#btw obviously there might be some holes in my argument

[jinxedshapeshifter]

Okay, there are some glaring holes in Espio's alibi from the beginning and I think it's super interesting. I'm also gonna dissect Espio's alibi using information we don't find out until after interrogating him the first time, because I feel like it's important to bring up and still brings Espio's alibi into question in hindsight.

Espio claims he was reading in a location where he wouldn't be able to be seen; behind a bookshelf. He also claims he started reading immediately after Amy told him and Vector to stay in the library car, specifically saying "I promptly picked a book off the shelf and made myself comfortable." Two problems with this: he mentions seeing Rouge throwing things around, which, unless he was sitting at the desk next to the bookshelf he presumably got the book from, would've been impossible. He also did actually mention seeing Shadow come through and lock the door the first time, which means he couldn't have been in the location he claimed to be in during the interrogation of him and Vector (unless he moved obviously, although I will be debunking this in another point).

He says "We heard her" when he mentions Rouge shouted "NO WAY!" At this point in time, Vector was still in the saloon car, meaning Espio was in the library car alone (and he even mentions this himself). Vector wouldn't have heard her, only Espio would have.

During the interrogation of Vector and Espio, they both claim Espio was just super invested in the book he was reading. If this is true, and he was so invested he didn't hear the doors opening, closing, or locking, he likely would not have heard Rouge at all, or seen her throwing books around. This is a weaker point, but I still find it worth mentioning.

This is brought up later in the game depending on what you choose to say during the second interrogation of Espio, but given the nature of the Mirage Express AND the fact that a top secret code was on the blueprints, why would its blueprints even be in the library car? The conductor wouldn't have put them there, so how did they even get there? This answer is only actually given if you claim Espio stole the blueprints from the conductor during his second interrogation, that answer being Espio stole them from the conductor, then stuffed them in with the brochures.

Espio claims Vector was the only one to see him reading; Tails mentions that Shadow would've seen him reading, but if Espio knew Rouge was in the library car, Rouge would've also seen him reading, because he claims he started reading immediately after arriving in the library car.

I do genuinely think how protective Vector was of Espio was suspicious, especially given some of his dialogue. When Espio says Vector had to tap his shoulder to get his attention, Vector doesn't say "I remember doing that!" He says "I think I remember doing that!" He's not completely sure on his support of Espio's alibi, which, in my opinion, is absolutely a red flag. I'd even argue that Vector was being protective like he was because he's friends with Espio, which is supported by him saying "Way to tell the room you don't have any friends." if you say Vector's protectiveness is suspicious during the second interrogation of Espio.

Espio can turn invisible, something that actually came to my mind when Barry asked about Espio somehow disappearing. This would've enabled him to sneak by the other players more easily, and it's implied in the visuals that he used his invisibility to leave after hitting Sonic with the blow dart, specifically in this shot during Sonic's recounting of how Espio "murdered" him:

Espio could've easily pointed out where he was if he was actually behind a bookshelf; instead, he literally begs Tails to believe him. What this implies to me is he never went beyond the first half of the library car, otherwise he could've easily pointed out that that's where he was reading.

Aside from everything I've presented here, it's really easy to say you read for an hour, and disproving it is even harder, which Espio used to his advantage in the first interrogation of him. Remember, it's not even Espio defending himself in the final part of his interrogation, it's Barry. Had we not stepped in to defend Espio, he likely would've been accused outright, but because we defend him, Tails doesn't get that chance.

I'm not sure if the amount of holes in Espio's initial alibi was intentional, but if it was, it was really really well done. It's a believable alibi with just enough holes in it that they initially go by unnoticed and you have to stop and think critically about what Espio is saying to notice them.

[ceridwyn2]

This may seem like a stupid (and unpopular with some) question, with AO3, is there a way to filter out some writers in search results? I’m doing a search through a particular fandom (no, not stating which one, as I’ve seen it across more than just one fandom) at the moment, and there is a lot of crap there amongst the good gems. I’m picky when I read fanfic 😅 , and a lot of times I don’t have time to wade through hundreds/thousands of stories to look for the good ones.

By the way, this ended up being a lot longer than I originally intended 😂 as I was thinking it through. What I like in the stories I read as follows:

A) Be grammatically correct

B) Spelling correct

C) Sentence & paragraph structure correct. Dialogue for each character in separate paragraphs.

D) Point of View: maintain one person’s point of view either for the whole scene or whole story. Especially important if stories are written in first person (I/My/Me) or second person (You/Them/They). These stories are often harder to write and maintain throughout well. If it’s first person, you’re only writing from one character’s point of view: on how *I* see/hear/experience the things around *me*. *I* don’t/can’t know what the other characters are thinking/feeling other than what *I* see/observe in their behaviour, unless they tell *me* what they think/feel. Writing in second person is equally difficult to maintain unless you’re very skilled at it. You’re writing as though your addressing the reader/person directly, as if you know them personally, intimately (does not need to be sexually) by using *you*. / Example: You love to write; you should do it more often. / If you’re of a certain age and remember the ‘choose your own adventure’ child/young adult books of the 70s-90s, they were in a person point of view.

Majority of fanfiction, and fiction in general is written in third person. Third person is like you’re the audience watching a tv show/film/play/book. You’re a non-active participant of what is happening and cannot affect the direction or outcome of the story. The primary subject of the scene is referred to by their name or rank and their pronoun(s), and is often the first character mentioned at/near beginning of the scene / Example: DCI Cassie Stewart walked into the incident room of her Historic Cases Unit, with a quick glance at her officers before heading into her office. It wasn’t long before her second in command, DS Sunil Khan, or Sunny, as he preferred, wrapped on the glass window pane of her office door. / That scene is dictated from her point of view, how she directs those around her and how those around her interact with her. Had it been slightly different, but same scenario: /DS Sunil Khan looked up as the door to the Historic Cases Unit opened and saw his boss, DCI Stewart, make her way to her office, glancing at the team as she did. Having got some new leads on their current case overnight, Sunny headed towards her office to notify her ahead of the day’s briefing. / This obviously changes whose point of view is the primary for that scene to Sunil.

Third person It allows the writer to explore different perspectives and viewpoints of different characters to move the story forward. However, that being said, to avoid reader confusion, pick one character - a main character, supporting character, or a villain - as the primary character of that scene and stick with their focus/perspective for the duration of a scene/chapter. If you want to express multiple character’s reactions or points of view to a specific same scene (like say a team of detectives coming onto a murder scene) and if it makes sense to do so, you can write the scenes same but different as each character will have their own take on what they saw/perceived/when they entered/exited the scene - but each character that you’re writing about will have a separate section, separated by punctuation marks, above and below the change of perspective. However, that can easily come across as too repetitive for the reader. Might be best to put that in a notes page each scene of how each sees the same scene - because you as the audience can visualise the characters as being there, when they arrived and what they observed. When you write the scene, write it from one character’s point of view, but as you have the other characters interacting with them, they can comment on what they saw observed, contributing to the overall pieces of information, without repetition, unless it contradicts or adds to a specific point being made.

E) Age correlateable. By which I mean, if someone’s going to write about established characters that are in their 40s, 50s, etc., their life experiences, maturity, have them act/respond to each other as such. I have read stories - or rather attempted to - but the mental maturity of the author was showing through characters in their 40s, 50s, and it was obvious the writer hasn’t grasped that maturity of the characters. Listen to the character’s voices (what they’re saying, how they’re saying, even what they’re not saying but expressing visually) you’re writing about. This really comes out when writing arguments and sex scenes, btw.

F) Physical/mental characteristics: If a character has an illness or physical disability, or like affecting joints or paralysed limbs, amputations, or anything that affects movement, be aware of that, esp if writing a sex scene (a whole other rabbit hole of bad writing exists there, see next item). If in an argument, you’re trying to express the character throwing something in anger, like a mug/glass, etc., for example, and the character has an injured/disabled arm, their strength to throw is going to be limited. Show the character’s frustration that the action they wanted had less effect at releasing that anger/frustration. If the character has a visual (partial or full blindness) or auditory disability (eg. hard of hearing, deafness in one or both ears, over-sensitive to sound/volume), take that into account. Esp in arguments, if one of the people in the scene has a tendency to mumble, they may not be understood as words run together are not easily decipherable either by sound or lip reading. Mental health /illness (eg PTSD /complex PTSD [cPTSD], depression, anxiety affects physical health responses. If the characters have mental health disorders, be aware and maintain that continuity through the story. Don’t need to mention it all the time but be aware it can affect movement/physical responses, behaviour. And unless you’re House, you don’t need to include every odd, weird, very rare symptom he seems to need to diagnose something for the character 😂 .

G) Sex scenes: some are done so well that it’s seamless and flows well with the other parts of the story, where the intimacy blends well. Others, very much no so. Unless it’s a specifically written PWP (plot, what plot) story, and those can work when written well. Trust me, I’ve read otherwise well-written stories ruined by a sex scene that reads like a bad porn with characters that otherwise had physical limitation(s) in the rest of the story but were suddenly able to pull off manoeuvres of someone 20 years younger and fully able-bodied. Like someone just tacked on an explicit sex scene on that didn’t mesh with the story as if they were two completely different people that happened to have the same names as the ones in the rest of the story.

H) Continuity. Whether your story is short or long, be aware of where your characters are/what they’re doing. Having a sense of timing. Helpful to have a notepad (digital or paper) sometimes to keep track of movement. They can’t be in two concurrent scenes at the same time. Passing off information between the characters; don’t assume one character (or group of characters) knows what the other(s) are doing, unless they are in contact with each other (visual/audio/both/text). Cause/effect. Action/reaction. There may be delayed effects or reactions (over scenes/chapters), but reference them back to the original cause or action and why there was a delay. For example, somebody witnesses or experiences a tragedy, war, fire, sexual assault, accident, or other traumatic experience, and it triggers a delayed emotional or physical response hours, days, months, years later. The character may or may not be able to explain to their partner, colleague, friend what it was that caused effect/reaction. Similarly, following onto earlier example of a thrown glass/mug/vase, if it smashes there could be subsequent injury from ceramic/glass/etc. like a cut finger/palm of hand if picking up the pieces/cleaning the mess. So maybe it requires a bandage or wrap. Continuity would include making further grasping of things discomforting or painful, maybe a comment from another person inquiring what happened later on if they’re noticing a bandage that wasn’t there the last time they saw them.

I) Alternate Universe stories. I don’t mind AUs when done right - so that even if the characters are placed in a different setting, their general personality traits are very recognizable. I’ve read quite a few that nail this perfectly. Others, not so much. When it works, it works. Otherwise it’s just slapping familiar names onto original fic just to get more eyes on a story.

[black-streak]

Little Pistol - Daisy

Chapter 1

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I'm trying to keep this in line with her canon personality to an extent here. Determined, focused, conniving and scheming. A little obsessive. But also needs to give herself a little pep talk to go through with things. Let me know how I'm doing?

Btw, title is by Brand New.

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~---~

Convincing a miniaturized pocket god that your intentions are sound came surprisingly easy to her.

That could be in part due to all the prior planning. Considering every possible argument the goddess could come up with and creating contingencies to match. Really though, taking out Tikki's own advice and laying it out as a perfect reasoning quieted her down quite nicely. Not that Tikki agreed with her, but the logic was too sound to push back on and the little bug never expected Marinette to come up with such thoughts without getting emotional. It just wasn't the way the girl was as far as Tikki was concerned. So it could only be taken at face value without the usual accusations of her being overdramatic.

It was an early Saturday when she voiced her thoughts.

"Hey Tikki?"

"Yes, Marinette?" the red bug looked up from her perch.

"Our biggest priority is to stop akumas and find Hawkmoth, correct?"

"Of course. You know that," she dismissed.

"So is it reasonable to say that Chat has been a hinderance to our duty?"

"How do you mean?"

"He distracts me or sits out on important battles. Threatens to quit if details that don't pertain to our purpose are withheld. He refuses to remain professional in the face of an attack."

"Well yes, he has been rather unhelpful lately, but then again, you are teenagers. It's to be expected, I suppose. Though I do wish he'd be a bit more focused," she easily agreed.

Marinette bit back a victorious smile and kept her expression closed off but for the determined, calculating expression she saved for important moments. Like now.

"In that case, it would be a good idea to make him focus any way I can. To make it easier. To hurry along the hunt for Hawkmoth."

Tikki's expression became weary as she stared at her welder, taken off guard by the open statement, "I don't know, Marinette...What did you have in mind?"

"Nothing yet, but I think I'm going to start brainstorming some ideas. Maybe do a little research. Something needs to change though," she emphasized, staring down her kwami with a hopeful, prodding look until she hesitantly nodded her agreement.

With the god's blessing, she turned to her tablet, pulling up everything she could on different heroes and their methods. Down the rabbit hole she fell.

… 

Some thirteen hours had passed and she felt the strain of her eyes and the bright burn to her retinas for the effort of her work. She refused to believe that no inspiration would come from this effort, though she'd moved on from conventional heroes and into a more sketchy territory by now, having been let down by the uptight views of others who'd obviously never been harassed or neglected by their partner and therefore wouldn't understand her need for a more, let's say, gray solution.

She'd seen the ideals of Superman and the Lanterns and the generalized view of both the Teen Titans and Justice League alike. Many worked with partners, many had betrayals or interpersonal problems. The solution they always took was for one or both parties to leave the team and travel to opposite sides of their country. Or world. Or separate worlds. Either way, avoidance was key. That didn't really work for her though. She had to stay in close contact with her partner while not truly working together. Remain civil within the same city limits. Fight side by side even. And it's not like she could just leave her responsibility here or allow Chat to go unchecked with a miraculous on his own. 

Then she stumbled upon Batman's history. The infamous bat had many a partner or sidekick with their own rough history and seemed to be operating with them regularly still. His solution to a lost or dead partner seemed to be a steady stream of replacements. Unfortunately, unlike a vigilante suit, a miraculous has to resonate with the wearer and no one she knew and trusted would fit the black cat. So she was stuck with the one.

Still though, Batman apparently had a falling out with his first Robin who became Nightwing. Those two were seen together regularly now so something must have happened to fix their issues. Gods, she was so lucky the internet seemed to stalk these people hardcore enough to have so much information on them so readily available. However, looking deeper, the resulting theories and knowledge did not bode well for her. It seems Nightwing had been in much the same state as her and with zero apologies from the Bat, had forgiven the man and resumed operations as usual. Well she was done with forgiving and forgetting. She wanted a real solution, not just rolling over and letting Chat do as he pleased! 

Alright, so Batman was the Chat Noir to the Robin's Ladybug. Maybe the others fared better?

Nope, second one died.

Current one seems to be a literal feral child out to bleed Gotham dry. Not sure how that helped, though maybe she could go just psycho enough to force Chat to be the responsible one? No, he'd just try and quit again.

Huh.

There was a third and fourth one apparently? Between the murder baby and the dead one. What happened to them?

The fourth was a blonde girl with a short stint. Seems she just moved departments since many speculated she might be a batgirl or working with a few others in the city. Not much more.

But what about the other one?

The third Robin, who worked with the Teen Titans for a stint. Who worked many years under the Bat, who gave away the title to the blonde only to return after and disappear once more with the coming of the blood toddler. What happened? Where'd he go?

…

Thousands had apparently asked the same question themselves. All signs seemed to point towards a betrayal. Something went wrong. The first resigned, the second died, the third just seemed to drop off the face of the planet. Did Batman kick him out? Replace him? For child's play, sword addition? She couldn't be sure, but it seemed the most likely guess. Much more believable than alien kidnapping or a quest for a dead man or his predecessor coming to life to end him.

But what after that? 

Surely, Marinette could've stopped there. Obviously, this wasn't the same as her situation, but she couldn't help but be so very intrigued. She watched videos of the boy in his Robin suit (much more practical than the first two if you asked her, though still slightly shameful) fighting and flying across rooftops and working with his team. He was so. So. Efficient. So clean. Ruthless when he decided to be. Calculated. Everything she ever wanted to be. 

He was amazing.

And then he disappeared.

Where did he go, that perfect Robin. How could anyone ever think the position needed an upgrade when the perfect bird was already there? It made no sense. And then she found him. Hunting through the rogues and heroes and inbetweens of Gotham, hidden in his own layerings of cover stories and identities. Her new aspiration of what a hero should be, mixed into the Anti-heroes of the city.

The vigilante of the more morally ambiguous variety, manipulating the world to the way he saw fit, using whatever method he wished. And the way he seemed to bend the city to his whim, well it matched quite well with how she wished her own city would be. She found her solution. Now it was showtime.

…

"Are you ready to apologize, m'lady?" Chat dropped down at her side, the akuma of the week tied up below them. It was a relatively easy battle, with no need for special abilities for once.

"Whatever for, Chatton?" Marinette asked, already tensing at the response she knew she'd receive. She hated when he tried to coerce her into apologizing for things that aren't her fault.

"For your neglect of your kitten, obviously."

"I don't have a kitten," she stated plainly.

"What? You wound me, to disown me so abruptly," he put a clawed hand to his chest, offense and hurt in spades marking his features.

"I can't disown what I never adopted," she went along with the analogy so he wouldn't complain about her ruining his fun again. The last thing she needed was his whining.

He perked up with this, "Well we can draw up some adoption papers right now if you wish? I'd love to be yours," he smarmed, leaning into her space further. 

This was it. Time to turn the tables. To make this work in her favor. She just needed to play it right, the way her Robin did. By manipulating the enemy into doing her bidding. She could do this.

"That's just it, though. I don't believe you would," she frowned, letting her eyes soften the way she'd seen Lila do so often. Might as well learn something from the girl.

"What? I would," he insisted, eyebrows furrowing.

"See you say that, but where's the proof? You've done nothing but pester and punish me over these weeks. You say you love me, but then watch me get hurt by akumas and make me fight all alone and threaten to leave me. That's not the actions of a loving partner. It feels like you hate me."

That had him panicking.

"No no, I don't hate you, you're my sun and my moon. My everything. Surely you know your worth in my life. I only did those things to show you how much you hurt me." He attempted to reason with her.

"See, but I've never intentionally hurt you. And always apologized to you when I realized I had. Whereas you just admitted to causing me distress as a form of punishment. It seems to me that I'm far more attached to you than you are to me and I'm just not willing to hurt myself by getting involved with someone who so obviously dislikes me."

"I- no- that's not- I love you! I didn't mean to do that, I shouldn't have. Please believe me? I love you, Ladybug," he begged, ears dropping and body tensed in fear.

"I'm sorry, but until I see some proof, I can't do that," she shook her head before taking off home without a backward glance, leaving the cat to his misery.

…

That night, Tikki went straight to bed and refused to speak to her for the next two days.

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

Hey Lightning, I was wondering if I could get your thoughts on something. One take that seems to keep returning every once in a while is the "Allura fell for Lotor only after he revealed his Altean heritage," but I know u and others have disproven this many times, which does reassure me. While I love Allura, I definitely think one of her weaknesses was her devotion to Altea and singing Alfor's praises, which sometimes became too much. At the same time, it bothers me when I see some ppl (1/?)

Continuing anon message: “ say that she thought Alteans were superior to all other races, and that when the colony plot twist happened, she became repulsed by Lotor's Galra side, which is why she rejected him. For them, that's why she forced violent memories onto an uncorrupted Zarkon, but somehow "saw the good/redeemed" Honerva, the Altean. I can kind of understand where they're coming from, but for me, it just didn't make sense that Allura suddenly had a change of heart considering for most of s8, she was angry and dead set on going after Honerva. Even with that, I think to a lot of her fans, s8 made Allura so ooc that she became unrecognizable, which hurt to watch. I guess for me it's hard seeing antis and people who don't like her claim that that's just how she is and has always been. Haha sorry for rambling, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, since your arguments ease my mind on a lot of things when it comes to Allura :)”

Hi, anon. Wow, thanks for your extended note! I don’t know anywhere in canon that Allura champions Alteans as a superior race. The definition of racial supremacy is a belief that inherent genetic differences between races determine cultural or individual achievement, with social/governmental policies championing intolerance of other races. To get Allura to fit into such a label:

1.      A viewer has to ignore or undermine all the evidence available about who the main-universe Alteans really were before main-universe Zarkon’s massacre of them.

2.      A viewer has to ignore or undermine how Allura actually responds to a variety of different races in the show, including her own.  

So let’s start with issue one. To support an “Allura was a racial supremacist” opinion, a lot of antis (and even non-militant, average viewers) are favorable to the opinion that Alteans as a group, including Alfor, were actually evil and violent colonizer elitists before Galrans killed them off. In other words, they question Altean victimhood, and this allows the militant antis to poison and undermine scenes of a woman mourning her home and her beloved family. And it just gets to be a really unsettling conversation, to listen to someone actually try to justify genocide. They’ll also have suspicions that all of our foundational backstory in the s3 finale was just “cleansed” propaganda from Coran. So if antis can undermine Allura’s entire race and family as corrupt, then they can intentionally undermine any of her canonical statements about or efforts toward peace. Which is hilarious, because this racist tactic applied to Allura is actually what a lot of antis accuse Allura of doing with Lotor.

For the record, I don’t think the show production team actually intended the subliminal messaging/cognitive dissonance that I’m about to discuss. The people who designed and developed this show are fans of robot kitties and aren’t PhDs in social issues. But I think there is a very serious issue about the portrayal of genocide victims that feeds into some very real problems in our world, especially regarding the concept of racial supremacy and conspiracy theories about genocide victims.

VLD tried to play with both genocide politics for edge™ points while ALSO playing with shatterglass theory (shatterglass meaning an AU where the heroes are villains and villains are heroes). Combining these two concepts into the same universe creates some incredibly disturbing subliminal messaging about Alteans that very closely mimics ongoing neo-Nazi propaganda against Jews. Nazis and other anti-Semitists justify their hatred of Jews by equating them as terrible villains out for world domination via some underhanded shadow control of the mass populace. It’s an incredibly malicious form of propaganda, because it works so terribly well. And what do you know, VLD plays right into this kind of propaganda. In the season 3 episode, Hole in the Sky, we’re faced with team Voltron confronting an Altean Empire that was actually evil and out for multiverse domination. And oh by the way, they’re using malicious shadow tech to control a mass populace.

It’s like someone on the production team read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and then just copied/pasted that incredibly damaging and widely accepted conspiracy theory right onto Alteans for s3 funsies because edge content.

This is incredibly punishing, for the narrative to wave the carrot stick in front of genocide survivors that maybe some others survived—and then to suggest that Alteans were the evil ones all along. A shatterglass twist worked very well in Captain Marvel (2019) for a lot of reasons, for example, but it just doesn’t work well in the VLD universe given that the show explicitly portrays the genocide victims as evil and validates this concept. And this episode unfortunately feeds ongoing cognitive dissonance in antis that if AU Alteans could be so evil…how certain are you that they aren’t in the main universe too? On the reverse side, the main-universe goes out of its way to portray that not all Galrans are evil, and even that Galrans were the primary resistance (BOM). But in this singular episode, we see a united Altean empire. And the only Altean who moves to stand against it once the shine wears off…is Allura. There is no AU Altean actually shown in the Guns of Gamara. So Allura stands alone as an Altean against her own people.

For this reason, this episode doesn’t function very well as a shatterglass AU either, because the moral “flip” isn’t a mirror balance to main universe. The Alteans of the AU world appear as fully united in their evil plans. And then, no doubt, anti-alluras point out other quirky things about main-universe Alteans throughout the show—the violent language-learning system that scares Pidge, and the ancient Altean terraforming technology that Haggar activates, and the fact that Oriande is a hidden place that keeps out the less magical with a violent guardian. These details, when removed from main-universe world building, create a cognitive dissonance about whether main-universe Allura and Alteans were actually genuine in how they depicted respectful “peace and diplomacy.” So anti alluras who believe Allura was a racial supremacist really rely on this s3 episode and these details to uphold their conspiracy theory.

So let’s focus on Allura in this episode, because it says a lot about who she ultimately is as a person, and people have forgotten how she actually responded in this episode. Allura is unquestionably hopeful at the thought that her and Coran might not be the last Alteans alive. Pretty understandable. If I were the last human, I’d be darn excited to find out there’s more of me left, lol. So her experience as a genocide victim initially blinds her to the evilness of these Alteans. You can even see the ache on her face, of how badly she wants to believe their narrative of peace.

So Allura is initially star-struck that she and Coran are not the last Alteans, yes, and that somehow they’ve achieved a “peace.” She is also not afraid to admit that they would be valuable allies in the war:

And she’s not wrong there, considering that they have what appears to be extensive military resources and a robot force of their own. But she makes a critical mistake in assuming that “these are my people” means that they share main-universe cultural sentiments. The instant Allura hears Slav (so not someone of her own race) call these Alteans out as actually evil colonizers turning people into slaves, she begins to question the narrative she’s received.

In this instance, she actually affords the Alteans the same courtesy she afforded Lotor—the opportunity to deny the accusations.

But in the AU Altean’s case, they try to turn blame back on other parties. Allura listens to Keith when he grows increasingly fearful of what the Alteans might do to the others, and she tries to plead for actual peace:

And actually, this is a pretty interesting moment for Allura. She tries to salvage an alliance…until she realizes that their differences are irreconcilable, and that their definition of peace is inherently different from her own. This probably sets the stage for why Allura was so triggered by Lotor talking about peace while also killing people—because she’s seen people misappropriate that term before. And also probably informs why she trusts the information of both Keith and Krolia (both of whom have Galran blood, btw).

Ultimately, Allura turns against her own people. Violently:

When they get angry about her wanting actual peace, Allura draws a weapon against them and rejects them from her people. This mimics how she spends several seasons fighting an Altean Haggar/Honerva for her crimes, and how she turns against Lotor too.

So case in point here, Allura loves her people, obviously—but she also is holding them to moral standards regarding their behavior, which is something that a genuine racist doesn’t do. As a matter of fact, Lotor is the only person of Altean blood that Allura genuinely bonds with ever again in the series. She’s distant with Romelle, she’s distant with the s8 Alteans… In s8, Allura even says this about Luca, which refers back to her own mistakes she made with initially being star-struck by the s3 AU Alteans who came in “peace”:

Allura herself had been manipulated in s3, wanting so desperately to not be the last Altean alive that it initially blinded her to how Commander Hira was manipulating her. The plight of the s8 Alteans who are deceived by Honerva is inherently frustrating to her, because she can see herself in them.

Absolutely none of this correlates with Allura seeing or perpetuating Alteans as a superior race. At every turn, her own people continue to disappoint her, and she increasingly and progressively separates herself from them in hopelessness, because they’re so brainwashed that they can’t see they’re just cannon fodder for someone else’s military agendas. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for a superior race, lol.

So let’s think about anti accusations here. Allura is a racial supremacist…but she’s arguing against her people who believe unquestionably in Honerva, another full Altean like herself? Nothing about that accusation makes sense with her actions.

The fact is, consistently from season 3 and onward, Allura is faced with her own people morally disappointing her.

The good news for the s8 Alteans like Tavo is that Allura is able to remove the dark entity Honerva is using to control him. Which allows other Alteans to “wake up” from being manipulated and try to make amends.

Regardless, Allura makes a very clear line that simply being Altean doesn’t make someone “right.” She sees herself fully at odds with her own people who are drawn in by Honerva’s lies. And she experienced well back in s2 (revealing Haggar as Honerva) and s3 (evil AU Alteans) that any given race, including her own, can house people who do bad things.

The fact is, she’s consistently and willingly drawn weapons against even her own people when they didn’t meet her moral expectations. So her response to Lotor isn’t particularly out of line there. She’s repulsed by a moral flaw.

And actually, Lotor himself wouldn’t have known this, but he very oddly echoed the AU Alteans by getting angry that Allura was angry over the means through which he was trying to get peace:

So Lotor actually reverts to the same logic of the AU Alteans—peace at any cost, just look at the results—

And keep in mind that the AU Alteans also manipulated Allura’s excitement about them, to get her to make the transreality comet usable so they could go into other realities. So Allura has felt betrayed and used before, by her own people.

So when she says this:

Yes, it’s a reference back to how Zarkon manipulated his friends in order to get access to the quintessence field, at the explicit cost of potentially killing his own people. But it’s not without understanding that yes, Alteans can be just as manipulative and betraying as Zarkon. Because she’s experienced it, again and again.  

As a matter of fact, six out of the eight seasons of Voltron: Legendary Defender feature villainous Alteans/Alteans on the wrong side of the war, and we continuously see Allura punished again and again for wishing that Alteans still lived.

No wonder she wanted to die.

This is something that I find uncomfortable about the narrative of the show. Previous iterations of Voltron did in fact have a “blood on everyone’s hands” perspective, such as within the ages 16+ Dynamic Comics. However, Arusians/Alteans in those old Voltron narratives were not victims of genocide. VLD turns Alteans into victims of the worst racial crime possible and then also consistently portrays them as inherently antagonistic to genuine peace efforts in some way, instead of focusing on the evil of the oppressors.

And this is such a double whammy for Lotor’s characters as well, given that he was abused by his parents and threatened with slavery via his Galran culture, and that he was half-Altean too trying to connect to his lost culture.

As a matter of fact, the larger show’s narrative interest in “victims as antagonists” makes it such that when we see victims try to enact actual justice, it feels almost jarring. Let’s look at that s8 Zarkon moment you brought up as an example, where Allura destroys his innocent perspective by showing him his evil deeds.

The s8 Zarkon is a weird topic because 1) This Zarkon actually doesn’t exist outside of Honerva’s mind, so how he has any kind of actual free-will is beyond me, unless someone wants to argue that Honerva actually cursed his true soul just as she cursed the other paladins. It’s hilarious too, because Honerva-mind-Zarkon also calls Honerva a psychopath, so I guess now Honerva is psychoanalyzing herself using her dead husband as the vehicle, while also discreetly helping the paladins to stop herself—

ANYWAY, using this Zarkon as a “proof” of Allura’s “racism” is also cherry picking in the weirdest of ways. Is she angry about his horrific and incalculable crimes, including even how he betrayed the OG paladins and ruined his own planet? Absolutely. Does she want him to be aware of his crimes instead of having to pretend like nothing’s wrong? Yes.

But notice here, this Zarkon actually shows remorse. He is actually crying over those memories and recognizing that he had done something wrong. And Allura can work with that. In fact, out of everyone standing around and doing nothing, it’s Allura who gives him a second chance and offers an alliance with Zarkon in order to stop a crazy Altean: 

Keep in mind too, Honerva didn’t have memory loss at the end of s8. She knew exactly what she’d done and had given up and had to actually be convinced to do anything halfway constructive. That’s a very different circumstance than mind-Zarkon had, who jumped at the chance to do something to fix what all had happened, and gets even morally righteous about it, calling his own wife a psychopath, lol.

So generally, antis who believe Allura was a racial supremacist haven’t watched the show holistically. We see her hold the same standards to her own people as she expects out of others. This show would look incredibly different if Allura were a true racial supremacist.

Ah, you ask. Okay, so we’ve refuted the big pieces of “evidence” used to incriminate Allura. But what about all of those weird details about ancient Altean history? The violent language-learning program that scared Pidge? The violent terraforming tech that almost kills Voltron? The concept that Alfor tried to play “police” over the Galra and actually blew up their planet? The Alteans’ ongoing discussions of “peace and diplomacy” and spreading it throughout the universe while they happen to sit on a massive load of ancient power?

The s3 finale and other facts throughout the series very heavily smash the claim that our canon, in-universe Alteans were evil colonizers like the AU Alteans. The biggest piece of evidence to the contrary is that the Altea we know was one (1) planet. You counted right. One planet. Not an empire, but a singular planet. The s3 finale corroborates this, showing Altea as being largely isolationist from a military perspective while Daibazaal and Nalquod warred "for generations," right in front of their salad.

So some viewers would have you believe that Alteans were these big bad, intergalactic police state colonizers. But for all of its great power and knowledge, the singular planet of Altea didn't even canonically interfere in the wars of its own galaxy for actual millennia? And looking at the screenshots upon the stabilization of the alliance, Alfor is revealed to not have had experience with a neighboring culture. His face while exploring Gyrgan’s homeworld is an indication that it’s all rather new for him too. So again, we have evidence showing that Alteans were not colonizing or even functioning as a police state.

Note here that in the s3 flashbacks, the show confirms that it actually wasn’t just Alfor who suggested an alliance. All five leaders had common interests in protecting their galaxy from even worse threats, so all five came together at the same time. This is actually the first piece of evidence we have of Altea entering into some kind of intergalactic military agreement to stave off said worse threats.

And all of this is on top of a history where in s6, the Galran Archivist confirms that the Galran Empire had existed before Zarkon for 3,000 years, with times of “expansion.” It’s very easy to see that Blaytz’s people were actively fighting off Galran occupation of their homeworld within this past.

And that’s actually what I think makes Alfor and the OG paladins some pretty interesting characters. Here, we had colonizing Galran empire setting down its sword and accepting the value and space of its neighbors. Here, we had master alchemist Alfor giving up military power within their group by acknowledging Zarkon as the superior strategist. Here, we had Blaytz who had previously been battling Galran occupation…fully accepting the Galra?   

So the OG Paladin backstory represents a pretty incredible alliance that removed a lot of intergalactic toxicity and helped heal broken bonds. But it required all five leaders to agree to that. Alfor did not throw his weight or power around within this. There were several checks and balances here.

But this backstory also helps to explain some of the quirky details about Alteans. Their planet existed within an active war zone, and it’s very likely that they’d had to fight off Galran occupation just as Blaytz’s people did. So the violent robot trainers and fear-based language learning systems start to make sense. Alteans weren’t just simpering people playing harps all day and eating grapes. They were actively prepared to defend their planet and their culture.

So when Allura says in season 1 that Alteans were “spreading diplomacy” across the universe, the only pieces of evidence we have of that is the OG paladins themselves, in which Alfor was a big part in creating that alliance—and then possibly the Alteans with the Balmerans, given their deep collective rituals with that planet while the Galra literally just came in and ripped the planet nearly to death. Allura tries to mimic what it means to accept and interact with a culture without changing it well in season 1, when she stumbles through trying to respect Arusian culture and its demands on its people. Also, there is a big fact that antis like to overlook:

The fact is, despite the untold numbers of civilizations we interact with across 76 episodes, no outside race remembers Alteans as evil colonizers. If they were really so big and bad, we would have heard it, like, “Man, yeah the Galrans are bad. Just as bad as those Alteans, back in the day.” Or something. But nope, nothing.

So I heavily question the history of Altea as an ancient colonizing race. If they were, then Altea wouldn't have just been a single planet with limited resources to fight wars in even its own galaxy. All of this supports the idea of Altean children being raised to fight--because they were preparing to defend themselves when/if diplomacy fails.... But the fact that the Balmerans see Alteans fondly and that literally every other race we run into is explicitly suspicious of Galrans and not at all of Alteans says something.

I think the only piece of evidence there might be for a genuinely colonizing ancient Altea is the use of terraforming technology, as mentioned in s4. Haggar discovers it and activates it to try and kill Voltron--and she nearly succeeds, because said tech destroys the entire crust of the planet to reform it. But you have to step back for a second and wonder--if ancient Alteans were so powerful, why was Alfor struggling so hard to even hold his own planet together in the midst of all these other cultures warring and larger threats? If they had this technology--and they did know about it because Allura recognized it right away as ancient technology--why the heck wouldn't they use it? Or were they using it, and it was to reform uninhabited planets to help sustain displaced peoples? Why is it, if Alteans were so terribly bad, we have no record across ANY of the many alien races being cautious of them? Even Galran Lieutenant Lahn snapped at Allura only because he was jealous of the general security she had back on, you guessed it, explicitly Altea. There's a lot of potential explanations for a positive use of terraforming technology, and the evidence against colonization and Altea committing omnicide against other races is incredibly more aligned with the other details in the canon.

And even Alfor’s creation of Voltron and the blowing up of Daibazaal—that’s something that antis like to position as evidence of his police-state ways to underhandedly control other cultures.

So let’s tackle those too while we’re at it.

Honestly, I know people like to hate on Alfor, and I do think his character picks up some misogynism just from the writers....But I don't think he was as much of a controller as people think he was. He was already in an alliance with four other leaders to try and stop bad things from happening in their galaxy. That meant they were expending incredible amounts of time and resources to accomplish that end—resources that were not renewable and may have been straining various planets. We know that he started building Voltron with Zarkon and everyone else's blessing because he called them "clean ships," but it's only after the rift creatures attack that suddenly Alfor's perception of Voltron moves from "clean energy" to "omg we need a more powerful weapon against this unknown enemy.”

So these are his intentions BEFORE he discovers rift creatures are a threat to the universe. While Zarkon states that these new ships are to be endlessly powerful for the Galra Empire, Alfor shames him by offering what his desire is for them:

  After the rift creatures nearly destroy Daibazaal, intentions change.

So here, we see the game change in a BIG way. Voltron is not just about offering a more renewable way of sustaining peace-keeping efforts. Alfor is now adjusting and finishing these ships with the explicit knowledge that if they are not powerful enough, then Daibazaal and the Galran people will die. Alfor’s got a LOT of pressure on him now to deliver a mighty and powerful weapon to stop this new threat. So even his creation of Voltron as a superweapon involved using it to protect people from imminent death—not to police them.

And about Alfor blowing up Daibazaal—once again, it’s Alfor trying to clean up Honerva and Zarkon’s mess. Honerva had convinced Zarkon that the rift needed to be wider, and so Zarkon deceived the paladins into widening it.

So keep in mind here, at this point in time—the rift was destabilizing and eating an entire planet. The entire universe was now at stake. Alfor had to choose between a bad fix and an even worse option of allowing everyone to die, but he very clearly evacuated people before destroying Daibazaal, as part of his promise to keep Galrans safe. So that no one would have to die.

And as a matter of fact—about that terraforming technology. How sure are you that Alfor didn’t intend to use it to build Galrans a new home? It’s entirely within the realm of acceptable conjecture that he allowed for the existence of that technology because it could restore what had been lost.

And here’s where the story gets really screwy and feeds into some anti hate. Because when Zarkon wakes up as a zombie, he desires more quintessence as zombies do.

So he’s pissed that Alfor just cut off his gateway, and he manipulates his people:

And it’s here where we get the idea that Alfor was an evil controller. The idea came from Zarkon, who—we can look around pretty easily and see that he was not a man of honor, ultimately. Even if you chose to not believe the s3 finale flashbacks as being objective, there’s something wrong with Zarkon. (It’s clear that the show thought using Coran was a smart way to shell off massive amounts of info, because clearly if this were truly in Coran’s perspective, we would NOT have had intimate looks into Zarkon and Honerva’s bedroom as Zarkon is tending to her, like omg.) Numerous sources, histories, and cultures outside of Coran confirm that Zarkon hit a point of no return on the evil scale, and that he projected his own blame for Daibazaal’s destabilization onto Alfor in order to raise up his new regime in the name of Quintessence™.

So at the end of the day, even Alfor was a victim. But yet somehow, various antis choose to believe Zarkon’s victim-punishing narrative because said antis can’t or else refuse to connect one scene to another since it undermines their justifications for why they can hate on Allura. And that’s not so much an issue with the story itself as it is just poor critical analysis or malicious weaponization of content against other fans.

Now, at this point, we’ve talked about Allura and we’ve talked about Altean history. I have numerous other posts about Allura’s interactions with other races and Galrans and overcoming trauma to give the entire universe a second chance. So if there is anything in this show that suggests Alteans were in any way a superior race, then it’s probably within the show’s own worldbuilding. The show contradicts its own definitions of what quintessence even is by suggesting Alteans have “bluer/purer quintessence” in order to justify why Lotor would even be trying to sacrifice them for anything. The show-championed concept that Alteans have a bluer, purer life force above all other people, and that only Altean energy could interface with the fabric of space-time. Now, this is a problem in the later seasons’ world building itself. And you know who wrote that in? The production team. So once again, we do have racial issues in this show, in ways that shows like Star Wars desperately try avoid by showing racial diversity in who has Midi-chlorians.

That said, I’m not a perfectly woke storyteller either. I think every story and show is going to have something problematic™, but with VLD it’s very clear that its disrespectful handling of genocide politics and shatterglass conspiracy theories, on top of its weird master race angle created the perfect storm. These mishandled and quirky details have created a cognitive dissonance with the provided narrative, resulting in some people in the anti fandoms to champion what aligns very closely to actual neo-Nazi propaganda against Jews, who according to them are not victims but instead the true perpetrators of all bad things. For the sake of the antis, I’m pretty sure they’re not intentionally looking at VLD this way and are probably just looking for any easily graspable reason to hate on Allura for interfering with their ship or something.

But this kind of subliminal propaganda that undermines victims, and the effect it has had on fandom morality politics, is deeply concerning to me. I really wish that we’d had an opportunity to respectfully and critically discuss this with the production team of the show, because a Y7-FV show about “strength in unity” should NOT result in us needing to have a conversation about people walking away with neo-Nazi-ish propaganda sentiments against genocide survivors. Like. Clearly, VLD is fictional, but it’s feeding into a real-life beast that it does NOT need to feed. And it’s keeping alive ongoing conspiracy narratives against some of our most vulnerable populations on the planet.

So, we need better stories. We need a production team that, if they’re going to get paid to do something involving portrayals of genocide and politics, that they need to do their research on those topics. Nobody is going to be perfect with a creation, but VLD validated some very damaging things—and it ALL is something that could have been fixable. I think it would have been incredibly validating to hear the production talk about and accept that these were issues that cropped up unintentionally, and to hear them confirm that these issues are not the sorts of things that VLD was supposed to champion.

The greatest tragedy of all of this is the potential that this show had to really champion some great and validating messages, and the potential that we as a fandom had to come together and do something that fandom was meant to do—which was celebrate the things we love. Because that’s why we’re all here. That’s why this crazy tumblr of mine even exists. It was supposed to celebrate things.

For that reason, I’m going to end this here. I’ve written several responses now as to my thoughts on the inappropriate narrative lens of the show, its contradictory and damaging worldbuilding about the purest race, and how it champions demonizing or punishing genocide survivors again and again. Within all of that, I’ve talked at length about Allura’s character and behavior over 8 seasons and how she built even empathetic connections with militant Galrans like Commander Lahn. In fact even her own homesickness is how she emotionally connects with Lahn, because she understands that desire to call something one’s own. To have a home. A family.

I now really would like to get back to writing stories that I find meaningful to me using these characters and these worlds—and trying to find the hope in all of this darkness, haha. And maybe with any luck, I can hope to do VLD some justice, knowing that I am still on a learning journey as well.

But I appreciate your note, and I hope this very extensive response helps to settle your questions and concerns once and for all regarding VLD Allura. If you should have any remaining questions, please feel free to reach out via a private message to discuss. Thank you!

[five-wow]

10.19!!! watched it, had thoughts about it, wrote them down. the usual under the cut.

there is a random man in steve’s kitchen (is it the helicopter guy? i... don’t know him well enough to be sure but i am genuinely unsure who else it would be) wearing a “seals do it better” apron while he’s cooking and talking to junior about how this recipe helped him “seal the deal” with the love of his life. okay, random man. you’re not acknowledging it, but you just made a seal pun, so you have my attention.

btw, for a good long moment i genuinely thought this guy might be danny in some kind of weird dream sequence future. i mean, old danny in steve’s kitchen wearing a seal-themed apron and making waffles? i wouldn’t hate it.

junior about how it’s going with tani: “it’s amazing.” okay a) YAY and THAT IS VERY CUTE and b) even so, it’s hilarious to me when random guy says “sounds like you’ve got it bad” just based on junior saying that it’s amazing while he kind of smiles vaguely. cute as it was, it wasn’t a passionate love declaration.

junior lies in bed awake at night dreaming of his thing with tani working out (and not sleeping because he’s scared it might not) and i just !! he’s a smitten mess over her and i adore it, even though his level of anxiety sounds like it’s a little detrimental for his sleep, omg.

fjdkfd we get a scene of adam and quinn who went surfing together and OF COURSE they’re standing under the beach showers as they talk because i feel like adam is literally contractually obligated to have a certain number of shower scenes each season.

tani!! gave quinn!! some surfing pointers!! let’s review: we know that tani is really great at surfing and definitely better than junior, because we had a scene once of them getting back from a surfing trip and junior was slightly pouty over it and tani was absolutely unwilling to downplay her own skill and it was Very Good, and now, in these last few episodes, tani was first present during noelani’s surfing lessons and now she’s apparently been giving quinn advice, and the idea of the h50 women hanging out? the idea of tani being supportive and sharing her knowledge? it’s all so good, ahhh. (ALSO. my mighty need for tani and kono to meet grows with each and every mention of tani’s surfing skill.)

oh my gOD i wrote that bit in brackets and hit play on the episode and IMMEDIATELY adam says that he’s used to being second best in the ocean because “my ex wife was a pro surfer, and very competitive.” YES. GOOD. LOVE THE KONO REFERENCE.

quinn gets a dramatic call from an olivia! i read an episode description, so i know that’s her ex-step daughter. i’m a little hesitant about this “btw quinn has an ex-husband” subplot, but also curious to see where they’re going with it, and quinn jumping to help out a teen girl that she still has a strong bond with is an angle of approach that could potentially be very very relevant to my interests.

cows! “moooo” say the cows, quietly, under the music. they’re not important or plot-relevant, i just like cows.

fjdkfd olivia has a Bad Dad and yes, i do want quinn to adopt her now. it could be good! she could swap tips with steve about how to let your adopted teen know they’re loved and safe and worth so much more than what their parents gave them.

tani to junior: “what, you think i didn’t have a life before i met you?” junior’s eyes: [shoot up to steve, standing right behind tani, who is junior’s mentor AND boss, making it slightly awkward to have a relationship talk right in front of him during work hours] POOR BOY (but also, yes, tani, tell him).

junior is now obsessed with the mystery of why tani is so familiar with a random rancher bar an hour away from her house, and to be honest, so am i.

tani wON A LINE DANCING COMPETITION FOUR WEEKS IN A ROW. that is the BEST solution to the mystery, my gosh.

tani: [brags about her line dancing skills and calls herself the queen] junior: “who are you?” fdjkfdjkfd junior, i don’t even know why you’re suprised that a) tani slays at something she did or b) she is utterly unapologetic about that fact.

olivia says that maybe quinn could come watch her play volleybal some time and quinn says that she’d love to but it’s complicated and don’t do that, quinn! my heart hurts now!

OKAY so olivia isn’t doing cheer this year even though she was captain the previous year and she makes up an excuse about it being because of the other girls but it’s actually about HER DAD taking the money that quinn gave her for a UNIFORM which means she probably couldn’t even try out and I HATE THIS. find your ex and kick his ass, quinn.

lou, after talking about macadamia farming: “but here’s where the story gets a littllllle... nutty.” tani, fistpumping: “nice one.” punner solidarity!! good stuff, good stuff. (though i do wonder what happened to danny’s punning streak in later seasons. anyone remember 1.14, when he joked about the head in a box? he’s lost his appreciation for this fine art and it’s a tragedy, honestly.)

quinn has enlisted adam’s help in tracking her ex (jake) down and she’s telling adam a little about how she never thought she’d fall for a guy like him but he was charming, and then she says “and olivia” and THAT’S when she really smiles, and look, PLEASE don’t let this episode end with olivia still living with her dad because will have to write fix-it fic.

quinn: “i haven’t told anybody i was married, not even steve.” that’s cool, but like, do we believe that means steve doesn’t know? if his background checks haven’t gone completely downhill in the last few years, i would assume he’s figured this out, right? (i love quinn’s “in case you haven’t noticed, i’m not really a sharer” that she adds, because it fits with her personality and it’s just nice to have a female character that’s allowed to be a little secretive about her past in a way that doesn’t feel, idk, sensationalized.)

i have seen a lot of gifs of this episode by now and they’re all of steve and danny and the horses so i’ve seen most of their very polite discussion that ensues when danny calls steve out on not asking him if he wants to ride along, but it’s still utterly glorious. grace gets mentioned, too! and the way danny ends it with “why don’t you try to keep up?” as he passes in front of steve, with steve watching him go? that is flirting. blatant flirting in front of all of their poor teammates. (at least now junior can feel a little less awkward about bringing his relationship with him on the job!)

fjdkfdjk lou’s “all this and they still go time to argue, isn’t that nice?” is A+

steve and danny, as they’re super leisurely chasing some criminals through the woods on horseback: yes, this would be a good time to make up an argument about absolutely nothing at all.

oh gosh, okay, danny says “you know i can uh, i can hear you at night” and steve’s response is “why don’t you get some earplugs?” and um. uh. it’s followed by context, i know, but come on, jfc.

“when i moved in a couple months ago” he’s just GOING for it now, omg. not “came to stay with you”, no attempt at hiding that he’s been staying with steve for literal months at this point - just. when i moved in. a couple months ago.

(i am obviously also very aware of what danny is saying about steve not sleeping and how that’s a new thing because it wasn’t like that a few months ago and steve’s evasiness about it and i am VERY WORRIED ABOUT THAT but i’m also electing to somewhat ignore it because. my god. screw that. we don’t want any of where that seems to be headed in this house.)

“i appreciate it. thank you.” this is growth and it’s good and it’s steve realizing that maybe just his quippy putdown isn’t enough of a response to danny’s genuine offer of support! (and again, we’re not thinking about reasons why he might want to think twice about how he treats danny so danny will know he’s appreciated, because there is no reason for steve to be worried about that, because nothing is going to happen.)

steve: “cuff him, danno.” DANNO. danno has returned from war!!

fjdkfd and then steve says it again in like, the next sentence he says. really cramming in those danno’s suddenly.

oh noooooo. quinn tells adam that jake could be a very good dad (which is valid! addiction is a disease and it’s good to know he wasn’t always like this to olivia, even if i don’t think it excuses what’s happening now), but then she says that jake was all the things she always wished her own dad could be and that maybe that’s why she was so drawn to him, and. okay. did not need that. h50 has a tendency to make women compare their love interests to their dads that makes me very uncomfortable. (the other big one that springs to mind is when abby and chin are courting and chin opens a car door for abby and she says something about how she always admired chivalry in her dad and she thought that died out with his generation and it’s this weird thing where she seems to be flirting by going “wink wonk you make me think of my dad” and oh my god. let’s just say it’s very much not my thing.)

steve and danny end up holed up in a cabin while seven people shoot at them and ahhh, just like old times. also just like last episode, to be honest, with the whole cabin filled with poison thing, but at least there’s no poison this time! that’s a plus!

steve’s improv involves LASSO’ING a guy i’m screaming

dude gets the drop on steve, they have an epic fight, steve HITS HIS HEAD and the dude picks up a GIANT LOG to hulksmash on steve’s head, presumably, and then danny swoops in to the rescue and!!! that’s also very much like old times!!! especially with this forest green color scheme and steve lying on the floor a little dazed it really reminds me of that episode with the girlscout troop in season 3.

(so. in this possible universe we’re not talking about where steve might be sick again and could be pacing at night because he knows or fears he’s going to die (you know the one) do you think that maybe part of why his first words to danny are “why’d you leave the cabin? that wasn’t the plan” is that he was kind of... hoping the other guy would get to finish him off? do you ever think about how steve mcgarrett, man of action, would almost definitely rather go out in a blaze of glory after taking out six guys all on his own with danny having his back, than after watching his own body slowly betray him and give out on him after losing a painful and drawn-out fight with itself?)

confused, frowny steve who almost definitely has a concussion and is also still very bloody is oddly cute, gosh. also, nincompoop! definitely one of danny’s most wonderful insults yet.

quinn gets her ex arrested and yells at him and tells him that if he doesn’t clean up his act, he’ll lose custody of his daughter, and then she drives away and she’s sobbing and trying not to and just !!!!! this was definitely the good kind of “quinn has an ex-husband” storyline, but also very painful.

the sunset scene! seen this in gifset too, but hoooo boy, it hits very differently with actual sound. (i may also have described the scene to my sister and mentioned the “probably ‘cause i figured i’d see a million more” and her immediate response was “oooh, he’s dead” and yES, that’s what i was TELLING YOU i’m worried about and also what i’m not thinking about so let’s just pretend i’m not typing these words right now.)

fdjkfdjkfd i’m sure that steve turning to danny just as he says “those are the things that you’re gonna miss the most in the end, you know” after mentioning things you see every day is just. a total coincidence. yeah. he’s totally just turning away from this sunset he was so entranced by a moment ago to look at danny’s face because he wants to stretch his neck. uh huh.

there’s banter about squirrels and it’s good and then steve says “admit it danny, you’re gonna miss this when it’s done” and that sounds very meta, omg, but it gets better when danny says “yeah, maybe, but i would never say it out loud” because that is literally a way to say it, out loud.

a very good episode!! i loved meeting olivia and learning about quinn’s background and there was some prime tani content and to top it off a lot of mcdanno in the second half, and if we just completely ignore that this episode also made my anxiety about the series finale skyrocket (which i knew it would, based on what i’d gathered of other people’s response to it, but that still didn’t accurately prepare me) it was wonderful and i liked it a lot! 

[alltingfinns]

A Scandal in Belgravia

So I’m back on this.

The swoosh on some sped up footage in the previously, don’t remember noticing that.

This episode’s start gets so much funnier if you read some of the fic written between this and the previous episode.

Silly song now becomes more dramatic in TRF.

What did Irene offer Jim to get him so riled up? If it’s the plot plane plan that would explain why Sherlock is needed alive. But his emotional reaction... maybe he’s already been trying to get it on his own. Indicates possibly that Jim has been looking for a way to get to Mycroft.

“You’re typing a lot.”

This montage is nicely done.

Arguing about the blog.

The pouncing on the title.

He’s so hurt. He knows ash!

“We do watch the news.”

“You said boring and switched the channel.”

First time where “people” = John.

And the hat.

“It’s time.” I never thought about the waiting period.

Ehh, Hudson called up to the next floor so John’s room? Boys?

Ha cool, a SAAB. An old one too. I’d guess a 900 model from the early nineties.

Lestrade probably makes these calls a lot.

I get Sherlock’s confusion, he’s just in a sheet it’d make sense for him to be humiliated.

Their silent conversation + John’s acceptance of the absurdity.

That was a pretty long look on Sherlock’s lap and then asking about pants.

The Swedish subtitles on Netflix just referred to John as ”kronans gosse” I love it!

John took the queen liking his blog as a point in their argument.

I always like looking at John during the sheet bit.

Mycroft and John conversing in subtext that you need to remember their original conversation from a whole series/three episodes ago. And people think johnlock is too subtextual.

They made “the woman” a work title clearly to explain why Sherlock would refer to her that way. A bit harder to work in the context from ACD canon. It would be weird if Sherlock in modern times went “a credit to your gender” for defeating him.

Sherlock’s reaction Mycroft’s veiled assertion settles the question, I think. He’s making a “damn, he’s got me there” face. Mainly because John’s presence, if we considers his previous statement. If it were just him and Mycroft he’d just say “just because I haven’t done it doesn’t mean I can’t understand it!”

Btw, in case you think my typing speed is phenomenal I am hitting pause when something gets really interesting to me.

The parallel of checking the pictures have the “obvious” reading of romantic set up. But Sherlock is still learning details of a case he has been given so another reading is that while he’s targeting her she’s targeting him.

My reading is backed up by Sherlock’s immediate demeanor. His interest in her didn’t really appear until he found out she didn’t ask for anything. Blackmailers are a dime a dozen, but someone making a point of threat against the reputation of the BRF without asking for direct compensation? That’s someone with a plan and someone who can give him the kick he feeds of from casework.

John getting the last word in only for Sherlock to get the laterer word in.

Pinching an ashtray from the aforementioned BRF, whom himself mentioned as his first client with a navy, just to make John laugh? Some things are priceless but for everything else there’s MasterCard.

Okay, I had to back up a bit but: I don’t know who’s getting these pictures for Irene, but the last one that makes her smile is focused on John. She sees Sherlock more naked in the pictures where he’s fully clothed in the back of a cab than when he was in just a sheet on the pavement.

More parallels. This is really about their similarities. Could still be considered romantic foreshadowing “they’re made of the same cloth” type.

Ah yes, punch me.

That little dialogue snippet about “punch me” usually being subtext is what got me to first watch this show.

In general I have a lot of issues with how they handled Irene. But I especially don’t think I get the nudity in this scene. It reveals to Sherlock immediately that his ruse was all in vain since she either a) knew he was coming anyway or b) usually greet priests in distress while stark naked and might therefor just be stark raving.

Unflappable John Watson. Oh dear, my flat mate who I just beat up is sitting in front of a naked dominatrix with his vicar collar between her teeth. “I’ve missed something, haven’t I?”

He doesn’t like being a third wheel either. “I had tea too! Just so you know. In case you thought Sherlock got tea at the palace by himself. I was there too. The tea was lovely. Just the right temperature.”

Dammit.

Now I want tea.

Wait wait wait! When did John put his “date” shoes on? Only time it makes sense is when Sherlock was looking through his disguises. (He definitively wouldn’t wear them to traipse around the muddy crime scene.) Maybe they’re part of his “battle uniform”? Also obviously Sherlock can only “deduce” date because he knows what shoes John wears on dates. This isn’t really clothed people are easier to deduce.

How is he not deducing the heck out of her make up and ear piercing? Is it because she’s acting so extraordinary that her indicators become harder to contextualise?

Or is that whole thing just a plot hole?

And her comes her actual opening chess move. Nudity and banter was just setting up the pieces.

“Somebody loves you.” She pressed John’s big red “DO NOT PRESS” button right away. Later she says Jim told her how to play the Holmes brothers, but he definitively gave some pointers on John as well.

There’s something about John’s facial movements when Irene says he knows exactly where to look. Hard to compare with the sheet scene because of the different angles. But yeah, John is bi.

“You do borrow my laptop” with such an angry glare.

Wait are Irene’s shoes those shoes that are expensive because they’re red on the bottom? (I do not care enough to google their names.)

And it’s when John starts to smile that Sherlock does his verbal keysmash. Officially Ben said it was because Irene was paying attention to John instead of him, but she does that a number of times previously and has had quite a moment of getting cosy at John. But up until then John has been a bit standoffish. Of course you can only take so much of a pretty lady flirting with you before your smile reflex gets activated. Also he whips his head immediately at Sherlock in medical concern for his friend and Sherlock can speak clearly again.

Sherlock thinks he knows her game now as he makes his move getting her to confirm that the pictures are in the room.

Imagine the egg on his face if John hadn’t managed the smoke alarm in time.

“Amazing how fire exposes our priorities” should be part of a collection of lines that are only said once but thematically repeated throughout the show.

Some would argue maybe “I really hope you don’t have a baby in there” could be added but I don’t think it could be considered as repeated enough thematically.

Sherlock being his usual demanding self about turning off the fire alarm. The fool! Doesn’t he know how hard fire alarms are to turn off? (Maybe just a problem for me...)

Okay sure, easy enough with a gun, but impractical as a long term solution.

Umm, excuse me why does he go “no disrespect but you were clearly born in the 80s” in an episode from 2012? The most she’d be is 32, so clearly she looks at most like that then. Why would she be insulted by that? Also he earlier called a dude unhealthy, stupid and with bad breath in front of him without clarifying level of respect. So basically he’s needling her by adding that. That’s the most positive spin it can get.

John apologising for not stopping /forewarning about a whole bunch of trained killers sweeping in? That is diehard loyalty.

She’s staring hard at him as fire exposes his priority.

She actually does give him a clue by looking down the moment he looks at her. Never thought of that.

He heard something click wrong, looked at her for additional clue so she looks to the side “get out of the way”.

I love that John’s priority is medically inclined in the action scene, checking the vital signs of the guy that got shot.

“Observant?” “Flattered?” Honestly he shouldn’t be so surprised by the first bit as it was obvious some kind of observation + deduction got Sherlock the code.

As usual Sherlock gives zero fucks about gun safety. I feel John at some point is going to tie him down and lecture him about it. “We do not scratch our heads with the barrel of a gun, and we don’t call for the police by shooting in the air!”

You know if you’re knocking him out cold regardless, you don’t need him to drop the phone first. You just wanted the beating to be literal.

“He’ll be fine. I’ve used it on loads of my friends.” Yeah no, tell the doctor what chemical knockout drug you just put in a former drug addict!!

I wonder how much of dream Adler is actual Adler speaking to a drugged out Sherlock.

Could be nothing with the only real part being “hush now, returning your coat”. Would make sense for a dreaming brain to jumble the two cases together.

Start of series 2 we get to see Sherlock’s bedroom while John’s remain a mystery after 4 series.

John is not on the top of his game this episode. “What woman?”

And so it begins.

Mycroft does not have “shut up Hudson” privilege.

That whole phone noise discussion is punctuated with embarrassment.

Ah the gaping jaw that set the sails for the lestrolly ship.

“Christmas is canceled!” I love when John banters with Sherlock.

Sherlock is mean to Molly, but to be fair she kind of blundered a bit with the others and Sherlock complaining about John being away was clearly something he told in confidence. Telling Greg and John that their loved ones are betraying the trust put in them is general misanthropy, but Sherlock probably feels justified in needling Molly about a crush that he figures none of them know anyway.

Oh John’s look there. Greg clearly knows too what is coming but John has the recognition factor.

“Oh shit. It was me. Still me? She still has a thing for me?”

For a sort of dramatic moment it still has one of John’s absolutely funniest facial journeys. “Wait, you apologised? You know what an apology is? Are you feeling well?”

Obviously Irene’s text signal gets a lot of funny moments, but nothing will beat the timing of this one. And now I am imagining Jim with a pair of binoculars sitting across the street and telling Irene “now, send it now, it’ll be fucking priceless!”

And Greg “wait really?” When you’re not sure what your consultant can do to surprise you next.

I believe I made a post about it earlier but Jeanette’s boyfriend just said he’s been keeping track up till 57 on text messages that his platonic flat mate gets where the signal is a woman moaning.

“Do you ever reply?”

Jeanette starts working on her break up speech about then, I believe.

Molly nervously gulps a drink. Now Molly is everyone’s favorite John mirror. Medical professional with a crush on Sherlock, and whose favored type of outfit involves knitwear. John usually takes a drink at emotionally difficult times. Is this Molly handling her rejection, or showing what John is doing/will do without showing John?

Mycroft. If they passed a new law why would Sherlock know about it before you?

“How did Sherlock recognize her from... not-her-face?”

Mycroft answers with a smile and leaving the room.

“I got plans”

“No” I know you. If it’s a date you’ve probably bungled it already. Regardless if it is or isn’t you’ll still prioritize my brother because you always do.

John really goes for the superconfident strategy when dating, huh? “I always thought I was great.”

“I’ll even walk your dog!”

“I don’t have a dog!”

“No, because that was the last one...”

Always thought you were a great boyfriend, huh?

When even your landlady who got out of her marriage through execution thinks you bungled it, you probably bungled it.

Think I’ll break here and continue the rest of the episode tomorrow.

[alicepink-me]

Secrets Revealed

By: Alice Pink (Btw I was 14 when I wrote this, so not my best work)

Story Summary:

Chat Noir’s goal has always been to find out Ladybug’s true identity. Can one hint about Ladybug lead to the truth? Secrets will be revealed about the past as mysteries unfold. How will Marinette and Adrien react to everything?

Chapter 11: Baking Cookies

Two Days Later:

Adrien crossed the street to the Dupain-cheng bakery. He could see Marinette standing inside at the counter, handing a woman a box of cupcakes. He opened the door and waved to Marinette.

"Hey Marinette." Adrien smiled.

"Hi." Marinette smiled back.

"How's it going here?"

"Busy. My parents are catering for a party tomorrow and we're only half done baking everything. I'll be caked in flour all day." Marinette said, handing Adrien a chocolate chip cookie.

"Thanks for the cookie, but . . . I could stay and help." Adrien took a bite of his cookie.

"I don't know. Have you ever baked anything before?" Marinette said, crossing her arms, and smirking.

"Uh . . . " Adrien scratched the back of his head. "No. I've never actually cooked anything in . . . my life, but . . . you can teach me. You're a good baker and probably an even better teacher."

"Uh huh." She said, looking into his sparkling eyes as if being hypnotized. "Fine. There's an apron hanging on the wall over there."

Adrien's face lit up as he grabbed the apron and sprinted back over to Marinette with it wrapped around him.

"So, what are we making?" Adrien said, rubbing his hands together in excitement.

"We're baking chocolate chip cookies. My parents already made the muffins and brownies yesterday, so we just have cookies left to bake."

"Good, I cookies. Especially the ones that your family makes."

"You do realize that cooking can be messy, right? You don't have any experience in . . . well . . . a kitchen, but are you sure you'll be okay with getting flour in your model blonde hair?" Marinette laughed.

"It couldn't make me look worse. The flour all over you is making you look adorable, so I don't see how it can affect me badly."

Marinette rolled her eyes at him and pulled out a recipe from her pocket.

"I thought you were an expert." Adrien smirked.

"I never said that and I usually can remember most of the ingredients, but I can be forgetful too and I want make sure that everything is perfect."

"You mean purrfect." He grinned.

Adrien leaned closer to Marinette as she pushed his head away.

"Less puns. More cooking. I thought I was baking with Adrien, not Chat Noir."

"I can be both." Adrien said, crossing his arms. "And my puns are hilarious."

"What ever." Marinette smiled. She decided to let him win the argument of whether his puns were helpful and funny.

Adrien handed Marinette ingredients as she mixed them together in a bowl. He couldn't help but smile as he watched her make the cookie dough. He helped her form the cookie dough into little balls and place them all over the cookie sheets.

They soon finished placing the cookie dough on every sheet and now needed to clean up. Marinette grabbed the bag of flour that she used off of the counter and started for the pantry, but fell from the shaking of the ground. Adrien fell to the ground too from the rumbling of the bakery. Marinette was now covered head to toe with flour.

"What was that?" Adrien said, standing up.

"It was like an earthquake." Marinette added.

Adrien turned towards Marinette and couldn't help but laugh. "You're . . . uh . . . you have some flour . . . everywhere." He chuckled.

"Don't . . . say . . . another . . . word." Marinette glared at Adrien. "It's not my fault-"

They were interrupted by huge vines sprouting up from the bakery floors. They spread across the whole building, shaking it even more. They covered up the kitchen door and barricaded them in.

Adrien and Marinette immediately knew it was an akuma attack and nodded their heads at each other.

"Plagg! Claws Out!"

"Tikki! Spots On!"

They both transformed and tried to remove the vines from the door, but had no luck.

"Cataclysm!" Chat shouted, placing his hand on the main vine blocking the door.

They both managed to kick open the kitchen door, but soon realized that the vines had swarmed the entire bakery.

"We're trapped in here." Chat announced, trying to look through the vine covered windows.

"I'll phone Volpina." Ladybug said, pulling out her yo-yo.

Volpina blew her flute and the ball of light and energy that formed at the end of it showed Ladybug's face. She turned her flute up right to answer the call.

Ladybug: Volpina, we need your help.

Volpina: Ladybug. Where are you? Is Chat Noir with you?

Ladybug: I'm trapped in my parents bakery with Chat Noir.

Volpina: Trapped?

Ladybug: Vines have covered the entire bakery. Me and Chat are in the lower half while my parents are still upstairs. Once you rescue us, I'll check on my parents, but hurry.

Volpina: I'll be right over.

Chat looked at the vines that encompassed the bakery. "I'm guessing that it's a plant themed akumatization."

"Yeah." Ladybug agreed. "Probably a florist or botanist."

Ladybug walked back into the kitchen and started putting the cookies in the ovens.

Chat Noir stared at Ladybug in confusion. "Won't the cookies be ruined by all of the shaking from the attack?" Chat asked, pointing to an open oven.

"I'm hoping that they'll get fixed when I fix all of Paris's damage. If they don't bake now, then I'll have more work to do when I get back."

Chat started to pick up some of the sheets and load them into the ovens. When they were finished, they heard a loud pounding coming from the front of the bakery. They both peered their heads around the corner of the kitchen to see police officers outside trying to break in. Some of them held blow torches that had been used to crumble a few of the vines while three others held a battering ram. They shoved the battering ram against the door and tried to get in, but had no luck.

Suddenly, Volpina flew down to the entrance and thanked the officers for their help. The police cleared and Volpina used her super strength to push the doors to the ground.

"Volpina!" Ladybug said as her and Chat Noir ran over.

"Sorry it took so long. I saw a family shouting for help from a second story building, so I asked the police for assistance in getting you guys out." Volpina apologized. "I rescued the family and got here as fast as I could."

"It's fine. We're free now." Chat said, walking to the big hole in the bakery where the doors used to be.

"You guys go find the akumatized villain." Ladybug started. "I'll meet up with you guys after I check on my parents."

Volpina and Chat Noir exited the bakery as Ladybug ran outside and swung up to the next floor. She hoped through an open window, which wasn't completely covered in vines, and saw her parents sitting on the couch. They got up and filled joy to see the super heroine.

"Ladybug." Sabine cried. "We're trapped up here and our daughter . . . is still down stairs!"

"Don't worry mo-Mr. and Mrs. Dupain-cheng." Ladybug quickly corrected herself. "I took your daughter somewhere safe. She told me that she just put some cookies in the ovens down stairs. She might not be back in time to take them out when everything is back to normal though."

"Thank you Ladybug. We'll take care of the cookies when the vines have cleared." Tom thanked.

"I have to go fight the akuma, so stay away from the windows and doors for now."

Ladybug swung back out and met up with Volpina and Chat Noir by the Pont Des Arts.

"M-My parents are fine." Ladybug stuttered out of breath. "How's the akuma?"

Chat Noir pointed towards a red haired girl with a light and dark green dress. She wore brown glasses with a forest green headband and she had her hair in a side bun. She stood on top of a huge green vine that carried her throughout the city.

"While you were gone, I gave my kwami some food, so I can use my cataclysm again."

"I think the akuma's in her headband. It says go green and she obviously loves plants." Alya said, staring at the green girl.

"Good eye. Lets-" Ladybug started, but was interrupted by the villain.

"You three!" The villain shouted, as her vine grew over to them and carried her. "Don't you even think you're going to mess with my plants! I am Gardenia and Paris is my new garden."

"Why are you doing this?" Volpina asked, stepping closer to the villain.

"You and all of these Parisians . . . they litter everywhere! Especially in the flowers at my house. Then I had realized that people mistreat all of Paris's plants. No one cares about harming them! They just want to get rid of their garbage and now that I have this power . . . so no one will mistreat them ever again. The plants will overpower the humans and Paris will be filled with everlasting green." Gardenia laughed.

"You can't just take over Paris." Ladybug stated. "You've clearly made your point about how the environment is, so I think everyone has learned their lesson."

"I can't stop now. A small garden is a sad garden. It must grow and never stop."

Gardenia blasted vines towards them, trying to pin them to the ground. The vines with many flowers emerged from the bridge and lunged towards the heroes. Vines successfully pulled Chat Noir to the ground and covered him like a net.

"You must stop." Chat protested. "Paris doesn't just belong to you, it belongs to everyone and we will bring it back to what it used to be."

"I'd like to see you try." Gardenia laughed.

"Cataclysm!" Chat shouted, placing his right hand on the vines that surrounded him.

The vines crippled and Chat Noir broke free.

"Lucky Charm!" Ladybug screamed, throwing her yo-yo up into the air. "A giant magnifying glass?" Ladybug looked from Volpina to Gardenia's traveling vine. "Volpina!" She called. "Slow her down in twenty seconds." Volpina nodded as Ladybug sprinted towards Gardenia, using her yo-yo to launch herself into the air.

She held the magnifying glass over the vine and the sunlight burnt it. Gardenia dropped from the sky as Volpina played her flute. The music slowed Gardenia down while she fell. Ladybug jumped off of the remaining end of the vine and pulled Gardenia's head band off of her head. She wrapped her yo-yo around the vine's end so that she wouldn't fall and Chat Noir ran over to catch Gardenia as the music wared off.

Ladybug snapped the head band in half to set the evil butterfly free.

"No more evil doing for little akuma." Ladybug started. "Time to deevilize!" She caught the butterfly and let it fly away. "Bye bye little butterfly. Miraculous ladybug!"

The never ending green of Paris disappeared with flashes of ladybugs. Gardenia was returned back to her normal self with no memory of what had happened.

The three heroes were about to disperse when Nino came running towards them.

"Nino? What are doing here?" Volpina asked, confused.

"I got a miraculous!"

"You did?" Ladybug and Chat Noir both said.

"Yeah. This guy came to my house and said that you guys suggested I'd be a great addition to your team." Nino said, excitedly.

"That's different. Master Fu usually doesn't give out miraculouses in person. He's all about mystery and confusion." Ladybug noted.

"I'm sorry I didn't help you with this attack. I was kind of annoying my kwami with a thousand questions about my miraculous and was trying to figure everything out."

"This is perfect!" Chat Noir screamed with joy. "Now that you have a miraculous, we can cast the spell to the Betweens. We can finally get my mom back!"

"Amazing!" Ladybug shrieked. "We can do it tomorrow!" Ladybug jumped up and hugged Chat Noir.

Volpina moved over to Nino and looked at his confused expression.

"What are they talking about?" Nino asked, pointing at them.

"I'll explain it to you later . . . but now that you have a miraculous . . . you can help us with something important."

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Persona 5 Problems: “Goro can’t escape Shido” doesn’t make sense

Might be a pt 1. But before I get into it, what I mean here is “Goro can’t escape Shido” doesn’t makes sense in the context of the characters interactions that we see nor the rules or the world we see in Persona 5.” 

I probably could title this as “Atlus doesn’t know how to utilize it’s Metaverse and everything around it is shit pt 1: In relation to Goro” but that’d be too long, and it gives you more insight on what’s in store. 8U

Also this isn’t to rag on Goro, but the failure of the writing with P5. I mean I hate Goro, partially for his writing partially for how I think he’s a jerk and not in a fun way (cause I do like characters who are jerks but he just doesn’t jive with me)....this for full transparency (esp if you are new). 8U That being said I wont’ tag it as Goro cause I’m not a jerk, I’ll tag it as anti I guess but...........yeah in retrospect after typing this I do kinda take a dump on his writing so anti tag it is. 0u0 

Now why arm I talking about this? Well a new chapter of P5MM came up and.....well this picture appeared:

Now I love Saito, the manga is pretty good, so this is nothing against Saito. My issue is.....I guess the over victimization of Goro esp when it 1) makes no sense and 2) is contradictory.

Now do I think an antagonist that is a victim doesn’t make sense? No. What doesn’t make sense is that P5 doesn’t bother to develop it. P5 throws out the bare minimum of hints all while making NO SENSE how that could work. So fans have to fill in the blanks, and that’s either making him more sympathetic or like me who’s either deciding to start master blasting holes everywhere or is ready to throw this suit case out all together.

I know a lot of fans, and adaptations (such as this) kinda lean towards making Goro more sympathetic. I DON’T BLAME THEM. Like I said, there’s a lot of holes to fill in. And one of them is his relationship with Shido, something VERY crucial to the plot and is.....glossed over with like a few min worth of dialogue. 

Anyway what am I getting at? The issue that annoys me a lot, and that was shown in this picture that hair-triggered me into wanting to write this, was the fact “Goro is being controlled by Shido/Goro has no power and Shido has his claws into him/Goro can’t escape Shido.” As seen in the pictured above, you see Goro has hands to his throat and Shido has an overwhelming presence. Goro is trapped by Shido. And a lot of people will agree with this. It’s understandable because the game half assidly will say things like “you know what happens to people who defy me!” and basically threatening Goro’s life. EXCEPT IT’S ALL BULLSHIT!

“Woah that’s a little extreme what do you mean?” I mean it, Goro is not being controlled by Shido. It’s annoying P5 even INSINUATES that possibility in its writing! It makes no sense for Goro to be the powerless one here, not with the game we were given. And it’s amazing this wasn’t caught in the writers room. This is how that scene should’ve gone down given what we know:

Shido: You know what happens to people who oppose me! Goro: Yeah motherfucker, you send me! What do you want me do? Kill myself? What are you a 14 year old troll on the internet? Do you want me to kill you for threatening me-you scrotum looking asshole? 

Just freaking think about it, Shido or his confidants want a breakdown? Send Goro. They want a shutdown or to possibly kill someone? Send Goro. What the fudge is Shido doing threatening the guy who does his dirty work? Is he gonna kill him himself? No. Shido is a gd moron.

“But what about the cleaner guy?” Great question! And here’s my answer! What about him? No seriously what could anyone but the PT or a god do to Goro? Nothing. 

“But how is that nothing?!” Easy, Goro can take him out, breakdown or shutdown, before he could hurt Goro. If Shido sic’d anyone on Goro, Goro could easily take down Shido, the cleaner, and anyone related to either who know they should take Goro down. All thanks to the Metaverse. And because of that “Goro is trapped by Shido because he’s threatening Goro with death” is such a BS excuse by the game. 

“But what about Shido’s knowledge of the Metaverse? Didn’t he say he could utilize it?” Yeah what about it? The game doesn’t showcase HIM using the Metaverse. He always sends Goro. Which is REALLY FREAKING WEIRD considering he still acts this way, knowing full well Goro is missing. Like how are you going to do it Shido???? 1) you need an app first and foremost, 2) you’ll need a Persona or else you’ll get rekt’d! YOUR LOGIC MAKES NO SENSE! And him knowing about how the Meteverse works is just bs plot device so that we can shoo away how he could believe Goro in the first place let’s be honest.

The only people who use the Metaverse that we don’t know how they got there was the SWAT team that busted the MC, and while not explained it’s possible Goro had something to do with it (either giving someone his phone, since multiple people can go in with just one phone). That’s the only thing that makes sense, since only app users (aka PT+Goro) can got to that world. Tho the cut content seem to indicate even the police don’t know:

And it seems that you only get the app if you have a Persona (minus Goro, MC, and Futaba), cause that’s what Yadly wants:

(btw Ryu’s first pic is pre awakening and the 2nd is post awakening, Futaba’s the only one to get her’s before her Persona with the exception of Goro/MC, but Yadly must’ve thought she was useful or some shit judging by his dialogue early on in the game XP)

But yeah, bringing this up because it’s relevant to know who can and who can’t use the Metaverse. Goro CAN. Shido/Shido’s confidants CANNOT. Goro has the advantage. Shido does not. Goro holds all the cards. Shido’s a gd moron.

As for how Goro could end Shido and his Confidants. If for some reason Goro doesn’t know some of Shido’s confidants JUST BY WORKING WITH THEM, then he can find out through Shido’s Palace. Shido’s Palace literally contains every single one of his CoOps in Cognition form. Which means he probably knows their name, and all Goro really needs is a name cause that’s the hard part. Once he interrogates all the Cognitions and Shadow Shido, he takes Shadow Shido out, go after the real CoOps’ shadow, interrogates them (plus cognitions if they have a palace), and work his way down the latter until know one is after him. He can also squat in the Metaverse if for some reason the heat is really on him, and what’s the worse that could happen? They get pulled in with him? Well that’s bad....FOR THEM! Cause Goro has more powers there, his Persona, he’s stronger and more durable. There’s really no losing here.

So again, one last time. “SHIDO’S THREATS ON GORO’S LIFE MAKES NO SENSE BECAUSE GORO HAS THE POWER TO END SHIDO NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!”

“Well what about his strangle on giving Goro affection?” Ok, ngl....been awhile....but I legit have NO RECOLLECTION of Goro or Shido showing any possible fatherly affection. I feel like I’ve seen more of the fans make this argument then the game. If the game did then it was just....such a throwaway line, and it’s a classic “P5 tell don’t show” move. Coupled with how contradictory the writing is with the way the story is built (like show literally above in how Goro’s life should not be threatened like AT ALL). P5 goes out of its way to show how much Goro HATES Shido and HE CAN’T WAIT TO SEE HIM GO DOWN! That doesn’t seem like someone hesitating cause he wants a hug from daddy. The only reason he waits so long was because he wanted him to be prime minister (or just close to election) and then bring him down from the highest pedestal. THAT’S IT. He has so much more backing that then “I really wanted a daddy figure that gave me pats on the head and told me I was a good boy.” If P5 WAS going for that then they did an even piss poor job than with the issue above. 

And listen, I’m NOT saying that’s not something that couldn’t have happened, I’m saying the writing makes it not really support it or have it make sense. (edit: after typing this I vaguely recalled Shido saying that all Shido had to do was tell Goro he was a good boy and he thought he had him wrapped around his finger-of course this could’ve just been a tumblr post I read that’s how much I remember Shido praising Goro XP, and lkfsd;lakvl;vs this is soooooo batshit all over the place, are you controlling him with fear of death or love???? cause neither are working here bro. Btw at the bottom I go into a route in which this COULD work, but it means dropping the whole fear of death bs argument I made at the very beginning, and even then it’s not Shido actually controlling Goro, it’s him thinking he does.)

And if anyone says “What about destroying his career and social-hood by revealing Goro is a bastard?” And give Goro the platform, the audiences’ full attention for him to be like “YEAH AND GUESS WHO MY DAD IS?! :D” Like, considering Shido figured out Goro was his son, it’d be even more stupid of him to think he could do that when it’d be social suicide for him. As for Goro? That was his plan all along, nothing to lose! Maybe it’s not as high of a fall that he wanted, but he’s still bringing him down!

Now despite this rant, I’m NOT saying Goro isn’t a victim. As a bastard/foster child in Japan, he is a victim for their horrible treatment towards that group. That can’t be argued and in all honesty if it was just that I’d be happy. What I don’t think he is a victim of is Shido, at least beyond the parental abandonment (he is a victim for his dad being horrible and not marrying his mother and stuff like that OBVIOUSLY), by Shido I mean the Conspiracy related stuff. Making it out so that Shido controlled Goro the whole time, that Goro had no agency, that Goro couldn’t oppose him. That’s what I hate. I hate how people make him such a woobie victim when....he very well probably wasn’t. When he made Goro kill, it’d make more sense for Goro to be scared of losing his connection to Shido (aka not being able to monitor him and continue his plan) than be scared Shido might kill him (I mean he had freaking superpowers what the fudge?). But if people looked at it like that then Goro would be more in the wrong no? Choosing to value his goals of revenge over other’s? Maybe he didn’t want to kill but he still CHOSE because his own goals meant more than someone else’s life. But noooooo that would hurt him being a victim right? We need to make it all Shido’s fault! Goro did nothing wrong! Right? So we made it seem like Shido could threaten Goro’s life, make it a kill or be killed situation, even when it made no sense. 

I think Goro could been good, could’ve been complex. A boy who was an abandon bastard son of a politician, mistreated and abused by society until teenhood, suddenly granted the power to get revenge on his father, and going to any lengths, even if it broke his own moral code, because he was that dedicated to bringing down someone? That’s interesting, it’s simple. But “ A boy who was an abandon bastard son of a politician, mistreated and abused by society until teenhood, suddenly granted the power to get revenge on his father, forced to go to any lengths because he ended up in a trap by said father he wants to take down, even if it MIGHT (cause Atlus be chickens and “ambiguous”) be against his own moral code but like he’s being forced by his dad so is it really his fault? That? Fudge that. That’s needlessly confusing, it’s bending itself all out of shape to try to purify this character....and I hate it. 

There’s also the weird contradiction on Shido’s end where it’s like “He’s super paranoid that he kills people, and he doesn’t trust Goro since he plans to kill him, but he trusts him enough for certain things that he doesn’t need to double check on himself even if it poses a threat to him like I dunno checking IF THE GD MC BODY IS DEAD?! >:(” 

I dunno, I just think Goro having the strongest conviction to take down Shido (even killing because he wants to take him down so badly for what he did), with Shido not knowing Goro is his son and actually trusting him (with maybe gaining suspicions later towards the end for plot drama) because he’s so confident he groomed Goro into being his perfect little follower, is just so much more interesting? Goro is still a victim, but he’s not the perfect or “bending the character out of shape” to be perfect victim. He was hurt horribly and chose to deal with it in an....unhealthy way. It also makes the two seem reasonable, Shido thinks he’s in control because he took this starry eyed follower under his wing not because he’s threatening him with violence. Even tho we know Shido isn’t in control, Goro just likes to think he’s in control. 

;tldr: I hate how people (and even Atlus/the game) try to twist Goro into being this perfect victim, all while saying “well he does do bad things but it’s because of Shido!” instead of letting Goro be accountable and have it make logical sense in the game (because the game is a hot garbage mess). 

So yeah this concludes a 5 am rant I started yesterday. 8U 

[twdmusicboxmystery]

9x04: Details

Okay, let's get down to the details. 

***As always, spoilers for 9x04 abound in this post. Don’t read until you’ve watched! You’ve been warned!***

Michonne: 

 In the opening sequence with Michonne, we saw a lot of interesting symbols. Apples (which we later also saw Daryl eating; Apple Theory), lots of books with visible titles, and we also saw Michonne journaling, which reminded me of Beth.

In the sequence where she saw the walker hanging and eventually picked up the bat, it reminded a lot of us of Sasha in S5. Michonne just seemed angry and somewhat out of control.

Negan, talking to Michonne, proclaimed himself on the C team. Kind of interesting because back in the prison, entire group stayed in the C block of the prison. Symbolically, C seems to represent wherever TF is currently living. So just more reinforcement of the ABCD symbolism.

Talking to Michonne, he tells her she’s a warrior and should embrace her violence. (Ever the manipulator.) Negan says that behind walls and bars, "we die." He means the warrior. I don’t even think this is a particularly TD theme, but we’ve seen it in the show before. Um, back in S5? Remember Carl said being in Alexandria would make them weak, and then Rick, Carol and Daryl discussed it on the porch. Just saying this is yet another theme that ties back to S5.

This isn’t anything new, but it also struck me how often Carl has been mentioned since he died. Michonne kept saying, "He’s still here," and she means that he's there in spirit, even though he's dead. Notice how they never said anything like that said about Beth. Father Gabriel asked Maggie about her in 5x10, but since then we've had exactly zilch.

Judith’s painting on the wall looked just like Eastman's daughter’s. Just pointing that out.

At one point, Negan tells Michonne, "we’re the same," and repeats it twice. That's exactly what Crazy Tattoo Guy at Terminus said too. So callbacks to Terminus, and the reiteration of that theme.

It’s an interesting theme. They’ve talked about it a lot on the show, and on TTD. Just about how there’s potential for EVERYONE to become a monster. The difference comes in individual choices. An interesting theory about this was put forth in my group, though. Since they were talking about parenting children, and Negan said he and Michonne were the same…perhaps a hint that Negan is Gracie’s father after all?

I thought it was sweet that Michonne talked about her sons (plural) and her daughter (Judith). Negan also said “nothing is worse than nothing.” (The profound themes were strong with this episode.)

I also wondered about the Game Day book Michonne read to Judith. I noticed the part she read talked about everyone putting on their gear for the game. Might have just been a small foreshadow that shit’s about to go down, either with Rick or the Whisperers. Don’t know if it will connect to anything else. Kind of interesting, though.

Eugene:

It caught my ear that Eugene talked about how there was a big buildup of water under the bridge overnight. That was significant because it happened overnight, not over a long period of time. It reminded me of 4x01 when Carol told Daryl that there'd been a big buildup of walkers against the prison fences overnight. The dialogue is even the same. (”big buildup overnight...”)

We were right about the names of the hordes being Shakespearean! Yea!

I knew right away we were when he called the new herds Tybalt and Cordelia. Seriously, I've never heard the name Tybalt used anywhere except in conjunction with Shakespeare. But then Eugene goes on to admit that the names are coming not only from Shakespeare's characters, but specifically from deceased characters in his plays.

Carol:

I don’t have a whole lot about Carol and Rick's interaction, except that Angela Kang did say on TTD that it's a callback to S4. Basically, it's supposed to be a mirror or an anti-mirror of the fact that Rick banished Carol in S4. Here, he talks about how he admires her, and her transformation gives him hope.

In this part, Carol says if the state saviors leave the rest of the group, that's on them. They need to “figure out who they want to be.” Major theme right there.

When Jed and the Saviors showed up to pick a fight at the bridge, Carol of course pretends to stand aside at first and then kicks his butt. He takes the keys, and the camera focused on those a lot. (Key theory.)

That's actually the last we saw of this particular plot. Rick and Daryl heard the gunshots and worried it would draw the walkers, but we don't actually know how the fight between Carol and the Saviors turned out.

Rick and Daryl falling into the hole:

Daryl says, “this time, man, it’s gonna go the way it was supposed to.” That theme was repeated constantly throughout 5x09. You know, the last episode we SAW Beth in before S9? (“It went the way it had to. The way it was always going to.”

The biggest thing this reminded me of is the Governor episodes. In 4x06, at the end of the episode, he falls into the big hole, that looks like a grave, with Megan. Walkers fall in as well and he has to fight to keep them from biting her. Walkers even fell into Rick and Daryl’s pit eventually, just like with the Gov.

The most significant thing about this, aside from all the Beth parallels in the Governor episodes, is that right after falling into a grave, the Gov is reunited with people he knew before and hadn't seen a long time (Martinez). That makes me hopeful.

We also have some serious resurrection symbolism here because we have living people trying to claw their way out of a grave.

There are so many interesting things in their conversation, some of which I talked about yesterday.

Daryl also mentioned, "trying" which we know is a theme. One we specifically heard him talking about in 5x06, Consumed, when he was looking for Beth.

He also talked about having faith. He said Rick wanted them to have faith in other people, but the truth is that Rick didn't have enough faith in them. Rick denied that being true, and explained that he was trying to honor Carl. And who was the original person to lecture Daryl about faith? That would be Beth.

It was super-sweet when Daryl said he would die for Rick and would've died for Carl.

I think it's super important that Rick and Daryl had to help each other get out of the pit. There's a lot of symbolism there, and for me, it's yet another way of showing that Rick will be back. Daryl couldn't get out of the pit without Rick any more than Rick could've gotten out without Daryl. They need one another to survive and thrive, so Rick can’t be dying yet. 

Everyone in my FB group immediately recognized the parallels between this scene and Daryl Rick climbing out of the ravine in S2. I’ve also seen edits of it around the fandom, so this wasn’t lost on anyone. It’s kind of an opposite situation, though.

In S2, Merle wasn’t truly there. Daryl was just hallucinating him. (Which also might be a foreshadow of Rick’s coming hallucinations, btw.) Here, obviously Rick is present in the flesh. But more than that, Merle didn't actually help Daryl out of the ravine in S2. Daryl had to get himself out. Here, Rick reached down with his hand, called Daryl ‘brother,’ and helped him out.

It was even more poignant because of the parallels to Merle, imho.

They were climbing out of a grave while death tried to pull them down. We even saw the walker hands reaching up from below, which I thought was a powerful image. 

I even feel like…

…okay, maybe I’m delving WAY too deeply into this, but I was thinking that Rick and Daryl ended up in that pit because of their own stupidity. They were having a petty argument, and it came blows. Then they accidentally rolled into a RANDOM. GINORMOUS pit. I mean, who put it there? And why didn’t either of them notice it? Probably because they were too busy punching one another.

So again, I feel like they fell in because of their own foolishness, and then had to claw their way out. Sounds a lot like what happened at Grady. Beth stabbed Dawn in the shoulder. By doing something foolish, she kinda got herself “killed.” And I do believe that afterward she clawed her way back from death. AND it had something to do with a walker horde, hence the hands reaching up for Rick and Daryl. Just felt like a really sympatico parallel to me.

Two things about the very end:

1)    Rick riding a white horse to go save the bridge. White horse equals Beth and the horse symbolism.

2)    Rick wanted to do something very dangerous (try to lead the walker horde away from the bridge) and Daryl told him not to. Rick didn't listen, so eventually Daryl relented. This is a very close parallel what happened at Grady. Daryl didn't stop Beth from hugging Noah, and because of that she was shot. Here, Daryl didn't stop Rick from doing something dangerous, and because of it. Rick was impaled. If he loses Rick now because of that, it's going to completely devastate Daryl.

Did I say two things? I meant three! (I actually wrote the above two first and then, re-watching, realized a third.)

3)    The white horse. It occurred to me that I had no idea where that white horse came from. It just showed up all of a sudden. I re-watched all the Rick and Daryl parts to figure out where the horse shows up from and finally understood that it came from the Carol/Saviors confrontation. When the guns start going off, we see it running away from the scene. It got scared and took off, ending up near Rick and Daryl. Okay, that explains where it came from. But it’s still a little convenient, no? And as far as Rick and Daryl are concerned, it basically just came out of nowhere, running out of the woods.

So my go-to response is that this must be symbolic. And we all know who the white horse represents, right? So I’d say this represents Beth suddenly appearing out of the woods…right when Rick heads off toward the walker horde.

Oh, but it gets even better than that. Also while re-watching the Rick/Daryl scenes (seriously give yourself permission to re-watch those scenes in this episode a hundred times) something else caught my eye.

Rick physically pulls Daryl up out of the pit, right? I noticed that when trying to do that, as Daryl is reaching up and they sort of miss hands several times, Rick keeps repeating, “You’re almost there. You’re almost there.

That struck me as a little odd. Not “we’re” almost there. “You’re” almost there. So think of it this way. If the pit with walkers at the bottom represent death, and Rick and Daryl getting out represents coming back to life, we have Rick saying to Daryl, “You’re almost there. You’re almost there.” We all know Daryl has emotionally been in the pit since he lost Beth in S5. The emotional pit where he believes all these negative things about letting people go and not honoring the dead.

So I feel like this is the writers telling us that symbolically, he’s finally going to make it out of the pit. And what shows up right after he does? The white horse. Randomly. From out of nowhere. 

And because Rick is involved; the one who says this line, helps Daryl out and rides off on the white horse, I feel like something about Rick is what will bring Daryl out of the pit. In other words, something about what Rick is about to will lead to Beth. Which will finally pull Daryl out of his 4-season emotional funk.

Man, I hope I’m right about this. ;D

It was also pointed out in my group that Rick's wound is in the side, which actually is a mirror of one of Christ's wounds. He was stabbed in the side before dying. And that's not the first time we've seen stigmata wounds on Rick. Remember, he impaled his hand in a crucifixion sort of way when he was fighting Winslow in S7. Just more evidence that this death will be a fake out and he'll be returning.

P.S. Sucks to be Father Gabriel. Poor guy.

I think that’s all I have for now. Given that today is Halloween, I can’t promise I’ll have a post for Thursday, but I do want to go over some things said on TTD. There were a lot of them this week and many of them were very important. So I’ll aim for that for Friday. Cheers!

[gurguliare]

do you have any ideas for how a Good version of TLJ might have gone? Assuming TFA stayed the same

Okay here I have summarized a convoluted revised version of TLJ for you, keeping as much of the plot skeleton as possible. What I am proposing is not so much a “Good” version as a “trashy version I would have enjoyed.” I feel comfortable in the knowledge that no one is going to read to the end of this read more.

Rey plot: have the initial focus/mystery be the fact that Luke having voluntarily cut himself off from the Force, and the “darkness” on the island then is some kind of very literal dissociated embodiment of his trauma, or whatever; like, Rey talks to Luke and gets nothing from him, Rey goes to the kelp pit and gets the same traumatic memory projector effect as she got from the lightsaber but x1000. Kelp pit is grief pit. Also instead of the porgs retrieving the lightsaber it would have washed up in the sea cave there, obviously. Also logically the pit should be under the tree/temple/whatever, I don’t know why the pit wouldn’t be under the tree. OH maybe there is no tree and Luke destroyed it years ago lmao. And is like, somewhat sheepish about this, but not that sheepish. Luke gives an actual cogent argument for why the Jedi need to end + a description of what it’s like to be submerged in the Force and be tempted, constantly, by the ‘destiny’ the Force recommends, even after having already failed—he wanted to restart the school! He dreamed of finding other children to replace the dead students! He couldn’t bear the hope, so he cut himself off. Rey: “… it’s nothing like that for me. are you sure that was the Force. btw there’s a mirror underground here and it hates you.” The ROTJ parallel isn’t Luke and Vader / Rey and Kylo, it’s Rey distractedly, bemusedly saving Luke.

(As far as the Kylo backstory goes, uhhhh, my problem is that I really LIKE “Kylo thought Luke was going to kill him” from the Kylo side, it’s a classic fucked-up thing triggers massively fucked-up reaction type scenario, my favorite, but I Just. Cannot. Do It. with any amount of finagling. on Luke’s. And all the stopgaps I’m coming up with are ridiculous. “Snoke makes a projection of Luke attack Kylo, foreshadowing Luke’s projection of himself at the end” “Snoke makes a projection of SNOKE attack Luke, Kylo tries to ‘defend’ Luke and accidentally blows up the temple, foreshadowing his failure to blow up Luke’s projection at the end” These are all so bad. I’m realizing that I cut the Luke-projecting-himself element. Maybe uhhhhhh Luke realized that Snoke had been tampering with Ben’s mind and tried to temporarily cut off Ben’s access to the Force >_ Or asked Ben to close off the Force and Ben interpreted that as a threat, rapidly escalated things into a physical confrontation, pretty much accidentally did serious injury to Luke, and then panicked? I don’t know that’s still pretty shitty but I like the idea of this then leading to the world’s most melodramatic self-punishment on the subject, also could tie into “the vanity of the Jedi, thinking they own the Force!”)

0k that’s my tentative proposition. Luke explains this to Rey in five minutes or less, she’s like, “bye,” jumps down the hole. She is crying the whole time for reasons probably. For the record, I would keep a lot of the stuff with Kylo’s and her minds being bridged, or at least I would keep the fact of them being linked all throughout her time on the island—actually, wait, I got it, Kylo is one of the things waiting on the other side of Luke’s severed bonds, so when she goes to the pit she accidentally picks up on that. BTW the Force speech Luke gives her would be all about “bonds” and would be MUCH more Orson Scott Card as a consequence. So now Kylo’s manipulation to the tune of, When I was a child, the galaxy was so silent. Mother was there, and Uncle Luke was there, and everywhere else, silence. Don’t you know what it’s like to be alone? Imagine if someone had asked you—to shut your ears—and she’s like I STAYED ON JAKKU FOR 23 YEARS and smashes the mirror

Luke, extremely Force-hungover: oh

AND THUS, HUT EXPLOSION.

Then Rey and Luke have some kind of excitable shouted conversation in the pouring rain where Luke is like “he’s looking for me!” “YEAH, HE’S LOOKING FOR YOU.” “no, you don’t understand—he’s looking for me!” “HE’S LOOKING AT YOU RIGHT NOW, ACTUALLY.” “but he wasn’t—he disappeared for years! he did take my advice, in the worst way possible! i feel so connected!” “ARGHHHHH”

luke + rey pilot the millennium falcon resistanceward, she discovers he is also a backseat driver

Finn plot: I assumed in the first five minutes of the movie that the way the First Order was “tracking” the Resistance was through Finn, and I still think that makes the most sense/offers the easiest dramatic tension. I mean it’s cheap but whatever this is still a hypothetical Disney movie we’re talking about. Uh… I don’t know there are a bunch of directions you could take this but like … I guess playing on Rose’s initial hero-worship of Finn, make it a thing where… mm. Finn convinces her that the reason he’s sneaking onto an escape pod is because he’s nobly trying to save the Resistance by removing his implanted tracking beacon from the ship (there is no such device and he’s making this up, to the best of his knowledge); she comes up with the plan to uncouple the devices on-site, if they can sneak aboard the ship, because he’s Finn and it’s so important that he escape finally and for real! he makes up a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about First Order security and an expert codebreaker who might be their only hope, planning to lose her on Canto Bight; on Canto Bight, they have some uncomfortable conversation about growing up as slaves and the appeal of the Resistance, Finn maybe assuming that Rose joined for her sister’s sake? wrongly, blah blah extended annoying conversation about how there’s protecting the actual person and then there’s protecting the things that person would want to protect; Lando Calrissian arrests them for parking violations halfway through the conversation, which continues in the prison, where small child jailers throw bones and debris at them; he tries to ditch her in the confusion of the prisonbreak, she catches up to him and is Very Betrayed; then the First Order scoops them up because it turns out they were using Finn to track the Resistance, and the reason they managed to do so even at lightspeed was because Kylo Ren could detect Finn’s force signature. Because of how Force-sensitive Finn is.

Cue tragicomic re-recruitment sequence in which we POSSIBLY meet some of the other Knights of Ren, and also, Phasma is there, “helping.” Phasma: it’ll be just like endurance training! You LOVED endurance training! You did so well on all your diagnostics! Finn: …………………….

Finally Kylo kicks everyone else out and is very casually like hey are you and Rey force-bonded because for some reason she’s stopped talking to me and I’d really love to consult her about somethinggggg, I was wondering if she’d trust me more if I already had your support! Don’t you want revenge? I’m going to kill Snoke. It turns out my uncle loved me!

Finn: should you just say that

Kylo: I’ve been thinking it every day for the past fifteen years so I doubt he’s too worried

Finn: DO YOU NOT SEE THE ISSUE HERE

then unfortunately right at that moment he does actually hear Rey’s voice in his head. Some prior buildup with Rey actively reaching out toward Finn before that and being SUPER FRUSTRATED to constantly get Kylo. Rey: Finn, don’t worry, Master Luke has a plan, we’re coming for you! We’re .… . . crashlanding in the main docking bay and being arrested. Oh my g

I’m basically picturing Luke, like, uselessly draped over several stormtroopers’ unwilling arms because he’s so high on being In Tune With The Force Again, and oh btw the stormtroopers received orders to toss Luke to Kylo but bring Rey straight to Snoke—Kylo: fuck!!! He weirdly ignores Luke, seeming satisfied now that he’s gotten his validation from him. So then Finn and Luke are left alone under guard and Kylo storms off to confront Snoke.

Luke: mmmmmmmm. huh. hello.

Finn: Hey quick q if I’m so fucking Force-sensitive why can’t I read minds and control people’s wills

Luke: [surprised voice] Can’t you? I thought you didn’t want to

Finn: OH MY GOD, I HATE YOU PEOPLE

Luke: Or I could blow up all the electronics in this room, hold on

(later in the chase sequence finn mindcontrols hux and is like “oh god it was so SLIMY like holding an eel”)

Probably some dumb climax where Snoke makes a pitch to Rey re: Luke not training her, which is a true established thing in this version of TLJ, and tells Rey to kill Kylo because he (Snoke) can only afford one apprentice. Rey: are u serious, I actually kind of don’t want to murder him at this point, it seems like a lot of hassle. I want to learn, and you and Luke both suck—Kylo won’t you teach me

(Luke as Finn hauls him across, likely, a catwalk: Do you remember feeling like you couldn’t fit in, like you were always different? The one person you knew who wasn’t part of a whole?

Finn: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Luke: I’ll tell you a secret. That’s because you’re part of something bigger. Something much bigger than your squad, or Hux’s army, or even the Resistance. But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Finn: is it the jedi.

Luke: no. NO. i said BIGGER)

To be fair to Rian Johnson, I have no clue how to write a satisfying multipart star wars climax. something something where Kylo explodes grandpa’s lightsaber in order to finish off Snoke, and I guess takes unconscious Rey prisoner, is realistically how I would end this?? The triumphant Lando-restocked Resistance decloaks, but the First Order fleet turns tail and runs after a few rounds? Finn deliberately uses the Force to find Rose and trace a (reluctant, angry) path through the disintegrating star destroyer, goes with Luke and Rose on the Millennium Falcon, having fought off Phasma but sort of in a hurry? Rose maybe killed Hux? Idk what the reasoning for Finn agreeing to leave Rey would be, other than I guess “the awareness that Kylo wants to use him to manipulate her, however ineptly.” Rose probs involved somehow. Rose: It’s still important that you escaped. Finn: I HAVEN’T GOTTEN AWAY ONCE

end scene where Finn has just finished an offscreen argument with Luke about Luke training him in the Force, and therefore comes to Leia

end-end scene where they all hear Rey’s voice at once because she picked up telepathic specialization from Snoke, because it’s traditional that Rey gain wild new Force powers in every movie purely through observation.

end-end-end scene where Luke has an audibly two-sided argument with Anakin’s ghost behind a closed door (“I’m not the last Jedi. I should have been, but I’m not. It’s my duty—” “what duty. it’s been ten years you haven’t answered my calls” “Daaad.”)

Start of the next movie: Kylo: You know, I used our telepathic bond to mislead Snoke. Rey: cool, don’t care. Kylo: It is ironic because of how he used that same bond to manipulate me. Rey: RED MEN ARE GLISTENING

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Poe plot: Can someone else do this one

[scenesplitterworld-blog]

It’s Not About the Shape – It’s About the Lie (An investigation into why flat earth hip-hop may seem merely stupid, but might actually be dangerous too: Electric Bugaloo)

Author’s Disclaimer: I’m sure that, like most people, most flat earthers are fine. Most people who rap about the shape of the place we all live on are probably fine. I acknowledge that the two dudes I profile in this investigation are probably the ISIS of your conspiracy movement. If you come across this article, and you’re a regular John or Jane Q. Flat Earther, please understand that your willfully ignorant belief has some truly disgusting expressions and intellectual underpinnings. So, with quite a bit of conscious irony, if you are a “moderate” flat earth truther, I exhort you to denounce your radically anti-Semitic fringe, particularly Eric Dubay. It may be a shitty presumption on my part, but I just assume that even you, hypothetical, humdrum Dale or Erma P. Flat Earther, are the kind of person to constantly post to FacePage that “moderate Muslims” must unceasingly denounce Al-Qaeda. And if, havin’ read through this, you’re the kind of person who’ll accuse me of being a “SJW” because I think promoting Holocaust denial is hugely problematic, eat shit; die mad with stank breath. But, if you’re a hardcore ODD TV or Dubay boy, please come at me, I’ll gladly take whatever you consider lumps. All that said, let’s listen to some real fringe fuckin’ hip-hop, shall we?

               I’ll bet most folks view people who believe the earth isn’t really round as nothing more than loons and larks. That’s how I started. Owing to a strange encounter I had with a feller at a show last winter, I had a picture of flat earth truthers as young, isolated, drunk, white dudes with dreadlocks wearing kneepads over their jeans saying gross things to pretty ginger gals. I was a little worried, but still mostly tickled, to discover that there’s a largish community of believers online. If you don’t get into the weeds of what belief in the flat earth entails, it’s easy to laugh it off as mere ignorant buffoonery, but, whoooooo boy, if you examine it closely, you’re in for one of the wildest, and surprisingly disturbing, rides of your life.

                 I stepped through the looking glass on accident, when I stumbled on this music video, “Cartoon Ball,” by ODD TV. At first, I clowned on it. Of course I did. Did you watch it? Christ. Dude’s shirt says “Never Sleep Again,” and he really looks like he ain’t slept because he’s in the early, still exciting days of a meth bender. I sent this video to friends and shared it on my timeline because I wanted to spread the chuckles. To be fair to ODD TV, I think he’s got legitimate talent. Not just on this track, but also throughout his catalogue, he’s got a catchy flow and his songs show a deft use of samples – for example, in the bluntly titled song, “Dear NASA, Why Are You Lying,” he takes the lyric “Space may be the final frontier, but it’s made in a Hollywood basement” from Red Hot Chili Pepper’s song “Californication,” and using that in a song about how the earth is actually not globe-shaped is, artistically, fairly dope. Not at all what the funky, cock-socked, SoCal, alt-rock, boys had in mind when they wrote the song, but that’s ODD TV’s genius. His video production, likewise, is slick. It’s much slicker than this other flat earther we’re gonna scrutinize in a sec, but one thing these guys share, which, I gotta say, is utterly derivative of almost every other conspiracy theorist with social media accounts, is referencing the Rowdy Roddy Piper flick, They Live. Guys. Give it a moratorium, right now, y’all have made it lazy.  

              Anyway, I got my giggles and moved on, right? Obviously not. After my mirth settled down, I found myself returning to “Cartoon Ball,” and for all my above praise, I wasn’t watching this weird shit again because I was real into the music. Nah, I think it was this lyric in particular: “God created the heavens and the earth / in a verse / but we’re livin’ in a Freemasonic Galaxy.” ODD TV doesn’t get into what he means by that, exactly, in this video – although, he gets into in in his oeuvre, bet your ass on that – because he’s focused mostly on rallying the viewer against NASA.

              But, on repeat viewing, you know, I caught this brief WTF nugget – a what the fugget, if you will: “We follow rapists and murderers / liars, thieves, and sun worshipers / sayin’ we can’t see curvature / ‘cause we’re all too small.” It’s the sun worshippers part that’s the sore thumb, right? Well, get ready for that sore thumb’s equally sore counterpart when ODD TV raps that believers in a spherical planet are “Stuck in the material domain of Satan.”

              Well, little ol’ me, Alice Donkey Boy Croix, was drawn further into the flat earth hip-hop scene by YouTube’s helpful recommendation. Oh, what a twisted Wonderland that turned out to be. But store those what the fuggets away for later use, Beloved Reader, they’ll crash back into pertinence again directly. Presently, we need to turn to how things got soooooo much more goddamned bonkers. The other cat I referenced briefly earlier, his name’s Eric Dubay, and he’s just about the whole rest of the haul of our investigation. So, settle in to peep this video, “Once You Go Flat.”

                Holy. Steaming. Shit. Y’all. Good. God. Damn.

              Right?

              Sorry to spring that diarrhea spray of hippo shit at you without much warning, but I wanted you to be as utterly gob-smacked as I was when Holocaust denial enters into things…and continues to spiral out from there. And just in case THAT was somehow an aberration from his mean, I watched this one. If you watched the first one, you already know to brace yourself, but, I cannot really stress enough that he, whew, he doubles down.

   So, let’s shelve the vegetarian polemic and uh…yeah…that was the most hardcore anti-Semitic thing I’ve ever experienced in musical form. Oh, you too? Neat. Look at us, Gentle Mentals, with all this shit in common!

              So, that video left my jaw on the fuckin’ floor, and that’s when I went over to www.ericdubay.com. I can neither confirm nor deny that visiting this page puts you on any sort of NSA list, but if the NSA is keeping tabs (hello, special agent, how are ya), it maybe should focus some attention on the shit our boy Dubay’s proudly posted here. Red flag it if you ain’t already, you may thank me later. Imagine that! The federales thanking little ol’ me!  

   BTW: we’re “in country” now, so maybe get your tin-foil helmet on.

              A few sick bars and a shocking affinity for the OG Nazis ain’t the only radical thing about our boy Dubay. He moves in circles so fringe that they consider Alex Jones to be part of the “controlled opposition.” Dubay’s even a truther against other flat earth truthers. He goes hard on The Flat Earth Society for being “controlled opposition,” by pointing out the idiocy of their theory for what is really going on with “gravity” on a flat earth, which is that the earth is like a pizza crust tossed continually upwards, so…things don’t really fall, they’re just kind of suspended until the ground catches up to them. Yeah. The idea of controlled opposition is that you get a shill to be a very vocal idiot in order to discredit the more “legitimate” conspiracy investigators who have come too close to the truth. But who controls the controlled opposition? Remember when I told you to remember ODD TV’s reference to the Freemasons? The Sun Worshipers? The Satanists? Dubay says it’s them. He says that both The Flat Earth Society and NASA are chock full of Masons, Masons who are behind these lies. He claims NASA agents – whatever those are – have murdered flat earth truthers to maintain their grip on this elaborate illusion. And, in a series of infographics, he ain’t shy in explicitly linking these nefarious Masons directly to, you saw it, the Jews. He’s one of these New World Order, Jew World Order types. I realized I tossed that off kinda casually – he’s just one of those types – but let me assure you, I don’t do it dismissively. Dubay compares the way this global Jewish cabal runs the world’s affairs to the orchestrated sturm und drang of televised professional wrestling.

              So you gotta wonder why lying about the shape of the earth is so important to our crypto-kosher overlords. I sure as fuck needed to know the answer to that myself, and, like any conspiracy theorists before him, this is where Dubay stumbles somewhat. He’s got 200 proofs for the truth of the flat earth, but he’s less articulate as towards the damnable “why” of it all. As I’ve been able to understand of his position, Eric Dubay believes we’re indoctrinated with the spinning globe model of cosmology, because if the global elite of Freemasonic Zionists can brainwash everybody on such a fundamental level as the ground beneath our feet, they can deceive and control us in any other sinister way they fuck well feel like.  

              Y’all, I’m a great many things. I’m not an astrophysicist, so, to be honest, I’m not really interested in engaging with the specifics of these dudes’ arguments regarding round versus flat, because – you know the Family Guy throwaway joke where Peter’s at the Cineplex helpfully pointing out when somebody in the movie says the movie’s title – to quote Mr. Dubay himself, “It’s not about the shape; it’s about the lie.”

              Before I get deeper into this shit – yeah, you thought you were down the rabbit-hole already – I want to point out that if you want to get all this from the horse’s mouth, the last twenty or so minutes of the two-hour FAQ video on his site is my source for all this. And since getting deeper into this gets pretty heavy, I think we need a bit of a levity break, so, I present a riff on a few screen grabs from that video.

               First of all, it’s hard to tell – among the things I am is poor of vision – it looks like the letter G has been replaced by the number 6 in the phrase “Sacred Geometry. The Great Architect of the Universe. Gravity.” 666 is metal, but in this case you’re using it in a way that’s way too mental to be heaviest, fam. The Jews are Satanists too, remember? Luciferian nonsense is a thing Alex Jones dabbles in also. Second, Pythagoras was the leader of a cult that worshiped numbers. Pythagoras literally had a motherfucker 86ed because he felt that the concept of pi was blasphemous and threatening to him personally as a cult leader. The reason I’m scratching my head is that you might know pi as a pretty foundational concept in calculating the circumference of the globe. Globe. So, if he’s part of a cabal bent on convincing you the world is round, why would he be so violently opposed to that squiggly little Stonehenge-lookin’, 3.14 on to infinitum meanin’, mathematical concept that would support the whole damn thing? Anyway, here’s another.

              I think this is supposed to be an Illuminati thing, but all it proves to me is that many people have fingers, and covering one eye is an easy way to look mysterious and sexy. It’s not like they’re all holding their hands the same way either. If a person were to try to argue that Eric Dubay himself is part of the controlled opposition, I think this could be evidence of “too dumb to be serious.”

              But I wanna get serious again. Back to the investigation. I wanted to know what made this dude tick. Call yourselves Ishmael, because ol’ Dubay became my white whale, only in this version, I think we spear the shit out of Moby Dick. Truly, I believe that in the final portions of that long ass video I’ve been talking about, we see into his core – and unlike the molten core of the round earth we sheeple foolishly believe in – the heart of Eric Dubay is a frozen, Jotunheim-esque, barren fearscape.

              Eric Dubay’s animating impulse is this: a deep, incomprehensible terror that humanity has no purpose in existence. He believes that subscription to the ideas of the Big Bang and subsequent evolution of life on earth via the mechanism of natural selection is subscription to a fundamentally nihilistic outlook; if humanity has no reason – as he sees reason – to be, the crisis in his soul would be too great to bear. And, sure, I get that. But he has not coped well with that adolescent existential angst. If the universe is a vast and vastly complicated place, it’s a scary place to be at the fringe of, so, to bridge the rift of this Lovecraftian horror inside himself, he’s put himself at the center of debunking a conspiracy to shroud our planet’s central location in the universe; our planet’s non-rotating position, which is to say a position of stability. Stability. Think about how comforting a concept that is. Purpose. Stability. Simplicity. These are not abnormal desires, but our boy Dubay’s gone about attaining ‘em in an abnormally toxic fashion. And he’s certainly doing his damnedest to create the fellowship he craves though all his media outreach. Can’t blame a feller for not wanting to feel alone…but when Holocaust denial is such a big part of your identity, it’s – to put it politely – extremely fuckin’ troublesome that you want others to believe as you do.

              Dear reader, Gentle Mental, “Hypocrite Lecteur,”* if you’re wondering why the fuck any of this matters, this here’s that part of the article; buckle the fuck up. I believe that never before in human history has the battle against propaganda been more vital to the survival of the species. I’m typing this on Sunday, October 15, 2017, and the last headline I read was about Kim Jong threatening to bomb Guam if Trump don’t shut the fuck up about him on Twitter. We’ve got fucking lunatics at the trigger; we’ve got so much evidence that the Kremlin orchestrated the most effective “hearts and minds” campaign of the internet age; we’ve got tactics of division being employed by the most cynical and unhinged people of influence. So why should this flat earth shit matter? We’ve got all that more important shit I listed, right? Because flat earth’s your gateway conspiracy. Pretty soon, you’re hip-deep in the most virulent Protocols of the Elders of Zion bullshit.** Some conspiracy theorists have the…decency’s not the right word, so let’s start over. Some conspiracy theorists are crypto-anti-Semitic. OBVIOUSLY not our boy Dubay. Lemme quote from his song “Blood Rituals,” “You are blind, so fuck what you say / I’ll expose the flat earth and hail Hitler all day.” That’s so obviously dangerous, and the ideas of flat earth and anti-Semitism are so clearly linked, that we shouldn’t need to dwell, so I’ll move us along with this tossed out aside: fuck you, Richard Spencer, for ruining Tiki Torches, but thank you for being conveniently illustrative of the point that being a ringleader for Nazi sympathizers does in fact correlate to assholes in the street beating people and murdering them indiscriminately with cars.

 *Editor’s Note: Goddamnit, DB! After I chewed your ass for quoting Yeats that last time, you have the nerve to bring this Baudelaire shit to the table? I want a picture of Spider Man on my desk TOMORROW!!

 **Author’s Note: For an wonderfully illuminating examination of the history and influence of Protocols of the Elders of Zion, I highly recommend the July 27, 2017 episode of a podcast called Knowledge Fight. (http://knowledgefight.libsyn.com/size/25/?search=Protocols+of+the+elders+of+zion) Hosts Jordan and Dan do a thorough job of linking this fraudulent document DIRECTLY to Alex Jones’ framing of his favorite nemesis, the Globalist bogeymen, and even David Icke’s Reptilians. Do yourself a favor and dive into this podcast whole hog.

                Provided that even one fewer gullible cocksucker buys into the dangerous worldviews of somebody like ODD TV, Alex Jones, or Eric Dubay, I will deem all efforts to expose their nonsense worthwhile, valid, and necessary. I don’t believe I’m virtue signaling when I speak out in order to shed light on hucksters’ efforts to spread dangerous racial, religious, or national divisions. It isn’t trivial to examine how those divisions may be spread insidiously as the necessary expression of these ideas; symptoms of the cancer, boils on the ass of the corpus scientia. Alex Jones is right about at least one thing: we are fighting an info war. He’s on the wrong side of it, to be sure, but it’s the same sort of info war Mike Pence fought in when he performed his indignant pageant at the ball game. And I don’t think that in speaking against any of this nonsense I’m beating a dead horse. And I believe that speech is action. If I reiterate a point, it is at least my humble intention to bring new nuance. I believe that the one person who was teetering on the fence but saw the truth of these bonkers narratives could be the one person who might have otherwise been the next to take a gun to something like a DC pizza joint to find out if interdimensional, shape shifting, child-molesting, psychic vampires run the government. Or do something so much more tragic in the name of bringing down whatever conspiracy it is they’ve been taken in by.

              This’s the rock I reckon I’ll die on, should anybody respectfully disagree. Thank you for your time, Gentle Mentals, friends, fiends, and foes alike. It’s time to pray.

[poipoi1912]

Stabler-centric thoughts on Ep 18x13

Transformation complete. From Nu Munch to Nu Stabler, in just 13 episodes!

:D

Seriously though, surprisingly long post ahead: (I would cut it down, but I don’t have the time or the patience)

Carisi-centric thoughts on Ep 18x13 

First things first: what the fuck happened to Barba's chocolates? Biggest disappointment of the night. The official SVU account is not to be trusted.

Overall thoughts

Decent episode. It had some issues*, but it was reasonably, well, not terrible. Probably a little above average for Season 18’s standards. 

*starting with the issues, to get them out of the way: too much rapist(s), not enough victim. We got to see if the rapist (the first rapist) was “okay” with a plea for rape 2, and he “admirably” said he deserved that punishment, but we never got to see if the victim was okay with that. We never got to see the victim again, period. We don’t know if and how she is coping. She was a total afterthought. We did see the other victims, during the trial, but that was just to poke holes in their stories. It seems that’s the only reason we ever see a victim, in S18. Not to see how they can overcome their rape as survivors, but to make them appear unreliable for the sake of plot twists.

Anyway.

Barba thoughts

I joke about Sonny going from Munch to Stabler, but I’m not joking when I say that Barba is going from Cabot to Novak. Seriously, Barba went from fierce and flawless Ice Queen Alexandra Cabot, who won every case and didn’t give a shit, to earnest but messy Casey Novak, a half-decent lawyer who loses every other case but it's okay because we love her. and i do love her :’)

Barba doesn’t really lose cases, but he never wins them on his own merits (with the sole exception of Making a Rapist, when he got the mother’s testimony on the stand, about 7 years ago, when that episode aired). It’s always Liv, saving the day. Even in episodes which are spent mostly in the courtroom, there are no legal victories. No big moment in which Barba argues the fuck out of a case. He just utters a few snarky tidbits like “Bunny,” so we can all admire Raul’s sass, and then he loses (like he lost the motion about confidentiality) or he wins because of something Liv did.

Has Barba gone soft, not to mention less competent, on purpose, or is this poor characterization? that’s a rhetorical question btw

The Legal Side of SVU

Why does this season waste all these semi-interesting cases? Why did we spend the entire rape trial debunking the victim statements, instead of watching Barba argue the law? I was expecting the “rape gene” theory to figure more heavily into the trial, but it never did. Why not? Why waste that opportunity?

The earlier scene with the minister on the stand, that was way more fun to watch (mostly because it didn’t involve victim-blaming). Why do all these cases, which could be considered vague (and therefore exciting) from a legal standpoint, get reduced to arguing the boring facts, like a suspect’s height? Same thing happened with Imposter, an episode which could have been a million times more interesting, if only it had focused on the law.

For instance, Sonny suggested another case offscreen, and Barba dismissed it offscreen, and we never got to find out what it was. Why bother introducing legally murky cases if you're not going to bother presenting the arguments? Rick Eid is a lawyer, but I can barely tell from watching. He only scrapes the surface. I'm a much younger lawyer, and totally inexperienced when it comes to criminal law, and I still routinely come up with, like, three more things Barba could have done or said in each episode.

But, in fairness, I do have to say the minister/confidentiality theory, as well as the AA comparison, that was actually smart. It was the only unique touch in terms of plot, and they even set it up well, with the prayer, or whatever that was, as Rollins and Carisi were surveilling the group on that earlier scene. That raised my expectations, as did Barba’s argument that the guy was a only being a minister as a hobby (now that’s a fun argument to make!), so the return to mundane victim blaming later on disappointed me even more.

On to Sonny:

Sonny’s Temper

I've said it before (and used the SpongeBob gifs to illustrate it), but there is nothing in Sonny's characterization this season that could be viewed as an organic progression of the Sonny from Seasons 16 and 17. Nor has there been anything plot- or character-related which would justify such a stark change (please no one mention Dodds unless you want to make me laugh).

When is the last time Sonny cracked a smile that wasn’t sarcastic? Remember when Amaro was the angry stereotype, and he'd argue with Barba or Amanda, and Sonny would try to defuse the situation with a joke? Now Sonny has picked up the mantle of Angry Cop. Which, I mean... Sonny, gurl, if Amanda freakin’ Rollins has to scold you about being insubordinate to your superiors, that means you’ve taken it about eighteen steps too far (wait, do the writers remember how she used to talk back to Liv and Dodds? Probably not.)

Sonny and Empathy

Where? 👀 Shouldn’t Sonny have talked to that Will kid more gently? Instead of saying “I’m not a priest or a shrink, just gimme the information, goddammit”? Sonny usually cozies up to perps. This kid wasn’t even a criminal, and Sonny was treating him aggressively, when it was obvious he was fragile and would probably respond better to a milder approach. Which brings me to:

Sonny and Continuity

Sonny told Will (still in a very pointed way, when I was expecting a more casual, if not cordial approach) that the “next” rape “will be on him,” if he didn’t testify. Might that be a callback to Sonny’s own guilt, since he believes the fact his bully murdered someone is “on him”? Even though that’s wrong? And it was extra wrong to lay that kind of a guilt trip on this Will kid? Or did the writers forget about Sonny’s past already?

The Barisi Corner

Barba gave Sonny a sassy look! Because Sonny over-explained a legal matter to show off! And then he sarcastically thanked Sonny! Classic S16 material. We are blessed!

“I don’t care about Barba”

Seriously though, Sonny said "I don't care about Barba", meaning he cares about the case more, or about the victim, even if that means making a colleague mad. And that’s fair, especially in the heat of the moment. But this is coming a week after Barba's secret is (almost?) revealed, at least according to the original production order. What can we deduce from that?

I'd like to think (the old) Sonny would be more considerate when talking to a colleague who had recently been compromised, or gone through some type of emotional hardship. So, maybe Barba's secret never actually comes out? Maybe we learn it, as the audience, but it doesn't go public, so Barba ends up worrying over nothing?

Barba obviously doesn't lose his job, so maybe no one finds out (other than Liv, of course, because from that promo we know she tells Barba about the hacker). What if Sonny doesn't find out at all, and he doesn't even get to learn Barba has a secret to begin with? Could Barba's storyline run in parallel to the "main" case, with no other characters (other than Liv, of course) involved? That would be both disappointing (because the writers would be wasting yet another opportunity to integrate Barba and show he is a valued member of the team) and unsurprising (because, S18).

Of course there’s another option; maybe continuity is a non-factor and the writers just never bothered to write anything to further the “Barba’s secret” storyline past that one episode :D

Sonny’s Temper, Vol. 2

As Amanda noted, Sonny totally overreacted during that argument. Why would that be? Does he really think he knows better than Barba, on whether or not jurisprudence from another state is applicable or relevant? Like, that’s not an “opinion,” Sonny. And, even if it were, it’s Barba’s opinion which defines the prosecution’s strategy. If Sonny wants to make these decisions, he should quit the force and start prosecuting perps himself.

Which brings me to:

Sonny and the Law 

Dare I hope that’s what the argument was about? Is Sonny getting increasingly frustrated with the fact his job ends when he arrests a perp? That would be a great way to bring back his dilemma about becoming a prosecutor. This type of long-running professional frustration would perfectly explain why he snapped like that. It wasn’t about him knowing better than Barba, it was about him wishing he could be doing Barba’s job. Or even thinking he should be doing it.

Apparently, Sonny researched the case, and he came up with an idea which he presented to Barba offscreen, thinking it could save the day. That’s going above and beyond, from a cop’s perspective. And then Barba rejected his idea without a single word, also offscreen, and that pissed him off. Maybe Sonny felt underappreciated, in terms of his legal skills. He is a licensed attorney, but he is not treated as such. Problem is, he is not a prosecutor, he is a cop, and that’s how he should be treated.

So, what if Sonny’s constant sour mood is because he’s unhappy where he is? Because he wants to do more, from a different position? Maybe that’s the reason for his changed demeanor, and it will be explicitly dealt with near the end of the season. lol yes I’m reaching for the stars, Sonny’s law aspirations will probably never be mentioned again

Stray Thoughts

Greg Germann was awesome! So evil and hot. Strauss gave Buchanan a run for his money. By the way, remember when he was an ADA? lol neither do the SVU writers. Why didn’t Barba at least tease him, for switching sides? Like he did to Calhoon (except for her it was the other way around, when she advocated for that victim in that one episode). It would have taken three seconds, and it would have added context.

What's that? Barba also had an abusive father? lol no one cares or remembers :D

Okay but, when Liv just popped up on that roof, out of fuckin’ nowhere, to deliver some angst and sell her backstory, totally overshadowing that kid? Classic Liv! (srsly tho she was great in this episode :D)

Speaking of, why didn’t we get a close-up of Sonny on that roof, after he found out about Liv’s history? He was right there! And that, too, would have taken three seconds. I was craning my neck to see his reaction, even though it was off-camera, lol. What a wasted opportunity to show how much he cares about Liv. Oh, and Amanda apparently found out offscreen (as if Liv would ever tell her, lol). This season does not give a single fuck about the squad dynamics.

Peter needs to do that botox thing people do between their eyebrows for their “11” lines, he’ll get wrinkles if he keeps frowning like that in every single one of his close-ups.

Amanda’s coats keep slaying me.

What a waste of Bill Irwin.

That first defense attorney is my fave! I wish he’d been in more scenes!