#I guess you could argue there are some symbolic deaths in this ep but still

[yunyin]

Have people talked about this skull motif on Marinette's dress?

This feels like such an odd choice to me. I'm not sure what to make of it yet.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Beth’s Template in S11

Okay Bethyl Enthusiasts! Here goes!

I’ve been promising to talk to you about exactly what I think will happen in S11 with Beth’s arc, and that’s what I’m going to do today. I’ve had a basic idea of things for a while, now, but these bonus episodes and their epic symbolism have really kicked things into high gear. They’ve helped me see things more clearly and even helped give me a more definitely (disclaimer: though still somewhat fluid) timeline for how/when it will all happen.

So, of course we all hoped to see her in ep 22. But if he we had, it would have had to have been in a coda. Like a preview of some kind. Because they didn’t quite get to the part of the story where I’m expecting to see her. But I’ll get into that in more detail.

So, we’ve been saying for a while that we think she’ll come through Eugene’s storyline, so that’s what I’ll be focusing on here. Because that’s specifically what I think we’ll see in S11. @wdway has found a TON of Beth symbolism around Eugene. She did most of her investigating and reporting over the long, CoVid hiatus, but I haven’t gotten around to posting much of it. Maybe I still will. We’ll see. There’s been so much to talk about lately.

Let me also state that, while I firmly believe we’ll see Beth in S11, I don’t think we’ll get to the point where Daryl will see her. And yes, that kinda sucks. But they probably won’t have their reunion until the spinoff. I know the Bethyl reunion is what we’re all waiting for, but hey, at least once we see her, we’ll know it’s coming, right?

So let’s start by going through the relevant template.

I’ve mentioned parts of this before, so I apologize if any part of it is repetitive. But it will help you if  you understand not just what I believe we’ll see, but why.

So, let’s return to 6x08/09. At the end of 6x07,  the church fell and all the walkers got into Alexandria. Eugene ends up in a garage with Tara and Rosita. They can’t get into the house connected to the garage because the dividing door is locked. After a discussion between the two ladies about whether they’re going to give up hope or else “do something,” Eugene offers to pick the lock and they get inside.

Inside, Morgan was keeping Creepy Wolf Dude (who I’ll abbreviate CWD) in the basement. He brought Denise (Beth proxy) in to patch up his injury, which she does. Carol wants to kill CWD and tries, but Morgan stops her. He’s on his “all life is precious” kick and ends up body slamming Carol, so she passes out. But when his back is turned, CWD also hits him over the head, so Carol and Morgan are both down for the count.

Just then, Eugene, Rosita and Tara enter, but CWD takes Denise hostage and leaves.

Everyone with me?

Okay, let’s start with Denise. Because of the way she died, Daryl’s reaction to her death, and AALLLLLL the Beth symbolism around her, she’s clearly a proxy for Beth. So what I’m going to argue is that this little sequence is a foreshadow and template for how she’ll be reintroduced into the show. Notice how Daryl isn’t present in any of these scenes. So again, this is how we, the audience will see her. Not how Daryl will first see her. Kapish? Okay.

So, I think Eugene unlocking the door to a new place represents him finding or “unlocking” a new community. Kinda like the one he, Yumiko, Zeke, and Princess are now in the process of discovering.

How did we come up with that? I honestly don’t remember in detail. Like I said, it’s something we’ve discussed for a long time. I think we started with Denise=Beth and worked backward from there. It kind of feels like out of all the members of TF, Eugene will see her first, but then she’ll be taken away from him right away.

Now, he’s in the midst of discovering new people/a new community. A few other pieces of evidence for this:

1)      Before they run into the garage, right after the church falls, Eugene gets on the radio and calls for help. Remember, Daryl hears him? So that parallels to Eugene talking with Stephanie via the radio.

2)      If you go through the dialogue of Rosita and Tara in this scene and compare it to dialogue in the scene in 10x16 between Yumiko and Ezekiel (the scene where his horse dies) the parallels are ridiculous. They aren’t the exact same lines of dialogue, but the meanings and chronology of it is almost exact.

3)      In terms of Denise = Beth, before she patches up Creepy Wolf Dude, she says to him, “show me the wound.” In Rick’s dream in 9x05, we heard Beth’s voice say, “What’s your wound?” It’s almost like they were trying to show us that Denise = Beth and that this template would play out with her return.

Okay, I hope that’s all clear. Shit’s about to get really interesting.

Before we continue, I want to remind you of THIS POST I did about 5x09. If you haven’t read it, I suggest doing so. I talk about the radio voice in 5x09 and how it talks about “attacks against the republic.” We couldn’t have known what that meant before, but now it’s clear that it’s a foreshadow of the CRM and the CRM war, which won’t happen until the spinoff.

It’s super interesting because Andrew Lincoln was the radio voice (he’s currently with the CRM) but he has his English accent. (I’ll tell you why that’s important in a minute. It wasn’t a casual or irrelevant choice on the writers’ parts.) So if that suggests Rick being with the CRM, which he is, it’s kind of interesting that Beth’s voice, singing “Struggling Man” also comes out of the radio at first, before we see her sitting there singing it. That suggests that she, too, will be with the CRM and part of the CRM war. None of Ty’s other death hallucinations spoke from the radio. I’m just saying.

The voice there even mentioned brutal attacks against the republic, including setting people on fire and hacking them with machetes. And that’s important because that’s just what the wolves did at Alexandria, and in the above template, we have CWD taking Denise (Beth). So it’s all interconnected.

But even so, I’ve had a hard time nailing down what it means and what the story line will actually be when Beth return.

Enter episode 10x21 and @bluesandbeth​’s inspired research.

In ep 21, Carol snoops around in Daryl’s room and finds the book “The Golden Age of Piracy.” Now, I’ll admit I didn’t look into this reference very extensively because I THOUGHT I knew what it meant. We had a “pirates” reference between Daryl and Carol in 10x01, when they first discussed leaving together on his bike. Since we already know they’ll be leaving together for the spinoff, that conversation was a foreshadow of what will happen in the spinoff. And if you’ve been following my posts,  you know that I see their whole arc in the bonus episodes (6x18 and 6x21) as a foreshadow of that same story line. So to me it was just another confirmation of the spinoff arc.

Then @bluesandbeth contacted me because she’d been looking into the Golden Age of Piracy book. She looked up the author and found out some interesting things. This author is real and basically wrote two kinds of historical books. (X) Books about piracy, and books about the American Revolutionary War. The author wrote a book called Greene and Cornwallis. (X)

Yikes! Yes, Greene is a real person and a patriot who stood against Cornwallis in the Revolutionary War. But what are the chances the writers use an author who just happens to have written a book with Beth’s last name in the title?

Historically, Nathaneal Greene was George Washington’s top general and right hand man during the war. I’ll come back to him. For now, it’s enough that he shares Beth’s last name.

I immediately hopped online to see what @bluesandbeth​ was seeing and look for more. And boy did I stumble upon a treasure trove!

I noticed a second book by this author called Swamp Fox. (Full title is Francis Marion: Swamp Fox.)

Now, you may wonder why that caught my attention. It’s not anything I ever posted about. It has to do with Leah. While me and my fellow theorists were discussing her and episode 10x18 endlessly, we noticed that Leah often wore a fox-fur scarf:

We conjectured back and forth about what it meant. Foxes, just like most animals, can have many different symbolic meanings depending on what culture you’re looking at. They’re often seen as sneaky and wily and deceptive, so we wondered if it was a reference to the writers “deceiving” us because Leah is a hallucination. But that was about the best we could come up with.

Well, when I saw the title of Swamp Fox, I immediately thought of Leah. And of course symbolically, Leah = Beth. So I decided to investigate.

And guess what? When I started reading about the Swamp Fox book, all the stuff from the S6 template above and the 5x09 stuff about Beth being part of the CRM war started clicking into place so fast, it made my head spin.

The Swamp Fox is about Francis Marion, a real man and patriot who also fought against the British during the American Revolutionary war. He’s the guy Mel Gibson’s character in The Patriot is based on. He faced down Cornwallis (one of the main British generals during the American Revolution) and was awesome at guerilla tactics and staying hidden. You know, in the swamp. Hence, they called him Swamp Fox.

Does that sound familiar to you? Think about what Andy Lincoln/Radio Voice said in 5x09 about Guerilla warfare and attacks against the Republic. You could describe Francis Marion’s military career any better if you tried.

And then I went to Wikipedia to look up general information on Marion and pictures of the British flag are all over the place.

Okay, this is another thing that won’t be very familiar to you because I haven’t focused on it much. In one of the episodes of TWB, Julia Ormond’s character is at home and we see a huge British flag hanging on her wall. Not surprising, given that she’s British. But it was such a huge, blatant symbol, and the camera focused on it for so long, that we figured it had to mean something. We just didn’t know what. The best we could figure is the colors (blue and red) and the fact that there’s both a huge X and a T/cross on the British flag.

Well, I now know what that symbol represents in TWD world. Reading about Marion and seeing the British flag on his Wikipedia page made it all make sense to me.

In short, Francis Marion, a.k.a. The Swamp Fox = Beth. She’s going to be the second-in-command general/guerilla warfare expert against the CRM. That’s why they had all that stuff in 5x09 when we saw her and heard her sing. The reason for the British flag is that Julia Ormond’s character = Cornwallis.

Read up on Francis Marion HERE.

(This is also why I said it’s important that in 5x09, they had Andrew Lincoln use is British accent for the radio broadcast. It’s meant to be from the point of view of the CRM, which symbolically represent the British in the template.)

So they’re using the American Revolution as a loose template for how the CRM war will go.

Back to Nathaneal Greene of Greene and Cornwallis? Yeah, same thing. Greene was George Washington’s direct under-general and right-hand man. Kind of like a…second or new sheriff? In the CRM war, George Washington = Rick and Nathaneal Greene = um, Greene (Beth).

More on Nathaneal Greene HERE.

But here’s the thing. None of that is going to happen until the spinoff. So why am I talking about it for S11? Well, it has to do with Charleston.

You can look this up on Wikipedia for more details, but Charleston was an event that was huge for Francis Marion. It was Charleston, South Carolina in that case. And it was a stronghold that the colonists were holding against the British. Then one day, the British attacked and took everyone there as prisoners of war. Marion WAS stationed there at the time, but he wasn’t there when the attack happened because he’d BROKEN HIS ANKLE in an accident and left the city to recuperate.

Okay. Anyone recognize Charleston in terms of Eugene or TWD world?

When talking to Stephanie over the radio, he got her to finally tell him where her settlement was. Any guesses? Charleston.

Now, in this case, it’s Charleston, West Virginia, but I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the writers went with the same name, even if it’s a different state.

So, here’s how I think it will play out.

I don’t think Stephanie’s group is actually the Commonwealth, or at least not the major, Commonwealth city everyone knows from the comic books. They DO have the white storm trooper guys, so I think they’re linked to the CW somehow. Like maybe they’re a branch of the CW in the same way Grady might have been an outlying branch—or at least in communication with—the CRM.

So again, maybe they’re PART of the CW, but they’re not living with the main group.

So, I think Eugene’s group will be taken to Charleston in S11 (that should happen next) and they will see Beth there. I have no idea if Eugene will recognize her or not. Given that we still don’t know what went down during the missing 17 days after Coda, and Eugene was hurt, we don’t know if he actually saw Beth at all or if he was out during that time. I’ve agonized over this a lot, but understanding this new template, I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t really matter. Maybe he’ll recognize her. Maybe he won’t. But either way, he’s not going to be in the same place with her for long.

I think soon after Charleston will be attacked. Now, historically, it was by the British, right? And because Julia Ormond’s character = Cornwallis, it’s got to be the CRM who attack Charleston. And we’ve seen them do this with other communities in TWB, so it makes sense.

But here’s where I had the S6 template wrong for a long time. Because CWD takes Denise, I thought a group would attack Stephanie’s community and take prisoners, and Beth would be taken with them, while Eugene and the others were left behind. 

But because of the Marion/Swamp Fox/Charleston thing, I think the opposite is true. Sounds like Eugene and co will be taken as prisoners by the CRM. Why did they do it the opposite way in S6? Because they couldn’t have had all the Alexandrians taken and Denise left behind. It just wouldn’t have worked for that S6 storyline. The point is mostly the separation. Eugene gets into a new place, briefly sees her, and then they’re separated.

So Charleston will be attacked and all the people (probably including Eugene, Yumiko, and Zeke) get captured by the CRM. If Beth is Marion, then she won’t be there when it happens.

I’m wondering if she’ll be out in the woods, hunting or getting supplies or something, and this is where she’ll step in the bear trap, injuring her ankle. That would fulfill all the bear trap symbolism around her, including Alone when she stepped in the small game trap. Just a guess on my part, but I think it’s highly likely.

Even if I’m wrong about that detail, I think she’ll be away from the Charleston community, just as Marion was, when the CRM captures the people there.

This is why it doesn’t really matter whether Eugene recognizes her or not. If he doesn’t, and they don’t realize they know the same people, she won’t know that Maggie and Daryl are (relatively) nearby. I think at this point she’ll go to try and rescue the people from the community who were captured (if she’s been with them for awhile, there are probably people there she cares about) and that’s how she’ll run into Rick and first cross paths with the CRM.

She and Daryl will meet down the road at a later date.

Even if Eugene DOES recognize her and she knows about TF, I still think she’s going to go try and rescue her friends before attempting to go to D.C. because they’re in more immediate danger and she’ll have some loyalty to them.

So, this is what I think we’ll see in S11. And I have no idea where it will cut off. Maybe the last thing we’ll see with Eugene in S11 is the fall of Charleston. Or maybe that will happen in episode 2. I really have no idea.

But I’m going to mention one other thing before I stop for today. I know this is getting wrong.

Who is Creepy Wolf Dude in this template? I mean, the wolves attacked Alexandria, so we could assume it’s just the CRM, and maybe a particular person in the CRM. Might be.

But rewatching 6x08, something caught my ear.

Morgan and Carol were arguing about whether or not to kill Creepy Wolf Dude, right? She keeps saying he needs to die. Morgan keeps saying no. And then we have a really interesting conversation.

Carol (talking about wolves): They made us kill. We had to stop it. I had to stop it.

Morgan: Where there’s life, there’s possibility. Even if we never let him out—

CWD: I’d get out.

Morgan (talking over him): Even if we never let him out, he could know what he’s done.

Who else killed and made TF kill? And rather than killing this person, they put him into a cell, vowing never to let him out. But he got out?

Negan! They’re basically talking about Negan’s fate after AOW here.

And guys, that’s CRAZY. I think CWD = Negan.

And I have more evidence for this.

In the TTD after 5x09, I remember that Nicotero was on it. And they were talking about how intrigued CWD was by Denise. I think it was Chris who said something like (and I paraphrase), “I guess it wouldn’t be right to say he fell in love with her or anything…”

And Nicotero corrected him and said CWD kinda did fall in love with Denise. Maybe not in a lifelong, deep, abiding love like we see with Bethyl/Glaggie/Richonne/Etc., but he’d never met anyone like her and he was intrigued by her. He fell in love with her as much as a killer like him could fall in love with someone.

Then, in 7x16, we had Sasha’s death. We went on and on about all the Beth symbolism around Sasha in that episode. It was ridiculous! Kind of like these bonus episodes had been. And Negan…kinda liked Sasha. I mean, I don’t think anyone would have described it as falling in love, but he liked and respected her. Said she had beach-ball-sized lady nuts and he truly respected her and was sad to see her die.

So I think these are both templates that point to what will happen next.

(BTW, Eugene was present for a LOT of Sasha’s final episodes.)

The main reason we always thought Beth would show up with the Saviors is because of the Negan (bat, actually) symbolism around her. But if she and Negan have a major arc together or interaction later on, all of that will suddenly make sense.

So again, I’m not sure if we’ll see this in S11 or if it will come later, but I think after Charleston falls, Negan and Beth will somehow meet (maybe he leaves the communities at some point) and have a lot of scenes and episodes together.

All right. I’ll stop there. Do I know any of this for certain? Of course not. As always, it’s subject to change. Especially the details. And the instant I see anything that changes my thinking or makes me realize I interpreted something wrong, I’ll let you know.

But my biggest point is that this really SHOULD be the next thing we see with Eugene’s group. Of course, this is TWD and it might still take us 8 or 10 or more episodes to get there as they have a lot of things to focus on S11. But it’s coming. And soon.

Remember that S11 is scheduled to start in June. So we don’t have long to wait. (Yay!)

Thoughts?

[this-is-quite-homoerotic]

Yo! What did you think of the Expectant audio? I think it's the only TW audio that I listened to and thought mmm, that could've been so much more :( I get that it needed to have action and adventure but it kinda felt really obvious that the writer wasn't comfortable with Barrowman's dream. I think I expected better after how good so many audios like Broken have been :(

I’ll forgo spoilers in the first part for those who haven’t listened to the audio but might be interested in seeing a review, but there’ll be spoilers under the cut!

Anon, I agree with you! It definitely could have been so much better. I actually like the concept of the audio a lot, but the execution was... not to my taste, let’s say. To be fair, it really is a matter of taste, I personally didn’t like the humour, it did not mesh well with my sensibilities, though I also think it felt... outdated? I’m talking specifically about the sense of humour here.

The kind of jokes they made felt like something I might have found funny in the early 2000s when I didn’t know any better, before I examined some of the tropes/messages/expectations I’d absorbed from society and media (more about this under the cut because spoilers). The thing that bothered me the most about it was that it felt to me like the humour in it had not caught up to 2020 sensibilities, and Expectant is, first and foremost, a comedy piece. So if the humour’s failing then that’s a big problem.

Your mileage may vary, though, humour is a matter of taste after all. Interestingly, I actually think John Barrowman enjoyed the script and had fun getting to act it out? This is just the impression I got (certainly, he might have played it a bit differently if he didn’t), and I think this might be a generational thing as well as a matter of taste and sense of humour.

Spoilers below

As I said, I actually love the general concept of the audio: Jack, grieving and at a loss for what to do in the face of losing half his team, offers to carry an old alien friend’s child for them when political scheming means the unborn child might be in danger, in the hopes of ensuring the child’s safety, political stability for several planets, and (it is implied) as a symbol of hope that there’s good things in the universe too, not just loss and devastation.

There are obvious obstacles to Jack carrying a pregnancy while still being an active Torchwood agent, which is an interesting and fun thing that’s explored from the first scene: Jack has got used to being immortal and doing his job might well get him killed. Normally this isn’t a problem but if he dies while pregnant the baby can die too. But Torchwood is understaffed and still adapting to being a three-person team, so Jack has agreed to carrying the baby only if he can keep on working.

An interesting premise, vaguely tied in with a big moment from the show and the emotional fallout which wasn’t explored much in the show itself (Tosh and Owen’s deaths and how they affected Jack), some stakes from the get-go, plus a new original alien character (Jonty). So far, so good.

There are two main things that got in the way of me enjoying the audio: 1) how Jack was depicted as being hysterical during the pregnancy (and this being played for laughs), and 2) the indirect fatshaming (literally why, this was so unnecessary).

In the first case, they decided to write Jack as so emotionally unbalanced by the hormonal changes of the pregnancy that he had severe mood swings, with him breaking down crying supposedly triggered by insignificant things (like when he cries over a cupcake? Or something similar, I can’t be bothered to check). Jack having a meltdown would not be a bad thing to explore in an audio, except it felt to me as though they were using it as a joke? Like a “ha ha look how messed up he is by being pregnant, he’s so hormonal and out of control, isn’t that hilarious? Isn’t it so funny that this character is breaking down like a hormonal woman? Isn’t his pain just the funniest thing you’ve heard? :))))” (Sidenote but I also felt like John Barrowman overacted in these scenes, it didn’t sound like he was crying, it sounded like he was play-acting crying, and that didn’t help.)

The second thing was the whole fat camp-style spa subplot. While trying to get Jack to safety, Jonty takes Jack, who is heavily pregnant and showing, to a ““health spa”“ (read: weight-loss place) where Jack is put under a strict unhealthily-restrictive diet (especially given that he’s pregnant??), controlled by the overbearing spa lady (she literally takes food off his hands and watches him like a hawk to make sure he doesn’t “”overeat””), repeatedly fat-shamed, and this is all presented as a funny gag, presumably because he’s not really fat, he’s just pregnant! But people don’t know because he’s male/male-presenting, so all the micro-aggressions and abuse he’s subjected to are funny, right? Jack not being allowed to eat despite being hungry and heavily-pregnant is totally something to laugh at, surely (/s).

Disclaimer: this is not actually portrayed as though the fat-shaming is righteous and just behaviour, it’s sort of implied that the “”health-nuts”“ running the place were obsessive and weird, but that doesn’t change the fact that the whole subplot could have been something else entirely? Like, they obviously thought this was funny. Also, I won’t get into specifics but I am personally sensitive to these issues, so I can definitely see how some people might not be turned off by this at all; as I said, your mileage may vary and this is my own take on it.

So, these are my main issues with the audio. I don’t think the writer was uncomfortable with the concept as you say, Anon; I’d actually argue the opposite. It’s just that their take on it and their sense of humour were maybe not very in-tune with modern sensibilities (or with mine, at least) and the story suffered for it.

They took a look at the idea (a male/male-presenting character being pregnant) and came up with the worst tired comedy tropes for it: mood swings (and the resulting distress) played up for laughs, an emphasis on how big the character got being made fun of/criticised with an incomprehensible fatshaming subplot, they even threw in a reference that Jack’s previous pregnancy (mentioned in his first line in ep 1 of Torchwood) was a student prank (because men being pregnant is funny, I guess). Okay, that last one is a bit unfair, I just didn’t like it. They could have made Jack’s first pregnancy something meaningful (him carrying a friend’s child as a surrogate out of love for that friend, him carrying his own child born out of a relationship, etc.) but instead they made it into a cheap one-liner joke, and yeah it does fit into the tone of the audio, but that’s the problem: I did not like the overall tone of it.

There were some scenes with Ianto that were nice, and a couple of Owen and Tosh mentions that I enjoyed, and it’s interesting that you mention the action and adventure in your ask because I actually didn’t mind those aspects at all? The action was fine with me, it was the non-action parts mostly that bothered me (the emotional tone and sense of humour like I said).

This is probably more thoughts that you wanted but I was quite disappointed with this one (and I was so looking forward to canon mpreg), so I thought I’d take the opportunity to explain why. I do acknowledge that it was a matter of my own sense of humour and sensibilities not meshing well with the writer’s (I just checked and to my shock the writer is a woman; I would have put money on them being a cis man).

This one missed the mark with me. Badly.

[bettycooperoutfitwatch]

4x15 Chapter Seventy-Two: To Die For

Jughead died as he lived:

The world’s most dramatic bitch.

But that’s okay, because his plan hinges on everyone else in Riverdale being just as messy—and it works!

We finally reach the flash forward we witnessed in 410: the cropped red trousers, the stripe-y Juliet puff shoulders.

I’m not even gonna get into the waste of public resources (search parties, forensics, all of this costs money), I’m just gonna wave my hands and shrug, it’s Riverdale, etc. 

One, this shot is really well set-up (the mirror fracture? Nice), and two, appears to have been filmed on a potato.

Two potatoes. 

Three if you include Kevin, whose exposition-delivery work in this episode is especially thankless.

One of Betty’s two most-utilized purses this season, which are actually the same purse with slightly different stylings. This one is the simpler of the two.

The peacoat we’ve also seen a few times. 

Cousin Cheryl puts Cousin Betty on suicide watch. It’s a lot. 

So much of the core four’s plan hinges on other people. This is pure Scooby Doo logic. Let’s not dwell.

I repeat, for like the 89th time, this show hasn’t taken set dec photos since season one. 

The raccoon eyes!

We’ve literally seen all of this before, so I won’t repeat myself.

Well, spoke too soon.

This sweater-of-much-debate first popped up in a flash forward at the end of 405 and then once more in 408. We’re really getting to the end of these flash forwards now, it would seem. 

...

Do you think Betty and Jug got into some felon role-play after all this was over?

You know what, never mind, never mind. 

🙃

This shirt looks a lot like one Betty wore in 105. Maybe they’re the same, maybe they’re not. There’s a lot of season one touches in this ep. 

Well.

Initiate phase 2 of the plan, I guess: let’s plan a funeral. 

Stripe-y ribbed turtleneck and a suede mini. This outfit will come up again, we’ll talk about it then. 

Throughout this episode, we see a lot of different characters wear touches of tartan. It’s not the first time we’ve seen most of these people wear tartan or some kind of check print detail (yes, even Hiram)—but here it sort of reads as their tribute to Jughead. 

Veronica’s collar.

Hiram’s shirt.

Archie’s tie.

FP goes for a glen plaid suit and a windowpane tie, the extra is clearly genetic.

Betty’s funeral attire is very classically Betty—sheer, swiss-dot puff sleeves, and A-line cut to the dress. Her hair is notably down, like the first time we saw her at a funeral. 

A lot of people argue that Betty wears what looks like a J+B necklace in Jug’s dream opening to 222. I always thought that was her B pendant necklace, but idk anymore—I could be convinced given its showing here. 

(Jellybean’s tights.) 

Peep Betty’s pointy-toe kitten heels, with the little metallic embellishments. 

Does Riverdale have a very active amateur theatrical society? Everyone’s really bringing their A game here.

Betty reads an excerpt from Arthur Conan Doyle’s story “The Final Problem,” which...girl.

To keep it brief (ha), Conan Doyle intended “The Final Problem” to be the last Sherlock Holmes story—which he tried to ensure by killing off his hero. 

But then fans got mad at him and after a while of that, his hero rose from the dead in “The Adventure of the Empty House.”

What a way to telegraph, Elizabeth. 

(Jellybean’s jellybean necklace!!)

(There’s nothing so enjoyable as hearing Ms. Reinhart call someone a bitch in that Midwestern twang. Truly, a delight.) 

Anyway. People still have doubts about Jug’s life-status. 

Initiate phase 3: the nuclear option. 

I really can’t tell if this ribbed long-sleeve turtleneck is a pale pink or an oatmeal, and that frustrates me. If it’s pink, well then Betty’s wearing pink and a rusty red-ish color—meaning the next phase of this master plan is underway, and it involves Cheryl being Riverdale’s other resident chief messy bitch:

Pink and red—as we’ve discussed several times before—are Betty’s Archie colors. 

They’re not always a symbol of a romantic connection, but that’s defo the weight costuming is trying to impart here. 

At this point, we (technically) don’t know that Jughead isn’t dead. Using this motif in this moment is just another way of trying to convince the audience that the act everyone is putting on here is real—both the internal audience within the show (RHS, the town-at-large, but more specifically the Stonewall group), and the external one (us).

Visually there’s also almost too much going on with this shirt. Contrasting patterns, contrast v-neck, Juliet puffs on the sleeves. It’s a lot, it’s visually confusing in a way that mirrors the actual plot machinations of the story. Her mental state is stressed. 

I include it for the boots and the skinny jeans, which are very season one-esque. Don’t @ me. 

A moment for Veronica’s knit. 

Betty wore this very shirt, in another coloring, in 318! I like to think of this as another little costuming easter egg, that it suggests B & V are secretly on the same team here—and after all, they are. 

Same purse from earlier in the ep, and a jacket that first debuted in season 3. 

That’s the face of a girl on a mission.

Listen.

We know. 

Boyfriend’s S shirt. 

...consider how tame that fake kiss above is in light of this message.

Anyway: 

Pour one out for the sex bunker of death!! 

What favor did Betty do for Archie such that she is owed a milkshake? Give me friendship shit!!!

Visually, this is an intentional throwback to episode 102, in which Archie tries to apologetically text Betty after telling her he’ll never love her, only to be shut down.

The yellow shirt, the ballet bun, the shorts, the same gd teal phone case. It’s all intentional.

415: 

102: 

We haven’t seen Betty and Archie interact much this season between the time Fred died and...basically this plot. So these itty bitty crumbs are what’s supposed to make us believe all the shit that goes down several eps from now, but we’ll cross that (very dumb) bridge when we get to it. 

The cable-knit is kind of season one throwback, too.

On the right her earring looks like a heart with an arrow through it, but idk idk. 

Her kicks are the same she wore in 403. 

I could say I’m including this here because she’s wearing plaid, it’s in honor of Jug, blah blah—but honestly it’s just cause she looks gorg here. That’s all.

Summary: T e n outfits, ten. That includes two we’ve seen previously in flash forwards, two sets of pajamas, and one instance of boyfriend-wear. 

Is Betty a River Vixen??: ...only in Jug’s Stonewall spank bank. Also, isn’t the season over? Football ended. It’s fake murder season now. 

Backpack 2.0?: Mhm.

The floggingink Memorial Peter Pan Collar Count: with all the season 1 shit being thrown at us, you’d expect it, wouldn’t you? But no. 

Best outfit: I’m into the funeral look I think! 

[chiiquititamoved]

dracula ep 2 - observations

ahhh! the scene is set and i cannot wait for more agatha 

so we open up onto dracula’s castle? i think 

dracula and my beloved aggie are in a room together

wait so are they buddies now? drac’s not trying to eat her or anything, which i find suspicious

there’s a chess game going on with some symbolism i am too tired to grasp

drac starts telling agatha about the voyage he made to england 

scene changes to a ship and the captain having a nightmare about a dismembered hand? idk

now we meet a passenger, dr sharma who’s looking at a body or something

it’s the “grave the children complained about” ??? i’m getting lucy vibes 

the coffin/body is 70 yrs old but there’s fresh scratches on the lid! i wonder where this is going 

ew a very gross body rises out of the coffin 

scene change! we meet a dead guy, piotr

his mum/sister/relative is saying he was going to be a sailor but he died before he could, and there’s this very suspicious guy sweeping in a doorway and listening to the conversation

but then a nun closes the door and locks him in his room

and then the lady relative is told by the priest to stab w/ a stake piotr and she does. wise move, ma’am

this is all taking place close to a shipyard/dock 

oooh suspicious guy is going to the ship and impersonating piotr! interesting 

so it’s established that the one-handed guy from the nightmare the captain had is coming back on the ship. apparently it was the captain’s fault he lost his hand, but the nice one-handed guy is making a joke out of it and it’s all very friendly, but it still haunts our cap i guess

lord and lady ruthven are coming aboard the ship. they just got married, and it’s all very exciting 

the lord jokes about “making it a long voyage” (wink wink) to cap (comedic genius right here) and then this guy who introduced him is like “oh, it will be” we’ve got so many suspicious characters already, i feel so blessed!!

okay - i’ll call the guy who’s pretending to be piotr fake piotr to avoid confusion and i’ll call the other suspicious guy (i think he’s lord and lady ruthven’s servant/secretary? he’s got pretty nice clothes, idk) bob 

there’s an old guy who approaches fake piotr like “are you as inexperienced as you look? are you scared?” and he’s like well yeah and the other guy goes “me too.” ???? that’s reassuring!! 

ah the doctor (i forget his name) and his daughter are boarding 

dracula boards openly as himself because THAT’S a good idea 

agatha, of course, echoes my thoughts and drac’s like “what do you think i would’ve done, lie around in a box for 4 weeks?” uh, yeah, you’re a fucking vamipre

anyway, back to the ship. fake piotr is about to enter a room (no. 9) but this crewmember comes up to him and goes nah you can’t go in there these passengers are sick (he sounds like he’s lying) and fake piotr is like okay thanks i won’t do that then 

there’s fucking flies EVERYWHERE on this ship jesus 

like i get they’re undead and it’s symbolic and suspenseful or whatever but it’s also fucking GROSS

anyway drac comes up to the crewmember, who for some reason is listening at the door of no. 9, and says some creepy stuff to him (turns out he’s from bavaria. this may be relevant later?)

so fake piotr is from romania and he’s boring the handless guy with his “story” - the handless guy points out that it sounds SUPER fucking fake. anyway time for dinner!

so now they show the fancy dining room and lord whatever is there w/ bob (his name’s adisa, actually) and adisa’s like ooh this wine isn’t good i don’t like it and then they argue whatever and the doctor interjects 

OH MY GOD! adisa and the lord are together! the lord’s like you know this marriage is a necessary evil and adisa’s like yeah but it hurts. :,( i feel him man

drac introduces himself to the old lady, bla bla, and then he drinks this crewman’s blood and like absorbs his mannerisms (and his german)

god this is boring i want more of my tragic gay love story 

turns out drac and the old lady (who is a duchess) danced together on her 18th birthday? okay? i don’t care where’s adisa 

and that’s the night the duchess’s mother disappeared. great. 

now drac drinks the old lady’s blood

there’s a fog around the ship... it seems to be following them... how mysterious...

okay now drac is creeping out fake pietro by telling him a gross story because he was looking in a barrel? I DON’T CARE WHERE IS ADISA

ahh finally adisa’s back. so dorabella (the gay lord’s wife) is tired (and everyone else is like OOHhoo i wonder why) but drac seems to be on to them. uh oh

honestly other than agatha adisa and the lord are the only characters i actually want to have a happy ending 

okay everyone’s asleep but doc, and he’s having flashbacks or whatever to that body from before 

he gives his sleeping daughter (who’s mute + deaf, btw, forgot to mention that) a touching little monologue abt how there’s monsters in this world and he’ll protect her (that sounds sarcastic but it actually is sweet) 

lady whatever (gay’s wife) goes out on deck in the night, for a walk, but meets dracula out there 

he’s kinda flirting/talking w/ her outside but she’s obviously in love with her husband, unfortunately

m’lady reveals she’s going to america

dracula shows her the water in a barrel or something? but refers to it as a mirror? he shows her a pic of her and her husband in the reflection and goes “i thought i’d show you a picture of what might have been,” or something dramatic like that 

the doctor’s daughter starts bleeding from her face in her bed, and she wakes up

turns out the blood is from the lady and is dripping through the ship’s deck! 

doc’s daughter goes up to investigate and sees drac drinking the lady’s blood

:( i really don’t want the doc’s daughter to die

well of course now drac is threatening her >:(

like i feel bad for dorabella but i want adisa to be happy. i’m very conflicted

they’re going to search for the murderer now 

DRACULA IS SO OBVIOUSLY THE CULPRIT OH MY GOD. he keeps saying the most suspicious things and nobody cares

okay now drac is saying that they should search cabin no. 9? which only the captain has access to, for some reason, and he’s super anxious to not let anyone else in?

there’s a bunch of flies in cabin no. 9. great, more death

it’s established that there is actually another person in cabin 9, the mates hear breathing or something

drac: “ah, but you’re a scientist.” doctor: “yes, i was, at the university of calcutta. are you a scientist yourself?” “no, but i have an appetite for it.”

this guy gets injured because of the fog or something 

dracula is like addicted to blood, and he can’t stand the sight of it or something 

NO THE LORD RUTWHATEVER IS WITH DRACULA 

IF HE’S GOING TO CHEAT ON ADISA I WILL RIOT

oh no thank god everyone else is in the room with him 

The gay lord’s friend who told him to take this ship is called balaur? oh my god balaur is the dude that the rich old lady said was paying for her trip to england in the beginning! i feel like we’re onto something my dudes 

i was right! balaur is also the doctor’s sponsor

So the injured guy (the crewmember) gets woken up by the gay lord’s wife and she’s like ooh it’s okay but then it turns out it’s dracula pretending to be her and he drinks the guy’s blood

Ooooh shit most of the crew left on a lifeboat!!! Shit

NOW WE’RE FINALLY GOING TO SEE WHO’S IN CABIN NINE! 

Okay so we cut back to drac, who spouts some cryptic bullshit as usual 

Ahhhh we’re finally getting an explanation for why he and agatha are here! She gets up ans she’s like “how did i get here? We were at the convent!” and dracula let mina go? But he didn’t let agatha go

Agatha’s like “the people you feed on, you make them dream!” 

NO, HE DRANK AGATHA’S BLOOD????!!

OH MY GOD AGATHA’S IN CABIN NUMBER NINE 

Drac goes into the cabin and he’s like agatha is the murderer! 

And they’re about to hang her!!!!!! No but she’s the love of my life!!!!

okay the captain and the doctor are like she couldn’t possibly have done it! she’s too weak

now, my darling agatha, who of course has her wits about her, says that she’s a vampire so they can’t hang her! and they’re like uh okay i kinda believe her

but then drac starts to kick the barrel from under her! and aggie BITES HER LIP AND THE BLOOD FALLS 

dracula goes a little batshit (! get it???) and they see it! and then the doctor’s daughter (who you will recall i ALWAYS had faith in) comes in and makes the sign of the cross and drac’s repulsed

IS THE DAY SAVED? no, there’s 30 minutes left in the episode

DRACULA RUNS AWAY WHILE THEY’RE SAVING AGATHA 

AND MY HERO (AGATHA, OBVIOUSLY) JUST SITS UP AND GOES “i am sister agatha van helsing of the st mary’s convent, budapest. captain sokolov, you are relieved of command.” JUST LIKE THAT! MY HERO! 

okay so the doctor has a little potion for if he’s undead? I guess it kills an undead person

the remaining crew members threw all of the boxes of earth but one off of the ship (drac needs to sleep on transylvanian earth for some reason?)

gay lord just called dracula seductive >:( where’s adisa?? I miss him 

WhAT the FUCK? gay lord LIKES dracula? 

NO ARE GAY LORD AND DRACULA GOING TO FUCK

GAY LORD IS ON DRACULA’S SIDE 

DOCTOR AND HIS DAUGHTER JUST PULLED SOME CROSSES BECAUSE DUH AND GAY LORD IS THREATENING TO SHOOT THEM

NO NOW THE DOCTOR AND HIS DAUGHTER ARE DEAD 

AND DRACULA JUST STARTS TO DRINK THE LORD’S BLOOD 

Fake piotr then walks into the cabin and is like “wtf,” obviously, and then runs up to the deck and tells people, who are nailing pages of the bible to the deck 

Oh no adisa’s sad! He’s crying no :,( 

They’re all in the bible circle tho

Oookay so they were suspicious of piotr because last time drac took over harker’s body 

So now they’re all telling fake piotr to step out of the circle and back in 

Fake piotr does it and succeeds but then ofc fucking dracula appears. *eye roll* 

So adisa was like hey what the fuck why is religion the only thing stopping dracula? This is bullshit 

and adisa’s like drac you took the love of my life :((( no adisa he’s not worth it!!!

dracula’s taunting adisa to step out of the circle!!! Nooooo

NO HE STEPS OUT OF THE CIRCLE

ADISA SHOOTS DRACULA NO

NO DRACULA BITES ADISA!!!:((((

Fake piotr lunges at dracula but he throws him down and a barrel pops open 

The captain comes at him too

they’re all fighting him!!! 

They set him on fire! About fucking time 

He jumps into the water 

Okay this is making me nervous where did he go

Scene change! It’s morning and the sun is shining

“Where’s olgaren?” “cooking.” “just when you think you’re out of danger.”

Fake piotr sees a white bird with its head severed on deck :| 

We’re in the hold now, and aggie is keeping watch on the crate of dirt. The cap comes down and talks to her 

Oooh agatha’s saying that this ship must never reach england. we’ve got one lifeboat left, apparently, so i guess that works

She wants to blow a hole in the hull 

NO AGATHA WANTS TO SINK WITH THE SHIP 

NO I LOVE HER 

SHE SAYS SHE’S GOING TO DIE ANYWAY BECAUSE THE VAMPIRE’S CURSE LIVES INSIDE OF HER 

Awwwwwwwww cap’s giving her a hug :,(

I’m HEARTBROKEN!!!!! AGATHA IS THE LOVE OF MY LIFE

I kinda have a feeling she won’t die tho

Ew there’s a fly buzzing on a doll’s face. hm - totally unrelated, by the way i wonder what dracula is inhabiting 

Okay the guys are all leaving the ship 

Aggie’s praying down below but then she hears a noise and comes up to the cabins 

oh fucking hell dracula’s coming 

great. just fucking great 

oh no it’s the cap! Cap stayed with her on the ship!

fuck is it dracula inhabitng his body?

Agatha just found that dracula put a ton of dirt under a bed and he just slept on that one :/

okay the cap went on deck and agatha followed him but drac killed him before she could do anything 

drac’s like follow me, and walks off 

Agatha looks at cap’s body and cap’s alive!!! And he goes keep him talking!

So agatha goes on deck with drac 

Drac says how he got back on the ship, etc. 

Cap’s climbing towards them! Go! I’m rooting for you! 

Ookay they’re doing some menacing small talk, dracula’s lying, whatever 

Yes!! Cap set the ship on fire!!

Drac’s about to drink agatha’s blood - agatha: “yes, go ahead. The last thing your eyes will ever see is the contempt in mine!” 

He throws her down onto the deck + runs away to the hold

THE SHIP IS EXPLODING!

Agatha’s in the water! She’s drowning noooo

Convo between fake pietro + one handed guy: “They’re dead, then.” “yes.” “what now?” “we honour them.” “how?” “by telling their story.” :,(

huh - so marius (hmHMHM) is fake piotr’s real name

Okay no dracula swims to england (it’s not that far away)

HUH 

WHAT THE FUCK

WHAT THE FUCK?

NOW DRACULA’S IN ENGLAND AND A HELICOPTER ARRIVES??? AND A BUNCH OF MODERN CARS??? AND AGATHA VAN HELSING BUT SHE’S WEARING MODERN CLOTHES?? 

TO BE CONTINUED 

WELL. that’s done i guess. 

oh my god the wc on this thing is once again 2000. i don’t mean for this to happen i promise 

IN CONCLUSION: the next episode had better be fucking good. I mean it, Gatiss. The ending was insane (i had to rewatch it to make sure i wasn’t hallucinating) and honestly? This REEKS of season 4 sherlock (or whichever season it was when everything went to shit). If they make this some kind of ridiculous future au i WILL die. Thanks for coming to my ted talk. 

(P.S. I will try to watch the next episode this weekend! so watch out for (more) deranged ranting.) 

[winter-chill]

RWBY 7 - 3 “Ace Operatives” Thoughts

So thoughts...

BOO!!! they didn't work on stuff themselves.. although if it was Pietro and not just random scientists, I'll let it go :) And i'l give him props for using the Amity fights footage (i'll talk more on weapons later)

Oh, dust mines, launch site... ghiest, oh that's gonna bring back some memories

God Nora being so giddy about her stuff puts a smile on my face

and the Blake/Yang nod, the first of so many bumbleby touches this ep

They're really trying to hit hard again with Jaune and that sash, though it was a good set up for his hair cut (since I wouldn't really think of cutting it now when he's in a cold climate ideal)

Another very slight, but nice detail about having Yang be actually armless, not just fixing it while it's on her. We need more points like this, or maybe i just like the idea of it, but having those details shown off and not forgotten is nice. Also that's a beefy arm, though I swear it looks larger in the intro?

Again, having Blake have an onscreen notice of her hair leads well into why it's cut (though not showing it on screen? nor how/why her weapon's fix being gold... missed opportunity , truly)

WAIT??? Ruby got a NEW cloak? BOO, I would have thought her current one was still the original, has she been swapping it with each outfit? but, all the cuts and tears, the detail and history from her past fights, lost :(

I'll talk about the Oscar scene when it shows up, not here

Again, lovely intro to their new looks, but... could have been more. Showing them actually zip things up, buckle them in, cutting their hair themselves. Just lots of little details that would have added so much

I'll say it again, I think Yang's new glasses look weird.. too anime for the actual show style, but, I guess they 'work' ?

Also they all look to Ruby, this is her mission, her shot to call, she's back with her team (just rwby) for the first time so it's good to see them keeping the team dynamic, she was leader for a reason.

OH THIS SONG IS A BANGER!!!! also, totally a Weiss song (it said mirror)

Bunny hopping Ruby :D adorable

SUMMON SWORD SURFING!!! Finally

Blake really making the use of that ribbon, a little detail they again seem to forget about during most of 4-6 until it's necessary (running from adam in V6)

And... yep, no nonsense Yang sticking with the classics, recoil  (( I take it back, Yang's arm is the same as the intro, though I still think it somehow got bigger than when she put it on ))

And end it all on an amazing pose shot

Okay Ace ops time. Harriet, let me see what that little backpack thing do. But for serious, rolling only stops you from getting hurt on small drops, not several hundred foot... Marrow though taking a similar root to Ruby, seeming to ride it down, but he's doing some troll physics there, "stand on chair, jump off building, jump off chair at last moment, you only actually fell 2 foot"

Also, boomerang, gun? Honestly I kind of dislike the generic gun looking form, would have been cooler if it didn't change, but just had a little barrel pop out an end when he needed to shoot.

And now JN- OMG ELM YES, Loving the attitude. Oh Vine what's that on your back? you wielding an expanding throwing star (three pronged)

erm, right... JN_R

so, we got, some sick new looks, Ren's ponytail especially. Jaune's hair (i was one to hate it at first) in motion looks great, the concept art didn't do it justice. Also holding his sword on his arm..... kind of reminds me of @kumafromtaiwan's design for Jaune

"okay Jaune, you got this, it's not gonna be like Beacon all over again"

Oh, is he gonna use his shield like a plow, smashing through rocks, or maybe as a wing and glide do............................

DID JAUNE JUST FORTNITE PARACHUTE SHIELD HIS ASS TO THE GROUND?

Moving on though, yep, Hard light dust was a genius move he would have stuck in his head from Argus, and opens up the question of adding (what i'm dubbing) Shield Shield, with his V4 Nuckelavee Sword Sword, to make hard light blades.... SWORD SWORD SWORD???

a quick little peak at his shield, the emblem lighting up as he shoots a blast to bounce him from hitting the floor, that better be used later too.

And another amazing pose shot!

Oh Elm, you really need to work on your social skills. Actually maybe all the Ace ops do?

POUTY NORA!!!

and, good luck bad luck duo for the final team, this'll be fun.

NEW SCROLLS! Love them, slim and cool, and with new team icons (c'mon girls, smile for your picture)

and that detail on how Ruby zoomed, Weiss had to summon, and Yang had some energy stored up, so their aura is down a bit, but Blake is 100%

THE EARS, THEY SENSE BEES

Oh Yang, adorable goof

Oh Blake, also an dorable goof!!!

And Marrow is indeed the baby of the squad, you said it well Harriet, if a tad harsh?

Weiss no, this is a bad place for your name, but you're here to make it a better one, to fix that remember!!

Has.. has no one taught Ruby to project her aura to keep her warm, or at the others just dealing with it better? Either way, same Ruby, i hate the cold

Okay, yes, Oscar chat time

I don't know what to say, I agreed with it the whole time. Atlas is in a mess, there are good and bad times to tell people, and it's nice that Ruby has her intentions, but this may have been the same path Ozma first took, hiding things "for now" but never finding a chance to tell the truth later... they just need to keep it in mind.

And Oscar, please look after the Relic, I can already see red flags over your head the moment you took it, be that from Ironwood doing shady shit, Watts/Tyrian stealing it, or Ozpin popping back up to use it's last question.

OH, Clover, hitting a man hard with that, bringing up STRQ :/ all those fanfics of Qrow ('s semblance) being behind Summer's death, they all feel more realistic

I almost forgot, Qrow's looking snazzy too, those cross buttons, the eye/feather emblem embroidery in the sleeves. No... no necklace though?

Oh god Qrow's getting shipped with everyone this volume it seems. Good catch Clover.... I MEAN LITERAL CATCH

Halfick? Halphr... what did he say? Don't bullshit me captions, that wasn't alpha

REN!!! PAY YOUR GIRLFRIEND SOME ATTENTION!!!!!!!!!!!! Jaune you dork, nice try?

Another great Bee moment, Yang too can sense a disturbance in the force.

Weiss this is great, but can you keep your emotional daddy issues and the racial discrimination of a whole people a little more separate. But it's nice to again see you trying to make some amends and distance yourself from being.. well, 'Jacques' and his actions

OOF, Marrow coming in, hitting hard, and then acting like he's.... a millennial "I'm just a teen who does research, what do I know, boomer"

this scene though. Issues and history of faunus oppression, followed by a Schnee apolagy, and a faunus using her traits to help fix the past for a new future... that's some symbolism

Oh, a jump scare, good thing about Blake's semblance there too

HARRIET YES!!!! BIG FISTS, JUST WHAT I WANTED!!! PUNCH THAT ROCK

And RW_Y right behind already running before the rumbles settled to help their girl

I LOVE THE GRIMM IN ATLAS. don't get me wrong, Deathstalkers are still top tier, but these things are awesome too

and now we get to upgrades!

Nice, so Yang has some trigger-able explosives, so she doesn't have to rely on her semblance to protect her when she's using his shotgun blasts

A subtle little thing there, Weiss being able to shoot an icle, not doing so from a glyph, but from the gun part of

Myrtenaster directly

Okay yes, this bugged me for so long. A scythe is a big weapon, the weight is in the blade as much as it is the handle, so having to turn it around all the time would be unwieldy and difficult in combat, so just a tiny upgrade like this is both smart, and amazing for Ruby to have realised she needed

Although I still don't get how shotting a bullet down the barrel, can give her swings an initial boost of speed........

Marrow really out here flying though the sky like he's on a zipline? though the buzz saw boomerang is, again, brilliant

Oh................ So the boy who cried wolf, can pause time? I erm- actually hold on, I need to figure out how that's logical......

I'm just gonna guess it's more "Harriet is moving so fast, he did this for dramatic affect XD

JN_R once again, taking a moment, a little nervous but willing and--- now they're very much not nervous, doing their thing, never first to run in, but never first to run away either.

Also, Vine has a stetchy arm semblance, and Elm has rooting feet semblance. Ye they make a good team (i ship them)

THERE'S THAT PURPLE SHIELD BLAST

And finally StormFlower is getting some love. I don't think they look different, but having those blades be used in more various ways... grapples were a great idea

and again, Nora using that spiked back of Magnahild for more than a place to stand when she launches herself, loving it!!!

Oh Jaune, being nervous dorky, Nora a little ashamed? or ready to be.. and Ren, quiet as ever (i think he's kind of looking up to Vine honestly) don't worry though, you kids did good

OH Harriet... you don't wanna be left out of the action do you :) RUBY YOU DORK! And that little back+forth was actually hilarious

Hmm, I was always wondering how a fishing rod could be a weapon.. i guess pulling a grimm in works, but what was your plan then, to punch the Ghiest?

OH MY GOD THAT ANIMATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

again, what are you doing Clover? At least Qrow knows his semblance, acting all "i'm gonna look around, things could easily go wrong here"

Good luck bad luck eh? OH MY GOD Qrow don't make that face, the people are gonna ship you two even harder now!!!

And the hammer duo charging in first... ye Elm/Vine is just Atlas' Renora, and I love that dynamic

oh, weird dust draft from Ren stopping, sweat boiling on the rocks... this room is gonna be interesting, mess things up a bit? fluxuating gravity, hot and cold spots maybe??? Ah yes, dust energy... makes sense

And Marrow in the background while we hear him on the coms, just a great little look at how Vine seems to be "distant" from the moment, doing the whole, Ren style of vague-speak

Ye it is kinda empt-- oh. Also good work having not just the face move, but the whole midsection being rotated... kind of as if, the face is stuck to that one position... COINCIDENCE?

Erm, does this one seem bigger than the V4 Ghiest?

And now we see Ruby trying to act as leader, pause to think, to come up with a plan, where as the Ace (while more experienced) seem to have both a plan on how to take it out, and might also be a little to reliant on Clover, knowing his semblance will fix any little issues

Oh that trumpet, a very self-knowing victorious tune.

And again, Vine and Elm doing a whole of semblance work, shame we don't see them use their weapons a bit more here, same with Marrow though not using his semblance (whatever it is) at all.

HEY WAIT. those black parts weren't there earlier, nor did they appear on the V4 Grimm until it needed them to pull toge- oh... they stretched the limbs to force both a space to cut them, and for the grimm parts to sort of 'be revealed'

And another eye colour semblance indication. Loving the runners pose Harriet does too. She's not time-pausing fast... (I take back what I said about Marrow's semblance earlier?) but things do act slower, even while she's running quicker than we'd see as normal in that moment. It's not time-pausing, but it's very very fast. And the motion blur trail!!, just a tiny effect, but it adds so much detail

Marrow really is the child of the squad, he's the one to make a mistake, but again- kind of had to rely on Clover there.. Interesting to see how things pan out when he's inevitably killed, or trapped, or just isn't there

Little details here and there. Vine using his semblance not just to grab, but to push the grimm back. Harriet taunting it to get it's attention and then getting out before it can hit her (but late enough that it keeps it's attention on her and really slams it's fist down). Elm again sticking to her name, rooting that fist down, being basically an anchor in all her actions. And Marrow... throwing his boomerang

UGH.. that little medallion touch pisses me off somehow, it's so pretentious? but anyway, he had a good idea, pulling it out by it's mask, kinda really relying on his semblance to get between it and the ice chunk without bouncing off anything. Again, very semblance reliant group

Erm... she punched the grimm.. but i wouldn't say it's dead.. are we gonna ignore that??? IT'S GONNA RETURN LATER I CAN PROMISE YOU THAT

Vine again grabbing dust, would have loved to have seen Elm basically kick one to stick it to her feet instead of just catching (or pinning herself to a wall to catch it, as if it was too high to jump and catch)

And Harriet going in for the catch, only for....oh.. that's the first thing RWBY or JNR did this fight? (also no weird dust affects, i feel upset)

But ohhh, her semblance isn't speed. I had this same issue in last volume, that her semblance early on was supposed to be speed, and yet she uses it to fly, to separate into several for moments, and she can 'merge' with others to carry then, when like for Nora in V4 her reaction speed should have been way too slow to really be ready for when she was basically thrown at the previous ghiest

AY yep, I'm shocked if Ruby has control over her eyes, she never tried to flash them off during this whole scene... but again, after Maria's story, hiding them from people we don't fully trust is better

And another little bee moment, Yang flirting with them puns

Omg! Elm carrying Ruby, Yang and Nora dancing, love this group dynamic

Hey, it's that guy from last episode, why are we... Robyn?

huh, kinda spooky... flickering lights... Robyn, watts, or...

TYRIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! why are you not wearing your coat, it's cold remember! but that entrance, reminds me again of that "Cheshire cat inspiration" people first thought of back in his V4 reveal

HIS EYES!!! So whatever he does that triggers them is still apparent, and his stinger either still uses his own venom, or it's semblance related

And that line. He's here to mix things up... either he's finally gonna kill someone and let the police find out (unlike last ep when his victim was in a building, it'll take time till that's discovered... oh wait, blood) or he's here for info maybe?

[wanna-b-poet31]

A Mini Meta: What’s In A Name? (1.5/?)

So Like, I do a bunch of research for my metas and in pursuit of this one, I’ve had to learn wayyyy too much about each character’s name and meanings/origins. But because there’s no real place for me to put them in my planned metas, and I still have all this information to info-dump, here it is! A master list of all the character’s >probable< meanings. Consider this a Mini-Meta. 

Find Part 1 Here: (X)

Our Ineffable Duo

Aziraphale:

Note: Azrael, a possible interpretation of his name, means “one who God helps” and is often attributed to the Angel of Death.  

Anthony J. Crowley:

The elephant in the room with Crowley is “Crawley” and all I’m going to say about it is that Crowley’s right, it’s too “crawling on the ground-y sounding”.

Anthony, on the other hand, means “of inestimable worth”, which I feel is a good balance to his deadname. Crowley deserves this and every ego boost. Someone give him a hug.

The name “Crowley”’s meaning is at most Gaelic for heroic, although from a demonic standpoint, there is also no one-for-one model. There is an Aleister Crowley but he’s a real person who is known as the “evilest man to ever live” or some such moniker. But there is no connection between the demon and the person. I’d even argue that by giving himself a “J”  Crowley puts distance between himself and Aleister.

Note: Although Supernatural also sports a “Crowley” character, Good Omens predates the TV-Show and so no connection can honestly be made.

The Them

Adam Young:

Adam’s name has many significant implications beyond just sharing it with the first man and first person to leave Eden. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t tell ya’ll that in Akkadian, the word stems from the word “Adamu” which translates to “to make”. And I find this phenomenally relevant to his naming and unnaming powers.

Pippin “Pepper” Moonchild:

I have SOOOO much to say about the implications of nicknames, but for this mini-meta, I’ll just leave you with this: Pippin loosely means foreigner, and while that doesn’t really connect with her character much, neither does the name Pippin so I feel that works.

Pepper, however, simply means “berry���, but I think on a much more literal level the name “Pepper” refers to her firey and passionate sensibilities.

Brian I-Couldn’t-Find-A-Last-Name:

Brian loosely means “noble one” and given he’s ready to throw down against even his best friend if it meant saving the world and standing up to an all-powerful 11-year-old with immeasurable supernatural abilities with a crow-bar. I’d call that pretty noble.

Jeremy Wensleydale:

This name took an outrageous amount to time for me to research. I’m not touching Jeremy, because literally, no one calls him it, it has no power over him. Wensleydale, however, refers to a real place in England, apparently, they’re known for their cheeses. Here, “dale” refers to a town and “Wensley” is valley named after the god “Woden” AKA Odin, AKA Norse god of wisdom and culture and war. Which Idk how closely he’s related to Odin, I do think the wisdom and class resonate with Wensleydale’s character. Of all the Them, he’s the most bookish, and most overt with his love of books.

The Angels

Michael:

Literally means “Who is like God” in Hebrew, and is the only named Archangel in the Bible. I find it interesting that this name is meant to be a rhetorical question, meaning no one is like God. However, Heaven clearly has, let’s say, ignored this question and ruled as if they are God.

Gabriel:

God’s Messanger, whose name means “God is my strength”, which, I think he takes to an extreme. Yes, he clearly gets his power from his belief God has ordained a war he will win, but more than that, he also seems convinced that all of his >abusive< actions are blessed by God, despite the series making it very clear, she isn’t talking to anyone.

Uriel:

“God is My Light”.  Like Gabriel, I find this name infinitely amusing because yes, Uriel has a fiery personality like Pepper, short-tempered, and ready for a fight, little they do is actually from the mouth of God. Uriel is also closely associated with Noah’s Ark, reportedly being the angel who warns Noah and his family of the impending flood. Although we can’t know if they did or did not question killing the kids like Crowley and Aziraphale did, as it wasn’t on screen, based on their other actions, I’m gonna say no.

Sandalphon:

Note: It’s interesting that his name is wholly dependent on the existence of “brothers” and implies he serves as a mirroring character...of whom idk yet.

Metatron:

Although MANY theologians have argued over the meaning of this name, the most popular definition means “beside the throne”, and refers to the person next to God’s Throne. This works well as he is shown to be the mediator between God’s word and the Angels. This is less good because he clearly hasn’t talked to, or isn’t willing to let others talk to God.

The Demons

Ligur:

So, Ligur is not a canonical demon. Consequently, his name has no set meaning. He’s not a “real” demon with a 1-for-1 equivalent floating through Hell. My best guess is that it’s a reference to a Chuthulu Mythological Race “Lloigor” which is known for being invisible, but when they do show themselves, are distinctly reptilic. Which, I think vibes well with the chameleon on top of his head.  

Hastur:

Note: A strict etymological breakdown of the name is associated with “chaos” and is meant to denote one who revels in destruction for destruction’s sake. It’s also very fitting for Hastur, given his desire to cause fiery chaos.  Like Metatron, there are many interpretations you can find here: (x).

Beelzebub:

Note: Beelzebub is a real demon with a fascinating mythos you can read more about here (x). Seriously, ya’ll I have a million citations, please hmu if you want more info.

Note 2: Also! Also! Also, Beezlebub makes an appearance in Lovecraftian stories and Chuthulu mythos.

Dagon:

Note: Dagon makes a few appearances in Lovecraft’s work...there’s a short story called “Dagon”... and while they’re often not included in the Chuthulu mythos, the short story “Dagon” is the first to introduce Chuthulu-like elements...so? #canon in my eyes.  

The Humans

Anathema Device:

Anathema is pretty straight forward. The name refers to someone who is detested or shunned. But more Bible-related-y Anathema refers either to something that was consecrated or to someone denounced as evil or accursed and therefore set aside for sacrificial offering. Which, is pretty much the role of Anathema. Her family has chosen to sacrifice her and her freedom in exchange to stop the end of the world. While I wouldn’t call her evil or cursed, she is definitely detested (as a witch) by the Witchfinders and Adultery Pulsifer.  

Agnes Nutter:

Alternatively: Agnes Sampson was a Scottish healer and purported witch known as the "Wise Wife of Keith". Sampson was burned in the North Berwick witch trials.

Alternatively: Agnes Waterhouse was the first person executed for witchcraft in England (1566). However, she was hanged, not burned like Sampson and Nutter.

Newton Pulsifer:

Like the character himself, Newton’s name is pretty unremarkable. It means “New Town”. Not much depth to his name. However, a “Newt” does have some religious imagery attached to its name. It supposedly symbolizes rebirth and renewal, which flows with his character arc.

Madame Tracy:

Tracy refers to “Warrior” and can sometimes mean “superior to” and “more powerful”. All of these seem to fit with a woman willing to share her body with an Angel and stand at the end of the world without flinching. Also, she clearly overrode Aziraphale’s choice to shoot a child and refused to do something she couldn’t and wouldn’t do. she’s a badass.  

Shadwell:

Shadwell means a shallow spring, but it is also a place in West London. Given Shadwell’s naming strategies I’d actually not be too surprised if he just named himself after a street name he saw. He’s not too creative.

Warlock Dowling:

Warlock means “Deceiver” and like if that’s not his life story. Through no real fault of his own, he spends the first 11 years of his life as the prophecized Anti-Christ by Heaven, Hell, and our ineffable Duo. I suppose you could say he deceived them, but really, I think it’s hilariously on the nose as he’s the not-Anti-Christ.

Harriet Dowling:

Harriet is of French origin, and means “estate ruler” and as the diplomat’s wife, I think it’s fair to say she rules the huge estate we see in the series.  

Thaddeus Dowling:

Thaddeus is likely Greek meaning “heart” and surprisingly (maybe only to me) in the Gospel of Matthew, appears as one of the apostles, although later in the Gospel the name “Jude” is also mentioned, and likely is referencing the same person.  

Sister Mary Loquacious:

“Mary” often translates to beloved or rebellious, while Loquacious refers to “talkative” which, man. I kinda love it, because she’s one of the characters who not only talks alot (relative to her short time on-screen) but also is a sweetheart.

Diedre Young:

Diedre is a young Gaelic princess who died of a broken heart, although its etymology could also just mean “young girl”.  Little is relevant to the larger arching story.

Arthur Young:

“Arthur” is Celtic for King, and legends from the round table (and some references from Ep. 3) aside, little about his name seems relevant to the story.

[jesterlady]

Rise of Skywalker review

After Watching Episode IX for the second time, I feel like it’s finally time to make my feelings known regarding the sequel trilogy and to vent some of the negativity by getting it down in somewhat rational fashion.

If any one recalls the 6k I wrote on Avengers Endgame, you’ll know what to expect.

Now it’s been a while since I saw either Ep VII or VIII, so my memory is likely rusty on details.

 My feelings on this trilogy in general have been extremely negative.  It’s interesting, but after I saw Force Awakens, I actually had a very positive reaction at first.  It felt like a Star Wars movie (following the New Hope formula).  But after a while, even before Last Jedi came, I realized that I actually was disappointed, not necessarily in the movie as a movie or the new characters, but the direction the whole trilogy was likely to go.

 I must confess a great deal of this feeling probably arose from watching Clone Wars and Rebels in the meantime and becoming very caught up in those time periods and what they represent for Star Wars.  And that’s just it…the sequel trilogy takes what came before, what those people bled and died for, and basically said it didn’t matter.  They didn’t actually save the galaxy.  The victory at Endor has become incredibly cheapened by the First Order’s existence…and it doesn’t even matter that apparently it was Palpatine all along so it’s suddenly very connected in a haphazard fashion.

 They could have told a much more interesting story about the struggles of rebuilding a galaxy. They could have had the same characters, they could have had the same arcs (terrible ones mostly), and the galaxy could still be in danger.  But starting off with a brand new evil empire like destroying the old one didn’t even matter, not even letting Han and Leia stay together…like, that’s just creating drama for the sake of drama.  We have to destroy everything that was built before, because we’re really unoriginal and don’t know how to create new stories or build on top of a good foundation.

 Say what you like about the prequels (I am a fan in general) they had a very cohesive story, building toward a single point.  The sequels…did not.

 Now, we must all acknowledge the elephant in the room.  That of the atrocious planning and divided directional control that went into making these movies.  I don’t know what Disney was thinking!  The MCU for all its faults is a cohesive whole.  With a franchise infinitely more popular and lucrative and with a fraction less of the movies, you couldn’t pull off having a story that makes sense?

 And I’ll just say that even if JJ didn’t like what Rian did with TLJ, basically completely doing a 180 and trying to go the other direction, was selfish.  It destroyed further rather than fixed the problem.  I don’t have anything else to say, other than the lack of unity is probably the ultimate problem after the initial direction in the first place.  I didn’t really approve of TLJ.  The Rey/Ben parts…sure, but the slowest chase scene known to man and completely superfluous side ventures to a gambling planet were utter drivel.  So it’s not that I’m a Rian vs JJ person.  I think the lack of unity and that they both screwed with each other’s narratives is the problem.

 Anyway, we’re here to talk about TROS.  (And how about that, coming up with a title that is super confusing since we already have Revenge of the Sith.  I guess that’s ROTS…but come on!

 So…this will be fairly chronological but as I get deeper into character arcs and plot points, it will delve all over the place.

 The intro of a Star Wars movie is usually fairly jarring.  We’re dropped into the middle of a situation and all we know is three paragraphs long, to tell us what’s going on and what happened.  But this felt even more jarring than usual.

 Suddenly knowing Palps is alive in the credit titles is so off course.  Knowing he was alive at the end of TLJ would have been preferable, leaving us time to stew over how he was still alive and giving them time to come up with something more coherent than the absolute zero explanation we were given.  The return of an essential character/villain like that deserves way more gravitas and planning than the shock value we were presented with.  The idea of him being alive is not so shocking to those familiar with the EU, but that was explained and explained well, whereas how long he’s been planning this, Snoke, the ships, how…it’s all completely ignored and I guess we can come up with explanations on our own.  So…is Snoke his clone?  Or a part of him?  How many Snokes were there?  There are so many questions regarding their relationship…how it relates to Kylo/Ben, how it relates to Rey, how it relates to their bond, but I’ll get more into that later.  And more on those ships.

 Pretty sure a blow no one can be faulted with is Carrie’s death.  If she had been alive, I have to believe so many things would have been better.  She uttered the only sensible line in the movie…never underestimate a droid. Something everyone else went on to ignore even though droids made the whole movie possible.  Ugh.  I do think it’s funny that since TFA we’ve all been told to call her the General now…no more princess cause princesses are apparently weak, but she was suddenly a princess again this movie.

 The Jedi texts, I’d like to know more about that.  Very plot device-y really, if you think about it.  All this info about new and improved powers and places and things and considering how much lore we know as an audience who actually have been exposed to when the Jedi were still around, opposed to Luke onward…it’s just an excuse for story. Same thing with the Sith wayfinders and that dagger.  I guess you could make the argument for Palps having them made after ROTJ, but…that makes no sense.  But it’s the only thing that makes sense since how could anyone make a dagger the exact shape of a crashed Death Star before it crashed?  But the Jedi texts…super old texts…reference the wayfinders. And it was already in the vault of the crashed DS.  All I’m saying is that doesn’t make a lot of logical sense and someone needs to explain it to me.  And to stop making mysterious keys and clues to things.  It makes sense the Sith loyalist would have it since he needed to go back to Exegol to deliver Rey, (though he had clearly already left Jakku and killed her parents, so was he just going back to say, oops, I messed up? Palps clearly got the message somehow) but maybe it would have been better for them to keep all the Oracle stuff in and explained all this stuff properly.  Like I’m confused about Palpatine’s plan and he’s usually the master of strategy.

 Okay…Poe is so unlikable in this movie.  And he really doesn’t have an arc.  Maybe a little one, struggling with the burden of leadership.  But he mostly seems to be there to argue with people and be rude to Threepio.  This is a waste of a good character.  He was barely in TFA, he was a total mess in TLJ, and here he’s just a jerk.  I got nothing good to say for him.  Which is a shame because he could have been awesome.

 We will talk about Rose and her complete lack of presence.  Up front, I never cared for Rose in TLJ…didn’t see the point of her. She brought nothing to the story in my opinion and whether she was supposed to be a love interest for Finn or to symbolize hope or just be representative of WOC, I don’t know.  But her being shifted to the sidelines of this story is a blatant statement of disrespect.  The actress has been very publicly discriminated against online and instead of taking care of her, the director and studio pretty much stated they agreed with that by what they did with her character.  Aside from that…makes zero sense for someone who was so built up and had such a big part in TLJ to be so downplayed and have her story just stop in the middle.  It’s bad storytelling.  Especially while you’re bringing in a troop of new female characters to do…what? Basically things Rose could have accomplished and would have made more sense doing.  

 Along the lines of pointless things…what is the point of the Knights of Ren?  They were so built up…such an ooh, scary prospect and they play zero role in this.  They have no point.  They have no purpose.  We know nothing about them unless we hunt for backstory in comics and things like that. But you shouldn’t have to do that to understand the point of someone in a movie.  I’d also just like to point out, if they’re really Force sensitives who were Jedis in training…maybe?  Then they should be a lot harder to defeat and why don’t they have light sabers? And…why are they the Knights of Ren if there isn’t at least a discussion about what their leader is doing when he comes to Exegol.  Like they’re just trying to kill him from the second he enters.  I’d be like…hi, boss, so why aren’t we killing the girl…or something like that.  And if they’re the Knights of Ren, his…family for lack of a better term, people who trained with him since boys, I’d like to think he at least would have some compunction of striking them down…would try to reason with them first.  They might still be brainwashed like he was, but he would know that better than anyone.  I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s my knee jerk reaction. A waste of possibilities.

 Want to talk about another waste?  Hux! Never liked him and his Hitler youth attitude, but really he was not important in this trilogy, like at all. DG is too good an actor to not have his talents used better.  He, Phasma, and Kylo were built up as this villain trilogy to stand against the Rey, Poe, Finn good guy trilogy, and basically none of them got any kind of development other than Kylo.  I knew Hux was the spy and I believe it is funny that he is the spy solely because he hates Kylo so much, but other than that…he was a waste of space.   Better to have him finally rise and become the commander he’d always wanted to be instead of Pryde suddenly being there and being all evil and competent for some reason.  Having him be significant for having followed Palpatine before would only actually be significant if we had seen him serve Palpatine before.  It’s just another instance of this brand new character suddenly taking the place of an established one for no reason.

 We can talk about Finn now.  Finn, who also suffered from lack of actual character arc and purpose in the movie other than running after everyone and being worried about them.  The whole Force sensitive thing is old news…we all knew about it a long time ago.  And this way of revealing it…such poor methods!  As far as I know the only reason you’d start thrashing around and declaring you never told someone something is because it is going to be a declaration of love or like a super big confession of guilt.  I mean, that’s what they wanted us to think by keeping it in suspense for so much of the movie and it’s just…not that big of a deal. Like it’s not a surprise, it’s not a death confession topic.  It was just stupid.  

 As for the idea that he only left the First Order because of the Force, well, that just implies that only Force sensitive people know right from wrong and can make moral decisions…it’s just not a good message.  Now whether Jannah’s whole platoon is Force sensitive is not clear, but it’s strongly implied.  And the fact that it’s what he wants to have told Rey is also not clear.  Like you have to figure that out (possibly with online help), it’s not inherent in the narrative.  Also…could have been told to Rose, Jannah not needed.  In fact, this whole storyline would have actually made much more sense and been better if it’s something Finn had been dealing with in TLJ and perhaps came with an army of defectors or been out convincing people this whole time.  Potential storyline wasted.  Plus…for someone who’s an ex Stormtrooper, watching Finn run down hallways and strike down troopers is pretty insensitive and OOC if you ask me.  Just a super bad way to take the character.  And he really didn’t do that much else other than be the main person who does the thing that destroys the thing so everyone else can do the main thing they’re there to do.

 Wow, and can we talk about Threepio’s treatment in general and in this trilogy in particular? I will be the first to admit that Han and Leia especially weren’t all that great to him all the time.  But it was how they would have treated anyone, I think.  Poe particularly just laid into him all the time for no reason, even after he sacrificed himself for them.  Like…just really made me mad at Poe and really mad at everyone the whole movie. It appears that Threepio, one of the two original droids of the whole franchise, gets the least respect out of any of them.  With all the fanservice going on, you’d think he’d be treated better.  I love the HISHE part where he talks about taking a last look at his friends and it certainly ain’t none of this trio!  You want to talk about underestimating a droid!  I know he’s not everybody’s favorite and I’m probably biased, but if we’re ranking droids in the SW universe, which we all do, Threepio’s not at the top for me either.  That spot belongs to Chopper.  But I’m still going to accord Threepio the respect and dignity he deserves for seniority if nothing else.  Because he tries so hard and no one ever thanks him for it.  I like BB8 and all, but he goes under Threepio and R2 both in ranking!  And let’s not forget if not for a droid’s knowledge of Exegeol (so convenient) and the way to get there, you resistance jerks are all toast, so respect!

 Zorii, Zorii, Zorii, frankly another superfluous new character.  But I liked her best out of all of them.  I can see that little something something with her and Poe and I think it would be cool for it to flourish now that the war’s over and they can put the really convenient past and betrayal behind them.  Poe being a spice runner isn’t bad but isn’t good either. It’s just convenient, because they suddenly needed black market stuff.  Also…like how’d she survive?  Really. Because it’s such a big deal for her to have gotten that thingamajig and it’s not like people have warning when the bad guys blow up your planet.  There is no evacuation time.

 I’ve mentioned her a bit so Jannah, again, other than it’s cool there are more women in the galaxy, just took up screen time for other characters to develop.  Were they trying to insinuate she could be Lando’s daughter, because that makes zero sense!  And why all of a sudden he’s champion of finding the lost families of the galaxy is super weird.  Also, it was cool to see him flying the Falcon and all, but did he really add anything other than gravitas from the original trilogy?  I’m usually a huge fan of fanservice, but I didn’t really feel like a fan being serviced.  I felt like someone constantly having nice things thrown at me so I won’t notice the murder being done in the other room.  A nice shot of Wedge, too.

 So many extra resistance people always there.  Like I love Dom, but why was he there?

 But talking of other people really who the heck is Maz?  I mean she just shows up out of nowhere and knows everything about the Force and the Jedi and people’s pasts and what their decisions are and we don’t have a clue why.  Like who is she?  How does she know these things?  Where does she even come from?  Like why does she talk about Leia trying to reach Ben and why does she smile when Leia dies, what does she know that we don’t and why?

 I guess now for the really hard stuff.  Rey and Ben.

 They were the only ones who really got developed and even then, I think Ben got robbed out of his ending.

 So Rey’s heritage. Being a Palpatine, very disappointing. If there’s one good thing I liked about TLJ it was the idea that you didn’t have to be part of some great bloodline to be special in the Force.  The Force doesn’t care who your parents are.  Most of the great Force users we know have literally nothing to do with who their parents are.  If anything, it has more to do with their lineage of training.  So JJ basically saying screw that idea and forcing Rey into that was very disappointing. And apparently electricity is very genetic…Dooku aside, of course!  It also implies the Dark side in her is because of the Palpatine heritage.  But the Dark Side of the Force exists for a reason, for balance, and provides something important to the galaxy.  It’s already proven even the Lightest of users and bloodlines have that pull.  

 Rey has been alone and searching for family this whole time.  Having someone to belong to was important to her.  But…the message of her finding a family and joining one, I think is a lot more important than her finding out her past and heritage.  Just being Rey at the end instead of having to say she was Rey Skywalker or Rey Solo would have made more sense!  Of course…I also think Solo makes more sense for her anyway given her connection with Han, her training with Leia, and her bond with Ben. She did train under Luke as well, granted, but she had more Solo connection than Skywalker.  They just wanted the cool name.  But also doesn’t make sense since Palps calls Ben the last Skywalker in the movie as well.  But whatever, I don’t really care.

 Let’s talk about this whole dyad in the Force thing and the grand plan.  Because I can’t logically reason it out myself.

 So Palps apparently has a plan to bring Rey to him as a girl so he can have her kill him and his spirit can go into her body and he can reign through her because his old body is like super fried and the clone thing ain’t working so hot.  Doesn’t happen, but he’s also working on his other plans to corrupt Ben and bring him to the Dark side, under the influence of Snoke, to do what?  Like what is his plan there apart from just general evil and revenge and nasty stuff? But all along there’s apparently been this Dark prophecy against Ben (and we all know Palps is the manipulator of the Dark).  Luke said Leia gave up her Jedi training because she sensed that at the end of that journey was her son’s death.  You’d think then they’d honor that sacrifice by not killing him, but whatever.

 Palps created or controlled or was at the back of Snoke (however he was at the back of Snoke) and so he’s pulling the strings during TLJ.  He knows everything Snoke knows.  So if Snoke created the bond between Rey and Ben, then he’d be very aware of that.  So how does the whole dyad thing work?  Because it’s made very clear Palps doesn’t know about the dyad, otherwise he likely wouldn’t have tried to do the dark ritual/strike me down plan first when it would have been so much easier to get them both together to drain them.

 So…have they always been a dyad from birth?  Was the dyad created separate from the bond when Snoke created the bond?  A Light balance to the Dark bond?  Regardless of how, clearly they are one soul and connected more powerfully than anyone else in generations.

 But Palps and his plan…he tells Ben to kill Rey.  What was he actually trying to do since it’s clear he didn’t want Rey dead?

 My only thought is that he thought Rey would actually kill Ben and thus give in to her Dark side and be more ready to be Empress…

 But Leia’s sacrifice and all of that still confuses me.  Palps said that Leia interfered with his plans.  

 Now in that fight Rey was the instigator, was the one trying to wreak damage (freaked out by her vision and revelations, I’m sure) and Ben was the one winning that fight. Like he was going to win until Leia stopped him.  But was he going to kill her?  Because I think it’s pretty clear that Ben has never wanted to kill Rey even if he was trying at first before the bond really started.  Either way, Leia stops him from doing something and Rey stabs him instead. Then Leia dies and snaps Rey out of it. Was it the reaching out to Ben or the death that Palps was talking about interfering with his plans?  Because again…he didn’t want Rey dead at that point.

 I don’t know. Having a fleet full of ships hidden for how long, when did those weapons go into place, who’s manning the ships? Because apparently there’s the regular First Order fleet still out there conveniently being taken down by the rest of the galaxy after this fleet burns, so have these recruits just been sitting out there, chilling at Exegol for years, waiting for this order and attack? Total side tangent and question really, but it all makes no sense.

 Leia’s death…so much speculation on why her body didn’t vanish until Ben died.  There has to be something significant there and I’d really love to know if it’s a future plan or if it was part of the original end of the movie since clearly it was changed.  Maz smiles, remember.  Also…is she somehow giving her life for Ben’s to bring him back?  She’s clearly a Force Ghost at the end of the movie.

 Okay…so Han memory.  I did like that and I did like that Ben could get absolution from his dad and have that be the final thing that turns him from Kylo to Ben.  I wasn’t sure I could forgive Ben ever after TFA.  I cried so much and I was so mad.  That’s Han Solo, y’all.  HAN FRIKKING SOLO.  I mean how do you even kill Han Solo?

 Granted, I think we were all robbed of a story where Han and Leia are a united front raising their kid and trying to protect him from danger, but that’s just me.  I mean we could have had The Mummy 2 in space, guys. ROBBED!  Someone write that AU, please.

 And can we just talk about Adam Driver’s acting for a moment?  I mean, the boy is phenomenal.  He goes from being one person to being a completely different one effortlessly.  From the moment he throws the light saber in the sea, his mannerisms and physicality is so different.  It’s amazing. Kudos to him.  Absolutely.  Oscar worthy! He does it without having any lines whatsoever apart from ‘ow.’  And I like Ben Solo and I’m sad we didn’t get to see more of him.  He’s so Han’s boy, so Han’s boy.  Love that!  He’s an awesome character in his good boy sweater.  (Love the sweater and while we’re on the subject, could him and Chris Evans have a sweater off with the good boy sweater and the white knit sweater please?)

 Hey, Luke got to raise a X Wing finally.  That’s the kind of fan service I’m talking about.

 One of my favorite parts of the movie actually was the whole Jedi from the past bit.  Mostly because I saw my boy Kanan getting his recognition and rightful spot as one of the great Jedi, up there with Obi Wan and Anakin and Ahsoka!  I also loved Ahsoka being there and the other Clone Wars greats.  Really cool.  I do kind of wish they had included Ezra, too, but that’s just me loving on my Space Blueberry!  And wishing James Arnold Taylor who put so much into Obi Wan could have at least done Plo Koon since Ewan took his place as Obi Wan.  Either way, that was the only homage and respect paid to the other two trilogies and the Star Wars legend in general.  The only acknowledgement of how much sacrifice and history went into this franchise before now.

 Now…can Rey kill Palps now and not have his spirit go into her because he’d already made himself revitalized with their dyad energy or was it because no ritual had been done?  Just wondering.  Or was it a loophole since all she did was defend herself and his own lightning killed him?

 There’s a lot about energy and healing and the Force in this and so you can speculate all over the place about what the rules are.  (You’d think in the Clone Wars healing each other would have been a thing!) And since we’ve never deal with a dyad before, we don’t know how it works.  But it really kind of feels like even with how drained both of them were after Palps took their bond…it either should have been returned to them when he died or their combined energy should have been able to keep both of them alive. Or something.  Two in one means connection and honestly, I feel like both of them should have died or both of them should have lived.

 I know a lot of people think it was the perfect end for Ben because he redeemed himself (like Anakin) and there would have been no place for him in the galaxy after all the evil Kylo had done.  (Much less if you read the comics!)  But I’m a sucker for a redemption story and I think the hardest punishment always is to face your past and work through what you’ve done instead of taking the easy way out of death (not having to actually atone).  I think it’s a beautiful potential for forgiveness and grace and realizing none of us can really save ourselves.

 And whatever you think of Kylo/Ben or his ending, it’s clear something was changed at the last minute.  There’s a whole lot of editing done on that last scene when he revives her and they kiss and on Tattoine.  There are apparently screen tests people swear they saw where he didn’t die.  I won’t go into the scene analysis some Reylos have, but jaw moving and talking on Rey shots that were cut, it looking more natural for her to have been pulling him back up rather than him falling down, it looks like his hand is the one in the burying lightsaber scene…  He was obviously supposed to live at some point and why they changed their minds, I don’t know.  He is one of the most popular characters and they lost a cash cow when they killed him off.  Silly idiots.

 As far as Rey goes, I also think that’s terribly unfair, to give her the connection she’s been yearning for her whole life and instead of giving her a future, you stick her back on a sand infested planet, sliding down in a parallel to TFA, and burying the past sabers, and being alone.  I know she’s still got friends and stuff but I think she won’t know her new place in all of this and she’s going to feel very lonely.  

 Also, where did the yellow saber come from?  Did she cleanse Ben’s saber?  Did she find a new kyber crystal of her own?  Come on now…don’t be mysterious and weird.  Normally I can take mysteries being unsolved if great care is taken to resolve relationships and characters and this trilogy and story did neither, so no love from me.

 As for shipping them.  I didn’t really through the first two movies.  I was curious to see what would happen, but I could have gone either way. I did ship them after this one.  I do love two broken people finding solace in each other.  And I think there is such potential there for these characters and as a relationship that could have been done so much better and wasn’t and that’s what is the saddest thing of all.

 I really have an urge to write an AU…Luke Skywalkers’ Academy for Sensitive Younglings (title patent pending) and rewrite the whole stupid thing.  I fear I have neither the time nor inspiration for that. But I would dearly love to see awkward teenage versions of these characters growing up and learning and being stupid and given a chance to become the best versions of themselves. My vision of the future.

 Probably in another 30 years there will be a fully formed, all ready to go evil Empire that no one has done anything to stop anyway…

 So there we go. I probably have more to say but that’s all I got and that’s with taking notes!

[littlemisssquiggles]

Imagine Cordo going down and everyone is happy but then sudden laser beam and Oscar is shot, which takes everyone by surprise. Ruby freaks out (everyone does) and that’s when Oscar sees Ozpin. Causing ep 13 (since ep 12 is probably gonna be fighting) to be focused on Oscar and Ozpin?

That’sone way of doing it. While I share your hunch on Oscar possibly being downed during the finale and ending up either in the Dreamscape(meaning his own mind) or the Realm between Realms to reunite with Ozpinand the God of Light, I don’t personally want Oscar to go down so soon meaningthat I’m actually hoping he survives the Cordo boss battle.

Apart of me hopes thatif Oscar is to go down, it’ll probably be during a daring moment of protecting Ruby.That’s why I’m waiting for the events of V6 C11 to playout because I’m curious to know if Neo and Cinder are going to show up for thefinale alongside Adam.

Ifwe’re getting the fated rematch boss fight between Adam versus Blake and Yangthen supposed we’ll get another parallel rematch battle between the Fire and Ice-creamduo and the Rosebuds.

IfNeo and Cinder show up then the hunch I have is that we’ll get to see a tag team rematchbattle of Cinder versus Oscar and Neo versus Ruby.

I want Neo to have her duel with Ruby basedon what Cinder promised her in V6 C7.

“…Help me getto Atlas. Help me find her and the rest is up to you…”

Cinder told Neo that if she helped her findRuby then she will be allowed to deal with her how she saw fit. I know she saidAtlas but…what if the Writers decide to retcon that detail and have Cinder andNeo change their plans to go to Argus instead especially when they meet up withAdam who informed them that the group are in Argus or something like that.

I want a Neo and Ruby confrontation because Ifeel like it can mirror the fight she had with Torchwick which is the fightthat made Neo have her vendetta in the first place. And Cinder vs Oscar sinceCinder was the one who fought Ozpin and killed him so a second go like thiswould be interesting to watch; albeit a little unfair on Oscar’s part since,though Oscar has improved as a fighter, I’m not sure if he’s ready to go upagainst a Maiden of Magic. But it is worth seeing him try and give it hisall especially if Oscar, on his own, uses his own wit to outsmart the cockyCinder and disarm her.

If Neo and Ruby have their dual, then mytheory is that at some point Neo willoverpower Ruby. Seeing Ruby down, this gives Cinder theopen window to deal her final blow to Ruby. Even though Cinder promised Neo shecan have her revenge, knowing Cinder’s personality, I feel like she’s morelikely to doublecross Neo and take a cheap shot at Ruby while Neodistracts and weakens the girl for her.

While Ruby is distracted with Neo, Cindertakes this as a chance to kill Ruby. Or…perhaps Cinder does surprisingly keep her word to let Neo kill Ruby but stilltakes a cheap shot at Ruby. Like imagine…Cinder directs her attention fromOscar to blindside Ruby with an attack from afar and as Ruby spins to counterCinder’s attack, Neo takes this distraction as a moment to deal the killingblow to Ruby.

I keep hearing word of Neo committing a heinous action that will upsetthe fandom .  So whatif…Neo ends up killingOscar? What if…Neo takes a stab at Ruby only for Oscar to jump in front of the SilverEyed Girl, shielding her from the blow as Neo’s weapon goes right through theboy’s chest. So instead of killing Ruby, whatif…Neo technicallykills Oscar who dies saving Ruby right in front of her very eyes. I say technically because I don’t think the CRWBY Writers will actively kill off Oscar.

I feel like if Oscar is going to reunite withOzpin, it’ll probably be in the Realm betweenRealms and why I want it to be that as opposed toOscar’s mind is because it’s a chance for Oscarto parallel Ozma’s experience and meet the God of Light (or God of Darkness)face to face.

And as shown by Ozma, the only way for one toend up in the Realm between Realms is through death so I’m slowly starting to think that everything that’s been subtly foreshadowed about Oscar since the V6 poster has been leading to him possibly dyingthis season and coming back from the dead.

I know a plot point like this could upset myfellow Pineheads however speaking as proud Pinehead myself; I actually would like to see this become canon if possible.

Oscar dyingto protect someone he cares about is something Ican definitely see him having the bravery to do. It doesn’t necessarily have to be Ruby that Oscar dies or gets seriously injured to the point of death tryingto protect. Though Ruby is the obvious firstchoice, I can also see Oscar dying to protect Jaune for one) thatnod to Pyrhha’s sacrifice at sending Jaune off to safety while she went off tofight Cinder alone and two) to establish a bond between Oscar and Jaune whichcould aid later when Jaune eventually asks Oscar to join JNR. There have been too many signs this season.

  Having Jaune have tension with Oscar so that he can learn to appreciate the value of having Oscar on the team.

“…Don’tworry. We’re not leaving for Atlas without him.”“This teamjust isn’t the same without you, Oscar.”

Bringing up Pyrhha so that JNR could finally have closure for their fallen friend and former teammate and move on anew. 

I know that Oscar’s justification for incorporating red into his combat outfit theme is different from JNR’s but I like that it’s in there not just to symbolize Oscar’s admiration for Ruby but to also give him a colour that connects him to JNR. Just look how good these four looking next to each other. Look how Oscar fits in with JNR. 

And of course, my favourite moment from C11 to signal JNPR’s potential revival with Oscar on the team---the fact that Oscar is making the same reaction to Jaune as Nora and Ren---that felt like such team moment. Like three team members being amused over their dorky leader. I’m just waiting for the show to make it official already.  

That JNPR revival is coming guys! It’s getting stronger with every new episode. Now all I need is for Oscar to fight alongside JNR for the finale and like a hacker, he’ll be in for sure.

Plus I like this idea because it couldpotentially lead into my theory on Oscarbecoming immortal---resetting the reincarnation cycle byasking the God of Light to grant him immortality so that he may carry out themission of stopping Salem without having to force Ozma, the Past Wizards or anyfuture Wizards from this curse.

I think something like this could be cool ifturned canon…but I dunno. Not sure if Writers would do something like this.

Going back on your point anon,C13 is the seasonfinale episode. It’s the verylast episode of V6. Waiting to have Oscar meet Ozpin at thevery end. Giving everyone their development throughout the season while waitingto drop Oscar’s at the very end---I dunno. That might not sit well with somePineheads who were hoping it would’ve come sooner y’know. I know it’s just yourtheory anon-chan but I actually think you could be correct in that assumption.

If I were to interpret the narrative of thenext three episodes, I could assume that all three episodes will involve big fightsso I’m expecting C11-13 to be very action and combat heavy. We already got a taste of it fromthe C11 teaser clips.

If I had to guess, I feel like C11 will focusheavily on the Adam vs Bumblebee fight while cutting back and forth between the Cordo boss fight with JNR_QROW.I actually don’t think the mecha battle is the main fight. By the end of C11,we’ll probably get some reveal of a major twistto suggest that Adam was only the decoyto a much bigger scheme.

In C8, Ruby brought up Cinder Fall after Maria mentioned her ‘trial by fire’. Thisis why I’m waiting to see if Cinder and Neo show up. An interesting way to end C11is on a cliff-hanger where Grimm arrive to attack Argus along with Fire and Ice-cream.

By the end of C11, it would be cool if Neo andCinder were revealed to be working with Adam again and arrive with an army of Grimm to rain down on the unsuspectingcitizens of Argus---perhaps an army comprised of the Grimm we’ve seen all volume like the Manticoreand the Sphinx, maybe even some Apathy or just the generic cannon fodder Grimmlike the traditional Ursas and Beowolves.

Then in C12, we get the heroes splitting up to tackle the enemy while evacuating thecitizens to the Argus Atlesian Military Base since it’s probably the mostwell-protected safe haven in the entire city. This is why I don’t want Cordo tobe defeated because I’d like to see a temporarycease fire as Cordo redirects her attention to helping the heroes protect the citizens.

Maybe we can even have Maria assist from the air by evacuating people with her ship?

One thing I’ve been hoping to see for thefinale is Oscar fighting with JNR. Like we get to see Oscar, Jaune, Nora and Ren work together and pulloff team attacks coordinated by Jaune to take down an enemy horde to furtherhint at Oscar potentially joining up with them to revive Team JNPR. If C12 is along episode then we could get to see the Neo versus Ruby and Cinder versusOscar rematch go down and since the CRWBY like to toss in cliff-hangers…imagine if the episodeends with my theory of Neo killing Oscar while he tried protecting Ruby andthat’s how the episode just ends.

Then in C13, we get the reunion of Oscar and Ozpin. The only way I’ll accept itbeing like this is if the 90% of the episode is focused on just Oscar and Ozpinreuniting in the Realm between Realms or the Dreamscape or where the Writersdecide to toss their reunion.

No offense to the writers but they have skimpedon Oscar’s development this season which is disappointing since the posteralluded to it so…I’m hoping C11-C13 will make up for it and be our freckled farm boy’s crowning moments toshine like the golden boy he is.

But we shall see. In the meantime, these are justmy thoughts and theories and I hope they answered your question anon-chan. I plan ongoing more in depth in some of the stuff I talked about like Oscar’s potentialimmortality or even my ideas for how V6 could end in upcoming RWBY Musings. But asI said, I’m waiting to see how C11 goes because for me that will determine thekind of finale we’re going to get. So let’s see tomorrow!

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

[endlessceaselessboundless]

Humanity & Faith & Fan service

So the only other real life person I know who watches SPN is what you’d call a casual viewer. She thinks it’s fun, she likes watching them kill the monster of the week, and she thinks Cas and Dean are just really good friends. 

She finally just watched the first 4 episodes of S13 and I was dying to hear what she thought since I knew she didn’t ship it. And after watching those eps, she still doesn’t. Which is mindblowing and completely fascinating to me, because I felt like the show was really bludgeoning us over the head with the Dean and Cas love story during those eps. 

We discussed some moments from the show, Dean praying in the first episode for God to bring back Cas (and everyone), the Cas/Mary beers at the start of ep. 3, the mix tape and “I love you” scenes from S12, and basically she waved all of that away. A mixture of fan service and misplaced emphasis it seems. 

Now, I have also just finished reading, The Things They Carried for my book club, and the rest of this is gonna get cray cray, so it’s under the cut. 

The Things They Carried  is about the Vietnam War, and the author talks a lot about what makes a “true” war story, and basically he says all the stories he tells in the book are not true, but that they happened exactly like this. He breaks up several of the stories with his own sort of author commentary about truth and how a story should work. He says, “All you can do is tell it one more time, patiently, adding and subtracting, making up a few things to get at the real truth.”

This is so true, because this is how stories work. If we told a story exactly as it happened and included every possible detail then the story would be terrible (I know b/c I have a tendency to do this and everyone looks terribly bored in the middle of my stories). ALSO because the story likely involves people we can actually never know the whole story because some part of it, some very important parts of it, are locked in their brain forever. For instance- when Cas says “I love you” in S12, we must all interpret that in the way that best makes sense to us, because it is just never clarified. Cas’ final and real intentions in that scene can only be guessed at, I mean he was dying! Maybe he wasn’t even sure what his intentions were. That’s why we can never know the full truth about a story. 

That’s what I think Tim O’Brien the author of The Things They Carried meant when he said “making up a few things to get at the real truth.” Dean and Cas and Sam are never going to just tell us the real “truth” if they did the show would be terrible. Also, we often don’t know the real “truth” ourselves, so keeping the characters from telling us the truth is part of what makes them believable. 

When I told my non-shipping friend about the number of Cas beers versus Mary beers that Dean had next to his bed at the beginning of ep3 I was talking about something SPN had made up to get at the “real truth” of that scene and Dean’s headspace. This is ep.3 after all, we all know Dean is sad, the real “truth” of this scene is exploring what that sadness is about because we already knew he was fucking sad. The number and types of beer he drank are all part of explaining  the sadness, it’s showing the viewer something to get at the “truth” of his sadness. 

Now truth is highly flexible in some cases, and the thing that has really been pinging around my brain since we talked was her dismissal of certain things as fan service. The mention of fan service suggests that the scenes in question are not as legitimate because they were done to appease a certain faction of fans. That's the “truth” that some casual viewers live. I’m not terribly familiar with fan service, I thought it was just when anime girls wore skimpy clothes for no good reason, but apparently Dean giving Cas a mix tape off screen and then them having a convo about it later is also fan service. This seems wrong to me. 

Here’s the thing though, one character dressed in a sexy manner is not going to impact your plot that much, but creating a bunch of deeply emotional scenes between two major characters on a show, now that’s going to change the nature of your show.  So what is the nature of our show? I would argue there are several levels, there’s that casual viewer level where it’s just fun to watch the brother’s kill monsters and save the day. There’s a deeper level where SPN, like any good story, is about what it means to be human. Obviously, the deeper level covers a lot of ground. After 13 seasons we also have to accept that the nature of the show has changed. Sam and Dean are in very different places in their lives than when we started in season 1. The things they want, the questions they are asking themselves are very different. So....what is fan service then?

Season 1, the episode “Hookman,” Sam and Dean are at a college party trying to talk about the case. Sam looks uncomfortable, Dean wants to have some fun, he’s already making eyes at the party goers and scoping out his chances for the night. Fine. We don’t see who he’s looking at, it could be anyone, this could be Jensen ad libbing because Dean is into PEOPLE, he’s into SEX. Fine. BUT THEN a male extra walks into the frame and has a reaction to SAM and DEAN has a reaction to this. Sam is reading something and does not see this guy who is...checking him out? It’s unclear, pesky humans not revealing their true intentions! But DEAN CLOCKS THIS GUY IMMEDIATELY and has a STRONG reaction. He grabs Sam and moves him away and we cut to them in a different room of the party. Now it’s clear this WAS ALL INTENTIONAL on the part of the show. Someone had to tell that extra what to do and I wish,OH GEEZ I WISH SO HARD SOMETIMES, that I could know what the direction to that extra was. This is a tiny scene, it’s only a few second long, but it’s there to show us something about the characters. It shows us that Dean knows what’s up, he knows when a guy is cruising and he doesn’t want Sam involved in that, they don’t have time, Sam wouldn’t be interested, he’s a little jealous that some guy is checking out Sam and not him, could be anything, we don’t get to know what his final personal inner thoughts are. It shows us that Sam is disengaged from people, he’s not a partier, he’s still upset about Jess and he’s not looking for a good time, he’s looking for revenge, he’s looking for death, so he misses all the life going on around him, including the sex. 

What was my point again? Jensen is dreamy? I mean always, but no not that, Dean is bisexual? Yes, but more importantly it’s been there, it’s been intentional, it just wasn’t part of the plot. So was this small scene fan service? It would seem to suggest that Dean has a different relationship with men than Sam but at this point in the show none of the fans were asking for that, so is this not fan service? The nature of the show in season 1 was very different from where we are now - Sam and Dean didn’t have love interests because they were both going to die or the show was going to end after Season 5. So why was this short scene there? It was there because it makes things interesting, it reveals thing about our characters, gives them more depth.  

But now look at SPN, we are 13 seasons in and what are these two guys doing? I mean WHO are they doing? Because as Sheila O’Malley likes to point out in her recaps Sam is NOT getting laid enough. Even Dean has really slowed down in the one night stand department. Inevitably as we age we think about our life, what is our legacy? Oh wait, Sam and Dean have totally been talking about this for like 3 or 4 seasons now because they have finally reached a place in their lives where it makes sense to talk about it, to wonder about it, to look at your devastatingly handsome bestest bud angel and be like “You know what? Maybe I DO want to know the name of the person I wake up to in the morning.” Because maybe Sam was right back in Season 8 and ALL YOUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD except this one sexy, sexy angel who’s been there through think and thin, the end of the freaking world and he still just looks at you with those sad, sexy eyes and what else are you supposed to do? Find some rando girl? No, I don’t think so. Also Sam was into that Eileen girl (as the representation of official culture this makes perfect sense for Sam, good job Sam. Sorry they killed your girlfriend). 

But, oh no! I made it about sex, which is apparently just me being a perv when it’s two dudes. If anything I think it should be about sex, because dudes, life is fucking about sex! That’s the whole point and that’s who Dean Winchester is, he is humanity, I’ve felt strongly that he should be canonically bisexual ever since he held up a whoopee cushion in, I dunno, season 4 or something and I realized he was the embodiment of humanity. It also makes sense that he should be in love with Cas, the representation of Faith on the show. Where would humanity be without Faith after all? We would be no where, we would all be monsters. I’m saying this as a devout atheist, so I don’t mean faith in God, SPN has clearly stated that God is not the answer, God will not be there for anyone. What we have to have faith in is ourselves, in each other. We have to have faith in the idea that we are enough, that we can overcome the challenges life throws at us and keep on living, keep on being good. 

So yeah, don’t tell me stuff is fan service. I’m not buying it. The show has a very consistent worldview you could say, and Dean and Cas’ relationship is a big part of that, it makes sense. I don’t think it’s invalid just because a bunch of fans like it and want more of it. That’s dumb. It becomes a chicken vs. egg argument. Which came first - the themes and symbols the show is working with to tell it’s story or the fan service of Dean and Cas making eyes at each other? *exasperated face*

If I could just bring this back to The Things They Carried, O’Brien says about people who misunderstand his war stories -

“It wasn’t a war story. It was a love story.”

[twdmusicboxmystery]

8x04: Details, Odds, and Ends

Hey Everyone! I said on Monday I wouldn't do a details post, because most of the details I saw I put in my original Analysis post. Buuuuttttt...my FB peeps, as usual, are geniuses and caught things I missed. So I'm going to talk about a few details they picked up on and then some odds and ends that I think are important to note after this episode. 

Details:

Remember how I said Carol asking Ezekiel if he's okay mirrors a convo Bethyl had? @getkath pointed out that Richonne also had it in 4x16. So each of our power couples have had that convo, and in each of these three cases it was before the romance actually went canon. Just saying.

From M-Nonny:

When Carol is in the building, she's listening to the Saviors argue. One of them is angry that the others aren't moving fast enough. Another says, "We're almost done. Jesus!" Yeah, how did I miss that one? Daryl's line: "Almost done." Let's hope and pray that means we're almost there! 

Then there's the "Jesus" thrown in, which is curse word, but still. AND they're loading weapons for the war. The weapons Rick and Daryl were searching for when they discovered Gracie. Kind of interesting. 

There are a lot of 3s around Carol and having specifically to do with the weapons/ammo. One of the saviors says "There's another THREE up at the Sanctuary, and then some." He says that while he loads the ammo into a hatchback car. So he's putting it in the trunk. 3 in the trunk? Perhaps it could be symbolic for Beth being at the Sanctuary? Carol tells the Saviors hiding behind the truck that they must only have 3 or 4 rounds left. 

Gunther says to Ezekiel, "You took you're shot. It's over." Callback to Coda, after someone took a shot that hit Beth, Officer Shepherd said, "It's over." Very interesting. I really like that connection!

Carol has an A on her paintball gear. 

@bluesandbeth pointed out that, with the line, "There's another three up at the Sanctuary, and then some," the "and then some" sticks out. Why add that? It really doesn't add any meaning to the sentence. Is there three, or more than that? Feels like it's hinting at something, but hard to say what. 

Abraham said something similar in S6. "Rick knows every fine grain of said shit, and then some." Makes sense when Abraham says it, but not so much when the Savior in 8x04 says it. If it's meant to be a callback to Abraham, why? Of course that was said in the finale of S5, and Abraham was a major Beth proxy. Just saying. 

@wdway caught that when Ezekiel talks to the crowd, Jerry is eating an apple in the background. (Apple theory). And guys, I gotta say, something is up with Jerry and Beth symbolism. Not sure what it means yet, but I'll illustrate. First there's this apple. And this is the second time we've seen this. The first time was in 7x16 when Aaron handed Jerry an apple after the battle. Aaron is a sometime proxy for Beth, but we can also clearly see a 76.  Episode 76 of the series is Heads Up. You know, the one where Glenn is revealed to be alive, and his dumpster death was a fake out? Makes me think Jerry will have something to do with Beth's reveal, but not sure what yet. I'll come back to Jerry. 

Remember the red drum of poison? I missed some things about it. 

@wdway noticed there's a diamond on it. Remember that Beth is the queen of diamonds (X). There's also an upside down 5 on it. (Think S5). But this is a super-cool connection. Remember that at Grady, when Beth and Dawn talk, they sit on red containers and there are lots of chemicals around them? I believe Beth was even mixing chemicals (probably for cleaning) when Dawn walked in.

Maybe we could even tie this to her doing the mopping? So they showed us all these chemicals at Grady, and now we're at a defunct chemical factory? That simply HAS to mean something. 

@wdway also made the excellent point that we see the tunnel, which is FG's title card, right? It looks all pretty and tranquil. But on closer inspection, there's poison in the water and things really aren't all that tranquil. In other words, things aren't really what they seem. 

You could say that about Grady too. Granted, pretty much from the second Dawn opened her mouth, we wanted to punch her in the face, but on the surface, it's a working hospital that saves people. But when you look closer, there were a lot of shady things going on there. Not such a great place after all. Kind of like this tunnel.

And of course we could apply that to Beth's "death" as well. Even the dutch camera angles are used in filming to show that not everything is as it seems. (X)

I said I’d come back to Jerry. I didn’t do a TTD post this week because I really didn’t see much TD stuff in the episode. There was one major thing I missed, though. They mentioned randomly that Jerry/Cooper Andrews has a wonderful singing voice.

Now, TD tends to pounce on anything musical, but this wasn’t about Beth and it didn’t really occur to me to read into it. But guess what? Just before bringing this up, Chris Hardwick said to Jerry (Cooper was on via satellite) that he’d probably be the last man standing. Seriously? That’s what Beth said to Daryl. And then directly after that they started talking about his lovely singing voice. (Which btw @Brynn_81 (IG) confirmed. She met him and heard him sing.)

See what I mean about Jerry maybe being involved in Beth’s return somehow? No idea how yet. Just saying that’s twice in this episode that I’m side-eyeing something around him. I was also thinking that that ax of his (which he lost this episode) is kind of reminiscent of something a woodsman or huntsman would use. And that character also figures in the Snow White legend. Thoughts?

I think that's it for details, but they give me hope!

Now for odds and ends:

I also wanted to talk about this: 

It's Melissa McBride's tweet from Sunday. (Thanks to @katkhaos for bringing it to my attention.) I've talked about the "tomorrow" theme before, so this immediately caught my FB group's eye. The tweet doesn't make tons of sense, and we're not sure what it means, but it's yet another thing that points to a shift coming between episodes 4 and 5. Gimple said after ep 4, things would get "acoustic." Let's hope that means what we're hoping for. 

Now, I'm not saying this Tweet has anything to do with Beth. But it suggests something big during or after this episode. And what happened with Carzekiel here? Well, Ezekiel is obviously going through some stuff, and as I said on Monday, this may lead to Carol leading for a bit. All I'm saying is that "tomorrow" seems to be coming, and that gives me hope. Can't wait to see how this all plays out. 

Finally, my good friend @brynn_81 (IG) posted this yesterday:

Just made my day, so with her permission, I thought I'd share! 

Also wanted to add that last night, Amber Dawn Fox (who played Officer Bello at Grady) followed me on Twitter. 

I don’t think it really had much to do with me. My friend @sparklepoodles tweeted that we needed Grady nation back on the show. Not only did Amber Dawn Fox retweet that, I think she just followed those who liked it, which I did. But I’m taking as a good sign that the Grady actors are still liking and following and retreating those who say they hope to see Grady on the show again, rather than denying that will happen.

Finally, I just wanted to reiterate one more time that there’s no reason to give up hope just because episode 4 wasn’t what we hoped it was. I know a lot of people are disappointed. You’re not alone. And a lot of that is my fault because I was gunning for episode 4. I was disappointed too. But remember that things are supposed to get acoustic AFTER episode 4, according to Gimple. And we have tons of things to hope for still.

I’ll put my thoughts together about the MSF and hopefully post them on Friday. Hopefully that will help. 

@thegloriouscollectorlady was talking about this in our group last night, and I heartily agree with everything she said. They’ve opened lots of new story lines this season (Gracie, for example). Until we see where it’s going, I’m not giving up hope. 

Daryl’s arc hasn’t been resolved. Quite the opposite. He’s in a worse place than he’s been since he was with Beth in S4. Until he either dies or something else restores his faith and humanity to him, I’m not giving up hope. 

Gimple said Daryl will find love. (Another reason among MANY to rest easy that he’s not dying yet.) Until he does, I’m not giving up hope. 

Many of you have asked about the logo being white, which I still believe is a resurrection thing. I simply don’t believe they would do such a huge symbol for one measly resurrection (Morales) that last all of 5 minutes. 

In fact, we have proof that they wouldn’t. If that were the case, we would have seen it when Sam from 4a showed up at Terminus. We didn’t. So until I see the rest of the season and figure out what this was all about, I’m not giving up hope.

And if none of that works for ya, just go back to our core arguments that still haven’t been resolved. The opening credits flash, which contains what we’re pretty sure is Daryl’s arm. No way it’s a general representation of Grady. The dialogue foreshadows, which we’ve proved over and over again are thing. “I am strong.” “I’m getting out. Just like Noah.” I was thinking about Sasha last night and her final arc. Remember that in 5x10, with the sunrise, Maggie told her, “you’re gonna make it. We both will.”

Did that mean Sasha would never die? Obviously not. But she wasn’t dying right then. She survived another 2.5 seasons, and when she did die, we saw the end of her arc with the same sunset. Nothing remotely like that happened with Beth after she proclaimed that she, too, would survive. There were four element that were part of that sunrise in 5x10. Sasha, Maggie, Aaron (who represents Alexandria at large) and the music box. Only one of those arcs, Sasha’s has ended. The other three are still going.

And then there’s Morgan. Remember the Sugar Plum Fairy song. I’ll be watching Morgan closely when we see him again. I don’t think that will be this episode, so yet another reason not to give up hope yet. What if we don’t see him until the MSF? That would mirror his appearance after Coda. Again, I’ll put up thoughts/predictions about the MSF in a few days.

My point is that I don’t blame people for being disappointed. I was too. But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to give up. Not remotely.

That's it for today, peeps. Hope everyone is having a great week!

Special thanks to the peeps named above and the rest of my FB group for their insights.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

8-Clock Theory

Good morning! So originally I was going to include all this in my Saturday theory about Alpha, Omega, and Infinity, but it turned out to be too long. So here it is. I’m going to go over all the clocks we see clearly around Beth in S5 (there are probably fewer of them than you think) and then give you an overall sequential theory for the ones in Slabtown. Let’s start there.

1) The first clock when Beth wakes up. This shows many numbers, and we’ve always assumed it pointed to 4, 7, 8 and 10, which would mean it points to the episodes that are important in Beth’s arc in S5. (Ep 10 being when the music box woke up.) I’m starting to think now that we’ve interpreted that wrong all along. Don’t get me wrong, it could have multiple meanings. I think most of Gimple’s symbolism functions on multiple levels. Perhaps what we thought before was also right. But now I’m looking at wider shots. In other cases, the clock numbers seem to represent seasons, not episodes.

Mini-Theory about Opening Clock:

The first shot shows 3, 4, 5, 6. But notice the 3 and 6 are cut off, which means it’s focusing on 4 and 5. 

Obviously Beth was in S3, but I think this is showing which seasons Beth will be in for the current arc. In other words, since Gimple took the reins. Perhaps you could even argue, the seasons in which she’s gets (some of) Andrea’s CB arcs.

The next shot shows 7, 8, and 9. But notice that 7 is cut off, where 8 and 9 are not. 

So perhaps it’s telling us that Beth will be in S8 and S9, but obviously she wasn’t in 7. 

Finally, this shot shows 9, 10, and 11, but 11 is cut off. What does that mean? 

Don’t know, but it’s probably one of two things. Either Beth will die for real after S10 or (more likely imho) season 10 will simply wrap up the current arc for her. S11 will be something new.

(If this seems crazy to you, remember that Gimple told us he had through season 15 already planned out. He totally knows what’s happening in S10 and probably did even back in S4. Also, remember the Get Well Soon picture on Beth’s wall points at 10:10. I’ve always wondered if that points to something in S10. Not that I think it’ll take that long to see her (Better not!) but it just points to something that won’t happen until S10.)

So that’s my current theory on the opening clock in Slabtown.

2) The second 8-clock we see is in the scene directly after the opening credits. 

Edwards takes Beth to the room of a patient who never regained consciousness, so they don’t know his name. There’s an 8 clock in the background. It actually shows a few minutes before 8. Another thing of note is that this is where we got the original Bisquick reference, later repeated by Abraham, Beth’s proxy. Edwards unplugs him and they dispose of his body in the elevator shaft.

3) The third clock is in Trevitt’s room. It shows just a few minutes after 8:00. 

Here’s the thing about Trevitt: while he dies and I don’t think he’ll be back or anything, there are tons of resurrection symbols around him. We see relatively little green inside of Grady. (Yeah, some walls, some scrubs, etc., but in terms of details, not much.) For example, the color cords that @camie1390 first noticed more than a year ago. Blue ones go into the rooms of the wards. (Blue = imprisonment and the wards are prisoners.) Beth is mostly surrounded by red and yellow ones. (Red = death, yellow = escape. Also, as @frangipanilove recently discovered, red Easter eggs–real ones–specifically represent resurrection, so the red may double as a resurrection symbol. That actually works well, btw. Not all death will be followed by resurrection in any given story, of course. But resurrection, by definition, must be preceded by death.)

My point is, the ONLY green cords we see in Slabtown are in Trevitt’s room. He’s also the doctor that worked at St. Ignatius, which they went out of their way to tell us. I won’t go into details here but there are plenty of parallels between Beth’s story line and St. Ignatius. Especially with an injury he underwent and overcame. It wasn’t a head injury, but he nearly lost legs (foot/shoe theory) and limped the rest of his life.

So anyway. Bottom line, Trevitt = resurrection.

The only other major clock we see in Slabtown is the one we’re all familiar with: the 7:30 clock when Dawn yells at Beth about not being able to survive on her own. 

For the record, I don’t think we were wrong about this. Obviously, Beth didn’t show up in 7x06, but I still think it represents the method (greenroute) Beth will use to return to TF (Oceanside).

So, here’s my theory about the three major clocks in Slabtown. (We’ll put aside that first clock since it represents an overall look at her arc in terms of what episodes/seasons are important.) For purposes of this post, we’ll assume the 8:00 clocks represent Beth showing up again in S8.

1. The first clock shows a time a few minutes before 8, right? 

I think this scene represents what happens with Beth before S8. Remember that they don’t know this patient’s name and he doesn’t regain consciousness. No one has said Beth’s name since 5x10. As far as TF knows, she’s dead and never regained consciousness. We also get the Bisquick reference here. Not only does it tie her to Abraham as a proxy (him for her) but Bisquick is self-rising, so it’s also a kind of goofy resurrection reference. We also got the Merle Haggard reference. I’m sure there’s a reason they chose Merle Haggard (we know music is important and this was a conscious choice) but I’ve never figured out what it was. In a more general way, we have music (Merle Haggard) + resurrection (Bisquick) = “I still sing.”

2. Then there’s the Trevitt clock, with all the resurrection symbolism around it. Notice the clock here says a bit after 8. 

It’s hard to tell what the exact time is because of the angle, but my first impression was 8:03. And remember this possibility that @katkhaos discovered behind Daryl in the trunk. 

Might read 8x03. So I’m thinking 8x03 is gonna be big. I don’t know if that’s where she’ll be revealed alive. Or perhaps it will be earlier in 8x01, or 8x02, but that will be when she and Daryl reunite? Something like that. I also notice in this scene with Trevitt, Noah says to her, “You’re still at it, huh?” Very close to “you’re still alive” (RIchonne) “I still sing.” Just saying.

(Everyone’s familiar with the Richonne parallels in the finale, right? It was a death fakeout for Michonne, based off one of CB Andrea’s arc. Then she appeared to be dead, and Rick was surprised to find she was alive. His words to her: “You’re alive.” Just saying.)

3. 7:30 clock. In terms of chronology, this clock comes after Trevitt. If I’m right about what these represent, that makes sense. First Beth dies (S5). Then she wakes up. Then she escapes Grady and reunites with TF. We have, through the Slabtown clocks, a representation of the three major branches of Beth’s arc.

Just for good measure, I looked at clocks in 5x07 and 5x08 as well. I only noticed two more. In 5x07, there’s one in Edwards’ office when Beth asks him what meds to give Carol. 

I know I’ve talked about this before but didn’t have any concrete theories about it. I’m still really unsure about it, mostly because the time isn’t clear. (If anyone can get a clearer shot/idea of what time it says, let me know.) It may say 7:50, which is prior to 8. That would kind of make sense because at this point, Carol is being heavily paralleled with Beth. She’s unconscious. This scene is about giving her meds to help her heal/wake up. So if this is part of the pre-S8 theme for Beth, that might be part of what’s going on in her storyline prior to what we see in S8.

On the other hand, it almost looks to me like the hand on the 8 might be the minute hand rather than the hour hand. If that’s the case, the clock either says 9:40 or 10:40. Again, we have the 10:10 Get Well Soon clock (paper) so either of those times could also be the case. If they are, this probably points to something in a future season that we won’t understand for a while. So yeah, really on the fence about this one.

The clock in Coda makes me much happier. We see it near the elevator bay when O‘Donnell attacks Dawn and Beth. It clearly says 3:30.

You wanna know why this clock makes me so happy? What I think the most likely explanation for it is? Going by the above theory of the clocks pointing to season and episode, this clock would point to 3x06. That’s Hounded. Guess what happens in that episode? Daryl finds Carol, who was presumed dead and even given a grave, alive and well. Juuuuuust saying. ;D

So there’s my current clock theory/analysis. Anyone have TIME to share their thoughts? *dodges digital tomatoes* 🍅😉