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artificialqueens · 3 years

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Down with the Recipe, Bake from the Heart, 1/10 (Multi) - Juno

Summary: This year’s Great British Bake Off will see some baking for sure, but also a few surprises. Tayce goes into the Bake Off tent determined to bring the winning cake stand to Wales, along with a few Star Baker badges, but her attention may not be on baking for too long as she gets to know fellow baker Aurora, on the same row as her. And judging by the other contestants, Tayce might not be the only one focusing on something other than baking this season.

A/N: This is a DRUK2 group based on GBBO - there are a few ships! It’s also on AO3 with 12 chapters but I will post here with 10 for ease as the first two and last two will are being done together. No CWs for this chapter! I hope you enjoy.

PROLOGUE - October 2021

It had been Cheryl who had suggested a live react to the grand finale of this season of Bake Off, so the twelve finalists could all gather together, watch the finale, and then the winner’s reaction could be captured on film and put on the internet for the whole world to see. Cheryl hadn’t even been in the cast - she’d been on the previous season - but she said she’d become invested in the season and the bakers so much so that she hadn’t wanted to let them go yet.

And judging by the public’s reaction to her tweet about it, she wasn’t alone.

Pip had mentioned in their group chat that her sister had a big town house in the Wirral, and she’d offered to let them all use it as a base for their live watch. Channel 4 didn’t have anything purpose-built for them, and the filming location wasn’t available, so they’d all jumped at the chance. Plus, Liverpool served as a good mid-point for them all - it saved Joe having to go all the way to Dundee or Ellie having to go to Brighton.

Aurora had marvelled at the amount of space there was once they’d all arrived the previous day. The living room and dining area were one, with a dining table probably big enough to fit a couple of football teams at it; and the kitchen led into the room with an arched doorway. The kitchen itself was enormous too, in highly polished white surfaces that Aurora was terrified to touch with her probably-impure fingers

“Bit posh, isn’t it!” She’d muttered to Tayce.

Pip’s sister and her husband were staying away, and they had the place all to themselves - the twelve of them reunited, with just Blu and Cheryl for company, operating a handheld camera with the intention of sending the finale footage for Channel 4.

As three endings had been recorded back in June, with each of the finalists winning one of the takes, the actual winner’s reveal would be a surprise to all of them, including the three finalists, and ensure no slip ups from the production team.

That didn’t stop all twelve of them worrying. None of them had slept a wink, all of them keeping an eye on Prue’s twitter to make sure she hadn’t accidentally tweeted the winner again. But mostly they’d been together, reminiscing on some of the moments from the season that had made them laugh. All the funny moments, all the tense moments, and one or two viral moments loaded with innuendo.

Not to mention everything else that had blossomed in tandem with nature that springtime.

It had been quite a season. They’d started out as strangers, and now they were so tightly-knit that they hadn’t even entertained the thought that they would possibly be watching the finale without all of them in the same space.

Aurora swilled the glass of champagne that Joe had insisted on pouring for everyone, and watched all of the people she’d grown close to on the season, a peaceful atmosphere in the room as they waited for the finale to start.

Well, not all of them were peaceful. Lawrence and Ellie were being their usual loud selves, jousting with wooden spoons and shrieking as loudly as they ever did - but Bimini was utterly still for the first time since Aurora had met them, laid against Asttina’s chest as they both reclined on one of the sofas, while Asttina raked her fingers through their mullet; and Bimini’s eyes were closed, their lips in a sleepy smile.

Aurora felt familiar hands creep around her waist, a familiar chin rest on her shoulder from behind, and familiar lips at her cheek.

“I can’t believe it’s coming to an end now,” Aurora murmured, her thoughts escaping her unfiltered, as they sometimes did with Tayce at this close range.

“Well, it was never gonna be forever,” Tayce said into her ear. “But we’re all gonna be friends after this, aren’t we! The wonders of technology! Come into the twenty-first century, Rory. We have this thing called the internet, and group chats, and phones -”

“We’re not all just gonna be friends, though, are we?” Aurora replied.

“We’re all just besties, nothing more than that. Rory, I’m joking!” Tayce laughed at Aurora’s horrified expression. “All I’m saying is that this isn’t the end - just the beginning.”

“That’s so cheesy.”

“Yeah, but I’m right, you can’t deny that!”

Aurora let her eyes drift around everyone else in the room.

Tia and Veronica who had barely left their corner of the sofa, hands and legs wound tightly together, both with hearts in their eyes and bigger smiles than anyone else in the room as they chatted quietly, simply enjoying each others’ company.

Lawrence and Ellie, wooden spoons still in hand, making the most noise in the room in delighted laughter as they jousted with each other, almost knocking Pip over as she carried in another tray of snacks to lay on the dining table.

Bimini resting against Asttina’s chest as they reclined on the other sofa, Asttina still running her fingers through Bimini’s freshly-dyed mullet, both of them letting out a contented sigh in tandem.

“Yeah,” Aurora murmured, as Tayce held her tighter, “I guess so.”

——

WEEK 1: BISCUIT WEEK

April 2021

Tayce grinned at the cameras as they panned around everyone. She’d given the interviewer her spiel about how much she’d always dreamt of being in the gingham tent and how excited she was to bring the winning cake stand to Wales for the first time in Bake Off history; and a surprising calm settled in her chest, nerves dissipating, at the genuine warm aura from everyone and everything in the room.

At least Tayce wasn’t in full view of the judges right at the front. That privilege was reserved for two people from London, both of whom looked right at home in front of the cameras, although their names were a mystery for now.

It was all very familiar from seeing it on the telly the last eleven years. Immaculate worktops with varnish that shone like glass; the tent walls decorated with bunting and flowers, and the pastel shelves and adorned with china cups; the multi-coloured KitchenAids ready to whisk, fold and anything else - Tayce’s was pure white, while the woman from Nottingham on the bench opposite her had a turquoise one.

Tayce chanced another glance at her; the tight-lipped smile showed a single dimple, and her long blonde hair was tied off her face, but her fingers drummed nervously on the workbench, and she evidently wasn’t as poised as the veneer she displayed for the cameras.

Tayce smiled to herself. It’ll be fun winning this thing.

——

Signature: 24 Iced Biscuits

The best bit of the show when it was on the telly was the banter between Matt and Noel. Seeing them in person, even from a distance away, made Tayce’s stomach bubble with excitement, and she had to cling to the workbench a little tighter to stay upright.

“Well, bakers, welcome to the gingham tent! Back for another season of Prue-Paul’s Baking Race!”

Prue’s sweet smile was complemented by her brightly-coloured glasses and sharp, matching blazer, while Paul’s cool stare lingered on everyone in the room a split second longer than they all would have liked.

“For the signature today,” Matt said, “the judges would like you to make twenty-four iced biscuits. The biscuits can be any flavour -“

“ - but should tell the judges a little bit about yourselves or where you’re from.”

“Where are you from, Noel?”

“Oh, you know, the moon.”

Everyone was laughing, even Tayce; although it wasn’t that funny - but the whole room was dancing with nerves by now, starting to become contagious from the people around her.

“On your marks -“

“Get set -“

“BAKE!”

Once Matt Lucas and Noel Fielding had declared the immortal lines to the room, everyone was scrambling for ingredients from their bags and the fridges.

Tayce was still cringing a bit at the dragon-shaped cookie-cutter her mum had found in some gift shop near the castle in Cardiff. She didn’t understand why tourists would be making dragon-shaped biscuits inspired by their trip to Wales, but for once she was thankful for tourists. Her friend Cara had customised it a little when she’d seen her a couple of weeks ago, by melting the tail with her lighter, elongating it a little, and extending the jaw and ears to make it look a little more ferocious.

“Can’t have people thinking you’re not breathing fire,” she’d said, passing the cigarette back to Tayce, “otherwise they won’t think you’re competition.”

And Tayce had nodded, holding smoke in her lungs half a beat longer than usual, wondering if she cared whether anyone thought of her as competition. After all, it was Bake Off. The last sabotage attempt there had been a national scandal the following day.

The most unproblematic, drama-free show on the telly.

Nothing was going to happen here.

——

“The judges are coming for you next,” one of the cameramen nudged Tayce out of her thoughts, just as she was measuring out her flour, causing it to fly upwards in a cloud “Just a heads up. Oh, sorry love.”

“Right, right.” Tayce nodded, brushing flour from her face. “What do I say to them again?”

“Just … talk. It’s the first episode. Show them your personality.”

“Personality,” Tayce repeated, nodding. “I’ve got oodles of that.”

“Great stuff. And don’t forget to be doing something bake-ey while they’re coming over.”

The cameraman dodged out of the way to make room for the medical team, running to help the woman in front of Nottingham, who had managed to slice her finger on something already.

“Here they are,” Tayce muttered to herself, taking a deep breath and straightening as the judges, along with Matt and Noel, came over to her.

“Morning, Tayce!”

Paul Hollywood was shorter than he appeared to be, and Prue Leith was taller, but nothing prepared Tayce for meeting either of them. Tayce held her breath for a split second, smiling somewhat mechanically to try to mask the sudden heat in her face.

“Bore da, folks! I’ve brought the weather with me!” Tayce beamed, indicating the heaving downpour of rain that was falling outside the tent; and they all laughed politely.

Tayce momentarily stopped concentrating on the judges and noticed the woman opposite her, turning to watch Tayce interact with the judges. And every time she was describing the perfect quality that her dragon-shaped shortbread biscuits would turn out, she seemed to slow her actions, looking up over at them.

The conversation was light, but Tayce could feel the calm authority of both judges before her, making words freeze on her tongue. It only went on for a minute or two, but Tayce was left feeling as if she should have prepared more.

Oh well. What’s done is done.

The ingredients for her biscuits were mixing slowly in the KitchenAid, the gentle whirr of the blades almost lulling Tayce to sleep as she sipped her cup of tea, before she took out the ball of shortbread dough and rolled it out to cut into biscuits.

“Your accent is so nice.”

Tayce looked up from her biscuits, to see the woman from Nottingham had come over, tucking her hair behind her ear, leaving her hand resting at the back of her neck to play absently with the strings of her apron. Up close, the dimple in her cheek was emphasised as a shy smile twitched at the corners of her mouth.

“Thank you!” Tayce stood to her full height. “This place doesn’t look like Barry Island yet but give it some time!” She leaned against the workbench, tossing her hair away from her shoulders.

“My accent is … well, it’s just … northern,” she continued with a giggle. “I’m Aurora, by the way. I’m so bad at names, I’m sorry, you’ve probably already said yours!”

“Don’t worry, I am too. I’m Tayce. And if I forget your name, well - yeah, same.”

Aurora’s gaze lingered half a second too long as she tested the name on her tongue.

“Tayce.” Her smile widened. “Nice to meet you.”

——

Tayce was terrible at names. She had no idea how she was going to remember who all eleven of these other people were, especially as one of them would be going every week - the pool of people getting smaller and smaller until Tayce would be remaining with whoever else was any good out of these lot.

As the day went on, she started to pick them up.

She had to learn Asttina’s for one, because Asttina seemed to know everyone’s name from the word go. Asttina was one of the two Londoners at the front, and was the only one of the group who had made a deliberate effort to come round to all their workbenches to formally introduce herself during the bake itself, her demeanour confident but her handshake gentle and light as air.

“Nice to meet you, Tayce,” she’d said, with a cool smile that reminded Tayce of a Miss World competition. “Looking forward to tasting all your bakes!”

She knew Pip’s name too, on the bench just behind Asttina, as she’d turned up in the tent wearing elf ears, claiming they were for luck. Everyone had been staring at her workbench, where she’d positioned a tiny blue handbag with a red circle in the middle, saying she took it with her wherever she went.

“I had a sesh with a psychic,” Pip explained to them all as a group of them crowded round her. “She’s a bit of a local celeb in Liverpool, Psychic Sally they call her, but - anyway, she told me to look for a sign in blue and red, said it was from me great-grandpa - and the same day I walked past one of those handbag shops on Paradise Street and there it was, in the window, 70% off!”

“Definitely couldn’t have been a coincidence, Pippa,” Tayce grinned, and Pip shook her head in agreement, but she had a mischievous glint in her eye and Tayce wasn’t entirely sure how serious she was about the whole affair.

Ellie’s name too had become familiar, because of the amount of times the show’s medics would groan it when she managed to hurt herself on something that episode. Ellie herself had been quiet most of the day, seemingly a little shy and evidently the youngest in the room; but she’d bounced on the balls of her feet at meeting Matt Lucas, garbling something about her and her brother doing all the impersonations as kids.

The soft-spoken woman in front of Tayce was called Cherry, and Tayce had found that out because she’d pointed it out to everyone when she put cherry flavouring in her biscuits.

“Does that actually, y’know, work as a flavour?” Tia had asked her when she was explaining it to them.

Tia was another name that Tayce knew, mainly because the woman was so tall and striking. She looked like she’d come straight off a catwalk and wandered into the Bake Off tent by complete accident on her way to London Fashion Week, happening to become covered in flour in the process.

Cherry had huffed. “I don’t know, but you eat cherry-flavoured things all the time! What could go wrong with putting it in biscuits?”

Tia grimaced. “Wait. Have you … never put cherry flavouring in biscuits before? Didn’t you practise at home?”

Tayce couldn’t help but feel a twinge of mirth as she watched Cherry chew her tongue, her cheeks flushing, but her jaw set obstinately. “I know what I’m doing. I can do this.”

“You haven’t even practised this bake? Okay. So how late do the trains run from here to Newcastle?” Tayce had asked Cherry, and Aurora had doubled over in wheezing laughter as Cherry had folded her arms.

“Darlington. Darlington, not Newcastle. And there’s been trains there for nearly two hundred years, love.”

That had just made Aurora laugh harder, clutching her stomach and shaking in silent giggles, leaning on Tayce as Tayce had led her back to her workbench and let her wipe the tears from her eyes before continuing with her biscuit dough.

That was the most important thing Tayce had learned so far in the tent. The woman from Nottingham opposite her was Aurora, and Aurora lit up the whole bench.

When the judges had stood with her earlier, she’d cooed about how much she adored baking everything for all her family - making fairy cakes for charity bakes for work, birthday cakes for her family, tipsy cakes for her best friends for their birthdays, or anniversaries, or whenever they were just feeling crap.

From the smile that she couldn’t hold back, Tayce knew that Aurora was the only person in the room who meant it when she said that she loved baking.

——

“One hour break, folks, and then filming starts for Technical, okay?”

The first bake was over, and Tayce’s shortbread biscuits shaped like dragons had gone down pretty well with the judges. She wasn’t sure if she’d had the best feedback, her nerves kicking in and blocking out most of the other contestants’ comments; but she thought she’d done enough for this round at least.

One of the producers herded them like sheep - or maybe cats, judging by how Ginny had gone chasing after a squirrel they’d seen - back into Norton Hall where they were all staying for the weekends while filming was happening. It was a huge, Georgian manor mouse with ceilings touching the clouds, far more halls than were necessary, and so many excessive bedrooms that each contestant had a room each.

Tayce had half-expected four-poster regal luxury as she’d opened the door to her own, twice the size of her room in her flat; but no such luck - it was furnished sparingly, and all the beds were normal. A small double, she noted. Not that she was likely to get lucky with these master bakers, but a woman could dream.

The floorboards creaked as she crossed the room and flopped backwards onto the bed, gazing at the ceiling, the elation sending a shiver through her skin as she realised again that she had made it to Bake Off.

The Bake Off!

They weren’t meant to change clothes between takes unless they’d made a huge mess with the food, so Tayce just retouched her eyeliner and went back down to the communal room, where most of them had gathered back in the group, polite conversations carrying on amongst relative strangers as they sampled each others’ biscuits.

What a surreal scene.

A group of almost strangers, half of their names unfamiliar, and she was meant to discuss baking with them all.

“Alright, babs?” She heard someone pushing a plate in front of her. “My name’s Ginny, Ginny Lemon, and if you don’t like lemon, well - just skip my biccies, alright love?”

“No, lemon is great,” Tayce forced a smile, taking one of Ginny’s biscuits. “Thanks hun.”

“You’re welcome! Which ones did you make - wait, I remember, the Welsh dragons?”

“Now how did you guess that one?” Tayce raised an eyebrow at them. “My mum’s idea, she was like, do it for the Welsh! So of course she found a dragon-shaped cookie cutter from somewhere. One of the tourist shops in Cardiff. Tourists love dragon biscuits apparently.”

“Oh I know love, I know - speaking of weird biscuits, have you ever tried a Worcester sauce biscuit? I don’t recommend it if you haven’t, but have you?” Ginny shook their head, tutting. “Tastes like shit! Waste of biscuit. Waste of Worcester sauce too, though. Anyway, Pip’s looking lonely without me. Nice to see you!”

And Ginny fled from Tayce’s arm, scurrying back over to Pip. Tayce tasted the biscuit, bracing herself for Worcester sauce, blinking with surprise to find it was actually pretty good, the lemon flavour really tasty, and finding she wanted another.

Most of the rest of the biscuits were arranged on a bench at the back. Tayce picked up another of her own and went down the line, eager to see which had depleted the most.

Gravestone biscuits were the biggest shocker for her - two different sets of biscuits were there, iced to resemble gravestones, mostly untouched - but Tayce politely picked up the better-looking of the two and found a lovely chilli kick to it when she tasted. But gravestones weren’t the only common theme - two different rose patterns were there, one set iced in different shades of pink, and the other with a deep red icing. The pink roses were almost all gone, and Tayce took the second-to-last one, enjoying the raspberry flavour, and grabbing one of the other roses to go.

Tayce peered around the room at the other contestants from her vantage point at the table. Most of them had dropped into twos and threes - with twelve people it was bound to happen - chatting amongst themselves, quietly and politely for the most part, although the two Scottish women in one corner were laughing as if they’d known each other for years.

Eventually, she joined Aurora, who was talking to someone whose white-blonde hair and pencil-thin eyebrows looked very familiar …

“Joe Black,” she said, extending a heavily-tattooed hand to Tayce, whose stomach flipped upon hearing the name.

“You’re - on Instagram, that woman -“

“My internet infamy precedes me, but in that case I hope so too do my bakes, and of course my sense of fun.” Joe’s voice was theatrical, her gestures affected; but her smile was warm, and Cherry looked as enamoured with her as Tayce was feeling.

“And who wins the biscuit version of the wars of the roses?” Joe continued, pointing down at the two rose-shaped iced biscuits on Tayce’s plate. “Lawrence, or Veronica? I must say, the amount that Veronica worried about her own bake, that time probably could have been spent thinking up a better biscuit flavour than rosewater, don’t you agree?”

Tayce glanced at Veronica’s biscuit, then up at Aurora. “Does it taste that bad?”

But before Aurora could answer, they were interrupted by “Alright, babes! How’s it hanging?”

The woman joining them had rich violet hair scraped off her face into a bun at the crown of her head, and an intense green stare. Tayce took the hand that was extended to her, finding a firmer handshake than Asttina’s, trying to follow the stream of words from this woman’s mouth.

“I’m Lauren, but you might as well call me Lawrence, that’s all Ellie’s been calling me all day, thinks she’s fucking hilarious, and I’ve not really met any of you yet because, you know,” Lawrence paused for breath, waving her hands, “baking contest, ooh I’m not here to make friends, et cetera, but now that we’re all here and we’re not baking right now, I thought I’d better find out who everyone is! Are you the one who made the dragon biccies?”

“That’s me, baby!” Tayce grinned. “Bore da, bitches!”

“See, I knew you were Welsh, and there Ellie was trying to convince me the dragon biccies were by someone who just really liked Puff the Magic Dragon, she owes me a tenner now - and you’re - oh wait, I know you!” Lawrence wagged her finger at Joe, whose expression didn’t change apart from the slow blink. “That Instagram video!”

Joe fixed Lawrence with a stare. “Yes, that Instagram video; I know that precedes me, but I hope by the end of this competition that can be eclipsed by my culinary skills.” Her voice still kept the throaty drawl, but Tayce was starting to sense her irritation at the association.

Cherry had already offered her hand to shake, and Lawrence took it. “Alright, I remember your name, because you put it in your biccies as flavouring! Where’re you from, do they grow cherries there?”

“No - I’m from Darlington.”

Lawrence blinked, frowning. “Darlington, near Sweetie-shire is that?”

“No, it’s near -“

“I’m joking babes, I’m joking! I know it’s - hey, hey Ellie!” Lawrence stopped to shout to Ellie, who had evidently reappeared. “Els! It’s not Puff the Magic Dragon! Where’s my tenner? Hey!” And she was gone in an instant, Tayce turning to watch her chase Ellie as she scurried out.

“Anyway,” Joe continued, motioning to Tayce’s plate and one of the gravestone biscuits, “I’m so glad you’re enjoying mine! I know my sense of humour is a little … ah, morbid, but I didn’t count on being one of two people with this bake, let me tell you that!”

Joe glanced over to the left out the sides of her eyes; Tayce followed her gaze to Pip, oblivious, making herself a cup of tea.

“She didn’t - like, you don’t think she -“

“Oh, no, not in a month of Sundays! But it’s a strange little coincidence, isn’t it? The viewers will love the drama!”

Joe opened her mouth wide to let out a violent cackle, a sound that might have made a shiver glide down Tayce’s spine if she hadn’t been mid-biscuit.

——

Technical: 8 Wagon Wheels

The Technical challenge was the first time Tayce felt her nerves return in a rush.

Everyone had identical ingredients and an identical recipe, but nothing prepared any of them for whipping the gingham cloth from them all and flipping the instructions over. Tayce ran her pencil down them, her head spinning.

On the first read, she recalled nothing.

Focus.

She took one steadying breath, letting go of as many nerves as she could, and then ran her pencil back down the list, jotting down timings and a couple of notes. They only had an hour and a half; precision was key.

On her right, Aurora was fidgeting with her apron, twisting her hair around her finger, before grabbing as many bowls as she could from the drawers and setting them all down ready.

It almost felt like more pressure, rather than less, having no judges in the room - just Matt and Noel, and they couldn’t really interact with the bakers at this point, mostly just talking amongst each other and having to film occasional silly quips for the television interludes.

You’re not gonna get this finished if you keep looking at Matt and Noel!

So Tayce mentally blocked out everything and anything around her, not taking her eyes off her workbench. Instructions, ingredients, whisk, repeat. Oven, timers, filling, cooling, done.

She barely remembered anything else that happened in the room.

As she put the last wagon wheel on the tray to take to the front, she wiped her brow, took a swig of tea, and then heard the immortal lines.

“Bakers! You have one minute to go!”

Tayce looked around the room. Tia, three desks ahead, was looking flustered, covered in flour from head to toe - a difficult feat when you were six feet tall - and Veronica, just behind her, was rounding the corner to help her move the biscuits over to the tray one by one as she spread on the jam and marshmallow fluff. Bimini, who Tayce was sure had finished about ten minutes earlier than everyone else, was doing the same thing for Asttina, leaning over her workbench and talking soothingly to her as they both moved biscuits around.

On the other side, Ginny was rubbing Pip’s back, trying to help her load wagon wheels onto the tray but only succeeding in knocking the handbag to the ground. Ellie broke two of her wagon wheels by dropping a palette knife on them, her squeak causing Lawrence to turn from her bench and put her hands on her hips.

But Tayce felt an unexpected wave of relief when she saw Aurora finishing her own biscuits right on schedule, stepping back with a sigh, rolling her head and her eyes to the ceiling.

They had to bring the biscuits to the front table, and put them behind their respective photographs for blind judging. Looking at the other biscuits on the bench, Tayce nodded to herself in satisfaction. She definitely wasn’t the worst. The photos were all a blur, but there was definitely one disaster, chocolate and marshmallow oozing; Ellie’s broken biscuits; and another tray with a biscuit missing.

It was easy to breathe a sigh of relief for herself.

“Just get into any order,” the producer said, pointing to the stools that had been set in front of the table, “but don’t sit directly behind your photo. Otherwise it just looks obvious.”

Tayce’s biscuits were second from the right, so she bunched towards the left, and found herself between Aurora and Joe. Joe had pretended to trip over her feet while carrying her own biscuits up, cackling gleefully at Veronica’s pained expression as she watched. Veronica, mercifully, had sat as far from Joe as she could.

Aurora was breathing rapidly next to her, and Tayce gave her a nudge with her knee.

“Chill girl! Relax! It will be fine!”

Aurora nodded, but said nothing, focusing on trying to breathe at a normal rate once again. Tayce could practically hear her heart hammering. She nudged her again playfully, and Aurora nudged her back, taking a deep breath out and seeming to calm from then.

Once Prue and Paul were back, Tayce grew a little sleepy. The judging went on for much longer than on telly, and tent was hot from all the baking and warm bodies, plus Aurora’s knee jogging rhythmically was enough to make her feel a little drowsy. Her biscuits were second to last, and Tayce wasn’t really focusing on any of the other critiques as they went down the line, not even those of the two women on either side of her.

She hated tents. They reminded her of camping. This one wasn’t like any of the camping tents, propped by firm wooden walls and decorations but it still reminded her of trips to the Gower when she was at primary school. And thinking of the Gower made her think of day-tripping to Tenby, where the air was hazy with salt and fresh fish, and the sea was far too cold as they skimmed stones, watching them bounce once, twice, three times …

A nudge at her side from Aurora brought her down from her reverie; blinking, Tayce saw the judges had reached the biscuits behind her photo, looking up expectantly to see who would claim them.

Oh, yeah. It’s the Technical, and I’m here to be judged.

She raised her hand, realising that she’d been in a dream so long that she didn’t even know what place the judges had called her for.

“Tayce - good flavour, biscuits had a good crunch, and the chocolate has set well; it just wasn’t quite filled enough.”

Nodding and smiling, she waited for them to move on to the next person before she leaned over towards Aurora, muttering from the corner of her mouth “Where did they put me again?”

But before Aurora could answer, Paul spoke up. “And in second place, we have -“

“You came third, you bitch!” Aurora whispered, her mouth open in awe, and she looped her hand into Tayce’s and squeezed. “How do you do it? You always look so put-together! Not like - Miss Second-Place down there.”

Tayce glanced at Veronica, right at the end of the line of bakers on their stools, whose hand was raised to claim second place. She was nodding earnestly at the praise, but she still wasn’t smiling, her lips tight and her other hand still quivering a little in her lap.

“That means that first place goes to - Asttina!”

But Aurora hadn’t let go of Tayce’s hand, and Tayce was suddenly more aware of that contact than whoever the winner was, even as she slowly drew her hand away for the polite applause that followed.

“Where did you come?” Tayce asked her in a whisper.

“Seventh. Not great. I over-baked them a little bit,” Aurora shrugged. “I’m never gonna be good at technical.”

——

“Congrats on coming top of Technical!” Tia clapped Asttina on the back as they came back into Norton Hall, and Asttina responded with her winning smile.

“Thanks, babe. I thought you all deserved a taste of what I can do!”

There was a collective amused murmur around the other bakers at Asttina’s slightly smug tone. Tayce grinned, staying silent for now, wondering what the others would have to say to that.

“Oh, there’s more to come, is there?” Tia continued.

“I should hope so.” Asttina licked her lips. “From all of you lot as well.”

“There’s no need to be cocky,” Veronica said, the first time any of them had really heard her speak. Veronica was tiny, with blonde hair and a nasal voice that was louder than any of them had expected; most likely feeling the sting of coming second.

Asttina shook her hair back. “I’m not cocky, Veronica, I just know what I can do. Read the CV, it’s all there! If you want to win stuff, you need to know yourself. Do you want to win?”

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?” Veronica retorted.

It was Tia’s snort of laughter that started them all off, diffusing the vague tension creeping into the room. Asttina’s laugh was only drowned out by Veronica’s as she realised what she’d said.

“Is the Pope a Catholic, does a bear shit in the woods … I know, I know. I mean, yeah, I definitely do want to win.”

Asttina shrugged. “Then there’s no point being modest about what you can do. Let your bakes do the talking!”

One of the producers came in at that moment, motioning for them all to come round, and they all bunched together.

“Alright folks, the day’s filming is done, we’ll begin tomorrow at nine sharp for the Showstopper challenges. Until then you’re free to relax and have a nice time - please don’t go into any areas marked as Private, and no excessive drinking, but otherwise, have a good night!”

“Thank you!” They chorused, clapping for some unknown reason, as some of the staff rounded up the leftover biscuits and cleared them away.

“The filming crew get them,” Veronica explained to Tia, “I asked earlier what happened to them all because I knew we wouldn’t be able to eat them all.”

“You know what this means?” Cherry said, addressing them all from on top of one of the sofas. “This is the last evening we’ll all be together. Let’s all cheers to the cast of GBBO!”

She pulled a bottle of something from her bag, and the rest of them grabbed a mug each, sharing out the gin Cherry had brought, and bringing all their drinks together in cheers.

——

Showstopper: A gingerbread sculpture of a place that makes you nostalgic.

The Showstopper was about as broad as you could get. Everyone seemed to have something different in mind. Bimini and Asttina, on the two front benches, looked as poised and confident as they had all the previous day; and Asttina, buoyed by her Technical challenge win, puffed her chest in pride.

Tayce had practised her gingerbread over and over, but nothing prepared any of them for being in the tent, where the pastel colours and the novelty of the bright, friendly conversations started to switch to a competitive edge.

Especially after the Technical, where they had all been ranked. Having a number against your name now, combined with a vague grade against the Signature challenge, meant the Showstopper was the be-all and end-all for some of them.

That was it Tayce thought to herself, as she watched Aurora’s grim determination pass her face every second.

And she wasn’t the only one.

Cherry, on the workbench in front of her, had come sixth; but she’d been much quieter all morning, concentrating on reading and re-reading her instructions, tapping her pencil against her chin and growling frustratedly every now and then.

Ellie, wearing a pair or Pip’s elf ears, was doing even worse. Being ranked eleventh had done very little to ease the nerves she had displayed the day before, and her morning had already started with another blue plaster on yet another finger.

But Aurora was the only person Tayce was concentrating on. Something about the way she’d held her hand … and Tayce was far too quick to let her mind run away without her, thinking it meant anything, when obviously it probably didn’t.

“What are you doing?” Tayce called to Aurora over the chatter of everyone else around the room; but Aurora didn’t reply, her tongue running over her lips as she surveyed the mess that was the butter and sugar mix before her.

“Aurora?” She asked, making her way to stand by her behind the bench.

Aurora was still silent, but the noise from the bowls and KitchenAid she was using spoke volumes for her without her needing to say a word.

“D’you want a cup of tea?” Tayce asked her eventually, waiting for the curt nod from Aurora before sprinting to the tea station, in a tent outside.

When she got back, Aurora had moved up to Ellie’s workbench, and even though her back was to Tayce, she could see her shoulders shaking and Ellie’s hand rubbing her back, before offering her a can of the Monster she always had to have, the label covered in masking tape to escape product placement.

Tayce approached them both to comfort Aurora too, but as she did, cameras zoomed in on all three of them. Aurora pushed them both away and walked out of the tent, covering her face.

Ellie looked from the camera to Tayce and then back again, confused more than anything, and Lawrence, turning from her bench, looked back at them all with a frown.

“What’s going on here? Is she alright?” Lawrence pointed to Aurora, who was busy wiping her tears away in the far corner, with Matt Lucas at her side and a camera in her face.

“No,” Tayce muttered, “and she won’t be while there’s a lens on her.”

After that, Tayce kept half an eye on Aurora as she baked. She mostly ignored the cameramen as they hurried around the tent, taking stock footage of them cutting gingerbread shapes, using their ovens, and decorating, but Tayce purposely kept her mouth tightly closed, and her expression firmly neutral.

As Noel called for ten minutes remaining, Tayce was finishing the detailing of the roof of the stadium. The band were meant to be playing biscuit instruments and there was meant to be a crowd, but Tayce had settled for calling it a backstage pass moment, where VIPs could meet them, and just made models of herself and her friends.

“Time is up! Bakers, step away from your bakes!”

Noel called time, and Tayce took a step back to properly admire her finished product - and really, she was blown away by her own bake. The gingerbread houses she’d made in practise had gone alright, but this one, even in the pressure cooker environment of the tent, had gone almost perfectly, down to the timing of the bakes.

“Wow,” Tayce whispered to herself, “week one is done!”

She took a few seconds to admire everyone else’s in the tent. Some were much better than others. Joe’s looked a little strange - she’d meant to do a wedding scene with the gingerbread church, but the roof was crooked, and the gravestones falling over, not supported by the sticky sugar mixture they’d all used as adhesive. Cherry’s ambitious building was incomplete, and Tayce didn’t even know what it was meant to be.

But Asttina’s was incredible - a beautiful beach scene with a model of a beach hut and even a Ferris wheel. Ellie’s technical slip up was definitely repaired by the pub she’d built, adding fondant banners inside and making the dull gingerbread colours come alive with her imaginative take on the icing outside; while Lawrence had made a theatre, melting jelly babies to create beautiful stained glass in the windows, something Tayce kicked herself for not thinking of.

They all had a chance to leave the tent for a break, to sit outside in the shelter, and to have a breather before the actual judging of the bakes was done.

“I don’t envy the judges,” Joe said, her drawling voice awed, as she took in all of the gingerbread houses from their vantage point outside the tent. “They definitely have their work cut out for them, don’t they?”

“Everyone did amazing,” Aurora nodded, “it’s just a case of who did less amazing. D’you reckon they’ll just take this into account, or the whole weekend?”

Tayce didn’t know why she was worrying. Aurora had come middle of the pack in technical, but had been praised for her Signature, and her gingerbread house - modelled on her Nan’s, she had said - was so prim and dainty that Tayce knew the judges were going to eat it up, and not only literally.

“It won’t be you, chillax!” Tayce reached to rub her hand.

“Who d’you reckon it will be then?”

“Well, they tend to take into account the numbers assigned at the Technical challenge, and the Signature comments, to make the first analysis, at least,” Joe chuckled, “that’s what we see on the television. Who were the bottom three for Technical? I was tenth, Ellie was eleventh, who was twelfth again?”

“It’s - erm,” Aurora pointed, but the name escaped her for a second. “Tia. Tia was twelfth.”

“It’s probably between the three of us, then,” Joe said brightly, “unless something goes … horribly wrong to one of the Showstoppers. And how likely is that?”

As they looked through the panels of the tent, one of the gingerbread houses collapsed into pieces onto the tray it was set on.

Tayce glanced around the other eleven bakers to see whose it was.

One of the bakers had her head in her hands, shoulders tensed, while the two people on either side of her hugged her tightly.

——

“Seriously, Joe, how did you make that happen?” Aurora’s voice was hushed, tense, after the award for Star Baker and the first elimination had taken place.

Joe’s eyes widened as she shook her head. “I don’t quite know - maybe it was just something, spoken into the universe, made to happen.”

“Or maybe it was just gravity and shitty caramelised sugar sticking it all together,” Tayce added.

“Yes,” Joe replied, “or that too.”

Joe, Ellie and Tia had all survived their stint in the bottom at Technical - but Pip, who had come ninth in Technical, and whose Signature had received mediocre feedback, had laughed behind gritted teeth at presenting her collapsed gingerbread house - “More of an Ikea house,” Paul had commented cheerily - which had ultimately turned out to be too hard to bite into and had sealed her fate. Not even the lucky elf ears saved her from the first elimination.

“I was so sure I was going home this week,” Aurora sighed later that night, back at Norton Hall, where everyone had eaten so much of each others’ gingerbread houses that they all felt ill.

“You wouldn’t have, yours was good!” Tayce rubbed her arm. “Relax! It’s done now. Just focus on next week instead.”

“And I can’t believe Prue said she’d like to try a bit of carpet when they were looking at Ellie’s pub,” Aurora said, shaking her head. “Did anyone else catch that?”

“Yeah, I did!” Tayce sniggered. “They’re so innocent! This is just gonna be a load of innuendos all season, isn’t it? Imagine what they’re gonna say for next week too.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s cake week, isn’t it?” Aurora seemed to perk up. “That’s a bit more my comfort zone.”

Suddenly the door opened, and Asttina was led back inside the area by the cameraman and a producer. Everyone broke into applause - this time genuine, not the muted, polite sound that had echoed round the tent in the technical. Asttina had just given her winner’s interview and called her family, and now wore the Star Baker badge proudly on the lapel of her jacket, her grin wider than the Cheshire Cat’s.

“How did your mum react when you said you were Star Baker this week?” Bimini asked her.

Asttina smiled the warmest smile any of them had seen all weekend from her at the mention of her family. “They screamed so loud that you probably all heard it in here. My mum was falling off the sofa, my dad was waving a wooden spoon, my brother was banging on the floor with his feet - oh, it was great.”

“Well-deserved, babes,” Bimini nodded, and Asttina pulled them in for a hug.

Everyone else was clamouring around Asttina, congratulating her on her Star Baker win this week and admiring the badge she’d won - biscuit-shaped, or at least cookie-shaped - but Tayce hung back, exchanging a glance with Aurora, a glint in her eye; and both of them knew what the other was thinking.

Let’s not cross Joe Black. She might make our Showstoppers crumble.

——

ELEVEN BAKERS REMAIN

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bedlamsbard · 4 years

Text

@comentter asked about the TCW series finale

Sorry if I don't remember, but did you ever talk about the last 2 episodes of TCW? I only remember the motion capture thing from the first 2 of the arc. I was annoyed at the changes to the story they previously established in the novel and Rebels (which included Rex and Ahsoka splitting up) and for some reason I can't figure out, it didn't feel like a real ending to me...

I don’t think I’ve talked about it past expressing my annoyance about using Sam Jackson!Mace and Hayden Christensen!Anakin during Ahsoka’s vision. (WHICH I AM VERY ANNOYED ABOUT.)

I don’t have particularly strong feelings about Shattered/Victory & Death -- I think they’re two of the better episodes of S7, but I think S7 is honestly the weakest of all TCW as far as theme and story arc go. They are also, unfortunately, probably the most aggravating case in S7 of throwing out previously established canon from Johnston’s Ahsoka novel and from Rebels. And like, there’s not really all that much to throw out! So you mostly have to work to do it!

(Under a cut because this got long and honestly I probably forgot stuff since I haven’t rewatched in a while.)

The big difference is, obviously, the change in location from Mandalore (I believe the novel either strongly implies or outright states it’s in the middle of the battle?) to the ship. Putting aside Filoni’s comments from SWCE a few years ago about Ahsoka teaming up with giant wolves (I think it’s extremely likely that that was wistful thinking and concept art on his part, rather than George Lucas’s actual plan), the advantage of putting Order 66 on a star destroyer in hyperspace is that it’s about as confined a space as you can get with no escape. And that works pretty well in the actual episodes -- it’s a nice callback to “Brain Invaders,” as well, though I’m not sure it was done deliberately. It also limits the number of moving parts available, so rather than having to worry about Mandalorians on both sides (and civilians...would have liked to see those in the Siege eps...that’s a different rant), all that the audience has to worry about are Ahsoka (and Rex, later on), the clones, and the wild card, Maul. Which admittedly is done very well -- like, the way the clones turn on Ahsoka? Terrifying! I don’t think they really played into the claustrophobic atmosphere of being trapped on a ship in hyperspace with no way out enough; I actually do think Brain Invaders and A Test of Strength, and even the flashback scenes in Jedi Fallen Order, did it better. (Not even ONE scene of crawling through the vents? are you even Star Wars?) On the one hand, it’s been done before, do you really have to do it again? On the other...y’all made the decision to do this.

I actually hate that Ahsoka has the ~vision of Anakin’s fall -- it’s very jarring, it makes no continuity sense (in all honesty, it’s the sort of thing I’d expect from the ST, so maybe in that context it does make continuity sense, lol), and I think to some extent that it weakens her later reaction to Vader/Anakin? Also, as I’ve said before I’m very, very aural and pretty sensitive to character voices: the decision to use Jackson!Mace and Christensen!Anakin, even with Hayden transitioning into Matt Lanter, threw me out so badly that the scene lost all emotional impact. This is a me problem. Most people I know were just happy that Hayden was getting acknowledged. Which is honestly not a great storytelling method, we want to tell the story and not acknowledge other actors. But again: this is a me problem.

I really do love the rising sense of tension from the beginning of the episode to the actual Order 66 moment. It’s just genuinely terrifying, since the audience knows what’s coming all along.

Maul -- *flips hand* I love Maul. I think these two eps did a really good job at showing how terrifying Maul can be, even without a lightsaber -- especially without a lightsaber, rather. I was a little hesitant initially about Maul being able to destroy the hyperdrive with the Force alone, but after thinking about it for a day or so (back when the ep aired, last May) I was fine with it. I think Maul’s the one character for whom that kind of sheer power is believable, going back to his TCW debut -- if you ever look at spider-Maul closely (and Sam and Dave talk about this in the commentary to that arc), you’ll notice that some of the pieces of metal on his spider body aren’t actually attached, they’re hovering nearby; he’s holding his spider body together with the Force itself.

Rex. The other big departure from canon, because of his “we all had a choice / I didn’t betray my Jedi” comments in Rebels. From a storytelling POV, this is the most dramatic possible route to go, and it makes sense that they did it. I think it was either @alexkablob or @mylordshesacactus who said back when that it works well that Rex can’t shake off the command from the chip, that none of the clones are immune to it, because otherwise it looks like none of the other clones cared as much about their Jedi as Rex did about Ahsoka. I do genuinely wonder if back in the original plan for the remaining two seasons of TCW, there was a scene where Rex had his chip removed, given that comment from Rebels. (And I’ve talked before about changes made from the ~original TCW scripts used for the Rebels backstory to the actual S7 and Mando, though admittedly in that context it was about Ahsoka.) If originally the plan was for the Order 66 sequence to take place on Mandalore, then that suggests the unlikelihood (though not impossiblity) of Rex and Ahsoka removing his chip. Given the arcs that we actually got in S7 there was no place to do it...I really do wonder what was in some of the scripts that have been talked about elsewhere but didn’t make the cut for S7.

(God, the one I actually really wanted was the Rex and Artoo’s Excellent Adventure one, I’ll be bitter about this forever.)

I assume Ahsoka and Rex split up afterwards -- the fake grave from Ahsoka was kind of weird to me, tbh, so I’m fine with them not going that way, but. *shrug* It is what it is.

The end is...fine. Like, emotional! I had an emotion! They wanted me to have an emotion! My TCW and Ahsoka feelings have been broken for a while now so my emotions definitely were not what they would have been even two or three years ago. (And I mean this by when the ep actually aired, not what my emotions are now; they haven’t really changed that much. Well, my resentment grew, but it is what it is.)

I think...I just recently saw again the comment from Filoni about this, so it’s on my mind -- one of the major problems with S7 across the board, and honestly highlighted in the finale (which, again, is great), is that according to Filoni, TCW was always about Rex and Ahsoka, so S7 had to be about Rex, then about Ahsoka, then about Rex and Ahsoka, together.

TCW is not about Rex and Ahsoka.

That’s not to say that Rex and Ahsoka aren’t main characters, because manifestly they are, but the previous six seasons of TCW are not about Rex and Ahsoka. At its core, TCW is about Anakin Skywalker, in the same way that the PT is about Anakin Skywalker (and the OT, to a different extent); TCW’s big strength compared to the films, however, has always been that it has the space to go beyond Anakin’s immediate story and deal with everything else going on in the galaxy, some of which overlaps with Anakin and some of which doesn’t. The choice to make S7 three four-episode arcs has the side effect of narrowing the universe and limiting the stories told -- S6 is, I think, only one ep longer but feels like it’s a full season, because it’s a mixed bag of arcs of varying lengths, with a number of different foci. Some of the claustrophobic feel of the focus on Rex and Ahsoka works for the finale because of the actual setting of the episodes, on the very claustrophobic ship, but on the other hand...thematically the whole season feels off because Filoni’s interests are very different from Lucas’s (and while we all love to give Filoni credit for everything in TCW, Lucas was showrunning it and all the really weird and controversial stuff in TCW, including Ahsoka, Satine, Mortis, and Maul, all came straight from George Lucas). The finale feels aggressively narrow as a result -- which on the one hand, works, because yeah, it’s kind of neat and makes sense that Rex and Ahsoka don’t know anything else about what’s going on in the larger galaxy or if anyone else is alive. On the other hand, it...doesn’t work. (For me, obvs! Your mileage will vary!)

#comentter #bedlam replies #bedlam watches tcw #tcw shattered #tcw victory and death

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kaypeace21 · 5 years

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i LOVE your analysis especially byler ones so please don't take this as hate, it's the last thing i want to do. but while i love the byler theories do you actually think the duffers are smart enough to realize the potential/brave enough to follow through on the relationship. bc tbh i think our viewpoint is skewed i don't think anyone but byler shippers see the canon possibility. and also it really seems like m/leven is going to be endgame? just wanted to know more of your thought process

Even if byler never happens- I’m 100% sure mileven won’t be endgame XD. Regardless of byler, Mike and El are just not going to happen. (Even if they’re ‘dating’ in s4). I could try to explain the reasons why I think byler will be endgame though. I’ll give the cliffnotes version. This will probably be a mess- because focusing on all the reasons isn’t as good as analyzing , each reason as it’s own separate post, in depth).

Why mileven isn’t endgame

- The duffers said, while filming ST, El was supposed to die in s1 (glad that didn’t happen). And this was also their plan when pitching their show ‘Montauk’ (later retitled ST), saying that the hypothetical s2 sequel would be about the boys returning to their town 10 years later. Mileven was never ‘planned end-game’. They also describe mileven kissing but never mention the word ‘love’ like how Jancy was described in the Montauk pitch. Nancy’s bio says “ she will experience love for the first time.” But when they describe mileven, they say, “If Mike is the Elliot of our show, Eleven is our “E.T.” Like that’s … not romantic, Duffers. And if it was supposed to be … WTF did you guys watch the same film? 0-O

- In the byler centric s2, the Duffers kept mileven separated. And the mileven kiss wasn’t written in the show. Millie pretty much said “they had to do it.” Much to Matt’s confusion but then the Duffers agreed. And used ‘every breath you take’ (a song about divorce), and just by coincidence their 2nd back-up song was also a song about a divorce? Nah, they were trolling.

- Most of the women (Nancy & Max) in the show critique Mileven saying Mike treats her as if she’s stupid, can’t take care of herself, or as she is a possession.

-in the first ep of s3 almost all the guys (who had/have gfs) Hopper, Lucas, and Dustin all criticize the mileven relationship and think it’s unhealthy.

Hopper says “ They’re spending entirely too much time together… It is constant.It is constant! Okay? That is not normal, that is not healthy! ”

Lucas mocks Mike, saying “ Oh El, I wish we could make out forever and never hang out with any of our friends.”

Dustin says when they flake on him, “It’s bullshit, I just got home!” (insert Nancy calling Stancy ‘bullshit’)

and before this Dustin talks about Romeo & Juliet (while mileven is out of frame). R&J is all about the dangers of not knowing the difference between love and infatuation. Juliet after Romeo is banished just complains about how in love/sad she is but never pursues looking for him (sound familiar)? R&J claimed that they were in love with each other after knowing each for a few days and deciding to get married-sabotaging the closest relationships they had with their friends/family (all in the name of ‘true love’) . Similarly Mileven thought they were in love after only a week of knowing each other, and the second they are reunited they start dating and spend all their time with each other. El is allowed out of the house (and her friends are allowed to visit), but El hasn’t interacted with Max nor Will? They spend almost everyday in her room just making out. Mike puts very little effort into integrating her into his life or as part of the group. The only time they go out- is for Mike to show off El to Dustin like a possession- then before El can even do the boding activity with the group (with the radio tower)- Mike convinces her to leave to make out. They are both complicit in this and they both bring out the worst in each other and they make each other blinded to their loved ones’ feelings.

- El literally asks Max “How do I know what I like?” Do I have to explain why this could be problematic? She even says “I don’t know”, when Max asks if Mike is a good kisser.You can call me ‘ableist’ my abused-autistic ass will disagree. But El is not ready for a romantic relationship! it makes perfect sense for El to be confused by the distinctions of romantic, platonic, and familial love- when the first 12 years of her life she didn’t receive any form of love , PERIOD! And she is not like normal abuse victims (she has never had proper socialization with peers her own age or even adults).All she had was television. She latches herself on to anyone who is kind to her (something I used to do). Without Mike she used Max as a replacement almost immediately, and even starts repeating/mirroring the things she says (specifically coping phrases from her …over 6 times!). She’s also susceptible to doing what others say or want her to do, “dumping his ass” (with Max’s validation and encouragement). El might love Mike but I don’t think it’s romantic, she latched on to the first person that was kind to her. Before their first kiss she asked Mike “Will you be like my brother?” And she’s hurt when he says “no”, asking “Why not?”. He then kisses her (she watches a lot of soap operas and she assumes it must be ‘romantic love’). You’re telling me that if she was ‘in love’ with Mike she would have been that happy over dumping him? I’m not saying El is dumb for not being able to discern these things (I think people without such backgrounds may still struggle with this concept). But it makes perfect sense for El to be confused by the distinctions of various loves or even the differences between ‘crushes’ , ‘physical attraction’ and ‘romantic love’

- In the last ep El asks about what he said at the cabin to Max, specifying “you talked about your feelings?”. He says and I QUOTE “Oh! Oh, yeah that.Man, that was so long ago. Um…” and starts to scratch his head. Then he excuses what he said at the cabin, saying it was “in the heat of the moment stuff and we were arguing… I don’t actually remember. What did I say exactly?”

Now either he legitimately forgot! Or he lied! You know the thing that broke them up in the first place! The one thing that El holds as her most important value in life- honesty. And he lied- about something as important as his romantic feelings?! Make up any excuse (about being shy/character flaws all you want), but this isn’t real life- it’s fiction (everything is done for a narrative purpose). That wasn’t an accident ( mileven wasn’t “written out of character”- like milevens claim, the duffers were criticizing the ship on purpose) .And the fact he lied again! Wouldn’t bode well for a long term relation with each other. The whole season, criticized their romantic relationship ! That wasn’t a coincidence neither was the fact he looked confused by her confession, and kept his eyes open the whole time and didn’t kiss her back .

And as she smiled and walked away, he looked confused. That wasn’t a directing mistake, like so many milevens are claiming! You really think they wouldn’t make sure their ‘fav ship’ didn’t have a good final kiss?

Especially since it was right after a romantic Jancy scene (which was directed amazingly)- where Nancy even mentions Mileven- to make us compare the 2 pairings romantic scenes even more.

* I know I sound like an assh*le but I’m just annoyed. I’ve always censored my byler posts trying not to offend/criticize mileven. I never cross tagged my byler meta with the hashtag mileven (never will, cause it’s rude). But (without sounding pompous) my byler posts generally gets reblogged a lot- and now the milevens have seen my posts (and are sending lots of hate my way) and worst of all they’ve invaded the byler tag. Today I saw 2 posts in the byler tag saying. “We’re delusional” and “stupid”- and also in the same posts they say they “feel attacked” by us.Um… there’s a difference between byler shippers privately criticizing a ship without bothering mileven shippers (and only tagging it byler) . Versus Mileven shippers tagging things byler (and ranting about the ship and it’s shippers). Loved the comment about how Mike can’t be bi cause “he loves El too much”.I think Mike is probably gay and in denial. But, um that’s not how being bi works- didn’t know bi people love women and men ½ as much as the gays/straights. Thanks for informing me (rolls eyes for eternity).So kid-gloves off, nothing left to lose! Time to compare the ships.

‘The breakup’ vs ‘fight’ parallel

comedic vs dramatic! The casual sunny day vs the dramatic framing of the storm (a romantic trope) . The ‘break-up’ being a scene with multiple onlookers vs the fight being with Will and Mike only (making it more personal/intimate). ‘Cold as ice’ playing after the mileven breakup vs the sad instrumentals playing during the byler fight. The comedic after-math at the mall. El and Max laughing, and another joke being made as the bus leaves.El’s happiness vs Will’s heartbreak.

Mike’s drastically different expressions after their fights. He looks regretful with Will, and almost annoyed with El dumping him. The fact Mike apologized right away more than once to Will, and ran into a storm to apologize a 2nd time. But with El he just lies to cover up the first lie, and then after the break-up he just complains/lounges on the couch (not taking any responsibility). He literally says about El “Why is she treating me this way? What did I do to deserve this? What did I do wrong?”.( He lied and made her feel “like garbage”!) Then he burps and laughs about chips- and makes sexist comments. Neither EL nor Mike are heartbroken by the breakup.

But when he angers Will (by him trying to finish the game early), he immediately tries to de-escalate saying softly “I was just joking- c’mon, let’s finish the game”. But when Will just yells back (much to Mike’s confusion) he doesn’t dismiss his feelings as irrational (like he wrongfully did to El) but chases him to the garage- and begs him to stay since it’s raining.

In the garage, Mike immediately apologizes saying “I said I was sorry, alright. It was a cool campaign.” But after this, they fight and Mike runs into a storm to apologize a second time , and says to Will’s door “ WILL! I’m sorry I was being an asshole. Can you just come outside and we’ll talk? WILL!” He immediately takes responsibility and apologizes. And he’s desperate to resolve things. And when they find him outside castle Byers he just asks (Mike’s catchphrase) “Will, Are you ok?”

Shed scene ( “best thing I’ve ever done” vs “the most important thing in the world to me”) parallel

When Mike says to El “you’re most important thing to me” in the pool shed. El doesn’t even acknowledge the comment (and neither should the audience- cause the words were empty). She completely ignores his words, and responds by asking him about his previous comments. Asking whether Hopper was right about them spending too much time together.

I didn’t edit (or delete any scene after his proclamation) this is how fast it was delivered ! The framing of this mileven scene was not cinematic or heartfelt, and neither was the delivery from Mike. He’s not crying, trying to reach her with proclamations of his genuine feelings. There’s no dramatic music, framing, lighting or shot composition. And El just responds and cuts his supposed ‘true feelings’ off- only to agree with Hopper and says “ she should spend time with her own species.” And if this ‘romantic moment’ wasn’t already undermined enough. This is when Mike realizes she was spying on him , and feels wrongfully violated (something she doesn’t apologize for, saying “I make my own rules” . He even brings this up in a later episode (this clearly bothered him)!

Juxtaposed to the MUCH longer byler scene. A literal single tear falling down his cheek as Mike , recounts the first day they met. Mike being in the back drop of darkness only his face being illuminated (having him appear like a guiding light to Will). Saying “ I felt so alone and so scared… but you were alone too” (alone together/crazy together) . He then talks about asking Will to be his friend, and then he pauses and breaks eye contact , before looking him in the eye and smiling (lost in the memory) saying softly “you said yes, you said yes.” (cough like saying yes at a wedding).

So, after he says “you said yes, you said yes.” It’s important to mention that he takes a deep breath and breaks eye contact again, (looking down and to the side) as he says this line. Subconsciously, I believe he knows this line is romantic and he’s too afraid to say it to his face. Only flicking his eyes up to look at Will after he finishes the entire sentence, and to gauge Will’s reaction.

This whole monologue is only of tight shots of just their faces (their bodies aren’t shown like in the pool shed scene). This is a personal moment between them and them alone- and the fact we zoom in on their faces (expresses this to be important emotionally) . And when we see Will’s reaction to Mike saying “it was the best thing I’ve ever done”. We just see Will’s face only- no music is playing and all we hear is Will’s whimpers and Mike crying in the background.

“ Blank makes you Crazy” vs “ Crazy Together parallel

When Mike tries to confess his “love” to El he says “Well they do say it makes you crazy”… much to El’s confusion.He has to try to explain it a second time to El- who just gets even more confused, by his ‘confession’. Saying “you never heard that expression? Like blank makes you crazy … like the word (love)?”

But when Mike says he “feels like he’s going crazy” Will immediately responds with “Me too”. Mike even smiles at the comment. So that moment in s2 means more than we think, when Mike (with tears in his eyes) smiles at Will’s comment and asks them to go “crazy together”.And when Will responds back “yeah, crazy together” (who also has tears in his eyes). They even linger on the moment as they just smile and stare at each other.

Mike is in denial, and may not even realize he loves Will, but he knows subconsciously that he does. He heard the phrase “love makes you crazy and that damn stupid”, 100′s of times and that’s why he said that phrase to Will. And why it made him so happy when Will reciprocated , by saying “ yeah. crazy together.” In addition to why we see them both go from happy, to immediately upset over the conversation.The scene was already romantically coded in s2 (but the scene in s3 re-contextualizes the whole thing) . Mike thinks “love makes you crazy” , and he asked Will to go ‘crazy together’ with him. And When Will is at castle byers looking at the Halloween pic of the 2 the day Mike said that, Will cries and calls himself “stupid” (4x). Can’t get more obvious… Like look what the duffers did!

El and Will’s opinions on Mike (Parallels)

-When asked if Mike was a good kisser, she just said “I don’t know he’s my 1st boyfriend.” (implying she’s thinking, at least subconsciously, of having other boyfriends ,who are not Mike in the future). But when Mike pretty much asks’ if Will thought they’d never get girlfriends, and spend the rest of their lives with each other’.Will just sadly responds “yeah, I guess I did. I really did!” Unlike, El, Will always saw Mike as his future, his forever.

-And when Mike says “it’s just a break” , Max says “No it’s not!”, and we see El laugh along with Max’s comment. She is not heartbroken at the idea of never getting back together with him, romantically. Right after they break up she was laughing, reading comics, and playing games with Max.

But Will is devastated over the fight! And out of all the memories in Castle Byers it’s the Ghostbusters photo from Halloween that causes Will to pick up the bat and start destroying everything. That was the night that Mike agreed to go “crazy together” with him. He tears it in ½ right in the center where Mike and Will are. He was so stupid to think it meant anything. The “crazy together” scene, that Mike initiated in s2 was always meant to be romantic. Not only because of Will’s reaction to the photo in s3, but because Mike in s3 says “They do say it makes you crazy…blank makes you crazy.” Which is exactly what happens to Will, as he has his breakdown.Castle byers was built on a rainy night , the same day Will’s dad left, when Will was 5 (the same age he met Mike). And lonnie called him a “queer” and a “f*g” and forced him to do “normal things” like baseball to have him “be more of a man”. And then on a rainy night, after Mike says “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls”… what does Will destroy castle byers with? A baseball bat! The fact Will has a baseball bat (despite in s1 saying he does not like baseball) in Castle Byers, surrounded by things he loves: drawings, d&d, art supplies, a microscope, comics- just shows what an impact Lonnie’s problematic conditioning and abandonment had on him. He used a baseball bat to destroy something he loves -castle Byers, and symbolically he was trying to reject his feelings for Mike using Lonnie’s old tactics of fixing him.

- Also, El doesn’t even seem to appreciate when Mike acts like his true self (goofy/like a kid). She laughs when Max complains he talks too much. Rolls his at his jokes with the cpr-dummy, covers his mouth and tells him to stop when he tries to joke and sing, ignores him when he gets excited about talking about dinosaurs. Which relates to my next point

The only characters who’s character bios focus on ‘escaping’ through d&d is Mike and Will.

Will in the Montauk pitch was described as having “sexual identity issues… LIKE MIKE , Will ESCAPES through fantasy gaming where he can be himself, uninhibited.” Like what is Mike escaping from… being a nerd? Because they could of said ‘like his friends’. And no it’s not because they’re best friends- they even specifIed in Lucas bio he’s “ Mike’s best friend” (which was even mentioned in s1).

.In Mike’s character description it says “ bullying and near-crippling insecurity. He has never had a first kiss, much less a girlfriend.He ESCAPES his insecurities through reading fantasy novels … retreating into his own vivid imagination. The Dungeon Master of his Dungeons and Dragons group, he writes sprawling adventures with fantastical monsters.When he finds himself on a real adventure, facing real monsters, he will discover a courage he didn’t know he had. By the end, he will even kiss a girl.”

*Interesting that Mike uses D&D to escape his insecurities about not having a gf (retreating into his imagination). While Will (who is somewhat aware of his sexuality) uses d&d to escape and be himself uninhibited. They’re foils in a sense- using d&d for opposing reasons.

So the s3 fight about d&d games has a lot more meaning

Mike equates heterosexual romance with ‘growing up’ and his feeling for Will as something childish he has to grow out of.When they fight over d&d. Mike says “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!”, then he tries to ½ apologize only to say, “I’m not trying to be a jerk. Ok? But We’re not kids anymore.” He pretty much explains, this is just the way things are-boys fall in love with girls, get girlfriends, and that’s just a part of growing up (heteronormativity). And tells Will “I mean, what did you think, really? That we were never gonna get girlfriends? We were just gonna sit in my basement all day and play games for the rest of our lives?” And poor Will who is probably more aware of his feelings just responds. “Yeah. I guess I did. I really did.” And after this Mike rushes to Will’s house and apologizes saying he was an “asshole.”When he tries to say he loves El . It was very forced. He can’t even use the world love or explain his feelings, “A feeling … yeah, like, something… like OLD PEOPLE say it sometimes”.

He can’t even describe love and what his “feelings” entail for El , he then says “Yeah, like something , like old people say it some times. He doesn’t even say it back in the last ep, when she confesses. It’s all talk, but no feeling, it’s just a part of becoming an adult in Mike’s mind.

In the last ep before the mileven kiss, he even invites both El and Will over for Christmas saying “ And Will too… we could all have new presents to play with and… *scoffs* Sorry, that made me sound like a 7 year old... ”

And it’s implied in the last ep (before the mileven kiss), because of the 3 month breakup Mike is back to liking d &d. When Mike sees Will put his own d&d book in the donation box he stops him.

Mike: “WHOA, dude that’s the donation box.”

Will: “ I know, I’ll just use yours, when I come back. (pause) if WE still want to play?”

So then Mike asks, shyly …

Mike : “Yeah, but what if you want to join another party?” (cough- girls , the other ‘species’, or just someone else: girl, guy or otherwise)

Will: “Not possible.” (Will will always love Mike- insert Mikes immediate heart-eye reaction to this comment).

I think people don’t notice what the subtext is here- regardless of his intentions, Mike broke Will’s heart. He made him feel “stupid” for ever thinking he ever had a chance with Mike. He always saw Mike as his forever, but Mike shot any hopes of that down in the garage. Will doesn’t trust his own instincts. Mike could straight up flirt with him in s4/5- and Will would dismiss it as his imagination. He essentially said ‘he’ll always love Mike- but if something is going to happen. It’s up to Mike to initiate it’.

Mike was queer coded since ep 1 (and he’s more queer coded than Will)!

I LITERALLY thought (in s1) Mike was queer before Will!

- 3 rainbow references. Mike in s1 in his basement has a red heart being propelled by a rainbow sign. We see this again in s3 as a drawing. Mike also stands next to Will behind a rainbow apple poster in s2. Forbidden fruit + rainbow = queer forbidden romance. Also the apple poster was in the AV Club and at that time the rainbow apple-mac sign was suspected to be in reference to for Alan Turning (the gay ‘father of computers’).

In s1:

- 4 separate characters said El looked like a boy, but Mike doesn’t care! Even one of the men thought El might be the missing ‘Byers boy’. When El loses her wig , Troy said “she doesn’t even look like a girl” to the cops. But Mike just calls her “really pretty”

-Nancy says “I thought you were acting weird, but I thought it was because of Will” And Mike responds “I thought you were acting weird too I thought it was because of Steve … Do you like Jonathan now”?” Nancy: “No, do you like Eleven?”. They literally compared the explicit love triangle between Steve/Nancy/Jonathan to the Will-Mike-El dynamic!

- Mike literally uses gender inclusive pronouns when talking about crushes using the word “someone” (3 times), and embarrassing himself because he can’t articulate the difference between friendship and romance. When he could of simply given the 80s heteronormative answer of ‘when a boy likes a girl’.

Mike: “ you go to school dances with someone.

You know someone that you like”

El: “a friend?”

Mike: ‘not a friend uh … uh someone like a” (gives up and kisses her)

-Mike’s mom said “ What’s been going on with Will, I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you. I just … want you to feel like you can talk to me. I never want you to feel like you have to HIDE anything from me” (she even emphasizes the word ‘hide” (which is heavily queer coded)

- when Will ‘dies’, “we can be heroes” by David bowie (a bisexual singer) plays, “And we kiss as though nothing could fall and the shame” is the lyric that plays when Mike returns to his house and cries in his mother’s arms over the ‘death’ of Will. Do I have to explain how ‘kissing and shame’ are queer-coded . And how such a lyric is oddly romantic- if we’re supposed to see their bond as nothing but platonic XD

-his dad jokes “Absolutely not” *turns to wife* “our son with a girl?”.

- when Lucas makes fun of his crush on EL, Lucas gets down on one knee and says “ I love you so much, will you marry me?” and literally 1s later, we’re introduced to the bullies and the idea (for the first time) that Will is ‘gay’, and Mike is in the forefront of the scene and unlike his friends he is THE ONLY ONE physically assaulted as they cause him to fall face first into a rock (like a gay-bashing) . They leave Lucas and Dustin unharmed. Even though Lucas just proposed to another guy- which should have gotten him a beating by the homophobic bullies.

It’s supposed to subconsciously hint Mike is queer like Will, and likes Will. The first interaction with the bullies, they mention Will being ‘gay’ right after they mention Mike’s crush on androgynous El and have a guy propose to Mike. Mike says to “ignore them” ( the homophobic remarks) but is assaulted anyways. And when asked what happed he doesn’t want to tell El the details cause he’s ashamed .

2nd time the bullies talk about Will, Mike is once again in the forefront, unlike his straight friends who are in the background . But this time Mike initiates the confrontation), as the bullies say Will is “flying in fairyland with all the other little fairies. All happy and gay”. Mike was literally on the verge or tears at this comment (despite being happy a few moments earlier , telling the others to ‘act sad’ because they’d look suspicious other wise). But this is the comment where Mike snaps and pushes Troy back (because he took it personally/wanted to defend Will).

The framing of Mike once again being in the front and snapping at the homophobic remarks ( gifs don’t do it justice, just rewatch the scene -Mike eyes water at the remarks). Then the last time the bullies appear , Mike jumps off the cliff and “flies like a fairy” (like Troy said) thanks to El . Troy at the police station even uses the word “fly” not levitate.

-Mike sneaking out to find Will, as Steve sneaks in to Nancy’s. They both even make eye contact (and pretend not to have seen each other).

- they share dinosaur toys , in s1 and 2 they appear to be the only ones with dinosaur toys.

- The s1 mom hug scene where Mike feels he lost Will is paralleled in s3 - signifying how he lost him a 2nd time.

- Mike in the 1st ep being the one to insist on looking for Will in the rain (callback to s3). But he never went looking for El when he saw her through his window? Even when Mike saw Will’s dead body, the second he heard his voice he convinced his friends to help rescue him!

- You remember the binder (from s1) that Mike keeps, filled with 100s of Will’s drawings, and how he caresses the drawing after thinking Will was dead. That’s totes platonic.

- Mike in s1 proclaiming “I’m the only one who cares about Will!” Seems like something a kid with a crush might say ( because obviously his other friends care about Will). But he thinks he cares the most. He was even the first to worry about Will not showing up to school, the first to suggest looking for him while speaking to Hopper, and when Hopper and his parents say ‘no’ he sneaks out anyway (and is the first to suggest forming a search party). The first to believe he was alive after seeing his dead body.The only boy to have a scene dedicated solely to him mourning Will. Mike being the only boy to stay awake at the hospital, and the first boy to see and hug Will. The only one to have a private one on one talk before Will goes missing. The only one who was literally given 100s of Will’s drawings. And yet Dustin says Lucas’ is Mike’s best friend? So what does that make Mike and Will?

In s2:

- Will in all 3 seasons identifies as a wizard. But in s2 Mike (the paladin) says Will is a cleric. Meaning this reflects how Mike actually feels about Will. In d&d, they have similar moral values, powers, and generally need and depend on each other in the lore of d&d. Paladins have similar healing powers to clerics, but clerics have stronger healing abilities - which is interesting since Mike has always been viewed as the protector. But to Mike Will has helped him (maybe deal with the loss of El and other trauma) , just by being there. And if Mike says Will is a cleric,despite Will still identifying as a wizard in s3, it shows how deeply Mike actually feels about Will. It shows he views Will as one of the only people who understands him and views him as a healing presence and his moral compass.

“ strength of conviction gave many paladins a sense of common fellowship but did not always endear them to others. In many cases, paladins did not get along quite as well with other non-paladin adventurers, with the exception of clerics with similar beliefs.”

“A Paladin tries to hold to the highest standards of conduct, but even the most virtuous Paladin is fallible. Sometimes the heat of emotion causes a Paladin to transgress his or her oath (of honesty, courage, compassion, honor ,and duty). A paladin who has broken a vow typically seeks absolution from a cleric who shares his or her faith or from another paladin of the same order. After a rite of confession and forgiveness, the paladin starts fresh.”

This proves Mike knows he treats Will special/different than his other friends- and unlike a relationship with El (they are still individuals who are not dependent on each other). And Mike thinks being with Will quite literally makes him a better person. Juxtaposed with how him being in a romantic relationship with El made him blind and apathetic to those closest to him .

- All the mileven s1 parallels vs byler s2 parallels were ALL initiated by Mike. If the parallels were meant to show a one sided love triangle (on Mike’s end). They would of made Will the instigator not Mike! Parallels can be watched here , start at 6:50)

-Mike initiated the “crazy together’ line- and in s3 he said ‘blank makes you crazy’. So subconsciously he knew the line had romantic connotations.

-Mike initiating the hand hold (with a zoom in shot) and in the show this is only done for romantic pairings. Also Mike being the one to initiate the ‘arm thing’ which is generally romantic. But in s3 , Lucas also does this, saying “I am spending quality time with my girlfriend’

-Mike saying, asking him to be his friend was the “best thing I’ve ever done”

-Mike constantly following Will around, asking if he’s okay or biking to his house to check on him in s2 . In s3 running out to chase Will to the garage and apologizing, and running into a storm to apologize a 2nd time.

YOU SEE A PATTERN! Mike is whipped! And is the one constantly chasing and pursuing Will, not the other way around! Before s3, people always portrayed Will as the (stereotypical- problematic trope of a) sad-pinning-gay in a one sided love with Mike. It’s like people didn’t even watch the show (and just assigned tropes/stereotypes they wanted, that weren’t actually there). Will (probably too shy or scared to- because of homophobic taunts) never initiated a single byler moment- it was ALWAYS Mike!!! If people were actually objective, they would of thought it was Mike who was the one pinning!

- Which brings me to Mike literally pinning! Mike forcing Will to dance with a girl (who has a rainbow hairclip), but you literally see Mike’s shocked expression like ‘what,why’d I do that ?’ And after this, they show Dustin looking sad about Max/Lucas dancing and then they have Mike get into the frame (next to Dustin) and look sad when Will/girl are dancing in the same exact frame as Max/Lucas. As they switch between these last 2 shots.

the cannon Spotify playlists-called ‘Mike’s basement beats’- These are character playlists that Spotify and St worked on together after s2.

-his first song is “small town boy” an 80s LGBT anthem about living in a small town and being queer and bullied. Every band member was openly gay.

-his 11th song is ‘don’t you want me’ from a “celebrate your gay pride” album

* But queer people are “delusional” for thinking Mike isn’t straight? And are told to “open your eyes and watch the show” (that was an actual quote in the byler tag). Ok? Take your own advice, then! XD

One of the Duffers cited inspirations for ST is SUPER GAY (and what they based the byler dynamic off of).

In the Will comic, Will throws an old 1970s book called “house of stairs” at the demorgorgan. And in a later chapter Mike and Will just read together at the library (just silently reading together, enjoying each others’ company-totally not a romantic cliche).And Mike warns Will the book ‘could have spoilers’ for the d&d campaign. Also look at this byler-centric cover :)

Peter (Will) is shy, quiet ,initially a pushover, and gay-coded. And as a coping mechanism he has psychological-breaks with reality where he thinks of his best friend from the orphanage, Jasper (Mike) . Another kidnapped boy, named Oliver (who looks just like Jasper/Mike) is also queer-coded (but a violent-sociopath). And, unlike Jasper who actually wanted to protect/take care of Peter -Oliver starts to gets a sick thrill out of making Peter dependent on him (which Peter catches on to pretty quickly). Oliver was insistent on being the only one to ‘wake’ Peter from his episodes (just like how Mike did for Will, in s2), except Oliver calls him pet-names like “sweetheart, baby, etc.”

And again to prove it’s queer-coded I’ll read some of the (shortened) quotes, in the order they were written. These are quotes from Peter (Will’s) pov talking about his childhood best-friend Jasper (Mike) .

-“his room. His and jaspers room. Jasper looking up from his desk, smiling glad to see him. Jasper saying . Something very important. The most important message, the secret message. He couldn’t hear him . But jasper keeps smiling , keeps talking . What was the message, jasper? What was the message? The dream had been beautiful at the beginning, terrible at the end, but he longed to be in it again. If only he hadn’t awakened.”

-“Jasper sitting on the bed and taking off his shoes ,smiling, ‘you’re okay pete, you’re better than a hundered of those slobs put together. Tomorrow I’ll tell them so myself‘ jasper’s strong, hard body as he got into bed ,so different from peter’s. Strong, to protect him to take care of him. Jasper, who always took care of him”.

-“He wanted to think about oliver it it was like having Jasper back again. It would disturb him to see Oliver go off with Abigail… the rejection quite painful. It had never been like that with Jasper…jasper.

-The room they shared with rainbow colors, murmuring comforting words to him , enclosing and protecting him. He let himself drift into it, the rainbow hues dimness.”

-“No one ever depended on him. It was he who always depended on others, on Jasper. jasper, who had always taken care of him. Jasper…”

later he admits his feelings for Jasper to Lola/el. Lola and Pete are plantonic soulmates. The only reason why they survive and don’t succumb to their dark and violent urges/psychological brainwashing is because of each other. Lola has brown hair and eyes and has a buzzcut and is heavily implied to be a lesbian (as she is the only girl in the group who is not fooled by Oliver’s ‘nice guy act’. Which makes the other girls ‘suspicious’ and alienate her). Also this was written in the 70s… she has a buzzcut and is said to “look like a boy”. It’s not that subtle! There was a reason that the author whose first name was WILLIAM (was suspected to be gay/bi when he was alive)! XD

-Peter says “ he was my friend we were always together . Jasper his name was jasper .in the dream he’s taking care of me’. Now he was beginning to cry, his throat constricting and tears welling up in his eyes .’taking care of me … he always took care of me… taking care of me, and , and … and loving me’. ‘”It was the best time in your life’ she murmured’. ‘Yes’ “

* cough protective childhood friend, rainbows, ‘best time of your life = best thing I ever did.

S3 ending (byler centric ending)

When we first see Mike during the Hopper mologue, the moving truck leaves. “Like you’re pulling away from me or something. I miss playing board games every night (d &d)”… (the last thing they talked about was Will visiting to play d&d and their fight this season started because of a disagreement about d&d.)

Then Mike looks back at the Byers house (just lingers there and looks back as his friends leave) like how Will did seeing Mike hold hands with El and leave . “But I know you’re getting older, growing, changing. I guess, if I’m being really honest, that’s what scares me. I don’t want things to change.”Mike , like Will “doesn’t want things things to change”. He doesn’t want his his feelings of friendship to become romantic in regards to Will, it “scares” him (especially in rural 80s Indiana). Right after Will cries, it immediately switches to Mike hugging his mom- to mirror the time he thought Will died in s1 “So I think maybe that’s why I came in here, to try and maybe stop that change. To turn back the clock. To make things go back to how they were.” He goes back to his mother for comfort, like he did the 1st time he lost Will. But also to reverse back time, to s1, before he realized his feelings for Will were romantic. When things were simpler.

“But I know that’s naive. It’s just not how life works. It’s moving, always moving, whether you like it or not. And yeah, sometimes it’s painful. Sometimes it’s sad. And sometimes, it’s surprising. Happy.” (byler endgame)

Will (in s2) even says everyone treats him like ‘freak/ that something is wrong with him’ (purposely leaving out Mike from the discussion). And then when Will disparages himself as a freak,and Jonathan agrees but asks Will, ‘who would he rather be friends with- David Bowie (who was openly bi since the 70s) or Kenny Rogers’? And when Will says Bowie, Jonathan agrees saying “see, it’s no contest”.

So, it’s just another coincidence that when Will ‘dies’ (in s1) a David Bowie song (‘we can be heroes’) plays. And as Mike hugs his mom, mourning Will - a romantic lyric from the song plays during the hug?“And we kiss, as though nothing could fall. And the shame” (which is heavily queer coded)?

And then in the last ep (in s3) Mike mirrors this scene in s1, hugging his mom, since he feels like he’s losing Will all over again. And right after the hug (‘we can be heroes’) plays again!? I’m not saying byler is endgame. But- WAIT THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT I’M SAYING! XD

These men literally invented ‘hetero-baiting’ (with Robin & Steve) and you think they’re going to queer bait?!

Also, if Will was a girl named ‘Willow” no one would call byler ‘delusional’ ! Even the most casual viewer would say it’s obvious they’d end up together in the end!

If the witness said about El in s1 , “ same height… it could be the Byers girl”, instead of ‘boy’ (pointing out the resemblance). Mike only meeting El cause he was looking for Willow. Proclaiming “i’m the only one who cares about Willow!” . Mike getting into fights and getting upset (almost crying) about the bullies insulting Willow. Mike only getting angry at El when he thinks she lied about Willow being alive. Mike being the only boy who has a scene dedicated to his loss of her (with the same romantic lyrics playing). Mike having a whole binder of her drawings and caressing one of the drawings, after he thinks she died. Mike being the only one of her friends to stay awake at the hospital, waiting for her to wake up- so he can see her and hug her first. People probably would of started shipping it the second Willow stared at him and was the only one who didn’t lie to him, in the first ep! Another parallel to El!

If Will was Willow, the majority of the fandom would be byler shippers. Think about it! . Mike having s2 byler scenes that are identical to s1 mileven scenes, and then additional unique byler scenes. Mike staying by Willow’s side 24 hours a day for several days (not even changing clothes), carrying her out of the hospital, grabbing her hand (with a zoom in shot),constantly asking her if she’s okay at least 5-7 times, putting his arm around her twice, being the only one who could tell something was off with her (and it wasn’t her normal type of quiet). Calling and running all the way to her house and banging on the door to check on her, desperate. Watching her sleep cause he’s so worried. That shed scene reminiscing about how they first met in perfect detail, saying “I asked, I asked if you wanted to be my friend. You said yes, you said yes. It was the best thing I’ve ever done. (like a marriage proposal)” The “crazy together” scene. Them being close since they were 5 vs the girl he knew for a week (but is somehow in love with?). In s2 if Mike sadly watched Willow dance with another guy , while Dustin does the same to Max. Forget it- everyone would already know mileven would be doomed to fail.

And again think about s3 if Will was a girl.They parallel the (comedic) mileven breakup vs (the sad/serious) byler breakup. Then Mike just complains and burps on the couch vs apologizing to Willlow multiple times/even going into a storm to apologize a 2nd time (and to ‘talk’). Willow having a breakdown over the fight vs El laughing and high five-ing Max after.The shed vs the pool shed scene- “best thing I’ve ever done” vs “you’re the most important thing in the world to me”, “blank makes you crazy’ (as El stares confused) vs “crazy together’ (where Willow says ‘yeah, crazy together’). Mike going on ‘movie dates with Willlow all the time’ right after making out with El. The last mileven kiss where Mike has his eyes open the whole time, and doesn’t kiss back. And saying he doesn’t remember saying “I love” you to El (and doesn’t say ‘I love you’ back). Right after having a talk with Willow about playing games when she comes back (the crux of their fight). Mike getting excited that he’ll be able to visit El and Willow on Thanksgiving and them visiting him on Christmas (those are holidays where family usually introduces their S.O.) Having the last scene of Mike, be him looking back at Willow’s house, and have that whole monologue about “feelings changing”, and then he goes to hug his mom like the s1 byler scene where he thought Willow was dead, signifying he lost her again. And that’s not even all the scenes- and every time byler won by a landslide. If Will was a girl, we wouldn’t be ‘delusional’! It would be obvious writing on the wall, that Mike would eventually choose Willow over El by the end of the series.

But since they are 2 boys, we’re delusional, because queer kids don’t exist … apparently.

*S3-I’m not repeating my literal essays but they’re probably better than this post so here are the links to pretty much all my s3 byler meta. (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

gif credit: 1st few have the name stark in the gifs, 2nd byler gif (found on wheheart.com- user dream_daisy, not sure if they also have a Tumblr , 3rd livelovecaliforniadreams, 4th &10th Cath-avery, 5& 6th unknown, 7-9 eggogorgon . Tell me if you know the unknown one so I can give credit , please.

#byler #byeler

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contrabbandiera-di-elia · 4 years

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This is another of my Contrabbandieri in Hogwarts fic. It can read together or as standalone. They're not connected at all. And again: It’s just a small ficlet, please don’t dwell on the sense or logic. You won’t find it. For the plot purposes, we pretend that it’s okay for Italians to attend Hogwarts. We also pretend it’s okay that this fic takes place during/slightly before the Harry Potter era. And we pretend the canon ages doesn’t matter, so the Contrabbandieri and Le Matte are in their sixth year and everyone canonically older than them (Niccolo, Filippo, Villa Boys, Rose Squad…) is in seventh. Not that it matters in such a short fic. There is no specific plot and it probably won't have a continuation. Probably! I can accept a prompt for this AU. I can do almost every ship and POV, the thing is I’m not that great in writing in English, so don’t expect anything better than this thing below. No beta, of course. And you may spot some inconsistencies. I haven’t read/watch HP in a long time. But I’ve done some research, and it should be more or less fine.

Elippo Week 2020 Day 7 Free Day

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Martino sighed loudly, trying to get comfortable on the bench he was sitting on. He wasn’t really a fan of quidditch, but it didn’t change the fact that he was attending almost each and every match. One of the many disadvantages of having his best friends scattered through all three remaining houses, with two of them actually playing in a team. The only match he could possibly skip was Slytherin versus Hufflepuff. Still, he usually attended this one too in recent years, there was usually some reason to do so. Sofia or Edoardo or… Generally, there was always a reason to do so.

This time, it was Ravenclaw versus Slytherin. So, of course, Martino had to come. Not only his house’s team was playing, but also Elia was playing. And to make things worse, one of his Slytherin friends suddenly became very interested in quidditch, although he never really cared about any kind of sport.

“Since when you’re into quidditch, Filo?” Asked Giovanni, not a bit of malice in his voice, pure curiosity.

“Well, I have to cheer on my house, don’t I? You know, after all, my beloved sister’s boyfriend is the captain of a team.”

“So why you're sitting here in Ravenclaw section instead of cheering on him from Slytherin’s section?” Asked Luca, surprisingly accurately, not at all like a typical Luchino.

“In fact, why are you all sitting in the Ravenclaw section even though none of you is from Ravenclaw?” Sighed Sana somewhere from next to Filippo. Her presence, quite contrary, was on point. Not only was she a Ravenclaw, but also, her brother was a captain and keeper of the Ravenclaw team.

“He came here because he has a—”

“AND GOOOOOAL! A round of applause for my dearest friend, Rocco Martucci, for scoring one for Slytherin! Too bad all the ladies are too focused on Edoardo Incanti to see this heroic act. Well, too bad for you all, my girls, but Edo is happily taken so he won’t even—”

“Rodi, this comment was unnecessary!”

“I’m just stating the facts, Professor. It’s better if they know it, otherwise, it’d be—”

“RODI!”

Chicco Rodi and Professor McGonagall’s conversation effectively drove the attention of what Niccolo was about to say. Martino sighed once again, finally trying to focus on the game. Elia was flying high above the other players, and so was Slytherin’s seeker, whatever was his name, Martino didn’t really remember. They were both focused and seemed unbothered by the whole game taking place underneath him. Which, in the case of Elia, was quite atypical. He was not the quiet, focused kind of guy. That was the side of him that was visible only during the quidditch matches.

Martino glanced at Filippo and saw his eyes fixed on Elia as well. Of course, after all, that was all he came for.

Martino knew about Filippo’s crush for weeks now. At first, it was hard to get the truth out of him, but finally, he spilled. Martino couldn’t really say it came as a surprise. He had his suspicions for a while; after all, he and Filippo were friends, they were in the same house and (starting from quite recently) the same big group of friends. It was hard not to notice the way Filippo’s eyes were naturally searching for Elia, the way he was laughing at his poor jokes, how he was beaming every time Elia paid him even a little bit of attention. He was helplessly into him, and sometimes Martino was sure that pretty much everyone knew about it.

Well, almost everyone. Elia was quite clueless and seemed completely unaware of Filippo’s feelings. Martino wasn’t sure if that was for better or for worse. On the one hand, he would have nothing against his friends dating. Their group was full of couples, one more didn’t make a difference. Plus, he really wanted both of them happy. He had a hunch that they’d be good for each other. On the other hand, he wasn’t quite sure about Elia. He was never talking much about his feelings; most of the time, they had to decipher it themselves before he told them anything. And Martino couldn’t just ask him, “hey, do you like guys?”. Everything he could do was wait, observe…

…and attend quidditch matches. Unfortunately.

“Could it be? YES! It’s Elia Santini with a snitch! Sorry, Slytherin, maybe another time!”

Martino looked back to the field to see Elia wave his hand victoriously. Ravenclaw’s section started screaming happily, standing up from their seats ready to welcome their team right after it leaves the field. Elia flew a little closer to the Ravenclaw section and… winked. This simple gesture confused Martino. And not only him. Giovanni threw him a surprised glance. It wasn’t Elia’s style to play for the audience like that. It had to be directed at someone. Martino looked at Filippo cautiously, but he seemed just as confused as Gio. But Martino was sure Elia winked at one of them.

After the congratulations and effusive greetings, still in his quidditch robes, Elia got to their friends, still beaming from happiness.

“How did you like the game?” Asked Elia, although his eyes were focused on Filippo only. Giovanni and Luca instantly started with their vivid commentary, while the older boy shrugged nonchalantly.

“Oh, I don’t really know. I wasn’t paying attention,” he said. The biggest bullshit Martino had ever seen. And Elia seemed to know it as well because he only smiled mischievously.

“Of course, you weren’t.”

#elippo #elippoweek #elippoweek2020 #skam italia #skamit #my fic

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secondgenerationnerd · 4 years

Note

Dickbabs kid? (Like hiw you did spitfire's kids)

YISSSSS (sorry for the later hcs, but I have thoughts on Luca okay?)

First and foremost, his name is Luca John Gordon-Grayson

It was really difficult for Barbara to carry him because of her spinal injury (also fuck that ableism of her ‘working hard and getting over it’), so he’s an only child

Luca’s hella energetic as a kid.

By the time he’s two, he’s climbing up everything. Like this kid is definitely Dick and Babs because who else was he going to get those acrobatic skills from

He is friends with the West kids and Kaldur’s son, Ceridian, pretty much since infancy.

His birthday’s June 12th, putting him roughly between Matt and Jania in age.

He starts hearing all the “Oh! Lock up your daughters, Dick’s son is coming!” jokes really early on.

Luca shrugs them off when he’s little because he doesn’t understand them fully.

He’s super interested in math and science, which makes him Wally’s favorite

His favorite childhood summer memories involve spending the day with his parents on the beach. Especially when Dick tosses him in the water.

Of course, hard to beat having the season 1 team all together, especially Uncle Kaldur

He takes gymnastics and parkour pretty much all his life

Starts wearing glasses when he’s 10 because he spends so much time learning computers from his mom/her bad eye sight. His Robin mask has special lenses in it with his prescription.

Go to nickname for most people is Lu, but Matt calls him Puca (from the time they’re four on)

As he heads into pre-teenhood, he starts looking more and more like his dad. He loves his dad, but Luca starts to feel less like a person and more like a doppleganger.

He becomes a hero the same time as the West kids and Ceridian, taking the Robin mantle from his Uncle Damian

Luca takes up areial silks when he’s 11. He likes the security of them more than the trapeze.

Dick and Barbara are super active in his life. They’re a close family and he loves his parents so much. But there’s part of him that sees how great they are and worries he won’t be able to live up to their standards.

The West kids have a permanant invitation to stay for dinner.

People joke that Luca and Jania are already engaged to be married.

When he’s 12, that joke starts to bother him more and he doesn’t know why

When he’s 15, he realizes that he’s gay and that he has a crush on Matt

Luca keeps it to himself for a while, not wanting to lose his best friend.

At a party when he’s 16, Luca gets drunk, Matt helping him back to his room like the good friend Matt is. Without thinking, Luca kisses Matt and admits his crush. Matt’s very gentle promising to talk about it when Luca’s sober and tucks him into bed.

Luca is the definition of gay panic because he avoids Matt like the plague for the next few weeks. Which is easier said than done with a speedster best friend, even if you are a Robin.

Matt corners him on a rooftop and demands they talk. Luca’s terrified he’s about to lose his best friend...only for Matt to say he has a crush on Luca too.

Their first sober kiss ends up with Luca jabbing Matt in the ribs reflexively. Matt makes a joke about taking his breath away.

They both keep their relationship secret for a while, especially as they explore what their new dynamic is with each other.

While his parents, family, and all the people that love him don’t care that he’s gay (more in the ‘We love and accept and celebrate you for who you are’ sense.), he still struggles feeling like he somehow failed at being Dick’s son because he’s not into girls.

His dad talks to him about it a lot and is really good about not comparing himself to Luca once he sees it’s an issue.

Luca wants to be acknowledge for his own merits and skills; less for who he’s related to or who he loves

Overall, he’s spunky, sharp witted, can charm his way out of most issues, a computer whiz, and tries to live his life on his own terms.

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Luca Gordon-Grayson

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Always fixing his glasses!

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Luca doing what he loves!

He a flexible boy!

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The team Left to right: Ceridian ‘Ahm aka Aqualad (not totally sold on his looks tbh, willing to accept ideas), Zachary Zatara, Jania West aka Atalanta, Matt West aka Velocity, Luca Gordon Grayson aka Robin

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Best friends since birth, y’all

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They got that height difference y’all

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Get you someone who looks at you like Matt looks at Luca

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Their ship name is “best boys” i will not accept anything else

#Young Justice #young justice outsiders #dick grayson #Dickbabs #barbara gordon #dickbabs kid

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disneydreamlights · 4 years

Note

Celeste because she's bae, and Annalee because Daughter Time nwn

ASH THERE’S SO MANY CONCERNING THINGS ABOUT THAT FIRST STATEMENT.

Full Name: Just Celeste. She did at one point have a last name but she abandoned it, seeing it as unnecessary. She also sometimes goes by Astra.

Gender and Sexuality: Cis girl and this is the one question my answer is “I don’t want to know”

Pronouns: she/her

Ethnicity/Species: human

Birthplace and Birthdate: Sumaru City. Her birthday is June 8th.

Guilty Pleasures: So I have to preface this that this is not normally a guilty pleasure but due to the fact that she thinks she has to abandon everything she once was to lead her cult properly, her attachment to her drawing and the comic she’d planned on making before she discovered Yaldabaoth are both guilty pleasures.

Phobias: Nothing she would admit. ;) (Also snakes)

What They Would Be Famous For: In an ideal world? It’d be for her art skills and comic since she’s really good. But uh...leading a cult is kinda...yeah.

What They Would Get Arrested For: HMM...it’s almost like she psychologically tormented people to recruit them to a cult I wonder...

OC You Ship Them With: no

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Of my own ocs Luca would like to strangle her in her sleep but let’s be real it’s Matt.

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Superhero

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Not a cliche but in general the generic YA Dystopia novel genre and all the cliches associated with it tend to leave a bad taste in her mouth.

Talents and/or Powers: She’s great at art, and whether or not it’s good or not she is gifted at manipulation and making people see things her way.

Let me put it this way: Matt may have been the reason the Holy Grail grew so exponentially, but she’d still managed to recruit a good amount of members before she had him and there’s a reason for that.

Why Someone Might Love Them: Once they honestly get to know her if they do they’re probably too wrapped up in her beliefs to stand against her. It’s the only reason somebody could like her. She’s manipulative, abusive, and kinda a bitch.

Also I guess there’s kinda the people who don’t know she’s a cult leader who know her online like Luca, ig he likes her because when she’s not trying to recruit people to a cult she’s not a complete monster.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: See the above.

How They Change: Her character arc is definitely a fall from grace. She starts off as a young and aspiring comic artist who moves to Shibuya for a chance, has some bad luck, and just when all seems shit, she winds up in Yaldaboath’s distorted world but unlike everybody else there, she can see him right away. And the words he says make sense. Shibuya is rotten to the core. People don’t need free will, they’d be happier without it. When he dies, she resolves to bringing him back to awareness in the human subconscious so he can rise again and control Shibuya from below with her as his enforcer and the one spreading his word, and bit by bit she starts losing every aspect of herself until all that’s left of Celeste is a dedicated follower of Yaldabaoth and leader of a cult.

Why You Love Them: She’s an interesting character study for sure and her fall from naïve, struggling comic and fanartist to cult leader who’s entire identity and life’s goals are based around bringing back a false god who wants to take away all individuality and control the world and that’s interesting as hell. She’s interesting as hell.

-x-

Full Name: Annalee

Gender and Sexuality: Nonbinary, aro/ace

Pronouns: she/her or they/them. No real personal preference so it’s whatever other characters choose to use. (I use she/her in narration only because those were her initial pronouns since that’s one of the details that’s changed over the years.)

Ethnicity/Species: Unversed (It’s Complicated, and if it comes up in the profile I’ll explain otherwise nah)

Birthplace and Birthdate: Scala ad Caelum and N/A but when asked she insists it’s July 3rd

Guilty Pleasures: Every manga she ever read. She’s read some bad ones.

Phobias: Abandonment is probably her biggest fear but she’s got a pretty big list and some terrible anxiety.

What They Would Be Famous For: I know back when I used her for a DR rp she was a violinist so probably that but realistically for a lot of reasons (anxiety, discovery of her true nature, etc) she would choose to avoid the spotlight so...

What They Would Get Arrested For: I had to give this a lot of thought and more than likely? She completely ran away from something and her father “arrested” her as a cover to get her back home so as not to destroy world order or anything.

OC You Ship Them With: N/A

OC Most Likely To Murder Them: Realistically if she loses the ability to maintain her rationality and her true form, Sky, Marina, or Landon could all be likely to take her out, probably Landon.

Favorite Movie/Book Genre: Rom Com Mangas (i.e. She’d love Fruits Basket) followed by adventure stories.

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche: Love triangles (”I don’t get it why are they introducing another character she won’t end up with anyways! It’s stupid!”)

Talents and/or Powers: As a Keyblade Wielder Annalee has the standard array of ability to use Keyblade and everything that comes with it.

Because she is an Unversed given human form (tl:dr Vanitas experiences a happy emotion and creates an Unversed that’s powerful enough to maintain a human form when she so chooses, and she does often) she also has standard array of his powers. She can create or summon Unversed and have them help her in combat. If they or she get too hurt, she can no longer sustain them and they vanish instead to sustain her. (Her favorite is her Archraven)

Why Someone Might Love Them: Well first of all she’s honestly adorable in her naivety, and she tries incredibly hard to be liked. Her heart is always in the right place even despite the darkness that makes her up and she’s kind. Insanely kind.

Why Someone Might Hate Them: Well for one Vanitas is like her pseudo-father so anybody with a grudge against him...there’s also the fact that if she loses control or gets too much darkness exposure she’ll turn into her true Unversed form and go on a rampage. And also her social anxiety does make her panic often or say the wrong thing.

How They Change: In character, she becomes more confident, self assured, and better at controlling her darkness to the point that all transformations are at will.

But honestly tracking her ooc changes is more fun because full confession, she was originally a Vanqua love child I had no choice but to back off of because of some things in the rp I first used her in and I liked the second version so much I decided to keep it.

Why You Love Them: She’s one of my oldest ocs, and I’m very proud of how far she’s come as a character. Also I’m not gonna lie I may look at some of the Unversed stuff and go “wow other KH fans will probably find that cringey” but I’m having fun with all of it and I think above all else that’s what matters.

#Heather rps #Heather Answers #lup-laguz

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the-gongoozler · 5 years

Text

Best Ship/Worst Ship- TV edition

1. Gilmore Girls (the best)

Best Ship: Jess and Rory (Literati)

- Very ready to fight about it

- Look at the way he looks at her

- She couldn’t stay away from him, even when she tried

- The literal only case of two exes meeting up and the guy not being an absolute dick about it.

- Sexual tension 12/10

- Friendship 15/10

- Pulls you out of the deep dark whole you dig yourself into 10/10

Worst Ship: Chris and Lorelai (Balcony Buddies)

- Chris sucks

- This is the best gif he’s in.

- Same, Luke. Same.

- Sexual tension 1/10

- Friendship 3/10

2. Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Best Ship: Amy and Jake (Peraltiago)

- They are so sweet and supportive

- Not a couple that needs drama cliches to be interesting

- Kevin and Holt are a close second

- Sexual tension 7/10

- Friendship 10/10

Worst Ship: Rosa and Adrian

- So unhealthy and sad

- Rosa deserves better and she’s damn well gonna get it

- Sexual tension 8/10

- Friendship 0/10

3. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Best Ship: Spike and Buffy (Spuffy)

- Enemies to lovers stan

- He’s the only one that is 100% honest with her

- He’s the only one that really helps her after she crawls out of her grave.

- Sexual tension 10/10

- Friendship 8/10

Worst Ship: (Briley?)

- Riley, was there even a point to you?

- Sexual tension 0/10

- Friendship 0/10

4. Friends

Best Ship: Joey and Rachel (Roey)

- Joey loved her so much

- He was ready to do anything for her and her baby

- She wasn’t nearly as unhappy with her as she was with any of her other boyfriends

- Sexual tension 8/10

- Friendship 10/10

Worst Ship: Rachel and Ross (Rosschel)

- Ross is so possessive

- There was so much drama

- They made each other more annoying

- Sexual tension 3/10

- Friendship 6/10

5. How I Met Your Mother

Best Ship: Barney and Robin (Swarkles)

- Again, supportive.

- They actually have stuff in common?

- “No guy's gonna say "Who's your daddy?" to Robin Scherbatsky; you're your own daddy. And mommy. And weird survivalist uncle who lives in a cabin with a shotgun blaming stuff on the government. And that is what makes you the most amazing, strong, independent woman I've ever banged.”

- Sexual tension 7/10

- Friendship 10/10

Worst Ship: Ted and Robin

- Ross and Rachel 2.0

- He complains that she doesn’t need him enough.

- Very not a fan of being possessive over an ex.

- She does. not. want. kids. Ted.

- Sexual tension 1/10

- Friendship 7/10

6. Lucifer

Best Ship: Chloe and Lucifer (Deckstar)

- He needs Decker in his life

- Tbh, she needs him too.

- Sexual tension 9/10

- Friendship 10/10

Worst Ship: Amenadiel and Linda

- There’s significantly less chemistry between him and Linda compared to him and Maze.

- Linda and Maze also have more chemistry.

- Linda deserves someone who won’t try to steal her baby?

- Sexual tension 6/10

- Friendship 5/10

7. Once Upon a Time

Best Ship: Killian and Emma (Captain Swan)

- You could see them together the first time they talked.

- Again, enemies to lovers

- Great tension for a long while

- Sexual tension 10/10

- Friendship 9/10

Worst Ship: Emma and Neal (Swanfire)

- Not good influences on each other

- She had your baby and you just weren’t around, Neal.

- Sexual tension 7/10

- Friendship 4/10

8. Stranger Things

Best Ship: Jonathan and Nancy (Jancy)

- My only complaint? Wasn’t a slow enough burn.

- Sexual tension 10/10

- Friendship 10/10

Worst Ship: Max and Lucas (as a romantic relationship)

- I know they’re young. I just don’t like how they treat each other in season 3

- They honestly both deserve better

- Friendship 8/10

9. Superstore

Best Ship: Amy and Jonah (Simmosa)

- Goddamit, Amy just leave your husband please?

- There are so many times when they should just kiss.

- Sexual tension 9/10

- Friendship 10/10

Worst Ship: Matteo and Jeff

- Sorry, but Jeff kinda sucks.

- Matteo should have someone who isn’t in the middle of a midlife crisis?

- Maybe Jeff can redeem himself soon.

- Sexual tension 7/10

- Friendship- 5/10

10. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Best Ship: Sabrina and Harvey (Harvina)

- They are too cute together

- It feels like they’re set up for endgame

- Sexual tension 6/10

- Friendship 9/10

Worst Ship: Sabrina and Nick (Nickbrina)

- It feels very temporary.

- I don’t trust him. I never have.

- Sexual tension 10/10

- Friendship 4/10

11. The Office

Best Ship: Jim and Pam (PB&J)

- Absolutely in love

- Smart and funny

- Sloooooow burn

- Sexual tension 10/10

- Friendship 10/10

Worst Ship: Jim and Pam with relationship issues in the late seasons

- So many shows have this endgame otp slowburn that takes 25% of the plot for a long time and when they get together, there’s nothing to fill that gap. Thus, they cause drama in that relationship when there really shouldn’t be any. Bullshit.

- Sexual tension 0/10

- Friendship 5/10

12. The Punisher/Daredevil

Best Ship: Karen and Frank (Kastle)

- After going through so much together, they are definitely in love

- Sadly, the cancellation is why this isn’t happening.

- No other reason.

- Definitely not.

- Sexual tension 10/10

- Will murder for you 10/10

Worst Ship: Elektra and Matt (Gross)

- Elektra just sucked in general. Let’s be real.

- No

Gilmore Girls Literati Brooklyn nine-nine Peraltiago BTVS Spuffy Friends Roey HIMYM Swarkles Lucifer Deckstar OUAT Captain Swan Stranger Things Jancy Superstore Simmosa Sabrina Harvina The office PB&J Kastle Daredevil Punisher

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introvertguide · 4 years

Text

King Kong (1933); AFI #41

The latest movie for review was the one and only creature feature on the AFI top 100 list, the iconic Kong Kong (1933). This was the equivalent of a blockbuster for the time as it was first presented at Radio City Music Hall for 4 days and all shows were sold out. The film incorporated layering technology that had never been utilized before, which I assume made the experience of watching in a 9,000 attendance capacity crowd on a 30 foot screen an amazing experience. The film did not win any awards, but has since been recognized as a defining film for special effects in Old Hollywood. I was able to track down a version of the movie with commentary by Ray Harryhausen and I want to discuss what was revealed about the film production, but we should do a quick summary of the film first. I will not go into too much detail since the film has been remade three times now and most everybody knows the story, but I still need to do the standard...

SPOILER WARNING!!!! I AM GOING TO GIVE AWAY THE PLOT OF A MOVIE THAT IS 90 YEARS OLD AND HAS BEEN REMADE TWICE!!! IT WON’T EVEN BE THAT IN DEPTH, BUT I GET IN TROUBLE IF I DON’T SAY SOMETHING ABOUT SPOILERS!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

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The film starts out with a movie director named Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) who is looking to discover an actress. He has a map to a secret island and he wants to shoot a film there. He hired a ship with a crew and his producer has secured a camera, but an actress is still needed. Denham scours the streets looking for a pretty new face that is desperate enough to not ask questions. He quickly discovers Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) as she is trying to steal an apple from an apple cart. He pays for her, gives her some food, and whisks her away on the boat.

On the ship, it is revealed that only Denham knows where they are going. He has a hand drawn map to a place called Skull Island where there is a giant wall that contains a world of monsters. Ann Darrow falls in love with the first mate, Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot), by the time boat makes it to the island. A large group goes ashore and they run into natives in front of a huge wall with a giant door. There seemed to be some sort of ceremony involving the sacrifice of a young girl, but that changes when the natives see Ann and they want to take her for their ceremony. The group from the boat decides it is a good idea to get off the island, so they row back to the ship. In the night, a group of natives spirit away Ann and her absence is quickly noticed.

Fires and celebration light up the sky and the crew figures out that the natives stole their actress. The tribe is then shown opening up the giant door, tying Ann to some rocks inside the enclosure, closing the doors leaving her alone, and then hitting a gong to summon the beast. The sailors all run up on the natives right as Kong appears and takes away Ann. The group including Denham and Driscoll open the door and half the group chases after Kong deep into the enclosure.

All of the men who go inside are slowly picked off by either Kong or dinosaurs that live in the enclosure, which turns out to be somewhat of a Jurassic jungle. Kong has to constantly fight off beasts that want to steal Ann from him including an allosaur, pterodactyls, and what appears to be the Loch Ness monster. With the constant barrage of predators, the chase team of sailors is whittled down to just Driscoll and Denham. Denham goes back to the gate and Driscoll goes after Ann. During one of Kong’s monster distractions, Driscoll is able to steal Ann and they flee back to the gate with Kong following behind. Everyone gets out of the enclosure successfully, but Kong is so mad he breaks down the gate and wreaks havoc on the native village killing many. Our three main characters and a few of the sailors that stayed behind to guard the gate run back to the boats with Kong following, but Denham is able to throw a gas bomb in the face of the giant gorilla and he is subdued.

The beginning of Act 3 has the hardest cut between settings of any movie I have ever seen, yet it makes sense in the movie. Kong is somehow transferred to New York from Skull Island where the beast is chained up. Time has passed (I am not sure how much) but the giant ape will be revealed to the public at Radio City Music Hall. Denham has made $10,000 in one night in ticket sales to see the beast and gotten ahold of the press to document the occasion. It turns out that Driscoll and Ann are about to be married as well. All of this is neither shown nor explained outside of about 1 minute of dialogue. Anyway, back to the film...

Kong is being displayed for the public and Driscoll and Ann are dressed in their best that Denham has bought for them. The couple are introduced on stage and then the press is brought in to take pictures of the beast. Kong becomes so enraged by all of the flashing that he breaks his bonds and escapes. He is somehow able to get out into the streets where he stomps on people and destroys an elevated train. Ann and Driscoll escape and hide in a hotel which Kong is able to find. He does pick a lady out of the wrong room initially and he just drops her to her death. Second attempt gets a jackpot and Driscoll basically faints while a giant hand steals Ann.

After some more destruction, Kong takes Ann and climbs the Empire State Building. They get to the top and planes are sent in to shoot Kong off the building. Eventually he falls and dies on impact. Ann and Driscoll are OK and Denham walks out of the crowd to see the body of Kong at the base of the giant building. The movie ends with Denham saying the famous line. “Twas beauty that killed the beast.”

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First, let me say what an absolute treat it was to watch this film with the commentary from the great Ray Harryhausen. That man is a class act with so much great insight into film making during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was apparently 13 when the movie was released and he saw it in theaters on many occasions. The work of special effects director Willis O’Brien and producer Merian Cooper in King Kong influenced Harryhausen when he made The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, and Clash of the Titans. The special effects in these films then influenced a huge list of great directors like James Cameron, Guillermo Del Toro, Tim Burton, Peter Jackson, J.J. Abrams, Wes Anderson, and George Lucas. I learned so much about the connection between King Kong and my favorite movies, it was just a great watch.

King Kong was actually made in three different sizes and there were multiple models of each. One giant gorilla head, which was manned by three men, with a single giant foot and a single arm with a hand, were made for the close up interaction shots with the actors. The fingers and toes on the full sized limbs had to be moved by hand (many very strong hands presumably) so there is no movement from the digits in these shots. A bunch of 2 foot wire framed puppets of Kong were made that could interact with the dinosaurs and the buildings around New York. Finally, a couple of six inch puppets were made to superimpose onto stock shots of the Empire State Building for the famous ending shots of Kong climbing the giant building..

Almost every shot in the film that didn’t involve a simple human interaction was created through layered shots. All the shots of the island, any shots of King Kong or any monsters, many shots of the jungle, and many shots of King Kong interacting in New York. The use of matte paintings in the far background with paintings on glass in front of those made all the shots seem deep and lush. In front of these were layered the stop motion puppets of Kong and the monsters and at the very front were humans and directly interactive props (cars, plants, huts, etc.). I never realized how much work went into every single shot of this film and I can see why it is so famous.

Another note is the direct influence on some of the most famous films of all time. The approach of King Kong started with sounds, went on to the effect of the great apes weight hitting the ground, and ended with the giant figure coming out from the trees. This method of introducing a monster has been highly copied, most notably the T-Rex in Jurassic Park.

The film was somewhat risque at the time and some of the film was cut on first release. Kong biting people and squashing natives was not originally included. There was a scene in which Fay Wray fell into water in her ripped white dress and that was not included. Also, Kong picks up a lady from the hotel that Ann is in and promptly drops her (she wasn’t blond so she has to go), which was harsh enough to be cut from the original release. None of this seems that bad today, but there were no restrictions on film in 1933 and studios didn’t know what would upset audiences.

One thing that struck me as funny while watching (and the commentators noted this as well) was how every character immediately loved and was willing to die for this blond white lady. Denham just found her on the street and the entire crew didn’t think she should be on board for about 3 minutes, then suddenly Driscoll loved her and the entire crew was willing to die horribly to save her. The natives took one look at her and thought she would make a better sacrifice then the young girl they had. Kong was willing to fight off all forms of monster to protect her. I thought he might have simply wanted a companion, but he tossed that other poor woman from the New York hotel down off a building. At the end, men shot the ape off the Empire State Building sending bullet spray everywhere in an effort to save the girl. I honestly don’t think she was worth it, but that is just one man’s opinion.

So is this film worthy of being on the AFI List? Absolutely yes. It does not have great acting, but the contribution to American cinema through the effects, the story, and the pure ambition is well worth a spot on the list. Would I recommend it? Across the board yes with no hesitation. I especially recommend watching with the commentary, if that is your thing, because watching this film and listening to Ray Harryhausen tell stories is an absolute treat. Definitely one of the best film watching experiences I have ever had.

#King Kong #1930s #black and white #american cinema #AFI list #special effects #stop motion #miniatures #introvert #introverts #classic film #ray harryhausen #commentary #dinosaurs

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twilightofthe · 5 years

Text

Chapter Six liveblog of The Mandalorian! Let’s go!!!

Wait this wasn’t from last ep I guess no flashback this time?

Hmm some sorta space station

SIR YOU ABANDONED YOUR CHILD AGAIN

Huh, Mando Man has friends? Surprising

Nice old hobo man

I’m seriously worried about Baby Yoda being left on the Razor Crest alone

Oh good Mando Man’s getting some money

Lol but let’s be real he probs won’t get the money

Ahaha as a member of a Star Wars RPG group with the explicit plot of “five random yahoos for hire clumped together to do some kind of infiltration job”, lemme just say that this won’t end well at all

Oh nevermind not nice old hobo man :(

Hmm so hired man number one. Mayfield? Does he have a personality?

Gah Mando Man’s voice is so friggin attractive hlep

Hmmm sharpshooter? Wanna bet Mando Man’s still better than him?

Wait shite those guys are gonna have to share a ship with Baby Yoda that’s not allowed at ALL

Obligatory Canto Bight mention to try and tie it into the larger Star Wars universe xD

Hello Burg, lemme guess, you’re big and scary

Oh that’s Clancy Brown, I’d know that voice, cooooool!

Zero looks like a bug

Xi’an-- oh wonderful, a Harley Quinn knockoff

No, no, I’ll give her a chance

Hmm putting a new beat over the title sequence

Not sure how I feel about that

“The Prisoner” wait who’s this prisoner taken by anyway? New Republic?

Ey Zero stay out of Mando Man’s stuff

Yepppp New Republic

Everyone needs to leave Mando Man alone :(

Mayfield’s voice and face seem familiar

I reeeeeally don’t trust these ppl on a ship with the baby

I’m worried Xi’an might fuckin’ try to eat him or something

I do like that they gave a Twi’lek woman visible fangs tho

STOOOOOOP TOUCHING HIS STUFF

“Why are they all dead?” Well the Jedi were the greatest warriors in the galaxy too and they died sooooo, guess it’s just bad luck???

If this guy tries to take off the helmet imma fight him

DO NOT TOUCH THE BABY

BABY BETTER BITE THEM

BITE HIM BITE HIM BITE HIM

HE IS STILL TOUCHING THE BABY PLEASE REMOVE YOUR GRUBBY MITTS

SON OF A BITCH YOU DROPPED HIM I WILL MURDER YOU

Idk why those ppl are all so surprised about the Crest, the Falcon’s just as junky, ships last a while

Ok I do like Xi’an’s theme violin

This prison type is new, cool looking doors

I appreciate all the Lucas-era species

Mouse droid!

Awww he shot it!

Aaaaand they’re caught

Hell yea Mando Man show em how it’s done

That’s hot

Assholes could be helping him rn

Poor Mando Man you deserve So Much Better

“It seems your presence has been detected” OH GEE I WONDER WHY, IT WASN’T LIKE YOU ALL MADE A BUNCH OF NOISE OR ANYTHING

And Tumblr spoilers have confirmed for me that Helmet Dude is Matt Lanter! Hello!!!! Always a pleasure!!!!!!!!!!

Actually ya know what this show is really rude about putting helmets and ugly hats over really cute guys, I’m offended xD

“Egghead” ok lol he’s got a point

Awwww Mando Man’s tryna be nice :(

Aaaaand there goes Xi’an, “Crazy Twi” indeed

Awww, goodbye Matt, see ya in TCW this February!

How the hell are these guys still more competent than my RPG group

Ohhhh total betrayal, of fucking course

And he still doesn’t get paid!!!!!

Those bastards are gonna try and take off with the ship and Baby Yoda

Baby Yoda better pull some sorta Home Alone type shit on them

Oh hell yea did Mando Man kill the lights?

YES HE DID HELL YEA

HE GONNA KICK THEIR BUTTS IN DRAMA LIGHTING

AND THERE’S BABY YODA, GET HIM BABY GET HIM

HE WAS GONNA SHOOT THE BABY KILL HIM DEAD

What did all these other mercs even get promised for locking Mando Man up? I doubt Xi’an has that much cash on her

So Ran wanted Mando Man dead???? Why???????

Aight Oin’s crazy act isn’t any more charming than Xi’an’s is

C’mon Baby get the droid get him

Ya know what, I wanna see MANDO MAN play Home Alone with these guys

Oh boom strangling, Saw works too

Oh wow this guy does not squish

Aaaaand Xi’an’s probs gonna kill other dude by mistake

Wait nope Mando Man drops doors on him instead haha

Smart baby hiding, I love him

Aaaand now Mando Man has Xi’an too?

Oof ouch this flashing light business is not seizure-friendly

Boom Mando Man sneak!!!!

Hell yea they got what they deserved

Wait, so Ran wasn’t in on killing Mando?

OOOF BABY YODA’S GONNA FUCK YOU UP DUDE

BABY YODA FUCKED YOU UP BIG TIME LOOK AT THAT EX

Oh nvm, that was just protective daddy xD

Guess he took care of Oin too, is what he deserves

Wait nope nvm I forgot Mando Man is nicer than I am lol

Omg he actually gets some credits to feed his son praise

They’re still gonna report him to the Guild tho aren’t they

Or Ran’s pilots will for some reason? Why does literally everyone want him dead

HAHAHA MANDO MAN SICCED THE NEW REPUBLIC ON THEM!

And here come the three pilots who Tumblr spoilers have also told me are the three directors!

Hi Dave Filoni aka TRAPPER WOLF David you gotdang nerd with an aesthetic I love you

Aaaaand Mando Man and Baby are out of there!!!

AND HE’S GIVING BABY HIS TOY

AND COMMUNICATING WITH HIS SON I LOVE THEM BOTH SO MUCH

Good now you shiny beautiful man go get your son some food

And Mando Man didn’t even kill them! Aight he has to know this’ll just mean more future enemies right???

Oh so Faveau didn’t write this one

Aight so imma agree with what others have said, this ep is probs the weakest of all of them so far. The merc squad was just kinda annoying and none of their characters were easy to appreciate. I liked the familiar faces brought back in tho and I still am a sucker for Baby Yoda because I’m easy like that. Also loving Mando Man’s competence, that’s just highkey hot to see. Overall, still really pumped for the last two episodes and kinda really scared about how Season One’s gonna end!!!! o_O

#mando man of mystery #liveblogging the mando show #the mandalorian spoilers #the mandalorian #sw the mando show #star wars #sw stuff

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chancellormatt · 5 years

Text

Voltron Rewrite Episode Fourteen - The Noose Tightens

Emperor Zarkon stares down at the altean colony with glowing eyes. Most of the alteans are training, sparring with weapons or carrying materials.

A door opens behind, and in walks Sendak. He approaches, coming to a stop just behind Zarkon. The Emperor doesn’t turn to face Sendak.

“...we still have not heard word from your son.” Sendak finally says.

“I am unworried.” Zarkon replies evenly.

“Sir?”

Zarkon chuckles. “I’m quite certain that boy hates me. And yet, he also seeks my approval. He’d never run, and he’ll never work up the courage to turn on me. I have no doubt that at this moment, Lotor is seeking a way to redeem himself. And he does his best work when he’s been properly motivated.”

“I see.” Sendak says thoughtfully. “But you are aware that Raimon is also with him?”

Zarkon chuckles deeply. “Of the two of them Raimon is even more unlikely to betray me than my son. I tested him quite thoroughly, to be sure. He completely under my domination. That man wouldn’t turn on me, not for any reason. If I asked him to, he’d slaughter ever man woman and child in this colony. I’m certain he only joined Lotor to keep an eye on him. It’s nice to have loyal pets, don’t you think?”

“Yes, my lord.” Sendak agrees.

Zarkon continues to stare down at the alteans. Sendak begins to grow agitated.

“...my lord, would you not like a better view? Our military has some fine displays that I’m sure would bring honor to you.”

“I don’t know about that. It's begun to grow on me.” Zarkon nods to the alteans. “I have half a mind to destroy them right now. And yet, at the same time, I find myself feeling a certain sense of satisfaction.”

“Satisfaction?”

“Because they serve me. Think about that. Some of Alfor’s people managed to survive and now they are mine. And there isn’t a blasting thing he can do about it. They even fight against his own daughter. Ironic, don’t you think?”

“Certainly.” Sendak says.

“Alteans.” Zarkon shakes his head. Pitiful creatures, every one of them.”

Sendak hesitates. “...except for the Lady Honvera, of course?”

Zarkon’s eyes finally shift away from the scene to bore into Sendak. “...of course.” He stares at Sendak several moments longer. “Was there anything else commander?”

“There is nothing, my Lord. I apologise if I’ve bothered you with my presence. I shall return to my duties. I believe Lady Honerva required my assistance with one of her machines.”

Zarkon waves a hand, dismissing him. Sendak exits, leaving Zarkon to resume staring down at the alteans.

***

Princess Allura stands in front of the Blue Lion, a determined expression on her face as she stares back at the other approaching Paladins.

“Everyone ready?” She asks, more than a trickle of urgency in her voice.

“Yeah, yeah!” Lance calls back, dashing up to Red. “We can’t all get ready in like thirty seconds like you.”

“We’re ready, Allura.” Keith says, stopping just in from of this own Lion. “...are you?”

“Of course.” She replies immediately.

Keith catches her eye. “You sure?”

“They’re my people, Keith. I was, quite literally, born ready.”

He hesitates for a moment, then nods. “Alright then. Let’s go.”

***

The Five Lions of Voltron, along with the repaired Atlas, fly out into a dense debris field. Broken and twisted metal drifts through the cold vacuum of space, forming an ocean of broken starship parts.

“Real mess out there huh?” Hunk remarks.

“Yeah what are we looking for again, Allura?” Lance asks.

Allura leans forward in her seat, squinting at her viewscreen. “...that.”

“Huh I don’t see anything.”

“I got it, Allura.” Pidge says tapping away at holopad. “Some geniuses around here can’t use their eyes.”

“Thanks Pidge.”

Lance just rolls his eyes. A holographic overlay appears on all of the paladins’ screens. It shows a bright circle around a large piece of debris, which appears to be half of a destroyed cruiser, that has a small light shining on and off it's side.

“So...it's shiny?” Lance asks.

“Try a code, Lance. Check out the pattern.”

The shining goes on and off again in a complex but noticeably repetitive pattern.

“Huh,” Lance says, sitting back with a sigh. “Guess I’m just being the team idiot again.”

“It's okay, that’s part of what makes you cute.”

“What?”

“If you two want to stop flirting, we’ve got a mission to do.” Keith cuts in.

“We’re not-”

“I wasn’t-”

“Yeah, yeah. Allura? I’m guessing your silence means you recognize that code?”

“...yes.” She says after a moment. “It's an invitation to come closer.”

“We sure this isn’t a trap?” Hunk inquires.

“No, but that’s what we’re here for.” Shiro replies, giving a wave from the atlas.

“Not to mention that we can launch into Voltron at a moment’s notice.” Keith adds.

“If you say so…”

The Five Lions, with the Atlas just behind, approach the wreckage of the ship. As they grow closer they can see that the light is coming from a sizeable hole in the hull. A sole figure in a space suit stand in the hole, holding a device projecting the light.

“There’s our new friend.” Keith says.

Allura stares at the figure, her Lion hovering just a few dozen feet away. The figure turns off it's device and wave. Allura takes a breath and nods. “Alright I’m going down to meet. Alone.”

“But-”

“I don’t want to spook them. Please. If it's just me they’ll feel more comfortable.” She reasons.

Keith looks as though he might continue to object, but finally he sighs. “...fine. We’ll be right here if you need us.”

“Thank you, Keith.”

With that, Allura exits her Lion, floating out into the field. She activates her jet, moving towards the suited being. She enters the darkened opening, and lands on the cold metal of the floor.

The suited being touches a button on the side of it's helmet, causing it to turn translucent. It's Luca.

Allura’s stance relaxes, and she gives a slight smile. “Hello. I am Princess Allura, daughter of King Alfore, and Paladin of Voltron, and you have no idea how happy I am to meet you.” She offers her hand, trembling slightly from anticipation.

The other altean nods slightly. “I am called Luca, and the pleasure is mine.” She shakes Allura’s outstretched hand.

Allura hesitates, then sweeps her gaze across the darkened ship interior. “Where there not two others with you in the message?”

“Worry not. They are...nearby.”

“I see.” Allura said uncertain, but shaking off the ill-ease. “So then, please tell us how can we help you and the rest of your people.”

“That will take some time to explain…”

Though Allura does not see it, Luca taps a small button on her suit’s belt.

***

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Matt asks, from the bridge of the Atlas.

“The fate of an entire species, I’d guess.” Shiro says flatly.

“Oh good. Nothing too heavy, then.”

Shiro doesn’t laugh but he does crack a half-smile. “Just keep an eye on that scanner.”

“I know, I know. But it’s been all clear. There’s nothing, not a blip since we...wait a minute.”

Matt suddenly leans in close to his screen. “Uh oh.”

“We got company?”

“What do you think?”

Bursting out from behind a larger chunk of debris, flew two silver robeasts.

“Guys!” Shiro calls over the comm.

“I see ‘em!” Keith replies. “We’ve got to hold them back, Allura isn’t in her Lion!”

“I think we can do that…” Shiro says narrowing his eyes.

He drives the Atlas forward, barreling towards the two robeasts. He throws both hands forward blasting the robeast. They deflect the blasts with the spinning of their polearms. Then they are trading blows, two giant machines against one. The Lions are quick to support, however, blasting the robeasts from all angles, hindering their efforts.

***

Allura watches the machines clash. It is only a moment later when she turns pained eyes over to Luca.

Luca hold her gaze, unflinchingly. Allura opens her mouth as if to say something. She never gets the chance.

Out of a hidden panel in the side of the ruined ship comes the Dark Red Lion.

“Hello Princess.” Prince Lotor says, pulling his Lion above the hole in the ship. The Lion’s mouth opens.

Allura has only a moment to react.

“Look out!” She cries, shoving Luca backwards.

The Lion’s mouth blast hits the floor beneath Allura. A bust of energy erupts below Allura flinging her sailing backwards into a wall. She gasps struggling to maintain consciousness. The Lion reaches down again with an open mouth, but this time to swallow her into its hold.

“Trivial…” Lotor remarks.

However before he can get ahold of Allura something smashes into the side of his Lion. Lotor goes tumbling, but quickly rights his Lion. Keith in the Black Lion shoots towards him, wings activated. Moving too fast to dodge, the Blakc Lion smashes into Lotor’s for a second time.

“Did you think we’d go down that easy?” Keith asks.

“Not really.” Lotor sneers. “It's always something with you lot. Luca I’m a little...preoccupied. Secure the Princess for me...Luca?”

Luca is too busy staring over at Allura from where the Princess threw her, well clear of the blast. Struggling Allura rises, letting out a pained caught. She sets her gaze in on her Lion, which still waits in empty space, activates her suit’s booster and jumps for it.

“Luca!?” Lotor repeats.

“R-Right.” Luca struggles to tear an energy pistol from a hidden compartment in her suit. She takes aim at Allura, but hesitates.

“Stop her Luca!” Lotor shouts.

Luca fires. He shot misses the mark by several dozen meters. Allura slips safely inside her Lion.

“...sorry, I failed.” Luca reports.

Lotor sighs over the comm. “...plan B it is, then.”

***

Allura fires up her Lion’s engine and it bursts into motion.

“Sorry about the delay! I’m ready!”

“Alright then…” Keith and the other Paladins pull back away from the Lions. “...form Voltron!”

The five Lions assemble the mighty form of Voltron. Lance tears out the sword, and they charge at the robeasts.

***

Prince Lotor watches the shining form of Voltron attack his robeasts, and smiles.

“Raimon...activate the Komar.”

***

A panel on the top of the wrecked ship, revealing Raimon surrounded by the great metal arms of a machine, encircled by druids on platforms. Bolts of black and purple energy begin to strike between the druids. They begin to direct the increasingly violent energy at Raimon who stores it in a large orb between his palms. Finally the crackling shadow energy reaches it climax, and Raimon releases it.

The stream of black energy wreathed in violet light reaches out for Voltron and the Atlas. It snatches them inside the grips of twin tendrils of midnight.

“AHH!” Lance cries. “Wh-what is this!?”

“It's...the Komar!” Allura manages to get out.

“Here! H-how?”

“...i-it doesn't matter, it’ll drain Voltron!” Keith yells. “We’ve got to...t-to stop it some...somehow…” his voice fades with each breath.

“We’re not...doing much better!” Shiro reports, alarms going off all over the screens of the Atlas’ bridge. Matt frantically types away to little avail.

The energy slowly dies away, leaving Voltron and the Altas lightless and drained.

“C-come on guys we need to get Voltron back online.” Keith says panting. “Just...just like before...”

The Paladins struggle, but to little avail.

***

Lotor cackles with mad-laugher. “It worked! Raimon it really worked!”

“It did.” Raimon confirms. “However another shot is not possible.” he stands amidst several fallen druids. “This is not the original komar and the process drained too many of the druids.”

“We shall work quickly, then.” Lotor declares. “Finish this.”

The robeasts level both of their-staff blade and as one, swing at Voltron. Violet blades of energy slash, and the Paladins scream as Voltron shatters back into five Lions.

***

“We’ve got to do something!” Shiro yells, willing the Atlas to move.

“Well sorry to say but we’re about as useful as a boat in the desert!” Iverson grunts. “We’re operation off of our backupbattery’s auxiliary power. It's a miracle we still have oxygen, much less be able to fight!”

“Matt?” Shiro asks hopefully.

The boy is staring at the floor, thinking.

“...the engine.” He says carefully. “It's a dual cycle balmeran crystal system…” Matt’s eyes widen and he dashes to the back of the bridge, throwing open a service shaft.

“Where are you going?” shiro asks.

“To get this thing moving again. Or blow myself up. One of those.” And with that Matt is down the shaft.

***

Keith is helpless as he watches Lotor move his Lion right up to Allura’s and grabs hold of its neck. Keith throws his throttles back and forth to little avail.

The robeasts close in to grab the remaining Lions.

Keith closes his eyes, gripping his controls tightly. “Come on Black…”

***

Matt hangs on the side of a mechanical sphere with countless wires and cables spreading out from it. He tears open a panel, exposing two large crystals within parallel fixtures. Matt puts his feet on the lip of the panel and extends his staff. He takes a breath.

“Really hope this doesn’t kill me.”

Then he wedges the staff behind the fixture of one of the crystals and starts to pull. He heaves. “Come on you…”

The crystal in it's fixture suddenly lurches into movement, slamming into the other crystal. There is a spark of blue energy. The crystals start to glow. Matt grins, then as the crystals glow brighter, he swears and leaps away from the panel.

A blast of blue light erupts where he stood a moment ago. A blue fire continues to rage from the panel. Matt kicks the panel close and lets out a sigh of relief.

“That’ll give us at least a few minutes, make it count!”

***

“Thank Matt, we’re back!” Shiro exclaims, lights all along the Atlas coming back on.

He lauches the Atlas into motion, pulling back it's fist for a wild punch. The nearest robeast barely has time to rear back before the Atlas slams it's fist into the mecha’s face. The robeast spins backwards, while the other brings it's weapon up to face the Atlas. The Atleas lets out a pair of blasts from its hands. The robeast blocks with a spin of it's staff but is pushed backwards. Four Lions hang in space between them.

“...retreat.” Lotor finally says, pulling his Lion back, Blue still held in it's jaws. “I will not risk my prize...”

***

“Come on…” Keith urges, squeezing the throttles even more tightly.

Outside, the Atlas tries to reach Lotor’s Lion but is intercepted and thrown back by the robeast. They fire arm blasts at the Atlas, doing little damage, but keeping the other mecha distracted.

Keith struggles to ignore it all. He takes a long deep breath. Then another. Then another. Suddenly, Keith opens his eyes. The Black Lion’s eyes shine as it bursts back to life. Keith immediately throws both throttles forward, causing the Lion to explode into motion.

He races for the Dark Red Lion, pursuing at blinding speed. The robeasts start to move to block Keith.

“You aren’t getting away with her…” Keith says narrowing his eyes. He drives his throttes as far as they’ll go. The Black Lion’s wings appear, and it easily races past the two robeast. Keith is a split-second away when Lotor spins his Lion around and activates it's cannon.

The only thing Keith has time to do is widen his eyes. The blinding blast takes Keith dead center, rocketing Keith back into a massive chunk of debris. The metal cracks and warps as The Black Lion gets buried into the mass.

“Not-” Keith coughs. “-not done...yet!” he throws his throttles forward one more time, only to be struck by yet another blast. Keith looks up to see the Dark Blue Lion blasting Black with ice, cementing it in place.

“Better luck next time Paladin.” Lotor says, as the two Lions turn to leave, followed by the robeasts.

The Atlas makes as if to follow, but a shudder from deep within it's core, signals that the machine has reached its limit.

Keith can only watch, beaten, as their enemies disappear into the distance, taking Allura with them.

***

“Sire, Prince Lotor and Raimon are approaching.” Senak says. “Lotor sent only a short message ahead: I have one of them.”

Emperor Zarkon, staring out at the altean colony, smiles. “Tell them to land on the surface. I want to see this.”

***

Lotor drops the Blue Lion onto the scarred surface of the colony moon. He lands his own Lion with one claw onto Blue’s back, ensuring that it will go nowhere. Finally the mouth of his own Lion pops open and Lotor climbs out. Raimon lands his Lion just behind, exiting a moment later.

Zarkon stands on the cracked ground, waiting. Sendak and Honvera are just behind him. Lotor and Zarkon gaze at each other for a tense moment.

But then, Lotor bows his head, and lowers himself to one knee. “...father, I bright before you the enemy’s Blue Lion and it's Paladin.”

“I see.” Zarkon says, impassive. “Show me this Paladin.”

Lotor glances over at the Blue Lion. “I suspect that she will save us the trouble of waiting…”

As if on cue the Blue Lion’s mouth opens and Allura leaps out, bayard transforming into a spear. With furious eyes she makes as if to charge at Lotor. The sight of Zarkon stops her dead in her tracks. She freezes, resolve sputtering as she took in the sight of the emperor.

“...Zarkon.”

“Emperor, to you.” Zarkon says, a rare smile touching his lips. “So the daughter of Alfor lives in this reality. Princess you have no idea just how...fascinating it is to see you.”

His gaze sweeps over Lotor, then Raimon. “You two did well.”

Lotor hesitates. “...I must confess, I had hoped to capture all five of the Paladins as well as their Lions. I cannot claim this as a total success.”

“Indeed.” Zarkon agrees. “But this will have to do. After all Voltron cannot be formed with even one Lion missing.”

“Yes!” Lotor says perking up. “And I’m certain her comrades will attempt a rescue!”

“Of course. A prime opportunity for a trap. You have done well Lotor.”

“Thank you...father.” Lotor replies with more than a hint of pride.

Allura, regaining some of her composure, narrows her eyes at Zarkon. “You will not trap my friends so easily. They are clever and brave and strong. All the things you pretend to be.”

Zarkon lets out a hollow laugh. “Your friends will be blinded by desperation. That will make them easy to manipulate. And I do not much care how clever or brave you think I am not. But…” Zarkon narrows his eyes and takes a step forward. “...do not ever question my strength. Or you will find it's the last mistake you make. You live by my mercy. Now hand over your bayard, or I’ll have it taken from you.”

Allura grits her teeth and stares down Zarkon. She doesn’t break her hateful even as she deactivates her bayard and shoves it at Lotor. The Prince snatches it, looking bemused.

“Good. So she does know how to follow orders from a better.” Zarkon turns his back. “We’ll go now. I want to show something to Alfor’s heir.”

Zarkon starts walking without further word, Honvera and Sendak following. Lotor smirks at Allura before turning to follow his father as well. Allura’s gaze turns out to the landscape as if considering making a break for it.”.

“Do not run.” A gruff voice says from behind.

Allura turns to face Raimon, staring at her through his dark helmet.

“Who are you then? I know all of Zarkon other lackeys. Were you never important enough in our reality?” She sneers. “Then again maybe you are someone under that helmet. Does Zarkon make you wear it or are you just that ashamed of showing your true self?””

“I am a servant of the Emperor. Nothing more.” Raimon says simply in his gruff tone.

Allura’s eyes narrow further. “I have you to thank for blasting me before, don’t I? When I was opening teleduv. You were piloting that lion that hit me.”

“I do what the the Emperor requires of me.”

“And I don’t suppose thinking for yourself is involved anywhere in there?”

“No.” He says flatly, and shoves her forward. “Move. You are keeping the Emperor waiting.”

Allura shakes her head disdainfully, but starts walking.

***

“Behold Princess, your people.” Zarkon waves a hand over the sight before them. They stand on the edge of a platform overlooking the altean colony. Even from this high the forms of individual alteans can be seen, walking, working, training. The statue of Lotor stands above them all.

Allura takes in the scene looking both amazed and horrified. Her eyes are glued to the people of the colony and she reaches out a hand as if to touch the distant forms.

“...it hurts doesn’t it?” Zarkon says leaning down next to her. “Being so close to your people but unable to help them.”

Allura steps back disgust on her face. “Save your jabs Emperor Zarkon. You only destroy pure things like them to make yourself feel powerful. Because you hate that there’s a void inside you that will never let you care for people like I do.”

Zarkon chuckles throatily. “It must be easy, thinking of your enemies as incapable of things like love.”

“What have you ever loved besides yourself?” Allura demands.

Zarkon turns narrowed, glowing eyes on her. “I loved Diabazaal.”

Allura is caught off-guard by the answer.

“It was hard, abrasive, and cold.” Zarkon goes on. “And it was home. And your father took it from me.”

“He saved the universe-”

“He was a coward!” Zarkon suddenly shouts. “Too scared of progress to let it run its course!”

“Just because your arrogance and lust for power-”

“Lust for power!?” Zarkon bellows, he leans in very close to Allura, and when he next speaks he is quiet. “I went into that energy field to save my wife. Because of your father I came out homeless. But I’ll tell you one thing, I did change that day. I would never let anyone take one of my possessions ever again. Not one of my planets, not one the people that belong to me and most certainly not Voltron. You think I only care about power? You’re right. I tried friendship and compassion, and I learned that trusting someone to your back only gives them a better position to shove a knife in. Power is what I trust in, Princess. Because my own power is the one thing that has never failed me.” He lets out a bark of a laugh. “You want those alteans? You should have been strong enough to take them from me. But you aren’t you’re weak, just like them.”

Allura clenches her fists struggling for a retort. “Perhaps I haven’t beaten you. Perhaps I can’t. Not alone. But I’m stronger because of my comrades. My friends. My family. We will beat you because we believe in lending strength to each other. While you’re just alone.”

“Alone?” Zarkon smiles. “Do I look alone?” He spreads a hand across the other Dark Paladins, “As far as I see, you are the only one alone here. Even they are with me.” He waves another hand to the alteans below.

“They only serve you because of either fear or lies!”

“And why do people serve you and the other Paladins, Princess?

“B-because we’re fighting for freedom and peace!”

“Freedom and peace…” Zarkon shakes his head. “You’re not different than them.” he gestures to the alteans. “Look at them. If I asked them what do you think they’d say? They believe in a noble and just cause, and are willing to fight and die for it. For freedom and peace. but it's a lie. All a lie. Your cause is the same, but since your stupid like them, you just haven’t realised it yet.”

“No, you’ve just twisted their good intentions to your ends.”

“And what does that matter? I did it because I could If you could turn them against me you’d do it in a heartbeat, would you not?”

Allura starts to speak but her voice catches. Zarkon shakes his head once more.

“Pathetic. Just like your father. Always spouting rhetoric, never committing to it. In the end he only did what was good for himself, just like me.”

“My father was not like you!” Allura nearly screams.

“You're right! Because if he was like me he’d have been strong enough to stop me! But he was weak, just like you’re weak. That’s all this comes down to. You can’t beat me, because you don’t have the power to do it.” Zarkon sighs, shaking his head once again. “...and now I think I’ve grown bored of this conversation. I have to plan how best to crush your friends without them slipping away again. Show the Princess to somewhere out of the way where my ears won’t be disgraced by her voice.”

Zarkon turns his back to her and starts walking away. Lotor motions for her to follow him in the opposite direction. Allura starts to follow Lotor then stops, looking back down at the alteans, then over to Zarkon. Finally she looks back at Lotor, or more specifically, the bayard at his belt. She closes her eyes and concentrates. The bayard becomes energy and reforms in her hand.

“How’s this for strength?” She shifts the bayard into a spear and launches herself at Zarkon’s back. The spearhead is inches from the Emperor’s back when it is knocked aside by Raimon’s blade. The Dark Paladin stands there, longsword outstretched, as firm as stone.

Zarkon turns back around, smiling. “I was hoping you would try that.” He holds up a hand staying Lotor, Honerva and Sendak, who’d been moving to restrain her. “Do not interfere. Tell you what Princess, if you beat Raimon, you can leave a free woman.”

“Father-” Lotor begins to object.

“-Quiet. This is something I dearly want to see.”

“Fine. But once I’m done with him, I’ll take you down too, Zarkon.” Allura says not taking her eyes off Raimon.”

“You’re free to try.”

Without further prompt Allura thrusts her spear at Raimon’s head. He knocks the spear aside and kicks her backwards. Allura stumbles back, but quickly rights herself. Narrowing her eyes at Raimon, she launches a series of attacks against the man. Raimon deflects and turns away all of her strikes, never so much as taking a step back. Allura grows more determined, he thrusts becoming a blur as she assaults Raimon’s guard from every angle. Once again, Raimon efficiently blocks every single strike.

Allura makes as if to thrust once more, but at the last second, pulls back shifts her bayard into the energy whip and lashes it at Raimon’s head. He ducks low, the energy whip triling overhead. Raimon replies by throwing out one hand, and firing a bolt of blue quintessence.

Allura’s eyes widen and she barely manages to get a hand up in time. Quintessence crackles against her hand, and she stumbles back, nearly falling. Raimon lowers his hand, the glow fading from it.

“You’re altean.” She says with narrowed eyes.

“Oh he’s much more than that.” Zarkon says.

“It doesn’t matter. You serve Zarkon of your own will, so I’ll stop you.”

Zarkon laughs.

“Something funny?”

“Nothing, nothing. Don’t let me interrupt your fight.”

Allura lashes her whip at Raimon again, this time going low. The Dark Paladin jumps over the whip, but Allura doesn’t stop there. She continues to lash the whip over and over, forcing Raimon to duck dodge and weave around the glowing tether. Just as it looks like her whip will hit Raimon dead center he pulls his sword up and the whip wraps around the blade. Allura tries to pull the whip back, but Ramion yanks his sword back at the same time, winning the battle of leverage. Allura goes stumbling forward, right into Raimon’s waiting fist. She hits the ground, dazed.

“Enough.” Raimon says quietly, looming over her.

“Never.” Allura growls leaping back up. She shifts her bayard back into a spear and thrusts it at Raimon’s chest. He knocks the spear aside, but Allura lets go with one and and thrusts it palm-first up at his face. Raimon catches her by the forearm easily.

Allura however, smiles, then takes a breath. Blue quintessence crackles from her fingers and blasts Raimon in the head. Sparks fly and the now-cracked helmet flies across the room.

Allura smiles with self satisfaction. Then her smile fades and her eyes widen. Allura stumbles back, as if struck. Her mouth opens and closes, taking several excruciating moments to form the word caught in her throat.

“...father?”

No longer concealed by the helmet, the face of King Alfor stares back at Allura.

“...I am no one’s father.” He says monotone. He stares at her but there is no light behind his eyes. “My daughter is long dead.”

The last thing Allura sees is her father’s fist swinging towards her face, accompanied by the sound of Zarkon laughing.

#voltron #voltron legendary defender #voltron season 8 #kallura #allura #keith #plance #lance #pidge #fix it fic #king alfor #hunk #lotor #prince lotor #voltron season eight #rewrite #got nothing better to do #but actually i do

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bearpillowmonster · 5 years

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Star Wars SPOILERS Review

Ever since TLJ, the question lingers in my mind with every Star Wars related thing to come out “will they take it seriously?” It’s probably my biggest fear for Star Wars to date. Do they overwrite everything and try to reverse TLJ? And do they purposely try to subvert expectations so much that it seems like nothing matters?

I want to decrypt some of the things I said in my nonspoiler review but for the most part I will mention new things that I didn’t say. Forgive me if I state the obvious but some people haven’t realized the literal meaning behind some things.

My favorite thing about this movie is Ben and Rey. If you’re a Reylo shipper, you’ll like it but also be hurt. I wasn’t one way or the other with that. But instead of the constant fighting between Palpatines and Skywalkers, we’re given the end, the “marriage” if you will, though they didn’t get married, just kissed, between the grandson and granddaughter. It's a game of opposites, Kylo is in a way the opposite of Vader with Vader “wanting the girl until he met the dark side” vs Kylo's “wanting the dark side until he met the girl” and Rey is in a way the opposite of Palps. You see how Rey looks at him and heals him when she realizes his mom just died, she felt sorry, they were both sad and shared in that moment. Episode 3, Skywalker saves Palpatine(though they say that was just to get Anakin on his side, he could’ve beat Windu) but in Episode 9 Skywalker saves Palpatine again. Before he dies, we are given the best version of Ben. Though I did hear that Ben didn’t have any lines after he turned good...I mean...you’re not wrong? They really didn’t make him say anything though? Also I thought maybe Ben gave back the life force that Rey gave him on the Death Star, returning the gift, so to speak. Now...with that said, did we need to see Ben die? This is something a lot of people seem to be sad about, mainly the shippers. I mean I feel like people would say there weren’t any consequences if he didn’t but I also want to call back (I know it’s been shown over and over but the new trilogy doesn’t listen) to when George Lucas said during the original trilogy that nobody needed to die because we go to see a movie to be uplifted.

So really it’s kind of a mixed bag, you could say he finished his arc but then again so did Rey, so did everybody, maybe it’s punishment for what he’s done, but I feel like he could have more chances to atone for himself, is he redeemed by having that moment? Did he even need to be there? Could Rey have handled it on her own? I really don’t know what to say here.

I will say though that I felt like Ben went down the road of never coming back in TLJ, but it didn’t make it surprising that he came back, in fact it almost seemed obvious because Palpatine came back, Ben wasn’t going to follow orders again, he just took out Snoke, why would he do that? He would try and do things his own way, he would try and follow what Darth Vader always had in mind about overthrowing and we know there weren’t going to be 2 villains. Also during that end scene it looks like he’s just wearing an Under Armor shirt, you could’ve complained saying “he took all that time to get changed or else he could’ve saved Rey sooner” but still, he should’ve had a light side outfit. But I don’t like the idea that he’s the reason the original 3 died. He killed Han in the first one, had a fight that pushed Luke past his limit in the second, and had Leia try to bring him back one last time in the third. Also we get the message that you can choose your family, Rey chose everybody as her “family” then took on the Skywalker name, blood isn’t everything. The title is about her but also Ben, Ben rises as a Skywalker once again and Rey rises as a jedi.

I thought the ending would be a force ghost fight but it didn’t end up happening which I’m kind of glad but we still got the “I’m all the sith” “I’m all the Jedi” and she says it like the “And I...am Iron Man” well this all started with Korra “I’m all the Avatars” I know this would’ve been fan service and you can see some cameo ships in that one scene but you don’t see any recognizable characters, it would be more effective if we actually saw these characters. Speaking of, they have cameo voices in Rey’s head, you can barely make them out and it’s cool to hear them but still, force ghosts would’ve been cool too, not to fight but to see like maybe on Tatooine.

People complain about how Rey and Palp are too OP in the end. I heard a rant from a former Lucas prodigy that the force balances itself out so the light will take its hosts and the dark will take its. In the prequels we see tons of Jedi and sith that they have to share the force in a way but with the new sequel trilogy...those were the only ones of each side so of course the force would infuse everything it had into them, that’s why they had “all the Jedi and sith”

Also Palp died by his own hand because Rey was just reflecting his attack and he knew they could both heal/bring back the dead so which he says something like “I haven’t saw that in a long time” a callback to his master Darth Plagueis. Speaking of, what I’ve seen a lot of people complain about is that “Jedi can use healing so it breaks the universe” but that’s not the impression I got. Palp says that quote so I got the impression that only certain people can use it, it’s not a force power everybody can use and I imagine either he couldn’t use it or you can’t use it on yourself (which would make sense since you use your own life force) which then made him change his mind about Rey killing him and drain both their power. So no, I don’t think anybody could have used it before, for some reason it just so happens that these two can. So if you’re going to complain, complain about convenience. He might have been talking about the force facetime relationship the two have but still, I think he saw that they both had the power, Ben can do what Rey can and Rey can do what Ben can.

We see a tank of Snokes which leads me to believe Palp was trying to create a new body? I mean he says he “made him” either through training or literally, not much beyond that.

I knew as soon as they found D-O that he would have some sort of connection or map to Exogal and yep, he did in a way but what was the point if Rey was just going to lead them anyway? I know it connected to that Jedi Hunter but still. Turns out the writer also helped with Justice League and Batman V Superman which makes sense because Bats V Supes has similar fundamental problems as this one.

Also, how is Rey Palp’s granddaughter? Like did one of the opera members get with him? And he’s still...capable? I liked the clone theory better and even that seemed off. Then it’s “No, I am your grandfather” now. Let me put it this way, I doubt there was a meeting back when TFA or even TLJ came out where they were like “Rey’s a Palpatine” it feels like an afterthought but maybe it isn’t because I see more evidence such as how she used a lightsaber for the first time and why that vision was in the Death Star, maybe RJ just ignored it and was like “Yeah no”. It was like they were teasing it throughout TFA just to be shut down and then focused around as the main plot of the final movie, I don’t like that setup, maybe they didn’t want to make it too much like Empire by revealing heritage but still...I mean the idea that “nobodies can be made somebody (force sensitive)” is a cool idea, they did that with Blade Runner 2049, but he wasn’t any “chosen one” but he did great things but this set it up to be hype in TFA and just kept cancelling out after that. Also Luke knew and Leia knew but for how long? Couldn't they have protected Palp's son and wife and Rey? And if they knew from some kind of force power then how did Han seem to know in TFA? I'm guessing that the whole thing with Ben turning bad didn't happen until after because Rey was pretty young when she was left. I like that they had Luke on the trail of going to find him but it feels like Force Awakens "we only have a piece of the map and there's no way to tell from just that." I would think it would be obviosu one of the wayfinders would be on Endor, but I might be thinking too much into it.

I’ve since watched some interviews and some rumors since watching it, I’ll focus on the more relative and close to confirmed stuff but Episode 9 is a big thing, you had George’s version, Trevorrow’s version, JJ's version, Rian's version, Disney (Iger and Kathleen)’s version (end version) and it’s just a lot that I’d like to see explored and explained, I hate how big corporations are like “nope, to the vault.” Like let the respective people be open about it if they want to, it’s after the fact so it’s not like it’s gonna change anything. Apparently there was a version JJ wrote up with the dagger of Mordis and Son of Mordis with Matt Smith but Disney didn’t like it and this that and the other thing, which explains why there was a dagger but in a way, the characters “were” the dagger of Mordis. I think where all these versions diverged is having Luke die, he was going to die, it’s just a matter of when, Disney and Rian pushed for 8 (for whatever reason). And everybody else was for 9. George said he wanted another 10 years to develop the sequels if he were on board and Disney wanted it out as soon as they could as well as avoiding having a repeat of the Prequels but with this sequel trilogy, people love the prequels now and the sequels have become the very thing they sought to destroy, ironic. I think the 10 years (which would be soon by now) would have done these sequels good, that way we have a clear vision and there might not have been so much crap behind the scenes. George also said that they wouldn’t let him have creative freedom but had no problem giving it to Rian Johnson. So yeah, apparently people agree with me on this because there's a movement called "Release the JJ cut" just like the Snyder cut of Justice League, I don't see why they can't just put it in the deleted scenes of the dvd or take a note from LOTR and make an extended edition, it's not like they're going to recycle it or anything, even if they do refilm the same basic scene then that's just something fans can make contrast to, it's not everyone's cake but it is definitely a good amount so there is demand, release the George Lucas Scripts, release the JJ cut.

I wanted Finn to lead a sort of revolution of Stormtroopers, have them rebel like he did. We saw that one deleted scene where they questioned Phasma in TLJ, that could have led to it but they just brushed past it with this one and gave “Jannah” the same backstory! I joked with my dad and said “the helmet had blood on it and everything.” “Really?! The same thing happened to me!” "No way!" Then at the end they make it out as Jannah is Lando’s daughter, apparently he says “my daughter was taken from me” at one point and I missed it and then they say they are from the same sector. It went right over my head, people say it’s a fun payoff, others say it has no impact. The way I took it was that Lando asked her what sector she was from and she said “I don’t know” and he said “Why don’t we find out?” I could’ve sworn that’s how I heard it, so I assumed to build off of that scene where everybody is hugging somebody but Finn meant that him, Lando and Jannah were going to find the homes of the defective stormtroopers, which once again would’ve just brushed right past the idea.

Even more so, Finn’s force sensitive? Pretty much like how he used a lightsaber in TFA so it lines up but they don’t go anywhere with it other than “Rey will be ok” “Kylo is on that ship” “The Nav is on that ship” it’s just used for convenience, there was no moment where Finn came in and really saved the day, I didn’t really care for that part where he drops the bombs with Jannah. Sure you could say that Leia was like that in the original trilogy but first of all, they were siblings so it made sense, and second, she had other development so she had stuff to still do, she was a princess after all, they wanted Luke to be the last Jedi to train new Jedi and she would’ve been among those as we can tell from this movie. Also we never figured out what happened to Luke’s green lightsaber, I thought that’s what he was going to give Rey but it ended up being Leia’s lightsaber, one we didn’t even knew existed until then.

Why does Finn have to have so many love interests? Honestly such a ladies man? There’s one every movie now yet he didn’t end up with any of them 😂 poor boy, almost confessed to Rey then Ben beats him to it, like some kind of Hunger Games drama. Unless he was going to say “I have a feeling which means I’m force sensitive right?”

I played with the idea of Ben seeing Han again and I’m content with it because it played out the same scene from his death but the way it should have gone...but we hear that remark from Luke that he’ll “haunt” him but he never does. They use the force touch ability pretty well in the movie, I kind of liked it, with the battle on the Death Star, I thought he was a hologram, I was surprised to see he was actually there. However Holdo is already forgettable because Poe does the same basic light speed jump over and over at the beginning of the movie, they call it a “Holdo” at the end but it just doesn’t seem special anymore.

My dad brought this up and I don’t really know what to think about it. So when Ben saves Rey at the end, he disappears, then Leia’s body does too, does that mean Leia was acting through Ben to save her? Or did they just poof together? Oh yeah! The Knights of Ren! So I thought maybe they would act like the Black Order then take them out one by one before Kylo was the supposed final boss and then Palp would end up being the big baddie instead but they don’t do that, they are called “Knights of Ren” not too sure about that considering they attack him in the end, more like Knights of Palpatine. The trope I was talking about is that they make a big deal of getting through it together but Rey just goes off and does her own thing, she stares into the distance a lot and gets sidetracked easily.

They made it seem like Anakin would return with Hayden in press events, he doesn’t other than a voice, a bit disappointed, then "that boy is our last hope." "no, there is another." well that "another" is...well...a “Palpatine”, Anakin wasn’t the foil anymore or “the other hope” it was Rey, she gave the final blow, she can take the name Skywalker, sure but I don't think Lucas would have let it play out that way, I mean Anakin saved Luke then Luke trained Rey but still. Luke was one of my main gripes for TLJ, not the acting, Mark Hamill is always great, but just the way they wrote and handled him. I remember after seeing it, someone at work told me “I loved Luke, he did an excellent job and had a great fight” and I thought “Yeah, coming from the guy who likes Alien Covenant” Idk what movie he was watching but I wasn’t a fan of that Luke and neither was Luke himself, Mark Hamill so that tells you something. This version seems to go back on that and does a 180, we don’t see too much of him but I started thinking how we didn’t see much of Ben Kenobi in 5 and 6 so I guess it’s alright, they at least treated him better with what we saw and that’s what matters.

I said this before but I imagined Luke taking down a Star Destroyer with the force in my ideal version of post ROTJ, just like Starkiller, we have a moment sorta like that with Rey and this cruiser, I got really happy seeing that, then Kylo fighting for it and drawing out Rey to use the dark side that she didn’t even know she could use. Speaking of, the reflection scene in this movie is what the one in the last one should have been, same scene but placed on Acht-To as training, you can have the whole snap thing and this and that but give it meaning, I feel like they were just avoiding being like Empire but then you did it anyway so it defeated that purpose.

The ending should have ended on Tatooine, I’m glad it did, right where it started. It’s funny how I had a very similar wallpaper before seeing the movie.

Then her YELLOW lightsaber made out of her staff is *😙👌🏻* great. I do think they partially did that out of fan service though, why Rey would want to go to a sand planet again is beyond me. However George has once said that "having a boy and a girl walking into the sunset adds 10 mill to the box office." and uh...I mean Disney again kind of just went against his wishes there.

Gotta admit, the whole star destroyer fleet were just Death Stars for the most part, Palp doesn’t know how to make anything else I guess. “Maybe we could make it bigger” “maybe we make it 3x more powerful” “maybe we could make tons of them!”

I also wanted to mention this because my dad liked TLJ and didn’t see why it was so divisive but seeing this movie he immediately understood so maybe it just makes things more clear and others hazy, idk.

So I thought of a way they could introduce Mara Jade and atone for Luke’s behavior in TLJ which was having Ben kill her and that’s why Luke went and banished himself and why the Jedi "forbade" any relationships like that, but then it would turn out she actually lived, that’s who I thought Zori Bliss was until she started flirting with Poe. Then I got the idea that they were going to do that with Rey, Luke knew that Palpatine was back and wanted to protect her so he left her on Jakku and banished himself on Ach-To, again wasn’t the case but I could see some big plot holes and opportunities in that theory too so maybe it’s better it didn’t go that way.

Another thing I thought was a theory I found online about C-3PO and how he would be hooked up to the Death Star and reactivate the droids as well as have some golden sentenials as an army (with him leading) to fight the First and Final Order, a callback to how the Ewoks made such a big deal out of him like he was their leader and how it was Anakin who made him so it would make sense to have some big surprise planned, that didn’t end up happening, the red eyes were just for reading sith language which makes sense, it’s cool.

Oh and that message that the emperor sent out, I couldn't find in the movie, but you know where it is? Fortnite. Yep and it’s kind of vague and dumb so rather than going to go find it, I will write it here for you “At last the work of generations is complete. The great error is corrected. The day of victory is at hand. The day of revenge. The day of the sith.” So...what is this “great error”? Vader?

One thing I know, but expected, is that these trailers are super misleading and I get that it’s supposed to be mysterious and get you to go but really? It made it look like they were destroying Vader’s shrine together, just an accident while facetiming. They made Rey look like she goes to the dark side, TWICE! Once in TLJ and once in TROS, at least with TLJ, I must say, Rian Johnson warned us about it like “hey, some stuff may not be what it seems in this trailer” so Disney is doing this on purpose, take what they have in trailers with a grain of salt. Turns out it was just a force vision like everyone was saying, called it, almost feels like they did that specifically for that reason, to put it in a trailer. But I there is at least an argument that Rey was struggling with the dark side and now we know why, I still think about the “Empress Palpatine” “Empress Rey” it’s got a ring to it, ngl. So them at least exploring that even just a bit was fun for me.

I’ve seen people say the complete opposite as me, that they liked the parts I didn’t and didn’t like the parts I did so it really is to each their own. It did some cool things with what it was given because it had to keep up with the other two, not disappoint people who hate and end the Skywalker saga, all in one bite while he wasn’t even set to direct it until late into it so he thought he was done which means there wasn’t a final script or any plan ready. I think it might have been more cohesive had it not had to deal with everything at once. There was a lot going on at one time to try and stuff in there. I think that if you had a path and then stuck with it then it would be more respectable, whether it was TFA or even TLJ, honestly I do believe that, pick one or the other but we shouldn't have to, just be committed to what you're trying to say, if Rey is related to someone, let her, if not, that's fine too but choose gosh dang it, don't throw the audience for a loop like we're some of the Mii's in Wii Sports, I'm not blaming anybody or any movie but this one.

Those are my thoughts on it at the moment, I'm reading the Thrawn trilogy so I should have a review for the first book eventually and I'll make reference back to this through that, you'll see why. As much as it's been said on the internet, I feel like it's true, like we're in a love-hate abusive relationship with Star Wars, so I think I need a break from it other than that. Disney has seemed to have based their movies around "avoiding" "avoid the Prequels" "avoid the Ladt Jedi" well, in the process I think they're avoiding Star Wars.

#star wars #spoilers #tros #the rise of skywalker #review #spoilers review #tros spoilers #star wars spoilers #sw

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kcwcommentary · 5 years

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VLD8x08 – “Clear Day”

8x08 – “Clear Day”

This episode is so frustrating. The carnival is a waste of time, but that’s less frustrating than Allura’s hallucination and dream. All writing is a choice. If you write a cryptic dream into a story, it has to be for a reason, it has to mean something. And I want Allura’s hallucinations and dream to mean something. I feel like I desperately try to tease out a meaning from it when I watch it. But I don’t know what it means. It’s never explained in the show, and it’s so frustrating. Ultimately, I end up so annoyed by it that I just think that the show’s creative team didn’t actually have a real meaning for the hallucinations and the dream. I think they probably just had these cryptic moments for no other reason than to just be cryptic. I don’t think they thought they had to have an explanation for what it all meant, let alone that they had a storyteller’s obligation to explain it in the story.

I’m left feeling that this episode is just more audience manipulation, and I’m not okay with that.

The episode starts with Allura talking to Tova. Hunk’s cookies caused zealots who wanted to commit genocide to now want to cooperate with Allura. That ending scene last episode leading into this cooperation really only works if you ignore everything the show has established about these Alteans. If they had only been angry and hadn’t really done anything and were captured and then they ate cookies and calmed down and changed their mind about Honerva, that would be fine. But the show specifically identified these Alteans as the ones who were piloting the Robeasts, and those Robeasts were used to drain the quintessence of several planets. Just because the Rebels seem to have been able to evacuate the population of those planets doesn’t negate the fact that these Alteans were trying to commit genocide. It really is creepy that this show just ignores that now.

Tova tells Allura that he doesn’t have much time to talk to her. This connects to how in 8x01 “Launch Date” when Luca talked to Romelle, Honerva remote killed Luca. Tova says, “Now that she has Lotor, she will use him to destroy everything—” So the show is again explicitly saying that Lotor is back. Tova states this as fact, so Honerva had to have specifically spoken to the Colony Alteans about this being the goal. Since Lotor doesn’t actually come back in this show since he’s a melted corpse, are we supposed to assume (assume, since the show never bothers to show us) that Honerva was just lying to the Alteans?

Tova convulses and falls on the floor, two creepy-mask medical personnel (seriously, who thought the visual design on medical personnel was a good look?) come in, and Allura tells them to back off. At first, I thought it was weird that she was keeping Tova from receiving medical attention. She kneels down, holds out her hand, and her hand starts glowing, and I thought she was going to use her magic healing like she did with Lance in 6x01 “Omega Shield.” Then she says, “I feel something.” Why is she only feeling it now? The entity has been in him the whole time.

She apparently magically pulls a rift creature, last seen in 3x07 “The Legend Begins,” out of Tova. I really wish this show had not brought the rift creatures back into the story since the story doesn’t really do much with it beyond this episode. The creature flails around the room. Monitoring outside is Sam and Matt’s robot? cyborg? person in a mask? girlfriend. Why is she even part of this scene? Why is Sam even in this scene really? He’s not a doctor, he’s not a diplomat, he’s not the ship’s captain, he’s not Romelle or Coran, so he doesn’t have a cultural investment in this conversation. Sam is the ship’s engineer. There is not reason for him to be here except that they wanted someone to speak technobabble. Why couldn’t that have been Coran? He knows a lot about technology and could have thus spoken technobabble, and he would have had a reason to be watching because he’s Altean, Allura’s there, and they’re trying to get the Colony Alteans to cooperate. Having Coran here would have made so much more sense than having Sam, and Coran has the added benefit of being one of the show’s main characters. So, once again, the show has shoved a main character to the side in order to give time to a side character.

Allura, Tova, and the medical personnel exit through the door, and conveniently, the rift creature does not attempt to follow them as they do so. Sam hits a button, metal in the room clumps together in the center of the room, and then cut to their having somehow gotten the creature out of the room and into a small container. Allura tells Sam that the creature was trying to communicate with her. I use this stated attempt to communicate as being the foundation for my attempts to interpret Allura’s hallucinations and dream.

Curtis and Shiro directly talk to one another! About a picking up “an abnormal signal.” So, you know, clearly, they’re in love.

It’s the guy from that planet in 4x04 “The Voltron Show!” where the weather is only clear one day out of the year. Like in that episode, this episode seems to think saying Coran’s inability to know what day it is on that planet is the result of “time dilation.” It didn’t work as a joke in “The Voltron Show!” and works even less as a joke now because the way it’s used this time doesn’t even seem to come from understanding what time dilation is. The “abnormal signal” that Curtis picked up was solely that there are a bunch of inhabitants on the planet who are currently on the surface. That is not a signal!

The alien guy rants at Shiro when Shiro suggests it’s too dangerous because of some miscellaneous threat. The Galra have completely ceased to be a thing in this show. We’re to somehow think that a universe-spanning military dictatorship culture that has lasted for 10,000 years has stopped being a problem because Honerva killed a handful of people in 8x02 “Shadows.” Honerva hasn’t been spotted in a while and is leaving no wormhole trail, according to Allura last episode. So, what’s the danger that Shiro is so worried about that he thinks a planetary cultural event should be cancelled?

The alien guy tells Shiro if he’s so worried about their safety, then they can come provide security free of charge. Shiro tells Veronica to make a shipwide announcement, “We’re going to Clear Day.” Cut to them seemingly having already arrived because Lance is asking Allura if she’s sure she doesn’t want “to go down to the carnival.” Allura says that she wants to rest after what happened to Tavo. Lance offers to stay with her, but she tells him to go, to “win [her] a prize […] something sparkly.” One cliché guy-winning-a-girl-a-prize-at-a-carnival reference, check. Even with it being totally cliché, I do actually like that Lance seems genuine about wanting to get something in order to try to lift Allura’s spirit when he arrives on the planet. The fact that he’s having to lift her spirit though, continues supporting my argument that Allura was depressed this whole season.

Once again on this show, a planet is populated only by a small number of people in a single, small location. Why is the show like this? Every alien civilization (other than the Galra) only has a planetary population the size of one town. It’s so off.

Pidge and Hunk offer to help Lance look for something for Allura. Keith overdoes it with the professionalism (which is slightly endearing) by being too focused on their providing security for the event. Shiro, who had been the one who initially was so worried about whether the people of this planet should be having this event due to miscellaneous threat, now doesn’t seem to remember he was worried earlier. Now, he tells Keith, “Relax. Go have fun.” Keith asks, “If we’re not here for protection, then what are we even doing here?” So, yeah, about two-and-a-half minutes after having said, “Are you sure hosting a celebration is safe? This sector has seen a lot of hostile activity lately,” Shiro has now been written to have a totally different motivation, telling Keith now, “Morale on the Atlas is low after what happened on Oriande. Who knows, a few hours at the carnival might just give us the boost we need to get back on track.” This show can’t be consistently written for even three minutes. This latter motivation of Shiro wanting to boost the crew’s morale makes a lot more sense than his earlier concern about a miscellaneous threat. Although, they’re only going to be here for a few hours? I thought the celebration was supposed to last an entire day.

Back on the Atlas, Allura wakes up and hallucinates Lance. He talks about the Altean flower that Colleen was growing last episode and has since given Allura. “I had assumed they had gone extinct,” she says thereby marking the flower as a symbol of the Altean people. She hears Lotor’s voice saying, “You should know better than anyone nothing ever truly goes extinct.” Lance is gone, and then Lotor is there. He says, “It’s good to see you again, Princess. You know, the ancients believed that all of life began with a single juniberry flower.” Allura summons her bayard and tries to cut through Lotor, but she only damages the wall and floor, not him.

He tells her, “You and I desire the same thing. We both seek to destroy Haggar.” Allura counters, “Haggar? Haggar is no longer. She is Honerva now.” I know the show desperately thinks it has told a story about someone who has differentiated personalities caused by quintessence poisoning, but it really hasn’t. Haggar, Honerva, it doesn’t matter what name she uses or what appearance she’s taken on, she’s still the same person. Lotor agrees with me, “Though I could rename this a highland poppy, you and I would still know what it truly is. The witch may change her name, but she will always be a witch.”

It’s really baffling in a way. It’s like this show doesn’t even know what position it wants to take about the fundamental truth about Honerva. The show very much expects the audience to consider Honerva absolved of her behavior post-quintessence poisoning, but here it has someone arguing that Haggar and Honerva are just two names for the same person, so following through with that, Honerva most absolutely shouldn’t be forgiven for her abusive and genocidal behavior.

And since this isn’t really Lotor talking but the rift entity, what are we supposed to think about Lotor here telling Allura this. What Lotor is saying is totally right, but are we supposed to interpret this as the rift entity manipulating and deceiving Allura? The show did expect us to think everything Lotor said in seasons five and six that was totally truthful and accurate were actually manipulative lies. It’s so weird. The way this show does this by having him say things that are so clearly true, but then to try to say those clear truths are deceptions, it makes it feel like the executive producers and writers of the show are trying to gaslight the audience.

I’m curious if the rift entity is projecting Lotor saying this because it actually does recognize Honerva for what she is. The last time we saw a rift creature was in 3x07 “The Legend Begins.” Honerva had one in a forcefield bottle. Because it becomes aggressive and attacks and more of its kind come through the rift, combine, and attack, I went right along with the idea that it was a malicious creature. But thinking about it now, it could have been really interesting if we eventually found out it wasn’t malicious whatsoever. The first time we ever see it, it’s been captured and imprisoned by Honerva.

Allura says that “there’s nothing [she] can do to counter [Honerva’s] abilities.” Lotor says she’s wrong. “Everything you need is here,” he says. He causes her to have a vision of the rift entity. He says, “It is an ancient form of energy that predates time itself.” So, is it energy or is it a creature? “Entities like this gave Haggar the ability to conquer worlds and control the universe for 10,000 years.” Uh, how? This is the first time since “The Legend Begins” that this show has brought the rift entities into the story. The show has not shown Haggar doing anything with them for 10,000 years, so this just feels like it’s coming out of nowhere.

Again, I just don’t think this show knows what it actually wants the facts of the story to be. It’s too interested in having unresolved ambiguity, but without resolving the questions it raises for the audience, the show ends up just seeming like it’s being manipulative. Lotor puts his mouth to Allura’s ear, clearly meant to be creepy and evoke viewer distrust, as he says, “If you can become one with the entity, the powers you gain can defeat the witch.” Allura is shown reaching out toward the entity.

There’s a bright flash and suddenly Allura is standing in a field of flowers talking to her mother. This is the first and only time (that I can remember) we ever see her talking with her mom (of course, it’s not actually her mom). Her mom says, “You’ve arrived just in time […] to save us.” Above is a fleet of Galra cruisers who start firing on the nearby Altean city. Her mother says, “Only you can protect us.” Allura then is in the armor of one of the Colonly Alteans who pilot the Robeasts. She’s in a Robeast. She slams the Robeast weapon into the ground, draws out quintessence, and uses the chest cannon to destroy the Galra. Then she realizes she’s destroyed the planet. Her mother, as she turns to dust, says, “I am so proud of you.”

This is such an interesting dream sequence. But what does it mean? Or rather, what did the writers intend it to mean? I don’t remember this ever being explained. Is her mother supposed to be the voice of the rift entity, asking Allura to save them? If the rift entities now are like the one back in “The Legend Begins,” then has Honerva imprisoned them and is using them against their will? Are they being violated by Honerva, and this one is asking Allura for help? If the rift entity is just trying to offer Allura power to trick her into letting it into her so it can do something bad to her – consume her? the show never seems clear to me about what the threat of the entity is to Allura – then the dream doesn’t narratively work for that because it ceases to be enticing because it causes her to see her kill her own mother. That’s not how you write deceitful promises of power because Allura doesn’t have reason to trust the entity now.

I just don’t understand what the message the show is trying to convey with this dream sequence. Allura dons the Robeast pilot armor and uses the Robeast. She drains the planet of quintessence, killing everyone including her mother, but she’s doing it to provide defense, destroying the Galra who are attacking. It seems like it’s justifying horrible action – draining the planet of quintessence and killing everyone – in order to do something else – stop the Galra. It can be read as a statement about doing horrible things in order to achieve a bigger goal. I know I read a long while back some suggestion that this dream sequence can work as an explanation to Allura about why Lotor should be forgiven, that his second Colony that drained quintessence from Alteans was a horrible thing done in order to achieve a bigger goal.

It’s just so weird. Her mother says Allura’s there “to save us,” but then Allura doesn’t save them, she kills them to kill the Galra. Is it supposed to be explaining the threat of what negative things would happen if Allura takes the rift entity into herself? That she would be doing it out of a motivation to protect people but that it would turn around and end up killing those she wants to protect? That isn’t what happens when Allura takes the entity into her though. And if this dream is coming from the entity itself, why would it have Lotor suggest to her that she take it, but then have Allura see a vision that’s trying to say that if she does take it then she’ll be responsible for killing everyone.

And then, Allura’s mother says, “I’m so proud of you,” after Allura has killed her. Why would her mother say that if the vision intends for Allura draining the planet to be interpreted as an ultimately negative thing?

The show, of course, doesn’t follow up with any of this, so I ultimately have no idea. I just wonder if the writers even knew what they were writing when they wrote it. The sad thing is that I can easily imagine that the writers of the show think I’m wrong for wanting this dream explained. I think that they failed as writers in not explaining it. I think it’s a mark of an amateur, and there are a lot of well-paid, acclaimed writers who are technically professional that I am still criticizing as being amateur, to write cryptic scenes into a story with no intention of providing an explanation for the audience. I’m not saying don’t write cryptic scenes, I’m not saying you can’t let a cryptic scene sit for a while, but you have to absolutely explain your cryptic scenes eventually or else you betray the trust of the audience.

Whatever happened with the dream, it had a real-word manifestation. The flower on the nearby shelf is dead. (Though the mice on the bed are still alive. How’d they survive?) It suggests Allura actually drew the quintessence out of the flower during her dream. She has used her space magic to revitalize people before, so I guess this supposed to just be her able to do the opposite? Where did this flower come from? It wasn’t in the scene when Allura and Lance were laying on her bed before he left for Clear Day. Instead of this flower, a holographic projection of her father and mother was what sat in this spot on her shelf. Is this discrepancy supposed to mean something? This show has too many inconsistencies for me to say it must mean something.

Honestly, this show’s executive producers and writers seem to be the type of people who’d put weird stuff in the story for no other reason than to be weird. I can totally see them not thinking any of this needs to make sense.

Back at Clear Day, Pidge plays Whack-a-Coran. The people of Clear Day have manufactured games with Coran’s face on it? Well then, that’s some spite for Coran’s inability to track time in “The Voltron Show!”

Shiro walks into the arm-wrestling tent. The alien guy complains about the Blue Lion not being there. The alien tells Shiro that the arm-wrestling contest isn’t “for people like you.” Shiro says, “Why’s that, because of my arm?” The alien says no. I say yes. Shiro’s arm does not have an elbow. It doesn’t have a way to create leverage, which is what is needed to arm wrestle. It’s like this show actively picked something that Shiro would not logically be able to do. It’s like the show and the creative team behind it are actively mocking people for having a problem with how illogical Shiro’s arm is.

The alien says that “arm-wrestling is for the young and strong. You’re old, like me.” I guess maybe he’s just supposed to be taunting Shiro or something. It has felt like the executive producers and writers have thought of Shiro as older than he is throughout this show’s production, and I have no idea why.

Coran participates in a yelmore calling competition. I genuinely laugh. His yelmore call is funny.

Hunk eats food, but it’s a carnival, so it makes sense.

Keith asking some people if they’ve seen anything suspicious and their mocking him about how there’s a guy going around asking people if they’ve seen anything suspicious is annoying. I’m over this episode disparaging Keith for being professional. Somehow, Keith and Hunk are spontaneously, and unknowingly in line for a ride. This is such a weird transition. I think the transition itself is supposed to be a joke, but it just feels off. So, were the people Keith was questioning in front of him in this line? They others in the line behind Keith didn’t complain about Hunk cutting in front of them by joining Keith. The moment lacks logic.

So, they get on the ride. The ride seems like it’s based on the clichéd mockery of the It’s a Small World ride at Disney theme parks. It’s not funny.

Still looking for something for Allura, Lance is at a game booth and complains, “Voltron doesn’t have a purple lion.” It’s really hard to see how the writers would have put this in and not mean it to be a reference to Lotor. Precisely what they mean by it, I don’t know. Lance asks the game attendant if he’s “got any blue lions? I used to be the Blue Lion’s Paladin and now my girlfriend is.” The attendant has a blue lion, but he’s clearly a scammer since he takes all ten of Lance’s tokens for one play of the game and swaps the rings for smaller ones. Lance still gets two of the three. The attendant offers to make Lance some kind of a deal.

Meanwhile, Pidge has won a bunch of tickets and is trying to redeem them, specifically for a prize fit for a princess. It feels like her doing this has to be connected to the same giving spirit that came from her in 8x01 “Launch Date” when she gave up her video game for Allura’s outfit. But, like too many things, this show doesn’t actually explain what the bigger meaning is. Pidge wants a sparky hardhat but needs more tickets.

Shiro competes in the arm-wrestling. Curtis watches him. It could have been used to actually have them talk to each other and set up getting them together in the end, but since they weren’t planning on having them become a couple, the writers didn’t think to actually do anything to set-up the relationship.

Pidge asks her dad for more tokens. He accuses her of wasting her previous tokens. She gives him a face and he goes to give her more, but Colleen snatches them and says she wants a family picture in exchange. It’s supposed to be funny, but I don’t find it funny at all.

Back on the Atlas, Allura is looking at the entity. Lotor is still talking to her, creepily telling her to free the entity. She says, “I can’t. I won’t.” And then her hallucination changes to Lance, who says, “It won’t do any harm. The entity will help you. It will save all of us.” Lotor aggressively says, “Take it.” Then Allura sees and hears her mother again, who says, “Only you can save us all. Release the entity. Come home to Altea.” Her mother turns into Honerva, who says, “Join us.” And then she turns into the entity.

I still don’t have a clue what this dream sequence is supposed to be telling us. All of this is the entity talking to Allura, right? I think the biggest problem with this is that the creative team, in the same way that they never really settled on an explanation for what quintessence was and how it worked, they never settled on an idea about what this entity is. We’re supposed to have a sense of foreboding. We’re supposed to consider it threatening, but for no reason other than that’s the emotion the show wants us to have. There is no foundation to what makes this threatening. We’re supposed to go, oh no, don’t trust it, something bad is going to happen now. But nothing bad actually happens because of this. It feels like all the hallucinations and the dream are setting up something specific, but I don’t think it is. I think the whole point of this is just that the creative team is messing with the audience, toying with us.

Allura releases the entity. Why she would respond to Honerva saying “Join us” by releasing the entity, I don’t know. It seemingly enters her. A mecha’s eyes and horn? light up. There’s a shot of Lotor laughing. The sound of his voice sounds like he’s having fun. It doesn’t sound like a maniacal laugh. His face looks wild though. The visual of his face and the sound of his voice do not match in tonality. He says, “Follow me!” I know this moment has been the subject of a lot of debate and discussion. I don’t really know what to add to it. I assume this is supposed to be the entity still talking to Allura? Is Lotor supposed to be the entity and the mecha he’s piloting supposed to be Allura, as a statement that Allura is now possessed and controlled by the entity? But then who’s the statement “Follow me” being addressed to if it’s not being addressed to Allura. Is the entity through this vision of Lotor making this statement as a declaration of partnership with Allura?

Again, I think I’m putting way more thought into these scenes and this dialog than anyone who worked on the show did. I think they most likely just threw some words into a script and didn’t care if any of it made sense.

There’s a shot of space and some planets and Voltron, and the whole image smears sideways and whites out. Why? What does it mean? I doubt it actually has any meaning.

Keith and Hunk are still stuck in the ride. It’s not funny. The ride breaks down again. It’s still not funny. Keith breaks out of the ride. Coran still is in the yelmore calling competition. I genuinely laugh at the calls. Coran wins. The deal the game attendant made with Lance was Lance autographing all the Blue Lion plushies. Lance was totally cool with that, and he’s got his Blue Lion plushy in return to give Allura. Pidge got the sparkly miner’s hardhat for Allura. They all converge on the arm-wrestling final.

Shiro’s final competitor is the warden from 2x10 “Escape from Beta Traz.” It’s set up to suggest a personal stake to the competition. Shiro calls the warden out on having imprisoned an innocent person. The warden then apologizes, saying, “Look, I know I did some bad things. The truth is, I thought you guys ruined my life, but really, you saved me.” I can’t help but read this as a parallel to Allura’s dream. Like with her dream, the warden talks about interpreting something initially as bad (“I thought you guys ruined my life”) but then seeing it as good (“but really, you saved me”). It has a parallel quality to Allura’s dream where she does something that seems bad (drains the planet of quintessence and kills her mother) but it happens with the language of it being a good thing (“You’ve arrived just in time […] to save us” and “I am so proud of you”).

Part of me feels like there has to be an explanation here. There has to be a meaning we can figure out. But the other part of me feels like I’m just desperately grasping for something to try to create a meaning because the show failed to actually give us one.

Shiro and the warden arm-wrestle. I think Shiro arm-wrestling is still ridiculous because of his arm lacking an elbow, but I think the animation of the arm-wrestling looks really good. Shiro wins.

The Paladins and Altas crew return to the ship.

Sam runs in to find Allura on the floor, unconscious. (Again, why is this Sam instead of Coran?)

The episode ends.

Yeah, this episode frustrates me so much. It all feels like a giant suggestion of meaning, but the show never provides that meaning. This episode just ends up feeling absolutely disrespectful of the audience, like it’s all just a giant manipulation.

#voltron legendary defender #voltron #vld #voltron criticism #vld criticism #voltron critical #vld critical #vld season 8 #vld 8x08 #commentary

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ptw30 · 6 years

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So you're saying this theory about Shiro being bp in pre-production, it expanded upon s7 to s8? I thought it'd be just the scripts but there're so many inconsistecies with lion color and lines it baffles me. If they had almost two seasons ready, why would they put effort in remaking them, wouldn't that make up for a higher budget? why would DW EPs change their minds about the former version? (also, I'm sure this means there's no alt s8, just a s8 over a s8)

So which of the four people I started to explain this theory to are you?

To clarify - no, they didn’t change the Black Paladin role from Shiro to Keith in pre-production. According to this -

(Keith’s panel is double the size of everyone else and off-center, thus taking over Lotor’s panel.)

- the EPs changed Seasons 7 & 8 in post-production.

The Theory: Seasons 7 & 8 were a mess because essentially, we were watching different parts of Seasons 3-6 that were re-purposed following the insertion of the clone subplot.

After watching Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 8 and seeing how Allura and Kuron’s struggles paralleled, I realized - they don’t parallel. These struggles match. Honerva invades Kuron’s mind just like she invaded Allura’s, is connected to Kuron and Allura through some sort of mind-link, and eventually is able to override Kuron’s mind while Allura receives visions in hers.But why would the EPs and writers do the same fight over? Why would they choose to redo parts of the story, rather than advancing the plot?That got me thinking about other theories about reused episodes. Coupled with “Knights of Light” being Shiro’s paladin journey sans Shiro - it occurred to me – Seasons 7 and 8 are, in part, Seasons 3-6. And thus – here’s what I think the original order of the episodes were, heavily influenced by interviews and foreshadowing, and most likely, a bit of bias, too.

Season 3 (released as Seasons 3 & 4)

Season 3 up to “Hole in the Sky” was originally plotted and shown as is; however, we know from EP interviews that “Reunion” was originally slated after “Hole in the Sky” and “The Legend Begins” was a two-parter.

After the clone subplot was conceived, “Reunion” was pushed back, “The Legend Begins” cut to one episode (but footage reused later), and “The Journey” inserted. The reused footage of Lotor’s ships and Shiro being added after the fact (where he barely interacts with the rest of the paladins) puts most scenes from “The Road Home” and “The Way Forward” in Season 3.

I also want to add in here – while the EPs said they wanted Shiro to die at the end of S2, they originally said earlier that the execs told them Shiro couldn’t be out a full season. That means Shiro was slated to return – my guess within 26 episodes, a full production season, not a full release season (which is 13 episodes).

So I surmise Season 3 originally looked something like this:

Changing of the Guard

Red Paladin

The Hunted

Hole in the Sky

Reunion

Matt and Kuron’s Keith’s reunion in “Black Site” with parts of“Trailing the Comet”

The Legend Begins Part 1

The Legend Begins Part 2 (with the flashbacks we saw originally in “Knights of Light” Part 1 and 2)

Code of Honor (switching out the scene with Kuron for a scene with Kolivan; Keith returns to save the team) and/or The Journey Within

Fight scenes from “The Road Home” with paladins being captured/Zethrid and Ezor torture scenes/Black Site ending

The Voltron Show

Begin the Blitz

A New Defender

Just want to add – I wonder if originally, the five paladins stuck their bayards into their lions in “A New Defender” to give Voltron that extra punch, rather than Allura powering up Voltron with a deus ex machina. Then Lance seeing Shiro in the Void would have been the cliffhanger, not Keith almost dying. That would also explain why Keith’s near-death experience was never addressed by the team - cuz originally, it didn’t happen.

Season 4 (released as Seasons 5 & 6)

An early theory by @sol1056 was that Keith was the second son of Zarkon, born in the rift. It makes sense, particularly since Krolia had no bearing on the plot other than birthing Keith. Sure, she found the Blue Lion on Earth, but as the Galra Empire was originally announced to be misogynistic, and thus having no female warriors other than Lotor’s generals – then Krolia was never meant to be a Galra soldier and therefore, could have not found the Blue Lion.

I surmise – from Zarkon’s seemingly infiltrating Shiro’s mind in the pilot episode, to Haggar being able to hack Black and Shiro’s bond literally, and Red being on Sendak’s ship, where Shiro also spent some time – Shiro helped the Galra, perhaps inadvertently or unwillingly, to locate the Red and Blue Lions.

Also, please note - Cosmo was originally inserted into this season, and as you know from previous posts, Cosmo most likely took the place of Shiro in the script, seeing as Cosmo and the Black Lion have the same teleporting abilities. (Yes, I believe the paladins were going to go all AtLA and get powers.)

For this season, I start to get a bit creative since the blanks are gaping here, as the clone subplot came to a head:

The Prisoner

Blood Duel (with Haggar remembering Keith)

Postmortem (if not in the last season finale, then here is where Shiro would yell to Lance and Keith wouldn’t have been in the Void, seeing as he’s not the Black Paladin OR Allura missing from the Void and Keith in Red’s position)

Kral Zera (a bit different, with Keith and Lotor going to Kral Zera; also, there would have been fallout from the team finding out Shiro may be alive)

Bloodlines (Lotor and Keith finding out they are related)

White Lion

Omega Shield (Allura having issues, not Kuron)

“The Colony” – changed as Keith doesn’t find Romelle (potential deletion all together)

Black Paladin redux but this time with the team finding Shiro’s body being drained by Lotor - Lotor and Keith fight

Knights of Lights Part 1 – team goes to find Shiro with Allura feeling for Shiro’s presence, not using the entity; minus the og!paladins flashbacks, which now aired in the third season; Keith says “you’re back to Shiro,” not Black.

Knights of Lights Part 2 – Keith meets Zarkon surrounded by the paladins; found family trope achieved; Shiro’s history in the arena revealed or even “A Little Adventure” flashbacks

Defenders of All Universe - Voltron vs. Sincline

Please note: “Knights of Light” is a bit of anomaly. I feel it would work better as a mid-season climax - perhaps set in Season 7 - but if Shiro was to return prior by the end of the original Season 6 and Allura was having issues due to Honerva going to Oriande, then KoL would have to be in this season.

Also, since “The Colony” was literally an eight-minute scene inserted in the middle of an episode and later, the Alteans become pawns - there’s a chance the Colony could have been deleted all together and Honerva, as Empress of the Galra Empire, still could have completed her plan.

Season 5 (released as Season 7)

This season originally had Shiro back in Black with Lance and Keith going back to their original lions. Allura would be the one on the Atlas bridge by the end of the season, not Shiro.

Considering this - as well as the re-purposed parts from Season 3-6 - here is where budget question comes in. Moving “Prisoner’s Dilemma” here so Shiro unlocks his bayard and seeing as Pidge should have gotten her bayard upgrade after Olkarion, the original Season 5 may have looked something like this:

Shiro and Keith parts from “A Little Adventure” (originally written for “Across the Universe”)

The Ruins (Shiro teleporting him and Keith)

Battle Scars

Prisoner’s Dilemma

The Last Stand Part 1

The Last Stand Part 2

Know Your Enemy

Heart of the Lion

Trial by Fire

Lions’ Pride Part 1

Lions’ Pride Part 2

Adding in here “Monsters & Mana” and “The Feud” - you have thirteen episodes overall, but my guess is these filler episodes were added to take the place of content that eventually was ejected from the plot - such as Lotor’s redemption and Shiro’s history, Lance and Blue getting back together, etc.

Season 6 (released as Season 8)

I’m not even going to guess how this season originally looked, though we can assume “Genesis,” “Uncharted Regions,” “The Zenith,” and “The End is The Beginning” were all in the original rundown but with Allura in Atlas, Lotor returning to help Voltron, and the team back to its original line-up. And seeing as Allura went to Oriande and helped build Sincline, the natural progression of her storyline would have been to change Atlas on the fly in Season 7 and then in Season 8, merge Atlas and Voltron.

But more importantly, here’s where the budget was really made up -

Launch Date (filler)

The Grudge

Genesis (maybe the White Lion wasn’t supposed to die originally)

Day Forty-Seven (filler)

Clear Day

Uncharted Regions

The Zenith

The End is the Beginning

There are only eight episodes created here - not thirteen. Coupled with using this season’s budget for “Razor’s Edge” and some of the scenes from “Bloodlines,” that brings the total to ten. By injecting the clone subplot and choosing to redo the storyline for Black Paladin!Keith, the EPs were able to cut-and-paste together the remaining episodes of this season.

There are also short cuts in production you can see, such as leaving errors in animation and/or post-production. If the EPs and team were truly making sure VLD was the best it could be, we wouldn’t have:

Shiro calling for the MFE pilots to be ready to launch, and the Iverson doing it again less than four minutes later in “Uncharted Regions”

Atlas saying that it would cover the lions and then Keith saying they were giving Atlas a shot (A shot at what? Atlas was just supposed to help) in “The Zenith”

Quintessence colors that aren’t uniform, considering Keith’s bayard now changes to the same color of Black’s tail when Shiro pilots (There is a gentleman whose sole job at DreamWorks is make sure the colors align.)

Luca coming back from the dead, Lance in Blue, Yellow having Red’s fire power in “The Zenith”

Reused dialogue lines from previous seasons and perhaps even recorded dialogue with Shiro as the Black Paladin - Shiro as part of the field team in “Day Forty-Seven,” Shiro standing in for Griffin in “Prisoner’s Dilemma,” almost Shiro’s entire dialogue from “The Grudge”

Lance and Allura’s conversations with the original paladins not making any sense in “Knights of Light,” seeing as Allura isn’t overlooked. In fact, Honerva wanted to recruit her.

Pretty much - VLD cut corners in the last seasons to make up the budget and delivered us a torn-apart story with offensive message and yet another set of ridiculous wings.

TL;DR - Who really knows what happened with VLD, but what DreamWorks delivered wasn’t the original episode rundown, seeing as the team was supposed to be in their original lion line-up by the end of the series with Allura and Lotor being alive in Atlas and Sincline, respectively. And tbh - it hurts to see what we could have had and know there was an incredible story the EPs and DreamWorks not failed to deliver but refused to.

#Voltron #voltron critical #vld season 8 #vld #shiro #it's a marketing thing #it's a business thing #meta #allura #atlas #sincline #honerva #lance #keith #voltron legendary defender

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mavrustheunskooled · 6 years

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Why is Bare: A Pop Opera not as super popular as Dear Evan Hansen or Be More Chill? The fandom loves LGBT rep (which Bare has) and the songs are amazing and I think B:APO is actually superior to both of those. Thoughts? I mean the musical fandom tends to try to find LGBT characters even when they aren't stated, so why do you think Bare is not as popular?

this is a very interesting question and I am hopefully going to do it justice by analyzing Fandom, Musical Writing, and Many Other Things I’m Super Passionate About

the short: many factors and a lot of luck

the unnecessarily long:

(opening disclaimer: I love dear evan hansen and be more chill, and I’m not upset that they’re popular musicals because I feel that they’re popular for a reason. anything that sounds like an insult in the following response isn’t such because I truly enjoy both of those musicals a lot)

(another disclaimer: spoilers for bare, DEH, and BMC, also mentions of homophobia)

on paper, bare seems like the exact sort of musical that would be popular. bare the musical (cursed as it is) has a cast of super popular actors like Barrett Wilbert Weed, Gerard Canonico, Taylor Trensch, Alice Lee, Alex Wyse, a high quality bootleg exists of the 2013 LA cast, it’s got LGBT+ rep, complex women characters… and yet it’s got a tiny fan base. Why?

first let’s look at why dear evan hansen and be more chill are popular. I’m more well versed in bmc, so let’s look at its history (disclaimer: I’m estimating dates but this is roughly the timeline)

the original bmc run was in 2015 I believe. they recorded a soundtrack, everything was fine, and they closed. in 2017, people began discovering the soundtrack in hoards. specifically, they were discovering one song: Michael in the bathroom. that’s even how I learned about the show- I heard that song and had to look up the rest of the soundtrack. and in February of 2019, they’ll start previews on broadway because the fandom was revived

why this song? I think a ton of fame comes from talent, yes, but also from luck. I think bmc was lucky that Michael in the bathroom, a great song, was discovered as the great song that it is. I also think the fame came because that song is super relatable. as someone with pretty bad anxiety, that song really touched me because I’ve definitely spent parties hiding in the bathroom and avoiding everyone and wishing I was dead because I’m so overwhelmed with anxiety. it’s relatable, so people flocked to it.

this made me pause to think “what is bare’s hook song” my first thought was a quiet night at home if we want a song in the same vein as MITB, but that song isn’t as hype as MITB (and fandoms don’t care about fem characters as much as it cares about masc characters). my next thought was are you there because I think it’s a bop and a relatable “pls someone help” kind of song, but I don’t know which song everyone could relate to as much as everyone could relate to MITB

and speaking of relatable content- that’s where the DEH connection comes in. dear evan hansen is similarly relatable, although it takes that to an extreme given what Evan does as a result of his anxiety. Michael and Evan are relatable characters, even if you don’t condone everything they do (and if you condone everything Evan does, we have much to talk about)

but doesn’t bare have relatable characters?? absolutely !! there’s Peter, a closeted gay kid who wants to come out, and Jason, someone who acts tough but is secretly very insecure, and Nadia, with her body image issues, and Ivy, who people won’t take seriously because they’ve decided they already know her, and so many other complex characters. so why are they left behind?

let’s look at bare’s history:

bare was originally written in the 90s (I want to say 1999, but I could be wrong) the performance most people consider the quintessential bare performance was in 2004 with Michael Arden, John Hill, Jenna Leigh Green, etc.

if you compare this to DEH and BMC, the first issue is clear. DEH was hugely popular around 2016. BMC began to grow in popularity in 2017. these are very, very new shows. 20 years doesn’t sound like a lot, but in our current age where time seems to pass so quickly which each new fad, bare seems like an older musical, and a lot of people aren’t the biggest fan of older musicals. and they don’t have to be !! but it’s a personal preference of some people that could affect how they view bare as a potential musical to be a fan of

in terms of the music of bare, it’s definitely catchy, but it’s not like a pop song. (again, no shade at DEH and BMC because those aren’t jukebox musicals or anything). bare is simply not as easy to listen to as DEH and BMC are in my opinion (and it’s not the most complicated thing ever either, but holy cow its lyrics are smart and I have to throw that in here)

now let’s look at reasons why people may not want to watch bare. while it is great that it has canon gay characters, compelling women characters, and is very cleverly written it also has issues that can be turn-offs to people. this includes:

-bury your gays

-gay-guy-cheats-on-boyfriend-with-girl trope

-gay-guy-gets-outed trope

-and potentially other homophobic tropes

I’m not shaming bare for perpetuating these tropes because it was written 20 years ago, and lgbt+ people are allowed to enjoy media in spite of its perpetuation of negative tropes, but for some people these things are enough to turn them away. and I don’t blame them! I watched bare the musical before I watched bare a pop opera, and when Jason I died I closed out of YouTube without finishing the show because I was so Sick of bury your gays.

I am aware that there are reasons Jason died at the end of bare (they’re making a statement about how homophobia kills, particularly how homophobic religious people can have an awful affect on young religious gay people), but there comes a time when “reasons for a gay character to die” is just too much. sometimes, you just want the gay character to live, and I completely respect that notion because I felt the exact same way when I watched bare the musical. I remember when I first watched bare the musical I wrote a thread about how as a Romeo and Juliet adaptation, bare follows some things closely (like death at the end) while avoiding other extremes (Romeo running off to another country) and I thus felt the death was unnecessary. if someone else feels similarly about being sick of gay characters dying, they have every right to not want to watch bare

that’s enough on why someone might not want to watch bare. let’s get back to bare vs DEH and BMC

I also think a big aspect of fandoms is shipping. the fetishization of MLM (and consequently ignoring fem characters completely, along with focusing solely on white men for their shipping and ignoring men of color) is a huge problem in fandoms that I could talk about forever, but for the sake of this response, I’ll keep it a bit shorter

DEH and BMC profit heavily off of shipping in terms of gaining popularity. people love Evan x Connor (and other ships but that’s the main one I see), and people love Jeremy x Michael (and others). so why then do people not care about bare, a show with a canon relationship between 2 basic white men, which is their ultimate goal?

I think people like the idea of these mlm ships more than canon content. if there’s canon, it’s harder for them to make a variety of ships because it feels like everything else has to rotate around the canon without touching it (which is where the bare fandom gets Matt x Lucas because they’re the closest they have to 2 basic men- I can write my criticism of them another time though)

I’ve also seen posts saying that things with canon lgbt+ characters sometimes have smaller fandoms because there is no need for lgbt+ theorizing- it’s right there, and if you want lgbt+ content, watch the thing. I don’t necessarily agree with this for myself (I’ll reblog every pilgrim’s hands gifset I see) but I can definitely see how other people might think this way

failing to hype up stuff with lgbt+ characters can have a negative impact. BMC is the prime example of how a show can be revived by its passionate fan base. if people aren’t talking about bare, it’s not going to spread like other shows do

this is kind of all over the place but anyway- I want to talk about characters more. one thing DEH and BMC have are great, complex characters that are very easy to boil down to a fandom’s favorite stereotypes. I am absolutely not saying DEH and BMC have simple characters because I think all of them have layers; however, fandoms do love to go “this is precious cinnamon roll who can do no wrong and this is evil awful terrible irredeemable person” and it’s a bit difficult to do that with bare.

you can say Peter is your perfect son, but he does try to force Jason out before he’s ready. you can say Ivy is the evil seductress trying to tear apart your gay babies, but I will physically fight you. there aren’t any black-and-white good or bad bare characters (except Father Flynn- hate him), which doesn’t fit in line with the way fandoms function. sweeping generalizations about the current state of society based on the internet are exhausting and bad, but we do live in an age where everything must either be perfect or evil, and you can’t do that with bare. no one “did nothing wrong uwu” and that’s what fandoms Want

(note: they will excuse wrong actions, such as everything wrong Connor Murphy has ever done, if the character is played by a mildly attractive guy they want to ship with another mildly attractive guy)

another point that I don’t have fully fleshed out thoughts on enough to devote too much time to is the integration of parents into the shows. in both DEH and BMC, the parents get redemption arcs. in bare, Claire does say she love Peter at the end, but she’s much less of a sympathetic character than Mr. Heere or Heidi (that’s her name right- Evan’s mom) or the Murphys. when I was younger, I wasn’t allowed to watch anything that painted parents, or adults in general, in a negative light, but maybe that’s not a universal experience

this is getting way too long and it probably has more thought put into it than what was necessary, so I’ll try to close this quickly

I think, first off, that DEH and BMC completely deserve the hype that they have received. they’ve got compelling stories, interesting characters, and fantastic soundtracks. I also think that luck factors heavily into them getting what they deserve. there are plenty of great shows, like bare and the boy who danced on air and spies are forever and probably more that I’m not thinking of, that have great music and characters and story that, out of sheer chance, don’t get the chance they should have been given. there is no bulleted list someone can follow and at the end they’ll be on broadway with an armful of tonys; is the luck of the draw, and bare has not been afforded that chance

I’ll end with some reasons why anyone who happened to read this but might not be a bare fan should listen to or watch bare:

- it is an amazingly clever show; every time I watch it or listen to it, I realize another moment of foreshadowing or a line I originally brushed off was actually very significant or there’s another recurring motif/theme in the music

- it’s full of bops (go listen to you and I or are you there or portrait of a girl)

- canon gay characters in a canon gay relationship

- 3 dimensional fem characters that actively criticize stereotypes

- it’s about a religious gay boy who grapples with his religion and his sexuality and how those two things can coexist

- it is Very Very Good

in conclusion: bare is very good and deserves attention xx

#this is all over the place but I tried #idk if this is what you wanted but it's what you got ldkfjdlsjfk #I Love analyzing stuff like this- this is my dream ask ldkfjlskf #ask #bluejaye91 #bare a pop opera #dear evan hansen #be more chill #it's after 5 tags that stuff doesn't show up in main tags right?#bc I'm tagging for myself and not for everyone but who knows if everyone will see it anyway ldkjfdlf #rambles

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