#especially for something as low budget as an s2 episode

[writers-in-moominvalley]

Some legitimately great expressions from episode 19 of Moomin: Adventure Diary; Hidden Love of Little My.

[fiddler-sticks]

Ninjago seasons and specials ranked by how good the music is (with commentary)

Just a comment before we start: This does not include Weekend Whips or any other intros. Just the score that plays under episodes and credits music

21. Skybound

There's just barely any music for this season due to budget cuts or something of the like, and what music that is there I'm just not super enthused about or I forgot about

20. Crystalized

While there's a good amount of music for this season, I didn't find it super special or appealing, and it was just kind of meh like the season itself

19. Legacy of the Green Ninja

I hate to put this here, but something's gotta go here so it might as well be S2. The music was pretty great and there's a LOT of it, plus it's available to the public on an album, but really the only tracks from this season that stick out to me are Day Jobs and The Final Battle

18. Rebooted

Again, don't dislike the music, but something's gotta take these spots and I can't even recall any pieces from this season except for X-1 Joyride and Built to Protect

17. The Island

The score for this season is miles better than the plot and execution, but there's not a lot of it. There was like, one piece I could find on youtube. It was great though! Really fit the island vibe

16. Fire Chapter

It was pretty hard to decide whether The Island or Fire Chapter went here, but eventually I decided on Fire Chapter just because it had more tracks, plus the ongoing and reused Serpentine theme. None of the tracks really stood out to me, but I loved that they reused the Serpentine theme from the first few seasons for Aspheera and her minions

15. Seabound

This one is here for a combination of reasons from The Island and Fire Chapter. It has a lot of music, plus it fits the ocean theme super well. None of the tracks stood out to me except for the one reused one from Wu's Teas when they're all walking out in their diving gear though, so that's why it's this low

14. Hunted

I absolutely love the plot of this season and the hunter's theme, but the only thing that really stood out to me as 'Wow, this is amazing was Dragon Hunt'. It's also super all over because of the whole realms thing, which obviously doesn't make for a very consistent soundtrack. The Resistance Never Quits is a great track, too

13. March of the Oni

Now we start moving into the great seasons. 13th place might seem low, but considering how flipping amazing the other soundtracks are I think this is well-placed. It's diverse, but all fits together and the two moods are nicely separated, unlike whatever was happening in Hunted. I really like the nice, flowy, and clean tracks when we're around the ninja, and the choppy, dissonant music with the whispers and uncommon time signatures for the Oni never fails to give me good chills

12. Hands of Time

I'm gonna be honest with you and say that I was going to put this one a LOT lower, but then I decided to give it a relisten, and DANG. I can't believe I forgot how much of a BANGER this soundtrack is! Especially the ongoing theme. I think I forgot just because the plot of the season is so forgettable, but the music definitely goes hard

11. Rise of the Snakes

I think this is probably the most expected ranking on this list. The soundtrack is great, but it's not amazing. It's really hit-and-miss, honestly. You have bangers like Falcon Chase, Taking the Bait, Weapons Take Flight, and Race to Ouroboros, but the rest of it is kind of bland and forgettable in my opinion

10. The Lego Ninjago Movie

It seems like no one talks about the score for TLNM when we should absolutely be talking about it! It's great! You should really go listen to it. The percussive flute tracks by Greg Pattillo are especially good. Pieces like Sibling Rivalry, The Rise of Kitty Kitty, and Wise Master Wu are also super great!

9. Sons of Garmadon

I honestly can't remember why I put this so high, but I trust more-awake-Fiddler's judgment. It's got a great score, it's just that not a lot of it is super memorable for me. The very beginning of the season (the first bit of Sons of Garmadon Heist) gets stuck in my head all the time though

8. Pilots

Even though there are only 3-4 tracks in both episodes (depending on whether or not you count the Overture), all of them are amazing. Attack of the Skeleton Army, Discovering Spinjitzu / Dragon Ride, and especially Training Course all go hard, and I love that the very first taste of Ninjago we ever got had such great music. Like, be honest. Do you think that Ninjago would've taken off if it had some crap MIDI, mass-produced music in the background? I personally don't think so. We owe a lot to Vincent & Kramer for the Ninjago we know today

7. Day of the Departed

Considering that this special has like, only one track, this is pretty fuckin' high for just one piece of music among whole seasons worth of music. I cry pretty much every time I hear Maybe I'm Departed, and it hits so much harder after Kirby Morrow's passing. Also, little self-promo here, if you haven't listened to my version of Maybe I'm Departed yet, what are you doing?

6. Prime Empire

Prime Empire's music is just fucking sick. It goes so hard and perfectly fits with the cyberpunk/video game vibes of the season. It's so diverse, too, with tracks from Scott's Stowaway Part 2, to Stayin' Aflight, to Fourth Mile Marker, to the Noir Whip. I'd say one of my favorite parts in the entire thing is when a West Side Story reference appears in the soundtrack of Confidential when two or three of the goons are snapping like the Jets lol. My favorite track in Prime Empire would have to be Fourth Mile Marker, just because it's so beautiful, and the melody also reminds me a lot of the theme from Schindler's List, which is just a beautiful theme

5. Dragons Rising

DR is all the way up here despite being so new because the music is already so iconic in my eyes. I haven't even really paid attention to the 'remixes' of old pieces yet, I'm just in love with the original music. It's so unique, and you really can't mistake it for any other season. I especially love the credits from The Merge Part 1, and Tradition of the Ninja

4. Master of the Mountain

I originally had this at #3, but I made a last-minute decision to bump it down one. Not because of anything about it though. It's fuckin' epic. I love the ongoing theme, and in the suite, I absolutely love at the very beginning the few notes played by handbells. Also in the suite, from about 5:49 to the end is the most epic, magical, grandiose thing I've ever heard in my life and you need to go listen to it right this second. Exit tumblr, listen to it, then come back for the top 3. I'll be here when you get back. And one more thing I love about the score is that it's constantly in different and weird times, and cuts out beats when you're least expecting it. Also, I know I said I wouldn't bring Whips into this, but I absolutely love that the beginning is in 6/8. First whip not in 4/4 let's gooooooooo

3. Ice Chapter

Honestly, I was super torn about whether I should put this one at #4 or #3, but in the end, I chose this spot for a number of reasons. The whole thing just gives off winter vibes, I absolutely love the folk aspect of it for the Formlings theme, the Ice Emperor theme is so freaking dark and scary, and there are so many bangers! Namely Akita Finds Her Animal Form and Twice As Stubborn

2. Possession

If you know me, this might come as a surprise seeing as how much I love this season and its music, but it's actually second place for me. It is home to my favorite piece from Ninjago ever, though, which is Ghost Story. I've probably made dozens of posts about the geniusness of Morro's theme and music when he's around and talked about, so I won't go into great detail about that. Just know that the well-known bit features the tritone (often called the devil's interval) played on a fiddle and/or viola (the fiddle was considered the devil's instrument back in ye olden days). Anyway, I highly recommend that you go listen to Ghost Story because it's just a wonderful piece that beautifully tells Morro's story through music

1. Tournament of Elements

I always go back and forth on whether ToE or Possession is my favorite season, but there was no doubt in my mind that ToE is my favorite from a musical standpoint. It's so diverse, yet fits together so nicely. The music features a lot of traditional drums and chanting, really fitting the whole island/fight club/cult theme. The season also has a bunch of bangers, spanning from Gauntlet of Humility, to Thinking About Yourself, Rooftop Ruffhouse, And That's The Kink, I Am the Titanium Ninja, Lloyd's Flashbacks, and who could forget Sneaking Around, the credits music for a bunch of episodes in a lot of other seasons

So, do you agree with my ranking? Feel free to reblog with thoughts or your own rankings!

[laf-outloud]

https://www.tumblr.com/teamfreewill2pointo/712702643707035648

From what I've gathered, S&L is 5m/ep, TW is 4.7m/ep, Walker is 3.5 m/ep.

I don't know if these numbers are accurate at all, but IF they are - how TF does a FIRST season show with practically all green actors with little to no name recognition cost soooo much? We know it wasn't the vfx/sfx because those were TERRIBLE (Jensen did say at JIB that they cut money from other areas to pay for the expensive finale music and I'm guessing a bunch of that was the fx budget but still). So where did all the money go? We established it wasn't fx, it clearly was NOT wardrobe either, we know they spent a LOT on music but I don't know about enough to hike the budget per ep that much.. so was this all the stunt casting? Did they really blow the budget casting a bunch of spn alum that half the audience didn't even care about? We know new watchers wouldn't know any og spn cast so it was all for the handful of AA's and hellers who, lets be honest, only watched for Dean or dest*el so the stunt casting wasn't even all that necessary for them either.

Plus shows only get more expensive the longer they run. S&L is on s3 and they have some pretty impressive vfx for a cw show so I'm sure that's where a chunk of their budget goes. Not to mention there are quite a few decently well known names on the show which always ups the budget. And Walker is also on s3 and are much cheaper. I get that Walker doesn't need as much vfx as a DC show would but they have still managed to keep their budget low even though they are 3 seasons in. Where is TW going to go? The money they spent per ep was a waste and it will only get worse. They claim they want to bring in MORE stunt casting if they get a s2 which will ramp up the budget. I'm sure Jensen will want more expensive music and D will probably try to do something stupid with wardrobe. I would HOPE they would put more money to fx in the future but we know they won't bother with silly things like that when they can spend money on their friends and background music!!

So, pure speculation, since the proof provided is 'from what I've gathered,' (though I have seen others mention TW is fairly expensive to produce).

But, if this is the case, then I do have to wonder where that money's going, because it certainly wasn't being spent on the show. I know Jensen said he gave up his salary for the last episode so they could get Led Zeppelin, and they probably saved money in other areas for that, but I also have to wonder what his and Danneel's EP salaries were for the other episodes. Not to mention, they had to hire a few more EPs when the Ackles proved themselves incompetent at the job.

If those numbers are accurate, there's no way they're getting a second season, especially not on the CW. The WB already said they would support Superman & Lois. Funny they didn't mention supporting TW.

[g0ld-m3d4l-stuff]

A Rant About gen:LOCK Season 2 (spoiler warning)

I really enjoyed season 1 of gen:LOCK. It was brilliant. I was very disappointed to later hear about how Gray cannibalized the budget of other RT shows while crunching the production crew to make gl. Resulting in several layoffs.  It's such a shame especially considering how passionate the crew was about gl. Even worse it that from what I've heard, Gray didn't even show remorse over the crunch and got quite defensive, hence why he had to go.  When I heard that gl would continue, I was relieved, but then when I learned about how RT would not be involved in production and that HBO would take the reins, I was very concerned. I didn't want to judge too soon though.  Then season 2 premiered and oh man. No Battle Tapes. No David Levy. A potentially seizure inducing opening animation that only reuses scenes from the s1 op while showing some in show scenes from s2. Cheap and lazy. But that's really the least of my problems.  The animation was crap. RT had a great handle on the low framerate style in s1 but season two was horrible. The movements are jerky and awkward. The fight scenes are terrible and unlike s1 they are clearly not one of the things that the series prides on.  You could even see a difference in rendering. It feels more... lifeless (?) compared to s1 and some frames seemed like they forgot to properly render it.  The writing was really bad. They undid Chase's acceptance of Mind Sharing. The characters act quite differently. The timeskip made the tonal shift too abrupt and certain character arcs (specifically Marin) unsatisfying. They also completely retconned Yaz's backstory.  While I understand that HBO is an adult platform they should've kept in mind that many of the people who would watch s2 were a young adult audience who watched s1 when it was on RT. Although they warned that the show would take a darker more mature turn, they weren't clear.  RWBY promised a darker more mature turn but nothing like what happened with gl. And when RWBY did something extreme they at least put trigger warnings because RT actually respects us. HBO did not do that with gl and when they did it was too late.  They had an on screen animal death. No warning whatsoever. I mentioned the seizure inducing op earlier. They didn't put a warning for that until it the episode after it was first shown.  They had a on screen sex scene with full frontal nudity between Jodie and Miranda that especially objectified Miranda, not to mention how horribly animated it was.  And this one is the worst part. They give Kazu and identity crisis, develop his relationship with Val (leading to another sex scene) give Kazu some good development... only for him to be killed off, purely for shock value. All that character development was for NOTHING!  Like overall, HBO is clearly just trying to be "dark and edgy" more than trying to write a compelling story, with how graphic they have been throughout s2.  Oh and between all of this? Warnermedia issued unfair  copyright strikes against YouTubers who made gen:LOCK reaction videos BEFORE the series was taken by Warner. An action that went over RT's head and when they learned about it they wanted to do something about it.  Now there is something that kinda bugs me. gen:LOCK is no longer being produced by Rooster Teeth but it's still a Rooster Teeth IP isn't it? Is RT in the dark about what production decisions are being made until each  episode airs? Are they gonna keep promoting the show?  I'm gonna keep my eye out on what happens next. Until we know what's gonna happen, please do not attack RT for this. This is all on HBO.

[drunkkenobi]

Been a minute since my last spreadsheet update, so I thought I’d make one today. I thought about waiting until the last episode of s2 of WWW aired, but also fuck it.

Since the last update back in June, the following happened:

All four Puppet Histories hit 1 million views! The Dancing Plague continues to be their best performing video in terms of how quickly its gained views. 

Not to be outdone, though, the first episode of Are You Scared is still trending really well. It won’t beat Dancing Plague’s record to 1 million but I won’t be surprised if it’s one of Watcher’s next videos to get there.

AYS did very well in general, especially for how low-budget that show has to be. (all their cost has to be in editing and the illustrations) If they don’t film more of those asap, they’re dummies.

Now that Watcher is airing seasons of shows in order, I wondered if the opening weeks numbers would shift significantly. So far...not really! I grouped up the WWWs in the second picture and they’ve all hit somewhat similar numbers. Birdwatching had the best opening week, but only by 2k over Soda Pop.

Of course the current numbers for each episode do vary a lot. Shakespeare continues to be an underperformer, while K1 Racing has had some nice growth. Birdwatching’s success amuses me the most, I honestly would not have called that.

Watcher Weekly 029 (Ask Our Editor Anything) did so poorly that I wonder if the algorithm fucked up or something. It’s actually one of the best WWs in weeks! Not only is Lauren, the Watcher Weekly editor, a complete delight, they answered more than 3 questions and did them thoughtfully! What’s going on there, YouTube???

After WWW ends this week, we’re presumably getting a new Steven show and I am very interested in how it does. Sadly, neither of his existing shows can shoot thanks to the pandemic (and I’m not sure Grocery Run would come back even if they could), so it’ll be something new. 

If you’re interested in hearing Steven’s feelings about Watcher viewcounts compared to Worth It’s, watch episode 2 of Making Watcher on their patreon. 

As of today, August 3, 2020, the Watcher channel has 24,277,565 total views over 71 videos. Compared to last time I posted one of these, their average view per video went from ~310k to ~341k! Neat!

I think that’s it for now! As always, feel free to hit me up literally any time for questions or observations. <3

[nmoroder]

L4D(2) Actor AU

This is a (not complete) list of headcanons for the Actor AU me and my bro came up with during our Expert runs and running extremely low on morale. We created this as a sort of ‘happy’ AU which would also give some room to our own ideas, so some of this stuff below may only slightly be related to original. We understand.

This post won’t be updated but instead followed by other ones if something else arises, so check ‘l4d actor au’ tag on my blog for more!

Overall setting

The Left 4 Dead universe itself is a series of 90-min movies divided into first and second season, L4D1 and L4D2 respectively. This list will further refer to them as S1 and S2;

L4D is a series about, of course, zombie apocalypse, but teamwork and forming bonds between people are brought to spotlight. Both seasons consist of episodes where four Survivors try to find a solid ground and safety with every episode ending on a cheerful note but every next one starting with the cheerfulness destroyed. The episodes share their names and events with Campaigns;

Originally, L4D was created by a team of enthusiasts, consisting of friends, families and family friends, so they are all very immersed in process and really giving their best. Their collective is also the reason their funding isn’t very high and they’re mostly using their own equipment and props; this makes the series look less expensive and polished but retains the atmosphere and the main goal: to show people growing warmer to each other and learning to stick together;

The actors’ names are mostly created by combining the face model’s first name and the voice actor’s last name, though some other versions do take place (see S1 and S2);

The safehouse graffitis are inspired by the fans’ responses from forums and contests, so it’s some sort of communicating with audience through screenplay;

The Third Strike, more commonly known as Black and White Mode which occures after second incapacitation, was firstly discovered as a camera malfunction but then the team liked it so much that they decided to leave it as a feature and add the heartbeat effect and stuff;

Main plot line consists solely of canon Campaigns (that means it doesn’t include Last Stand and Cold Stream) but there were also suggestions to shot additional episodes - the Mutations. After S1 success, the authors posted their ideas on different ‘modes’ and fans added theirs as well and thus during S2 some more episodes were made using, for example, a male synchronized swimming team to create the Hunting Party mutation. The original Hunter actor also participated and the swimmers required to copy his behavior; they did it so well that sometimes the whole Survivor team was being overwhelmed once they began the take;

There are no stuntmen on board so every fighting scene is shot with original actors. When it requires to shove someone off with a weapon (e.g. Zoey shoving a Hunter off Louis in the L4D1 intro), after the take actors always ask each other whether they hit too hard, should they improve the movements etc. Different actors have different range so it’s a tricky thing to cooperate but they still manage (I’ll come back to this topic in L4D2 section);

Most Infected, especially Special Infected encounters are improvised, bringing more life and realism to the Survivors’ response. The Hunter is responsible for a fair share of their shock as they noticed him stuck at a saferoom ceiling only after a while (this is a reference to the glitches that allow the Hunter to get stuck under the roof in Versus);

There was a suggestion to run a Kickstarter campaign to gather money for a fanservice episode especially for shippers. While it was most likely a joke from actors who didn’t mind shipping, it’s still a suggestion and not in work.

L4D (Season 1)

Zoey shares the zombie movie obsession with her actress; Sonja was the most familiar with the topic among original team and provided a lot of help with setting up the scene, behaviour writing etc. Along with Louis and Boomer actors, she was the creator of original idea and can consider herself a founder of the series. She is also older than Zoey as a character, being already in her 25s while Zoey is a college student;

The original Boomer actor was a CGI specialist and offered his skills for post-processing while also playing an Infected role. He came up with the idea of a Boomer Infected himself and suggested his large physique to do the role with a little touch of computer graphics and makeup;

While discussing the major characters and personalities worth including, Zoey’s actress instantly remembered her neighbor, the big buffy tattooed guy who was her childhood friend, worked as a driver and spent his weekends with his favorite bike. She figured that it’s a nice image to have in a zombie apocalypse setting, and thus Francis’ actor made it to the set;

When it came to the image of a war veteran refusing to give in to monsters, Zoey’s actress was also the one to suggest another person to fill up the space: her father. He was younger than Bill was written to be but did the impersonating well. He’s got an overall friendly but bickering attitude towards Francis’ actor so most of lines written for Bill and Francis interaction were the ones actors remembered from their own conversations, slightly exaggerated;

Zoey’s actress and Louis’ actor were co-workers for several years and bonded over their mutual interest to zombie theme and shooting. She foud out that Sean attended a shooting range in his spare time and asked him to take her out too; thus she both found out he aces in ambidextrous shooting and got him to teach her how to wield a hunting rifle. The weapon preferences were carried over to respective characters;

Hunter’s actor became a surprise for the team as Francis’ actor brought him over saying that the guy’s got a fantastic voice (and a music band) and physique to make some badass new Infected for them. They got him to voice the crowd extras of common Infected but also came up with an idea of shrieking hooded parkour bastard to rip someone’s guts out, thus creating the Hunter as another Special Infected;

As the next Special Infected concept came out of the shadows - a lanky coughing tongue-twisting zombie who would grab the Survivors and restrict them, Hunter’s actor brought another person to the set. It was his music band co-participant who did drums and back vocals and also had an ability to eject the most horrible coughing sound out of his throat while being (seemingly) healthy. He took over the role of a Smoker;

Hunter’s actor is named Mike after Mike Patton, the voice actor for Infected and SI like Hunter and Smoker. Smoker’s actor is named Mike too but the fact that he plays drums and does back vocals is actually a reference to Faith No More, the band where Patton actually does vocals and Mike Bordin does what Smoker’s actor does. It sounds complicated but originally the idea of Hunter and Smoker actors sharing a name came from Patton voicing them both, and then I found out about the band and two Mikes present so... that was a weird but happy coincidence;

The fact stated above was the reason the team came up with nicknames just for two Mikes on the set - Hoodie and Tongue respectively. The tradition was carried over to S2 where the new Hunter actor would receive a patronizing nickname Kid from Survivors (see S2)

Of all Infected actors, Hunter’s actor was the least level-headed and even Francis’ actor sometimes doubted his past decision to bring him in. Nevertheless, Hoodie’s cheerful attitude and energy helped the collective stay positive and fuelled during especially hard days. It also brought out the less lethargic and melancholic part of Tongue and made him more lively about things;

Despite Hoodie being the Endless Energy Core which people tended to adore, he was still in a lousy relationship with Witch’s actress (her name, by the way, is different from the voice actress - it’s Rose). He kept a charmer’s attitude towards her even though she was a married woman; Rose tended to be neutral or mostly positive towards most colleagues but this behavior pissed her off big time, leading to Hoodie being injured by her stage costume claws after she punched him in the face for a really bad dating joke. Hoodie toned it down afterwards but their relationship didn’t improve much up until the end;

Witch’s actress is keen on baking and sometimes brings some to the filming set;

Since the budget was comparatively low, the team couldn’t afford a lot of crowd extras so they hired a group of people to then create an image of a Horde attacking by using CGI. That’s why there’s so much repeating common Infected on-screen;

The first season included all L4D1 original Campaigns, leaving The Sacrifice out as it was added later in a DLC. As S2 came into development stage, the team wanted to add an episode with the old Survivors team but Bill’s actor was unavailable at the time and was overall not hot with the idea of shooting movies anymore; so eventually they plotted the episode (The Passing campaign) to feature Bill being dead. The fans were shocked to find it out and demanded to know what exactly happened, thus leading to actually shooting The Sacrifice as a bonus episode to S1 (and requiring Bill’s actor to come back despite his attitude).

L4D2 (Season 2)

The collective decided to take a sharp turn on the new Survivors and create them being unacquainted and sort of separated at the start but growing closer as time passes by. The idea of S1 Survivors being almost a family to each other sounded great and played along just right but the team wanted to delve deeper into relationship problems and also have a change of scenery - and so they did;

The Infected team for S2 still consisted of some old faces (Boomer, Tank and Witch) but some had to leave the set for the time being and were unable to rehearse the roles, this being Hunter and Smoker actors. They got into music harder than zombie movies and planned to go on a tour so they could only leave their old Infected sounds as a legacy;

The new Smoker actor was a treasure Coach’s actor brought to the set. Since Coach was in fact a college coach, he kept a close eye on some problematic students under his wing and picked out the one he’d considered perfect and at the same time worth looking after. The guy was recovering from compulsory drug treatment and had some ugly scars all over his arms, making him an easier candidate for makeup;

Hoodie, on his part, brought a replacement on his own, and it was his brother - four years younger, even more insanely into parkour and a huge fan of L4D series, he made a perfect new Hunter. Despite being only a few years younger than Hoodie, he instantly became treated like a restless constant-questioner child, a literal piece of sunshine on the set, so the team came to call him just Kid. He adjusted to the nickname after a couple of weeks, though being seriously surprised at it at the start;

The actors of Ellis, Jockey and Charger all come from one family, being two sons and a father. Coach suggested the family as well, being their close friend for many years and pointing out Ellis’ actor appearance being something close to the laid-back mechanic they wanted for the new Survivors team;

Although fluently speaking in a Southern accent, Ellis’ actor isn’t very fond of it as he tried to get rid of it and move to a different state; the role obliged him to use the accent again though and it wasn’t hard to recreate, but he still didn’t take pride in it and was mostly annoyed with it and Nick’s jokes written in script;

Ellis’ actor is also the one more frequently complaining about amount of money the actors receive for their work on set. Their funding increased a bit since S1′s popularity strike but still;

Most of Ellis’ stories were written based on actual on-set incidents, usually featuring Nick’s actor (see below);

Nick’s actor, Taymour, is married to Witch’s actress and is a big fan of her performance in S1. When she heard the idea of having a snarky self-centered ladies’ man in the new Survivors team, she immediately knew who’d handle the role at his best. She also rehearsed the role of Witch just to make sure nothing bad happens to her husband on-set (also see below);

Nick’s actor suffers from constant bad luck incidents. He can accidentally break or twist something without serious effort; he’s also allergic to artificial blood and he is the reason the filming set actually features painkillers and functioning adrenaline shots. Despite all that, he’s got a positive attitude about bad luck and got used to being in a state of constant non-obvious danger, unlike others who geniunely worry about his well-being and fear that one day an accidental injury might end him once and for all;

This trait is also the reason Nick’s line “Can’t you see I’m limping here?” made it into the script - it was improvised after Nick’s actor badly hit his leg and was the last to make it to a saferoom during a take. The team liked it and decided to leave it in;

Nick’s actor treats his role with all respect and doesn’t consider it a small one despite the not so large fee. He’s also a complete opposite to the character, being a very friendly and kind-hearted guy to everyone on set; he can however switch back to his script personality with startling speed and it scared some of the new actors at first. Despite playing an asshole which is very different from real him, Nick’s actor enjoys it a lot and overall finds great joy in working with the team and bringing them together;

Bringing back the topic of being gentle to each other, Nick’s actor takes great care when it’s required to hit or shove someone in the take, keeping it mildest possible, unlike for example Ellis’ actor who can smash you in the face without a second thought;

Nick’s actor and Witch’s actress keep their loving attitude on set as well, sometimes making it hard to shoot scenes featuring a Witch killing; as they were shooting the Witch Bride scene where the same actress took place but had a different outfit and makeup, they ruined several takes by driving the dialogue in unwanted directions, e.g. “Ellis, go kiss the bride! No wait, I’ll do that myself” or “N: Sounds like my ex-wife... W: I still AM your wife, darling! >:C”;

With her husband on stage, Witch’s actress is probably closest to her role - she will tear apart anyone who dares to hit on Nick’s actor or mean any harm to him (as if his own harming isn’t enough...). The only one she’d go loose is Ellis’ actor, being an old close friend;

Ellis’ actor was the one who introduced Nick’s actor to his future wife. They’ve actually been close friends since the university and Ellis’ actor was among those who obviously saw Nick’s actor and Rose being in love but completely oblivious to it. Ellis’ actor is still kinda jealous that she took his best friend away and they can’t hang out anymore like they used to, but they get quite a lot of time on set so he’s less irritated about that;

Nick’s actor is especially supportive towards Rochelle’s actress, Shanola. She feels self-conscious because of her character’s rating being lower than expected and blames it on her performance, but Taymour keeps reassuring her that she’s doing amazing. Rochelle’s actress is also the one least accustomed to shooting a weapon and handling violence of any kind so it was hard for her to get her head into action. With the team fully supporting her, the progress sped up tremendously;

Ellis’ actor’s name is Jesy and he gets salty about people misspelling it or mistaking it for a female name. It was the inspiration to include the “El kinda sounds like a girl’s name” part of Ellis’ dialogue;

The team is overall friendly towards shipping dynamics in the series’ fandom, with the only one explicitly stating otherwise being Ellis’ actor. He’s espeicially upset with Nellis ship as people started shipping actors over it too; he stated multiple times that he and Nick’s actor have been best friends for so long that it’s simply wrong to imply any romantic and/or sexual relationship between them. He once stated in an interview that he’d rather believe an Ellis/Hunter ship and the fandom exploded with it on the next day, much to the actor’s chagrin. The Hunter’s actor, or Kid, however, wasn’t that upset and supported the idea. The team made no confirmation to any ships yet;

Nick’s actor is neutral to most ships including Nellis and doesn’t see why his friend is so angry about it. His personal favorites are Nick/Witch for obvious reasons and Nick/Hunter for less obvious reasons that he doesn’t state. He jokingly suggests Jesy from time to time to start a Kickstarter campaign for a Nellis-centered episode; it’s still unknown whether they’ll take it serious one day.

[thisbluespirit]

Ten Favourite Characters

Memed from @mariocki​  And despite the numbering, not really in strict order, although I tried and no. 1 is definitely no. 1. 

10. Kathryn Janeway

"There are three things to remember about being a starship captain. Keep your shirt tucked in, go down with the ship... and never abandon a member of your crew."

Okay, basically, me and Star Trek is: I like it if it has Captain Janeway in it.  If it does not have Captain Janeway in it, I might go so far as to mildly enjoy it from time to time, but Janeway is the essential thing.  I walked in one day and saw Kate Mulgrew on the screen and sat down immediately, eventually asking my friend, in hushed tones of awe, “Who is that?”  (I’m not even joking.)  (I don’t hate the rest of ST or anything, but, you know.  It’s not Doctor Who and it doesn’t have Captain Janeway in it, what can I say?  I like the one with the whales, too?)

9. Jenkins

“Magic is not an exact science. If it were, it would be science.”

With Jenkins (John Larroquette), The Librarians takes a mythical character I never gave a thought to, or imagined I would want to, and gave me All the Feels about him.  By the end of S1, I was drawing hearts around Jenkins every time he appeared and that happens all too rarely at the moment, so I think he has to go on this list.  (I’m a Doctor Who fan, how could I not love a grumpy immortal caretaker with a magic door and a heart of gold?) *draws hearts around him regardless of his disapproval and annoyance at said hearts*

8. G’kar

“No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power tyrants and dictators cannot stand. The Centauri learned that lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free.”

G’kar’s arc is just beautiful (from semi-villainous schemer to unwilling religious icon), as is every part of his epic relationship with Londo, and he is my favourite.  There was a period in S1 where there were about 7 episodes without him and I nearly died.  And, I mean, I really like Babylon 5 and everybody else in it, but that was just cruel and unusual.  Thank goodness it never happened again.  Andreas Katsulas was just brilliant.

7. Seventh Doctor

"That's what guns are for. Pull the trigger, end a life. Simple, isn't it?  Why don't you do it, then?  Look me in the eye, pull the trigger, end my life.  Why not?"

What do you do with a thing like Doctor Who in a meme like this?  I could do my top ten fave characters just in Doctors, let alone companions, before we even get started on minor characters, so let’s have my favourite Doctor do the honours for everyone here.  He hates unrequited love, loathes bus stations (terrible places, full of lost souls and lost luggage), and knows we all have a universe of our own terrors to face, and he’ll be back in time for tea.

With Ace, of course, who is also the best.  As are so many of the rest.

6. Servalan

"There’s no one as free as a dead man.”

It’s so hard to choose Blake’s 7 characters!  They’re all so fascinating, that’s why it still gets watched and loved.  If I’m honest it’s Vila or Servalan, and today I went for Servalan, which probably will save anyone from getting stabbed in the back.  I love me an evil lady and Jacqueline Pearce’s Servalan is probably my favourite villain in anything, especially in terms of characters who remain irredeemable, but are also plausible and interesting.  She’s certainly the most fabulously dressed, anyway.

5. Lynda Day

”I don’t do conversation.  Everything I say comes out like an order.  I say hello and people salute!”

Like every other girl of my very specific age demographic in the UK (Press Gang was watched by something ridiculous like 80% of its target teenage audience, which I don’t think has ever happened before or since), I wanted to grow up to be Lynda Day, dictator editor of the Junior Gazette.  It’s probably as well that none of us did, but she was the very best, and I remain grateful to have had her around, and Julia Sawalha was always fantastic right from trespassers will be exterminated to there are crocodiles. 

4. Silver

Sapphire: “You’re supposed to lose sometimes.”

Silver: “Oh! I wondered why I wasn’t having any fun.”

So, Sapphire and Steel are pretty amazing, right, but let’s be honest, I was always watching this for the red-headed guy in Assignments 3 & 6, and he did not disappoint.  I mean, Sapphire & Steel is the weirdest, creepiest low-budget thing with our srs bsns inhuman heroes and then suddenly David Collings turns up and makes light-bulbs glow and turn into glitter.  He is the sparkliest, no one can deny it and he can slide right into the perfect OTP and turn it into the even shinier OT3.  Not that that stops him flirting with everyone else as well, of course.

3. Regina Mills

“There's no redemption for me. There's only suffering. Because now I have a curse. The curse of knowing the difference between good and evil. And I'm caught between them. If I revert, I lose everyone I love. Henry, my friends, everyone. And if I go forward trying to be good, I have to live with my past darkness and all its well-deserved consequences... But for me, it's a simple choice really. I'd rather suffer than see that pain on the people I care about. This is my fate.“                            

Regina gets to go from being Once Upon A Time’s original OTT fairytale villain to hero (and plays out every possible shade in between, plus various cursed and alternate versions of herself, not to mention her evil doppelganger), and Lana Parrilla’s just amazing at All The Things.  I went from not even liking her to somehow letting her rip my heart right out of my chest when I wasn’t looking.  (Bonus shout out to her mother Cora Mills/Queen of Hearts (Barbara Hershey) too.)

2. Frank Marker

"Have you heard about old heads on young shoulders?  Well, you employ me, you get an old head.  You get old shoulders, too, but then no-one's perfect."

I’m with @mariocki​ here: Alfred Burke’s run down, small-time enquiry agent in Public Eye (TV 1965-75) is one of the most utterly 3D, real and compelling TV characters I’ve ever come across.  (With a bonus mention for the very lovely Helen Mortimer (Pauline Delany), because I might even love her a tiny bit more than Frank some days. <3)

1. Ruth Evershed

“I like to think no institution in the country is safe from me.”

I had to think about this long and hard a while ago, and Nicola Walker’s Ruth from Spooks | MI5 is still probably my favourite character in anything.  It’s tough.  But RUTH.  I love her so much.  There’s a S2 DVD commentary with Howard Brenton and Nicola Walker on her first episode and basically Nicola just sits there going, “I love Ruth.”  And I’m: “ME TOO.” From her first appearance, dropping the files, buggering the Home Office, and breaking the desk lamp to more serious, angsty, later stuff, she’s just so damn good at her job (and in Spooks that’s a tragedy waiting to happen).

It’s really hard to list only 10 though.  I’m an all-eras Doctor Who fan.  I’d need three posts at least just to start on that, I keep falling in love with characters from ancient telly and every now and then I even watch new things...

[lydia-can-live]

Review of Outlander “The Fiery Cross” S5:EP1…

TL,DR: If you like your historical drama sanitized and the perfect back drop for your own inner dialogue, then you will likely love the Outlander S5 premier.

Preferring the more gritty realism of S1 and S2, I’m most bothered by how everything looks. We all know what it was like in the 18th century. There were fires everywhere, tons of soot, smoke and ash, yet everything in S5 is so clean. Historical accuracy is necessary to balance the fantasy/romance aspect and make the show more believable.

The immigrants of 1774 living in the mountains spent a lot of their time trying to stay alive, but here’s Jamie, walking through his giant house with mill-sawed lumbar walls that are painted cheery shades of green and daffodil yellow. The perfectly plum French doors have been expertly glazed and a wee clay flower pot sits in Claire’s magnificent surgery, holding a delicate posy.

It gets worse. Jamie is the laird to a bevy of tenants who are working on the big house, presumably in preparation for Bree’s wedding. The Frasers are supposed to be land rich and cash poor, yet Fraser’s Ridge is as opulent as Mount Vernon, but with better furniture and a cache of volunteer labor.

Every aspect of this episode is like a Hallmark movie. It’s a lovely, garland strewn, brightly colored, clean and well lighted, freshly mowed green-grass fantasy of Fraser’s Ridge. Your imagination does the real work of storytelling while your eyes take in the luscious scenery.  

BTW, the wedding was supposed to occur at the fully established plantation River Run, owned by the wealthy Aunt Jocasta, whose dozens of slaves worked endlessly to maintain the house and property and secure Jocasta a profitable business. Outlander took a spin through the sanitization machine and Jamie has his tenants doing it all, willingly, all while keeping their autonomy and a seat at the Laird’s daughter’s wedding.  That’s one way to whitewash the truth of slavery, Outlander producers.

My daughter watched a bit of “The Devil’s Mark” from S1 with me last week. “This is pretty good, I’m surprised” she said. We watched a few scenes from “The Search” and she had the same response.  She loved the authenticity of the clothes, the scenery, the acting. Next day I had her watch “The Fiery Cross” and her simple assessment was “I’m sorry this happened to your show”.  She stopped watching after Roger and Bree toasted each other with crystal high ball glasses.

About the acting: Sam does not know how to play older Jamie. He puts on his little glasses and uses stilted mannerisms with a hint of incompetence (e.g., the awkward shaving scene with Roger) that get the job done, but he plays it like a bumbling old man that’s about to stoop over, cup his ear and yell “Huh? Speak up, sonny, I can’t hear you!” Sure, he can play the stern warrior, but he doesn’t bring any weight or resonance to being a family man or a father. He’s either blasé about it, or silly. As Claire’s husband he is intensely in love and overly romantic. He looks at her with what is supposed to be serious longing but tends to look more like he wants to constantly apologize for something. It’s not romantic. It’s tedious. The Frasers are normally humorous people and Sam misses every opportunity to be, well, just normal with her.

Sophie does not embody Brianna’s character even a little and simply can’t act. Rik was most effective when he was being incredulous, which I don’t mind, but he doesn’t even try to emulate the thoughtful historian of the books. He’s got history happening all around him but never looks interested in any of it.

Caitriona plays Claire with that “oh, you guys!” kind of sheepishness that comes from not really understanding what the young folks are talking about, and that is not Claire. Claire is the smartest person in the room, usually, and if she’s not tut-tutting Jamie about something she’s looking especially concerned about something else. Her wig is still horrible, and she looks like she regrets choosing Jamie over those hot baths back in the 20th century.

So, the set was beautiful and he actors said their lines with a modicum of human emotion. As far as Hallmark movies go, I’d say it was on par. Low budget and mass produced to manipulate your emotions and allow you to imagine the story is aligned with your own hetero-normative wishes and dreams. What it is not, is good storytelling.

For more on why sanitized television keeps us in our compliant bubbles, please enjoy this Salon article:

https://www.salon.com/2019/12/25/hallmark-christmas-movies-fascist-propaganda/

[villanelleismyeviltwin]

My shitty guesses and questions of Villanelle’s survival skills from the new photos of Killing Eve S2

.

.

2×01 –“Do You Know How to Dispose of a Body?”

From my previous post, I think Villanelle has no chance to go back to her chic apartment anymore. She doesn’t even bring a gun with her! So I guess she has no money or anything to identify herself at all. All she can do is stealing the homeless’s vodka for her wound and his jacket to cover it. I think she intentionally jumps on the taxi forcing the driver to take her to the hospital. Now I wonder how she will tell the doctors and nurses about herself and the wound without being investigated by polices. Or will she will pull the amnesia card? LOL!

In this scene, I guess she’s looking at a boy lying on the bed next to her. But why she has to close the curtains? Probably trying to fool everyone that she’s in the bed while escaping and wearing Crocs with traumatized face LOL. I don’t think she she get away with that doctor gown and Crocs we see in the trailer. I think she will be caught by the doctors, nurses, or security guards, and be forced to stay at the hospital until it’s time for her to get the pajamas and ready to leave.

I don’t know where she’s got this leather business bag from and what she’s packing (seems like a medication or tickets to me). I guess this is when the boy asks her “Do you know how to dispose a body?” or even asks Villanelle to kill him (according to the inevitable spoilers). That why Villanelle has that look on her face. She has never been asked to kill by someone before, especially a kid, she must feel something.

.

.

2×02 – “Nice and Neat”

At first, I thought she would go to the Samaritan provided by the hospital before she left. But I was so effing wrong! She go straight to a self-service laundry shop to find clothes she’s more comfortable with. Seems like something is missing from her bag The medication or the tickets?

After changing clothes and going the supermarket, I guess she meets a Samaritan there. He seems good. He takes her in and cares for her like the synopsis mentioned.

But seems like Villanelle is not happy here. In the first trailer, we see her fall hard onto the ground in this dress. Maybe the Samaritan isn’t as good as she thought? Or maybe she makes a call to someone or answers it for him and learns something’s horrible about him?

I guess she even tries stealing someone’s car (the Samaritan’s is green) to get out of there. But, she might sick of escaping so she goes back and finds a kitchen knife to stab him with. Then take his money to buy her stylish clothes and go around LOL!

.

.

2×03 – The Hungry Caterpillar

After killing the Samaritan, Villanelle needs a new place to stay. I guess she chooses a 3 star hotels to stay low key and save her limited budget she has. Anyway, this hotel seems to be the crime scene for Eve and her new team - a new female assassin. I believe Villanelle is in Room 201, but the crime scene and the piggy mask killer might be in another room 207 (guess from the door numbers posted on Killing Eve FB Page.

At first, I thought the hippie look will happen in Amsterdam. Again, I was wrong. It happens in this episode. I guess she stalks Eve to put a lipstick in her purse and follows her to Niko’s school (he’s a teacher, right?) to place a symbolic apple in the scene where Eve and Niko is together.

The synopsis mentioned “Villanelle is surprised when she is approached by a figure from her past.” Could it be this girl she’s talking to? Or she just be her women-charmer self? Or will it be Konstantin?

.

I love guessing even though most of my guessing is wrong, but I can’t help it LOL.

.

Thank you @ffaupdates for all the photos :)

[incarnateirony]

“Why do people say Misha saved the show? It’s J2′s show.”

So fun fact: 

By industry standard, a show, within its first two episodes, TYPICALLY loses 15% of its demographic. (hence our high 2.5 becoming a low 2.2 between episodes 1 and 2.) It's whether it can fight back against that bump, and how long it can. S1 performed well until episode 8. As it progressed, we waffled from mid 2.5s as low as a 1.3, ranging mid-high 1.x, and ending at 1.6. That's why despite all the 2.2/4/5 at the start of the season, we averaged a 1.94. But that's okay. It's considered a solid show for the CW, even in that day. 2005-2006.

There is a rhyme, a reason, an ebb, and a flow to ratings. The fact that SPN diminished after its first season was no surprise. It's no insult.

2006-2007: Season 2 We started just around the demo our S1 finale ended at and waned, again. We petered down from 1.7 to 1.2 and by the end, averaged 1.38. Okay. A little concerning we're not holding the line, but not a critical loss, especially with even-then gradual loss to still-slow-moving TV decline with the infection of cable to american homes progressing like a silent cold. The issue is, this sunk us close to the bottom of the zone considered a solid investment.

2007-2008: Season 3 And then the decline continued, mostly within surrounding media averages of TV . 1.19. That's fine. Really our average value dropped just a point or two in the industry's eyes. The problem is, where S2 left us, that left us scraping the bottom of what was considered a solid or sound show investment, with a decently high budget investment (cited around 2-3 million/episode back then). But there were things going on outside of it. In 2008, the industry started seeing rapid conversion to cable. While social media expanded, barely any dreams were out in how to really apply it, streaming options were new ideas, but barely executed; ads devalued and more terrifyingly - the government put out the Digital Conversion Mandate.

Anyone old enough to be semi-adult around then may remember friends panicking that they wouldn't be able to use their rabbit ears anymore. Cable, expensive conversion box, or bust. By 2009, all TVs would click off unless you had cable or the converter, because all stations were being forced to click to digital. And some were doing it early.

As TV went from being mostly 8-10 or if lucky in your area, 12 options per household into basic cable packages offering 20-30, suddenly, options diversified. Grey's Anatomy's 9.3 of 2006-7 gouged to 7.16 by 2007-08 within a year, and it was a leader still at the time. And with the conversion box looming like a threat on the horizon, by 2008-09, Grey's would clip out at 5.73. And this reflected almost everywhere. Every major show, every major network. 10s became 5s within 2 seasons and those were our /top/ runners. And the industry wasn't updated to even know how to address this.

With Supernatural floating at the bottom of the "okay" barrel for their bubble, (as cited by Kripke, "We were on the bubble, and we didn't know if we'd make it"), this was a TERRIFYING time to be in production and a HORRIBLE place to be in.

2008-2009: Season 4 As Grey's dropped from 7.13 to 5.73, and others like it mirrored it or worse (at losses of 10-30% being common) or more than 20% of its raw demographic in a single year, you can understand where the panic in the industry was. Nobody knew how to handle this. Advertisement and thus income was getting boned right in the taint.

Supernatural, hanging at a 1.19 and praying for its life, already in gradual decline even in pre-crisis curve, could easily become one of those 30% downs. Projected curve would have put them around 0.83. Or, at that point, roughly 0.2 points beneath what would make advertisers even consider them while everything was going up in flames.

But instead, something magical happened. As Dean pulled himself from his grave, so did the show.

We didn't go down. We went up. And we were one of very, very few shows to do so.

Kripke said he was glad he had taken up the idea of angels, because it had rejuvinated the show, “in no small part thanks to this guy," as he gestured to Misha.

We rose. From 1.19. To 1.33 for the season average.

We bounced in the opposite direction as much as we were naturally slated to sink.

And as methods came to track this chaotic mess of transition, Supernatural's actual retention in the industry shone well, well above the previous seasons. Season 4 was performing, amidst the industry crash, 18.2% better than season 3 before it, with and 15.9% percent better in respective retention than season 2.  

And as this pandemic continued through 2009-2010, Supernatural held. It held its level, its curve, and its virtue against time. We only really started sinking lower by late season 6, despite being in what was considered a bad timeslot; it was season 7 we nuked out for real; even in, again, respective industry curve. Now, fill in the blanks of what was going on in the show during this time, I've written much larger coverages of this since.

But by S8/2012-13, we were back on our feet to the S4 retention value in curve. By S9, we went higher than SPN had ever been before. We experienced a minor waffle in S10, but it still kept us higher than even season 1 with its high averages; S11-12, we crept up and stayed level in retention, while streaming options that mark sales and digital calls but fail to pour into demos skyrocketed in options and shows continued to sink. And season 13 is a beautiful beast so far; at our lowest possible projections short of unexpected crash and burn, we will at least match S9's retention; we have a chance of completely shattering it.

September 18th, 2008, when Misha Collins waltzed into the show, a new dynamic saved it from dropping through the floor both in ratings and even adapted industry curve while the entire television world turned on its head. And the only time it has fallen through that floor since is in the season they tried to remove him.

So whenever someone numbly, blindly asks, "where did this come from?" you don't even have to just say "Eric Kripke said it." It's true. Eric Kripke said it. But there was a reason he said it.

And he said it because Castiel inevitably saved the show.

And Kripke isn't the only one who's said it.

There is Ben Edlund,

And there is even Robert Singer as of last year,

both quite interesting statements with all the "Castiel isn't a lead", a point I've already shredded by-standard here: (Link - Re: Trivial Arguing on Leads)

People say Castiel rejuvinated or saved the show because Kripke said he did because he did, and it just takes paying attention to history outside of the SPN bubble to understand why.

[reactingtosomething]

Reacting to Wynonna Earp: Episodes 210-212

An Occult 23andMe

The Setup: Miri and Kris adore Wynonna Earp and have been reacting to this season a few episodes at a time. As always, we are in awe of Emily Andras’s writing, Melanie Scrofano’s face and general talent, and the entire cast and crew. We also have a few questions, critiques, and predictions that are sure to be proven wrong. 

Find our previous Wynonna Earp s2 reacting here, here, here, and here.

Spoilers through the season 2 finale, “I Hope You Dance,” below!

KRIS: I feel like you should lead with some all caps here or something

MIRI: As usual I HAVE A VERY MANY FEELINGS

THE BAAAABY

WYNONNA

***ASCENDED WIDOW MERCEDES?!?!??!***

And Jeremy is just such a peach

as per usual

KRIS: I actually saw this Scrofano Instagram the night of the episode (and I watch the morning after via iTunes) so I had some sense of the twist coming

MIRI: OH MY GODDDDDDDD

(I was really proud of how well I avoided spoilers this time)

KRIS: Which was kind of a bummer, but it still landed for me

Especially because of the detail of Nicole’s involvement

MIRI: Yes! An excellent tying together of various threads

KRIS: So you kind of called this, or something like it, back when we reacted to the pregnancy. Was this what you had in mind?

MIRI: ...I might have to reread that reaction really quickly to refresh my memory on what I meant

KRIS: I remember you said “noble sacrifice”

MIRI: Ohhhh yes

Yeah, I think from a show and a show writing perspective this is what makes sense

KRIS: At the time my mind went somewhere darker and more supernatural

MIRI: Because it is the version that reinforces/adds a layer to the core plot of the whole thing--Wynonna has to end the curse. For herself, but mostly for everyone she loves because she refuses to let this fall on someone else like it fell on her

And the baby adds to that, but without having to change the actual structure of things drastically--which they would have to do to add an actual baby in week to week

Also, this is the version with a combined maximum pain now and pain in the future. (slash tension, slash stakes)

KRIS: Yeah it definitely is obvious in hindsight that Wynonna would not want her baby in the Triangle

MIRI: But they covered it with the revenant question so well it didn’t feel obvious at the time!!

KRIS: It’s a little funny to me that Wynonna’s version of “I named her so no one looking for an Earp will find her” is “I didn’t give her a name that starts with W”

MIRI: HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

KRIS:  Because I feel like “named after the grandparents” is pretty standard?

MIRI: “It’s just your mom’s name and my mom’s name and we’re only MASSIVELY FAMOUS/INFAMOUS within the community of people who might want to use/abuse this baby”

KRIS: I guesss maybe people wouldn’t necessarily expect Doc as the father

MIRI: Maybe, but several people with great knowledge of history already know

Like the Firebros Cult

KRIS: But aren’t they all, like, barbecued now?

Did I read that scene wrong?

MIRI: Oh, right

I forgot about that

Which is funny, because in the moment I was super excited about Dolls using his fire again!

KRIS: Right! And obviously I wanted a wide shot but I UNDERSTAND

MIRI: I mean, they already got a helicopter and a baby in the budget

KRIS: That did feel a little unresolved, mechanically, I guess because Dolls’s goal for the episode (get the doctor) was ultimately irrelevant

Emily Andras was very happy about her helicopter

“I was bluffing!”

MIRI: Let me just say for the 8,000th time: I would very much like to be Emily Andras when I grow up

KRIS: I usually roll my eyes at “gonna move to Canada” but if it’s “gonna move to Canada to work for Emily Andras” I’d have to be like “yeah that makes sense”

MIRI: YES

K: I really do like Canada, just not when Americans say they'll move there to run away from our problems

KRIS: Stuff like not getting a resolution beat for the Order made me think, not for the first time, that this show definitely rides a knife-edge of just having too much going on

MIRI: Yeah, I feel that re: Rosita and Mercedes too

KRIS: And if the emotional storytelling wasn’t as assured the whole thing could easily fall on its face

YES Rosita

MIRI: And I wonder if it was part baby clock/changing the whole season so late in the game?

KRIS: Maybe

I’d probably have to rewatch the first season

MIRI: But in general this show is just chock full of plot

Rosita is the only one that really bothered me

KRIS: I’m not super clear on what Rosita’s plan was, re: safe passage

MIRI: I wonder if there’s a scene or two on the cutting room floor there

(in this episode or previous ones)

Because she’s set up to be pretty cool, and while her point about the whole “I’ll shoot you last” thing being kind of TERRIBLE to say to someone/have to live under is valid, the turn just felt rushed to me

KRIS: Yeah

MIRI: Also, did she die?? Was she Saved? What exactly happened?

KRIS: I had to look up the last time Peacemaker turned blue and it was when Wynonna shot Willa

MIRI: Ahhhhhh I did not remember that

Huh

KRIS: I thought maybe she’d been un-revenanted but her reaction was still pretty angry so that didn’t feel right, so then I thought maybe Waverly had fired a warning shot?

MIRI: So maybe its when it has to act outside of normal bounds? Killing an heir, working for a non-official heir (yet?)

KRIS: Yeah that makes sense

MIRI: Hmmmm I’m holding out a tiny bit of help for it having saved Rosita and her not understanding

which is why she’s angry

KRIS: I definitely hope she comes back

as a regular

MIRI: And that would potentially fit with the idea of Waverly being something else supernatural

Me too!! I really love her

KRIS: Also sentient or semi-sentient weapons are always a favorite trope of mine

MIRI: I know this is not at all what you meant, but it reminded me that I love the Wynonna moment of declaring that she’s her own damn weapon, not anyone else’s to use

KRIS: And although I think the more straightforward reading here is “Peacemaker does what Wynonna says,” I also kind of like the idea of like “Peacemaker’s understanding of Family has caught up with the 21st century”

Yeah!

M: Speaking of family...(I love this gif and couldn’t find a better place for it)

MIRI: Well if Widow Mercedes could do it, maybe Peacemaker could too

Can we talk about her? Because I’m low-key obsessed

KRIS: Yeah that was wild

MIRI: I was 100% shocked

did not call her turning against the husband at all

and I LOVED IT

KRIS: Yeah, and a break with Beth was pretty well set up with her getting steadily disgruntled by everything over the last few episodes

MIRI: Yes! Her turning on Beth felt totally natural, but I did not even consider her turning on demon husband

How did you feel about him being all weak? I know someone who didn’t buy it, but to me it totally worked nicely as another Andras subversion of the expected story.

KRIS: That made sense to me

MIRI: Especially if he’s a demon who needs to feed (as the Widows clearly need to) and he’s been cut off for 100 years

Cool

KRIS: And I definitely didn’t feel cheated out of a battle with a demon lord or anything since I was invested in the baby stuff

MIRI: Totally! They did a very nice job of shifting the main tension and keeping stakes very high

Did you briefly think that Doc had become a revenant? Because I briefly thought that when he was talking to Bobo and I was Very Concerned

KRIS: No, but what line made you think that?

MIRI: When Doc said he’d been to hell

(yelling down to Bobo in the well)

And Bobo mentions Wyatt screwing both of them

But then he called Doc mortal

KRIS: Oh okay. Yeah I just really liked that line both on the level of having lied to Wynonna earlier and on the level of conceding that at least so far Doc’s maybe done more bad than good

MIRI: Yeah, it all worked, I just had a moment of fear

KRIS: So now we know that Doc listens to Adele

MIRI: As any right-thinking person does, yes

Wait, we jumped off of Widow Mercedes too quickly

I just need to say that she was SUPER COOL all ascended and powerful and shit and I wish there had been time to have her be the big bad of her own 3 episode arc or something

Ok, moving on to the bullet splitting thing

KRIS: My concerns about too many plot threads notwithstanding, I actually think this season was just as long as it needed to be and I don’t know that another major twist would have worked for me

MIRI: No, I don’t think it actually should have happened. The overall narrative would have suffered. I just wanted more Ascended Widow Mercedes in like a pocket universe or something

KRIS: She had kind of an Evil Elsa from Frozen thing going on (as someone who has not seen Frozen)

MIRI: And an interesting mix of Dark Willow and finale, white-haired ascended Goddess Willow from Buffy

KRIS: Oh that’s probably more what they were going for

Okay bullets

MIRI: I think the Frozen thing is valid

Yes, bullets! Doc finally gets to kill something/one

KRIS: I feel like we have literally never seen Wynonna load Peacemaker before so I had gotten to a point of accepting that it magically didn’t need to be loaded

MIRI: Hahahahahah

KRIS: I did kind of want his dramatic “When I shoot something, it dies” line to be lampshaded by someone

Although to be fair he called it out himself last week

MIRI: I would like to take this opportunity to say something that is not fair of me, but I feel strongly:

Tim Rozon’s face doesn’t make sense to me without the Doc Holliday mustache

KRIS: HA

MIRI: He’s still handsome! It’s a good face! but it just makes no sense to my brain

KRIS: There was a time in my life when I wished I could grow a mustache like that

It’s possible that time has not entirely passed

MIRI: hahahahah

KRIS: But mostly it was like, senior year of college

I feel like we should probably circle back to episodes 8 and 9 10 and 11 for a second

MIRI: Definitely

They did a whole episode without Wynonna! That is so fascinating and ballsy

KRIS: I feel like I wrote down notes somewhere about this but I can’t find them so maybe I just think about it a lot -- how do you feel about tropes like the Couple Destined to Be Together, or “destiny” tropes in general?

MIRI: Hmmmmmmmm it entirely depends on how well executed they are. Sometimes I am ALL IN, other times I think it gets creepy

I’m good with it here

Because it’s not super heavy handed to me

It falls more on the “they are just so right for each other, they keep finding each other” side of things than the “they are Destined To Always Be” side

Plus they had known and cared about each other as friends for a while in the alternate reality

You?

KRIS: As a trope it’s not my thing at all and I may be reacting more to fandom reactions than to anything actually in the text

MIRI: Been there

KRIS: I mean generally I was onboard with it

I think “they’re so right for each other” vs “they are destined” might be a distinction without a difference but I agree that execution counts for a lot

MIRI: I am a little bummed Waverly is confirmed gay (rather than bi) but I’m still so happy about the character and her sheer existence

KRIS: I’m also not sure exactly when it happened (and part of me is deeply suspicious and legitimately concerned that literally letting her hair down had something to do with it) but this last run definitely cemented Nicole as my favorite character

MIRI: Well I think the difference falls in what makes them right for each other being destined implies predetermination and an outside force

While being right for each other comes out of who they both are as people, and there could theoretically be other people just as right for them out there Say more about Nicole as your favorite

KRIS: Maybe part of it’s that she’s in a way the least intense of everyone? Not in the sense that she’s boring but that she has a healthy sense of perspective?

MIRI: Right. She is arguably the normal amongst all of these eccentrics

KRIS: I feel like it can’t be as simple as “audience surrogate,” but I guess there’s a little of that

MIRI: And she’s working to remain that, per Nedley’s speechifying

KRIS: And I think a lot of it is in her line readings -- like you could easily see someone delivering “your ass is top shelf” and “I’d do a lot of things to you” with too much of a wink

EASILY

MIRI: Yes! She’s just so sweet and earnest about both and it MAKES those lines

So, how did you feel about alternate reality without Wynonna?

I don’t know if I 100% buy Doc as the town bad guy, but he was kind of a dick before

So i guess becoming worse is as possible as becoming better

KRIS: I also think -- and I’m getting a little more real than I’m generally comfortable with here -- that as a straight man with a tendency to be hand-wringing about my trying to be a good feminist, there’s a safety in identifying with a character like Nicole who is also sexually attracted to women but by virtue of NOT being a man (and being written and acted as well as she is) is free of a lot of potentially toxic baggage

MIRI: That makes total sense to me

KRIS: I think the alternate reality was a pretty good execution of the “this one person makes all the difference” trope

(The “Remedial Chaos Theory” episode of Community is the high bar for me there)

I bought Doc as a bad guy but maybe not entirely as a ringleader

MIRI: Fair

KRIS: I loved how Rosita, Jeremy, and Nicole had all taken on bigger Black Badge or Black Badge-adjacent responsibilities

MIRI: Yes! I liked all of their interactions

The Iron Witch stuff worked for me too

KRIS: Yeah, better than I think I would’ve expected

MIRI: Grounding it in the sister relationship is always a safe bet on this show

KRIS: That bit where she let down the glamor for a second and Waverly and Nicole were Slowly Spinning in their “real” outfits was pretty cool

MIRI: Very dreamy and funky

I buy Waverly making a stupid choice to save Nicole. You?

KRIS: Yeah, in general I think pushing her luck when other people don’t want her to makes sense for Waverly, and definitely on the heels of everything she’s been through up to that point

MIRI: Agreed

KRIS: I really liked the team interactions in 8 a lot

Dolls telling Waverly “let’s just say it was an order”

MIRI: In the vision quest ep?

KRIS: The Nicole in the Hospital ep

MIRI: Oh, 10, not 8 👍🏻

Yeah, I like the friendship between Dolls and Waverly a lot. It’s never super heavily explored, but it’s always really charming

KRIS: Oh wow I totally lost track of the episode count at some point

MIRI: It was a 12 ep season, not 10

I think we got slightly thrown off in our thoughts about when we would react, that’s all

KRIS: I also really wished there’d been more of a reckoning between Jeremy and Wynonna about Rosita

That seemed like a really important beat that ended up not going anywhere because of all the ensuing crazy

MIRI: Yeah. I hope they come back to it in some way next season

KRIS: But I also really liked Dolls stepping in to be the test subject for awhile and I thought it was weird that possibility didn’t come up earlier

MIRI: Hmmmm

That is valid

Maybe because he couldn’t be killed? And she couldn’t either, but revenants can be harmed short term

KRIS: There also was never an acknowledgement that Waverly broke a promise to tell Wynonna about Rosita

MIRI: Like she was out for a few minutes when Tucker shot her

KRIS: I mean I bought it happening

MIRI: Yeah, people have been in general shitty to Rosita

KRIS: But there was a beat missing on either end -- even Rosita didn’t really mention it

MIRI: Maybe her turn was more earned than I have acknowledged

Right--the building blocks are there, but she never really had a good moment dealign with it all

KRIS: Oh, Nicole’s soon-to-be ex-wife!

Again it felt like there was a beat missing in Shae’s recognition that Waverly was the new girlfriend, or someplace where that might have come up explicitly, but I really liked skipping right over the jealousy tropes

MIRI: Agreed on both counts!

Do we think she’ll come back though? Only because of the note on the divorce papers

KRIS: I didn’t really get that sense, I more just read it as “hey here’s a healthy relationship that’s nice”

MIRI: I think you’re right

I like that Waverly can be weirded out without going full tropey Jealous Girl

So @sweet-but-mostly-sour wanted us to discuss Jeremy’s apparent powers. Any thoughts?

KRIS: I don’t know that it would’ve occurred to me independently

The line there did seem to be hinting at something (I can’t recall what he said) but it also would have made sense to me that he just knew the plan?

Especially because Waverly was pretty clearly expecting Doc at the rendezvous, as opposed to meeting up with him beforehand

Oh it was something about why he’d been recruited into BBD

MIRI: Yeah, one sec, I’m almost to it in the ep

I think

Ok I was wrong but I WILL find it

Oh, I think you were right about it being a warning shot--Waverly grazes Rosita’s temple and Rosita runs out

KRIS: Ah

(I wonder if she just missed?)

MIRI: Yeah, no idea if it was a deliberate warning or not. We know how tricky Peacemaker is

Found it!

Doc asks how Jeremy knows stuff and he says:

“I told you I was in an accident. [The car accident when he was 11.] I wasn’t recruited to Black Badge for my excellent Seinfeld impressions.”

KRIS: Hmm

MIRI: I really love how transparently into people he is without ever creeping on them

KRIS:  “I’d feel it in my groin”

I guess in hindsight that is also a plant

MIRI: The groin or the powers?

I forget who he said that about

KRIS: Doc

A plant for his having powers

hidden in a “Classic Jeremy” joke

Honestly I think I might prefer a Jeremy who picks up on things like Wynonna’s pregnancy just because he pays more attention than other people (or other men)

But I’m not against Jeremy having powers or anything

MIRI: Well, hopefully one doesn’t preclude the other

KRIS: I liked “I don’t fit in here. None of you asked me to” a lot

MIRI: YES that was beautiful without being shmoopy

KRIS: It was an unexpected way for that line to go

MIRI: I think he and Nicole could get a long very well

Yeah, I was expecting a “I never fit anywhere but here” thing and I liked this much better

KRIS: I think my other favorite finale line was “That better not be a nickname for your beav cause I’m not in the mood”

MIRI: Wynonna is always so very Wynonna and basically it’s just dialogue goals in all the ways

KRIS: And Melanie Scrofano finally got her f-bomb! Though I don’t know if it was censored on air

MIRI: I love how important that was to her

We have not yet discussed Mama Earp

KRIS: Oh yeah I really wanted to come with a Mamas Earp joke but blanked I guess there’s not really a joke there, I just wanted at some point to say Mamas Earp

That was another spoiler I stumbled on ahead of time (gif somewhere)

MIRI: I did not get what you were doing there but I finally caught up

Oh no!

So has Wynonna known where Mama Earp is this whole time?

KRIS: I didn’t even think of that. I guess so. That’s interesting

I definitely thought the very first line of that VO was a “flashback” line

MIRI: Me too! I think it still might have been?

KRIS: It seemed like it was part of a “There’s X, and there’s Y, and then there’s Z”

What do we know about Mama Earp?

(Do we know Mama Earp’s name?)

MIRI: (Is it Michelle? the baby’s middle name?)

KRIS: Oh right

MIRI: We know she left when Waves was 2, if I recall correctly

And that’s about it

KRIS: Hang on I’m gonna rewatch that bit

MIRI: “There are men, Wynonna, mean as a rattlesnake cornered at dusk. And there are demons sweet as clover honey. And then there’s him. I told you he was real. I never stopped believing. But he will rise. And when he does, you’ll believe it too.”

KRIS: Man there’s a lot going on there

And maybe a lot of possibilities

MIRI: I know!

Has she been working on this the whole time? Did Waverly get her researcher tendencies from Mama Earp?

KRIS: Right! Is this why she came back to Purgatory?

MIRI: But she’s not fully back

KRIS: Was there some point when Mama Earp might have reached out post-return?

I mean Wynonna coming back

MIRI: Oh, did you mean Wynonna?

Gotcha gotcha

Also, will we get specifics about the mean men and sweet demons?

KRIS: (I also have to say -- #sorrynotsorry -- that I appreciate a show that is this careful about its use of needle drops)

MIRI: (this is such a Thing for you and I love it)

(Also, the music in Wynonna Earp is always damn effective, so I think I have to agree)

KRIS: Is mean men and sweet demons an unusually poetic line for the show or do I just feel that way because when other characters say lines like that it doesn’t always feel right?

MIRI: I think it is unusually poetic, but the HEAVY accent might be meant to somewhat excuse it as country sayings?

Also, I think it’s meant to read as “something my mama used to say” the way we took it, and then twist to be much more literal

I think Mama must have been wrapped up in the occult too. It can’t just have been Ward’s thing. Even if it was after she married in, the “I told you” part means she knows a decent amount about how all this started and where it might go

KRIS: Right

I wonder if Wynonna might have reached out to her after the vision quest?

MIRI: Would she have kept it a secret if she did? I’d buy that

Oh, speaking of Bulshar and secrets, what about that little nod Nicole and Dolls have when we see Nicole has the ring near the end there

KRIS: Definitely seems like Nicole getting an unofficial promotion (that I guess they don’t want Waverly to know about?)

MIRI: Maybe it’s less a secret and more a “when we have time, we’ll discuss all this”? I hope?

KRIS: The classic Intense Dolls Stare did come close to being unintentionally comical in slow motion, that close to Waverly’s line of sight

MIRI: YES

KRIS: Yeah I don’t see how it could be a secret

Maybe Dolls and Nicole are already just moving ahead and they want the others to Have a Moment

MIRI: That makes sense for all involved

Ok, is there anything big that we’ve missed?

KRIS: It’s kind of insane that we’ve mentioned Bobo literally once

I don’t know that I have anything to say about him, but still

MIRI: RIGHT, I meant to bring up Bobo!

KRIS: I guess I’d missed or forgotten that he was specifically Magneto-ish and not generally telekinetic

MIRI: I do have things to say, or just to bring up, I guess

Yeah, I had too!

And I wonder if there’s a reason for that that we will see/explore?

Ok, points that I don’t really have much to say about, but I feel should be stated: 1) He’s now an acolyte of Bulshar and 2) He called Waverly kin, but is pretty certainly not her father

KRIS: Someday Waverly’s going to start an occult 23andMe

MIRI: Hahahahahahahahahahhaa

KRIS: I definitely had one more little thing I wanted to mention but it’s escaped me

Oh Nicole’s cat!

MIRI: Calamity Jane!!!

KRIS: (God I have to get back into Deadwood)

MIRI: Do you have any predictions for next season? (Knowing, of course, that Andras will subvert all expectations and impress us all in the process)

KRIS: I basically wouldn’t dare at this point

Though I will ask for a web series that’s The Adventures of Randy Nedley and Calamity Jane

MIRI: OH MY GOD

I never knew I wanted that until just now

They are grumpy best friends

KRIS: I’m even too afraid to guess in which “act” of the season Waverly will come face to face with Mama Earp

MIRI: You say that, and I’m like, “Oh, well...wait. No...Could be..?” Andras is breaking my brain

I can definitely see a first episode option, a midseason option, an end of act 1 option, etc...

I predict we’ll learn what Waverly is, if she’s not entirely human

KRIS: That makes sense

I still kind of want to know what happened to BBD but I get the sense that’s a closed door

or at least as closed as TV gets

MIRI: Yeah, I’d say try to let that hope go for now

I wonder if we’ll be getting any new members of the gang? I feel like no

KRIS: Hmm

MIRI: Maybe someone to replace Rosita if she’s gone?

KRIS: I mean I hope Rosita comes back to the fold, somehow, but I could just as easily see her having a more complete villain turn

I could also see a version of this that’s vaguely Alias season 2 where Mama Earp is around a lot

MIRI: But I feel like things are pretty well balanced, plus we’ll be getting Mama Earp and surely some new enemies/adversaries

KRIS: I really hope Jeremy gets time with her

MIRI: Yeah, same. And she may come with a supporting character or two Interesting

Wait, with Mama or Rosita?

KRIS: Mama Earp

Just for the jokes

MIRI: Yes, I’m weirdly into that

KRIS: I was a little surprised there wasn’t a Wynonna-Dolls beat somewhere at the end

MIRI: I wonder if they didn’t want to put it in competition with the Wynonna-Doc beat

KRIS: I don’t see where it would have fit in but I’m curious about which ship is sailing next season

Yeah that’s what I figured

MIRI: I thiiiiink it’s Wynonna/Dolls

I think the little kiss with Doc was just an acknowledgement of the magnitude of it all and that they care about each other

She and Dolls seemed pretty settled after the vision quest

KRIS: Yeah

MIRI: Which reminds me that we may have the same side/opposite sides thing come up again next season

KRIS: With Doc and Dolls?

MIRI: Dolls and Wynonna

They discuss it in bed after the vision quest

KRIS: Ohhhhh right right

That kind of came out of nowhere for me

MIRI: Yeah, I think it was either a red herring going into the finale arc, or groundwork for future tension

KRIS: I’m basically just looking for a good Andras or Scrofano tweet to end this on

https://twitter.com/MelanieScrofano/status/901230636748464128

https://twitter.com/emtothea/status/901474002631249921

https://twitter.com/emtothea/status/901272365060861952

MIRI: She has a voice she uses to talk to/about cakes. Again, I aspire to be Emily Andras when I grow up

KRIS: https://twitter.com/emtothea/status/901278447497994240

https://twitter.com/emtothea/status/901278890181574656

https://twitter.com/MelanieScrofano/status/901265498771513344

MIRI: KRIS you have to give me time to react to things, stop texting at the speed of Wynonna plot twists!!!!! KRIS: OH we forgot about Jeremy referring to Wayhaught as Wayhaught!

MIRI: Jeremy is the most genre savvy, but in a totally non-annoying way and I love him very much

Oh my godddd I missed this as a callback

KRIS: Oh me too

MIRI: I feel like Jeremy’s “It feels like a Phil” line means they’re not going to go too far with whatever his perception/power is

He’s not all knowing. He has feelings and observations that are just him being Jeremy too

KRIS:  I think I found the winner

MIRI: 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

They did say vagina/euphemisms for vagina a lot this episode

KRIS: https://twitter.com/emtothea/status/901264948176629760

MIRI: https://twitter.com/MelanieScrofano/status/901263525510873088

KRIS: https://twitter.com/MelanieScrofano/status/901279279379611648

We’re clearly out of control

MIRI: Our role models are not helpful on that score

KRIS: I feel like this has been a reasonably successful seeing-a-season-through

MIRI: Yes! I liked doing it this way and would be down for picking a show or two to do this for in fall

https://twitter.com/VarunSaranga/status/901268191984439296

KRIS: Maybe a half-hour?

MIRI: Yeah, that would be good. Do we want to do a new one or something returning?

KRIS: I guess we should wait and see

OH we should do Crazy Ex when it comes back

MIRI: YES

That’s not a half hour but YES

KRIS: OK we should really wrap up and have one of us start formatting this monster

Thanks to anyone who followed along with us

MIRI: Definitely! We hope you enjoyed and that you come back and keep enjoying. And let us know if you have any requests!

KRIS: Also fuck it, if the others aren’t watching The Bold Type by the time the season ends we should just do a finale reaction

MIRI: YES SOMEONE IS FINALLY GOING TO TALK ABOUT THE BOLD TYPE WITH ME

KRIS: SOMEONE PLEASE CATALOG EVERY SUTTON REACTION SHOT FOR ME

Wow that’s completely unreasonable, sorry Tumblr I take it back

MIRI: Never apologize, Kris.

Would Melanie Scrofano apologize? I think not

KRIS: Our Lady of Go Fuck Yourself

Hmmm, not my best

MIRI: No, I liked it

[midnightblue243]

While it is unfair for Mob Psycho 100 not winning the “award”, it is also unfair for Yuri!!! on ICE to get this much hate and salt.

Why? Because it’s neither the show’s nor the fandom’s fault this controversy happens. It’s all Crunchyroll’s fault this happened

A really long post but won’t cut it since this needs to be read.

The voting system is problematic. There’s no word “unfair” in this kind of voting system, and spamming isn’t prohibited.

Last year I had almost no time to watch anime at all. Pretty much YOI was the only anime that I truly watched because I’ve been hooked since last March, so I know I may not be the right person to talked about this since I haven’t actually watched the others. And i’m sure there’s a lot of people who’s the same as me.

When I first saw a voting page and realized that it was available to vote countless time, I was like “Really, are you seriously allowing people to spam the vote?”

Crunchyroll is a big site. One of the biggest anime community site. Of course that when they make an “awards”, it looks like a huge deal to a lot of people. (When it is just an internet poll, not an Oscar or Golden Globe.)

There’s a lot of informal voting webpage like “Anime Trending” on Facebook in which they also use this kind of voting system and the results sometimes oppose to a lot of viewvers (some weeks Victuuri was not the first in couple ranking) and people then being salty over it, but that’s that, cuz everyone knows it’s just an internet poll.

Back to Crunchyroll. The award is divided in categories, making it look even more look like an Oscar or Golden Globe. This is where the controversy start.

Crunchyroll’s voting system is not suitable to categories award.

As many people said, it’s an all-in-all popularity vote. Seeing the most popular anime of 2016 wins every single categories it was nominated can be a bit disheartening but not surprising. And really, when any of the film got nominated in an award, that means the show have an potential to win already.

Let me give you one example of the affect of the voting system. This year’s Tokyo anime awards will be judged from a top 100 anime airing between 1 Dec year before to Nov 30 of the previous year that people voted using twitter and they were allowed to re-vote every 2 hours.

(This picture was taken roughly 1 moth before the death line.)

Now what happened was that while nobody make a fuss of YoI being the first place, the second place, Cute High Earth Defense Club, got some salt from the western anime fans like “The poll is biased” or “It’s not deserved” because thee other famous show like Re:Zero was at 30-something and Kimi no Nawa, an insanely famouse Shinkai Makoto’s works, was at 80.....what may happened here was that 1) spamming happened 2) some don’t know about the vote. However, this poll wasn’t a final. I think the top 100 wil have to be judged by the judges to decided the winner of TAAF.

THAT IS HOW THE BIG AWARD SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE! Using professional judges to find the winner.

And you know that this kind of “unfairness” happened all the time.

An common example can be founded in game shows, especially Got Talent. For me, in my country, the runner-up was more “deserving” than the winner many times.

The first season was a girl singer who was already rich and had a great yet common voice, while the runner-up was a handicapped who played guitar with one hand. The latest season’s winner was an acrobatic twins while the runner-up was a guy who inhumanly bended and twisted himself like he has a bones of rubber (X) who actually participated for the second time after the lost of the previous season to some whining brats team. You knew who has a real talent but sometimes the most deserved sometimes lose when there’s a vote.

And here’s some talk about Yuri on ICE’s popularity that needs to be respected.

I know that Yuri on ICE won some of the award by popularity,and I do feel a bit glum by that. However,Yuri on ICE’s popularity is not something common. No one really thought it would success. A lot of big studios rejected it because the skating scenes were a huge job and may not worth the effort, only MAPPA the risk-taker took the project and made it blossomed to the point that it rode on the top of almost every ranking in anime world.

However, some people said that it’s overhyped. TBH I really don’t understand this term much cuz if somethings get insanely popular (like Undertales) then that’s mean the thing is loved by a lot of people and there’s nothing such as “was loved too much” unless it came from a POV of the person who doesn’t like the things and try to forced their opinion to others face.

Okay back to YoI. Especially after the award, there is a lot of “ YoI is just a baiting anime that makes fujoshis go crazy.” or “YoI is just a show solely for a queer fan” (The latter is quite homophobic but there really is this comment.) Now with the amazing analyzation of @thatshamelessyaoishipper​ about YOI is not a bait (x) a discrimination and possibly misogyny within the fandom (x) pretty much sums up of what’s going on in regards to the LGBTQA+ and yaoi fangirls side of popularity. (you know that the real gayness of this show also made some people dropped this series?)

However, Yuri on ICE manages to appeal a lot of non-anime fans by many assets of them. Breathtaking OST (seriously i cried when I first heared of the full yuri on ICE song like I had been waiting for 8 moths for that.), Animation (will talk about that later), figure skating (the figure skating fans would at least intrigued by that) that lots of world class skaters watched it and even debut in the show.

Having a wide variety of the viewers is a big confirmation of the show. For example, Kimi no Nawa managed to appeal a lot of people who isn’t an animation fan by it’s stunning visuals (typical Shinkai) and a unique story, making it the top box office in many countries. Same goes with YoI but Kimi no Nawa is easier to access to the non-anime fan than Yoi, being a 2-hour movie and a 12-episode anime.

An another thing why the fandom are so agressive in voting is becuase we want MORE of it. While most of other anime either based on some other media which some of them already confirm season 2, YoI still haven’t officially announced S2 yet. The fandom try to support the show in any way possible, even if it’s just a meaningless internet poll.

Yuri on ICE isn’t not deserved, but isn’t Ready to deserved.

I will never say YoI isn’t deserved best animation, but I wil say that YoI is not ready to deserved or isn’t deserved YET. This post  shows an inaccurate accussion by a salty people and a brilliant explanation of how animation works and how YoI’s animation is not the best it could be. Like I’ve said, MAPPA took YoI, the show that big studios refuse to take a challenge. MAPPA is not a powerhouse studio was given a low budget due to a lack of hype. If they have more time and budget, everything will be better,really. So go buy Bluray/DVD.

Back to voting. What Crunchyroll should have done?

1. 1-vote-per account

Sign in an CR account or create a new one. An account can only use one vote per category. Just sign in is free. I’ve seen many survey site using this.

2. Using the same methods as TAAF.

Okay this one will be more tricky but I think it’s possible. Make a nomination poll in each category and use judges to find the winner. Now this wil be almost the same as Oscar and Golden Globes or other formal awards.

If you wanna make it look professional, then use a professional system.

To sums up everything.

Crunchyroll should have use a better voting system if they gonna try to make this “award” look important and is not  just a meaningless internet poll (which it will always be).

Yuri on ICE’s popularity shouldn’t be degraded as “some fujoshi shit” (cuz if that’s true then BL must be a top genre already) and shouldn’t be disrespected.

As one of a fan of YoI who have been watching it sine the first pv in March 2016 and worried that the show may not succeed knowing it’s rough pre-production, to see it finally got a recognition it deserved but then got hated more than necessary because of some poorly functioned internet poll by a streaming website is sad for me.

There’s nothing wrong of voting what you like. Spamming vote isn’t wrong if there’s no rules about it. Even if the results doesn’t turn out “fair” in everyone’s eyes, please remember that it is just an internet poll that won’t give any solid benefit to the anime (in this case it gives YoI a backlash.)

Well I guess even this can’t calm some salty people, but just so you know being salty wouldn’t change anything.