#and the setup for s3 actually makes me want to scream

[livingasaghost]

i don't know what to do with all my pirate finale feelings!!!!!!! david jenkins i could kiss you!!!! and also kill you!!!!!!! wahh!!!!!!

[mike-haters-dni]

‘SENT TO THE GULAG’ IS KILLING ME

okay yes hop has probably atoned for his sins by now and his monologue at rock bottom was really good but it still pisses me off sometimes idkk. im just waiting for the payoff of seeing him actually DO better this time😭

and exactly! the angst in s2 is like- messy- but that’s good television! it gave us a top 5 millie preformance how can i even be mad

men in stranger things are weird sometimes cuz you have to overlook their CRIMES, (i’ll be like “omg jancy!” then i REMEMBER…) it’s weird when a character is randomly at their worst for a scene or a season just to meet the story’s requirements

jopper can scream at each other all sam and diane for nostalgia in s3 but when you look at it in a larger context it’s kinda dicey. like how weird of hop to doubt her when he already knows to trust her instincts.

and also it’s just like- nobody drags him enough for me! he’s so loved- male characters can do ANYTHING kinda- so i have to get him. out of principle. and i see that hopper (and like david harbour) is too important to kill off in the show and that him and el’s relationship isn’t all lows, not even in s2. i think i’m just bitter that 1. st tiktok treats el like she was SO unreasonable in that scene>:( (i need to stop going there it makes me want to rant on tumblr) and 2. how much time was devoted to bringing him back last season like my cali boys were so neglected. :( (after 2 failed prison escape attempts i was like (why i am still looking at this insanely bruised man) so-

but yeah i need to stop typing now cause i have a million thoughts in my head about hopper and the way that he is. and the way the show treats him. (how funny is it that even the viewers can have a complicated relationship with him. maybe i’m not giving the writers enough credit in that regard)

: )

-No like, I agree 100%. We forgive but we never forget

-I have a hard time even being really mad at Jonathan for the Incident cuz like, that was such a weird ooc moment that was clearly just so the plot would happen. Like he got possessed by the spirit of the writers to do that shit. And like I can't even be mad at the writers either because like, the plot they were servicing is really fucking good? I might be the only person in the world who thinks this but I think this show is phenomenally written esp from a plot structure perspective. Near perfectly even. Like this show single-handedly instilled a sense of how to do super satisfying setup and payoff, and how to have every scene push multiple things forward, and how everything seen on screen needs to be relevant to as much as possible. Its so tightly written that its like...yeah Jonathan had to do that shit. It allowed like 3 perfectly intersecting plotlines to play out. There was no other option. And like there probably was and maybe I'm coping or whatever but like...idk it's perfect to me :) But still we forgive but we never forget. And we only forgive after they display a marked change in behavior. And we still never forget <3 (side note: remember when El dumped him and Mike ((and Lucas)) went full andrew tate for a second? That's the one thing he's ((they've)) actually ever done wrong lmaooo ((tbf they were also 13 so like)))

-Who tf is saying she was being unreasonable??? child???? traumatized??? isolated in a tiny cabin for a year?????? With Hopper?????? A cop????????? HellO?????????? Bro ppl HATE her bro this needs to stop

-I think the biggest problem with the Russia plotline is just that it's not fun? Watching Hopper get tortured in a labor camp is not fun? I came here for 80s vibes, friendship and supernatural shit and it only delivers that whenever Joyce and Murray are onscreen (who are really fantastic together tho) and once the monster finally shows up way too late into the proceedings. There should have been inklings of monster throughout to add some intrigue and let us know that this was all going to have a point that tied into the plot of Stranger Things the 80s Monster Show. But alas.

[rosesradio]

some spare thoughts on 4.07 & 4.08 (i’m 20 minutes in the last ep atp)

Ricky’s rendition of Scream was downright delusional in the best way—i really like what they did with the spinning screen set too. i feel like myself & other ej stans wanted to see ej’s take on it, but the song was best for ricky for his arc/the actual show so i really like how they did it

EJ’s stage makeup was horrendous—he’s never escaping the bad makeup/costume setup (outside of s1). tbf i’ve done theatre for years and know that stage makeup is supposed to be pronounced because the lights wash it out, but jeez, he looked 70 (he looked like how ej antis see anyone over the age of 18 jskaksjs)

Ashlyn’s wood carving—something that would have been cute as hell if she had secretly done it, but became creepy as hell when she revealed “ej had predicted it the whole time !” I guess the writers forgot they were cousins (wouldn’t be the first time) and wanted to tie that in, but not in the sense that they’d actually have a heartfelt conversation or anything, no—that’d make too much sense. Like, I have a cousin I’m sorta friends with & we talk about crushes & stuff…I wouldn’t carve her name with her crush’s in a tree trunk who the hell does that. Not to mention EJ’s whole conflict with s3 is that he didn’t have enough time to do everything for the show while also being a teen at camp…where did he get time to pick up carving. (And why didn’t he carve something for Gina, his at-the-time girlfriend?)

Ashlyn’s kiss with Maddox was super cute, i love them, but if someone walked in on me kissing, that’s a cue to…stop kissing. They’re valid, they’ve been waiting long enough, I just got second hand embarrassment seeing Carlos’s reaction lmao

that’s all i have rn, can’t wait to finish the ep :-)

[kurokoros]

hey! i just wanted to let you know that i've been reading like, all of your stranger things thoughts, and you're always spot on. like you're so correct about all of it. the treatment of steve (and jonathan albeit in a different way) is so bad. the show is just so poorly written. it's tragic bc there's some legitimately interesting characters (most of which seem more accidentally interesting than anything than intentionally written to be interesting) but they're being completely wasted. and i love fanfic, don't get me wrong, but some people warp the characters to an insane degree. like, just read something else if you want entirely different characters. it makes me want to scream. like, i saw a fic where steve cheats, as if that's not wildly out of character. if you wanna read a story where that's part of the plot, find different characters, go to a different fandom, read a fucking book. anyways, i'm gonna stop here bc i will absolutely start ranting. and most of the thoughts i have you've written out a lot more coherently than i ever could. i hope you have a good day!! 💕

thank you, I frequently pride myself in having impeccable opinions 9/10 times lmao

Honestly, there are so many immediately interesting characters in ST and the biggest issue is that the narrative never actually tells us anything about them. We know Steve has frequently absentee parents. Do something with that. We know Jonathan has to shoulder so much responsibility as the oldest sibling and has to pretend like he's always okay to allow Joyce and Will to breakdown. Do something with that. Let the characters talk about their trauma. Especially in the later seasons, it feels like no one actually talks anymore because the seasons are too bloated with action and big twists. And the conversations that actually do happen just don't have the same heart as in the first two seasons.

And then there are the plot inconsistencies and general fuckery in S3-4 that just make things less enjoyable to watch (at least for me). I started rewatching S2 and realized that in episode one Murray tells Hopper a crackpot theory about a full scale Russian invasion in Hawkins, which is rightfully treated as nonsense because that legitimately could not happen and Murray is setup to be a theorist taking advantage of people for money, and then in S3 they actually reveal that there's a Russian military base under the new mall, as if that could ever happen--especially in a small fucking town where everyone knows everyone. Little things like that just feel like a real kick in the teeth.

As for ooc fics, I have zero issues with them if they're acknowledged as being ooc for whatever reason. What I find weird is people who warp a character drastically and then try to claim that actually that's just how the character really is. Like, fics that say "Billy isn't abusive or racist in this and he's a good big brother to Max" like??? okay you've literally removed all of his character traits with no explanation other than you think he's hot but whatever I guess. anyway, Steve would never cheat and I scroll by any fic that says he would.

feel free to rant at me anytime. please. i have so many thoughts pinging around in my brain and need to word vomit them out otherwise they'll plague me at night

[norgestan]

crisana, norandro, jorgeva and amira x dani

ha, anon just wanted all the canon couples. fair enough!

CRISANA:

see, skam s3 is my favorite season of all time, but it has never been because of the love story. isak's story hits in a lot of sensitive places for me, and isak was also the first main character i encountered that was my age. i have a really special connection to him for that reason. on the other hand... i enjoy evak for what it is, but i never saw a future for their relationship after the season ended. in a lot of ways, isak's season ended just as their relationship started, a trope that i've never liked because how am i supposed to think that they will last? how am i supposed to know how they will work as a couple? it's just, ugh.

i had similar thoughts about crisana when i watched s2, except that the love confession scene and cris as a character made it even harder to get into the couple. moreover, the way people brush other characters' roles and presence on other seasons because they're so caught up on cris and joana is like... blegh. like it makes me forget that they're actually a well-written couple at times. because imo, og they never did anything really interesting with evak once they got together. but eskam........ oh, dear eskam.

there's something so beautiful about thinking of all the girls, the teenagers that will grow up watching a relationship like theirs on popular media. their entire subplot (??? can i even call it that) in s4 is proof of how GREAT of a relationship they turned out to be. like, i just wanna SCREAM thinking about it because, how is it possible that eskam saw evak and said "we're gonna make this SO good and we'll take our time and then tie it up in an incredibly satisfying and emotional way" and then did exactly that!!!!!! the way they respect each other, communicate, genuinely try to get to each other without dumb miscommunication. the way they understand each other and lift each other up! the way joana knew how to recognize cris' intelligence when everyone was telling her she's dumb, the way cris knows how to make joana feel worth it and show her affection in such a selfless, loving way. their last scene on joana's pov in s4 was the first time i cried during that season, just because it was all wrapped up so beautifully. because eskam understood that although the appeal of their relationship comes from the soulmate status of every evak couple, they had to also put in serious work to make it all work and they also managed to get that across with grounded drama, and also a hopeful message for people struggling with mental disorders. like AAAAAAAAAAAAA god what a great couple they are. maybe i'm too much of an eskam bootlicker but they're genuinely the best evak there is. i'll die on this hill. i'm so happy young wlw get to watch them as a guideline of what they should expect of a relationship.

NORANDRO: already done :)

JORGEVA:

i mean... it's eskam's fault, without a doubt. i love what eskam did with them in s1: the change of pacing, the way they created jorge, the little story changes to make it more nuanced, i think come together in a pretty satisfying way to show a teenage romance with no real support to last for more than a while. i don’t think eskam fully got the gist of what jonas was supposed to be, but it’s for the better if we think of the message in season 1. for that reason, jorge is like the one jonas who i really wouldn’t mind coming back to his eva. so why don’t i like them?

the answer is simply that i don’t enjoy their trope and i don’t think eskam made a real case of eva and jorge getting back together. they work well as friends, sure, and it’s clear as day that jorge still has feelings for eva, sure. but like, what tells me that they’re just ready to go all in again? eva goes through a really great arc and i would definitely agree she’s in a good place to be in a relationship again, but we know NOTHING about jorge’s journey. he’s just, silently pining on eva and that’s it. i do think it’s sweet and the hints of their lost romance throughout the show are wholesome, but there’s just nothing more to it. jorge and eva work AMAZINGLY as friends! i don’t see why they should push a romantic endgame for them. in my head, eva kissing jorge at that party was just a mesh of the excitement of a new era, the nostalgia of ending highschool, the high of being on this place with someone she really cares about, stuff like that, but it just ends there, and it’s great that way. nothing about eva’s character really led to her aching to be in a relationship again, and for me it feels right to end things with her being single and surrounded by great friends.

MAYBE if eskam had devoted some time showing us their progress and romantic potential instead of trying to convince us that kasim was a real, compelling character. maybe. lol.

DAMIRA:

(god, i don’t know how long this will be LOL)

i have. so many thought about this fucking pairing. let’s see what we can do LOL. the thing about damira is that i don’t think it’s a pairing that eskam had in mind when they laid out the first two seasons. the little hints of a friendship/childhood crush that happened during cris’ season really got the fandom and they quickly became the most popular non-canon ship in the show, so that’s where i think eskam said “okay, let’s run with this”. but it’s just...... meh. like i can tell that relationships like crisana were carefully crafted (well implemented in nora’s season, greatly wrapped up in amira’s season) but i cannot say the same for dani and amira. it’s almost like virihugo, where they just started giving each other Eyes on the middle of season 3, out of NOWHERE. it just feels forced to me and so i never really felt anything for the couple in question... like, for starters, i think nora and miquel were WAY more shippable than those two, strictly talking about their setup.

if you ever saw any of my posts during s4 then you should know how i actually feel about how they developed their romance (check my anti damira tag for more?) and i don’t wanna go through all those specific points again... but damira is not only an infuriating romance, but also a bad pairing in a narrative setting. like, damira clearly exists to answer amira’s questions about how would the future of a romance with a white guy would be, right? does she get an answer? no she fucking doesn’t, their final clip is like “after all these weeks, we still have no idea so we’re gonna cut things short, go back to our initial dynamic, and wait to see if amira any of us change our minds <3″. so like, even in that sense damira is a HUGE waste of time, and just like everything that happens to amira during her season it has no lasting impacts on her character or her settings.

and personally, i love couples where they’re both equal, and communicate at last, and both make great efforts to change so the relationship can flourish. this is why i offer so much praise to norandro and crisana, where in the first couple both character go through tremendous character growth and work through their problems individually before getting together, and in the second couple they show them clashing and fighting just to display their resolutions and show how willing they are to actually talk to each other and keep their relationship stable. dani and amira, on the other hand.... blegh. eskam wants me to think dani is a knight in shining armor for liking amira but that’s all he ever does. he doesn’t defend her in front of his friends, he doesn’t make efforts to get to know her and her world, he doesn’t communicate his real feelings to her, and the one time he did he humiliated her in public. like, idk, like, even MIQUEL explicitly defended nora when his roommates berated her for not drinking alcohol LOL.

at the end of the day the problem with damira is that it completely misses the point of yousana and its target audience. making yousef a white guy is not necessarily a bad choice if you implement it well (which eskam didn’t do btw), but you have to take into account that sana’s season exists to make a primarily white christian-raised audience relate and stand up for the muslim characters in the show. when the lazier partner of the main couple who makes zero efforts to work on the relationship happens to be white, it just means people will be sympathetic of him, and nor amira - and that’s exactly what happened in the show. people either thought amira was being too harsh by laying conditions for dani before they even began dating and making sure he respected her boundaries, or just wanted all the drama to go away soon so amira could kiss dani by the end of the season. so like, yeah. terrible stuff.

i would’ve liked damira’s impact on the season and amira’s journey a lot more if it had been about a one sided childhood crush from amira’s part. i thought their friendship was charming up to s3, and i simply hate that dani is literally in no way an older brother figure for the girl squad, since it’s a dynamic that’s lacking in the show and it would be a nice way to make dani be some sort of non-creepy eskild for the girl squad (but noooo, his only interactions w the gs are hooking up with eva and dating amira. smh). it would’ve been fun to have amira intimately dealing with those feelings just to learn a lesson by the end of it, at the time that she also falls for her muslim love interest - which is actually the isak/jonas/even dynamic when you think about it, also something that eskam didn’t really do with cris’ season. but also, all of this would mean that eskam had to do the good writing thing for s4, which they kinda forgot to do throughout the entirety of the season so, yeah.

[quicksilversquared]

Stealing from Supervillains

S3 Finale AU

In a timeline where Hawkmoth didn't lose the Miracle Box almost immediately after getting it, Marinette has to get the Miraculous back some other way, even if that means stealing them back one at a time. Her first target is Chloe, Hawkmoth's one known ally, and failure is not an option. When Hawkmoth brings the Miracle Box along with him- well, Marinette is determined to get all of the Miraculous back, even if she needs to burn down the entire hotel to do it.

Companion story to Luka and the Jewelry Heist

links in the reblog

As Chloe paced in front of her window, Marinette shifted from foot to foot in her crouch, trying not to make any noise.

The advantage of being able to do stakeouts while transformed was that her leg muscles didn't cramp up. Without her Ladybug transformation, Marinette had no such advantage, and she just had to hope that her legs wouldn't get too stiff for her to be able to pull off her plan successfully once Hawkmoth finally arrived.

If she had thought to get one more kwami from her now-limited collection to help play lookout, then Marinette would have transformed for sure before Chloe returned to the room and just pulled on her biking outfit on top of her superhero suit so that Luka wouldn't see Ladybug instead of Marinette on the camera stream. But she hadn't thought of it, and now Marinette just had to do her best to not let her legs seize up.

Hopefully Hawkmoth would arrive soon. She just wanted to get started, darn it.

Marinette glanced at her phone again, making sure that Luka hadn't sent anything else. He was her long-distance lookout, letting her know well in advance if anyone came up, and Tikki was her shorter-distance lookout, making sure that no one could sneak up behind her if they somehow got past Luka, or if someone in the room was going somewhere that Marinette hadn't expected. He seemed less than convinced about the whole plan to steal the Bee from Chloe, but at least he was being a pretty good sport about it.

And then Hawkmoth arrived, with Mayura at his side.

Marinette watched the feed on her phone, taking note of where the supervillains and Chloe were standing. They were actually in pretty perfect position, right where she had expected they would go, and Marinette grinned. So far, so good.

And then Hawkmoth pulled out the Miracle Box.

Marinette gaped, only just resisting the urge to pop up over the couch and make sure that her camera wasn't just malfunctioning and making her see things. She knew that Hawkmoth had the box, of course, but why had he brought it along?

As soon as she thought it, the answer was obvious: Hawkmoth was going to visit Lila after this, and he wanted to give her a Miraculous- or, if she was interpreting his wording correctly, more than one Miraculous, because she was more trustworthy than Chloe and a more valuable ally.

That would be a disaster. Lila was quite bad enough without any magic powers on her side. If she had a Miraculous- if she could do damage that wouldn't necessarily be fixed by Miraculous Cure, if she had multiple Miraculous that she could switch between- that would be terrible. She would manipulate and twist and threaten her way into doing whatever she wanted, and it would be really hard to stop her.

So obviously, the solution would be to try to get the Miraculous box, too.

Marinette's brain raced as she tried to come up with a plan, all while listening for the perfect opening to steal the Bee. It would be hard, if not impossible, to pull a double theft like that off without prior preparation- but she could probably say that about a lot of stuff that she did as Ladybug, too. There was a way, she just had to find it.

She wished that she had backup in the room, a second person who she could work in tandem with. The lighter-hairspray-firework pellets explosion setup that she had readied earlier would provide a second distraction, one that she had initially planned on using to try to go for the Peacock Miraculous- after all, if she could figure out Mayura's identity, Hawkmoth's surely wouldn't be far behind- but it wouldn't be enough of a distraction for her to manage both Peacock and Box. Marinette wished that she had the Mouse, maybe- while her copies shrunk, splitting into two individuals instead of a whole slew wouldn't make her that much smaller, but even that could put her at a disadvantage in a fight- or had brought Chat Noir, or-

It hit her like a train. The Rabbit Miraculous! It was another Miraculous that would let her tag-team with herself, but this time she could stay at full size. It would be smarter for her present self to go for the Box, probably, and- oh, she needed to get the Bee now.

With one quick move, Marinette snagged the extra remote that she had stolen from Chloe and clicked the TV on. The volume was way up, just like she had set it earlier, and it made both supervillains and Chloe jump and turn towards it, their backs fully towards her. In a second, Marinette vaulted over the couch, swapped out the Bee Miraculous for a fake, winked at Pollen- who thankfully got the message and stayed floating next to Chloe, acting as though nothing had changed- and then rolled back over the couch and into her hiding spot, the faint thud of her feet hitting the floor easily masked by Chloe's furious shrieking at Hawkmoth.

Marinette smirked. She had known that it was a good idea to have Tikki mess with the TV over the past week. Sure, part of it had been because she knew that Chloe was getting away with collaborating with a supervillain and getting a bit of revenge, no matter how petty, was incredibly satisfying, but the possibility of using the TV as a distraction had been with her ever since Tikki found an entry in Chloe's diary detailing how Hawkmoth had finally decided to get his act together and give Chloe the Bee permanently.

And it had worked splendidly.

Back in hiding, Marinette went straight back to her brainstorming. Her Present-self would get the Box- that was most critical, after all, because Hawkmoth could not have those powers at his disposal- and then her Future-self would go for Mayura, providing an additional distraction. If all went to plan, Hawkmoth would be left on his own with no superpowered allies by his side and with his identity in jeopardy by the end of the evening.

She just had to believe that it would work.

  Her next opening came quickly.

Hawkmoth was making signs that he was thinking about heading out soon and she could not let him get close to the window or pick up the Miracle Box, or Marinette would be out of luck. So while Hawkmoth and Chloe were talking- and their voices had raised a bit, clearly even though they were allies there was some animosity there- Marinette quickly pressed send on the text message that she had prepared, shook her can of hairspray (also filched from Chloe), pulled her lighter out of her tool belt (one with a long neck, for safety reasons), and sent a roaring plume of fire straight into one of the couches that she had seeded with the contents of several fireworks earlier.

The room lit up.

"Pollen, transform me!" Marinette hissed, feeling the transformation flash over her as she kept spraying fire. Two more couches caught on fire, and she could hear Hawkmoth screaming for Chloe to transform. Bumblebee dashed past as Chloe tried and failed to transform, her own screams turning from terror into anger as she realized that she had a fake Miraculous.

On Hawkmoth's other side, a shadowy figure attacked Mayura. Bumblebee glanced over long enough to catch the flash of a transformation coming undone and Hawkmoth's attention going to Mayura. With her opening well secured, Bumblebee snatched up the Miracle Box, vaulted over a still-flaming couch- thank goodness for the protective powers of the suit- and blasted straight through Chloe's windows to escape outside, immediately vaulting over the edge of the balcony and catching the rails so that she could hang there, not immediately visible to anyone coming out on the balcony but high enough that she would be able to see them.

Her future self was probably fine, but she just wanted to be sure.

"Ah, crap, the camera," Bumblebee muttered, frowning as Hawkmoth burst through the glass as well, carrying- well, what looked like an akumatized Mayura. How had he akumatized her so quickly? Had he brought butterflies along with him or something? She ducked down further, but Hawkmoth was clearly booking it, only sparing a quick glance around as he fled. Then she perked up. "Maybe my future self got it before it burned?"

There was a buzz from her trompo, and Bumblebee pulled herself back up onto the balcony, then jumped onto the clearly hastily abandoned upper deck. There was a message on her trompo from Bumblebun, which presumably was her future self.

Out of room. Got Peacock and camera. Hide Box in planters- I'll be up in a minute.

"All right," Bumblebee muttered, casting one more glance around before hiding herself among the planters and pulling out the Rabbit's watch. "Into the fire, one more time. Fluff, let's go!"

  Bumblebun landed on Chloe's balcony as the first plume of fire lit up the inside of Chloe's room, slipping inside as everyone turned towards the flaming couch automatically. The flash of dozens of firework pellets lighting up as they were ignited by the hairspray flamethrower covered her past self's transformation- as she had planned- and the supervillains were all thoroughly distracted, squinting against the too-bright lights.

But Bumblebun had her target, and she wasn't about to get distracted. Moving fast, she vaulted over an end table that was in the way and pounced on Mayura, jumping up onto her back and freezing her with a well-placed Sting. After that, it was child's play to reach over the frozen Mayura's shoulder for the Miraculous, even with Hawkmoth rushing towards her. He was already pulling his sword free from his cane, oblivious to Bumblebee rushing behind him and grabbing up the Miracle Box.

The Peacock pin came free in a flash, and then Bumblebun was kicking away from Mayura, shoving the stiff-as-a-board supervillain towards her hidden camera and giving herself some distance from Hawkmoth as well. This time around, from this angle, she could see Hawkmoth pulling a boxed akuma out of his pocket- apparently he had come with a backup plan in place, maybe he wasn't a complete idiot- and slamming it into the former Mayura's jacket the second that it got revealed. Purple bubbled around her, and Bumblebun took the chance to make a break for it, snatching up her camera as she dashed for the door.

She hadn't been able to see who Mayura had been between the detransformation and the akumatization, but with any luck it had been caught on tape.

Fire alarms were blaring in the hallway, but Bumblebun ignored them. With a quick glance behind her to make sure that she wasn't being followed, she tore into the stairwell and dashed upstairs, sending Bumblebee a quick text as she did. Just as she reached the top, she could see the flash as Bumblebee became Bumblebun, and then jumped into the past. Seconds later, she rounded the corner, picking up the Miracle Box from where she had just hidden it.

"Mission complete," Bumblebun said contentedly, releasing Fluff and Pollen. Marinette grinned at them before they retreated to their Miraculous, and then tucked both back into the box. She took a moment to breathe- the past who-knew-how-many minutes had been absolutely insane- and ignore the sounds of Chloe's furious screaming from her balcony below.

Well, someone was clearly fine. Scared (and with good reason, admittedly), but fine.

"Oh, look at the Peacock!" Tikki exclaimed, and Marinette glanced down. "It's fixed!"

"How can you tell?" Marinette asked, but the answer was obvious even as soon as she said it. "Oh, wait. You figured out that it was broken before because of the energy being off, so now it's not off?"

Tikki wriggled. "Exactly! And it means that it's a really good thing that you got it now," she added, suddenly serious. "Because it had limitations on it before from being broken. Now, I bet we would be seeing sentimonsters every fight, and strong ones, too."

"Ugh." Marinette considered the Peacock, now more glad than ever that she had grabbed it. The thought of having to face both an akuma and a sentimonster- especially if they were working together, or two parts of a whole- on a regular basis? That was not appealing. She and Chat Noir would have been super overwhelmed.

But now? Now they were in a much better spot, with Hawkmoth left without teammates and all of the other Miraculous back on their side. It would be a bit hard to explain their sudden return to Chat Noir- Marinette didn't want to run the risk of him somehow hearing about her being involved, only for Ladybug to claim credit- but she could think about that later.

After another moment to catch her breath, Marinette picked herself back up, gathering up all of her things to leave. After a moment of deliberation- it was possible that Hawkmoth and akuma-Mayura might circle back around to try to get the Box back- she pulled out the Horse and Voyaged into the alleyway where she had stashed a change of clothes, completely changing her look up again just for good measure. She took a moment to make sure that the Miracle Box was safely stashed in her bag before setting out looking for Luka, weaving through the crowds on the sidewalks.

Hopefully he wouldn't be too annoyed with her for not warning him about the whole fire thing. He had just seemed so reluctant about the whole thing that she hadn't wanted to mention the bit about the arson ahead of time, in case he really thought that she was losing it.

It was arson for a good cause, that was how Marinette was justifying it. She had the entire box of Miraculous back now, plus Mayura's Miraculous and proof that Chloe had been working with Hawkmoth.

With Tikki's help, it wasn't hard to find Luka, who had joined up with Adrien and Kagami- and why were they in the area? That was such a strange coincidence-

-except Adrien had apparently been coming to do the exact same thing that she had with the Bee, and what were the chances of that? They were on the same wavelength, it seemed, which-

She wasn't going to overthink it. Overthinking could lead to her thinking about how well she and Adrien would work together, both as a team and as a couple, but that wasn't fair to him or Kagami, or to Luka. It was cool that she had a friend who thought in the same way that she, a superhero, did, and it was definitely confirmation that Adrien had some serious superhero potential. Maybe the Snake hadn't been a perfect fit for him, but maybe they could try a different Miraculous later.

Later, of course, would presumably be soon. After all, she very possibly had a clue to Hawkmoth's identity on her camera and it would be better to go after Hawkmoth sooner rather than later if possible, while he was still reeling from the attack.

Before she could think about that too much, though, Kagami's driver arrived and she had to leave. Luka left with her, taking her up on her offer of a ride. Marinette had shuffled her feet on the sidewalk as they stepped towards the car, sure that Adrien was about to leave, too, and then she would have to walk home alone- or, more likely, use Voyage to skip the walk and make it shorter and safer- but instead, he stayed.

"I'm really curious about who Hawkmoth is," he told Luka and Kagami, stepping back to stand at Marinette's side. "And I want to make sure that Marinette gets home safely, too. Thanks for coming along and helping out."

"Let me know what you find out, will you?" Kagami requested as she grasped the handle on her car door, tugging it open. "I'd come as well, but my mom will expect me home and I have very little desire to see what crazy, death-defying stunts Marinette pulled to get all of those Miraculous."

Luka just nodded, looking far more exhausted than Marinette could remember him ever looking. That was strange- had he really been that stressed out by the whole experience? She had thought that he had been kidding about the stress. After all, Luka had been a superhero before just fine, a little bit of lookout duty shouldn't have been worse.

"I think you broke Luka," Adrien commented with a small laugh as the car pulled away. They watched it go, and then he offered her his arm. "Shall we?"

"Is your father going to be expecting you?" Marinette asked, though she took his arm anyway and they started off. She kept one hand on her bag protectively and kept a sharp eye out for any lingering supervillains. "If you're going to get in trouble..."

Adrien shook his head. "I'm not expected home for a while. I told the Gorilla that I was going to be with Kagami and her driver, so he's off tonight. Otherwise, yeah, if I told him that we were going to the Grand Paris, he would already be here."

"Oh, right, because the fire would be considered pretty weird and dangerous, right?" Marinette glanced back at the Grand Paris. Now that the fireworks were burned out- and was she ever glad that she had picked those up as Ladybug, because then nothing could be traced back to her civilian self- there wasn't as much fuel in the room. What had been a blazing, white-hot fire had died down to barely a glow now, and no doubt there were firefighters all over inside of the hotel. "Are you sure your father won't call the Gorilla back?"

"He doesn't know that we were going to the hotel. I just told Nathalie that Kagami and I were going out to dinner." Adrien grimaced. "And then...didn't eat. I was planning on it, because from what I heard Chloe was going to be getting the Miraculous after dinner, but Kagami insisted that she would be too nervous about things going wrong to eat."

"We'll grab something to eat while we watch the footage I got," Marinette told Adrien. She was sure that her parents would have plenty of the food in the fridge that they could grab. "If that's okay with you, of course."

"Of course it is! I love your parents' cooking." Adrien grinned over at her, tugging her to a stop at a stoplight that she was about to walk straight through. "Although I don't know if I'll be able to enjoy it as much as usual. I'm too excited about potentially finding out about Hawkmoth. He's been attacking the city for so long- to potentially find out who he is tonight-"

"Wait, you're figuring out Hawkmoth tonight? What are you two up to?"

Marinette startled, and Adrien's arm tightened around hers as they both spun in surprise to face the voice. Behind them was Alix, looking simultaneously confused and incredibly intrigued.

Adrien recovered faster, flashing a bright smile at Alix. "Alix! I wasn't expecting to see you tonight- how are you doing?"

Alix narrowed her eyes, wagging a finger at him. "Don't think that I don't know exactly what you're trying to do, buddy-boy. Trying to distract me won't work. But if you must know, I saw you and Marinette over here and came to say hi- though do you want to explain to me why you look like you've been on a date, but smell-" she sniffed, wrinkling her nose. "Like smoke and gunpowder? And when there's just been a really strange fire at the Grand Paris?"

"Okay, shush," Marinette hissed, glancing around and trying to resist the urge to sniff herself. She hadn't thought that the smoke smell was that strong, considering that she had transformed pretty much right away, but maybe whatever smell got on her superhero suit (suits?) transferred over to her regular clothes. Her mind raced, trying to figure out if there were any ways to get out of this, but she wasn't coming up with anything and Marinette abandoned that plan at once.

Alix was going to be Ladybug and Chat Noir's permanent teammate in the future, after all. Why should she try to keep any information about Hawkmoth from her? She could come in handy for the final battle.

"Not here," Marinette continued, snagging Alix's arm and tugging her along as Adrien started across the street. "We'll talk at my house- uh, you didn't have anywhere to be, right? It'll be okay for us to steal you away for a bit?"

Alix grinned, waving her phone. "Dad's away for the weekend, so it's Jalil in charge. I don't doubt that he would appreciate you stealing me away for a bit so that he can play with his conspiracy theories in peace for a bit longer."

Marinette snorted. Ah, Jalil and his conspiracies. "What's he got going now? Still on the Egyptian pyramids?"

"Oh god. No, the pyramids are yesterday's news- lemme tell you about his new level of crazy..."

  It didn't take long to get back to Marinette's house, pausing in the kitchen to snag a snack for all three of them before parking themselves at Marinette's desk, waiting anxiously for the video to transfer from the borrowed camera (partially melted in one spot from the fire, but otherwise fine) to Marinette's computer. While Adrien and Alix settled in, Marinette pulled the Miracle Box out of her bag and slipped the extra Miraculous that she had had from before- the Turtle and the Dragon- back into the box where they were meant to be, adding the Bee and Peacock last.

Outside, another fire truck raced past, followed by a police car, and Marinette frowned. Surely there were already enough emergency vehicles at the Grand Paris. Maybe the fire had been explosive, but it had died back fast after the gunpowder all burned off and the sprinkler system finally kicked in.

Maybe the mayor was just making a big fuss and the fire department had decided that going along with it would be easier than arguing.

"All ready!" Adrien announced, grinning with excitement as Marinette returned, setting the Miracle Box down under the desk. She was going to have to find a better hiding spot for that eventually, but this would work for now. "Marinette, there's over an hour of footage- how far from the end is the important bit?"

"Uh, not very long? I turned it off once I was well clear of Hawkmoth." Marinette watched as Adrien clicked forward in the video, scanning past flashes of Marinette getting things set up and Chloe pacing. He paused when they saw Hawkmoth enter, and Marinette shook her head. "It's past that."

"Can we watch this bit anyway?" Alix asked eagerly. There was a sly little grin on her face. "I wanna see Chloe dealing with Hawkmoth. Or Hawkmoth dealing with Chloe, we all know that it could very well be that way around."

Adrien laughed, turning the volume up a bit and hitting Play. "I'm honestly curious, too. And I want to see how Marinette managed to steal all of those Miraculous and get away with it. That's absolutely insane."

"Hell yeah."

Marinette turned pink, but was happy to have a bit of break to sit back and eat as Hawkmoth lectured Chloe. Adrien and Alix cheered in unison as the Marinette onscreen vaulted over the couch, stealing Chloe's Miraculous and vanishing again without being noticed.

"That was smooth," Alix said appreciatively. "Man, how is it that you trip over your own feet when walking to class, but you can pull something like that off?"

"Focus?" Marinette suggested weakly. "I mean, if I'm not watching where I'm going, it's easier to trip."

"And- hold on, pause, did Hawkbutt say that there was someone else that they were going to visit?" Alix demanded, slapping the Pause button again. "How the hell is this dude finding more people willing to work with him? It's absolutely insane!"

Adrien and Marinette exchanged a glance and, without a word, Marinette knew that they were on the same page again. "Lila."

"She's not even subtle about it," Adrien agreed, frowning. "I mean, I bet we won't get any evidence to connect her now, but she's certainly taken the akuma's side enough even without getting controlled by any powers."

Alix looked shocked. "What do you mean, Lila? I thought that she was Ladybug's best friend? And she was the one who got Ladybug connected with all of those embassy people, to arrange that agreement that said that if anyone connected with an embassy in any way was found to be working with Hawkmoth, their immunity would automatically be waived."

Neither of them could hold in their snort at that. When Alix only looked more confused, Adrien hurried to explain.

"Those were both lies," he told Alix. "Just like every other story she's told. I mean, I guess it's more just a hunch than anything else for that second bit, but for the friends thing- Ladybug called her out when I was nearby, and I think Lila swore vengeance then instead of, y'know, admitting that she was actually in the wrong."

"And then I've definitely seen her getting in the superheroes' way during fights," Marinette added. Lila had definitely grabbed onto that claim both because of the embassy connection, and because if she claimed credit for both idea and legwork, people wouldn't suspect her at all. "On purpose to mess them up, not just like what Chloe used to do because she's not at all self-aware. And Lila's gotten akumatized a few times when she literally wasn't upset at all."

Alix frowned more, then slouched. "Okay, that makes more sense than I want to admit, honestly. The name-dropping has been getting a little bit old. And way too convenient. And the whole thing where you got expelled, Marinette- that was weird."

"It was revenge for calling out all of her lies," Marinette told Alix. She nodded towards the computer screen, trying not to smile too much at Alix's 'oh, that is so not cool.'. "But maybe we can discuss that later, and focus on the whole Hawkmoth thing now?"

Alix nodded, and Adrien started up the video again. It wasn't long before the first plume of fire shot into frame, and then everything lit up at once.

"You said that that's from fireworks, right?" Adrien asked, pausing the video again. Quite a lot of stuff on the screen was on fire. "That's why everything caught so quickly?"

"Yeah. Three fireworks, taken apart and shoved in the couches." It had probably been overkill, but she had wanted panic to reign supreme. "Smallish ones, because that was what I could get, but they pack a fair bit of power."

"Shoved- hang on, explain that bit," Alix demanded, leaning closer to the screen in an apparent attempt to see what was going on. "How?"

"I used a seam ripper and made slits in the back of the couches to tuck the star balls in," Marinette explained, grinning. She ran a finger along the back of one of the barely-visible couches onscreen, demonstrating. "Those are the colorful ones, the ones that make the light we actually see in fireworks- or at least that's what Google told me. And then the gunpowder- it's pressed into what look like large rice grains. I could force those through the fabric." Tikki had helped quite a bit with that, which was great because otherwise Marinette wouldn't have been able to get the couches nearly as studded with explosives as she had. "And then some got stuck between cushions, too, because that was faster."

Alix was gaping at her. "How did- okay, I knew that sometimes you have a habit of stealing phones, but this is crazy more complicated than that. Like, you had to do a lot of preparation to be able to pull that off."

"Anyway, continuing," Marinette said loudly before Adrien could question the phone thing. "I brought along a lighter and snagged a can of hairspray from Chloe's bathroom to make a flamethrower to set everything off."

"Aha. Classic."

With the video restarted, all three of them were plastered to the screen again, watching as everything caught fire. There was a blur of movement from Bumblebee in the background, but Bumblebun was more front and center, dashing in from the opposite direction to Sting Mayura and snatch the Peacock.

"Slow it down, slow it down," Alix demanded, knocking Adrien's hand aside to claim the mouse for her own and rewinding several seconds back before slapping the slow-motion button several times, slowing the video to a crawl. She narrowed her eyes at the hybrid Bee-Rabbit wielder onscreen, then shot a look at Marinette. "You used the Rabbit to go back in time and tag-team with yourself, didn't you?"

Marinette hid her smile. Of course she should have expected that Alix would catch that. She was one of the few people in Paris who had seen the Rabbit get used firsthand, after all. "I did, yeah- oh, look, Mayura is detransforming!"

Slowed down as much as it was, the jerkiness of Mayura's detransformation was obvious. It was as though the kwami was trying to hold on, even though Mayura definitely didn't deserve the protection. Still, bit by bit, her transformation came undone-

"Nathalie!" Adrien gasped, recognizing the figure first, even through the smoke and flame. Bumblebun's parting kick had done its job and sent her toppling towards the camera. "Oh god- oh no. The only person she would ever help out is my father. And I know Ladybug suspected him before, but- he must have akumatized himself, that's the only way- oh god."

Marinette worried her lip as she exchanged a look with Alix and wrapped her arms around Adrien, comforting him in the only way she could. The jovial mood of only a few minute prior had completely evaporated in a second, and now everything was tense.

The goal of the evening, of course, had been to find out who Hawkmoth was, and maybe even call up Chat Noir and ambush their enemy before he had time to reset and recover. That was made harder by her friends tagging along, but- well, it was fun like this, and maybe she could use them as extra teammates to help. And now...

Adrien was reeling from the discovery, and needed his friends. Marinette wasn't going to leave him now.

"And he's sent akumas after himself- and after me!" Adrien's hand slammed down on the table, making both Alix and Marinette startle. "I nearly died several times in targeted attacks, and he always acted so concerned afterwards- but it was all his fault to start! And, and-" Adrien stopped himself mid-sentence, and his expression hardened. "He has to go down. I mean, I know why he's doing this- because of Mom- but that doesn't make it right, and if it weren't for Ladybug's cure, so many other people would have died!"

Marinette nodded, remembering all of the insanely destructive akumas there had been. Buildings had been collapsed, the entire city had flooded, weather extremes had given the city whiplash, akumas had caused car accidents...

It wasn't good. While a lot of people didn't talk about it, Marinette knew that more than a few people in Paris had nightmares about dying- because they had died before.

And that was terrifying.

Adrien's shoulders straightened, stiffening in determination, and his eyes flashed to Marinette, steely and resolute. "It has to end. Tonight."

[asillydreamer-on-a-crazyworld]

I think it was a setup and the practicing and I’m gonna teach you was for this moment, everyone’s freaking out but I’m like bring on S3 lmao

LOL WORD!

Same here, anon.Same here. I’m not worried whatsoever for next season or even Brio.

 I think that since the beginning they were not meant to be a functional, healthy ship. And honestly? I don’t care that they are like that. Sue me. It’s good to have some dark tastes too when it comes to ships.

We learned yesterday that he actually just taught her how to shoot, probably LOL. And I understand Rio bc like I was talking about it with some friends here, the guy recognized parts of himself in Beth. They were so much alike. Rio knew Beth was a smart person, that she had it in her to be a king someday, and I believe that was why even with the “I’m giving u the keys to the king” thing he actually didn’t intend to give her shit.

 Not this kind of power or control. Rio knew Beth had the potential to become a boss bitch. He said it himself. He warned her that if she wanted to be the king she HAD to kill the king. And we saw a few times in season one, that she wanted to be. The show gave us all the hints: from how she organized that “book club” in her house, to how she lied to  Ruby and Annie when she said she went back to Canada and told that guy I forgot the name that Detroit was theirs, in episode 10, I think?

But Beth was still learning, still afraid of this dark side of hers, and fighting against it because she wanted to be a “good person”. But Rio showed her she was not 100% good. And so, I think Rio didn’t want to risk giving Beth any proper training at how to be a successful boss bitch bc one day she could bring him down.

She would be good competition if she embraced that dark side of hers. So he just kept playing the game, not letting her turn into a queen piece or a king, just being the pawn there.

And yeah, I do think, looking back at the season, that he used her to get rid of the FBI. Or at least use her in a way that would take the focus off him and on someone else while he tried to come up with something to be done with Turner and the FBI for good.

We all debated to the point of exhaustion about how Rio could have killed Boomer himself and his guys, right? And some of us believed he didn’t want to get his hands dirty and that the feds would quickly trace the murder back to him, and some said he needed to give Beth a lesson, bc of what he said to his son “clean up ur own mess”. I think both are true. He forced Beth to kill Boomer bc he didn’t want to get his hands dirty and avoid the FBI linking another murder to him and he also liked the idea of making her do it bc maybe in his fucked up head, shooting her hubby wasn’t payment enough for getting him in jail. 

back then I agreed that Beth had to take responsibility for Boomer’s mess and I still stand to it, since what she and the girls did only made it worse, but Rio and his guys knew who Boomer was. The idiot was getting paid to keep his mouth shut.

Another murder in Rio’s account wouldn’t have made his record worse. Also, he is doing this for quite some time now, Sure he didn’t have a way to make it look like it wasn’t him? But ok, maybe it was too risky with the heat he was feeling from the feds.

But here I wanna u to notice something: Rio started to push Beth harder here.

Following her around to the point it got creepy. And I’m guilty here bc Like many others I was all like “lol Rio is so fucked up. this guy is really into this weird game with her right?” but honestly, that was the first sign that Rio was not that stable.

Then, we had the Brio sex in the bathroom after she said she was out, and don’t tell me that for Rio was more bc I think for both it was like an itch they needed to scratch or the tension would be too much. But again, Rio forced his hand in his game when he came back again, this time at Boland Motors, to “propose” a partnership to her. Like she rly had any choice, right? RIO WAS THE ONE WHO CAME BACK. NOT BETH.

and she accepted. Then, came the “stay in ur little lane” comment and we were all like “wow, Rio. ok, we get it, maybe he is trying to protect her bc she can mess things up and they both will pay”.

yeah. This is right, but he was also protecting himself here, bc it was a huge investment he was making. Like Manny Montana said, at the end of the day, it’s all about Money. And she found out he did something behind her back even when he said they were partners and yeah his motives might be good for him but WHAT ABOUT HER? After all, he said they were partners and partners don’t hide things from each other. And like Beth said in the car with the girls, if something wrong happened, she was the one going to jail. HA. isn’t that what almost happened? Can you really say Beth was wrong here?

And Rio did nothing to help her with it. Which, ok, fair, she did it to him first. Like he threw at her face in a not very subtle way with his comment in the car back in episode 12.

But again, that was her checkmate to him when he took her out. So again, more proof of how these two are not that sane with this dangerous power play between them.

Next: the body parts he sent her. I agree with a comment Heather made on TT that this was the first sign that Brio would go downhill. Many of us didn’t even care that much and again, GUILTY UR HONOR. That was fucked up but EVERYONE EXCUSED A GUY SENDING A WOMAN BODY PARTS BC HEY, HE IS A CRIMINAL. But WHAT IS WRONG WITH US HERE, DRAGGING A WOMAN DOWN- NO MATTER IF SHE IS WHITE, LIKE HOLY SHIT THIS IS SOME FUCKED UP THING TO DO, SHUT UP- BECAUSE SHE WAS SALTY TO HIM AFTER GOING BACK AND SAYING THAT YEAH, SHE BLOCKED HIS NUMBER AND WANTED OUT? YEAH, IT WAS KILLING HER BUT HE DIDN’T EVEN GIVE HER A CHOICE AGAIN.

I think that if Rio waited just a bit more, she would go back by herself. She was dying to go back to the crime world. And she would eventually, but probably not with him as a boss, but Rio just liked to have her around so much…She entertained him.

But notice… AGAIN SHE DIDN’T LOOK FOR HIM. HE FORCED HER TO GO BACK USING SOMEONE ELSE’S BODY.

AND FINALLY:

Kidnapping her and trying again to force her to shoot Turner this time, bc yeah, I agree with Rio, I don’t believe Turner would leave Beth be, bc his reputation was ruined. He would lose the case he spent so many years, probably, working on.

now one question: He succeeded in kidnapping Turner and hurt him. Why did take him so long to do this?

Why didn’t he kill Turner sooner?

 Again, I think he was waiting for the best moment to do it. Maybe, just like he didn’t want to get his hands dirty with Boomer, he didn’t wanna the same with Turner. Good thing he had Beth there with him now, in the game.Right?

again, he was RIGHT. The man wouldn’t stop chasing her or him by default.

was this his “grand gesture”? in his fucked up mind I think it was. Manny himself said here that Rio is, and I quote: “ a dude that has a screw loose.”.

but I believe he was reaching his breaking point, acting on survival mode. He took his things out of the loft. He kidnapped Beth when I believe if he just called her, she would meet him there ( writers, EXPLAIN THIS!). 

but ok, it was done. But the way he kept pushing her, started to scream at her to just shoot Turner, calling her bitch, advancing on her? He lost it. And so did she. The pressure was building between them since episode 11, I think, and it finally exploded. 

She did what he wanted her to do in S1 but she wasn’t ready yet and I don’t think she was in 2x13. It was just a thing of the moment, not something she planned. She just acted on instinct, survival instinct, just like Rio did I believe, with his actions. U can see on his face he was surprised.

And then he laughed at Turner when he was laying on the floor, bleeding.

Rio set up the grand finale to his game with Turner, even getting that camera on his place to again mess with Beth and honestly, this was all fucked up since the beginning.

he always bet high on his moves in this thing with Beth. They both don’t know much about the other and people can surprise u in bad and good ways.

 I honestly don’t think Rio will be furious with her, not long.  The woman actually had the balls to shoot him, a crimelord, well know in Detroit streets, and she just got three bullets in his chest.

I think he can kind of respect that. But of course, it will be hell for Beth to pay, bc the king will get his crown back. 

Beth is not ready to rule yet anyway. I think we’ll see that in season 3 but one thing I liked that the show let us know: Beth embraced this other side of her bc yeah, she is gonna be a mom still but she will also try to run her own criminal enterprise. She finally believes she can do this. Rio was a daddy and he could right? And I believe she will start with something small, obviously.

However she will struggle, and I wonder if word won’t get out that a mom, a Stepford wife, shoot the great Rio and almost killed him.

I wonder what she is gonna do when she finds out Turner saved Rio’ life in a way, bc I believe he did call 911.

I don’t trust Turner or his apparent truce with Beth.

I do believe Season 3 has a lot of potential. And I can’t wait to see how Beth and Rio will fight over their territory and how these two alphas will find common ground again. I agree that in season 1 Beth was the one who went to Rio and asked to be part of this world he lives in. 

 And I’m not saying she didn’t like it bc she did. but I think season 2 was her really struggling with what she wanted and how she wanted, and Rio didn’t give her any space to breathe bc he kept pushing her to just decide and get done with it.

Manny said Rio liked the girls and especially Beth around and that they made things more interesting. I think he knows his character enjoyed this cat and mouse game he had going on, but even when Rio felt something for beth money, again, was at the forefront of his mind. And with what Manny said about Rio, trying to find a way to understand this man mind takes way more than we thought. Let’s see where we go down from here.

[sol1056]

I keep finding new salt about s7, like: Sendak has 5 warships, which is less than Voltron destroyed in s1 when they went to save Allura. They also had fully recharged the Lion Energy to form Voltron again through the power of friendship. Why why WHY didn't they just fly in, form Voltron, destroy all the ships, and then help sweep up the pieces/defeat Sendak's final ground assault?

My family has a long-running gag about Haley’s Comet. If there’s only one cookie left on the plate, someone will point off in a direction behind everyone and shout, “Oh my god! Haley’s Comet!” and when someone (because someone always does) turns to look, the person who shouted grabs the last cookie for themselves. 

One of the hardest parts of a large-scope story is the final set piece. You need the antagonist (or obstacle) to be big enough that it’ll appear unbeatable, with the odds stacked against the heroes. And you don’t want the heroes coming up with something out of left field (*koff* magic *koff*); the solution is most satisfying when it’s an ingenious extrapolation of some skill or knowledge you’d planted earlier in the story. 

The strategy — defeat the Big Bad — is almost never in doubt. The tension lies in how the heroes will manage that, the tactics they’ll use. Unfortunately, when you dissect most of VLD’s finales, they consist of Attack of the Haley’s Comets. 

S1, they went in with no plan except a frontal attack against an opponent with a thousand times their resources. Good thing they all had plot armor. 

S2, the finale involved getting Zarkon to come to them, so they could shut down his servers to implant a virus (that did what, exactly?) while the rest of the lions dog-fought (lion-fought?) a bunch of sentries for the nth time, then Allura forced the entire station-ship-whatever to go through The Universe’s Largest Teladuv to send Zarkon, uh, far away, for some reason. Then they formed Voltron and sliced at the big station that was again a thousand times larger, fought Zarkon in a Voltron-sized suit of armor and, uh, lastly left the scene via wormhole. Like the station was back online, clearly not destroyed, and besides, Zarkon spent most of S2 easily able to catch up with them, once he knew where they were, so not sure why ‘sending him far away’ had any purpose. 

(This makes Star Wars’ “shoot at this tiny duct on the surface of the Death Star” look downright brilliantly efficient in comparison.) 

S3 had no finale, and S4 involved, uh, Voltron going up against a planet. And almost getting blown up. While two other teams tackled super cannons a system away. Shutting down the relay station to leave a gap for those teams to capture the cannons was possibly the only tactically smart move I’ve seen in a VLD finale, tbh. 

S5′s finale… uh, Oriande, right. S6′s finale was… well, we had the copy-paste Winter Soldier fight between Keith and not-Shiro, followed by Sincline and Voltron facing off. The latter of which seemed to mostly involve a lot of yelling. *yawn*

S6′s finale, well, you already summed it up. I guess ‘just go right for the warships with the cannons’ would’ve ended the battle too soon, so they had to run around for an episode or so. Y’know, make sure we’re suitably distracted from the Haley’s Comet gambit and not realize until too late VLD had stolen yet another cookie.

When it comes to prepping for the finale, Star Wars is a great example of a simple finale that works, because it laid a solid foundation. From very early, the story drives home two things: the plans to the Death Star contain major intel, and Luke’s an amazing and intuitive pilot. We get early chatter about Luke racing, with reminders like his crack about shooting womp rats. Both elements are made credible by the story never contradicting these setups, so when you put together teeny duct + amazing pilot + tunnel-shot cinematography, you get a marvelous heart-pounding finale.  

With the exception of S7 using the shields (a callback to S6E1), VLD has been pretty weak at hinting at skills or knowledge ahead of time. And that’s ignoring that the EPs/writers don’t seem to understand battle tactics vs a solid and efficient strategy. 

They do manage to give Lance consistent tactical smarts (despite fen calling him the best strategist, which he’s not), but otherwise the EPs/writers seem fuzzy on how the two perspectives impact characterization. So right there, they don’t even have a solid sense of how a team would split duties to play to each person’s strength, and that means we end up with battle scenes where Shiro is focused on A, Keith zooms off for B, Lance yells at Keith, while Pidge and Hunk just scream a lot in the background.

A strategy is the big-picture objective: “We need to retrieve Allura.” It’s what must be achieved to consider any action complete: capture that hill, rescue the princess, block the reinforcements. “We come from this direction, move fast, hit here, and hit hard” are tactics: the steps to achieve that objective. Against an enemy with 1000x more resources and size, it’s also a damn stupid tactic. 

The commander sets the strategy, the tactician figures out how the army will manage that. The team’s arrival at the Balmera is one of the few times VLD uses the concepts properly. As the general, Allura defines the main strategic goal. As the field commander, Shiro divides up the labor. Keith and Lance are tasked with blocking reinforcements, and Lance figures out the most efficient tactic: lock the barn doors before the horses get out. 

For the most part, Keith is a strategic thinker, not a tactical one, and that makes him a less useful second-in-command compared to Lance’s pragmatic tactical approach. In fact, those two would be a powerful pair if the writers understood the differences to highlight the two approaches, and how each is crucial for a successful outcome.

What most insults me, as a viewer (and yes, I would’ve said the same at age 10, thanks to reading plenty of history with battle strategies), is that the EPs/writers seem to have decided complicated is a synonym for smart. The result is a series of finales that are actually… pretty stupid. 

I mean, have these people never even read Lao Tzu? Just as a bare minimum. 

What about subterfuge? Like, say, a cloaking mechanism. Wouldn’t that be handy. That got used once for all of Voltron, and it was never mentioned again. Sure, copilot to assist Pidge with the cloaking mechanism? Take your pick: Shiro, Coran, Romelle, I’m sure at least one of them could’ve managed it. Hell, as much effort VLD put into making Kosmo the smartest plot device ever, the damn wolf could’ve done it. 

All warfare is based on deception. It’s not a dishonorable thing to pull one over on the enemy. Wormholing in is only half the sneakage, people. 

Avoid striking at what is strong; hit the enemy’s weak points. Instead, Voltron just goes head-on, over and over, and the only reason it wins is because that’s what’s in the script. Take advantage of chaos: with Zarkon absent in S3, threre should’ve been tremendous opportunities (mostly from previously strong areas now weakened by the internal turmoil), but instead Voltron’s on the outskirts freeing planets like Puig. Well, sure, fine, but is that really the best use of the team’s limited resources? 

Don’t move until you have the advantage, or something to be gained. Aim for what the enemy holds most precious. When the enemy fights blindly and desperately, use their blindness against them to lure them into an ambush (which is possibly the one maxim at use in S2′s finale). Related to that, Lotor does act on at least one principle: rousing and forcing the lions to reveal themselves, so Lotor can determine their vulnerabilities. 

In a war story, I’d look to the uses of strategy and tactics as a way to reveal characterization (of which Lotor circa S3 is the best, if not only, example). But specifically this quote from Sun Tzu: 

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

It’s a classic trope in war stories to have the strategist insist that knowing the enemy — thinking like them, understanding them — is key to victory. Thing is, it’s true. If you don’t understand the enemy’s assumptions, biases, desires, and dislikes, you won’t know how to use those against the enemy. You won’t be able to divine strength from weakness. 

In S1/S2, Allura (and Coran) was the best-placed to understand Zarkon’s objectives, the way he thought, the reactions he’d have to any action. Shiro was a distant second for strategist, with more immediate (if fuzzy) experiences of the empire. In S3, with Lotor as the new antagonist and a completely unknown variable, this really would’ve been the best time for Keith to come to the forefront as a strategic thinker. Allura or Shiro might assume their understanding of Zarkon could be applied to Lotor, while Keith’s lack of firsthand knowledge meant a lack of bias for seeing Lotor as, well, Lotor. 

There could’ve been some interesting contrasts to play with, there, in terms of the different strategic minds on the team. Especially when places against the differing tactical brains on the team (Lance, Hunk, Pidge). But I guess we’ll have to leave that for fandom to fix, along with that mess of a finale in S7.

[asknightqueendany]

Why is everyone so shook that Sansa relied on Baelish for so long? Dany took 7 seasons to realize that the prophecy from that witch was wrong and she took 7 seasons to admit that she was raped by Drogo. Baelish saved sansa’s life 2 times when he got her out of kings landing and when he saved her from Lysa. He got inside her head again in s7 and she fell for it but she realized and she started playing him (Sophie conformed this) and she WON.

Arya was in the wrong in s7, bc she heard Sansa screaming in s1 and in s6 when she watched that play she saw “sansa” faint on stage and then saw her clothes being ripped of by Tyrion, Arya knew that sansa wasn’t living her best life in KL so why’d she act like that in s7? Sansa never said anything mean to Arya in s7 until Arya started accusing her of shit. Arya never once questioned why Baelish had a letter Sansa had written from years ago with him. She never thought it might be a setup. Contd..Part 2- Arya fell for baelish’s plot just as much Sansa did. Also Arya was much more secretive abt her past than Sansa was as she explained why she wrote the letter and etc. so if anyone had any reason to be doubtful it was Sansa. Sansa was confused by arya’s Bag of faces and Arya was not helping by being so suspicious           

Combining these two because they’re about the same thing essentially.

1) Dany admitted back in S3 what she was to Drogo. “People learn to love their chains.” She was a slave to him and she fell in love with him out of necessity. Book!Dany has similar thoughts on the matter, continuing to remind the audience that she was, in fact, property, and not a proper wife: “Slavery is not the same as rain,” she insisted. “I have been rained on and I have been sold. It is not the same. No man wants to be owned.” “The exile had offered her brother his sword the night Dany had been sold to Khal Drogo.” “Do you know what it is like to be sold, squire? I do. My brother sold me to Khal Drogo for the promise of a golden crown. Well, Drogo crowned him in gold, though not as he had wished, and I … my sun-and-stars made a queen of me, but if he had been a different man, it might have been much otherwise. Do you think I have forgotten how it felt to be afraid?”

Something people forget about Daenerys because they likely skim over her chapters and scenes is that she is very self-aware and aware of the world as it is and her place in it. She knew exactly what she was and she tells the audience she was afraid. It didn’t take her seven seasons to figure that out.

2) Sophie’s version of S7 and the actual scripts (and Isaac Hemstead Wright) paint a very different version of events. Sophie’s of the opinion that she learns the truth sooner and begins to play Baelish. She says in THIS video that she sees through Baelish’s game “Sometimes, I play a little game” and she and Arya then devise a plan to take him down.

But that is in direct contrast to what IHW says and what the scripts say. IHW says in THIS Variety interview that, “We actually did a scene that clearly got cut, a short scene with Sansa where she knocks on Bran’s door and says, “I need your help,” or something along those lines. So basically, as far as I know, the story was that it suddenly occurred to Sansa that she had a huge CCTV department at her discretion and it might be a good idea to check with him first before she guts her own sister. So she goes to Bran, and Bran tells her everything she needs to know, and she’s like, “Oh, s—.”

And the script of 7x07:

So in the script, Sansa is clearly thinking about turning against Jon and also that she believes Baelish about Arya wanting to kill her. I think Sophie’s video about Sansa is a bit skewed and is her own headcanon of events because it’s clearly contradicted twice.

3) The Arya-Sansa issue. I will never stop defending Arya for the events of S7 because no matter which way you slice it, Sansa was in a position of a lot of power (acting ruler of the North) when Arya wasn’t in any kind of position of power. And she made the most foolish decision ever by ONLY listening to Baelish’s council and no one else. There is literally no good reason Sansa shouldn’t have confided in Brienne about the Arya scenario unless she legitimately was planning on killing Arya before Arya had a chance to kill her - which is what the S7 script and IHW’s interview clearly show Sansa almost did.

4) Along with Sansa being to blame for her own actions by not seeking council from anyone but Baelish - the person who would have only whispered in her ear things she wanted to hear while someone like Brienne would have given Sansa more tough love and had her face issues and questions that would be uncomfortable to Sansa (as she did in S6 when asking her why she didn’t trust Jon with the info about Baelish to which Sansa never replies), on the flip side, Arya’s side, Sansa looks INCREDIBLY guilty of something - namely, trying to take the North from Jon and seize power for herself (which again, the script suggests Sansa almost did, so Arya was RIGHT).

I pointed out in THIS ask what things were like from Arya’s POV. I won’t repeat myself entirely, you can read it at your leisure, but I will mention the highlights:

a) Arya sees Wolkan give the scroll to Baelish and Baelish says, “Lady Stark thanks you for your service,” making it seem as if Sansa was the one who had Wolkan find the scroll, not Baelish.

b) Arya goes to Sansa immediately and does NOT plot or conspire behind her back. Whereas ALL Arya scenes - aside from her spying on Baelish - are with Sansa - MOST of the Sansa scenes are with Baelish. THAT’S fucking telling. As soon as Arya finds the scroll, she confronts her sister. She’s being incredibly straight forward. Sansa is not and Baelish is never far from her side.

c) Sansa expresses her sourness at the fact that she’s not queen: “You should be on your knees thanking me.” Not unlike this quote from the first book in the series, A Game of Thrones: “Go ahead, call me all the names you want," Sansa said airily. "You won't dare when I'm married to Joffrey. You'll have to bow to me and call me Your Grace.” So in Arya’s mind, Sansa hasn’t changed, AT ALL. And for good reason. I’m still pissed at Sansa about this. Like, way to go, you withheld valuable information that, had your brother had before the battle, might have resulted in less of his men getting killed because he could have been able to plan better. And she takes credit for winning the whole battle when her actions resulted in deaths that could have been prevented. It’s not a cool look there Sansa.

d) Sansa sends Brienne away. Arya confirms with Brienne before they have their little “training session” - “You swore to serve both my mother’s daughters?” So Arya knows Brienne would, not take Arya’s side against Sansa, but would serve them equally, possibly help solve issues between them. And she gets sent away. Again, Arya is in NO position of power and Sansa is. Sansa sending away Brienne makes the power imbalance between them even worse. Arya’s got to be feeling threatened and for good reason! Sansa’s move of sending Brienne away is basically her telling Arya - you have no one on your side and as Sansa tells Arya in the bag of faces scene “I have hundreds of men here who are all loyal to me.” Arya doesn’t have that. She just has herself. Arya is the one in more danger here. Not Sansa.

5) Arya seeing the play so she should “know” what Sansa went through - actually, it’s the exact opposite so thanks for helping my argument...? The play from S6 portrays Ned Stark as a bumbling irrational power-seeker and portrays Joffrey and Cersei as VICTIMS! So when the same play also portrays her sister as a victim too...why would Arya believe that? She had the letter from Sansa saying the Lannisters were giving her “every comfort”. She would have no reason to believe that that wasn’t true and that the play would have made things up about Sansa to make her seem more innocent than she possibly was (even though Sansa’s role in the play was actually the only accurate thing about it).

And so far as Arya seeing Sansa the day of Ned’s death - yes she hears Sansa scream (who wouldn’t find watching their father beheaded traumatic?) but she doesn’t see Sansa faint because Yoren has her face pressed to him and blocks her view of everything. But, Arya knows Ned confessed to crimes he didn’t commit, knows Sansa spoke to Joffrey of their father, and knows from the letter that Sansa believed their father a traitor. Something the books highlight even more as Sansa never questions them all calling their father a traitor, she’s just concerned with getting to marry Joffrey and her family’s actions possibly ruining that for her.

So for Arya, it all adds up to Sansa being guilty. Sansa’s actions in S7 do not help matters. She’s the one acting suspicious and according to many sources, Arya has good reason to be suspicious of Sansa.

End. Of. Story.