#i think of this literally every time i rewatch this show it'd have been so fucked up

[micamone]

deep family secrets speedrun

[m1ssunderstanding]

Understanding Lennon McCartney Rewatch Part 1.4

Oh, John. It's hard because I'm like “fame was not good for that man” but I'm also like “he would've gone crazy with self-loathing if he didn't have the fame.”

John and Paul start to answer a question at the same time. John: no, go on, you can say it. They're seriously so married. 

John's schoolboy flirting is cute, but what's more noteworthy to me is a) how happy Paul is to be shoved and b) how he instantly leans back into John. It's like they're bungeed together or something. 

John gets me. Look how much he loves Paul bringing out the forced confidence shield to protect him. He's so in love. So turned on. 

Here's my question about the death threats. Did the other Beatles actually receive them and tell Brian about them and keep them from John? Because that would be incredibly sweet and noble of them, but also, in that case, surely John received death threats too. Meaning he just didn't care about his own life and assumed the others were being left out of it because they hadn't actually said they were bigger than Jesus. Or did they have people filtering all their mail by that point? And Brian had been keeping the death threats from all of them? Because that could be interpreted as both protective and selfish of him. Does anyone know?

Again. I just love how Paul goes to bat for John over and over during this tour. Batting his eyes and playing with his hair and shouting down any and all criticism of John speaking his mind.

This moment is so telling to me. An interviewer who was up front at several concerts points out the looks and smiles between John and Paul which you can only see from the front and asks, “is it really that much fun every time?” The easy answer is, “Yeah. We like what we do. It's fun!” But Paul gets cagey. “Oh well the thing is you know with things like that it's probably…” and he makes up a bullshit story about messing up on a song they haven't performed in a year. Why do that if you don't have something to hide? (Even if you're subconsciously hiding) That right there is a tip-off for me that they're not normal about each other. 

Interviewer: are you guys breaking up? John, immediately and emphatically: No. Paul: "Depends what you mean by breaking up, you know . . . Because we can't go on forever like this, so we've got to think now and prepare for, you know, if it did happen. The time has come for us to break up, but we've realized the possibility . . . Of breaking up as a natural progression." Literally shut the fuck up right now, you're going to give John an aneurysm.

I understand. I know. I don't relate to Paul much but I do relate to his hyperactivity and his avoidant attachment. I make sure constantly that I'll be okay when all my relationships end. But you don't talk about that in front of the other person. Especially someone like John whose worst fear is being left. Come on. Think. 

See, now look what you did, Paul. Here's John's answer the next time they're asked about breaking up. 

And yeah, the klan being the ones to “stand up against the Beatles blasphemy” really proves my point from the last post I think. It's just masked racism. 

It actually seems like Paul's more vocally political at this point in time than John is. I wonder what happened to change that? Was it just the influence of their respective wives? Was it just easier for them to play up the roles they'd been assigned for the most part?

Okay on this round of “are you breaking up” they look at each other first before they answer and then Paul goes “all together probably.” I wonder if they talked about their previous answers together and admitted – however cautiously or however veiled – that hearing the other say they might leave hadn't been fun. Who knows, honestly.  

Paul and John often talk about making a radio show together apparently. Gosh if only they could've done that now. I'd make them my token white boy podcast. It'd be great. They'd be so lame and so adorable and they'd talk about recipes and politics and they'd gossip and rank other people's music. But anyway, what really gets me is the often bit. So they really did plan their post-beatle future together. Enough that it was a frequent topic of discussion between them. They planned to be together forever. 

Ugh it always guts me that Paul brought a girlfriend to Paris with him to meet up with John.

Okay my tin hat is glued to my head for this but. But. Hear me out alright? So John starts filming on 09/19/66. He's there for 6 &½ weeks. Putting the end at the beginning of November, right when Paul goes in disguise and alone to Paris. Do we have tabs on John for those dates? John just talked about going around Paris in disguise. What if  they met up by themselves and in secret? What then?

 No fucking wonder John was exhausted with him. Damn. He takes a month and a half to write strawberry fields, shows it to Paul, then...

Interviewer: the songwriting team will keep going whatever happens will it? John: yeah, we'll probably carry on writing music Forever. It's just so ‘Obviously. Might as well ask me if the sun's going to come up tomorrow.’

His friend – try dangerous drugs with and take home to daddy type “friend” – just died brutally and suddenly two days ago, and this is what he looks like and talks like and he's going in to work like it's nothing. I just. Compare that to John talking about Brian's death? Obviously two very different relationships but still… Paul's upbringing really fucked him up so hard. He thinks he's not allowed to be human. What can I say? It's a drag.

AKA the happiest 6 months of John and Paul's lives. 

I find it fascinating that Paul alone is asked to compose and record what would eventually become the carnival of light and that he just went ahead and included everyone in that. Really makes me wonder if he got a vibe off John that him doing the family way alone was hurtful or if they maybe even talked about it? Or maybe he just didn't like doing the family way without John.

Actually quite a lovely, forward-thinking, humble speech. Imagine being John, though. Watching that from home like “why the fuck is he philosophizing to the world without me?” Because you know John shares all those sentiments and might even have got there first. It would be infuriating.

“A lucky man who made the grade” is an interesting way to describe Tara and I can't help but wonder if it has anything to do with Tara being cool enough for Paul to associate with him. And Paul is many things but stupid is not one of them. He's going to at the very least wonder if this verse is about John laughing at his friend's death. Right? Like I know Paul's the repression CEO but seriously I don't think even he is that good. 

Maybe that Leopold and Leob quote isn't just about tearing people down verbally. Maybe Wooler genuinely got a vibe of a sense of superiority and therefore lack of empathy with Lennon/McCartney.

I mean he really does sound like he's describing sex though, doesn't he? Emotional, loving, romantic sex. Followed immediately by Paul's “I'd love to turn you on” lyrics and the “down with pants” and “sword swallower” pins. Alrighty then. 

What I would call my Beatles bio after watching this. "They Touched Dicks: The Only Logical Conclusion."

[furbygoblinxiv]

Ok now to be annoying about a completely different flavor of Zelda: That cartoon from the 80s that has aged so poorly I take psychic damage every time I watch it (which has been multiple times (I have problems)). A few months ago when rewatching and being sick of the Link's personality from the show (his best feature is how funny the "Well excuuuuse me, princess" line is) I was like "I wish the quiet kid from the games/art was here instead" and accidentally thought too hard and made an au/rewrite of the cartoon lmao.

Anyways Zelda cartoon au where cryptid boy Link saves the post apocalyptic Hyrule of loz 1 and chills in the castle with cartoon Zelda to defend the triforce pieces that they have while trying to find the last piece before Ganon can find it, stumbling across the sleeping loz 2 Zelda along the way lol. Hijinks ensue as he teaches Zelda the brawns to back up her girlboss and he gets an adventure buddy because its dangerous to go alone and Zelda with her boomerang and crossbow goes hard. I think a monster of the week style plot works for the earlier Zelda games, but an overarching plot could coexist with that since that is kinda how games work lol.

As per usual here are a bunch of slapdash barely related sketches of my ideas with my expanded thoughts below bc I think it'd be fun to share:

I look at the official art of Link being a quiet determined little dude with a backpack of tools and wish that that was represented more. Like look at him! What a guy! Imagine giving a quiet puzzle solving 14 year old a sword, lethal magical weapons, and a wasteland to explore! I would love a show about that! In terms of other characters, swap out that annoying fairy character, put in a Navi clone, at least Navi didn't have a crush on Link🤮. Ganon can stay the same so long as he was always a demon pig and was never a Gerudo man because unlike Nintendo, I do not want to imply that the only prominent man of color in the series has only one big braincell thats just screaming "EVIL" on loop. But! Keep Zelda the same, I love her so much in the cartoon, she's obnoxious in a slay girlboss way, maximum vibes. By virtue of not having a paper thin plot, most other characters that were fine get fixed by proxy.

I think plot wise? It takes place a few years after the first game. Initially, Link saved the royal family and they started rebuilding that area of Hyrule, and Link traveled around to help people. One day, Ganon's minions start making attacks on the castle to steal the triforce pieces back to revive him fully, and a Zelda who greatly admires Links steps up to defend the place. Eventually, Zelda requests Link return to help defend the castle while they search for the mysterious hidden third triforce piece in order to combine the full thing and wish for peace in Hyrule. Link agrees and the hyjinks begin.

IIRC the og Link backstory was that he was the son of the hyrulean queen and the elf king or smth? In the manga? I didn't want him to be hylian royalty but I wanted to keep that cryptid vibe, hence why I have him related instead to the great fairy and the kokiri. He just leaves the forest/cave one day with literally nothing to go save Hyrule, what a chad. I think it'd be funny if people describe Zelda as feral due to how boisterous and headstrong she is, especially out on the field, but Link is the quiet version of wild that you don't notice at first. She is openly intelligent and snarky in comparison to "says 3 lines a day, bombs first and asks questions later, explore under every rock and bush" forest kid Link.

It would be fun though if "rushes into danger" Zelda resonated more with the triforce of power and "solves dungeon puzzles for funsies" Link with the triforce of wisdom, then they both resonated with the triforce of courage upon finding it. idk tho lol

I also think two different young Zeldas coexisting with each other after one awoke from a cursed slumber would be really funny. Like that's gotta be so awkward, especially if one has the fighter girlboss slay up to 11 and the other just woke up from a coma to her family gone and her kingdom destroyed and just kinda wants to read books and drink tea in peace. Imagine being the same age or older than your great (great?) aunt. Or imagine if the old lady Impa nursemaid to Zelda 1 Zelda was the young Impa nursemaid to the Zelda 2 Zelda. Wild.

If I wasn't incapable of remembering to finish writing wips I'd write that series lol. Alas, this is all I can pull for now.

I'd love to call this propaganda to go watch the show but maybe don't because its yikes. This is moreso propaganda for someone to make a Zelda cartoon show instead of the movie that I sense Nintendo is plotting to make. Also, if you've read this far, I should mention I also will probably be posting art from some of my actual long term Zelda aus beyond just expanding on the cartoon, though I may continue to do that if my train of thought continues on these tracks.

[pinkprimrose05]

SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED YUGIOH ARC-V

So yesterday I decided to start rewatching ARC-V (for the second time, at the behest of a friend who just got into the show), and, well... shit.

There is a hint of foreshadowing I missed, and it's in Episode fucking One to boot.

Unfortunately, this hint is entirely lost in the English dub (edit: I stand corrected, it's still there, just not as explicitly obvious), and I can't seem to find any source for the Japanese dialogue of the episode (not that it'd help much, in the end; I can't read Japanese for shit and am mostly going off the romanization of structures I only barely understand). But why is this relevant here, you ask?

Well, allow me to explain.

There are several ways of referring to oneself (or one's possessions) in Japanese. You're probably already familiar with first person pronouns 私 (Watashi), 僕 (Boku), and 俺 (Ore), all of which mean "I" in English, and each of which is used by different sorts of people in different sorts of situations.

In the context of ARC-V, Yuuya normally uses Ore when referring to himself, and Ore no for possessions. But being the expert performer he is, he puts on a faux-formal persona for Entertainment Duels, so in addition to giving extra flair to...literally everything he says, he switches to the more polite Watashi and Watashi no for a more, ah, charming impression.

(In comparison, Yuzu already uses Watashi, as it is also the most common pronoun for girls. Gongenzaka defaults to the "manly" Ore, and Sora uses the softer male pronoun Boku and its derivative).

Now the kicker here is that, from the moment Yuuya acquires Pendulum until the end of his Duel with Ishijima, he uses none of the aforementioned pronoun sets. Instead, he switches to the first person pronoun 我 (Ware) and possessive pronoun 我が (Waga), which are now considered a stiff, archaic, and outdated way to refer to oneself, mainly used in fiction by characters with a strong sense of dramatic flair.

But Pink, isn't that basically Yuuya getting really into the entertainer persona?

... well yes, but actually no. I would have written this off as another flashy quirk of his, had it not occured to me that:

1) This is not a one-off occasion, and it only repeats in specific situations. I mean, we don't see this particular pronoun switch making another appearance until the tail end of Episode 39... when Yuuya goes into the Awakened state for the "first" time.

He doesn't talk much when he's like that (which, yeah, fair enough; I can't focus on talking and doing full combo at the same time either), but you may notice that his Pendulum summoning chant changes from "Appear now, my monsters!" (Arawareyo, ore no monsuta-tachi!) to "Come out, my monster servants!" (Ideyo, waga shimobe no monsuta-tachi yo!)

And guess what? The same happens in Episode 1, when he does the very first Pendulum summon.

2) The personal pronoun Ware is not only used by melodramatic characters, but also by those that view themselves as distant from, and/or superior to everyone else. Ancient spirits, magical entities, you get what I mean here...

And it sounds kinda familiar, doesn't it?

An egotistic crackhead with a strong superiority complex, who still strives for drama and entertainment despite his twisted ways. You know him. I know him. Everyone knows him.

He's been trying to hijack Christmas for six years now, after all.

...God fucking dammit.

Yes, Zarc is the only character with enough theatre kid energy to use Ware as his default personal pronoun. And yes, Yuuya copies that aspect every time magical Pendulum fuckery is involved... which, admittedly, would not register as foreshadowing until you have context for what it's supposed to be foreshadowing in the first place.

.. And it still flew over my head entirely in the first rewatch. So much for a resident theorist, lmao.

Seriously though, I think this is pretty brilliant. Sure, it's a niche linguistic detail that requires prior knowledge of the ending to understand, but it hints towards a great mystery behind the origins of Pendulum summoning, which is very damn cool, if I do say so myself.

It's worth mentioning that I also watched Episode 2, which doubles down with the more obvious, but no less neat hint of placing Yuuya on the "antagonist" side of the Duel screen against Yuzu in their exhibition match thingy.

See, this is why I love ARC-V so much. One of the greatest joys of watching this show is finding all the hidden puzzle pieces and going "Oh, so THAT'S what they meant when they did this!", and it never fails to amaze me every time.

This has been Volume 1 of Pink's ARC-V Highlights™, and I'll definitely be back with more... whenever I find another dumb tidbit to hyperfixate on.

'Till then, my Duelist friends!

[andromerot]

my pedro almodóvar marathon. thoughts, feelings, tier list

or, i spent like 50 hours on this so i better get to post about it

well, i'd be lying if i said i set out to do this with any clear goals in mind. i sort of just wanted to watch movies. this year i set out to watch through a couple of directors entire works, but ran into complications or got bored. so anyway when i finished my term i decided id try a third time with my best friend pedro. i had watched five of his films already but was mostly unaware of other things he had made. on the 22nd of november i started with matador, then went on and in exactly a month i had watched all of his feature films yayyy

so this is how i ranked them on letterboxd and this is a tier list. this doesnt really sum up my thoughts though so im leaving a little review for each below the cut, in the order i watched them in this month hope someone cares :) thank you

matador (1986): ohhhhhh my god. absolutely unexpected how insane this movie made me. many people say its not very good, i dont think that's true. transgressive, erotic, camp, necrosexual, implicit faggot tension, beautiful costuming, insanely talented cast of so many characters sick in the head. watching this one first really hyped me up to keep at it and to close out the month i rewatched it the other day and though it was less surprising than the first time i watched it its maybe my favorite now :) it has structural flaws i suppose. but i love it

¿que he hecho yo para merecer esto? (1984): pretty funny! not bad at all, i remember enjoying it as i watched it, it just wasnt very memorable. i enjoy every performance by carmen maura, chus was stellar as always and forqué was really sweet in this one too, i liked it. i literally forgot half of the plot though. did anyone remember the telepathic child or the faked hitler diaries? i didnt until i looked it up.

la ley del deseo (1987) (rewatched): showed this one to my friend, god its iconic. some of my favorite chiques almodovar. so fun to watch and so silly even though its not quite a comedy. the fact that antonio is just called antonio in this one makes me unwarrantedly happy. MAURA THE WOMAN THAT YOU ARE!! very hot all around. i think i liked it better this time than the other two i had watched it.

pepi, luci, bom y otras chicas del montón (1980): everyone talks about how sexually transgressive 80s almodovar is and i was like yeah whatever until i watched this one. straight up trilogy of trash shit. so beautiful. i wish every movie was like this. no one likes it but i adored it. erecciones generales will stay in my mind forever and i loved the musical numbers. and the piss, of course.

entre tinieblas (1983): also somewhat forgettable, though i watched it while pretty worried about something else so maybe i didnt give it the attention it deserved. its not a bad time but i wouldn't rewatch it. based on the premise you think it'd be better.

la flor de mi secreto (1995) (rewatched): OH GOD. until last month my favorite almodóvar, its been outdone but it still destroys me. its terribly underrated. i dont even know what i can say about it... marisa paredes is stunning at doing desperation. the boots, the scene at the protest, the initial meeting with ángel, the poem in the car, that moment in the hall. it's beautiful and breathtaking. lesbian film history, i promise.

todo sobre mi madre (1999): like, its good, but i dont get what people see in it that makes it so acclaimed. again paredes is great in this, but penélope is somewhat tame compared to what she does later, and this is the point in the list where i have to admit cecilia roth is not very good to me and all my compatriots start throwing rocks at me. listen i just wish she'd stop doing that stupid accent its so fucking bad cecilia sincerate seguro sos de villa crespo. anyway its fine if a bit weird about trans women, but hes always a hit or miss w that

átame (1989): took a big break between the last one and this one for some reason. anyway, pretty funny, except it really drags in the middle. shouldnt have been that long, but victoria abril always slays and the last scene is wonderful.

tacones lejanos (1991): WOAHHHHH! really cool i liked it. i love a mother daughter thing especially this mother and this daughter. really fun doppelganger story and i love how it was told, i found it both melodramatic and subtle? miguel bosé makes a really pretty girl, this will inform my every subsequent rewatch of suspiria. big fan of his gender. dance number fucked obvs

kika (1993) (rewatch): ok, i know why people don't like this one, but its so silly... cmon. it sillay. once again incredible abril performance, the costuming my god.... her character makes the whole movie i wish i was her. lesbian rossy de palma was wonderful and every forqué performance is a delight. pedro getting hitchcockian with it to slightly trick the audience is a staple of his 90s filmography, fucks.

carne trémula (1997): the title made me think it would be better! there was barely any carne. i didn't really see the point of most of it tbh, though based on how the movie starts and ends there might be some spanish historical context that im missing that makes it more interesting. strangely reminiscing of the buenos aires affair to me, but puig is better. yeah it was just pretty boring.

laberinto de pasiones (1982): YAYYYYYY i had some trouble torrenting so i watched it really out of order this but its SO FUN. obviously in the same vein as pepi luci bom but i liked it slightly more just for how unnecessarily elaborate it was. the one major role i dont mind roth being in and im a big fan of antonios gay terrorist with an ultradeveloped sense of smell character and arias is really into his very silly character too – he works well in secreto as well, i wish hed been on more almodovares, i should finally watch camila. liné was hilarious too. the problematic incest storyline was really funny to me sorryyyyy and i got a lot of gender out of the musical performances. hey can you believe that beautiful fag covered in blood is a franquista now. i can

hable con ella (2002): ehhhhhhh. some people really hate this one for the couple scenes i found most interesting, others love it for reasons i cant parse. its got parts that caught my attention a lot, but mostly it was eerie in an unenjoyable and uninteresting way and the backstories dragged on too long, especially grandinetti's. like i just don't care sorry. THE scene is quite disturbing though. i appreciated he decided to show rape in a more subtle light for once, it made it a lot more cruel and a lot more interesting.

la mala educación (2004) (rewatch): sighhhh. i really wish i liked this one. its got so many elements i am into – the colours are obviously spectacular, the unreliable multiple narrations and the disassembled timelines are always enjoyable to me, the attempt at social commentary is appreciated, some scenes are stunning (fictional ignacios head split in half is unforgettable) but quite honestly the characterization is so bad it bores me. i liked it more the first time i watched it just because of how confused i was, once i wasnt it lost its magic. maybe the worst in what is considered the "somewhat autobiographical movies about directors" trilogy (i think there's four of them but we'll discuss that later) probably because the character of enrique is so bland. i know its more but it feels that you only spend like five minutes with him. ángel/juan's motivations for anything are so puzzling, ignacio is just a caricature at this point and probably the character with the most depth is berenguer, which is ironic, i guess

volver (2006): WAHHH. its hard to talk about it honestly. it was so unexpectedly beautiful. the acting is so on point – penélope cruz and that beautiful carmen maura comeback are self evident, but blanca portillo is also stellar. it was fascinating from minute one and i couldnt keep my eyes off it. its written with such care and love. i suppose the plot itself is nothing out of this world, but the way it is handled is explosive. i really adored it.

los abrazos rotos (2009): the fourth bastard on the self insert series! cmon, its way more about himself than la mala educación. anyway, its good at some points, not very in others. the strong point is obviously the relationship between mateo, judit and diego, their refusal to be tied as a family and their desire to be tied by love is reaaaally interesting. the scene at the sea... but penélope and her millionaire and her millionaires son do nothing interesting at any point, im afraid to say. sad! surprisingly not very memorable, even though i didnt dislike it as i watched it. like i remember i liked some things but if a couple weeks later i dont remember what they were its probably the movies fault

la piel que habito (2011): AUGHHH OK. fuck. THIS ONE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD. it wasnt it was really mid. when it started i was like oh is pedro trying out his hand at cronenberg and i was really excited because im SURE he can do cronenberg better than cronenberg but he didnt. it was worse. how are you giving your women less agency than that guy??? honestly probably the first ever film of his where this is a noticeable problem, though penélope in the last one should give us a hint. ughh it should have been good. im mad about that. no desire to question gender or power and the unchronological storytelling does nothing for me. BAD! if anything i recognized its sexual power for if banderas character was a woman i would be throwing up and convulsing on the floor. i hope vicente and his lesbian coworker had a beautiful romance i guess. i cant believe some people call this one one of the most controversial of his work....

los amantes pasajeros (2013): hm well everyone was like THIS is the bad one and i was like i bet you guys are just being mean but no yeah this is the bad one. its not funny and it drags on so long...i can usually defend the rape scenes in his movies, even in kika or hable con ella, but this one just sucks so bad. i was prepared to defend this movie but i cant. as soon as the movie started i was trying to guess where all the threads would connect, how all the characters would be linked and they mostly... weren't? also the reference to the gazpacho scene in mujeres made me groan out loud.

julieta (2016): well i dont really know what this was supposed to be....it feels on the surface it could have been really good but something about it felt so emotionless. it was an odd experience, watching it, because i expected to be moved by so many scenes and i never was. i dont know what the point of it was.

dolor y gloria (2019): ok yeah this one was sweet! didn't blow my mind or anything but it was very cleverly made...a really more beautiful way to do the childhood-as-movie thing than in mala educación, i really enjoyed it. nostalgia bores me sometimes but i feel hes not being annoying about it. long live old man yaoi (and finally an argentinian actor i DONT hate...) and that beautiful beautiful cave and that mind gripping apartment bringing in the characteristic insane set design but in a new way...i had a good time

madres paralelas (2021): oh this could have been so good! it wasnt but honestly i dont remember exactly why i disliked it. i suppose i didnt connect to the characters and that it is a story that requires that to engage you – their motivations were really out of place and unlike other movies that bothered me. really interesting premise, didnt work out. im sad about it. could have been cool.

yeah so that's it i only realized while writing this that i forgot to rewatch mujeres but obvs that ones very good, proper classic, quote it every time i eat gazpacho and such. also extraña forma de vida is a snore i refuse to watch it again. i hope this works as a rec list for someone. and i am ready to be stoned by my wrong opinions by the rest of you

[vidavalor]

Hi! I'm the anon who asked about the logistics of together-the-whole-time twist back again. Firstly, thanks so much for your response! Secondly, sorry, should have worded that better! It's not the sleeping together part that would be the twist for me - I actually was confident we'd get the romance canonised, either with a kiss andor with an outright declaration and some hand-holding-forehead-kisses-type tenderness, though not necessarily until the 3rd season, I'm definitely on board with 1941 part 3 and now that they've kissed I have a pretty good feeling about some shape or form of implied, innuendoed or faded-to-black sex scene, or even something like Newt and Anathema, if it fits, in the next season - it's more about the fact that a first kiss an insanely long time ago and a secret, coded, largely unspoken romance since then that's been happening mostly past the audience's nose would put a pretty dramatic spin on everything else we've seen so far. A change our entire perspective and everything we thought we knew spin. Because that would mean that the story we thought they're telling is not in fact the story they're telling after all, that we've gotten the first 2 seasons in a completely wrong context, and that's where the feeling that this might be too much of a rug pull comes in. You don't need to respond again if you don't want to, after all you've already laid out your thoughts excellently as always, just thought I'd give you a follow up. Anyways, hope I'm wrong and you're right!

Hi. I appreciate your follow up. Please help yourself to cookies... Apologies for the delayed response. I save Asks as drafts in my folder to reply to if I'm going to and I somehow overlooked this one for awhile so I apologize. Let me add a few things here about why I really, really, really disagree with the idea that an ancient times vavoom would be "a rug pull" as you put it and "not the story they're telling." (I'm also not sure how you're okay with one happening in 1941 but not millennia ago when, really, both would mean that you'd have been "fooled" by the story? What's the difference, really?) This is actually exactly the story they're telling and there are plenty of suggestions of that.

I recently wrote a meta that I'll link at the bottom listing all of the things that Good Omens has shown you and then provided context for you later and I didn't get through a third of them... that I've even noticed so far. I'm sure there are more. What this does is recontextualize what you've been watching. It deepens it. You call that a "rug pull" with a tone that hints you might think it deceptive in a negative way. I see it as literally brilliant sleight-of-hand storytelling that's innocent in its intent. It's trickery in a magic show sense. Part of my argument to you is that a show where one of half of the couple we're talking about is a magician has a theme of narrative sleight-of-hand lol. It is very much intentionally not giving you all the information you need to have a complete picture of any one scene from only that one scene by design. It's been doing this all along and it is a way of building layers into the story and your understanding it. There is no reason not to think that this would not be the case for scenes related to the central relationship of the show that is between its main characters because every single one of them to date has already been about them.

I don't think the audience would find this complicated so I don't see it as too much of a deception. I think people would kinda go nuts for it, actually lol. You're already watching a show that keeps telling you things later that have you recontextualizing what you've already seen so don't sell yourself or the audience short. All it does is then allow the audience to see what a bunch of us expect is already there anyway. It'd make rewatching the show even more fun. If you ever want to already get a taste of that, theorize for a bit that I'm right and that this has been going on for ages and then go rewatch the show a bit and see what you spot in places. You'll be surprised by how much it all just sorta slides into place. That's because they've built it that way. You're reading a novel that's written out of chronological order and you're only two-thirds of the way through it... are you not expecting a few surprises and some deepening of your understanding of what's going on before the end of it? This show is no different.

I guess I'm saying that ain't no way that the show that keeps making scenes that change your understanding of scenes you've already watched and, as a result, your understanding of Crowley & Aziraphale's relationship, isn't planning the mother of all those scenes that will completely recontextualize the whole damn thing. They are absolutely going to have kissed before 2.06 but the way they recontextualize the whole series at once is if they make the first one near the start of the timeline.

S3 audience during The Ancient Times Vavoom lol:

[fanz-y]

So now that I've actually watched 10 anime I wanted to rank them from best to worst

1. MSG: the Witch from Mercury; I have not seen any other Gundam show but I don't think this one is leaving #1 spot ever, and Bandai were cowards and homophobic for not showing us either a kiss or the wedding even though they got married, also I'm so mad that I episode 11 during the hug they didn't even say "I love you". The robots became the least interesting part of the robot show (8th I watched)

2. Bocchi the Rock!; probably what I want most anime to be, can't wait for the movie('s), this, G-Witch and Your Name might as well both be #1, also I want a cute Bocchi plush but I can't find one that's affordable without a high delivery :< (7th I watched)

3. Your Name; A movie that I found on a trans subreddit about a year ago, I didn't think it'd be as good as it was or that it'd affect me as much as it did, but I was left in tears when the credits came on, the story went somewhere completely than I thought it would, 10/10. also tied for first place, it deserves to be watched in a movie theater so much (10th I watched)

4. Cowboy Bebop; twink and his bear friend go on space adventures oh and the twink has his own shadow the hedgehog (6th one I watched)

5. BNA: Brand New Animal; the one of 2 studio Trigger show I've seen but from what I've read and heard they have a pretty mid reputation, I really liked it tho, I watched it around the time I came out and it's a pretty good trans allegory (still feel a tad weird about the ending) (4th one I watched)

6. Neon Genesis Evangelion (and the 1st movie); (don't)Get in the robot Shinji, I had been interested in it a bunch, big robots and all that, but only just got to it. The self perpetuating loop of abuse and trauma that Shinji and everyone gets put through because Genduo can't get over the death of his wife is horrible and I can't think of a more despicable antagonist than him, the movie was so fucked up. I still struggle to get what Seele was supposed to represent. I loved every scene where the Eva's get shown as demons, those looked real cool (9th I watched) (watched it entirely cuz of Signalis)

7. Cyberpunk Edgerunners; watched this before I played the game, the abuse that David went through combined with the end that I miss interpreted put me a bit off and I missed the point, but I got it after a rewatch (3rd one I watched)

8. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure; now that I've grown as a person I can safely say that it deserved to drift from spot 1, part 4 is still my fave. And it's still really really good in spite of how low it is (1st I watched)

9. Guilty Gear Xrd & Strive story mode; I am both counting and lumping them together, I liked the oversized Smurf with a gun, also Elphelt bby girl, still would've preferred an actual game tho(5th one I watched)

100000000000. Future Diary; I've watch this in a trade to get someone else to watch JoJo's, they came out better off with that deal, I am also no longer friends with that person (not because of the show but it's funny to mention) (2nd I watched) I still think it's missing some zeros, just add however many you believe it needs

Honorable mentions:

- Signalis; I know it's not an anime but it's anime adjacent and it's the best story I've ever played through, I don't even like horror games or gore at all that much but I will 100% this game and get all the endings, I wish I could talk about it more but spoiling ANYTHING about it feels wrong and making posts where half the words are censored just so fans get it isn't gonna work

- Pokemon; I loved the XYZ and B&W runs but I haven't watched it all and only remember catching it on TV

-Scott Pilgrim takes off, I watched the first few episodes, I don't particularly care for it, but it looks pretty good

Dishonorable mentions:

- Attack on Titan; I've had a run in with the series back when season 1 came out, back when I thought gore was cool, now I have negative interest in the series, I literally couldn't care less and I'm only putting it here to be fair

Conclusion:

After the Witch from Mercury and Evangelion, I don't care for big robots as much as I used to.

Oh and I'm watching some more soon-ish gimme recommendations

[boobachu]

Rewatched Sonic Prime

and the finale of season two basically upped the ante to where the story is either going to have a really good ending or be so bad it brings the entire series down. (Kind of a long-ass post with spoilers if for some reason you haven't felt to binge the almost seven hours of show yet.)

This moment right here completely changed the tone from "Sonic broke the universe and needs to fix it" towards "If Sonic succeeds, he would be committing multiple omnicide"

Sonic Prime Sonic could earn the title "World's most genocidal hedgehog" and that's really interesting.

Now, this is what has been a very basic "modern marvel" "robot chicken"-ass story, I mean very interesting characterization but otherwise very cookie cutter.

Which, I mean, we got a whole season to explore it, but Sonic immediately defaults to his pussy-ass "FRIENDSHIP!!!!!!!!!!!11!!" but kind of the core of the story has been "Sonic's worldview is wrong"

Even though nothing too terrible has happened to him (beyond everyone he knew and loved and could ever know and love potentially being killed forever) it's very clear that the basic message is that Sonic's happy-go-lucky attitude needs to change, but so far we haven't seen what it needs to change into.

So basically

I think Sonic Prime is going to A) Have no fucking idea how to fix this problem it imposed on itself by stating the fact that Nine isn't Tails, and you're going to have to kill three people to bring back your little brother

So it just "Whatever! I don't care! We restored Status Quo without killing entire universes!"

or B) as stated before, Sonic Prime goes down as the Sonic canon that commits genocide across space and time to restore his parody of how news journalists who haven't played since Sonic the Hedgehog 2 react to seeing a human in a Sonic game.

or C) which is the least likely, they make some damn good writing that somehow preserves the new universes without it feeling like a handwave.

Honestly the B option could also be "Nine, Mangy and Sails fuse into Tails who has memories off all three" but that is also unlikely because it has the implications of every single being across the universe becoming plural or something. At least I don't think that's an obvious route to take.

People are concerned about Nine being a villain, and he's definitely going to be an antagonist, but I absolutely do not see how wanting to stop someone from wiping out countless worlds to save his own is a villainous trait.

Maybe they'd have the grim project turn out to destroy the other worlds, but that would come out of nowhere and would be kinda dumb to do the "dooming the multiverse through hubris" twice.

Tho it'd also be kinda interesting if the grim project turns out to be basically Eggmanland except Tails.

Like I'm not expecting the final episode of Sonic Prime to be the gang having a party while Sonic sits in the shadows going "I have become death, destroyer of worlds... literally!" and Shadow's like "You did what you had to do. I won't say more because the memory is punishment enough." and then he teleports away leaving Sonic to stand alone in uncomfortable silence while the party is heard in the background and then it cuts to black for the doofiest ass theme song to play over the credits.

It's more Sonic Prime has the potential to be in a Sonic lore iceberg as "Sonic canonically has more blood on his hands than anyone in fiction or reality"

Which is interesting.

[fairyhaos]

YENA!!!

HIHIHIHIHIHIHIIIIIII

i missed you!! i have my finals rn so im trynna live with an average of 3 hours of sleep so woohoo!

and idk why but is it just me who always starts binge watching in exam season? like i wont watch any shows at all and then my exams start and i binge watch like hell. its been maybe a week since my exams started and ive watched king the land, 2521 (i cried), queen of tears (i cried), strong woman do bongsoon, jatp, twikling watermelon, about 4 eps of whats wrong w secretary kim (before i realised i hate it), 2 eps of true beauty (idk why but true beauty is not my thing), a perfect pairing, purple hearts, 3 eps of en o'clock, 2 eps of zbtv, 2 eps of whatdoor, Hybe game caterers, Svt game caterers, a lot of gose and tws club, like 3 new skz code eps, 4 wanteez eps and 3 eps of lsfm day off.

I told my friend this and she asked me where i found the time and i honestly didn't know at all until we both came to the conclusion that in exams my last priority is sleep so-

ANYWAYS!!!

how are you! how'd the finals go?

also random question

rate your #1 bg and gg from each gen

i still have finals rn so ill probably stay dead a while

-🌱

HI SPROUT ANON!!!! sorry for answering late bub everything is on delay due to exams 😭😭 but i miss u too aww and honestly why are you and i LITERALLY in the same boat with this HAHAHHA we can do this and make it thru exams 🔥🔥🔥

why do i get you so bad too ?? i didn't get the kdrama binge urge ahah but i Did end up wanting to rewatch every early 2000s white girl film ever so i currently have a list in my notes app of the things i wanna binge once exams are up 😭 and the way you and i have such similar tastes in dramas tho like !!! crazyy pls and ive been wanting to watch twinkling watermelon for so long but then summer strike hit me and i binged thru that a couple of months ago instead </33

my exams are going well, thanku for asking! they're not quite over yet but we're getting there and im hoping that im alive by the end of it lmao

also rating #1 bg and gg from each gen feels kinda controversial so im afraid i can't do it 😭 also bc i don't actually think id be able to make a fully informed decision bc i don't know that many grps or their capabilities so it'd probably be a popularity ranking ??? but i do wanna hear ur thoughts on it so lmk! <3

[waitmyturtles]

In your honest opinion, is it worth continuing to watch Step By Step? I've got to about episode 8 and am rewatching the first episodes again because I want (or perhaps wanted at this point) to write an analysis on the show's theme of "work/life - business/pleasure" which is something I've really enjoyed and which has been really well done up until where I am, despite any other flaws the show may have.

That being said, ep. 11 sounds like a complete mess and I don't know if I can be bothered to watch something that's dropped the ball just to watch for a single theme I love and even though I think the analysis could be interesting.

Should I go with my emotions and go and watch something that doesn't seem to be biting of more than it can chew or should I let my academic braincell see if it can hold itself until the end?

Feel free to ignore this I'm just trying to work things out and I know you do analysis so I thought it'd be worth an ask 😋

Ahhhhh. I feel like I’m not the right person to ask about this specifically for SBS.

Generally speaking, I am on Team Drop-It-If-You-Hate-It. I don’t believe in hate-watching. There’s TOO MUCH great stuff to watch or rewatch out there.

I don’t think I hate SBS, per se. I do believe yesterday’s episode 11 dropped a LOT of narrative balls. But it happens to be that MANY people whose taste I trust are still watching AND loving this show, so I want to put in every iota of effort to see what they’re seeing — but unfortunately, I haven’t caught it yet. (I am still relatively new to fandoms — this is my first time seeing the Tumblr world SO divided on a show.)

Here’s my understanding of how the show’s writing has gone down. Up until episode 10, the show’s script hewed closely to the original SBS novel. After episode 10, I understand Tee Bundit and the screenwriters went off-novel to include more themes of macro commentary on queer acceptance and workplace culture. If I were you, wanting to do an analysis on work-life balance, I really think the early episodes alone capture those conflicts VERY well, particularly with Jeng literally working two executive-level jobs to relieve his filial stress of being pressured to take over his dad’s company. This itself is GREAT material for a standalone analysis.

Now — if you wanted your analysis to include issues of queer acceptance in the workplace, then I would continue watching the later episodes, and @bengiyo and @respectthepetty have written FABULOUS meta on this for episode 11, which I think you will find very helpful (here and here and here and here — RTP Senpai in particular is hard in the paint for this show, for which I have mad respect).

So — it ultimately depends on what your priorities are. I’m a busy mom, so I haven’t been happy with the long episodes to nowhere, but I do wanna see what my friends are seeing and give this show my best shot. At least I’m learning more about what I myself prioritize from narrative structures, or a lack thereof! I am an EVER-optimist and will be watching the finale, and would like to recant ANYTHING I’m clearly wrong on with this show. I have no shame to edit and correct myself. I want to be proven wrong that this show’s not broken from a structural perspective—we are all valuing different things about this show.

[staringdownabarrel]

I feel like Subspace Rhapsody is a bad execution of what could have been a really fun concept.

On a different show, this could have been a great "something's wrong with the holodeck" kind of episode. On Voyager, it could have been something like a follow-up to Bride of Chaotica! and have the same species of interdimensional aliens, or perhaps a different but similar set, come and turn the program into a musical. On Deep Space Nine, it could have been something going wrong with Vic's program or another transporter accident fucking up one of Bashir's spy roleplay programs.

Here on Strange New Worlds though, it didn't really have that energy. It felt like the writers had a few different character development things they wanted to cover--Jim Kirk currently being with Carol Marcus, her pregnancy, Chapel getting a scholarship that'll take her off the ship for a while, and La'an telling Jim about her encounter with the alternate timeline version of him--but didn't really know how to get it out before the end of the season. This is stuff that could either be the entire focus of season three, or they could cover it all in a musical episode.

Therein lies my contention, though. I feel like this could have been a fun one-and-done episode that you can either watch repeatedly or skip over on rewatches of the show, depending on how you feel about musicals. To do that, it'd really need to be a weird anomaly of the week episode and nothing else. Subspace Rhapsody doesn't do that; it ties in most of the ongoing character arcs that have been brewing this season.

I think part of this is because the writers mistook what the songs in a musical actually do. Yes, they come at times of heightened emotions, but they also help progress the plot. So while using the songs to progress the ongoing character arcs is a valid use of the format, I'm not convinced it's the best use of the format when it's a musical episode of a show that's otherwise not a musical. It should have been tightly focused on stuff that progressed the story of the week and nothing else.

This is kinda what I was worried about when I heard that this season was going to have a musical episode, too. I knew that it was either going to be one of the best episodes of the season or it was going to be a botch job. There isn't really a lot of inbetween when it comes to more gimmicky episodes like this. Admittedly, it didn't turn out as badly as I thought it would because I wasn't literally cringing at every turn, but I wasn't really cheering, either.

[ralexsol]

I have decided to keep Tumblr updated as I re-watch... The Adventures of Puss in Boots! A glorious return to a show that cemented itself as the most controversial love in my history of loved media. Do I even love it? I'm pretty sure I skipped an entire season and a half in the middle because none of the episodes looked interesting! The show's last-second ending is permanently marked in my mind as the worst ending ever written! So we shall see. I'll be tagging these posts with "#rrays taopib thoughts" from here on out, so my followers can block it in advance lol.

As of right now, I've gotten through the first 3 episodes. I'll go over them:

S1E1 - Great start, I think one of the most memorable running gags of the whole show for me was always Raúl from the Thieves Market. There have got to be countless fics I've written that have a Raúl in it SPECIFICALLY reffing him.

Also, nobody recognizing the name Puss in Boots really cements this happening in his 1st/early 2nd life. He's not yet the legend, but he's getting there.

After the Thieves Market, the rest of this episode is why every time I've tried rewatching it in the past, I never made it last episode 1. It's just... not very good. Toby is THE most annoying character ever created. The animation really, really takes some time adjusting (it is. Bad.). The jokes aren't really funny.

There were a few good things, though. Dulcinea roasting Puss to kingdom come, Puss realizing he just fucking Doomed The Town ("...souvenir?"), and the fight scene is okay.

S1E2 - Dude the Sphinx is awesome, I LOVE her. An absolute queen. Also, it made me soft when Puss told Dulcinea about how his mama used to make those crunchy almond candies for him and the other orphans, how he now wants to make them for the kids here. And Dulcinea is like "bro you SUCK at baking wtf are you talkin bout" and yet he literally makes them and they're AMAZING?? I'm emotional everyone.

I also forgot that the fucking jail is in the bar... Another incredible running bit of the show.

The quality of humor also immediately rose in this episode from the first one. Good to see! Puss sucks at riddles and also cannot catch a fucking break <3

S1E3 - This episode would've been a lot better if Toby wasn't the main focus, but if it weren't for that, it'd be the best one so far! Puss is acting his usual, arrogant, "I work alone" self. He also gets Fucking Drunk at one point, so it's great.

"She has lots of rules, like we're not allowed to ask why she's crying!" paraphrasing but HOLY FUCK that made me doubletake. Humor is on the next level, let's hope it stays that way. Same point, Puss putting up missing posters in the same spot and me thinking, "man do the animators just not want to do a wide shot or smth?" but no, wide shot shows that he has to put them in the same section of wall now because Every Other Surface is Covered With Them.

Anyways, that's it for now! Might watch some more tomorrow while I finish my pib:tlw traditional piece :)

[jmflowers]

30, 31, 36 :)

30. favourite tv show(s)

Impossible to answer. But the top few I've been obsessed with through the years are...

Ghost Whisperer (started watching when I was in middle school and was a hardcore fan the entire time it was on air - the first show I ever wrote fanfic for when I was about 12)

Alias (found it towards the end of its run, but watched and rewatched religiously for many, many years - I can still recite the season 1 opening monologue)

Grey's Anatomy (there's a huge gap of time between my obsessions here, as I binged through various genres of shows for a few years before being forced into Greys at 17 - my first ever episode was Song Beneath the Song and then I inhaled all of it in its entirety a couple of times... this was the first show I was involved in the fanfic corner of fandom for and began posting my own work online)

Orphan Black (this is just really, really solid Canadian-made sci-fi, but it ended a few years ago and I still haven't been able to watch the last two episodes which is embarrassing... can't get over that one death)

Gilmore Girls (who doesn't watch this show on loop every once in a while? fell into it in 2017 and found the best companion fanfic ever written that I've never been able to locate again... a truly iconic time in my life)

The Haunting of Hill House/Bly Manor/literally anything Mike Flanagan touches (I'm a sucker for good horror, especially if there are queer women involved... I've watched most of Mike Flanagan's work a few times and Bly makes me cry every time)

Covert Affairs (I loved this one when it was on air, but I binged it again at the start of COVID lockdowns and was reminded how comforting I find a spy drama, especially when all the locations they shot at are within driving distance of where I live)

Station 19 (if I hover in that happy space of season 4 Maya x Carina moments, this is the best place to exist... struggling greatly with over-analyzing it because of what I'm studying in school, though, so I'm like a season and a half behind on episodes)

And then, of course, there is a vast collection of shows I enjoyed greatly during the period of my life where I binged everything I possibly could from specific genres to "study the story arcs and writing development". There are too many to name, but if it was on TV before 2010, I've probably seen it.

31. 3 random facts

I have a "rare" disease/condition called Chiari Malformation that basically means part of my cerebellum doesn't fit inside my skull and is instead in my neck. When I was first diagnosed, my doctor pulled Gray's Anatomy off her bookshelf and read the section on CM to me, as she'd never heard of it before.

For much of my childhood, the mere sight of a giraffe would make me cry (out of pure excitement). Everyone took this to mean I needed to be gifted anything and everything giraffe-related for the rest of my life.

I often wake up with songs stuck in my head. Occasionally, they are songs that I haven't heard in my waking-life for several years. I think I must dream about music.

36. 3 dreams you want to fulfill

Oh, man... It feels like there is so much, but most of my genuine wishes are relatively small and simple.

I'd love to see The Script perform in Dublin, Ireland. (There's something about the recordings of their hometown shows that just get me choked up every single time.)

I'd like to climb a mountain at least once in my life. Standing on a peak is incredible and I can only imagine how amazing it must feel to reach one as the result of your own physical determination. (There's a group called 29029 that does an event where you scale a mountain over and over again a certain number of times in 36 hours until you achieve the altitude of Everest and... that. I wanna do that one day.)

I'd like to pack up and separate myself completely from all the familiar securities I've always known, just to see what I'm really capable of. I think it'd be a perfect opportunity to travel and experience the world without the blinders of my life thus far.

question game

[reiuruseiyatsura]

11-15: Favorite Anime Art style, Favorite Supporting Character, Least Favorite Anime Song, Highest Rewatchability, and Favorite Manga

[Start][Previous][Next]

11. Favorite Anime Art style

<> I put this one here mostly because I thought it'd be fun to figure out. There's a lot of anime with art that I love...

<> Ping Ping the Animation has such energetic animation... Redline is so so bold... Nanbaka is just a whole explosion of color... Mononoke is really fun and unique...

<> I'm gonna go with Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun because I've gotten 2 art books for it and the coloring style continues to be something I want to pick up in my own art! All the character designs are fun, the coloring is fun, the way the creators do their stand-alone character illustrations is just so so good... it's all great 10/10

12. Favorite Supporting Character

<> Ginta from Inuyasha owns my entire heart and I've been told multiple times that people are surprised I remember his name. I love him.

<> Shiranui from Dororo is my special boy so he's the special mention

13. Least Favorite Anime Song

<> Another one I wanted to put here just to make me think. I've literally never hated a song- disliked sure, but neutral-dislike is usually as bad as it gets... this is gonna take a lot of thinking on my part..

<> Ok this is a cheap pick. Everlasting Love blasting my ass every couple of minutes 12 episodes in a row kind of ruined it for me LMAO

<> For context it's from the show Vampire Holmes which is about a minute and a half long with a 30 second theme (same theme) bookending it. I was rolling it on autoplay to get through it and it started eating my soul at some point.

14. Highest Rewatchability

<> I don't like rereading books and I don't like rewatching shows BUT. Baccano. I've rewatched it a couple times dubbed and subbed and everything I could watch it forever.

<> This isn't counting movies because those are actually super easy for me to rewatch as long as 1 or more months have gone by- I've seen Redline several times.

15. Favorite Manga

<> Mermaid Saga<3 It hasn't gotten a full anime adaptation but there are a few scattered ones that I enjoyed!

<> And my favorite Manwha is Noblesse! The anime hurts me but the spontaneous basketball episode made me laugh.

[lichfucker]

I’ve always been super intrigued by your Survivor posts and you’ve made me want to watch! What series would you recommend jumping into? There’s so many it’s a bit daunting!

oh g-d this is a big question

usually I tell people to start with season 7 (pearl islands) or season 12 (panama/exile island). I started with pearl islands so I know for a fact it's a great introductory season, early enough that the game is very straightforward but not so early that the show doesn't know what it's doing. iconic cast, fun pirate theme, very enjoyable winner. panama is a little more complicated in its mechanics, as it includes immunity idols and introduces exile, but it's still very easy to follow. another iconic cast. I feel a lot more Whatever abt the winner but like it's fine lmao. I've also heard a lot of people say that 18 (tocantins) is a good introductory season! some enduring survivor legends in that cast as well. all three of these seasons feature people who will go on to be recognizable by first name alone

(you COULD start with season 1, borneo, but you probably shouldn't... neither the players nor the show itself knew back then what the game was supposed to be. it's interesting to look back on now, when things have been established as they are for the last 22 years, but back then it was very... unformed, like clay.)

just, y'know... keep in mind that the older seasons are... old. pearl islands aired in 2003. panama in 2006. the show itself is, in a lot of ways, a time capsule. every season has an air of being very much Of Its Time. there's a scene in season 3 (africa, also a good season but potentially kinda boring) where for one of the reward challenges, the host gives the contestants his credit card, and there's a close-up shot of the credit card with all the numbers completely visible. you'd be fucking insane to do that in 2022 but in 2001 nobody gave a shit at all lmao

basically with survivor, the single-digit seasons can be kind of up and down, but they're mostly fun and watchable if you know what you're getting into (I'm literally doing a rewatch of season 4, marquesas, Right Now). I watched season 8 (all stars) immediately after watching pearl islands, with absolutely no idea who any of these returning players were, and still had a fun time (despite one episode that, um, most streaming platforms don't air, for very legitimate reasons w/r/t sexual harassment. on a similar note, do NOT watch season 5, thailand. don't watch it). the teens are almost universally good (17, gabon, is some of the worst survivor gameplay in the entire 41 seasons, but of all the dumpster fire seasons it's one of the most entertaining). the thing about the teens, though, is that some of the seasons are TOO good, and if you watch them first you either won't appreciate them for their brilliance or you'll be disappointed by other seasons. 15 (china) and 16 (micronesia/fans vs favorites) fall into this category. seasons 20 (heroes vs villains) and 28 (cagayan) are also in that category, as they're largely considered to be two of the best seasons in the entire show. the twenties are REALLY hit-or-miss. 21 (nicaragua) is on the same level as gabon. 22, 24, and 26 straight-up suck. I have mixed feelings about 23 tbh. 25, 27, 28, and 29 are very good. I don't think you should start with any of them. and I REALLY don't think you should start with any of the thirties. the thirties are headache-inducing. we're two seasons into the forties now and under no circumstances should you start with 40 (winners at war) or honestly even consider it until you've watched... like. MOST of the seasons that those players initially won lmao. and if I'm honest, 41 just ended in december and I feel like I'm not far enough removed from it to judge whether or not it'd be a good introduction to the series. probably not, though. they kept talking about stripping things back but it was VERY complex

hope this helps!! and if you do start watching survivor then I hope you have fun with it :3

if you have more questions or wanna talk abt anything more specific hmu, though I don't know how coherent I will be considering it's nearly 6 am lmao

[oodlyenough]

alright i've seen arcane twice through now, here are my opinion patch notes:

jayce is hilarious i can't believe fandom hates him so much lmao... arcane boldly asks, what if steve rogers shot a child, and i think that's very fun and sexy of them

fr though i do think jayce is one of the more interesting characters precisely because he's -- well partly because i feel like he realized he's bisexual two days ago and is making it everyone's problem, which is already great. but also because watching the square-jawed hero complex guy make a series of terrible decisions and go mad with power is a satisfying thing to witness. the story seems very aware jayce is doing a bunch of fucked up stuff, and i appreciate that. unhinged bisexual rights

i was also more into the political drama once i was following it closer. i think it's handled with relative subtlety most of the time and i like that! i hope it stays that way in s2, please god. also how tf does the council work, are people appointed? i guess? based on status/wealth? it certainly doesn't seem to be a democracy.

also i love ambessa. can't wait to see more of her.

i feel like mel's writing is... kind of underbaked. her words and her actions don't always correspond (eg "i've never been able to give back!" says the single richest person in a city with severe wealth disparity who has been in political power for a decade). i don't say any of this to drag mel, because i'm very interested in who i think she is/could be, but i find it hard to decipher if this is nuanced writing or just the story not really knowing what it's doing with her -- i guess we'll see what s2 does. i'm still pretty confident she'll survive the finale, not so much because i think she'll survive the entire show (doubtful imo) but because i think if they're going to kill mel she'll get a solo death episode and the finale/fallout of jinx's bomb has too much else going on. fingers crossed anyway, lol, i think it'd be shitty if she's just dead now before they did much with her

i understand like 25% more of what happened with viktor and happy fun ball but ... still not a lot. lmao. i don't mind them keeping it vague i guess but i hope future sequences are less outright confusing to me. why did it eat sky? why did it change his hand? was that on purpose? we never saw him having issues with his hand, right? who knows.

still love that dinner scene with jinx/silco/vi. as i was watching with @firstofoctober i was saying how great it is that everyone in the scene is saying stuff they genuinely believe even if that stuff isn't factually true. i know there's Discourse over how genuine silco was being but i really do think all evidence points to him meaning it/believing what he's saying, even if *we* know vi isn't going to betray powder, etc. likewise vi obviously means it when she says she loves jinx and they're still sisters etc... but i really don't think she has a proper grasp of who jinx is now, she's projecting baby powder and expecting she can flip a switch. it's good and sad and i like it a lot.

coming out less flatteringly on rewatch:

ep 1 is so boringgggggggggg these are so many characters and i only have to care about two of them

caitvi moves at breakneck pace lol. slow down ladies it's been 72 hours tops

heimerdinger is just terrible on rewatch imo lmao he literally never does anything to help anyone or anything. i'm pretty sure jayce only deposed him for being mean to viktor, but he was still right. i GET that his whole thing is being immortal and blah blah but like what if: some guy with no perspective on human existence wasn't ruling a city full of mostly-humans. depose him again jayce.

and my least popular opinion: caitlyn i just... i tried man. i dunno. i mean she's nice and stuff... katie leung is funny sometimes. i just feel like she is so uncomplicated compared to literally every other character, with the least compelling arc. and i think the story treats her with real kiddie gloves too, which i find grating. everyone else fucks up and makes mistakes and is punished narratively for it, but caitlyn is always right bc she is a nice good cop. okay. whatever.