sam out, Dean reluctantly following Sam's visions, the teary unanswered call to John. Mary's ghost is.. an interesting choice. But oh boy, Sam being the one to stop Dean from shooting her 🫣 It's like forty minutes of obedient little soldier Dean, but honoring Sam rather than John which. both are delicious. The change is delicious too 😌.

[gillianthecat]

The Devil Judge: Episode 6

I just finished The Devil Judge and something about this show compelled me to take copious notes - it had emotional intensity and layers of mystery. These are long and rambling, so they're likely not of interest to anyone else, but since I spent all that time writing it I decided, why not post it. Perhaps someone will find it interesting.

Below are my moment-to-moment reactions, predictions and analysis as I watched episode 6.

eps 1&2  ep3  ep4  ep5  ep6  ep7  ep8  ep9   ep10  ep11  ep12  ep13  ep14  ep15  ep16

I wrote about my initial impressions, up to episode 5, here and here.

This is cleaned up only slightly. I followed the spelling given in the Viki subtitles. I mostly don't explain what I'm reacting to, so this will probably only make sense if you've seen the episode recently. Occasionally I give timestamps.

Does this mean JSA is also on a personal revenge quest? I'm not sure how I feel about that. Or obsession?

Ok. Getting into conflicting memories, the un/trustworthiness of flashbacks. I'm not feeling as negative about this. Or at least like it might not ruin JSA as a character

Both these child actors are fabulous 

Hmm thoughts "no one to protect"

I don't think any major changes in how I'm thinking about JSA? She hasn't been flattened out yet which was my fear - her motives still feel complex or at least opaque enough. Power? Money? Ownership? Revenge? It could be a specific obsession with Y but I don't actually think so. 

Hmm, G and e's convo at  (3:30), (13:45)

Gothic house! (17:53)

(18:15) This scene in the study! Domesticity! Y's face! Stares at G and then covers up E Tripping on the chair - somehow unexpected and surprising realistic capstone to the whole stylized scene with JSA. A release of the tension, letting go of his game face. 

Hmm... evidence of him deceiving with the complete truth. Also Ga-On really does not want to hear about his sex life. Which pleases Y. (Who wore his robe slutty style to where he knew G was sleeping.)

(21:25) "I'm tired of this family. Let's eat rice like normal human beings."  !!!!! LET'S! Is he starting to think of them all as a family!!! Domesticity! Governess romance story in this house! 

Y's outfit! "Why are you staring at Ga-On's butt?" projection much? That cute little run. G's pleased smile and whole thing at serving them this feast. Y's pouting, but he's being so unguarded even though he's pretending to be guarded. 

I can't even.  They are all so cute. Such a contrast with everything everywhere else. Except actually, now that I think about it, in G's early rooftop scenes with YSH. He's a man who likes having a family to take care of. 

I do want to know what the story is wit Y and e's relationship 

Ok, but the way Y ate that... while staring at G... his tongue... and now he's stuffing his face of course he loves the food. 

(23:50) "16 years as the son of restaurant owners and living alone for 13 years." I guess he's about 29 or 30 and his parents died when he was 16

Oh, the housekeeper is hurt... Y never eats her food (but he wants G's!) Y is embarrassed (so cute and awkward trying to run away) "this unfamiliar harmony that doesn't fit with this house"

G definitely hides his cleverness behind pretending obliviousness or naivety 

Hmm this charm offensive on Elijah. Only what it seems or is he trying to give the cop an in to the house?I would buy either at this point. 

(25:53) E's questions about their relationship.  They both look a little shifty hmm 

All day G has been more playful than we've seen him. I don't know why. 

So Elijah is 16. 

Y is starting to freak out. 

Ah. She is there as a cop. But that (seemingly) wasn't his intention. 

(27:35) convo on pre-fire donation. (In case I need to put together clues later)

She's maybe protective of Y against an outsider?

Oh wow. Scared and angry y. Does he have a tracking device on her? Or is this movie magic?

Many thoughts about all 4 of them. But also this is very governess romance. 

Ji Sung is gorgeous but also the nuance he can convey. He's amazing. 

(29:48). The contrast between the way the domestic and the political are filmed. All these mirrored upside shots. Here there's a literal mirror. 

The house is dark but warm - wood, sunlight seen entering, fabrics. Color palette still limited and muted, but a shift towards browns. Political world is glass and marble and metal. Artificial lights. Black and white and maybe grey. Reflections. The other setting is outside with the public - disorganized, messy, lots of soft clothing though, closer to the domestic palette? Not sure how YSH and G's roof fits. Do we ever see inside his actual house? (My prediction is we will return there temporarily and briefly once or twice when G or Y or their relationship is in crisis.) G and YSH often meet in outdoor spaces. Also G with his mentor?

We have JSA with unknown people. Male idols and older rich women? Ah! What is Cha doing, what's the stated purpose of this gathering, what is subtext?

Wow this has to be a deliberate gender reversal of this kind of scene. This amazing choreography around the cigar! 

Is this an intentional reference to the castration stuff from last episode 

(31:40) political convo around dream village 

I assume JSA orchestrated all this? To bring down prices on the land? Or just to incite chaos?

Ah, these two are the businessmen's wives. And that was Jae Hui whispering to JSA 

Ah, JSA returns to offer a solution. And they volunteer to donate the land. 

Cha was doing this for JSA I guess in return for her help with her son, although I'm not clear that JSA has done anything that actually helped yet. 

(34:02) Cha: "But who's the real Master Seo? Is it that old man who disappears at the drop of a hat to go into prayer? Or..." bites a mint and stares significantly at JSA

"Just catch Kang Yo-Han, like you said you could."

I do feel likes there's erotic tension in the way these two are filmed together. Not sure if it's intentional or not. 

(36:15) Back home. This is what Y looks like when he's actually angry, not pretending to be more or less emotional than he really is. It's because of his fear for E,  but perhaps also because he already instinctively trusts G with his true self? Even when he's furious at him? 

In contrast to the scene immediately before, where JSA is wearing masks even when totally alone. 

The threat scared G, but he's not terrified 

Who is mentor meeting?

Is G fucking insane? He doesn't even know if she's a major threat! I'm not clear actually why he's going after her. He was suspicious, but I don't think he's seen enough of her to be that suspicious?

What a good boy grabbing the helmet first (I'm sure it's because of stunt doubles but it's cute)

Ok, I was not expecting this action movie sequence but it's fun.  But what do we think of G as an action hero? Does it fit him? This is the quickest thinking he's done yet.

But not the wisest since it turns out to be a trap. And they want G to think motorcycle woman works for Y?

JSA and Jae Hui are cute together.  

(40:55) mentor looks alarmed to see G watching

hmm, I wonder if I should be suspicious of him. Not sure yet 

Jeong Seon-Ah is definitely flirting with judge Oh. Or using flirtation or however to describe it. 

(43:00) first overly feminist statement. From JSA to judge oh 

After the sweetness of that breakfast, a rift is regrowing between Y and G. They trust each other less again. 

Return to the theme of danger of the televised trials - turning the public toward vigilanteism and mob violence. 

(45 ish). Doctor safety (Jang Gi Hyeon) withdraws lots of cash, YSH tails him. 

Are these all JSA's seeds?

YSH's cop boss is conspiring with Mysterious Assistant. And the funds were from judge Kang? Or at least he knew about them? 

It's like Y and G are in one genre at home and another outside. But it works somehow?

Oh fuck. Is Y behind this attack on YSH? I don't want it to be true but the phone convo was definitely trying to imply that to us. 

What is happening! (51:30)

Hospital at (50:15)

Minister Cha's statement (51:30)

Confrontation (52:20)

JSA home or bath at least marble metal porcelain white and cold like public spaces. Opposite of the gothic castle 

And we're already getting hints that Jae Hui was the attacker on JSA’s orders. 

Was that some sort of threat on the rooftop? Obviously deliberate and planned. But what's the plan? Who's in control of what? 

That's a lot of plot all at once. 

Isn't this all on Chairman Parks tv channels? Or he doesn't even care if he’s accused as long as it's big tv?

JSA's expression. She doesn't look upset. Amused by the twist? Happy at the downfall of some or all of those players 

The mutual staring of course. In case we got distracted by the political intrigue and forgot. 

eps 1&2  ep3  ep4  ep5  ep6  ep7  ep8  ep9   ep10  ep11  ep12  ep13  ep14  ep15  ep16

[dulcewrites]

new chap of fcc… love u babe. DID WATCH THE NEW HOTD EP??? keep us updated on ur thoughts!!

Love you more 😘 glad you liked it!

Ok don’t hate me but I didn’t. I don’t have work on Wednesday so I may watch it then. But tbh I was tempted to do what I did last season and sort of catch up after the fact. I didn’t start watching s1 in real time till ep 8 (I binged the other eps the Friday and Saturday before). It actually helped me formulate my thoughts better. If that makes sense. Idk this fandom can be… a lot/overly negative for the sake of argument and it can be hard to enjoy it while airing. I don’t want to be fighting for my life as an Alicent girlie and an overall team green enjoyer lmao.

That being said I have seen a couple of clips and knows the basic beats simply by just being around so I will say:

- glad they gave Aegon Helaena and their family some development pre b&c. Can’t speak on actual b&c bc I haven’t seen it. Wish we got more of them as a unit in s1

- I think Emma and their acting skills does most of the work bc I don’t care about lucerys dying (sorry not sorry) but interested to see where grief takes Rhaenyra. How is she going to react to b&c.

- daemon is a loser wbk

- loving the dynamic they are setting up with Aemond. Not only him lean to the death being on purpose but also pointing out the honest hypocrisy of him ‘being the reason the war started’… while they already put Aegon on the throne 😭. Like yeah Luke dying def accelerated things. But at the end of the day, it all broke the moment Aegon got a crown on his head. Naturally Aemond would feel some type of way about a parent choosing Rhaenyra over him (in his mind)… again. And this time it’s the parent that defended him. That has to suck

- I guess the thing (outside of b&c) that people have the most things to say about is Alicent and Criston. Soooo I have mixed feelings on this. On one hand, I’m of the belief that BOTH rhaenicent and alicole are better left in the margines… aka things left unsaid and unconsumated. I like the will they or won’t they of both. That means I wasn’t like jumping up and down knowing they hooked up, especially since we apparently don’t see how?? I could be wrong about that but that’s what i am assuming not watching. I think I’d appreciate it more seeing the first time or how these ultra repressed people got to having casual sex. But I will say even as someone who enjoys rhaenicent, that I like the idea of Alicent figuring her sexuality out for herself. Even if she realizes it’s not for her or hates herself afterward, she deserves a chance to try it out. I’m not of the belief that Criston is just gonna turn on her one day.

Also I feel more inclined to defend it simply bc this fandom is weird and now people are taking their distain for alicole out on Fabien. What we aren’t gonna do is demonize a man of color for some ship. It is to the point where people want to make it seem like Liv doesn’t like him which we know is just not true. It is also extra icky when it comes from white people bc why are you calling Criston a dog…. While actively stanning white character who behave the same or worse way. It gives the same vibes as the misogynist who love the male characters of the show but hate the women. Like bffr

This in general brings up a larger point for me that I haven’t really known how to put into words. I feel like a group of people - mainly rhaenicents (and once again I say this as someone who thinks that relationship is one of the most if not the most interesting in the whole show) - who act as if Alicent needs to hate everyone BUT Rhaenyra. Like she must hate her children, her father, and Criston but god forbid you bring up any resentment she may have towards Rhaenyra. Alicent is allowed to be sad about her childhood being taken and love her kids. She’s allowed to resent the position her father put her in and seek his council. She is allowed to know what Criston is capable of and understand he has been there for her for more than a decade. Just like she can move to put her son on the throne and miss what she had with Rhaenyra. Alicent is very complex and that should be seen through all her relationship.

One gripe I will say about alicole is like… what is the payoff. It is to make his eventual death hurt more? Is it more division amongst the greens? Is it for the guilt of it all?

[expired-blueberries]

hi i was the reboot massacre anon. it wasnt only you there were a couple people i was responding to. thank you for answering though!! youve got some interesting insights (i mean this genuinely)

im gonna be real i forgot a lot of details because it's been a While since i gave up. i had like a vague memory of starting to like the rich kid villain but then feeling like that stopped and didnt end up going much anywhere? i guess that mustve been "starting to get more backstory but then he didnt show up again forever."

also i worded the kevin and albedo thing badly: i did like new kevin for the most part actually, he was interesting. i was more disappointed about lack of albedo, since he was one of my absolute favorites. that one is on me for just clinging to old continuity.

but there are a lot of new designs i like too. most of the blue energy fused versions of aliens were really cool, as were kevin's corrupted/upgraded versions, and even that steampunk xlr8 that was only in like one episode. im not just like Unilaterally Hating Things That Are New theres a lot of neat stuff in the reboot

i dont think most of my complaints are with old vs new continuity. my biggest issues were just feeling like theres a lot of inconsequential filler, flat characters, and confusing or lacking motivations. to me, most episodes felt like EITHER the writers/producers didnt respect the characters/world enough to fully think through the logic of what characters are doing or what impact they have on the worldbuilding (my initial lizard-brain emotional reaction), OR theyre being forced to churn out so MANY episodes one after another that they dont have time to give "minor details" as much thought (my later conclusion after thinking on it). but maybe this gets better in later seasons though! thats why i was thinking i might try again.

in particular, the way you describe ben's reaction to the knight (i remember there being the beginnings of a new knight villain) is interesting to me, even if max's reaction is odd. because the fact that ben shows panic at all feels like more character depth than i ever saw in the early eps. like thats interesting to me because theyre really considering the consequences of how an actual ten year old (or anyone really!!) might actually react to someone powerful so easily and repeatedly swatting him aside. even original ben didnt get to be afraid very often. makes the characters feel more real if they can have negative reactions to things.

Aww, hey anon, great to see you again! Hope you're doing well~

Sadly, you're right that Billy (rich kid villain) didn't show up much again after he started getting insights into his backstory. Even when he did, any forward progress he could've made was quickly torn away from him. I can think of at least two times he could've had some character growth, and, indeed, even HAD character growth, only for said growth to then be rescinded for the end-of-episode gag. He pretty much ended the series the same as he started it, which is a total tragedy. I hope if the reboot timeline is continued in the future that they make him a full-fledged friend of the Tennysons, but I also doubt it'll happen  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I also totally get what you mean by missing Albedo! He's such a cool guy, and I think the reboot could've done something really fascinating with him if they added him to the cast. I'm not sure if it would've been something good, necessarily, but definitely interesting all the same. Personally, I'm okay with him not being in the reboot (despite how much I like him), just because I really enjoyed the cast that we already had, and I'd be worried that we would have to get rid of one character just to add Albedo. But I definitely get wishing he were in the reboot! I've seen a lot of fanart of him in the reboot style, because a lot of people feel the same as you!

I agree with the complaints about inconsequential filler. Unfortunately, the reboot is stuffed to the brim with it. I guess that's what happens when you only have ten minutes and an episodic cartoon style to tell a story... sadly, you have to spend most of that time doing absolutely nothing new. I'm glad that your conclusion is different than your original perspective, though! From what I've seen of the crew that worked on the show, it seems like a lot of them really respect the franchise and enjoyed the characters (Kelly Turnbull in particular has had the best tweets talking about it IMO). I definitely understand the initial kneejerk reaction of thinking that they disrespected the franchise and didn't care about the story, especially in the shock of moving from the prime timeline to the reboot timeline, but I'm glad you moved on from that thought! For a lot of prime timeline fans who tried reboot and dropped it, it seems like that initial kneejerk reaction is what stopped a lot of them, so I totally get it.

Although I disagree with thinking the characters are flat and have confusing or lacking motivations, I also understand where you get that idea from. The episode format (ten minutes long, mostly just jokes and action sequences for a large amount of the show) definitely doesn't do it any favor, and a lot of the time the only time you can get actual character depth is when you're least expecting it, or else in a special/movie. That's definitely one of the downsides of reboot. Some of the characters, like Max, are pretty one-dimensional, too, I'm sad to say. Kids cartoons nowadays often seem to dumb-down the adults, which is tragic.

Ultimately, I think a lot of the depth of reboot comes from having to do a bit of deeper thinking on your own, rather than just accepting what the reboot gives you. Like, yeah, Billy seems pretty flat on the surface, but then you have to think about how dismissive his parents are, how it seems like there's nobody in the world who truly cares about him, and how it's obvious deep down that he genuinely wants friendship but is never allowed to get it, and he's pretty interesting. Or, Charmcaster just seems like some kid who ran away from home to live out her witchy dreams, but then you look a little deeper and realize she was being groomed and predated upon by a being that was centuries old and only using her as a battery, and suddenly her vitriol at the world starts to make sense. A lot of the depth, you have to connect dots to find it. It's there! But it's hidden. Personally, I enjoy doing that sort of deep searching. It's in my nature to overthink everything. But I definitely understand why you might not have noticed it on first watch, especially if you didn't watch the right episodes.

I think you are pretty correct on your later deduction, that they don't have enough time to give the little details attention thanks to the sheer amount of episodes they had to put out. They make a pretty good big picture, but the small picture does lack, unfortunately.

If I could be so bold as to suggest what to watch? If you find that you really can't sit through the entire reboot, but you really do want to see why some people (like me) sing its praises so highly, I suggest you skip almost the entirety of the first season, picking up on the season finale (Omni-Tricked parts 1-4). From there, season finales, specials, and the movie are good to watch. I also suggest all of the Forever Knight episodes, because every episode with him in it that I can remember furthers the plot of his arc. I would also watch the Michael Morningstar episodes. Not all Kevin episodes are necessary to watch, but I find they're almost always some of the most enjoyable, so I suggest just watching all of them. Charmcaster episodes are usually pretty good. I personally like the Billy episodes, but like we've already discussed, his character doesn't really go anywhere permanently, always losing its gains by the end of the episode. Episodes with Phil are usually pretty good, or at least okay, and I'm pretty sure at least a few of them advance the plot or hint at backstory. Really, I've seen at least two posts on two different social media sites about plot-based episodes of the reboot to watch, so if you looked it up on Google, you could probably find them and have a better idea of what to watch!

Honestly, the thing a lot of people don't realize about reboot, is that it actually does a pretty fantastic job (imho) of handling serious topics and the characters negative emotions. That episode with the Knight is one example, but if you want another example, then I'll humbly point you to the Ben 10,010 special. In said special, we see Ben in the future as a washed up and burnt out hero, living a solitary life away from all friends and family. This is the future that he eventually ends up at after all his years of heroics, and I think it's the most realistic; what person could grow up normal after being forced to become a hero so young? After living through unimaginable horrors? After having the very universe itself thrust onto their shoulders? In the end, my greatest complaints with that special is that we don't see future Kevin as a human, we don't see Glitch in his humanoid form, and Ben does the loathsome "gains a lot of weight while depressed but he loses it all at the end to show that he actually is all better now!" trope. But this special and that episode aren't the only ones we see the characters deal with negative emotions! I know Gwen has an episode where she handles feeling unappreciated and uncared for, and Ben actually has another episode featuring the Knight where he deals with negative emotions like not being trusted by his family and not being listened to. On its face, reboot doesn't look like it would ever handle these topics, but it does, and I think it does a pretty great job of it! They're usually resolved pretty quickly, but what can you expect from a ten minute long episodic series?

Haha, sorry again for the word spam, but yeah! Like I said before, I totally understand if you try reboot again and still end up not liking it. It isn't for everybody, and that's totally okay! That said, I hope that if you DO end up giving it another chance, you enjoy it! Who knows, stranger things have happened, right? Like an alien watch falling to Earth and giving a random ten year old the power to shapeshift

[snickerdoodlles]

grasshoppers and elephants - pt.1

welcome to pt.1 of my silliest fic for this fandom yet. the premise: Pat & Pran’s friends find out about their relationship. and instead of interrupting PatPran’s honeymoon with their egos, they deal with their bullshit on their own time and decide to become the world’s best worst wingmen. many shenanigans ensue.

i actually started writing this after ep4, and somehow its still growing. was hoping to post the full thing in one go, but i’m going to need the strength for ep 8-12 so! here’s the first ~3.5k, where Korn, Chang, and Mo find out and realize they’re going to have to make the ultimate sacrifice: they’re going to have to befriend the architecture gang. Pat better appreciate them for this

story title comes from the thai idiom “riding an elephant to catch a grasshopper,” which refers to when someone puts a whole lot of effort into something for minimal return.

hope u enjoy!! ♥

(:(  ):)

Korn, Chang, and Mo are on the other side of the city on a hunt. Officially, they’re looking for some curry house with supposedly legendary dumplings. In truth, Mo had been invited by his new hot date and her boyfriend, and Chang and Korn are tagging along to either be his wingmen or his embarrassments, depending on which is funnier. It’s the setup to a promising night.

If only they could find the place.

“Are you sure she gave you the right address?” Korn complains.

“Tao wouldn’t lie,” Mo protests, reentering the address into his phone for the nth time. He holds it up above his head with a pout, looking like a dumb kitten in the rain as he waits for maps to fail to load because the signal is crap in this part of town. “She and her boyfriend were really into me.”

Chang hums, judgemental as hell, and Mo smacks him without looking away from his phone. “I’d believe you an hour ago, but now my feet are tired.”

Mo pouts at his phone, fingers flying. “So much for the world’s best wingmen,” he mutters.

“We also promised to be embarrassments if it was funnier,” Korn reminds him. Mo doesn’t react, and Korn and Chang exchange sympathetic grimaces behind Mo’s back.

“I can feel your pity and I hate you both.”

Korn rolls his eyes and dodges Mo’s swipe at him. “Can’t you just call Mae for tonight or something? A wiseman says it’s better to have the bird in hand than two in the bushes.”

Mo actually raises his head to glare at him for that. “It’s not about that. And don’t steal my shtick when I’m down.”

Korn traps him in a headlock, attracting many a strange look as Mo spits curses at him. “But you’re feeling better now, hmm?”

“No, you asshole--”

Chang snickers and rubs Mo’s head, hard enough to hurt, completely ruining Mo’s coiffed date hair. Mo yells and twists and slaps Korn’s sides until he lets go, laughing the whole time. “I hate you both,” Mo mutters as he tries to fix his hair, but he can’t fully hide the smile pulling at his lips.

Korn just grins. “Just text them so you can meet up another day and we can go back. I’m tired and we don’t have any friends on this side of town.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Mo mutters, still fixing his hair, but he pulls out his phone to text the couple and that’s good enough for Korn. Chang’s already pulling up directions back home. “Do we want to go to one of the usual spots, or just call it a night?”

Korn wrinkles his nose--his feet are sore because he wore his fashionable sandals with negative three millimeters of padding like an idiot, and he had mostly come out tonight for Mo--but then he perks up with a second wind. “Hey, do you think Pat will be done with that thing by now?”

Chang and Mo both brighten as well. Pat had begged off tonight, citing that that architecture president is on his ass for something to do with that play he’s in and he’d be too tired to go across town tonight. But if they’re making new plans… “I’ll text him now!”

They slowly migrate to the street corner, waiting for the maps to load on Chang’s phone. Korn idly scans the streets as he waits for Pat’s reply, eyes sliding over the many neon store signs, bougie vintage cars clogging the streets, Pat loitering outside a convenience store--

Korn whips around so fast he gives himself whiplash. “Pat!”

“Eh?!”

Chang flops against Korn’s shoulder, head cocked in confusion. “What’s he doing way out here?”

Korn shrugs. “What are any of us doing out here?” Mo pouts at him and Korn waves him off with a scoff, he didn’t mean it like that. “Who cares! He’s here and the night’s still young.”

Chang doesn’t join in his enthusiasm, still frowning. “Could he be out here with Pran for…something about the play?” he asks, even though he sounds doubtful.

Korn clicks his tongue and tries to drag them both down the street. “Then all the more reason to join him, he probably needs a rescue!” And yep, sure enough, Pran walks out of the store and holds out an ice cream to Pat. “See, we should--” Pat thanks Pran with a kiss, and Korn’s brain abruptly screeches to a halt.

A phone clatters to the ground somewhere beside him, but Korn’s still trying to get his brain back online as he watches Pran shove Pat away with a laugh, only to tuck himself under Pat’s arm and kiss Pat’s cheek. Mo sags against him in shock as Pat peppers Pran’s cheek in kisses, and Korn’s own knees wobble dangerously.

What. The. Fuck.

“Did… did we just…” Hallucinate? Step into an alternative universe? Mistake some random stranger for our best friend kissing another guy that looks like the class president of our rival faculty? Korn’s brain stutters again and he sways to the side, off-kilter.

Korn’s phone dings loudly, making all three of them startle and nearly knock each other down like dominos. Mo and Chang press against his shoulders and they all watch together as Korn unlocks his screen with stiff fingers and Pat’s message loads.

nah, not tonight. im tired, im just gonna go to bed when im done with pran

A second message pops up under it. u guys have fun tho! film the stupid shit for me, it says cheerfully.

“Did. Did he just--”

“Damn, get it Pat,” Chang murmurs, a little dumbstruck but also a little awestruck, and Korn’s own shock melts away enough for him to realize how pissed he is.

“He’s blowing us off for architecture?!” Korn demands, glaring down the street with half a mind to go march up to Pat and demand some answers. But Pat and Pran are long gone, and Chang gets his arm around his neck before he can try to track their steps. “What the hell, Chang!”

Chang frowns at him, lazy blinks slow with confusion. “What’s the matter with you?”

Korn gapes at him, not even knowing where to begin. “Uh, he’s lying to us?!”

Mo takes Korn’s phone, frowning down at it and scratching behind his ear. “Did he?”

And, well, no. Pat didn’t. Everything he said could very much be the truth.

Korn’s still pissed.

“But he-- They--!”

“I need a drink,” Chang announces abruptly. Korn’s friend is a genius.

“Yes, then we can figure out what the hell just happened.”

Chang just grunts and, arm still around Korn’s neck, drags him off in the opposite direction of where Pat and Pran disappeared and into the first bar they stumble upon, Mo trailing behind them in a daze the whole way. Chang drops him in a seat and gets the three of them the bar’s cheapest beer and the measly bowl of free nuts. The beer tastes like watered down slop, but Korn can’t even seem to mind as his brain slowly processes what they’d just learned. Mo stares into the weak foam of his beer, unseeing as his brain works at a million miles an hour. Chang just munches on the free nuts with a frown. Korn doesn’t even call him out for being a hoarder this time, still stuck on their newfound revelation.

“Pat’s dating Pran,” Korn finally says. He’s still not completely processing it. Seriously, Pran? Ultra serious, uptight, kind of a bitch, leader of their rival faculty, Pran?

“We don’t know that he’s dating him,” Mo says hesitantly. Irritation flares in him, even if Korn knows this is just Mo’s thought process, exhausting every detail until he can see the full picture.

“Pat doesn’t do casual,” Korn retorts. Pat’s a flirt, and he certainly thinks of himself as a playboy, but the idiot doesn’t know the meaning of half-hearted. Korn once watched him pay for and attend six weeks of knitting classes just because a girl he had flirted with made an offhand comment about loving knitted scarfs. Nevermind that it’s always more humid than hell and never drops below 22 degrees around here, Korn still has at least one lumpy scarf and a tangled mess of yarn Pat had claimed was a mitten from that.

Mo trails his finger around the rim of his glass, brow wrinkled in thought. “But Pat’s not the sort to secretly date someone.”

And isn’t that just the thing? Because Pat doesn’t keep secrets. He wears his heart on his sleeve and broadcasts what he thinks to the world. It’s part of why they’re friends in the first place. Korn shifts, gut twisting unpleasantly. Probably the shitty beer. He takes another sip, grimacing at the taste.

“Pran’s not even his type,” Korn mutters, even though that’s really, really not the fucking point.

Chang scoffs, angry, and Korn realizes he’s been weirdly silent this whole time. “What?”

Chang doesn’t respond, lips curled in a scowl. Mo scoots his chair back a hair, eyes wide and shoulders tense as he looks between Chang and Korn warily. Korn stomps down the urge to fidget. “What.”

A muscle in Chang’s jaw flexes as he chews over his words--probably waiting for Korn to move the conversation along like usual, until whatever he’s thinking about is irrelevant and he can rejoin with a witty one-liner. But irritation burns in Korn’s blood, making him shifty and snappish, and the thought of another friend holding back on him is abruptly worse than any trepidation over what has Chang in a fit.

“What.”

Chang glares at the table, hand curled into a tight fist. “Pat doesn’t have to tell us shit.”

Silence rings around them.

“...Huh?”

That tight muscle in Chang’s jaw flexes again. “Pat,” Chang enunciates slowly, as thought Korn’s fucking three, “doesn’t have to tell us shit. You’re not his mother.”

Silence stretches between them, strained and tense. Mo’s chair squeaks as he shifts, palms raised placatingly. “Uh. Guys?”

Korn’s eyes narrow in a glare. “He’s dating Pran.”

Chang glares back at him, meeting his eyes for the first time since they saw Pat. He clears his throat deliberately. “So.”

“Guys--”

“No,” Korn says, leaning forward. His head buzzes like a whirlwind. “I wanna hear what this guy has to say.” He sneers at Chang’s glare. “Who’s side are you even on?”

Chang slams his hands on the table, halfway out of his seat, sending Mo scrambling back with a yelp, even throwing Korn off-kilter as his usually laid back friend glares at him with the air of a thunderstorm.

“What sides?” Chang spits, low and furious. “Pat’s our friend.”

Korn scoffs. “And he’s keeping secrets from all of us,” he snaps back. Korn raises his eyebrows, mind spinning in a new direction. “Unless--”

“Korn, for once in your life, shut up before you make shit worse,” Chang says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Obviously Pat didn’t tell me, how could he have told any of us?!” Korn slumps back, stunned, but Chang barrels on. “You really think he could tell us he liked Pran without us overreacting? Without us telling him he’s an idiot, that there’s no way the guy’s his type, or even just trust us not to go too far taunting Pran like dickheads?”

“So what,” Korn sputters, trying to find his footing, “you don’t care he’d never tell us?”

Chang’s face falls, looking so disgustingly disappointed that Korn’s protests die in a lump in his throat. His jaw flexes again, before the fight abruptly drains from him and he just looks irritated. “Pat is my friend,” he says, in a voice strangely grave and final, “Fuck off until you feel like being one.”

“I--”

But it’s too late, Chang storms out without a backwards glance. Mo, still wide-eyed and strung tighter than a wire, gives Korn a wary glance as he stiffly rises to his feet. “I’m-- I’m gonna go check on him,” he says quickly, and then he’s gone too, Korn left alone and gawking at three empty seats.

A soft but pointed cough beside him breaks him out of his stupor. Korn shakes himself out of it and stares dumbly up at the server looming over him with a strained service smile.

“You haven’t paid for those drinks yet.”

“...Eh?” Korn blinks at the abandoned beers blankly, still trying to process whatever the hell just happened, until the server starts tutting pointedly.

Korn shakes his head, irritated. “Assholes,” he mutters as he slaps some bills on the table and leaves. He ignores the server protesting he’s overpaid, stumbling out onto the bright street and taking deep breaths of the muggy, oil sharp smells of the city. He closes his eyes for a moment, the city too loud for his crowded thoughts, then picks a direction and starts stumbling home.

(:( ):)

Korn finds Chang and Mo during lunch the next day. They’re huddled over a secluded courtyard table and their hushed conversation dies as soon as Korn’s in earshot. Korn sits at the table, ignoring Chang’s pointed stare and Mo’s anxious fidgeting.

Korn eyes the empty space next to him. “Is Pat joining us for lunch?”

Chang and Mo share a look. Korn resists the urge to make a face. “He said he had to go check the rehearsal schedule and he’d catch up later.”

Yeah, sure. Cause that couldn’t have been an email.

Chang raises an eyebrow in a challenge. Korn ignores it. “So,” he says to the tense silence, not nervous, “How do we get Pat to tell us?”

Chang narrows his eyes. “Korn--” he warns.

Korn tugs his ear, irritated. “That’s not what I meant!”

He fidgets under Chang’s scrutiny. Mo’s no help, determinedly staring at the table top with his straw in his mouth, even though he’s too nervous to drink anything. Korn starts to tense after a minute of this—it had been a long walk home last night, and Korn’s still too worn from it to deal with any interrogations, especially when he’s still a jumbled mess of feelings over this mess. But then Chang suddenly relaxes and nods his forgiveness. Mo sighs loudly, which Korn kind of wants to scowl at but is mostly just relieved.

“That’s what we were just talking about,” Mo says in a rush, leaning forward eagerly.

Korn raises his eyebrows, impressed. “You already have a plan?”

“Eh?” Chang grimaces and waggles his hand. “More of an idea than a plan. The biggest thing is we’re gonna have to be friends with architecture.”

Korn blinks at him, stone-faced.

Mo looks at Chang nervously before gently shaking Korn’s shoulder. “What?” he asks, too nervous to be casual, “It’s not like you’ll miss the bruises.”

Korn punched his brow. “No, not that. Just. Trying to picture how we’d do that.”

Chang and Mo sigh and Korn makes a face at both of them. He’s not that bad. “Yeah, we’re stuck on that too,” Chang says glumly.

Mo grimaces, pointedly not looking at either of them. “We should probably start with an apology.”

Korn scoffs, earning warning looks from both of them. “No, seriously,” he says to Chang’s frown, “How would we react if they just came up to us one day and apologized out of the blue?”

Chang grimaces. “...We’d think it was a setup. Or just start throwing punches”

Mo puts his hands in prayer against his face and takes a few deep breaths. Chang’s head falls onto the table with a loud thump like the drama queen he is.

“New plan, we just ply Pat with beer and reassurances until he cracks,” Chang says into the wood, making Korn snort in disgust. Oh sure, when he suggests something like that…

Mo smacks Chang upside the head. Korn massages his brow as though that might help the growing headache. “How the fuck are we going to keep those assholes from picking fights?”

“Well, for starters, you’re going to have to ignore Wai,” Mo says wryly.

“But--!”

“I will start quoting wisemen,” Mo threatens. Korn shuts his mouth. “You two are like oil and fire. Just ignore him, walk away when you need to, and that’ll stop half the fights.” Mo falters under Korn’s glare. “...forty percent?” he offers generously.

Chang snorts and mutters something undoubtedly rude. And they’re probably right, as annoying as that is. It’s just that Wai is so...Wai. He’ll stand in Korn’s general vicinity and half the time Korn will think, That face needs a punch, and next thing you know, they’re both on the ground screaming. And if Wai’s temper is anything to go by, the feeling is mutual.

“What if he insults me?” Korn protests halfheartedly.

“Suck it up,” the two say simultaneously, entirely unsympathetic.

Korn clicks his tongue in disgust. Pat better appreciate this.

Chang huffs, ruffling his bangs, and muses, “We’d be better off if we were in smaller groups. We’re less likely to fight if there’s fewer of us.”

Korn opens his mouth.

“We just said we’d keep you and Wai separate.”

Korn closes his mouth.

Mo drums his fingers as he thinks. “We’re going to need an excuse to find time to befriend architecture. Showing up at their faculty’s just going to lead to blood.”

The three of them grimace at each other. “…We could destroy another bus stop?” Korn suggests after a minute of crickets.

“Do you have something against Professor Pichai?”

“Yeah, it’d probably ruin Pat’s confidence in us,” Korn agrees glumly.

“Again, do you have something against Professor Pichai?”

Mo slumps in his seat. “Well, I have no idea where to start. Not unless you picked up hypnotism in class.”

“You’ve clearly never sat through one of Dr. Pom’s lectures,” Korn mutters, getting a sharp kick from Chang for insulting his favorite professor. Korn ignores him, fingers drumming the table.

Chang frowns, chin still on the table. “...We are on the rugby team with Wai.”

Korn’s fingers come to a stop. He breathes out slowly, tight with nerves. “We just said--”

“He’s on scholarship,” Mo says abruptly. “I overheard him talking to Pran. He’s not going to start a fight if we’re doing something with the team.”

Korn seriously doubts Wai would remember or even give a shit if he’s pissed off enough, but that’s not even the big problem with that plan.

“He’s not going to like us cornering him,” Korn points out, clicking his tongue dismissively.

“...Unless,” Chang muses, straightening up with a dangerously thoughtful look.

“You’re scheming and I don’t like it,” Korn says flatly.

“You love my schemes,” Chang retorts. “We--”

“No, stop, I have a headache just thinking about it.” Chang pouts and Korn rubs his head wearily. Chang’s schemes work out more often than not, he just has a terrible penchant for mischief and no reasonable grasp on collateral damage. Last time Chang had looked at him like that, Korn had been trapped in the shopping mall overnight with a dead phone and a single stick of gum. His mother still brings up the incident any time he misses a visit home.

Not that the consequences have ever deterred Chang before, Korn thinks sourly as Chang’s pout goes slack and his eyes sparkle with ideas.

“But maybe if we-- Ohh we could-- Hmm…”

Korn buries his face in his hands. “Please. Please shut up.”

Chang opens his mouth.

“I’ll go along with your scheme, just text me the details after you’ve made your plans.”

Chang shuts his mouth, eyes sparkling devilishly. Korn hates him so much.

“I want to know Chang’s schemes,” Mo announces, because all of Korn’s friends are assholes. He sobers and adds, “I still don’t know how we’re going to make friends with the others though. Louis is just as bad as Wai.”

Chang rubs his hands together gleefully, but Korn holds up a hand before he can say shit and make his headache worse. “Just focus on Wai first, worry about the rest after. There won’t be any point in making a bunch of plans those assholes could ruin anyways.”

“Ah-ah!” Chang scolds, wagging his finger like Korn’s mother. “We won’t make new friends if you go around calling them assholes behind their backs.”

“Yeah,” Mo adds, sounding like his grandpa on a tear, “Wait ‘til we’re friends so you can insult them to their face..”

“Ayyy, up top!” Chang and Mo high five, grinning like idiots.

“Ugh.”

(:( ):)

[familyagrestefanblog]

Ml Meta analysis: Adriens current absents, season 4 structure and theory on whats to come

Here I am back again with my endless rambling.

I'm just as worried for our cat son as everyone else (maybe even more) which is why I tried figuring out for my own sanity why he is so absent currently.

Upfront I wanna warn yall that I wrote this post in one rush this night and therefore had no time to do alot of editing. So things can probably get a bit more messy than usual but I tried to write it clearly, while writing 2 other ml essays as well. This is the one drawback of having so many episodes in such a short time, I have no time to write my posts x3 I had another theory planned for before Optigami airs but I don't think I can manage before tomorrow.

But let's not waste any more time. Grab a snack and here we go:

It's 2am right now but I think I just realized why Adrien/Chat Noir is being sidelined so much recently.

Sure, yes, it'll come into play in the very obviously set up Ladynoir drama later on but what I wanna talk about now is more the structure of how s4 is most likely written in terms of both Marinettes and Adriens side of the story. And then deep dive a little on why I think so.

You see season 4 is now reaping what has been built up from s1-s3, but this also includes that you have to take the time now to properly recreate the new possibilities out of the loose pieces of the broken status quo.

Seriously, season 4 has to handle and reinvent ALOT. The show got now officially announced to have 7 seasons, which is exactly the amount of seasons Astruc said they have story for. I couldnt find the official tweet from Thomas himself but I one from another source:

And now look take a look at the possible shows structure:

- s1-s3 was the first status quo and built up everything so now they can pay off after pay off while...

-... S4 is now the transitional season where the old status quo gets left behind as we work towards the new one.

-I have nothing to proof this of course, but in the same sense it would now make sense that s5-s7 where/are planned to play out under the final status quo. If I'm not wrong at first the show was under contract for 5 seasons, which would mean that after the transitional season 4 there was only 1 season of the final status quo for sure. Still, done right it could have been worth the wait. But this isn't where Miraculous will end. The show actually got the 7 seasons the creator wanted and THIS is how I think the long term plan makes the most sense. Nothing all too complicated but still hella effective in its execution.

But now back to our two main characters, because Marinettes and Adriens development are the two aspects that will raise the show to the intense heights of the s5-s7 status quo.

From s1-s3 Marinette was the active player but she was hardly involved with the actual PLOT of the show, since most of the plot and backstory of the show lies directly with the Agreste family. She only started to get her own plot when she literally created a new one by getting involved with the miraculous lore, because the closest Marinette got to the Agreste plot was "The collector".

Adrien in the other hand was always literally right in the middle of the plot but he wasn't enough of an active player to bring us further either.

Season 4 is now going to add the missing parts for both of them and as the very beginning of the season showed us: there are going to do it SEPERATLY.

This is why "Truth" and "Lies" have been structured the way they are (One Marinette-centric the other Adrien-centric). Yes, Marinette and Adrien are meant to end their story victoriously together, but they are simply not the people they have to be to become such a powerful team. Certain aspects of their journey they have to do... basically disconnected from the other one. The "Miracle Queen" endcard shows it quite nicely as well where they are heading now: away from each other.

Obviously the season started with Marinette growing into her new guardian status including everything miraculous related, since she is the main lead and because the new ways the episodes can now utilize everything Miraculous need to be established first before we deep dive into the messed up Agreste mystery.

So while I totally agree that it is annoying to get so little Adrien/Chat Noir content currently I also understand the practicality behind it. As I said, before s4 Marinette was the active main character who mostly didn't really have her own plot. So now adding her plot aspect and have her ACTIVELY figure everything needed out means that right now Marinette/Ladybug is the active focus main character who is solving a huge part of her s4 character arc. That simply drowns out Adrien as the currently still mostly-inactive secondary main character who, yes, may be right in the middle of the shows emotional + villain plot/lore/backstory, but that side of the story simply isn't in focus at the moment.

And I gotta say, I'm kinda glad they're doing it this way. Because I'm gonna be honest, when the season starts giving us Adrien/family Agreste episodes like "Lies" and "The collector" (in this case "Gabriel Agreste" for example) again, I don't want the narrative to be forced to spend time with something guardian lore based just because they didn't took their time to do it earlier.

So, as we see on the s4 episode raster "Gabriel Agreste" is episode 9. Honestly, I expect most of it (especially the ones near the beginning, so ep. 5 included) til that episode to be Marinette based the way everything else til now did (besides Lies obviously and Guilt trip didn't hardcore focus on Marinette/Ladybug either and that's because it's after "Gabriel Agreste") in the spirit of "Truth". It's just the needed set up from Marinettes side of the story and I can live with that.

Because we actually saw the change after "Gabriel Agreste" already in "Guilt trip".

I don't know why some people pretend like Chat almost cataclysming himself after hearing how guilt-eaten Nino is for Adriens sake isn't a huge indicator that the episodes afterwards will not only acknowledge but also DEAL with Adriens/Chats situation and problems. Remember, we are talking about CHAT NOIR here not Adrien Agreste. The show has always portrayed and acknowledged ADRIENS issues very straight forward and with the proper seriousness (especially when it comes to his family), whereas Chat Noir was often mostly used for comedic purposes with some exceptions of his problems being properly delt with (since Marinette/Ladybug was mostly oblivious to them, since Adrien keeps them hidden so well). But now in "Guilt trip" LADYBUG was confronted head-on with just how much negativity Chat has inside and how quickly and extremely he drowns in it.

Sure, correct, the episode also has his negativity "washed away" rather quickly by Ladybug opening up to him on how important he is to her

But this is in character for both of them as "Lies" very clearly showed us that the way BOTH OF THEM behave here is where the problem lies. There Ladybug was freaked out after Chat threw his life away once again but quickly accepted Chats very direct avoidance of the confrontation, since he seemed to be alright to her.

Something I also find noteworthy here is that Ladybugs dialog is "Seriously, you need to stop doing this to me!", which is.... a VERY Marinette-centric way of acknowledging the problem.

It completely shifts the issue away from Adriens extremely alarming self-harmful/suicidal tendencies and instead only calls out how it affects Marinette (whose feelings here are definitely valid, don't get me wrong!). It showcases perfectly how unaware Marinette still is of her partners inner tumult at that point and also parallels how Marinette called Adriens life "perfect" at the beginning of the episode (This is no shade towards Marinette, in general the entirety of "Lies" is about showing us just how harmful Adriens Chat Noir persona actually IS to him so these two moments of her being oblivious to Adriens and Chats immense problems very much fits into that episodes narrative and sets up what's about to come. I still have an entire essay in the making for "Lies" but, guys, it's just getting longer and longer. I suck xD).

So the fact that an episode after "Gabriel Agreste" brings this scenario back, just a little different but ALOT more revealing of Adriens immense problems to his partner, is VERY telling. Besides other things it tells us that this happens at the beginning of the arc that deals with (at least) Chats issues since Ladybug is still way too quickly too ready to accept her partner as "completely fine" again just because Chat makes it seem that way (while some negativity increasing guilt bubbles still to stick to him.).

And yet, others have already pointed it out that Ladybug IS noticing what Chat wanted to do and reacted accordingly...

she just didn't speak of it the way it is because it overwhelmed her, which calls back to Ladybugs "You have to stop doing this to me!" dialog.( For a great breakdown of her dialog HERE is a link to @flightfoot​ post)

In "Lies" Marinette was way too stressed by her new guardian role to even consider Chats side of it and therefore only spoke of her own, but in "Guilt trip" she's already past that stressful arc. So here she is immediately able to recognize Chats suicidal action for what it is, come to his (much needed) aid and lift her partners spirit the best she can by emotionally opening up to him (which is something we KNOW is incredibly hart for Marinette).

The difference between her reaction in "Lies" and in "Guilt trip" shows that Marinette has her guardian role already mostly handled and is now mentally able to be there for others again, so the extremely Marinette-centric "Truth"-like episodes are mostly passed. Now the episodes can bring Adrien/Chat Noir more into the game again and even shift to "Lies" - like episodes because MARINETTE can pay more attention to him again and isn't faced with something new, important and overwhelming Miraculous related every step she takes.

And THAT is extremely fair from a narrative standpoint.

---

I really need to stop elaborating so much on these posts because I'm only NOW actually getting to the point of where Adriens journey will disconnect for a while from Ladybugs. Sorry guys.

Okay, to understand where I'm going with this I will have to quickly explain how I always saw Chat Noirs place in the Ladybug+Chat Noir vs Hawkmoth war ever since s1.

Because here is the thing: Adrien wasn't able to truly leave the battle field ONCE since the origins. Marinette was completely out of Hawkmoths and Gabriels reach once she detransformed, which balances out her basically being the personification of the good sides force. And Gabriel literally decided whenever or not the battle is even ACTIVE right now! Besides that he is in complete control of his own actions and environment, which gives him all the necessary time, safety and downtime he needs to act as the personification of the evil sides force.

Marinette and Gabriel always knew when they were safe and off the battle field, but ADRIEN never had that and it left him LITERALLY right in the middle of both Ladybugs and Hawkmoths sides.

You see, because before Adrien became Chat Noir he basically was part of Hawkmoths side just by default. He was born into this family, that's his father and lost mother and everything he knows. Adrien didn't/doesn't even have to KNOW that he is part of Hawkmoths side, he's his son at some level he just IS! And I'm not saying this as anything negative, Adrien coming from Hawkmoths side is literally the reason why he became Chat Noir!

Because whereas Gabriel is having the time of his damn life as evil terrorist, created out of tragic and sinister circumstances, ADRIEN on the other hand couldn't handle his families environment and very same circumstances anymore and accepted the role as Paris' hero to escape his heritage for a while.

Keywords being: a WHILE.

Something unique about Adrien I always loved is the fact that he is the villains abused, isolated and overworked SON, who becomes a hero to escape his depressing life and YET it was never Adriens intention to LEAVE IT. Adrien merely wanted to use his time as Chat Noir to let of some steam and breath freely while doing some hero work so he can go back into his civilian life and try to one day successfully ment his broken family. He couldn't handle the current situation anymore but he still always saw worth in his family/father. I have SO MUCH respect for that!

But him not intending to leave his family and instead regaining strength as Chat Noir to continue to hold onto it came with the downside of him not being able to fully become part of the good sides people/force either. Hence why Adriens/Chats place always felt so lost in comparison to Ladybugs and Hawkmoths clear positions. He's caught in between their extremes trying to balance out BOTH at the same time. What an impossible task!

So he couldn't put in the same focus as Ladybug into being the good sides force because he is literally burned out from his civilian life on Hawkmoths evil side. But he also couldn't be involved as an ACTIVE member of his fathers evil force, because he chose to find refuge in his friends and as a hero on Ladybugs side.

Adrien unknowingly is part of BOTH the shows two extreme moral sides of good and evil and this season we will see Adrien/Chat Noir grow into his own within BOTH sides as well.

Because he simply couldn't have done so right away in s1. Now after 3 seasons Chat Noir is more than solidly established as one of Paris Heros and his time with Ladybug, the other heros and his normal friends helped him greatly to find his place on the good side. "Lies" set this up as Chat Noirs arcs starting point that now he has to stop connecting "being heroic" strictly with following Ladybug (as Marinette is the STAND IN personification for the good side, she's still a flawed human being like everyone else and not the ultimate force of perfect and good. Big difference.) just as he has to start looking past his fathers sympathetic moments/qualities to see that Hawkmoth isn't a 100%, inhumane monster just because he is the stand-in personification of evil in their fight, but the man he calls Father and still needs to be taken down. (I talked about this in more detail on THIS post)

Adrien has to seperat himself from Ladybugs path and focus on his family and I believe it'll start with the much dreaded (but expected) Ladynoir fight.

Funnily enough, what I'm talking about was actually already set up in "Frozer" I just didn't remember that for a bit. In "Frozer" we saw Ladynoir having a fight which caused Chat Noir to go his own way in the episodes battle.

I always found it interesting that the episode didn't had Chats decision, to not follow Ladybugs lead here, turn out to be a huge mistake. Almost every other show would have done so but now I think I understand. This episode and s2 in general SET UP the s4 conflict, s3 LEAD UP to it and now s4 DELIVERS it.

So what happened in "Frozer" is a direct parallel to what about to go down:

Ladynoirs fight will cause Chat Noir to not simply  follow Ladybugs side anymore the way he used to, but note, he DOESN'T leave the good side AND they make up again in the end after Chat saves Ladybug from the akuma. He just does things on his own because he isn't on great terms with her for a while. "Frozer" showed Chats decision to not only NOT be a mistake but also a necessary part of defeating the akuma, just the way it'll be in s4. Damn, Adrien breaking away from Ladybugs side, the way she (unintentionally tho) did at the beginning of the season, to focus more on himself and his family will be the game changing factor, when Adrien will have his completing arc where he goes from "not active character within the villain/backstory plot" to "ACTIVE character within the villain/backstory plot".

And we already saw with Marinette how many fast breakthroughs we get through these completing arcs. Which is also a reason for why Adriens/ Chats arc comes later in the season, because BUDDY. Once Adrien starts to actively uncover his families mystery and fathers secrets Gabriel is SCREWED! Adrien will gain the needed inside knowledge that complements Marinettes Miraculous power; and reunited they can take on whatever the hell kind of scale the Agrestes plan actually is.

So how to end this post? My biggest intention was to raise hope for everybody (myself included lol) who is right now very concerned and upset about how side-lined our boy is at the moment. But I prefer doing so in a way that actually works with canons context instead of sugarcoating what I don't like. And Adriens/Chats current position I definitely do NOT like but accepting it as realistic outcome from s1-s3 and set up for the escalation for both Ladynoir and his home situation gives it the proper purpose and pay off (narrative and character wise) that it SHOULD have.

Basically, the endcards of "Truth" and "Lies" show it perfectly.

It looks like ShadowMoth is turning a blind eye towards Adrien/Chat Noir because of Ladybugs new guardian status and "greater importance". But Gabriels tunnel vision on Ladybug will leave him vulnerable to his own sons secret actions against him and Gabriel won't see it coming until its already too late.