#Episode 1: The Orphan

[aboxfullofnonsense]

Walking With Dinosaurs 2025 is bad, and here's why

I was so excited for Walking With Dinosaurs 2025. So Excited. I called up some friends, I ranted and raved online, I rewatched the originals, (all of them (yes all of them)) I made up a cheese platter and got myself prepared to have a good time.

I did not have a good time.

It’s bad, it’s really, truly, horrendously bad. Not only is it a bad documentary on its own merits, it has managed to completely miss the point of what made the originals special! When I ranted to my Father on this topic, him, knowing my childhood obsession with this series, said to me “well, it’s a bit naff, but you’re not twelve anymore, they aren’t making it for you,” and I am here thinking, bi-eloved Father, if they aren’t making it for me then who the fuck are they making it for? Certainly not anyone who liked the original series! And if the original series didn’t hold up then, you know, maybe it wouldn’t have been viewed by tens of millions of people, and kicked off a revolution in paleontological documentary making, and spawned three additional tv specials, a sequel series, a prequel series, another sequel series, another worse sequel series, a feature length film that I am Not going to acknowledge ever again, another entire series of mockumentaries that were only tangentially related, a sequel to that, a fictionalised drama spin-off of THOSE mockumentaries, then a Canadian spin-off/adaptation of THAT series, a video game, and a multimillion dollar Live Arena Spectacular with diesel powered lifesize sauropod puppets? The Walking With- franchise did not become what it is because it’s audience was twelve, it was because it was good, and they endure because they were well made, and did something bold and interesting that no one else had done, and this new spin off has just, shat all over that, and because I have a blog now I guess I’m gonna rant into the void about it until I feel better.  

To start with I’ll get down to the biggest issue of all, the format. The defining thing of the Walking With’s was that they presented themselves as a “live” documentary. Instead of showing us fossils, and talking about what could have been, they showed us an animal, and say this is what is. This is a dinosaur, here is its life. It was all framed as if made about something “alive.” It did not waste time with quibbles about how arrived at their interpretation of the fossils, or justify their decisions, they never broke the illusion that these animals alive, hence “Walking With-” were walking with them, in their footsteps, following their lives. They expected you to use your critical thinking skills to know that it is supposition (and they released a comprehensive book detailing why they made the decisions they made and the science behind them if you cared that much.) WWD 2025 takes all of that and throws it in the bin.

It opens on silhouette of a cow person in Montana, not a great start, and then finally moves to a dig site. In what formation? Not important, apparently. What geological era? Who cares? It’s not like anyone watching a documentary about dinosaurs will care about something as trivial as that, right? Then a pair of mysteriously made up and sweat free paleontologist dig up a bone that has been mysteriously cleaned and prepared ahead of time. We are told it is an infant triceratops that they have named Clover, and she is on her own. They could have told us this by just showing the “live” dinosaur, but, they get to the point pretty quickly so I could have lived with that. Oh, if only I had known what was to come.

This is how you get fossils out of the ground right? Just pick them up? So nice of them to glue themselves together in situ.

We finally see Clover and, she looks terrible. Don’t get me wrong, the model and texturing is very good, she looks beautifully scaly and her body is plump and fat as you’d expect a young dinosaur to look, but the movement is just terrible. All the dinosaurs, outside of a few key scenes, have this incredibly stiff, rigid movement, they turn their head, stop, blink, flinch back to the first position, then repeat. They look and move like animatronics, almost more so than the animatronics of the original did at times when the camera decides to focus inexplicably on the same sequence of short looping movements. Her nostrils do not flare when she investigates the nest of eggs, her pupils do not pin when she is playing, her plump, fat belly does not sway or jiggle as she frolics, she leaves no footprints in the sand, no ripples in the water, she does not pant or cry or emote in any way beyond jerking her head back and forth and leaping with her feet out of frame to save money on animation. She is stiff, and unyielding, and unalive. Then, after a whole three (3!) minutes with her, we’re back at the digsite digging up another fossil that was definitely prepared earlier.

Get prepared to see this lifeless head bobbling a lot.

It’s her jawbone. It’s a very beautifully prepared jawbone too. They’re so proud of this find that the narrator introduces us to the palaeontologist who prepared it, all this only six minutes after they picked up the perfectly prepared femur out of the ground like it was just like that, right in front of her. Why? Do, do you think our memories are so short that we’d forget? Either you’re pretending it came out of the ground that way, or this lady prepared it, you can’t have it both ways because the only way to have that is to excavate it, send it away to be cleaned and prepared, then bury it again, and that’s just a stupid thing to do (so of course they did that) and why did they do this? To show us that her teeth weren’t worn down yet, so we can tell that she is definitely babby :) This is all after showing us her femur that already confirmed her size, showing us the animated model contrasted against insects and plants for scale, and stating, in the narration, that she is a youngster the size of a dog. It’s just pointless filler. If you wanted to show off her teeth that bad, maybe tell us about her diet? Just a thought.

Yeah, you totally cleaned and prepared that fossil onsite with that immaculate, never used hand tool.

The show goes on like this for a while, three minutes of babby dinosaur jumping around, not doing much of anything, four minutes of freshly showered, not-sunburnt paleontologists digging up preprepared fossils and padding the run time by talking about things we already know, because the show just showed it to us (hence why we call them shows) but they have no faith in us to remember things for more than three minutes.

Then the T-Rex shows up for the second time (the first encounter with the infernodrakon was so silly and jerkily animated I’d rather just forget it) and you can get a tiny glimmer of the spirit of the original. Its shot at night, so the pain points of the animation are hidden by the dramatic, shadowy lighting, and it sets up an interesting premise, T Rex has excellent night vision, triceratops does not, so now we get to see one of the most famous and beloved predators of all time in their natural element, lets go!

They do look so lovely in the moonlight.

She steps on a stick immediately, and Clover sees her in the dark, despite the narrator telling us that she can see extremely little, and manages to outrun a bloody T-Rex without any apparent struggle at all, then she runs into a convenient hole in the ground (without being able to see it, somehow) and we spend the next two minutes watching the T-Rex ram it’s face into a hole it can’t fit it’s body through and snapping on air while its legs kick uselessly behind it. This isn’t Walking With Dinosaurs, this is the one good scene from Meet the Robinson's, only we aren’t supposed to be laughing.

At this point I have officially checked out, and the paleontologist decides to whip out their 3d printer and print up a brain case of a T-Rex, and tell us about how they aren’t very smart and how their senses are very sharp and yada yada, just rehashing and justifying the decisions they made three minutes ago because they have less faith in their audience’s intelligence than I do in the Trump administration’s and they need to pad the runtime. It continues in this manner, three minutes of dinosaurs, four minutes padding, and I begin to daydream of fossilisation.

Finally Clover finds a small group of Edmontosaurus and herds up with them for a while, mixed herds are pretty accepted science at this point so I don’t see any reason to be surprised, but then the animation gets really, really bad. The trees the Edmontosaurus are eating are clearly animated over the top of the environment, and as they graze these branches squash and stretch in a way that is really obviously unnatural to the eye, and as they tear leaves off there’s no refuse, no needles fall, no dust flies up into the light. In the original, they would make a point to film the environmental interactions they needed in the actual environment, they’d wear dinosaur foot shaped boots to kick up dust and make footprints in the sand that would be animated over later, use poles to splash the water as their dinosaurs drank, they’d dress men up in black bin bags and send them into the swamps to jump about and make ripples and splashes, they’d tie fishing line to branches and pull and shake them to make the trees move and shed needles as they were eaten, but fishing line wasn’t in the budget apparently, nor particle effects.

If any gif makers out there want to rip and gif this I would appreciate it. The sheer levels of ps2 on display here cannot be captured in screenshots.

Thankfully they don’t dwell on it for more than a few seconds, because all that money they saved went toward making a baby edmontosaurus model! One conveniently just Clovers size in the herd that is her playmate and after interacting for ten seconds they nuzzle like this:

No, no fuck off. They did not do this. I refuse to believe it. Not because I don’t think dinosaurs could have nurturing and complex social relationships, but because this fucking show has put in none of the work. We don’t see any other pair of dinosaurs interact in this way. When Clover meets another Triceratops she head-butts it with her face and bleats, the adult edmontosaurus almost never interact with the baby at all, and this is by far the smoothest and most natural motion I’ve seen two dinosaurs make in this entire episode, and it’s a meaningless, baseless contrivance they made so they could put a cutesy clip in the trailer. The playmate gets eaten in the next three-minute segment, and the edmontosaurus “move on” and Clover just doesn’t go with them for some reason. They don’t bother explaining why, it’s a thing that needs to happen so it happens. What a joke. Then the paleontologists are back with a huge coprolite and talk about how they know that T-Rex must have eaten small infant dinosaurs because of the bone fragments in the coprolite, as if we can’t intuit that from what we were just shown, when the T-Rex avoided the large, strong adults to attack the weaker young, or, from the fact that that’s how almost every living predator behaves. What a load of coprolite.

When the Edmontosaurus “move on” and Clover does not, she is once again alone and vulnerable, how sad! But, we're running out of time, so they decide to throw everything they just set up in the bin by contriving a confrontation between the T-Rex and a bull Triceratops to end the show on a bang, and the T-Rex just, does this. It's not trapped, its not in some sort of hormonal cycle or injured and unable to chase down prey, they just decide to make this animal, which they just took great pains to show to be intelligent enough not to pick a fight with a healthy adult dinosaur when there were other options, stand its ground and fight this Triceratops, just, because. So there is a painstakingly slow, awkwardly animated, gunslinger style stand-off with the Triceratops (which they interrupt twice to explain that Triceratops have these frill things, ya see, like we haven't been looking at one for fourty minutes,) and then it just stops, and stands there, and the triceratops skewers it to death, because that’s what we wanted right? The good herbivores to triumph over the evil carnivore? That’s how nature documentary’s work, right? White hat vs black hat? Is that not how you wanted this to end?

God I wish this were me.

Then they wander into the distance, with the narrator comfortingly telling us that while we don’t know what happened to Clover, we know that she wasn’t eaten by a T-Rex because if she had been she wouldn’t be a fossil. No, she’s just going to slip down a muddy river bank in the next few minutes and drown to death on a nice bed of alluvial sediments. They already told us she died very young, they showed us her bones! Bones that were the same size as her animated model. This is not a happy ending, because we are capable of remembering the things we are told, for long periods of time, even! The only thing that’s changed is that we have two dead dinosaurs now, along with any joy that was left in my soul.

It’s just bad, so very, very bad. It’s bad at everything it tries to do and those elements combine to make a whole that is uniquely worse than the sum of it’s parts! It insults the original series by using its name for a product that has none of its soul in it at all, and it insults the intelligence of its audience by wasting their time, explaining and explaining the same obvious fun-facts over and over, and trying to stretch a twenty-minute experience into fifty minutes of runtime and hoping we won’t notice that they have nothing to say.

What really gets me is that the whole “digsite to recreation” style of dinosaur documentary is already a thing, and a popular thing! When done well it’s very, very interesting, because the practice of paleontology is interesting! The first one that comes to mind is Dinosaurs: The Final Day as presented by the treasure that is David Attenborough. It shows us a dig site, a real dig site, the tedious, and difficult art of excavating it, the joy and wonder of the paleontologists as the splendor within is revealed, and then goes into detail about what these finds are, what we can learn from them, and then, and only then does it show us what that might have looked like with a recreation. This order of operations is important! By showing us the evidence first we are better able to understand what we’re being shown to us in the recreation, and it builds the tension, we wonder what does this mean, what can this tell us, what was it like? and then the show answers our questions in a big, climactic, and satisfying way. By showing the recreation first, then breaking the flow of the story to show us their contrived reasoning behind it, not only does it erode any ability I had to care about the story being told by the recreation with the constant interruptions, it’s no longer answering a question, because we don’t have the time to really ask any! We are showed a narrative, and then we’re pulled out of the narrative so that the author can show us his citations and talk about how very hard he worked and how smart he is and how good his movie is, because it is correct as well as cute, and it does this every three minutes. Imagine if you were watching The Godfather, and every five minutes That Guy who is sitting next to you pauses it to mansplain about the symbolism in the background that you absolutely must understand if you want to enjoy this movie properly, because it’s so deep you know, here have you done the reading? Oh you should watch this video essay first so you can understand the subtext here, just let me…  

They just, do everything wrong. If they only had the budget for twenty minute episodes, then make twenty minute episodes! It would have been easier to swallow than this. Maybe its excessive to spend more than two thousand words rambling about this thing, but damn it, I care about this franchise and I know I’m not the only one! I’m almost curious about the second episode. They’re doing Spinosaurus, a dinosaur with a famously controversial and divisive history, and I’m curious if they’re going to go digging up any other prepared fossils when the Spinos only type specimen was famously blown to smithereens in WW2, it would be quite a feat, that. Though, if I’m honest with myself, I think I’d rather watch Nigel Marvin drive his ute through time again. He treated his audience with so much more respect than this show does.

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

irrelevance

that’s just a guy with a flower come on guys I made you. with my hands.

[aflockofravens]

I want... to care for her

[wolfwarrior142]

Tdp s1e2 is just casually over here like: I'm gonna give you some amazing quotes and life lessons and morals and then punch you in the gut with emotional damage.

[rachelduncangf]

favourite shots from each orphan black episode 1.09: unconscious selection

[lifewithaview]

Kathryn Leigh Scott and Alexandra Isles in Dark Shadows (1966) Episode 1

Victoria Winters has spent her life in a foundling home, never knowing the identity of her parents. She is offered the position of governess to a young boy living in Collinsport, Maine. Hoping to learn more about her own mysterious past, Vickie travels to the small fishing village. In the coffee shop, waitress Maggie Evans warns Vickie against working for the Collins family. Meanwhile, Burke Devlin returns to Collinsport after a long absence, and meets with a detective Wilbur Strake, whom he hired to investigate the residents -- specifically Victoria's new employers who own half the town, are considered eccentric, and live in a mansion atop Widows' Hill.

*"My name is Victoria Winters. My journey is beginning. A journey that I hope will open the doors of life to me and link my past with my future. A journey that will bring me to a strange and dark place, to the edge of the sea, high atop Widows' Hill. A house called Collinwood, a world I've never known, with people I've never met. People who tonight are still only shadows in my mind, but who will soon fill the days and nights of my tomorrows."

[whispers-of-gallifrey]

Just watched Fury from the Deep and I love Victoria's exit so much it breaks my heart. She's so worn down by their travels always ending up full of danger and death and her always being put in the position of damsel in distress. She really doesn't want to leave jamie and the doctor but she doesn't want that life and I love that it let's her make that choice. And I love that Jamie's concerned she won't be happy living in, what is to them, the future but she acknowledges she's changed too much to go back to Victorian England, and she's highly unlikely to get back there anyway, not without more death and danger. That the doctor changes his mind about slipping away in the night and agrees to stay another day so Victoria can think about her decision properly without feeling as pressured. The fact that she knows the doctor won't say a proper goodbye because that's his way. The way she stands on the beach watching them row out to the tardis, knowing she'll never see either of them again. The fact she doesn't go back to the tardis with them to collect her belongings. Jamie's "I don't care where we go next" because he's miserable that Victoria made that decision. The Doctor's "I was fond of her too, you know" which is the closest he'll get to admitting how much he cares about them all. I just love it

[welcometogrouchland]

What if I proposed the analysis that Belos actually has very little internal moral compass and that his veneer of righteousness has always been implied by the writers to be complete fabricated bullshit even before watching and dreaming basically confirms it.

[madamcoheed216]

Yellowjackets Theory

THIS THEORY CONTAINS SPOILERS AND IS UPDATED AFTER EVERY EPISODE!

So my theory is that the scientists are Walters parents, this Alex is Walters birth name and he altered the birth records, and Walter is working with Melissa to blackmail Shauna and ultimately the whole team.

1. He very heavily implies that he is an orphan/doesnt have living parents after Misty questions him about Svetlana

2. He also, at multiple points, has said that he knows more about Misty and the Yellowjackets than she thinks, but only uses Adams death as an example.

3. His comment about owning a boat to leave the country by illegal means.

4. “Sherlock to my Moriarty”- Moriarty is considered to be evil/bad and Sherlock’s rival.

5. Upon meeting for the first time, Misty straight up asks if Walter stalks everyone in their Citizen Detectives group or just her.

6. Callie’s friend Ilana says that puzzles are for serial killers. Later in the season, Walter is shown putting together a giant puzzle while drinking milk (considered the trait of a psycho/serial killer in pop culture). He also sends Svetlana a puzzle in the nursing home.

7. Edwin and Hannah are a confirmed couple and Hannah admits to having a teen pregnancy. The actors are 37 and 39 IRL. Walter doesn’t have a confirmed age but could be older or younger than the girls and still fit.

I believe that Walter became obsessed with finding out what really happened to his parents because he was probably told that they were *killed by wolves* or something along those lines. That’s what leads to him getting into true crime and becoming a citizen detective. Eventually, the internet and Reddit happen and he’s able to learn more about the Yellowjackets, this team of girls who crash landed near where his parents were last seen alive. The helicopter scene is of Walter either having gone to the crash site prior to the adult timeline or going to the site here soon, given that it is roughly October in the AT, and if the helicopter was for rescue, the trees would be white or barren not changing colors. Walter targets Misty because she’s a sad individual incredibly desperate for human attention. He stole Shauna’s DNA to try and frame her for Lottie’s murder.

Walter either found the DAT tape among Natalie’s belongings in the storage unit and pocketed it before giving the keys to Misty

OR

The tape was thought to be gone, just like Jackie’s necklace, which Lottie had. Walter could’ve found the tape at Lottie’s compound at some point.

Edit: A friend on Discord mentioned that Walters last name (Tattersall) could be a reference to the Inheritance Games books. The first book was published in September of 2020 and the adult timeline starts in the fall of 2021, so it is entirely possible, especially if you are familiar with the books and the character being referenced.

[silhouettecrow]

365 Days of Writing Prompts: Day 278

Adjective: Inspirational

Noun: Terrace

Definitions for those who need/want them:

Inspirational: providing or showing creative or spiritual inspiration

Terrace: a level paved area or platform next to a building, or a patio or veranda; each of a series of flat areas made on a slope, used for cultivation; (geology) a natural horizontal shelflike formation, such as a raised beach; (British) a block of row houses; a row house

[typicalcommondandelion]

omfg when i summarised vampire knight as "aesthetically fruits basket wuith the depth and story of twilight" i wasn't fuckin kidding bc the pretty goodbadboy love interest, as an adult, knew the MC as a toddler, and is now here in anime vampire high school looking like he hasnt age a day

[heybiji]

"Carna's photo," she's got a missing sister. Literally drew this up 35 minutes before it was time to play

couple npcs for episode 03 of the MASKS game i've been running for some friends

left is Bionic (formerly The Bionic Man, formerly The Bionic Boy), a superhero from the 60s that still looks like a kid because he got his mangled body augmented with robot parts after an incident way back when. he's an awkward dude. the PCs saved him when they first came together from a giant cockroach

right is Carna, a meta girl with electricity powers they met in an arcade who brought them to meet her friend "Bella V," who turned out to be a giant electric eel living in an abandoned subway tunnel (named after an old sign reading Bell Ave). sometimes a few strands of hair got that static electricity float.

[rotary-supercollider]

Average leverage episode

Victim: please mr. Leverage. They bought my orphanage and they’re going to sell all the orphans I need you to stop them

Nate “Leverage” Leverage: I think we can get you some… leverage

Sophie: I’m going to start a bullshit argument now

Nate: please dont

Sophie: it’s going to last the whole episode

Nate: 🙄women (laughtrack)

Hardison: alright this is our mark Mr. Monopoly. He owns 16 weapons companies and took in 100000 billion million dollars last year. He just got into the orphan business and on the weekends he plays puppy golf.

Parker: whats puppy golf

Hardison: it’s like golf but you use puppies

Elliot: I’ve seen it. (snifffs deeply) not fun

Hardison: this guys ruthless. we’re going to be exploiting his one weakness. He really likes having a lot of money

Sophie: how?

Nate: we go steal an abstract concept

*they steal an abstract concept*

The mark: hello. I was impressed by your ownership of an abstract concept

Sophie: we’ll give you 50 trillion dollars for the orphanage

Mark: Zamn!!!

Sophie: 😏 we got him

*1 day later*

Sophie: here’s the 50 trillion dollars (holds up briefcase full of crimes)

The mark: I don’t want your money any more. I have a new plan. I’m goijng to dress all the orphans in hot dog costumes and start a theme park

Sophie: 😦

Elliot: we’re blown

Nate: Sophie throw the briefcase 💼 in the lake

Mark: whoa!! Thats wet money

Sophie: I can give you 5000 more orphans. Meet me at this unmarked warehouse in 6 hours

Mark: awooga

Hardison: Nate do you have a plan?

Nate: not yet

*Fade to black*

Nate: alright the marks on his way. Hardison what’s your 20

Hardison: I need at least 30 minutes to finish this Lego Taj Mahal

Nate: ok I’ll stall

Nate (playing bit character): I cooka da pizza!! Ohhhh (drops full pan of sauce on the marks head instantly killing him) mamma Mia (walks into the sea)

Parker: guys we have a problem

*6 Bad Men materialize out of thin air*

Elliot: 😒I got this 👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊👊🤛🤜🤛🤜✊🩼✊🦶🦵✊🤛🚪🦶✊🦵🤌✊🦶👊🦵✊✊👊🎷👊👊👊

*the Bad Men disintegrate*

Elliot: shit hes here (dives into a trash can)

*the mark reaches the building. There are orphans waving at him from the windows*

Mark: ok I’m here to take the orphans

The police: SIR YOURE COMING WITH US

Mark: what?? This is a completely legal orphan deal

Police: theres no orphans here

*police man grabs an orphan. Hes flat. Flashback to Hardison setting up 5000 cardboard orphan cutouts*

Mark: but what are you arresting me for??

Police man: sir you filled all of city hall with gravy

*flashback to Nate filling city hall with gravy while wearing a T-shirt that says “Im bad businessman”*

Mark: you can’t do this to me!!

Police: (arrests him)

Nate: heh. You could say he got... Leveraged

Parker: i have autism

Everyone: oh my god Parker shut up

[spacy-snail]

Everyone focused on the Jayvik true divorce arc of episode 6 but I’m still stuck on the ending of episode 5

You mean to tell me that

1) Vi and Powder are ACTUAL BLOOD RELATED SISTERS and not just found family

2) Their mom was one of the original architects/planners of Zaun with Silco and Vander

3) VANDER FUCKING NAMED VI????????

And both of the girls unknowingly ended up being cared by their mom’s best friends, which explains so much. Like, I think we all just assumed Vander just saw these orphaned children and was like “well I guess these are mine now” and same with Silco and Powder but NO THOSE ARE THEIR BEST FRIEND’S CHILDREN OF COURSE THEY STEPPED UP TO TAKE THEM IN!!! THEY ALREADY LOVED THEM

THE POWER OF LOVE BROUGHT VANDER BACK TO HIMSELF AND THE FUCKING GROUP HUG AT THE END DO YOU HEAR ME SOBBING

[pico-farad]

I finished season 1 of Vrains and it was cool but I thought it needed about 2 billion more secret identity shenanigans

More Secret Identities AU

extended thoughts below

So I went into a deep dive in my last two posts (1, 2) about all the problems I had with Vrains, and you'd think I didn't enjoy it, but in fact as I was watching, there was a separate, parallel version of Vrains that was playing in my head, a Yugioh I think we were robbed of and which fixes every problem I had with the first season, and that is Secret Identities AU.

Yusaku needs FRIENDS

This is YUGIOH.

This dynamic is everything I wanted from Vrains. Yusaku developing unexpected fondness for these bozos who think he needs a defense squad. I want Miraculous Ladybug levels of secret identity shenanigans. I want Yusaku slapping his duel disk every time Ai tries to blow their cover.

This AU sprung forth from the scene in the duel club where he shows Naoki his decoy deck. Having Yusaku passing as a bad duelist is 1) so funny, but 2) Yusaku needing to maintain his low profile is a useful contrivance for other characters to get more duels, and 3) I think it would be a really fun one-off episode where Yusaku has to duel using his bad deck. When he wins, Naoki is so proud he cries.

Having Yusaku actually have to interact with the other characters in the real world opens up Greek play levels of dramatic irony. The crux of a secret identity story is that every single interaction builds up anticipation, because you the viewer know that the other party is being deceived, and that the tension will snap when the secret is revealed.

I have zero anticipation about Playmaker's identity being revealed, because Aoi would be like "oh.... I guess he goes to my school" and Go would be like "have I seen that guy before?" But SIAU Playmaker? My guy is making friends just so he can betray them. Insane.

Go needs A ROLE IN THE STORY.

I said in my first post that Go isn't a rival or a best friend character. SIAU fixes this by making him both simultaneously.

Having him be the ace of the duel club is a natural replacement for his whole hero of the orphans schtick, while placing him directly the circle of relevance with the other characters. Instead of being disgruntled that the orphans suddenly like Playmaker more than him, he's disgruntled that Naoki and the duel club mooks are fawning over Playmaker -- which is actually just Naoki's character anyway.

I would kill for a big dramatic moment where Go learns that Playmaker and Yusaku are the same person, and even though Go feels betrayed that Yusaku has been deceiving him, he stands by Yusaku anyway because they're friends.

With a secret identity story, every conversation is working on multiple levels because each character is working with asymmetric information. You get these fascinating, layered scenes of two characters talking past each other because they cannot give up their secret.

Which would go especially hard with Go and Yusaku, because Go has legitimate criticisms of Playmaker in canon and Yusaku has legitimate reasoning behind the things he does, and as Go Onizuka and Playmaker they could never come to an understanding on them, but as Go and Yusaku, two friends in duel club, that door becomes open to them.

Aoi needs WRITING THAT ISN'T A TRAINWRECK

I made a whole post on this. Basically every problem would be solved if Akira doesn't know that she's Blue Angel. There's no reason for her to lose grotesquely against Yusaku, or have her basic autonomy called into question constantly. 

Having her actively deceive her brother is delicious. Like I said in my last post, it's so obvious how Akira's overprotectiveness has taken its toll on Aoi, and pushed her into developing this other persona, Blue Angel. I want this absolutely dysfunctional sibling relationship so badly. The Blue Angel vs. Zaizen duel would make me lose my mind.

And a secret identities setting works so well with the potential themes of VRAINS as a stand-in for the internet and Blue Angel as an idol. Give me that Perfect Blue Satoshi Kon good stuff. Give me those themes about identity, and the different lives we live, outward and inward, online and offline.

This also helps Akira's character, because I think he would be much more interesting and relevantly positioned in the story if he stayed a SOL Technologies baddie. SOL Technologies has very little presence in season 1 despite being critical to the story. After Zaizen is replaced by an irrelevant clown, they don't do anything but send out mook AIs to get destroyed. By having a three-way standoff between Yusaku's squad, the Knights of Hanoi, and SOL Technologies, both Hanoi and SOL Technologies become more compelling. They've both got all the reason in the world to want to take down the other. Zaizen vs. Revolver or Spectre? That's good shit.

And don't get me started on how I would turn Revolver into a Secret Identities character.

[araybiaa]

a composite (and ongoing) list of my favorite rollins fics! this is in no order whatsoever. i’m just sharing a few of my favorites from the talented writers that we have in this fandom. make sure to leave a kudos / comment on the stories to show support of these talented writers!!

• “lover, you should have come over.” by kalipersephone (a smutty fic about rollins trying for a baby again. very explicit. very good.)

• “against the wind” by anonymous (a post episode 7 exploration fic of heather’s feelings after her miscarriage.)

• “heather” by blacklitchick (rollins runs into each other at a jazz bar. very cute and fluffy! the chemistry is insane and definitely has you anxiously waiting for more.)

• “remember you.” by sadisticpussy (a pre season 1 fic that explores robby’s emotions after adamson dies. talks of grief / self blame. includes emotional sex.)

• “reach out in the dark” by shiptastic (robby finds himself at heather’s after the shift from hell. they have a long and much needed conversation about their relationship and envision what their baby would’ve been like had heather kept it 😭💔 so good but also heartbreaking!)

• “turkey baster method.” by knifetop (robby offers an alternative in helping heather try for a baby again 👀. very sweet and romantic.)

• “caught somewhere between a dream and reality.” anonymous (a fic that explores how robby and collins relationship came to an abrupt end.)

• “whatever you want.” by apinchofm (rollins talk briefly about her abortion / kids. the conversation leads to robby telling heather he was willing to give heather anything she wants and she takes him up on that offer 😚) / I'll try to talk refined for fear that you find out how I'm imaginin' you (rollins angst ft jealous!robby and a sweet love confession.)

• “third times a charm.” by thebelievers (robby and collins take advantage of the empty hospital floor that whitaker mentioned in episode 14. very smutty.”

• “a dream of some epiphany” by anncherie (robby offers to help give collins a baby. but her ultimatum is him going to therapy first.)

• “when the moon (and your eyes) is the only light we see by sara_wolfe (a what-if fic where collins is the one that finds robby on the roof instead. she calls him ‘honey’ in this and it’s really sweet 🥹)

• “the plus one” by eternalmorsley (rollins au where heather needs a date to a friends wedding and asks robby to be her date.)

• “crash into me” by knownasbeacon (robby gets drunk and calls collins while she’s home peacefully sleeping off the worst shift of her life.)

• “ever thought of calling when you’ve had a few? 'cause I always do” by stormbornbxtch (another fic robby drunk calling collins after a wedding.)

• “hold me tight and tell me everything’s gonna be alright.” by sadisticpussy (rollins as parents fic! filled with angst and comfort. robby has a hard day and comes back home to his girls.)

• “i said i'm sorry, love, i have no will” by anonymous (robby and collins share a quiet moment in a closet where they talk about their relationship and what went wrong. very angsty and will leave you wanting to read more!)

• “i feel alive when i’m with you.” by apinchofm (a rollins fic that explores their lives as parents. incredibly cute and heartwarming. features robby being a protective!bf and dad.)

• “for the first time what’s past is past” by an orphan account (an everyone sees it but them fic of rollins being the ed’s source of gossip. heather’s foolishly rejected by officer underwood and robby’s there to console her. the tension EATS)

• “bitten by your love” by sadisticpussy (a WIP rollins au of them as former lovers with a complicated relationship.)

• “if the time is right.” by shiptastic (robby goes to collins and a much needed conversation is had.)

• “first time & first time after a long time.” by midtownkitten (a rollins/mateojavadi smut fic. rollins is chapters 2&4!)

• “solid ground” by pettythief (another fic where robby goes to collins’ after the shift from hell and realizes that he still needs her.)

• “where do we go?” by aliciaclarkisbae (collins ruminates on their lost child as she watches robby and jake interacting. very angsty but so good.)

• “i'm not in love (so don't forget it) by ptrichor (explores rollins relationship pre season 1! it’s five chapters and really good! really in character with their dynamics and their relationship.)

• “satellites.” by lecham44 (a WIP fic that explores rollins’ relationships during / before season 1.)

• “wrapped in you” by anonymous (a short little smut fic of rollins having morning sex.)

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• “the whole damn thing” by NDN98 (rollins reconciliation with heavy smut. very angsty!)

• “does it count if it happened in the dark?” by eternallymorsely (rollins emotional cheating / actual cheating fic)

• “collins and the cop” by rollinspitt (emotional fic of robby pining after collins after she gets asked out by the hot cop from episode 1. features a cute love confession from both.)

• “the diner.” by anonymous (pure smut. rollins kinda have a love/hate angsty relationship that’s different from the show.)

• “the light, the dark, the truth, and my real name.” by ptrichor (WIP — follow what happens after robby goes to collins after the last episode. chapter 2 is now up.)

• “cranes in the sky” by shiptastic (rollins angst and comfort. robby consoles heather after a hard case.)

• “hour sixteen.” thebelievers (workplace smut!)

• “growing pain.” saccharineship (explicit smut with robby being dominate 🤭. workplace smut NSFW) / The Perpetual Time Machine (exploration of rollins’ relationship interwoven with flashbacks.) / “when heather met michael.” (a when harry set sally inspiration fic!)

• “sweet like candy to my soul.” knownasbeacon (domestic rollins with smut.)

• after the sirens fade by thereverie25 (exploration of rollins’ relationship pre season 1! WIP)