#and it's like. it makes me feel worse bc i know it's such a disservice to everyone else.

[faultlinescrew]

At long last the stars have aligned and I can finally Amypost, so I bring you:

Every single thought I have ever had about Amy Dallon ever

- There's a lot of things I like about Amy. I like the trope of 'healers but fucked up', I love her powers and character design, and enjoy what her character brings to the worldbuilding, powerbuilding and narrative.

And then wildbow wrapped it all up in a layer of lesbiaphobia, foregoing the slippery slope and diving straight into the 'predatory gay' trope, spawning discource for years to come and winning Amy the crown of 'most problematic gay' in the process.

- Amy, like a vast majority of worms cast, is a horribly traumatised teenager, and thusly, does some fucked up stuff due to that trauma. Setting out to make her worse than canon feels like you're doing the character a disservice, and buying into Amy's own insecurities about herself

- I don't believe that what Amy did to Victoria was an act of incest on Amy's part but Victoria is victim of incest

- I had to look up how old she was for this bc I realised I didn't know, apparently in worm she's 17? Wild

- If I ever was to pokemon au her, I'd give her a shiny mimikyu (Victoria would have a pikachu/pikaclone, probably emolga), for the symbolism and it fits her colour scheme well

- I don't really think about Amy that much, this is the most I've thought about her ever really, which i feel like is a little bit of a shame. Homophobic tropes aside I do rlly enjoy what this character had to offer (in worm. I am only reading ward if someone pays me) and I think that she would've be one of my favourites in different circumstances. But I really don't want to deal with the fandom discource surrounding her so ill return to avoiding the Amy dallon cube once more

[llycaons]

okay and here's p2. imagine me walking around going HELLO? HELLO? HELLO? HELLO???

armand isn't in a forgiving mood, which I can understand, but louis IS in excruciating pain so making him apologize NOW, and partially for TRYING TO DIE feels really petty

and now he's talking about selling...dude that's cold

HELLO?

armand. dude. what the fuck. stop torturing daniel to get back at a guy who's like half-dead. I wish this dl had subs bc armand going THIS IS FINE WE'RE ALL FINE is insane

we talk a lot about louis's trauma since the story IS about him but daniel recalling details like what products were being advertised on tv while staring at the cellophane-wrapped neighbor is like extremely horrifying and I don't like his unwarranted hostility and cruelty towards louis but given that experience I can understand his wariness the beginning of s1 better

the off-tune kazoos in the background. really fucky. im so scared

armand torturing someone louis likes in front of him to 'understand'...I guess the gloves are off. at the end of s1 everyone was claiming freaking out and claiming armand was WORSE than lestat which i think is pretty patently untrue but this man. this is real fucked up. I don't understand why louis stayed after this except...what, to make claudia's death not a waste? to have something to do to stave off his suicidiality?

I mean something they do have in common is being really obsessive and controlling over louis's affections/attention

'BARTERING WITH DESIRE IS THAT WHAT MAKES YOU FASCINATING' SAYS THE FORMER SEX SLAVE

daniel says he's good at getting people to open up which is funny because we have rarely seen this skill in the interview here

but ALSO. armand asks this and daniel actually engages, doesn't just yes-man to stay alive

well. a little

*physically and mentally torturing a guy who you're holding captive* DO YOU THINK I'M BORING????

armand's from delhi

'eager black hole' to contrast louis's tearful confusion

daniel's not hunting for the truth, in this moment. what's the point to his question? no point. fuck your boyfriend

oh shit, instead of armand and louis vs. daniel now it's louis and daniel vs. armand. hurry, he's almost back!

the feet in the sand!

one of the podcast groups I listen to is CONVINCED louis and armand want daniel to reveal some secret he apparently has, and that's the entire purpose of this interview and that's what 'we can have him saying what happened next in no time' means. I really don't understand that assumption. it just sounds like they're trying to control the narrative. but the interview structure is upended now. louis is asking daniel - try to remember! try! go back to the chair. what was happening? what was he saying?

it's also so disturbing hearing louis periodically beg for armand to help him from the bedroom. he can't even move on his own! it hurts! and he doesn't have claudia anymore :(

based on what I know about the novel it sounds like they ramped up armand's malice in this episode. oh wait no he goes and does it

you can see his big vampire fang wounds right there too

*leaning over your grievously wounded boyfriend* so why are you still so obsessed with your ex?

ahhh so louis's description of lestat WAS exaggerated compared to what he shared privately with armand. and armand theorizes this is because...he wants lestat to chase after him again? unhinged, but both of them have made poor decisions when it comes to lestat so I'm not surprised by the suggestion

🙄 over armand being like 'ohh im trapping you in ~empathy~ so I guess I'll selflessly leave you to the man you really want as an act of service' as if louis wasn't HALF-DEAD and lestat wasn't his abusive ex OUT FOR BLOOD. more like acts of DISSERVICE amiright

FUCK HE CONTACTED LESTAT????

okay I SQUEALED 'YES IM HERE'!!!!!!!!! BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOUIS IS SAYING NO!!!! WHAT A NIGHTMARE!!!!

'oh hon hon hon louis louis whet hes heppened why hev you injured yerselfff mon cher mon cher' omggggg and armand CANT SAY I LOVE YOU SCREAM

'you left me for death' way to make his suicide attempt about YOU

this is such an insane comment to make and I apologize in advance but this would never happen with wangxian because lwj knows the importance of being selfless and supportive and doesn't take suicide personally. wow such a strong couple 💪actually how funny is it that I'm watching this messy complicated show about toxic relationships between awful immortals and going 'hmm NOT getting a lot of fanfic wangxian vibes from this' like yeah I should read more romance but I simply do not like it! so many of the tropes are boring and played out!!! what's a girl to do!!!

REST

REST

REST

SUDDEN TENDERNESS??? ARMAND?????

ah no. the softness of murder

this speech he gives must be close to what they said to their prey in the theater. he's very good at it. your future is bleak and will be full of regrets. living is hard. do the easy thing instead and die here instead. and I'll take care of you. I'll hold you. rest now. rest

and we know that obviously daniel doesn't die here so it's not so much tension as the somberness and weight of the moment. it's a beautiful scene, and terribly tragic. a murderer - a predator - is convincing his victim - his prey - to give up. to simply stop resisting, and allow himself to be consumed

but daniel has two daughters and a successful career in the current day so we know that's not how this ends. louis again! not asking. maitre and arun. the script is flipped once again. who's really in power in this relationship for long? daniel must live as a testament to our companionship. let him go. so armand does

and what DOES louis see in daniel? is his long-neglected humanity returning? what is he saying to him, in his excruciating pain?

oh my god. reading his own book. he remembered every word. he gave him a lifeline. he gave him a lifeline. because there are stories out there and they need to be told, and daniel is passionate about telling them, his life matters, and he isn't inconsequential. and no matter how his marriages crumbled or his daughters stopped talking to him or his career stalled or his health faltered that was always going to be true. daniel's life mattered, and it mattered that louis saved him that night.

and louis taking on the voice of a god or angel...wow. wow. damn

the precise edit on daniel and louis's memories. of course it's armand. just like the ruler, slicing away the pages of claudia's journal so neatly.

louis's feetsies 🥺 so sweet

louis and daniel vs. armand....louis easy and calm, and armand slightly nervous - what have they been talking about while I was gone? san francisco?

HELLO. I PRESERVE YOUR HAPPINESS WHEN YOU CAN'T???

WHY DOES THAT SOUND SO FAMILIAR?????!!!! HMMMM ARMAND????

[larmalot]

who else has conflicted feelings on the Bad Batch finale

Maybe it was the budget but something just felt off to me -- I don't know that I can put it into words but it was there. I am whelmed.

The runtime was so short! And for a show typically heavy on nuanced emotions, it felt rushed and pointedly lacking on emotional impact. 

We absolutely should have heard more from the rescued clone prisoners! And we barely got anything from Crosshair even though he got dismembered!! Emerie's betrayal for the sake of the children and finally her choosing her OWN path -- that deserved *way* more time.

Nala Se honestly deserved to kill Hemlock herself, but killing Rampart was actually pretty good consolation. I enjoyed that scene even though I was surprised the dialogue didn't reference Rampart destroying Kamino directly.

But so many plot things went unaddressed. The clone special operative set up as a mirror rival for Crosshair (i only recently learned his name was CX-2) i think died when Hunter hit him with a spear, but i'm not even sure it was him bc those agents were so anonymized in part from the canon of having their identities erased. But definitely it should have been Crosshair who killed him!!

I was also a bit disappointed that Hemlock didn't go off the rails more. Even Anakin lost it at the end and became super aggressive and violent, and i was expecting was at least some growling and rough handling from Hemlock -- especially directed at Omega, whom he views as imperial property. But I guess this is a kids' show. Part of me was also hoping to find out the reason behind his excellent gloved hand tic, but nada. I'm just saying he spent two seasons priming that hand to strangle someone and then never did. *shrugs*

The appearance of those CX(?) agents emerging from their tanks with new special weapons we'd never seen before -- well it wasn't unfathable, but it was a bit random and almost too much (i was reminded of those helicopter lightsabers from the season 2 Rebels finale). With how they seemed to be designed to hold off the Batch with varying weapons and body types, i could easily buy them as orginially designed as mirror antagonists for an aborted season 4.

(The whole fan theory that Tech is alive but Hemlock made him an evil brainwashed clone would have been interesting, but i'm glad they left the sacrifice of his death intact.)

Rex never arriving with a calvary of reinforcements was the real surprise of this finale. As much as I like the title, I don't think it suited the episode at all or fit well with the context of these last episodes. It's a line said by Wrecker when the Batch debuted in TCW, but in this episode the Batch retired???! Plus they arrived on Tantiss in the episode before this one and were captured as soon as they entered the hangar. Not really the mighty calvary... Maybe it's that they arrived on Pabu (to stay). Idk.

And!!! the massive giant hanging plotline of the offscreen clone rebellion is so odd. The same guy does all these voices!!! It's a lot less forgivable than the way they've been writing around the Pabu characters -- which, by the way, got old FAST. This season it was worse than ever and since all the Pabu characters are POC, there is definitely another race insensitivity case to be made here. I know it ultimately boils down to budget, but how many times can an established character be mentioned or seen in a non-speaking role before it becomes a massive disservice?

I wasn't exactly expecting it but I'm also surprised they never wrapped up Cid's character. Another reason I'm thinking The Bad Batch was meant to run for at least 4 seasons, bc she also kinda deserved a farewell or a chance to make amends. And Emerie deserved more development!! Her joining the clone rebellion is just one small step of a whole new life, making her own decisions and learning to value herself!

I know I should be happy with the ending but it all felt so sanitized and disneyfied. Everyone chilling around Pabu in their Tantiss clothes was just too much for me. I'm convinced there was a budget issue that affected those decisions. And the finale scene -- even though I *liked* it, it felt like a neatly wrapped up means to funnel a grown up Omega directly into a Rebellion era show/movie as a guaranteed fan favorite character. That cheapened things for me, a lot.

Anyway, I'm glad people got what they wanted -- wet Batch boys in the rain, salt and pepper daddy Hunter, and the Zillo Beast going off into the sunset to live happy and free in the jungle. I didn't hate it, I'm just surprisingly unenthused. I'm holding out for bonus content to drop on May 4 (but i doubt it lmao).

[eddiegettingshot]

no but eddie being in such a happy, relaxed place mentally and emotionally would make this the perfect time for him to have a carefree self-discovery arc. whereas (imo at least) buck had a lot of unresolved shit that he was trying to avoid via natalia catching up to him. idk this is the same way i felt when they tried to act like he and his parents had gotten somewhere new in s6 when they just played out the exact cycle of buck getting hurt-them paying attention that was introduced in buck begins. like buck attempting to outrun his issues by jumping into something new is him falling into the same pattern as always - that doesn't change just bc he's dating a guy now. all this to say that there was a better way to play out buck's bi arc.

yeah i know i’ve been super negative but like, i feel like I’ve been consistent about my thoughts for the last three days - i’m genuinely upset FOR buck as a character because from a storytelling perspective i think he deserved a better coming out arc than “i’m having too many emotions i can’t deal with and my self-discovery is going to come at the expense of my best friend’s feelings (and health!) and at the expense of what the last six seasons have said about me as a person.” i think the entire episode made him look childish in a way that did him a disservice because you’re right, now it looks like he’s on the same hamster wheel but WORSE because he acted like an idiot in a brand new way in the process (which i really really REALLY really really hope is addressed next episode, but honestly, even the apology won’t make up for what a terrible friend he was in the first place).

like i said gay people have problems too and unless they are actually planning on having buck eventually be like, oh shit, it WAS about eddie, it’s literally going to look like every other situation he’s ever been in (and tbh i’m not saying this as someone who wants buddie - i don’t think it would be satisfying rn BECAUSE of this episode. but if they didn’t want buddie then they wrote themselves into a corner again with this by using eddie and by extension chris as plot devices, rather than e.g. the 118 which would have been a great callback to 2x01).

i so wish we had seen buck’s acting out culminate in some kind of thoughtful self-reflection that still could have led him to tommy, instead of having tommy show up (because of eddie right?) to smooth things over, validate buck’s insanity, and then be the one to 100% drive things forward. but idk i guess we’ll see what happens next time 🤷🏾‍♀️

[fonulyn]

I've been thinking about Infinite Darkness again, as one does lol, and especially why I'm not super fond of Claire in it. it's been hard to come to terms with that because I started out loving Claire, she's always been one of my favorites, she's fierce and loyal and does anything she has to for what she considers to be the right thing, the fair thing. I love her fierce attitude in re2 remake, and I despite Degeneration's shortcomings as a movie I loved how Claire was portrayed in it, that she'd chosen her own path and she was working tirelessly to make the world a safer place her own way.

which is also why I don't agree with the take that she was sidelined in ID because she didn't get to go in guns blazing, because to me it felt very natural to her almost anti-gun stance in Degeneration, AND because holy shit people a female character does not need to go around waving weapons to be badass?? she does the brainy thing, she figures out the entire conspiracy on her own, but she gets no credit for that feat?? bc she doesn't shoot enough guns?? yeah no. she did great. but I digress.

so, I went into ID loving Claire and came out of it annoyed as hell, feeling like she'd been betrayed and done dirty, but it's so hard to put a finger on why exactly. there's something about how she acts, something about how she specifically interacts with other people, that feels so awkward and so unlike her. she's so needlessly antagonistic, for one.

(and the ramble continues under a cut bc this got long)

and honestly, I think the main issue I have with her is that they dumbed her down. she's not an idiot. and somehow she still apparently assumes that a government agent can just answer all her questions and spill all secrets, and then she gets huffy when he doesn't? I get it that it sucks being dismissed by a friend, but at the same time they're not interacting as friends there, but as representatives of their respective organizations. I can't assume my doctor friend would spill all the info on her patients just because we're friends, exactly like I wouldn't tell her private info about my students. sometimes a person's job does come in the way. and Claire should be clever enough to know that and not just get pissy when she doesn't get what she wants.

and even bigger issue is the ending scene. it starts off so nice, all joking, and then when Leon says that he thought he told Claire not to do anything stupid while clearly in on the joke, Claire suddenly goes all "HEY I'M JOKING"?? yeah Claire, we know, everyone knows, but suddenly she decides to flip a switch and go from joking to angry.

and the "when are you going to stop treating me like a kid" line? it's just blatantly wrong. in re2? they don't even spend that much time together but when they do, they clearly treat each other as equals. in Degeneration? another character dismisses Claire and Leon immediately jumps in to defend her and let them know how capable she is. he and Claire talk about different paths, but in no way is it ever even hinted at that one of the paths would be better or worse than the other. there's never ever been anything but mutual respect between them. and I think it's a huge disservice to both to just dimiss that.

AND the infamous Chip of Destiny™. again, Claire is not stupid. she should know that the conspiracy goes deeper than just Wilson, and just exposing him will drive all the rest of the bad guys deeper underground where they'll be impossible to find. and even more importantly, exposing that information would paint the most ginormous target on her back, she'd be hunted down. and while that might be a risk she's willing to take, she also should respect that it's not something Leon is willing to do to her.

(I'm not saying Leon is blameless in that scene either, he could've spelled it out for her, like he did to Shen May earlier on. he could've at least tried to explain his side. instead he just clams down and makes things worse. I understand his motivations, he thinks he can dismantle the corruption from the inside (erroneously as we know but he's operating with way more limited info than we are) and he doesn't want to put Claire in danger. but damnit boy, open your mouth and say it, if not in that many words then at least some vague version of it!)

so yeah, I think that sums up my biggest issues with Claire in ID. she clearly is bright and can use her brain but then she has a couple of moments where she just. doesn't. for some reason. and how she's so needlessly antagonistic. she's always been ready to throw down if necessary, which I've always loved, but she's never snapped at people like she does at Leon in ID. it's like she's intentionally trying to be mean and I just can't fit that into my perception of Claire, I can't.

with all that said, ID is still one of my favorites of the animated RE movies (yes it's a movie lol), it just bothers me that they did this to her. she deserved better!

[autogynocrat]

going on anon instead of commenting because im closeted but abt the they/them degendering post. ur very correct but you also imply that trans men dont share this experience. i am a trans man and have also experienced they them degendering. im not trying to be rude, correct you, or disuade the conversation from acknowledging trans women. im also not denying it if you are trying to say that this is a WORSE issue for trans women - because it could be, i wouldn't know. i just think it does a disservice to the conversation to act like degendering is a phenomenon specific only to women. ignore this if that was just a vent post and you wherent actually trying to start a discussion, im sorry for bothering you if so. to reiterate this isn't meant to be a "making this about me" thing, it's just that ur post says directly that only trans women experience this, and that isn't true in my personal experience so I just wanted to say that bc i think that separating trans men & women from eachother TOO much in these sorta discussions can be detrimental to progress because it can create a divide that pits us against each other when truthfully we are in the same boat, even if many of our experiences differ. idk if uve maybe had an experience where a trans men invalidated u for this, and that's why u said only trans women ever get it. if that's the case it's really unfortunate- people should listen to others when they share their experiences. but it likely means that person just hasnt had that happen to him or dosent perceive it as an issue (i feel like most trans ppl would be bothered by it, but everybody's different). im sorry that people aren't respecting ur pronouns, i hope that things get better for you!

yes i think i have clarified my position after reading the tags and also reddit people accusing me of thinking trans men are oppressing me(????) its not that i dont think it happens to transmascs its that in my experience when a trans woman gets a punitive they(often during a bit dramatic internet event where she's being trial by fire'd), if she or other transfems point out that people are taking away her gender as a punishment, in my experience and observations more often than not she will be told she's crazy even by a lot of people within the community. im not saying it can't happen to transmascs im saying when it happens to transfems being dogpiled or punished nobody seems to care or notice bc its "neutral". people on tumblr have been way more chill with this and seem to understand my point but on reddit and Twitter and other spaces i see this happen a lot

basically what i was trying to vent about wasn't saying "this never happens to anyone else transmascs totally always get their gender respected" but "when this happens to trans women, we seem to be the only ones who notice it is happening to us, and people will call us crazy for noticing" that's what i meant by invisible. i don't think im erasing or denying trans mascs by saying that, i dont talk about transmasc bc i don't have life experience as one, i just have experience knowing that when this specific thing happens to trans women we get told by people of every background that it didn't happen.

hopefully this clarifies it better i dont know how much better i can say it im not making universal dogmatic statements im making experiential ones ones people keep assuming bad things about me for this post and it's frustrating

[aranarumei]

OH ALSO gajevy fairy tail :3

ask me about a ship and I’ll give my opinions + classify them as does / doesn’t make sense, does / doesn’t compel me

heyyy sunnfish I picked this one to answer first bc I thought it’d be the shorter answer and then it got a little bit long so let’s put this guy under the cut

gajevy’s really interesting to me out of the Big 4 (nalu, gajevy, gruvia, jerza) because I think that without a doubt, they’ve fared the best canon-wise? but out of the big 4, they’re also the ship I’ve always been least invested in, so I’m gonna say: makes sense, doesn’t compel me.

feel like I can hear some ghost screaming at me like. how the hell were u more invested in gruvia. I will get to that. nalu I’m still invested in… it’s the kind of thing where lucy and natsu just have to be best friends for me. I like other ships with natsu and lucy just fine, so long as it doesn’t demean their relationship. because I truly believe in how dear those two are to each other. for me, as fairy tail progresses, I think the characters in general… got a little worse, haha. so natsu got dumbed down a lot, and a lot of the nalu moments weren’t less genuine sincerity and more jokes or bad fanservice. I also felt like lucy as a character kind of got fumbled with the star dresses… they certainly could have worked but I just feel like it made her fights less interesting? with gray and juvia, I was obsessed with juvia as a kid, and still am… I genuinely think that the gray & juvia is really interesting in the beginning, where juvia’s this gloomy, kinda shy, kinda creepy, kinda sweet stalker. what really worked for me there was that there wasn’t a huge push for gray to be actually receptive to any of juvia’s feelings, and the first big moments juvia had were like… her friendship with lucy and that first unison raid, as well as that moment in the battle of fairy tail where she sacrifices herself for cana. I think those two moments really demonstrate juvia in her best moments… maybe she’s a little standoffish, but she just wants friends, and her love for others is evident. so I feel like something interesting could have happened with her and gray if we got these moments of her making friends and then having a real, proper transition of their relationship from blind adoration to actual friends. gray gets to realize that juvia’s weird as hell but deeply kind and actually considerate of his feelings, and juvia gets to see gray as more of a person than someone she’s mostly watching from afar. Instead, juvia’s possessiveness gets turned up to a point where it’s grating, and it feels like gray gets bullied into liking her by the plot. not great for either of them! my personal gruvia ending has them becoming like. good friends that are just a little extra-protective of each other because of the things they’ve been through. and for jellal and erza we’ve talked about this one. insanely good setup and execution, probably the one I wanted canonicity for most, and then post-timeskip I think it sucks.

and then there’s gajeel and levy! I think this works remarkably well in canon. having him be properly repentant and making it up to levy in particular does a lot in terms of integrating him into the guild. gajeel’s just one of the most solid characters in fairy tail I think. really fun guy to watch. they’re also the only ship out of the big four who really achieved canon status I think. Part of my non-investment in them does stem from that, because it’s like… well, canon treated them well enough so I’m not making giant sermons on what could have been, because I never got to a part where I was like. you know what? this SUCKS and I could do better. but what I really don’t like about canon is that I think the relationship ended up doing a real disservice to levy’s character. rather than be her own person, she ends up as just adjacent to gajeel… which is a real shame! solid script is so interesting, and she’s a good support character, so I don’t like it when she gets cast into the role of like. just the girl gajeel likes. so I actually like gajevy fic a lot when it treats them like yknow, actual people. I think my opinions on gajevy are just not too strong, which is why they don’t really compel me compel me. I want to see more of team shadowgear working as a unit, and like, gajeel and levy having interactions that don’t just sum up to gajeel protecting her and levy maybe trying to help him out. Oh man you know what was really good actually. fairy tail gaiden: rhodonite is this little spinoff bit that was written by a different author, but it’s really really good. I am obsessed with that version of gajeel and levy. actually that series is so good in general. some of my favorite members of the fairy tail ensemble. juvia’s here so we get like. gajeel-juvia friendship crumbs which I lost my mind about.

so basically my thoughts are like. I probably wouldn’t write gajevy personally as anything but lightly existing in the background in a nice way, but if it’s written well I’m so on board

[stranger-rants]

sorry this is unprompted but it’s bothering me a lot—I love Eddie very much, but he pisses me off because it’s like he was written specifically to knock billy down a peg and make people hate him. aggravating (for different reasons but still), long curly haired metalheads from broken homes with few friends who both die to be “heroes” bc that’s all they were written for. but Billy’s actually fleshed out because Dacre fucking cares about him and relates to him on a level that none of us will ever know, and it was important to him to make it vehemently clear that Billy is not a villain for villain’s sake; he’s a deeply hurt and traumatized kid. people seemed to understand that better before s4 when Eddie came into the picture and is “better” because he’s personable. but he also lives with someone who actually loves him and treats him well. his trauma doesn’t follow him like Billy’s does. I hate that I can’t just like Eddie for Eddie, I have to also hate Billy and reprimand every little thing he’s ever done. I’m tired of feeling like I have to walk on eggshells looking through either of their tags; I can’t fucking filter everything to avoid indirects about either of them or their sub-fandoms. at this point it just feels intentional from the writers that Eddie is supposed to be Billy 2.0 because they wanted to write a better victim, not just that the fandom is perceiving him as one.

and I’m irked because I’m not, nor have I ever been, ashamed or embarrassed to love Billy, but now I am both about liking Eddie bc I feel like I have to make it clear that Billy was my #1 long before Eddie came into the picture. I don’t want antis to think I’m one of them if I fail to mention Billy in a post that’s not about him. not to mention the loud loud handful of jq’s fans that are unhealthily obsessed and make Eddie look even worse to outsiders. Eddie doesn’t even represent the whole “freak” thing at all anymore, he’s just a tool to prove that Billy is irredeemable which is a wild disservice to both characters and Dacre especially.

I think Eddie would have a lot of potential if he were written from good hands with good intentions instead of an addendum to Billy once they killed him off, and Billy deserves better from everybody—characters and showrunners alike

I strongly believe that The Duffers introduced Eddie for the wrong reasons - mainly to make money off of the fans and boost interest without having to keep him on the show. I don't like their intentions with the character, and I think a lot of Billy fans feel that the way people treat Eddie as a fandom darling and position him as a better version of Billy is annoying and shallow and hypocritical. So, that's where a lot of the dislike comes from. I, too, don't like a lot of mainstream Eddie fandom because they are rude and annoying and want to be catered to.

There's an Eddie who exists in my head who could exist in the show based on canon things he has said and done, and I like that Eddie better honestly flaws and all. I don't go looking for Eddie content because a lot of it is made by people I do not like. However, you should not have to put on a performance for any fan to prove you're a good fan. Just enjoy what you like, and ignore all the rest. Too many fans are afraid of liking Billy which is ridiculous, because the accusations people make against Billy fans are baseless... and if you like Eddie in Billy spaces, then so be it. There are people who might not like Eddie but you don't have to appeal to their likes or dislikes. You're your own person.

[mayasdeluca]

I love travis he's one of my favourites and the only man who doesn't irritate the shit out of me but the way he treated emmett was totally out of order. I get that lachlan wanted to leave but they should've had them break up a different way especially as it was mostly bc it was abt travis not being totally over Michael and he essentially just used emmett the whole time like what? His whole arc in season 4 was him learning to move on so that development felt like it went down the drain bit then in s6 he had no problem getting with eli and was like the only one happy that theo was captain when I thought he'd be really triggered (I think that was so much wasted potential but I suppose they had to focus on that stupid mayor thing which no one cared abt) I hate that they keep recycling storylines it's so unoriginal and gets so tedious.

Yeah I agree, it made no sense how they went about doing that. And if Lachlan wanted to do other projects then I'm not sure why they even brought him back the second time then? Because to try Travis and Emmett again only to ruin them even worse just made no sense and just made it seem like Travis could never move on and then had to make him look horrible in the process. And the whole mayor stuff was just irrelevant and did nothing of substance for his character. I also feel like they really did a disservice to the Travic friendship during this and have had Travis prioritize other things before supporting Vic which doesn't make him look great either, especially in the most recent episodes. And the way he just brushed her aside when Kate came was so stupid. I don't know how serious he and Eli are actually going to end up being but if they have him not ready to move on with someone yet again when it starts to get serious that's just going to be so tiresome.

[schizopositivity]

hello, very sorry for the essay this turned into, but how do I explain to the people in my life that knowing that my life isn’t easy right now isn’t harder than struggling with hallucinations?

I’m trying very hard to look at it from their perspectives because I don’t know what it’s like to watch a loved one hear voices. It’s just very confusing to be simultaneously told that my experience is difficult to understand and that they are so deeply empathetic towards my situation that they don’t want me to ever complain bc it makes them feel bad and all they want is to see me happy. But that just makes me feel like I’m not allowed to be anything but happy, which means I’m not allowed to be honest

Describing them this way is doing them a disservice. I know they mean well and that they respect me. but isn’t it also true that I’m allowed to want to feel supported and respected?

it’s just stressful to me when everyone is so so confused by me and my condition when I feel like I explain myself every single week and tell them precisely what to look up (which they do! They do look up anything I ask them to, it’s just that they then turn around and say that they’re spending hours doing research only to never visibly out those strategies into practice)

Maybe they’re just overwhelmed and/or feel like I’m trauma dumping on them bc my friends and family aren’t professionals. Should I apologize for that? it’s just very isolating when every time I’m honest about how I’m doing, they say that I should pursue professional help even though I am in therapy

I feel like this comes across as me having really unsupportive friends and family, but this is only the least flattering facet of the story and I don’t think I was terribly articulate about it either.

my goal is to maintain these relationships, but I’d like to improve them by communicating. I just don’t know what to say or even if this is fair to bring up. It sort of feels like in this situation is doing their best and everyone is failing a little. Any advice?

no need to apoligize! i appreciate asks no matter how long they are

i think it would be important for you to try and understand what support you need or want. like do you just want to be listened to with no advice? do you want them to try to do things to help you? do you want to be able to be honest and talk about the bad stuff without them telling you its hard for them?

because once you figure that out, you can tell them what you like

i think for me i like to open up to people and just have them listen and not try to give advice, that way i can just vent and let it all out, and not have to worry about them saying something they think is helpful, that really just upsets me, cause if people odnt understand they try to sum it up in the wrong way, or try to get you to look on the bright side, and i dont like either of those replies

thats great that youre in therapy, maybe if you notice what you like about therapy or how the therapist talks to you about things, you could ask them to do something similar, like i learned from therapy that i like to be told im safe when i start to panic, and my partner knows that so they tell me that when they notice me panicing

you could let them know that you talking about the bad stuff actually is helpful, and its worse to keep it bottled up inside, that you cant be happy all the time (no one can) and that you need to be able to express yourself to process and work through it

i know these people love and care about you, but if they dont understand its easy for them to say or do the wrong thing, that doesnt make them bad people just a little ignorant, but it also doesnt make you a bad person for not liking the things they say or do, its totally okay for you to ask for what you want or need from them, no one is bad here, there just needs to be some more honest communication

[sofipitch]

I know it’s been said that Lestat is violent, is capable of monstrosities, and yet one of his redeeming qualities has always been that his love for Louis has always felt constant and protective. Yeah I know they’re often toxic and verbally abusive but you can work around that in fiction, and most dark tempestuous couples in fiction are. But you never really get the sense that they are actually in danger from them (Louis being an accomplice≠Lestat going Mortal Kombat jfc) since it’s one of the pros of being ‘beloved’ lol. So for the writers to go there with Lestat and Louis it just shatters the foundation that real love is even there and it’s just not fun at all. Especially when they have Lestat next episode saying “she’s poisoned you against me” as if he truly doesn’t understand the magnitude and horror of nearly destroying the one he loves. I mean, in the books Louis is an accomplice to his ‘murder’ and it haunts him, we feel his anguish. And even though Lestat and Claudia end up as adversaries this episode leaves us with the bitter realization Lestat never loved Claudia at all, when the truth is Lestat LOVES her he loves his little family and would have never done anything like this since even he would be smart enough to know that’s a certainty on losing them for good. Sorry just when I think ‘I’ve cooled off I’m like ‘and another thing!’ lol

Yup yup yup. I don't want Lestat within a 10 mile radius of Louis after that and it does kind of affect my perception of their romance in previous episodes. I have already talked plenty about how Lestat would never do what he did in the books.

And the thing is if they are going with grey morality with Louis if he feels bad for killing Lestat or gets back together I can never see it as grey morality, I will only ever see him as a victim who has been cornered or made to feel bad. Basically Louis or Claudia are now no longer morally grey in killing Lestat but justified which I feel like is a massive disservice to the complexity of their characters.

I feel like with Claudia they were afraid audiences wouldn't sympathize with her so they put jer through WAY more sexual trauma, made Lestat obviously not love her (which honestly upsets me so much bc their family means so much to me), and now gave her the trauma of wittnessing what happened to Louis. I think if Claudia slit Lestat's neck JUST for making her she would always be a little bit justified, she was turned against her will, not as dramatic or rape implied as Lestat but still always a betrayal and Lestat calls turning Claudia and Louis a betrayal he can understand them hating him for. And then there are Claudia's issues with her body. Like if you look at the VC fandom pre show I don't think there was anyone or at least many who hated Claudia or didn't think she was justified. So yeah they blew it up and made it worse

[nopeferatu]

awhile back someone in the brokeback tags was complaining abt people being upset at ennis' threats of violence against jack, saying that ennis didn't actually threaten to harm jack, but that when he said "what i dont know, all them things i dont know could get you killed if i come to know them" after finding out that jack had gone to mexico to hire male prostitutes was instead meant to be taken as a warning that jack's wreckless promiscuity would end up getting him found out by others and killed

and i just. like. can't agree at all, lmao. like yeah theres something to be said about ennis warning jack against looking for sex with men elsewhere, but the literal next few lines after ennis spits that at jack is jack responding with this:

"You count the damn few times we have been together in nearly twenty years, and you measure the short fuckin' leash you keep me on and then you ask me about Mexico, and you tell me you'll kill me for needin' somethin' that I don't hardly never get."

The whole point of the post was that people need to stop being so judgemental towards ennis' character and whatnot and like, i can definitely agree with that bc i have noticed a fair amount of people say that they can't get into the movie bc they find it very hard to empathize w ennis' character, but their justification for "leaving ennis alone" was that "ennis wasn't abusive or violent towards jack" and like. to me thats trying to purify a character who was purposely written to be "morally gray". also known as a messy ass realistic human being, lol

like. ennis is a violent character. he responds to multiple high emotion situations, both in the short story and in the screenplay, with violence, and jack is on the recieving end of that violence like. at LEAST twice. so like, you can't really argue that ennis didn't threaten to kill jack out of jealousy after learning that jack had been sleeping with other men, nor can you argue that this behavior isn't a little abusive or at the least motivated by a violent streak that we're already well aware that he has.

to me, his violent streak is part of the tragedy—its commentary on how rural men born in toxically masculine households are raised to repress their emotions so much that the only socially valid way of expressing them is through violence, and how much of a bad thing that social convention is is, not just for everyone around them but for the men themselves, too.

ennis is a really sad character. he makes a lot of bad decisions (decisions that the story doesn't actually condone, btw), but the story forces you to think deeply about those decisions and question them. particularly, it wants you to question what worldview these decisions are born from, and why he felt as though they were the only options he had. and once you've done that, then you just can't help but feel even worse for him in the end. its like a self fulfilling prophecy of grief. you can't let him off the hook, but you understand why he is the way he is, and why his life ended up being so sad.

idk. i just think its such a disservice to whitewash a character as interesting as ennis. like i think that more people definitely need to be more empathetic towards him as a character, especially if they really want to understand all the things that this story is commenting on, but i dont think you have to reinterpret him as something he's not (i.e.: nonviolent) in order to do that

[markantonys]

diving into lord of chaos! the 3 terms i know from this book going in are The Box, dumai’s wells, and asha’man kill. what do they mean? i don’t know, but i know they’re iconic (and traumatic) and i will be keeping an eye out for them

the similar names are starting to get out of hand. took me a solid paragraph to remember demandred was a forsaken and not some cairhienin (since a lot of cairhienin names have the -dred ending). and every time i see “mazrim taim” i feel like mat and tam al’thor are making up fake names to get free trials of stuff

our first glimpse of shayol ghul and the dark one! very exciting. does the dark one have a corporeal form or is he just like a spirit entity? a deity of sorts? how will rand be able to battle and defeat him? (all rhetorical questions ofc)

i wonder if shayol ghul will exist at all in the show since they’ve changed the dark one’s prison to the eye of the world. now that i’m thinking about it i think that was a great decision bc a) shayol ghul feels like a lotr knockoff whereas the eye and the blight are more distinct and memorable b) what even is the point of the eye in the books? does it ever come up again after the first one? why did moiraine even need to take the kids there in the first place (i’m sure this was explained at the time but i completely forget)? why is there just a pool of untainted saidin chilling there? how is that possible? how can saidin be matter, i thought it was just some intangible force? why doesn’t rand think about going back to the eye to try and use this untainted saidin? all this to say that the show’s version of “the eye is the dark one’s prison and moiraine has to take the kids there to defeat him” is much more clear-cut. and c) older hardened rand going to the eye to battle the dark one in the series finale the same way little baby rand did in the s1 finale will be a beautiful full circle moment and WILL make me cry my eyes out

is it just me or is the aes sedai not letting elayne go to caemlyn very uhhhhh stupid? i understand they want her to finish her training but, political powerhouses as they supposedly are, you would think they’d realize that a huge country being in turmoil because they have no ruler MIGHT cause problems. “if rand has you and caemlyn he has andor” so you think the solution is to keep elayne away and let him have caemlyn all to himself? how is that not worse?

if elayne can make ter’angreal now, i think she should make a matching set of Fuck Hut-esque ter’angreals for all members of the polycule so that they can long-distance date more effectively

"min’s laugh had a huskiness to it; elayne supposed many men would find that attractive. and she was pretty, in a mischievous sort of way.” i swear to god elayne is the most bisexual straight character i’ve ever encountered. i can’t wait for the show to make bi elayne canon

“if [rand] learns about the viewing he might decide it isn’t what we want, only the pattern, or his being ta’veren. he could decide to be noble and save us by not letting either of us near him” elayne says, and she is bang on, but min replies “more likely, if he realizes we’ll both come running when he crooks a finger, he’ll crook it. he won’t be able to help himself.” doing rand a huge disservice and proving that elayne knows him WAY better than she does

“you and i will divide him up like a pie. maybe we’ll let the third have a bit of crust when she shows up.” ugh. min you are losing my esteem left right and center. i absolutely loved her the first 4 books, things took an abrupt nosedive in book 5, and book 6 is not off to a promising start. some of you guys have assured me that min/rand will get much better once they actually have screentime together (though others have said that it remained their least fav rand ship throughout), which i hope is the case bc at the current moment there’s a long ways to go before i will ship it. at this point i’m advocating for mat straight up taking her spot in the polycule rather than being added as a fifth jkdjfg

very fitting that the next scene opens with faile saying “a man is not a horse or a field, neither of you can own him” i do feel like she ought to take her own advice there lmfao but i’m glad to see her again!!! despite how much the tsr relationship drama pissed me off, i actually really love faile? i think that’s an unpopular opinion, but I Just Think She’s Neat

so it seems it’s perrin’s turn to experience the homoerotic ta’veren pull! very interesting how faile thinks about “sharing” perrin with rand with similar language as elayne and min do about sharing rand romantically with each other. if you wanna be my lover you gotta get with my fellow ta’veren to whom fate has inexorably linked me

tangent but i’m realizing that mat’s struggle with his fate-pull to rand is so fucking SIMILAR to min’s and aviendha’s. good GOD just put him in the polycule!

“why did the dragon reborn need perrin now, so strongly that perrin could feel it across however many hundred leagues lay between them?” fellas is it gay to need your buddy so strongly that he can feel it from hundreds of leagues away

i know we hate gawyn, but him thinking about swearing an oath to give his life for elayne’s when he was “barely tall enough to peer into elayne’s cradle” 🥺🥺 that got to me okay? and i can’t blame him for believing the rumors that rand killed morgase and elayne and now wanting to kill rand for it. “gawyn had chosen to stay because his mother had always supported the tower, because his sister wanted to be aes sedai” that was an aha! moment for me where i felt that i understood gawyn’s decision in the coup much better - he has no reason to disbelieve the charges against siuan (esp since he was already suspicious of her for concealing elayne’s whereabouts) and he truly thought that supporting elaida (who was his mother’s advisor for most of his life) meant supporting the tower, and therefore his mom and sister. i still have no strong opinion about gawyn either way, time will tell whether i join the ranks of gawyn haters or end up taking him under my wing as a problematic fav

sevanna mentions a small cube that a wetlander gave to her with instructions of what to do with it once she had rand. mesaana mentions something called a “stasis box.” could one or both of these things be THE box????

i am 65% sure osan’gar is ishamael brought back to life (we know he’s a male forsaken but not rahvin, and i don’t think any of the other dead ones are important enough to make a comeback), but i wonder who aran’gar could be

“stripped to the waist...sweat slicked his hair to his skull, rolled down his chest...figures like that on the white banner overhead twined around his forearms, glittering metallically red-and-gold” god bless, we continue our tradition of a sexy description of rand to kick off the book (post-prologue). i vividly remember tfoh opening with a sexy description of him lounging by a window in rhuidean, and i believe tgh began with him shirtlessly sparring with lan

“sometimes he was so sick of himself that he really was ready to die” 😭😭😭😭😭

“rand said nothing; mat’s secrets were his own” protective boyfriend! “he supposed mat had to have read a book sometime, somewhere, but mat did not have much interest in books” exasperated boyfriend!

bashere is so chill i love him. how he has a daughter who is Like That i have no idea. i hope we get to see him and faile interact sometime.

“he would welcome more men who could channel walking the earth unmolested. finally he would stop being a freak.” 😭😭😭😭 man that just shattered my heart. sometimes it really hits that rand is only a deeply lonely 20-year-old trying his best. also, rand’s channeling abilities as metaphor for queerness example #372456

“i’m going to build something, leave something behind. whatever happens, i will do that! i’ll defeat the dark one. and cleanse saidin, so men don’t have to fear going mad, and the world doesn’t have to fear men channeling” just copy in all my commentary from the previous bullet point, crying emojis included

lots of mentions of rand’s luck, and taim even says he has the dark one’s own luck. which as we know is a mat thing! leave me to grasp at what cauthor straws i can, ok? now that i mention it, i’m 90% sure that the very first instance of “time to toss the dice” was actually rand, when he was trying to take them all thru the portal stone in tgh

lews therin when rand yells at him to shut up: surprised pikachu.jpg. interesting that he may be an actual conscious (?) voice that rand can talk to, rather than just memories etc. but does this mean that lews therin will never truly get to rest in peace, if some part of him is still alive thru rand? that’s so sad :(

i feel that entrusting all these male channelers to the tutelage of some powerful and dangerous guy who just showed up who rand is getting bad vibes from right off the bat may not be the smartest idea, but poor rand is so overworked, he really doesn’t have many other options

“to the maidens, rand was all those children come back, the first child of a maiden ever to be known to everyone”

okay okay okay i’m fine moving on

“he had to stay away from [aviendha]. he carried death with him like a contagious disease; he was like a target, and people died near him” see? elayne was bang on

rand absolutely owning the maidens by telling a joke so bad even i can’t work out the punchline. i love him.

“tolmeran’s doubts centered on mat. despite what he had heard from cairhienin of mat’s skill in battle, tolmeran thought it flattery from fools for a country man who happened to be a friend of the dragon reborn” i just KNOW there are rumors that mat only got his job because he’s sleeping with rand, i just know it

“they were honest objections, and semaradrid’s even had validity” so rand thinks that tolmeran’s objections about mat are NOT valid. supportive boyfriend!

the maidens giving rand advice for how to get aviendha’s attention i’m crying they are his big sisters and moms!!! i love them!!!!

had to post this passage in full bc i’m hollering. i rest my case about there being rumors that mat is sleeping with rand. he is so anxious about anyone finding out rand teleported to his room for a pre-dawn bootycall (which, come on, rand, you can’t just teleport directly into someone’s room in the middle of the night, mat would’ve been well within his rights to stab you)

“how do you know you’re in love with a woman, mat?” “how in the pit of doom should i know?” mat has no time for your heteronormative assumptions rand

i feel like rand didn’t even need mat’s input on anything, he just came bc he wanted to talk to him 🥺 usually rand keeps his problems close to his chest, but he’s venting pretty freely to mat rn

rand saying “no man should have another man’s voice in his head” about his own problems and mat thinking he’s talking about HIS problems AAAAAAHHHH JUST FUCKIN TALK TO EACH OTHER YOU IDIOTS!!! YOU HAVE (SOME OF) THE SAME PROBLEMS!!! GIVE EACH OTHER THERAPY!!!!! GODDAMMIT

mat has adopted a child!! he really went “i’ve only had olver for a second and a half but if anything happens to him i’ll kill everyone in this town and then myself.” he is such a dad!!!! him kneeling down to talk to olver instead of talking about him over his head to another adult because he used to hate when adults did that to him 🥺🥺🥺 this will be all the more touching in the show with Dad Mat already established by his devotion to his sisters

i am so sooooo curious about the lands beyond the aiel waste and wonder if we’ll ever see more of them

[rigginsstreet]

also the way the show asks us to believe max's perception of billy and the things she says when she's suicidal/depressed/self hating as 100% truth is soooooooooo stupid 2 me. not saying shes not perceptive but shes DEPRESSED AND 14 AND TORTURING HERSELF HER THOUGHTS ARE NOT OBJECTIVE FACT.

this show can only spoon feed its audience and doesn't ask us to think critically about max's thoughts/feelings at all and it does max such a disservice because her storyline this season should have been about working through her lifetime of existing struggles as well as what happened to billy at the end of s3 and instead she got to do none of that and then died???? no one challenged her darkest thoughts and the awful headspace she was in at all... and for the show to act like they're all fact is so insulting to her.

like she says her darkest fear about herself is that she stood there and didn't try to save billy bc deep down she thought he deserved it.... that's literally not what happened obviously she couldn't run and make it to billy on time and save his life because she was frozen in shock and across the room and also 13 yrs old in the face of an interdimensional monster? in the moment she was absolutely not condemning him 2 death and choosing to stand still that's literally ridiculous and anyone could tell her that and help put her mind at rest.... but no one tells her that. that's what she fears about herself when shes literally torturing herself about what happened all this time.

cuz i absolutely believe she wished billy wouldn't come home some days because she was scared of him, he was angry and unpredictable and making her life harder and shes just a kid who is gonna have thoughts that arent the kindest, and now shes so ashamed of thinking that that its contributing to her suicidal thoughts... and instead of showing how their relationship got to that point and why billy was the way he was and why max should now forgive herself and gesturing towards any kind of complicated sibling relationship for them which would be so rewarding they just ask us to take her thoughts at face value bye.... I'm saying so much omg all my feelings are coming out

max truly cannot get a break like the show is not making any effort to give her peace and is validating her suicidal thoughts by saying they're true. and billy cannot get a break cuz they're trashing his character and actively making the show worse as a result. disturbed.

Exactly like I don’t have an issue with max having wished billy would crash his car or whatever she said but the way they tried to entirely rewrite their dynamic in season 3 ???? No ma’am. She starts the season talking to El about billy in a very stereotypical younger sibling way there was no animosity there anymore she was like “billys gross lol” and then she goes into denial about him being possessed BECAUSE SHE DOESNT WANT HIM TO BE and she’s crying in the sauna scene like… y’all know damn well no one was writing her as a someone actively wishing for billys death or thinking he didn’t deserve to be saved. But they admit to not rewatching their own show so… there you go.

And the complete 180 from Max’s letter in dear billy to volume 2???? The absolute fuck was that about none of it is making any sense!! Max cared! On some level she knew things could’ve been different for them! But nobody gives a shit about consistent writing or god forbid we have complex characters and relationships I hate it here

[stilldancewithyou]

tsitp

I'll preface my "criticism" by saying that i expected this show to be a corny and cringey mess and i was sure i wouldn't get through a full episode. But here i am, pleasantly surprised that i watched the season in almost one sitting! This show was easily one of the most satisfying viewing experience i've had all year. I can't wait for season 2

::SPOILERS ahead:::

I don't really have any issues with the show but...

I would have loved to see more clips of jeremiah and conrad's relationship.

It would have been great if they showed longer clips of of old conrad's personality and Belly in the flashbacks so we could have had a better idea of how different conrad had become

Belly was wild this summer. It was not a good look for her to be hopping from brother to brother.

Jeremiah and Belly's relationship exudes best friend energy. Jelly seems very unnatural. I don't know what they could have done differently to make it seem less like Jeremiah was acting out of jealousy of his older bro and Belly just wanted to have a fisher boy date her

I did not care about laurel and cleveland's relationship...at all. Certainly didnt need to see a sex scene from them

I don't think i like Taylor

I'm so glad you enjoyed it! first, I'm gonna be that annoying person and say I highly recommend reading the books if you haven't already. They explain so much and give you all the little flashbacks the show left out, and there's some chapters from the Fisher brothers' POVs in books 2 and 3 so you get to fully understand them. now that that's out of the way:

I agree with you 110% on everything. They definitely should have shown more flashbacks. It was weird for them to just be like "conrad's so different" and expect the audience to just understand what was happening. And to add to what you said, they should have shown more of Conrad & Jere and also Conrad, Jere, and Steven's friendship (which is one of my personal critiques). I wanted to see more flashbacks of them as kids, teasing Belly and excluding her from things and more of their friendship in present time. Hopefully next season they will take the time to add a few more flashbacks so we can see how their relationships have changed over time.

Yeah, Belly was wild. I didn't like how serious she got with Jeremiah bc the way she jumped between them was not a good look. If it makes you feel better, in the actual first book, she didn't play them like that. It was weird bc they tried to make her seem a little more mature and aware of things than in the books but then she was kissing the brothers back to back. Book Belly is one of the most realistic sixteen year old girl voices I've ever read and even though she was super naive, immature, and a little annoying/bratty, she knew what she wanted and that was Conrad. so they definitely did her a disservice making her seem so indecisive.

THANK YOU FOR SAYING THIS. I'm so glad i'm not the only one who thought Jelly felt weirdly unnatural. I loved their little moments together for the most part, but all their scenes and their chemistry felt more like best friends to me too, something was just off about their romantic chemistry. The way they showed his jealousy made him look like a jerk and idk either what would have made it better...it just needed to be toned down a little I guess. also, Jeremiah had way more chemistry with Taylor and I kinda wish they had explored that.

That sex scene was so uncalled for! and I wasn't a huge fan of them either...I didn't feel their chemistry I guess and I thought it was nice to see Laurel getting over her divorce and dating but it was weird how important they made Cleveland cause it seemed like just a fling type of energy to me. Laurel deserves to play the field a little. I def think they could have spent a little less time on them and put that time towards more flashbacks.

Taylor is even worse at first in the books but she gets a lot better as she grows. she has good intentions, like her heart is in the right place, but she just annoyed me. and it pissed me off that she kinda made Belly feel bad for still wanting Conrad even when Conrad was FINALLY starting to admit he has feelings for her. and when she teamed up with Jeremiah to get Belly to choose him I was screaming.

[lesbianmarrow]

i finished legends of tomorrow 5.06 “mortal khanbat” it was nice :) not my favorite but a fun decent episode. felt a bit like a season 3 episode. i think there was just like a combination of small things that made this episode less enjoyable for me personally. but it wasn’t a bad episode at all. caity lotz’s directing seemed good (from what i can tell - i’m hardly a directing expert) and i especially enjoyed that one fight sequence that occurred early in the episode. 

mostly i was irritated by the charlie/behrad love drama. i do appreciate the opportunity to get to know a little more about charlie and see how she reacts when stressed, but i didn’t like the added romance complications. it’s not that the love drama wasn’t believable, bc it definitely was. i didn’t feel that charlie or behrad was out of character. i just found it kind of cliche and boring. charlie is such a dynamic character with such a unique perspective, and to slot her into this cw romance plot would just kind of do a disservice to the character. plus we already have one lovesick guy pining after a girl who doesn’t want him (nate), i don’t really need another one. at least it seemed by the end of the episode that they were just friends and both okay with that. i do hope it stays that way. behrad seems like a nice friend to have. 

the plot itself was okay. i am always a bit wary when this show uses asian characters or sets the episode in asia because it always feels like it’s going to be racist. this one didn’t feel terribly racist the way arrow often does but it still wasn’t ideal imo. i didn’t like that they killed that lady cop, and so gruesomely. and the accented english is always a choice. but you know it could’ve been a lot worse. i loved the electric scooter and how that became genghis khan’s transportation and weapon. i thought it was so funny and delightful. i loved when charlie stabbed him with the sword and stole his toothpick, definitely an all-time favorite charlie moment. 

i didn’t like the constantine stuff in this episode as much, partly because it’s just yucky to see him so sick but also idk it was kind of boring and predictable. like we know he’s not going to die but we also know he won’t be cured till the end of the episode......idk it just felt like it wasn’t as creative as it could have been. the message at the end was supposed to be that constantine realizes the value of friendship but the episode didn’t really succeed at making that hit as hard as it couldve i think. i guess the other issue is that gary is very one-note throughout the whole thing, like he just is kind of hysterical for the duration, and it gets stale. i do like that we will have constantine and astra working together apparently....i wonder how that will go. 

finally charlie and zari 2 meet :) i like that zari likes charlie’s fashion sense. it’s very different from her own, but it’s still its own bold distinct style and that’s something zari can respect. i might be imagining things but it definitely felt to me like they were both checking each other out. i also enjoyed when zari found out charlie can shapeshift and charlie started flirting with her. i know she was probably doing it in part to annoy behrad and drive him away, and that annoys me, but with that aside i thought it was cute. i couldn’t tell if zari was also flirting or if she just thought shapeshifting was really cool. i got the vibe that zari understood that charlie was flirting with her and she enjoyed that attention, but i’m not sure if she would consider herself attracted to women or if she identifies as straight. i guess maybe we will see. #zarlie for the win. 

so great to finally learn about charlie’s secret past. charlie breaking the loom bc she came to believe that everyone should be free to choose their own destiny is so her and so legends of tomorrow. just like snart! i literally love it so much. i suspect there’s more to the story that charlie isn’t telling, a personal reason why she broke the loom, but maybe we’ll find out later. i wonder what charlie’s sisters will be like. i am actually so psyched for this plotline. 

last thing i wanna mention is i thought it was so cute when ava didn’t understand nate’s euphemisms for sex. feels like this season the writers are pushing how silly they can be with ava and it turns out the answer is: very silly :p ok that’s all i have to say for now