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sepublic · 3 years

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Through the Looking Glass Ruins!!!!!

…

SO! Onto other things first…

WRATH IS BRAXAS’ FATHER!??!!? HOLY SHIT, Wrath is a canonical dad, I’d always expressed my… OH MY GOD WRATH IS DAD! And of BRAXAS, that sweetie… How is Braxas such a sweetie with a father like HIM, also-

Wrath was in casual wear? Either he has a day off, or he got fired by Belos/Kikimora after drawing Luz a map to Eda in Young Blood, Old Souls! Either way this guy has a sudden new level of NUANCE that I am reeling from, and yes I checked, that really is Wrath according to the credits! Dang this puts everything in a WHOLE new light…!

AMITY HAIR OHMIGOD IT LOOKS SO ADORABLE SHE’S SELF-ACTUALIZING I AM FUCKING SCREAMING HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD!!! OH MY GOD OH MY GOD, it’s PINK and not green… They acknowledged it, Emira did! And they CHANGED IT I AM LOSING MY FUCKING MIND OVER THIS-

She looks so BEAUTIFUL and I love the kind of foreshadowing with the bookends of our first shot of Amity having her hair down, and now it’s changed! And she looks adorable and EMIRA AND EDRIC BEING GREAT SIBLINGS I LOVE IT SO MUCH! This… THIS is everything I wanted! I was resigned to not much of them but HELL YEAH they’re being good siblings and we get a look at their rooms, we see them doing MAKEOVERS together this is everything from my favorite fanon content and MORE,

Also Edric has a date?! Emira says ‘their’ mom… Unless the Golden Guard has a mom, DARN! Not gonna lie, I half-expected a big twist at the end that Edric was dating the Golden Guard, who was doing some sort of reconnaissance as his unrecognized normal self and/or screwing around with the Blights even further, but in a GENUINE sense… But then who knows Kikimora could be posing as GG’s ‘mom’, this is a stretch anyhow-

JUST HELL YEAH Blight Twins! Blight Twins being sweet and mischievous and supportive of each other, Blight SIBLINGS being siblings, Emira being an older sister and giving advice! And AMITY, Amity mentioning how much Luz has changed stuff, I love that they acknowledge it openly how her life has completely shifted, and now… NOW…!

No necklace! Red leggings! PINK HAIR?! Is this why Amity in the intro hasn’t been updated yet… She was getting TWO updates, so the animators decided to only animate a change after this final update?!

King and Gus are also friends it seems, and they even recorded some fun together! I’m surprised at how much Bria and the others mock Gus’ illusion skills… Obviously Belos is kinda terrible but like; I don’t think he’d set aside an entire subset of magic into Illusions without reason! Also that nightmare trip… I LOVE IT, I love Gus applying the creativity of illusions in their ability to completely warp and distort someone’s sense of reality! And I called that dragon-thing being an illusion!

A graveyard… I wonder if the Gallderstones (is that how it’s spelled) have any relevance or if they’re just neat? I hope Mattholomule and Gus help hide the Looking Glass Graveyard… Damn, that’s another Death reference with Gus, huh! Is it culminating in his respect for the dead, or will it continue further with Gus being a necromancer, or an Oracle who can commune with the deceased, and he has their respect as someone who treats them properly?!

Also not to get dark but… What if all those Illusionists are dead because of Belos? I’m JUST SAYING…! And not gonna lie, every time someone insulted Illusions, I kept imagining the Illusion Head just suddenly waking up and feeling like there’s a disturbance in the force, as well as a weird compulsion to beat up some Glandus kids. It’d be even funnier if he had beef with the Construction, Plant, and Abomination Heads as well!

Speaking of which, more confirmation on Construction Magic being related to earth! Glad to see Bria give us a look into that, which furthers my idea of Belos using construction magic… Also dang, Bria and the Glandus Kids really are the parallels/foils to the Detention kids! You’ve got the short ‘nice’ girl, the tall lanky kid, the furry… But the Glandus Kids start off looking nice and cool, but turn out to be rather nasty!

Meanwhile the Detention Kids seem like bad news and delinquents, but no! They’re just demonized and actually very kind and chill! The Detention Kids are looked down upon, the Glandus Kids are appraised… The Detention Kids are dual-track, the Glandus Kids are singular; Glandus Kids from, well, GLANDUS, Detention Kids from Hexside… One’s ‘mischief’ is actually very neat and cool, the other’s is literal grave robbing.

I guess that’s how the bleeding statues got past the censors- It’s technically just an illusion! Also more insight into how Glandus works with its Survival of the Fittest mentality, I wonder if we’ll get confirmation on which coven heads came from there, how that might influence them as adults…

What is Glandus like, is it more whole-heartedly accepting of Belos’ rule, hence its harsh ideals? Was it made after Hexside? Does Bump hate it for being so cruel like that, or is it just school bias? And dang poor Mattholomule, I always had a feeling he sort of felt and knew that he wasn’t much, so he accepted and compensated by deliberately doing whatever he can for power…

They confirmed he’s from Glandus, and I appreciate this new look at him! This new leaf turned… Hot take but he’s honestly not as bad as Boscha, his stint with Gus was a one-time thing that Gus was able to live with! And that seems pretty good to set them up as friends! Speaking of Boscha, Willow was injured by pixies? And the last time we heard of pixies, they belonged to Boscha and caused the school to get shut down… Did BOSCHA DO THIS I SWEAR SHE IS DEAD TO ME-

(Also she’s mentioned in the credits for this episode but I don’t remember hearing her? I might’ve gotten distracted with so much other things.)

Gus! I like the insight into his relationship with Illusions, and I appreciate how he’s considering other forms of magic… But this hesitation might just serve to reaffirm his believe in Illusions, which is okay! It’s all about choice… And yeah, it seems Gus also has a case of impostor syndrome like King, no wonder they get along so well! I love the glimpses into Gus’ house and the confirmation that he has a library card, no Perry though alas…!

I appreciate how Gus feels overlooked, like he has no real substance, which is how his Illusions reflect a desire to draw attention, but also the idea that there’s nothing real beneath them… Again, very much like King! And Gus, he’s not a powerhouse like the rest, he’s SKILLED and smart, but strength isn’t his forte, it’s not brute force he operates on, but cleverness! Trickery, I like it…! It’s a nice callback to his last A-plot episode, SVSF, where instead of fighting Mattholomule physically, Gus’ solution is to think outside the box and pull the alarm!

You go kid, not relying on brute strength but showing that some clever tricks and thinking are just as valid! Kinda wonder if this episode is lowkey a discussion on masculinity for young boys, especially with Gus growing older with puberty, though the latter is mostly because his actual VA grew… But maybe the writers rolled with that and incorporated it, or it’s just a very neat coincidence! Also, it is me or did Mattholomule’s voice change? And the gag that Gavin’s dad looks identical to him, even moreso because he’s NOT supposed to have a moustache… That’s great!

Malphas! Love this reference to a classic demon, I wasn’t sure if Malphas was the librarian with glasses whom I’ve always headcanoned as a father figure to Amity… But maybe it’s actually this bird dude! He seems adept in Bard magic, and I love the reveal of his true crow appearance… Guess those theorists were right that the one-eyed figure is from the Forbidden Stacks! Also Malphas NOT COOL with Amity, but I’m glad Luz changed his mind, and I wonder how that adventure looked…

Which- DAMN, the RSD with Luz! She looks so UTTERLY BROKEN when Amity mentions doing stupid things, and she didn’t mean it like that, but Luz just looks so completely shattered and you can tell she wants to cry but instead she bottles it up and tries to take it in stride, and that plays into her trying to overcompensate for her mistakes AGAIN… SOMEONE GET IT TO HER HEAD that she doesn’t need to! I’m scared for Luz, and I was SO scared this episode would end on a bad note…

BUT DOAHLDdFAEONDKFHN LUMITY KISS LUMITY KISS! ONE-SIDED BUT THEY FINALLY FUCKING KNOW AND AMITY IS LIKE WHAAAAT AND I WAS WAITING FOR IT AND I COULD FEEL IT HAPPEN AND GAY KISS! GAY KISS ON-SCREEN!!! And the way Luz just FLOPS to the ground on her knees AAHJJFFKHGGK and no Alador nor Odalia to ruin this, UTTERLY PERFECT and the twins WATCHING OOOHHHHGGGG YYYEEAAAAHHH-

This is EVERYTHING I ever wanted!

What an AMAZING episode with wonderful characer beats and reveals! Again, Amity’s growth as a character, that brief insight into how Luz as a person is very chaotic and sometimes frustrating for Amity and forces her to reevaluate, but ultimately it’s good and Luz DOES try her best, and Amity clearly wanted to make things up for Luz and apologize, they’re BOTH doing things, just the little moments!

Also, Alex Lawther voices Philip Wittebane! He has long hair and a vaguely british accent, he’s… He’s Belos isn’t he? And they got a new VA because having him voiced by Matthew Rhys would be really spoiler-y right? He’s got the long hair and he’s a nerd… And with how he talks of finding a way back home, maybe Belos really DOES just want to return home, after all? He talks of making a way back home…

And we see a glimpse of the Portal, so it might’ve brought him there? Or did Philip succeed in making it, and that was his blueprint designs? Did he arrive by Titan’s Blood? What happened to the portal if it brought him there, or if he made it? Why the scar, why near Eda’s house, partially buried?

Was it lost before he could finish his work, and Philip got side-tracked into something else… Perhaps going on a crusade, on behalf of a curse/demon that possessed him? A demon that killed King’s father…? Was the portal broken and he had to discard it, but then it naturally healed- Or did it just need to recharge, maybe Philip DID make it back home, WHAT IS THE ANSWER?! Is there some sort of doppelganger for Philip, is BELOS his doppelganger?! What is THIS WHAT-

WHAT AN EPISODE!

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jess-the-vampire · 3 years

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Sooooo whatya think of the new episodeee?

Oh it’s definitely my favorite episode of the series so far, i was having such a good time at every turn. I’m glad i went out of my way to avoid spoilers, cause i was glad to actually be surprised by some elements on first watch.

I think this had by far the best opening for an episode so far, we finally get back to the villians, we meet the coven heads, we get insight on belos’s plans-

and then belos gets constipated, which starts getting into the more character driven lore, which is the best part. You instantly can tell GG and Kiki have some bit of tension between them to be Belo’s favorite, though granted i wonder if hunter is the only one to know belos is cursed and actually just always insists to help belos with his fits to prevent others from seeing them.

Including kiki.

It’s honestly unclear how aware anyone is that belos is cursed, like him eating pailsmans is apparently not something he hides, but like....i feel him being cursed is something that people would know universally if it got out...so i’m left wondering if anyone knows besides hunter.

Regardless, belos turns into a goop monster with an angry side, and i guess his mask doesn’t transform with him compared to the rest of his body so he breaks it again because i guess he goes though masks like crazy.

Hunter turns away in this scene from his outburst and even though he’s masked here i can already tell he’s most likely pained in these scenes. Like he’s probably seen this happen so many times, and i can’t imagine it gets any easier for him, it’s probably awful to watch belos suffer like this for him (Regardless of the abuse)

And to be honest, it seems pretty painful for him, i think this ep seems to at least confirm whatever this thing is that takes over belos’s body.....belos never actually wanted it in the first place.

Yeah so after Hunter tells belos there’s not enough trees to medicate him anymore, we’re hit with the “UNCLE”. Which, when i first watched it i needed a second to even process the fact they confirmed their relation.

and i was like “CLOSE ENOUGH”, not his kid but uncle still works just fine for me, i’m just happy my assumption they were related actually came to ahead.

And i rewatched this episode a few times, and on second watch i realized more what happened in this scene. Hunter was talking about his interest in wild magic, and making more pailsman to help belos, and some method that could heal him and as soon as belos looked at him he instantly shut down.

He was clearly rambling about wild magic cures for belos because of his interest in it, and then suddenly remembered his uncle hates wild magic and felt super awkward.

It seems highly likely his interest in wild magic came from trying to cure belos and spending a lot of time reading up on the stuff.

And then we get hit with the whole “Our family is dead because of wild magic” line, which.....i’m curious to know what happened there. But it does at least explain why belos feels how he does, if wild magic both killed his family beside hunter AND cursed him in the first place. We’re just gonna need more info on what exactly happened.

Also while Belos is def abusive and does not treat hunter how he should, this scene actually does read off to me like belos does care about hunter to some degree. If belos is cursed and his curse works in similar ways to how Eda’s curse works, then it’s worth reminding ppl that eda mentions early this season how stress can amplify the curse even more.

And sure enough, belos goes goopy on hunter’s shoulder all of a sudden when he grasps him. Which could be considered a sign of stress and that the idea of hunter dying or being in danger actually does stress him.

You could very much also assume this is just due to his curse not being fully handled and just getting worse, or that belos only cares about hunter for selfish reasons....but i’m not taking anything off the table here.

Belos can still be a shitty uncle, and still care about hunter, these aren’t mutually exclusive traits. But we need more episodes for now on this.

But anyways he asks hunter if he can rely on him, kiki is pissed......and we move on.

So i’m glad luz’s impulsiveness is addressed a ton in this episode, they actually bring up a lot of good points. That luz has no plan, that the time she’s spending here might render moot if she goes back to earth, ect ect.

Hunter even calls her out a lot later for not thinking things through, it’s a whole deal in this episode. I’m glad it was brought up cause it’s actually worth asking a lot of these things.

the set up here works, they actually made a good reason for why a pailsman didn’t bond with her. Speaking of which the adoption thing is cute and i love it, it’s a great idea. The designs are all very cute and fun.

Bump face reveal was a lot for me to process, but i find the idea of his pailsman being a pet that can help with his disabilities a good idea.

Also like, i did find it odd that they got staffs so early because we’ve never seen kids their ages with them before, but i guess it’s a new tradition? Does everyone at hexside now have one?

Honesty not sure why batqueen left the nest there overnight, i meant i guess she assumed they were safe with that shield but in context i dunno why she didn’t take them home after the school day was over.

but whatever, luz stays there overnight hoping a pailsman will bond with her and GG just kidnapps them cause of pure luck on his part a bunch of pailsman were in a vulnerable spot tonight.

So GG continues to be charming, by whistling the theme song and then being blasted off his ship hilariously, before cockily teleporting himself right back on it seconds later. Like he and luz have great banter, he’s so extra like this it’s so funny, and god he’s so FAST with that staff it’s scary but so awesome.

Yeah so then hand dragon crashes them and i was so excited cause it meant face reveal. Poor dude looked so in pain and then we find out kiki tried to effing murder him because of course she did. But like, i think killing your boss’s nephew is the WORST way to get a promotion tbh.

(Also i got confused for a bit cause his mask has always been drawn as a mask, but now it’s a helmet in this scene for whatever reason but-)

Anyways, face reveal, Like honestly ppl weren’t too far off with their guesses, really the only thing people didn’t get was the tooth gap (That was fair tho, we couldn’t have guessed that). But it did make him even cuter.

like the banter is funny, he licks her hand, she slaps him, he looks SO pissed at her for this mess.

and i guess that outfit is his under armor apparently.

He’s lucky she didn’t run away immediately and followed him, but maybe he assumed she would since she had no where else to go.

Also his expressions in this ep are glorious, these had to be fun to draw.

Also we find out that the coven team members have never seen his face i guess? They just assume he’s a silly kid and are awful to him, so i guess he’s not only the youngest member of the coven but he never really shows his face much.

(”Call your parents”, ha ha.....whose gonna tell them who his uncle is?)

He is however, REALLY good at parkour and he’s fast even without his staff, so he’s well trained alright.

And then they reveal he’s not magical and i was SO happy cause i was so sure something was up when he wasn’t doing magic like the other witches despite his pointy ears. So they outright confirmed what i thought.

Hunter is pretty smart tho, like he can tell luz wouldn’t hurt him and wouldn’t flee so he knows he has the high ground here. Like he might be being a bit of a dick, but to be fair luz has been nothing but a dick to him throughout the whole episode (Everyone in this episode has been a dick to him tbh)

They team up and i get excited cause i love this kinda stuff and it gets more wholesome because hunter is super interested in her magic, he thinks it’s cool and you can tell how much he actually loves wild magic but then again...shuts himself down because of belos making him fear the stuff.

An then because luz asks, he tells her his backstory.

honestly with how this world treats people who aren’t magically powerful, living and growing up in a world that would find you useless sounds....awful. Hunter must be an anomaly around here, human blood or not.

Luz coming here to learn is different then growing up in a world and being the only one with no abilities and no future without them. Belos provides him with magic and a future, it’s no wonder he stays with him despite everything.

the whole “Found me” thing is weird, cause belos implies they’re blood related and hunter makes it sound like belos semi-adopted him. Which....if he did i dunno why “Uncle” and not “Adopted dad”, but ok....guess that’s for later.

Apparently hunter is important for something tho with the “Titan has big plans for me” thing, not sure what, but-

But yeah as soon as Hunter talked about wanting to make his own future and Rascal tried to land on him i knew EXACTLY where this was going, it was so cuteeeeee. The lil birb wanted to be with hunter, that’s so wholesome.

And he’s so terrified because of belos and what wild magic did to him, the poor bab.

But yeah, luz then trusts him with his staff back, because again....impulsive. But hunter does actually ask if she’s sure, so he might as well be asking if she trusts him.

The plan goes ahead, and hunter nearly betrays her.

though granted, hunter never promised her he’d stop and let her take them away, the truce was supposed to last till kiki was stopped and they were gonna fight out who got the pailsman. But it does bother luz cause she was hopeful he was better then this.

But just like he did before, she calls him out and he doesn’t betray her, because he’s ALSO too nice to do it, just like he said she was. He says his name (Which also took a moment to process), and then beats the crap out of kiki while letting luz get away and protecting her like a badass.

He might not have magic, but he’s good at fighting

like he can easily teleport to luz and take the pailsman, but he doesn’t, he lets them get away and luz knows this. Even though she also knows hunter has to go back to the emperor too and they have to separate.

It’s only slightly bitter terms, because in the end he came through for her and she knows it.

honestly, the worst part is i can’t even be mad at hunter for it, i’m sure he was terrified to fail belos. Both because he loves him and doesn’t want him to suffer....but also because of well...being punished. Really says something when his near betrayal doesn’t even make me mad at him, and i can understand why he nearly did it.

He let her go, knowing he’d be in SERIOUS trouble and that it would hurt someone he actually loves, so....ouch.

so yeah at this point i knew rascal wanted him so it was only of matter of what happened next.

Which was, luz getting the wood, which i like more anyway. Eda and King doing this offscreen and coming home like this is actually very funny, and honestly i appreciate the message of it being ok to wait.....means a lot to me.

yeah so belos is like...being an ass, like the kid tried his hardest, you don’t need to hit him with the “Is this the thanks i get?”. He’s a kid and he’s trying to cure you you dick, give him a break he doesn’t remotely have to help you like this.

Also apparently belos has not even told hunter HOW this happened, like...dude. Hunter is trying to be entirely reasonable here and belos spikes at him, which does imply some physical abuse though the only reason hunter doesn’t get a new scar is because he moves.

but how he reacts implies this has happened before, he is bracing for impact and he flinches. It’s pretty sad tbh, especially since hunter loves him and belos’s respect means something to him.

Belos is such an idiot, like c’mon dude, hunter is trying to help you and you don’t listen to him you dick. Kid shouldn’t have to say sorry for anything he did nothing wrong, he was just trying to help.

Anyways, he gloats at kiki (So at the very least she knows what he looks like under the mask), which he deserves a chance to do anyway. So i guess he didn’t rat her out for trying to kill him, personally my guess why is blackmail.....he was gonna hold it over her head to keep her from doing it again and threaten to tell belos.

But kiki quickly tells he LET the pailsman get away since he was the one to fight her (Curse his cute loose hair strand). So i guess now they have dirt on each other, so that’s fun.

His room is adorable, though the med kit by the bed is concerning.

Rascal comes for him and it;s so cute....though you can tell hunter nearly hurts him on instinct because of force of habit, but it’s so cute how he cares and how the birb loves him and is his new staff.

it was well hinted to as well, it’s so subtle, but the bird being cheery, curious, and his constant habit of escaping boundaries was perfect for hunter. He represents what hunter wants to be and why they got matched is done so well, all without explaining anything.

Hunter indirectly stated his deepest wish, to make his own choices, and rascal resonated with that.

can’t wait to see where this goes.

great ending shot, love me some conflicted shots looking out of windows like trapped birds.

also this title was a pun the whole time i can’t-

#the owl house #toh #toh spoilers #golden guard #toh golden guard #the owl house golden guard #the golden guard #the owl house luz #emperor belos #kikimora

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stillness-in-green · 3 years

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MVA In Memoriam (2/5)

The Comprehensive Account of the Butchering of My Villain Academia

(Introduction and Part One, Episode 108: My Villain Academia)

Part Two, Episode 109: Revival Party

Chapter 224 – Revival Party

• Mr. Compress’s side comment about how the distance Re-Destro wants them to travel means he must know they have warp capabilities. Also shortens his subsequent line, removing the bit about how their position has been locked onto, leaving only the marveling about the dude on the phone being the kind of person who has access to a satellite camera. Not a major cut, but it did strip out a bit of reiteration on how very Seen the League is. The warp line is another nod to how the MLA’s been doing their research—in particular, it ties in nicely with RD’s observations about the Noumu. He talks, there, about something Dabi said after the High End fight, which means he must also know that Dabi was warped out by an “Ujiko-san.”

• Also Mr. C’s observation that they haven’t broken Machia yet, and his posed question about what to do. Mr. Compress, I’m so sorry that you’re so wordy and lose so many quips and asides because the anime was set on brutally scything out every line of non-essential dialogue it could find.

• Ujiko’s extremely hilarious, “Listening to Villain Radio is my new favorite hobby,” line. Why would you cut this; this line is hysterical.

• The bit where Mr. Compress has the bright idea to use a High End Noumu like the one Dabi used, Ujiko rejects the suggestion out of hand, citing production woes, and Shigaraki says that he wasn’t going to ask for one of them anyway. Aside from being more cut Compress content (or “Comptent,” for short), it helps center the timeline somewhat at a point where the manga is jerking it around all over; it also shows that the League has been keeping up with news from the outside world. It also shows that at least one of them thought about using the Noumu—and since we know Re-Destro did some rationalizing on that scenario too, it’s good to see that it is at least briefly on the table. Further, Ujiko provides a few rare details about the Noumu creation process. Firstly, that AFO is normally involved, so his absence makes the procedure much more difficult (though not, apparently, impossible). Secondly, that Hood-chan was the only Noumu who’d actually reached the testing stage. This will be important later, for Ujiko’s agonizing about unleashing them early/Mirko having to fight four of them at once. Also, I just miss Mr. C’s funny little head wilt when Ujiko immediately turns down his “use some Noumu” idea. Ditto Shigaraki’s blasé shrug and little grin. Again, not to harp on the art too much, but man I wish the anime had kept all the fierce little grins and tight, incensed smirks Shigaraki has through the majority of this and the phone call sequence.

• Spinner’s line, “Without knowing squat about what we’re up against?!” A minor cut, as these things go, but it reiterates that there’s a chance RD is bluffing and the League has no way to know one way or the other, and demonstrates that the League can give Shigaraki some pushback on his decisions without having to worry about getting dusted for the temerity.[1]

• Takes one of Spinner’s lines—“Wait. I get it. Wherever you go, Shigaraki, he’ll sniff you out and hunt you down.”—and gives it to Shigaraki instead. Because fuck Spinner’s growing understanding of Shigaraki and the way his mind works, I guess! It’s especially notable that Spinner figures this out when Mr. C had completely the wrong idea about Shigaraki’s intentions—it demonstrates the way Spinner is gradually aligning himself with Shigaraki’s way of thinking, which we’ll see even more clearly during the War Arc. Also, again, it’s good to see the moments where the League weighs in on Shigaraki’s plans.

• The visual of Twice lashing out at Dabi with his razor-edged tape measure over Dabi’s dismissal of Giran, though all the relevant dialogue was there. Possibly this is because, having cut the CRC bit, the audience has no way of knowing that Twice’s tape measure is razor-edged, so why bother raising the question, “Why is Twice trying to attack Dabi with a tape measure..?” Possibly it’s because showing that attack would require animating movement, and MAN ALIVE, did Episode 109 ever want to do everything it could to avoid animating movement.

• Slidin’ Go’s line about how Deika isn’t usually his turf, but today is a big exception. This makes the hearty affirmative with which Trumpet announces himself a response to Shigaraki’s half-phrased observation about the reason behind the city’s emptiness, rather than a response to Slidin’ Go. It works, more or less, and probably even flows more clearly, all things considered. I’m always sad to lose lines from the vanishingly few named/characterized MLA members we have, though. I like, too, that it hints at the machinations that have to have been involved with setting things up for the Revival Party, and the way those plans were carried out with confidence that Re-Destro’s “bait the League into coming for their broker” plan would work despite the total absence of a response from the League in any of the time Giran was missing/his fingers were cropping up on the nightly news reports.

• A few shots of cameras in the city, which foreshadow Skeptic’s watchful eyes and ability to track the League through the city. In retrospect, this isn’t surprising, since the anime went on to cut basically any indication of Skeptic’s entire plan re: the footage of the League attacking, so why bother keeping the cameras? (Oh, right. Skeptic’s whole thing is cameras and information/disinformation. Skeptic for second-most screwed-by-the-anime MLA member.)

Additions

• Showed Toga having stood back up somewhere during Shigaraki’s explanation of their throw-Machia-against-the-MLA plan. A simply appalling choice. In the manga, she stays crouched down by Twice the entire time Shigaraki has his mask pulled off, because Toga cares about reassuring Jin-kun when he’s in a bad way.

• Rephrased Compress’s dialogue somewhat, also giving him a new line about the MLA’s forces in Deika when the League was still in the hills looking down at the city: “The so-called Meta Liberation Army has a force of 110,000 here.” I assume it was because the scene falls in a different episode than the tactical discussion did (in the manga, they’re the same chapter), so the anime was reminding the viewer of the stakes, but it’s potentially awkward because, er, no, the MLA categorically did not bring their entire army to Deika. We’ll find out as much for sure later, with the note that the regiment advisors weren’t in attendance because they were occupied at the bases they command, but even with only the knowledge we have here, Re-Destro’s statement about his numbers is that they’re scattered all over the country—hence the shot of Japan with a bunch of lights scattered across it to represent said numbers. That said, to be (briefly) charitable, there’s no particular reason for the League to assume that, and they did discuss the possibility that there were going to have to fight 110,000 people. So it makes sense that Mr. C might state as much when recapping for the audience.

Chapter 225 – Interview with a Vampire

• Re-Destro talking about Deika’s geography and why they chose it strategically. The anime dropped so much about the MLA’s planning and information-gathering beforehand; it really made the MLA look ludicrously overconfident. And while they don’t lack for that trait, certainly,[2] this is also an organization that has meticulously grown its membership for generations right under Hero Society’s collective nose; you don’t get to where they are by being unduly foolhardy. Erasing so many scenes demonstrating their caution and forward-planning undercuts the threat they represent to both the League and society at large. Also too, the descriptor of Deika as a nice, quiet, isolated little town in the mountains gives us some hints about how the MLA has avoided notice for so long, when you consider how the Hero business works: because so many people who get into heroism want to make it big, like celebrities, they don’t want to stick around small-town beats, and so the rural areas are understaffed.[3] That’s presumably why groups like the CRC and the MLA grow their numbers out in the boonies: much less attention from the Powers That Be. You can guess at some of that from how Spinner describes the place—“not too small, not too big”—and what Trumpet says about the percentage of the population that’s MLA, but RD adds that key “isolated” descriptor, and says that it’s a place where they “lay low.” That gives us some potential insight into how many—likely the majority—of the MLA came to their beliefs: by being raised to them, because their hometown was infiltrated by the MLA generations ago and they have literally never known anything else.

• RD’s phrasing, “Counter to point one,” when he makes his second point about the Noumu. He acknowledges that it’s counter-intuitive to his first argument, that he knows it would normally be an argument against that opening point, not in support. It’s just conversational padding, really, but “conversational padding” like that does a lot to distinguish character voice, so that not everyone talks the same way.

• A panel showing a trio of unnamed MLA warriors strategizing about how to divide their forces now that the League has split up. It’s the little cuts like this that gradually remove the agency of unnamed characters, such that they’re left looking like unthinking puppets instead of real people with the ability to register and respond to their circumstances. It also points towards the truth of what the MLA warriors are and one reason they’re so dangerous (for all that the manga itself will neglect this most egregiously later on): they’re trained in regiment tactics and accustomed to working in groups. This contrasts them both with villains, who might group together, but certainly don’t usually fight that way, and heroes, who are so unaccustomed to working in groups that it’s cited as part of the reason to have named super moves.

• Curious’s little pageboy-cut middle school kid line telling Toga to back off when Miss Curious is on the job. This is an early example of how defensive the MLA are of people above them in the hierarchy, an important thing Spinner will pick up on and attempt to use against Trumpet. Again, it’s little moments like this that both add some welcome notes of individuality to the MLA warriors (if only by virtue of Horikoshi and his assistants’ traditional talent for distinctive character design) while also fleshing out who the MLA are as a group, and contrasting them with the League.

• Deleted Toga’s line IDing her “on-the-go suck-suck mask,” but did insert a nice little bit of her expression shifting when she whipped it out. It lost a bit of the self-conscious silliness of her support item name in exchange for a cool little animation beat. I don’t dislike it, particularly, but I am, as previously stated, very leery of edits that make the League more polished in their villainy at the cost of their human foibles.

• Curious’s line about having come prepared to counter Toga’s moves, which was supposed to further reiterate that the MLA has done their research on the League; they didn’t just decide out of the blue to target the most notorious Villains in the country without studying up on them first and planning accordingly!

• Curious’s line about how she’s going to get started with some background info while her people use their meta-abilities to keep Toga and her buddies on the ropes. A marvelously characterful line! It speaks especially to that edge of formality the MLA brass observe that even as she’s ringleading this attack, Miss Curious is still set on going through her interview process step by established step.

Framing Shifts

• Made some of Curious’s lines spoken dialogue instead of internal monologue. That’s probably fine for when she’s waxing enthusiastic about Toga’s lack of hesitation in committing murder or how she’ll use Toga’s story to further the MLA’s agenda. It’s less fine when she’s rattling out the entire name, brand and patent status of her support item for no particular reason when Toga is already halfway through trying to knife her (that’ll be next chapter).

• The anime implied pretty firmly that Curious’s bombers died. And like, yeah, that’s always made more sense than the idea that anyone could survive something like that, but I hate it anyway. For one thing, it makes it even harder to credit the idea that Toga’s still on her feet afterward if Curious’s supposedly not-very-lethal explosions merk all her own people. People in this series survive ludicrous amounts of damage, and these random MLA devotees are no exception! For another, it leans into the narrative that the MLA higher-ups throw away the lives of their minions without the slightest care. It’s a lot harder to make that case when it’s explicit in the manga that Curious’s people survive the blood explosions—the blonde in the tracksuit is unharmed enough to snicker about it, and the noodle chef is even doing well enough to continue attacking! I’ve always been of the opinion that the MLA are, yes, willing to spend the lives of their underlings on attaining goals, if that’s what they think is necessary, but that is not at all the same as gleefully throwing them onto the pyre to watch them burn.

Additions

• Some individual shots of Mr. Compress, Dabi and Twice fending off or fleeing from various MLA types. A nice try on getting the group split up, but it feels kind of budget save-y, when we could have gotten actual animation of those fights instead.

• Inserted a quick shot of a headline about Toga’s first attack as Curious was rambling on about why she’s interested in Toga but not the League in general. Actually a fairly reasonable insertion, given how much text is crammed into her talk bubble in the manga while the dude standing next to her is already getting a knife in the neck.

Chapter 226 – Bloody Love

• A panel of interviewees talking about Toga’s first victim being sociable and popular. It gives a bit of context on what he was like, what people thought of him, but given that we know enough about Toga at this point to know that his popularity was entirely incidental to what she liked about him, it’s not a huge loss.

• The detail of the broadcasted interviews censoring Toga’s name. Considering how Japanese media normally treats minors accused of crimes, this is an eyebrow-raising change—the manga censors it because Japanese media outlets would have done the same. No idea why the anime didn’t, unless it’s another of those places where it would feel too “real,” to have something that so closely mirrors real life treatment of criminals?

• Everything about quirk counseling, and whoo boy, that is a loaded cut. There is exactly one other mention of quirk counseling anywhere in the manga, and, curiously enough, it also comes up in relation to a villain: in the U.A. faculty meeting after the USJ attack, Midnight muses that maybe Shigaraki never received quirk counseling in elementary school. It’s a weird little non sequitur there—exactly what sort of program did she expect could single-handedly make the difference between a well-adjusted adult and a gleefully murderous manchild with aims on killing Japan’s Number 1 Hero? Just over two hundred chapters later, we get a hint: a program designed to fit people “neatly into society’s little boxes.” Quirk counseling, then, is not about helping children find healthy ways to process their quirks, but rather, about teaching children what is and is not acceptable in terms of quirk use—and as Curious says, Toga’s admiration of blood was never going to be acceptable.[4] This explanation doesn’t just tell us a lot about Toga—that she wasn’t only failed by the hysterical condemnation of her parents, but also by a society that had no interest in helping her if it didn’t see a use for her—but also provides some insight on the viewpoint of the Meta Liberation Army vis-à-vis mandatory state-funded programs that dictate what “normalcy” looks like to impressionable children. Curious is, of course, not a particularly trustworthy narrator in this, as one might expect of someone who uses language like “society’s little boxes,” but it does track with Midnight’s earlier musing of, “Maybe the anti-social dude never took the program intended to make sure he was a functioning member of society.” That kind of statement—“State-sponsored educational programs are there to program children into becoming unthinking cogs of society, actually.”—is one that it’s all too easy to imagine the people with an eye on broadcast standards taking issue with, even coming as it does from the mouth of a villain.

• Curious’s line, “Let’s turn your death into a legendary tragedy, shall we?” and its accompanying visual of two different papers with imagined headlines. The dialogue doesn’t strike me as crucial—Curious’s fervent belief in Toga’s story is amply demonstrated elsewhere and her intent to turn that story into a legend reiterated in the line immediately following—but it is a shame to lose the headlines. They tell us, in Curious’s own words, exactly the tack she was planning to take in telling Toga’s story to the general public, without the constant namedropping of the Liberation Army that she does when talking about it in person. One headline in particular—The Price of Suppression: A String of Bloody Murders—is an especially useful reference for discussing whether the MLA actually wants, as is popularly claimed, completely unhindered quirk use, even for people like e.g. Muscular who want nothing more than to murder people with their quirks.[5]

• Curious’s initial wait what response to getting Floated, and her people’s focus shifting away from Toga and onto Curious instead. On a surface level, that focus shift helps explain why Toga’s able to zip around the ground and touch nearly twenty people before they even react: because they’re afraid for Curious. It also hurts the ongoing characterization of the MLA rank and file as being fanatically devoted to their higher-ups which, again, is something Spinner is supposed to notice later. It’s the worst kind of plot device if that devotion is completely told to us rather than consistently shown!

• Toga’s internal reflection that she’s seen Ochaco use her quirk, and knows how to use it. It’s obvious from the panel that she knows how to use it, but the manga implies that Toga transforming doesn’t automatically grant her an understanding of peoples’ quirks; it’s only in observation (and possibly love) that she can reach this particular unlock. Leaving out that information leaves open the possibility that she can just do this all the time now, with anybody she transforms into.

• The reaction from the surviving crowd to Curious’s death. See above re: STOP FUCKING ERASING HOW MUCH THE MLA CARES FOR EACH OTHER.

Framing Shifts

• When Toga bolts, Curious in the anime sounded serious, her expression alarmed, like she was actually worried that Toga might escape, even though her dialogue said just the opposite. Maybe you could say that she was afraid Toga would die before she got her statement, but given that she tried to kill the girl herself moments later, I’m skeptical of that claim. Regardless, in the manga, she never loses her smile, and she flashes a Liberation salute as she stands up to give chase. It’s a characterization note, that she’s so wildly confident about this that she never stops being completely enthralled with whatever Toga has to show her.

Chapter 227 – Sleepy

• The last of Toga’s conscious dialogue, about how she’s lost a lot of blood, is fading out, can’t move—but more notably, the way that this state of things makes her feel closer to “them,” that it’s “the same sensation.” And who is “they” here—her victims? The people she loves? More alarmingly, why does the line sound like she’s been this beat-up before, and remembers the sensation? Does that tie into e.g. her comment during the training camp that she doesn’t want to fight too many hero students at once because she doesn’t want to die? Has she actually been subject to this kind of violence before in the past? Does that tie into her still-unexplained ability to erase her presence? It’s an interestingly loaded little line, for being so vague, and illustrative of Toga’s mentality on becoming the people she loves. Which also lets the scene segue nicely into Re-Destro’s observation that, in Toga Himiko’s world, there’s no such thing as “other people.” On which note, guess what else the anime cut?

• The entire fucking scene where Re-Destro actually reacts to Curious’ death, the motherfuckers. This lost: 1. RD’s talk about the way Toga sees the world and how that led to society casting her out, which he points to as evidence of said society clinging to old ideals even though the nature of humanity itself has changed. It calls back to his methodology with Detnerat, marrying his lines from the commercial to his overarching ideals; it also shows that he understood very well what Curious saw in Toga, and demonstrates that he can express that understanding and empathy even in the face of losing one of his closest allies. 2. Skeptic’s reaction to Curious’s death, which is pretty sparse, but at least present. He says she never should have been on the front lines—an excellent reminder to the people who’re always going on about how the MLA brass thinks themselves so above their followers: Curious was on the front lines, against the wishes of some of her peers!—and calls her a valuable resource.[6] You can theorize about Skeptic not caring for her beyond her usefulness to the cause, or just that Skeptic is a huge autist who processes his emotions differently than most, and isn’t going to stop to do that when there’s still a battle going on, but either way, you need this scene to do it accurately. 3. Speaking of people who process their emotions in unusual ways, as I said above, this scene also shows Re-Destro openly crying over the deaths of Curious and each and every warrior diving into battle with their hopes for the future. They’re not crocodile tears, either. As was the case with Miyashita, there’s no one in this room that Re-Destro would need to perform grief for: Skeptic clearly doesn’t see a use for tears right now, so I don’t see him expecting them from Re-Destro, and the only other person in the room is Giran, a hostage who the MLA—very probably Re-Destro himself—maimed! It’s not like RD’s tears are going to change Giran’s mind about him (indeed, Giran gets a comedic reaction beat at the absurdity of the dude who started all this up here crying about it)! But RD says life is precious and he cries anyway, briefly, before he ruthlessly turns it off. RD’s valuing of human life—especially his own peoples’ lives—crops up in roundabout ways twice more, both leading the fight with Shigaraki (“It angers me.”) and ending it (“Any more would bring about meaningless death.”). This, though, is when he’s most open about it, to the degree that—as with Machia’s grief—it’s kind of off-putting and strange. Cutting it makes it that much easier for people to get entirely the wrong impression of RD as a character. 4. The delightful scene where Skeptic berates Giran about asking brainless questions and then answers his question anyway. Fuckin’ hell, why cut this?? So much of Skeptic’s character is in this scene! You get moments of his neuroticism later on, but never in so concentrated a burst as this (there’s one other sequence that could compete, but—spoilers—the anime cut that one, too). The exchange also explains the cameras placed throughout the city—which are visually referenced early on—and what the MLA is planning to do with their footage. Without that explanation, the audience has no idea how, exactly, the MLA was planning to use wiping out the League as a springboard for their grand return to the spotlight. That footage is the crucial part of how the rest of the country reacts to Deika in the Endeavor Agency Arc, and the anime never even mentioned it! The audience was just left to assume that all the media came in afterward, not that there was the slightest whiff of footage from the battle itself. 5. Once again brings up Re-Destro’s belief in the power of the heart to move other hearts. We get a bit of that in Curious’s flashback, but here he says it in his own words—as he will also bring it up to Shigaraki. Once again, Shigaraki is going to be challenged about his conviction, which ties back into what Spinner and Ujiko demanded from him earlier in the arc. With so

many people set to be grilling Shigaraki on this front, it tells us again what the arc is for: Shigaraki’s conviction, and him demonstrating it to the people who think he lacks it.

• The panel of Spinner asking how long they’ve been at it and Mr. Compress responding. This line helps manage the pacing, giving the audience an idea how much time is passing as we cut around to different places. It’s also, you know, more cut Spinner dialogue, and shows the beginnings of Shigaraki and Spinner getting split off from the rest by Shigaraki’s sleep-drunk staggering angling him off in a different direction. The rest of the scene is moved to after Toga’s fight with Curious, but not otherwise tampered with.

• The other big reaction to Curious’s death, which is Trumpet using it to rile up the crowd. The group that attacks Shigaraki isn’t just some free-roaming mob—they’re coming at him in a grief-stricken frenzy, which they’ve been goaded into by one of their leaders. This sequence also introduces the campaign van—a vehicle that will have several more appearances—to events, and hints at Trumpet’s meta-ability. Further, it’s one of the scenes that outright states that the MLA is less an army than a religion, in Mr. Compress’s line about how Trumpet is like a preacher rallying his flock. That understanding—that the MLA may style themselves as an army, but what they really are is a cult—is key to the way the MLA members act, from the very bottom to the very top.

• Trimmed Shigaraki’s flashback down, cutting—among other things—the very first lines Hana speaks, and her namedrop. This moment is the first one Tomura gets back, and the very first thing we find out is that he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. The anime also failed to identify Shimura Nana’s relation to Tenko/Tomura and Hana—helpful to remind the audience of a plot thread they haven’t heard about since Kamino. It also cut out the silhouette of chubby baby Tenko and Tenko’s first line, asking why Hana’s showing him this, a line which clues us in that Hana was the impetus here, not Shigaraki as he was back then. Still not satisfied, it also cut the phrase, “Daddy said all that stuff,” which is a clear and ominous warning that there was some conflict going on between young Shigaraki and the Father whose dismembered hand he now wears on his face.

• Left the dialogue but cut the silhouette of an airborne Geten with his enormous ice fists coming in hot behind Dabi when he was smarming about it not being his style to take the pacifist route. It’s not crucial, since we see the fists again shortly (it’s the end of the chapter page, whereas the anime rolls right on into the continuation of the scene), but it’s a shame, since framing Dabi from below with this sudden presence behind him is a much more fun, dynamic angle than the dead-boring medium shot the anime used. Also too, it’s good foreshadowing for the fact that Geten can fly, since he certainly didn’t get that kind of air by jumping off the roof of the mini-mart across the street.

Framing Shifts

• The crowd attacking Tomura came at him from the back of the shot, whereas in the manga, they’re surging forth from the front; that is, the anime had Shigaraki between the crowd and the POV of the viewer, whereas the manga has the crowd interposing between the viewer and Shigaraki. It makes a huge difference in the impact! Running up from a nebulous background distance, the crowd looked small and futile. Crossing directly in front of the viewer as they attack Shigaraki makes them look like the crashing human wave that they are. But, you know, coming in from the front would mean they’d have to be animated with more detail, and again, Episode 109, more than any other episode in the arc, clearly didn’t have the budget to spare on such things.

• The moment Shigaraki first uses the spreading Decay is horrifically clear in the manga. It’s full of speed lines, Shigaraki moving so fast he decays a dude mid-word, but the impact itself is spread over two pages. We watch his hand literally cleaving through the leading attacker’s face, and then are encouraged to linger on the oversized panel below, the intricately drawn crowd, full of individual faces, still intact on the left, scattering to dust on the right, all fully lit, with Shigaraki—still drawn with speedlines to emphasize his movement—the focal figure in black at the center. The anime rendered this moment in two stills—Shigaraki’s hand about to hit the lead attacker’s face, and then the crowd already decaying. There was virtually no movement to it, the crowd was so heavily silhouetted against a glare of daylight that it was difficult to tell what was going on, and the moment stayed on screen for only two seconds before Shigaraki landed and threw up, both actions favored with more animation than one of the signature moments of the entire arc. Hell, it even left the walls on either side of the alley intact, when the manga shows them dissolving into ash as well, decay traveling through the ground in a deadly, destructive radius around Shigaraki’s attack. The anime ever-so-graciously allowed Spinner his line to explain to the audience what just happened, but I think that’s mostly because it would be genuinely difficult to parse if he didn’t. It also gave him a flashback to what we had literally just seen, except this time it wasn’t silhouetted for some reason, so at least the audience got another chance to look at it, I guess? “Am I seeing things? Just now, his decay effect spread to people he wasn’t even touching!” Well, I guess we’ll have to take your word for it, Spinner.

Additions

• A quick shot of a camera, there and gone almost too fast to register. I want to compliment the anime for adding a camera back in, since it removed the shot of the cameras earlier, but honestly, given that it cut all the scenes about how and why the MLA was gathering footage, I really don’t know why it even bothered. Also too, the camera was gone so fast it felt more like a marker for a scene change—which it also was, segueing the scene from Toga collapsing (only to cut back to her later staggering down an alley) to Spinner and the rest still trying to hold their own—than it did something the audience was supposed to really notice.

Chapter 228 – Wounded Soul

• Twice in the opening pages left out scattered members of the MLA that were around for the start of the Dabi/Geten fight. Leaving them out raises the question of where all the people attacking went, but it’s also the first demonstration that Geten is a danger to his own allies. We don’t see any of them dying on-panel or anything, but we do see them having to dive frantically out of the way because Geten demonstrates no care to the collateral damage of his attacks.

• Cut a small flashback, presumably from Twice’s perspective, of finding the site where Toga and Curious’s fight concluded. You can see the ground covered in blood, and a body that looks a bit like Curious if you squint (distinguishable by the sleeves of her jacket), as well as a small group of people kneeling on the ground in various poses suggesting mourning and a paying of respects. Yet another shot demonstrating the depths of care these people have for their leaders, that they’ve completely let the battle fall by the wayside in favor of their grief.

• Drops the “those zealots” phrase from Twice’s, “I’ll rip those zealots limb from limb for this!” line. Damn, the anime really was determined to erase everything that even hints at the Liberation Army being something much creepier and more damaging than just an underground militia, huh?

Framing Shifts

• For all my complaints about the material, I generally like the voice acting quite a bit. I don’t love the first exchange between Dabi and Geten, though. It’s not a fault of the voice actors themselves, but rather the delivery. Geten was very cool and level-headed throughout, which is all right to a point, but he’s a gremlin under that troll parka, and this fight is where we hear him as close as we ever will to how he is before the multi-layered humbling he’s subject to over the course of this fight. It’s a bit of a shame to play him totally straight, without any of the snark he’s so clearly capable of—and without the tick upwards in vehemence his talk bubbles indicate in his last lines. Meanwhile, it’s fine for Dabi to get more heated as the scene goes along, and indeed he does, but he also plays it pretty cool at first. You can tell in the shape of his talk bubbles that he’s completely unruffled during his delivery of that, “Consider this a freebie, just for you: ice melts,” line. The anime had him raising his voice for it, and it just loses a lot of the humor of Dabi’s own snark to have him yelling it instead of just laughingly stating it, voice barely raising enough to give his talk bubbles some straighter lines instead of being all undisturbed curves. (For comparison’s sake, it’s about the same level of angular as Geten’s, “You’d best not think your little campfire can melt my ice!” line, but the anime had Dabi shout his line, while Geten continued at the same unperturbed volume he’d maintained since the beginning.)

• As with Shigaraki’s first mass decay, the shot of Geten’s ice dragon did not make the impact on me in the anime that the manga did. I think it’s mostly the way the ice was colored? The claw’s pretty good, but the head looks blobby and indistinct, more like blue soft-serve than the shifting, sharp-edged, brilliantly bright sculpture-in-motion of the manga.

• Twice’s voice actor did his best to sell the scene of him finding Toga, but I wish they’d kept that tight close-up on his mouth when he says, “Give it up. The girl’s dead.” They animated him leaning closer to the camera, but that doesn’t have the sharpness of that sudden cut to being right there on his lips, like some malevolent thing is using them to speak words so terrible that they can’t even be associated with the rest of his face.

---

Come back next time (and hopefully in less time) for Part Three, Episode 110: Sad Man's Parade.

FOOTNOTES

[1] We would, of course, have an even clearer idea of that had the anime not cut the scene of Spinner shouting in Shigaraki’s face.

[2] It seems particularly strange to me that Curious and RD both mention quirk evolution as a thing they know can happen in extreme circumstances, but didn’t predict that backing the League into a life-or-death corner might provoke one or two members to undergo exactly that evolution.

[3] Mount Lady is the obvious example, but you can look to places like the island in Heroes Rising, too: one hero, and when they retired, a group of high school kids had to go sub in for a while until a replacement could be arranged. It’s not like retirements just happen overnight; the Commission had to have known it was coming. Still, they had to scramble to find someone. It doesn’t suggest they had anybody just champing at the bit to take the post, you know?

[4] In Chapter 140, we see a young Tamaki Amajiki in a class called “quirk training.” It’s uncertain how connected this P.E.-like class is to quirk counseling, but Toga wouldn’t have been getting much help there, either, seeing as it’s all about figuring out how to use one’s quirk in a way that’s “useful to society.” I can think of some ways, but nothing that I expect would be very popular or liable to be explained to a grade schooler in a country with as long a history with ritual cleanliness as Japan. To a Shinto mindset, Transformation isn’t just off-putting or unhygienic; it’s spiritually unclean.

[5] The answer there being, no, obviously not, or Curious wouldn’t, in all apparent sincerity, be trying to characterize Toga using her quirk to murder people as an undesirable outcome, a cost society is paying for its current stance on quirk use. Yes, you can gather that much from her calling Toga a tragic girl, and Re-Destro concurring later, but listen, I will take every line I can get that I can use to push back against the wretchedly widespread idea that the kid whose name means Apocrypha is the be-all-end-all source on MLA ideology, somehow more reliable and trustworthy than every other MLA character combined, including Destro himself. I would very much like it if the anime had not deleted a bunch of my talking points while making good and sure to leave all Geten’s most damning lines intact.

[6] Not that an anime-only person would fully understand why some random reporter was all that valuable a resource, since the anime cut the explanation of what Curious actually does for a living.

#my villain academia #bnha #bnha meta #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #my writing #stillness has salt

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tobesobri · 4 years

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Bust | Part One: Chisel (7.8k)

“Disappointed?” She tilted her head, smirking at him. She had no right to think he liked her better than Rose. She, herself, liked Rose better too. So she was sure he had to be at least a little bit sad to see Rose missing.

He smiled and the second she saw those dimples she was reminded of his Instagram all over again.

“A little,” he nodded, pinching his thumb and index finger together in the air and she painfully agreed.

“Well, you get me all by myself tonight.” She didn’t realize how it sounded until it was too late. Until she was cringing at all the sexual insinuations she’d just made for absolutely no reason. She could have said something else that wasn’t laced in an innuendo. But no, of course not. She had to continue her embarrassing streak when it came to Harry.

Instead of being creeped out by her, however, and pulling a confused and slightly terrified face, he laughed. And, on God, his laugh was the most amazing thing she’d ever heard. This wasn’t the first time the sound of his laughter graced her eardrums, but it was the first time he was laughing because of something she said that wasn’t about crooked penises.

“Lucky me.”

In which Y/N is an annoyance in Harry’s sculpting class.

story masterlist | my masterlist

It’s not her forte. Her hands don’t know how to hold onto things. They tremble under pressure. They mess things up no matter how hard she tries.

Not that she had really tried very hard to begin with.

Sculpting was just not something she saw herself doing. Ever. Not with her lack of agility and poor attention to detail. But to appease her whining best friend… she’d do just about anything.

The class was held in a little art studio with large windows for ventilation and tall ceilings to display the mass amounts of student artwork on butcher block shelves. She never thought she’d be back in a classroom type setting after graduating college, but here she was.

Learning, what she proclaimed as, a useless skill.

The studio was smack dab in the middle of an inclined street. Little quaint buildings that sat on an angle because why not pour foundations on a hill and make her weekly walks to the studio a little sweatier than she would have preferred. Even if it was winter in their little beach village town. Sweat still happened. It just happened underneath a scarf and a hand-knitted beanie from the sewing shop next door.

She could not deny, however, that the late afternoon classes every Wednesday and Saturday brought her way more joy than she’d anticipated. She looked forward to meeting up with Rose at the bottom-of-the-hill cafe, sharing the daily special with her before making their way up to the studio. It was calm in the middle and end of her hectic weeks that she most definitely needed.

What she didn’t need, however, what she most certainly did not look forward to, what she could have done without, what took her joy and smashed it against a wall was him.

The instructor.

Harry ‘I have nice hands and a misleading smile’ Styles.

It had only been two weeks into their classes and he had already told her one of her bowls was garbage. That the way she sculpted a face was terrifying. That she couldn’t draw for shit and that made her attempts at sculpting even worse.

So by Saturday of their second week, she didn't care anymore. He was a jerk and she would be the best pain in his ass she knew how to be.

While everyone called him Harry, like he’d asked them to the very first day, she called him Mr. Styles. Just to see the way his eyes rolled back into his head and his nostrils flared. While everyone asked him insightful questions, like what glaze was best to use or what tool sculpted eyes most efficiently, she asked him if she could use the bathroom.

She got a fucking kick out of irritating him. Knowing he went home after their classes just as irritated as she’d been. With clenched fists and a pounding headache.

It helped that he was insanely too attractive to be teaching a bunch of millennials about sculpting in his free time.

“You should really leave him alone, he might kick us out, you know,” Rose said on their first third week walk up Justice Hill. There was no justice in walking uphill, and most fucking certainly not in the humidity-ridden beachside town. She found the street name personally offensive.

“Oh fuck him. If he kicks us out, he’ll have to refund us.” Y/N did not, even for a second, bother to lower her voice as they neared the studio, knowing any one of the other students could hear her if they were to walk by.

“Refund us what? We got the class for free, remember?”

Y/N racked her brain like she’d completely forgotten that little detail before shrugging it off. “Whatever. He won’t kick us out.”

“How do you know for sure?”

Before she could make some stupid remark about how Harry secretly liked her pestering him or about how much he seemed much too impressed by Rose’s progress to ever get rid of them, the devil himself turned the corner in front of them.

He came out from an alleyway that connected the street to a tiny parking lot. And while they were going uphill, he was coming down. He was hard to miss and so were they, but still he attempted to not see them.

“What a prick,” Y/N mumbled under her breath as they got closer to each other. And almost as if he could read her lips, he rolled his eyes so fucking hard she thought maybe they’d finally pop right out of his head this time.

“Shush,” Rose warned as the three of them finally met in the middle, at the door to the studio that was decorated with a bright yellow ‘Open’ sign, children’s drawings, hand-painted hours of operation, and one too many polaroids of past students and their sculpting creations.

They all stood and stared at each other for a moment before he opened the door first, holding it as, to Y/N’s surprise, he let them go in first. And while she was still in shock at the gesture, his body language said it all. Like he was forcing himself to be nice to the dynamic duo, to the bane of his existence. While she was too distracted by Harry and his clay-stained trousers and cable-knit sweater with a cartoon deer embroidered on it, Rose walked into the studio first. Giving Harry a polite smile that he returned almost… genuinely.

And right when Y/N made a move to follow, Harry stepped in front of her. She jolted back as he just about let the door slam her in the face.

Today was going to be fantastic.

* * *

“Right, so,” Harry began, clapping his dry hands together as he took a seat behind his messy table at the front of the studio. “I know some of you haven’t finished your heads yet, but our focus today will still be on the bodies. We’ll have a catch up on Saturday to make up for it.”

Y/N sought out her head on the wall where she’d placed it last week beside Rose’s, realizing for the first time just how ugly it really was. And to think she’d been trying to sculpt Harry’s annoying face. Even more annoying that no matter what she did, he was always a lot more handsome than her hunk of polymer clay.

“... because, like I mentioned, we have special guests today who will be modeling for you.” Harry stood again while two very thin and very conventionally perfect people came out in white robes. Y/N couldn’t help but gag.

“This is Hope and Jordan.” Harry motioned as he introduced them, not getting any further in his instructions before Y/N raised her hand in the back of the class.

Rose attempted to get her to put it down, too, because Harry was clearly in the middle of something, but it didn’t really work out so well. Y/N was a stubborn son of a bitch.

“Yeah?” He pointed at her, sighing while planting his hands on his hips. He knew nothing she had to ask was going to be at all beneficial to the group.

She cleared her throat and just from the smirk on her face, he braced for impact. “Are they going to be modeling nude?”

She made just about everyone blush, except for Harry. He hated how she never took anything seriously. That the art he’d spent years perfecting enough to teach meant nothing to her. It was all just a primary school joke in her eyes.

“Yes, actually,” he answered bluntly and then returned to what he was going to say before Y/N’s interruption. “So I want everyone to get a piece of paper and while they’re modeling, do a rough sketch of what you might want the body of your sculpture to look like. The importance is to get the proportions down so that when you use the clay, you’ll know how much you’ll need for each part. Just like we did for the heads.”

Harry walked around the class once the models were stripped and the sketching began. Rose started immediately, concentration on her face as she flipped between the female model and her piece of sketchbook paper.

All Y/N had was a scratch piece of grey-toned mixed media paper she’d found laying on their table. And absolutely no clue where to even begin.

She stared at Harry instead of the naked models, watching as he helped others around the room, pointing at their sketches and where they could improve. His other hand behind his back that gave her perfect access to stare at his rings. Remembering how he’d taken them off guide their first few sculpting lessons. Remembering how his hands had so gently but so fucking firmly caressed the mound of clay into the exact shapes he wanted like he knew exactly what to do with those things.

“See it’s going just as I expected back here.” When his voice was at her ear, she jumped out of her skin and out of her daydreams. Twisting her head around to him as he stood behind her, she found him staring over her shoulder at her blank piece of paper.

She narrowed her eyes at him once she’d fully processed what he said. “Sorry I’m trying to figure out the best way to scale up that dude’s micro-cock, proportionally, if you don’t mind.”

He just about choked on his own spit, and rightfully so. But when he glanced to her eyes instead of her disappointing blank canvas, with his eyebrows furrowed and his cute little nostrils flared just the way she liked them, it was clear his reaction wasn’t for the reasons she’d intended.

He was quiet. Lips pursed, mind completely empty apart from hearing her say cock over and over again. Echoing against his skull. Making a home for itself in his hippocampus for later purposes. When he was not in a class full of students with their eyes on him, watching him get hard at the fucking way she said cock.

“Leave you to it then,” he cleared his throat and continued on.

“He may not kick us out, but killing you is still an option,” Rose whispered once Harry was a safe distance away from them.

Y/N leaned back in her seat to watch him walk down the rest of their row. His hands behind his back again, eyes wandering over shoulders.

As long as he had those rings on while he choked her out, she was okay with that.

* * *

Everyone had moved on to their bodies. Gathering the clay they needed from the front and using their sketches as guidelines to build around the pre-made wire and aluminum foil armature. Most everyone had some sort of a form being attached to the heads of their sculptures by the time Y/N even got started.

Because she decided on using Harry as reference after all and he would just not stand still.

With the models gone, they were on their own, with help from Harry of course. He played several videos and gave various demonstrations to aide them. It wasn’t supposed to be perfect, but after she gave it her all for about ten minutes, she was ready to give up. Her body looked like a very lumpy, very deformed version of Shrek.

She took a break again, watching Rose sculpt for a while instead. She watched Harry sometimes too as he walked around the class again in gloves this time. Smoothing out features and picking up tools to aid in the process of forming collarbones and wrinkles.

The studio was in its typical state of disarray. Random cups of milky water on every table, pieces of clay smushed into the tile floor, tools and used gloves strewn about with no rhyme or reason. Harry thrived in that kind of environment while Y/N well… she hated it.

She wanted organization and cleanliness. Her nine-to-five called for that kind of thing. But she was slowly getting used to it. To letting go and embracing the mess while she was here. She wasn’t the one that had to clean it all up anyways.

The only time she wasn’t daydreaming was when Harry started up their aisle again, walking in front of their table this time however. He helped a couple others at the end of their row, watched some of them work before eventually landing right in front of Rose’s station.

He cocked his head to the side while he watched her struggle to form an even pair of breasts on her headless lady. And even though Y/N was trying her best to look busy, she just couldn’t help it.

Rose handed her work in progress over to him with a frustrated huff after he offered his assistance. And like… no way was Y/N missing out on Mr. Harry fucking Styles fingering some clay into the perfect set of boobs. No way.

Especially fucking not when he removed his gloves and used those fingers in their bare glory the way she wished he’d use them someplace else. She watched while he slapped some more clay on Rose’s poor flat-chested model and proceeded to smooth it out with his expert fingertips. She watched the clay melt under his touch, watching him dip into their shared cup of water to aid the process. She looked away long enough to admire the concentration on his face, the way he bit down on his lip and furrowed his brows the way she was used to. She watched again while he fixed all of Rose’s mistakes just by gliding his thumbs over the two perfect little lumps on her sculpture that sure as hell hadn’t started out so perfectly.

She had no idea why Harry sculpting a tiny set of breasts on what would eventually become a mermaid got her so hot and bothered but… it did. It did so fucking much, she was almost salivating like a dog by the end of it, thinking about what his hands could do with the real deal. But then he handed it back to Rose with a content smile on his face and burst Y/N’s little bubble.

“Might be better,” he said softly and Rose nodded in agreement. She hadn't noticed before, but when he stood to his full height it was clear he’d been leaning over on their table. Closer to the both of them than he’d ever really been before. And she knew he was tall, taller than Rose, who was five foot seven inches herself. And not just that but his shoulders were broad and his arms were a humble amount of muscular. Almost like he was a sculptor that kneaded clay a hundred hours a week. Maybe that was why she was a soaking wet mess.

He stretched his gloves back onto his hands and glanced Y/N’s direction. Eyes going straight from her disaster of an art piece to her flushed face and back.

“Don’t even know where to start to fix yours up,” he commented while moving slightly to his right until he stood directly in front of Y/N this time.

She looked at her abomination, wondering if it would be her worst idea to push more of his buttons or not. But, she went for it anyways. Her lack of impulse control would definitely come back to bite her in the ass one day.

“It’s the penis. Still haven’t gotten that down yet.”

He nodded, amused rather than his previous reaction to her antics. “Can see that, yeah. He’s got a bit of a crooked willy there.” Harry poked at it with his index finger and she became hyper aware of his closeness this time while he leaned over her tabletop again. Because his hands were right there, almost touching her own. And they were big, bigger than she realized. She could see him perfectly through the transparent gloves, his long fingers with clipped nails at the end that were well taken care of, considering.

She would need to soak herself in holy water for a while after this.

“Oh, is that not what the male anatomy looks like?” She teased, not fully realizing they were getting along for the first time and it was because of dicks. Because she’d put an oddly shaped protrusion on her figure before she’d even done much else with the blob of clay stuck to her form.

“No,” he laughed, shaking his head at her and standing up straight again. “Maybe if you paid attention when the models were out here, you’d know that.”

“Maybe if you hired someone who’s cock I could actually see from all the way back here without a fucking magnifying glass.” She was only slightly aware of how fully immersed she was in the debate over this penis.

But all he heard was cock again. She really needed to stop saying that. Because this time his mind was a little more imaginative while he stared at her lips and thought about the way she might say that on her knees in front of him.

He shook his head clear. She was an insufferable nuisance that he just barely tolerated on a good day. He didn't need her clogging up his brain with her cock talk too.

“Just fix it.” He mumbled.

She huffed when he left her to her own devices, not even bothering to offer his help, but she really shouldn’t expect any less. If he helped her, he would be doing it all for her. And that was hardly the point of taking a class to learn how to sculpt if the hot instructor was just going to do everything for you.

“Is there a reason why you’re arguing with him about penises?” Rose asked, hushing her voice around the apparently taboo word.

“It’s fun. And if I’m going to sit here in this stupid class with you I’m going to have some fun.” Y/N, on the other hand, was not hushed or subtle at all, as she ripped off the phallic piece of clay from her sculpture.

Rose cringed when she glanced past Y/N to find Harry looking right at her. He had been helping someone a few seats down and clearly not far enough away to have missed what Y/N said. All of his features drooped and he looked genuinely upset. Rose wished she could put a filter over Y/N’s mouth to save everyone from her insensitive outbursts. Especially Harry. He always tried so hard and for Y/N to brush everything off and boil it all down to a ‘stupid class’ even broke Rose’s heart a little. So she could only imagine how Harry felt.

After their typical hour and a half was up, once everyone at least had some semblance of a body minus the legs and arms, Harry called the class back to order.

“Alright, that’s time. You can put your armatures back on the shelves, carefully. As always, I’ll be around for a little while after. Have a great rest of your night, I’ll see you all on Saturday.” He finished his spiel, turning away to help clean up before a lightbulb went off in his head and his voice rang through the studio again, “Oh, and make sure you bring your sketches back with you!”

Everyone worked on cleaning up, including Harry. And while Y/N took both her and Rose’s sculptures over to their respective spots on the shelves, Rose walked up to the front of the class without any warning whatsoever.

She tapped Harry’s shoulder and watched while his smile faded just the tiniest bit after he turned to find her. That Rose’s poor face had to be associated with the thunderstorm that was Y/N.

“I just wanted to say sorry… about Y/N.” Both Rose and Harry glanced at the girl in question near the back of the studio, playing with their two sculpted bodies like they were barbie dolls. “I forced her to do this with me so she hasn’t really taken it seriously. But I’m really enjoying the class, you’re a fantastic instructor.”

His smile returned again and if he was being honest with himself, it really did make him feel better to hear her say that. He had some sort of a reasoning for Y/N’s horrible attitude and while he wished it was her apologizing and not Rose, he figured it was good enough.

“Thank you. You’re doing really well so far. I’ll see you on Saturday, yeah?”

She nodded, giving him one last polite smile before trotting back to Y/N and helping her clean up the last bits around their workstation.

“Please do not tell me you were flirting with him.” Y/N gagged, using a ball of clay to gather the little pieces spread across their table like a magnet.

“No, actually, I was apologizing to him for your behavior.”

Y/N snapped her head up, first at Rose and then Harry all the way across the room from them. “You what?”

“He’s just trying to teach and you’ve been a fucking knobhead.”

Y/N gasped in fake offense, which was actually slightly real offense. “Excuse me, he made fun of my bowl the first day, you seem to have forgotten about that.”

“A toddler could have made a better bowl than that, Y/N, and you know it.”

She frowned, grumpily averting her eyes to the table with her arms crossed over her chest like she really was a toddler.

“I’m just saying,” Rose started, a bit calmer this time, “stop pestering him.”

* * *

Y/N thought about everything Rose had said. About how much she wished she could take things seriously and not constantly get on people’s nerves all the time, but she simply did not know how to. Taking the piss out of things and making jokes was how she got through her days.

But she did agree. Harry didn’t deserve her behavior. Maybe he was a bit of a jerk to her to begin with, but insulting his class might’ve been crossing a line.

Because she didn’t actually think it was stupid. She quite enjoyed listening to him. She liked learning something new and following his instructions as he walked them through some of his techniques. She liked being connected to all the people in the little studio, even if only briefly. Complete strangers all shared that one little thing in common and it made her all fuzzy and warm inside each time she met up with Rose at the end of every Wednesday and Saturday.

Hiding behind a bit of humor, however, was a lot more comfortable than admitting she found pleasure in anything as corny as sculpting classes.

On Friday night, boredom got the best of her and she took a chance upon searching Harry’s name on Instagram while she took her weekly bath. It had been Rose’s idea, the bath, not stalking her attractive sculpting instructor online. That decision was completely her own. But the baths at the end of stressful weeks had a little influence from her best friend, as did most aspects of her life. Baths were a waste of time, in her opinion, and she preferred the efficiency of showering. But Rose had given her nice smelling soaps and weird fizzy things for bath time and well… she couldn’t let them go to waste.

So, amid her regularly scheduled, once-a-week bath, she scrolled shamelessly through Harry’s feed. Because he did, in fact, have an instagram. And she only knew it was him because every fourth post was a video and in said videos were his hands. And, fuck, they were just as nice on film as they were in person.

He didn’t post much of his face, which she thought was an actual crime, but there was a lot about him and his sculpting. She found out it had been his sister’s birthday recently, who, when she smiled, looked just like him. He’d also just finished a piece he seemed really proud of, a clay head and bust of a pit bull, to which he linked in the caption about a local shelter who rescued the breed specifically and needed donations. Her heart nearly fucking melted.

Harry wasn’t much of an open book, though, unless he let his art do most of the talking. He seemed to enjoy sculpting women the most, which is probably why he’d been so good at de-lumping the breasts on Rose’s mermaid. But all the female sculptures he made weren’t sexual at all. They had meaning behind them. Like every single clay face she clicked on throughout his photos had a story. Like he was uplifting rather than fetishizing.

And not every single one of them was skinny and had perfect features. She was shocked to see at least half of the creations she’d skimmed through were of larger women with imperfect breasts at times and asymmetrical faces. Not sticking to typical European beauty standards as she may have originally assumed he might.

It made glancing down at her very much imperfect body feel a little less like an attack. Because Harry spent his time putting all his love into his little sculptures with diverse body types that she almost felt ashamed for ever hating hers.

Once she was done clicking on just about every single post he’d ever made, she finally found a selfie. Well… not really a selfie. Someone else had clearly taken it of him candidly while he had been working. But there was an awfully cute smile on his face and very familiar dimples poking into his cheeks that make her heart warm up again.

He wasn’t a damn thing like she’d assumed he was from the beginning. She thought his art centered around the ideal, and that maybe he was a little condescending because of it. But his Instagram told a different story about his art. And she wanted to know so much more about him.

She was completely lost in her dreams about him that just the smidge of distraction led to accidentally liking a photo of his from two years prior.

She’d have to move countries. Change her name. Delete everything. Never look back. Y/N? A distant memory.

Before dropping her phone in the tub and really making a complete ass out of herself, she threw it, instead, onto her furry rug in the middle of the bathroom and sunk herself down into the water. Wondering if it would really be so bad if she just drowned a little bit.

Because she desperately wanted to. There was nothing she could do. Not even unliking the picture would help. He’d still see the notification. Still click onto her page and realize who in the fuck had just liked a two-year-old post of his that he, himself, had probably even forgotten about.

She wanted nothing more than to sink her head under the pink-tinted water and never come back up. Her mind would not stop with the visualizations of what his reaction might be. Things he might be thinking. Like is this that fucking bitch from my sculpting class? Or whether or not she might find herself blocked by morning.

God, just make it stop.

But suddenly her phone buzzed and her heart just about stopped beating. It had to be the notification that Harry blocked her. Was that even a thing? Did Instagram notify you if someone blocked you? And why was her phone on silent? Because her Instagram notifications and her text messages made very different sounds. If it was just a text, she’d consider ignoring it. She’d continue marinating in all her shame a little while longer. But it ate her alive not knowing what the buzzing was from.

So, carefully, she pulled herself upright and reached across the floor until she had her phone in her hand. Before she clicked the screen on, though, she closed her eyes and inhaled a deep breath.

But when she opened her eyes and found out why her phone had buzzed, she let that breath out and settled her ass down again. It was Rose.

Hey, I can’t make it tomorrow for class. Felt like absolute shit at work today and had to go home because as it turns out I have the flu.

“Fuck,” Y/N mumbled to herself. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to go alone because facing Harry after she just did what she did was one thing, but doing it all by herself was another. But a part of her did still want to go tomorrow. The part before her horrific accident when she was full on getting a love boner over Harry. She’d wanted to see him again so fucking bad.

Okay. I probably won’t go too then

Y/N physically frowned at the idea of waiting another five days to see Harry again. Her brain really needed to make its fucking mind up about him. Did she want to see him or not?

No! You have to go and tell me what I missed!

Y/N rolled her eyes, but felt relieved. Even after her embarrassing slip up, her desire to see Harry again still prevailed. And she hated it. How was she even supposed to look him in the eye tomorrow, both of them knowing damn well she’d been stalking his Instagram back to two fucking years ago?

* * *

It was beyond weird sitting in their usual cafe on Justice Hill alone, even without the whole Instagram fiasco of the previous night she was trying everything in her power to forget about.

However all the desperate attempts to bury that awful experience were fruitless when she glanced across the room over her latte and found a very familiar set of grumpy-looking eyes already staring at her. But once she did notice him, he immediately looked away, stepping up to the counter to order his own cup of coffee.

She nearly choked on her drink, having to set it down and wipe what had spilled onto her chin off with a napkin she’d already used to sop up another one of her messes.

Of the three weeks now they’d been going to classes and frequenting the cafe just before, she’d never seen Harry. It was like he didn’t have a life outside being an instructor. He just popped up in the studio and she always left before him so she had no idea what he did after class either.

But seeing him here was like seeing a fucking unicorn in real life.

She couldn’t help watching him either, even if she knew she shouldn't. But, in her defense, he was wearing beautiful wine-colored corduroy pants with a tight white t-shirt tucked into them and a beige coat thrown over his arm to match. And for shoes he had on his usual white vans that had gained a few more scuff marks since the last time she’d seen him. His fashion would look terrible on anyone besides him.

He glanced her way again, briefly, when he left the counter with his cup, fighting his legs from walking in her direction but not exactly winning that battle.

And to her surprise, he stood right in front of her, behind the chair where Rose usually sat.

And when she looked up at him, he completely forgot why he had come over. He had no fucking clue what he was doing there. But it was too late now for him to back away and pretend like it never happened.

“Your friend's not coming?” His voice shook, but she didn’t notice with the way he finally took his fucking eyes off of her and gave her a chance to breathe again. He glanced at his watch just to confirm that it was, in fact, only five minutes until class started and it seemed reasonable to assume Rose wasn’t meeting her before then.

She pulled herself together and pretended like his close presence wasn’t intimidating her in the slightest.

He smiled and the second she saw those dimples she was reminded of his Instagram all over again.

“A little,” he nodded, pinching his thumb and index finger together in the air and she painfully agreed.

“Lucky me.”

He left her so fucking speechless, that after he started backing away from her table, reminding her to not be late, she still ended up being late. Because she sat in her chair for what felt like a century repeating his two words over and over again in her head.

Lucky me.

She knew he was only teasing but the way he’d just gone along with her original joke and how his voice sounded when he said it, she could not believe it. She could also not believe how Harry had some kind of massive hold on her that she sat staring at a wall for ten minutes trying to figure out how to operate properly again just to get up out of her chair.

Lucky fucking me.

She could scream.

If she wasn’t in public.

There was an extra pep in her step as she took Justice Hill alone this time, partially because of how giddy Harry had made her and partially because she was late… right after he told her not to be. But how was she supposed to be on time after what he’d just done to her emotions. And to the throbbing mess between her legs, but that's another story entirely.

Everyone was all over the place when she’d finally arrived, though, so it made slipping in the back that much easier. Not that she got past Harry’s watchful eyes, though, but at least she wasn’t interrupting anything while the class readied their workstations for another full night of going ham on their sculptures.

Harry kept his eyes on her mostly the entire time she did the same at her empty little area, watching as she tucked her purse under the desk for safekeeping and threw a couple tools he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her use onto the table. When she wandered off to the wall of shelves to retrieve her absolutely horrifying work of art, he finally gave her some privacy again. But he couldn’t help the fact that he’d been worried sick when she didn’t show up on time after he’d just seen her at the cafe, thinking something horrible could have happened to her between there and here.

So making sure she was unscathed before he, too, got his area organized was essential.

She sat in her chair and stared at what she had made the past three weeks. They’d started with something simple on the first day, taking a pre-cut slice of clay and free-handing a bowl with a few tips from Harry thrown in here and there. Then they jumped straight in after he showed them a few clips of sculptors working, pausing to explain specific things about creating a head and face. They were given everything they needed to make sculpting a complete figurine of a human body as easy as possible.

And still, she managed to create a combination of Shrek and the abominable snowman.

She huffed, wondering if she asked nicely enough Harry would let her just start all over. But before she could even think to do so, he clapped his hands together and got everyone’s attention for today’s mini-tutorial.

He explained smoothing to them and how there were many different ways of doing it so that your end results weren't littered in fingerprints. He reminded them to use water to smooth out the initial shapes of the clay they wanted and if they were having a really hard time with too much warmth from their fingers to use the gloves.

He ventured a little into detail work of the bust, showing a short clip of another artist forming collar bones with just two tools and her fingers. He explained what tools those were and why they were the most efficient for details and went on some more about other detail tools that were good for different things.

And the entire time she was far too lost in his voice and how his eyes lit up passionately when he rambled to even think about the fact that she wasn’t taking a single note for Rose’s sake.

They’d done a few lessons on details for the face, but they had yet to really get that far, only having put on tentative eyelids, lips and a nose for their heads before he really dove deep into details in what she assumed would be a full class later on.

And when he finally took a break to ask for any questions, she was, of course, the first to raise her hand. He thought about ignoring it, knowing all too well that anytime Y/N raised her hand in the back of his classroom, she was up to no good. But he was too nice to do that to anyone, even her.

So he called on her by nodding his head and she cleared her throat while he grimaced, expecting the worst.

“So, um, for example if we were going to do bigger details like abs on a male figure, what would be the best tool for that?”

He could have sworn he was having a heart attack. He had to blink a few times just to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. She was actually asking him a legitimate question, and a good one at that. He had to repeat what she said in his head first, just to make sure it was real, before he answered, completely unprepared.

“Um… well after you lay out the clay where you want on the body, you can use one of the knives to blend the edges,” he held up an example of one for her, “and then a large ball or oval tool like this,” he held up another, “to smooth everything out. You’d probably want a more blunt pointed end to shape them, though, after you blend the clay in.”

She nodded like she’d been fully absorbing every single word coming out of his mouth and then he watched as she dug around quietly in the tool kit on her desk, in search of the types of tools he’d mentioned.

He could not fucking believe it though. She finally showed a stitch of interest in learning about sculpting. And he had no idea why she decided to right now. Maybe it was because she was without her partner in crime, but either way he was stunned. Absolutely fucking marveled.

After a few more questions and some demonstrations, he let everyone go and continue working on their projects while he circled the room as he normally did. And he found himself glancing at her from time to time, all by herself in the back with a genuine look of concentration on her face as she attempted making her creature a little less loch ness monster and a little more human.

Eventually, after he figured she was giving it enough effort for him to step in and help if she needed, he headed her way. And just as she sensed him walking down her aisle, while she was busy shaving off clay, a piece of it went flying into the air, completely out of control.

He stopped in his tracks after almost being smacked in the face with a chunk of clay and bent over to pick it up before someone squished it into the bottom of their shoes. He leaned over the edge of the table in front of her again, setting the piece of clay down next to her gently while she bit her lips between her teeth and tried to hide her embarrassed red cheeks behind her hands.

“Sorry!” She squealed at him, further digging herself into a hole.

He shook his head, “S’alright. Not the first time that’s happened.”

She laughed at the thought of him actually getting hit in the money maker with a hunk of clay and it eased her worries a little.

“So how are those abs going then?” He asked.

She stared at her sculpture for a moment before she sighed and turned it around to face him. It wasn’t as bad as it had been before, but it was still pretty rough.

“Mind if I…?” He held his hands out and she, without a single hesitation, handed it over to him.

He immediately grabbed the shaving tool she’d been using, and since it still sat next to her where she’d put it down moments ago, his fingers brushed against her hand when he picked it up. Sending every one of her nerves in the general area on a field day to mess with her nether regions again. It’s just… his fucking hands were an art form in and of themselves. His knuckles prominent, stretching soft skin around the bone. His veins protruding every time he made a more delicate move that required precision. Even the ones on his arms underneath the ink when he was a bit more rough with her sculpture sent her over the moon, while he shaved off bits and pieces with firm pressure to define the shape of the body and somehow create a human-like figure from her mess.

Then he started smoothing down the surface with a little water on his fingers and she went batshit. His hands while dry were one thing, but sparkling, wet, slippery fingertips? Lord have mercy.

She watched him spread a chunk of extra clay onto what would be the figure’s chest to build it up a little more with the knowledge of their previous conversations about dicks and abs making it clear she was attempting to make a male figure. She couldn’t help but watch his muscles flex underneath his tight white t-shirt. From far away across the cafe it had caught her attention. And now right here, she was definitely not letting it go unnoticed. It wasn’t too tight that he looked ridiculous, but just the right amount to show off every curve of his biceps and triceps and whatever other -ceps he had hiding underneath the shirt. He was normally in oversized tops so she was taking full advantage while she still had the chance to.

When he handed it back to her, it was like he’d done some kind of magic spell to get it to look so good after what she’d given him to work with. He leaned forward a little more and pointed at the figure’s chest and she was only halfway paying attention to him when he spoke, mostly focusing on how close he was and every single time he accidentally brushed his skin against hers.

“So if you want to make the abs,” he paused to glance over and dig through her pile of tools until he found the one he was looking for. “Use this to kind of sketch out the shape like we did with the faces,” he took the ball tool and rolled it down the middle of the chest, making a short indent to separate where the pectorals might be, “then you can add on the dimension like I was saying earlier.”

She took over the tool when he flipped it around and gave it to her so she could try for herself. And he watched for a short while as she did what he said to do, sketching out tentative abs, but not really knowing exactly what they looked like to come to any sort of realistic end. Her figure started to look like a shirtless Johnny Bravo.

He just giggled and pointed his stupid finger back into her personal space, smoothing down her mistakes until they disappeared, “Have you never seen a six-pack that wasn’t on a cartoon character?”

She racked her brain, trying to say something funny, but once she looked into his eyes, nothing came to mind. “Of course I have. I just don’t know how to make them look realistic.” She couldn’t exactly remember the last time she’d been faced with a naked man’s chest, but she had seen them before.

“Well…” Harry sighed, resting his head on his hand and staring at her sculpture sideways, “he doesn’t have to have abs.”

And then she said it. Something worse than her earlier set of words back at the cafe. She had no clue what was going on with her tonight, but she needed an ass-kicking for it.

“Do you have abs?”

“Me?” His eyes flickered up to hers in shock and it was far too late for her to backtrack, she was here and she had to face what she’d done. Even while he looked at her like she was fucking insane.

“Uh, well. I mean…” She had no fucking clue what she meant. And even if she did, she sure as shit wasn’t telling him.

Then it clicked in his brain. “You’re not using me as reference, are you?”

After a solid three seconds of just staring at him, she laughed. “No, of course not.”

“Hope so after you gave him that wonky penis.”

She sighed once they were through it. Once he’d proved, yet again, that he didn’t make her embarrassing statements feel as bad as they really were. He kind of just... went along with it.

But then she made it even worse.

“So yours isn’t wonky and crooked, then?”

Jesus, fuck Y/N just shut up.

His smile never faded, however, and instead, he leaned close again and whispered, “Maybe one day you’ll be lucky enough to find out.”

#harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles fanfic #harry styles writing #sculptor!harry

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sevenkittensinatrenchcoat · 3 years

Text

Cats 1986 (and Others) vs. 2016

A post I made a few months ago comparing information gathered from interviews with different Cats casts has come up again recently and I’ve heard even more interviews since, so I want to add on to that a little and elaborate on the things I’ve already said.

CW: Some of the language regarding Demeter’s backstory is a bit darker than I’ve previously mentioned

So, I’ve now heard interviews from US Tours III, IV, and V, spanning from 1986 to 2012. They’re all Broadway-based, and the Broadway Revival went in a very different direction, but the three tours were all very similar to each other.

In both the tours and in 2016, the cast was sat down before rehearsals to hear the “story of Cats”. However, this meant two completely different things. The Tour casts were told the plot of the show, who their characters were and what they were meant to be doing. The 2016 was told the story of how the show Cats was created, how ALW had the idea and made a show out of it. No mention of the story and characters. This means that the Tour casts were given useful information for building their characters, while the 2016 cast got something that was interesting but did nothing to help them do their jobs in the present. More emphasis was put on the show’s legacy than on how to actually perform it. Trevor Nunn did the 2016 explaining, I believe, and it sounds like he was on an ego trip, talking about what he did instead of what the cast was supposed to do. Trevor Nunn is one of the few people who knows how the show works, so this is quite frustrating.

Though the Tour cast was given a whole story, most of them only remembered the perspectives of their own characters. The point of learning the plot was so that they knew what they were doing. It wasn’t supposed to matter to the audience. So, everyone mainly focused on their own jobs. But, everyone knew Demeter’s backstory, because it was the first thing they were told and it caught their attention. It almost became a meme that the first sentence of the plot was “Demeter was raped by Macavity”.

The story begins with Demeter having just escaped from Macavity. He kidnapped and raped her. Though she didn’t want it, she kind of enjoyed the sex, which messed with her head quite a bit. Bomba went through the exact same thing, but because she enjoyed it, she acts like the whole thing was nothing more than an annoyance. The two react to the same situation in different ways.

Jacob Brent was either given a toned down version of the story (he mentions kidnapping, but not rape), or he chose to give a toned down version to avoid the uncomfortable subject.

The 2016 knew that Macavity and Demeter had some sort of backstory, but they weren’t very clear on exactly what happened. They decided that they’d had an abusive relationship, but that the whole thing was consensual and there was no kidnapping, because the only element of this story that the audience can pick up without context is that there was some sort of sexual relationship between Macavity and Demeter, but she’s now afraid of him.

At least one cast member said that Macavity was a rapist, but she didn’t elaborate.

This messed with Demeter’s character far more than anyone expected. The rape element honestly isn’t necessary. Demeter and Macavity had some sort of sex, but it could’ve been consensual, with Demeter enjoying the sex but hating the man. That’s actually what Gillian Lynne seemed to have implied in interviews. However, the kidnapping part of the backstory is important, because it establishes the connection between Demeter and Grizabella. While hiding from Macavity, right before the story begins, Demeter sees Grizabella on the Bad Side of Town. Due to not being a Jellicle before this night, she doesn’t know who she is, and therefore has no bias against her. She just sees this woman living on the streets, humans wondering aloud why she isn’t dead, and felt sympathy for her.

So, when Grizabella appears at the ball and everyone hates her, Demeter wants to intervene, but she doesn’t want to upset her new friends. She came to the Jellicles for protection and is afraid of them rejecting her for siding with their enemy. Still, she tells the tribe what she knows about Griz, possibly trying to convince them to be nicer to her, but it doesn’t work and Demeter just starts following the crowd.

The lyrics Demeter sings, by themselves, are musical exposition that doesn’t imply sympathy. A line like “You’d really have thought she’d ought to be dead” sounds like it could be played as an insult. The words can either mean “I’m surprising the poor thing’s still alive in her condition” or “Why can’t the bitch fuck off and die already?”. Without the context of Demeter’s backstory, Kim Faure picked the latter, when with the context, it’s clearly meant to be the former. So, Demeter’s delivery of her lines in Glamour Cat in 2016 is venomous, almost sadistic.

Later on, towards the end of act one, 2016 Demeter reaches out to Grizabella like she does in most other versions, despite the earlier delivery. What made her change gears? I have no idea.

So, there was a lot of insight on Demeter. She’s the character with the most detailed backstory, making her the closest thing the show has to a protagonist.

Another character that gets a lot of attention, as he demands, is Tugger. Many Tugger actors were interviewed. I think he’s the favorite character of the host of the podcast. Different Tuggers from different eras responded to certain topics differently. Tuggers from the 1980s were unaware that Tugger was commonly interpreted as Not Straight and that Tuggoffelees is a thing. But, the more recent the show their from, the more they’re aware of and interested in the topic. The Tour V Tugger joined very late, during the last few years of the tour. He had access to the internet and could see what the fandom was up to. He played Tugger as ambiguously bi and, though he hadn’t thought of it at the time, liked the idea of the Tuggoffelees pairing. Tyler Hanes, 2016 Tugger, was the only one interviewed who played Tuggoffelees on purpose.

Tyler Hanes was very interesting. He watched the 1998 film while preparing for the role and didn’t seem to like it very much. He wanted his version of Tugger to be his own and avoided taking inspiration from any other version. John Partridge’s Tugger and Hanes’ Tugger being so different from each other might’ve been deliberate.

But, the choreography is what really messed with Tugger’s character. The host of the podcast mentioned Tugger’s pelvic thrusts and Hanes said that he wanted to do that sort of thing, but the new choreography removed all of it. He couldn’t make Tugger as horny or sexy as he wanted to. It was a key part of the character, but the choreography just wouldn’t let it happen. The result is that a bunch of queens fangirl over Tugger, but because Tugger’s defining trait in his number is being vain and obnoxious, the reason why he, of all toms, is considering the sexiest is completely lost. He’s just a dick to everyone (except Misto) and they love him anyway.

Other Tuggers do act like assholes during the number, but it’s not the focus. The lyrics are about Tugger being difficult, but the choreography, often to a comedic degree, isn’t about that. The message of Lynne’s choreography is that DESPITE Tugger being obnoxious, he’s a sex god and that’s what matters to his fans. Blankenbuehlers’s choreography mainly focuses on Tugger being obnoxious, which is a better match to the lyrics, but it makes the character less likable.

Also, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The two most sexualized numbers are Tugger’s and Macavity’s. Tugger’s number is about a man being sexy. Macavity’s number has two women being sexy. Blankenbuehler redid Tugger’s number, toning down the sexuality, but he left Macavity alone completely, so it’s as sexual as it always is. Male sexuality needs to be toned down, but female sexuality is fine. This is what happens when a woman is replaced with a straight dude. I doubt it was done on purpose, but there was definitely some subconscious bias going on there.

The way the casts talk about the two choreographers is also different. Both of them are treated as the experts on the show, more like how a director is normally treated. But, how well they filled that role varied. Lynne could explain what every single move meant. Those who worked with her knew exactly what they were doing. Nobody has ever described any of Blankenbuehler’s choreography with the same detail. In numbers in 2016 that Blankenbuehler left alone, even without Lynne present at all, everything was clearly explained. Skimble actors, since Skimble’s number wasn’t altered much, describe people who’d worked with Lynne talking them through the choreography. No one talked about Blankenbuehler’s work like that. Every move of Lynne’s Jellicle Ball apparently represented something. Blankenbuehler’s Jellicle Ball looks fine, but there isn’t that level of detail.

The rehearsals of the the choreography were paced differently as well. 2016 was apparently put together in something of a hurry. Most Cats rehearsals begin with several days of the cast studying cats and learning how to move like them. 2016 devoted only a few hours to this. Gillian Lynne reportedly visited a rehearsal and was upset the none of the dancers knew how to move like cats. Cats has unique choreography in a unique cat-like style, but the 2016 team had no time to practice it, so they often come across as a bit too human. They’re talented human dancers, but they’re not very cat-like. Blankenbuehler’s choreography is often in a different, more modern urban style, that doesn’t seem like it was done with cat-like movement in mind.

I don’t hate Blankenbuehler. In behind the scenes stuff, he seems like a nice guy that the team liked working with. But, I don’t think he really understood what his role was. He was a choreographer and he did choreography. This would’ve been fine, even great for any other show, but not Cats.

Most modern musical theatre is based on opera. Characters sing about their feelings and that tells the story. The added element of dance takes the feelings of the song and amplifies them. The actors are emoting with their entire bodies in a larger-than-life way that creates an emotional intensity that audiences can empathize with. The music makes the audience feel what the characters are feeling in a way nothing else really can. Music is kind of magical. You hear a certain melody with certain instruments, and suddenly you’re happy, or sad, or angry.

This, by the way, is why going for realism in musicals is a terrible idea. Musicals don’t exist in physical reality. They exist on an emotional level that realism takes away from.

Cats rarely works like opera. The lyrics are mainly just adaptations of whimsical poems, so they don’t tell you much of anything. Memory, which features original lyrics and no dancing is an exception to this rule. In general, because they’re not dance roles, Grizabella and Old Deuteronomy have to use music and song lyrics to play their parts in the story. Jemima also does this whenever she does something connected to either one of them.

But, Cats is normally more of a ballet than an opera. Ballet tells a story purely through dance. Because the lyrics in Cats matter so rarely, it ends up working like a ballet, because the dance, unrelated to the poems, means something. It’s still a heightened reality where music invokes emotions and actors emote with their whole bodies, like in other musicals, but instead of the dance being an amplifier, it’s the storyteller.

ALW really liked a bunch of poems and wanted to put them to music. The result was a bunch of songs with a similar them but no real connection to each other. That works as a concept album, but Webber wanted a musical, an actual show where people danced to his concept album. He didn’t care about the story and didn’t expect anyone else to.

But, other people cared about the story. No one knew how to make a musical that’s not about something. Trevor Nunn added Memory and the storyline with Grizabella as an emotional centerpiece. There wasn’t a clear plot, but, on an emotional level, it now felt like something was actually happening. Gillian Lynne had no idea how to choreograph a musical about nothing, so she didn’t. She came up with her own interpretations of things and made the show about something. Several somethings, in fact. Victoria is going through puberty and discovering her sexuality. Demeter is recovering from an abusive sexual experience, with Bomba having a different attitude towards being in the same situation. The women in the story were given detailed story arcs that often revolved around their sexuality.

How sexuality is portrayed in Cats could be its own essay.

Anyway, Cats tells its story with a unique style of choreography. Because the choreographer is the story teller, Lynne had a lot of influence over the show. She was the one who knew all the details. Blankenbuehler was brought in to choreograph a show, like a normal job for him, not knowing what that would actually mean. He came in to have dance amplify the emotions in the song lyrics like in any other musical, not knowing that that’s impossible to do with Cats. The role of choreographer meant a level of knowledge and control that would normally belong to the director, composer, and lyricist. He didn’t realize that the show having any story at all depended on him.

So, he did stuff that looked cool, but didn’t tell the story, or that took the story in a direction that it wasn’t supposed to go. Tugger dancing in front of a giant mirror is funny in the moment, but that sort of narcissism, though funny, isn’t likable, and Tugger needs to be likable. He’s a major character and he helps save the day at the end by hyping up Misto. But, 2016 Tugger hypes up Misto because if feels like Misto is the only cat he truly respects. He has the same respect for Old Deuteronomy that the others have, but he doesn’t sound quite as sincere when he sings about him. He spends so much of his number antagonizing Munkustrap in particular that it’s hard to believe that he has any respect for him.

What can be learned from these interviews is that Blankenbuehler didn’t know what his job truly was and was there because someone important thought Cats would be more popular in 2016 if it was more like Hamilton and got the Hamilton guy to give it a make-over. Nunn was so proud of the show’s success that he neglected what made it successful in the first place, and the 2016 cast was rushed through rehearsals without proper instructions. Everyone tried their best, but they were all stuck.

For the most part, I blame whoever decided to have Blankenbuehler rechoreograph the show. Blankenbuehler did what he thought his job was and the cast did their jobs to the best of their ability. What really ruined Cats 2016 was an executive decision to fix something that wasn’t broken, believing if they made the Old Big Show more like the New Big Show, that would make people love it again. But Hamilton is no more like Cats than a cat is like a dog.

#cats 2016 #lots of cats tours #really long post #andy blankenbuehler is bad at cats #but it's not his fault #a cat is not a hamilton #gillian lynne #don't let her legacy die with her

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braceletofteeth · 3 years

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I would love to hear you elaborate on the Jieun/Jaeho/Jongwoo dynamic. It's pretty central and your post on Jaeho made me think and reconsider certain aspects so... pretty please?

I'm so happy that I could give you some insight! Thank you for asking me this, I'd probably be too lazy to elaborate on that for myself only.

You'll see that it got a little long. Since the dynamic involves three different people, I separated it in three parts, so to not be confusing.

Let's start with Jaeho and his involvement with Jieun.

The way I see it, they have nothing to bond over other than Jongwoo. Jaeho clearly finds Jieun attractive, but if that was his only reason to target her, it would be much easier to find another woman who was not dating already. It's not about Jieun, neither for her personality, nor for her looks. It's about Jongwoo's girlfriend, especifically.

Will this dude really try to convince me he can't find another woman in the whole city of Seoul that likes him in spite of his horrible personality, and therefore needs to hit on his friend's girlfriend, whom is only nice to him because he is her boyfriend's friend? And that he wants her for her, and not because Jongwoo "has her" and he doesn't?

Yeah, sure. It's not personal at all 🙄

I don't believe Jaeho could be more envious and selfish if he tried, but I already talked enough about it in the post you read first (if I go on in here too I might get stressed again lol).

Now, about Jieun. I know she really likes Jongwoo. I know, because of the times she puts him above her job, even though doing so damages her image to her boss and makes her life harder at work.

And another reason (that may sound crazy at first but hear me out) is because she meets with Jaeho many times.

You just need to remember their main theme of conversation. It's always Jongwoo this, Jongwoo that, the problems Jongwoo is having. Jongwoo is actually the excuse Jaeho uses to make her meet with him. Jieun is genuinely worried about Jongwoo most part of time (even if she doesn't really believe in the things he tells her, and finds his complaints annoying—whatever, he isn't perfect, but he's still her boyfriend, and she stands up for up him until the point she gets fed up with it all after he has been two inches away from killing her, which for normal standards is too far, I guess).

I don't believe, however, that she is naive and doesn't know what Jaeho truly wants from her—especially not after her boss rubs it in. On one of the nights he calls, she seems uncomfortable when he says it would be just the two of them and Jongwoo wouldn't be present. She also knows how it looks to other people, and what they must think of her.

But the problem is: Jaeho has a cover (a very good one). She can't turn him down until he drops the facet of "concerned friend" and makes an actual move on her. She can't tell Jongwoo, either. If she does, Jongwoo will (rightfully) be angry and confront Jaeho. That's where things get tricky. Jaeho is not only Jongwoo's "friend", but also employer. He could lose his job. If he loses his job, he won't have money to pay for his rent, and will have to go back to Busan, to the starting point, and away from Jieun again.

It's all about power play. Jaeho has the advantage and Jieun accepts her defeat, the same way she accepts the unfair demands of her own boss, because there is no way out without losing something in return (in the first case, Jongwoo's job, and in the second, her own).

What's the position of our last link in all this, then?

I'll start this final part a little weird: Yoon Jongwoo has really good manners. I have yet to make a whole post about it. Jaeho, on the other hand, has not.

From their first conversation after Jongwoo arrives in Seoul, Jaeho always brings Jieun's name up in disrespectful ways, objectifying her. As the best example, the scene at the office, in which he tells Jongwoo, "She seemed very hot for you". Wasn't enough his poor choice of words, it was said in a place where everyone could hear him. Jongwoo showed his disapproval immeaditely, but Jaeho used his CEO position to make his employees back him up. This was neither the first nor the last time Jaeho used his position to show he has power over Jongwoo, to pick on him and to get on his nerves. Not with the purpose of see him losing control (as someone we know), but to be the person who will force Jongwoo to hold himself and acknowlegde that Jaeho is the most powerful man in the room.

Jongwoo is not blind to it, and it's probably one of the reasons Jaeho is one of the people he would really like to snap on the most (we can see it in his imagination, and he gets very close to it in the restaurant scene on episode 8). But, for the most of it, Jongwoo tries to bear it. He stops frowning. He calls him boss instead of hyung. He gets in line and does as he's told.

It's different when Jieun is the one Jaeho is messing with, though. Jongwoo himself wouldn't dare to say or do anything disrespectful towards her (He can barely look her in the eyes??? He doesn't fight back when she's being cruel??? They only hold hands??? Hello???), and he absolutely can't abide that his "friend" (or anyone, really) would. She's one of the only more or less good things in his life at the moment, so of course he will protect her at all costs. When he sees her getting out of Jaeho's car, he gets angry at Jaeho, not her. He never asks why she was with Jaeho and doesn't assume the worst of her. He trusts her to a fault. He needs to, I imagine, in a world where everything else is corrupted.

Anyways. That's all just my personal opinion; it may change, and it's always up for debate. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter, if you ever feel like sharing, anon! Feel free to ask for clarification, too, if I had not expressed myself well at some point.

Have a good day and take care 😊

#answered #sorry if there are any typos #I revised but after a whole day writing and reading the same thing my mind might just elect to ignore them #also. if anyone else would like to say something about it #you're welcome to as well #I know there is at least one person who is going to tell me I was defending Jieun's position too much lol

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m3r1m4r5u333 · 3 years

Text

((Here, have my angry rant on biphobia within the queer community. This rant could, with little tweaks, be about the discrimination and ignorance of almost any other kind of multisexuality as well. But I struggled to come up with a umbrella term for that while I was writing this, and a shared name for the phobia of them all. So I simplified things. Also, we keep hearing the term 'biphobia' but I feel like many people don't recognize it when it happens, so I thought I'd focus on that.))

Anyway.

I once shared - to a gay guy - my upset about the fact that gay people use bisexuality as a stepping stone on their way out of the closet. He acted all understanding, told me that it sucks that people do that... And TWO DAYS later wanted to share exciting news! He'd told his dad that he's bi! He told me that he'd lied to his dad, and he knows he's not actually bi, but he'd figured he could test the waters that way!

I was stunned. I'd just told him in freaking detail that this is harmful to the bi community because nobody believes that bisexuality is real when eventually every 'bi' person just says they were lying and are actually 100% gay. So I wished that people who KNOW they aren't bi would stop telling people they're bi.

But there we were. He'd just happily shat on me and my people and then expected freaking congratulations for coming out. I acted calm. Told myself it's great that he came out - well sorta came out. Said my congrats. Honestly, what I really wanted to do was tell him to FUCK OFF. That freaking audacity to listen to my grief about how people treat the bi community and think 'hey, I think I'll fuck them over this way too, what a great idea!".

Gay people keep telling us that they want bi people to stop hiding, to be your allies? Then be ours in return! Dicks.

Btw, if you're very gay and gay only, and you're reading this, wish to come out somehow, think that dude's idea was a great one... It isn't the soft landing you think it is.

You'll likely have to come out twice to the same people, first as bi, then as gay. Btw, have fun regaining their trust after admitting to lying, they'll either think you can't be trusted or that you're mentally unstable because your understanding of sexual identity keeps changing - and most likely your family will cling onto the hope that the first announcement - you're bi - was the true one so have fun trying to introduce your same-sex partners to your family. They may just ignore your same-sex partner and keep trying to set you up with that "nice person" to get you into that nice 'straight' relationship because you have that potential, right? You're almost straight, right? They just need to find that right person for you and the problem is solved!

And no. You won't avoid religious rants by saying you're "only" bi, not fully gay. You will still run into people who are disgusted by thoughts of your sex life. People won't leave you be because you're only 'semi-gay'. No, they will still push heterosexuality on you. They will still ramble on about hell fire and your precious soul that needs saving asap.

So bisexuality isn't the stress-free joyride people think it is, most often you just get the traditional same-sex-relationship-phobia alongside with hatred from the gay community.

What hatred from the gay community? Nobody is biphobic, bisexuals have a letter and all! Right?

No. Let me just share some wonderfully ignorant (misquoted) biphobic insights from within the queer community that we keep running into!

1. "Bisexuals are just faking that identity to hide their true pure gayness. Bisexuality doesn't exist. They're still in the closet. They're all just gay like us! I'm gay, and I also pretended to like a different gender for a while! These "bisexuals" will come out FOR REAL any day now. So you're saying you're bi? It's a phase!

No it's NOT a dick move to say that to a bisexual person - it's concern for their mental health because friends look out for each other and it's healthier to REALLY come out. You'll feel so much better - just admit you're not bi already! You're not ready yet? It's okay! Once you get some experience under your belt and really taste that rainbow you can't go back. You'll soon be strictly into dick or pussy like I am. Haha haha!

Sure, it sucks when straight people try to invalidate us gay people by saying that our homosexual identity is a phase... but why would I, a gay person, remember that hurt when there's a chance to pass along the rotten unvalidation apple to someone else! After all, what's greater than to maximize that experience of doubt and disrespect! Let's make sure that this brainless hounding never stops - Some people will try to invalidate your sexuality because they're trying to save your soul and others will try to turn you gay because you need to be gay to really fit in the community, to really support the community, to hate any hint of the heteronormative lifestyle with us. Abracadabra be straight in the name of a god/ abracadabra be gay so that you'll never abandon the queer rights movement! Yeah sounds like a plan, we should just attack whenever the religious nutters wander away to really bombard this bisexual motherfucker with invalidation so that they can never have a moment of peace anywhere. The queer community isn't their safe place, let's remind them of that.

2. "Maybe they aren't bi... Maybe they're straight! Watch out! Bisexuals are just using you for easy sex!! Using you to experiment. Using you to look cool because everyone knows bisexuality is TreNdY. Using you to turn on someone they're actually into. Using you because it makes them feel good to be wanted when they feel nothing for you. Using you for your company until they abandon you and settle in that straight marriage. Using you because they want to avoid an ex and acting 'bi' will make that ex lose interest. U s i n g... y o u.... Can't think of a reason why right now - but there must be a hidden one, everyone knows those flighty bisexuals can't be trusted!"

3. (Basically these" well-meaning" fuckers never mind their business. When a bi/pansexual is in a same-sex relationship people keep trying to warn the same-sex partner that the person they're dating is actually straight and in a same-sex relationship simply for attention, convenient sex, or to experiment, and will eventually leave them for that heterosexual lifestyle.

When a bi person is in a different-sex-relationship people keep telling their partner that the person they're dating is actually gay and using them as a beard/the person they're dating is gay and they're just using their partner for their reproductive organs since they want to be a parent and it'a easier to have kids this way.)

4. Bisexuals CRAVE sex. They're insatiable. They cheat. They're addicted to sex. They're unable to be monogamous. They must have a female partner and male partner to thrive, this is a need they ALL have. They're ALL polyamorous."

5. "Okay, maybe they're not all polyamorous... But they're clearly unable to love or stay interested long-term! Even if they're monogamous they will just randomly get bored of the same genitalia and will break up with you to have fun with a different set."

6. They will INSULT you by really being bi!!!! They will tell you that they're bi, date you, and when the relationship some day ends... They ACTUALLY turn out to be bi by starting a relationship with someone of a different sex!!! How offensive!!! THIS IS AN ATTACK ON YOU AND YOUR GENDER AND YOUR COMMUNITY woop woop ring the fucking alarm! Clearly they picked their new partner just because they wanted to wave a middle finger in your direction! How dare they not be cured of bisexuality by your love/magical private parts! How dare they not consult their ex about who they get to date after the relationship ends!! How dare they abandon the discriminated minority and pick heteronormativity instead! They should always struggle like you do! How dare they undermine the superior mightyness of gay love by entering a different-sex relationship! How dare they forget about gay rights by not picking a partner that makes the gay community visible - the gay community needs their mascots! How dare they insult your gender and attractiveness by falling for someone who does not look like you! How dare they pick someone with different genitalia than you - you're a sex god and your ex should always crave for the same kind of sex they had with you! Obviously they should consider your feelings and choose a partner who doesn't hurt your tender self-esteem like that. Their new partner should actually look like your identical twin so that you know they're properly fucked up about the break-up! This is all about YOU. YOU. YOU. You get to decide who your ex gets to fall for. Their new relationships are your business because you own them even though you aren't even dating anymore. You think this logic is completely sane - but they're the asshole because they moved on from your biphobic ass."

7. They said they're bi and started dating me. This is a same-sex relationship. Obviously this means that they're fully gay now. Or... It means that you should be super paranoid that some day they will embrace their internalized homophobia and break up with you! Even if you've been out to everyone for years, attend pride every year.. Yes, clearly they're super ashamed of their sexuality."

8. "They said they were bi when they dated you, their same-sex partner. Now they're with someone of a different gender. It isn't a same-sex relationship... Which means that they're straight now! Because a dating history of being in relationships with more than one gender is somehow NOT bisexual behavior! How fucked up of them to go back in the closet and pretend to be straight!"

9. "Bisexuals must always choose a same-sex relationship. Anything else is offensive, homophobic and traitorous to the community. They must always choose the harder path. They must struggle. They can't choose a different-sex partner and avoid discrimination - that's selfish! They must suffer like we do even though they could be perfectly happy in a different-sex relationship. They must not use common sense and seek a partner with whom they can have child without needing to resort to adoption or surrogacy.

It's just homophobic to want that easier heteronormative lifestyle!!!! Nevermind that same-sex relationships are illegal in large parts of the world, nevermind that in large parts of the world people with same-sex attraction may end up dead, be executed by their own government, be attacked or end up in prison. Nevermind that in many countries same-sex adoption isn't an option, or surrogacy isn't legal. Nevermind that it likely costs fuckloads even if it's legal. Nevermind all that and everything else. They should just always struggle. It's more romantic to face hardship and date within the gay community - struggling soulmates baby! They must not set their personal needs first, they must not fall for someone who's different gender than them - they are our puppets, they exist to be mascots for the gay rights movement. Any decision to have an easier life will be seen as internalized homophobia and slacking. Fuck heteronormativity! And fuck bisexuals.

No wait - don't. Don't fuck them. Don't date them. They can't be trusted. Stay clear of them! What did you say, 'that's biphobic'? We're NOT biphobic. We HavE MaNy Bi FrIEnDs. BiSeXUaLiTy Is VaLId."

#Biphobia #biphobic #discrimination #bisexuality #pansexuality #heteronormativity #lgbtqa #lgbtqiia+#lgbtq #lgbt discourse

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raineydaywrites · 4 years

Text

working on from then til now (4/5)

link to part 1 (x), part 2 (x), part 3 (x), ao3 (x)

Taako couldn't explain how, but they got past it. Angus asked for more magic lessons, he hung around with Tres Horny Boys, and he put up with all of their dumb jokes until Taako stopped wanting to flinch every time they spoke.

Taako found himself growing extremely protective of the kid, much to his own dismay. He didn't want to care about this stupid kid. But he kind of already did. He'd cared about him before he'd learned what he'd done, and he'd felt- responsible for him afterward.

He loved this dumb brat, and it was terrifying, and it was amazing.

And then everything changed again.

The deaths at Glamour Springs- they hadn't been his fault at all. Not directly anyway. Not in the way he'd always thought they had been.

It had been Sazed- the fucker- jealous and bitter and taking it out on Taako and his audience.

Taako hadn't done anything wrong. Well, except for everything he did that convinced Sazed to hate him in the first place- but, but that wasn't the same. It wasn't his cooking. It wasn't his magic. It wasn't him.

It was just a dick who went way too far.

Taako wanted to be happy about that, but he couldn't quite bring himself to be. It didn't change anything that had happened, really. The only person that this knowledge benefited was himself, and, like, yeah, it was pretty great to know that he hadn't messed up in that particular way- but was it really all that much better? Still his fault. Still his food. Still his reputation ruined with no way to prove that he hadn't done it.

But he could tell Angus about it. And maybe the kid wouldn't feel so bad about him anymore.

Angus had been really torn up about befriending his parents' supposed killer, Taako knew. Kid was all about justice and fairness, so it was hardly a surprise. He had spent so long wanting to punish the killer, and then suddenly he was trusting him instead. Of course the kid was gonna feel weird about it.

Oh. Wait.

On the other hand, Angus wanted justice. He'd pushed that aside when he'd thought it was Taako, thought it was an accident.

How would he react to knowing that it had been murder after all? What would the kid do about it?

The thought of Angus running headlong after a murderer, especially while emotional and overwrought, sent a spike of fear through Taako's blood. Sazed was a slimy motherfucker that had always known how to act in his own self-interest- how to eliminate loose ends. Taako had appreciated it before, when he hadn't realized that the guy was willing to commit stone cold, premeditated murder. When those talents had been used to his advantage in running the show, and he'd thought Sazed wouldn't do anything worse than skirting some of the less convenient laws.

Sazed had poisoned the food Taako made for a crowd. He had wanted Taako to die in front of an audience, to die painfully and ruin his reputation in the process. Sazed had either not cared about or maybe even hoped for the deaths of the audience members as well. Sazed must have planned it out at least a few days in advance, if not longer, and he had spent that time calmly working with Taako while imagining his death.

Sazed had been the one to suggest running first. Taako knew that he probably would have come to the idea soon enough, but he'd been too frozen in shock in the moment to start moving. The fucker had seen his plan go awry and decided to make Taako look as guilty as possible before ditching him and stealing his shit.

He would have no qualms about killing a kid.

If Angus went after him, he'd be putting himself in danger.

And Angus would go after him. Taako knew him well enough by now to know that. You didn't become a renowned detective by the age of ten by holding back. The kid had no concept of his own limits and a years-long hope for justice.

Taako couldn't let that happen, but he didn't know how he was supposed to protect the kid either. He and the guys could go with him, Taako supposed, but that would still bring Angus into danger by the fact that he would be present with a murderer.

And Taako didn't know enough about Sazed or the situation the guy was currently in to be certain of the threat level. He was sure that he, Merle, and Magnus could take the guy if he was by himself, but what if he had allies? Who even knew where the guy was nowadays?

Taako was going to tell Angus. Of course he would tell Angus, the kid had a right to know.

But he needed to make a plan first. He needed to figure out how to keep Angus safe and still get the justice he so wanted.

Taako tried to make a few discreet inquiries, but 'discreet' wasn't exactly the best skill of THB. And Angus McDonald was a very good detective.

Taako was woken by an urgent eyed Davenport, and he immediately knew that something was wrong. He wasn't sure why exactly the worried look on the dude's face prompted an instinctive alarm, but he had learned to trust his instincts.

"What's happening?" he asked, even though he knew he wasn't going to get much of an answer out of the guy.

"Davenport!" was all the guy offered, his hands moving quickly, but Taako didn't understand enough sign language to actually get it.

He did notice the signs for "Director" and "Angus" though, and he was moving instantly.

"Lucretia in her office?" Taako questioned, only pausing long enough for Davenport to nod before he was pulling on his boots and grabbing the Umbra Staff.

As Taako left, he half-noticed Davenport going to Magnus' and Merle's rooms to wake them as well, but he didn't pay it any mind, moving out of the suite and towards the elevators with a single-minded determination.

By the time he got to the elevators, the other three had caught up with him, and Taako tapped his foot impatiently as he waited for Merle and Magnus to get in the damn elevator so they could get a move on.

He said nothing the whole trip to the Director's office, just knowing that something was wrong.

"Taako, there you are," the Director said, voice tight with worry when they got to her office. "When was the last time you spoke with Angus?"

"Yesterday? No, wait, day before," Taako said, stomach sinking with dread. "Why?"

"He left the base very early this morning, telling Avi that he had a family emergency to attend to. Avi had no reason not to believe him or to deny the request, so he sent Angus down planetside. But Angus left me this note-" the Director's voice cut off for a second, and Taako felt his dread increase. "He's in danger, isn't he?"

As the Director handed the note over for them to look at, Taako felt a strange, sickening sense of deja vu. Some part of his mind was screaming that everything was about to go wrong, but he didn't even know why.

The note was longer than Taako had expected, though he supposed it shouldn't be a surprise that the little nerd had babbled on.

Taako read the note as quickly as possible, cursing when he read Sazed's name.

"You two idiots can't keep your fucking mouths shut, huh?" Taako said, glaring between Merle and Magnus, refusing to admit to himself that if Angus had really been listening in for a while, he could have easily heard about it from Taako instead.

"Taako, please, not now," Lucretia said, glancing up from where she had her face buried in hands. She looked tired, and Taako thought about how much she seemed to like the kid and felt a stab of sympathy.

And she was right anyway. Snapping at his friends wasn't going to get them anywhere.

"Fine, whatever. We gotta find Ango," he said, hoping that Magnus and Merle would understand it as the apology it was meant to be. They seemed to.

"Do any of you know who this person is that he's looking for?" the Director asked. "I spoke with him a little while back and he said he was having a personal issue, but he didn't give much detail, and I didn't want to pry. Did he ever say anything to you three? I know he spends a lot of time with you."

Magnus and Merle glanced to Taako, clearly unsure how much he was comfortable revealing.

"Yeah. I know who he's looking for," Taako said. "Where'd Avi send him?"

"Wait- don't you have some way to track him through the bracers? They know where we are right?"

"They don't transmit constantly," the Director said, leaning her head forward in exasperation with herself. "I didn't want to be creepy, spying on my employees, you know?"

"Fuck," Taako said emphatically.

"It was a nice thought, though!" Magnus said, patting the Director on the back comfortingly.

"That could get invasive and weird, yeah, I suppose," Merle mused.

"Yeah, thanks for not being Fantasy Big Sister or whatever, but can we focus?" Taako said. "Where. Did. Avi. Send him?"

"Davenport!" Davenport exclaimed, spreading a map out on the Director's desk and gesturing to it, quickly marking where Avi must have put Angus down.

"Great. We're going," Taako said.

"I've had a team looking for Angus since I discovered that he was missing. They haven't turned up anything yet," Lucretia said. "I'm asking about this individual because I'm hoping that it may offer some insight to where he might be, or where Angus might seek him out."

"Team sweet flips?" Magnus questioned, a bit of excitement entering his voice.

"No, I'm afraid not. As impressive as they may be together, they're not our most- subtle team. I've sent a team of Seekers instead," the Director explained.

Taako stared down at the map, wracking his brain to figure out if he could remember anything useful. He hadn't paid much attention to Sazed, if he was being honest. He didn't know the guy enough to have a clue of where he might be.

But something familiar was whispering at the back of Taako's mind, and he focused, trying to pull it forward.

"There," Taako pointed to a small town a fair but walkable distance from where Avi had sent Angus. "That's Sazed's hometown. That's gotta be where Angus is looking."

The Director didn't question it, instead tapping at her Stone of Farspeech quickly.

"Maya? Have you and your team found anything of note in the town of- Wellspring? I have reason to believe Angus may have sought this individual there," she said.

A voice Taako was unfamiliar with came crackling back. "Yes, we have! I cannot confirm anything, but I'll send you the location information now."

Taako felt a tiny flash of relief, but didn't let it show. This wasn't over yet.

"Great, thank you," the Director said, and Taako saw the same wary hope on her face that he felt in himself.

"Normally, I would send Regulators for a task like this, but I know how much you three care for Angus, and so I ask if you-"

"Yes!" All three Reclaimers spoke before she could even finish speaking.

"Then I wish you good luck," the Director said, smiling softly at them. "Avi is waiting. I'll have Seeker Maya meet with you to explain the situation."

Taako was already leaving, barely taking the time to wave in acknowledgement as he stalked out of the office and toward the transport bay.

As they walked, no one said anything, too furious and worried to feel comfortable goofing too much. This was Angus who was in danger, after all.

The whole way there and into the glass cannon ball, Taako found one thought spiraling around in his head, over and over, somewhat nonsensical all things considered, but unshakeable regardless.

Hold on Angus. I can't lose you too.

part 5 (x)

#taz balance #taako taaco #angus mcdonald #febuwhump #febuwhumpday21 #taz lucretia #taz davenport #magnus burnsides #merle highchurch #taako adventurezone #lucretia adventurezone #Davenport Adventurezone #my writing

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lightsandlostbells · 4 years

Text

wtFOCK season 3, episode 2 reaction

In this episode, stuff ... happens ... in theory? Reminder again that negative opinions lie within, don’t read if you would prefer not to hear them.

EPISODE 2

Clip 1 - Morning after housewarming party

Zoë shows Robbe around the kitchen the night after the party, Senne goes off to “drink coffee in a clean room - it wasn’t my party” so there’s a moment of awkwardness with Zoë, I guess? I will say this: I’m not a Noorhelm fan, but I don’t mind seeing them being actually domestic instead of pointless drama, and while I don’t want the season to focus a ton on it, I don’t mind seeing drama that’s more grounded and less terrible than William and all the Nikolai rape response stuff.

A random dude who’s a one-night stand of Milan’s appears in the kitchen and Robbe and Zoë giggle. I was going to say that I wish Robbe appeared maybe a little more thrown/uncomfortable with it, or awkward, but then you can see him looking at the guy … considering … like maybe “hey I liked seeing that dude in his underwear” or just “hmmm wonder what it would be like to have a one-night stand with a man … gay thoughts can’t catch me” so like. An actual good moment! If they had combined this into episode 1, it would’ve really worked well and got us into Robbe’s attraction to men right off the bat.

But hey, both can happen! Show Robbe as awkward when confronted with proof of Milan’s gayness, yes sir there is man-fucking happening under this roof, and then at the end, have his discomfort turn to slight interest at the dude in his underwear. Robbe is conflicted in that he’s not comfortable with all this gay stuff, but at the same time, he can’t help but be intrigued.

On the one hand I think it helps to have the Isak more socially isolated at the start, but I do think Robbe and Zoë are really cute pals so far.

Clip 2 - Robbe and Noor in store (heh)

Robbe goes to meet Noor at work, she works in retail at a clothing store. They smile and make out. ...Why? Why is he actively pursuing her?

From a narrative perspective, pretend I don’t know where this season is going. Pretend I don’t know we are actually headed for a gay romance - which, hey, is kinda fair because we haven’t even met the male love interest yet. I am getting very mixed messages as to what Robbe wants. He seems to like this girl! But he didn’t want to have sex with her. OK… so maybe he’s asexual, or maybe he’s just not ready for sex. Maybe he feels nervous or like he has no idea what he’s doing because he’s a virgin, IDK. Perhaps we need to establish more clearly that Robbe’s hesitation in having sex or going farther with Noor is due to his lack of interest in girls, contrasted with his interest in guys.

Of course, I know internalized homophobia is a thing, and that Isak did the same thing with Emma. But consider that we actively saw how his pursuit of her clashed with his inner feelings - we saw him try to avoid her, we saw his lack of interest in the bathroom or at kosegruppa , especially compared to his interest in Even, OR when he did pursue her, we saw him pressured by his friends to attend her party, or we saw him have to psych himself up in order to speak to her. There was contrast all the time. And we also saw a clear cause and effect when Isak did pursue her: Isak was Googling about how to be into girls when you’re gay. It was very clear that Isak’s external actions were at odds with his internal desires. I’m not saying that we need wtFOCK to spell out the same for Robbe. HOWEVER, we do need more to go off, because otherwise this reads as a teenage boy who likes a girl, but who isn’t super into sex with her, which could result from several reasons other than him being gay.

And yeah, there are a few moments where we tentatively broach the topic of gayness. But not many! As I mentioned previously those moments are also muddled with other issues, like the guys ditching Robbe for the girls is muddled with him being sad about his mom. Him apologizing to Milan is muddled with what could genuinely be an awkward moment, like Robbe could hypothetically be a straight dude who didn’t have the best reaction to a guy trying to kiss him? It seems like the most definitive evidence of Robbe being gay was in previous seasons, not this one.

But they’re making it feel like Robbe really likes Noor. They’re not selling me on where Robbe is in his journey. Is he trying to act straight for an audience, as Isak did? That makes no sense when he’s going out with Noor on his own, with none of his boys around. Is he in denial? Is he trying to act straight for his own sake? That makes more sense, but that’s when I really need more introspective Robbe POV. And I’m a big fan of show don’t tell, yet Isak’s season managed to be so subtle about it while making it obvious what his deal was, infusing every clip with the themes, letting us know what’s in Isak’s head. I have no idea what’s in Robbe’s head right now.

I guess maybe he went to visit Noor because Milan’s one night stand man gave him gay feelings and he needed to combat them? IDK, dude.

Anyway, Jana is there shopping and Noor drags Robbe into a changing stall, they make out, Jana interrupts to get Noor’s opinion. Robbe seems less enthusiastic but waits in the stall until Noor returns. Noor comes back in and she and Robbe make out, getting hot and heavy, borderline foreplay until Jana needs her help again. Robbe seems unenthusiastic. Noor goes back to work. Robbe gets a text from his mom asking why he doesn’t visit, does he not love her. Ouch! That’s actually a good moment for the family drama. Robbe looks conflicted.

Also, I like the shot of Robbe reflecting in the changing room mirrors.

What was the point of this scene when the EXACT SAME THING happened in the last episode, just two clips ago? Noor tries to get it on with Robbe, he’s not into it, they’re interrupted.

Was the point to have Jana there? Why is she there, anyway, is this going to be a plot point? Because she could have been the one to interrupt them last time if she needs to know about their relationship for some reason. Although everyone seems to know about Robbe/Noor getting together anyway, so ??? Was it to have someone interrupt them in the changing stall? Because that could have been any random customer who needed help. I mean, Noor’s manager could have yelled for her to come help with something.

The only thing that’s really different about this clip was the text from his mom, which could have occurred in ANY setting, like in the kitchen scene with Zoë.

Jana could have been there to reference her previous suspicion of Robbe’s sexuality, like she sees him and Noor and we can tell she doesn’t fully buy their relationship. But that doesn’t come through in the acting (no disrespect to the actress, because that is all on the director to come up with that angle). Or maybe Jana calling for Noor to help her could have seemed more calculated, like maybe Robbe seemed awkward with Noor, she picked up on that, and now she’s trying to help him out.

A small POV moment: we don’t need to see Jana and Noor outside the changing stall. It’s not necessary, their conversation has zero importance (like was this an ad for this clothing store or....) What would have been effective? Sitting with Robbe inside the stall, focusing on his miserable reaction, seeing him trying to psych himself up for Noor makeouts. We hear Jana and Noor talking outside the stall but it comes across as distant and detached - which is what Robbe is feeling.

Clip 3 - Robbe goes to see his mom

We see Robbe in the hallway of the hospital - an actual good moment, potentially. He apologizes to Noor via text for leaving suddenly. She’s working, dude, you shouldn’t be there anyway.

I don’t mind Robbe meeting with his mom, that could be very good, but it’s also such a radical change that I hope they actually do something with it. If Robbe is willing to visit his mom in a mental health facility, then is he more informed about mental illness in general, and how will that affect his relationship with the Even? Etc. This is actually a big change from Isak’s attitudes about mental illness, and it doesn’t make as much sense for Robbe to parrot those same ignorant attitudes later. (EDIT from the future: lol)

Robbe gets home from meeting with his mom. He tries to dodge Zoë’s questions about it, but she says, “You can try it with Jens and them, but not with me.” Well, on the one hand, I like Zoë and this is a nice relationship. On the other hand … uhhh, how close are she and Robbe yet, really? They’re getting friendly but are they at this level?

Robbe is like, you don’t know how long this has been going on and Zoë apologizes. I do like that Zoë doesn’t really know what’s up and is giving him kinda generic advice? But also … I think part of the power of the Magnus talk was that Isak had been keeping the extent of his mom issues and his issues with mentally ill people to himself, when all this time he had a friend who understood. One of S3′s lessons for Isak was about opening up to people - that he wasn’t alone - and Magnus’ insight into having a mentally ill parent is one of the ways that lesson proves itself. For Robbe to be getting a pep talk about supporting mentally ill people so early on in the season seems like it could potentially undermine both the arc with his mother AND his relationship with Even, like … he’s had someone counseling him on dealing with mentally ill people all along, before he even meets his Even. I mean, Zoë basically gives the Sonja talk here. And now he’s also been in regular contact with his mentally ill mom. So while of course he can still have serious issues with mentally ill people, it does present quite differently from someone who’s been keeping them at arm’s length, like Isak. You have to account for that. (EDIT from the future: lol)

Milan comes in with his boytoy, Milan sprays whipped cream in his man’s mouth, they kiss. This was done well, actually, because Robbe is shown in between them, and we see him taking them in, like … huh, two men kissing! Interesting!

Robbe has a Moment and Zoë asks Milan and the guy to stop with the PDA. He calls out her hypocrisy since she’s always making out with Senne. (He’s right based on what we saw of them earlier.)

OK, Senne opening his mouth so Milan can spray whipped cream inside is actually adorable, and I kinda dig having an Eskild and a William interact in an affectionate way.

Robbe watches the men kissing again, hmmmm. Good job, this is what we need from his POV.

Senne is leaving to go hang out with his pal. Zoë seems kinda sad he’s not eating with them. I mean all things considered, taking it at face value so far, this seems like normal couple shit and not something to make a big deal out of. Things change when you move in together or when one of you goes to university, duh. Not that it’s bad to explore this, just that it’s not a huge cause for concern yet.

I laughed because the subs say that Zoë describes the salad as “lettuce, tomatoes, and cheese” and that is definitely not what we see on screen. But at least Zoë being fussy over what Robbe eats is some good characterization, it makes sense for her.

Clip 4 - Skate park

The boys are talking about how to jerk off with a numb hand. Robbe shares a Look with a dude who walks by, Now that definitely is the Even, right? Unless they were just messing with audience expectations? (EDIT from the future: Looks like Sander to me, but I don’t know what the audience consensus is.)

Jens recommends jerking off with toothpaste … okay as a non-dick haver I cannot vouch for this but. I feel like this would lead to Bad Things. Aaron’s reaction of clutching his crotch seems apt.

Is bike dude the Even instead???

OK LMAO NO, IT’S NOOR, I couldn’t tell because of the distance at first and also because my visual processing skills are not the greatest.

See, it would’ve been better if it were the Even. Because I thought they were grilling Robbe on having sex with Noor while his attention kept drifting back to the guy on the bike, which is decent storytelling and communicates where his interest really is ... but it’s actually Noor so there’s none of that subtext there.

Robbe rushing to make out with Noor can at least be interpreted as him wanting to show off for the boys. Moyo wants to join in? Hmmmm.

You dumbasses KNOW you interrupted the sex, weirdos.

Wait, so ... what was the point of this scene?

I’m not trying to be funny, I’m asking seriously. Everything in this scene was either irrelevant to the overall story OR something that had already been established, such as Robbe’s awkwardness about sex with Noor ... or the fact that he’s with Noor ... the boys knowing that he’s dating Noor? About the only thing that was new to this clip was the brief glance between Robbe and the mystery dude, something that could have been included in another clip. Are we setting up that Moyo is interested in Noor? Maybe they get together after Robbe breaks up with her? (EDIT from the future: no) Or there’s a dramatic scene where Jens is rushed to the hospital after a toothpaste-related dick mishap? (EDIT from the future: no, although it would have improved the season immensely)

Clip 5 - Seaside arrangements

So I guess the boy squad makes YouTube videos or w/e?

Aaron’s happy to see Amber approach. Amber asks if Noor is coming to the seaside. So what, is there a joint girl and boy squad beach trip or whatever? The seaside trip is to hook up, I guess.

God, I would actually kinda dig Aaron and Luca as a couple more than Aaron and Amber.

Robbe looks bummed that Noor will be joining them, and at the prospect of “sex on the beach” so hurrah for that detail.

Err, kinda weird, though, that the point of this clip seems to be nagging Robbe into inviting Noor (which is fine, a way to communicate his discomfort and the fact that he’s in too deep with Noor) but then at the end Amber is like oh nm, Britt already asked Noor and she’s coming? So the whole bit with nagging Robbe ... did not matter. I think it would have worked better either way: Robbe is peer pressured into inviting the girl he didn’t want to go, OR Robbe is powerless to prevent the girl he doesn’t want to go from coming with them. It just feels like this is unfocused writing by trying to have it both ways.

So will the YouTube thing be plot relevant?

Clip 6 - Boy squad and Noor in hallway

12:21, I see what you did there. Maybe.

Noor is handing out flyers for a school performance, she kisses Robbe. WAY TOO MUCH TIME IS SPENT ON NOOR AND ROBBE.

If I were watching this show with NO prior knowledge of this storyline, I think I would feel so unbalanced when Even comes around? Even with the previous hints about Robbe from earlier seasons.

Robbe is like, I don’t think this dance is for me, while the boys look around. Uhhh, I mean … if this is supposed to be the equivalent of Emma’s pre-drink, it’s stupid? Getting invited to drink with a girl you made out with once =/= getting invited to a dance performance by a girl you are clearly dating and making out with every opportunity. One of these is clearly a bigger deal. I get that Robbe isn’t into her (SUPPOSEDLY) but this is just a weird way to adapt that scene. He’s not trying to shake off someone he regrets making out with; this is someone he is actively instigating makeouts with, so why the sudden regret? I guess it’s because now he doesn’t want to go to the seaside with her? But he just kissed her two seconds ago! Either Robbe is trying to get out of his thing with Noor, in which case we should see him being awkward when she tries to kiss him - not smiling and touching her as he does - or he’s still fully on board trying to date Noor, in which case why wouldn’t he agree to go to her dance performance?

And the other guys are like, AGHAST because obviously they want to watch hot girls dance. So it is a direct adaptation of that Emma scene. Except it doesn’t make sense.

Also, Robbe is rude and dismissive to Noor about it, and she walks away with a frown, but that doesn’t make sense with his characterization so far!!! Because there is NO evidence of him being a fuckboy in this season, so far he’s honestly been pretty chill and sweet with Noor (visiting her at her work, etc.) and he keeps actively engaging with her on a level that Isak was not doing with Emma. I GUESS you could extrapolate to say he wants to turn her off so he doesn’t have to go to the seaside with her and bang her, but lmao, that’s me giving way more credit to the writing than is merited, and again, makes no sense considering he seemed perfectly fine with kissing her just now.

Or he tried to get out of it because dance sucks and men don’t go to dance performances? IDK, dude. I have a hard time following the logic of this scene based on what we know about Robbe and Robbe/Noor so far.

The boys talk Robbe into going because it’s his duty to help them get pussy. What charmers.

Actually, this is also dumb because they could just go to the dance performance themselves? Emma was clearly inviting Isak to her private party and the others were only invited by proxy, so Isak agreeing to go was a requirement for the other boys to attend. But in this situation, Noor is passing out flyers to everyone walking by, and the dance performance is a school function for anyone to attend, so who gives a shit if Robbe wants to go or not? They’ve already established they’re cool with ditching him to chase girls, they can just go without him if he’s being a sourpuss. I guess they need him to be the bridge between them and Noor’s hot dance friends.

Noor comes back and is happy they’re going.

Clip 7 - Milan pranks Senne

Zoë complains about Senne coming home and snoring all night, and like, lmao, that’s charming, but also … that’s just part of being in a relationship and living with people, lol. If snoring is your biggest concern, YOU ARE DOING FINE. You’re young and figuring out how to live together. You’ll be fine.

There was probably Discourse about Milan getting “revenge” by hopping into bed with Senne, and I get it but I’m tired, dawg. Let’s just acknowledge this is hinky and leave it at that.

Senne freaks out when he kisses Milan by mistake. Zoë and Robbe laugh. Missed opportunity to show us a more complex reaction from Robbe! Gay shit keeps happening around Robbe and sometimes he has a reaction with serious thought behind it, and something it just happens, no big deal, ha ha. When the main arc for your protagonist of this season has to do with accepting his sexuality, why are you half-assing this stuff?

What is the point of this clip if we’re not getting some insight into Robbe’s POV? It’s cute that we’re getting to know the roommate dynamic, I guess. Upcoming drama with Zoë and Senne? No need for that to be its own clip instead of part of something relevant to Robbe himself. Milan likes getting revenge, as foreshadowing to an absolutely atrocious clip that happens later in the season?

Robbe considers Milan … I think? Frankly they make this seem like buildup to Robbe having a crush on Milan. I guess he’s supposed to be like, whoa, what a bold gay guy! He kisses boys!

I mean … I don’t really know what’s going through Robbe’s head. I don’t want to be spoon fed information, but I also kinda need to know what Robbe is thinking and feeling if this story is to make any impact on me. And I think I just don’t know where Robbe is at with his sexuality. It feels like maybe he’s tiptoeing into the realization that he’s into guys? Isak knew he was gay, he just tried to perform heterosexuality due to social pressure and internalized homophobia. Robbe does not seem like he knows. Which is … kinda off, because I’ve seen S1, I know he’s got some suspicion. It’s just feeling inconsistent.

Clip 8 - Sleeping arrangements

They arrive at the seaside, there’s a room with two single beds pushed together for the couples, like Robbe and Noor. He doesn’t seem too thrilled about that!

Moyo manages to make it an empty room for whoever wants to fuck, inadvertently helping his bro out.

Except Noor shows up and decides to sleep in the same bed as Robbe anyway.

Are Moyo and Luca going to hook up, is that where their banter is heading? Who are the boys hoping to hook up with, anyway? Because the only single women on this trip appear to be Jana, Amber, and Luca. Aaron is into Amber, and I guess Jens might want to hook up with Jana again??? But who is Moyo considering? I suppose there are other girls in the area who are not specifically with their group.

Clip 9 - Robbe and Noor scene #26232452634

Zoë texts Senne she misses him, and he’s like #metoo, which is … lmao, MEN.

Amber is like, lol men. Please be gay, Amber!!!!

She shows Zoë a pic of Senne on Insta, he’s having a good time, Amber tries to start some shit … GOD I ALREADY DON’T CARE

I mean, the thing is … I can get into couples’ mundane problems! But not when it’s a het couple having boring het drama in a season that’s supposed to be focused on a gay storyline with a primary gay romance that hasn’t even started yet.

Zoë has a sensible reaction, that just because they’re a couple, they can still have fun and live their own lives, although it’s delivered in a way that I know she is not really okay with it.

Aaron pulls Robbe aside because Noor has passed out in the grass. Noor pulls Robbe down to cuddle with him. He’s kinda ehhh about it, they make out, Noor is ready to bone. Robbe is not into it. She’s about to give him a handjob in the grass (like … within eyesight of their friends) when she pukes, a physical manifestation of Robbe’s feelings about sexy times with Noor. He wipes grass/puke/whatever off her face while she lies there, out of it. (Roll her onto her side, Robbe!)

What a pointless, redundant clip. What is going on?

TWO WHOLE EPISODES IN and we haven’t met Even yet … okay.

HOW I WOULD REWRITE THE EPISODE:

This question is hard because already they need a major overhaul. “Everything” is a copout answer.

So first of all… repetitive as fuck clips. Three clips in two episodes where Noor makes out with Robbe, they almost get sexy, he’s not into it, and then something totally unrelated interrupts the attempt. Even apart from the pointlessness and boredom of watching the same thing happen over and over again … I think you can get away with ONE example of this. ONE example of this scene where random happenstances stop the hetero sex from going down (ha). One example is perfectly fine.

It’s not even just that it’s redundant. It’s also that, so far, it’s random chance stopping Robbe from having sex with a girl. It’s not his own character actions (or his inaction). It’s very passive on his part, which is understandable for someone who is afraid of his true sexuality and is trying to go with the flow. But he cannot hope that his friends walk in, or Jana needs help, or Noor throws up, every fucking time he gets close to having sex with a girl.

Basically the narrative is contriving to save him. It’s not Robbe making a choice to stop the sex. It’s not even Robbe letting it happen and letting that have some emotional consequences. It’s out of his hands. These clips are both preventing him from making an active choice as a character, while also not letting him deal with the emotional fallout or consequences of sleeping with a girl. And I don’t WANT Robbe to sleep with a girl! But for fuck’s sake, if you keep having this same scene play out, with Robbe not stopping it, and only random interruptions rescuing him … either stop this tedious shit, or let it have an impact on his character already.

I don’t care about Zoë and Senne’s boring mundane drama taking such precedence in Robbe’s season. If it happens, it should be more relevant and parallel to Robbe’s personal problems! It would make more sense later on when Robbe is struggling with his relationship with Sander.

Here’s an idea to make the retail clip count. We see Robbe getting conflicted about Milan’s gay hookup. Have Robbe go to visit Noor to apologize for getting nervous and running off last night, have him bullshit about wanting to take things slow with her, etc. However, while he’s at the store, he sees, IDK, a hot dude picking out clothes, or a hot dude trying on stuff in the changing room, and he’s into it, you see him get nervous. He checks out the hot male models in the ads. Maybe Noor works with lingerie and we see Robbe looking at all the bras and underwear with this expression of “Am I supposed to be into this?” I think the scene is overall rather redundant and could probably be clipped, but with some tweaks, you can highlight the contrast in Robbe’s attraction to men and his attempts to appear/be into women.

I mentioned this above, but you could also make Jana’s presence in the store matter instead of feeling like something random. She makes small talk with him about him being into Noor, in a way that the audience recall Robbe’s browser history from S1 - we can tell she’s very skeptical of his interest in Noor, and maybe Robbe is trying to appear sincere about being into Noor but it’s not totally convincing. Then when Noor is trying to get hot and heavy with Robbe, Jana intervenes and we can tell it’s because she’s trying to subtly save Robbe.

The Even should be introduced already. Come on.

I’m not just saying that as an Evak shipper and an Even fan. I am saying that because Even essentially kicks Isak’s arc into motion. He is the catalyst for Isak confronting his sexuality, for reassessing his feelings on mentally ill people, for basically all of his character development. Right now we have two episodes of Robbe treading water, basically. Dating Noor is treading water. It’s fine to show that Robbe is stuck in a rut - we saw that with Isak - but the difference is that something - someone - showed up to get Isak out of that rut pretty early on. It’s not just about wanting the uwu Evak moments, it’s about wanting the narrative to actually start going somewhere, for Robbe’s character to start developing, etc.

That said, we do need to get to know Even as a character. We need to root for Robbe/Even’s relationship. Delaying that means risking that both the character and the relationship will not feel sufficiently developed.

There’s especially no reason to have this much emphasis on Noor/Robbe, a relationship that is by design meant to be fake, versus Robbe/his Even, a relationship that is meant to be authentic.

Actually, where is the tension? Only from Robbe not wanting to fuck Noor.

There are two plot threads so far that have of any weight for our main character: Robbe’s sexuality, and Robbe’s relationship with his parents. Both of them seem somewhat muddled.

It’s funny because … even many of the smaller things from Skam S3 that caused conflict are absent here?? No Isak vs. Sana and the blackmail over the weed. No kosegruppa causing annoyance to Isak. Conflict is a GOOD THING in storytelling. It provides direction for the narrative, it provides incentive to keep watching.

So here’s how I would include the Even into this episode, other than simply redoing the OG storyline:

In line with the mystery man from my episode 1 rewrite suggestion, Robbe spends the week wondering about the mystery man. Maybe we see him keeping an eye out for guys he thinks might be The One. Maybe the equivalent of the Talk Show Host scene is Robbe seeing a dude who he thinks is the Even, but it turns out to be a false alarm, and we see his hope and interest followed by his disappointment. We feel this, too! Because we’re wondering when the hell we will see the mystery guy again. Robbe asks Noor oh so casually if she knows any of the tagging people and where to find them. Robbe happens to go to the spot where he thinks the Even might be (like maybe he’s “casually” hanging there or snooping around when he gets the text from his mom, and decides to leave to visit with her). Robbe tries to dig around social media for clues but is frustrated with his lack of information since he’s going on basically nothing. Red herrings galore. Essentially, play with how the original episode 2 showed Isak developing a crush on Even. The point is that Robbe is intrigued and desperately wants to find this guy. I mean, maybe even add a concrete element to this search! Maybe the dude dropped something of his when he and Robbe met (a piece of jewelry, a glove, IDK. Something unique, something that gives us an insight into the Even’s character) and Robbe’s “search” for the dude is on the surface so he can return this item, but obviously it’s not just about that, and we see Robbe treasuring this item and keeping it close or w/e.

Meanwhile, Robbe’s interest in men overall is becoming more evident, in how he reacts to Milan and his hookup, or maybe checking out dudes at Noor’s store. When he shows up at her workplace, it’s so he can casually ask about people she knows from the tagging scene, and oh, does she recognize this glove? This gives him a motive to meet up with her besides just wanting to make out, and he’s uncomfortable when the meeting takes that turn.

And then … he’s SUPPOSED to go to the seaside on Friday, but instead Robbe just happens to run into the mystery man! His Even! Butterflies! He returns the item to Even and the Even is happy he got it back (and maybe far down the line we’ll learn that the Even left it behind on purpose, kinda like how Even was interested in Isak all along. Those Evens, so crafty.) And Robbe lies about being sick or something and skips on the trip, and hangs out with Even, and we get a scene similar to the OG where they bond and get to know each other, but obviously not word for word, centered around their own personalities. He’s having a great time, but then it turns out that the Even has a girlfriend, obviously. Everyone else is pissed that Robbe ditched them. You know how it goes. It doesn’t have to be an exact mirror of this S2 clip, but I do strongly think we need to advance this part of the storyline by this point.

Jumping forward in time: I know that Robbe meets his Even at the seaside, so you could also just, you know. Bounce that up a bit. Work in all the other ~mystery stuff and maybe Robbe is feeling disheartened and accepting that he’s just not gonna see that guy again, he goes to the seaside as planned. But holy shit, he arrives and That Guy is there! Just when he thought all hope was lost!

Imagine if the Even had left behind, like, a scarf, and Robbe started to wear it, and he was wearing it at the seaside when they meet again. Juicy stuff.

Add more reactions from Robbe toward Milan and his date. Sometimes he’s chill about gay stuff and sometimes he’s a little more hesitant. It feels very inconsistent. There are big opportunities to show Robbe’s issues with his sexuality but the show is sliding right by them.

This is more thinking ahead, but the boys’ YouTube channel should ideally play some part in Robbe’s coming out journey. (And no, I don’t count that shitty Milan prank clip as a payoff for the boys’ YouTube channel, fuck that.) I’m not sure, what, exactly - I don’t think Robbe is the type of guy to post a coming out video and it doesn’t seem like it’d be a fit for their channel. Maybe just use the channel as a way to indicate Robbe’s comfort with being publicly in a relationship with a boy. Like at an earlier part of the season, the squad is going to do some prank and Sander is like, haha, sounds fun, can I join? And Robbe tries to keep Sander away, by making an excuse or telling the boys that he doesn’t want Sander involved, because it’s implied that he’s scared of people realizing that he and Sander have a Thing. Then later on, after Robbe comes out to everyone and is openly in a relationship with Sander, there’s a video about something else but he and Sander are casually cuddling in the background or whatever.

My big problems are the lack of focus and the bad pacing. Skam S3 has a clear mission statement, a goal. There’s an endgame in mind and each clip takes a step toward that endgame. Julie Andem knew Isak’s character arc and each clip advances a part of his journey. wtFOCK so far doesn’t seem to know what to do with Robbe. Or rather, they have like two ideas - Robbe doesn’t want to fuck Noor and Robbe is sad about his mom - but no clue about how to use those ideas to advance the story, and they seem to be dawdling instead of making the most out of a finite amount of screen time.

#wtfock reactions

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unproduciblesmackdown · 3 years

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Genuine question what is billions even about I see clips all the time and I cannot figure out what the plot is besides like “business” but I am very much in love w Taylor Mason (i think that’s their last name?) so I am intrigued ...

oh i’m so glad you asked

yeah it’s not at all a Just You thing, not only do we often only post about a particular slice of the series, it’s just REALLY difficult to get (or provide. but i’m always up for the challenge) a sense of what Billions is like as a series like, genre wise, and re: the plot, my god, every [usually more than 50 min but less than an hour] episode is a journey, in that So much will have happened. it moves at a Pace, i can tell you. but you know, good news in that it’s not really necessary to explain every plot thread ever, b/c it’s as much about its Themes or what have you

the stats rundown is billions is a weekly showtime tv series partway through its 5th season (12 episodes per season, currently they are producing the last half of s5 but had been on pandemic production hiatus for the past year, we do not yet know when the rest of s5 will air, s6 was greenlit a while ago) this isn’t really need to know for this question lol, but you don’t need to Not know either

the like, content Rundown is that yeah, it’s business, mostly high finance, although one of the main characters is always doing Legal Stuff (don’t care really b/c that side of things is not generally as relevant to, yes, taylor mason, who Makes the series). the kind of overarching Theme / premise is that the show is about like, here’s these Conflicts between people who are wielding some power in various ways, looking at the motivations of the individuals involved / the Cause And Effect web of these conflicts between them, e.g. how the consequences / fallout of one Power Play Maneuver will affect someone else’s storyline and result in them executing their own maneuvers, and of course, the pitfalls of all of this. more specifically, the series kicks off with the two (then (taylor is introduced in season 2) mainest characters, Axe, ceo of a hedge fund, and Chuck, some kind of lawyer who decides to go after axe b/c axe thinks he’s hot shit (true) and chuck is like ohhh i gotta do something about this guy. so there’s an Unending Conflict, axe vs chuck, an ongoing back and forth series of small or more overarching battles, and of course sometimes alliances, because there’s a Lot of characters on this show and we’re in season 5 so there’s been plenty of other Conflicts introduced besides this particular ongoing war. also, uh oh, chuck’s wife wendy works for the hedge fund axe runs! that’s just a whole wrench in things. as some sort of like, in house therapist performance coach sort of deal, thanks wendy, she’s also fairly a Main Character

axe is somewhat more relevant for our purposes b/c that’s that Finance side of the show via which taylor is introduced. but yeah both axe and chuck are exasperating lmfao like, this isn’t a show where it’s about the Likeability of whatever main character where like, you’re rooting for the obviously righteous / justified person or anything, it’s more about being along for the ride where you get to know Why people are engaging in these conflicts for sure, but like, unless you’re one of plenty of fans who maybe aren’t bringing the most Insight to the show who find any of this like, aspirational Epic Winner stuff like hell yeah axe or chuck as the Cool Guy Who Deserves To Win lmfao, being along for the ride is knowing that you’re just getting to watch this unfolding mess, so that’s “fun” lol

to get more to the point, yeah Taylor Mason is again the best part of the series lol, they’re introduced early in s2 as a Very Talented young iintern at axe capital (axe’s hedge fund) who, yknow, part of what makes axe an Eventful character to center things around is he’s (sometimes) capable re: all these strategic finance maneuvers, and also all “i don’t play by the rules,” which can often mean like, the actual rules like “no insider trading please” or more kinda implicit moral rules like “don’t keep taking Business Advantage over people’s deaths,” and here means that even though taylor is this early to mid 20something intern with no experience in finance who’s not even, at that juncture, necessarily planning to stay in the industry, he’s like yeah they’re valuable and i’m not gonna hold them back from that potential / opportunities * just because they’re a 20something new to the industry intern who definitely doesn’t behave in the Usual Way around here and is also a canon nonbinary character, thanks ( * you might not believe it, but axe does not proceed to only ever be a potential encouraging, opportunity creating ally* (*although, one nice thing is that they....almost always....have axe adamantly hold everyone who works with him to respecting taylor as a nonbinary person, at least in how they address taylor. b/c taylor Does get misgendered periodically, which can be exhausting, but they also aren’t exactly striving to hold it to what might be most “””realistic””” so like, taylor isn’t subject to transphobia and misgendering All The Time either) and so taylor very quickly goes beyond internship at axe cap, to the extent that when, at the end of season 2, axe effectively leaves them in charge of the whole fund when his own fuckups mean he temporarily Can’t helm axe cap

aaand then s3 starts off with taylor running things but has axe return Officially in charge soon enough, so there’s problems there, in that axe is now pulling taylor Back, and like, axe is alllllll about his ego, so it’s like, of course he’d Want taylor to have been able to successfully run axe cap while he couldn’t, since it’s his fund, but then of course he’s also mad about it b/c he needs everyone, like taylor, to know he’s better & more winning than them. and taylor doesn’t appreciate now being more sabotaged and stifled and that, like, if they’re mad about being treated this way, axe is just gonna be mad about That b/c you know, why aren’t they Only grateful to their mentor or deferential to his Skill And Experience, as well as the fact that no matter how much of an Ally you are to him, he’ll be mad if you’re not unilaterally loyal, aka if he fucks you over you can’t be mad about it or that’s actually a way you’re wronging Him, and you’re also wronging him if yknow, you say he can’t/shouldn’t just do what he wants, or do anything that to him implies you don’t think he’s objectively the Best most Winning and Deserving guy in whatever regards, like, if you’re associated with someone who makes him feel insecure in his superiority for one moment, and/or who he thinks doesn’t also recognize his superiority or something, he’ll be mad at you.......the Conflicts can arise v easily around here with this beloved character walking around. so, yeah, whereas season 2 for taylor is more like wow taylor you’ve got all this potential and value here, in season 3 taylor’s sure got reason to question their future at axe cap (see this post resident Billions / Taylor Mason Pro soph made last night) and, when not only are they and axe just more often going head to head over what they want here, there’s also this added egregious conflict of “taylor starts seeing this guy oscar who’s also in finance (but not at axe cap) and when they ask axe for some input on a matter via which they intended to help oscar out, axe uses that Information taylor just used to fuck oscar over to his own advantage, and when taylor is like ‘what the hell’ axe is just like ‘what’d you expect!! i gotta be me!!! if you expected anything different, that’s on you, and if you Did expect me to do this, that’s also on you’ because i’m sure it’s a surprise to hear that axe considers himself this like, force of nature where all his feelings and motivations and justifications are Objective and Correct, and then taylor has to tell oscar what happened and naturally this ends the relationship, to their evident further unhappiness” and oops, season 3 ends with taylor having started their own hedge fund.

i could give a tl;dr for what happens over the course of s4 & (so far in) s5, but i think the s2/s3 arcs are kinda the Essential Lore for explaining this character who crashes into the show (not in that their character tends to crash, their arrival and presence is clearly somewhat of a shakeup re: the norm, but they themself are all about staying balanced and Not being driven by tumultuous emotional impulses or anything like that, *cough, the characters they are quite a Foil to in this way*) and quickly ascends to Main Charactership. (also just remembered the other stats note that taylor is played by asia kate dillon, who is themself nonbinary.) another element that is a lot of fun re: taylor is that they have like, the series’ best Friendship lol, the show is not very conducive to a bunch of characters having a bunch of heartwarming relationships, though they sure Do appreciate those characters and let us see a lot of Dynamics at play even beyond the “these people are locked in conflict” plots and characterful interactions and moments for their own sakes, and Alliances, even friendships, sure are the other side of the Ongoing Conflicts coin here. but what i’m getting around to is that taylor gets to be good buds with mafee, a Guy who was working at axe cap already in season 1, who, along with ben kim (Another Guy At Axe Cap in S1, who we are also fans of) is like, one of the actually nice(r) people around there, and who is just like. such this Hapless Cishet Dude lmfaooo but he also happens to be the guy overseeing taylor’s (and presumably others’) internship, and is yknow, maybe kinda conflicted about “i’ve Been an actual employee this whole time and there goes an intern rocketing past me” but is also Supportive towards taylor, and taylor in turn is an Ally to him, and they are Friends, and when taylor starts their own fund, Taylor Mason Capital, mafee is the person from axe cap who helps them do it and leaves axe cap to work for them there. there’s also a part in s4, after an arc in the middle of the season ended up with taylor taking quite an emotional L, mafee has gone and confronted Responsible Parties over it and, naturally, ended up in a charity interfund Boxing Match (which, a] billions is deliberately Wild plenty of times in both its Elevated Dialogue style but also just like, things that happen lol but b] apparently that’s something that can & does happen in real life in hedge fund world. absolutely bizarre to learn this kind of stuff) taylor kinda gives him this pep talk including “asking you to come with me (to TMC, mase cap, their fund) was the best decision i ever made” and even back then, when we’d just started paying attention to the show fairly recently and weren’t exactly familiar with everyone and everything going on, it was like oh i Gotta post that clip lmao

there are many other side characters, this is a very Populated show, including like, recurring characters, people liable to be introduced at various points who might become regulars Or make repeat appearances but more periodically Or be around for part of a season, but naturally also i am mentioning one specific side character of Winston (No Official Last Name), who is a Quant, aka a quantitative rather than fundamental analyst, who first appeared in One Scene at the start of season 3 when taylor was looking to hire some quants for a project, but did not succeed, and the character (then only Quant Kid 2) was only meant to have that one appearance, but delightfully everyone wanted him back and they wrote more material for him asap. taylor later brings him on to their quant project, which is revealed to be part of what ensures they can start their own fund, and in season 4 winston is apparently the head of the quant team at mase cap, and he continues to appear as taylor’s main Quant. could go into a long (and, as he’s not a Main Character and it’s easier to cover his material, very thorough) tangent there lol but you’re asking about taylor and i’m only bringing up winston b/c technically he Is relevant there lmfao but also, i have to, and [tfw this side character quant who was originally only going to appear in one brief scene was the reason you got into this series in the first place and now it’s like well, We’re Here Forever, and also, taylor mason is The character]

natch you must’ve noticed if you’re sending me an ask about billions, but if you like taylor mason you Gotta be following @nothingunrealistic the #1 Tayficianado and who has also recently nobly finished Actually Properly Watching Billions and who can give you all kinds of info about the character / series, there’s A LOT to cover and it’s kinda impossible to convey some stuff w/o simply experiencing things yourself firsthand lmfao but also, we think about these characters and this show every day for like, two years and running, so. as you can see......totally willing to talk about it at any time to any extent lol

#anonymous #winston billions #So glad to get asks like this at any point lmfao like #oh someone's asked me about My Interest huh lol. here we go babeyyy

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johns-prince · 4 years

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Idk one thing that makes me think that John was bi and definitely more attracted to males is this: Yoko said that John was into beauty and although she's full of shit and awful I believe her on this one. Before you rip me apart I really love Cyn and May, but if you really look at the women and the men in his life it's clear that John had a thing for boys. The guys he was the closest to were absolutely gorgeous ( Stu was stunning, Brian was handsome as fuck and Paul was beyond gorgeous ) /

Like I said I really love them so please don't take it bad but when you look at his women you can't really Say the same thing about them: Cyn and May were really average and Yoko well... Yoko definitely looked like a bloke, I agree with John. Now, if John was really into beauty, he would have find gorgeous women, but nope! Idk if you see what I'm talking about, but to me it's clear that he was into males' beauty, much more than women

Hi, I’ve decided to give a go at this lol I don’t think my response makes any bloody sense but I tried, apologies in advance anyhow.

While Yoko is extremely wishy-washy, fickle with shit she’s decided to say and share in interviews and such, there are certain things she’s said that hold some kernel of truth or we should at least take note of. It’s rather easy to know when she’s spewing literal horseshit from her mouth, while other times, she might be giving us some important insight, though those little tidbits of what we could consider relevant she always tried retracting [often because it doesn’t help her or their image much]

Though I wouldn’t say I needed Yoko claiming both her and John were into beauty [I mean, we all kind of are, but I digress, I understand] to believe it, because, and let me be weird for like a second, John’s a Libra. They covet beautiful things. Beauty is just, part of their inherent likes, to admire beauty.

That and, being an artist, I’m sure he did have a thing for “beauty.” too.

Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, subjective, all that philosophical jazz, but I understand what you mean.

I’m not going to rip you apart, because I hold a rather “controversial” opinion in regards to Paul’s wife Linda-- that is, we’re allowed to see these people contrary to what we assume the ‘bandom’ might push as the ‘’right/acceptable’’ and expected opinions.

We’re individuals, I don’t expect you to hold the same opinions, and I do enjoy hearing what people have to say as long as they’re clearly open, civil, friendly-like is always nice too. So, no, I shan’t rip into you lol

I see where you’re coming from.

For me, I find May very pretty, and I think Cynthia was pretty [cor that doesn’t really attest to if they were average pretty or not, I don’t know, but I can see why you see that, I do. I personally find Cynthia incredibly average looking, dare I say plain, when she was much younger, before doing her hair blonde and all that] But then again, compared to Yoko... well.

What Ronnie Hawkins said at the end of this interview, is the nicest way to put how I feel about Yoko in terms of her appearance;

“...what I couldn’t understand that he didn’t have about four or five of the most beautiful women in the world with him, because he could have.”

I know it might come off as insulting but it’s not like we were the one’s to say it first-- John was the one to say Yoko reminded him of a bloke in drag, so.

I can’t say I’ve ever thought of it this way though, or took noticed like you did.

I think it depends.

Dude clearly had a thing for drag queens and transvestites, even at an early age.

I agree, many, most of John’s relatively close male friends were very attractive, very pretty, handsome; though there’s no 100% solid evidence that John felt any strong particular way towards Stu and Brian like he did towards Paul [that is, obviously something sexual happened between John and Brian, but I think that was mainly John experimenting and having the right sort of individual he could do so with, safely, and he might have pitied Brian in a way but, I don’t think he’d meant to hurt Brian or anything. I personally don’t agree it was a powerplay either] John indeed appeared attracted to, or at least drawn to, effeminate, feminine boys.

Not saying all his close male friends were effeminate, femboys [Pete Shotton, Mal Evans...] but I suppose we’re mainly talking about the individuals that, besides being “close”[I also think we could have a discussion of what it meant to be a close friend of John’s, because even if someone might’ve thought themselves close friends with John, they actually weren’t-- not many were; Paul was possibly the closest to close a male friend/relationship John could’ve had, besides Pete] have been rumored he’d had some sort of infatuation or tryst with, like Stu and Brian; Mick Jagger was a very pretty boy, those full lips and relatively soft features accentuated by the longer hairstyles of the 60s and 70s [whether you believe something happened between Mick and John is really up to you, I’m relatively neutral on it I don’t know, but there certainly was a lot going on during this [x] [x] [x] get together between them] and David Bowie is 100% an effeminate boy, and there had been this story, whether it’s true or not I don’t know so take it with absolutely a grain of salt, where a server or whoever caught note of a familiar pair of boots in a stall that belonged to John, David, but another pair of feet which could’ve been anyone, when at a party he’d attended with Yoko. Wish I could find the damn source for it [just another thing I wish I had cataloged better, damn me]

Side note, I honestly believe John would’ve been rather interested in Tara Browne had it not been for the fact Tara was Paul’s friend, a friend who was very attractive, and artsy and bisexual, and Paul really seemed to dig him [though I do not believe Paul held any deeper feelings for Tara, as much as Tara might’ve had a crush on Paul]-- which had John feeling threatened and his jealousy/possessiveness shot through the bloody rooftops, as we know. Tara was to John as Stu was to Paul.

I don’t know, you may be right.

I personally believe John leaned more towards men specifically because he just seemed to enjoy, was happier, and was much more comfortable their company, friendship, the bond, more than women, but despite being gay or in a same-sex relationship wasn’t illegal in the UK anymore in 1967 [oh what a year] it was still easier to be with women than men, openly anyway.

Just because something becomes legal doesn’t mean culture and society are really on track with it, if you get what I mean.

But anyway, yeah, I could see it, him being more attracted to “male beauty,” more than “female beauty,” if he were to lean more towards men in his bisexuality. I don’t know.

Anyway there’s my answer, it’s non-coherent, I’m sorry lol

Clearly John couldn’t officially be with the person he wanted to be with though, who was a man, because of issues and reasons we can only begin to assume and possibly pinpoint. Nobody can hold a candle to Paul, he is a bloody Adonis, and I’m sure John would’ve agreed, begrudgingly or partly jokingly. That and John’s soulmate.

I’m 100% they fooled about, and like 85%-90% positive they fucked.

#questionsquestionsquestions

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jawz · 4 years

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not to be a pain in the arse, but... do you have any recommendations of oasis' books i could read, please? i want to read some biographies of oasis and stuff but i don't know where to start, and i think you know a whole lot abt them so i figured i might ask you,,, and thank you in advance! i love your blog sm and you seem like a very nice person 😌❤️

omg thank you so much!! well first of all its no pain at all, ive spent enough time and money on this dumbass band that it needs things like this to make it all worth it lol

so i have a lot of books on them but i’ll stick to recommending these first four as essentials; & then the next four are photo books so not biography but they do have text within, some more than others, & overall are beautifully done. (and all of the bio’s have picture sections as well!)

getting high (paolo hewitt) - indisputable #1 oasis bio. covers the definitely maybe & wtsmg tours. paolo was a friend of theirs so it is written from more of an insider’s view (he’s a music journalist) and yeah it just is so fucking good. reading this book gives a huge insight into liam & noels relationship especially and just how intertwined they were back then, as well as liam’s vulnerability despite his Tough Guy image. also it starts with their mother’s childhood in ireland and just UGH its so good You must read this book

forever the people (paolo hewitt) - shorter and less in depth than the first but this one covers the be here now tour. again more of the same “insider” look. it was like 4 years ago i bought it but i do think it was like $70 or some crazy amount... much rarer than other books it seems.. but yea

what’s the story (iain robertson) - ok so above all else this one wins worst book cover award but also the funniest thing ever. i actually used to have a different edition with a chill blue cover but lost it and maybe it was worth it just to have this one.. F**k me, what a gig... anyway, this is an odd book. it’s absolutely worth a read, has a shit ton of great stories... but it is also really up its own ass and robertson clearly thinks he is some sort of literary magician or something so it can be really insufferable and dramatic at times. but still worth it for sure.

brothers: from childhood to oasis (terry christian & paul gallagher) - of course! if you needed young gallagher anecdotes look no further. pretty straightforward. Liam used to breakdance and graffiti and his tag was “Galli”

oasis. definitely (tim abbot) - short and sweet

oasis: a year on the road (p.slatz) - i hate to promo this bc he is the reason my old blog was deleted but it is really nice sooo

supersonic: the oasis photographs (michael spencer jones) - BEST oasis photo book, its enormous and super high quality

was there then (jill furmanovsky) - my other fav oasis photographer, highly recommend

...and ok so tbh i dont own a copy of it buuuut oasis: the truth by tony mccaroll is also alright (i found it on pdf). but it is, in my opinion, at times even harder to read than the iain robertson book, just because tony’s grudge against noel is SO huge and he’s not a particularily good writer so it just is.. annoying.. it’s like whiny almost and just. I’m no Tony fan lol. but apart from all the Waahhh-Poor-Me it’s worth a read for all the old oasis memories. (just as an example of his whining, the original title of this book was, no joke: “The Noel Truth Is Nothing Like The Whole Truth”. like ok dude go sit down)

thanks so much for ur question ✌🏼😁

#thx for the compliments as well ahh ❣️#this isnt to diss any of the other oasis books i have bt these ones specifically just the most notable #feel free to ask anything i have knowledge buried 👁#oasis #liam gallagher #noel gallagher #recommendations #o

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purplerose244 · 4 years

Text

Thinking journal for season 12 Prime Empire 😎😎😎 (1/2)

So, I'm keeping this during all of season 12 to put down my thoughts as they appear. It's mostly for not ranting every single time a new episode comes out so please don't mind me too much 😅 I'm following the English release so please no spoilers 😙

I'm gonna split it in two, since apparently the season has 16 episodes. So this is the first part, enjoy my rambling 💜💜

It's the 30th of March and here we go!

IN GENERAL

I'm so, SO HAPPY, we have a theme for this season. For my experience apparently silly themes (tech ninja, ghosts, pirates) had brought very surprising results so I'm SO DOWN FOR THIS 😍😍

It seems that they fixed the mood, there is a specific mystery and a specific mission to follow. I like it too

THE NEW WHIP IS DOPE AS ALWAYS

I'm really glad there are plenty of references to past episodes, comebacks are my jam

The only thing that still kinda bothers me is the length of the episodes. It's not all bad, I just think the 20 minutes format was better. One thing is splitting 20 in 10 minutes, another is putting together 11 minutes of important stuff. Doesn't bother me too much, I just wish there was more time for my favorite show 🤷‍♀️

WOULD YOU LIKE TO ENTER PRIME EMPIRE?

Is it normal for me to feel really old after they made the "what is a VCR?" joke? Like, I'm a uni student so still pretty young, but I lived through the transition from that to the DVD so... eh, I laughed anyway👵

Jay is smart, I really believe he is. Yet I saw him putting a possibly corrupted motherboard into a legendary game randomly found into a villain's lair, and I was like "Of course he did that, I love you you dumb*ss" raising my glass of juice towards him 😎

Okay, I'm down for this Lloyd. I'm down for a season with Lloyd being creeped out just because, being silly, just a ninja helping his friends and- (remembers there's a Harumi avatar in the sets) I'M NOT READY

The ending was actually nicely creepy. Cool nods in approval

DYER ISLAND

THAT INTRO THOUGH, THAT WAS EPIC! Love the techno sounds, love the clear gaming connection, I rate it 10/HECK YEAH LONG LIVE THE FOLD

I was scared about how the shorts were supposed to play along with the season, but it looks fine so far with the mechanic and later for Scott. Good 👍

Ah, Fist to Face, that game came all over from the nostalgic season 1. That's what I'm talking about 😎

So they just associated that Unagami is probably Dyer's avatar like that? Like sure, I thought about it, but it looks a little rushed. Mm, I wonder if there's something more behind it?

LEVEL 13

Cyrus Borg is back and he TALKS!!! Finally, he gets some action! Go tech dad!

I'm so happy he referenced the Digiverse, I would have been very disappointed if he hadn't. Time flies Borg...

Not gonna lie, I thought the next to follow up Jay's spot as best in videigames was going to be Kai or Lloyd. It's not disappointing though, since pretty much all the ninja have been seen playing, and to be honest I like the implication that Cole and Jay probably played a lot together. As bruiseshipping or as BrOTP, I still love them together no matter what 💙🖤💙🖤

Ooooohhhhh, that's why Zane and Pixal are left behind. It makes sense, sure, but I don't understand the implication of the plan: they saw Dyer entering Prime Empire, so why looking for him in real life? Mm, maybe they will investigate about his life and what happened... PIXANE ON THE CASE 😍

Already saw Prime Empire's world in the shorts, of course it looks DOPE, still very happy to finally being there!

SUPERSTAR ROCKIN' JAY

I don't know why, but Kai questioning the double jump made me laugh. Also poor him, he just got his powers back from last season and they're already gone again 😂

And of course. Them. Wow. It must be the most amazing and CURSED thing I've ever seen so far, the League of Jay 🤯 I'm so happy they exist and they freaking use past seasons' suits!!! Awesome!!! Never thought I was going to see Jay's old plain haircut again... yeah, he got better with the curly one, but I'm feeling nostalgic 🤷‍♀️

Their nick are histerical omg, Jaybird, Dee-Jay, Jaywalkin, I'm loving this way more than I should 😂 Also they freaking screamed "JAY-NJA GOO!!!" and I don't know what to do with that, it's too great for me to comprehend 👏👏

And then, THIS happened:

Your Honor, I would like to confirm this as THE MOST SECRET DREAM I'VE EVER HAD FOR THIS SHOW FINALLY COMING TRUE!!! A NINJA FROM NINJAGO DOING THE NARUTO RUN!!! 🤯🤯🤯 Done, I'm done, conclude the season, this is more than enough for me 😍

First Kai gets hit and fall from a building, DYING, then Lloyd gets desperate for his brother (MY BROTP 💚❤💚❤), then Kai respawns and Lloyd looks so relieved and Kai is all panting while slowly realizing it's a game and MY HEART CAN'T HANDLE THIS MUCH OKAY???

As a very passionate Kai fangirl I always expect the cringy moment, it really is inevitable for my favorite hothead. I love that idiot so much it's unbelievable, even if it's an absolute and costant suffering 😅 Holy Garmadon it was painful seeing his VERY slow realization that in this game you only have four lives

... SO HE HAS ONE NOW!?! NINJAGO CREW YOU ALREADY KILLED ZANE, NYA AND LLOYD ONCE AT THE END OF A SEASON, DON'T YOU DARE PLAY WITH ME AGAIN 😱😱😱

Okay, I did not expect to hear about Mr. Cuddly Wamp ever again since Hands of Time and BOY if I'm happy it was actually a password, I love this show 😂

SCOTT FINALLY!!! YESS!!! 😍😍😍

Okay, for as long as it is not debunked, I will hold onto the Scott is Jay's brother/twin theory. I'm sorry but: his jacket has dragons AND lightnings on it, they have very similar skin in avatar mode, he said he was waiting for him in the short, he could very well have his same hair under cap and hoodie and he's a mechanic too. I know, I know, they could have the same skin because Scott helped him for the avatar, and there might be shadier reason behind the 'I was waiting for you' thing, and there are tons of good mechanics in Ninjago... STILL HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE??? 😍

SCOTT HAS ONE LIFE POINT TOO??? NO! NOOO!!! NOOOOOOO!!! Don't you dare appear and steal my heart only to die at the end of the season, come on!! 😭

So for now it seems like he just wants to survive. Can we actually confirm he's an avatar and not an NPC? I mean he could be, but I don't see the point of an NPC self aware of his life points. Idk, maybe I'm overthinking this 🤷‍♀️

Lol, Kai is the only one weirded out by the Jay-con all around him. Probably because he hasn't heard from his fans since Skybound 😅 (I'M STILL HERE MY FLAME BABE, ILY ❤❤❤)

And in all of his glory, freaking Superstar Rockin' Jay!!! 😎😎 Okay, I loved the design since the first time I saw it, but it looks possibly even better in the show 😍😍😍 And Jay looks absolutely adorable in it, and he's got a guitar, and he was waiting for his friends, and he hugs them (I'm weak for LEGO hugs for some reason) and he is so happy and AAAHHH 💙💙💙💙💙

I'm very curious about how Scott will play into the situation, clearly he will provide some kind of insight about Prime Empire. I can't wait to know more about him!! 😍

I AM OKINO

I did not expect this when I saw this Okino guy in the trailer... and I'm so happy I was surprised, I love him 👌

And he's voiced by Alessandro Juliani?? HECK YEAH!!! With all the hype about the DnD 13th season, and consequentially the knight theme, I really miss Nexo Knights and having Aaron's VA around makes me happy... any hope to have Giles Panton as well? I miss Clay the most 💙💙

This is what I'm talking about, the game theme needs this stuff! I was already happy to see life points, double jumps and respawns, but this? The NPC guide? Awesome 👍 It's nice to see the take on the matter, the guide seeing so many players getting killed, first because they did not listen, then because they were actually just unlucky. The touchy matter I always expect watching Ninjago 👏👏

At least I THINK he's an NPC? For now I don't really see a way of knowing, and it doesn't look like it matters. He didn't show life points so maybe? Does this mean he can't die? I have questions people

Which brings me to the cube thingies. That's what happens to the dead players? I mean, I would understand if they just become pixels, but there's also the drone that takes the datas every time. Idk, feels like there's more behind it. And honestly? It looks like great material for angst, like one of the ninja dies but then they discover they just need to get where Unagami stores all of the players! I hope it's something like this!

They designs of the players are really cool, I already saw them in the other episodes, but seeing them this close just confirmed it. Between this and Jay's awesome avatar, I see lots of great cosplay ideas coming 😍 I wonder when will Kai and Lloyd use their avatars, and why would they since I'm guessing Jay did for disguise and to distinguish himself from his fans

PLEASE TELL ME WE'LL SEE SCOTT SOON, I ALREADY MISS HIM!!! 💙💙💙 I have too many theories about that tech dude, I'm so excited about who he might turn out to be!

I was a little skeptical about the new ninja suits, but seeing them in the show convinced me, very cool! Especially on Nya 💕💕💕

THE GLITCH

Alright, Okino is indeed an NPC. Cool the fact that at first he could not understand the fact that he was in a game, but when reality changed he was forced to. Welcome into the crew! 😙

I'm kinda worried about it though, either they will shut down the game and he will stay inside or he will sacrifice for them. He's a very loyal samurai, I can see that happening and I'm SCARED

I WAS SWEATING BULLETS AT THE AMBUSH!!! I 100% saw it coming, we all freaking saw it coming, even the ninja did but where like 'we can walk and die or we can risk and die so might as well'. But still, my babies DYING and respawning so fast was not pretty 😱😱

Nya got the scariest death until now in my opinion, holy Garmadon Dyer DOES have a twisted mind...

Seeing Kai so scared of being in a new situation and with one HP reminds me A LOT of the Digiverse, and that's actually a nice touch. Give him a cellphone, hothead is a social media expert, but put him in a game and... huuhhh... 😅

Have I mentioned I love the ninja's new emoji masks??

BECAUSE I DO!!! 😂😂😂😂

So Unagami knows about them trying to stop him and he sent the rat people because of it. Considering how little we know about this guy, I'm wondering what we are about to discover

Alright, going to the next challenge, very curious about this adventure. So... beware of the rats, ninja? Still not sure what I think about the rats 😅

THE CLIFFS OF HYSTERIA

I would like to say Okino is the edgiest character of the show I've ever seen... but I've seen MORRO. But still poor guy, he got a case of the Matrix

Oooohhhh, the major question in videogames: better go grinding for more money to get the better stuff but while losing lots of time, or get the least expensive just to go on with the story but definitely risking to lose lives?

Ah there we go, so the energy cubes mean something! Also reference to the Sushimi guy of the set (gosh that name, I can't 😂). So do people actually die in Prime Empire or they are just kidnapped kinda? Can the ninja just bring back? ANGST POTENTIAL

Cole please don't die please don't die please don't die for the love of Garmadon please don't die somebody help-

HOLY FSM KAI I MEANT HELP FROM SOMEONE WITH MORE THAN ONE LIFE DON'T DO THAT BE CAREFUL PLEASE I FREAKING LOVE YOU YOU RECKLESS HOTHEAD ❤❤❤

Nya giving Kai a sweet look after seeing her brother is okay, that's what I live for 😍

So apparently Unagami is trying to build some kind of device using the energy cubes of the dead players (sounds kinda creepy like this 😱) to create some kind of portal? To Ninjago? I don't understand, if Unagami is Milton Dyer then why this? Just to bring his army and conquer? I mean I guess, sounds a little simple though. Then again, if it turns out it's not Dyer, it could be Unagami wanting to be real and get into his creator's world? Mm...

I like the message, having the ability to choose your own path. Very fitting for a game themed season, I hope it gets explored even more!

More for the "I love the ninja emoji masks of this season"'s compilation 😂😂😂

THE MAZE OF THE RED DRAGON

Duuuude, Jay being good at mazes comes all the way from Possession, the Tomb of the First Spinjitzu Master! 😍 ... or maybe I just rewatch this show too much... could be both really 😅

Unagami is NASTY!

Confirmed the thing about going into the real world, what scares me is how much powers Unagami seems to actually possess. Like, can he do the block thingy whenever he wants? Just straight up pause and do whatever? Wow...

Jay being extra 😎

I mean, of course he is, he's got better statics! 😂 I like how he seems so focused and in charge, I still hope we see more of him... and Scott... WHERE IS SCOTT???

I love dragons, this metal one is cute 😍

So now we have two ronin: a samurai looking for a path on his own in a digital world... and a shady guy named Ronin 😛 Total respect for Okino, he really showed the values he believes in. No matter he was programmed his way, I hope he finds what he's looking for. Better come back for the final battle!

One Keytana down, two more to go. I know one is the price of the race, while the last one... I don't really know.

More of the masks because I love them 😂 Here we have Vegeta Lloyd and Kawai Cole ✌✌

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clexa--warrior · 3 years

Text

There’s a new group of villains on Fear The Walking Dead.

Well not entirely new. These are the same people who’ve been scrawling “The end is the beginning” everywhere. The same people with the submarine who are looking for Morgan who took the Magical Key from the bounty hunter way back at the beginning of Season 6.

I admit, I’m just kind of tired at this point. Tired of all the bullshit and bad writing and the tedious characters and the predictable stories. Tired of the parade of mediocre villains. Bone weary. And yet here I am, still reviewing this damn show.

Let’s take a little walk down memory lane, shall we?

TV’s Greatest Villains

At the beginning of Season 5, after the Most Horrible Villain Of Any Walking Dead Show was taken care of at long last, we got a new group of bad guys who . . . just wanted their warehouse back? And directions to an oil refinery?

Truly, these were now The Most Horrible Villains Of Any Walking Dead Show Ever.

Logan (played by a woefully underutilized Matt Frewer) was the head honcho of these bad apples and he fooled Morgan’s group into flying a plane they didn’t know how to fly far, far away to help some strangers in another part of the vast continent of Texas. Then he . . . moved back into his warehouse! The bastard.

After half a season of trying to fix the plane so they could fly back across the Pacific Ocean (which we all know separates the two halves of Texas) Logan tries to pretend like he’s a decent guy and fools the Morganites into showing him where the oil refinery is. Dastardly Logan! Then, just when Morgan and Logan decide that their names are similar enough that they might as well be friends, the Rangers show up!

They show up on horses with rifles and expertly kill Logan and every single member of his crew but for reasons (reasons!) they spare Morgan and the Morganites. It turns out that Logan was working for the evil witch queen of Lawton, Virginia—Truly The Most Horrible Villain Of Any Walking Dead Show Ever (Seriously). She is so evil that she kills the people working for her, who helped lead her to the oil refinery, and spared some people she didn’t know who weren’t loyal to her at all for reasons.

Yes, you heard me. Reasons! You don’t get to know the reasons. That’s not how scripts work. Scripts are supposed to be confusing, opaque and riddled with plot holes and inexplicable character choices.

Anyways, Virginia and the Rangers with their horses and their cowboy hats and their idyllic Texas aesthetic become the new Big Bads sometime in the second half of Season 5. Morgan and Friends make a PSA documentary to make sure anyone wandering from gas station to gas station is able to know who to call (GHOSTBUSTERS!) if they’re in trouble (which, like, yeah it’s a zombie apocalypse) because Morgan really wants to make up for all the bad things he’s done and so do all his friends.

Virginia is very mean, though, and so she makes a PSA, too, and that pisses Morgan off so bad that he takes his people far, far away to an abandoned Western-themed park-town filled with zombies and they make another PSA on the way that’s even more amazing and magical but a dude dies making it, marking the Best Walking Dead Death of All Time in the process. Seriously a dude decides it’s so important to film a selfie shot for the PSA that he dies when a bridge that’s collapsing surprisingly collapses! And then everyone is very sad!

Then, uh, after a spell at the new town that has no resources or water because it’s a theme park town instead of a real town, Wes and Alicia paint some stuff and June and John Dorie get married and Daniel plays some guitar and sings and Frank Dillane is like “Holy shit I’m so glad I bailed on this show” and then Virginia comes because Morgan calls her because instead of walking somewhere else they decide they should call the Evil Witch Queen Of Lawton so she can rescue them by splitting them all up (even Skidmark the cat!) and then the season ends with Morgan getting swarmed by zombies but don’t worry he’s still alive and they’ll tell us as much in a trailer that comes out before Season 6 because AMC is criminally addicted to spoiling their own shows for no reason on social media and . . . and . . .

Somewhere between Season 5’s finale and Season 6’s premiere AMC and showrunners Ian Goldberg and Andrew Chambliss must have put their heads together with Scott Gimple and decided that the Rangers and Virginia were actually super dull villains, just like the last few villains (I skipped the whole Vultures plot because they were actually so stupid they put the stadium under siege but still let Madison and co. go out scavenging because somehow they never read the Siege 101 manual or something).

Anyways, for reasons that must be obvious by now, somebody must have pointed out that Virginia is not a very good villain after all, partly because she’s just not that convincing but mostly because she made a goddamn copycat PSA and someone thought that was actually a cool story because there is no God and life’s not fair and this is also why we can’t have nice things, son.

And they must have realized that the Rangers are a like a cartoon version of what might happen in Texas after a zombie outbreak (just compare this clown show to the far more realistic Vatos gang from Season 1 of The Walking Dead). All these realizations must have felt strangely repetitive after what I can only imagine were similar revelations about Martha, the Vultures and Logan. So many revelations, so little useful insight or meaningful changes!

The Believers

In any case, they had June kill Virginia after a weird series of events that also saw one of the only good characters left on this godforsaken show get killed by yet another brat, and came up with The Believers, a group almost entirely inspired by The Monkees. These totally realistic folk live underground where they grow crops and embalm zombies and talk about how you need to be able to “see” when you look at this one creepy zombie they have entwined in vines in their basement. They’re led by a guy named Teddy played by John Glover who must really be down on his luck to take a role on this ridiculous show, though he’s actually creepy as a villain so that’s something. But no, I’m not going to feel any hope or optimism because fool me once shame on me, fool me again and George W. Bush, man. He has something to say about this.

Wes and Alicia and Al and Luciana all find their way to these people. I honestly can’t remember how they found them, but they show up to scout things out. They get interviewed like we’re back in Alexandria. Things go bad when Wes runs into his long-lost brother and ends up killing him after a scuffle over a gun. Wes’s brother has had a little too much of that Kool-Aid if you know what I mean. Wes isn’t too shook up about it. Remember when the entire brothers Dixon conflict between Merle and Daryl played out over the course of one single episode of The Walking Dead? Yeah, me neither.

Luciana says stuff because she’s still on this show for some reason. She says stuff a few times and people say stuff back to her. Al checks an embalmed zombie with a helmet on thinking it might be her lover girl from Season 5, because you totally embalm zombies with their helmets still on, but it’s not. Boy I was really worried there for a second!

Alicia sets the embalmed zombies on fire so they can get away and the others escape but Alicia doesn’t and then she has to have a whole entire conversation with Teddy and it’s pretty damn awkward when she tells him “You wanna kill me? That’s not gonna happen.”

Teddy’s like “whoa damn I was going to kill you but now that’s not going to happen crap” and Alicia’s like “So there, Teddy. You jerk face with your crazy-man beard.”

He knows something about Madison somehow. And he wants to “save you, Alicia” but “I don’t need saving” she tells him and then he talks in more cryptic circles. Teddy’s been looking for someone like Alicia for a long, long time and she’s like “listen old man at least I got some lines this episode!” which, to be fair, is true.

THE END. CREDITS ROLL.

Verdict

Yes, I am clearly mocking just about everything about this show. But I didn’t come up with this crap. I didn’t come up with Martha and the ethanol, or the plane and the beer-balloon, or Totally Pointless Logan, or Ginny and her boring ass cowboys. Maybe Teddy will be a better villain than all these. To be fair, he is a better villain already in a lot of ways. Then again, the bar set by the Vultures, Martha, Logan and Virginia is not very high. It’s so low, it’s less a bar and more of a speed bump.

So while Teddy is far more intriguing than the rest, and it’s even possible that Glover’s brief appearance here in this episode was better than the sum of all the other villains in this show since Season 4, I imagine they’ll find a way to screw him up also and then, as soon as he’s worn out his welcome, replace him with some other group of bad guys. The Shouters, a group of post-apocalyptic crazy people who wear zombie faces and shout at each other really loud, led by a bald woman named Alphapha.

Here’s the thing.

We need more than just Good Guys vs Bad Guys. There are other struggles to work with in fiction. Friction between the group that causes realistic, compelling internal strife. Survival against the elements and just the struggle of surviving in a world laid low by a pandemic, maybe without creature comforts like walkie-goddamn-talkies. Or perhaps a compelling story about a survivalist group at odds with a Native American tribe over water rights, whose intertwined family histories are marred by murder and revenge, where our heroes find themselves torn between both sides of a bloody fight they know very little about.

Yeah, what a notion.

Like I said at the very top of this review, I’m tired. I’m tired of Fear The Walking Dead. I’m tired of the same crap happening over and over again, another absurd bad guys who ultimately make the same fatal choice: They mess with Morgan Jones. NOBODY messes with Morgan Jones.

Maybe Morgan can make a PSA about how mean and delusional Teddy is and then Teddy can make a PSA about how The End Is The Beginning, Actually, Morgan You Twit. It’s just all nonsense at this point and it has been since the end of Season 3. We aren’t dealing with actual stories about real people. We’re watching a cartoon with two-dimensional cartoon villains and a bunch of uninteresting flat characters. Except a cartoon would be more fun.

What is the point of this show now? It’s like a goofier version of The Walking Dead, which also suffers from too many villain groups at this point and too many characters but not this level of crappy writing (usually).

Let me predict the plot for the remainder of Season 6 and likely part of Season 7 if AMC is actually going to let the current showrunners continue driving this show into the ground:

Teddy wants the key from Morgan so he can use it to activate the nuclear bombs on the nuclear sub that’s in the middle of Texas (because Texas, you recall, is separated by the Pacific Ocean which has dried up because ZOMBIES and the sub is there now). He wants to nuke the planet because he wants to save everyone because they’re weak probably. From this nuclear wasteland, new life will spring eternal and his cult—well protected in their underground parking garage with their cute little gardens—will be the new rulers of the world. Or at least of Texas which—we know because of geography class—accounts for approximately 57% of Earth’s land mass.

Look, I’m sorry. I’m really truly sorry but if this show continues to be a joke I don’t know why we should take it seriously. A mocking review if only fitting for a show that continues to make a mockery of itself. AMC has the resources and the wherewithal to produce a better zombie show and quite frankly audiences deserve one. There was nothing fundamentally awful about “The Holding” so I’m honestly not fully sure why I’m in such a snarky mind frame, but there was nothing very good about, either, and it’s just plain as day to me that they’re already falling into the same traps they keep falling into over and over and over again. Meet the new bad guy, same as the old bad guy. It’s all so predictable.

Because they don’t really learn from their mistakes, or because even if they do they just don’t know how to course correct. That’s the problem when you just don’t have much talent but nobody steps in and says “enough is enough!”

Because seriously, my droogies, enough is enough already.

#ftwd #erik kain #i just read the reviews #i may watch this one because reasons and adc

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