#but tbh even if she gets screentime I doubt some of these will be addressed

[distinguished-slacker]

Please ignore this post I am just creating a checklist for when Mitsuba will get screentime so I will know how many of the facts (including silly ones) I brought up these past years about her have been addressed:

☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️

Mitsuba’s demon debut (I hope it’s not another child-looking one…)

The mitsudomoe tattoo on her demon’s chest (does the tattoo imply the demon is Mitsuba’s or the Sangū clan’s possession? does Aoi’s demon have it too?)

Both fanbooks and the Bloody Blades game saying Mitsuba’s axe’s ability is to manifest an infinite number of demons (yet we only see her manifesting three at most so is she perhaps not using her cursed gear to its full potential or is it just Yamamoto not wanting to draw all that?)

Fanbook 8.5 stating there is no difference in strength between the demons of first to third rank (so Mitsuba’s demon shouldn’t be weaker than those of her squadmates)

What the hell was that time when some of her arm was sliced by Crowley, there was blood but then the next chapter she was surprised that there was no injury?

The similar names of Mitsuba and Aoi’s demons (note: Tenjiryū “Heaven-shaped dragon” and Chijiryū “Earth-shaped dragon”; are their demons perhaps related too? siblings? twins? halves of each other?)

Why is Mitsuba’s demon named after the sky and yet her manifestations come from the earth she cracks?

Why is Aoi’s cursed gear golden?

Why does the hilt of Aoi’s cursed gear have three-leaf clover symbol and drawings? (note: Mitsuba’s name means “three-leaf clover”)

Mitsuba backstory flashback chapter when?

The Sangū clan curse making all of its members blonde (note: the LN mentioned both hair colour-related curses of the Jūjō and Sangū clans but only the Jūjō’s backstory was explained)

Parents (were they good parents and why the hell did they appear out of nowhere?; judging by Mitsuba’s reaction to seeing them I feel like they were good…at least to her)

Did their parents name their daughters that way for a reason or was it just them being silly? (note: “Aoi” refers to a two-leafed plant while “Mitsuba” refers to a three-leafed plant yet they are the first and second daughters; is there perhaps another one?)

Why Mitsuba has such a bad relationship with Aoi?

Her feelings for Aoi

Did Kagami intentionally make Aoi start serve Kureto the same year Mitsuba was born? (Aoi was 7 at the time, the same age gap she has with Mitsuba, suggesting that Aoi was never around since Mitsu was born)

When did Mitsu join the army and how long did it take her to join the Vampire Extermination Unit?

Why did she join the army? (nepotism? forced to? had a desire to prove herself?; note: in one of the CD dramas Shinoa had to ask that question to her squad and Mitsuba was the only one who didn’t answer because she was too uncomfortable to say it)

How was her life with her previous squad?

How was her life after her squad died?

Why is she not loyal to the Hīragis?

When and under what circumstances did she meet Shinoa?

The weird stares she gives at Shinoa when she is with Yuu (I am placing my bets she is not jealous of Shinoa and rather she is just intrigued by her sudden emotional moments when she is with Yuu because the Shinoa she knows has always kept everyone at a distance…maybe she was also hurt that Shinoa appreciated more Yuu worrying for her in chapter 99 than Mitsuba worrying about her since Shinoa kinda half ignored her in chapter 86…also read a theory saying she fears Yuu and Shinoa getting together and leaving her behind just like Aoi did with Kureto)

Her feelings for Yuu (please don’t let her have an ‘officially confirmed’ crush on him)

Her feelings for Shinoa (note: in the fanbook 108 she said she worries for Shinoa the most and that Yuu comes second; it would be so good if she tried to get knock some sense into Shinoa for um…well, you know)

Her inferiority complex towards her squad

How she felt when abandoning the army

How she felt after failing to prevent Yuu from getting kidnapped

How she felt after being left alone when the war broke out

How she felt when she did was the only one of her squad to not contribute in the defeat of Shikama Dōji

If she is aware she is never contributing during conversations

Her view on the resurrection plan (is she actually going to resurrect her parents?)

Mitsuba’s desire

✔️: if the point is partially addressed

☑️: if fully addressed

✅: if one of the possibilities/theories mentioned becomes true

I hope that by the end of this year at least 2 of these points are addressed🤧 A lot of years ago Kagami said there is something awaiting Mitsuba and in the autograph session last Autumn he confirmed he has plans for her. So let me hope🥹…

[dorovahkiin]

Dear Doro you make a very friendly and personable impression. There really must be more people like you in the SNK fandom. Then the fandom would be much more relaxed.I am glad that you are a Reiner-stan. He's always been my favorite. And a very handsome man.I would like to know how you feel about Historia. Her whole development in the time-skip is ... sad to say the least. Is there still hope for her? Does she survive? Will she at least find some kind of hope with her child? My second question

Hi dear anon 💕

Thank you so much for your kind words, it means a lot to me.

Nice to hear Reiner is your fav, this man can't get enough appreciation!!

Now to your question... I think Historia's arc is not savable anymore. Why?

The point of "development" is to go along with a character through time and and get to know what they are going through, understanding them etc., and seeing how they eventually grow or regress.

The problem with Historia however is that we barely saw her since uprising and barely got any POV from her. We speculate how she feels since ages, but in the end we do not know for sure since Isayama doesn't tell clearly. That's also the reason the fandom is fighting so much over Historia's arc and how it will end.

Even if we were not supposed to know about genocide pre 123 he could have delivered something else from Historia's POV that's not her just sitting on a chair and being irrelevant to the story.

So that's the first point. Even if Isayama gave her some sorts of development we did not witness it properly.

Second point (and that's the even bigger issue): There's only one chapter left and it has only the regular 45 pages.

I think we all expect to see her next chapter and to get her POV. But it will be very rushed. There are still other things to cover as well.

For me it would have been savable if we now got several chapters dedicated to her, seeing her development and POV in retrospective, but of course also in the present and future. But that won't happen and instead Isayama will probably squeeze it into a few pages. And that's very disappointing and underwhelming because it feels forced and you can't really feel with the character because there is no time to breathe. Even if her POV is not that relevant for the whole story (we don't know that yet though, but at this point I doubt it) I'd still expect it for the sake of the character Historia.

I want to witness a character's development WHILE the character is going through it.

Now to the content aspects you asked.

Imo Historia has to survive. I think her arc is about having a future and creating it the way she wants it. Decide for herself. Her dying after no screentime would be underwhelming and senseless to say the least.

That's just my opinion, I know other people don't agree and actually want her dead to reunite with Ymir. But I think even Ymir doesn't want it and wants Historia to live as long as possible instead, but the way she wants and not living a dictated life like it's now.

If she still dies that's not only tragic, but imo just bad writing because of the lack of screentime she had before. Regressing a character can be well written (Eren for example), but let us witness it at least. Otherwise it's just very hard to follow and almost impossible to feel with the character.

I hate the whole pregnancy plot and thought the pregnancy was fake for the longest time because it just has so many holes. At this point I think Isayama just made her pregnant to sideline her which is sad.

Historia has a big heart for kids and I think she will love her kid either (and not treat it the way her mum treated her), but the problem is here again we won't see much of it in only 45 pages. We also need to know what happened after the 130 convo with Eren that got cut. I don't believe in AnR or Eren being the father and I think at this point the question is irrelevant anyways.

I'm just so disappointed in the lack of her screentime.

And this is the best example to show what snk's biggest weakness was recently in general:

The lack of proper character focus, development and character interactions. It's either rushed and feels forced or he doesn't address some topics at all that would be important for a character's individual development. At the same time the story pacing is almost too slow. Maybe that's a post for another day, I could make a whole list about it.

So I'm still looking forward to Historia's POV, but tbh I don't expect much anymore. Even if it is a well written POV it will simply be too rushed.

What was your second question again? The text got kinda cut.

Thank you and sorry for the long text!

💕✨

[gra-sonas]

malex as important as echo? since when?

They have been important since the pilot, but imo they are not treated with the same importance as Echo.

I’m grateful that she fought for the kiss, that there never was a shadow of a doubt that Malex had history, and that their love is far from over. I’m also glad she’s finally acknowledging that Malex actually are as important as Echo.

But the fact is: so far they've been treated very differently from Echo. And not just in the sense that Echo are front and center on billboards and in promo pics (ahead of S1 they used romantic!Echo pics to promote RNM, long before they even got together on the show), while we had to photoshop our own Malex promo poster with a pic Jeanine shared bc there isn’t a single official Malex promo pic.

So far, Malex have been denied any attempt at an adult relationship (I don’t count those few off screen days between 1x02 and 1x03 they supposedly spent together, if anything they reconnected and fuckedmade sweet love, but it wasn’t a relationship), while Echo were in a relationship for almost 2 seasons (sure, Max was dead for a hot second, but Liz didn’t stop loving him and focused everything on bringing him back).

Malex got thrown into a triangle, while Liz/Kyle and Cam/Max ended before Echo even started, and their love for each other hasn’t been challenged by other possible romantic partners since.

Malex had an entire season of one of them in a relationship with someone else, and in all likelihood they’ll go through at least half, maybe an entire season of the same with the roles reversed in S3.

Echo so far got lots of romantic screentime, while Malex mostly struggled, “broke up”, were forced into a triggering threesome, and overall have been denied real happy moments. In the S2 finale Michael stated “It’s a sad story, me and Alex.”

He isn’t wrong tbh, the writers have done everything in their power to keep them miserable and pile more trauma on them (hello Caulfield), when so far they didn’t even have a meaningful discussion about what happened to them all those years ago, and how they could possibly overcome it.

Which is also something that is often forgotten: Jesse and the shed happened to them, they didn’t bring that onto themselves, but the shed, and subsequently Michael’s role in the cover up of Rosa’s murder, made them carry a weight the size Echo never had to deal with - in fact Max, who decided to cover up the murders instead of calling the police (Michael’s suggestion), didn’t face any consequences other than “losing” Liz, which, all things considered, was unpleasant, but not exactly traumatic.

Michael on the other hand lost so much more that day/night:

a real shot at starting a better life by going to university, and towards Isobel he carried the burden of the lie that it had been him who killed the girls to spare her the pain.

the ability to play guitar, the one thing helping him to make things go quiet. His crippled hand a constant and painful reminder of what had happened in the shed.

Alex. The shed incident made Jesse force Alex to enlist. And due to Michael handling the murder cover up trauma badly (+ his abandonment issues stemming from his childhood), he didn’t even get to say goodbye (his decision, but still)

Don’t get me wrong, Echo’s love is not without complications, they are not together atm for a reason (or rather a number of reasons), but Malex have been deemed “unhealthy”, “not good for each other”, even “toxic” from the beginning, and we’re constantly told they have to develop further (apart from each other) before there’s even the possibility of them getting a shot at a relationship.

Because that’s what people who are in love do? Instead of trying to make things work, they decide to date other people for a while to get better for each other? I don’t think so.

It also makes no sense since the issues that are keeping them apart won’t ever be properly addressed or solved while one or both of them is/are in a relationship with someone else. It’s also unfair to the third party. It shouldn’t be their job to “fix" their partner so that they can move on to the person they actually love.

The mantra of Malex “not being good enough” for each other [yet] is one that is repeated ad nauseum by the writers and even some fans to justify that they still haven’t started their journey of getting together (all in the name of “but it’s a TV show, it’s how they work”. Yeah,  well, I call BS on that. It doesn’t have to be like that. They could tell an amazing slowburn story without involving other romantic partners for either of them. I’ve read a million fanfics where that was done rather beautifully).

Malex are always reduced to their shared trauma (which is actually QUEER trauma caused by homophobia, something the show has also failed to address in detail yet), and no matter what they do, it’s never good enough for them to earn a shot at a relationship. Even now, after Jesse’s finally dead and they destroyed the shed together - a symbol of their shared pain - and Alex sang his heart out and declared his love for Michael, they are sent in different directions again.

The bar of when they will finally be “good enough” for each other is constantly moved. They are measured against some unspecified “relationship ideal” they never seem to be able to reach. On a scale of 1-100, how far do they both have to make it to be deemed “good enough” for each other?

It’s a writing choice to keep them apart. Probably bc it’s less work than writing a meaningful “moving towards each other” story. Instead  there’s yet another relationship thrown in the mix as an obstacle (CAMs words, not mine) that has to run its course before they can start their “moving towards each other” journey (maybe, no promises, I’m sure they can come up with another dumb reason to delay that).

Either way, are they important? 100% yes! Are they as important as Echo? To a degree. They are undoubtedly the second OTP of the show. But the way their relationship (or rather lack thereof) is treated, differs vastly from Echo, who don’t have to jump through a million hoops to be together.

And so far it doesn’t look like S3 will change that.

[elixir448]

Good Girls 3x06 Thoughts (Will I ever get these up after the episode? Nope)

Good Girls 3x04 and 3x05 Thoughts Here

So lemme tell you.This post was basically finished and then I accidentally deleted it and have spent the last few hours typing it all out again. I’m just...yeah.

Dean and Au Jus

I know that a lot of people feel that Dean talking about cancer and chemotherapy costs would have been the perfect moment for Beth to scathingly bring up his lie about having cancer. While I acknowledge that it could have worked and all of us have been wanting to see this since he blurted out that he had cancer in season 1, there are a few reasons why I wouldn’t have wanted the issue raised in this scene:

1. I think it would have trivialised the depth of such a betrayal.

2. This scene was about Beth’s reaction to Lucy’s death and having to dig up her body, clean her face with baby wipes and then take a photo of it in order to unlock her phone and convince her kind-hearted boyfriend, who she loved, that she is still alive and wants nothing to do with him. This has nothing to do with Dean or his lies and it has everything to do with Lucy and the weight of her death on Beth’s shoulders. Why should it be about Dean? Despite the fact that he is in the scene, it actually has nothing to do with him.

3. I do wonder if the cancer lie will ever be addressed, mainly because I think Beth felt so guilty over Dean being shot by Rio that she essentially let it slide. Even in 2x05, when she finds out that Dean had multiple affairs rather than just one, she pointedly does not raise it. Perhaps it’s because she only found out about it in the lead up to her confrontation with Rio and Dean in 1x10, so bringing it up would essentially force her to think about Dean being shot before she even had a chance to confront him about it personally. I do think that Beth and Dean are going to go their separate ways this season, romantically I mean. There was some unconfirmed information floating about that the show was looking to cast an actor as young Dean and I think, if that’s true, any flashbacks probably would have been as a prelude to these two ending their romantic relationship for good. If it is true, I’m even more annoyed that the last few episodes couldn’t be filmed. Anyway, the way I see it, when Beth and Dean’s romantic relationship ends as a storyline, I think it will be a decision borne of weariness rather than resentment.

Also, I just need to say that I kind of love that Dean is getting so many scenes with Au Jus and kind of love seeing him with the bird. He seems like such a proud father. I’m more invested in this storyline than I am in the four star hot tubs storyline and Gayle tbh. For now anyway.

The Hills

I’m really starting to understand what Manny meant when he said that he was most interested in what the writers are doing with Stan in this season.

As soon as Stan told Ruby that he might be able to become a cop again, I knew that he wouldn’t return. At least not immediately. There are probably two main reasons that will stop Stan from returning to the police force:

1. Disillusionment with law enforcement. In season 2, we saw Stan being confronted by a federal agent (Turner) who was threatening and absolutely willing to use underhanded tactics, such as false testimonies, to get Stan to do what he wanted.

2. Stan views himself as morally compromised and unfit to protect and serve. He knows that he’ll abuse his position and help Ruby if she needs it again.

Beth actually says to Ruby in this episode that Stan can’t be a cop again. Even though he obviously doesn’t know about this, I can really see the entire situation, and everything that has happened since they robbed Fine and Frugal, lead to a pretty tense conversation between Beth and Stan in the next episode:

Lemme tell you, I gasped when I saw this promo image for 3x07, especially given the fact that Reno has said that we’ll get to see a little of Beth and Stan interacting in this season. It’s actually one of my hiatus wishes and I feel like we’re all anticipating their scenes together. I mean, Beth and Ruby have been best friends since they were teens. Stan and Beth have probably known each other for ages and we saw some tension in the last season, stemming from Ruby’s betrayal of Beth to save Stan. Correct me if I’m wrong but I think the last time we saw these two interact was in season 1, so it’s about time we see them talk face to face.

Of course, it’s been a few episodes since we saw Stan as a security guard in the strip club, so I’m really excited to see what happens there, the introduction of Onyx and more scenes with Krystal. I think Onyx may be introduced in the upcoming episode?

It was also so good to see more of Harry again. Danny Boyd Jr is such a talented and cute little actor. Like, he’s so small!

I LOVED the scene where Ruby points out the reasons why Stan is a cop (protect and serve) at his core. He doesn’t want to be involved with their shady stuff but he always gets dragged in. I would give anything to see a scene where Stan defends Ruby so staunchly to someone because I have no doubt that he would and I need it. Grabby hands.

Mick

Give the guy a hot tub!!!!!!!

I’m telling you. I screamed when Beth blurted out “I have herpes!” Oh my god. I died. Yeah, your husband won’t be happy about it. Nor will your crime husband.

I’m also just going to reiterate that I don’t view any of what Mick’s doing as a betrayal of Rio. What Beth was trying to do in this episode was in an attempt to get the cops off their collective backs and, if he gets a free hot tub out of it, good for him.

I guess we’ll have to see where it all goes but I’m not convinced that Mick is going to betray Rio in some profound way. Hell, I’m not even convinved that Rio doesn’t know about all this.

Beth’s character progression

God, Beth did so much in this episode. She really got down in the dirt herself and dug the dirt away from the Lucy’s body, asked for some wet wipes to clean her face, while trying her best not to be sick, and then took a picture of Lucy’s face. Even thought she has gotten her hands dirty, with regards to her role in the crime world, this is the first scene where she physically gets her hand dirty when she’s not gardening.

@captainallthingspurpleme​ wrote a great short post summarising the girls’ actions in this scene and absolutely nailed it! I don’t want to reiterate because I think it’s worded a thousand times better than I could articulate it.

I think Beth’s breakdown in this episode was so earned. We so rarely see her emotionally lose it, especially not in front of other people. The fact that she’s breaking down in front of Dean of all people, from whom she has been repeatedly proven to be emotionally and intimately removed from, shows how torn up she is over everything that has happened.

Despite this, she somehow manages to process it and file it away and is back to business in her next scene with the girls, where she texts Max, takes charge and tells him to come over in a moment of decisiveness and then deals with him. In the Good Girls 3x02 thoughts post I wrote, I talked a little bit about how ruthlessly pragmatic Beth can be, her ability to process horrible things and compartmentalise and how we see this happen with everyone in her life except for Rio. We’ve seen it after she processed that Dean had cheated on her, when she processed that fact that Mary Pat was extorting them and accepting how similar they were, when she found out about Dean faking cancer and when she processes Turner’s death. She always gets back to business. I think we’ve seen it again in this episode, with regards to Lucy’s death. While I don’t think she’s dealt Lucy’s death mentally, not even a little bit, I do think she has compartmentalised it which is just so Beth, as I point it in that previous post, but it’s underscored as being even more chilling in this episode, particularly with the last shot where she appears to blend into the pitch black behind her:

I’m sure everyone has read it already but @foxmagpie​ wrote a fab post about the lighting of Beth and Rio throughout the episode and how it relates to Beth’s character development so, instead of reiterating her analysis, I’ll just leave a link to it here.

Beth and Rio

I’ve seen that people are displeased with the screentime that Rio has had, which is a totally valid opinion. I’m personally really happy with what’s been happening with his screentime. @pynkhues​ wrote an amazing post during hiatus about why she thought Rio would become a POV character and have more scenes in season 3. She hit the nail on the head! I think the writers have really delivered on this front because Rio does have his own POV now, we’ve seen him interact with his family, we’ve seen him operate outwith the girls, his boys have returned and we’ve had a glimpse into how many people he seems to ‘employ’ and, if Manny is to be believed, we are also going to find out more about the people to whome Rio answers / owes debts to. I’ve been wondering who these people are since he mentioned it. Are they larger scale crime bosses or are they corrupt big wigs in political or federal circles? Does he owe them a debt of money, potentially due to his absence while he was under Turner’s thumb, or have people in the crime world put two and two together and realised who was feeding names to the FBI? I don’t imagine that giving such information to law enforcement goes over well amongst criminals.

I’m going to start by discussing the first scene between these two, which is really weighted. It reminded me so much of 2x07, where Beth and Rio’s feelings, both generally and for each other, bubbled to the surface in a rare moment of emotional honesty.

This scene starts with Rio’s car drawing up and Mick approaching Beth. It’s hilarious to me that Rio decided to wait in the car instead of dealing with her drama (petty AF) but also really emphasises the fact that Rio’s doing his best not to give Beth an inch. He’s trying to maintain the faux gulf that has developed between them. He’s also failing because, let’s be honest, Rio didn’t have to come at all; he could have sent Mick or one of his guys just like he did in the last episode but he didn’t and there are potentially a few reasons for this:

1. It’s possible that Rio anticipated that there might be problems and that he would have to step in to handle it because...well, Beth is his problem to deal with. His rotten egg. Not Mick’s.

2. He definitely knew that Beth would be feeling the weight of Lucy’s death on her shoulders, which I’ll discuss later in this section.

3. Maybe he just wanted to see her, even if he didn’t want to / couldn’t justify speaking with her. There’s something so tragic about the fact that, even if the drop had gone smoothly, Rio would have sat in his car and just taken her in because he can’t help himself.

Also, side note here, but I honestly love that Rio was watching from his car as Beth mouthed off to Mick. It’s so funny!

It was only upon rewatching the episode that I realised it’s actually raining in this scene. When Rio approaches Beth to sit down, at the picnic bench and under the tree, they are both protected from the rain and it kind of makes it seem as though they exist in their own personal bubble, even though Mick is stanidng less than a few feet away from them. Rio clearly brought Mick in an attempt to exert a level of control over his interaction with Beth and also to non-verbally remind her, and himself, that this is just business.

I’d also like to take a minute to discuss the significance of the setting, which is a picnic bench that is not Beth’s backyard but in a separate, meaningless location.

This is the last time Beth and Rio were at a picnic bench:

Compared to this:

God, these two messes are such a mess.

The difference between the two scenes is so stark, including the obvious differences in lighting and their comfort levels with one another. Not to mention the fact that in the image from 2x08, Rio sits on the tabletop in a higher position (which makes sense because Rio retained much of the power throughout season 2, even after Beth took the pills and strong-armed him into a 50/50 deal) but they look at each other directly, unafraid, comfortable and happy. In this scene, Beth and Rio sit on more equal footing but look away from one another in opposite directions, sobered, worn and quiet.

It really highlights the fact that, in season 2, the distance between these two was being abolished but now they’re back to trying to hold one another at arm’s length. It’s clear that they’ve been through too much at each other’s hands.

When Rio sits down, there is a long, weighted silence. Rio adjusts himself on the bench and stares at his lap and waits. This is so important. When Beth eventually breaks the silence by saying (about Lucy) “She was a good person” and sniffling quietly, Rio seems completely unsurprised. He knew she was going to bring up Lucy and her death. He knew and he still let her take the lead. He repeatedly says in this scene that it’s just business and yet his actons suggest otherwise. Why sit next to her, why let her bring up Lucy when you knew she was going to? And perhaps more importantly, why not immediately discuss business? He responds by saying “she seemed like a really sweet girl”. Even though he views ordering Mick to shoot Lucy as business, he doesn’t invalidate how Beth feels about it. In fact, he’s almost gentle with her. He’s been gentle with her in this season but always as a manipulation tactic, always to make her more fearful. But in this scene, he’s honestly gentle and patient with her.

He knows she’s crying in this scene. Her voice breaks, she sniffles, she wipes at her face and he can’t look at her. I think, despite everything, Rio struggles and doesn’t know what to do when Beth is in pain.

In fact, he doesn’t look at her at all until he says “I got my own debts to pay aight” and then “Oh, you still think you get a say in this huh? Nah, see that ship sailed when you put three slugs in me”. It’s so clear that, in this scene, Rio has to summon enough anger to be able to look at the tear tracks on Beth’s face. This is followed by Rio saying “You, me, we”  while still looking at her but then his eyes deviate downwards before he says “It’s just business” because it’s dishonest. It’s such a callback to the scene in Rio’s car in 2x12. This statement also seems pretty out of place in this scene, almost as though Rio’s been thinking too long and hard about it and had to say it in order to convince himself.

Beth seems genuinely hurt (I need to write a separate post all about this) and her eyes flicker over to Mick, absorbing Rio’s non-verbal reminder of their relationship being a business one. She then looks at Rio again and we have a shot of him looking away from her again, rocking his jaw and he almost seems angrier than when he was raising his voice, probably because he knows that he slipped again, despite everything he was saying.

When the sneak peek came out before the episode aired and Rio said, “so who’s the boyfriend?”, I was really confused. I was momentarily transported to fanfic land where Beth meets someone new and Rio is jealous haha. Seriously though, the word sounds so foreign coming out of Rio’s mouth, as the words boyfriend/girlfriend have never been thrown around in conversations between these two. It made me think, and probably made a lot of other people think, about how these two compare to a conventional romantic relationship.

The music is also incredibly weighted in this scene. Loving all the piano they’re using!

Moving on to their final scene in the episode, I love that Beth knows that Rio’s going to be his usual pissy self and want an invoive and then the way he scrutinises it. Omg, it was so cute.

Also excuse me sir but did you just compare your relationship with Beth to that of a boyfriend and a girlfriend? Again, the word boyfriend sounds so foreign and new coming out of Rio’s mouth. When Beth replied  by saying, in a very feminine tone might I add, “he got over it”, I just about died. God, these two messes are using another couple’s relationship to address their own relationship. You bloody messes. I’m shaking my head. And the fact that Rio replies “they always do”, I am shaking my head again. Hahaha. Lol. Imagine these two ever being over each other. They really can’t be compared to other romantic relationships because they’re too stupid.

Also, Beth and Rio are dressed so similarly, all black, in their scenes together but particularly in this last scene.

I think that the way they are positioned is, again, so significant and obviously different to their first scene in the episode. In this final scene, Rio is once again positioned above Beth, standing while she is sitting. In the first scene, he sat down next to her, waited for her to speak and listened but he also lost control, even though Mick was there, and seemed to internally berate himself afterwards for it. Now, Mick is still there but Rio is taking extra precautions by avoiding even sitting down and keeping the interaction as short as possible.  

They are also finally facing one another and Beth has regained the power and confidence she didn’t seem to have in the first scene, even thought she isn’t delivering the full amount of money. Like I said, I think she has processed and compartmentalised Lucy’s death and that possibly has something to do with it, as well as the fact that she probably feels powerful knowing that she’s deceiving Rio.

By having Beth and Rio face one another in this scene, while wearing such similar clothing, it really depicts them as two sides of the same coin, as almost but not quite mirror images of each other, as counterparts.

[lizzybeth1986]

hey! so I had a q about your latest platinum post. the problems with shane's treatment are very similar to the problems with hana's in trr. but i feel like you still love trr despite it and hate platinum for it? i'm not trying to be argumentative i'm legit curious lol. what made you decide to hate the whole book of platinum just bc of the shane issue? i personally think it was way less problematic than many other books and in choices that's usually the best you can hope for :/

Oh I have an easy answer for that. At least on the surface level. Platinum is a standalone, and given that it was mostly outsourced...chances are that it was always intended to be one. Its writers were aware it would be a standalone, at the very least by the MoDA Gala. Which means the writers wrote Shane the way they did knowing they would end this series soon. They didn't choose to rectify their mistakes with him, or involve him more - instead they wrote him out of an entire chapter.

In this case especially, I don't have the time, space and scope to hope the next book might be better, the way I could when TRR Book 1 or Book 2 ended. Up until Book 3, I was able to hope. And in fact when the announcements began to pour in for another book in the TRR series, I was very vocal about not wanting it to return if I was going to be seeing more of the same old shit. So in the case of Platinum, I'm not sure what hope I'm expected to have from a book that is ending even as I finish this ask.

Perfect Match, for instance, was another book I loved. Really loved and really had hopes for. But I'd constantly maintained, by the time it was getting over, it was that their treatment of Sloane - and the fact that Hayden and Sloane never got a real apology from the likes of Damien - that made it impossible for me to love that book the same way anymore. By the time PM ended, it was clear that the team was aware at some point that this was going to be their final book, yet allowed for Sloane's reunion with her mother to be overshadowed by Hayden, and allowed for Sloane's entire arc to be eaten up by, and then revolve around (if single), Khaan Mousavi.

Also...hmmm...I love TRR? Could you please say that to this person, who asked - no, insisted - I stop writing my essays and QTs because they were so offended that I found nothing "right" in the books anymore? Or this person, who implied that because Open Heart and The Elementalists were "worse" in terms of LI balance, and claimed TRR was a "million times better", I should not be complaining. I'd highly appreciate it if you could say this to the anon that tried to bait me and mock me for stating - with proof - that Liam wasn't exactly getting the best deal in terms of story (though better than Maxwell or Hana), and that Drake's eating into space began by Book 2 (I didn't post that ask, coz I don't appreciate that kind of baiting on my blog). There have been people - well-intentioned people - asking me if I could explore more "positives" in the book, just because for them my QTs since mid Book 3 have been filled with (what a lot of people feel is) too much criticism and negativity. I'd love for all of them to know how much I "love" TRR/H.

I've said this numerous times, and I'm running out of the patience I'd need to say it again. My QTs, my essays, and the asks I answer from people who have wanted to get my input, are a resource. They're there so that anyone who is curious about other routes, or about branch coding, or about meta, or who don't know certain characters very well, will have a place to look and know where their questions can be answered.

Their existence isn't a surefire sign that I'm in love with a book, and frankly every chapter of TRH that I'm reading is taking me nearer and nearer to the point where I would rather stop. They're there primarily because I've been looking at the variants in this series for longer than anyone else I know, have analyzed them more than anyone else I know. There are patterns I'm seeing that very few have. And I'm not boasting when I say that - I have actually had people come up to me and tell me they had no clue some of these things were even happening in the series (the treatment for Kiara and Penelope being a prime example).

I know you are asking with the best of intentions...but tbh I don't appreciate people assuming my thoughts for me. Especially when I've been establishing the exact opposite on my thoughts about the TRR series for this long, and especially when I've been speaking about the ill-treatment towards Hana, for way longer and in far more depth, than a lot of people I know.

I'm also a little taken aback by your dismissiveness when you talk about Shane. Perhaps you did not intend it, but "just because of the Shane issue" makes it sound like it's just one little glitch or line or scene and not an entire LI's arc being given dust from the beginning, for a book whose team was aware it was possibly not going to get a second book at least midway (I mean, one LI not getting fair screentime could ruin a player's entire experience of that game). And as if this treatment isn't already a pattern you can see from a huge pile of LIs and characters who have also been given bad treatment. For instance, would you call Xanthe meeting the end that she did in ACOR, "just a Xanthe issue?". Is the treatment for Aurora after she'd been proven innocent in OH, "just an Aurora issue"? Is Kiara's trauma being ignored - and addressed only after she was viewed as a suspect in TRR 3, "just a Kiara issue"? The fact that in recent books we were seeing black women written as stereotypes more than characters...is that a "Ellen" or "Scarlett" issue?? The fact that Dallas' painful arc could be wrapped up in mere minutes in BSC - what kind of issue would you call that? Or - when you put them all together and examine the same thing happening in different ways - do they stop becoming merely "issues" and start becoming insidious patterns? I leave that for you to decide.

As for your last point, that Platinum is "way less problematic" than other books, and that's the best we can hope for from this app...I'm afraid I'm no longer willing to settle like that anymore. I'm not forcing anyone to hate this book - if you like it and it has brought you joy, that's great. But I am not going to sugarcoat my feelings for either books just because of how I used to feel about them earlier. Nor am I going to keep giving PB the benefit of the doubt just because I had done so earlier, and I shouldn't be expected to.

I normally like and appreciate your inputs...but I'm sorry to say I find a lot of problems in this one.

[team-cap-for-the-win]

The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that Clint should have died instead of Nat.

I got nothing against Clint, I like him a lot, but it would make a lot more sense to swap him with Nat.

First off, the implication of Nat "wiping the red off her lodger" isn't very good. She died for her sins? Her death meant she was finally forgiven? No! Nat's actions after her so called crimes are what counts. All the good stuff she did ever since the Avengers... does that mean nothing? Should Bucky die for his "sins"? I dunno, it just makes me uncomfortable to think of it this way. It implies that once you make mistakes, you can't fix them. Which is veeeeery fishy because guess which character gets away with literally everything and faces no consequences?

That's right, Tony. In the end he dies, yes, but unlike Nat, there are no implications like that. It is viewed as a selfless act. Everyone attends his funeral. Atleast he got a funeral. Nat didn't even get that and I hate that the biggest reaction we got was Hulk yeeting a bench. Atleast Clint and Steve had the decency to look sad and cry because they cared about her deeply. Unlike a certain someone who didn't even know if Nat had had any family.

Anyways, back to the main issue. While Nat spent those 5 years helping people, trying to hold her family - the Avengers - together, Clint went on a murderous rampage. Yes, he was grief-stricken, and he killed bad guys, and the main point of that was so that we could see Ronin, but it's still murder. We can see how much everyone had changed over the course of 5 years. The biggest changes are without a doubt Clint and Thor.

Which brings me to this: Thor's arc in Endgame atleast had a resolution. Hate him, love him, but don't deny that it had some structure. The purpose of it (besides that ill taste in comic relief) was to show that even when you're at your lowest point, you can pick yourself back up. You're still worthy. Plus, he got his closure with his mom. Throwing Loki into the bunch would maaaybe make it better, but this movie is full-packed anyways.

Now, what was Clint's arc about? Going on a rampage is okay and doesn't haunt you in any way? Getting something you want can be accomplished by someone else doing it for you? I dunno, to me, this was the weirdest part Endgame (yes, it surpasses that Russo cameo and the whole Bruce/Hulk thing), because I can't figure out what was the purpose of it. Why make him all edgy if you're not going to address the change? How did it serve his character? So many questions, man. Atleast fat Thor had a payoff and tbh he looked more like a viking so that was nice.

Clint's arc would wrap up nicely if he could sacrifice himself for his family. It would also be similar to Nat's wiping of the "red", but the focus would be on his family. Because that's what's most important to him. Clint undeniably lost the most in the Snap. Without question. He would be willing to do ANYTHING to get them back. If not with him, atleast back to life. All the focus on Clint in Endgame would have a payoff. Because that's another thing: Nat didn't have that much screentime in Endgame, died halfway through, and was mentioned only twice afterwards. This isn't okay. Her death felt undeveloped. Now, Clint - he had much more of an emotional turmoil in this movie. To me, it would make sense if it got topped off with his death. And maybe the directors would give the man a funeral. Who knows.

Lastly, this one is a bit more opinionated, because not everyone ships it, but. If the Russos weren't cowards and gave us a Romanogers throughout the course of the Avengers and the Cap movies, instead of that pointless Bruce and Sharon romance (how did that pay off in any way?), Steve's ending could be a lot different. More in character. The directors chickened out of Clintasha a long time ago, but I wouldn't have been surprised if after the five-year skip, Steve and Nat were a thing. (Besides the fact that Cevans and ScarJo played a lot together and have great chemistry!) Afterall, they have been with each other for a very long time. They led the Avengers together. Natasha let Steve go in CW despite the risk of breaking apart her family (which happened anyways). She found him and Sam throughout the gap between CW and IW and they were fugitives together. It doesn't even have to be romantic, ffs, just very close friends, but it would be great to see Steve finally move on, and thus complete his arc. Besides, come on! The "we should both get a life. You first" spiel would have been a perfect set up! Even if it wasn't a romantic pairing, I would still dig the hell out of them working together - they could become the new directors of Shield for all I care and that way it would put them away from the new movies. Sam would still have the Shield. Nobody would be bitching about abandonment. Hell, have Steve pass out during the final battle and get his closure with Peggy that way. Or when he returns from the time-travel, he tells them about his closure (Btw I love Steggy, but I don't like the way it went down. It went against Steve's arc). Or how about this - Steve and Nat both leave the main timeline and go on time adventures together. That would take them away from the future movies aswell, and they could return at any time, if the actors signed another contract. Boom, fixed your Endgame!

And lastly. This way, Nat could have led the female group-up scene and kicked ass on the frontiers, symbolizing her relevance as the first major female character in the MCU that paved the way for the others. She could even get to wield Mjolnir, symbolizing that the red had been wiped! Boom! Fixed your arc!

Oof, this went on longer than I thought it would have. Anyways, just my two cents. Wish it was something more along these lines, but eh the final product was fine - enjoyable, emotional experience in the cinema.

[janiedean]

finn and poe’s sl in the last jedi: a few considerations

first thing to state: these two both needed to have some kind of journey from A to B in order to arrive at the ending that this movie had in mind and the set-up for IX, finn needed to deal with Some Issues that were there since TFA and poe needed a lot of screentime to make up for the fact that while he’s one of the main three, in TFA he had very limited screen time. now.

finn:

needed to work on his main **character flaw** that was stated in TFA, ie: he tends to go flight when in a flight or fight response, which is entirely understandable from his POV but not exactly useful if he has to, uh, *be in a rebel resistance*;

needed to know more people and see more beyond what he knew since he’s been a stormtrooper all his life and only ever worked for the first order and he can’t get around just knowing rey and poe and maybe leia but it’s not like they knew each other;

needed to see beyond his stormtrooper bringing up and get around, you know, having individuality;

what this movie did was addressing all of that by:

sending him away from the only two people he knows (okay, poe not so much because they were in contact always but still) so that he has the chance to, you know, leave and come back;

giving him a storyline with rose ie someone who has entirely good reasons to fight for the resistance and lost her family and everything she had and opened his eyes to other horrid shit the first order did (you know, he goes from ‘this town is beautiful’ to helping her tear it apart sooo) and who admires him first as an icon but then as himself and is willing to die for *him* without really owing him anything beforehand;

doing that, he realized which were his priorities, he fought for people other than his two friends, he realized that he wanted to be rebel scum (or did I dream that conversation with phasma) and by the end he was about to die for the cause when in the beginning his first thought was running (without even warning poe for that matter) so that he’d save his ass and rey’s. which is entirely understandable from his pov, again, but it was something the movie needed to address and is named character development, which he got in spades;

now he’s reunited with his friends, made more friends, knows his place in the world and doesn’t want to run anymore. mission accomplished.

poe:

needed more time to have his personality established given his lack thereof in TFA;

needed to be established as leia’s successor which this movie obviously was pointing at;

needed to learn the skills to be a good leader;

now, they could have shown him already being good at it, but thing is: this movie ran two hours and a half and no one wants a Perfect Protagonist Without A Flaw in movies, because it’s completely unrealistic and the fact that poe was a+++ amazing in TFA worked because we saw him less than the other two, if he was like that all the time he’d have been a gary stu.

so, what this movie did was addressing all of the above by:

giving him a hell of a lot of screentime which was used to show us that while he’s an excellent guy all around he does have some flaws;

(which are all by the way entirely consistent with his character because if he’s a hothead who likes to blow things up and fly in the middle of the action he most likely won’t consider that sometimes you have to retreat or that sometimes you have to look at saving lives rather than making sacrifices of most people you have before being left with a handful)

establishing that he and leia have definitely a parental/familial vibe because she basically treats him like she’d treat her own family and they’re familiar in ways you are not with your boss;

putting him in a situation where he realizes that acting rashly means you get demoted regardless of how good you are at your job;

giving him the tension with holdo which made him realize that you can be a good leader also by retreating and not ATTACKING all the time, that sometimes you have to buy time like that and that it’s not cowardly to run and that it’s not necessary to go around sacrificing your own life and others’s for the cause;

doing all of the above, he went from promising general to virtually effective leia substitute, because at the end of the movie he did exactly the contrary of what he did in the beginning, told finn what leia told him (to disengage), stopped finn from going after kylo and luke when he realized luke was buying them time so they could run, and leia herself told people to follow him and not her, which brings us to the conclusion that the infamous rewrites post-tfa most likely were to give him a larger role and effectively set him up to become the next general (also because let’s be real, if han died in VII and luke died in this one, leia was gonna die in the next one if carrie had lived to act in it, and all of them needed the new trio to pick up where they left from), and this when poe was a character who was supposed to be killed at the beginning of tfa.

like, they gave all of this hell of a storyline to a character who was supposed to not even survive the first movie, that’s how much they liked him and how much they accounted for the fans liking him.

so: what happened with this movie was giving them arcs with proper screentime for both which addressed points that couldn’t be addressed in TFA and set them up respectively to a) finn being a full part of the resistance where he’s staying by his own choice and where he’s made friends and found his own individuality and not forcing him to be it which would have happened if he stayed in the main ship for the entirety of tlj, he needed to leave and come back and get rid of his former boss/phasma to fully leave his past behind, b) poe being the new general of the resistance with leia’s full blessing and after we saw that he learned how to be one and we can trust him to take good decisions because he learned on his own skin what it means to take bad ones.

doesn’t seem to me like *character assassination*, except that of course we get to the crux of the problem which is, ‘stormpilot didn’t happen’ and ‘neither of them is confirmed gay’ and apparently that trumps everything else. ship discourse under the cut because this post is long.

now:

this is the middle movie of this trilogy. if stormpilot was gonna be a thing I highly doubt it’d have been a thing here since we’ve seen that people were clutching their pearls over freaking lefou in b&b and here we’re talking about main characters - if it was happening, it would happen next movie;

if they locked lips now it’d have been in a situation where finn literally knows no one except rey and poe and we don’t know anything about poe except that he’s a good pilot, he’s a nice guy and looks hot in leather jackets, which.. I mean, do we want them to establish their personality before thinking about them kissing?

neither of them was *confirmed gay* (though I mean with finn I guess he’d need some experimentation around to find out what he likes but never mind) and finn and rose kissed and poe was flirty-ish with rey so OMG HORRIBLENESS: you know, they could.... be bisexual. or pansexual. both of them. which would also mean they might be interested in women as well as each other. like, just a thought to consider;

the finn/rose kiss was her kissing him, not him kissing her, and like it could either go somewhere or it might not, but if it turns out that he likes her and they become canon and stormpilot doesn’t happen.... there’s nothing inherently horrible in finn liking rose who is a nice girl who went through a lot of shit and has all the reasons in the world to like him and tbh I find it really gross that I’ve read around ‘ew omg he kissed a girl how horrible’. I mean, back when TFA came out we were all rejoicing that we had a nice diverse ship and we were all having fun and sorry to break it to you but finn/rose is also a *diverse* ship so it’d be still fairly progressive to have it canon in a mainstream scifi movie. but now since finn kissed the wrong diversity it’s... a downgrade? like, you do realized how it sounds?

anyway, if finn/rose doesn’t go anywhere, the next person in line realistically to be his love interest (if he does have one by the end) is poe, not rey (who, as much as people around here like to deny, might have been set up to have a meaningful story with *ben solo* who is, sorry to say, not the horrible irredeemable villain a lot of people decided he is, and if you still think he is just go watch the OT and realize that the entire point of it was redeeming darth vader ie someone who did a lot worse than kylo but of course we all forget that SW is a franchise about redemption, huh?), and those two spent the entire movie worrying about each other, staying in contact if they were apart, let’s not go over the ‘finn is naked and wet’ part or finn wearing poe’s clothes for the entire thing or poe coming fully into his future-general self by ordering finn to retreat therefore saving his life rather than send him to sacrifice himself at all costs to take out that cannon (while most people who went after the cannon in the beginning died, including rose’s sister), which doesn’t seem to me like *nothing*. like, we had a lot of stormpilot interactions in this movie considering what they needed to do with it;

now, while it’s probably not likely that it might happen forreal or overtly (it’s still disney guys) saying that, considering all of the above, what I’m seeing was a movie that did both of them justice and didn’t sideline them or their relationship while also dealing with another ten storylines at once and if the point that makes everyone think they’ve been butchered was that they didn’t lock lips you know how it sounds like? like whatever these two characters do or stand up for it’s worthless unless they make out, or unless they’re **gay** (not even bi, gay), and therefore you’re basically reducing them to their PERCEIVED sexuality. ie they’re worth nothing if they aren’t the sexuality the fandom wants them to be, which sorry but a) it’s bullshit, b) it’s tokenism, c) it’s ASSUMING SOMEONE’S PERSONALITY ENDS AT THEIR SEXUALITY AND THEIR ACTIONS ONLY MATTER IN LIGHT OF THEIR SEXUALITY.

like, we have two main characters in the new trio who were given extensive screentime and storylines that brought them forward from the previous movie and gave them character evolution and development and brought them to a narratively better place and made them better people (never mind that if they get together in IX it’d be way healthier than if they had in this movie)........ and that somehow doesn’t matter because we didn’t get a confirmation that they would lock lips or that they prefer to bang men and actually one of them being kissed by a woman is seen as character assassination when in the first movie finn sure af wasn’t going around stating his sexual preferences if he even figured out any?

I mean, I’d like to think we’re watching these movies also for the plot and if poe and finn have to be lgbt rep other than minority rep maybe it’d be nice if they also had a personality to go with it, and possibly realistic too because people without flaws aren’t realistic and sure af the OT trio and prequel trio weren’t flawless people actually all the contrary, and this movie did nothing wrong in establishing it. but hey, seems like we only care about it if they kiss. does it sound woke to you? because to me, it doesn’t.

tldr: idk how this movie butchered either of them or did them wrong or ruined them (all the contrary), but if all the criticism’s point is OMG THEY AREN’T GAY AND THEY DIDN’T KISS then we don’t want well-written characters, we just want the ship. and honestly, making it everything about the ship while throwing everyone else under the bus (rose first and foremost) is hardly, like, progressive or anything, but whatever you like.

[brownornaterugs]

anyway I finished the rewatch n I was right. I was in some mood n not paying attention the first go. not as lightweight as I felt. decent season. I feel like zero of my questions from last season got answered n that's... annoying.

angry sentiments for hunk writing stays the same. would've loved.. more meaningful interactions. Any At All that support him being "the nice one" but I also want this for everyone in general too (but still mostly hunk tho). still season 1 was the best for him. I wish he was more than the tank who's also a physicist.. when he was talking w Matt n pidge and Matt was complimenting him on the Frown-Thing (the tracker u know?) it got brushed aside like that was rude. he deserves more praise. neglected light of my life :(

probably more mad about Keith's endgame decision than I was yesterday. I don't like self-sacrifice and I will not be sorry. glad she's working w the blade. hopefully learning more about herself (still don't like their sacrifice mentality but whatever). would be gr8 to know more!! there's something about her first interaction with Shiro this season that has me feeling a type of way tho.

was never a Lance stan too much but am still Feelings Is The Same. only good for one liners or to fill the gaps between conversation so it's annoying. I feel cheated cos it'd be gr8 to see everyone growing. I know he's a teen but like. I'm tired. whenever he's mad at Keith I get exhausted. small encouragement speech to Allura was nice but like all the other nice things he's ever said, it's not really supported by much growth? address that. he even said it last season re: Allura's progress with blue (I know that was long don't @ me)

am glad pidge got to reunite with matt :'))) good for her! ngl other than that.. there was not much I remember. it was like ep 2 took all her energy n she wasn't allowed much more than that. which makes sense but is frustrating. it's bad to say u weren't paying attention to a character cos they got a whole ep again but. that was my case :/

I'm so freaking glad Allura is a paladin!!!! it's nice watching her progress n learn new things tbh!! there's an interesting balance of her sometimes self doubt and confidence as a paladin that I'm appreciating. she can do anything n According to the Facts she shut down that altean magic so voltron could escape!!?? like... it's good. decent mix of emotions n character capabilities I think!! I mostly watch with Shiro and Hunk in mind but I may rewatch again for Allura!!

so.. I think this is why I feel the season is still kinda light? I just... wasn't super focused on shiro. big smile for her getting to pilot again!!! I already talked about black lion's hopelessness detector so this makes sense since Keith's gone. tho I wonder if the need for reconnection is just bc Shiro was gone for so long?? anyway I'm still kinda unsettled by her and Keith's interaction at the start. it felt out of character but I also think it might be important to note the potential amount of times Keith was with the blade instead of with team voltron? so Shiro kind of was frustrated at that? but she seemed kinda off.. like distant for a bit until the next interaction when she talks about how the black lion chose Keith. I really... don't like the clone theory tbh bc shiro deserves better. that would fuck her up to see like... what I could assume an army of clones. I think I'm gonna listen back to Shiro's second escape episode last season. I went back a few times n still doesn't make too much sense. the writers would do it anyway.

VILLAIN THOUGHTS!!!

I love villains/antags other than Zarkon and I think that's where a lot of my focus went. like whenever the it was screentime for the galra gals I was more attentive! I just always wanna know what shit they're fuckin up next. I wantes them to just turn into a Galra Gals Gang n beat lotor up. tbh

im... intrigued what lotor ultimately wants. and like Why? I'm sure any cooperation between him and voltron will lead to betrayal. I don't trust that and neither should they. like. galra gals trusted him and it got them nothing! do kinda wanna see that conflict tho...

damn.... sorry commander thot.

I'm excited to see literally anything either Haggar next season n that's all I'll say!!🔎

get back own youwr deffbed sow commandew thwot can be in contwow...

There Were So Many Amazing Mean And Buff Galra Gals This Season.

I won't comment on Coran except to say Feelings Is Still The Same and I'm tired even a Coran centric episode still did him wrong. though... he tries. he's trying to get a good dad :/ I appreciate that

oh yeah some Matt thoughts: uhh I don't care too much he seems very Lance to me but is tolerable and not an ass so whatever. don't care otherwise! OH was thinking his reunion would be bigger/more emotional with Shiro but I guess they weren't really friends?? (or that's a clone...........) idk it was strange and emotionless and I was hoping for Shiro to cry or get emotional seeing someone she tried to protect when they were prisoners. it sucks they just don't have time to write in much emotional connection/reestablishments in the show nor in the reality of the show (like who has time for reuniting when we got galra to deal with....). also good bgm tunes can't wait for the sound tell to release!!! when!!!