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littlemisspascal · 3 years

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Mailroom Crush

Pairing: Javier Peña x Female Reader

Word Count: 2800+

Summary: A short little fic about Reader who works in the mailroom of the embassy and her encounters with a handsome, brown-eyed DEA agent.

Warnings: Language, fluff, inaccurate depiction of how an embassy mailroom works, smoking, this is only loosely based on canon of Season 3 shortly after Javier arrives so the timeline does not match the show’s, Stechner being a creep

Author Note: I’ve had this in my drafts for months as a little wip side project and it’s not very good because Javier is an amazingly detailed character who I don’t have the right skills to capture the proper way he deserves to be, but I didn’t want to delete this either so...Yeah, it is what it is. Fingers crossed someone out there enjoys it 🤞😊

Part 2

The fan on your desk is on its highest setting, humming loudly as it blasts cool air at your face. Still, you feel sweat beading all along your forehead as well as the back of your neck, and you silently curse the embassy’s air conditioning system for malfunctioning in the middle of a heatwave.

An envelope falls on your desk, the 56th one you’ve seen today thus far. The man who dropped it looks irritated, which is an expression commonly seen around here. His mustache is dark and neatly trimmed, you can’t help but notice. His hands rest on his hips beneath his navy suit jacket, giving him an aura of authority despite his lack of an ID badge.

“Get this mailed today,” he says, tone leaving no room for arguing.

You pick up the letter, noting the Texas address. “Of course, I will—”

The mustached man is exiting the mailroom before you can even finish your sentence. You’d call his behavior rude if it wasn't also commonplace around here.

The embassy almost seems to transform at night. The lights are dim and the cleaning crew are the only living souls roaming the hallways. It’s oddly peaceful in an eerie sort of way, so you don’t mind working late shifts. You spend the long hours preparing packages for outgoing shipment the following morning, wrapping any fragile objects in bubble wrap and double-checking that each of their labels are correct. You’re in the middle of typing data into the computer when a throat clears behind you, announcing someone’s presence.

It’s the same mustached man from earlier in the week. This time he has discarded his suit jacket and rolled the sleeves of his white dress shirt up to his elbows, revealing toned arms. You blink at him over the top of the computer, wondering why he has interrupted your work.

“Can I help you?” you ask.

“I forgot I was expecting a package today,” the man says. He sounds tired, brown hair rumpled like he’s been running his hands through it multiple times throughout the day. You weren’t here for the day shift, but you know where all the undelivered mail goes so you point him towards the organizer that takes up one whole wall of the mailroom. He dips his head at you, the briefest of nods, before going to collect his package from his personal slot on one of the lower rows.

He leaves a moment later, silence filling the space once more.

Your mail cart is knocked over during your afternoon delivery run. The offender, an agent named Feistl who often swings by the mailroom to drop off letters and presents to be sent back to his family in the States, doesn’t stick around to help clean up the mess of scattered envelopes, saying, “Sorry, I’ve got an important meeting with Intel.”

You bite back the retort on the tip of your tongue. Most people think your job is at the bottom of the career ladder, but they don’t realize the various tasks you have to complete day after day. You have to sort through hundreds of letters and packages. You have to track down recipients if their items are priority stamped, thus needing to be urgently delivered as soon as possible. You’re responsible for all outgoing mail, choosing the best method of shipment and making arrangements. What is most challenging though, is you have to deal with dozens of personality types ranging from appreciative to downright hateful. People get angry if their mail doesn’t arrive by the expected date, if the contents of their package are broken upon arrival, and/or if they aren’t at their desks when you make your rounds, forcing them to come by the mailroom to check their slot. More often than not, they blame you for the aforementioned issues, despite the fact you have no control over any of those things.

“I’ve got it. It’s fine,” you say to Feistl’s departing backside.

You’re in the middle of picking up the envelopes when dark brown boots, black socks, and charcoal gray pants enter your field of view. Glancing up, you immediately recognize the face staring back at you. It’s the mystery man you keep encountering, carrying a stack of manila folders in one hand.

You’d started your job over a month ago, yet you can’t recall ever personally handing him anything. Either he’s new around here, you think, or he’s one of those rare individuals who only receives mail once every blue moon.

He glances at his watch, gaze flicking between you, still kneeling on the floor, and the time it displays, expression torn.

“I’ve got it. It’s fine,” you say, repeating yourself. And you actually mean it because he looks like he genuinely wants to help but cannot spare the extra minute.

Shooting you an apologetic grimace, he steps around you and the mess, careful not to step on any of the letters, and disappears into one of the offices at the other end of the hall.

You awkwardly cradle a bundle of red roses in the nook of your elbow, careful not to damage them as you head towards the elevator. The flowers are for Ambassador Crosby’s secretary, Eileen, whose desk is right outside his office. They were sent to her by her fiancé with a note attached referencing their second anniversary.

When the elevator doors open, you receive a couple of double-takes from the people brushing past you as they exit. The attention makes your shoulders want to hunch up to your ears, but you don’t want the movement to disrupt the roses so you force yourself to remain still until you step into the elevator’s cabin alongside three other personnel.

You don’t notice that one of them is the mystery man until he says something to you.

“Those from your significant other or is there a little office romance going on?”

There’s a hint of a smirk playing on his lips when you turn to him. They’re a soft shade of pink, but your mind is too busy trying to unravel his strange question to give that specific detail any more attention.

“They’re for Eileen,” you answer. Your other hand points at the note wrapped around the bottom of the bundle. He reaches out with deft fingers to twist the paper in his direction, reading the message for himself.

He then winks at you, so quick you’re uncertain you actually witnessed it. “Even better,” he says. Dazed and confused, you fail to realize the opening of the elevator’s doors until he’s smoothly slipping past you as he departs.

Belatedly it occurs to you he had been asking if the roses were meant for you. This new context in combination with his wink has your heart fluttering inside your chest, aroused with curiosity.

The rest of your shift you wonder how long it will be until your paths cross again.

From your desk in the mailroom, if the door is open, you have a pretty wide view of the hallway and the office cubicles on the other side. When it’s your lunch break you like to people-watch, knowing you’re safe to do so because you’re invisible to the majority of embassy staff. Your fellow mail clerks think your hobby is weird, teasing you about it every time they leave you behind to go out to eat a meal for lunch. But you’ve seen some pretty interesting sights if you’re being honest.

Today, for instance, you watch as Feistl’s partner, Van Ness, models a fanny pack while trying to convince a cackling Feistl that it can hold everything valuable he needs for an undercover op, aside from his gun. The two are such total contrasts in both looks and personalities, you wonder how they manage to be such an effective team.

The sound of two men engaged in a heated discussion verging on a full blown argument hits your ears before you actually see either of them. The mystery man passes in front of your doorway first, walking backwards with a ticked off expression on his face clearly directed at the other male.

“You think I don’t know what kind of bullshit lies you’ve been spreading?” he demands as his verbal sparring opponent comes into view. You’ve seen the bearded man skulking around the offices before, watching the goings-on with beady, rodent-like eyes. “Go fuck yourself, Stechner.”

Without waiting for a response, the mystery man swivels around to face forward, completely overlooking you as everyone else does, and stalks away, footsteps echoing off the tiled floor.

You turn to your forgotten salad, picking the fork back up to stab a cherry tomato and pop it into your mouth.

Interesting sights you’ve seen, indeed.

You have to make a run to a store down the street for extra supplies for the mailroom, and when you return you see the mystery man standing on the front steps of the embassy. There’s a cigarette dangling from his lips, head tilted back as he stares up at the cloudless sky. As you pass by him, he nods in acknowledgment, but when his mouth opens it lets out smoke instead of words.

You’re surprised to see the mystery man the following day when you arrive at the embassy just before dawn. There are dark bags beneath his eyes and he exudes an aura of disgruntled moodiness, but he politely holds the door open for you nevertheless. Part of you swears you feel a feather-light touch of a hand press against the small of your back, but you tell yourself you’re just imagining things.

You’re in the middle of taping shut your fifth box of the evening when the mystery man enters the mailroom, distinguishing this as the third day in a row you’ve encountered him in some capacity.

“Good evening,” you say when he continues to hover in the doorway. “Forget another package?”

His head tilts, raising an eyebrow. “Am I really that memorable?” He’s smirking again, revealing what is perhaps the cutest dimple you’ve ever seen in one of his cheeks.

You keep your expression professionally neutral, remembering you’re on shift at the moment. “If that is not what brought you here, is there anything else I can help you with? Do you need to mail something for tomorrow?”

He blinks at you, smirk fading. “No, I…” he cuts himself off, holding up a television remote you hadn’t initially noticed was in his grip. “You got any spare batteries?”

It’s your turn to raise an eyebrow, frowning as you wonder, “You came here for batteries?”

“You’ve seen this place, right? It’s a fucking ghost town,” he says, gesturing over his shoulder towards the dark hallway. “I figured I’d take my chances and see if you were here tonight. Looks like I got lucky.”

It takes all your self-control not to fidget. “Oh.” You set the tape down and move to check the contents of your desk, well-aware of his gaze following after you. You miraculously find an unopened pack of AA batteries in the back corner of your junk drawer. “Here you go.”

The man draws closer to take the proffered item from your hand. If you didn’t know better, you’d almost think he let his fingertips brush against yours on purpose.

“What were you watching?” you blurt out unthinkingly, then inwardly curse yourself for being so nosy.

“Bribed officials lying about their involvement with the cartel. Same old, same old.” He cracks a wry grin, attempting a joke as he adds, “Better entertainment than anything on cable though, yeah?”

You straighten, opinion of his suited appearance changing in light of the cartel reference. “Are you a DEA agent?”

The mystery man’s brow creases as you return to your workstation to finish your abandoned task. “That’s right. You didn’t know that already?”

You’d feel insulted if you didn’t hear how genuinely surprised he sounds at your ignorance. “No, I didn’t. I’m sorry to cut this conversation short, but I have a lot of work that still needs to be done before the morning.”

“Right. I understand,” he says easily. “Thanks again for the batteries.” He presses the remote to his temple, saluting you before he leaves the room.

The mystery man is different from the other DEA agents you’ve encountered. He’s older, for starters, but more than that there’s this...burden of weariness weighing on him. Like he’s seen horrors none of them could possibly fathom witnessing. You think of the dimple you saw and wonder how many others in the building, if any, could claim they’d ever seen it too.

Now that you know the mystery man is a DEA agent you keep your eyes peeled for him as you make your rounds, but not once do you glimpse anyone with a mustache or tousled brown hair matching his. However, you do discover the gray-headed, bearded man he’d been arguing with—Stechner, you recall—loitering inside the mailroom by your desk when you return.

“Relax, honey, I’m just borrowing your pen,” he claims, holding up said utensil before scribbling down a short message on a scrap of paper. “I’m leaving a note for a friend of mine.”

You hide your disgust at his use of a pet name, watching as he walks over to the organizer and places the note inside one of the slots. Before he leaves, Stechner gives your body an obvious once-over, prompting you to cross your arms over your chest defensively.

“Pig,” you mutter, uncaring if he hears you.

At the end of your shift, no one has come by to claim the note. Curious, you peek at the nameplate on the slot before you leave.

Javier Peña, it reads.

Riley, one of your coworkers who is inherently nosy about everyone else’s personal lives, tells you a man had swung by the mailroom looking for you while you were out delivering a package. She describes him as ruggedly handsome and undoubtedly a good lay which immediately brings to mind the mystery man, much to your embarrassment. You highly doubt it was him though. There’s no logical reason for him to come find you specifically.

You return to your workstation to continue sorting through the bags of afternoon mail, pushing Riley’s words out of your head. Whoever it was that visited is gone now, anyways. Clearly whatever they had to say to you wasn’t important or else they would have waited for your return.

An hour later your attention is pulled away from your task by approaching footsteps, and you look up to lock eyes with the mystery man’s brown ones as he stops in front of you. He’s dressed surprisingly casual, leather jacket and jeans rather than suit and tie. Sunglasses hang from the collar of his shirt which is unbuttoned enough for your eyes to feast upon the smooth tanned skin of his neck and upper chest. You avert your gaze quickly before you start drooling.

You notice Riley is grinning like a thirteen-year-old reading their first romance novel. Withholding a sigh, you look back to the man, relieved to see he doesn’t seem to have noticed your ogling. Instead, he seems oddly unsettled, fingers fidgeting at his sides.

“You’re back,” he says needlessly. “I came by earlier, but your friend over there said you had stepped out. I was afraid I’d miss seeing you today.”

“Nope, here I am,” you say, then immediately want to slap yourself for how dopey you sound.

Fortunately, his brown eyes remain judgement-free as his stance shifts subtly, like he’s trying to carve out a private space for the two of you in the mailroom with his broad shoulders. “I heard about Stechner coming in here, leaving that damn little note in my slot. I don’t give a shit about his attempts at pissing me off, but he shouldn’t have bothered you. If he made you uncomfortable in any way, I swear I’ll—”

The sound of plastic clattering as it hits the floor startles the both of you. He whirls around, enabling you to see Riley making an apologetic face as she picks up the dropped tape dispenser.

You realize then the man was about to offer to defend your honor. He scratches awkwardly at his cheek, looking flustered at the interruption. As strange as it may sound, you find yourself more smitten by this version of him than the confident flirt who’d winked at you in the elevator.

Feeling a wave of boldness wash over you, you make a show of looking him up and down with a raised eyebrow. “So if the note was for you, I suppose that means you’re Javier Peña?”

He smiles, the appearance of that precious dimple setting your heart aflame, and holds out his hand for you to shake. There is a small, circular tattoo in between his thumb and index finger. It looks like a target, you think, then wonder if you’ll ever be lucky enough to learn the story behind it.

“I guess we haven’t really introduced ourselves yet, huh,” he says. “Call me Javi.”

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#Javier peña #javier peña x you #pedrostories #narcos fanfiction #my fic #my writing #javier pena x you #javier pena fanfic #javier pena x reader

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curly5runs · 2 years

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A few weeks ago all I could keep thinking about my lil early season headcanons because 1: I was lonely and ZR keeps my mind full, 2: I'm nostalgic for seasons 1-3 (spoilers up to s3). So I'll share some of the funnier ones here :). These are not in any particular order as I was just scribbling them down as I remembered them.

My Five had her tounge cut out, which is how she got to Abel, ect ect. So she mainly used pens and notepads to communicate, and sometimes a bit of ASL. The first time she signed "Thank you" to Sam, he thought she was blowing him a kiss and he stood there awkwardly until Maxine clarified what it meant.

Her first words (almost non understandable and muffled from missing that lil piece of muscle in her mouth) after the tounge incident happened during that one mission where Five had to jump on a moving train. The train pulls around to the crew, they ask why she looks so distraught, and she deadpan says "Life is a party and I'm the ✨fucking✨ piñata" (inspired by an incorrect quote I saw on here a couple years ago but I can't remember who posted it u_u) and continued to not say anything else until s3.

When she found and snatched a kitten mid s2, she assumed it was a female because she had only ever had lady kitties and didnt know males dont have super visible bits right away. One day a few months later, shes playing with kitten!Archie and she notices some 🏀🏀 growing. Horrified at her gross miscalculation, she ran to Sam (just ✨roomate✨ at the time) screeching. Concerned, obviously, he asked why she was so freaked out, so which she replied by scrawling on paper "Archie is an ArcHE".

She had godawful posture her whole life until the apocalypse. The end of such an era occured because Simon took personal offence to her slouching; and would physically thwack her (not too hard, but enough for shock value) with a ruler or stick if he caught her walking around town lookin like a dang question mark. She has excellent posture now.

Again, because of her lack of tounge, once she started to talk, it was mostly saying people's names at first to get their attention. But she couldn't pronouce S, D, N, or Js very well, (among many other letters) and some folks got accidental nicknames by Five. For example, Sam got turned to "Ham", Jody turned into "Yoie" and Janine turned to "Ahneen". Everyone was very nice and supportive and didnt make fun of the names they had been bestowed. Except Simon; who's named turned to "Hymen"

People think that Eugene and her would have alot in common both being Canadians, but they (affectionately) 😒 at eachother because they're from vastly different parts of the country (mostly that I HC hes a city boy and shes very much an isolated bumpkin). Despite their differences, they are good pals and like to scream sing Arrogant Worm songs at the top of their lungs as a past time.

Five has fallen in the comms/radio shack twice while trying to be helpful. The first time was after she got strep throat while in New Canton right at the start of S2, but it didnt settle in until getting back to Abel. It was a nasty cough and she felt half in the grave. She knew she definitely hadnt gotten bit, but was terrified of noone trusting her to not be a zombie. So she just continued on her buisness doing her best to not look like she was about to drop dead; until she was helping the radio boyfriends in the comms shack and just,,, collapsed in front of Eugene, Jack, and Sam, bringing down an array of equipment and some books with her. The second time it was sort of a runner group project to organize the mess in there, and she was tasked with untangling the wires. She was starting to hang them up higher and somehow got a foot stuck in the web, and very slow motion fell to the floor with a leg in the air, and everyone had to help her get sorted. Very embarrassing.

She cries. Alot. Normally its out on the field if something real bad is about to happen. The first time she audibly wailed within the gates, a few folks panicked and ran to her. Where she pointed and whimpered at a spider on the wall. Shes scared of very little but spiders are a deal breaker.

The way people knew for sure that it was Five infiltrating Abel under Moonchild's control was because her kitten was running after her in the bush, loudly yowling, and everyone put two and two together. Cover blown via cat screeches 😔.

She gets overheated really quickly, especially while exercising. She sticks to a sports bra and pants, and no amount of cheeky commentary or lack of degrees in the air will get her to wear anything else. When Janine tried to get the runners to wear uniforms, Five became a pain in her side because she simply would not. Janine would catch her before a mission and make her at least wear the tshirt. But she would immediately fling it off once she got out the gates. Janine gave up, and the uniforms pretty much just became a formality for special events.

She puts up her hair with a sharpened stick. Both because she cant get the right hairties for her texture, and because it makes for a good concealed weapon in close proximity. But because they keep getting lodged in Zombie eyesockets or covered in blood/bits, she keeps collecting good replacment sticks whenever shes outside, so at all times she has a pile of loose sticks in her belongings.

She absolutely *refuses* to get her socks/shoes wet. She will stop mid mission, being chased by an angry, on fire zombie, sit down, peel her socks and shoes off, then go into whatever body of water she has to cross. Wet feet is a huge nono, she would rather get bit than have to run with w e t feet.

During the s2 mission clip where Sara and Five were running on top of the train, I got a "collected a pair of trousers", so the only logical explanation was that she got hit in the face with an airborne pair of pants and kept hold of them.

She gets very obvious mum privileges from Sara, and whenever Sam or one of the other runners need something from her, they get Five to ask her for them. Sara has no shame in showing favouritism towards her baby child, and Five definitely doesnt mind.

She keeps forgetting to put on sunscreen, and being as sickly pale as she is, she burns like paper under a magnifying glass. One day Sam had enough of her coming back from missions the same shade as the barn wall. Just before opening the gates for a supply run, he hustled outside -tube of sunscreen in hand- smeared a huge glob on Five's face and arms, and wouldnt give the raise the gates signal until she rubbed it in on all her exposed skin.

She's terrible at most games, whether it be not being to serve the ball if it was on a platter in a friendly game of volleyball, or getting the worst rolls in D&D and her character losing all dignity; she is trash. But she kicks abosolute ass at Gin and Dutch blitz. In Gin she gloats and cackles everytime she throws her cards down, in dutch blitz everyone is horrified at her violent behaviour and unleasing of a lifetime's worth of internal rage through her tiny hands. There's been a couple finger casualties.

Being so young (a month from 17) when she showed up to Abel, and being really shy (tasty tasty trauma), everyone assumed she was really gentle mannered and sheltered. That is, until, the most disgusting and ruthless game of cards against humanity one evening. Noone saw her the same ever again >:].

I doubt anyone will read this list but if you made it here hi! :D These definitely arent all of them as I ran the majority of these seasons when covid started and I literally had nothing better to do than dedicate my life to this podcast.

#zombies run #zr #runner five #runner 5 #abel township #abel #sam yao #simon lauchlan #janine de luca #sara smith #jody marsh

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authortango · 3 years

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“One day, the sun rose in the west and set in the east.” - Prompt #39

This is my first Reedsy Short Story! I’m going to try posting these here semi-regularly until I run out of short stories to post and I have to write new ones. I hope you enjoy them! I would love to hear what others think of my writing in this format!

Genre: Fantasy, Romance, Paranormal

Word Count: 2,993 words

6:00 am, Lookout Mountain, Golden, Colorado.

One dark, dewy Colorado morning, a group of campers emerged early from their tents for their anticipated sunrise hike, organized by their group leader, Cathy. Cathy inhaled the cool morning air with tingling satisfaction. To her, there was nothing better than this. The wet morning air was way better than the first cup of coffee.

As her yawning crew of eight got itself all together, she smiled cheerily and quietly said to them all,

“Good morning! I hope you all slept well last night. We’re going to hike to this cliff right here,” She pointed, everyone's eyes following to a cliff on the east face of the mountain. “And then we are going to watch the sunrise before we get to breakfast. Everyone ready?”

The group nodded collectively, some more enthusiastically than others, and soon they were on their way. They became more alert as they climbed the side of Lookout Mountain, wide-eyed as they experienced the gentle sounds of nature’s morning song. As they arrived with Cathy on her chosen cliff, she checked her watch and was satisfied to find that they had made it on time, and that the sun would rise in the next five minutes. Turning to her group, she whispered,

“Get comfortable! Sunrise starts in five minutes!” As everyone huddled together to keep warm until the sun arrived, Cathy found a nice spot a little aways from them and eagerly set her eyes on the horizon. She felt these moments to be meditative, and while her companions might prefer to sit together, she felt there was something special about feeling the chilly air turn warm in the rosy glow of Earth’s star.

Five minutes passed. The area around them seemed to grow lighter, but the sun was not yet visible. Cathy looked up in the sky, a little confused. Could it be too cloudy to spot a sunrise? No, she had checked the weather in the area, and there definitely weren’t any clouds above them. Maybe the sunrise was later than the forecast had anticipated.

Fifteen minutes passed. Cathy felt the air around her start to get warm, and she was grateful for it. But she was a little unsatisfied. She still couldn’t see the sun on the horizon in front of her. Then, she heard a gasp from one of the women behind her.

“Look!” Turning around, she was shocked to see the sun right behind them, continuing to rise into the sky. She took out her phone and rechecked the compass. The cliff they were on was facing east, which meant, somehow, the sun was rising from the west.

9:00 am, Palo Alto, California

Enrique, two states away from Cathy and her hiking crew, did not wake up early enough to see the sunrise. In fact, he barely woke up early enough to be on time for his job. He spent the fifteen minutes he had in his morning trying to find clean clothes in his messy apartment, brushing his teeth, and stuffing a plain untoasted bagel into his mouth before longboarding his way to work.

At work, his busy morning got busier, as everyone stopped by the barrio coffee shop on their daily commute to work, and it was tough to catch a break when orders needed to be filled. When the workflow finally trickled into a lull, he spent some time chatting with his coworker, Isla.

Enrique really liked Isla. Mornings with her were more bearable than others, which was why he tried his best to schedule his shifts with her. She was pretty, her bow-and-arrow lips stretching from ear to ear as she excitedly told him about the newest thing she’d learned that day, her large, kitschy earrings flashing like her beautiful brown eyes. Today her earrings were turquoise painted with orange dots. Enrique loved the wrestler mask earrings she would wear during WWE season, or some of the pretty hand-beaded ones she bought at craft stalls. For special occasions, she would wear a pair of cherry earrings, and when Enrique thought about asking her out he would think about those earrings and blush. They were truly his favorite pair, and he often wondered if one day she would wear them for him.

Today, Isla’s face flushed with excitement as she told Enrique her news.

“Did you hear? The sun rose in the west today! They’ve never seen anything like it!”

“What? No way. The sun’s been doing it’s thing in the east for millennia! It can’t just change it’s habits like that.” Enrique laughed.

“You would think, but NASA even confirmed it on the news! They had satellite footage and everything. They predict it’s only for today, but who knows? The way the world works may change because of this! And it’s only the first day! Isn’t that so special?” Isla exclaimed, beaming at him. Enrique beamed back at her, shrugging.

“Y’know I guess it is very special. Does that mean it’s setting in the east today instead of rising in it?” He asked. Isla nodded.

“That’s what the weathermen are saying. Hey, a bunch of us are getting together after work to go to the Foothills and watch the sunset. You could join us! It’s gonna be a great big party to celebrate the world possibly changing and all that. You wanna come?” Enrique’s heart beat faster. Pretty Isla was asking him if he wanted to watch the sunset. With her! If the world was changing and Isla was the one asking him out, then today must be really special.

“Absolutely! I get off my shift at five, but I’ll be there! When does the sun set?”

“I think they predicted it to set around 7:30, so we’re gonna be at the park around 7. Don’t be too late!” Isla said before returning to the kitchen.

“I won’t!” Enrique called after her, hoping she didn’t see his ears burning with delight.

3:30 pm, a small adobe house in Palo Alto, California

Being one of the pastry cooks for the coffee shop meant that since Isla got to work early, she also got off of work early. Today, she was off early enough to fret about her party with Enrique that night. In her small childhood bedroom, Isla rummaged through her closet, barely glancing at the outfits as she muttered worriedly to herself.

“What was I thinking? What if he doesn’t like my friends? We don’t really know each other outside of work. What if we get there, and it’s all awkward, and we have nothing to talk about?”

Her mom, walking past with a laundry basket and, noticing her daughter frantically throwing clothes, stopped, and said,

“Mija, you need me to do some laundry? I’ve got the basket right here.” Isla groaned in frustration.

“No, no laundry. I just can’t figure out what to wear.”

“To what?”

“I’m going out with a group of friends to watch the sunset. Remember, it sets en el este today? And I invited Enrique, and I can’t figure out what to wear!”

“Oh chica, you have some nice dresses you could wear! Or you could rummage through my closet if you wanted something más caliente.” her mother said, giving her a little wink.

“Ayy mamí noooooo!” Isla wailed, flopping on her bed and burying her face in her pillow with embarrassment. Hearing her cry, Isla’s father appeared in the doorway, surveying the mess of outfits.

“What’s all this?”

“Isla’s invited su enamorado to her fiesta tonight, and she can’t figure out what to wear.”

“Aaaaah. Is this about that Enrique? Kind of a pretty boy, isn’t he?” He asked.

“Very pretty.” Isla’s mom nodded. Isla made another sound of disgust and frustration at her mother. Her father returned his attention to her and smiled.

“Mijita, su enamorado is going to love whatever you wear. Wear what you feel comfortable in, and don’t do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable.”

“Also red is a good color for meeting boys. It’s very lucky, and distracting. Especially on the night of your special sunset!” Isla’s mom added. Isla groaned again, and both parents finally left her alone.

When the coast was clear, Isla lifted her head and stared vacantly at the mess around her room. Maybe her mom was right about the color red, but she didn’t want to wear too much. Then, she spied her yellow dress tossed next to a pair of red flats, and knew immediately what she wanted to do.

She only hoped her date would be as interesting as her look.

5:30 pm, Bodega Square in Palo Alto, California.

Enrique had just exited a flower shop in a shopping center that Palo Alto called ‘Bodega Square’, with a bouquet of sunflowers, and was now strolling down the street. As he walked past the shops and corner-stalls, he window-shopped for something else Isla might like. Something that showed her that he cared about her, and would like to take their friendship further.

As he was about to leave, he happened upon a very small shop, run by an ancient looking man. The shop stand was no higher than Enrique’s knee, and he couldn’t help but notice the flash of the gold jewelry, all made with the same enchanting orange stone. Immediately, Enrique knew he had to get something for Isla.

“Excuse me,” he asked the man, squatting so as not to talk down to him. “What kind of stone is this?”

“Ah! This is called a sunstone! It is a very lucky gem, especially on days like these!” The man cried with enthusiasm, waving his arms to draw attention to the jewelry. His accent was unfamiliar to Enrique, but it all made for a very engaging conversation.

“Is there a piece you would recommend? I’m thinking about getting something for a girl I’m seeing tonight.” Enrique asked

“Ooooooh for a girl! Well you could do a necklace, but honestly, every girl gets a necklace, and eventually it becomes just another trinket. Here is something truly special.” The man said, turning around in his small shop for the item. He then showed Enrique a ring, fashioned to look like a small sun, with a beautifully cut sunstone set in the middle.

“This one is a very special piece, and especially in this, the day of our beautiful sun’s awakening!” Enrique looked thoughtfully at the ring. It was charming to be sure.

“Are you sure this will show her how I feel?” He asked.

“Absolutely! As clear as the sun speaks!” Enrique wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but as the man was so enthusiastic, and it was pretty, so he bought the ring. Once purchased, he strung it on the surfers necklace he wore to match his shark-print Hawaiian shirt. Bidding the man goodbye, he hopped aboard his longboard to make up for lost time, rolling through the busy streets of Palo Alto with ease.

The sun’s orange glow bathed the city in light as he rode along, and suddenly, he started to hear a whispering. The voice was far off, but it sounded like someone was trying to speak with him. He stopped his board for a moment, and listened, but there was not a sound around him. At least, not of talking. There were sounds of traffic, both cars and people walking, but not a voice like the one he had heard. Slowly, he began to board again, wondering if he had imagined it.

When he emerged from the busy street and turned towards the Foothills park, he heard the voice again, this time a little louder. The sun was in its full glory, the golden hour settling on the town before sunset. Enrique could hear a woman speaking, just enough that he could make out her words, but not enough to make sense of them. Instinctively, he reached for the shark tooth necklace to help him think.

As soon as he touched the ring, he heard the woman’s voice loud and clear. It was as if he had put on noise cancelling headphones, and all he could hear was her.

“Microorganisms are fascinating. It’s funny to see all the things they do when their routine changes. I mean, it wasn’t so drastic a routine, was it?”

Immediately Enrique let go of the necklace, shocked and confused. The voice stopped, and he looked down at the ring resting on his chest momentarily, putting the pieces together as the sun glinted off of its likeness.

The man had said, ‘As clear as the sun speaks’.

Quickly, Enrique fiddled with the clasp on his necklace, slipped the ring off of the string and onto his little finger. The voice came back again, in the same comforting, warm tones of what Enrique assumed had to be the sun. He stood there for a moment, listening to what she had to say.

“Are they ever warm enough? I can never tell. It takes so much energy to send them warmth. It’s why half the year I can only warm one side at a time. Thankfully they figured out fire.

“It seems we have a new listener. It’s so enchanting to know someone else can hear me for a change. Hello microorganism! Can you hear me? How was your day? I’m glad you found a stone to tune in with. Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Enrique, startled, felt as though she was speaking to him directly. And he did have somewhere to be. Cautiously, he started to longboard again, listening to the sun’s idle chatter as he did.

“It’s amazing, these microorganisms cover a planet so small and yet their lives end up being so huge. They’re not huge to everyone, but it’s hard not to become invested when you’ve been looming about ninety-three million miles away from them for so many millennia. I wonder if they feel the same, and that's why they get so excited over a routine change. I should stop startling them so, but it’s so funny to see how they react. I wonder how fast the earth would spin once one of those satellite people got their hands on a sunstone gem.”

This is crazy! Enrique thought. I wonder if she can see me. How can she observe anything when we’re so small?

“Observance is nothing. It’s not hard when every other life form in space is either non-complex, non-existent, or inhabited by your brothers and sisters. When I observe microorganisms…how do I explain it? When microorganisms use that dish to look at something even smaller than them, the clear one? The one that sometimes sets things on fire? I use something like that, although much bigger. It’s nice to follow your followers. I’d been following the Mayans for centuries because it was so flattering that they noticed me. It’s a shame they died out.”

Enrique, fascinated but overstimulated, blocked the sun’s jabbering out of his mind. It was close to setting, and he had just reached the Foothills. He scanned them briefly, eager to find Isla and her group. He spotted a large group to his left, and, assuming it was them, headed in their direction. He was correct, and when he saw Isla almost stopped in his tracks. The sun crooned ,

“Ooooh, she is very lovely. I can see part of why this one likes her. I hope she likes the ring.”

Isla caught Enrique’s gaze and smiled bashfully. She wore a yellow sundress that flared out around her knees, and was patterned with little white flowers. She wore a golden headband with little metal rays like the sun, and her red flats matched the cherry earrings that made Enrique blush. If the sun wasn’t setting above them, Enrique would have sworn it felt like high noon without a cloud in the sky. She was stunning to him. She approached him excitedly and exclaimed,

“I’m so glad you made it! And look at those lovely flowers! You really shouldn’t have. Come on, come join the party! I’ll introduce you to my friends.” Enrique remembered himself and smiled enthusiastically back at her.

“That would be excellent! But first, I got you something else. Hold on.” Enrique pried the ring off his little finger and delicately handed it to her. But Isla did not take it. She blushed so hard, that for a moment he thought he had embarrassed her and that she did not like it.

“Oh Enrique, you didn’t have to get me anything.” She breathed, enchanted by the glint of sunbeams bouncing off the ring.

“Do you like it? I’m sorry if it’s too much. I thought because it was a special day, it might be fitting. You don’t have to take it if you don’t want it.” Enrique explained.

“No no, I love it! I- I just wasn’t expecting a gift, and I don’t have one for you.” Isla stammered. This was so awkward, just like she had feared! She was stumbling for words, flustered, but she did like the ring. Luckily, she didn’t have to think of anything to say..

“Isla, you want to know something special about the ring?”

“What’s that?” She asked. Enrique took a breath, trying to clear his head so the right words would come to him. At that moment, he thought of the old man, and smiled.

“It’s perfect for you, because you both shine as clear as the sun speaks.” Isla smiled, a feeling of relief settling in her chest. There was no awkwardness between them, just easiness. She allowed him to hold her hand, blushing at how gentle his touch was as he slid the sunstone ring on her finger. Then, her eyes widened with wonder as she heard the sun speak. Enrique beamed at her, relieved that they both shared this secret, this new bond between them. And as the sun set over them, Isla heard her say,

“Ah! Lovely. Perhaps I’ll do this again sometime. Goodnight Earth. Enjoy tomorrow.”

#my writing #reedsy short stories #short story #my short story #as clear as the sun speaks #writing #fantasy #romance #paranormal #fiction #short fiction #original fiction #writing prompts #prompts

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mocacheezy · 4 years

Text

(forgot to actualy post this when I first wrote it, anyways, rechecked the info with the help of wiki, so have my thoughts on TFA Megatron (S1))

So I finished the first season of Transformers Animated, and let me just… Let me just EXPRESS my feelings for TFA S1 Megatron and the shit that happens to him:

So Megatron has the Allspark in his sight after so many many years of searching. It’s on a tiny Autobot repair ship, shouldn’t be a problem to get it right? Except while fighting the Autobots a bomb planted on him (by Starscream, he should see this coming) detonates. He survives that with damage to his right arm, gets inside the ship and is facing off against 5 autobots (clearly repair crew, and not in sync) in no gravity. One of them manages to cut his arm off, he is down by an arm, big deal, ‘tis but a scratch, he’s fine.

… No like seriously, this doesn’t stop him. He ALMOST GETS THE ALLSPARK!

Except that the leader of this troublesome repair crew kicks him off ship, causing him to crash on Earth. The only thing intact is his head (that Sumdac finds). Is he dead? Is he in a coma? Whatever it is, Sumdac tinkers with what he found.

50 years later, Megatron wakes up, can’t move, can’t do anything really because he is literaly a HEAD (ᵃˡˢᵒ ʷʰⁱˡᵉ ⁿᵒᵗ ʳᵉˡᵃᵗᵉᵈ ᵗᵒ ᵗʰᵉ ʳᵃⁿᵗ ᶠᵘˡˡʸ,ⁱ ˡᵒᵛᵉᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ᵉᵖⁱˢᵒᵈᵉ ʷⁱᵗʰ ᵇᵘˡᵏʰᵉᵃᵈ “ˡᵒˢⁱⁿᵍ” ʰⁱˢ ᵇᵒᵈʸ…ᵖᵘᵗˢ ᵗʰⁱⁿᵍˢ ⁱⁿᵗᵒ ᵖᵉʳˢᵖᵉᶜᵗⁱᵛᵉ), sees that Starscream was the one who tried to kill him and almost suceeded (or did he suceed? Again, not 100% clear on the function of that Key… It heals, it upgrades, it gives life and sentience… Did it REVIVE Megatron or did it just wake him up?)

And what does he do?

I MEAN LOOK AT THIS?!

He is LITERALY ONLY A HEAD, WITH SO MANY OF PARTS EXPOSED OR WIRES HOOKED UP TO SUMDACS MACHINES.

MACHINES THAT HE CAN’T USE, BECAUSE THEY ARE TOO PRIMITIVE.

AND DESPITE ALL THAT!

THIS GLORIOUS FUCKER!

STARTS PLANNING RIGHT AWAY! HE KNOWS THE SITUATION IS BAD AND HE BIDES HIS TIME!

He eventualy risks what little… Advantage? Is being locked away in the dark an advantage? When there’s autobots around being hailed as heroes, yea I think it might be though Megatron wouldn’t admit it… I think? Not outloud that’s for sure

Anyways, he risks it with exposing himself to Sumdac.

And then proceeds to deceive Sumdac! Like, Sumdac is smart. I actualy did need to take a step back and go “damn this poor man really is way over his head”, because on the first glance it seems really dumb to fall for a lie like that.

(I actualy would love to talk about the Professor in the future, especialy by just looking at him as a character on his own… BUT THIS IS MEGS SPOTLIGHT SO *yeets away for another time*)

AND MEGATRON IS NOT 100% GOOD AT THIS “I am an Autobot” THING. He lashes out! He is impatient, he is angry to the point of wrecking the lab with the energy surges and there are moments when Sumdac doubts that he himself can fix this mess he made, especialy with how angry this “Autobot” is.

But SOMEHOW, this glorious FUCK manages to turn most of the damage those outbursts cause into very convincing explanations for his reactions, WHILE also pretending to be useful and “helping”.

He can see almost everything from where he is, once he masters the connections with the cameras and etc. in the tower and things across the city. He deflects or “explains” why his plans included flamethrowers for amusement bots, and, let me say this again!

HE IS ONLY A HEAD AT THIS POINT IN THE SERIES!

A HEAD!

He is pretty limited with what he can do HIMSELF! Sumdac is not an ally, he is more of an enemy that isn’t aware of the power he holds over Megatron.

And he is doing everything FAR too slow.

That everything being mainly, getting Megs a body.

AND WHAT’S EVEN BETTER?!

There are so many robots around, all of them reverse enginered from Megatron himself, and none of them are of use to him. And when he DOES manage to get them to listen, something always interferes (Dinobots were a semi sucess, Soundwave rebelled, but did end up wearing a con badge (and boy was it eerie to hear Soundwave say ‘machines supperior to humans’ and how they will be all destroyed… Great episode that one) ).

So the robots of this planet are useless to him. He has to try and find a way to manipulate human criminals to do his bidding, getting him the materials Sumdac apparently can’t get without raising suspicion. Not that it’s hard, but they are useless as well, especialy with the Autobots meddling, so that also fails.

And there is always that Key. That he can’t just ask for, but can’t get no matter how he tries. And by god, does he try.

His only real, longe term-ish line of self defense at the moment is Sumdac and his guilt over using a friend of the Heroic Autobots…

AND THEN!

HIS DECEPTICONS ARRIVE!

And he isn’t even sure if he can trust them, given that his Second In Command blew him to pieces. So he has to gamble and hope for the best with Lugnut.

Which is clearly tiring because, as much of devout follower as Lugnut is (the fanfics are all spot on, writers of TFA Fandom amazing job portraying this mass of devotion), it gets annoying real fast when you are trying to get things done and really need to get a body asap, and the only one you can count on is determined to sing praises to you everytime you give an order.

Not even THAT seems to bring him any closer to his goal. And then Sumdac finds what remained of his body.

Pretty good for 50 years of weather exposure, eh?

BUT it seems he will have to keep waiting, because the blizzard that is raging outside causes a blackout, so the Tower is using the backup generator, so Sumdac declairs a delay in repairs.

Megatron alternates between bluster and sweet-talk to try to get his way, but it’s no use. Megatron attempts to call Lugnut again for assistance.

(Source: tfwiki)

From the looks of it, he came back online at the begining/end of fall, so he’s been,

pretending to be an Autobot (one who is a friend of bots he knows very little about, the ones who caused him to become like this in the first place)

pretending to be useful and helpful to Sumdac in exchange for attempted repairs (all of which have failed)

keeping his temper in check (good thing he can save the slip ups with quick thinking…)

for about… 3 or 4 months?

And no way to leave the lab?

With Sumdac as his only company?

Probably also in discomfort given THAT HE IS HOOKED UP LIKE THAT?!

With his ghoulish hand in sight that was/is CLEARLY being used as a chair for an organic?

… Yea. Imagine doing all that, being this close to finaly making progress, and instead being told “Weather bad, no can’t do, wait a while longer”.

So if Sumdac fears enough for the safety of his planet, he’ll surely work faster right? That seems to work somewhat…

Then comes Starscream.

The absolutely last Decepticon Megatron needs right now. So Megatron has to pretend he doesn’t know Starscream tried to kill him. With Starscream CLEARLY planning to kill him for good this time.

He is a head, what can he do?

We can soon see Megatron can take great joy in punishing that fragger, with limited resources he has, while Sumdac finaly works on his body.

The only fun perk of being a “friend of the Autobots” so far.

And then Blitzwing and Lugnut arrive. I swear, I was sure with all the talk Lugnut was doing, there was no way Megatron will actualy get that body.

Good thing they got the Key and that Sumdac didn’t think/wasn’t able to put in any override codes or sound the alarms.

What followed was a gorgeous villain reanimation/reconstruction scene and I loved every second of it. I mean, just look at this.

So, Megatron finaly has a fresh new body.

(gorgeous fucker)

He fights the Autobots, (if I start talking about the details, this post will never end), defeats them and does a magnificent job of offlining his SIC.

(Like, I love TFA Starscream. I really do. This purple bastard is a joy to watch, but given what he did, seeing him get offlined in such a dramatic, yet quick and efficient way(and knowing he comes back anyway)… Let’s just say, I was very pleased.)

The “Fuck you Starscream, Die 1.0” however, lets the Autobots escape and the chase begins.

Here I would like to thank the animators for giving both Bots and Cons gorgeous Magical girl-esque transformation scenes, because they are all beautiful BUT MEGATRON, HOLY HELL, I AM LOVING THAT HELICOPTER!

And they are back on the Ark, fighting in much the same way they were the first time,

But Megatron has no apparent weaknesses, except perhaps being cluttered with little shards of Optimus Prime after he finishes beating on the Autobot. Their one-sided fight carries them into the hold of the ship, where Megatron succeeds in acquiring the AllSpark…

Megatron manages to GET THE ALLSPARK!

SO MANY YEARS OF FIGHTING AND SEARCHING, AND HE HAS IT!

And he puts it in his spark chamber. Or in front of it.

…

Megatron. You just put an anchient artifact in your chest.

I… Listen, this is a step above Megan and his SpaceCocaineStraightToSpark Nonesense, BUT ALRIGHT!

I GUESS IT IS “SAFER” THAN HOLDING IT IN YOUR HANDS WHILE FIGHTING AND GLOATING.

Before he can celebrate, he is temporarily downed by Isaac, who knows enough about Megatron’s circuitry to disable his equilibrium sensors—

(”well fuck you too Sumdac”, I mutter to myself)

but although he drops the AllSpark Key in his stumble, the tyrant isn’t down for long. Megatron is about to finish Prime, when Sari hurls Prime the Key…

the kid Megatron could easily crush when she was standing infront of the Allspark (BUT HE DIDN’T!) throws the key to Optimus.

…

Who proceeds to jam it into the Allspark.

…

In your chest Megatron.

…

Where your own spark is, Megatron.

For the Lord of Decepticons and quite an old fellow, who I’ve just sung praise to, that was so dumb…

A destabilized Megatron flees the ship before the AllSpark explodes inside his chest, dispersing its energy throughout the atmosphere.

HE BLOWS UP! AGAIN!

This time his body is mostly in one piece, and he has Sumdac as a hostage but…

This Megatron does not have luck on his side.

He really does not.

The only reason he is still functioning is, that he is too stubborn to give up and die.

The whole “TooStubbornToDie” does seem to be a Megatron trademark, and makes me love his character even more.

TFA Megs. S1 and I already love him so much.

To finish up this rant of mine…

Someone get him a damn blanket and force him TO TAKE A DAMN BREAK! REST YOU STUBBORN FOOL!

#Moca screeches #Moca watches #transformers animated #tfa megatron #seriously dude please take 5 minutes off #Long post #For some reason the read more is not cooperating

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t100ficrecsblog · 4 years

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an interview with @changingthefairy-tale

What are you working on right now? Right now, I’m focused on BellarkeFic-for-BLM (I just got an amazing canon prompt I’m really excited to finish). I’ve also been participating in this round of the Chopped Challenge, which has been fun and challenging. In between prompts, I’ve got two WIPs that I’m slowly cranking through. Shoutout to every single reader who’s been incredibly patient while I’ve been so slow on those updates — though, reminder that you can donate to a BLM organization (even a $3 donation works) and request an update to get those higher on my prio list while I’m focused on that initiative.

What’s something you’d like to write one day? My absolute dream job and the ultimate goal is to become a showrunner for a prime time TV show. I love TV shows — I love the way actors and directors and crew take a script and breath life into it, I love how you take a general idea for a story and mold it into something amazing as you go, I love how a series gives a story more time to be fleshed out and explored, I love the concept of a writers room and collaborating on a story. It’s a different ballgame from fic writing (which I do for fun) and travel writing (which I do for a living), but I’m determined to make it happen. JRoth, I’m coming for your job, babe. 😉

What is the fanwork you’re most proud of? I’m still really new to fic writing, especially compared to some of the powerhouse writers in this fandom. And I’m sure one of my WIPs (when finished) will probably supersede this. BUT, my one-shot about Madi calling Bellamy on The Ring (She called you for 2,199 days) is something I’m really proud of. I’m a long-winded writer, so one-shots have never come naturally to me. This one just…clicked. It’s got some good lines in there that I’m proud of, and based on the feedback I’ve gotten, it really made readers feel something and connect to the story. It’s not my longest story or my most thought-out. But it shows my growth as a writer these past few months, and I’m proud of that.

Why did you first start writing fic? I started writing fic as a creative outlet for my writing. My day job is writing about travel and credit cards. And while I enjoy that, it’s just not as creative. My dream is to write for a TV show though, and I was craving a way to flex my creative writing muscles in a low-stress way. I started watching The 100 when it first came out, but I didn’t really get into the fandom until I came back to the show during the S5/6 hiatus. That’s when I started reading fics and reblogging stuff about the show on Tumblr. During the S6/7 hiatus, I had this idea for a Greys Anatomy AU, and my sister (who is also a major fan of the show) was like, “You literally write things for a living. If you want to write a Grey’s AU for t100, there is absolutely nothing stopping you.” I published my first chapter on that The Choices We Make in Dec. 2019, and the rest is history.

What frustrates you most about fic writing? For me, I think that the most frustrating thing isn’t even about fic writing itself; it’s the fact that it’s a side-hobby and not something I can dedicate my full attention to. When you write all day for your day job, then do some for your freelance gig, and then turn around and try to write for a few hours every night for fic… that gets hard sometimes — especially since starting quarantine where I’m not traveling, going out with friends, getting a break from it, etc. Fic writing is a creative release for me, and I absolutely love crafting and writing these stories that involve some of my favorite fictional characters. And I love interacting with other writers and fic readers, I love talking about ideas and exchanging headcanons and fangirling over my favorite writers’ works. But (because there’s always a but), sometimes I just don’t have the mental energy or capacity to write at the end of the day when I’ve turned in 3 deadlines for work. I’ve got all these ideas floating in my head, but only so much time and mental energy I can dedicate to it.

What are your top five songs right now? Oh boy. So I live alone, which means I’ve got either music or Netflix on in the background 24/7 because ya girl doesn’t like silence. I have a different playlist for different moods. I’ll share my fav song from each of those playlists. Lol Fvck Somebody by The Wrecks (On my “Summer state of mind” playlist for when I wanna dance it out in my kitchen like an idiot)

Don Quixote by Drapht (On @talistheintrovert’s “My Good Bitch Murphy” playlist for when I’m feeling *edgy*)

that way by Tate McRae (On my “Pandemic Jams” playlist bc I like angsty music and this song is a Bellarke MOOD)

Washington on Your Side from Hamilton (On my “Feeding my Broadway Obsession” playlist for when I wanna sing show tunes and plot overthrowing the government)

Tea by Noah Davis (Shameless plug for Noah bc it’s a bop and I literally dated Noah’s older brother in junior high — so proud of this kid for making his dreams a reality)

What are your inspirations (books, songs, other fic, really good cake)? All of the above, except I like pie more than cake. lol But really, I kind of use everything around me for inspiration. “The Choices We Make” is inspired by my love of Grey’s Anatomy. “Intertwining your soul (with somebody else)” is inspired my the first draft of my YA novel (though the setting was adapted to a grounder canonverse AU). “The Day He Shut That Rocket Door” and “She called you for 2,199 days” were inspired by @historyofbellarke‘s headcanons that were brought up in S7 speccing conversations (shoutout to her for enabling my angsty ass). My most recent WIP “There are some things written in the stars” that I started as part of Chopped (but will continue because I’m obsessed with the idea) is inspired by my love of Timeless. And I have an entire Notion database filled with fic ideas — some one-shots and some multi-chapter fics — that are inspired by quotes, songs, conversations with friends, books I love, shows I adore, random HCs that pop into my head while I watch, my own life experiences, etc. I take inspiration in any form it decides to come in. 💕

What first attracted you to Bellarke? What attracts you now? I’m a ho for enemies to lovers — the idea that you can put your worst foot forward and show someone all the ugly parts of you… and that they’ll see that and somehow look past it to see the good stuff too, falling in love with your whole self instead of just the pretty parts. Yeah, it’s my favorite romance trope. And that tension is what originally drew me to Bellarke. Now, it’s a combination of things. I love each of these characters in their own right. I relate to Clarke in a lot of ways, and I aspire to be her level of badass. I straight adore Bellamy Blake (flaws, stupid decisions, and all) and would marry him in a heartbeat if he were real — I’m not even kidding. lol But I also love their dynamic. They are partners, best friends, perfect compliments to the other. They see each other in a way no one else does, and they are the one person the other constantly risks everything for. They are both so driven by their responsibilities to their people, yet that all typically goes out the window the moment the other is at risk. I don’t believe in soulmates in real life, but it’s nice to get to believe in this fictional world that they are just made for each other.

BESIDES Bellarke, what character or pairing do you like best on t100? My favorite character besides Bellarke is John Murphy. His arc has been BY FAR the best on this show, going from that little shit in S1 to this “asshole we love” in the middle to now a true hero in this final season. And through it all Richard Harmon has been amazing to watch on screen.

My favorite pairing besides Bellarke is Linctavia. Yes, that ship is problematic in a lot of ways, but I still loved their dynamic. Lincoln helped Octavia navigate this new world that she was so desperate to be apart of while being mindful of her safety. And I thought they were a good match — he helped tame her fire without putting it out, and she helped challenge the way he was raised. Given time, I think they could have become one of the most stable and loving relationships on t100. Of course, that couldn’t happen because Jason needed Bell’s actions in 3A to have heartbreaking consequences, O to spiral for her own character journey, and whatever mess happened off-screen between Ricky and him. But they still remain my favorite ship aside from Bellarke.

Why did you decide to start writing for bellarkefic-for-blm? The second I saw that Sam was planning on doing this, I reached out to ask how I could help/write/be involved. The BLM movement is so important, and this is an amazing way for me to contribute while pursuing my passions. It’s a way for the fandom to get involved and do something good. And ultimately, this helps organizations that need donations. Shameless plug for everyone to please go check out the Bellarke Fic for BLM page — check out the many amazing writers and artists we have participating, and send in prompts. Most of us are allowing WIP chapter update requests, and there are a number of us (myself included) who are matching donations made! No donation is too small, and you’ll be supporting a movement that is a necessity in the U.S. and beyond.

What’s your writing process like? My mind is literal chaos, so I plan and outline like hell in order to make sense of everything. When I get an idea for a fic, it goes on my Notion database. Within Notion, I write down my inspiration for the idea, and a pretty in-depth summary of where I want the fic to go — dialogue ideas, any feelings/emotions I want to invoke, literally just a brain dump of all my ideas. From there, I’ll arrange that brain dumb into an outline. If it’s a one-shot, I’ll generally write the whole thing in the Notion doc. But multi-chapter fics will get a checklist within Notion for me to keep track of progress, and I’ll actually write the fic in Google Docs. I generally start writing from the beginning of a story, but if I get stuck or have an idea for a later scene, the fact that I’ve outlined heavily allows me to jump around as ideas come to me. I’ll read each one-shot or chapter after I’m done to make sure it flows before publishing. I post chapters for my WIPs as I write them, which I should really stop doing. lol For my readers’ sakes, I should work ahead and publish on a schedule rather than making them wait for my slow ass to finish chapter to chapter. But right now, that’s my process!

What are some things you’d like to recommend? Oh goodness, too many fics to possibly name. Instead, I’ll link to my AO3 rec bookmarks (which isn’t all-inclusive of the amazing fics I’ve read in this fandom, but it’s got some good favs in there) and shout out all of our awesome Bellarke Fic for BLM writers. Y’all should check out their work (and send in prompts)!

Where’s the best place to find you (twitter? tumblr?) I’m @changingthefairy-tale on Tumblr and @changingthefairy_tale on AO3! My ask box is always open for anyone who wants to scream about the show, ask about specs, talk about my fics, etc. Come say hey!

#bellarkefic for blm #bellamy blake #clarke griffin #john murphy #bellarke #bellarkefic for blm interviews

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unwiltingblossom · 4 years

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what do you think of kuvira?

Kuvira was pretty, and probably the best villain out of LoK, but that’s not a high bar, as the villains of LoK were pretty bad. Her arc probably needed two seasons, rather than one, to really work as intended. She didn’t get properly developed, but by the end of the season the story really relied on you caring about her and her relationships as if she had been. They did mess around with some interesting things with her - contrasting her to the cardboard villainous empress of the previous season, trying to create more conflict of personality and whether she was right or wrong (they kept trying to do that with all the villains, but failed to follow through or handled it poorly) and ultimately tried to play with her being conflicted due to being a zealot + semi ‘redeemed’ at the end....but there was just too much they tried to pack into too short a time. It didn’t help that they also jumped 3 years ahead so as to set her up. The three years thing helped set up some pre-existing relationships, but it resulted in too much catch up time. Plus, the primary perspective character Korra spent very little time interacting with her and all the plots around her, as she was busy dealing with s3 villain instead.

Ultimately, Korra would have been a stronger show if it were six seasons instead of four:

2 seasons exploring Amon and whether or not he was right, building up the initial connections between the crew more organically and letting his rebellion play out before defeating him

skipping all of the book of spirits

2 seasons on book 3 because they already clearly felt they needed that, as it took a big bite out of book 4. Just go the whole way and make the full two seasons dealing with the empress, the super criminals and Korra dealing with PTSD. (though she already dealt with that in book 1 anyway, maybe they could have built on that in some better way) and just come up with a different reason for the return of airbending or trash that plot entirely (and come up with a different reason for why the big bad escapes prison)

2 seasons on book 4 to give room for the three year jump, build up the new relationships, give Korra the ability to deal with the actual plot and not her side-plot, and allow the growth and development of Kuvira from ‘stern but goodhearted ally who believes in her people’ into ‘warmongering dictator who will force everyone to fall in line with her vision of the nation because she thinks this is what’s best for everyone’.

that’s wordy and goes into plot more than character, but that’s because I think Kuvira’s character directly suffers from time and plot limitations. Where they struggled or failed to write her is present in all the seasons and villains - they wanted to tackle deeper, darker, and more nuanced things than in Avatar, but they never gave themselves enough time for it, and tried to do too many things.

#lok #kuvira #ooc #anonymous #ask

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psyga315 · 4 years

Text

Prelude

First, a bit of backstory. There was an interview made during the summer in between Volumes 4 & 5 that had the cast say what sort of themes one could expect for Volume 5. Among these were stuff like “building yourself back up again”, “shouting ‘we’re not done here!’”, “solving problems on your own”, and lastly, from Barbara herself, “Strength” and “Growth”. For someone who was just starting to realize why people were turned off by the darkness of Volume 3, this was uplifting to say the least…

Shorts

The Character Shorts kinda hyped the Volume, though they sunk in their own way. Weiss’s Character Short effectively foreshadowed her loss to Vernal. This tough and talented girl gets her ass stomped rather quickly and needed to be bailed out. Winter’s line about how she “won’t be around to save her” was foreshadowing to her not actually being in the season, but when I first heard it, I thought she meant “Hey, I’m going to die this volume, lol!” and that’s without bringing up how the trailer fails to hype Weiss up like the other trailers did.

Blake’s Trailer was alright, especially in taking steps to address a problem regarding Menagerie, but it felt more like Ilia given the backstory dump we got that feels all the more like mandatory reading. The problem is that, and it’s perhaps the very first problem I’ve heard about RWBY, is that the trailers (and by extension, anything that’s a spin off of RWBY like World of Remnant) feel more like you need to watch this rather than you can watch this. It’s confusing, but let’s use Blake’s Short as an example.

Ilia talks about her backstory as it is contrasted with a chase between Blake and a random dude we never see again. Assuming you’ve never watched the trailer, you’d just get the truncated version of “MUH PARENTS ARE DEEEAAAD!” and not the bits where she was forced to resent her own race because it was easier to blend in to her surroundings, like a chameleon. It’s ironic, since RWBY would do the reverse problem with Adam, where his trailer isn’t mandatory but we barely get a backstory for him beyond “I got branded, but everyone will speculate that it’s because I did something bad and not that it drove me to do bad things”.

First Episode

The first episode proper promised a lot. In fact, a good chunk of the first half promised a lot. However, it became much clear in a second viewing that a lot of it was just padding at worst and showing us where the characters are at best. But what I think was done dirty the most in this episode was introducing Mistral. We were hyped in Volume 4 (thanks to World of Remnant) that Mistral was this dichotomy of rich, cultural people and the seedy underbelly of criminals and that, at least one of the elements would be utilized in Volume 5. Unfortunately, all we got were a few mat paintings that contrast what Lionheart was saying in regards to Mistral being in chaos.

And so, the most we get out of Mistral are those mat paintings and a perpetually raining downtown that we don’t see much of, even when it gets briefly revisited in Volume 6. We’re supposed to be invested in the city and yet all we get are empty rooms and 2D art. They took great steps to improve this in Volume 6 with Argus, though, so if there’s any consolation, it’s that they learned from their mistakes here.

But we now get into the biggest problem of why Volume 5 is disliked. Because of the situation, the group are left to basically wait until Lionheart convinces the council to get them some Huntsmen. The heroes. Wait. In a volume where the writers were talking about the themes of improving yourself and pulling through with your own strength.

Do you guys see the problem here? I know people have bitched about Volume 5 to hell and back and you’ve probably heard the complaints to high noon, but this entire issue is what rots Volume 5 to the core the most. Not the piss poor fight scenes, not the inconsistent characterizations, it’s that the plotting decides to take a back seat when the volume was meant to be about taking action.

As the episode goes on, you see the problem unfold. Ruby and friends hit a dead end until Oscar appears and has Ozpin exposit things to them, Weiss is denied a chance to save people and fight the Grimm until the Grimm come to her, Blake is hit with the dead end of the Albains deflecting blame, and Yang had the chance encounter with Bakugou where he knows the hideout of her mom.

The closest person who is taking action here is Yang, who established that she is actively looking for Ruby (technically Raven, but as we see later on, moot point). Blake’s situation is being handled by her dad, Weiss is sitting in the plane until the Grimm come for her, and Ruby is sitting on the couch that I’m pretty sure has her grooves molded into the cushion with how many times she’s sat there.

Episode 2

A minor complaint before we go to Episode 2, we had the Stinger repeat itself because the crew thought that people wouldn’t see the stingers. This is the show, mind you, that makes a point to include scenes at the end of every volume, regardless of how long they are or what point they serve in hyping the next Volume. Hell, one of the major complaints about Volume 2 was about the stinger not mattering. So why did they suddenly decide that the viewers might not see the stinger in a culture where the MCU exists?

Alright, cooling things down, we have three major scenes in Episode 2. Salem’s chat with Lionheart was meh at best and wtf at worst. I get the idea of Salem using different approaches to get people to do what she wants, but the cool aspect of Salem was that her approach was not what a villain would normally be. Instead of berating or choking her minions should they fail or talk back, Salem instead talks people down like she’s a mother to them. Even when Tyrian fails, she doesn’t hurt him, but rather tell him that he disappointed her. So, having her choke Lionheart, even when in hindsight it made some sense, is kinda an odd thing to do.

But not as odd as Salem’s whole “Not you, Arthur” bit. A lot of people drew points to that and the best I can explain is that it’s either a typo (she’s meant to say not yet or not now) or Arthur and Watts are some sort of Jekyll & Hyde thing. Unfortunately, it seems Watts is more a parallel to Watson rather than Jekyll, so that brings me to believe that it’s a typo and so, rather than have an easy explanation for a problem, we just have a compounded problem. One of many.

And there’s something funny to be said about Salem warning Cinder about Silver Eyes when Ruby barely learns about it this Volume. And also that she wants to speak with Tyrian but we never see what comes of it. At all.

I only have one new thing about Weiss vs. the Bees. Originally, the pilot was supposed to be gay, but held off on it because they’d be killing off their first revealed gay character, something that wouldn’t look good to the fanbase. Now, while I understand the reason behind it, I have to question the logic behind why they think it isn’t okay for their first LGBT character to be offed, but instead be someone who seemed okay with murdering her crush’s parents while sending said crush to her abuser.

But more on that later, we have Sienna to discuss. Now, there’s a lot to dissect. For one, RT has obviously realized that they’ve messed up and brought Sienna back for a bit (while taking the heat for “if she’s so badass, why did she go out like a chump”). However, in hindsight, what purpose did she actually serve outside of some cute nod to Shere Khan?

All she did was tell Adam that he’s going too far and that’s it. And really, it just seems hypocritical for the leader of the White Fang to effectively restructure the organization into a terrorist group, murder tons of people, and then suddenly back away and say “woah, too much” when Adam proceeded to help torch Beacon. It’s to the point where one question most people want to ask at cons is “did Sienna order the hit out on the SDC”, since we don’t actually know and that it could be a radical leader of that quadrant like Adam.

It felt more like Sienna should have been just the leader of Mistral’s White Fang faction instead of ruling over all the White Fang, which would make more sense as Adam would need permission to attack a kingdom that isn’t his stomping ground. Then there’s the introduction of Hazel, who at first is presented to be a pretty decent character, not wanting to kill people if he had no choice, but as time goes on, is basically your stock “big soft guy with a secret hulk side” character.

Unfortunately, this episode didn’t help enforce the theme of taking action when it’s the villains who are doing it and seeming to be two if not twenty steps ahead of the heroes.

Episode 3

Episode 3 has that whole speech thing I overlooked. Barring Ghira’s speech that the crew said is based off Obama’s “we killed Osama” speech (which, if it is, paints the whole situation of Sienna’s death in a rather dark light) before Ilia interferes. Now, I actually liked that Menagerie is hesitant to stand up for Haven. After all, humans hated their guts so much that the island was originally planned to be a place where people could dump Faunus on. There were lynchings and enslavements that are still going on to this day, just in subtler forms, Of course the Faunus wouldn’t want to fight.

Then Ilia swoops in and robs Blake of any agency she has with the scene. If RT wanted to not let Blake convince the people until three quarters to the end, they should have cut the subtlety and have some annoying kid go “IT’S TOO EARLY IN THE PLOT TO DO YOUR SPEECH!”. Hell, let Blake tell her story about her team, but the audience balks at the fact that she’s not only friends with a Schnee, but also a human who crippled a guy on live television. Remember that plot point?

We then cut to Oscar and this is perhaps the reason I decided to do this revisit of Volume 5. The way Ozpin talks of action and resolve, it felt like we’re going to the root of the themes of taking action. No more being subject to the events of the plot like in previous Volumes. Now? Now is the time to fight back! And that built up to… what? One training scene and Ruby learning headbutt?

Granted, we see later on that there was a bit more to the plan, but for the most part, it seemed like an excuse for “character growth” as opposed to actual character growth. A training arc isn’t just some short scenes of a person lifting weights and jogging up stairs. Its meant to be a sort of means of growth for the character. There’s a reason most training montages have the character suck at first, but then get better by the time the montage ends. It’s because it’s the quickest way to show growth. But even without that, you could get some serious mileage for a pulled off training arc.

Rocky IV and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back have some good examples of it. Rocky IV had the titular hero train and work out in the middle of a cold, mountainous range, while his opponent is simply given steroids. It shows the dichotomy between the two and how they view their eventual fight. Empire, on the other hand, had that masterful scene with Luke in the cave, where he has a huge moment of both foreshadowing and character growth.

Here? We just have Ruby learn headbutt like she’s nothing more than a Pokemon. There could have been a lot more done with it, like having Ruby put a lot more force in her punches, causing others to realize she’s extremely angry about what happened to Pyrrha and Penny, or, if the need to exposit about Semblances is needed, bring something new to the table that isn’t going to confuse the fuck out of people… Something like:

“Your Semblance might not reveal itself until you need it most” or something like that. Not “A semblance is someone’s personality, but not. Wow! Exposition!” or “Hey, remember how we said Aura was passive? Welp, not anymore!”

Not to mention that Jaune is seemingly cool with Ozpin suddenly coming back from the dead. Here’s the thing, last Volume had him upset with Ozpin about what happened to Pyrrha, something that didn’t seemed to resolve itself. Keep in mind that, for all rights and merits, Jaune believed Ozpin to have died. In fact, it was that confirmation that Ozpin had lost against Cinder that convinced Pyrrha to kill herself. Now here he is, seemingly stuck in the body of another kid and he just outright said this is a normal thing for him.

You’d expect him to have something more than “golly!”. The fact that he didn’t seem to have any aggression towards Ozpin until after he ran to his hidey hole in Volume 6 seems rather odd given that his entire character is that he’s angsting about Pyrrha and angry at Cinder for what she did. The group seem rather content to just sit back and let the plot happen, which is the opposite of what the crew was trying to convey with their themes.

Episode 4 and Episode 5

I still stand by what I said regarding how Episode 4 was a good episode, finally having a reunion between two members of Team RWBY, but it’s perhaps one of the last good things about RWBY we’ll ever see in Volume 5. Because Raven’s promise to tell Yang “the whole truth” turns out to just be regurgitated exposition at worst.

But first, we need to have Blake, the woman who doesn’t want her race to be labeled, turn out to have labels for her friends. Okay, granted, it’s not that dumb but it is kinda patronizing that we need to have a character tell us what another character is. While the rest of her speech is pretty effective in defining Blake’s character, making her perhaps the only character these themes of growth and strength actually apply to, it still is annoying that the most we take away out of this is her boiling down every character to a single word, then bringing up how Adam is going to ruin everything for the Faunus. You’ll see why this is a problem later. I liked the setting of Menagerie’s Shallow Sea marketplace thing and felt like Menagerie is wasted potential.

Ruby’s whole speech still feels like damage control, but with the added complaint of Ruby deciding to blame Salem for something Cinder did. Now, I heard the common excuse a lot: “Salem told Cinder to do it so it’s all her fault”, but that problem with that? Cinder told Emerald to kill Penny. So… Yeah. It is her fault. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded this if Ruby didn’t word it like Salem personally killed Penny and Pyrrha. Like as in, she just up and appeared out of nowhere and shot both Penny and Pyrrha in the head.

It still doesn’t fix the fact that Ruby is basically “hey, remember how I’m supposed to be upset?”

Lastly for Episode 5, we have the White Fang do the brilliant plant of murdering the chieftain who just spoke out against them. It’s dumb. Extremely dumb. What the hell do they think will happen after they murder the chieftain in cold blood? Menagerie is just gonna magically bend over and obey the White Fang? But perhaps the biggest waste is the White Fang in general.

You have these two sneaky fox brothers who seemingly oversee everything and even state that they’re only letting Adam do what he wants until he’s no longer of use to them, a buff bat dude, and a spider-lady… And they’re never seen again after this Volume. I get the idea, because RT is trying to wrap up the Faunus subplot as quickly as possible, but the problem that you can’t exactly introduce new characters or hidden depths if you’re just gonna throw them out with the bath water.

If they wanted to end the subplot, why did they put all the effort in some random characters that are just gonna be defeated off screen with a tea tray? Then again, this is a problem endemic to RWBY. Introduce this character, then quickly shoo them away before you’re committed to writing a plot for them. If you know you were going to half-ass the White Fang conclusion, why bother with stuff like more White Fang members or the SDC brand? In fact, why bother with the White Fang to begin with if you’re going to do so little with them?

Episode 6

Moving on before I lose my cool, we have Qrow aimlessly walking around downtown Mistral. Now, the crew said that Maria was supposed to be here… But… Why? What purpose would she serve? If she’s just gonna be a “hey, look, cameo to foreshadow Volume 6”, then that’s a horrible purpose. You know how most Cinematic Universes tanked because they spent more time hyping the next twenty movies when they should focus on their pilot? That’s what she would have been like.

Not to mention that she would have been caught in the crossfire of why Volume 5 was bad. “So here we have this random old lady who doesn’t matter at all to the plot so why is she even there” and then “Oh wow, she’s a SEW. They’re doing damage control to justify her unneeded presence in Volume 5”. And, don’t get me wrong, Maria is a fun lady and all that, but there needs to be a reason she was there beyond “hype for next Volume”.

What makes the problem worse was that they’re planning to include Maria so as to have a sort of Yoda to teach Ruby. This makes the complaint of “why didn’t Ruby ask about the Silver Eyes” even more of a complaint because now it seems like they decided “hey, we’re going to address it next volume, so let’s not bother bringing it up here”. Which is even worse than “hey, people noticed we didn’t address this so let’s completely invent this character for the sole purpose of addressing it!”

And then there’s Raven who is all “lol, I know more than you realize but I’m not actually gonna answer anything trolololololol” AARHG!

Okay. Okay. Before I completely lose my marbles, there’s one thing about the scene with Raven that’s stupid.

It’s the “there’s no such thing as magic” thing.

Okay. I get it. Turning into a bird is something that, in the world of RWBY, seems impossible. But there’s a ton of problems with this:

What makes summoning dead Grimm to fight for you so much more different than magic?

You’re willing to believe in magic rocks that augment your fighting style and are in fact part of a company that profits off magic rocks, yet turning into a bird is the messed up thing?

The guy who gave her this ability is currently inhabiting the body of a young boy and has said to basically devour his soul in due time, as well as create the magic that’s responsible for torching your school and your friend… And the BIRD is the most messed up thing!?

“But Raven made it sound like she was forced into it”. She didn’t seem to have any fucking problem with it though. Not only that, but it didn’t seem like a big dark secret that Ozpin wouldn’t want uncovered. In fact, he even said he gave Qrow and Raven the ability to turn into birds in an amused way.

Even more so when everyone but Yang seemed to respond to it with disbelief rather than outright anger. There’s a reason this whole bird issue was made fun of in Jello’s “So This is Basically RWBY” video.

Also, before we move onto Episode 7, I wanna bring up that the scene where Qrow visits the Shields is perhaps the reason why I hold Ozpin’s censorship of Lionheart’s role in the Battle of Haven to be one of the most scumbag moves he could have made. “Your mom’s dead, but don’t worry, the guy who sold her out is a hero!”

Episodes 7-10

Right, back to Episode 7. Okay, I’ll admit, it was a nice reunion scene all things considered, albeit with some rather unnerving things like Yang asking Weiss if she let the Boarbatusk skewer the trophy wife or even the dumb, patronizing “we haven’t made character arcs for us to go through so I’ll just say we had some”, since they had the great idea to use Ren, who is voiced by Monty’s brother, as the mouthpiece for that.

Unfortunately, this is the episode I always think back to when I think of Volume 5. The perfect epitome of a slow, monotonous Volume. The problem I have is that, yeah, it’s meant to be this breather episode, a calm before the storm, but this just feels like a long lull that’s made even more insulting with the cliffhanger. All it has is people dumping exposition that viewers have either figured out or weren’t even burning questions and I think the awkward silence that followed Ozpin saying how he was the wizard that gave the Maidens his power is the perfect epitome for just how boring the volume is. The dude just revealed a massive plot twist and it’s treated as nothing more than a “did you know” factoid.

While I liked how they addressed that Blake leaving Yang would have had some serious negative emotions in Yang, it felt rather half-assed that they basically resolved it with “hey, my mom’s drunk, so shut up and accept Blake the moment she comes back”, especially since it comes from Weiss, who told Blake at the end of Volume 1 that if she ever runs away again, she best let RWBY know. If they wanted to ship Bumblebee so badly, this would have been a great hurdle for them to come across instead of just “hey, let me resolve this plot for you”.

Now, the whole thing with Ilia… Let’s get the elephant out of the way. The way they revealed her sexuality, I feel, could have been done better. “You wanna know why I’m gonna kill your parents and bring you to your abuser? Because I wanted you to look at me like a lover!” There’s a reason why some fans label her as a “psycho lesbian”.

However, I want to bring up that Rooster Teeth did an excellent job at building tension during the climax of the Menagerie Arc. Sure, the cliffhangers were tiresome, but you couldn’t help but admit you were at the edge of your seat and it even did a good job at subversion. Even if they allegedly didn’t even intend for it to happen.

The constant dryness of exposition and dialogue exchanges is what made Episode 10 so much better than the other episodes. Not just because it’s action-orientated, but because it finally tries to get back to the themes that it was originally supposed to tell. Throughout the entirety of the middle portion of Volume 5, the group basically took a backseat and allowed characters and plots to happen to them rather than advocate for themselves. The closest thing we got to the theme of “building yourself back up” is Weiss talking to Yang about Blake.

In fact, the only actual characters taking action are the villains. Constantly roadblocking the cast, setting them in for a trap, and even aiming to screw each other over. These guys have more advocacy and agency than the main characters. The most any of them did was…

Burn down their own house and blamed everyone else for it, all while saying that the house is the message Adam wants to send.

Use a girl’s unrequited feelings towards them to their advantage, straddle them, and guilt tripped her enough for her to consider switching sides.

Cry about how things are not going their way until their hands start magically glowing.

Yelling at someone until they cry bitch tears and then have them run away without even bothering to close the door leading to the dangerous artifact everyone had been working so hard to keep out of enemy hands.

In the volume where the theme is “solving problems on our own”. Just because Yang drops the word strength a few times when bitching out at Raven doesn’t mean that the theme had been accomplished. In fact, they do nothing of their own accord and just follow a script. Even Ozpin, the supposed smartest guy in all of Remnant, doesn’t even bother to figure out a way to counter the trap. Just instead walk in. Hell, if Yang didn’t spot Raven, they’d be mulched.

But, back on track. Episode 9 was an entire waste that failed to pay off the expectations of what we had with the cliffhanger set up in Episode 7. “But it subverted your ex-” NO. There’s a good way to subvert expectations and being promised a fight after episodes of bland exposition only to have it be “lol, no, it’s just gonna be more talking” is not a good subversion.

No. Here’s a better way. Set up the cliffhanger like normal, but don’t show Cinder’s dragged out negotiation with Raven. Instead, have her “allying” with Cinder be a twist. That way, people’s expectations for what happened are actually, you know, subverted?

The Battle of Haven

But, you know where this is leading to… The Battle of Haven. Really, I don’t think I can say anything that hasn’t been covered by someone else. We all know it makes all the Vytal fights look like masterpieces by comparison, we all know the jokes about useless Weiss or Lionheart hogging the staircase, or even the plot holes of Raven knowing Cinder’s arm being Grimm but doing nothing about it or Blake, despite spending the past volume saying how Adam must be stopped, suddenly doesn’t care about him…

So let me cut it simply:

The reason this battle sucks might have to do with the crunch.

We don’t know how long this issue with Rooster Teeth had been going on for, but if it is indeed what people say it is and that animators don’t get paid for the last quarter or third of their work, then that might explain all the cut corners animators and writers made. Why the fights are broken up into one on ones or why fights are cut out entirely. Maybe they weren’t getting paid enough and thus, the quality of RWBY suffered as a result of it.

And that’s perhaps the shittiest thing about the Battle of Haven. It could have been this epic fight that would have made up for all the boring, drawn out scenes of exposition and chatting, but because Rooster Teeth got too greedy or even because of our own impatience (which, again, isn’t helped by the aforementioned long, drawn out scenes), we are treated to a final battle so broken and tiresome that the Battle of Winterfell manages to be a better final battle, with the only thing holding it back being that Haven had a better identity twist.

And if, for whatever reason, it isn’t due to crunch issues, then we have another problem. This was meant to be this hyped up rematch between the heroes and villains, who haven’t seen each other since the latter ruined the lives of the former. This would have been excellent to see how the killers of Jaune and Ruby’s friends would interact with them, how Yang would react to the person who framed her, even how the group had grown since their last battle…

But… if crunch wasn’t to blame for the quality dip and the writers intended for the fight to go the way it went… I have to say… What the fuck were they thinking!? So many moments could have been brought up here and yet they decided that they weren’t important enough to focus on! And now, with this battle over and done with, those moments lost their luster. If they decide to bring them up, it’d be too little, too late at best and “why the fuck are you bringing this up now” at worst.

I’ll deal with one commonly used example to get what I mean. Adam was established in Volume 3 to be a threat only made strong because he uses Blake’s emotions against her and has a Semblance that lets him dish out aura-breaking damage. Blake easily defeats Adam and has him on the ropes, only to let him run with a few excuses that some people have debated to death and back, when it would have been much easier for Blake to have to choose between apprehending Adam and helping Yang. Then, when he inevitably returns to haunt Blake next volume, suddenly he’s a threat that Blake is afraid of again despite Blake having “grown” to oppose him.

They wanted that “triumph” over him, but realize that by doing so, they’ve burned that opportunity to have the triumph be meaningful. Same goes with Emerald and Mercury. They had a good opportunity for Ruby to effectively call them out for their crimes like how Jaune did to Cinder, but instead she just headbutts Mercury. Yang had at least some closure on her arc with Mercury, but it was meh.

The Point in All of This

Hell, speaking of wasted opportunities, the reunion of Team RWBY, something that the opening had hyped and one that the fans had been waiting for since Volume 3 ended, is nothing more than an afterthought. They couldn’t even be assed to show Blake’s first fight back with Ruby and Weiss. That’s how little they cared. It’s like everyone was just wanting to get that paycheck but they needed to rush that final episode out the door and also need to make room for Gen:Lock and Nomad trailers. They didn’t even care about the stinger, as they basically ignored any sort of information relating to the stinger.

Perhaps the biggest reason why Volume 5 sucked so hard was that it was running off the heels of Volume 3. Everyone basically accepted that Volume 4 was meant to be a breather Volume, with lower stakes and lower drama (with the exception of possible death flags for Ren and Nora), but the moment they made Volume 5 the grudge match everyone wanted, then the stakes got raised back to the heights of the third Volume, only for it to fail to live up to the expectations. Sorry, I think I mean to say “subvert the expectations” in this day and age.

Though, I think the huge problem with all of this, and perhaps the biggest bottom line I can say, is that it might be due to Volume 3 going too over the edge. By killing important characters and even dividing the team, the villains had raised stakes up so high, that people began to take the show more seriously. When characters were vaguely hinted to die, be it through threats from the villains or even flashbacks, people fretted that they would die. When the villains go back to striking distance with the heroes, people desired a grand battle. When the show tried to deal with the ramifications that happened with RWBY separating, people wanted to know what was going through the characters’ heads.

And when Volume 5 failed to deliver/“subverted their expectations”, people considered it a bad volume.

But worst of all, it failed to live up to its own themes. Jaune was the only person to build himself back up again through deus ex hands, and we saw next Volume that it needed a statue for him to feel better. No one was in a position of giving up only to be defiant and shout “we’re not done here”, but instead cry “it wasn’t supposed to be like this!”. The big problem of Volume 5, make sure the relic is secure, is only solved because two characters had a catfight in the basement and the survivor didn’t bother to lock up because their daughter was too busy bitching at her. No one really grew or strengthened their resolve. The triumph… wasn’t theirs to have.

Although, it seems Rooster Teeth had learned from their mistakes, with Volume 6 being leaps and bounds better than Volume 5, regardless of what you thought of the latter half. Best of all, the themes promised in Volume 5 were shown prominently in Volume 6, albeit some of the scenes capitalizing on those themes feeling more like a child is having a tantrum because they couldn’t have the airplane.

To close out this rather long winded discussion, and to give people a tl;dr on the whole matter, Volume 5 failed to address the themes it had presented and instead just padded itself out, expecting people to accept it because it’s RWBY.

#RWDE #RWBY #Volume 5

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space-n-sky · 6 years

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A Dissertation on ZAGR

First of all?? Bless your soul.

Now buckle up cause this tea’s been brewing in the back of my mind for 3 years.

Despite my unyielding adoration for these two hot messes, I know there’s a very small chance the ship could work. Zim nonchalantly states that his race is both asexual and aromantic in issue 20, and seeing how Gaz actively separates herself from Dib’s and Zim’s antics both in comics and show, there’s really no reason for them to be near each other.

However, the times they do share screen time/ panels, there’s a distinct dynamic between the two, one that the show and comics don’t take advantage of, and I’m going to analyze the hecc out of it.

Dang Zim. A few days on Earth and you’re already snatching up girls

This scene charmed me when I first saw it, and I think the reason was is cause up until this point when I started watching the show, I had the impression that no one could do anything to Gaz, and if they did, they would pay for it. I legit gasped when Zim just up an grabbed her, like, this stupid boi had a one-way ticket to hurtville. Gaz’s threats aren’t empty! Nonsequital and gruesome in detail, but not empty. So she’s promising Zim she’ll hurt him, but Zim just... ignores her. He only puts her down when he knows it’s not raining anymore and hardly bats an eye at her words.

Now, he hardly knows her at this point in the series, so it’s very likely that he didn’t know how cold she really is. But still, everyone else who’s come across Gaz ends up acting in her favor in some way or another. By Zim getting away with inconveniencing her and being able to shrug off her threats, I got the hint that Zim in one of few who could put up with her attitude and give her a run for her money. Not enough to ship but... you do get curious when they’ll run into each other again.

Zim?? steals an organ from Gaz that doesn’t make her reel in pain like the others and leaves her Gameslave in a position where she can still play?? Like. I know Gaz is a tough character (she doesn't writhe in pain when she gets lice later on) but the position her Gameslave replaces her organ has got to be deliberate. I fancy Zim knows by now what she’s capable of and executes his plan on her in the least harmful way possible so that she doesn’t come running after him when his whole shtick is over. I remember someone from the crew mentioning that if Zim were to take over, he’d occasionally appease Gaz by offering her food or games, and I think that idea stemmed off here. Zim is an unforgiving zealot with nothing but contempt for humans, yet he accommodates Gaz. So, I don’t think he respects her yet, but he does realize he should stay on her good side.

Here though, he definitely does. He comes up to her and invites her to look at Pustulio like he has with everyone else, no biggie. Gaz obviously knows better and just shrugs him off, but then...Zim asks her again like “oh, you sure? understandable, have a nice day”. Amazing.

Gaz hasn’t changed her opinion on Zim, though. Still very “eh” about him, which is a bummer. It’s by no means ship material, but this moment made me wonder what this was leading up to.

Ohhhh snap it’s that one screenshot every zagr fan has on their blog at least once

So. the context for BPH: Gaz begrudgingly goes to saves Dib, is fascinated by the idea of Zim experimenting on a human but forces herself to focus yessss and after being belittled by Zim, engages in a high-speed chase back to Earth.

Gaz could have easily just jetted out of Zim’s hold and gone home, it would have made sense with how she’s shown nothing but disdain and annoyance when he comes close. Yet, she jumps over his hold and teases him about her win. Then she goes home.

We get two things from this, and they excite me so much omg zifbhjgf

We’re halfway through season 1, and Zim is scared of Gaz just enough to respect and avoid her but is bold enough to belittle her and ignore her threats. Now, she’s beat him in Nanozim but he had no idea it was her, so when her gaming muscles flex over his military piloting, he is s h o o k.

I believe he is shooketh for two reasons: One, because this is one of Zim’s few losses against the humans directly, a Membrane at that. Two, because someone smaller than him beat him. Recall that he addresses her name once in the show, and it’s to demean her efforts and her stature. Being defeated by someone he deemed insignificant on a first name basis took a huge blow to his pride. Zim has a penchant for overlooking his faults or any correction (Tak telling him his mission was a lie, Gir telling Zim that babies aren’t a threat to the mission) unless it is direct to where he cannot deny it (The Tallests saying the trial was a formality in Zim’s range of hearing). This was one of those rare moments where his shortcomings and the opposing victor are up in his face, Gaz lets him know she’s won, is better than him, and there’s nothing he can do about it. So he just gapes.

Gaz’s end? I really think she was partly spiteful and playful with this quip. it was her special way of getting Gaz patented revenge after being insulted and attacked by Zim. Also, her cold smile and wave indicate she had fun getting the best of Zim, whereas she never smiled once when dooming Iggins in GS2 and Dib in GToP, and I think that’s really telling.

At this point I was hype to see how much farther Zim and Gaz’s budding rivalry will go, aaaand nothing happens the rest of the show :’)

There’s a brief exchange between Zim and Gaz in Tak:THNG, and yeah, Gaz teases Zim about his base and Zim deflects her statement in an unusually offhanded, nearly empty threat. It’s basically the equivalent of two kids sticking their tounges out at each other, more lighthearted than their last encounter at the very least.

After finishing the series and jumping straight to the comics, something beautiful and unexpected happens. It takes 16 issues and then some to get there, but it happens.

Zim and Gaz’s slowly built up rivalry/relationship reaches a new peak. To a point where they can negotiate, know each other well enough to outsmart the other, and most importantly of all, casually talk to each other.

Breaking down issues 16 and 21 are gonna take up a lot of pic space and some fangirling tangents explaining to do, So they are gonna be like, the sequel to this hot mess and be their own posts.

It’s 4am y’all I hope you can read this hggohepw

#zagr #zim #gaz #invader zim #iz #gaz membrane #I did this instead of my charcoal still life due on Wednesday dreamwalker44 I hope you're happy #Y'know... B's get degrees @ scad sooo my project doesn't have to be that good this time...#musings of the onion fairy #she speaks

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dotthings · 6 years

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This felt a bit like a classic Twilight Zone episode, mixed with TFW 2.0 feelings all around.

I jotted notes and stuff. Feelings and thoughts and milkshakes.

Running with the Twilight Zone structure and style here, Cas would be the character who figures out something’s just not right and things unravel around him and he’s slowly freaking out and has to get others to wake up to it and stop whatever’s happening. The eps this most reminds me of are things like “The Monsters are out on maple street” or “It’s a good life.”

Starting from the top -- so Jack doesn’t seem right. Nope. Sam’s not okay either, and as I figured already from the promo clip, yes it turns out he’s got a raging case of PTSD from the bunker crew he led all being slaughtered. While the characters weren’t designed to stand out to audience individually (except, perhaps, Maggie, and she wasn’t much developed), they meant something to Sam. Not in the sense that he got deeply close to them. As I pointed out earlier in the season, the bunker crew is a bit like the cantina crowd in Star Wars. They’re there for world-building. They'd all have good stories of their own given a chance to tell the tale but that’s not what they are in the main story for. And Sam cares but isn’t really part of them. He’s a leader who hasn’t formed deep personal bonds.

But they were important to Sam, and Sam’s carrying a lot of guilt and trauma over their loss, which is why he blows past Dean’s protests that he’s tired and needs rest, they all need rests. Okay so everything I thought might be going on with Sam before this ep gets vocalized by the end of it, more on that in a moment.

That scene in the bunker kitchen is so...organic and domestic. I love that SPN is a monster-killing show. I’m a fan of genre shows and watching characters whose lives are strange and dangerous and how they cope with it and watch after each other, but the domestic grace notes are an important part of grounding it and making these characters seem real. This scene in the kitchen between Dean and Cas, with Sam blowing through it, was so good. So with Sam not in a frame of mind to understand Dean’s needs for rest or wait for him, and Dean needing to stay at the bunker to rest, and both Dean and Cas worried for Sam, and all of them worried for Jack, Cas basically steps into the role of family organizer, figuratively scooping them up under his wings because someone has to try to sort out this chaos and keep it together and try to make it better. So he volunteers to go on the hunt with PTSD fixated overly-driven Sam, assigns Dean to talk to possibly-soulless Jack and figure out what’s going on, tells Dean to get the sleep that he wants “’til the cows come home.”

I love that Dean says “they’re both full of crap” about Sam and Jack’s assertions of being fine. And then Cas, once he’s in the weird town with Sam, “yeah I know, everybody’s good,” Cas says grouchily. Cas is so DONE with everyone’s pretending-to-be-okay shit.

“Was it Scanners 1, 2, or 3?” I’m betting this wasn’t a Metatron pop culture upload. Oh guess what, Dean and Cas watch horror movies together. File this with the conversations and things we now Dean and Cas do together we don’t get to actually see. I wonder when their horror movie marathon was. Just after Mint Condition? Which expressly showed how great it is having a friend who’ll watch horror movies with you? Some other time?

The reveal that Cas reads the Saturday Evening Post after everyone else is asleep in the bunker is a small thing but it’s so damn good, it gives us another glimpse into what the heck Cas does while he’s not sleeping because he doesn’t need to sleep.

Sam and Cas weirded out together is adorable, as is their surprise milkshake date.

“I think the snake is sad.” Is Jack projecting onto the snake? Assigning his own feelings of hollowness and loss from his soul being eaten away onto the snake who just lost its original owner?

Dean trying to figure out how to talk to Jack is awkward af and endearing and Dean seems so very relieved when Jack picks the angel food cake over the devil’s food. Dean, I’m pretty sure things don’t really work that way and Jack’s choice of snack food isn’t the solution but I am appreciating the reasoning behind Dean’s relief. He knows angels are mostly dicks but hey, Cas is a thing in his life, and Jack picking angel food over devil’s food (Satan), Dean takes as an optimistic sign. Cas over Lucifer. Oh, Dean.

So. Much. Floral. And citris. Imagery. In this strange little town Sam and Cas are in. Sam holding that little rose teacup. Yellow tulips on the woman’s dress. Paintings with oranges and lemons. I think the set designer’s choices were are because citrus and flowers are generally bright, sunshine-y, "happy” things usually.

LOL Cas thinks Sam has beautiful hair. Well, he's not wrong.

Sam’s brainwashed altered persona is disturbing yet Jared is adorable so it’s weirdly adorable but disturbing and please make it stop this isn’t Sam make it stop.

“You will snap the hell out of it!” “I don’t wear a hat.”

Grumpy Cas incredibly put out and grumpy over one of his best friends in literally the history of the universe being brain-snatched by this stepford town is a delight.

As I said about structuring--things are unraveling around him and Cas is not a happy camper...so he deals with it. Much like he steps in and organizes Team Free Will 2.0 so everyone is looked after in different ways as needed, Cas takes charge of this case when Sam gets brainwashed. He is a competent hunter, abd he is a badass. What was that some have been saying about not seeing enough BAMF Cas? He can handle himself in a fight just fine. Albeit, his powers don’t seem to be as strong as in some previous season but I am more and more convinced this is purposeful because we know Heaven’s batteries are dying because the angels are and that’s bound to affect Cas’s power levels. So he has angel powers and he’s extra strong and self-healing and doesn’t need to eat or sleep but he’s also not the mega power we’ve sometimes seen. It makes sense.

Jack still doesn’t seem at all right and yet he seems to have a trace of a soul. He doesn’t want Sam and Dean and Cas to worry. Sam and Dean are his human role models (and no, this wasn’t Jack ommitting Cas--Cas isn’t human. We know Jack thinks the world of Cas). Which is sweet but at the same time uneasily reminds me of soulless Sam who observed Dean and then would say what he thought was expected to pass as normal. Jack latching onto Sam and Dean as models for how to act like he has a soul isn’t the same as really having one, and it’s not the same as early Cas, with all his confusing emotions broiling inside of him, adopting the Winchesters as an emotional compass and guides for how to human emotion. Jack’s going with Donatello (who is also soulless) WWTWD--What Would the Winchesters Do--literally just a plan to mimick them instead of Jack learning and feeling it himself.

“Maybe I don’t know what nothing feels like.”

Cas threatening to rip the info from the girl’s mind doesn’t seem like something he was actually going to carry out. That was a bluff, I’d say. Cas we’ve seen in the past is great at bluffing and does a good peacocking routine, a show of power. Not that he couldn’t rip the info from her. Maybe he would, at great need, to save Sam, and she was acting guilty. But I’m not sure.

“I won’t hurt you, Sam.” Of course you won’t, Cas. We been knew, sweetie.

So first Cas organizes and tucks Team Free Will 2.0 under his wings, so to speak, then he takes over the case when his parter Sam gets sucked into the happy vortex of brainwashing, and then Cas fights off like 4 people at once including Sam, who is very tall, without harming Sam, and then Cas talks Sam down from brainwashing and from killing him with an angel blade. Interesting parallels back to Dean and Cas’s fight in The Prisoner, but with differences. Because hey, ding!, these relationships are different. It’s not about the strength of the bonds, but they are different.

“I know what it’s like to lose your army. I know what it’s like to fail as a leader but you can’t lose yourself. You have to keep fighting. You can’t lose yourself. Because if you lose yourself you fail us. You fail all of those that we’ve lost. You fail Jack. You fail Dean.”

There’s so many things all at once in this scene and Misha is so good here. There’s a bit of a nod back to the “believe in us” concept from Prophet and Loss. I appreciate that SPN didn’t go for a simple, Sam regrets talking Dean out of it. Because much as I am all for Winchesters protecting the world, as I’ve pointed out already, I didn’t feel Sam was the least bit in a heedless frame of mind where he wasn’t thinking of the risks to others, and Dean was so extremely fatalistic, accepting the fate literally written down for him, it just didn’t feel right. I don’t think SPN is saying it’s right to be punished for hope, that Sam should suffer, gee that’s what you get for wanting a little more time just to find a better way, not let the world burn, not screw everything else, just a shot at finding some other way. But in the story they are telling, there is a cost for that hope and that’s heartbreaking. Also I don’t feel Dean’s plan was risk free either. It really was a lose/lose no win situation and that is the point. They have Dean free of Michael, they are free of Michael it seems, but now look, Jack is a mess. And so it goes.

As Cas did in Prophet and Loss, reaching out to Dean in a less overt way than Sam (but not unimportant), Cas is a voice of hope again. Urging Sam not to give up, and echoing what Cas said earlier this season about valuing yourself, the core self “without all the bells and whistles.” So there’s an important note for Sam here, and for Cas. S14 keeps having Cas vocalize on so many things it’s really important for Cas to say, about himself, but he does it via helping others. Cas has given advice to Jack, to Dean, and to Sam this season that indicates Cas listens to his own advice and has reached some insight about these things. Not only is Cas reassuring Sam, it shows that Cas understands despite his losses and failures, he’s worth not giving up on, and there are others who need him who are affected if he gives up. So Cas, having realized this, offers it to Sam in Sam’s moment of need and Sam drives the angel blade into the floor instead of into Cas (a familiar move), and shakes free of the brainwashing.

And Sam and Cas. Back in S9, Cas commiserated with Sam’s feelings of failure then too, and branded himself an even bigger screw up than Sam. SPN has shown for a while that Sam and Cas care about each other and have quite a few points in common, but it’s been a somewhat underdeveloped bond, and a little inconsistent. They’ve often bonded over their shared love of Dean, but we also have seen them caring for each other in their own right. I like their friendship. I appreciate that SPN shows that the relationships are different, and that Sam’s feelings for Cas aren’t the Sam as Dean’s, but I do think the Sam and Cas bond has been a bit neglected. So to land here, with a really big moment of connection for them over their particular shared traumas and specific senses of failures, is great to see. If we’re told they’re family, we should see it on the screen. Cas specifically was the person Sam needed right then. Just as Dean needs more than just Sam, Sam needs more than just Dean.

Moment to appreciate the absolute miracle Mishalecki in S14 is because anyone else remember when Misha and Jared could barely get any scenes filmed there was so much messing around and Jared loves to mess with Misha, and a director had to yell at them at one point to get serious scenes filmed between them. People used to say Mishalecki was the enemy of Sam & Cas scenes. Here we are, years later, they not only filmed this immensely dramatic key Sam & Cas scene together, but did it with Jared on top of Misha, pinning him to the floor. I don’t know how they got this filmed. But they did it. Think of the gag reel. And we got a wonderful Sam & Cas scene.

Cas takes a very proactive role in this ep which is also great to see, and it’s a really interesting note on his character development to see Cas in this role of the family member holding everyone else together, knowing the right words, watching after everybody, competently handling the case temporarily solo, saving Sam, watching after Dean and Jack.

However, notably it’s the young woman who actually saves the whole town by tapping into her own (genetically inherited) powers and taming her toxic, brainwashing father. Seizing back not only her own agency but for an entire town. There’s a Jack parallel on the tip of my brain here. The power is inherited from the parent, but what the offspring does with it is their choice.

“Yeah, I told him about the cardigan.” So Cas called Dean and told him about what happened...another Dean and Cas conversation we know took place we didn’t get to see first-hand. They talk way more than we are shown, more than we know. Unlikely they talk about the...stuff they actually need to but we keep being shown how much a part of each other’s lives they have become. They watch movies together, they talk all the time, they’ve had countless bunker kitchen talks. Cas is there. He’s been there for a while.

“I hate this place right now. Everywhere I look I see them.” That sound you heard was my heart shattering, and I’m not surprised Sam feels that way. He’s living in the place where he saw his whole team slaughtered. That’s...a lot to shoulder. But the bunker is also his home. What does a person do when their own home has been tainted by that kind of trauma (people suffer from home invasions, traumatic events, in their own home...how do people regain their sense of safety?) “this is my home. This is our home...I just need some time.” Again my heart shattering for Sam. Because he means that, yes that is home and I think Sam, as Dean did openly in SPN 300, is good with his life and who he is. But there’s no quick fix for that trauma. Sam’s not only dealing with guilt and grief and trauma, but his sense of home has been violated by what Michael did. We also know unpleasant things have happened in the Impala. Blood and trauma and fear. The Impala, like the bunker, has been home and shelter and safety, but like the bunker, has been the location of traumatic events in their lives (and who knows what kind of scary moments Sam and Dean had in that car when they were children). Yet their sense of home prevailed for the Impala and I think it will for Sam with the bunker too.

Okay. So. It seems like Jack’s soul really was fully gone already after all because he kills the snake to send its soul to Heaven to reunite with its original owner and that isn’t compassionate it’s murder and Jack thought that was a really good idea.

#Sam & Cas #Sam and Dean: a work in progress #Sam Winchester #Dean Winchester #Castiel #Jack Kline #spn #supernatural #supernatural spoilers #meta #Dean & Cas

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lightsandlostbells · 6 years

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Skam France season 3, episode 3 reaction

Alexia was the MVP of the episode. Daphne needs a restraining order.

Episode 3

Clip 1 - Three men and an obnoxious whiny baby they inexplicably let hang around with them

Lucas at his locker Monday morning. The locker next to him is #24, the words Amor Amor and #instalove are written on it. #24 is also the slot for the choco bars that Eliott got for them in episode 1. Is that going to be Lucas and Eliott’s version of 21? What’s the significance of 24 - maybe 24 hours in a day, a day meaning a full period of both light and darkness? If we want to get Biblical, Luke 24 is the last chapter in the gospel of Luke and describes Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, although I don’t know if they’re going to go heavily into the Biblical/rebirth metaphors in Skam France (they’re going with light and dark). Anyway, any significance will become more obvious later in the season.

The boy squad shows up. Basile starts talking and when I first watched this without subtitles, my notes were “I don’t know what he’s saying but he needs to shut up.”

Watching with subtitles? I was right, Basile can fucking chill. He blows up at Lucas because he missed the party and he could’ve gotten laid. Even Arthur and Yann, who weren’t overly warm with Lucas when they entered, are telling Basile to calm down. Arthur tells Basile it wasn’t the party of the year. Yann, upon hearing the excuse that something’s up with Lucas’ mom, says who cares, the party’s in the past, diffusing the situation. Basile shuts up seemingly because the other two are chill.

I get that people aren’t perfect and that Lucas did something snaky on them, but Basile is so fucking creepy, Jesus. He’s not just peeved, he’s like ... seriously angry that he missed a chance to get laid, and he keeps up his tantrum after Lucas starts mentioning a problem at home, with his mom. Glad to know his priorities are fully aligned with his dick? It gives me the nastiest, skeeviest vibes, like this dude is going to end up frequenting incel forums in a year or two (if not sooner) and after his friends finally get sick of his shit and ditch him he’ll be railing against Lucas and Yann and calling them Chads or whatever.

The one good thing about Basile being terrible is that I think it made Yann and Arthur chill out, like they must have thought, “Holy shit, I need to not be like this guy.” Lucas explaining about his mom seemed to dial down their annoyance because they’re, you know, normal human beings with empathy that extends outside of their penile excursions. When Lucas hands back the weed to Arthur and offers to pay for it later, Arthur says not to worry about it. Man, this season is a lot better than the first two but I kind of hate Skam France for deciding that Basile was going to be the boy squad breakout and not Arthur.

Yann checks in with Lucas after the others leave and asks whether his mom is at the clinic, so I’m assuming that’s something that has happened in the past. I don’t remember hearing about Isak’s mom being in a clinic or psychiatric hospital. I mean, it actually might be a good thing, in that Lucas’ mom is willing and able to seek treatment - or it might be something else that’s concerning, like she’s a danger to herself or unable to take care of herself. I’m sure we’ll learn more about her condition later. Lucas tells Yann he doesn’t want to talk about it and Yann is a total pal and says the important thing is to be there for her. God, can we please get more Yann content? I know it’s coming later, I know Lucas has to go through some serious heartache and isolation first, but I need Yann’s presence like I need a cool drink of water.

Yann must have triggered Lucas’ guilt over not being there for his mom, because Lucas writes a text to her, saying he’s sorry for not answering her previous texts and that he’s been busy, but he’s thinking of her. Nice little moment of cause-and-effect, though I wonder how Lucas’ relationship is going to be with her later on and how he’ll describe it to Eliott. Because he doesn’t seem to be as totally alienated from her as Isak, though it’s still a rocky and distant relationship.

Clip 2 - Alexia loves unicorns

I see the Raptors’ logo on the wall so you know, nice that they still exist.

Lucas sees Chloé and Maria coming and runs away into the common room, lmao. Daphne, Alexia, and Emma are in there, and I have no idea why Daphne hides the broom behind her, like … you’re just sweeping the floor, girl, you ain’t pulling off a jewel heist. Although Lucas does suggest they’re burgling the room, heh. (I love Daphne’s rubber gloves, btw. She is taking this cleanup seriously.)

Lucas lies that he’s here to help them and Daphne is still weird about it, because it’s a secret and she doesn’t even want the girls to mention they’re moving the furniture. Emma “vaguely” says it’s so people can dance here. Lmao, that wasn’t really necessary, Emma, you could just have said they’re moving stuff out of the way to see how the room looks for their redesign or whatever. Lucas figures out that they’re throwing a party here, because he sat in on that last meeting and he’s not an idiot. Daphne complains that she doesn’t want anyone to know but she just blathers more about organizing an event. Errr, are you allowed to just throw a party at the school? Like … at night, on a Friday, with a bunch of teenagers, and no teacher supervision? I assume not. That seems like a huuuuuge fucking recipe for people to get drunk, make a mess, break shit, or in some way trash this room and possibly other parts of the school, and then you’ll never get your common room redone.

Lmao, at Alexia saying it’s OK because it’s Lucas and he’s not a snitch, and he and Emma just share a look like “Oh really?” Heh, that was a good (and subtle) inclusion. Well, it’s true that he is a snitch, it’s just that he’s also a self-serving snitch, and it’s not in his own best interests to rat out this party vs. ratting out Emma’s kissing Raptor Alex.

Alexia points out that Lucas is part of the crew now because he’s always gatecrashing, and Emma says he’s the new Manon, Alexis like, yeah, he even took her spot in the flat! They’re not wrong? He even took over from her as POV character! He just needs some bright red lipstick to complete the Manon transformation.

Daphne is like NO BOYS ALLOWED and I don’t blame her, she’s seen what kind of riffraff Lucas hangs with (starts with a B, ends with a go-fuck-yourself.)

Alex says Romain (her boyfriend who’s French Kasper) would love this ugly-ass table they’re moving and Emma points out she also has weird taste, indicating Alex’s unicorn shoes with little manes and horns. Yo, I don’t have an obsession with unicorns myself, but I applaud her wearing those shoes. Girl, wear whatever your technicolor heart desires.

Daphne is like, are those unicorns because you’re bi orrr … Alex says no, it’s because unicorns are awesome. OK, so she and Eliott are both into animals and attracted to more than one gender, that seems like a solid basis for a friendship. Let the Raccoonicorn brotp rise.

Daphne asks whether Romain knows she is bi, and Alex says no, but sexuality is fluid, anyway. Tbh I do find it strange that Romain does not know, not because she’s obligated to tell him or anything, just because in a long-term relationship (which it is, they hooked up like last June) I’d think you would share details like that? I mean, hasn’t she ever talked about her female exes or crushes or anything with him? Especially because she seems to be quite out and proud, she was openly talking about making out with Clara in S1, she has rainbow patches on her clothes. She also makes bisexuality-related posts on Instagram, like this one. I guess we don’t know much about her relationship with Romain and how serious it is, but is he like ... not paying attention at all, lmao?

Alex mentions the Kinsey scale and Lucas asks what that is, because this conversation about sexuality just so happens to be relevant to his interests. She explains what it is and mentions that many people have done stuff with the same sex. Just look at Emma and Daphne hooking up!

I did laugh that they mentioned that again, although Daphne is like NO NO NO that was one time and Emma initiated it!! Daphne, don’t dash my dreams. Especially now that she’s got creepy Basile after her; Daphne should find a nice girl to love and SHUT THAT SHIT DOWN in every way possible.

Emma describes herself as very fluid when drunk and ahhHHHHHH I groaned, like this is not a judgment call on Emma or anyone who behaves similarly because hey, make out with who you want, but this is not the greatest thing to reinforce, the whole “drunk girls making out” cliche is used to minimize the concept of bisexuality for woman (because that’s what you mean when you say you’re bi, right, you like to get drunk and kiss girls?). I mean, that’s where the complaint about the Eva/Vilde moment in Skam came from. It’s certainly different here because Alexia is actually bisexual in canon as opposed to no canon wlw rep in Skam, but I kinda wish they hadn’t thrown in this line in a scene that’s otherwise positive and educational about bisexuality.

Lucas is like, but it’s cool to be bi, right? Because Alex can kiss as many girls as she wants and date a boy, and everyone thinks she’s straight. Ohhhhh noooooo son. But at least that’s definitely in-universe ignorance that’s immediately refuted by Alex pointing out it doesn’t work like that. Do you choose who you fall in love with? Lucas considers that.

This is a big new scene so let’s go over it.

First of all, massive props to Skam France for having Alex confirm in words on screen that she is bisexual, and for course-correcting from previous seasons. Because personally I had a problem with Alex bi by Word of God but that factor not affecting like … her dialogue or interactions at all even when it would be relevant. For instance, the whole thing about Daphne thinking Manon is a lesbian played out the same way as Vilde thinking Noora is a lesbian, even when there was an out bisexual girl in the same scene, so Alex might not react the same way as girl Chris, or it might influence how Manon or Daphne reacted. Didn’t the girl squad laugh when Daphne brought this up and Daphne was all “your laughter makes this an unsafe environment to come out,” like that’s the kind of situation that should take into account one of the girls is bi, and yet there was nothing different? I think they took some of the viewer feedback in mind and saw that people wanted confirmation of Alex’s sexuality on screen, and that it was important to the fans, so good for them. They also had her say the word “bisexual” and treat it as a legit concept, which is still rare in media, as many canons just dance around it (to the point where I was surprised when Skam’s boy squad discussed bisexuality/pansexuality as a real thing).

Also, excellent to have Alex correct Lucas’ perception of her bisexuality, where basically she can mess around with girls but have a more serious thing with a guy, and no one has to know she’s anything but straight. Very common misconception of bisexuality, unfortunately a very dismissive perspective, and Alexia got to educate the audience. It was a really good thing for the viewers to hear, so again, big props.

I think Lucas made that comment about Alex kissing girls but dating a boy and getting to appear straight primarily because that situation seemed ideal to him. In his mind, Alex probably seems lucky because she can act on her non-heterosexual desires but not deal with the prejudice and judgment that comes with dating your own gender. Perhaps he’s thinking he can apply it to himself, like in a way he’s hoping he can maybe mess around with Eliott in secret but date a girl in public and not deal with any of the societal stigma that comes with gay relationships. I think it’s also possible he’s wondering if that’s how Eliott’s sexuality operates, like hey, maybe Eliott’s bi and he’ll date that girl, but kiss me. When really it’s not that simple.

Additionally, thinking of bisexuality in that distorted, superficial way means Lucas might not have to confront his own sexuality to a degree that makes him uncomfortable. If bisexuality is simple as kissing girls but dating boys - or in Lucas’ case, kissing boys but dating girls - then he can maybe leave it like that, he doesn’t really have to think about it further, what it means to fall in love with a boy. Almost like it would be an easy gratification of needs like eating or sleeping, rather than anything deeper that would shake up his world. Alexia points out it’s not like that. Why would she date some guy if the person she loves is a girl? You don’t choose who affects you emotionally.

Honestly the lead-in to this conversation was pretty clunky, like they obviously wanted to bring up bisexuality (which is great!) but they could’ve done it in a more organic way, much as I appreciated a glimpse of Alex’s unicorn shoes. Like IDK, when they’re talking about keeping the party a secret, Alexia could’ve added, “Well I admit, I told Clara about the party, too” and have Daphne go “You talk to your ex-girlfriend? Doesn’t Romain get jealous?” and Alexia be like “... why would he be?” You know, throw in another little moment where Alex disputes the “bisexual cheater” stereotype or something like that. Not sure if that example’s any better, just that I felt the way Daphne brought up the topic sounded a little As You Know.

I feel like while this conversation might have done a lot of good for the audience, the talk about the Kinsey Scale might have done more harm for Lucas than good, which is certainly not Alex’s fault, and also not a flaw of the narrative, just an observation. Because while I think it’s good to hear that someone doesn’t have to feel boxed in by definitions of sexuality, I don’t think Lucas is sexually fluid for any reason other than societal pressure to like girls. He makes out with them but it doesn’t appear to be something he enjoys, rather it’s something he makes himself do (which is how it was for Isak, if they’re following Isak’s example). It’s way different than if he had some attraction to girls but was struggling with his attraction to guys on top of that. And trying to test out his level of gayness or whatever, when his actions say one thing and his desires say something totally different, is probably going to make it more complicated for him than it needs to be.

Although one thing I want to mention is that Alex does know what Lucas had on his phone at the end of S1. We were shown in S2 that Manon and Emma must have shared it with her and possibly the other girls. So I don’t know if she cares about his sexuality to the extent that say, Manon does, but she is aware that he might be into guys. It’d be nice if she said her piece with that in mind.

Regarding Lucas’ relationship with the girl squad - it’s really sweet and of course nice to see him bonding with them, I just wonder if it isn’t cutting into the sense of isolation and detachment that he’s supposed to be feeling at this point in time. I’ve enjoyed seeing him smile and laugh with the girls as much as anyone, but they did make a point of detachment as a main struggle for his character. I mean, the opening clip of the season was literally called “Disconnected” and showed him distant from everyone. Sorry, Lucas, not that I like to see you have a hard time, but for that reason I kinda don’t want you to be buddy-buddy with the girl squad too quickly and easily. He doesn’t have to be downright frosty but I’d rather see this friendliness as more gradual, otherwise it cuts a little into the overall atmosphere.

I think these girl squad interactions are best used as a counter to the stress with the boy squad, and the differences in social pressure he gets from the squads, and also for some of the educational moments that he could get from Alex as a member of the LGBT community.

Clip 3 - Gay test

Lucas is at home at night, staring up at the ceiling while he’s on his laptop. Considering or psyching himself up for what he’s going to do. He googles gay test. The link he clicks on isn’t so much about personality/stereotypes, as with Isak but actual sexual actions, fantasies, and attraction, in the past, currently, and ideally.

He checks all the “other sex only” options, and like … a) he is lying about some of that since we know he obviously had a crush on Yann and is attracted to Eliott, we know he’s not exclusively daydreaming or hoping for the opposite sex - not to mention he doesn’t seem to really want girls at all b) this quiz is kinda fucked up because past actions don’t actually determine one’s sexuality, like if you’re hooking up with girls because of heteronormative pressure rather than genuine attraction, that’s not an indication you’re bi, that’s an indication you live in a homophobic society. Which everyone does.

I don’t get how he actually got a “bisexual” result, though? It looks like he checked the straightest answers possible, everything was about the opposite sex, so how would you get anything other than the most heterosexual possible score (in this case 7)? Did I miss something in translation?

I do feel bad for him because he was probably looking for some verification that he wasn’t gay, and the quiz told him he wasn’t entirely straight. He searches for “how to make it so no one knows you’re gay.” OUCH. So he knows, just like Isak did, that these results don’t mean a damn thing about whether he’s gay.

Tangent but like when Skam Italia S2 aired, I saw a fair number of comments comparing Isak to his remake counterparts, claiming that Isak was in super denial that he was gay or flat-out wasn’t sure at this point, whereas Lucas knows but doesn’t want to say it (or Martino knew he was gay but was struggling with external homophobia so he couldn’t come out) and not to be insufferable but: Isak knew he was gay. He wasn’t in denial of that any more than Lucas was here, tbh. What he was struggling with was the label “gay” and all the stereotypes and generalizations associated with it, and how that reflected on himself, as well as the social perception of being gay and how people would see him. What happened with Emma was a result of him trying to avoid those associations. But he asks Google how to get turned on by girls if you’re gay, he knows what he is even if he’s not comfortable with all that label entails to him.

He finds a forum where someone details their strategy. This sparked some theorizing because the person posting is “Tuturo” and Arthur’s IG handle is “monvoisintuturo” (which is a My Neighbor Totoro reference - I love that because Isak had a subtle reference to that film in the first season of Skam, with a poster on his wall). Coincidence? Is this a real post on a forum that they found or something they made up for the show? It’s dated 22/08/2017. Of course, they could have found that post, and invented Arthur’s IG around it...

Arthur being gay (or not straight, at least) would be one hell of a twist. Honestly, I doubt that’s what they’re headed toward, because the advice in the post doesn’t really align with what we’ve seen of Arthur’s personality so far. Sure, he’s not necessarily the most enlightened dude in every way, but we don’t see him lashing out with homophobic slurs and shit-talking gay people, we don’t see him with a hot girlfriend for cover. So he’s not taking his own advice. It would have been better foreshadowing if they’d set him up more along those lines, so we can see the hints other than his username. Then again, the post is from 2017 so I guess he could have grown away from that mindset or grown uncomfortable with it... But yeah, although I find the idea really intriguing, I’m not sold on it actually happening unless there are some bigger hints.

The advice is stuff like talk about girls all the time, get a hot yet prudish girlfriend, use gay slurs and show how angry gay people make you. We get Lucas’ voiceover as he reads the post and tbh I wish they’d not done that, like it worked fine when Isak was sitting there and they just showed the message for the viewers, like I get that it’s a longer message and they want to make it obvious, but they don’t have to spoon feed it to us. I guess it helps to hear it in Lucas’ voice so we can sense him internalizing it, but it’s still unnecessary. Maybe they could have just shown closeups of the most important phrases.

Clip 4 - Daphne rules the world

It’s the dance chicks clip. Alexia is a dancer! We saw her doing some gymnastics in previous seasons so that’s a nice touch.

I’m realizing that this clip is one of those things in the remakes where the production team needs to be careful, because the clip is about male gaze, but there’s also a line where the depiction of male gaze turns into an endorsement of it, if that makes sense. Like I want it to be clear that the boy squad is panting over and objectifying the girls, but you don’t want the show itself to objectify them. This clip stopped before it got too sleazy for me, so that was appreciated.

Instead of being disinterested like Isak was, Lucas is joining his bros as they drool over the girls. They’re watching through a window by the way, which is creepier than the boys being in the same room and the girls knowing of their presence - it’s a milder version of peeking into the girls’ locker room like it’s an ‘80s teen sex comedy or something.

Arthur resting his chin on Lucas’ shoulder is cute, though.

Lucas is saying some bullshit about how not all the girls are hot, which is kinda funny because lol none of the girls are hot to him, and how he wouldn’t let that girl suck him off, which is also kinda funny because we know you don’t want that, dude, but he’s also trying to be a fuckboy which is not funny.

It’s objectifying as fuck and not funny when you consider his internalized homophobia but I couldn’t help but laugh when he’s like “That girl is hot because she has big boobs” because it sounds like a robot trying to emulate human sexual attraction. Breasts, those certainly are things heterosexual men appreciate!

The other guys are like wow, even Basile isn’t as awful as you. I beg to differ. (Apparently Basile says something that’s relevant to #MeToo, like he wants to get laid but he’s also #MeToo, and get the fuck out of here with that shit, dude. Nothing about your dancing later in the episode says you’re against sexual harassment.) Lucas responds by calling them a gay slur. Lovely! The dudes are like, what’s up with that? Arthur calls it a “closeted homosexual comeback” which is a pet peeve of mine, the belief that homophobes are just closeted gay people, since it removes culpability from straight people (and you know, is not accurate). But he’s a teenage dude and well, Lucas is a closeted gay guy so I’m not gonna get mad about it. Though damn, if Arthur were gay and closeted that would be some good foreshadowing. Takes one to know one?

They get spotted by the teacher and duck under the window. Basile is disgusting. The boys ask what the fuck is wrong with him. Basile does not listen to them because he’s incapable of hearing anything over the constant buzzing in his dick and instead starts telling the boys about his BDSM dream about Daphne and the boys try to get him to shut the fuck up as Daphne appears behind him, but obviously he rambles about his boner until he turns around and does this slapstick-y reaction. I cannot stand him. I’m not as angry about the BDSM dream because he was telling the guys and not trying to tell Daphne on purpose, but this kind of content overall just reinforces him as the bumbling loser comic relief and he’s not fucking funny, he’s deeply creepy and is an actual sexual harasser as we see later in the episode.

At least Daphne says it’s all a fantasy in his head and never going to happen. ❤️❤️❤️ FUCKING TELL HIM. DESTROY HIM. She continues to be the best character on Skam France. Daphne asks what they’re doing there and Lucas says they’re checking out the hot chicks. Daphne tells them they suck (❤️❤️❤️) before walking off. The other guys are like, seriously Lucas? “Hot chicks”? Well, I don’t see quite how what he said is any worse than what Basile says constantly, including to girls’ faces, so maybe it’s a translation thing? The “hot chicks” phrasing has stronger meaning in French?

Arthur asks if Basile is OK and he says, “I fucked it all up.” DUDE you had ALREADY fucked it up from the time you first opened your mouth around her. And as we see, this does not deter him at all. God!!!!! Please fuck off into the void already.

I’m glad they called out Lucas a little but again, don’t see how he was being any more disgusting than Basile is on a regular basis regarding the misogyny. They didn’t say anything overtly anti-homophobic about Lucas using slurs, like really call him out other than some shocked reaction at him using that word. So I suppose there’s a little more ambiguity over whether they’ll be accepting of Lucas’ sexuality. (I mean, I think they’ll accept him based on what we know about OG, but in-universe there isn’t as much of a tip-off.) I did miss that more educational moment, but I also think that because Lucas still has some Operation Hetero tactics to implement later that day, he might need to not be roasted for his behavior so strongly or who knows, maybe he’d back down. (The OG had Isak apologize to Emma and then the dance chicks clip with Jonas calling him out; this version switches the scenes around.)

Clip 5 - Love confession?

Later, Lucas sees the boy squad in the yard, then he sees Chloé and Maria. Prompted by the need to seem heterosexual in front of the guys and inspired by what he read the previous night, he goes over to Chloé to get himself a hot girlfriend.

Lucas apologizes to her and he sounds more sincere than fuckboy-ish, which I think fits because the way he pursued her in the first place was not that fuckboy-ish. Slick, but he wasn’t negging her or anything. However, sounding sincere is not being sincere, because this is the biggest crock of shit I’ve heard out of this kid’s mouth this season. It’s so uncomfortably over-the-top, he’s telling her that he met a beautiful first year and he thought it would be casual but actually he’s falling madly in love with her, and OK, slow down. How long have you guys even talked to each other? 10, 15 minutes? Do you know anything about her?

I get Lucas is struggling but I also want to give him a kick in the nuts before he gets another word out and digs that hole deeper because oh my God this is fucking b a d, honestly, way worse than what Isak did to Emma - what Isak did to Emma was not cool, but he was mostly just giving her the indication that he was into her and had a crush, NOT that he had fallen in love with her and had all these deep emotions for her. It’s really cruel to her. (Although girl … are you really gonna fall for this dramatic monologue when you’ve talked to him like three times?)

He talks about how he’s not handling these feelings well because it’s never happened before, thinking about a girl before he goes to sleep and before he wakes up, wondering what to say to her when he runs into her, and well, I sure as fuck buy it’s never happened about a girl before and that it’s not happening about a girl now. But of course he’s talking about Eliott. He’s just transplanting his feelings for a boy to this fake infatuation with a girl. Lucas blames his behavior on not wanting to seem awkward. Well, I can buy that, just not about Chloé.

Despite this load of floral horseshit, Chloé buys it, because well, she is a teenager. She kisses him passionately right there in the yard. The boy squad sees and approves (Yann’s reactions are particularly funny). Heterosexual mask, securely on.

Lucas walks over and he BETTER not be giving Basile pointers because the last thing Basile needs is encouragement, but nope, that’s what he does, he offered to give Basile lessons. This is like telling Tom Riddle about horcruxes.

Eliott thankfully interrupts Lucas contributing to Basile’s dicktermination. Did Eliott see Lucas and Chloé kissing? I don’t think so, but man, I kinda wished he did just for the angst. He doesn’t know Lucas is pissed at him yet, he doesn’t know Lucas is gonna bro-zone him in a moment.

Eliott returns Lucas’ scarf. It’s actually Yann’s scarf and Yann seems very happy to have it back, awww. Lucas gets forcibly casual with Eliott. He’s not mean, not rude, exactly, just trying to play off their connection as nothing. They’re casual acquaintances and it’s gonna stay that way.

Lucas volunteers that Eliott found it in the common room before Eliott can explain how it got it. The acting is pretty good. You can tell Eliott is kinda stung by this greeting, especially when Lucas is like “thanks dude” in an overly platonic way. Which Eliott returns. Eliott is like a warm, friendly guy and that makes it a bummer to see how Lucas reacts and how that makes Eliott deflate.

With Isak and Even, Even noticed Isak’s discomfort in the situation and covered for him, lied for him about finding the hat in the cafeteria. It was a moment that made me love Isak and Even’s relationship before they even got together because even though Isak wasn’t at his best, it was a mark of their connection that Even could read him so easily and didn’t press the situation. Here Lucas shuts out Eliott, he’s covering his own ass. And I’m not sure if Eliott totally realizes what’s going on or if he does pick up on why Lucas is suddenly dude-ing it up and lying. I think he might just be hurt.

Arthur asks about Eliott, and Lucas starts talking shit about how he’s a stalker with no friends. LMAO. Lucas, the stalker is you, the creeper is you, you were legit just stealing classroom registers over Eliott, you were scouring the Internet for clues of his existence, you are projecting like an IMAX.

They get invited to Daphne’s party via text, but Lucas is clearly distracted and looking off toward where Eliott went. What a contrast in assessments between Lucas telling us how he’s falling for Eliott by way of telling Chloé it’s about her, and him downplaying and trashing Eliott to his friends. I don’t feel like he can relax around his friends at all.

Clip 6 - Secret school party

There’s a giant group of people gathered outside the gates of the school at night, with the girl squad in front, lots of people in costumes. Time for Daphne’s party.

Ehhh … see this is a fun setup, breaking into the school to have a party, it really is, but in context it’s kinda contrived IMO. I guess Daphne got peer pressured into doing it, I know she wants people to find the common room the cool place to be, but I find it hard to believe someone who’s legitimately invested into fixing up the common room like she is would risk a) getting in trouble for trespassing on school grounds b) dealing with any damage/repairs to the room that happen during the party, like if your plan is to fix up the common room, isn’t the likely potential that someone could break stuff or trash the room worse for your ultimate goal? I fully realize teenagers do a lot of stupid reckless stuff, but I’d find this party more believable if it were thrown by people who did not have a vested interest in the repair and upkeep of that part of the school. For example, if it had been the Raptors throwing a party at school after hours last season, sure, I buy that.

I feel like they just had this because they had to have a party in episode 3 (like in OG Skam) that was related to the school group/project that linked the POV character and his love interest (like in OG) and something about them hosting the party at another character’s house didn’t fit, not when the project is centered around another location.

One way that I would have found this scenario more plausible: Daphne tries to throw a much much smaller get-together, maybe just invite the common room crew, keep it under wraps, nothing extravagant, but word gets out more and more people show up (because who doesn’t want to break into the school at night) and turn it into this big thing and it gets out of hand. We see it go from just a few people hanging around drinking to something wilder, she starts freaking out because it’s too much. Even with the “password” system it seems like she had something bigger in mind from the beginning and IDK, even with Daphne being a social climber, even with teenagers being idiots, it rings a bit off. Sorry to be a buzz kill, like I said, it’s an entertaining scenario in theory.

Anyway, they’re at the school, people are in costume and waiting outside. Basile is wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles costume. Do you think he wanted the whole squad to go as the turtles, but they did not? They give him weird looks, but dressing as Donatello is legit the least objectionable thing he has done so far this season.

Daphne is dressed as a cat, keeping that Vilde tradition alive.

Lucas has the paint streaks on his cheeks, which is a fun nod to OG and also fitting for the infiltration theme of the party.

Imane says they don’t need the password, Daphne says they do in case there’s a spy. Errr I don’t think a password is going to do you much good. If there’s a mole, I’m sure they got the details from someone else, unless like a 50-year-old teacher is hoping to sneak in unnoticed.

Lol at Yann’s face when he puts on his hood for the “infiltration.” He’s had some great background reactions this episode.

Daphne asks the crowd if they’re ready to infiltrate and they quietly cheer. Basile says “I’ll infiltrate YOU!” and FUCKING KILL HIM, I’M TIRED OF THIS SHIT.

Daphne tells Emma she’s so nervous she almost wore a diaper in case she wet herself and DO NOT LET BASILE HEAR THAT, I REPEAT, DO NOT SAY THAT SHIT WITHIN A FIVE-BLOCK RADIUS OF THAT GUY UNLESS YOU WANT HIM TO START HAVING DIAPER FANTASIES ABOUT YOU IN ADDITION TO BDSM DREAMS.

The gate opens and people cheer because apparently everyone’s an idiot who forgot about the request for discretion 10 seconds ago. Teenagers, man.

Yeah, this is fun in like a Hollywood teen movie way but kinda throwing me out of the story, like even the way the crowd is reacting feels too staged and TV-ish. You know IRL when there’s a group of teenagers rowdy and ready to party, they wouldn’t be super unified in their reactions like that, there would be some d-bags not listening, not paying attention to Daphne, they’d be fucking around and doing their own thing. Nothing inherently wrong with this style but not really what I like from Skam, just my preference!

Clip 7 - Giant neon costume party

There’s like a full-ass rave happening in the school and it’s fun but not to be repetitive, feels more like a Hollywood teen movie even in the scope of the party and the way it’s filmed. Especially - and I’m sorry for harping on this but also, not sorry at all - because Basile’s characterization reminds me of one of those stock characters from those films, like that typical obnoxious loser who’s desperate to get laid and ends up banging Stifler’s mom or something.

Basile slumps next to Alexia and says he’s gonna throw up, she says he’ll be fine. She’s a lovely person, but I want to be like RUN AWAY DO NOT ENGAGE.

She points out that Emma and boy Alex are making out and Basile positively jizzes in his turtle onesie, being like THEY’RE GONNA FUCK???? IN THE SCHOOL???? Is it that outrageous of a concept? What did you think was going to happen when you invited a bunch of drunk teenagers to party after hours?

A girl who looks a bit like Elisabeth Moss walks by and makes eyes at Alexia. Must be Clara! Basile is like, a woman in the same room as me? Can you help me fuck her? Alex says no, it’s her ex, hands off, and that’s Romain’s cue to be like … OHHHH you are bisexual? Alexia cheerfully confirms this. You can see the boner popping in his pants already, let’s be real. Yikes, dude. Her attraction to women isn’t for your enjoyment.

Anyone else getting dancing old man from Six Flags commercials vibes from Arthur dancing in his costume?

Daphne is freaking out and looking out the window, trying to prevent people from smoking. Imane pulls her aside and says everyone’s having fun. Daphne says the smoke detectors might go off and they’ll be in trouble, Imane says she should’ve thought of that before throwing a party in the school. I mean ... yeah? That’s why I’m like, you’re freaking out about this now, you didn’t predict any of these blatantly obvious things that would happen?

Imane’s like “what’s the worst that could happen if they get caught, they won’t expel 50 students at once” and errr IDK, would they have to pay for repairs? Stay after school to clean up the mess? Would the school contact their parents? I can think of a lot of stuff that would suck.

Daphne and Imane go dance. Basile comes up and not only starts to force a dance with Daphne, but in a way that he’s thrusting his crotch against her, trying to touch her and get in her space. Poor Daphne grabs Imane and tries to swing out of the way to avoid him, literally swat him away with her costume’s cat tail.

For fuck’s sake. I hate this guy, I hope Daphne eventually just punches him in the balls. Listen, I try not to talk like that, but this moment really pissed me off. It’s sexual harassment. Daphne has made it extremely clear to Basile that she is not interested in him. She has said it is never going to happen. And he still does not give up, and this was honestly the worst moment he’s done so far IMO because he’s actually physically bothering her, to the point where she grabs her friend as a shield, to the point where she’s having to swat him away.

Tons of women have gone through this experience in real life. We’ve met those sleazy guys who would not take no for an answer. We’ve met those guys who wanted to press their bodies against you and grab you when you have zero interest in them. A lot of us have experiences of latching onto our female friends, or our trusted male friends, in an effort to escape these creeps. Imagine the nastiest guy you know in real life, the one who really sends red flags, and imagine him as Basile, yourself in Daphne’s situation. That’s why I don’t feel I’m overreacting here.

What is the point of this? What is their primary goal with Basile’s character? Comic relief? Or is he meant to be a cautionary tale? Are they building up to a criticism of creepy guy behavior? Because the thing is, they have already established he’s gross. Daphne has rejected him, and he still wants to go after her. I don’t get what more she can do other than beat his ass or complain to the school or something. What, is it going to be like episode 5 when he finally takes a fucking hint? Why was it not obviously clear when she said it was never going to happen? When she tried to escape him at the party? If there’s a more substantial criticism coming, I am genuinely flabbergasted why made Basile 110% disgusting from the very beginning and had Daphne so openly hate his attention, because it feels like the lesson should have happened already. The point has been made.

You know what could have worked better if they were trying to criticize toxic masculinity? Don’t start off Basile as super gross. Make him insecure, desperate, but not panting after Daphne and begging for her phone number. Have his creepiness escalate bit by bit throughout the season, directly encouraged by Lucas’ own fuckboy behavior. Show how those attitudes spread like a disease. Have Daphne show her disinterest, although she’s mostly just annoyed, until finally he crosses a line and then she blows up at him and says it’s never going to happen. Then that’s it. He leaves her the fuck alone. He learns from his mistakes, though he still doesn’t get with Daphne romantically.

Lucas and Chloé are talking about music. Chloé happens to like old school rock like AC/DC and The Clash - coincidentally Lucas’ musical taste, as we learned last episode. I wonder if she actually likes them or she just stalked Lucas and found that information on like his Facebook profile. It’d be funny if she was trying to like what Lucas likes and Lucas was trying to likes what Eliott likes. Because suddenly Lucas isn’t a fan of The Clash anymore, he likes dubstep. Duuuuude, come on. I saw how you responded when Eliott put on that record. I’m just imagining Lucas sitting in his room, forcing himself to listen to dubstep because Eliott likes it, in the way you make a child eat Brussels sprouts.

Mika is at the party and lighting up the dance floor, Chloé says gay guys are so funny, they know how to party. Alexia and Imane who happen to be nearby react to that; Alexia says it was a stupid thing to say and Imane says it was a generalization. Chloé says actually it was a nice thing to say.

Okay, I wasn’t a fan of how they did this moment. The positive side: it’s nice that they made Alexia, a member of the LGBT community, react to that comment and call it out, and had Imane call it out as a generalization, because she as a black Muslim would also know about how generalizations affect marginalized groups.

But no offense, I feel like both S3 remakes so far have missed the point of this moment as it pertains to our POV character. It’s not just a helpful educational moment for the audience. It’s meant as a lifeline to the Isak character. One of Isak’s greatest concerns is how he will be perceived as a gay man, in terms of stereotypes and generalizations. He fears “gay” is a box that will trap him in a certain image, he doesn’t want to be seen negatively as one of those flamboyant gay guys into tights and mascara. He associates “gay” with those generalizations and he fears the social repercussions of that label. We see that when he takes the gay test in episode 3, which is not a measure of attraction to men (as it was in Lucas’ “gay test”) but a collection of stereotypes about gay men’s personality and interests. When he puts down the dance teacher for acting too gay later in the episode, it’s because he wants to distance himself from that type of person. Which is why it’s really important when Even, the guy Isak likes, calls out Emma for using a generalization. Without even knowing the full impact of what he’s saying on Isak, Even provides a counter-argument to the idea that Isak can be summed up as a stereotype. He’s against assigning universal traits to diverse groups of people, and I think he recognizes the trivializing nature of Emma’s comment - gay people are funny to her, it’s like she thinks they’re there to entertain her, it’s this extremely othering remark. Emma is essentially doing something that Isak fears will happen to him if people know he’s gay - just stereotype him and lump him in with all gay people - and Even is there to shut it down.

And you might say, well, Lucas isn’t Isak, so it doesn’t have to mean the same for him, and ... yeah, it doesn’t, but consider that Lucas’ struggle this week was not really about dealing with stereotypes and generalizations. His “gay test” had nothing to do with that at all. Instead, he was struggling with the exact definition of his sexuality, whether he’s gay or bi or straight, and he was trying to fit himself into a heterosexual box not by distancing himself from generalizations but by dating a girl and using homophobic slurs. Like there’s no moment where he calls out a gay guy for acting too gay. When he calls the boys a slur, it’s not actually a response to doing something perceived as gay. So for the “lesson” here to be the same as it was in the original series, and not tailored to Lucas’s specific struggle this week, is a missed opportunity. For example, I think it would have been better if Chloé used some casually homophobic language - not even maliciously, just in the sense that she’s ignorant and doesn’t realize she shouldn’t say some words as a straight girl - and Alex called her out for that. It would be a counterpoint to Lucas’ own behavior.

Also, I don’t think Lucas had a huge reaction to what Alex and Imane said, anyway; it didn’t seem spotlighted in the directing or acting so while it’s a good lesson for the audience to hear, it doesn’t mean a ton to his character’s state of mind. It’s one of those parts that I feel the remakes are recycling because it is important as a general idea, but I don’t feel like they necessarily get why it was there in terms of Isak’s characterization.

Additionally, can’t lie, very disappointed that Eliott didn’t get this moment. I appreciate them giving Alexia a lot to do this season, but this part felt really big for Even in the original show, both in characterizing him and in showing how much Isak was affected by his words, because Isak really likes Even and values his opinion (you know, the whole Isak becoming Nas’ #1 fan in a week thing). This is the guy Isak has a crush on who’s shutting down homophobic stereotypes - that made it so important that this dialogue came from Even rather than anyone else. And on a personal note, that clip was the very first Skam clip I ever saw, and that specific moment where Even calls out Emma was not only the first part to impress me and grab my attention, but it made me love Even right off the bat. I loved that he could explain why positive generalizations are still bad because that’s a nuance I think plenty of people, both young and old, don’t understand. It just was a bit of a downer that this really powerful moment didn’t go to Eliott.

Lucas sees Eliott come in with his girlfriend. Eliott has a mask, covering the lower half of his face. How raccoon-ish? But very fitting for the theme of infiltration, and very fitting for his character to be ambiguous and mysterious.

Eliott’s girlfriend is named Lucille, lmao. Lucas and Lucille! Not weird at all! But what’s the significance of gving them both light-related names?

Of course we have the two pairs dancing, Lucas and Chloé and Eliott and Lucille. Lucas stares at Eliott in a very obvious way, like Isak could at least glance at Even over Emma’s shoulder. Lucas has to blatantly turn his head to look at Eliott. He smashes his face into Chloé’s while making eye contact with Eliott, and Eliott obviously sees this and takes it as a personal challenge. He makes out with Lucille and then stares Lucas in the eye. Again, very challenging. With Isak it was more like this painful longing watching Even kiss Sonja, and then Even looked at him not so much as a challenge but to convey his interest in Isak; Isak didn’t keep looking back for that long before he shut his eyes and kissed Emma, probably imagining it was Even. Lucas kissed Chloé first; Eliott was not making out with Lucille until he caught Lucas staring at him with his lips on Chloé’s. Then it was to convey interest and almost a dare for the other to look away first. Very bold of Lucas, although IDK if he was actually trying to issue a challenge or a fuck-you to Eliott or he’s just bad at impulse control. I think the “fuck you” was pretty implied. In more ways than one.

Not gonna lie, the eye-fucking went on long enough that if it had gone on a moment longer, it would start to feel like a parody to me. I was glad the music got cut off and the lights went on when they did.

Everyone bolts and runs out of the school, Daphne seems to be behind everyone. Basile, do something good for once and distract the guard so Daphne can escape! Throw yourself on that grenade!

Lucas just stops and stands there like an idiot, like I know you’re distracted by your Eliott boner and all but move your goddamn ass, until Eliott grabs him by the arm and pulls him to the side. Eliott offers to walk him home.

Eliott really just left his girlfriend behind, huh? I know Even did it too, but he just left Sonja to go hang out and drink with everyone else, not get caught by a night watchman.

I’m not someone who goes gaga over height differences to the extent that a lot of people do, but that sure is a quality height difference between Lucas and Eliott, made very clear by them walking side by side.

As they’re walking, Eliott says it seems are moving fast between Lucas and Chloé. Lucas says it’s cool but then backtracks and says she’s super into him and it’s stressing him out. Eliott looks a little pleased to hear that. He asks Eliott how long he and Lucille have been together, Eliott says a while. Lucas says it shows - errrr, how? You’ve spent like 10 seconds and two words in her company and all you did was see him briefly kiss her hello and then make out on the dance floor, like Emma and Alex have done that much and they’re not even officially together. He’s bitter, I guess. Any girl with Eliott has been with him too long.

Eliott says he thinks his relationship with Lucille is at an end, though, they’re just going in circles, he doesn’t want that. Lucas is like, to be in a relationship? Probably thinking GODDAMMIT. Eliott says he does want to be in a relationship. Lucas is like, so you see yourself with a new girl straight away? Eliott says yeah, and then after a pause, adds not necessarily a girl, though. That pause is what’s important, tbh, the little moment where he’s perhaps thinking of just coming out and saying it to Lucas. Making clear that his sexuality includes guys, making clear that Lucas is on the menu. And of course Lucas kneejerk looks at him like OH SHIT HE SAID IT.

Lucas looks at him, Eliott looks at him, there’s a Moment. They arrive at Lucas’ place. With this music and the way they’re looking at each other, it’s not so much awkward, more like they’re daring each other to take the next step. Eliott says this is where they say good night. The way Eliott glimpses upwards makes me think he was hoping to be invited up (not even to bone, to be clear, just to hang out/make out), and they’re staring at each other when in the background someone’s getting out of a car and taking bags out of a trunk.

They are hardcore staring at each other and it seems like Eliott moves in just a teeny tiny bit when Manon’s all HEYYYY GUYSSSSS. Lucas looks back at Eliott like, oh, never mind.

IDK how I feel about that ending moment. I feel like it lacks the punch of Manon arriving home, and weirdly downplays the Lucas/Eliott moment. Maybe because the music continues - I would’ve cut off the music when Manon said hello, to break them out of their little bubble, then show her there, cut back to Lucas and Eliott staring at her in shock, in silence. This just felt a little muddled and didn’t land as much emotionally for me.

I’m not like ... angry at Manon for interrupting, I think she could’ve just looked away and pretended to be busy with her bags instead of calling attention to herself. She seems pretty invested in giving Lucas nudges out of the closet, or wanting him to open up to her about it, based on her behavior in other episodes. Like I think she means well, it’s just intrusive. Did she want to interrupt them so Lucas didn’t out himself in front of her? That doesn’t seem entirely congruent with her repeatedly asking him if he’s dating someone or asking about Eliott in the next episode.

The Lucas/Eliott relationship also feels way more of an inevitability at this point. Eliott isn’t saying he can’t break up with Lucille, his comment about “not necessarily a girl” could not be any more pointed. I’m wondering if they’ll bring as much drama with Lucille later on; if they do play out the part where Eliott goes back to Lucille after telling Lucas he wants to be with him, I think they should’ve kept in that part as it’s important foreshadowing. Not just for his relationship with Lucille, but his bipolar disorder and inner conflict. Like there were zero hints of a conflict within Eliott in this scene, he’s just like, yeah, I should break up with her, maybe I’ll have a relationship with someone who’s not a girl, hint hint. So Lucas really should not be doubting Eliott’s intentions at this stage, frankly. It’s Lucas who’s apparently the obstacle, and who knows how long before he gives in to Eliott’s Eliottness.

Social Media/General Comments:

Yann texts Lucas “Kisses bro” after the locker conversation so basically he’s a stand-up pal, it’s very cute.

Basile at least apologized to Lucas via text for blowing up at him because Basile didn’t get his dick serviced on Friday. He also said he’s not even into Maria anymore, it’s about Daphne now, siiiiiiigh. When he asked about Lucas’ mom, Lucas didn’t really answer, said it was nothing and he was handling it. I mean, if Basile has a mentally ill mom like Magnus, this conversation might take on more significance later, like he could’ve gotten Basile’s advice all along.

On a related note, I know I stroked that Basile hateboner so hard this recap that I’m chafed, and sorry if it got repetitive. But also - he’s bad. He’s really, really bad. And if my comments are repetitive, the show is also repetitive in giving Basile approximately one character trait that’s extremely exaggerated. I don’t think we’ve had one “normal” scene with this guy where he didn’t say something awful, like the closest was the first clip he was in.

Lucas is getting very chummy with the girl squad and taking pics with them. He’s also getting alarmingly cutesy with Chloé, posting a pic of her and using emoji hearts. Though that’s a good detail, of course, it’s him trying to act straight.

Is it just me or have they toned down some of the social media presence from last season? I don’t mind it, I think a lot of the SM stuff is more focused on things relevant to the story.

I’m not even getting into the Eliott puzzle stuff. It’s fun but I’m just gonna sit back and watch it happen, otherwise my brain will melt.

Everyone who attended that party is a total fucking dumbass for posting pictures and IG stories of themselves where they are clearly at the school and in the common room on Friday night. I know that teenagers are not necessarily the best at discretion, but LMAO at the theme of the party being “infiltration” and Daphne trying to have a password when everyone’s posting pictures where people are easily identifiable. If shit had gotten out of hand, then they’d all be screwed. Although this is an obvious consequence of throwing a party in the school, you know some people are going to plaster it all over social media. Not hard to predict. IDK, maybe I’m just a worst case scenario type of person, but imagine if shit got really out of hand, like someone started a fire or there was major property damage or who knows, something even worse, and there had to be an investigation. All of you idiots are fucked.

Being honest, in some ways I thought this was the weakest of the three episodes so far - not that it was bad, there were certainly good moments. I think they did a solid job with Lucas’ internalized homophobia, as unpleasant as it was to watch, and Alex’s talk about bisexuality was a strong addition to the story. There were some good acting moments. But I felt more of the weaknesses that Skam France had in its previous two seasons. Things like reusing certain moments from Skam while not really fitting or understanding why they were there, more like feeling they had to be there, or some parts that I thought didn’t quite make sense, some moments that were rushed or didn’t have much impact due to the directing.

I’m thinking that this episode is going to be a particular challenge for various remakes to adapt. Some of it might be that it’s very internal, in a way, with what Isak is going through, and that’s not always the easiest to portray. I also felt like OG had a clear thesis statement of sorts with what Julie intended to accomplish with this episode, in terms of the overall story, and it’s something where you can lose the subtleties if you’re not careful.

This reaction probably seems more negative than I actually felt, because overall I did like the episode and still enjoy the season, it’s just that breaking it down and thinking about it more critically, there were more little things that bugged me this week than in the first two.

I’m not French so feel free to clarify if I missed something.

If you got this far, thank you for reading!

#skamfr reactions #skam france reactions

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dailyfeartwdgifs · 5 years

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Fear The Walking Dead Season 5, Episode 2 Review: 'The Hurt That Will Happen'

Fear The Walking Dead has gone all Chernobyl in its fifth season, introducing us to a new region impacted by a nuclear plant meltdown. Radioactive zombies roam the land and various mysterious clues point toward a new, highly organized group that's almost certainly related to the people who took Rick Grimes away in Season 9 of The Walking Dead.

I was not a big fan of Fear The Walking Dead's Season 5 premiere, breaking with my fellow critics, all of whom apparently really liked the episode. (It had a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes until they added my review into the mix, dropping it down to a 93%).

I hate to rain on anyone's parade (well, that's not strictly true) but I can't help speaking my mind. I'm a critic, not a sycophant. The Season 5 premiere wasn't the worst episode this show has ever produced, but the characters are just so ridiculous at this point, and the entire premise ("We're here to help!") is astonishingly lame and contrived. It becomes hard to watch without a great deal of eye-rolling.

This Sunday's episode, the awkwardly titled "The Hurt That Will Happen", isn't much better. There are still too many instances of characters behaving like idiots and the whole thing remains brutally boring—and honestly, a show with radioactive zombies shouldn't be boring! I don't think people were quite as stupid this week as last—nobody flew a plane they had no idea how to pilot, crash-landing in a completely unknown region in order to "help" some guy they "met" on the radio. That's so egregiously moronic that it pretty much ruined last week's episode right out of the gates. I don't think people were quite as stupid this week as last—nobody flew a plane they had no idea how to pilot, crash-landing in a completely unknown region in order to "help" some guy they "met" on the radio. That's so egregiously moronic that it pretty much ruined last week's episode right out of the gates.

But we still have plenty of stupid in Episode 2. Luciana, for instance, decides to go outside by herself to see what a large crashing noise was. I can understand taking a quick peak—it was the radio tower, blown over by non-existent wind or maybe wind that only blows over large objects, skipping over more mundane things like human hair—but then she just stays outside. In the dark. By herself, injured and alone.

When zombies approach, she doesn't hurry back inside to safety, the clear and obvious thing to do when you're injured and on meds that impact your cognitive functions. Instead she pulls out her gun and tries to shoot the walkers. I get that she was doped up and not thinking clearly, but even in a doped up state your first instinct is going to be running away because people on painkillers usually do understand that they're not at their best. Luciana knew perfectly well that she wasn't going to be a great fighter in her current state. The only conceivable reason why she'd stay outside to fight walkers is because the show is actively trying to make her (and every other character) look stupid. She makes it back, but only just barely. The pursuing walkers are later decapitated by someone—it's a mystery—their heads hung up as some kind of warning to the survivors (helpers?).

While all this is going on, Morgan and Alicia are out trying to find Al who went missing last week when she stupidly went out at night in the rain all alone to investigate the weird armored zombie and got knocked out by someone. Maybe the same someone who cut off those heads, maybe someone else. Either way, not Al's shining moment. (Later, Daniel says that Al can take care of herself, but I'm not so sure).

In any case, Morgan gets into a scuffle with a zombie and is suddenly tripped up by a set of bolas that someone threw at him. I had to watch it twice to fully tell what just happened. It's a pretty weird weapon to have especially for this new character. The zombie is making things tough on Morgan but then a gun goes off and a stranger dressed in a gas mask and protective science-uniform-outfit shows up and tells him to take his clothes off and stop talking. She doesn't have time to explain, but basically the zombies are radioactive and he needs to get cleaned up right away or he could get radiation poisoning just from making physical contact with them.

She tells him to be quiet because apparently talking can make it worse, and when he keeps asking questions she raises her gun and says something about not wanting to do it this way—so I guess she was going to shoot him for talking? In order to help him? I'm confused. I guess it doesn't matter what she was about to do because Alicia comes in like a bat out of hell and knocks her to the ground, demanding where she took Al. She tells them about the nuclear plant meltdown and the radiation zombies that she's hunting down. Morgan gets cleaned up and spends the rest of the episode in a "Don't Mess With Texas" shirt which is pretty funny.

Alicia gets in a fight with some zombies, some of which are radioactive and some who aren't—"I can't tell which is which!" she cries out at one point after the zombies get all muddy. She has a gun because she took it from the nuclear plant lady, but for some strange reason she doesn't use it. She ends up tossing it back to the lady because I guess you're not allowed to fire someone else's gun in the zombie apocalypse. I just don't know anymore. It's a close call for Alicia who, well, handled the whole thing pretty poorly for no reason whatsoever.

Not long after, John Dorie and June radio them (what would they do in this show without all these radios?) and tell them they've found more of the radioactive zombies, all burned in a pile. So they head over there to deal with it and June finds a car that starts up just fine and has three-quarters of a tank of gas. How convenient for them!

Still, they're all waiting on Strand to find a second plane to come save them with because I guess driving is just not an option for some reason. Seriously, can someone please let me know why driving to get them isn't on the table? Strand and his trucker pals have a truck and an endless supply of gas. Just go drive to wherever they are and pick them up. Yes, it will take longer to drive. The silver lining, however, is that driving won't result in yet another plane crash. Nobody can fly a plane!

Hasn't anyone pointed this out yet? Haven't they all learned that flying a plane when you don't know how is a bad idea? Do they ever sit around and talk about actually important stuff or is all dialogue reserved for Morgan's preachy mumbo jumbo about being "stuck" and not having to be, and opening doors and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz . . .

Fortunately, when Strand goes to visit Daniel, the grouchy realist doesn't lend him his plane. "Whenever you try to help people, you make things worse," he tells Strand, and he's not wrong. Certainly taking the plane and trying to fly it would end badly. Daniel tells Strand that if he sees him again he'll shoot him in the face. I really do love Daniel, but I'm not sure how he'll figure in to the rest of the season, unless Strand plans some kind of elaborate caper to steal the plane and Daniel is dragged back into all this nonsense against his will.

Of course, by the time all that goes down they definitely could have driven to wherever Alicia and the rest of the team are, presumably still in Texas given Morgan's replacement shirt. They were going to drive all the way to Alexandria, they can drive to this place instead. Or they could all hop in June's car and drive themselves back home. This is what I mean when I say I just can't get behind this season's premise or overarching narrative. It's stupid to fly a plane when you don't know how, especially if you're doing it to go "rescue" complete strangers. It's far too risky for any sane person, and it's far too stupid for any thinking person with half a brain. The show's producers and writers ignore all that for the spectacle and for the fake conflict it creates.

What fake conflict? Well, the notion that Alicia and her crew are stuck, first of all. They can find cars with gas easily enough and drive themselves home. Second, the notion that Strand needs to find a second plane—which just so happens to be with Daniel, the guy that hates Strand more than anyone—is a fake conflict. Strand could also simply drive to his friends using his trucker buddies. The whole Strand meeting up with Daniel thing is also ridiculously contrived. Al has apparently met every single possible survivor of the apocalypse. Better still, every survivor from the dam just happened to end up hundreds of miles away in Texas. What luck!

The final fake conflict is only fake because of all the contrivances and nonsense used to get us to this point. I'm speaking of Logan (Matt Frewer) and his little prank. He tricked Alicia and Morgan into leaving the mill unguarded and then swooped in when they left. It's a clever idea and I'd have no problem with it if it didn't require all the protagonists to be such monumentally foolish people. Sometimes being foolish or making a poor choice creates a real conflict, because sometimes smart people do stupid things. Think Robb Stark and his poor choices with the Freys in Game of Thrones. That had consequences. But if Game of Thrones built all its conflicts around characters acting uncharacteristically stupid, it would get old very quickly. Robb's mistake was falling in love and that's pretty relatable. Our heroes in Fear made a much less relatable mistake with the plane (etc).

Creating contrived conflicts based on characters acting like idiots seems to be the narrative strategy in Fear The Walking Dead in virtually all of its seasons except Season 3. Because let's be honest: Fear The Walking Dead did not have a great first or second season. Madison caused far too much trouble everywhere she went to be considered a good leader. I always think back to the episode when they showed up at that island and Madison was convinced that the best idea would be for her to take the family's kids away from them and then pretty much everyone died in a totally unnecessary disaster. By the end of Season 2 I thought they should just cancel it and start over, and then I ate my words when Season 3 was so good.

Season 3 crafted a much more interesting conflict between the Native Americans and the survivalists. It was over water and land and nobody was clearly good or clearly evil. I loved how much the show improved in Season 3 and I'm just so bummed out that it's gone so far (back) downhill first in Season 4 and now Season 5. Season 4 had such a promising first few episodes, too, but quickly lost its way. Now we're two episodes deep into Season 5 and it's just . . . not very good. It's not as bad as it was during the Martha episodes, but it really should be so much better. AMC really needs to hire more talented writers and producers for this show. The acting is largely fine, the special effects are good, the cinematography and directing are typically fine. It's the scripts, the story, the constant stupidity and inconsistencies, that drag into down into the zombie muck. Mostly it's just dull and frustrating to watch. Hopefully things pick up next week.

#ftwd #fear the walking dead #season 5 #episode 502 #review #article #forbes #aheartfulloflexa #camila

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icharchivist · 5 years

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hey icha whats hypmic??

Heyaaa and ooooh dear where do i even begin…..

Erg so in very short it’s a musical mixed media story that have kind of a corny set up that is mostly an excuse to have fictional male characters of different background involve themselves into rap battles? Most of its content comes from songs and drama CD, even if there are a few manga adaptation covering a couple of the drama tracks (albeit all those covered are how the teams got together and all).

In a little more depth: Basically a group of 12 Seiyuu decided to band together into a principe of rap battle, that would also give a spotlight to multiple rap artists in Japan, as they do collaboration by writting/composing the songs. All of the Seiyuu play different characters divided in 4 divisions: Buster Bros!! for Ikebukuro, Mad Trigger Crew for Yokohama, Fling Posse for Shibuya, and Matenrou for Shinjuku. Each divisions/characters have distinct styles of music or text to differenciate them.

The idea is that, after World War 3 and a lot of the population dying, weapons causing harms had been outlawed, instead remplaced by what we call Hypnosis Microphone (or Hypmic), weapons that attack the brain via its sonic vibes, thus are more powerful depending on how savy you are with words and sounds and all of that. (like i said, it’s corny, it’s really just a pretext for the battles ahah)

The Government, that is kinda shady, took hold into Chuuouku, the center of the city, and the rest of the towns are left to fend for their own, indulging in territories battles. By the time the story start, 4 teams have taken a hand into 4 divisions where they try their best to low the crime rate and make life better, this sort of stuff. Recently however, the Government decided to keep a closer eye on the Rap Battle themselves, organizing huge Event in Chuuouku for the Divisions to fight each other, and the winner can therefore have major impact on what gets developped in the city and all.

It’s also important to know that the 4 leaders of the divisions, Ichiro, Samatoki, Ramuda and Jakurai, used to be in a band together, The Dirty Dawg, and they were very close - Something ended up breaking up the band (it is unsure what it is exactly) and left them with sort of bittersweet relationship with each other as they’re now in a position where they have to fight each other.

Again though most of it is mostly a pretext for songs and character driven plotlines for those 12 to fuck shit up:

youtube

(here a link to the translation, and here’s a link for the playlist of the songs they put on youtube - mostly previews except for the Ensemble songs - i can send the full songs/drama CDs but in private since it’s… illegal and all.You’ll find all the translations out on this website, and here you’ll find the drama tracks. And there for the solo songs only but idk how long this website will keep them up.)

(btw here’s the second ensemble song and here’s the third one - i tend to prefer them to the first one so here they are)

So like i said, corny, but character driven and i love those morons, and the songs are bangers, and i ended up loving it ways too much.

I’ll enter more in depth on the Divisions under the cut bc i do think knowing a bit the characters give a better idea but yeah kdjfhd my latest obsession rip.

If you’re reading this i’m so sorry i’m going to geek out over my 12 stupid sons.

btw (MC: ___) is their scene names, basically.

And erg while i try to avoid spoilers from the latest season, there’s a lot of “spoilers” from backstory exposition or information spreads through the drama tracks and the songs, so either just scroll to see the name and all or read at your own risks?

Buster Bros!!! representing Ikebukuro Division - in red, Ichiro Yamada (19yo) the leader,in blue, Jiro Yamada (16yo), in yellow Saburo Yamada (14). (Previews of their solo songs, preview of their first group song Ikebukuro West Game Park, their second group song: Ohayo Ikebukuro!)

Ichiro, Jiro and Saburo are brothers - they are orphans (unknown why but since Ichiro rejects any fathr figure p strongly i think it’s linked to their father) and Ichiro, the eldest brother, had taken care of his two little brothers most of his life to the point of being a delicant before being recruited by the Dirty Dawg. Before the story started the boys weren’t all that close, but by now, both little brothers want to prove their worth to their eldest brothers and when the Dirty Dawg broke up and Ichiro had to figure out which team to make for the Rap Battles, both brothers offered to help. Despite both being ways too young for this they still both ended up proving themselves. They also tend to fight for their big brother’s attention a lot.

Ichiro (MC Big Brother) himself seems to be a rather warm and friendly person - he works odd jobs all around town, kind of like a mercenary but doing just… any sort of work being asked of him, just not in the illegal stuff when he can avoid it. He’s rather hot headed. He used to be very close from the Dirty Dawg who took care of him when they met, especially Samatoki, but since the band’s break up, it seems there is a particularly sour relationship with Samatoki neither of them are over with. Ichiro often disses Samatoki out of nowhere in his raps lmao. Aside from that he’s a complete geek and loves manga and anime and video game - all the stuff you’d expect.

Jiro, (MC Middle Brother) the second, tends to follow Ichiro’s path a lot, being a bit in delincance and stuff, creating himself a web of contacts. He tends to copy Ichiro in his passions in order to impress him. He’s also very social and get friends very easily. He’s constantly bickering with Saburo who seems to see their “brotherhood” as a competition. They used to be very close when they were younger but now they’re always at each other’s throat.

Saburo (MC Little Brother), the third, doesn’t really want to follow the path of his brothers but he wants to be useful in his own way. Incredibly clever, he is a very good hacker and can find information very quickly. He also has some of the sickest burn of the lot but i’m biased. Unlike Jiro, Saburo is really not social at all and has very few friends. His whole world is about being the best he can be for Ichiro.He likes things that can stimulate his brian, especially board games and the likes.

Mad Trigger Crew, representing Yokohama Divison- Center in white, Samatoki Aohitsugi(25) the Leader - with glasses, Juuto Iruma (29), in military uniform, Riou Busujima Manson (28).(Previews of their solo songs, preview of their first group song: Yokohama Walker, their second group song: Dead Pools)

If The BB are linked by the fact they’re brothers, MTC is linked by being….. Involved in armed illegal activities? Samatoki is the second in command of a Yakuza family, Juuto is a corrupted cop who is close to Samatoki because of… work…. and Riou kinda ended up tagging along. Anyway they’re in charge of Yokohama which seems to be a part of the city that suffered pretty badly from the war and have high crime rates.

In more details, Samatoki (MC Mr Hardcore) is involved in the mafia. He explains in his personal song that his mother killed his abusive father before killing herself, leaving him to take care of his little sister, Nemu, which is what led him to a life of crime. His Yakuza clan seems to have a honor code though so they’re not involved in too much dirty stuff. Every sacrifice Samatoki did was for his sister. So obviously he saw a bit of himself in Ichiro when they originally met, and was one of the influencial force to keep Ichiro out of the crime life knowing pretty well where it’s headed. The Band breakup left a particularly sour taste in Samatoki’s mouth regarding Ichiro, feeling betrayed by whatever happened back then, and since then he tends to be. touchy. when it’s question of Ichiro. As in, almost caused a car crash while he wasn’t driving just thinking about Ichiro. He’s a mess. He’s also very short tempered.

Juuto (MC 45 Rabbit) is a corrupted cop: while he works with the police and all the stuff, he has ties with Samatoki’s yakuza clan and will do shady stuff in order to maintain this alliance. Mostly blackmail, bailing Samatoki out of jail, all this sort of things. He seems to have a specific reason to accept it, a necessary evil to get rid of wickedness in the city. Juuto’s backstory was only developped in the latest drama tracks so it would count as spoilers but let’s say he has reasons to do so.He’s generally more down to earth and more tongue in cheek. He knows how to pick up people’s weaknesses let’s say.

Riou (MC Crazy M) is an army man who isn’t aware the war is over. He has been living in survival mode in the forest of Yokohama for the past few years, having also one of the prototype Hypnosis Mic, with more raw power. His hobbies is to cook from… unusual sources. Samatoki and Juuto are terrified by his cooking. There isn’t much revealed yet about Riou’s backstory however. Juuto found out about him and put him in contact with Samatoki when it was question to develop MTC, and they have since then developped a companionship of sort.

Fling Posse, representing Shibuya Division (also they’re my favs❤ which will be obvious in two mins bc i rambled much more about them holy fuck)- In the middle with pink hair, Ramuda Amemura (24), with brown hair, Gentaro Yumeno (24), with blue hair, Dice Arisugawa (20)(Previews of their solo songs, preview of their first group song, Shibuya Marble Texture, their second group song: Stella (aka my most listened hypmic song that made me unhealthily obsessed with the series) )

I don’t even know where to start with them. Don’t be fooled by how cute they look, they’re the most shady group. Officially, they’ve all been recruited by Ramuda “only for the thrill of it”, “To kill boredom”, but it also happens that they are the three with the most ties to the government. But none of them tend to really talk about it. Not really. They are very “living in the present” kind of people, even if it comes with risks. Ramuda gathered them for his own agenda. Neither Gentaro nor Dice knew each other before Ramuda put them together and neither know why Ramuda gathered them aside as “for the thrill”. Gentaro however has major doubts over the kind of person Ramuda is.

Ramuda (MC Easy R) is their leader. He is a fashion designer. He was the one who put the Dirty Dawg together back in the days, and seems to have… weird reasons to do anything he’s ever doing. Honestly i don’t know how to even touch how shady he is, but he’s all shade of shady. He will however always sound super cute. The only person he seems to not bear the sight of is Jakurai, his ex-teammate from the Dirty Dawg. They used to be very close but now things are very tense in between them, mostly with Ramuda setting as much distances as possible he can and hardly managing to remain cheerful around him.

Gentaro (MC Phantom) is a writter and also a chronic liar. You litterally cannot trust a single thing coming out of his mouth, he’s always making something up. His personal song is supposed to talk about his past but there’s like, a big lie in the begining of it (”I was born in winter” yOU’RE BORN ON APRIL THE FIRST.). One thing that is certain about him however, is that he has a friend who is very sick and at the hospital and that it seems to be the motivation behind all of his lies, as he started to make up fictions to cheer up his friend and turned his own life into a fiction by extension. There’s more shady stuff about him and his past, i could discuss it for hours (he’s my fav kdhfd). But mostly, he’s just the kind to tease people a lot and to not really expect to have friends that stick arounds, considering himself a untrustworthy unredeemable trash. He has a weird dynamic with his own sense of self, always making up false selves. I legit could talk for hours about it kdjhfd. He tends to over-tease Dice because Dice falls for every single of his lies, and he tends to have a soft spot for him. He’s also extremely observant since he writes story he makes up from people he observes, so he catches on stuff more easily. Gentaro’s lyrics are often more inclined toward poetry or well, work of fictions (he wrote Stella in verse and Stella is kindof a Posse!Au of how Gentaro sees the Posse. Stellaaaaaa)

Dice (MC Dead or Alive) is… a professional disaster? Joke aside, he’s a gambler who tends to push his luck a loooot. (there’s a lot of implications about how he doesn’t have a stable place to crash in because most of his rent money go into gambling). His outlook on life are really mostly that he wants to live a life that gives him legit thrills. He hates being bored. It’s heavily implied that he comes from a rich, influencial family but threw it all away for his addiction. The only reason he agreed to join the Posse was for the thrill the rap battles would provide. He also kinda considers himself a lowrate trash due to the lifestyle he’s living.He’s rather guilible, falling for every single of Gentaro’s lies despite how obvious they are, and gets teased a lot by both of his teammates. He’s also fiercely protective and combative. He is also the king of bad decisions and of having to drag his posse in them. (well mostly Gentaro). He’s also loves the Posse in itself and is the one who’s the most likely to brag about how great his band is. He genuinely loves his teammates and it makes me so soft,,. He’s also very perceptive, realizing very quickly when his teammates are changing their mood. And again he protecc,,

Matenrou - Representing Shinjuku DivisionCenter with purple hair: Jakurai Jinguji (35), the blond is Hifumi Izanami (29) and the gingerhead is Doppo Kannonzaka (29)(Previews of their solo songs, preview of their first group song, Shinjuku Style, their second group song: Papiyon that wasn’t put on youtube yet but should in a couple of weeks)

Matenrou is the band with the darkest aesthetic, protecting the Shinjuku’s division that came to be known mostly for the health problems, if i understand well also because the only functioning hospital is located there. Jakurai is a doctor and Doppo is his patient, while Hifumi is Doppo’s childhood friend and roomate. They end up tangled together after Hifumi gets threats on his life pushing Doppo to reach out for Jakurai, who took an interest on them as possible teammates when everything unfolded.

Jakurai (MC ill-Doc) is… an interesting character i dare not to spoil the backstory of but let’s say he has some dark past. As a person however, he is fascinated by people’s psychee, how they work, what pushes them to do stuff, and is therefore attracted to “interesting people”, people that makes him want to explore human’s psychee. Back in the Dirty Dawg’s day, it was what drove Jakurai to be very interested in Ramuda…. Until he considered Ramuda’s humanity too lost to be saved after the band broke up, which Jakurai blames partially on Ramuda. Ramuda remains the only person to have ever made Jakurai lose his patience. Otherwise, Jakurai is a rather collected and a very kind man, who tries to reach out and help others when he can. But again, dark past and stuff and some shady stuff went on with Ramuda. He found an interest in Doppo and Hifumi as he got to know them and now is rather protective of the two of them, often going fishing with Hifumi and doing anything to uplift Doppo.He’s also a terrible drinker. Don’t let him drink.He has one of my favorite solo song though and he has a sort of goth existantialism vibe to him i just love.

Hifumi (MC Gigolo) is Doppo’s childhood best friend and roomate. Now Hifumi’s story is a bit huh.. particular. When he was very young he had had a very traumatic experience with women that led him to be utterly terrified of being even nearby one. When he reached adulthood, he considered he couldn’t keep going like that and forced himself into a woman dominated space by becoming a Host, to overcome his fear. It was so hard on him however that he ended up… coping by considering that when he was wearing the Suit of the Host, he was a complete different person. Not quite split personality, but autosuggestion mostly. He gets into all sort of troubles with the suit on however. The only person he relies completely on is Doppo, whom he knows from childhood and with whom he lives. Hifumi is a good cook, and is always trying to cheer up his friend. because…

Doppo (MC Doppo) is an anxious disaster of a man. He’s your typical overworked office worker, who is handling this life pretty badly. He feels like his whole life is something he should be apologizing for, which he does all the time. He’s honestly unhealthily anxious and that’s why he is Jakurai’s patient. He’s seriously a depressed, anxious disaster who’s only light seems to mostly be that Hifumi cheers on him all the time… when Hifumi doesn’t create a terrible situation Doppo feels like he has to apologize for. However Doppo is someone you can rely on, with a lot of frustration bottled inside him to the point of it becoming an amazing weapon once unleashed with the rap battles. He’s very quick and ressourceful when put into extreme lifethreatening situation, which got Jakurai’s attention a lot.

So this is the main divisions and characters. There are more developped via the drama CDs obviously, more plot and all, but that’s the gist of it. Honestly again it’s just a pretext for characters and songs that fits their characters.

I personally never expected to care about it that much - i have friends who had been talking about it for over a year and i just knew it a bit in passing until i started to casually listen to the songs - and then i went down the rabbit hole when i ended up loving the songs too much to not care for the characters. (Stella was my breaking point though. The moment it came out I was lost. This was the moment i dedicated myself to it. I could go on a full ramble just on Stella alone.)

And yeah it kinda shows i have a major bias but my favs are truly the Posse - both as characters and as music style goes. Close second is Matenrou though i love their aesthetics.

the first battle season is over, it’s easy to know from their youtube how it unfolded ahah. The first round was BB VS MTC, the second FP VS MTR. Each rounds came with drama CD setting up the dynamics of the characters in and out of their bands, which was pretty cool.

After the First Battle Season ended we were blessed with a drama track and song from the Dirty Dawg era which is why i cannot stop shutting the fuck up about it dkjhfd it makes me so sad to look back to how close they were and how they threw all of this away….

Now a new season is starting but this is where we’re missing translations so we just… wait.

There are a few manga that covers a few of the drama tracks but not all, and there will be a mobile game soon.

But yeah that’s. that’s basically the basis.

And it is far too entertaining to me kdjhfd

and i probably shouldn’t have written all of that with a killer headache but i,, love they,,,

so yeah this is all there is to know. If you’ve read it this far… i admire your patience. Thank u

And take care!

#ichafantalks hpm #ay ay ay!#long post for ts #if the cut doesn't work dkfhdf #draculater #ichareply

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psyga315 · 5 years

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With Volume 7 just beyond the horizon, I figured to look back at my thoughts for Volume 5 and, through more cooled down eyes, boil down why I consider it to be the worst volume of RWBY. When I wrote my review of Volume 5, it was literally the night the episode premiered, so I was boiling. But now? I’m going to look through the review with fresher eyes and clarify what sort of problems I had with RWBY. First, a bit of backstory. There was an interview made during the summer in between Volumes 4 & 5 that had the cast say what sort of themes one could expect for Volume 5. Among these were stuff like “building yourself back up again”, “shouting ‘we’re not done here!’”, “solving problems on your own”, and lastly, from Barbara herself, “Strength” and “Growth”. For someone who was just starting to realize why people were turned off by the darkness of Volume 3, this was uplifting to say the least… The Character Shorts kinda hyped the Volume, though they sunk in their own way. Weiss’s Character Short effectively foreshadowed her loss to Vernal. This tough and talented girl gets her ass stomped rather quickly and needed to be bailed out. Winter’s line about how she “won’t be around to save her” was foreshadowing to her not actually being in the season, but when I first heard it, I thought she meant “Hey, I’m going to die this volume, lol!” and that’s without bringing up how the trailer fails to hype Weiss up like the other trailers did. Blake’s Trailer was alright, especially in taking steps to address a problem regarding Menagerie, but it felt more like Ilia given the backstory dump we got that feels all the more like mandatory reading. The problem is that, and it’s perhaps the very first problem I’ve heard about RWBY, is that the trailers (and by extension, anything that’s a spin off of RWBY like World of Remnant) feel more like you need to watch this rather than you can watch this. It’s confusing, but let’s use Blake’s Short as an example.

Lastly, there’s Yang’s short, which had the minor hiccup of contrasting what an interview said about running out of Aura means you can’t use your Semblance. The Aura thing is something that can be discussed for another day, but the basics you should take away from this is that, for some time, people didn’t know how running out of Aura is symbolized. Most people take the flickering as the signal as the next hit on those guys are usually the one that does them in. As such, you had this huge debate on what kind of flickering means Aura broken and what just meant Aura is low, which, personally, could have been avoided if the writers and/or animators just utilized that Aura dust thing (seen prominently in the Bumblebee vs Adam fight) as their definitive “aura broken” animation instead of just using it some of the time. The first episode proper promised a lot. In fact, a good chunk of the first half promised a lot. However, it became much clear in a second viewing that a lot of it was just padding at worst and showing us where the characters are at best. But what I think was done dirty the most in this episode was introducing Mistral. We were hyped in Volume 4 (thanks to World of Remnant) that Mistral was this dichotomy of rich, cultural people and the seedy underbelly of criminals and that, at least one of the elements would be utilized in Volume 5. Unfortunately, all we got were a few mat paintings that contrast what Lionheart was saying in regards to Mistral being in chaos. And so, the most we get out of Mistral are those mat paintings and a perpetually raining downtown that we don’t see much of, even when it gets briefly revisited in Volume 6. We’re supposed to be invested in the city and yet all we get are empty rooms and 2D art. They took great steps to improve this in Volume 6 with Argus, though, so if there’s any consolation, it’s that they learned from their mistakes here. But we now get into the biggest problem of why Volume 5 is disliked. Because of the situation, the group are left to basically wait until Lionheart convinces the council to get them some Huntsmen. The heroes. Wait. In a volume where the writers were talking about the themes of improving yourself and pulling through with your own strength. Do you guys see the problem here? I know people have bitched about Volume 5 to hell and back and you’ve probably heard the complaints to high noon, but this entire issue is what rots Volume 5 to the core the most. Not the piss poor fight scenes, not the inconsistent characterizations, it’s that the plotting decides to take a back seat when the volume was meant to be about taking action. As the episode goes on, you see the problem unfold. Ruby and friends hit a dead end until Oscar appears and has Ozpin exposit things to them, Weiss is denied a chance to save people and fight the Grimm until the Grimm come to her, Blake is hit with the dead end of the Albains deflecting blame, and Yang had the chance encounter with Bakugou where he knows the hideout of her mom. The closest person who is taking action here is Yang, who established that she is actively looking for Ruby (technically Raven, but as we see later on, moot point). Blake’s situation is being handled by her dad, Weiss is sitting in the plane until the Grimm come for her, and Ruby is sitting on the couch that I’m pretty sure has her grooves molded into the cushion with how many times she’s sat there. A minor complaint before we go to Episode 2, we had the Stinger repeat itself because the crew thought that people wouldn’t see the stingers. This is the show, mind you, that makes a point to include scenes at the end of every volume, regardless of how long they are or what point they serve in hyping the next Volume. Hell, one of the major complaints about Volume 2 was about the stinger not mattering. So why did they suddenly decide that the viewers might not see the stinger in a culture where the MCU exists? Alright, cooling things down, we have three major scenes in Episode 2. Salem’s chat with Lionheart was meh at best and wtf at worst. I get the idea of Salem using different approaches to get people to do what she wants, but the cool aspect of Salem was that her approach was not what a villain would normally be. Instead of berating or choking her minions should they fail or talk back, Salem instead talks people down like she’s a mother to them. Even when Tyrian fails, she doesn’t hurt him, but rather tell him that he disappointed her. So, having her choke Lionheart, even when in hindsight it made some sense, is kinda an odd thing to do. But not as odd as Salem’s whole “Not you, Arthur” bit. A lot of people drew points to that and the best I can explain is that it’s either a typo (she’s meant to say not yet or not now) or Arthur and Watts are some sort of Jekyll & Hyde thing. Unfortunately, it seems Watts is more a parallel to Watson rather than Jekyll, so that brings me to believe that it’s a typo and so, rather than have an easy explanation for a problem, we just have a compounded problem. One of many. And there’s something funny to be said about Salem warning Cinder about Silver Eyes when Ruby barely learns about it this Volume. And also that she wants to speak with Tyrian but we never see what comes of it. At all. I only have one new thing about Weiss vs. the Bees. Originally, the pilot was supposed to be gay, but held off on it because they’d be killing off their first revealed gay character, something that wouldn’t look good to the fanbase. Now, while I understand the reason behind it, I have to question the logic behind why they think it isn’t okay for their first LGBT character to be offed, but instead be someone who seemed okay with murdering her crush’s parents while sending said crush to her abuser. But more on that later, we have Sienna to discuss. Now, there’s a lot to dissect. For one, RT has obviously realized that they’ve messed up and brought Sienna back for a bit (while taking the heat for “if she’s so badass, why did she go out like a chump”). However, in hindsight, what purpose did she actually serve outside of some cute nod to Shere Khan? All she did was tell Adam that he’s going too far and that’s it. And really, it just seems hypocritical for the leader of the White Fang to effectively restructure the organization into a terrorist group, murder tons of people, and then suddenly back away and say “woah, too much” when Adam proceeded to help torch Beacon. It’s to the point where one question most people want to ask at cons is “did Sienna order the hit out on the SDC”, since we don’t actually know and that it could be a radical leader of that quadrant like Adam. It felt more like Sienna should have been just the leader of Mistral’s White Fang faction instead of ruling over all the White Fang, which would make more sense as Adam would need permission to attack a kingdom that isn’t his stomping ground. Then there’s the introduction of Hazel, who at first is presented to be a pretty decent character, not wanting to kill people if he had no choice, but as time goes on, is basically your stock “big soft guy with a secret hulk side” character. Unfortunately, this episode didn’t help enforce the theme of taking action when it’s the villains who are doing it and seeming to be two if not twenty steps ahead of the heroes. Episode 3 has that whole speech thing I overlooked. Barring Ghira’s speech that the crew said is based off Obama’s “we killed Osama” speech (which, if it is, paints the whole situation of Sienna’s death in a rather dark light) before Ilia interferes. Now, I actually liked that Menagerie is hesitant to stand up for Haven. After all, humans hated their guts so much that the island was originally planned to be a place where people could dump Faunus on. There were lynchings and enslavements that are still going on to this day, just in subtler forms, Of course the Faunus wouldn’t want to fight. Then Ilia swoops in and robs Blake of any agency she has with the scene. If RT wanted to not let Blake convince the people until three quarters to the end, they should have cut the subtlety and have some annoying kid go “IT’S TOO EARLY IN THE PLOT TO DO YOUR SPEECH!”. Hell, let Blake tell her story about her team, but the audience balks at the fact that she’s not only friends with a Schnee, but also a human who crippled a guy on live television. Remember that plot point? We then cut to Oscar and this is perhaps the reason I decided to do this revisit of Volume 5. The way Ozpin talks of action and resolve, it felt like we’re going to the root of the themes of taking action. No more being subject to the events of the plot like in previous Volumes. Now? Now is the time to fight back! And that built up to… what? One training scene and Ruby learning headbutt? Granted, we see later on that there was a bit more to the plan, but for the most part, it seemed like an excuse for “character growth” as opposed to actual character growth. A training arc isn’t just some short scenes of a person lifting weights and jogging up stairs. Its meant to be a sort of means of growth for the character. There’s a reason most training montages have the character suck at first, but then get better by the time the montage ends. It’s because it’s the quickest way to show growth. But even without that, you could get some serious mileage for a pulled off training arc. Rocky IV and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back have some good examples of it. Rocky IV had the titular hero train and work out in the middle of a cold, mountainous range, while his opponent is simply given steroids. It shows the dichotomy between the two and how they view their eventual fight. Empire, on the other hand, had that masterful scene with Luke in the cave, where he has a huge moment of both foreshadowing and character growth. Here? We just have Ruby learn headbutt like she’s nothing more than a Pokemon. There could have been a lot more done with it, like having Ruby put a lot more force in her punches, causing others to realize she’s extremely angry about what happened to Pyrrha and Penny, or, if the need to exposit about Semblances is needed, bring something new to the table that isn’t going to confuse the fuck out of people… Something like: “Your Semblance might not reveal itself until you need it most” or something like that. Not “A semblance is someone’s personality, but not. Wow! Exposition!” or “Hey, remember how we said Aura was passive? Welp, not anymore!” Not to mention that Jaune is seemingly cool with Ozpin suddenly coming back from the dead. Here’s the thing, last Volume had him upset with Ozpin about what happened to Pyrrha, something that didn’t seemed to resolve itself. Keep in mind that, for all rights and merits, Jaune believed Ozpin to have died. In fact, it was that confirmation that Ozpin had lost against Cinder that convinced Pyrrha to kill herself. Now here he is, seemingly stuck in the body of another kid and he just outright said this is a normal thing for him. You’d expect him to have something more than “golly!”. The fact that he didn’t seem to have any aggression towards Ozpin until after he ran to his hidey hole in Volume 6 seems rather odd given that his entire character is that he’s angsting about Pyrrha and angry at Cinder for what she did. The group seem rather content to just sit back and let the plot happen, which is the opposite of what the crew was trying to convey with their themes. I still stand by what I said regarding how Episode 4 was a good episode, finally having a reunion between two members of Team RWBY, but it’s perhaps one of the last good things about RWBY we’ll ever see in Volume 5. Because Raven’s promise to tell Yang “the whole truth” turns out to just be regurgitated exposition at worst. But first, we need to have Blake, the woman who doesn’t want her race to be labeled, turn out to have labels for her friends. Okay, granted, it’s not that dumb but it is kinda patronizing that we need to have a character tell us what another character is. While the rest of her speech is pretty effective in defining Blake’s character, making her perhaps the only character these themes of growth and strength actually apply to, it still is annoying that the most we take away out of this is her boiling down every character to a single word, then bringing up how Adam is going to ruin everything for the Faunus. You’ll see why this is a problem later. I liked the setting of Menagerie’s Shallow Sea marketplace thing and felt like Menagerie is wasted potential. Ruby’s whole speech still feels like damage control, but with the added complaint of Ruby deciding to blame Salem for something Cinder did. Now, I heard the common excuse a lot: “Salem told Cinder to do it so it’s all her fault”, but that problem with that? Cinder told Emerald to kill Penny. So… Yeah. It is her fault. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded this if Ruby didn’t word it like Salem personally killed Penny and Pyrrha. Like as in, she just up and appeared out of nowhere and shot both Penny and Pyrrha in the head. It still doesn’t fix the fact that Ruby is basically “hey, remember how I’m supposed to be upset?” Lastly for Episode 5, we have the White Fang do the brilliant plant of murdering the chieftain who just spoke out against them. It’s dumb. Extremely dumb. What the hell do they think will happen after they murder the chieftain in cold blood? Menagerie is just gonna magically bend over and obey the White Fang? But perhaps the biggest waste is the White Fang in general. You have these two sneaky fox brothers who seemingly oversee everything and even state that they’re only letting Adam do what he wants until he’s no longer of use to them, a buff bat dude, and a spider-lady… And they’re never seen again after this Volume. I get the idea, because RT is trying to wrap up the Faunus subplot as quickly as possible, but the problem that you can’t exactly introduce new characters or hidden depths if you’re just gonna throw them out with the bath water. If they wanted to end the subplot, why did they put all the effort in some random characters that are just gonna be defeated off screen with a tea tray? Then again, this is a problem endemic to RWBY. Introduce this character, then quickly shoo them away before you’re committed to writing a plot for them. If you know you were going to half-ass the White Fang conclusion, why bother with stuff like more White Fang members or the SDC brand? In fact, why bother with the White Fang to begin with if you’re going to do so little with them? Moving on before I lose my cool, we have Qrow aimlessly walking around downtown Mistral. Now, the crew said that Maria was supposed to be here… But… Why? What purpose would she serve? If she’s just gonna be a “hey, look, cameo to foreshadow Volume 6”, then that’s a horrible purpose. You know how most Cinematic Universes tanked because they spent more time hyping the next twenty movies when they should focus on their pilot? That’s what she would have been like. Not to mention that she would have been caught in the crossfire of why Volume 5 was bad. “So here we have this random old lady who doesn’t matter at all to the plot so why is she even there” and then “Oh wow, she’s a SEW. They’re doing damage control to justify her unneeded presence in Volume 5”. And, don’t get me wrong, Maria is a fun lady and all that, but there needs to be a reason she was there beyond “hype for next Volume”. What makes the problem worse was that they’re planning to include Maria so as to have a sort of Yoda to teach Ruby. This makes the complaint of “why didn’t Ruby ask about the Silver Eyes” even more of a complaint because now it seems like they decided “hey, we’re going to address it next volume, so let’s not bother bringing it up here”. Which is even worse than “hey, people noticed we didn’t address this so let’s completely invent this character for the sole purpose of addressing it!” And then there’s Raven who is all “lol, I know more than you realize but I’m not actually gonna answer anything trolololololol” AARHG! Okay. Okay. Before I completely lose my marbles, there’s one thing about the scene with Raven that’s stupid. It’s the “there’s no such thing as magic” thing. Okay. I get it. Turning into a bird is something that, in the world of RWBY, seems impossible. But there’s a ton of problems with this: 1. What makes summoning dead Grimm to fight for you so much more different than magic? 2. You’re willing to believe in magic rocks that augment your fighting style and are in fact part of a company that profits off magic rocks, yet turning into a bird is the messed up thing? 3. The guy who gave her this ability is currently inhabiting the body of a young boy and has said to basically devour his soul in due time, as well as create the magic that’s responsible for torching your school and your friend… And the BIRD is the most messed up thing!? “But Raven made it sound like she was forced into it”. She didn’t seem to have any fucking problem with it though. Not only that, but it didn’t seem like a big dark secret that Ozpin wouldn’t want uncovered. In fact, he even said he gave Qrow and Raven the ability to turn into birds in an amused way. Even more so when everyone but Yang seemed to respond to it with disbelief rather than outright anger. There’s a reason this whole bird issue was made fun of in Jello’s “So This is Basically RWBY” video. Also, before we move onto Episode 7, I wanna bring up that the scene where Qrow visits the Shields is perhaps the reason why I hold Ozpin’s censorship of Lionheart’s role in the Battle of Haven to be one of the most scumbag moves he could have made. “Your mom’s dead, but don’t worry, the guy who sold her out is a hero!” Right, back to Episode 7. Okay, I’ll admit, it was a nice reunion scene all things considered, albeit with some rather unnerving things like Yang asking Weiss if she let the Boarbatusk skewer the trophy wife or even the dumb, patronizing “we haven’t made character arcs for us to go through so I’ll just say we had some”, since they had the great idea to use Ren, who is voiced by Monty’s brother, as the mouthpiece for that. Unfortunately, this is the episode I always think back to when I think of Volume 5. The perfect epitome of a slow, monotonous Volume. The problem I have is that, yeah, it’s meant to be this breather episode, a calm before the storm, but this just feels like a long lull that’s made even more insulting with the cliffhanger. All it has is people dumping exposition that viewers have either figured out or weren’t even burning questions and I think the awkward silence that followed Ozpin saying how he was the wizard that gave the Maidens his power is the perfect epitome for just how boring the volume is. The dude just revealed a massive plot twist and it’s treated as nothing more than a “did you know” factoid. While I liked how they addressed that Blake leaving Yang would have had some serious negative emotions in Yang, it felt rather half-assed that they basically resolved it with “hey, my mom’s drunk, so shut up and accept Blake the moment she comes back”, especially since it comes from Weiss, who told Blake at the end of Volume 1 that if she ever runs away again, she best let RWBY know. If they wanted to ship Bumblebee so badly, this would have been a great hurdle for them to come across instead of just “hey, let me resolve this plot for you”. Now, the whole thing with Ilia… Let’s get the elephant out of the way. The way they revealed her sexuality, I feel, could have been done better. “You wanna know why I’m gonna kill your parents and bring you to your abuser? Because I wanted you to look at me like a lover!” There’s a reason why some fans label her as a “psycho lesbian”. However, I want to bring up that Rooster Teeth did an excellent job at building tension during the climax of the Menagerie Arc. Sure, the cliffhangers were tiresome, but you couldn’t help but admit you were at the edge of your seat and it even did a good job at subversion. Even if they allegedly didn’t even intend for it to happen. The constant dryness of exposition and dialogue exchanges is what made Episode 10 so much better than the other episodes. Not just because it’s action-orientated, but because it finally tries to get back to the themes that it was originally supposed to tell. Throughout the entirety of the middle portion of Volume 5, the group basically took a backseat and allowed characters and plots to happen to them rather than advocate for themselves. The closest thing we got to the theme of “building yourself back up” is Weiss talking to Yang about Blake. In fact, the only actual characters taking action are the villains. Constantly roadblocking the cast, setting them in for a trap, and even aiming to screw each other over. These guys have more advocacy and agency than the main characters. The most any of them did was… 1. Burn down their own house and blamed everyone else for it, all while saying that the house is the message Adam wants to send. 2. Use a girl’s unrequited feelings towards them to their advantage, straddle them, and guilt tripped her enough for her to consider switching sides. 3. Cry about how things are not going their way until their hands start magically glowing. 4. Yelling at someone until they cry bitch tears and then have them run away without even bothering to close the door leading to the dangerous artifact everyone had been working so hard to keep out of enemy hands. In the volume where the theme is “solving problems on our own”. Just because Yang drops the word strength a few times when bitching out at Raven doesn’t mean that the theme had been accomplished. In fact, they do nothing of their own accord and just follow a script. Even Ozpin, the supposed smartest guy in all of Remnant, doesn’t even bother to figure out a way to counter the trap. Just instead walk in. Hell, if Yang didn’t spot Raven, they’d be mulched. But, back on track. Episode 9 was an entire waste that failed to pay off the expectations of what we had with the cliffhanger set up in Episode 7. “But it subverted your ex-” NO. There’s a good way to subvert expectations and being promised a fight after episodes of bland exposition only to have it be “lol, no, it��s just gonna be more talking” is not a good subversion. No. Here’s a better way. Set up the cliffhanger like normal, but don’t show Cinder’s dragged out negotiation with Raven. Instead, have her “allying” with Cinder be a twist. That way, people’s expectations for what happened are actually, you know, subverted? But, you know where this is leading to… The Battle of Haven. Really, I don’t think I can say anything that hasn’t been covered by someone else. We all know it makes all the Vytal fights look like masterpieces by comparison, we all know the jokes about useless Weiss or Lionheart hogging the staircase, or even the plot holes of Raven knowing Cinder’s arm being Grimm but doing nothing about it or Blake, despite spending the past volume saying how Adam must be stopped, suddenly doesn’t care about him… So let me cut it simply: The reason this battle sucks might have to do with the crunch. We don’t know how long this issue with Rooster Teeth had been going on for, but if it is indeed what people say it is and that animators don’t get paid for the last quarter or third of their work, then that might explain all the cut corners animators and writers made. Why the fights are broken up into one on ones or why fights are cut out entirely. Maybe they weren’t getting paid enough and thus, the quality of RWBY suffered as a result of it. And that’s perhaps the shittiest thing about the Battle of Haven. It could have been this epic fight that would have made up for all the boring, drawn out scenes of exposition and chatting, but because Rooster Teeth got too greedy or even because of our own impatience (which, again, isn’t helped by the aforementioned long, drawn out scenes), we are treated to a final battle so broken and tiresome that the Battle of Winterfell manages to be a better final battle, with the only thing holding it back being that Haven had a better identity twist. And if, for whatever reason, it isn’t due to crunch issues, then we have another problem. This was meant to be this hyped up rematch between the heroes and villains, who haven’t seen each other since the latter ruined the lives of the former. This would have been excellent to see how the killers of Jaune and Ruby’s friends would interact with them, how Yang would react to the person who framed her, even how the group had grown since their last battle… But… if crunch wasn’t to blame for the quality dip and the writers intended for the fight to go the way it went… I have to say… What the fuck were they thinking!? So many moments could have been brought up here and yet they decided that they weren’t important enough to focus on! And now, with this battle over and done with, those moments lost their luster. If they decide to bring them up, it’d be too little, too late at best and “why the fuck are you bringing this up now” at worst. I’ll deal with one commonly used example to get what I mean. Adam was established in Volume 3 to be a threat only made strong because he uses Blake’s emotions against her and has a Semblance that lets him dish out aura-breaking damage. Blake easily defeats Adam and has him on the ropes, only to let him run with a few excuses that some people have debated to death and back, when it would have been much easier for Blake to have to choose between apprehending Adam and helping Yang. Then, when he inevitably returns to haunt Blake next volume, suddenly he’s a threat that Blake is afraid of again despite Blake having “grown” to oppose him. They wanted that “triumph” over him, but realize that by doing so, they’ve burned that opportunity to have the triumph be meaningful. Same goes with Emerald and Mercury. They had a good opportunity for Ruby to effectively call them out for their crimes like how Jaune did to Cinder, but instead she just headbutts Mercury. Yang had at least some closure on her arc with Mercury, but it was meh. Hell, speaking of wasted opportunities, the reunion of Team RWBY, something that the opening had hyped and one that the fans had been waiting for since Volume 3 ended, is nothing more than an afterthought. They couldn’t even be assed to show Blake’s first fight back with Ruby and Weiss. That’s how little they cared. It’s like everyone was just wanting to get that paycheck but they needed to rush that final episode out the door and also need to make room for Gen:Lock and Nomad trailers. They didn’t even care about the stinger, as they basically ignored any sort of information relating to the stinger. Perhaps the biggest reason why Volume 5 sucked so hard was that it was running off the heels of Volume 3. Everyone basically accepted that Volume 4 was meant to be a breather Volume, with lower stakes and lower drama (with the exception of possible death flags for Ren and Nora), but the moment they made Volume 5 the grudge match everyone wanted, then the stakes got raised back to the heights of the third Volume, only for it to fail to live up to the expectations. Sorry, I think I mean to say “subvert the expectations” in this day and age. Though, I think the huge problem with all of this, and perhaps the biggest bottom line I can say, is that it might be due to Volume 3 going too over the edge. By killing important characters and even dividing the team, the villains had raised stakes up so high, that people began to take the show more seriously. When characters were vaguely hinted to die, be it through threats from the villains or even flashbacks, people fretted that they would die. When the villains go back to striking distance with the heroes, people desired a grand battle. When the show tried to deal with the ramifications that happened with RWBY separating, people wanted to know what was going through the characters’ heads. And when Volume 5 failed to deliver/“subverted their expectations”, people considered it a bad volume. But worst of all, it failed to live up to its own themes. Jaune was the only person to build himself back up again through deus ex hands, and we saw next Volume that it needed a statue for him to feel better. No one was in a position of giving up only to be defiant and shout “we’re not done here”, but instead cry “it wasn’t supposed to be like this!”. The big problem of Volume 5, make sure the relic is secure, is only solved because two characters had a catfight in the basement and the survivor didn’t bother to lock up because their daughter was too busy bitching at her. No one really grew or strengthened their resolve. The triumph… wasn’t theirs to have. Although, it seems Rooster Teeth had learned from their mistakes, with Volume 6 being leaps and bounds better than Volume 5, regardless of what you thought of the latter half. Best of all, the themes promised in Volume 5 were shown prominently in Volume 6, albeit some of the scenes capitalizing on those themes feeling more like a child is having a tantrum because they couldn’t have the airplane. To close out this rather long winded discussion, and to give people a tl;dr on the whole matter, Volume 5 failed to address the themes it had presented and instead just padded itself out, expecting people to accept it because it’s RWBY.

#RWBY #RWDE #CRTQ

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roseate7 · 5 years

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Any words of consolation about what’s probably going to happen tonight? It hurts so much and it hasn’t even happened yet. You seem to have good perspective and I could use some.

I’ll answer this one because it’s very sweet and must’ve come in right before I switched anon off.

I can very easily and confidently say to you that this indeed shall pass, because unlike many a swift rout in which a team and fanbase must cast about in bewilderment for what went wrong, the enemy has shown himself and it is within. For all that the superstars were gassed with overwork by the time the playoffs arrived, and for all that the eventual lineup were too bewildered to pull out a cohesive performance by the end, the man responsible for all of this - and I mean all - is Jim Rutherford.

A lot of folks understandably held out on my level of bolshiness toward him this year, but from day one of this playoffs series the truth of the entire season’s mess and muddle and hasty plastering-over had shown itself in rapidly coming undone beneath playoffs pressure. And he’d done the same botched jobs before in Carolina.

I know most folks don’t agree with me on this point especially but the Hags trade set the tone of Rutherford losing the team’s confidence in him entirely. The bulk of the work was done then. His “point was made” but the point was both a misfire and an eventual backfire. But whatever difficulties the Pens had at the start of the season, we only ever got to see them just beginning to repair the longer the team got to bond and gel… only for trigger-happy-trader Jim to come and throw it all into disarray again.

There’s no way of ever knowing which of the trades were truly any better because there was no time the crucial identity to be formed with any of them. He lucked the fuck out with the Florida trade, but what good are two solid players in isolation on a disjointed team they barely know and may not even stay with past the summer? Where is the hunger and fight for them? To lift a Cup with men they’ve known a matter of months? They’re not Black Aces, they’re key players who felt rushed in and did their best which is honestly a waste of talent in the end. Certainly no way to form that team identity. All it did was help keep the Pens on life support.

That’s the theme of Rutherford losing this season: what good are solid players in isolation? Do they make a defense? Do they create goals? Do they give his superstars space to work while leaving the speed up to the younger and lighter, or even just faster…. oh yeah those are all gone. So, no. No they don’t. They add up to a first round sweep and have done ever since the late fall.

It might seem like strange comfort to know that the season was ultimately jeapordized by a man who we can only see the back of if pressure mounts outside and in, but ironically when you look at all of the good that he has wasted in either neglect or over-work, it is reassurance.

Because it’s very good to know that the Pens have a core on the other side of thirty who are hitting and breaking franchise and league records and are still able to overcome major mid-season injury and reignite the team’s playoffs hopes. They’re not the Hawks or the Kings. Their core leave ample cap space in their salaries and more importantly, the problems aren’t scattered all over the locker room and the coaching and the management. It’s down to one man getting into a job using more talented colleagues and then reverting to type once left to his own devices. Hell, even Sully being out-coached wouldn’t have led to a first round exit if the team had formed the kind of identity and drive that it should have. 87/71 can lead a motley crew of a roster to the second round just fine, so long as they can get to know them before March.

And 87/71 being what they are - an isolated and rare organism - and having veteran status, none of the past two seasons will be allowed to remain when they return to Pittsburgh in the fall. They’ve proven how fearless they are in doing what is right for their team and that they’ll run up against any level of front office to fight for glory again. Hell, just look at Geno’s post-games after tonight! He is already planning on the upturn of all they’ve settled into that doesn’t work. I truly do not think Rutherford has the clout, especially after these past two years on his own, to stand up to what those two want. They’ve got the ear of the owners far more than he has. I doubt he’ll be gotten rid of, but his workload could easily become much ‘lighter’ and the purse strings taken out of his hands.

From my hockey perspective, this exit honestly feels like a logical turn in direction for a team who have needed to be wrestled out of the jaws of victory rather than the other way round for most of one dynasty. The years between 2009 and 2016 were such twists and turns, and they’ve all faded into normal and natural lows and suffering that happen to absolutely every club - especially to ones who have had success so frequently. The past two seasons aren’t at all unusual for a much older club whose legs have largely never bounced back from a gruelling back-to-back and an unbroken succession of playoff appearances.

All of Rutherford’s botched work needs to be either undone or removed. I’m sorry folks, I know it’s extremely unlikely and most don’t agree with me but getting Hags back would restore heart and identity to a team that couldn’t bear to have lost it in the first place. But even if not him, then a team assembled and left to actually find itself next season. I’m also not convinced that dropping Horny makes sense, it feels way too much like the overly-reactionary trades of the entire season and yet more loss of identity. Bringing in youth and speed is doable without disintegrating the core even more. We all love Olli but he’s sadly become disposable (I don’t really know why) and I say it’s far wiser to shift a younger player who is already showing signs of slowing than a teammate who brings much needed heart to the locker room.

Anyway, all of this can be done. There is now time, room and with intelligence there can be money. Geno will rest and clear his head and be Russian and Miamian for a while, Sid will go off with trainers like last summer, and they’ll both return of one mind: to never, ever allow their ship to be steered so wildly off course ever again.

So when it comes to the pain, the bitterness, the feeling of desolation and confusion of tonight I really can promise you this will be a kinder loss in the long run. It didn’t drag on, it was against a team who had the jump and the desperation on the Pens, and there were no cruel twists of the knife to age-old wounds. The Isles were better and wanted the win more and they won. It’s clean, if still gutting.

I can say all of this because I was baptised by fire and blood into hockey. I saw Bloody Wednesday and I had seen the previous season’s lead-up to it, all of which is told best by Kris Draper himself. I saw hatred and cold-bloodedness and rage that transcended ‘just hockey’ between the Avs and Wings of those days. I can safely say that no one will ever experience transcendent agony and ecstasy of the like ever again because the sport is now more about... well, the sport, rather than the spectacle.

And as I soon realised, all that gnashing of teeth from the players represented the most pathetic side of a game that was already on it’s way to losing it’s audience precisely for a lack of substance. It all stopped being satisfying when the enforcers were no longer made invisible in their traumatized retirement and the gladiatorial was proven to be ultimately almost as fatal and cruel as the old coliseums. We all got sick of games halting for the latest wild man to do his bit and to have teams hoarding up talent in ways that even refs could tilt the balance in their favor so well. The rivalries are boring younger fans now that testosterone flare-ups no longer run the show, and instead look like weak distractions - or downright dangerous in ways that are no longer considered acceptable - from letting your hockey speak for itself.

And well, as Draper and Nick Lidstrom proved to me many years later when they both went belly-aching that a 21 year-old Sidney Crosby wasn’t prompt enough to shake Lidstrom’s hand after the 2009 final. I will always respect those guys as players, but hoo boy the irony of their childish sore loser attitude in calling Sid immature and unprofessional still looks terrible for two men who won four Cups in their time. Same with the fans and journalists who saw fit to bemoan this perceived slight from Sid due to nothing but sour grapes over the fair loss of yet another trophy to add to their groaning coffers. Especially targeting a kid charged with rescuing his sport and his franchise, who had returned to the Joe after a bitter disappointment the previous season, and at last gained the achievement that had been expected of him since he was between fourteen and sixteen.

For shame on two men I had witness do battle and perform so valiantly, even after some of the glory of their days had begun to tarnish, to gang up on a boy because their days of domination were fading. I still love those first seasons I watched, but I am glad the days are gone of two men knocking forty launching a PR campaign to damage the image of a kid only just realising the dream they had many times repeated themselves before he was even in the draft combine.

Why did I take that trip down memory lane, you could well ask if you’re still even reading this, anon???

Because while players like the 90s Red Wings represent the last of the old dynasties, the post-2004/5 lockout effects on hockey haven’t been felt in full effect really until the Penguins back-to-backs. You know, the team who won using speed and cohesion? The team who set the standard which all other teams were not-so-secretly rushing to copy? That was a core of existing champs who dictated their own identity and who had two leaders with their eyes wisely on the future-present style of hockey.

The Kings and Hawks days of glory had one foot very much in the past. They are both in different stages of trying to work out the puzzle of a league whose playing style has been flipped even more on it’s head in just the past three drafts. Forget McDavid: how does Mitch Marner weigh what he weighs and do what he does and bounce back up every time old-style defense tries to knock him down? How do you get more of those little nuggets of your own to find gaps and evade muscle and create chances? That’s the question the Pens already know they have to get back to answering as they had before.

But Jim Rutherford has fumbled his two years unsupervised, this is resoundingly true, and his old ‘grit and size’ tendencies are coming up against a Pens core who have far more knowledge of what it takes to return their team to being champions because they have seen the sea changes taking place in their franchise from day one.

Ol’ Jim’s can come and go. But Crosby and Malkin are neither petulant veterans who would moon about over their losses and angrily deflect onto the youngsters who beat them, nor are they superstars existing in a bubble and bemoaning the slow decline of their team after each short or non-existent post-season. Neither of them will mind handing over some depth work to speedier youngsters. Neither of them will mind adjusting their roles to accommodate the next generation of Pens, because it’s what they’ve been doing for a good few years now. No clashing of egos or sense of grudge over age and perceived superiority to stop these two from doing whatever it takes to keep the club on the right path.

The Pens will always have a shot at being champions so long as Sid and Geno are on the thrones in Pittsburgh. And the more they come into their age and embrace their sway over a franchise that knows it owes it’s existence to them both (even if fucking nobody else seems to remember that Geno’s throne sits in every way equal to Sid’s) the more chance there is for more Cups.

At the very least, and it’s still a wonderful least, seasons like this one will stand as nothing but a stark but isolated reminder of how close to disaster their ship has ever sailed.

I have absolutely no doubt that they know what to do in the wake of it, and I have no doubt that they would gladly fly in the face of front office if it meant a more harmonious locker room.

They’re two heroes who won’t complain about the young bucks coming in and the league changing around them, and trust me when I say Pens fans should take endless comfort in that, even in the toughest years. And the natural order of things in hockey absolutely dictates that you’ve gotta at least have some of those.

#inbox #lmao sorry for the fucking epic #wow do I talk a lot when it's late #Anonymous

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