#I WOULD HAVE SUFFERED SO MUCH WAITING ALL THOSE YEARS FOR SEASON 2

[spatziline]

I finally watched Good Omens and I love it

[cutieln4]

Matchmaker | LN4

lando norris x fem!reader, background lestappen

summary: you try getting involved in max and charles' love lives, and it turns out they're also trying to get involved in yours

At the age of 21 years old, you joined McLaren after becoming a champion in all the junior categories. This made you the first woman in modern F1, and the first woman in several decades. And if people thought that Lando had a lot of energy, they had not met you yet.

Now that your rookie season was halfway done with, you've learned two important things. 1) Lando was very easy to get along with and 2) Max and Charles were certainly in love. 

There were a couple times when you had been on the podium with them, and of course you loved being on the podium, but having to third wheel that pair would drive anyone insane. 

So, when you got back from the summer break, you decided to make it your mission to get them together. Step 1 was telling Lando about your plans.

"Landooo!" you called out as you saw him walking in the paddock up ahead, running to catch up with him. 

"Hey, Y/n/n," he greeted you with a handshake. 

"I have a plan," you said devilishly. 

"Shit, that can never be good."

"Hey! Hear me out. So, Charles and Max, you know?"

"Who? I've never heard of those people in my life," he said sarcastically. 

"Ooookay, I could do without the attitude, thanks. Anyways, I'm sure you've noticed how in love with each other they are. Like hello? They literally scream 'enemies to lovers' trope. You know what I mean? I just need to find a way to get them to confess their undying love for each other." 

Lando's eyes widened and he looked around, making sure that no one was listening before pulling you to the side.

"Oh—jeez, so, you in?"

"The entire grid has been trying to get them together for years, you think that you'll be able to do it?"

"Yeah, obviously, but I'll need a sidekick that's why I'm telling you, so...?" 

He sighed. "Alright, tell me your ideas."

"Yes!"

"But I'm not your sidekick, we're partners in crime, okay?"

"Sure, sure. Anyways, step 1 of 'el plan' is to just subtly start mentioning Max or Charles when in conversation with the other. Get them in each others brains, you know? Like 'Oh Max was saying how he hopes for rain.'

Then, step 2, we start mentioning things that they've said about each other. 'Hey Max, Charles was saying how he always loves his on track battles with you the most,' stuff like that. Then we have to start interrogating them about their love life so they can hopefully admit their feelings. That's all I got so far."

Lando nodded, deep in thought. "Okay, this could work, this could work."

~~~~~~~~~~

Charles won in Monza, with Max and yourself completing the podium. While you were getting your interview done, the two of them seemed to be locked in their "debrief".

"Am I the only one who's noticed all the chemistry between her and Lando?" Max asked.

"You're definitely not the only one, mate. Being in a press conference with those two is unbearable."

"Ugh, yes, like just kiss already. I'm glad I'm not going crazy. We need to do something about it, get them to confess their feelings."

"I agree," Charles replied, staring into Max's eyes. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Later, they were in the press conference room, waiting for it to start, and Max and Charles were chatting away.

Y/n: MATE

Y/n: HELP

Y/n: I CAN'T TAKE THIS THIRD WHEELING

Landhoe: you can't complain you got a podium

Y/n: i actually can complain, i've suffered too much

Landhoe: you like seeing them together, don't lie. 

You grinned at that, then glanced up from your phone to see Max and Charles looking at you. 

"Who you texting?" Max asked.

"Just Lando," you shrugged, confused as Charles and Max gave each other a look.

"You guys seem to be getting along well, no?" Charles asked. 

"Uh yeah, I guess. It helps that we're both pretty similar."

"Yes, yes, very similar," Max nodded, and you raised your eyebrow, side-eyeing them. 

"Anyway, you guys have anyone special in your life, yet?" you asked.

The smirk on Max's face faltered as he glanced at Charles for a millisecond before looking back to her. 

"No, not yet, mate."

"Me neither," Charles added. 

You hummed. "Hm, okay."

~~~~~~~~~~

In Suzuka, Lando and you were talking while walking towards the driver's parade. 

"So I'm going to talk to Charles and you're going to talk to Max, sounds good?"

"Yup, I know the plan," Lando confirmed. 

"Great, we'll debrief after the race."

You spotted Charles and quickly ran up next to him before someone else could start a conversation with him. 

"Hey, Charlie! Congrats on your podium in Singapore!"

"Thanks, mate."

"Man, it's crazy how fast the season flew by, it seems like just yesterday I was a scared little rookie rolling up in Bahrain. Anyway, I was hoping to get your advice on something," you said, trying not to bring up the topic too suddenly. 

"Yeah, of course, go ahead."

"Okay, well, let's say hypothetically in a situation where you like someone, but you're not sure if they like you back, and you don't want to say anything because it could ruin your friendship and it would be awkward because you have to see them for the majority of the year, what would you do?" you asked, trying to gauge his feelings about potentially confessing his feelings. 

Charles glanced somewhere behind you, and you didn't want to look but you would've bet a million bucks that it was at Max.

"Well, if you're feeling like that person even just maybe likes you back, I say go for it. You wouldn't want to waste precious time that you could be spending together because you were too scared."

"So you're saying that if you like someone, you should just go for it?" you confirmed. 

"Yeah."

"Interesting..." you rubbed your chin, then turned to look at Max behind you. 

Meanwhile, Lando and Max were deep in conversation. 

"What would you think if two of the drivers started dating? Cause some of these people have some real chemistry," Lando asked, trying to seem nonchalant. 

Max shrugged. "I mean, yeah, some of us have known each other since our childhoods. I wouldn't be surprised if some crushes have developed. It's not my business, but I don't mind. It would be interesting, though."

"What about Charles and Pierre?" Lando egged on, waiting for a reaction. 

He watched in satisfaction as Max's eyes turned a shade darker and his jaw clenched. "Nah, I don't see it. But you and Y/n seem to be getting awfully close."

Lando couldn't help the blush that painted his cheeks. He tried to say something but was at a loss for words, mouth gaping like a fish. Max started snickering.

"We're just friends," he finally stuttered out.

"Alright, if you say so."

Lando sighed, turning away in disappointment. That did not go according to plan. 

~~~~~~~~~~

Max won the race, and because the McLaren was good in the high speed corners, Lando finished 2nd and yourself 3rd. 

You and Lando hugged as soon as you got out of your cars.

"Wohoooo! Let's go!" you cheered as you both ran to the fence of McLaren workers. 

You got done with the interview and was the first one in the cooldown room. You had put your helmet down on the platform and was drinking your water. You heard the others entering and turned around, bumping into Lando. 

"Oh, shit!" you exclaimed as you dropped your water bottle. 

You both bent down to grab it, causing your hands to touch and both of you to pause. Lando then grabbed you bottle and you both stood up, staring into each others' eyes for a couple seconds before you snapped out of it and moved to grab your water bottle. 

"Thanks," you said quietly. 

Lando was still looking at you, before quickly saying, "You're welcome."

You noticed Max watching you and the camera on you, so you cleared your throat and moved around Lando to sit on one of the chairs. 

"That was a good overtake, in the beginning," you commented to Max, trying to diffuse the awkwardness. 

Before the conference, Max was quick to get on his phone.

Max: Holy shit, I have so much to tell you about Lando and Y/n

Max: You should come to my hotel room tonight

Max: I think we're in the same hotel

Charles: I have stuff to tell you too. What time?

Max: Does after dinner, 9:00 work? 

Charles: That's perfect

Max: Great, my room is 1633

Charles: See you then ;)

And for some reason Max felt like a giddy schoolgirl at the thought of Charles coming to his hotel room.

You and Lando kept stealing glances at each other whenever the other wasn't looking, and it was so frustrating.

Later, when it was just around 9:00, Max waited (im)patiently for Charles to knock on his door, and he jumped when he finally heard the noise, getting up to let him in. Charles walked in nervously. 

"We can sit on the couch," Max commented, and Charles quickly situated himself on one end, and Max on the other. 

"Ok, you go first," Max urged. 

"Well Y/n came up to me during the driver's parade and she was talking about 'hypothetically' liking something but not doing anything about it because it could ruin their friendship. So of course I told her she should just go for it, and then she looked at Lando."

"Oh my God. Lando came up to me during the driver's parade and asked what I would think if two drivers started dating each other, and I said something about how close him and Y/n were, and he blushed. And then in the cool down room, they bumped into each other which made Y/n drop her water bottle, and when they both reached down to pick it up they touched hands. Then they just stared at each other for like 5 fucking seconds."

"Jesus, what is going on with them."

"I know right, like holy fuck just make out already! I'm sick of their pining."

Max shifted on the couch, causing his foot to touch Charles' leg. 

"Anyway, want to watch a movie?" Max asked, and Charles nodded eagerly. 

And that's how they ended up in the pitch dark, a bowl of microwaved popcorn in between them, some racing movie on the television. 

They both reached for the popcorn at the same time, causing their hands to touch, and both of them snapped their heads to look at each other. 

They stared at each other, eyes flickering down to each other's lips...until the sound of Max's phone ringing caused them both to jump apart. 

"Jesus!" Max exclaimed, quickly silencing his phone, and they reluctantly turned back to the movie, moment ruined. 

~~~~~~~~~~

A couple weeks passed until they were in Qatar. Max and Charles hadn't spoken to each other, and there was minimal communication between you and Lando. 

Max would be starting the race on pole, then Lando, you, and Charles. 

As the race went on, it seemed like that would be the finishing order, until halfway through Max started having braking issues. Lando caught up, overtaking Max for the lead, and you did the same a few laps later. 

The rest of the race, Max had adapted to the issue but still had slow pace because of it, which left him defending against Charles. 

The race ended in that order, Lando taking his first win.

"YEAHHH!!! LET'S FUCKING GO BABY! WOOHOOOOOO!!!" Lando cheered. 

They parked up in front of the podium boards. Lando opened his visor, got out of his car and stood on it, holding up his pointer finger and pumped his fist in celebration, fireworks going off in the background in the dark sky. 

You quickly got out of your car and removed your helmet, going straight to Lando. 

"You did it! You fucking did it! I'm so proud of you!" you told him as you pulled him in for a hug. 

He stared at you for a second when you let go, then immediately removed his helmet, putting a hand on your waist, pulling you closer and connecting your lips together. 

You were stunned for a second, before placing your hand on his cheek and deepening the kiss. Everything around you guys went still, like only the two of you existed. You eventually pulled away and could hear the booming of fireworks, the cheers from the crowd, and the whistles from the McLaren team a few feet away. You both blushed as you came to your senses. 

"I really fucking like you," Lando breathed out, slightly winded from the kiss. 

"I would hope so, after that," you teased, before pulling him in for another kiss. 

Max stood by his team, watching the pair from a far, his jaw dropped. 

"Fucking finally," Max sighed. 

But then he glanced behind him and spotted Charles walking to the FIA garage to get weighed, and an irresistible urge overcame him.

He followed Charles into the garage and grabbed his arm, dragging him behind one of the curtains.

"Did you see that! They finally—"

Charles was cut off as Max crashed their lips together.

"I think I've been wanting to do that for a long time," Max admitted when they pulled away. 

"I've been wanting to do that since I pushed you off the track in karting," Charles smiled, and Max smiled back, kissing him again.

—••—••—••—••—••—••—••—••—••—

a/n: i never intended to publish this anywhere but here i am. i literally never write written romance like this so this is really cringe and i cringed while writing it but enjoy ig. if you have any suggestions though please tell me!!

[alargehunkofdebris]

the necessary anguish of the Good Omens 2 finale

Ah ok. So after 4 years of waiting post Season One and ten cumulative years of bookish fannery, I watched bonified New Content of Good Omens. And when those credits rolled, I sat there, not in my expected state of pleasant satisfaction, but in a state of abject shock.

I actually don’t know if I’ve ever had such a reaction to a show before. Or, rather, that I could still have such a reaction. I’m thirty, for goodness sakes – I was planning on being thrilled and charmed and entertained, not having my hands shake so much that it was hard to type a text. I wasn’t planning on losing an entire night of sleep because my heart wouldn’t stop pounding really hard, Neil. This was not expected. I had an estate sale to run the next day – by God, I needed that sleep.

 Anyway. These are my thoughts on the season, and on this upswell of mourning/unhappiness at such a gut-wrenching ending. As always, this are my dumb opinions and nothing more; take with a grain of salt, etc. 

I have seen a lot of suffering on Tumblr today. Everyone is in pain, and it makes sense. I, too, am in pain. But I might be in the minority, because I thanked God/Mr. Gaiman when things turned to pure pain in the end. Because narratively, despite the anguish we all feel, this is how it needs to be. And I was getting real worried there for a second.

When we have a mini-series (ie, a show with a set number of seasons) it can’t act the same as a series without a set end. We’ve got three potential seasons; therefore, they logically should behave like a three-act play, or the three acts in the standard Western movie/book plot. This middle season is the middle act, the second act. While it definitely doesn’t work exactly the same way, and needs its own story arc to work as a season, it is still functionally the middle part of one overarching plot.

And what usually happens near the end of the second act? All Is Lost, and the Dark Night of the Soul.

We NEED this to happen. This is what makes a plot delicious. If we’d had this perfect, lovely, romantic season where the stakes aren’t raised one bit and everything is fixed at the end, we would want for nothing and the gorgeous tension that keeps us waiting and watching would be lost. We wouldn’t feel that drive to create fanfics and fanart, we wouldn’t have the need to speculate or dream, because most of the tension was eased, and you just can’t have that if you want a highly anticipated third season. We’d have nothing huge and concrete to look forward to.

In fact, I was getting really worried once the Ineffable Bureaucracy started happening on screen, because I could see (I thought) past that bend in the road toward the end. I could see how this season might conclude, with big happy confessions of love and hugs and handholding (that’s all I expected, because I only expected the same chaste level of affection with both angelic/demonic couples) and then…then it’d all be over. What more could there be? I mean, there certainly could be more, but THIS is the main thing people waited for. The Happy Confession. The hug. The handholding. Whatever we got. And in my mind, having it now, at the end of season two, just wasn’t adding up – it did not fit. It couldn’t. No, we can’t have this now. It doesn’t work.

I get this peculiar thing that happens when things start getting too “everything is great!” in a story. I get the “someone needs to die” instinct. Instead of pure happiness that things are going great, there’s this feeling of intense discomfort, because I feel the weight of the shoe that’s failing to drop. I need it to drop, or else it throws off my entire standard-Western-narrative-trained brain’s balance. In the build up to The Scene, when things seem to be going swimmingly and heading directly towards the happiest and syrupiest of endings, I had to pause and pace my living room and roll around on the floor to alleviate the sheer build up of stress. Things can’t go this well. They can’t. There hasn’t been enough bad things, this is too sweet, too much. Can’t handle it. This can’t just be pure wish-fulfillment at this point; Good Omens shouldn’t work that way, it never has. We’d be happy in the moment, but then it’ll ultimately be a let down. No more danger. Nothing keeping them apart. No more tension, no more story. It was all too easy.

And then, finally, that shoe dropped. After a season of mainly getting along and being just thrilled with each other, they began to really argue. Things got horrific and serious, and I literally let out a breath of relief. I was able to watch without pausing every two minutes for a breather. Ok. Things weren’t over. This wasn’t the end. We had more to wait for.

And then it went on. The confession started, but in that gorgeously wrong way. And for the first time that season, I was actually feeling the stress of the story. Yes, there was danger throughout this season, but it was always layered with humour and wit. You didn’t get a demon scene without them doing something hilariously stupid. You didn’t get an angel scene without them being delightfully out-of-touch. The stakes were high, but they weren’t allowed to get EXTREMELY high. We never thought there was any question of them getting out of scrapes unscathed, because it was never all serious.

Never…until now. There was zero humour at this point. After 6 episodes of being pleasantly delighted, I was feeling the dread. However, I still thought I knew where it was going.  

See, I thought I had it figured out. If I had any extra money, I would have bet some of it. I knew that, whilst they’d likely have some kind of subtle confession of love and caring, and perhaps a touch – a hug, or a hand-hold (like Gabe and Beez) – I knew we couldn’t expect a kiss. This is a story thirty-three years in the making, and it’s always been in that grey area. They weren’t humans; they didn’t necessarily show affection that way. Besides that, we’ve had so many TV shows that get close, but rarely ones that go all the way to smoochville. OFMD was one of the very first, but it was new. It wasn’t an old, established story from the 90s like this is. It didn’t have decades-old fans waiting with bated breath for canon content. For Good Omens, we heard it time and time again in interviews; it’s a kind of love story. They had this kind of marriage. They cared for each other. They had a bromance. It’s close, but never quite there. So I thought I knew exactly how this would go, and would be thrilled with what we got. 

And then it absolutely didn’t go that way. It went exactly as far as so many hoped. And it went there like a knife to the gut.

And it was perfect.

Goddamn, what a season ending. Despite my lack of appetite and failure to sleep, I could not be happier with what Mr. Gaiman did. I am screaming crying throwing up and I’m thrilled about it.

The middle of a story is typically what drags; it never holds the highest stakes. Lord knows what we’re going to get in season three (knocking on wood), but I can only expect it to get bigger and heavier. And by God and/or Satan, am I prepared, in this deliciously painful purgatory, to wait and see.  

[haikirii]

Paranormal Order Community Survival Guide (and other things you need to know for Saturday)

Ok, let's start. First of all, I've been in the Paranormal Order community since the first live season announcement. I've seen this community change so many times and I think it would be cool to warn a few things for those who are going to see Saturday's episode with the global creators.

Despite the recent problems - which have been translated here - the community is not complicated to deal with, you just need to know where to enter and where to stay to have a good experience. So, here are some tips.

1 - Watch the rpg live with the chat CLOSED.

The Paranormal Order live chat IS NOT the regular stream chat. This is one of the biggest tabletop RPG projects in Brazil and, because of this, it is very difficult to have 100% control of the chat.

Obviously, the moderators already have years of experience to deal with. The chat will be 100% in submode and only the Tuesday chat, which is when the episode replays for those who missed it on Saturday, will be open to everyone.

However, this does not prevent hate comments from happening in the chat, as many do not watch Cellbit regularly and just sub to talk in the chat/watch the episode without ads. It's no joke, the rpg chat is known for being a toxic chat that has made players cry in the middle of the session when it was still online.

2 - If you see any hate, ignore it or make a joke.

It's more of a personal recommendation. Even within the community, the essential thing is to ignore hate that has few likes or things like that so it doesn't spread OR turn into a copypasta.

Generally on Twitter it's easier to ignore, because you can just filter things and rarely does anyone post hate on the tag where we comment the live.

MAYBE hate can happen from outside the community, we have suffered a lot of hate for years because it is a "nerd thing" and/or it is a Cellbit's project, which receives a lot of hate here in Brazil and we suffered from hate for a long time. I don't know if it will happen in this episode since the community is much larger, but it's just a warning that it could happen.

But as the old saying goes in the fandom: talking bad about Order gets likes on Twitter.

3 - Some people who watch Ordem are unhappy.

Nothing really serious, but some people in the community don't like QSMP out of sheer annoyance with the project and are frustrated with Saturday's episode because they expected something from the main story - which they've already been warned won't happen until Enigma of Fear comes out.

Which brings us to the Discord situation that I mentioned at the beginning of the post. Just situating what is happening, ignore these people and support Cellbit, which is doing his best.

Paranormal Order is his life project, we all want to give as much support as possible despite these people who call themselves fans and seem to hate the project.

4 - General dates and stuffs.

It's an independent story from the main story and will be in English, so don't worry about needing to watch past seasons to understand because the basis will be explained in the episode.

The episode will happen live on Saturday, September 23rd at 6pm BRT. I saw some people asking and no, it's not a pre-recorded video being show in live, everything is 100% done on the spot.

If you missed the episode, a rerun will take place on Tuesday at the same time and the vod will be for subs only. However, you can still wait until it comes out Thursday on YouTube for free on the official channel.

On average, typical episodes last 4-5 hours. However, as it is a oneshot, it may last 6 hours but Cellbit always warns you in advance if the episode is too long.

The episodes have breaks for you to go to the bathroom or stretch your legs and for the players to rest a little.

The Order fandom does a LOT of live tweets at the time of the episode, the fun is seeing everyone commenting together so we use a # specific to each campaign. In this campaign, we will use #OPQ and you can also use it to post memes and fanarts.

When the episode starts, you will be notified on the official Twitter. But there are two things: IT'S ALWAYS DELAYED and THERE'S ALWAYS A TIMER. So don't worry about arriving at exactly 6pm BRT, you'll have a little time to prepare until the episode actually starts.

5 - We organize ourselves on Twitter.

The order fandom is very active on Twitter and always does dynamics with all profiles and we upload a sentence on the day of the episode to give hype. Even Wiki and some official Order players participate.

We are still deciding on the phrase we will upload to tts, so if you want to help, just keep an eye on the brazilians in the fandom. However, the pack has already been decided and if you want to participate in the fun. Here's what my profile looks like.

I think this is the basis of what you need to know, maybe I'll reblog adding things later if I remember too much. The Ordem community is not a monster, but I'm giving you these tips so you can live in peace in it.

[liaa--qb]

This might sound overly dramatic, but I'm so sad and disappointed right now because of all those horrible leaks. I know they still might be false, but honestly I believe that save for some details, they are mostly true. There are few things that sadden me the most :

1. Helaemond not being canon. I know that this ship has been controversial, especially among TG, but it really had a lot of potential and was one of my favourite (still is). And I don't care what antis say, there were a lot of hints and undertones in s1 about helaemond, more than for Alicole and look, Alicole apparently becomes canon in the worst possible way. Which brings me to the second point -

2) Alicole being canon. Don't get me wrong. I like this pairing, but it would be much better and more in character if they never acted on their feelings. Not to mention that two sex scenes in ep 1 (if the leak is true) will seem too much and out of nowhere. And to include it in B&C scene with helaena walking in on them having sex right after Jaehaerys is brutally murdered is an atrocious writing decision. F*ck you Condal and whoever is responsible for this.

3) B&C made into a joke. According to the leaks, Helaena won't be given a choice, there will be some upsetting details about getting naked the children and so on..and to have her walk in on her mom having sex with a member of a kingsguard.. Again, f*ck you Condal.

4) Aemond and the brothel madame. Why would he go to the same woman who SAed him when he was 13? And he obviously felt uncomfortable around her in ep 9. And to make him cry while naked in fetal position...I also read on reddit that they will include a mommy kink with breast sucking and whatnot... but this seems way too much and is probably someone's shitty headcanon. At least I hope it is, because if true I'll vomit.

And this is only the first episode. Idk, if this turns out to be true, I'll probably stop watching and it sucks since I really like this universe and was excited about s2. Two years of waiting and for what.. Not only the shortened season but also all this garbage. We'll see in few days, I guess, but I'm not hopeful. Anyway, thanks for reading my rant. I would love to hear your opinion on this.

Ya the way heard about leaks is sooo😂😂😂😂😂😂😭😭😭☠️ wtf they have done 😬☠️☠️

IT'S MY ANSWER FOR ALL QUES LIKE THIS FILLED IN MY INBOX CZ I GOT SAME QUES FOUR TIMES in different ways😅, so I am answering for them all but it's but long

See it's a kind suggestion from me very sweetly that it's better if you are not expecting something high from makers n watching it without any expectations because if we are hating just because they did some ships wrong then acc to that alot of changes were already done since s1, like Rhaenicent , Larys alot of things but we never had problems.

Listen I am kinda sad also but you know what..... be happy because you know Ewan and Phia are shipping helaemond🥰. They acknowledging it , loving it and adding some own elements to this ship is really amazing of them moreover just for a fan service.

Like "do it for helaemond" 😭 they are so adorable. See I knew very well that it's not gonna happen, I had a very less surity and that's how exactly it turned out.

But you know what not a single ship is going to have any good romantic future ���� either all of them even Daemyra main centre couple is not being done well by the makers. What can you expect for others ?

because I knew helaemond had lit ceslu potential but it has to be done correctly and Ik hotd makers would ruin it or make it bad even if it was shown canon look at Alicole now. So being non canon yet addressed by makers and actors who specially said they would act on it for fan service is a kind of little serve.

To me it's like I won ( but at what cost 😭😅) but also winning well wasn't there on cards ever. Every ship is going to be destroyed by makers. see what they did with Helaegon(ik it wasn't any good already) but like I am crying on leaks ( I thought atleast this s2 helaegon would be done but better for Aegon's sake but no😭)

All ships barely are going to have small amount of time without any romantic bullshit, just in one or two scene then seperating apart n dying 😂☠️ as I said earlier so to me Ewan phia trying their own things for helaemond in background in genuinely a small cake😂. ( Atleast we have some scenes with them, idk if there would be😑😬 not expecting much)

One thing I really hate that you know they gave Juan and Cesare arcs to Aegon n Aemond making their pair up way intresting to watch. I really wish that Helaena was given the same authority or bit of freedom of exploring herself like Alicent. Sorry if someone as strictly religious like Alicent can do it then it was way easy for Heleana. And whole Borgias recreate would have been so interesting to watch.

I wish I could see Helaena scolding, shouting at Aemond for starting all this shit n hating Aegon for being a useless father after b&c. There should be a sense of of cheating or fraud when she sees her mother who claims to be a religious person but doing everything against it while she had to suffer her whole life with bad marriage.

Not seeing her any active is what which annoys me so much.

they gave her dreamer arc for Nothing just being ignored by her important family members.Phia should be awarded for her acting n carrying heleana despite of their dirty writing.

The thing is Helaemond would have been a shock and surprise more fitting for audience, making Helaena active with this part instead of doing Alicent dirty an don't even ask how I am feeling about Helaena catching Alicent and Cole . It was sooo😭🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️😑

And most ironically funny thing is that same thing happened with Borgias, Cesare and lucrezia were not canon initially and never meant for canon, both actors said we will just play into into it but when I rumours started later runners had no choice to make it canon for later season 😂

So never loose hope or stop loving or hyping any of your ship or helaemond I would say because Ryan can pull any stunt any time. The way he is going I don't think he gives much f about book canon, he is doing anything he wants😂😂

So who knows... if he ever liked Helaemond he can pull it anytime 😂(I m not kidding) bcz Alicole fucking specially between b&c since s1 is so ooc I could not even describe. I am not even hardcore FNB fan but they quite messed up Alicole angst and guilt arc which could have been so beautiful. It's so inconsistent with their parts from S1 like what ?🤦🏻‍♀️

And I hate that blood & cheese should have been how Helaena is suffering instead I am afraid whole light will be thrown on Criston/Alicent fucking reveal.

no couple is gonna have any beautiful story so it's kind of better if they are just playing with helaemond behind back.

Atleast there is so much for Helaemond content and on other hand my other ship Rhaemond is literally carried by lil warriors Leo and Eva 😭 on their shoulder with that one scene for all seasons. I never gonna see them interact again😿.

And yes I also hate how Aemond is sent to back his abuser. Like they could have used any other female if they have to show his milf attraction or some kind of guilt kink something but not his groomer. It sucks he is finding comfort in her arms. Like these show runners forgot how all these characters were exactly in season1 bc such changes r so😭

Overall I would say don't leave the show just in terms for ships to be endgame as not a single ship is going to have any happy ending or any romantic drive in HOTD main focus will be on Rhaenyra, Alicent getting depressed and Daemon will be haunted 😭 but still it's your choice in the end😅 I am no one to say anything.

Now I am mainly watching for Aegon & Aemond n how other new entries like Alys, Alyn, Cregan or Addam are gonna introduced ( well who knows if Daeron is also gets his Cameo in the end )

if I am being honest just like the way I started this show after reading book without having any great expectations. It works better that way and may be for Ewanphia Crumbs for few secs if they don't cut their scenes of which I have very much doubt.

( while how I wanna see Ewan phia/Phiwan crumbs on screens in delulu mind😭😭 :

Like this is how I wanted Helaena to jump n beat the shit out of Aemond after b&c n that's how it should be bc that's his brother not any stranger, she had full right to , but there... it's complete opposite :

[animebw]

Seasonal Reflection: Summer 2023 Anime

I've noticed over my years of seasonal anime watching that summer tends to be the weakest season of the year. For whatever reason, everyone saves their good shows for winter, spring or fall, leaving the middle of the year to limp along with few real standouts. But god almighty, even by those standards, this was a dismal fucking season of anime. Forget just not having many good shows, there were so few shows that even had the potential to be good. Trying to find anything with a fighting chance of turning out even halfway decent felt like trawling for nuggets of half-digested corn in an overflowing septic tank of obviously bad isekai, obviously bad light novel junk, and obviously bad wish-fulfillment rom-coms. And then, just to add insult to injury, basically all the shows that did start out strong ended up tripping over themselves in some way. So not only were there so few anime even worth keeping up with this season, none of them managed to score anything higher than "pretty good." This is, unquestionably, the worst anime season I've sat through since I started watching seasonally. So let's take stock of the few shows I kept up with and pray for better things once the much-more-promising fall season gets under way.

Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead: Unfinished/10

Well, isn't this unfortunately ironic. The increasingly exploitative conditions that anime is made under have resulted in so many high-profile shows suffering production delays as their animators crash up against the cruelty of overwork and corporate greed. But there's something particularly disquieting when that fate befalls a show that's all about breaking free from your shitty exploitative job. Zom 100 sets out to extol the joys of living a free life unchained by capitalism's cruel clutches even in the midst of the end of the world, but ends up so ravaged by those very chains that it was unable to finish its run before it ran out of timeslots. And now its last three episodes are left in limbo, the entire production team waiting for a chance to recover and find some way to bring their work to a close. It's a pretty bleak situation that almost makes you believe a zombie apocalypse would actually be preferrable to our current state of affairs. Especially when, uh, this is not a show you want to give the audience extra time to think about. Cause the more you think about it, the more all its aggravating flaws- painfully simplistic moralizing, a sexist streak that refuses to just fucking die- start to sour your good feelings for the rollicking ride it's taking you on. I can only hope the final episodes, whenever they arrive, close it out on a strong enough note to make the ride feel worth it.

Mushoku Tensei Season 2 (1st Cours): 1/10

I have stewed long and hard over how to phrase my thoughts on the second season of Mushoku Tensei. I've agonized for hours on how to express how viscerally, repulsively infuriating this show has become. But ultimately, there's only one thing I can say: Fuck this show and fuck everyone who likes it. Fuck every free ride this show gives Rudeus so he never had to face consequences for his actions. Fuck the hypocritical stabs at "redemption" that only serve to excuse and justify every female character slobbering over an unrepentant pedophile. Fuck the single worst use of slavery I've ever seen in an isekai (Cannot fucking believe I have to give Shield Hero credit for anything). Fuck this lifeless waste of a cast that steadfastly refuses to have a single interesting member. Fuck the misogyny. Fuck the masturbatory woe-is-me manpain. And most of all, fuck every last braindead, media-illiterate mouth-breather who decided to turn this irredeemable garbage into a modern anime classic. The success of Mushoku Tensei is the death of everything I love about this medium, and I will never forgive any of you for bringing us to this point. Go. Fuck. Yourselves.

My Happy Marriage: 4/10

God, I really wanted to like this one more than I did. Isn't it great to see high-profile shoujo anime with impressive productions making a comeback after years of drought? And this is a story about trauma and healing and discovering your self worth and all that good stuff! This should've been right up my alley. And yet, My Happy Marriage just left me frustrated and somewhat offended. There's such a powerful story buried in here somewhere, but thanks to a combination of painfully overwrought melodrama that robs its heroine of far too much agency, a poorly handled supernatural twist on the Cinderella formula that only grows increasingly awkward the more it tries to force the two together, and a condescending undercurrent that seems to think the only cure for years of abuse is embracing a hyper-traditionalist form of wifely duties, that nugget of potential never has the chance to blossom. What an utter disappointment.

Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence: 5/10

Rejoice, folks; we've finally found the mathematical average of the slice-of-life moe romance. Saint Cecilia and Pastor Lawrence is the platonic ideal of the fluffy, disposable rom-com made flesh, pleasant and harmless while watching but leaving no lasting impression once it's done. It's a collection of cute character moments, amusing gags, and occasional stabs at emotion that sometimes tug at your heartstrings a bit, all arranged in their proper places with a likable cast and bouncy animation and just enough energy to stay moderately interesting all the way through. And aside from the somewhat unique setting of a Medieval church as home base for our two awkward lovebirds, none of it lingers in your mind once the episode ends and you find yourself forgetting all the jokes you were just chuckling to. Which may seem like a backhanded complement, but honestly? This is what I would consider the baseline for anime rom-coms. If you're gonna just be fluffy and disposable, this is the absolute minimum you should be aiming for to make me appreciate spending twenty-four minutes every week with you. I can't really recommend it to anyone but the most ravenous rom-com fans, but at least now I have a standard to judge any similar shows that fall short of the mark.

Sugar Apple Fairy Tale Season 2: 5.5/10

What strikes me most about Sugar Apple Fairy Tale now that it's over is just what an ambitious show it turned out to be. It's one thing to write a hackneyed fantasy racism metaphor about fairy slavery into your swoony shoujo romance, it's quite another to actually try and engage honesty with the implications of that idea as the core driving force of your narrative. And whatever else you might say about it, SAFT is really, truly making an effort to explore discrimination and systemic bigotry, tackling it from so many angles over the course of its 24 episodes without shying away from its thorny complexity. How many other stories like this would dedicate an entire subplot to showing how victims of one kind of discrimination can still perpetuate harm on groups even lower on the social totem pole like SAFT does with Brigit? Or explore how toxic systems of control don't magically get better just because a minority is at the helm like Lafalle? It's that kind of ambition that makes it easier to take this show's stumbles in stride, numerous though they might be at times. I'll always appreciate an earnest, messy attempt at making a statement over a safe, line-toeing space filler without the conviction to even try.

Horimiya Piece: 6/10

So this is a weird situation where the first season of Horimiya ended up rushing through the source material in order to adapt the whole story, and now this side-quel is going back and adapting all the content the first season skipped over. Essentially, it's a Horimiya DLC, scattered skits with no real cohesion or progression that just exist to give you more good times with the cast you love. But hey, Horimiya was never really heavy on plot to begin with; it's always been more a collection of moments across the lives of these friends than anything else. So I don't see anything wrong with doing a full season of just slice-of-life shenanigans, since that's basically what the first season became once Hori and Miyamura got together. And if nothing else, I certainly appreciated all the extra time with these lovable goofballs; this show does a better job than most of capturing the sheer, absolute chaos that teenage friend groups can cause amongst each other. Unfortunately, there are two episodes in the back half that truly, utterly suck- episode 9 is completely focused on the creepy pedophile teacher the show thinks is just the most hilarious joke ever, and episode 12 faceplants into romanticizing abusive relationships in a really gross way. So if you're gonna check Horimiya Piece out, do yourself a favor and skip those episodes entirely. Your experience will be better off for it.

Undead Murder Farce: 6.5/10

Pulp is a hard style to define, isn't it? You'd think it would be easy with how influential and popular it's been over the years. Ultimately, though, you just gotta know it when you see it. And Undead Murder Farce is pulpier than a thousand trees being turned into paper at an orange juice factory. It's a Victorian-era serial mystery extravaganza that turns the entirety of 19th-century supernatural adventure literary canon into the backdrop for a rakugo-performing half-oni and a severed immortal head to traipse through solving mysteries as they pursue a larger goal. Over the course of their adventures, they match wits and butt heads with vampires, werewolves, Sherlock Holmes, Phileas Fogg from Around the World in 80 Days, The Phantom of the Opera, Arsene Lupin, Frankenstein's Monster, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. And thanks to the director of Kaguya-sama at the helm, the visual presentation is exactly as gonzo and freewheeling as this brazen OC fanfiction deserves. I enjoyed every second of this goofy-ass show, and I hope we get a second season to see which classic characters our wisecracking immortal detectives rub elbows with next. It's what we deserve.

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 (1st Part): 7/10

It's increasingly difficult to pin down my feelings on Jujutsu Kaisen. On the one hand, it regularly delivers some of the coolest, most lavishly animated punch-ups in modern anime. On the other hand, is that enough to cover for the story's incredible lack of focus and constant zig-zagging between different ideas at the drop of a hat? Like, I might need more than ten fingers to count how many times this show just drops in the middle of building up a status quo to shift gears into something entirely different without giving proper closure to what's come before. On the other other hand, though, season 2's backstory arc finally gave us an actual driving force for the story and a strong emotional framework to understand the stakes at play, except then it almost immediately reverses on that idea by revealing one of the critical characters has been dead the whole time and his story's suddenly over just when it was really getting under way, and... eh. Look, I like Jujutsu Kaisen, and its spectacular action and hilarious character interactions are usually enough to help me forgive its overly convoluted plotting (especially this season with its massive upgrade in directorial flourish and experimental animation). But at some point I'm really gonna start wondering if any of this nonsense will ever amount to more than a slapped-together framework to justify the fights.

Fate/Strange Fake Episode 0: 8/10

It's probably not a good sign that the only anime to really inspire me this season was basically just a prologue for a show that's still being made as we speak. But with how barren this season has been, I'll take my victories where I can. And sweet buttery Jesus, am I glad that Strange Fake is getting a full adaptation. After years of having no interest in Fate beyond the core story, one of these endless spinoffs finally manages to grab me hook line and sinker. And all it took was the author of Baccano and Durarara filtering the concept of the Holy Grail War through his particular penchant for sprawling, chaotic ensemble stories full of truly deranged characters slamming the full weight of their personalities against each other for the sheer fun of it. Add a mesmerizing new visual style from a longtime key animator making his directorial debut, and the result is an epic hour-long masterclass introduction that leaves you breathless for more. This is what Fate/Zero's first episode should have been. And sure, it could still go horribly off the rails at some point, but for now, I choose to remain hopeful. May this promise of better things to come prove a welcome omen as we leave this miserable anime season behind.

Shows I Dropped:

The Girl I Like Forgot Her Glasses: Dropped at 2 episodes for extreme GoHands over-animation, and just being a painfully cringey male fantasy rom-com.

Atelier Ryza: Dropped at 1 episode for being boring and generic as fuck. Only worth it for the hilariously crowbarred-in fanservice shots and I can just look those up on their own.

Reign of the Seven Spellblades: Dropped at 2 episodes for some of the most cringe-worthy DeviantArt-tier writing I've ever seen.

The Masterful Cat is Depressed Again Today: Dropped at 2 episodes for just being boring, even though it's way better than GoHands' other monstrosity this season.

Bang Dream It's MyGo: Dropped at 1 episode for just not vibing with it, idk.

[fangirlfrom-hell]

The Weight Station (S2x03) Chapter 1 || Jay Halstead x Halstead Sister

*re-posting this because I'm stupid and accidentaly erased my other blog 🫠 (I only found parts 1 and 2, I'm missing p.3)

This is the plot from season 2, episode 3 but with Jay's younger sister involved in the story. This is one of my favorite episodes, I recently rewatched it and I coulnd't avoid imagining this.

This first part is more about what we see in the real episode, with the addition of Jay's sister.

Second part will be more about Becca waiting at the bullpen for Jay when he offers himself as bait. Nadia Decotis and trudy Platt involved. A lot of anxiety, stress, crying and lovely feelings to her brother. *I think I actually started writing this for what now will be the second part...and also the ending*

I hope you like it. Please feel free to comment.

□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□

The first rays of sun began to peek through the window. Becca was lying face up on her bed, looking at the ceiling almost without blinking. She had had another rough night of not being able to sleep. She was worried, very worried about her brother, and although there had only been a couple of days without seeing him, she missed him, she needed him.

She had gotten used to stay at his sibling's place and not at her father's house. Becca didn't like it there, even when she had her own room and all of her things where there, she preffered her big bother's company. Her father was a bit negligent and didn't pay much attention to her since her mother died, and that was kinda a long time ago, or it felt like a long time ago for a 10 years old girl.

Jay hadn't made contact with her in days, and that was strange. Becca was starting to feel worried, she knew about the risks of his work and her mind had begun to imagine various catastrophic scenarios. More than anything, she felt lonely. It was very easy for her to fall into this void. She was quiet young to have this sort of feelings, but this was the path life had taken her at such a young age. Jay was all she had, and she was very afraid of loosing him.

Becca was starting her first class at school when the principal interrupted: "I'm here to take Becca Halstead" -all eyes posed on her -"Take all of your belonging, sweetie, and head with me to the office, please" -Becca's heart drop off. The principal's smile to her was so condescending that she immediatly knew something was wrong.

-"There is a couple of cops here to pick you up" -The principal informed Becca while walking through the hallway - "Your brother send them". Now she couldn't stop thinking about what could have happened to Jay and her tendency to overthink made her anxious.

Becca stood silence, trying to hold back tears. She had a lot of questions in her mind, a lot of feelings. This was the first thing she had heard about Jay existence in days. A policewoman that noticed the concern in her eyes.

-"Hi! It's Becca, right? "- She started with a very soft voice - "I'm Kim, this is my partner Roman. We work with your brother Jay, he's our friend. He send us to pick you up and take you with him, is that all right?".

-"What's happening?" -The question slipped from her mouth - "And why didn't he come to pick me up by himself, then?"

-"Those are questions we cannot answer".

-"Is he--?"

-"Your brother is fine. I promise" -Kim reassured her.

At the bullpen, all the team was working on solving Jay's case. It was known that he had a target on his back and even when he was carefull about it, he had suffer some attacks. First, someone broke into his house, that's when he decided to get away from his sister for a while, to not even call her. But things scallated quickly, last night someone tried to shoot him when he was with Erin at a bar, and unfortunatelly one of his friends was injured. Also, Olinsky's CI told him that thugs had knowledge about Becca, and they would not hesitate in using her, since Jay had become a difficult target to take.

-"So, you know the victim?" -Hank asked.

-"Maddie Callahan, she worked there" -Jay said with guilt in his voice.

-"No ID of the shooter?

-"No" -Erin answered-"Patrol is going door to door in the neighborhood looking for witnesses".

-"That was the hospital" -Antonio hung the phone and approached to Jay- "Your friend is in ICU, but she's alive".

-"Thanks".

-"Hey! It's not your fault" -Antonio reaffirmed looking into Halstead's eyes and then walked to Voight: "Someone needs to talk to Bemberek".

-"Oh, Olinsky's already on that".

Atwater came out from one of the rooms: "A black Arcadia was found abandoned in Englewood. It matches the description of the getaway vehicle, but there's no prints they torched it".

"White male just checked into a south side clinic about half an hour ago, two bullet wounds" -Adam completed the information.

-"All right" -Hanks started- "Lindsay, Antonio, get on it". -Voight rushed when he catched Jay standing up and taking his coat to go out: "No, no, no, Jay. You're in protective custody until this dies down".

-"They shoot my friend! They nearly killed me and Erin, they spoted my little sister..."

-"You got a target on your back. You are not going anywhere till that tatget's removed".

-"So, I'm under house arrest?" -Jay was really angry.

At that moment, Burgess and Roman went up on the stairs to the office.

-"We're back" -Kim said in a high tone to calm the situation -"And we have company, so...". -Everyone at the bullpen fixed their eyes on the girl in school uniform. They were impressed on how much she ressembled to Jay.

-"Becca!" -Jay was so relieved to see her.

Becca dropped her backpack on the floor and ran to hug her brother. She had had a couple of horrible days, but now feeling calmed in his arms, and knowing he was safe, she started to cry: "I tought something bad had happened to you. Dad's going crazy. You didn't call, I haven't seen you in days. I thought you were--".

-"Shhh" -Jay stopped her sister's emotional verbal vomit and hugged her even tighter-"I'm sorry -- I'm all right, you're all right. We're good!". -He said stroking her hair.

Everyone was looking at the scene tenderly. Until that day, no one except Al knew Jay had a little sister, nor that she was so little. Erin's eyes filled up a little with tears.

Alvin Olinsky knew about Becca's existence from a visit to Jay's place the day he lost his badge due to Rodieger's murder. She was there asleep, occupying all of the sofa.

-"We went to your father's house, but he refused to come with us" -Roman interrupted -"He was quiet a charming man" -he said sarcastically -"We can send a unit to check on him".

-"That won't be necessary". -Jay answered without taking his eyes off his sister.

-"You wanted us, sargent?" -Kim asked.

-"Halstead doesn't leave your sight until I say so" -Voight told Burgess and Roman, drawing the attention back to the case -"And he stays here ar 21st along his sister".

-"Got it".

-"You don't have to stay up in here to have an eye on me! You got to be kidding me!" -Jay's anger took over him again. His sister stepped aside, though he was holding her by the shoulder.

-"Keep an eye on him" -Hank ordered before going downstairs.

He took his coat and threw it on his desk making a loud noise, to which Becca reacted with a little frightened jump and a sigh. Erin stared at Jay and gave the girl a reassureness smile before following the sargent.

Suddenly, the detectives were gone and everything stood silent. At the bullpen there were only Nadia, Kim and Roman, all of them attending their own business, but keeping an eye on the Halsteads.

-"There's fresh water on the frigde, or juice if you like it" -Nadia broke the silence. "I don't think you drink coffe, do you?" -She approached to Becca with a warm smile, heading her to the coffe room.

-"Go" -Jay granted -"I'll be with you in a sec".

Nadia was nice and talkative. She was trying to distract Becca, which Jay appreciated. Stealthily, he approached the room when he heard his sister laugh, that sound was like medicine to his heart and mind, which right now was full of stuff. When Becca noticed him, they stared and Nadia felt like it was the moment to leave the room.

-"Wha-what's going on?" -Becca asked slightly worried- "Don't you dare to lie to me, I'm not stupid". -Jay chuckled, he knew she wouldn't let it go.

-"Well, umm...let's say that a few days ago I caught a bad guy, right? And now this bad guy's brother is chasing me, BUT my friends are out there looking for him and they're gonna find him. There's nothing you should worry about".

-"So we're staying here until they catch him?".

-"That's right".

-"I guess you're safe here, aren't you? You are safe as long as you stay here".

-"We are safe as long as we stay here, yes".

-"I'm always safe when you are around" -Becca expressed in the most sincere way possible and Jay felt it deep in his heart.

A few hours passed. Jay wouldn't stop looking at his phone waiting for updates about the case. Becca spend her time sitting at her brother's desk coloring, or playing with Nadia, or asking police questions to Kim. She was a ray of sunshine for those present.

The phone rang and Nadia answered it. Her cheerful mood suddenly changed: "Okay. Okay. Got it". Jay was in a trance when she called him.

-"Um, detective Healstead?" -Jay turned to her- "Sargeant Voight is on his way up with the suspect". -In that moment, Kim and Roman approached to Jay- "Um, he asked that on his way to the interview room, you wait in his office for them to pass by".

-"Which suspect?"

-"Uh--" -Burgess made a sign for Nadia to not say a word - "Maybe it's better that you don't know, right?" -She talked to Jay, but he ignored her.

-"Is it the shooter?" -He asked standing up in anger.

Becca started getting tense again by the tone of the conversation "shooter? What shooter?"

-"Let's head in Voight's office, Jay" -Roman tried to calm the atmosphere. At that moment, Kim reached Becca's side.

-"First of all it's detective. Second of all, let's not me and you get off on the wrong foot".

-"I'm all for that. But if you can join me in Voight's office, detective, that would be great".

-"Jay..."-Becca called him in a pleading tone and he reacted to that.

From the inside of the office it was easy to observe how Hank was holding another man "That's him! That's him!" -In the fastest way possible, Jay ran to him, but was held by the two cops at the door: "Sarge, give me five minutes. Give me five minutes!", but Voight didn't even turned to see him. Becca had never seen his brother so angry and she got terrified at how intimmidating he could be.

-"Is that what we're going to do, throw? Because you're not walking past me until I get an "all cleared" -Roman was face to face with Jay - "You got that?".

-"Jay..." -This time the girl called more as a whisper, for her voice did not come out of her throat.

Becca was now a mixure of feelings and she couldn't stand it no more. Little did she know that this was the begining of a living nightmare.

[queen-of-boops]

Part 2 Thoughts

Okay, what is up with Willow being so gossipy? I thought she was supposed to be the sweet one!

And I am so tired of Uma wanting me to back her up. If you had just told Alex right away, you might have been able to get through it since you weren't exclusive or anything, but the lying was too much

Oh, cool Evan is into me. Pretty sure I've told him no about a thousand times already and I'm exclusive with Joyo, why would I care about what Evan has to say?

Awww, Joyo wants me to be his girlfriend, that's so cute even if that speech was horrendous

Estelle and Alex ... Honestly I don't even blame him

Wait, so if I don't snitch on Alex, he and Uma are just all lovey dovey again? God those two are a MESS

The call with Joyo's mom (Diah) was really cute and the story about little Joyo wearing a bowler hat all the time cause that's what he thought being a gentleman is was adorable.

A new season in February.... I really wish they'd stick to one season a year, there's not enough break and the seasons are suffering for it.

[gryficowa]

I get annoyed by people still insisting that Chloe is evil while ignoring Andre, Gabriel and Sabrina's redemption arc

But remember, Chloe is evil because Marinette is traumatized (Which is funny for the person who was the scapegoat and I feel like Thomas is throwing mud at me)

I have the impression that people keep forgetting that Chloe is like this because her wise father didn't think to sign her up for therapy, because why? It's better to buy her everything and destroy her, and finally throw her out and replace with a better model

But no, instead of broaching Andre's guilt, they made him the daughter and wife victim (Alador Blight would facepalm if he saw this)

If you get the context of why Chloe is like this and who made her do it, it's obvious you're going to feel disappointed with this show

But remember, instead of suffering the consequences for how you raised a child, throw it away and replace it with the one you haven't destroyed yet

Andre and his redemption arc is what I described, I already mentioned Sabrina and Gabriel, the whole fandom talks about it, but Andre pissed me off the most because I've been watching this show since the first season, I quit it after spoiling Chloe's arc, happened episodes from the fourth season, but I did not watch them with such interest, because this series has become an exemplary day

Yes, you heard right, I used to like this series, but after this arc, Chloe started to smell like all those productions that also pissed me off as a kid because of similar and even the same themes

Chloe in the first season was indifferent to me, the typical mean girl who teased me as a kid and everyone had to follow her rules or they wouldn't have a life, which is something that quite a lot of people have come across, nothing unusual

Two years of waiting for the second season, anyone else remembers those times when the first season ended in such an emotional moment, because this show still had some level of writing?

Then season 2 came along and things started to change, I started to care about the mean girl who was like the one who teased me (A bit like Amity Blight), yes I started to care about the mean girl who was indifferent to me all these years and that there was something unusual, but also unusual, I followed her development and believed that, that she was close to being a better person (I didn't want her to be good, but being a better person is always a success) and then I got punched in the face because Thomas is like a baby and he was sulking

I've mentioned many times that I hate wasted potential and Chloe is that, so that's how I go about it

The show could have had an interesting lesson and broken the status quo, but we all know how it really was and it was overwhelming because what was it for? I feel like my attention and time was used for no reason, I feel a bit like after SVFOE and the final, disappointment and the feeling that it wasn't worth getting involved in because I just got a bad taste

I didn't expect Chloe to become a Saint Mary, I was hoping that she would start making progress to become a better person, even making mistakes where she would need time to understand everything that happened because people need time to heal. to come to and understand something, it's normal

Apparently, this is too much for Thomas and the anti-Chloe people to understand

Is it really so weird for people that as a former scapegoat who was bullied by people like Chloe and Sabrina, I still wish Chloe would get the redemption arc and she could slowly learn to become a better person in the end, not perfect, because I don't want perfect, and Chloe's meanness could be used for good purposes many times over

[stevie-petey]

WAIT WHAT YOU SAID ABOUT THE DUFFER BROS ABILITY TO WRITE VERY COMPELLING AND INTERESTOING CHARACTERS ONLY TO LATER DROP THE BALL!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!! it annoyed me a little boit in season 2 as i started noticing it with nancy and johnathan the most???? and i had a gut feeling that they would cut kali off pretty soon because she's too offshoot from hawkins (which is so disappointing since she's literally one of the only women of colour on that cast......) but i think max's intro and steve's development kept me from complaining too much. and then i noticed it again with the same characters in season 3, but got a little distracted because of erica and robin, and then by season 4 i was like okay so which one of our core cast members will you be cutting out as much as possible and then try distracting me by dangling a new character in my face who will die within the season? and it was eddie, chrissie, etc etc. all this to say, i might have problems with the duffer brothers politics, but i also have very real problems with their writing, both character driven and themetically, and this feels like you are solving at least one of those problems in a very real way (and i like the ensuing thematic changes that are occuring because of it) (largely: communication as love and growing up as accepting to take people as they are) (idk i might have made that up a little and doing a lot of projection on that last one)

god i could write an entire essay on this topic ,,,, they pissed me off so bad with season 4 its my least favorite season entirely for that reason. they completely undid SO many important characterizations because they clearly added too many new characters by that point and couldnt handle it and its just. awful.

jonathan especially gets the worst of this. season 1 hes so complex and he gets his own scenes centered around HIM ! he has a personality !!! he has monologues and amazing scenes. then season 2 comes and its like ok. more focus on will. cool makes sense. then 3 and hes more just nancys sidekick (cool but ??? wheres his arc ???) and FOUR ????? no. fuck season 4 jonathan that was fucking criminal. jonathan gets stuck in a loop of taking care of his family, getting frustrated by it, and then repeats. duffer bros need to apologize to charlie idc

and nancy :(( she had SUUUUCH a good arc and her story felt complete but of COURSE because shes a badass female character they had to reduce her to a love interest ?? AGAIN ??? in season 4 with a shitty love triangle that was concluded YEARS ago. i hate it. so deeply.

but yeah like u said they just bring in new characters and then axe them immediately and then the core group then suffers and its just ,,, so so so shitty. kali is just gone. so is argyle. like what the fuck.

and ur spot on with the themes !!! YES !! part of my therapy for my hate towards the duffer bros has been rewriting this fic and actually. ya know. UNDERSTANDING the characters and i loooove the themes of growing up and communicating <333

[ofmermaidstories]

*Huge Rant Incoming*

Hi Mermie :> How are you? With all the asks you have already answered regarding MHA, I hope this is not too annoying. I just need to be irritating about this for a bit cuz I have been grabbing all my frnds to vent to them about MHA and the ending. It's my coping method TvT

Regarding the ending I think, I was a lil disappointed. There are so many opinions floating around but in general I do agree with the fact that most of the problems arise because the plotlines that had so much buildup weren't really ended in a satisfying or logical manner and it didn't really feel like an ending that upheld the messages of the anime. Which is crazy to me because this is one of the few cases where even if the anime ended in that "Wow! Happy Ending! Everyone and Everything is fine and we all became the greatest heroes", it would still fit because my hero always gave me that vibe of, "Oh! You can also be a hero! Go Beyond! Plus Ultra!", and it still SOMEHOW never felt patronizing or corny even though I usually hate shit like that. I was so flabbergasted when I actually felt motivated to do better when I first saw MHA because the show is so OBVIOUS in it's messages and metaphors. MHA is not a subtle show but it still somehow WORKS?!

No matter what the ending was there would always be someone who is disappointed; especially for a fandom as huge as this. It can also not be overlooked that due to the insane and frankly inhumane workload, Horikoshi obviously had to cut corners and the time needed to really flesh out all the ideas he had; but I still can't help but feel frustrated with how things ended. So many of our favorite animes and stories have to suffer because of this and I would rather wait 2 years to get a better and well rounded ending than for it to be rushed like this :/

Regardless of all the commotion, I still think that for all the things MHA did wrong, it also managed to do a lot of things right. Does the show suffer from not giving female leads fulfilling plots even when they have amazing powers and personalities? Yes. Does the show fall short in committing to give long term consequences to it's characters? Also yes. But at the end of it I really think MHA's biggest strength lies in it's character writing. I HATED Bakugo's guts the whole first season really, but he ended up being one of, if not the MOST heroic characters in the show. I really love all of the characters and the things they stand for. Even if LoV was a run-of-the-mill typical villain group, I loved all of them too and was really invested in ALL of their storylines. Deku is also such an amazing MC with so much potential even out of the show. He is relatable, sweet, heroic but also COMPLETELY UNHINGED. lol. I cannot name one character that I "hate" in MHA (except AFO, he can go jump in an acid pool for all I care). So it was really disappointing to see their arcs (especially the villains, and ESPECIALLY SHIGARAKI) end like that, ;-;

But even after all this I really, for the life of me cannot hate this show. It is one of the only Animes that I watched alongside the fandom, otherwise I usually wait for them to end so I can binge it altogether. Shouto was one of- if not my first anime blorbo <3 I still remember how ABSOLUTELY SMITTEN I was (still am unfortunately) back then. He remained my uncontested fave for a long LONG time. Even with all the toxic shit the MHA fandom is up to at times, it's still one of the most fun experiences I have had in a fandom. I have met some of my favorite fanfic writers because of this show, found so many amazing artists and have constantly been bamboozled by how talented the ppl in this space were. I have made a lot of steadfast frnds because of this show. My bff (a devoted bakugirlie) and I would spend hours coming up with hcs, talking about character analysis and coming up with all different theories for the show. Those were some good times :D

It might not be the best ending but MHA is a good show. The journey to get here was one I will never forget <3

Lmao, you’re always welcome to rant, Castle. 🥹 I’m always happy to talk about the ending, I have a lot of thoughts about it!!! But okay let’s have a chinwag. I’m curious—if you could talk through your ideal ending, what would it be? Because I quite liked the ending Hori’s given us, even with my attachment to Deku being a hero via OFA lmfaoooo. I think yeah, Hori rushed things to the end, but I don’t believe things would’ve played out any differently if he’d given himself like, another year or whatever. I think he’s had this ending in mind for a while now, and I don’t think anything could have talked him into like… sticking around to tell it longer. 🥺

I do think the difference (with my liking the ending) is that I’ve never been invested in a Happy Ending for the villains LMFAO. I’m so sorry. 😭 I like them—I love them—as characters in the story, but I am not a stan in the way that like… I’d go out of my way to write a fic for them, or buy their merch, you know? And I think the main reason for that (for me) is like, how very clearly marked for messy ends they were, like, right from the start LMAO. It sucks ass that they were neglected/actively abused/earmarked for some insane world domination plan, and it sucks ass that for them help never came, or was offered too late—but they’re villains LOL. Most of them make active choices in their adulthoods to be shitheads. 🥹 And we could argue until the cows come home about whether or not you’re really making a choice, if all you’ve known is abuse/neglect/doomsday grooming, but tbh, in a world where people can have devastating and destructive powers that they can then turn on other people, I kind of think it’s a moot point. 💀 Like—it doesn’t matter how sad it is that Shigaraki was left to wander the streets as a tiny kid, shellshocked and idk, covered in the remains of his family—by the end of the manga, he was literally at the point where if he had escaped Deku's clutches one more time, he would've dusted the entire country. The boy had to go, LOL. Ship him off to the afterlife by express post!!

There’s a great discussion in there about the cycle of abuse, and what we (as a society) owe the victims of it, and how Horikoshi absolutely has thing about like, retconning his abusers to either like, try and undo some of the severity of what they’ve done (Endeavour, Bakugou to some extent) or give them moments of sympathy (Shiggy’s dad, when he’s gushing about his baby boy to AFO), but the thing that MHA makes very explicit by the end is that like—sometimes things suck, and sometimes you can’t save people from the damage that gets dealt to them, but you can stop them from dealing more damage out to others, and perpetuating the cycle.

(This is a bit of an aside, but my favourite thing about the villains is that they were genuinely dangerous people. We as a fandom have the gift of like—seeing their hurt, their tragedy, for what it is. We see the neglected, abused, lonely children they were. The cruelties and the misunderstandings. But the people of the MHA world don't get that magical ability. Instead they get to see one of their classmates—who was chill and normal and fun—suddenly attack a boy just to drink his blood bc she’s like, obsessed with him. They see a young man walking around with decaying hands clinging to him, and turning people to dust. They see a homeless psycho set the people they care about on fire in a roar of blue flame. You can't demand change—or pretend to, for some of them—while actively making your world a worse place. And that’s what makes them compelling, to me. I like that AFO is just—wretched, LOL. That he literally just comes out of the womb and was like ok, I’m going to ruin lives and make it generational. 💀)

Would you change their endings, if you could? 🥺 I think if I could change one thing it’d be… Bakugou dying, LOL. Like I’d either a) make it permanent b) make it cost more to bring him back. 😌 (This is why it’s a good thing Hori’s the one that wrote MHA lmfaooooo. 🥹) Actually, new question: even with your disappointment, is there anything about the ending that makes you feel a little more hopeful? 🥺 You mention how much the fandom means to you—is your love for it seperate to your enjoyment of the series? The ending made me happy—Izuku, finally getting to live his dream because his friends loved him so much. 🥹 And also after a moment or two I grew really attached to him as a teacher!!! He’s so perfect for it. 🥺 I know his students just love him. I think Horikoshi created some really lasting, powerful characters andddd… ultimately I trust in their lasting appeal. Theirs, and the story’s, overall. 😌

[boysplanetrecaps]

The Great Produce 48 Rewatch: Ep 2, Signal Song [Part 1]

In my previous post in this silly yet necessary project, we finished off the auditions, including the ones that weren't aired on MNET. It's time for the girls to move into their dorms and start practicing for their upcoming large-group performance to your favorite song and mine, Nekkoya! Let's do it.

In this second phase of the Produce 48 series, the 96 trainees (well, 94 -- 2 of them dropped out already) are asked to learn the lyrics, tune, and choreography of a song then get one chance to perform it in front of a video camera for their final grade. Did I mention that they have to learn the lyrics in both Korean and Japanese? Also, per AleXa in her interview with Grazy Grace, they had about a day and a half to learn the choreography and lyrics in both Korean and Japanese, and this was the very next day after they filmed the auditions for about 24 straight hours. Seems… like a bad idea. But what do I know?

So, the signal song is called Pick Me aka Nekkoya. The only signal song from any of the Produce series that I actually like is Nayana from Broduce101 -- I remember hearing it playing at Cafe Bene in K-town and just liking it without knowing what it was. But I’m not wild about Nekkoya, even if it is marginally better than Pick Me from Season 1. (I mean, “oh won’t you pick me up?” is the worst, ugh). I do enjoy the fact that Nekkoya sounds extra funny to the Japanese girls, because “neko” is the Japanese word for cat. You’d think that someone would have noticed that already…? 

The girls are told that they’ll get to perform on MNET countdown. They’re so happy, despite the obvious fact that most of them aren’t going to get any camera time. They’re probably just giddy from lack of sleep. As in previous years, those in higher ranked groups will get more screen time -- but it’s even worse this year than in previous years, because rather than having the Bs and Cs flanking the As, they’ll all be stacked behind each other, so that it will probably be impossible to see even the members of the B group, much less the Ds.

The diagram at the top of the post shows the F ranked girls at the very back, but actually they won’t even be allowed on stage. The F-ranked girls, the majority of whom are Japanese, are heartbroken, notably the fashion challenged Mogi Shinobu in her blue furry sleeves. This girl is like a living meme.

We stan a relatable queen. 

The judges remind them that all the grades will be reassigned, and that only someone from group A can be in the overall center, a very desirable position. I genuinely don’t remember who gets chosen, but it also seems obvious that it’s going to be 🌸Sakura🌸….? 

Dorm Move In

The girls move in to their dorm room and find color-coded t-shirts waiting for them. I feel like I can feel the texture of these t-shirts through the screen. You know, those t-shirts that feel like steel wool and hang off you like a burlap sack? But despite being a full centimeter thick they somehow are also see-through and show the outlines of your bra? No thank you.

Miru is happy, but I think she is always happy. Honestly, I’m jealous.

Many of the girls like the colors, but the A girls are especially excited by their shirts, which feature a glittery A on a light pink background. Gyrui, the member of Fromis-9 who rocked a side-pony in her audition, is a bit salty that some of her roommates have pink shirts while she has to make due with orange. 

Meanwhile, the F-ranked girls get gray, just to make sure they feel as bad as possible about their situation. SUFFER, the producers seem to be saying. SUFFER FOR YOUR DEFICIENCIES. 

Suffer more, Ichikawa Manami! Your performance in What’s Your Name means you don’t deserve such a thing as “color”!

The F-ranked girls are joking that at least the F is on the back so they don’t have to see it themselves (unless they turn around really really fast). Goto Moe, who mysteriously seems to have completely recovered her voice, finds a white shirt she plans to wear instead. Doesn’t seem like a good idea, Moe. 

Some of the girls find rules posted in their rooms. The rules, as translated by Google translate via my phone camera: 

Adhere to the class schedule

Maintain cleanliness of accommodation and practice rooms. 

Do not make noise while going to bed.

No unnecessary physical contact.

Compliance with writing a practice journal.

Prohibition of use of mobile phones and communication devices 

Thorough management of the training center facilities 

That fourth rule causes a lot of giggling and “touching” among the girls, and the editors play Knock from Broduce 101 in the background. Uh-oh, no skinship allowed! (Gossip online seems to imply that this is because of certain trainees, but I’m not sure that this is true and I don’t want to put anything out there like that without more confirmation.) This was a new rule for this season, but to the best of my knowledge had been kept in place for later seasons. For example, I remember that it was a rule in Boys Planet as well. 

The girls have trouble communicating with each other, but some translation heroes step forward. Miyazaki Miho, who was in What’s Your Name and who I noticed writing in Korean at the beginning, can speak  Korean reasonably well too, and serves as interpreter in one of the D-class dorms for Kim Minju. 

Multi-lingual queen Miho!

Lee Chaejeong, future member of Alice who auditioned with Roller Coaster, has a little stuffie (that she calls her “chingu”) with her. Cho Ahyeong, who auditioned alongside future Cherry Bullet’s Haeyoon, has a stuffie that is sitting in for her mom. Kim Da Hye from Banana Culture (who auditioned with I Don’t Like Your Girlfriend) has a pink stuffie that is a gift from her mom. Wang Yiren (future Everglow) has a piggie. Strong approval on all that. My Christmas wish list is at least 50% Squishmallow. On the other hand, Sato Minami (who I continue to think of as Sailor Mars) has a terrifying doll named Lemon-Chan. No thank you. 

NO THANK YOU

I SAID NO THANK YOU

1:05:35 Training Begins

Ok, we’re an hour into the episode, so it makes sense that it’s time to do something or another! The girls gather in the big studio wearing their Caste T-shirts (see what I did there? I spelled it caste not cast) and get ready to learn. 

Kindly Soyou says, “You will be practicing the title track starting today. Since it’s the first time that the Japanese trainees are being trained in the Korean way, this may be quite difficult.  But please trust in us, your trainers, and listen to us.”  The girls are excited to learn new things -- we hear from Bibian, with her distinctive baby-doll face, and Nakanishi Chiyori, who had the fluffy pink skirt in What’s Your Name.

So the dance class, led by Psychopath, begins.

You can tell that he’s trying to break down the steps and give specific advice. I don’t know how it worked with the translations -- none of the Japanese girls seem to be wearing in-ear devices, so there must have been someone on a microphone, translating the information into Japanese or this would have been chaos. But it I had to learn a dance with someone speaking a language I don’t know, with a translation following a few moments later, it would be so hard to learn. It’s going really fast even for some of the Korean girls, and the Japanese girls look completely lost. Even Miru looks sad. Oh no! Protect Miru! Then after they suffer for a while, Dance Bae tells them the part they just learned is the “easiest part of the choreo.” Oh no!

It’s time for them to study in their groups. This is their class schedule, with the benefit of my google translate on my phone:

I think “consonant practice” should say “self-practice”. 

The A group and B group both have Soyou for vocals and Psychopath for dance. The C group has Dance Bae for dance and Soyou for vocals.  The D group has Mary J Lee for dance and Jeremy for vocals.  The F group has Dance Bae for dance and Jeremy for vocals. 

So, let’s start off with group C, in their yellow shirts, who apparently did the best at the big group dance instruction. Park Seo Young, the blonde individual trainee, has been elected leader and has the L sticker on her shoulder to prove it. 

They are scared when Dance Bae comes in. 

They go up to do the choreo in smaller groups, 5 or 6 at a time, and Dance Bae’s eagle eye picks out even the smallest mistakes. When they make mistakes, she tells them they have to try harder, which, like, lady, they ARE trying. 

Then she picks out Son Eun Chae and Honda Hitomi to dance on their own -- one Korean girl and one Japanese girl to represent their respective groups. 

They both look great, and Dance Bae compliments them. The other girls think they’ll both move up a rank. 

Meanwhile, in class B…

B group has elected Park Minji -- future Secret Number -- as their leader, perhaps because she has experience from being on the first season of Produce 101.

AleXa is serving with a deep red lip. She understands the assignment. 

When Psychopath comes in, they introduce themselves in unison, and he greets them impatiently. He watches them perform, then tells them they have to be more “bashful” in their dancing, mocking their more “powerful” attempts at the girlish choreography. 

They all love him, saying that he’s a good dancer. Cho Ka Hyeon -- the Starship girl who isn’t Wonyoung or Yujin -- voice overs, “I stared at him shamelessly because he’s so good at dancing.”  

Yoon Eunbin likes him a lot. 

They might also think he’s handsome or cute, for all I know -- he was only 34 at the time of taping, so not necessarily too old for them to have crushes on (though obviously way too old for them to date, to be clear!). I know he’s being relatively nice to the girls and it must seem weird that I’m calling him Psychopath, but I DO NOT FORGIVE HIM FOR WHAT HE DID TO THE BOYS ON BOYS PLANET. It was full on psychological abuse. 

Anyway, the dance practice continues. Miru-chan is trying to keep smiling, but she looks more like she’s crying. Psychopath scolds her, because that’s so helpful, and Jurina comes over to try to cheer her up. 

This choreography is much harder than what any of them are used to.  

Her training diary consists of this drawing and the words, “Today I had my first singing and dancing lesson in B class. I couldn’t follow the choreography during class B. I made the teacher worry. Is there no hope for me?” Aww, Miru-chan!! 

We check in with Team A, who are having a vocal lesson with Soyou. Lee Gaeun from Pledis has been chosen as leader, probably on the strength of her already having debuted, and being the oldest in the group. 

Soyou asks for a brave volunteer, and at first, no one steps forward.

Left to right: Lee Ga Eun, Jo Yu Ri, Park Hae Yoon, Kim Do Ah, Yu Min Young, Miyawaki Sakura, Takeuchi Miyu, Kim Cho Yeon, Lee Ha Eun, Lee Chae Yeon, Kim Da Hye, Hwang So Yeon, Choi Ye Na, Na Go Eun, Kwon Eun Bi

Finally, Na Go Eun (future Purple Kiss) volunteers. We’re reminded that at her audition, Soyou had said of her, “She’s the most promising trainee among the ones we’ve seen so far.” But Goeun, singing acapella, goes slightly off pitch, which is what happens to people who don’t have perfect pitch. I mean, most people don’t have perfect pitch! Soyou tells her that she’s going sharp, and that she sounds like she’s just reading a textbook. I would also find it difficult to put emotion into lyrics like: 

From now on, you’re mine, mine, mine, only mine / Mine, mine, mine (Superstar) / From now on, you’re mine, mine, mine, only mine / Will you tell me? Pick me up

… but I guess that’s why I’m not cut out to be a K-idol. That’s literally the only reason, though. 

Jo Yuri goes next, and has a bit of trouble with the high notes. Soyou tells her that she, Soyou, had fought for her, Yuri, to be in A group (no pressure!) and then tells her she’s disappointed. Kwon Eunbi is next to be insulted for her pronunciation and lack of, I don’t know, spirit (?). 

🌸Sakura🌸 is next, and inspirational happy music plays as she talks about how she has studied the Korean lyrics -- amazing!  She sings completely incorrectly, like the tune is only slightly an approximation of correct. Instead of insulting Sakura and/or expressing intense, soul-destroying disappointment, like she did with every other girl, Soyou kindly asks the talented Miyu to come forward to sing it correctly to help 🌸Sakura🌸 understand the melody. Finally, 🌸Sakura🌸 manages to sing a few notes correctly, and everyone applauds. I get it that the other girls like her, because she’s a nice girl, but even so. What. Is. This. 

Next we check in with D group, who has chosen the multi-lingual Miyazaki Miho as their leader. Good call! 

They are working with Mary J Lee, who many of them know from her Youtube dance videos. They seem a little star struck by her. 

Sweet faced Motomura Aoi, who we met during the Never Ending Ferris Wheel performance, is in the back row and seems to have trouble seeing what’s going on. She knows the other girls are more skilled and is determined to do better.

Kim Minju, one of the Very Pretty Girls, is having a lot of trouble with the dancing. She’s self-conscious, looking at everyone instead of focusing on herself. She’s acutely aware that the others are better than her, and she’s taking it to heart, crying in the interview chair. We see her showing up in the dance practice room when no one else is there to practice some more. 

In what may or may not be the next day, we check in again with the B girls at 1:21:48. Kim Sihyeon, future Everglow, and Lee Seunghyeon, who I’m going to just call Riina from H1-Key, interview that their group has Americans (AleXa), Chinese people (Wang Yiren from Everglow, Wang Ke of the red polka dots), Japanese people (Iwatate Saho, Miru from Dancing Hero, Juri, and Jurina), and of course, Koreans. So it can make communication tricky.  

We see Jang Gyuri (future ex-Fromis9) and Lee Chaewon (future Le Sserafim) trying to get Jurina to understand that they want to practice the Japanese version of the lyrics together, using mostly English, but Jurina doesn’t seem to understand.

Husky-voiced Kim Hyuna (who did that excellent audition with My House by 2pm -- did you watch it yet?) encourages everyone to come watch the dance on the tablet, and the Japanese members, who don’t understand at first, come over later, when there’s already a big crowd. 

Jurina interviews that the Koreans crowd around so much that the Japanese trainees can’t see at all. She is obviously frustrated. 

What we see in the video, though, is that the Japanese trainees’ method of trying to see the video is to just stand there looking sad and wishing that the video will magically come closer. We don’t, for example, see them tapping anyone on the shoulder and pointing at the tablet with a hopeful facial expression. They just STAND THERE. I know it’s a cultural thing, but toxic passivity drives me nuts. 

Quick story time. A few months back, I was flying somewhere for work, worried I’d miss my connecting flight which would cause serious issues with my job. I was seated in an aisle seat, and I noticed that boarding was taking a really long time. There was a woman standing in the aisle wearing a big backpack that kept smacking me in the face as she spun around trying to let people pass her. She apologized when I pointed that out, and I was like, it’s ok, but why don’t you just sit down? And she said, well, there’s someone sitting in my seat. I asked her which one was supposed to be her seat, and she pointed to the aisle seat in front of me. I was like, just say something, and the woman was like, oh no, I can’t, I don’t want to be rude. Meanwhile, people were still trying to board. The woman with the backpack was trying to duck into chairs that are open to let people pass, but there were hardly any open seats left and so she was really slowing down boarding, making everything really difficult for everyone. And all because she doesn’t have the chutzpah to either (a) tap the person on the shoulder and say “I think you’re in my seat” or (b) at least ask a flight attendant for help. So then I had to be the one to tap that person on the shoulder. Turned out she had sat in that seat KNOWING IT WAS THE WRONG SEAT because there was someone in HER seat, which was the window seat. So then I had to tell the person in the window seat that SHE was in the wrong seat. Like here I am just trying to get the plane to take off on time so I don’t miss my connection and no one has the ability to speak up about the simplest of things. The woman in the wrong window seat realized she had just made a mistake, and she apologized and moved up one row to the correct seat, and everyone got seated. But like, my GOD. What was your endgame, backpack woman? To just stay in the aisle the whole flight? URGH. I get it, some people are shy, but sometimes if you don’t speak up, it’s actually irresponsible and rude. And it’s even worse if you then make the other people out to be the bad guys. 

Sorry, this is a pet peeve of mine. Deep breaths. 

The four Japanese members sulk about how no one is “letting” them see the video, without ever, I don’t know, pointing to it? Walking over and gently taking it out of someone’s hands? ANY FUCKING THING? If I had to deal with people that passive I would evaporate. Just boil away into space. 

Finally, husky-voiced Hyunah grabs Jurina by the arm, drags her over to the side of the room, and begins teaching her the choreo. Jurina realizes that the Korean girls who know how to dance learned the choreography first, so that they could teach it to the other girls, and regrets the misunderstanding. 

H1-Key Riina helps Saho learn the choreo.

Saho interviews that in Japan, the girls typically work by themselves, but in Korea, the girls work together as a group, which makes her really happy. What I’m learning from this show is that Korean culture is superior to Japanese culture. Thanks, MNET editors! Thmeditors. 

We see some of the Korean girls using English to talk to AleXa. Cute!

Choi So Eun interviews, “It feels like we’re communicating telepathically.” 

We end the segment on this shot of the girls all crowded around Juri and Jurina -- looks like maybe Juri had been crying and then everyone in the whole class came over to cheer her up? Maybe? Anyway, it’s cute. They’re working together. This is my favorite thing about shows like this. 

At 1:24:20, we switch over to watch the A girls at their dance practice. Gaeun shows off her dancing, and she looks great, of course. She’s so cute! 

Behind her, you can see, left to right, little Lee Ha Eun, the “little Chungha” girl; Kwon Eunbi, looking a little different with her hair pulled back; Lee Da Hye from Banana Culture; behind Gaeun, you can see a tiny bit of the short, talented Miyu; Jo Yuri, of the yellow Chewing Gum; and Yu Minyeong of the mint green polka dots in the Celeb Five performance. (We’ll see Minyeoung dance in a little bit….) 

As Gaeun finishes her performance, we get to see Hwang Soyeon, the “little Sunmi,” show off her teleportation skills! At 1:24:45 she’s standing by the wall next to 🌸Sakura🌸, calmly applauding for Gaeun. 

Psychopath praises Gaeun, saying that all the details of her dancing are very neat and precise. 

At 1:24:57, Soyeon has teleported to be sort of behind Gaeun. Dahye from Banana Culture is still near the wall -- but she’s out of breath and is pumping her t-shirt back and forth to cool herself down. Jo Yuri and Miyu seem to have disappeared. Soyeon has charged the part in her hair, and also seems out of breath. Gaeun’s hair is much messier, too. 

And at 1:25:00, Soyeon has teleported back to her original position next to 🌸Sakura🌸, with her hair put back to its original part. 

These are some talented girls, my friends. 

Look, obviously this is just some bad editing, but it wasn’t an accident. For whatever reason, they wanted it to look like Psychopath was praising Gauen alone. Maybe he was, but maybe he wasn’t. This is all just to go back to one of my key points about this show: It is edited with such a purposefully heavy hand that it might as well be fiction. 

In the next group, though the editing wants us to focus on Choi Yena, my eye kept getting drawn to Kim Doah, future Fanatics/GP999 contestant. She’s just so expressive there! 

Left to right: Eunbi (권은비), Doah (김도아), Dahye, Yena (최예나), and Minyoung (유민영). 

Psychopath reminds Yena not to let her fingers go in her mouth in the “tap near your mouth” part of the choreo. It’s interesting to think about those little details. 

Many of the girls have their turn, and then he asks Yu Minyoung to come out to the center. He calls her “Celeb Five,” not by her name, even though she’s wearing a huge name tag.  He called Gauen and Yena by their names, but not Minyoung! She makes quite a few mistakes. We see a flashback to the very first dance rehearsal, something we’ve never seen before -- Dance Bae pulling Psychopath aside and asking why on earth did Minyoung get an A. Honestly, I wondered that too at the time -- I said I would have given her a C.  Psychopath reminds her that Minyoung was part of that Celeb Five performance. Back at the A-team’s dance rehearsal, Psychopath, showing his true nasty colors, says, “I think it was a really good idea to do Celeb Five back then. But you have no charisma now. You’ll end up in lower classes.” She just sort of says “Yes, I understand.” She wants to stay in A class, but I think she knows her skills are just not up to the task given her short training period. 

This next segment, which begins at 1:27:35, is probably my favorite part of the whole episode. Jeremy just actually teaches the D-grade girls to sing. Instead of insulting them, or scolding them, or telling them that they have to “try harder,” or rolling his eyes and asking if they even want to be here, he just teaches them how singing works, physically. It’s a delight to watch. He has them do something that my vocal teacher taught me, an exercise to open up your palette. You start by being super super nasal, making a sound fully through your nose, then sort of make a “nnnngg-gga” noise that clears the sound out. It’s hard to explain in words, but it’s something I do before I sing a note, even alone in the shower. He even explains it to them in Japanese, since there are so many Japanese members of the class and the Japanese girls are especially nasal. Is he or is he not the most lovable of people? 

He has Minami (owner of the Lemon-chan doll) lie flat on her back to learn how to engage her abs while she sings, and afterward, she can hold a note without wavering unpleasantly. You guys, this is what learning to sing is all about. The segment is only about 2 minutes long, which is a shame -- I could watch this for a long time. I like watching kindness in action! If you want to watch, here’s a Youtube clip. 

And that's as much as I can fit in one post, so I'll have to cut it off here! I hope you're at a temperature you like to be at, and that you have the right number of Squishmallows nearby. Take care and see you in the next one, when we finish off their preparations for the signal song evaluation!

[knowyourshow]

Extraordinary Attorney Woo

Available on Netflix, HiTv

2022

Legal drama

1 season (16 episodes)

 This is perhaps the only K-drama I would blindly recommend to everyone. It is not just powerful but also lacks the cringe factor I’ve grown accustomed to having watched several other k-dramas.

 Extraordinary Attorney Woo navigates the life of a young attorney at her first job. However, what makes her stand out from her colleagues is the fact that she has savant syndrome, which is a rare psychopathological condition wherein a person with serious mental conditions, including autistic disorder, demonstrates prodigious talent and intelligence. While her genius makes Woo an absolute ace, she suffers discrimination from certain co-workers and even clients. But she has one of the best support systems-her friends and father.

The whale enthusiast brought autism into a new light, not just in South Korea but around the globe. As a psychology student, I have observed that the knowledge that the general public has regarding mental disorders is strictly limited to stereotypes and misinformation. While I cannot say for certain that the portrayal of the characteristics was 100% perfect, it would be wrong to not admit that Park Eun-Bin did justice to the character and the autistic community. This show did not only provide us with an emotional support character but also the greenest flag of all k-drama history, Lee Jun Ho (Kang Tae Oh).

 The legal cases that each episode dealt with were formed with great comprehension and care. Despite this, the show was criticised for its original Korean title, 이상한 변호사 우영우, which translates to Weird Lawyer Woo Young-woo. While I understand the anger behind it, I would also like to reason it out according to what I can interpret. To a regular person, any individual with a mental disorder would seem a little queer. One doesn’t always run a background check before formulating an opinion. "Weird" could be just a term that pops into one’s head when they see a person completely different to them and with symptoms like those of autism. As far as I am aware, writer Moon Ji Won spent over a year working with an early childhood special education professor to create a character true to its nature.

The amount of space this series has taken over my heart is immeasurable, I have already convinced more than three people into watching it, and I loved seeing their positive responses. Extraordinary Attorney Woo is a show with a beautiful friendship that blooms into so much more, while simultaneously teaching the audience about a condition that until now was kept hush. The Korean drama is up for a return with season 2 in 2024. I can hardly wait.

[elcorhamletlive]

It annoys me that Bylrs are so against the idea of Will moving on from Mike and finding a new boy that will love him back.

We also know that there will be a time skip (2 years or so) in the next season. It actually makes perfect sense for Will to move on during that time skip. Because the alternate scenario is him just waiting, pining, and sticking to his (unrequited) love for Mike for a long time.... And that is a very tiring, annoying plot at this point.

I think ''Will moving on from Mike is OOC'' type of talking points all come from prioritizing Bylr possibly or maybe happening over Will's character. It's like playing a losing game. It is important to prioritize Will's individual character first than a ship that has next to zero chance of happening. Wishing and making Will be stuck in this pining and gayngst game contributes nothing to Will's character.

Will getting a new love interest during that time skip period is more preferable to having to watch him pine after Mike for a very long time... the way the writers approached this situation deserves criticism ofc, because Will getting a new love interest in the last season must be criticized, and we can do that. However, the insistence on making Will be stuck in his first childhood love is also deserving of criticism. And at the end of the day, it is much more preferable to watch Will move on to find a boy that will love him back instead of watching his gay suffering again. Their relationship will appear for only one season, yeah, and it is worth criticism. But dismissing it completely contributes nothing to the topic.

Yeah, exactly.

I think your third paragraph hits the nail on the head, anon. I have never seen anyone from the party line of "It's OOC for Will to move on from Mike" who did not also believe Mike reciprocates Will's feelings and they're going to end up together. It's the same reason why they believe Will's feelings for Mike are somehow deeper or more real than Eleven's. Usually they will follow up with something like "Mike is his soulmate", which, hm, is pretty revelatory in regards to their true opinions.

I also think Will getting a new love interest becomes exponentially more likely if there is a timeskip, which the Duffers have said will happen but we don't know in which context. Because in a timeskip you usually want to feature some kind of major change in the status quo (like Lucas joining the football team, or El getting heavily bullied). And I've seen people use this exact point to argue for B*ler, saying Mike and Eleven could break up during a timeskip, but I don't think people realise that "Will met a new guy and moved on from the guy who has been dating his sister for like two years" and "Mike and Eleven decided they're better off as friends" are not equally understandable, logical scenarios for the characters as they're presented in canon. One of those possibilities is just a much easier sell than the other, which would require tons of explaining, flashbacks, retconning, etc.

Finally, I feel compelled to add that mutual B*l*r really does nothing for Will's character arc at this point. Most people who argue for it don't seem to believe Will needs to have an arc at all - sure, they want him to have a ton of screentime and defeat Vecna and have secret powers and etc, but they don't seem to want him to experience character development, to grow and evolve and change. In fact I've encountered a lot of pushback from B*l*r truthers to the idea that Will needs to grow and change at all - most seem to think he's already perfect and only needs to be loved back by Mike to complete his arc, and I think this is a pretty self-indulgent view that carries a poor interpretation of canon. The show has dropped the ball with Will in many ways, but one thing that it has been consistent with is Will's struggle to grow up and the fact that he needs to do so for his own happiness.

[ryuzakemo128]

Stranger Things Headcanons (Part 3)

Part one / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Masterlist

Dividers Used: Link

General Headcanons

There is nothing Marianna likes more than spicy food, and she prefers it as spicy as she can get it most of the time.

Marianna's favorite American snacks are Reece's peanut butter cups, Hunt snack pack butterscotch pudding.

Marianna also gets most of her Russian candies from her uncle Ilya and any of the surviving relatives in Russia.

Something Marianna gets more regularly from a fast food place is Mozzarella sticks.

She doesn't like anyone stealing her food, so if anyone did try and steal anything from would be growled at.

She shares her candy, but not her mozzarella sticks or pizza.

She orders 6 pizzas, four of them being for her friends Mike, Dustin Steve, etc. The other two are usually for herself.

She sells most of her paintings, sculptures, etc. To collectors most of the time. But she does often take in a of commissions from people that live near her.

Marianna likes diet soda and boneless chicken wings.

Season 2 Headcanons

The tip money Marianna receives from her tattooing job is spent on movie dates with Billy Hargrove.

Her tattoo job as changed owners during season 2. Thus almost loosing her job.

The deaths of her friends took a large toll on her mind and she often just hung out with Billy. Even though they were dating and then sometimes not dating at the same time during that year.

Marianna is going through several emotional phases as the year goes on. One of them being the fact that she might stop straightening her hair and the other side is debating to keep it that way because her curls would attract more attention.

She dyes her hair black to stop the comments about her hair.

She spent her seventeenth birthday alone since a lot happened between 1983 and 1984.

Season 3

Marianna fought Billy so Mike didn't have to. Despite the chemical and surgical enhancements, they were pretty evenly matched. Mainly thanks to Billy being possessed at the time.

Her record collection has grown so much that most of it is kept in her bookshelf in her garage.

Marianna renovated her basement into more of a guest room. Just in case on of her friends decided to crash there for the night.

She got her first two tattoos on her eighteenth birthday.

The image above is the example of what they looked like.

Season 3 (Part Two)

She spent her eighteenth birthday alone for the first time in four years. As the deaths of some of friends just hit way harder than she expected them to.

She doesn't ask for help anymore, she doesn't want to become some form of burden on her friends and she doesn't like bothering them in the first place.

She has been suffering from insomnia for the last few months. It has almost become chronic in nature.

"I wish I could help you guys more than I have already, but I don't know how." Marianna to Eleven and her friends.

"I know what I'm doing, don't patronize me mother dearest" Marianna says to Steve.

"Go for it, I don't know whether you'd like these things as much as I do. But knock yourself out kids. Russian candy and deserts. Right from my home country." Marianna states spoiling Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas, Max, Eleven, Steve and Robin.

"Wait a minute, Marianna, you don't seem bothered by the fact that we're taking down those Russians?" Steve asked Marianna. 

"In fact, it doesn't bother me at all. What bothers me is that you have asked me at least fifty times already. Please stop asking me." Marianna replied in reply. 

[the-arson-author-gamer]

I saw your tags and I want to hear you talk about your blorbos! 😊👀

YES YES YES

I’ll start with a list of whom I consider to be my blorbos, then I’ll talk why I like them and maybe list a few headcanons for some I REALLY think about

(I find it funny that I have gotten extremely attached to characters that I haven’t even watched the shows for)

Saiki

I found him through looking up aroace compilations on youtube.

I’m not lying.

He showed up so much and I was intrigued so I click on a video and I’m instantly captivated by his personality and the entire comedy of the show.

I ended up figuring out the entire plot pretty quick by just watching some videos and Saiki became a fast favourite.

Naturally when I become interested in something, I read fanfic for it. Which leads me to my next blorbo

Bakugou

Like I’ve obviously heard of him and mha before so I had a rough idea of who he was and what he was like.

So I find some Saiki and mha crossover fic and the thing intrigued me and Bakugou was decently prominent.

I essentially liked is angry Pomeranian vibes.

He is very different from my normal blorbo types. Because of the anger and stuff but my goodness there are vibes.

There is also trauma but that’s a side dish to the blorbo.

I naturally, like every blorbo I headcanon him as aroace. Suffer horny Bakugou fans.

It’s kind of true but I kind of also headcanon him as a big nerd (I do have a type for blorbos they are nerds.)

The common headcanon about Bakugou needing to be constantly angry because of all the nitroglycerin is very neat and I love sciency headcanons so that’s inserted itself into my headspace as well.

Alright next blorbo. Also from mha!

Tokoyami

The bird guy? The emo bird guy?

Yes blorbo.

Literally just vibes. Funny little emo bird.

Aroace, definitely looks at dark academia posts, writes poetry and short horror stories.

(Tokoyami and Bakugou are aroace emo besties in this essay I will-)

If I were ever to write for mha. Something about the sports festival between these two.

Krel

I love him. My little nerd.

Also aroace and I enjoy the headcanon that Akaridions do not require any food or water, which really explains the weird stuff that Aja and Krel tried to eat when they first came to Earth.

I don’t know how common this is but the concept of the more often the Akaridions use their human forms the more human they become. Remember when Krel get the nose-bleed? Yeah I do.

Next blorbo!

Prince Lotor

First guy that would I end up considering as my first blorbo.

Ahhh March of 2021. What a fucking month. I watched like half an episode of season 3 waiting for the time to pass and saw Lotor and I went ‘you. Funky smart purple man.’

Voltron was the second anime adjacent/semi-animated-styled show I got into. After avatar of course.

Aroace. As I said it’s a common theme. And suffer as well horny Lotor fans.

Lotor just vibes with gender, he doesn’t mind what pronouns you use. Guess maybe agender or nonbianary. Demiboy? I’m not sure other than the fact that he is chill towards it and doesn’t mind he/him or other pronouns.

I adore the headcanon that he based his armour design off his cat.

And a few personal headcanons of mine are that he:

1. Is protective of kids because of his shitty childhood and knows of the consequences of war

2. Took in his generals when they are kids and kind of thinks of them as his younger siblings or kids.

A fic concept using those would be Lotor fighting the paladins manages to take off the helmet of one of them and went ‘oh shit you guys are kids’ gets all pissed and was like ‘how could the princess allow this’ joins them and realizes that Allura is also 19 and by extension of 10,000 year old Lotor logic he goes ‘aw shit you guys are all kids. Fine then I’m joining you’

And then they beat the shit out of Zarkon and everybody lives well no alternative colony blah blah blah.

Azula & Sokka

Would you be surprised that the first full episode of avatar that I watched was the beach episode?

Yeah. Not a good first impression but that episode managed to pique my interest and I finished season 3 and watched the whole thing.

At first Azula was like some odd side character to me. But by s2 ep1 she had caught me. I found her to be really cool!

Demi aro and ace. Lesbian.

Besties with Sokka.

Sokka. My boy. I was also very neutral with him at the beginning, but he grew on me pretty quick.

He’s like the only blorbo that I don’t headcanon as aro and/or ace. Bisexual and Demiboy with he/they pronouns.

I don’t have any big headcanons for them but they found their way into my heart either way.

I have a bunch of others but I am tired of typing, so I’ll just list them.

- Aizawa: MHA

- Tony Stark: MCU

- Steve Palchuk: TOA

- Kaidou: Disasterous Life Of Saiki K