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starrywangxian · 4 months

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link click ost - where does it play?

i'm a little diseased so i went through the whole of link click season 1 so that i could make a list of where each song on the ost plays. i thought i'd share it in case anyone else is curious too~!

some things to note first:

be aware of spoilers!!

if you'd prefer to listen to it in a playlist, here's a spotify version :)

here's a youtube version too :) - be aware that the songs won't repeat so they'll only be in order of the first time they're played bc youtube won't let me add the same song more than once :(

if you notice any mistakes or errors then please let me know!

feel free to add things in the reblogs/comments/tags <3

i'll be using the chinese versions of the songs!

i'm working on doing season 2, episode 5.5, the extras and daily life in lightime but i did this to procastinate studying for my exams so i'll do those soon? (i recently finished season 2 so i need to emotionally recover before i rewatch it again bc damn it did a number on me)

episode 1: EMMA

countdown by yuma yamaguchi - the opening where cxs goes into a picture

dive back in time by 白鲨JAWS - the opening ofc

tense by yuma yamaguchi - qiao ling explaining the first mission

arabesque by av4ln & yuma yamaguchi - cxs as emma talking to mr. zhu

pray by 天門 - cxs as emma talking to her parents on the phone

overcome by 天門 - cxs as emma thinking of her parents cooking spring rolls

sign by yuma yamaguchi - cxs as emma in the meeting

dear candy by the cheers cheers - emma riding on her bike home thinking of her parents, reading the message that cxs sent to her parents, on the phone to her parents

overthink by 饭卡 - the ending ofc

episode 2: 秘方 (secret recipe)

tense by yuma yamaguchi - qiao ling explaining the second mission

dive back in time by 白鲨JAWS - the opening

relaxation by 天門 - cxs and lg looking at the photos on their sofa

hazy by av4ln - cxs as yu xia and talking with lin zhen

memories by 天門 - cxs as yu xia as she eats noodles with lin zhen

invigorate by 天門 - cxs as yu xia trying to get lin zhen to tell her the secret ingredient

pray by 天門- cxs as lin zhen taking the picture with yu xia

overcome by 天門 - cxs as lin zhen in the taxi looking through her bag

与你有关 by 泠鸢yousa - the noodle lesbians <3 "林贞" "欢迎回来" T^T

overthink by 饭卡 - the closing theme

episode 3: 只许输，不准赢 (to lose, not to win)

news by 天門 - ql listening to the radio on her run as a man watches and follows her

calm by 天門 - chen xiao calling ql an old witch!

dive back in time by 白鲨JAWS - dancey dance time

countdown by yuma yamaguchi - lg and cxs talking about the photo and chen xiao explaining his case, cxs going into the photo!

turbulence by av4ln - boooo the other basketball team are bullies, cxs in the basketball court and complaining about his glasses, the boys are basketballing and getting their asses handed to them, lg dusting the bookshelves like an unbothered king, cxs as chen xiao taking a photo with flash and the big bad bully basketball player injuring lu hongbin (the captain)

silence by 天門 - lu hongbin has to sit out and cxs subs in for him

power by 天門 - cxs as chen xiao subs in an kicks their asses! yeahhh go sports! (i really love how this part is animated, it looks so good and flows so well) also cxs thinks about his and lg's "first meeting" confirming that sports are gay.

alright by av4ln - cxs as chen xiao is playing "bad" basketball bc lg said he can't win :(

decision by 天門 - the chemistry teacher (mr. ma?) explains to cxs as chen xiao that the school will get rid of the basketball court so this will be the basketball team's last game :( "what exactly does basketball mean to you?" again cxs is thinking about his "first meeting" with lg over a basketball game.

hero by 天門 - lu hongbin hurts his bad knee and cxs as chen xiao subs in again and slays the court! big baddy basketball bully number 2 slaps chen xiao and big baddy basketball bully number 1 steps on his glasses :( (again i know nothing about basketball and have no interest in it but this part slaps, the music paired with the fluid animation is so good)

power by 天門 - cxs as chen xiao says 谢谢 to the big baddy basketball bully who stepped on his glasses and gets a three-pointer so now the basketball teams are tied. lg tells cxs to leave the score at that but cxs as chen xiao passes the ball and... scores!

overthink by 饭卡 - intense basketball cliffhanger outro

episode 4: 告白 (confess)

sprint by 天門 - intense basketball recap from last episode, as lg explains that you can't change key moments in the past (everyone point and cry at the hypocrit)

dive back in time by 白鲨JAWS - dancey dance break from the intense basketball gaming

irritation by 天門 - cxs having a breakdown bc he changed the past by winning the game :( lg's face is blurred during the flashback of his and cxs's "first meeting"??? double meaning??? lg is not there thinking that this basketball game meant that lg doesn't exist or that cxs and lg don't meet hmmm

silence by 天門 - the chemistry teacher explains that the basketball court will still be torn down despite them winning :(

memories by 天門 - cxs as chen xiao giving lu hongbin a ride home on his bike as he delivers the message :)

wind by 天門 - chen xiao's first love and lu hongbin's half-sister liu meng :) cxs as chen xiao takes pictures of the siblings <3 then lu hongbin takes a picture of the love birds <3

peaceful by 天門 - liu meng walking home cxs as chen xiao, cxs delivers chen xiao's message to liu meng <3

pray by 天門 - cxs as chen xiao eating food with his mum :) but lg says that they still have to argue :( so cxs delivers the message to chen xiao's mum <3

sign by yuma yamaguchi - cxs realises that it's 12th may 2008... :(

overthink by 饭卡 - intense and sad outro :( what will cxs do?

episode 5: 告别 (farewell)

decision by 天門 - again lg is telling cxs not to change key moments in the past huh sure hope that doesn't bite him in the ass in the future, cxs thinking about the villagers and the earthquake/landslides :(

dive back in time by 白鲨JAWS - dance break as if your heart isn't about to be ripped from your chest

silence by 天門 - mumma cheng singing to her son cxs :(

sign by yuma yamaguchi - cxs as chen xiao trying to warn lu hongbin and liu meng about the earthquake but the family are all arguing :(

turbulence by av4ln - lg guiding cxs, liu meng and lu hongbin talking, mumma chen packing things and then hiding under the table

beginning by 天門 - mumma chen talking to chen xiao then singing the same song that mumma cheng sang to cxs to her son chen xiao as cxs as chen xiao cries :( xcs experiencing chen xiao's memories of chen xiao's mum and his own mum :(

silence by 天門 - mumma chen saying goodbye to her son and husband :(

时光教会我的 by 邹俊健 - chen xiao and his dad at his mum's grave :( hearing chen xiao's messages :( flashbacks of chen xiao taking pictures of his mum :(

pray by 天門 - adult chen xiao singing the same song that his mum sang to him (and cxs's mum sang to cxs) to his child as he thinks of his mum :(

overthink by 饭卡 - policeman jumpscare and cliffhanger ;0

episode 6: 寻子 (search of the child)

news by 天門 - dou dou asking his mum to play with him

irritation by 天門 - dou dou's mum noticing that he's gone :(

dive back in time by 白鲨JAWS - sad and intense dancey dance :(

decision by 天門 - flashback of lg comforting cxs about chen xiao's case, "don't ask questions as the past will always change because of us" :(

turbulence by av4ln - policeman jumpscare take 2, ql shooing xiao li (the policeman) away (as she should), dou dou's dad asking for help

silence by 天門 - cxs giving harsh advice to dou dou's dad :(

dear candy by the cheers cheers - ql explaining how she saw dou dou being taken away :( scenes of dou dou's parents and flashbacks of dou dou and his family :( dou dou's dad putting up missing posters of dou dou :(

news by 天門 - xiao li looking through files and noticing that page seven isn't there hmmm

countdown by yuma yamaguchi - lg looking at the surveillance footage as dou dou's dad recounts what happened that day

chase by 天門 - cxs chasing dou dou and the kidnapper as lg guides him

overthink by 饭卡 - oops cxs bumps into people who recognise him ;0 cliffhanger once again >:(

episode 7: 梅姨 (aunt may)

sprint by 天門 - "you must keep a low profile as if you were never there" whoops, cxs sprints away from his problems, mission failed, we'll get 'em next time

dive back in time by 白鲨JAWS - recover for a minute with some dancey dances

(idk but it's when ql breaks the news to dou dou's dad that they couldn't find anything and confesses that she saw dou dou being taken away)

mission by 天門 - cxs finding a picture taken by dou dou the day he went missing! lg taking a look at the picture

turbulence by av4ln - cxs as dou dou picking up the marble, looking at the trafficker's face, xcs sniffing the ball and getting drugged then taken away, walking past ql and xu shanshan

(i'm not sure but it plays when we see dou dou's memories of his dad giving him the triple star warrior toys)

ominous by 天門 - cxs as dou dou looking around the hotel room, looking through the trafficker's bag

power by 天門 - cxs as dou dou beats the shit out of the trafficker (mei piyan) both physically and emotionally using the move master siwen taught him

hope by 天門 - dou dou reunites with his family :) dou dou's dad was finding the triple star warriors :') mei piyan is caught yippee >:)

overthink by 饭卡 - run the cases by lu guang first so that cxs won't see the photo of emma :')

episode 8: 错失的讯号 (lost signal)

turbulence by av4ln - lg looking at the photos

dive back in time by 白鲨JAWS - anywayyyy let's not think about the implications

wind by 天門 - "xu shanshan" arguing with cxs, ql talking about their college days and explaining xu shanshan's case

memories by 天門 - flashback of ql and xu shanshan talking about dong yi, flashbacks of what happened that night

(idk but it's when cxs as xu shanshan picks her nose to reject that one guy, ouch)

(idk but it's when xu shanshan and dong yi take the picture together)

入海 by 毛不易 - the song that xu shanshan sings in karaoke!

ominous by 天門 - cxs as xu shanshan recognises the serial killer from the photos and follows him

peaceful by 天門 - what dong yi said to xu shanshan :)

overthink by 饭卡 - that's not xu shanshan...

episode 9: 善意的恶果 (consequence of goodwill)

turbulence by av4ln - phone call with mystery man

dive back in time by 白鲨JAWS - dancey dance

ominous by 天門 - ql taking cxs's phone away and lg explaining the situation to xiao li, lg looking at the surveillance footage of the serial killer and telling the police his liscense number then seeing cxs in the footage

mission by 天門 - cxs going into the footage on his own without lg ;0

(idk but it's when the police go to liu min's house)

(idk but it's when emma is telling her plans with her parents to liu min in the car)

(idk but it's when emma is struggling in the car with liu min and cxs is in the boot)

sign by yuma yamaguchi - emma's mum ringing her but she can't answer... :( emma thinking of her parents, cxs thinking about what he's done and screaming in the boot of the car

decision by 天門 - cxs revealing that he knows what he's done :( and telling ql that he can enter photos

overthink by 饭卡 - cliffhanger ;0

episode 10: 圈套 (trap)

ominous by 天門 - recap of last episode: the police telling lg that liu min wasn't the killer and that emma was walking alone

dive back in time by 白鲨JAWS - distract you with dancey dance

silence by 天門 - cxs remembering what happened to emma in the photo

strain by 天門 - lg checking the selfie of xu shanshan and seeing xu shanshan in her apartment getting attacked

pray by 天門 - cxs deciding if he's going to go into the photo, cxs putting photos in the red room, the police in a meeting, chen bin telling lg that he hasn't found xu shanshan in her apartment, cxs entering the photo

(idk but it's when cxs as xu shanshan yells at himself)

news by 天門 - liu min is his house drinking and reading the news/checking social media

overcome by 天門 - ql telling cxs as xu shanshan about cxs, cxs thinking about his childhood with ql (they're so sibling-coded :') <3)

peaceful by 天門 - flashbacks to lg helping ql and cxs paint the shop :')

turbulence by av4ln - cxs asking to take the lead (let him cook!), the killer outside the shop, cxs as xu shanshan confronting the killer

power by 天門 - lg slaying!!! running to trap the killer in the red room, cxs as xu shanshan slaying the killer!! (i really love this part okay)

overthink by 饭卡 - "now then, this game... is over!" AND THE CROWD GOES WILD

episode 11: 帶着光的人 (pinnacle of light)

countdown by yuma yamaguchi - cxs starts the process that prevails in season 2 where they will explain things after you've already seen them happen so he's explaining his plan to capture the killer with a recap of what happened last episode

dive back in time by 白鲨JAWS - last dancey dance :(

power by 天門 - the slay confrontation from last episode but now with the added context of cxs's slay plan (this part is really cool too)

sign by yuma yamaguchi - the confrontation, cxs going into the photos of the victims as we see their memories and their deaths :(

ominous by 天門 - "liu min" being arrested, chen bin saying that lg is mature for his age hmmm

turbulence by av4ln - "liu min" explaining what happened with emma

clouded by cled - flashbacks of emma's life: with her parents, at her job, her parents texting her as she stands on the bridge

keep in mind by 白鲨JAWS - cxs talking to emma on the bridge as we see flashbacks of emma and flashbacks of cxs going through the photos, xu shanshan seeing dong yi :') "eventually, we will meet people who will shine their light on us" :')

(idk i was too busy crying but it's the part where lg says "death is a major node that cannot be changed" and ql cuts an apple...)

overthink by 饭卡 - "now the game has been reset" WORST CLIFFHANGGER OF ALL TIME, WHEN I GET YOU DIRECTOR LI WHEN I GET YOU!!!

songs that are in the album ost but that i couldn't place:

(maybe they were unused or were used in other stuff that wasn't the main donghua like pvs or smth)

joke by 天門

ordinary by yuma yamaguchi

afternoon by 天門

luminous by av4ln, yuma yamaguchi

struggle by 天門

nostalgic by 天門

#wanna know a fun fact about this?#i got to episode 8 but it didn't save so from episode 2 to episode 8 i've done twice #now i can feel what lu guang felt when we had to do university all over again when we went back in time #link click #Shiguang Dailiren #shi guang dai li ren #sgdlr #shiguang daili ren #時光代理人 #starrywangxian

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lazycats-stuff · 1 year

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You the oneshot where the reader didn't have a choice until batfam rescued him . I kinda want to see the batfam reactions to the thighs he didn't get to experience like chocolate, cartoons and a birthday that shocked them the most and what's even worse is that readers handler just sends him to a very difficult mission like a deserted island to fend for himself on his birthday which reader didn't know about

Aww, some family fluff... You got it my dear anon. Also, the request season has started.

Summary: (Y/N) told his family about his lack of experience with usual stuff. Even more with his birthday. Absolutely no one is having it.

Batfamily & male!reader, PART 2, PART 3,

Warnings: Fluff, family wants to kill someone, mentions of missions from (Y/N)'s past.

After saving (Y/N) from his handler, it was obvious that he didn't... Indulge in certain things as any normal kids would. Sure, Damian didn't too, considering his upbringing, but (Y/N) was on a whole another level of not knowing anything.

It started with chocolate. Alfred has made some chocolate cake out of nowhere and he called the others down to eat if they wanted too. Of course, everyone would do so. I mean, who wouldn't want to try Alfred's delicious creations?

Everyone jumped at the news, basically pushing each others out of the way. (Y/N) didn't understand why they would do it. It's just food. He walked in confused, sitting down. He frowned at the sight of a chocolate cake.

" What's wrong (Y/N)? " Bruce asked, digging into the sugary delight.

" I never had anything with chocolate before. I wasn't allowed to have sugar. " (Y/N) confessed and Jason nearly choked on his piece.

" No. " Jason said, in complete and utter disbelief. Everyone glanced at (Y/N), also shocked that he has never had sugar. Of any kind probably.

" How about you try it? " Bruce prompted and Alfred put a chocolate cake in front of (Y/N). He took a fork and put it in his mouth and everyone saw how gingerly he tried it.

It seemed he liked it by the way his eyes widened and the way he relaxed.

" Do you like it? " Bruce asked, clearly already knowing the answer.

" I think I would like a second slice. " (Y/N) admitted and Alfred smiled widely. It's a win and progress. (Y/N) is never the one to voice what he wants and making him explicitly say what he wants is like pulling teeth.

" Of course master (Y/N), but I'm afraid you can't have more than two per day. " Alfred said, already putting some rules down.

" Okay. " (Y/N) said. Bruce decided to put some rules down because rules are all he knows. But they were very relaxed rules. Such as at least 8 hours of sleep, some exercise and a healthy amount of vegetables.

(Y/N) is kind of afraid of Alfred. He saw that Alfred is the one to not mess with and he respected it.

(Y/N) stayed silent as he ate. Bruce already a mental note to buy more sweets for (Y/N) to try.

After the whole cake fiasco, everyone decided to help (Y/N) experience some actual fragments of childhood. So what do they decide to do?

Cartoon marathon.

Jason wanted to watch South Park because he knows (Y/N) will love it. It's pure satire and Jason loved it. Whenever he could catch some free time, he would watch it and it would take a national emergency to stop.

And that's why Jason is leading (Y/N) to the living room.

" What is South Park even? " (Y/N) asked as he entered the living room, quickly moving to his spot.

" One of the best cartoons ever made. " Jason simply said and (Y/N) shook his head.

" It's pure satire. " Dick elaborated and (Y/N) nodded in understanding. (Y/N) liked satire. He considered himself to be a sarcastic person, more so now when he lived with the Waynes. Damian and (Y/N) just communicated via sarcasm and it was fun.

They started from the first episode and (Y/N) chuckled quietly. Everyone turned their heads. Holy shit. It's a beautiful sound too, coming from (Y/N). When they make him laugh properly, they are going to commemorate it once it happens.

" What? " (Y/N) asked, looking at the all.

" You have an adorable laugh. " Jason explained and (Y/N) turned his head away. He didn't want them to see his blush. Nobody has ever told him that. There was never any type of affection from his handler. If he got a 'good job', he could consider it the best praise.

After months of digging, Bruce found (Y/N)'s birthday. Bruce is definitely going to brag about this for the years to come. And he found out just in time. It's going to be in a few days and they wanted to surprise (Y/N).

(Y/N) is observant by nature and keeping this surprise as a secret is not an easy feat. Bruce could see that (Y/N) was already suspicious, especially with the way everyone brushes him off with the exact same excuses and some times they distract him with sparring, cases and all in all just stupid things.

Alfred made a chocolate cake, now (Y/N)'s favorite and the others got him some things that they thought that (Y/N) would like. Jason had a major task of bringing (Y/N) to the dining room.

They all waited with the stuff, knowing that (Y/N) wouldn't like sudden surprise and sudden noise. (Y/N) stopped as he took in the sight of a cake with candles on them.

" Happy birthday. " Bruce said, with a smile on his face.

" What? " (Y/N) asked quietly and their faces fell.

" You never had a birthday before? " Dick asked, feeling sad for (Y/N).

" Not really. I was usually sent on missions during that time. The last one was spent on a deserted island. " (Y/N) said, shuddering at the mere memory of the mission. Bruce walked towards (Y/N) and brought him into his own embrace.

" From now on, we are going to replace all of those memories with some more precious ones. Okay? " Bruce asked and (Y/N) felt something warm in his core. Something that he has never felt before.

Everyone agreed with Bruce, joining in on the hug. (Y/N) never liked to be touched, but he has grown to like it with the others. They weren't abrasive with it and Dick was the most touchy one, he understood his boundaries.

" Can I eat the cake now? " (Y/N) asked, squished in between all of them. Everyone chuckled at the suggestion and let go of (Y/N). The celebration went by without a hitch and it was filled with smiles, even from members who don't smile to much.

#dc comics #dc x male reader #x male reader #batfamily #bruce wayne x male reader #jason todd x male reader #batkids #batman x male reader #red hood x male reader #damian wayne x male reader #robin x male reader #tim drake x male reader #red robin x male reader #dick grayson x male reader #nightwing x male reader

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wires-and-hellfires · 6 months

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Hi could you do Alastor x Vox's sister that's staying at the hotel. Vox didn't know they were in hell and they are not a tech demon like him if this makes any sense.

Vox only realized it was his sister because unlike her brother who's good with tech she opposite like the best equivalent comparison I can think of is someone who's so bad at cooking that they could burn water.

Sorry for the long request you dont have to do it if you don't want to

look at how well you took care of me

Pairing: Alastor & fem! reader (queer-platonic), Vox & sister! reader

Description: Vox comes to the realization that he may have made a mistake... he can only hope it's not too late.

Warnings: The battle in episode 8, violence, murder, injuries, alcohol, Alastor as a warning in itself, Rosie being Rosie,

Author note: Hi hi! Thanks so much for the request!!! I don't write romantic relationships for Alastor, but I loved this idea so I hope a QPR is okay! The title is from "Whispers of Your Brother's Blood" btw. This was tons of fun to write and it kinda got away from me but hopefully it's okay.

Part 2 with a reunion coming soon!

Meeting Alastor was likely the best thing that happened in your entire life, including your time on Earth and in hell.

You weren't stupid. You knew how Alastor treated people, hell, how he used to treat you, and yet, somewhere along the way he showed you more kindness than anyone else.

You met through Rosie, which was likely the best way to come face-to-face with the radio demon.

Rosie found you when you first arrived in hell, and despite very obviously considering eating you, she saw potential of some sort. Perhaps it was your steady gaze or the way you gripped the broken glass in your bloody hand like a knife, but she took you in and showed you life in hell, even if you didn't share her... dietary choices.

When Alastor came for their weekly gossip session meeting, she introduced you two. At first, he seemed to disregard you. You didn't mind.

You did your best work behind the scenes anyhow.

Alastor mentioned a man from the Weapons District who had been speaking badly of Rosie, laughing that he was practically volunteering to be a guest on his broadcast. You could hear the static in his voice from your spot in an armchair across the room. He wasn't joking.

Which meant you had to act first.

Later that night, you bid farewell to Rosie with a smile, claiming you had errands to run, which to be fair, wasn't entirely untrue.

The man was easy to find thanks to Alastor's description. He reeked of cheap booze and tobacco, already drunk in the bar you tracked him to.

Sliding up to him with promises of "a good time" and more booze, he stumbled out of the bar after you, straight into the back alley.

He was dead within 10 minutes. A mugging gone wrong, they'd say.

How tragic.

During the next meeting between Alastor and Rosie, Alastor invited you to sit with them, much to Rosie's delight. And if his smile seemed a bit too knowing and he made a few jokes about drunks in dark alleys? Well, that could stay between the two of you.

And that's where it started.

Every visit, regardless of what you were doing, Alastor would ask if you'd like to join them. You three would chat over tea, sharing gossip and talking shit. You couldn't tell if he genuinely enjoyed your company or if he just found you entertaining, though you suspected those two things weren't too different with Alastor.

And when someone was a bit too careless with their opinion about Alastor in the bar you frequented one night? The radio demon didn't need to make an appearance, you would destroy that scum yourself-

The next day, Alastor paid you a visit personally.

In the parlour, he expressed an interest in your... skillset, laughing about how you worked in the darkness.

He offered you a deal for your soul.

Whatever care he had developed for you likely saved your life when you refused.

"Partners or nothing," you had offered. When his grin sharpened, you knew he was intrigued.

He was the flashy showman, broadcasting the screams of overlords and inspiring fear across all of hell.

And you?

You were the shadow on the wall, charming those who would be too stubborn or too afraid to usually talk, convincing them to give away the information you needed to build your empire further.

Those who knew of your existence understood the consequences of speaking out. The radio demon didn't take well to those who threatened you.

In a dangerously comforting way, it all felt far too close to your life on earth. Sure, you weren't killing nearly as much back then, but flirting for information, gathering secrets and destroying those who opposed you or those close to you?

Yeah, that was familiar.

Your brother would be proud, you thought.

Or maybe he'd be just as unappreciative as he was in life.

Half a decade at Alastor's side, the two of you taking the phrase "partners in crime" very literally.

As a show of trust, he once allowed you to help with a broadcast, as long as you promised to keep quiet. Admittedly, he quickly discovered your... less-than-ideal skills with technology, but you appreciated the thought nonetheless.

You relied on one another. You leaned on him and he would lean back.

And then he disappeared.

No goodbye, no warning at all, not even a body.

Just... gone.

After five years, you moved into an apartment in Cannibal Town, further isolating yourself. Finding work wasn't difficult, but you refused to use your skills for just anyone, and there were few people you trusted more than Rosie.

You arrived late one night, two years into working with Rosie. Setting the keys down on the counter, the dull buzz of static spread through the room.

Alastor was holding you before you even hit the ground, legs giving out in relief.

And yes, he wasn't the most physically affectionate demon, but for you?

For you, he could make an exception.

The hotel could wait until tomorrow. Tonight, he had apologies to make and a partner to comfort.

The next day, after Alastor pitched his ideal to the princess of hell, he brought in Niffty, Husk and you as help, and if everyone thought you were a soul under his command, well, it was easier that way.

However much you didn't want to admit it, you grew to care for everyone. Losing at cards with Husk, cooking lessons with Angel, sparing with Vaggie, watching musicals with Charlie, crafts with Niffty, failing at inventing with Sir Pentious...

And doing absolutely everything with Alastor. After his reappearance, you were reluctant to let him out of your sight, and the radio demon was all too willing to keep you close, even if Husk seemed concerned over it.

Which was probably why when Alastor tried to get you to leave during the night before the battle, you refused.

You could tell his desperation to keep you safe drive you out of the hotel by the static in his voice, his subtle requests turning to false threats and finally a plea that neither of you would admit to leaving his mouth.

"I'm a lot of terrible things, Alastor, but I am not disloyal. I will stand tomorrow with you and everyone else. You're not leaving me again."

And for the first time that you've met him, he lets it go. No further bargaining or attempts to trap you, just a sigh and "Whatever you want, my dear," with a tighter smile than usual.

The next day, everything goes to shit.

Alastor and Adam are fighting, with Alastor firmly kicking his ass.

Then Sir General Pentious yells to unjam a cannon near you, and while pushing random buttons and gesturing angrily, you scream, "I don't know how to use this shit!"

You don't see the VoxTech drone nearby recording everything for the Vee's future entertainment.

With your back turned, you cry out at the feeling of a spear slicing across your back.

The pain of the blow sends you stumbling forward into the side of the cannon, causing it to finally go off, turning the angel behind you into pieces.

The force behind the machine sent you crashing into the wall of the hotel next to Angel, who turned to you in shock.

At the sound of your pain, Alastor's focus breaks for only a second.

It's enough for Adam to gain the upper hand, breaking his staff in two and sending him to the ground.

As he fades into the shadows, he focuses on your energy signature and pulls you into the darkness alongside him.

Across hell, at the top of V Tower, Vox swore wildly at the screen.

What a fucking coward!

Alastor running away to die off camera had to be the biggest disappointment in his entire afterlife.

Scratch that, second biggest disappointment. Still a pretty big bummer though.

Saving the other views of the battle for later inspection, he and the other Vee's watched as Lucifer slammed Adam into the dirt in delight.

It was 3 hours after the extermination was cancelled that he found the footage of you and the cannon. Of you hitting the wall and disappearing, but you're not dead, you can't be dead oh please not again-

How long have you been in hell? He assumed that you had been killed permanently before he arrived in hell after you, or maybe you'd even been sent to heaven, despite your sins. If anyone deserved to be forgiven, it was you.

But no, no no- You'd been here, the whole time, in that stupid hotel with fucking Alastor-

Vox's fans speed up in an attempt to keep his whole system from crashing.

Your appearance had changed, sure, but he would recognize the sight of you cussing out technology anywhere.

He would recognize his little sister anywhere, even in death.

This was all his fault.

You and Vox grew up close. Always the two of you, there could be no one else, the sheltering of your parents ensured that.

Over time, Vox's mastery of technology grew, and so did his influence. When he needed someone he could trust to keep things clean and running in the background, you were the obvious choice.

He took you for granted, Vox knew that now. You had argued about something stupid before a job one night, he couldn't even remember what he said, only that he went too far. When you left to go do some "clean up" for a previous situation, he resolved to properly apologize for once when you got home. And to say thank you. He wouldn't forget this time.

But you never came back.

You were found shot dead in an alleyway by a couple of employees from a nearby bar later that night.

Did Vox send you on a job that was too much for you? Were you distracted from the argument?

Either way, it was his fault you were dead. His fault the one person he loved, his baby sister, lay in a casket.

It didn't take long for him to get put into the ground himself.

Arriving in hell felt like a second chance. He would find you and everything would be alright again.

And yet, you were nowhere to be seen.

The drones around the hotel (or what was left of it) circled, scanning for a sign that you were there. That his ignorance hadn't killed you for a second time.

On the screens, the clean-up of the rubble continued.

Vox twitched.

Vox hadn't prayed since he was a child in the front pews of the neighbourhood church. Back when purity was still an option and repentance was unnecessary.

Now, he didn't know who he was pleading to. Does God listen when demons pray?

Please. Please, let her live. Let Alastor have saved her. Let me make this right.

Please.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel x reader #vox x reader #alastor & reader #alastor x reader

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laughhardrunfastbekindsblog · 3 months

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Okay, my one and only major complaint about Bad Batch is that I don't think they handled Tech's death properly (I still don't think they should have killed him off at all, but here we are; and even if they intend(ed) to leave things open-ended to maybe bring him back later, the titular characters in the show wouldn't have known that); and with all the reasons I've seen floating out there as to WHY Tech's death was handled the way it was and why the characters reacted the way they did (or didn't), I just want to explain why none of the "reasons" cut it for me. If you're satisfied with how Tech was handled in season 3, I am genuinely happy for you (and lowkey jealous, ngl 😉). I've just been thinking about this a lot and need to spell it out!

Reason #1: "Why do we need to see more of the characters mourning? What we got was enough. We don't need a 2 hour episode that's all about the characters grieving." (Yes, someone actually used "2 hours" in their argument.)

Let's recap what we got: 1) A scene where Echo looks sadly at the Marauder's pilot seat, Wrecker actually sheds some tears (bless him), Omega's in denial, and Hunter tells Omega they're going to retire on Pabu because Tech is gone... followed up almost immediately by the villain dropping off broken goggles as the only proof that Tech was ever on Eriadu; 2) a scene where the audience is shown Tech's goggles but Hunter doesn't interact with them- instead, he looks at Lula, proving that his driving motivation is recovering Omega (which is fine when taken from the perspective that he can't do anything about Tech, whereas he can do something for Omega; but that perspective is ultimately just headcanon because the show never reiterates or follows up on this); 3) Wrecker alluding to Tech (not by name) to try to convince Hunter to be more cautious; 4) Omega name-dropping Tech (wait, does Crosshair even know what happened?... yay for context clues, I guess); 5) Echo name-dropping Tech in relation to data decryption with the team looking down sadly for 5 seconds (I timed it) before Crosshair changes the subject; 6) Phee name-dropping Tech in relation to her not knowing what m-count is; 7) Crosshair referring to Tech's information on Ventress; 8) Omega leaving Tech's goggles in the Archeum with none of her brothers around (hot take: it kinda bothers me that the goggles are given the same treatment as Lula, I totally understand the context/deeper meaning of Omega leaving her childhood behind by leaving Lula, but we're talking about the one relic they have of their fallen and irreplaceable brother being given the same emotional weight as a doll); 9) Phee referring to Tech having a discussion with her about Crosshair while Tech's goggles are in the background (and, noticeably, Crosshair doesn't react at all and just changes the subject back to needing a ship); 10) Crosshair says the squad died with Tech, Wrecker says Tech understood the risks, and that's that.

So, what we got was enough to establish that the characters were sad in the immediate aftermath of Tech's death, that some of them may have stayed sad about it all through season 3, and that the show didn't completely forget that Tech had been a main character at one point.

What we DON'T get is any real reference to what Tech meant to the family as an individual and a brother, any real indication of how the loss of Tech (distinct from the mission to save Omega) influences his family's actions or the story's overall narrative, any actual acknowledgement in the show of Tech's sacrifice having any meaning or the family moving past grief to express any form of gratitude for Tech's presence and influence on their lives, any reference to Tech having a true impact on 4 of his 5 siblings (Omega is the closest we get to witnessing Tech's continued influence on any of his siblings and even seeing that involves squinting/head tilts at times)... in other words, we get a few minutes of sadness, but never any catharsis. We see they miss him, but never does this truly inform the narrative or their decisions in season 3, AND it's left frustratingly vague where the characters are in the grieving process (more on that later).

Besides, no one (that I have come across, at least) was ever asking for a 2 hour episode. At most, Kanan got a 22-minute "eulogy" episode, and most of us aren't even asking for that. I'd have been at least minimally satisfied with a "Mayday moment" for Tech - and that scene lasted a grand total of 20 seconds. What would have been more satisfying would have been the show taking all those superficial name drops and converting at least a few of them into meaningful mentions indicating what Tech means to his brothers and/or how he continues to have an influence on his family and/or how his sacrifice is a motivating factor for them.

Reason #2: "There was no time."

Leaving aside the fact that there was apparently plenty of time and opportunity to make Tech (among others) a red herring...

Let's assume that the showrunners were not only told they only had 1 season left to wrap everything up, but were given highly specific time allotments for each episode to where they weren't allowed to add any scenes (I highly doubt this is what happened, but we're rolling with the "no time" thing here). You know what you do in that scenario when you're talking about something like following up on a main character's death that clearly has left your entire fanbase in an uproar? You MAKE time: you trim down the action scenes, you make the characters walk a little bit faster, you decide whether an extended scene of Echo giving Omega a crossbow that is never going to show up again is actually worth saving (I actually like the scene, by the way; just giving an example), you cut out a few of the extremely vague lines of dialogue Fennec and Asajj indulge in. What you DON'T do is kill off a beloved main character and then rely on convenient time lapses/time skips to just brush over all the fallout apart from a few name drops that do nothing to establish just how important said character was to the other characters in the show.

What's more, they could have EASILY included some true closure with ANY of the Tech name-drops/scenes that were already in the show. Have Hunter look at Tech's goggles before looking beyond them at Lula in 3.02. Have the brothers be present with Omega when she decides to leave Tech's goggles in the Archeum in 3.11. Have any of the brothers say one meaningful line about Tech while they're otherwise silently basking in the sunshine in the end scene on Pabu in 3.15!

Reason #3: "They're soldiers."

Of all the reasons given for why Tech's death was mishandled, I dislike this one the most. What does CF99 being soldiers have to do with the aftermath of Tech's death being reduced to perfunctory allusions? (If you want to get into the argument that soldiers in general have to figure out a way to "move on" and The Clone Wars didn't really spend any time on the clones processing losses after battles, let me just say I don't care for how this topic is covered in The Clone Wars either, and Bad Batch was a golden opportunity for the Star Wars franchise to move past this unfortunate trope.) Fallen soldiers in real life get memorials/funerals too, even if it's months after the battle. Fallen soldiers are honored and remembered by their families and those closest to them. If the show is trying to push the stereotype that soldiers move on from tragic deaths of comrades by being "stoic" and holding it all in and never talking about it, I strongly disagree with the perpetuation of this stereotype; and if the characters as soldiers actually DID grieve Tech in a healthy way, why didn't the show depict it?

Reason #4: "Star Wars writers don't know how to write meaningful scenes/payoff regarding death and characters dealing with death/loss."

The Bad Batch writers proved time and again how brilliant they are at writing emotional storylines with maximum payoff. Case in point: Mayday. Enough said (I'm writing too much on this general topic as it is).

Reason #5: "They got over it."

Maybe I'm reading things wrong, but a rather drastic change in behavior for one character (going from cautious and weighing all risks, to reckless and jumping headfirst into situations without proper backup), and another character including Tech's death as just one reason why he "deserves" to go on a suicide mission, does not read to me as the characters "getting over it." It reads to me as "avoidance behavior" and "continued internal conflict." (Granted, Hunter's more reckless behavior in season 3 likely had as much to do with the Omega situation as it did Tech's death, but the point still stands. And if the point DOESN'T still stand, then I've got even MORE issues with how this plotline was handled, so we'll just keep assuming it does.)

Furthermore, if the characters had truly "gotten over it," there shouldn't have been any hesitation or issue with them discussing and honoring Tech in meaningful ways.

Reason #6: "They DIDN'T get over it."

Right, and we ended the show that way, with no clear resolution to them actually coming to terms with Tech's death and honoring his memory. Great.

Reason #7: "Whatever. It's good Tech stayed dead. Tech's sacrifice meant something."

... Did it? Did it really? I mean, I know I say quite frequently that Tech's sacrifice is what made the happy ending possible for the others (because that's the only thought that got me through a rewatch of season 3). But the show, the narrative itself, certainly doesn't act like it really meant anything. Hunter says in the season 2 finale that they "weren't going to waste Tech's sacrifice" because they were going to retire on Pabu... and that discussion promptly gets forgotten and never brought up again, not even when the squad is trying to stay off the Empire's radar in season 3 after Omega returns. Never is there any discussion that "not wasting Tech's sacrifice" by hiding on Pabu to make sure no one else dies (a very understandable reaction, of course) also goes against the very mission Tech pushed for in the first place: rescuing Crosshair. Never do we hear Omega tell Crosshair, "Tech didn't give up on you, I'm not giving up on you, that's why you ARE going to escape with me." Never is there any talk about "Tech wanted us to live and stay together, so that is what we are going to do." Never is there any acknowledgement at the end of the show that they are all going to live in peace on Pabu because Tech made sure they could live.

The last half of season 4 of Rebels is full of references to Kanan's sacrifice actually meaning something and having direct tangible consequences not only for the family but for Lothal and the Rebellion. For one thing, the show itself literally spells out that the mission to shut down the Imperial factories on Lothal was actually a success because all the fuel reserves were destroyed - Kanan had died, but the mission had succeeded and directly led to the success of the bigger mission to completely free Lothal, and while this is very poor consolation for the loss of Kanan, at least the show openly acknowledged it. Kanan and his influence is also openly credited for Ezra foiling Palpatine's plans with the Jedi Temple and the WBW, Ezra learning to let go and again disrupting Palpatine's plans in the finale, and doing what was needed to ensure Lothal was fully freed.

Imagine how different Rebels would be if Kanan's death had been treated like Tech's: no mention that his role on the mission had any impact whatsoever. No reference to Ezra or any other member of the Ghost crew living up to what Kanan had taught them all - or, at best, there's a perfunctory reference in the epilogue that Ezra decided to keep using the Force the way Kanan had taught him to. No depiction of Ezra or Hera or Sabine or Zeb accepting Kanan's death and letting go of the pain while holding on to the memories. Nothing to show that any of the Ghost crew members act in memory of Kanan or that he is a motivating influence on them. No indication that Kanan's sacrifice drives Ezra to decide to follow up on their initial success with the factories and ultimately completely drive the Empire from Lothal.

Rebels just wouldn't be nearly as fulfilling.

Now, imagine if Tech's death had been treated like Kanan's, and maybe it will become more clear why I have a REALLY hard time agreeing with the argument that the show itself actually depicted Tech's death as "meaning something."

#the bad batch #star wars the bad batch #i guess this is fandom salt #because i just don't see any reason why tech's fate couldn't have been given the care and attention it deserved #tbb tech #tbb season 3 spoilers #star wars rebels #star wars rebels spoilers

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ellie-r2 · 4 months

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Crystal and Edwin's sibling dynamic means so much to me and I NEED to see more of it in season 2. Personally he's the younger brother even though he's technically older and she's the older sister to me.

They make fun of each other but also defend the other without hesitation. For example these are some of my favourite scenes of theirs.

The scene where he doesn't know what the internet is and while she laughs she also says she'll explain it to him later (need to see that scene or a fic about this) (episode 1)

When he has the speech of him and Charles not mattering so the cases have to matter and she grabs his hand to assure him that they do (and we know how he is about touch so this is important to me) (episode 1)

When Esther throws Crystal he immediately runs to go and help her (episode 1)

Both of them being frustrated about the vase (episode 2)

Him hiding behind her when he hears that monster from hell in the Devlin house (and she knows he was in hell before) (episode 3)

Him reassuring her that she's good when she's worried she's not because of what David tells her in the episode and saying that demons lie (episode 3)

Her also being protective of him from the Cat King even if it's subtle like her asking what he wanted when Niko said Edwin talked to him (episode 4)

When Richie makes the gay suicide pact comment about Brad and Hunter and Edwin says what and looks worried Crystal briefly looks at him then shuts Richie down after for making a gay joke (episode 5)

Crystal and Edwin giving each other a look and then agreeing to help Monty (episode 6)

When she tells them she lost her abilities and Edwin is worried about her then she mocks his accent but also brings up he's having difficulties with Monty and they leave both Charles and Monty out. Peak sibling behaviour (episode 6)

Small little detail but when she runs up to them after teeth face is gone she leans more to Edwin and touches his back (episode 6)

Another peak sibling behaviour scene is when he apologises but tells her not to get used to it (episode 6)

Her not hesitating also wanting to go to hell to get Edwin out despite the danger because he's her friend (episode 7)

Also the fact that she goes to David for help even though he's abusive just for the slim chance she might save Edwin. Yes, it led to nothing for Edwin but she was still willing to try plus she got her memories back (episode 7)

She didn't hug him after they were back because Niko was hugging him but she did reach out to touch his hand (episode 7)

Him calling her foolish for going after David without them and she tells him it was for him (episode 7)

After the call with her parents he tries to assure her saying there might be an explanation for it (episode 8)

The handshake (episode 8)

When she dresses similarly to him too (think this was kassius and the costume designers idea) (episode 8)

When Esther is choking her yet she still calls out to Edwin to tell him and she's going for him (episode 8)

The hug is also peak sibling behaviour (episode 8)

#they mean so much to me #crystal palace #crystal palace surname von hoverkraft #edwin payne #crystal and edwin #dead boy detectives #dead boy detective agency #dbd #dbda

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markantonys · 3 months

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bridgerton s3 part 2 thoughts! full spoilers for the whole season, and i will also discuss some book spoilers relating to the future siblings - i haven't read the books and never will, but i know the main points of most of the siblings' stories due to Existing Online. haha i also briefly discuss some wheel of time book spoilers because i was reminded of a certain WOT couple at one point in these episodes!

first things first: I AM SO EXCITED THAT WE GOT NOT ONE BUT TWO (2)!!!!!!!!! CANONICALLY QUEER BRIDGERTON SIBLINGS!!!! AND MY TWO FAVORITES, AT THAT!!!! but i will save that for discussion at the end of the post because it is BY FAR my favorite aspect of these episodes.

but even with that aside, i definitely liked this half a lot more than part 1! screentime felt more balanced and it didn't feel like the sideplots were eating up as much time as it did in part 1.

penelope and colin storyline

they were Fine to me in part 1, but their story was more compelling in this half since we moved on from bland run-of-the-mill childhood-friends-to-lovers and into the meaty and much more unique emotional drama of how penelope being lady whistledown affects their relationship. just as i'd hoped for! and i thought the pacing of this was pretty good too because colin found out early enough that he had enough time left in the season to react properly and work through it, rather than it being some 11th-hour reveal that's hastily swept aside to make way for the HEA. it was juuuuust when i was starting to feel that the "colin makes a hater comment about LW in front of penelope, causing her to look ill with anxiety" shtick was getting old that he found out the truth, so, pretty good timing.

colin was more interesting in this half due to wrestling with the whole "penelope is LW" reveal, but overall, in the season as a whole, he was kinda giving us nothing. they really dropped the ball on him because he just never at any point felt like the co-lead character of the season. for daphne & simon and kate & anthony it felt like a pretty balanced exploration of both characters as individuals on top of the romance, but this season it was 100% the penelope show and colin felt basically like a prop. and penelope's a great character and had great stuff this season, so i enjoyed all the time spent on her, but we needed more for colin to go along with it. after 8 episodes, i still don't feel i know much about who he is as a person besides that he's nice and loyal. although on the flipside, i have no problem with male characters whose entire personality is loving their wives haha i love that shit! so a warm welcome for colin into the Wifeguy Club!

speaking of wifeguys, time for my WOT connection, which is that penelope and colin were SO gawene-coded in a couple scenes that it actually killed me! colin's lil arc of feeling kinda jealous of/intimidated by penelope's power as LW at first and most importantly his "what use can i ever be to her when she's so self-sufficient and doesn't need anything from me?" worries, culminating in him realizing "if the only thing i do in my life is love and support such an incredible woman, i'll be completely satisfied" (paraphrasing), i was like, that is soooo TOM gawyn with egwene being amyrlin!!! and when penelope had that line to him about like "i don't need you to take care of me, i never loved you because of what you can do for me, but because you're kind" (paraphrasing) i gasped and clapped my hand to my forehead because it was almost exactly what i had egwene saying to gawyn in my fic chapter that i posted mere days ago!!!!! literally shook to my core haha i was the leo dicaprio pointing at the TV meme x10 in that moment.

eloise and cressida storyline

wonderful to see eloise and penelope's friendship mended! i thought that whole arc was really well done this season, and especially in this half when eloise is dealing with her ex-bff being engaged to her brother who doesn't know she's LW but eloise knows and feels caught in the middle, just lots of messy, complicated emotions in that whole situation and they did a great job with all that.

i really enjoyed cressida in the first half of the season, but in this half it felt like she got a bit too much time. she also kinda reverted back to her mean girl ways (though out of desperation rather than malice), which was less interesting than the different, softer side we saw from her in the first half and made her time in this half feel like more of a drag. but overall, she's a very layered character and the actress did a fantastic job with her, and in this half of the season i always understood why she was doing what she was doing and sympathized with her. it can't be said that she didn't fuck around and find out, but i still felt bad for her in the end! i really liked the moment when colin with his rose-tinted glasses was like "but your family will forgive you and all will be well!" because that's what family has always been like to him, and cressida was like "ummm no, some of us have shitty families and you bridgertons are too naive to realize that", it was a very good moment.

(i will also say, i know this is a highly unpopular opinion for a queer bridgerton fan to have, but i was never on the eloise/cressida train haha i can 100% see the vibes that others picked up on, but they just never did anything for me for whatever reason! i know eloise was the "obvious" choice for a wlw bridgerton but i personally am so SO thrilled that they went for francesca instead, i guess just because i connect so deeply with her character in a way i never have with eloise. also, now that i'm thinking about it, i think eloise vibes the most like aroace to me, i struggle to picture her having a relationship with *anyone* of any gender.)

other storylines

i'm so happy for violet and marcus!! crossing my fingers that we'll see more of them in s4 since their romance is only just budding; it would be so interesting to see him interacting with her kids and getting integrated into the family dynamic (and for us to meet his kids too! though i acknowledge we don't need MORE side characters haha). and i loved the danbury siblings scenes and them getting to the root of their childhood issues and working them out. and of course, violet and lady danbury continue to be THE best duo of all time <33 i adore their friendship so so much, i can't even describe how much!

we got more time with kate and anthony in this half, and all of it was perfect. they're gonna be parents!!!! though alas, it seems like they've made their final exit from the show with them going off to live in india for a while. sad to see them go, but not surprised at all. i see lots of book fans whining about the prior leads leaving and how it's weird for daphne to not be at her own brother's wedding etc, and i do agree that the show/family is gonna start feeling kinda empty as the older siblings & spouses exit, but that's just a necessity of this medium. you can't have main cast be contracted for 6 more seasons just to show up for 2 lines of dialogue per season and hang out in the background of wedding scenes. you can do that in a book, but you can't do it in a tv show. just something we have to live with! and a lot of the complaints take such a "how DARE these actors want to move on with their lives and do other projects instead of dropping everything to prioritize having a minor role on bridgerton for the rest of this decade" tone, which stinks of Fan Entitlement.

i am curious about what might become of penelope, because it sounds like she's kinda continuing whistledown but just as herself and in a more responsible manner that won't hurt people (tho idk how a gossip column can possibly NOT hurt anyone haha the whole "penelope shouldn't give up LW because it's Feminist and Empowering and Gives A Voice To The Voiceless" narrative kinda had me going X Doubt). update: i just saw an interview with the showrunner where she confirmed that penelope will be in s4 and have a storyline. nice!

the featheringtons had much less in this half which i was glad about and they were taken more seriously and not just treated as comic relief, and portia had some really good scenes with penelope.

there was also much less of the mondriches, which i was fine with; i'm very fond of them and enjoyed their stuff this season, but it felt appropriate that they took more of a backseat in this half. i was sad will had to give up the club though! it felt like he had to fully capitulate to the ton and give up his own work that he's passionate about in order to win the esteem of snobby aristocrats, which was a bummer. the showrunner interview mentioned we'll be seeing them again in s4 and will be seeing some more of will's friendship with benedict, so i'm happy about that!

NOW ONTO THE GAYS!!!!

we've all been yearning for bi benedict ever since s1, and i can't BELIEVE it actually happened!!!! i'm over the moon!!!! and i'm so glad i watched the episodes straightaway without having seen any spoilers first so i got to experience the "holy shit, are they............are they going where i think they're going????" adrenaline rush completely pure and unknowing. it was the absolute most wonderful surprise!!! i'll give a lil summary here for those who are curious about how much queer content there actually is.

so, in episode 7 (or maybe it was the end of 6?) benedict gets invited to dinner with his female FWB and her male friend, who turns out to be her other FWB. AS SOON AS this invitation was extended i was like "oho, is benedict going to be needing 3 tickets to challengers?" so imagine my delight when it turned out that indeed, the 2 FWBs invited him in hopes of a threesome! benedict has a very brief moment of connection with/attraction to the man, and then he gets propositioned, but he's flustered and leaves. he returns to talk to his own FWB the next day and she explains to him about bisexuality and he's like icarly interesting.jpg and says that he's met men who like other men in the past but that he himself has never felt attracted to a man "before" (implying that last night, he did, for the first time). he does some soul-searching and then leaves his own brother's wedding reception to go have a threesome, which is extremely biconic of him. (at the wedding he also gives eloise a nice speech about how love is infinite, in the context of her worrying that colin and penelope marrying each other means they'll have less time for her, but it vibed to me like benedict is poly as well as bi, but who knows if that will go any further than this FWB threesome situation; i'd imagine his endgame will still be a monogamous relationship, but you never know!)

this storyline concludes with the female FWB admitting that she's caught feelings for benedict and wants to become serious (and monogamous) with him, but he politely turns her down because he feels "free" for the first time and wants to keep exploring life and isn't interested in a serious relationship right now, and might not ever be. my only gripe with the storyline is that i wish the male FWB had been introduced an episode or two earlier so we could watch benedict building a connection with him and feeling a budding attraction for an episode or two before the initial threesome proposition occurs to trigger him to actually acknowledge that attraction; as it is, it all happens kind of abruptly and our boy speedruns his entire bi awakening in the span of a single episode, bless him lmao but i'm assuming neither FWB will appear in s4 (they felt like one-season characters to me), so if so, it's fine to not spend too much time developing those specific relationships. the Point of the storyline was for benedict to realize he likes men too and likes non-conventional relationships, and that was accomplished with flying colors!

later on there's reference to "next year's masquerade ball" and i know a masquerade ball is where benedict first meets his endgame love interest in the books, so it seems just about guaranteed that s4 will be about benedict's book. i'm super curious about what direction it will go in! in the book, it sounds like their trope is Forbidden Romance, with the forbidden aspect being class difference (he's an aristocrat and she's a servant), so adding some kind of queer element as an additional reason for why it's Forbidden feels like a viable option, especially after s3 took pains to establish that benedict is interested in queer/non-traditional relationships.

but what form might that hypothetical queer element take? a monogamous m/m romance with genderbent sophie? or could we see trans or genderqueer sophie, in line with the cinderella metaphors about masquerade and disguise and identity and presenting differently in different environments? or might they go for some kind of poly or open relationship endgame for benedict? i don't know! there's so many options! it's also entirely possible that sophie will remain a cis woman and benedict will have a monogamous endgame with her, which i would also welcome because it is actually VERY rare to see rep of bi people ending up very happy in monogamous different-gender relationships, while still remaining firmly bi (most of the time bi characters end up in same-gender relationships, or end up in different-gender ones while dismissing their prior same-gender attractions as just a phase, or are chaotic sluts who cheat because they aren't content with only being with one person).

now on to francesca. we know for 100% fact that her love interest has been genderbent into a woman, because she was introduced at the end of the final episode! so francesca's endgame love story is guaranteed to be wlw, which is so exciting! (for context, her book endgame love interest is john's cousin michael stirling, and in the show she met john's cousin michaela stirling, so that's how we know with 100% certainty.)

taking it back a bit to the rest of her story this season, we see her and john courting, then getting engaged and married in a small wedding at bridgerton house with just the family, because they both hate being the center of attention. it was all incredibly wholesome introvert4introvert content and i adored it!!!! kept going "this is literally my ideal marriage" during so many of their scenes haha

but there is somewhat of a question of, is francesca actually attracted to john/men in general? throughout the season and even after the introduction of michaela stirling, i assumed yes; francesca clearly adores john and states that she loves him, and her body language around him seemed to me to show attraction. but after finishing the season and reading discussion online, i saw people saying that francesca seemed disappointed with kissing john at their wedding (which i'd interpreted as her just feeling shy about kissing him in front of people) and that it was a marked contrast to how flustered and interested she is when she meets michaela. so for me, the jury's out on whether she's more bi-leaning or lesbian-leaning; now that i know canon wlw francesca is a thing, i'd need to rewatch the season again to analyze her behavior with john more closely to decide what vibe i'm getting there! because on first watch it wasn't even on my radar to consider that maybe she's not actually attracted to men.

i will admit, i would be kinda disappointed if she *isn't* truly in love with john, just for the fact that i found it so delightful and refreshing to see a quiet romance that's so different from the loud melodramatic ones, as is discussed many many times during francesca's storyline this season. and i did notice that francesca tripping over her words upon meeting michaela is exactly what violet had said she did when she first met her late husband, and violet was bringing this up to say "but your way of loving john is different from that and that's valid". so i definitely CAN imagine that maybe they're making a deliberate point here that, actually, the reason why francesca's love for john looks so different from other characters' for their spouses is because she does NOT in fact have spousal love for him, but rather platonic love that she's misinterpreted as romantic. but i would just be mildly annoyed if The Point turned out to be "actually, violet is right and True Romantic Love must always be flustering and tongue-tying and dramatic" lmao but that's a personal gripe for me as a very quiet person who loved seeing the type of romantic relationship i would prefer depicted with francesca and john; i can also see the counterargument that a storyline of a repressed lesbian trying to untangle her actual feelings from comphet and societal expectations would be very powerful and important! and particularly interesting to explore in this regency context.

now on to some bigger book spoilers. so from what i understand, in the books, john dies, leaving francesca as a widow, and her love story with michael is about dealing with grief and learning to open herself up to love again after loss. i've seen the argument that francesca actually being a lesbian who wasn't genuinely in love with john would cheapen this storyline, and i can see that point for sure, but otoh it's abundantly clear that she does have a very deep care and love for him regardless of whether or not it's romantic/sexual, so i think no matter what, we will still see her being very affected and pained by his death and struggling with guilt about falling for someone else (his cousin! a woman!) etc.

what i'm most curious about here is the timing! there was some leak that michaela's actress is allegedly booked as a small part in s3 and a main role in s4. i'd been wondering if maybe they would start combining books, but in the interview i read, the showrunner confirmed that the plan is still to do only one book/sibling per season, so it seems that s4 will only be benedict's book. which makes sense, because i believe in the books francesca is married to john for 2 years before he dies and then it's another few years before she starts romancing michael, so i'd guess s4 will just see francesca develop a friendship with michaela and then maybe john dies towards the end of the season, then we do a timeskip between seasons and s5 is about francesca and michaela. but then there's still eloise to contend with, maybe she would be s5 and francesca not until 6.

i really really hope we'll get some francesca-benedict bonding next season (or s5/6 depending on the timing of francesca having her gay realization; it seems still subconscious for her as of now) since they are officially The Queer Siblings!!! i need to see them find this out about each other and talk about it together and be confidants for each other. it will also be so fascinating to see violet & the other siblings react to a queer bridgerton endgame romance. violet wants her kids to be happy, but she sometimes struggles with realizing that what happiness looks like to them may not align exactly with what happiness looks like to her, so i could definitely see her needing to take a moment to readjust her perspective and realize that francesca not being able to legally marry michaela in a public manner known to all of the ton and have biological kids with her doesn't mean they can't be just as happy as her straight kids and their partners. (on that note, i remember that in the past people have suggested francesca could be a great candidate for a wlw bridgerton because her status as a widow allows her a lot more societal freedom than a never-married woman, so i love that the show went with her! i can totally see her endgame being that of a respectable widow living peacefully in the countryside with her Dear Friend.)

i remember straightaway francesca set off my gaydar in 3x01 when she was reluctant about entering the marriage mart and dismissive at the idea of finding True Love and going ??? when people asked what qualities she wanted in a husband, and there was a scene of her talking with other debutante girls and i went "man i would love it if she got a girlfriend" but never in a million years did i actually think that was a real possibility! so i'm SO thrilled that they're going there, and like i mentioned before i quite like that they went with the polite introvert sister instead of the outspoken rebel sister to be the gay one because it just feels like a subversion of expectations and stereotypes for me, and because all season i'd been seeing so much of myself in francesca and then, finding out she's gay like me!!!! cherry on top!! and then for michaela, in the books i believe michael is yet another rake, which the show sets up for michaela too with her joking about being even more scandalous than john's stories might make her out to be - the rake is the backbone of the regency romance genre, so getting to see a wlw version of the trope with a female rake is going to be SO much fun!! esp with the setup that francesca is fairly society-conforming as of now; michaela broadening her horizons could be something interesting to explore.

wow this post got super long lmao i'm just so excited! canon queer bridgerton siblings singlehandedly turned this show from "i casually enjoy it as a few hours of fun which i forget about soon after it's over" to "i'm literally frothing at the mouth i need the next season NOW" and That is the power of representation, baby!

#bridgerton #bridgerton spoilers #long post

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sarshles-cheescake-li · 2 months

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A metaphysical argument for why Lu Guang was the one who risked his intestines falling out to go save his little meow meow

Needless to say, spoilers ahead!

Part 1: Introduction to the bootstrap paradox

There's a lot I could say about the supposed time loop that occurs in episodes 7-8-9 of season 2. Most of them -- the kettle, the lack of a speedboat, Lu Guang's characterization -- have been said better by other theorists. But I'm here to explain the bootstrap/predestination paradox.

The bootstrap paradox is when something is sent back in time, which creates an infinite loop, making the thing seems like it has no origin. The example I learned it with was with time machines. Say you open your door one day to find a book, written by yourself, containing information on how to build a time machine. You take, I dunno, let's say ten years building the thing. Then you use your new time machine to send the book back in time, to your ten-years-ago self, to seal the loop. Works great, right? You've closed the loop, and now you have a time machine.

There's only one problem. Where the hell did that book come from in the first place?

I mean, yes, obviously, it's from the future. But someone had to have written that book, right? But you, the supposed writer of the book, only got it because it got sent back in time by a version of you that already had the book. We assume there was no way you could've figured out how to build a time machine yourself. But that means that the knowledge about the time machine essentially just, popped out of nowhere. Poof! Just like that.

The information about Cheng Xiaoshi and Li Tianchen/Li Tianxi's location is like that. The only reason any of the characters know it is because of Lu Guang. But if their narration is to be believed, then "Lu Guang" only knew it because he was being possessed by Cheng Xiaoshi, who already learned the information in the future. So… how did anyone get that information in the first place?

I generally consider there to be two solutions to the bootstrap paradox. One is an obfuscated origin -- one where the information was obtainable even without the loop, but its origin is hidden by the loop's existence. Say if, without the loop, Li Tianchen releases Cheng Xiaoshi from his control once they're on the boat, and Cheng Xiaoshi figures out where he is. He manages to survive the encounter with the antagonists, and eventually makes it home. But, in the process, Qiao Ling dies. So now Cheng Xiaoshi both has information available to him about where he was during the boat scene, and also a reason to start the loop -- Qiao Ling is dead, and might not be dead if he didn't get taken in the first place. So he takes Lu Guang's photo, and starts the loop.

This particular version of the obfuscated origin theory is… probably not the case. Largely because we don't know how changing the timeline so drastically interacts with Cheng Xiaoshi's ability, specifically, what would happen if he were to clap back into a "present" that technically no longer exists. However, my personal theory -- that I'll discuss in another post -- does fall under the obfuscated origin solution, just slightly to the left.

The second solution to bootstrap is just an allowance for these types of paradoxes to exist. Each story handles it differently. In my model of time -- which I'm pretty sure Link Click doesn't follow, because why would it -- these types of loops are a close relative of magic, because of their self-defining nature. Now, I'm going to say that this is not the case in Link Click, based on what we've seen of Cheng Xiaoshi's power so far.

Part 2: Cheng Xiaoshi's power is weird, man

For the second solution to be valid, we should ideally have at least one of three proofs.

This is the most convincing proof -- if we have another example of an exclusive, stable time loop (exclusive as in the events involved in the loop would not have happened without the loop's presence, stable as in the loop doesn't contradict itself the way it does in, for example, the grandfather paradox). This would just plainly prove the fact that Cheng Xiaoshi can create the loop we see in episodes 7-8-9.

Cheng Xiaoshi's dives should be able to have causality effects up to and including his decision to dive, at the very least. Essentially, Cheng Xiaoshi needs to be able to create an effect on the world that shows up before the dive concludes. This demonstrates the flexibility of the timeline -- that it allows Cheng Xiaoshi to make changes to events that precede his dive, instead of only events that succeed it. While this isn't as strong as the first proof, it would show that, at the minimum, Cheng Xiaoshi is able "cause" his own dive.

In cases where Cheng Xiaoshi observes a person who he has/will dive into, he should be viewing the "dived" version and not the "original" version. This demonstrates that the timeline "knows" about Cheng Xiaoshi's dives before he performs them. This way, it makes sense if the "Lu Guang" Cheng Xiaoshi saw was a "dived" version, instead of original-Lu-Guang. This is our bottom line, because without this, then… Well, there's really nothing showing that Cheng Xiaoshi was even possessing Lu Guang during that first run of events that we saw.

Let's go through them one by one. The first proof is pretty much a no-go. There is only one dive in the entire series where this type of causality is even discussed, and that's during the dive into Li Tianxi (referred to as Xixi from now on. By the way, fun fact -- although the English sub appears to subtitle her nickname as "Xixi," it's actually pronounced "Xiaoxi" in Mandarin. I was confused about this for a while because Xixi and Xiaoxi would both be valid and common nicknames for her, in terms of convention, haha. If anyone ever wants to hear me talk about some hard-to-translate linguistic details in Link Click, let me know!). In this dive, Lu Guang tells Cheng Xiaoshi to pick up the photo, saying that if the photo disappears, then "the future that we live in will cease to exist." You could make an argument here that Cheng Xiaoshi's act of picking up the photo allows for the dive to happen, fulfilling proof 1. However, this proves stability -- that the dive does not contradict, or nullify itself -- but it doesn't prove exclusivity. That is, we have no way of knowing what would've happened to the photo if Cheng Xiaoshi hadn't dived. It's plausible that Xixi or Li Tianchen would've picked up the photo in the end anyway, regardless of Cheng Xiaoshi's influence. Thus, this is much closer to just being their typical motto while diving -- leave the past untouched, or as close as they can get it to the original.

The second proof is harder to say. We can't say for sure whether or not we've ever seen the effect of Cheng Xiaoshi's dives occur before he makes the decision to dive, for two reasons. One is the butterfly effect -- many causes may have effects, but those effects may be extremely hard to trace back to their original causes. It's possible that maybe Cheng Xiaoshi as Xu Shan Shan asking Qiao Ling about what Lu Guang saw in him might've, I don't know, kept Qiao Ling occupied where otherwise she would've gone "Oh I forgot my phone in the studio" or something. And the fact that Qiao Ling never came back to the studio demonstrates that Cheng Xiaoshi created an effect prior to him diving. But there's no solid proof for this being the case. The second one is that it's just much harder to prove impossibility than simple absence. That is, even if we've never seen this happen, it doesn't mean it can't happen -- it just means we haven't seen it yet.

However, from a writing perspective, there's some solid evidence that, while Cheng Xiaoshi's power has the potential for "effects," those effects are only observable to Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang themselves after the "cause" has already occurred. That is, any effects of Cheng Xiaoshi's dives only become evident after the dive has already happened. The strongest proof for this is Chen Xiao's camera in episode five, and Lu Guang's narration. As a result of Cheng Xiaoshi's actions while possessing Chen Xiao, the camera that presumably would've been destroyed in the original timeline is preserved. Chen Xiao's father then finds the camera and brings it to Chen Xiao, who then brings it to the studio to get developed. Lu Guang says here that this is why they don't ask about the future -- because the future is inevitably changed by their actions. While this was an emotionally touching scene in terms of storytelling, I believe it also serves a double purpose, showing us the limits of Cheng Xiaoshi's diving. It shows explicitly that his dives can change the timeline, but he himself will only experience the effects of that change after he's already dived. This makes quite a lot of sense, combined with part three, which is that:

I'm nearly 100% sure that Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang themselves always experience the "original" series of events when they go through things in real time, and never otherwise.

The best example of this is with the Xu Shanshan dive in episode 10. After combing through the episode and comparing it to episode 8, there are three major deviations in Cheng Xiaoshi's behaviour during the dive versus Xu Shanshan's during the first run through. First is a general difference in voice, mannerisms, and expressions. Especially near the beginning of the dive, Cheng Xiaoshi sounds different than Xu Shanshan. Even later, does small things like turn his head and make expressions at a different time. However, I'm not going to take this one as seriously, considering we're not sure if this is showing actual reality or is for the viewer's benefit, demonstrating the difference between the two. After all, we, the viewer sees that anyone possessed by Cheng Xiaoshi has their eyes turn gold, but no one in the story itself notices it. Me, personally, I think I would notice if my best friend took a photo and then came back with differently coloured eyes. I don't know though, I might just be built different like that.

Second is that Xu Shanshan says "I'm not like a certain someone, leeching off other people" (second half paraphrased) whereas Cheng Xiaoshi says "I don't [want to be like] a certain someone, leeching off other people." Again, this one is questionable, because the dialogue actually spoken is the exact same (in terms of words), and the English sub is the exact same, but the Chinese subtitles has a 像想 in place of 像 in the second run-through. Which is weird, because [want to be like] is actually 想像 and not 像想… confusing. Like, this is 100% a typo by the subtitles team, but what was the original intended version? No one knows. The last, and only actual deviation I found, was that Xu Shanshan goes "Hey, Qiao" when asking about how Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang get their information from photos, whereas Cheng Xiaoshi just says "Qiao."

This, combined with the fact that Lu Guang is able to "see" the original in the first place, all make a strong case that, in Link Click, the timeline doesn't "know" that Cheng Xiaoshi has dived until he actually does it, at which point it tries to catch up. This is consistent with everything else we've seen. It makes sense that the effect of his dives are only noticeable to him after the fact, because the timeline has to basically make live edits to itself to deal with his existence.

With this in mind, the Lu Guang we see in episode 7 simply couldn't've been Cheng Xiaoshi. This was a real time event, so it had to have been the undived version of Lu Guang doing… all that. Of course, the question here is how Lu Guang even got the information about Cheng Xiaoshi's whereabouts in the first place. I might make more posts theorizing about Lu Guang's powers and their limitations, the nature of his loop, etc… But for now, I've been grinding this post for about two hours. That's all. I hope you all enjoyed reading this!

#link click #link click theory #link click spoilers #shiguang daili ren #sgdlr

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cario55555 · 3 months

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Gonna be taking a bit of a break from art and such and so, specifically cotl stuff mainly because i got abunch of wips in the backlog and others stuff to doodle but also i like this little freakshow im making too so have abunch of fun facts about the funny lamb universe i got goin on for now under the cut

⁍ The Lamb would canonically win in a fight against 4 Leshy's or 2 Heket's, but not 3 Shamura's or 2 Kallamar's. ⁍ The Goat literally just walked into the Cult and acted like he already knew everyone. This somehow worked for 3 years. ⁍ I have no idea if Narilamb is canon in this or not, but if it was then it would not end well for anyone ⁍ Plimbo is the best character, this is a fact and you cannot dispute it. I tried designing him like 8? times and I just couldn't get it in a satisfying way. this is because he is without flaw. ⁍ The Lamb was fully aware of the prophecy before the beheading. They were counting on it. There is blood on their hands. ⁍ Sozo is very dead. Whatever's walking around the Cult, that's not Dr. Sozonius. ⁍ Look at this thing I can do ☺ isn't that wild ⁍ It takes place in a permadeath save. This means that the Lamb's delusions of power definitely weren't helped by the fact that they BARELY even knew Narinder, and the fact they killed 5 gods without sleeping. ⁍ Also Lamb killed Narinder lol ⁍ Mystic Seller is named "That Which Takes" ⁍ Leshycat's canon but I'll never design them its just gonna be like in Tom and Jerry where they're just slightly offscreen at all times ⁍ Midas that rat fuck owes me 20$ ⁍ Surprisingly, Heket got the closest to killing The Lamb. She wears this as a badge of honor, or as a means to make fun of the other Bishops. I forget which. ⁍ I might make a fanfic one of these days based on cult of the sham but it'd literally just be an always sunny episode lol ⁍ Webber is literally the exact same as the one from Don't Starve. They had to put him down because he kept placing spider nests all over the Cult, and Pigs kept trying to throw down. ⁍ A little gnome just ran behind you when you weren't looking. ⁍ The Lamb is ambidextrous, this is because I keep forgetting which hand to have them hold stuff with. They also have no idea what this word means. ⁍ The gnome ran behind you again you gotta pay more attention to this stuff ⁍ ☺sorry i didn't mean to do it that time ⁍ Clauneck and Kudaai like switching clothes and acting like eachother to fuck with people, it works every time without fail. ⁍ Aym and Baal are hanging out with Forneus. The Lamb didn't let them do this, they literally just booked it as soon as they got the chance and Forneus totally could beat the shit out of The Lamb. ⁍ help its red now ⁍ nevermind we're good ⁍ Ratau was driven mad by the crown. He's had the knowledge of the gods ripped from his skull and delicately placed onto some psychopathic woolen beast. He's not all there. ⁍ Any time I'm working on COTL stuff I'm usually listening to King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard. To get the general tone I try and set, listen to their album "I'm In Your Mind Fuzz". Good stuff. ⁍ The Industrial Meat Grinder incident was an inside job.

thank y'all for all the support, means the world that people actually like the delusional ramblings that come out of my brain at...

yeah that tracks.

also one more little mini preview for a drawing that might get finished one of these days idk

why is webber there i genuinely do not remember???

#cult of the lamb #art #cotl #cotl art #cotl lamb #cotl goat #cotl narinder #cotl au #delusional ramblings #im out of tags

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stevesnightmares · 3 months

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I don't understand how some people can watch BBC Merlin and, when they are done, complain that it didn't make sense because Merlin didn't fulfil the prophecy. You are the one who doesn't understand the story that is being told. This is not like in Percy Jackson, where we get prophecies and, by the end, we see them come true, even if in unexpected ways. Merlin created his own path with every choice that he made, with every action he took. He could've fulfilled his destiny, he could've saved Arthur and brought on the golden age of Albion, but by making certain choices he wasn't able to fulfil that destiny. He had the ability to do so, but didn't.

In season 1 episode 8, "The Beginning of the End" we are immediately told that Merlin will not fulfill his destiny, he will not protect Arthur and see him bring about the golden age of Albion.

KILGHARRAH If the boy lives, you cannot fulfil your destiny. MERLIN What's he got to do with my destiny? You said it's my destiny to protect Arthur. KILGHARRAH Then you have the answer you seek. MERLIN You're telling me that little boy is going to kill Arthur? KILGHARRAH It seems that is up to you. MERLIN No. You can't know that for certain. KILGHARRAH You have it in your power to prevent a great evil. MERLIN There must be another way! The future isn't set in stone! KILGHARRAH You must let the boy die.

By saving Mordred, Merlin sealed Arthur's fate and signed his death. He made a choice and that choice had its consequences.

Another clear example of Merlin's choices affecting, well, everything, is in season 2 episode 8, "Sins of the Father".

Merlin's goal is to make Arthur see that magic isn't all bad, to make the genocide of magic wielders stop, to bring magic back to Camelot so that he and every other magic person can live freely as themselves.

When meeting with Morgouse, Arthur begins to go towards the right path.

ARTHUR What if my father's attitude to magic is wrong? MERLIN You really think that?

ARTHUR Perhaps it's not as simple as he would have us believe. Morgause is a sorcerer, she has caused us no harm. Surely not everyone who practices magic can be evil.

He's starting to see that maybe not everyone who uses magic uses it for evil, that magic users can be good.

ARTHUR You speak of hunted her kind like animals! How many hundreds have you condemned to death to ease your guilt?

He's also seeing that Uther hates magic because of personal reasons and not because all magic is really bad.

This was the perfect opportunity, the perfect opening to bring Arthur on the right side. But what does Merlin do?

MERLIN Morgause is lying! She's an enchantress. She tricked you. That was not your mother you saw. That was an illusion. Everything...everything your mother said to you...those were Morgause's words. This has been her plan all along! To turn you against your father. And if you kill him, the kingdom will be destroyed! This is what she wants!

He tells Arthur that it's all a lie and that the sorcerer is evil, that once again those who use magic only want to see Camelot fall.

ARTHUR I am indebted to you, Merlin. I had become...confused. It is once again clear to me that those who practice magic are evil and dangerous. And that is thanks to you.

He solidified Arthur's belief that magic is evil and bad.

My point isn't to decide whether Merlin's choices were good or bad, right or wrong, we follow him, we see why he does what he does, how much he cares for Arthur and for others, we see his flaws and his shortcomings and we can't blame him for any of his choices because all of them, even the most misguided ones, were all done in good faith.

The point is that that's what the show is about: a young warlock in his quest to save Arthur and how his choices bring him to his failure. From season 1 he was doomed to fail because of his choices. At least that's how I see it. People were expecting to see Merlin fulfil the prophecy and some claim that he did, but imo the whole show is about how his choices doomed him and made him not fulfil his destiny.

UTHER You [Merlin] have proven yourself to be a trusted ally in the fight against magic.

#merlin #merlin bbc #bbc merlin #arthur #arthur pendragon #bbc merlin meta #merlin meta

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low-budget-korra · 7 months

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Comments on Netflix's Avatar The Last Airbender

*spoiler alert*

First of all I'm gonna start by saying it is one of the best adaptations I've seen so far. And that's the key word, adaptation. I've seen a lot of fans and others complain about some things that honestly, doesn't make sense because some things only work in a cartoon(just as much as some things only work in a book or a video game)

And before I start to talk about some topics that I judge important, I also wanna say that the production is fantastic, from the costumes to the CGI. It all looks amazing. (A part from Yue's wig)

1. The Script

It's not easy to pick 20+ episodes and make it fit in only 8 but damn they did a hell of a good job, especially when judging what was important to show and what they could let it go. Some fans commented that since there's no fillers, the Gaang and others miss some development but I think that for the universe of the live action what we got here it worked.

I can express how much I like to see Ozai and Azula's relationship and how it is now clear that he uses the siblings against each other, manipulating them to get what he wants. But I will admit I miss the fear Azula had, since it's implied in the show and some extras that she does fear Ozai, and fears becoming like Zuko.

I hope the 41. Is just fine after the battle in the north. See all of them bowing to Zuko after discovering that Zuko was the one that saved their asses and was heavily punished by that...it was beautiful. I loved the writers did that, give names and faces to Zuko's crew and a beautiful yet sad arc when Ozai banished his son and the men who he saved.

I also loved that they put weight into things that was treated as a joke, like Katara talking about her mother. She was a little kid who saw her mom get murdered in front of her and the live action made sure to let us know that it is not okay to make jokes about something so traumatic. All of the deaths here have tons of weight in it, it's not some random person, is someone we met, someone we liked, someone who helped. The costs of the war, something the cartoon manages to show us but know in live action, with real people, the massage gets stronger.

And they didn't forget Iroh's past like the fandom does, which is great. That actor, the earthbending soldier really let it all out, that's how you use the few screentime you have.

Sokka's isn't sexist and y'all were making a storm outta a cup of water, is not like Sokka sexist didn't go away after like the 4 or 5 episode in the original show. I think the live action was able to bring more depth to him in comparison to the first season of the cartoon. We see how he feels about his father's, the absence of him and his duty as warrior who kinda doesn't want to be a warrior.

I need a Gyatso in my life, I didn't know I needed to see more of him until the live action gave us more of him. Kyoshi was the Thor coming to Wakanda from this season, WHY THE FUCK BRYKE DONT WANNA GIVE US A KYOSHI SERIES? She is absolutely a jewel of a character. Roku and Kuruk, damn poor Kuruk man, so much pain in his words but again that's what it means to be the Avatar, it's not fun and games. Zhao saying to Aang what Korra villains said to Korra😭 that the world doesn't need the Avatar anymore, it hurt.

Guys I'm gonna say it, there's no way in hell for anyone to ship Kataang here. I'm saying this because some shippers complain that the secret tunnel part was different but c'mon, look at Kiawentiio and look at Gordon, it would be so s awkward and weird and just wrong. I know they don't have a big age difference, is only like 3 years but when they filmed Gordon looked so much younger than her, maybe in the next seasons the difference won't be that big.

The pace is good, once you start you don't wanna stop.

2. The Acting

Everyone is really good at capturing the essence of it's characters and somewhat making them their own. The highlights for me were Dallas and Ian, Its like they came straight from the show. Ken Leung's Zhao was also amazing as he was way more threatening here than he was in the show.

Kiawentiio was the Katara we were looking for, she is kind yet strong, brave and caring. And Gordon was Aang, sure, he has to learn a few things since he slipped a few times in his acting but nothing that could ruin the experience, that kid is good and just needs some experience.

Elizabeth Yu was Azula. It was different but yet the same character, is like learning something new of her and I like how cleared she show emotions with her eyes. Maria Zhang had great chemistry with Ian and I can't wait to see more of Suki. Arden Cho and Yvonne Chapman as June and Avatar Kyoshi look like they came out straight from the cartoon. Daniel Dae Kim...man is Ozai, so cold, so sharp, so scary, already way better than the cartoon version. I wanna see more of Paul Sun-Hyung Lee as Iroh since the character he really starts to shine in book 2.

3. The live action doesn't have the spirit of the OG?

Yes, it does have. The thing is now that we are seeing real people, things get dark one way or another but I don't think it ruined the spirit of the show. Aang is still a kid, Sokka still making sarcastic jokes, Zuko still annoying as hell, Katara still hopeful and strong... There's everything there really.

The thing is stuff like genocide, murder, war, death and suffering are, for some people, better to watch as pixels in a cartoon than real people.

I think it's a great adaptation and I would recommend it to every fan.

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eldaryasharbinger · 9 days

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How did I manage to get the E-Girl pack?

I thought I'd make a little "guide" as in to give others an example on what I did to spend APs to reach the final goal of 4k.

First, keep in mind that I had around 2.2k AP saved and around 300+ gems saved as well starting this!

I hadn't played Episode 7 yet so that's where I started. Since you have to wait 15 minutes at some point during the episode, I took the chance to go to the wardrobe and buy the pink/black variants of one of the new outfits.

Once I was done with the episode, I don't remember how much exactly I had left but it was something around 500 AP? I used some of it to buy some more different colors of the other outfit we get in Ep. 7 since I paid those 150 hearts to unlock it in the closet.

I also did spend 150 gems at some point to get 750 APs, that might've been at the beginning of ep 7, which means I had around 3k starting

At that point I managed to unlock Taki's costume and the room, but I was still missing around 600 APs to spend

I probably should've done this before spending more APs in the closet, but I ended up deciding to do a replay of episode 2 since the only other outfit I was missing from episodes was unlockable there (I didn't know back then that we could unlock outfits at the end of each episode,,)

Since I clearly didn't have enough AP to complete the episode, I ended up caving in and buying 500 gems to then spend 400 to buy 2,200 APs

Another thing, by half of the episode I had already reached the goal, so I didn't really need to finish the episode right away but I didn't like the idea of leaving it half way through

I definitely could've reached the 4k goal in the following days as well, but keep in mind that I'm impatient and stupid so yeah (That's literally the only extra thing I allowed myself to spend on this month, might've been stupid again but I could afford it this time doesn't mean I should've but I'm working on it,,)

Overall what I recommend everyone to do is:

If you played episode 7 already, then wait until episode 8 is out. If you don't have access to all the past outfits from episodes then I suggest you do a replay of one of those episodes to round up and to wait to spend AP in the closet until you don't have anything else to do

I also suggest in spending to get room decor if you don't have many since it can be helpful for the style contests

Also please! Keep participating in the style contests even though they're unfair sometimes because even the smallest amount of AP you can get is better than nothing!!

For me, the only episode that made sense to replay was ep. 2, because I have everything from the other ones and was missing the outfit for Amanda/Thomas (I'm also missing 2 more Taki costumes that I'll eventually unlock in future replays if needed)

Once you reach the 4k goal you unlock the E-Girl pack outfit in the closet in it's main color, you can't pick and choose singularly like in bought packs. (It's more like the pre-registration gifts and the beach themed outfit gift: everyone got the main color and then had the choice to buy different colors or not)

The prices for each piece of the E-Girl pack are cheaper than bought packs.

If we consider episode outfits "cheap", and bought packs "expensive", then the prices of this one is somewhat in the middle

Hope this was helpful to someone! Please don't be stupid like me and make the most out of your APs!

Good Luck everyone!!

#mcl new gen #my candy love new gen #amour sucre #my candy love #corazon de melon #dolce flirt #beemoov #beemoov games

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httyddragonfox · 2 months

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Dragon Prince season 6 surprises

I just finished the season today! I was so right about what tone it would have. Of course there were things I never expected, really shocked me out of the water there.

1: Rayllum reforges! I wanted it, I could guess it might happen seeing as they were on a journey alone again, but it still was a pleasant surprise. Hopefully they don't split up again, ...(also, please have nothing break them apart!)

2: Only some of the three parents get revived. I didn't expect one of the stones to be swapped out. Dang it Aaravos! Why can't anything go swimmingly for these two.

3: Callum taking the decoy with him! Callum is usually so aware when he gets controlled, the fact it happened without his knowledge. I thought Aaravos would want what was at the Star scraper, but then again he has all the star power he needs.

4: Viren surviving...and then Dying. I was surprised when he was alive, then again the homunculous wasn't around in the trailers and Claudia was covered in blood, but I thought she killed it out of frustration or something. How would she have found out about the "Blood of child" thing? So of course I didn't see him go back to Katolis, interact with Soren again, and explain his backstory. I figured we'd learn it, but he wouldn't be around...as weird as that logic is. Then Viren sacrificed himself to save everyone as his final act of redemption. Seeing him alive was already a shock, I didn't expect to see him die...for real.

5: Callum purging the darkness from himself. I knew Callum was going to be tested of some sort, but I thought that was how he was going to get the crown. I honestly thought the darkness within him would come back to him in a more dramatic way. Maybe it still will, they did hint that any more darkness will corrupt him entirely, and the next season is called 'Dark.' It was sweet that the light that saved him was Rayla, and allowed them to get back together.

6: Finding out what the key is for. I honestly thought we'd find out in season 7, or that the key would release him. Then again it was around when Aaravos wasn't imprisoned, and it's his key... who knew it was for a magic book this whole time. That better be some special book.

7:Using the Moon nexus again: Here I thought Lujanne thought it shouldn't be used. She grew lenient in two years. Also I didn't think we'd be seeing her and Allan.

8: KATOLLIS IS DESTROYED! That never happened in any of my theories! Dang, Aaravos doesn't play around. Speaking of...

9: Aaravos hates Sol Regum. I knew he got rid of Adititi, but that was probably just to cause Chaos. I didn't know it was personal with the Sun dragon. Also, such a surprise Sol Regum had a mate...which he killed.

Now the big one...

10: AARAVOS HAD A DAUGHTER NAMED LEOLA AND SHE WAS THE UNICORN THAT GIFTED HUMANITY WITH MAGIC!!! I had insights...but never the full picture. The short stories made it seem like he didn't like the other startouch elves, that he disagreed with them. I figured, "He must like Humanity much more than them." Second short story, there was a fallen star, given his name, I thought it was him. I thought they banished him for some reason. The opening of the first episode, I'm thinking maybe he was just banished. The merciful one shows up and says "We are all stardust held together by love for an instant." That makes me think somebody died. I learned in season 5 about Leola and her 'last wish.' Maybe he was crying over her death and how unjust it was. Never....did I put together that she was his daughter. I never saw Aaravos as a dad, seeing how cruel he can be to people and how silly he acts at times. Also I didn't think the Startouch elves had families. That was a real wringer for me, but the real heartwrencher...

11: They showed a child dying on screen! They showed how scared she was, they showed the love they had for each other, how heartbroken he was, how horrifying the death was! They didn't shy away at all. Darn you creators! Why do have to make me cry!

Much more intense a season, more mature themes, more blood, more death! What's the next season going to be like?!

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des2dream · 8 days

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Ranking MLP Generations!💗🦄🌈

For over 40 years, we have been exposed to colorful horses. Colorful horses who can talk....and sing....and dance....and fire mega rainbow lasers at their enemies! Colorful horses who also made their way into our collections. My Little Pony was introduced in 1982 following after the original My Pretty Pony toy that dropped in 1981 which was meant to sell toys for the young female demographic.

The rest became history! MLP grew to become a popular toy during the 80s which spawned a movie in 1986 and a TV show that came out three months later. As the years went by, MLP went through multiple changes gaining new fans for new generations. I've decided to go over each generation and rank them based on my opinions, thoughts, and overall feelings of satisfaction I have toward them. I don't necessarily hate any of the generations that will be placed lower on this list, I just don't feel as attached to them nor do I feel like having an interest in them. I also won't discuss much of the toys, but I will discuss heavily on the TV shows based on them since I've seen more of the shows than I collected the toys. We'll start with the worst, then save the best for last. Let's go, everypony!

8. My Little Pony Generation 2

The fact that I didn't even know this existed until years later doesn't help its case. The toy sales were so low that there wasn't even a cartoon to go with it. Only a video game. This generation released in 1997 before it ceased distribution in 1999 due to lackluster sales. However, it did find some success in Europe. I don't have much to say about this since I hadn't known about it. I originally thought My Little Pony Tales was Generation 2! One positive I can give is that I love the designs as they give off slightly more realistic horse-like features and it's a cool look. I didn't have any toys nor saw anything on TV with there being no series. I'm sorry, G2! Unfortunately, you hit the bottom of the barrel.

7. My Little Pony Generation 3.5

Now, this spot is interesting! The third generation of MLP dominated the 2000s with newer colorful ponies like Pinkie Pie and Minty. On top of that, multiple specials began selling in DVDs that also aired on TV. By late 2009, Hasbro decided to revamp the series twice (sort of). They gathered a group of ponies who were well known in G3 (Pinkie Pie, Starsong, Rainbow Dash, Cheerilee, Toola Roola, Sweetie Belle, & Scootaloo) and gave them a redesign as well as likely aging them down for younger audiences. There was a 45-minute holiday special titled, Twinkle Wish Adventure as well as a couple mini episodes and new toys that spawned from this revamp.

It eventually led to the second revamp titled, Newborn Cuties where the characters aged down to babies....you had to see it to believe it. I actually owned a G3.5 Pinkie Pie, a Newborn Cuties Pinkie, and a baby singing Starsong back in the day. These redesigns couldn't do it for me after being mesmerized by G3. I remember being upset that even Ponyville got a resign and it looked so bland compared to how the town looked early on. Newborn Cuties also looks extremely off with their pony heads and baby bodies. This generation is mostly hated by the fandom and I can see why. At least, it had more to offer than Generation 2. It was a nice distraction for young girls. It's now best to be left alone by an older me. If any of you like seeing fillies and baby ponies, this is the generation for you.

6. My Little Pony Generation 1.5/ My Little Pony Tales

Let's go back to the year, 1992! You're sitting in your room and you're watching, Disney Channel. You're watching your favorite shows like, Goof Troop, The Little Mermaid, or Raw Toonage and you come across this colorful horse show. After Generation 1's series came to a close in 1987, we are now hit with a new series for pony fans in the 90s. This is the generation I previously thought was Generation 2. That is in fact not the case! We follow a group of pony friends as they spend their days in Ponyland going to school, hanging out for milkshakes, having sleepovers, and feuding with the resident boys. Our main ponies are Starlight, Sweetheart, Melody, Bright Eyes, Patch, Clover, and Bon Bon whom we follow in their daily lives. I find this show to be.....innocent, but weird (and not in a good way). It's passable for a Saturday morning cartoon and it does have funny moments, but something was off.

Generation 1 left quite the impression on young audiences during the 80s. Ponies that not only sung and danced, but ponies that went through continuous magical adventures involving dragons, princesses, witches, evil kings, and all sorts of mythical creatures. My Little Pony Tales has talking and singing ponies, but there was an odd lack of magic with the show emphasizing more on Slice-of-Life. Not that I have any issues with that genre! It just feels odd seeing these magical horses not doing any magic and living in a modernized world. The characters also have annoying moments which is likely because the writers wanted to portray preteen behavior (since the ponies are preteens in this show), but it also falls into some cheesy 90s writing. Like I said, it is passable so I believe there's an audience for this one. It can make nice riffing material too!

5. My Little Pony Generation 4.5/ Pony Life

Here are the table scraps of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic....except, these table scraps were pretty okay. This show came onto streaming services and YouTube from November 7, 2020 until May 22, 2021. This was supposed to be a successor, spin-off, and reboot to FIM. The previous show had already ended, so I was chill with seeing the characters again in a different style. This generation was.....bonkers, to say the least! It was already kind of a struggle seeing fans adjust to the new chibi art style, but it was also a struggle keeping up with the show's new format. Pony Life was incredibly energetic as each episode was around 5 minutes (10 since they're in two-parts). There was also some crazy new quirks to the cast with Applejack breaking The Fourth Wall, Fluttershy shrinking and massively growing at will, and everyone casually drinking potions left and right. For me, it was hard to keep up with the fast pace of the show. However, I did appreciate the cast of The Mane Six reprising their roles for this show.

Season 2 introduced viewers to Lightning Flash Chill (the tiger), Sugar Snap (the peacock), and Echo (the bat). Meet The Wild Siders! They're unicorn-hybrid creatures who work at a healthy food restaurant called, Salad Bowl Junction in their home realm. I honestly enjoyed them! They give off similar vibes to The Care Bear Cousins which is fascinating because the 80s actually did a spin-off toyline with a similar premise by having other pretty animals. There have also been episodes where characters from the previous series make an appearance such as Spike, Trixie Lulamoon, and Discord. I enjoyed this more than My Little Pony Tales and the characters are still likable, but it still has issues. I'm still put off by the constant energy in almost every minute. I don't feel attached to this show, but I do see myself watching it once in a while because the episodes aren't that long and I've grown used to the art style by now with how cute everyone looks. Also, it's nice seeing The Mane Six again!

4. My Little Pony Generation 5

The year is 2021, it has been a couple years since Generation 4 ended, and this had some major horseshoes to fill! September 22 of that year presented us with a debut film on Netflix titled, A New Generation featuring stars like Vanessa Hudgens and Sofia Carson. It was actually pretty good! I instantly loved the characters, the animation, the story, and all the songs! It was a great introduction to G5. Personally, I enjoyed it much better than the early concept which was going be having The Mane Six meet each other all over again in a new Equestria. Twilight would've been an Earth Pony, Pinkie would've been a Pegasus, Fluttershy would've been a Unicorn, and Applejack was on the verge of likely getting replaced with a new character. Instead, Generation 5 is supposed to take place DECADES after the events of G4 with ponies and other creatures becoming separated from fear and prejudice. While it was shocking since G4 ended with bringing creatures together, it does make sense for history to repeat itself. The Mane Six have now become what you call, "An Old Pony's Tale" and The Magic of Friendship has been abandoned....until one pony stood up. A pony named, Sunny Starscout!

We follow her along with her friends Izzy Moonbow, Princess Zipp Storm, Princess Pipp Petals, and Sheriff Hitch Trailblazer on their mission to restore magic in Equestria and bring everyone together. After the film, we got a series on Netflix titled, Make Your Mark as well as a series of shorts on YouTube named, Tell Your Tale (I wish it was actually Tail) that took place after the events of the movie. I have mixed feelings on both series. On one hand, I enjoy the art styles, I love the songs still, and I like the characters that were introduced like Misty Brightdawn and Sparky the Dragon. On the other hand, the episodes can be messy. We get pieces of information on how magic faded from Equestria, but it still doesn't feel like we're getting the whole picture. The IDW Comics have been giving a little more than the series. I also have many questions on G5's villain, Opaline who is an ALICORN! How did she become an alicorn or was she born one?! G5 wants to be its own thing, but it also clashes with trying to be a sequel to G4. It's a mess, but it's a beautiful mess! I do want to see more.

3. My Little Pony Generation 1

Welcome to the generation that started it all! Say "thank you" to this generation for being the franchise's starting point please! Also, let's give a BIG "thank you" to My Pretty Pony for making this all possible! Before we got a full series, we got two TV specials titled, Rescue at Midnight Castle then Escape from Catrina in 1984 until we got a full-length film in 1986 many know as, My Little Pony: The Movie featuring the voices of recognizable names like Danny DeVito and Madeline Kahn. I've always found this generation to be fun to watch while having some 80's cheesy moments. There was a mixture of magic, action, adventure, and pure pony fluff that kept me sitting through multiple episodes. G1 had messy dialogue, some messy hand-drawn animation, and sometimes messy plot, but it was always charming and to the point. There were times where the pacing was very fast, but not as energetically exhausting as G4.5. This show brought a lot to the table with mystical adventures and characters. This generation gave us unicorns, pegasi, twinkle-eyed ponies, sea ponies, Spike the Dragon, witches, and dear sweet Megan Williams.

After Generation 1, there was no longer a use for any human characters in MLP (unless if we count G4's Equestria Girls) and while it is a little sad, it does make G1 a little more unique. While Megan is the bearer of The Rainbow of Light, she's always there for her pony friends whenever they're in trouble and will always be down to have fun in Ponyland. She even includes her younger siblings, Danny and Molly into the mix. Aside from having human characters, there's also a fair share of creatures like dragons, penguins, and giant crabs. We also have other familiar names in this generation like Applejack and Twilight. This show even introduced memorable villains like Tirac, The Smooze, and Grogar. I feel like we owe a lot to this generation even if it's not everyone's favorite. I wouldn't be making this list if not for this show leaving such a a huge impact and leading into future generations to come. If you're feeling nostalgic, I think you'll have a good time checking this out.

2. My Little Pony Generation 3

I know some of you are shocked....trust me, I know! Let me explain!....I can't help but love G3! I grew up with G3! I enjoyed it so much when I was little and I can't help but still like it today! Is it perfect? No! Is it messy? Yes! Did I have fun? Very much, thank you! In the year of 2003, we were presented with a lineup of new and improved MLP toys different from the previous gens and a Direct-to-Video special titled, A Charming Birthday which introduces our new ponies. As each year passed by, we got new specials and new ponies like Star Catcher, Princess Rarity of Unicornia, Wysteria, and so much more! This generation also includes Spike from G1! One thing I loved about G3 was watching all the specials and movies that came out. I'd always watch A Very Minty Christmas every time December rolled around! I thought Sky Wishes and Star Catcher's friendship was so cute to watch during Dancing In The Clouds and I absolutely adore Star Catcher's design. When Spike was reintroduced debuting in The Princess Promenade, I thought it was interesting that he was more knowledgeable and cultured rather than the sweet and innocent personality he had in G1. We were also introduced to fairy-like ponies called, Breezies. While G3 had little to no antagonists, less magical creatures than G1, and a slice-of-life feel like G1.5, there was still plenty of magical adventures to be had.

I absolutely loved the aesthetic G3 was giving to its audience at the time as I couldn't get enough of the color scheme! I've never seen so many shades pink, purple, blue, and even hints of light green since watching Barbie movies! Their hometown, Ponyville looked so beautiful with the purple/pink castle standing front and center. Even other places like Unicornia, Butterfly Island, Breezie Blossom, and Rainbow Wishes Amusement Park are fun to look at. I didn't find the characters annoying and I loved watching their adventures while learning lessons. However, this generation was given a handful of hate like G3.5 mainly because pony fans though it "doesn't reach the same standards as G4" and it made me a little sad. G3 wasn't meant to be groundbreaking or anything. It was just meant to sell toys while using movies and specials to showcase the ponies making new friends, solving problems, and having fun. The same thing can be said about all the generations, really. I get why people don't enjoy it, but I don't think it's warranted of all the hate that it gets. The stories can be too simple and the executions might not be the best, but they're charming. Okay, everypony! We're reaching the end here! Let's see what my favorite generation of My Little Pony is!

1. My Little Pony Generation 4/ Friendship Is Magic

There was no competition. There was no doubt. If anyone asked me what my favorite generation is, I would say G4 in an instant. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic really changed the game for the franchise as a whole! Lauren Faust (animator, writer, director, producer, creator of DC Superhero Girls, and married to Craig McCracken) got this show going in 2010 and it was a MASSIVE success! Toy sales were through the roof, comics were made, music albums were made, merchandise was highly recommended, and the show practically dominated the whole decade as it lasted for nine (technically ten) seasons from 2010 til 2019. Everyone fell in love with Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, and Fluttershy. We just call them, The Mane Six! This was actually a technical reboot to G3 with such familiar names in this gen. There's also familiar names from G1 that are present like Twilight, Applejack, Spike, Grogar, and Tirac (except he's renamed Tirek). I couldn't get enough of this show! I remember watching the first episode when it aired for the two-part series premier instantly wanting more when the first episode ended with, "To Be Continued...." and I was hooked! Each season gave us memorable characters, fantastic locations, exciting lore, amazing songs, and everyone's character growth throughout the series. This generation sparked a fun spinoff called, Equestria Girls where Twilight travels into a different universe where everyone is a human and Megan Williams from G1 even makes a cameo. There was even a full-length movie in 2017 featuring stars like Emily Blunt, Zoe Saldana, Sia, and Taye Diggs. This series also led the way for Pony Life to be made into G4.5 and Generation 5 as its sequel series.

Of course, I can't keep going on about Generation 4 without mentioning The Brony Fandom! With Friendship Is Magic being such a successful show, it didn't only reach younger audiences. It also reached adults too....mainly targeted towards men hence where the term, bronies came from. For a whole decade this fandom has made so many fantastic projects inspired by the series. Music videos, fan songs, remixes, audio dramas, fanart, fanfics, animations, OCs, AUs, and so much more! You had to see it to believe it! I know just as many Brony songs as I do official G4 songs! This generation and its fandom changed my life! I don't know which season is my favorite because there's so many good episodes. Not every episode is perfect and maybe there are some who are put-off by the art style, but it's a really good time. Who would have thought that a show about magical animated ponies would make THAT much of an impact?! I highly recommend that you give G4 a watch if you're interested because you'll definitely have something to write home about.

Conclusion

Welp, that's my list! Thank you for sitting down and reading my thoughts. My Little Pony has been a successful franchise for up to 40 years (and still continuing)! I'll always love these colorful ponies no matter how messy each generation can be. MLP played a big part in my childhood so it was nice to look back on every generation as an adult. I'm looking forward to see what the future holds for newer generations and I hope any of you pony fans have a generation that holds a special place in your heart.🐎❤🦄💕

Images (in terms of artwork) by: KacperKrysiak, Lea Dabssi, Justasuta, Tony Fleecs, ASKometa

#mlp #mlp g1 #mlp g1.5 #mlp g2 #mlp g3 #mlp g3.5 #mlp g4 #mlp g4.5 #mlp fim #mlp g5 #my little pony

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bluegirl-14 · 17 days

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Listen, I don't care how long ago the final season of Voltron was aired, I don't care if anyone is still in the Voltron fandom. I will ALWAYS be pressed over how they did these characters SO dirty.

First off, the final episode of the series was such a damn copout. Ending the series with Allura dying to 'save the multiverse' and having the paladins forgive Honerva? After everything she had done in the 8 seasons leading up to this? After she tore apart the same multiverse she destroyed because the one timeline she found where Lotor knew she was a fucking liar? Make it make so much sense Dreamworks.

And then the 10 years later shit. Shiro had a wedding. Okay, yeah, he got out of the Garrison and settled down. He should, after all he had been through. I bet dying and being stuck in Black for months would lead to some introspective work. But killing Adam so there was no gay relationships, and then to pair him with a character who had like, what? Two lines in the full series, and we saw Shiro interact with once, as a Captain and crew setting? No build up, no hints during the full season?

Don't get me wrong. If the writers wanted to give Shiro the chance to shed everything from his past life, then by all means, they had the right to. But the way they did it was not only poorly written, but it also left those who had been hoping to FINALY see Shiro interact with his partner, that had been teased at outside of the show.

Hunk is another one I had a big problem with. As a plus size person, who felt like she was just that 'fat best friend' during the airing of the final season, I related to Hunk. I loved how he was more than the foodie. He's an engineer, he's smart. He matches Pidge in intellect. He's kind, he's brave despite his anxiety. He had nausea a lot. He's fleshed out, he's more than fat and food jokes.

And they took that all away, to make him Gordan Ramsey of space. They took 8 seasons of character arcs to make him that. A fucking fat person likes food joke. Once again, I wouldn't have had a problem if that wouldn't have been it. Make it a soup kitchen for those displaced during the Empires rule. Make him donate food to needy planets. Hell, have him travel with Keith, giving food to the planets they go to for help. Just, something that acknowledges Hunks generous nature, his kindness. Not Food Wars.

Speaking of Keith, I found that while I expected his ending to be similar to what it was, I didn't have any real emotion about it. He was a displaced child, who was, from what we can assume about what little we really know about his childhood, outside of him meeting Shiro and how his parents met. He always felt like he didn't belong, with the Paladins, and struggled being leader because he didn't feel like he lived up to Shiro's expectation or his legacy after he died.

So Keith teaming up with Lotor's generals to basically continue what Voltron did makes sense, I guess. But, I would have loved to see something else. If anyone deserves to settle down, aside from Shiro, I think it would be Keith. I can see him as the type of person to give a child, either adopted or biological, the childhood he wished he had.

Pidge's end is as to be expected. She's working with her parents and her brother, working for the Garrison. Out of all the characters, I honestly think Pidge had the least amount of true character arks. She had the moment in season 1 or 2 when she wanted to ditch Voltron to find her brother, and Keith called her out. And when she bonded with Green in season one on Olkyn. But once she found Matt and Sam, Pidge had stayed consistent in her behavior and beliefs till the end of the show. She, like Hunk, was a stereotype. She was the nerdy, smart friend, the guy in the chair.

I would have loved to see her do something with botany, like her mother. Something that ties her back to Green. Because even though the Lion is gone, the bond and the respect she gained would have still been there. So for her to just immediately go back to that tech guy was a disservice.

Lance's and Lotor's endings are by far the ones I hated the most. With Lance, there was NO reason that Lance had to become a fucking farmer. After everything that happened to him during the season, for him to immediately quit was ill planned and just a bad move. If they wanted to write Allura out at the end of the series, then sure. Lance steps back to grieve, starts replanting the flowers on New Altea in honor of her.

But Lance has so much more potential than. Make him a pilot, make him a teacher. Hell, pull a Keith and have him volunteer around the planets. Anything that would show off his pride in himself, and to she Allura that he would live his life for her, because she died saving it. Yeah, he can keep a cabin close or in the field, so he always has a memory of her, but he needs something else.

The final season with Lotor was just dumb. The writing had set him up as this exiled prince, who never wanted to be like his father, who watched him blow up a planet that Lotor had spent YEARS on, because his son pissed him off. Lotor killed his father, was conspiring against Haggar, wanted to study Altean alchemy with Allura. He was finally going to learn about his mother's people from those who actually knew her.

And then they make him just like Zarkon.

I. Hate. That they made that planet of Alteans, and Lotor was harvesting them for quintessence. I get they were setting it up for Haggar to use them as pilot in the final season. But there were SO many other ways to do that with a similar affect.

Especially considering the fact that those people had been in hiding since Altea exploded, and Lotor was a fucking baby then. Like...have Haggar keep them hidden instead? It would have made more fucking sense. She still felt a sliver of a connection, despite not knowing why because she lost her memory.

Lotor grew up wishing he could know more about his other side, and having no one to ask about it, because no information remained after the race died. So to satisfy his curiosity, he started studying other cultures, other planets so he could compare. Maybe he'll find something similar to Altea, and can guess from that.

And then, wow, there are Alteans left. And they have Voltron, isn't that so great? But wait, my father want's the Black Lion, and his witch is acting shady. That's odd, I wonder what that's about?

Holy crap, she's been hiding more Alteans for the past 10,000 years, and they have no idea what's been happening outside of their planet. And even more holy crap, she's been harvesting them so they don't get to powerful, and so she can sap up their power for herself. Why didn't anyone know about this?

Then continue on, with Lotor eventually teaming up with the Alteans and liberating them, but obviously they don't all go, because they don't trust him (Galra, duh.) And the ship that is carrying them all is attacked, and the ship explodes, or something. The Alteans get angry and Haggar, now starting to remember and realizes who she is, uses this to her advantage, and now boom, we have the pilots in season 8.

And this way, if you want to keep Keith and Krolia finding the Alteans, you have it. If you want Romelle, you have it. If you want more Alteans living with the Paladins, or at least have Allura and Coran meet them, you have. And of course, Lotor doesn't die. And for his ending, have him and Keith work together. Have him travel the stars, studying the different planets. Have him become a scholar, a archivist, a librarying. Anything! The possibilities are endless.

Now, on to Allura. To be completely honest, and you can burn me for this, I never really loved Allura. It wasn't really anything specific I didn't like, I just didn't grow any strong attachments to her as a character. I felt bad for her, sure. But nothing much outside of that.

But I do believe that she deserved a better ending. Even if she does still die in the end, she shouldn't have had to bounce from guy to guy to hide grief, because that shit was still there. She should have been allowed to continue her relationship with Lotor, because that was cute damn it.

It wasn't fair for her to have been in a relationship for what, a month before she died? It sure as shit wasn't fair to Lance, who had spent the whole series chasing after her, to get her, and see her die directly after. Not cool.

And if the whole reason they did it was to stop Klance, or what the fuck ever people believe they did it, pull a Curtis, give Keith someone else. He meets someone after Allura dies, he settles down, or continues with his red cross in space shtick. Or have him stay single, because some people just don't want a relationship. It doesn't matter because people would have written them together in fanfic anyway.

And last, but certainly not least, Coran.

Coran, the gorgeous man, was done so dirty, it's not even funny. To start from the top, he was the only main cast who didn't get to say goodbye to Allura at the end, and is the sole Altean left who remembers Altea. What the fuck.

Even if they are making New Altea, it's not the same. He lost his child, the only other person who understood the grief of loosing a whole PLANET. Family, friends, homes, graves, photos, memories. Gone. History destroyed, never to truly be brought back. Anything that Coran forgets is gone. Well and truly gone, because the Castleship would have possibly had records still, but that was destroyed when Lotor died.

He doesn't have her crown anymore, because the crystal is in Shiro's prosthetic, he doesn't have the ship, he doesn't have the Lions. All he has are the Paladins, and the mice. And a handful of Alteans who never were on Altea, and probably don't know all the customs he does, because of the 10,000 years difference. That's a pretty shitty ending.

So, long story long, my ending.

Adam doesn't die. He is in the piolet accident, but survives by a miracle. He's in the med bay for the entirety of the final two season, and wakes up during the final stretch of season 8. The whole time, before they leave for space, Shiro has flashbacks to times spent with Adam, and we see Shiro have regrets for going into space. He talks to Keith about retiring after everything is over.

Either Lotor and Allura, or they end things in space and Lance and Allura go on their date (I personally would rute for Lotor and Allura, the are so cute) and get their heartfelt scene, foreshadowing the end of the series.

Hunk reunites with his family, and he watches the people of the camps struggle to get back on their feet, and Hunk help them out however he can. We get a scene of him watching a local soup kitchen that had been swamped with people, and Hunk rolls up his sleeves, make a remark bout cooking with less/weirder items, and knock the people in the soup kitchen off their feet with is food. A shot of him watching everyone eat, and Hunk feels pride, in watching the affects of his food. It's different than feeding his friends, and even different than the parades and the dinners planets through Voltron.

Pidge, who is still grounded for sneaking off to space, spends time in the greenhouse with her mom, watching her work. It reminds her of Reiner, and makes her miss Okyry. She mentions Green and nature to her mom, and her mom jokes back about her finally starting to get into nature. They bond over plants, and Pidge grows a little bit fonder to grass and dirt.

Them space time, series progresses, OMG Haggar is sending mechas after us, and Alteans are the piolets. OMG x2, the piolets are dying , what is happening. Allura, what are you doing with that symbiot, that literally just killed that piolet?

Then, the end.

The multiverse is falling apart, Haggar is going to destroy everything. What do we do?

Lotor, in a desperate final act, confronts Haggar as his mother, finally acknowledging that yes, the woman who he had despised his whole life is he mother. He finally speaks to her as his mother... and denounces her.

Honerva is heartbroken. She curses him, swears that if he will not be her son, then there will be no world period. In retaliation, just like he had his father, Lotor lunges forward, and kills Honerva. As she dies, he cradles her in his arms, and listens as she mumbles about her beautiful son, before finally passing on.

But the events do not end there, because time and space is unraveling apart. They can't fix it, only Allura has an idea, and she's crying. She tells them, and despite everyone's protests, they know what must be done. She says her goodbyes, parting with a kiss to Lotor/Lance, strong hugs to the other Paladins and then...

She turns to Coran, who despite his quietness, has been sobbing the whole time. He pulls her into a hug, face pressed into her curly white hair, breathing in the flower she adored so much, and says their finally goodbyes.

The universe is saved, and everyone grieves a tragic loss. They start traveling back to earth, the Paladins and Coran and Lotor keeping to themselves for the most part, Lance/Lotor barely making it from their room most days, when they come across an alert. A planet that had not been in the charted maps they had, and certainly not in the area they had traveled mear days ago.

Upon closer looking, it looks almost exactly like...Altea.

With the last of her quintessence, Allura had somehow made a new Altea for Coran and the other Alteans to live. Coran breaks down upon seeing a field of flowers that smell like his princess, and imminently starts planning for a tribute for her, right on the top of the hill facing out towards the flowers.

Time skip follows, and Adam waeks up, Shiro asleep at his bedside. Adam, with such slow, shaky movements, wakes up Shiro, and the two finally meet again after years of being apart. Shiro imminently proposes on the spot, not baring to loose the man he loves again.

Keith starts traveling the plants, heling out where he can. The remaining Marmora's help him, tending to villages or injured people, when Hunk asks if he can come too. He wants to help, and he's smart, and strong. And Keith mentions that the best thing these people need is a warm meal, and there's no one who knows that better tank Hunk. So they travel, heling the planets, meeting more people, bonding (Because yeah! Hunk and Keith are the best!)

Pidge is on Altea, helping Lance and Coran with setting up the Alteans. Her electronic skills are unmatched, and she takes this time to pick a couple samples for her mom. Lance catches her, and offers to take her around the fields, and they do. It's peaceful, the sun setting and breeze. The best sunset she'd seen since before Voltron, in her opinion.

Lotor slowly opens back up to the others, grief pushing him away from everyone. Coran is the first he goes to, asking the older man about Allura, and Altea, anything to keep is mind off his loss. Coran indulges him, going on about the old Castel (which still blows up some how, just cant think of it now) and Lotor listens like his life depends on it. After everything is set up on new Altea, Coran askes him to become and advisor, which Lotor accepts.

Then we go to the final scene, which is a couple years in the future. Lance is teaching fighter piolet classes at the Garrison, Shiro is happily married, Keith and Hunk are still red crossing it up in space, Pidge is a Botanists and Cyber Scientist (or whatever the hell she is) and freelances across the universe, and Coran and Lotor are co-advisors for new Altea with Romelle as one in training, which Lotor writing a full, in depth history of the Galran war and Altean history. Nothing will be lost again.

They are at dinner, under Allura's statue, it's growing dark. They finish, they have drinks, and go to bed. Lance wakes up first, in a symbolism for the first episode, him finding his lion first. The others follow, and soon, they are under Allura's statue once again. The lions are all active, which they haven't been since they saved the multiverse. The group watches the Lions stand, and roar, before a shimmering blue figure fades into existence. Allura. She doesn't see them, because she's only there for the Lions, or so the others think. As the Lions start flying into the sky, she turns around, waiving slowly to the Paladins and others, a smile on her face, before fading.

A camera shot of the group on the ground, like the series, zooming out as they all watch the Lions leave, for the final time feeling the connection of Voltron, before the Lions fly through the galaxy, into a new one, in the shape of a woman curled into a ball.

End of series.

Okay, its 6:30 now, I'm going to bed

#fanfic writer #writers on tumblr #writer #voltron #vld #vld keith #vld lance #vld pidge #voltron legendary defender #i would have eaten that shit up #should i write more?#expand on this #i wrote this instead of sleepping #im tired #sorry for bad grammar #its late

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butterflydm · 1 year

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wot rewatch (book spoilers edition): 2x5

Not only is this one going to have spoilers for all the aired episodes plus any teasers (including the trailer for episode 6), it will also have book spoilers through book 14: A Memory of Light.

An interesting change from the books is Suroth calling Loial a slave -- in the books, the Ogier of the elite guard are very specifically not enslaved (I wonder if they got as badly jacked up by the Longing as the ones in the Westlands but their 'solution' ended up involving the Empress and the Crystal Throne somehow?). Since this exception is never explained in the books, I don't have any issue with it being changed.

2. I also think we are getting some really good set-up here for a potential fracture in the Seanchan once we get deeper into the series -- a fulfillment of the narrative promise that Jordan set up in books 2-9 but then backed away from once we hit Crossroads of Twilight & Knife of Dreams. I'm hopeful that we're actually going to get the Seanchan civil war that the books never gave us but that they desperately needed in order for Mat's characterization to make any damn sense in CoT & KoD.

3. The idea that Ishamael is being something akin to Suroth's Truthspeaker makes a lot of sense (I think only the Imperial family has Truthspeakers in the books? but it makes sense to expand them outward).

4. That Fain plays the game so well with Turak here can serve as a hint that he's playing the subservience game with Ishamael as well (who killed the Fade? in other words).

5. The saa in Lanfear's eyes! I love that we're getting a super-charged look at the True Power this early on. I definitely approve of the change of the Forsaken getting brought back with the True Power rather than being put in new bodies -- that can work in a book, but in a show, you want to keep your actors. Especially when they're so good!

6. The Elyas scene does feel like Elyas is essentially doing triple-duty this season: he's himself (Wolfbrother lore dump); he's Hurin (sniffer who leads them after Fain); he's Noam (completely detached from his previous human life).

7. I do like how Elyas feels... somewhat amoral (not immoral!) -- he cares about his fellow wolves (including Perrin) and only his fellow wolves. Obviously, part of the reason that's there is so that viewers will wonder if Ishamael (the Father of Lies) was telling the truth about Perrin becoming closer to the Shadow the closer he gets to the wolves but that's... a good thing, I think, for Perrin's narrative arc. It gives him a grounded reason to try to avoid embracing the wolves. The show has done a really good job in giving characters believable motivations for their behavior.

Show: has Elyas diss every human that Perrin cares about because he's trying to tell Perrin that he belongs with the wolves and not the humans.

Some Book Readers: Ah-ha! Laila wasn't his pack? Darkfriend!

It was just so clear to me, in watching the episode, that Elyas mentioning Perrin's wife was the last straw that made Perrin push him away. It was not meant as a Darkfriend hint of any kind! Elyas did not know Laila as a person! He does not care about Laila as a person! It's pretty clear that he only cares about Perrin (because he's a fellow Wolfbrother). That's why he only saved Perrin from the caravan; that's why he led Perrin eastward instead of west. He has zero interest in putting himself in danger to help humans; he does not identity with humans.

8. Ooo, I wonder if we're going to see Perrin's wolf name visualized at some point by the wolves -- Young Bull with his axe that is also his horns, strong and protective. Again, the show has done such a good job in showing us the Perrin that I think Jordan wanted us to see but that he didn't quite manage -- pretty much every show-only reactor sees Perrin as genuinely considerate and empathetic and believes that he has a good heart and wouldn't leave people to suffer.

9. Brilliant choice to have Aviendha introduced here and be part of Perrin's storyline. I do really like how Elayne, Aviendha, and Min have all been part of another main character's plotline before anything implied romantic between them and Rand happens. Hopefully, the show does the same thing with Tuon in the season when she gets introduced. I'm going to guess that (rather than going along with Perrin because of Faile) Bain and Chiad are going to help Aviendha meet her toh towards Perrin once she's told that she needs to become a Wise One apprentice and Bain and Chiad will travel with him to the Two Rivers. I suspect that Gaul will be introduced next season as well.

10. I also really like the way they set up Dain and Perrin's future dynamic here as well -- Dain realizes that Perrin is from the Two Rivers, so that gives him a reason to go there after he (mistakenly?) thinks that Perrin has killed his father. I do wonder whether or not Fain will go to the Two Rivers at all. It's kinda... crowded over there, since we know that Slayer was cast (I think). There isn't, imo, any real need for Fain to corrupt the Whitecloaks in the show -- I feel like they can corrupt themselves just fine. (I kinda feel that way about Elaida too) -- and it might be good to tie Fain back into Rand and/or Mat's plotlines.

11. The Seanchan and the Whitecloaks both have a 'evil but not the evil of the Dark One' situation going on, and we kinda get that here, with the (new) innkeeper being even more unhappy with being occupied by Whitecloaks than by the Seanchan. I actually like that they have the new innkeeper here selfishly being okay with the Seanchan -- the issue that I had with various plotlines in CoT & KoD wasn't "it's unrealistic for anyone to be collaborators with the slavers", of course some/many people are selfish enough that it doesn't matter to them that some people get enslaved as long as it isn't them; it was an issue with specific characters turning collaborator without there being anywhere near enough work in the characterization or narrative to justify it. That was the issue that I had.

Especially since this same conversation does illustrate how selfish this man's PoV is, if you pay attention to the dialogue. The old innkeeper's granddaughter was kidnapped by the Seanchan -- SHE would not agree with him that they're totally chill if you only just swear the oaths.

12. Seeing Lady Suroth like this, 'dressed down', as it were, gave me quite a start. She looks almost naked without the super-long nails and the helmet and with me being able to see that she has no eyebrows. Like, it gives her a big 'pathetic and vulnerable' vibe even though she's been just as awful as she was in her introduction.

And it makes me wonder... are people who are sympathetic to Tuon in Crossroads of Twilight and Knife of Dreams also more likely to be good at visualization when they read? Because, personally, I don't see pictures in my head when I read books. I think it's part of the reason why I can so easily accept adaptations in the first place -- there's no prior image that I need to override. I had no firm mental image of how 'Rand' or 'Nynaeve' or anyone looked in the books, so the actors can easily become that person for me. It's all just... words in my head for me. The most that I ever visualize is something akin to black and white abstract sketches.

How this relates to Tuon: one of the deeply frustrating things about CoT+ Mat to me is how he behaves like Tuon is 'not like the other Seanchan' even though her behavior on the page is just as rancid and terrible as any other Blood. But, in her descriptions in CoT & KoD, she doesn't visually resemble other Seanchan anymore -- her hair is growing out, she's in Westlands clothing instead of Seanchan High Blood clothing. But as someone who doesn't visualize characters and scenes when I'm reading a book, the clothes that a character is wearing has little to no impact on my perception of them as a character.

Is it different if you do/can visualize how differently Tuon looks when she's traveling with Mat vs how she looked when she was embedded in the Seanchan power structure? Because it really does genuinely confuse me when I see people repeat what Mat says about her being different from the other Seanchan because her behavior is just... identical to all the other Seanchan Blood from what I've seen in the books -- intensely political and manipulative; firmly supports and believes in slavery; gets off on torture and abuses her slaves even while believing that she's the bestest and kindest slave owner in the world; thinks of herself as inherently better because she's Of The Blood, etc. I remember when Mat places her in the same 'better than other nobles' category as Talmanes in KoD, my brain just bluescreened because he's consistently been shown on the page that she's still just as awful as the others (the chapter where she literally collars and tortures three of his allies is certainly never anything I'm forgetting, even if Mat 'goldfish' Cauthon forgot about it five minutes after it happened). But, yeah, if you visualize characters and scenes when reading books, do those visuals have an impact on how you think of the characters?

(on a character level, I understand why Mat would lie to himself about Tuon if he genuinely believes himself to be trapped in a marriage with her -- the issue with that is two-fold though: a. with Mat's other lies to himself, we are given outside context with other PoVs and behavior from other characters to see that he's lying while in CoT and KoD, we're pretty firmly locked into Mat's warped perspective, and b. Jordan did a shit job of showing why Mat gave up so quickly and just believed that he's doomed to be married to Tuon without him making ANY attempts at fighting the prophecy)

13. Looking forward to the future... I do suspect that we'll still get Semirhage trying to shape and mold Tuon (unless we don't get enough seasons), but I think in the end (exploring @sixth-light's idea about having a split Seanchan Empire instead of having the Sharans), we may end up with Suroth in charge of one half of the Seanchan (who will fight for the Shadow) and one half led by Tuon (who will fight for the Light) and that we will, hopefully, be getting a Tuon who actually has to confront what being a sul'dam means and that the Seanchan will fracture on the issue of slavery (which would make their American accents even more apt) instead of the Westlands characters becoming friends and lovers with gleefully cruel slavers. Having Tuon's 'stubbornness' and pushback against Semirhage actually lead to her questioning the established order would be so much more powerful than her stubbornness being used as an excuse for her dodging and avoiding any character growth for the entire time that she hangs around.

14. I hope that Aviendha's amusement here over Perrin's protectiveness is perhaps going to be more of the vibe we get with Rand & the Maidens once that relationship gets going. Rand really doesn't have the same reasons (so far) to be as unreasoningly overprotective of them as he is in the books, since the Two Rivers in the show aren't Weird about women in danger the way that the books are. It's very much a Perrin hangup because of his wife and we've seen it develop over time. And if Rand feels some protectiveness, I'd like it to be tied more towards him feeling like he doesn't want to lose any of his newfound family.

15. It feels clear that Moiraine is absolutely still bound by the Three Oaths. She obviously WANTS to lie in the scene where she's introducing Rand to Anvaere and Barthanes, but she isn't able to. It's played very much the same way as when she was caught in the Oath last season (one of the funniest moments in S1 is when she wants to tell the Two Rivers' kids that she trusts them now but she absolutely doesn't trust them and can't say the words).

16. So, who in this scene is a Darkfriend. I suspect that Barthanes is and I suspect that Anvaere is not. Anvaere's information session with Moiraine last episode completely destroyed the Shadow's plans for Rand -- it could be the Shadow tripping over itself but I suspect it's just that Anvaere is what she seems to be -- a very political but non-Shadow-aligned person.

17. I wonder if the end of the next episode is going to timeskip us the few weeks to the wedding (thus making it so that Egwene spends several weeks in 'training') -- or maybe we'll timeskip between episodes 6&7. From the preview, it looks like we're going to spend some serious time showing how horrible and dehumanizing the damane 'training' is. What they might do is show us the initial beginning of it -- and then we jump forward and see how things are after several weeks? The mention of the wedding just feels... potentially significant, since it's not from the books. This would give Perrin time to travel to Falme with Aviendha; Mat and Min would have time to get to Cairhien; Elayne and Nynaeve would have time to bond; and Siuan would also have time to get to Cairhien, since we know she goes there at some point. And it might mean that, along with Egwene getting her 'training' from Renna, we might also get Rand getting some training from Logain and potentially Lan as well.

18. I love Verin kickstarting the Black Ajah Hunt so much. I already talked about this a lot in my earlier post about Darkfriends, so I won't get into it here but: fantastic choice. It does imply to me that we don't really need the Wondergirls to go back to the Tower next season to get their Black Ajah Hunting instructions, since there's already a Hunt started by full Sisters. Which I would be fine with -- they literally spend less than a week in the White Tower in book 3. They dip in for Egwene & Elayne's tests, to get more instructions from Siuan, and then dip out again. I feel like the show could easily have them decide to hunt the Black Ajah of their own accord (Nynaeve in particular has a reason to want to go after Liandrin).

19. I do not think that Sheriam knows that Verin is 'Black Ajah' or that Liandrin is (more genuinely) Black Ajah. She and Liandrin were at odds too much earlier in the season over Nynaeve imo. Joiya, otoh, I think might know that Liandrin is also Black Ajah, because she immediately backed Liandrin up in the big group discussion.

20. "We respect the One Power so much that we don't believe that anyone should wield it by accident of birth". I've seen other people (reactors on youtube) wondering if this conversation means that the Seanchan already know that sul'dam are learners, since they talk about training the sul'dam for years and them earning the right to use the One Power, but this line in particular makes me feel like they don't know. Because sul'dam are only sul'dam because of an 'accident of birth' as well. I'm sure that we'll find out, because the realization of the sul'dam secret was a pretty huge moment with Egwene in the books (even if Min & Nynaeve appeared to have completely forgotten the information when they were spending time with Rand later in the series) so it will definitely stand out if it gets played differently and Renna doesn't get that horror of realizing that she, too, is marath'damane.

21. I've also seen people wonder why the damane & sul'dam didn't catch on that Liandrin was channeling to wake the girls and free Nynaeve, but she was channeling that entire time (to hold open the Waygate) so her tiny weave would have been masked by the larger one.

22. Aviendha's attitude towards obligation and honor is going to be such an interesting contrast to how weighed down Rand is by his obligations. Looking forward to them getting some good scenes together in s3.

23. I hope Egwene gets to hit Renna over the head in this version too. And collar her to the wall. I can already tell that this is going to be painful and intense. I did notice that a lot of show-only reactors have NOT picked up on how terrifying and awful the damane slavery is yet, but I feel like the show is going to make it very clear in the next episode. (I don't know how you can look at Egwene in pain here and not already understand but... next week should make things crystal clear).

The preview did show us how... earnest (ugh) Renna is going to be in her 'training' of Egwene. The way she called the damane kennels "your new home" and the (horrifying) sincerity in her voice.

I'm actually wondering if Egwene is going to be freed in episode 7, before Rand gets to Falme, since Perrin and Aviendha are headed in the direction of Falme and it's Perrin who is attached to the Ingtar and Horn storylines and not Rand (who didn't even find out that the Horn is a thing that exists until 2x3). Because Rand isn't actually involved in her rescue in the books iirc -- that was Elayne and Egwene (with Min tagging along). He spots her and seeing her is why he refuses to leave, but since he's going there for his own purposes unrelated to the Horn in this version (I assume), then he doesn't need that extra push to stay. From the preview for episode 6, it kinda sounds like Loial & co are going to try to help her be freed but I'm not sure if it'll work that soon.

Expecting next episode to be extremely rough, emotionally.

Additional spoilers/speculation based on imdb listings (which may not be entirely accurate):

The actress who played Maigan in S1 is listed as being in the next three episodes (6, 7, 8). She was planning to go west to investigate the rumors. She has not been seen in the White Tower this season. The actress who is playing Ryma is only listed for episodes 5 & 6. Renna is listed for all the remaining episodes; Seta is listed for the final two episodes. That just all seems like interesting information to me, though again, imdb.

Complete side note, episode 7 is the episode that Hayley Mills is listed for. I wonder if she's the Queen of Cairhien that Barthanes is marrying.

#butterfly watches wot #wot #wheel of time #wot on prime #wot show spoilers #wot prime spoilers #wot s2 spoilers #wheel of time s2 spoilers #wot book spoilers #a memory of light #wot 2x5 spoilers

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