#my bad if it's a little fillery

[animation-recaps-by-sean]

The Owl House For the Future Recap

The gang tries to navigate the Collector’s new playground while dealing with the fallout of their fight with Belos. Spoilers below. 

Cause even the shortened season couldn’t even go without some controversy, Canadian itunes leaked the whole episode two weeks ago. Urg, anyway, like last episode we pick up from the end of King’s Tide, except from the Boiling Isles point of view. The Collector rains down stairs turning people into puppets, including Lilith and Hooty. Oh Hooty, We hardly knew thee.

Once back in the Isles, Camilia has a hard time dealing with both what is normal for the demon realm and what the Collector is doing. But I love her little mom moments with Luz. Willow is trying to be everyone’s rock but this causes her to push down her own fears about her missing Dads. Her stress manifests as planets popping up until she nearly smooshes herself with vines. Hunter summons the magic inside him and talks her down and allows her to cry. It’s so sweet. And they hold pinkies. Oh my shipping heart, let them get together!

Meanwhile at Hexside, the kids have predictably fallen into chaos. Boscha is the puppet Queen of Kikimora whose big villain plan is.. Hide in a high school and pretend to be a teenager. Luz doesn’t see her as a threat. Camilia hitting Kiki face with the bat is fantastic!  

And Boscha, whose friends were some of the only teens taken by the collector, just wants Amity back as queen bee so she could get some kind of normal. But Amity just isn't that person anymore. But she can save her friends. I do find it hilarious that Boscha just wants to be the beta bitch to Amity's queen bee. In the end she redeems herself by leading the other kids against Kikimora, which was a pretty fitting end for her.

Without any palismans to eat, Belos is now falling apart. He sees the ghosts of Caleb and the other Hunters; it's about 50/50 between hallucinations and actual ghosts.

Odalia has escaped puppetification by working with the Collector and by working with, she’s basically a nanny. It is going better for her than Preston Northwest’s attempt to work for Bill Cipher. No Picasso face! I still wonder where Alador is.

Eda and Lilith are being kept safe from the Collector by King. They don't do much here but it's nice to see them.

Now to talk about the Collector. I know I'm in the minority on this, but I’m deeply disappointed that they’re going with a ‘wowowo whiddle baby who doesn’t understand the stuff they’re doing’ character. I really love the sinister build up The Collector had when they were introduced. The creepy cloak when they trapped the owl beast up to his excitement at the day of unity in Hollow’s Mind. But this feels like a very different character. I guess there are more sinister evil Collectors mentioned in the lore, and the Collector who trapped the Owl beast and the Grand Huntsman could be different Collectors. I don’t know, I just didn’t want the big bad to get Steven Universed. We still have Belos at least.  

I do feel like Luz’s Palisman was a cheat too. Oh, a snake shifter. Cool would be cool if I knew what the hell that was Luz. I did love how the palisman got hatched though. I love Luz’s little realization that she just wanted to be understood. And Luz calling her mom a secret nerd! So cute.

I continue to be impressed at the show's ability to organically fit in as much plot as it does. It helps that it was a very lean show to begin with, sneaking in plot and set up in even fillery episodes. As opposed to Steven Universe and Star vs the Forces of We Evil which loved to take many brothers with characters that don't back. Which is fine in theory but it left their finals rushed and awkward when they got cut short. I mean we still got one more episode but we don't have much left to cover. Just Collector/Titan lore (differently involving that gold guy Luz saw in the in-between), maybe some more Belos/Clawthrone history, final battle, and the resolution. There is the Bat Queen stuff but that hasn't been brought up since early season two and will most likely to kept in their back pocket in case of a revival.

Grips about the Collector aside, a wonderful part two. 3 ½ out of 4.

[charliethemanticore]

Hi! I watch/read a lot of anime/manga, so I figured I'd discuss the filler thing with you! Hope that's ok!

That's actually a very good point, I never thought about it that way! I think people disregard filler and don't consider it a regular addition to an adaptation, like it happens in other movies or shows, because in most cases its point is not to add anything worthwhile to the story, but to gain some time to not catch up to the manga.

So then, particularly in longer anime such as Naruto or Bleach, there are these entire arcs that completely deviate from the story and are ultimately pointless and stick out like a sore thumb. Whatever happened there is never brought back again, and its characters are promptly discarded as soon as the arc ends. This is something that doesn't happen in adaptations in other media (as far as I know), and what makes filler such an unique thing to anime.

Then there are cases where from some point on the anime completely deviates from its source material, such as Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 or Soul Eater. People don't refer to its original content as filler anymore because there's an understanding that they're doing their own thing.

I think what ultimately draws the line on what's filler or not it's its purpose and of course this is not a black or white thing, or matter of quality. Most people would agree that FMA 2003's ending is garbage, and the episode in DBZ where Goku and Piccolo learn how to drive is incredible. But then in cases where filler adds to and elevates the source material, can we still refer to it as such? That's a more difficult question! But I think we can all agree that Naruto's filler is pretty pointless, it made the show near unwatchable, and it's as fillery as filler can get. It's there to fill time and nothing else, no one's happy that it exists but alas it's there.

Sorry this got so long haha

Disclaimer: I have a migraine so this is very rambly and not the response such a well thought-out explanation deserves.

Thank you so much for your perspective I really appreciate it. (Also I feel like my tags were misleading. I watch a lot of anime I'm just like... Sitting in the corner doing my own thing bc I find active participation in fandom tends to be bad for my specific combination of issues)

But my biggest toxic trait is I fucking love like... 60% of the Naruto filler arcs (they're the only time my most beloved shino gets any real airtime and he DESERVES IT)

BUT based on every conversation I've had with my friends about this, this is because I have very different... Requirements when it comes to the stuff I like. The filler arcs are silly and fun and I enjoy them immensely (the only one I couldn't watch to completion was the robot Naruto one). Have a lot of complicated feelings about them though. Like The Three-Tails' Appearance is great because shino gets to be competent and Lee is a sweetheart and Sakura and Ino get to work together... But if that adorable child plays that leaf whistle one more time I may cry (guess where I'm up to in my rewatch)

Bleach filler is so much worse. Bount arc wasn't even enjoyable 0/10 couldn't even be saved by hot villains. I watched all but one arc of Naruto. I did not grant the same to bleach, it burned me too many times.

DBZ filler is complicated though because a lot of the filler has canon stuff sprinkled in which I think is a more seamless way to buy time - sprinkling filler into existing arcs rather than having just... 76 episodes of near continuous filler NARUTO. I understand the constraints were different though.

(fma:b is one of my favourites and I sort of just pretend 2003 didn't happen. It has some good points but I just can't. The author told them to go with their hearts and I respect that they committed but results were questionable)

Point is I think it's really interesting to see how other people interact with media because I'm mostly just sitting here like "are my favourite little guys talking? Brilliant. 10/10 you're doing great sweetie etc" im stressed out by literally everything else, a few episodes of some kids trying to unmask their teacher is enrichment in my enclosure

[souleaterpostanime]

SE-POST Reread part 1/4

Guess it's time for another update - still recovering and readjusting so nothing substantiual, but I decided it would be fun and usefull to reread my own stuff for the future so I don't just forget all the things I set-up and to see where I messed up the most and what I can improve. I leave small notes after reading a chapter and record them, maybe they will just be repetive and the same as the chapter notes, maybe not, but to make up for it, I'll include little rushed no-effort sketches with each one. Also you can catch up or remind yourself if you want to be ready for when this story finally continues.

If this still isn't satisfieng for everybody waiting for the hiatus to be finally over - yeah...sorry.

So anyways, here we go:

chapter 1:

not as bad as I remembered, even the dialog (besides the obvious countless typos, word repetition, sometimes unclear baloon order) wasn't too bad, I remembered it to be so emberassing that I wouldn't be able to reread it, but it actually even causes me a slight chuckle a few times and didn't sound much worse than some stuff (maybe cause I started watching the third season of mob psycho, a series I used to hold in high regard, and realised that it's dialog and exposition isn't as good as I remembered). But it could also just be to the anesthetics in my system still affecting my perception (Probably shouldnt after all this time, especially when I didn't take pain killers once they became voluntary)

Guess my most controversial opinion, which will make people think I truly lost it and became narcisistic and delusional, is that the art doesn't suck - no I mean it does suck, but in a way that often actually conveys things more clearly than probably some later chapters, and has a certain charm to it, even though I admit some panels are really rough Still dunno, maybe I can just pretend that it had more "soul" than even I realised. Alas.

chapter 2:

Weird, that even though I figured out how the speech bubble tool worked, this chapter actually had more instances were the layout of them was confusing and it wasn't clear which bubble to read first, probably ruining some jokes. Also I allways felt a bit that the woman that was the victim had a too quick of a turn of opinion, just to get her out of the scene, just showed my sloppy writting and use of convenienve, hope it wasn't too jaring anyways.

Still, I personally liked the whole intro scene, even if it may be simmilar to many cliche "saving someone from a monster in the last moment" depictions. Didn't use any reference for the flow of it and I think it worked, but as I mentioned, maybe it's just my megalomania speaking.

But another flaw I admit is the 3 time repeated "oh how was the mission? Great!, besides- anyways..." talk. Even though it happens in real life (as I experienced recently when 3 different old ladys asked me why I wasnt at a rehabilitation exercise when I felt bad) , it still feels clunky, unecessary and "fillery" in a story, maybe if I had done something with it like conveing something a bit different or showing some subtle change.. But eh, can't cry over spilled milk. Also I thought the lame reference/meta humor would make me wince from regrett but nah that shit still works, and if you "cringed" you just don't get the vision

(Also funny that Kurma and Zalte appearedncoe the first time, can't say I didn't build up the arc, even if it took a bit longer than expected, also did anybody catch the first hint of Ragnarok being "nice" to Tsubaki, wishing her goodbye and even Crona being comfused by such behaviour from him?)

chapter 3: Think the confusing speech bubble problem persists but is a bit less common. Some panels at the end were a bit unclear, especially at the end but others thing did the job. Still some typos and dialog sure sounds clumsy, should have chosen some other words. Also in the talk between Kid and Death, guess some "jokes", could be cut out to make it flow better. But on the other hand I quite liked the conversation between Ragnarok and Tsubaki, wasn't too schmalzy, atleast in my opinion. Still this chapter set up a few things even that early, even though no real "antagonist" appeared in it, guess I just have a preference for these silly slice of life chapters.

chapter 4: yeah think this one has just mostly bad art without any of the previously mentioned charm or "pizzaz", even though some panels were still quite dynamic in a good way. Still having Crona and Patty interact was probably a good idea, and something I should explore more in the future. Sadly this one still hasn't solved the problem of some text bubbles having a confusing reading order, ruining some jokes and emotional moments. Also it's were you can see the overstuffed unecesarry jokes and dialogs rear their ugly head. Also the scene trasitions were probably confusing, even if maybe I did it on purpose? Anyways interesting to see an early Zalte and Kurma, maybe one could arguee that Zalte's charachter was different at that moment but I guess I could try to pretend that I just didn't want to reveal to much. Still weird that in some ways on reread I didn't like the chapter but in others I enjoyed it quite a lot, but guess it is what it is

chapter 5 Weirdly I found this one a lot better than the previous one in a lot of aspects. Even if it just seems to be a few scenes jumping around without a larger important plot, the art seemed a lot more lively and even actually "readable". Even some jokes and scenes seemed to land better. Guess the cover is the worst part, cause the church building looks kinda lame, but in contrast the silent scene of the wedding itself seemed quite nice, atleast to my self-loving eyes. Also intersting that this is the first time when Medusas remnant snake showed up. Anyways, maybe I should write more on it, but I think it speaks for itself, ofcourse it still has some problems with the text bubbles being confusing and dialog containg typos or just confusing sentence structure and word choice (Im not even sure if "joker" can be used in the context, basically I ment "lifeline", like in a quiz show, guess things like that get mixed up when you speak 3 languages and are trying to learn more)

chapter6: even if the art takes a dive again, I enjoyed the content of it still, was suprised by how well I could switch from the c*** mother to caring mum without making it look to cartoonish. But yeah I admit the action was too confusing to read and even I can't even decipher a few panels of it Anyways this one shows what happens if.you dont make enough concept art and do new charachters mostly of the dome. Guess for the first two parter it set ups things well enough, but hard to say without a second opinion, maybe most people find it all weird. Still maybe I have more to say after rereading the second part

chapter 7: Just noticed that I was very sparing with the sound effects at first, maybe I thought it was bwtter to make them clear by context? Still liked the chapter, because it seemed a lot happened in it without it being too rushed and even the art, even if super basic and scratchy, still conveid the action mostly, with some exceptions. Atleast better than the previous one. Still think using Humpty Dumpty as a kishinegg was a creative choice, I mean why not, atleast its not as exploitative as using real life recent serial killers, which I did and probably will continue to do, even if I probably shouldnt... Anyways, I have less to say than I though, just felt engadge myself when reading it, so atleast one person is satisfied by it so thats good enough. Oh also, think the speech bubble order problem is mostly solved by this point.

chapter 8: Well, I still wonder if anybody quit just because of what kind of person the kishinegg was, that its a too serious topic to use for a stupid fancomic of a cartoon. But besides the question of tastefulness, I liked the whole intro of the chapter even after rereading it. The paralels with Crona and him trying to help the kid seemed not forced or anything, atleast to me. The only question I started to have while rereading was, if Maka was out of charachter or atleast if her charachter development got ignored. Wouldn't she too have seen a pathetic scared kid, who she would have tried to help after her experience with Crona? I guess I would justifie it that for one, the kid directly killed other student, which is such a terrible act that Maka wouldn't even think about any other "victims" besides the ones slayin. Also she did try to just kill Crona at their first confrontation and at the second only changed her mind once she saw the inside of his soul and realised Cronas situation. But here comes the question - should that have led her to reconsider other people before attacking like she did with Crona or do habbits like that not change so easily, especially if Crona was really "special" atleast in her eyes. Guess the fact that this kid seemed to be more mentally gone than even Crona at his worst could contribute, but at the end I have to admit that it would just be boring if Maka came to the same conclusions as Crona, and there wasn't a conflict or motor for Crona to develop his thought on his own. Anyways maybe I'm just overthinking a minor part of this comic, who knows But on the more technical side, I think even if some of the art looks better than the last chapter, the clarity got a lot worse, maybe it was just too dificult setting for my effort and skills at the time. The ocean especially looked like shit, and I hopefully would have done a much better job at this point. Still I liked the fight itself just for the stupid eye stabing gag and for showing how just arbitrary forgivness won't solve every problem. Anyways, at the end the chapter mostly set up things for the future while having a action set piece - so if it ever gets redrawn it wouldnt just be boring text like some other chapters comming up.

chapter 9: Yeah it looks even more obvious that I rushed this one out in a single day, the "quality" makes it obvious. Still I found a lot of it fun and the whole boardgame parody something lo-fi that gets uses rarely. But that also makes me see how it would all benefit from a redraw or something, even the dialog seems to have a lot more typos and repeating phrases than the last few, even with the edits I did when I reuploaded it on AO3. Anyways, in a story progression sense this "filler" chapter actually planted a lot of seeds, some that only started paying of recently, like Crona acting simmilar to his mother, so I hope it got apreciated for that

[darwinquark]

chapter 10: ‘1939’ word count: ~8.5k rating: ✌️

"Did you mean what you said last night?"

The question was aimed behind him, eyes trained sightlessly forward.

"New York? Logistics?"

Silence hung at his back.

He swallowed, fingers flexing a little around the doorknob.

He knew it was shitty timing, that she was defensive and rattled from waking up to all this, but he was tired of having to guess. Tired of blinkingly emerging from interactions without knowing where they stood, a guitar string that was always a little loose, making every song a little off-key.

His jaw clicked at the lack of response.

"Veronica."

"I was drunk, Jughead," came the stiff reply, and his eyes fell shut. "So were you."

Not that drunk.

It slid down his spine like a blade.

[winryofresembool]

Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 42

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: A road trip to Chicago, pt 3/3

A/N: And we're back! This is a relatively fillery (and short) chapter but well, sometimes those are necessary too. We're heading towards the 'bigger' stuff soon, though! (Or that is at least what I hope xD)

Hope you guys enjoy, and remember that feedback is the only way for me to know that someone is still reading this! So please let me know what you think. (I hate saying this every time but it means a lot to me)

Words: 1629

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: none

previous chapter / AO3

...

“So, what you’re telling us is that you’ve been crushing on each other pretty much ever since you met and finally decided to do something about it during the holidays?” Piper repeated what she had gotten out of Leo and Calypso’s story while the friend group was waiting for Percy at the restaurant.

“I wouldn’t say it was love at first sight,” Calypso denied. “I was quite prejudiced towards Leo when we first met, but hey, he let his dog break my beloved desk! What would you do in that situation?”

“Probably the same thing you did,” Annabeth admitted.

“You could have cut me some slack there,” Leo objected. “Festus is a big, excited dog and he doesn’t know the limits of his strength.”

“Yeah, yeah. You know I love Festus these days. But if someone had obeyed the rules, there wouldn’t have been any incidents in the first place,” Calypso reminded him.

“But I very kindly fixed the desk, the nice person that I am,” Leo pointed out. That caused the others to burst into laughter.

Calypso cleared her throat. “Either way, at some point we realized that hey, maybe my flatmate isn’t quite so bad after all. We noticed we have more in common than what we had first thought, and somehow, I genuinely ended up enjoying spending time with him. Don’t ask me how he did it, but he did.” Then she lowered her voice slightly. “And here’s a secret: on special occasions, he is capable of telling decent jokes.”

“That’s a huge compliment from Cal of all people,” Leo told the others with a twinkle in his eye.

“Yeah, I’m a little worried that I’m making his ego grow too big.” She ruffled his hair fondly. “I’m trying to be careful, though.”

Leo snorted. “Just so you know, she doesn’t actually talk like this when we’re alone. She just wants you to think that she’s all cold but that ain’t the truth.”

“I’m still not nearly as sappy as he is, no matter what he claims,” Calypso teased

“Alright, I’m not taking part in that debate,” Piper intervened. “But one thing I want to know is who initiated your relationship? For some reason I just can’t picture Leo asking Cal out. Maybe the other way around, though.”

“Actually, I was the one who initiated it,” Leo noted.

Calypso cocked her eyebrow. “But I told you I liked you first! After the Halloween party, remember?”

“Yeah, but that same morning you told me you didn’t want a relationship.You had totally valid reasons for that, yes! But I made it clear I wouldn’t have minded more.”

“Alright, fair enough,” Calypso finally complied, continuing the story: “After that talk it was a bit of a cat and mouse game until the holidays, which was when it kind of just reached the point that we needed to do something about it. Otherwise we would have exploded. So, we had a few bigger arguments – not like our everyday bickering - and eventually Leo’s moms got so done with us that they told us to deal with it. I know, very romantic. It was a good thing they did that, though, because it finally forced us to talk through the things that we had been avoiding. I finally admitted to myself that I was fighting a losing battle and decided to go for it.”

“And then she kissed me. It was a pretty good kiss, even if I say so myself,” Leo grinned, getting amused reactions from his friends.

“Aww, Calypso, he looks like it was the best thing that has ever happened to him,” Piper chuckled.

“I told you, he is sappy like that,” she replied, playfully squishing his cheeks.

“Well, I’m just happy that you guys managed to sort it out. You’re happy now, right?” Piper wanted to know.

Calypso exchanged looks with Leo and nodded. “Yep. Happy.”

…

Maybe 15 minutes after the group of five had arrived at the Italian restaurant, Percy joined them.

“I know it wasn’t exactly what you wanted but the second place is a great achievement,” Calypso addressed him once he had greeted everyone and gotten seated next to Annabeth. “Sorry we left a bit early, we had a bit of a situation going on at the arena.”

“Yeah, that’s what they say but we found them smooching in the car when they thought we wouldn’t be seeing.” Piper rolled her eyes.

“Wait, what? You two?” Percy asked Leo and Calypso, looking more surprised than any of their other friends had looked so far that day after hearing the news.

“Yep,” Leo confirmed.

“Woah, way to go man!” Percy high fived Leo. “That’s great news.” The best part to Leo was that he really did seem happy for them.

“Thanks. I hardly believe it myself,” he admitted. “Uh, hope it isn’t too weird to you? You know, with your past?”

“Nah, it isn’t.” Percy shook his head, a smile on his face. “I’m with Annabeth now and wouldn’t want to have it any other way. I don’t mean any offense to you, Calypso, I just mean maybe things were meant to go this way.” He reached for Annabeth’s hand, giving her what Leo could only describe as a grossly sugary look. But then he realized that he could probably say the same about himself when he looked at Calypso.

“Don’t worry, I get what you mean,” Calypso replied, not having any bitterness in her voice.

“Jason, I hope we weren’t this full of syrup when we were together. It’s kind of gross, if you ask me,” Piper sighed at her ex boyfriend.

“You two were about the grossest couple I’ve ever seen,” Leo pointed out. “Sometimes I doubted you even noticed me leaving the room when you got a little enthusiastic.”

The others laughed at his comment while Piper glared at him.

“Ewww, Leo, that’s not true! We didn’t do that.”

“You did, though,” he claimed.

That debate might have lasted longer, but Leo’s focus went to Calypso who was showing something to Percy from her phone. Leo also glanced at it and saw a picture of the strange men from the swimming arena on some company’s website.

“This might be a weird question, but do these men say anything to you? I mean, do you know who they are?” she asked.

Percy looked at the screen for a moment, frowning a bit before answering. “Yeah. I think they are sponsoring Luke Castellan and Ethan Nakamura but I haven’t really paid that much attention to them. I just know that I’ve seen them at our competitions sometimes.”

“Is it normal for the sponsors to be watching your competitions?” Calypso asked.

Percy considered his answer for a moment. “I mean, it’s not that strange. They do want to know what kind of people are showing off their logos. But mine are not there as often as these guys are, I can say that.”

“I see,” Calypso said, putting her phone away.

Leo wasn’t sure if Percy’s answer was good news or not. Sure, it did prove that the men had an actual reason to be in the audience but Calypso still seemed a bit concerned. Ethan Nakamura had cheated in that day’s competition and if these people were happy to team up with someone like him, what else were they willing to do? Did they have something against Percy and if so, why?

Calypso seemed to have a similar track of thoughts: “I’m only asking because I happen to know these people. They are working with my dad so he knows them pretty well… They used to visit the mansion sometimes when I was still stuck there. I can’t help but wonder…”

“Wonder what?” Percy questioned.

“This is going to sound really paranoid,” Calypso started slowly, “but I wonder if my father has some connection to this whole situation. Could there be a possibility that these people are teaming up with your rivals because they know you had – and still have – a connection to me?”

“But… I never met your father? Did you ever mention me to him back when we used to chat a lot?”

“No, not even once,” Calypso said. “But somehow, even so… he’s a mastermind at getting the information he wants. Maybe he forced our maid to tell him about my trip with you, or something like that.”

“That’s really messed up. What kind of person would do that?” Percy narrowed his eyes.

Calypso sighed. “I thought we had already established that he is not exactly a normal person. But what I’m really trying to say is: be careful. If those people know who you are and if they know about your connection to me, who knows what they might be planning.”

“Alright. I will keep that in my mind.”

“Well, this just got cheerful,” Leo broke the silence that had fallen among the friends after Percy’s words. “Babe, remember that we are all on your side. If something was to happen, we’d be prepared. But now I need to confess something: all this worrying is making me pretty hungry. So how about we order?” He pushed the menus in front of everyone before turning to Percy. “Hey, world championships, man? That’s pretty awesome. It’s not exactly every day you get to do something like that.”

A grin returned on Percy’s face. “Oh, yeah. You’re absolutely right there. Do you think they have blue drinks to celebrate that?”

“Hope they do,” Annabeth said and started reading through the menu. Everyone followed her example and focused on their meals, leaving the topic of Calypso’s father behind. Leo could sense from her downcast eyes, though, that it was still bothering her even as they left the restaurant a couple of hours later.

[papers4me]

Fruits Basket, Se3, ep11 (part 1)

Breaking toxic bonds & accepting healthy ones isn’t a miracle. A bond that started with love could end up chained & toxic, another that started wrong could’ve become the joy of a life time. You can do it. Break the cycle of abuse & stand up for yourself, it is easy yet so difficult, you aren’t alone, tho, loved ones stand nearby cheering. Be kind on yourself, otherwise you’ll throw your life away. Life isn’t just happiness & joy, it’s also sadness & loneliness. Break free from the shackles that held you down. Embrace life & Live.

-Tohru’s “ I’m okay” mask is finally shattered! (the Importance of kyo’s rejection for her development):

This is the last part of tohru’s character development! The last few eps were abt her role in Akito’s redemption & their similarities. she staood up for herself & choose a path away from her mom while keeping her mom’s memory in a healthy manner. No more planning my life according to mom’s wishes, no more talking to mom ‘s picture 24/7. Now, I’ll plan my life & move forward even if it is with the guy mom said she cant forgive. even If it is without him, I’ll move forward. I love him so much, yet I won’t force our bond & let go. So easy yet so difficult!. tohru doesnt know anything abt kyo after her fall. All she remembers is his heart-broken face as he wept beside her. Those tears on his face, she caused them. He cried cuz it is too painful to see her hurt. She was a burden to him! tohru restored to her old coping mechanism of pretending “ i’m Okay” & smiling. She did so numerous times before. Always worked. No one noticed. Except him. Se02, ep7. he urged her to show her true fears. Now, she’s faced with a pain so big she can’t pretend no more. the pain of loosing him. She cried in front of yuki! The smile & chatting abt chores couldn’t conceal the running tears! Yuki’s first time seeing her like that. Se01, ep14, yuki wondered how could tohru smile after her mom’s death. She can’t pretend no more! She’ll have to wear her feelings on her sleeve! cuz it IS ok to do so! She tells kyo to give her a moment to compose herself. She couldn’t lie & pretend like she did with yuki. Here she either run away or just try to compose myself! I LOVE THAT! This way, whenever kyo/tohru fight or have any misunderstanding in the future as a couple, you’ll know tohru won’t just bear it & pretend, “ i;m okay” No! she’ll talk to kyo & express herself! I LOVE THIS SO MUCH! It gives her so much strength as a human & I’m happy all the obstacles & set backs in kyo/tohru’s romantic journey has led them to be better ppl little by little to build healthier & more realistic love! 

-The mechanics of writing a compelling slow-burn romance:

1. Igniting the romantic feelings slowly: Slow burns don’t work with love at 1st sight. It must first sparkle naturally, slowly & subtly. Both kyo & tohru repeatedly stated they don’t know exactly when they first fell in love. The author’s decision to create an environment where the two live together is a genius way to start & nurture their romance quietly & subtly. Kyo was tricked to stay in shigure’s house while tohru had to stay cuz she had no home, Natural reasons that force the two to spend days together & get to know each other gradually.

2. Dynamics of their personalities: For slow burns to work, the two characters need to be similar yet opposites! Kyo & tohru are both kind, endearing, innocent, good at chores, independent & hardworking. They both have history with their mothers that is filled with love yet traumas. However, tohru is calm yet prefer maneuvering around subjects, can’t stand up for herself, reads ppl easily, tends to trust ppl easily & disregard herself. Kyo is fierce, strong, tends to distrust ppl, despite ppl loving his spontaneous character, he has hard time figuring out if they’re mocking him or teasing him, very straightforward with his words & actions. The similarities helps them understand each other, however, the differences creates chances to clash & come even closer thro various situation. Ex, se01, ep2, kyo apologizing for hitting her head with the table which created the situation where she needed to confess she always loved the cat zodiac! It is HER gush of emotions that struck kyo. ppl really want my friendship? the cat is loved? Thro those difference they learned to better themselves so they won’t hurt the other, kyo toning down his anger for her, tohru desiring to know him even more as he becomes even more awkward.

3. Creating natural, realistic  & convincing obstacles that prevents them from being together:  This is the most important part! Slow-burn is two characters in love & cant be together despite everyone wanting them to be! if the reason that stops them from uniting is trivial, stupid, one-sided, can easily be solved, then the slow-burn would be a fillery & no one would cheer for it! Takaya-san is a genius!

Kyo can’t be with tohru cuz he thinks (a) he killed her mom! we saw thr flashback, he could’ve saved her & couldn’t save her. It was a split of a second difference & he hates himsef for NOT trying! that split of a second also prevented from thinking of better ways to save her than holding her! it happened to fast, he couldn't think of a better alternative cuz this was his 2nd time loosing someone (b) his mom’s sucide being pinned as his fault created this immense guilt & defeated feeling that “ no matter what, I just cause death & misery! There’s (c) too!, he knew tohru! thinks she deserves the world & cuz he didnt save her mom, he watched tohru talk to a freaking picture for two years! heck! he is the only one who can see thro tohru’s “ i;m okay” mask, so in se01, ep 14 in the grave yard! kyo wasnt the only one who is sad! tohru was too! & kyo could tell! (d) her mom’s death is the reason tohru is accepting shigure’s offer to stay with them rent-free in exchange of doing housework! (e)? he saw her confess crying her heart out abt missing her mom so much that she imitated her dad! so tragicly sad! (f) he saw her die in his nightmare!! how can he accept her love,now? Perfectly orchestrated obstacles! 

Tohru, unfortunately, in the anime it wasn't that clear due to shortening her backstories & trauma in se03, ep6. But she too couldn’t see herself confessing love to kyo. Tohru is has low self-esteem, always thinks she’s a burden to others, an orphan who just wants her mom, so scared, lonely & sad! we the audience believed the mask! we saw her work her motherly charm yuki, isusuz, kisa & believe her issues are not that deep.  tohru wont cry for herself but shed rivers for others! grief is so ugly it broke her! I cant let go of mom, must keep her always in my heart, such a hard emotions to write & I believe 100% the director couldn’t understand her grief & decided to split ep6 between her, kyo, isuzu & shigure. But Tohru struggling to confess to kyo is no laughing matter. ppl who are grieving find it the hardest to live after the loved ones die. they wont mostly commit suicide, they are alive, but they arent living. they just go thro the motions & live for the sake of those around them but not themselves. Tohru deciding to confess to kyo is her deciding to live for herself.

4. Writing a perfect psychologically & emotionally packed climax: I dont need to explain how perfect kyo’s rejection of tohru in se03 ep9 was. How much we felt for him yet were mad at him. He we were “ ugh! kyo no!!!! I mean I get why you do that , but you idiot no! come back! poor kyo! He was just so sad & broken! OMG he’ll kill himself after finding tohru’s injured body!! he totally would! his nightmare came true! But Tohru reached him! she wanted him to be okay! he wont kill himself but still feels hella guilty! but so utterly in love with her that his instinct upon seeing her come to life after near death is kiss her! Perfect display of psychology & emotions! filled with right, wrong, sad, happy, guilty, innocent! basically so human~ As the audience you MUST have this mixture of feelings of wanting to hug him so bad cuz this boy has been killing himself for years now yet want him to stop & just see that he was a good boy afterall. Tohru is THE best girl & if the audience are cheering for kyo to be with her, kyo really deserves her! The only problem is for kyo to see that now.

5. The Perfect wrap up of all romance: If you make your audience suffer the slow-burn this long, you gotta reward them good! & Takaya-san delivered! Just like how the entire romantic story is realistic, the reunion must be as realistic too! Tohru is hurt by kyo;s words. Facts remain his words were hurtful to her. I love that was addressed! tohru gets to tell her side, too! If you love someone, you are bound to be hurt by them as much as be happy with them. Simply cuz they matter so much to you! you arent one person, but two ppl coming together. Kyo must work hard for this confession. Must run & chase her. Must earn her proper! He gets on his knees, I cant express how important that is! he is way taller than her, Imagine apologizing while she looks way up & he looks down? He gets on his knees & apologize like a man, for every mistake, all while not loathing himself. He aint going back to that deep abyss again. He did wrong by her & he is owning up to his mistakes. Give me one chance. I’m not gonna force you with persistence or guilt you into taking me. Give me ONE chance cuz i deserve it & no more. The choice is yours. She asks to confirm, he shows her, they kiss, they hug, they are rewarded with a blessing from the heavens! One of the most simple yet emotionally fulfilling confessions in anime!

- Hugs over kisses: (And her kiss hugs her & the curse was lifted):

Prince charming kisses the princess & she wakes up~ they live ever after~ except furuba is all abt “ eternal ever after is not true, real life is where the real love is”

Kyo kissed tohru once, she didnt wake up, she didnt even think he loved her back. didnt even remember the kiss.

Kyo hugged tohru once. se01, e024, He initiated it, tohru was all in tears, surprised, happy & so utterly in love. he called her name for the first time ever, for a brief moment, they both connected, they both comforted each other. The rain stopped, he became a man not a monster, she got him back. She got her kyo that she fought for with none other than kyo himself.

kyo hugged her again, se03, ep6. They both initiated it. He made the first move, pulling her just a little closer, she made the second move & hugged him hard, he transformed, it was a moment were they both connected, both so sad & broken, both feeling needy for the other, both desperate for the other, both just living the moment. the result is them coming closer, her wanting him more, him realizing her love, there is no escape. Admit it. she loves you. You can tell.

Kyo hugs her again today. He asks permission. No spur of the moment feeling. But a long lasting permission to be together. To hug. He wants to hear her acceptance of his cursed body. “ is ok to hug you? this body will cause you pain as it wont be able to fulfill your wishes of constant hugs & intimacy”. She responds, permission granted, for love, for hugs, for a life long acceptance of you as a whole. weakness & strength, sadness & happiness. I accept you all in better & worse! we’re invincible. Why? cuz we understand love isnt magic. It is a path for us to walk together~~~ reward curse break!

Every time kyoru are closer it is a hug. The one thing the zodiacs cant do. A hug. They can kiss. But cant hug. comes this Zodiac Ruler girl so lonely, away from ppl, so sad, meets a cat boy who comes to the house she’s living in, a house away from ppl, the boy is drawn to the girl, However, when the boy needed to leave, the girl was able to let go despite loving him, the boy comes again, this time wanting to stay, the girl accepts the boy. They both accept the realistic reality of life. Embrace the obstacles & the achievements, celebrates the weakness above the strength. Both so imperfect. Both so endearingly dumb! that’s why the girl’s hug broke the boy’s curse. The girl’s acceptance of the cat broke all curses.

Side Note:

Kyo’s confession is so kyo! so straightforward, so direct, & so physical. He’s on his knees, holding her hands, looking at her eyes. “ i want to be WITH you. If I’m gona live, I want to to do it with you & no one else! cuz I love you” that’s it. That’s all.  So sincere & so romantic!

it is crazy how different tohru & kyo are now after the confession! she stood confidently & happily & said “dont you know, I love you!” all while teasing him, her giggle is so girlish & cute! my girl is a happy woman in love! long buried the angelic mother image of se02! YES! also, kyo’s happy face is love! Dude! when was the last time he smiled so freely? Did he ever do that? He smiled in se01, ep4 with kazmua, but not like this! T_T. my son is healing~

Kyo’s “ i wont ever feel afraid if you’re with me” is a huge growth from his “ I want to protect her” mindset. Now he realizes it is two-sided mutual desire. She gives him strength as much as he does! <3

I dont like open eye while kissing, but here it is so perfect for tohru in this moment! cuz she spent days thinking kyo rejected her & even ran away as soon as she saw him, now he’s not only confessing, apologizing, admitting she is his life, but also kissing her signaling they’re romantic couple. kissing on lips is so personal, what more evidence she needs? still, her thoughts? “ it’s like a dream?” aww~~~ tohru~~~ my precious girl! she just cant believe all her suffering is over, now? She was just practicing “ i’m okay” smile & now she’s an official girlfriend to the man of her dreams? He just bent da kneeee~ go for it queen!

yuki’s face when tohru cried is exactly what I meant of “ allowing yuki to have strong facial expressions”! XD these types of faces humanize yuki so much into the teenage boy he is! Unfortunately the anime team only sees him as the pretty prince in most times. That’s why fave yuki is when he’s with kakeru. He becomes so un-princly as he should be.

Speaking of yuki, I see you anime team~ postponing his moment into next ep so him & machi wont be overshadowed by the long awaited kyoru!! While this defies the perfection of all cursed zodiacs breaking on the same ep making akito’s breakdown less perfect & poetic, I take it as the anime team admitting they underdeveloped yuchi & decided let’s give them more screen time & not putting them in close distance from any couple. A week later ep is enough with lots of time. I dont mind at all, I’m just saying more time after/while confession is not what i was hoping for~~ sigh~ At least I hope yuki would say sth along the lines” all this time I was looking at you, i realized i love you” to imply he was thinking of her as a lover not his kindness for someone he helped. I just dont want their love to be sudden simply cuz yuki needs happy ending. oh well~ I’m sure whatever it will be, the anime will give it utmost attention.

That sad moment when kagura wasnt allowed a moving image. lol. girl was given a still image that didnt even move with the breeze! T_T

Not gonna lie... the scene with kazuma & kyo was underwhelming. Why the wide shot? I mean you dont need budget for that. Just give me a closeup from the waist up with kyo head buried in kazuma’s chest. Dont need to waste budget on kazuma’s face, either.... do the old trick of hair covering eyes & show me glittery tears~  why the awkward shot of kazma towering in his own house! how tall is this man & why cant he he fix his roof?...lol

Also, shigure, you got scars man... who can hurt shigure? akito? gotta be her. I dont think hatori scratches...lol.. Aya? nah~ too busy with Mine! yup, akito... another steamy night? could be, she’s changed as he wish now. But scratching a face is weird while..um..kissing? a quarrel? but why? I bet she wants him now & we know he wants her....

More on part 2! especially abt the curse’s lore~

[emeraldspiral]

Random assorted F&WS thoughts;

First episode was kinda painfully boring. The opening action sequence was good, Torres was a cute likable character, and the stuff with Bucky was interesting drama, but the stuff with Sam and his family was excruciatingly trite. WandaVision also started off slow in the first two episodes, with almost the entire runtime being played straight and only a couple of moments where it was eerie. But there was still a lot of intrigue and a lot of stuff that you could analyze and theorize about in those episodes and a lot that did ultimately have payoff in the end. Like the heart on the calendar being the same elongated shape as the one in the animated credits in the 60s episode and the heart Vision drew on the property deed. It’s possible the stuff with Sam’s family will turn out to be important later, but I don’t really see how it could. Like, it almost seems like there might be some sort of reveal being built up with the vague way Sam and his sister argue about him going off to fight bad guys after their parents died. Like, maybe there’s something about who their parents were or the way that they died that’s supposed to be important. But IDK if that’s just me basing my expectations off a show with a completely different premise made by completely different people, or if I’m totally within my rights to expect a big twist like that because Winter Soldier and Civil War also had some pretty big plot twists too.

Going into episode 2 I had read that the showrunners likened the mini series to a long movie and it definitely feels like it. Like, they’re trying to make it feel episodic by having a conflict that plays out throughout episodes 1 and 2 that reaches some kind of resolution by the end, along with a cliffhanger leading into the next episode. But so far, it feels like it just should’ve been a movie because there’s a lot of fat that could’ve been trimmed out to fit a 2 1/2-3 hour run time.

Like, the opening scene with John Walker in the locker room: he has two conversations back-to-back with two different people, only one of whom ends up being relevant for the rest of the episode or will likely be relevant for the rest of the series. Then, right after, he has a TV interview where we get more insight into his character and background that feels way more informative than either conversation. Like, I don’t think either conversation was really necessary, it could’ve just started with him suiting up in the locker room and the going out for the interview. If you needed to establish Battlestar, he could’ve just sat with John and been part of the interview with him, and if you needed the girlfriend, John could’ve just like, waved at her or something, or the interviewer could bring her up. And like, I don’t know yet what lines are going to be really important and what’s going to be fillery flavor text. But if feels like a lot of what we learn in both conversations and the interview is redundant.  For instance, the first thing John’s girlfriend says is that she used to sneak into the locker room to see him, which tells us that he went to that high school and played football there, but we already knew that from his name being on one of the lockers and then the reporter says it later in case you didn’t get that. There’s little tidbits of biographical information on John sprinkled throughout both conversations and the interview, but in the midst of all that is a lot of dialog that feels like it’s just variations of John feeling like he has a lot to live up to which could’ve been condensed into just one interview scene.

Something similar to the high school example happens at the very end of the episode too. Bucky alludes to Zemo by bringing up an incident in Siberia with someone who knows all of HYDRA’s secrets, which is already plenty of information for anybody who watched Civil War, which should be everyone watching this show. But then Falcon goes ahead and says “we’re going to see Zemo” anyway, as if we needed it spelled out. AND THEN, it cuts to Zemo in prison. Like, you could’ve either ended the episode on Sam’s line, or cut Sam’s line and ended on Zemo’s face just in case you didn’t get what Bucky was talking about and needed something to make you go “Oh yeah, that guy”. You don’t need all three, that’s just excessive.

I don’t know if Isaiah is a character from the comics or not, but I’m hoping he’s going to be important later. Like, I have to assume that the fact that they successfully made another super soldier way back in the 50s but then decades later were still struggling to recreate it and ended up with the Hulk in a botched attempt means that there’s going to be some sort of story explanation about how they lost the formula again and then got it back to create the Flag Smashers. But I also kinda wanna see Isaiah like, pop in while Sam and Bucky are getting their asses kicked and save the day.

“Flash Smashers” is a really fucking stupid name. You can’t smash a flag, it’s made of cloth. “Smashing” is something you do to hard, solid objects that break apart on impact. The only way you can “smash” a flag is if you like, froze it solid first. Like, shouldn’t they be called the “Flag Shredders” or the “Flag Burners”?

Speaking of them, they seemed kinda sympathetic and I was thinking maybe Erin Kellyman is playing the same character she did in Solo, where it seems like she’s a bad guy who’s stealing stuff for her own evil ends, but then it turns out she’s stealing from the bad guys to fight a corrupt regime. But then she pretty much outright stated that her goal is exactly what we were told it was before. She thinks that the people who “never left” should have everything and fuck an entire half of the world who don’t have jobs or homes now because of something they couldn’t control. It’s like they’re supposed to be a commentary on people who like, don’t want America taking in refugees or donating foreign aid and stuff because we have homeless and disenfranchised citizens who were already here and need resources too. But like, the whole “one world, one people” thing seems to directly contradict the idea of an “our needs vs their needs” thing and I don’t get how that has anything to do with the blip. Like, when I think about how the world changed during the blip, I think that there may have been a lot less competition for jobs and land and housing and other resources, as Thanos said there would be. But nothing in Endgame or Far From Home or anything implied that all borders dissolved and the Earth adopted a unified world government or anything, let alone that whatever structural changes the world underwent were suddenly reversed along with the snap.

I read that originally the storyline featured an airborne virus and they had to reshoot and recut the show to remove it because of COVID and that kinda makes me think that maybe Erin Kellyman’s ultimate plan, at least originally, was going to be to release a virus that would wipe out half the world population. I also read that originally the Russos had an alternate story planned for the third Captain America movie in case Disney/Marvel’s contract negotiations with Robert Downey Jr. didn’t work out. Like, if they had to completely scrap Civil War because they couldn’t use one of it’s central characters and there was no one else they could substitute for him, they were just going to make the story about “madbombs” which are bombs that essentially turn people into rage zombies. So the conflict of the movie would be that the main enemies that Cap has to fight are innocent civilians he doesn’t want to hurt. I don’t know how much work went into that concept before they ended up with the clearance to move forward with Civil War. It might’ve just been a rough outline. But if they put in the time and effort to produce an actual script and they liked it and felt good about moving forward with it if they couldn’t have their first choice, then I could definitely see them wanting to reuse some of its ideas for F&WS. So maybe originally the story was going to be about madbombs, but who knows if it’ll remain in tact and in what capacity now after COVID. Like, if madbombs were there they might be removed entirely with a different plan to wipe out half the world population. Or they might just make the madbombs like, actual bombs that make people insane with sonic vibrations or some shit (I think that’s how they worked in the comics actually), so for the story’s purposes, they’re functionally the same thing, they’re just not a virus.

[takaraphoenix]

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 5

1. Favorite character of this season?

Anya, I love her arc this season. She's just kind of been... there, in season 4, running along. No one really acknowledged the demon thing, there was no real bonding between Anya and everyone, she was just there. This season, finding her place in the world? Working at the Magic Box, then her in The Body – I mean seriously, her confronting mortality like that, I love it. I love her growth.

2. Outstanding minor character (positive or negative)?

Dawn. Sure, technically you could argue she's a “main character”, however... she's barely even a character, she's a plot-device so that really qualifies her as a minor character for me.

I always disliked Dawn, even when I was a teen myself. With some things, perspective shifts when you grow older, but Dawn just... always sucked. As a teen, I found her to be a cringey parody of the teen girl experience and now as an adult I still think that this is the peak of what a middle-aged man thinks the teen girl experience is. She's a cheap, one-dimensional caricature of a teenager.

She is a whiny brat, she constantly acts like “no one sees the real me”, she becomes a kleptomaniac to try and gain attention, she acts like no one loves her even though everyone constantly fawn over her every chance they got, she is a spoiled little brat that is completely unappreciative of all the things she gets. It's like they crammed every single shallow teen stereotype into this one character, making her a very one-dimensional character. Which is a bafflement considering Willow, Xander and Buffy started out as teenagers but they were always fully fleshed out characters with actual personalities. Heck, Cordelia was the most stereotypical character in the teenage years but even she got more depth and individuality.

Though I'd like to point out that while, as a character, Dawn is incredibly obnoxious, I do like her as what she is – a plot device. The way she creates new dynamics among the Scoobies, how other characters play off her and grow on her existence, the villain-plot she triggers.

3. Favorite character dynamic?

Too many, honestly. I adore the way Tara-Buffy grow in this season. Generally the friction between Spike and the Scoobies. Spike and Dawn in particular. The Buffy-Dawn dynamic too – Dawn being such a blank slate of Teen AngstTM allows for the other characters to shine in comparison. They get a new dynamic here, through the New Kiddo that puts them in perspective. Caring, gentle. The sisters-angle is a new one for Buffy and I do love her as a big sister, even if I wished her retconned sister had like... an actual personality.

4. Favorite canon romantic ship?

Spike/Buffy. Sue me, I'm Spuffy trash. Always been. The way he cares for her, the things he's willing to do. The little things. The self-sacrificial side, how he drops everything to help her whenever she needs him. And, I know, I give other ships flag for things equal or less in comparison to some of the shit that's happened/happening between Spike/Buffy, but see that's where taste comes into play. Liking and disliking things is just... all about that taste and tastes differ. For me, Spike/Buffy hits all the right spots. I love them so much.

5. Least favorite canon romantic ship?

Riley/Buffy. Once again. Seriously, this is just such a bad relationship. From the get-go she constantly put herself down to lift him up. Holding back her powers – which, of course, because otherwise she'd snap him in half during sparring – but pretending that's the max. She is always going out of her way to make him feel special and useful.

And he goes and gets fed on by a vampire and has the audacity to blame it on Buffy, because Buffy doesn't make him feel wanted enough. Even though she continuously tries making him feel important. It's ridiculous. Complaining that she didn't think about calling him when her mom went to the hospital, like she didn't have something else in her mind there? Setting her an ultimatum that she has to give him a reason to stay. After he essentially cheats on her, by sneaking around with vampires and letting them feed on him for the rush.

Now to go and leave with his little military buddies once more. After everything the military has done to him...? Their relationship was so bad for Buffy.

6. Favorite episode?

The Body. This is the singularly best episode... ever. In all television I've ever seen. This episode is overwhelmingly good. Sarah Michelle Gellar's acting is overwhelming in this episode. The choice to exclude music entirely, not even sad ones. How silence is allowed to longer, how unnerving the background noises become due to this silence.

The writing too, of course. Anya's words about death and mortality are so intense, they'll always stick with me. And not just her. Xander, Willow, Dawn, how they all handle this in a different way.

The choice alone that Joyce dies from something so fundamentally human, something no one could have prevented, something Buffy couldn't have fought. And – yes, that reaches ahead some – but the fact that the next episode also serves to have this unfold. It's not just “death and move on”. It's being dealt with, it's being digested, it's being taken seriously.

Too many writers feel the need to fun things up when it's getting serious, because they are afraid to lose their audience if there isn't a joke every five minutes. There is not a single joke in that entire episode. This show is funny as hell, but they know when not to joke. There is nothing to be made light here, this is serious, they are truly suffering. They know how important that is.

I've seen this episode surely a dozen times now. I cry so much every single time. Not just once. There are so many well-written, well-acted and well-executed moments in this episode. It's brilliant TV-making. It encapsulates what's so brilliant about this show overall; the human element, suffering, pain, dealing with pain, the balance between seriousness and humor and knowing when not to use humor.

7. Least favorite episode?

Episode two Real Me. It's the Dawn introduction episode and I've made clear what I dislike about Dawn; this episode introduces it all in the most teen angst cliche possible – writing a diary entry about how no one sees you for who you are and like no one could ever actually understand you.

8. Favorite Monster Of The Week?

...Dracula. I still... I consider that episode a fever-dream. It's one of the ones I opt to forget about whenever enough time has passed since my last rewatch because it just... doesn't fit into this show at all, it feels like a whacky filler arc in an anime, or a one-shot comic spin-off. But it's fun.

9. Least favorite Monster Of The Week?

This season doesn't actually have much of those. There's 4 or 5, depending on how you'd count, out of those 22, because this season is very streamlined about the Big Bad, more so than previous seasons were, and it is also very focused on the human issue – on Joyce's sickness and then her death. Out of those few, I guess the “let's split Xander in half” demon from episode 3 was my least favorite. It was... boring and due to this season's streamlining the fact that this was the most fillery filler episode felt a bit out of place, really.

10. Rate the overarching villain!

SO FREAKING GOOD.

Glory is a truly glorious villain. She's a god. But she is so – so frantic, so manic. She is fun to watch as a villain. The sheer size of the threat too. Which, it figures. There's always an escalation of threat.

(We will get back to that in the season 6 review though.)

Glory may just be my favorite Big Bad on this show, which only adds to how much I love this season. It's one of my favorites. Granted, I have a lot of favorite seasons.

Bonus: Other thoughts?

I love this season so very, very much. The human element, the growth, the villain-plot, the relationship developments. It's an incredible season. I'll get back to this when I finish my rewatch and actually do my ranking of seasons, but I am rating each episode – 1 to 5 – and getting the point-average, to have a more factual look at how much I loved a season. This one is through the roof, it scored an entire 1,5 more in average than season 4 did. There's only one episode in this that I gave a 1 to, but there are so many 4s.

That ending, to truly kill off your main character like that. So many gut-punches – but deserved gut-punches, not the ones that come out of nowhere and only serve shock-value.

I greatly enjoy and love seasons 1 to 3, but this season – this season reminds me why Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the best damn TV show ever created.

[multimetaverse]

Andi Mack 3x18 Review

Something To Talk A-Boot was a pretty good ep that was surprisingly fillery and made apparent the cracks in the show’s writing. Let’s dig in!

We got some great Tyrus scenes that more than made up for the crappy writing we’ve seen the last two Tyrus eps. For once they got to end on a happy note which was much appreciated. We returned to the same fun and flirty dynamic we saw before costume day and it’s like that whole mess never happened (which I’ll discuss more in the negatives). 

We’re back to the confident and flirty TJ we had been seeing up until costume day and it’s good that the show has abandoned it’s incredibly ill advised and poorly done internalized homophobia story line which is necessary because Tyrus can’t canon in the finale if TJ and Cyrus aren’t both comfortable with themselves and with each other. Luckily for the show, most of the audience will never know what the hell was going on with TJ in eps 13 and 15 and will just ignore it as bad writing. 

Lot’s of completely unnecessary touching between Tyrus in this ep like holding on to each others shoulders after the verdict and TJ tapping Cyrus as he was putting his seat belt on. I was pleasantly surprised by the full on hug we got; I didn’t think Terri would get a hug approved in this ep and be able to get hand holding approved in the finale but looks like she pulled it off. It made for a rare rule of three for Cyrus as we saw three increasingly gay hugs between him and TJ this season. I loved the whole you’ll visit me on the inside bit, that’s the kind of thing only couples say. 

Man was that Tyrus golf cart scene ever romantic. Just pure flirty fluff and it was wonderful to see. Really the only reason TJ stole the golf cart again and drove off to find Cyrus was to flirt with him. It’s the closest a show with 14 year olds can get to a classic drive off into the sunset ending. Has there ever been a better nerd/jock ship? The golf cart scene was a perfect encapsulation of their dynamic and showed such growth on Cyrus’ part from the scared kid who couldn’t imagine breaking the rules to the more confident self TJ has helped him become. It’s a bittersweet thought but even though a good chunk if not most of the audience still thinks Tyrus is a friendship or one sided crush, everyone who ever starts the show after the finale will know that Tyrus is a romantic relationship and for them subtext will be text from the very start. 

I think it was very deliberate that all of TJ’s scenes were at the school, we needed to see him interacting like normal with Cyrus at the place they’ll spend most of their time. This ep really was in many ways a glimpse of what canon Tyrus will be like after they get together and come out to the world; supportive, flirty, comfortable.

They really took advantage of Luke being 17 and a good driver. I wonder if ‘leggo’’ was in the script or if that was a Luke ad lib.

This was the last confirmed ep they ever filmed at the school and there’s an extremely good chance that the very wholesome and very gay Tyrus golf cart scene was the last scene we’ll ever see at the school. Which is a hell of a way to say goodbye to the school. 

We got just under 5 minutes of Tyrus screen time and just over 5 and a half minutes of total TJ screen time this ep (excluding TJ cheering in the stands). This is the most he’s had since 3x06 and may actually be the most he’s had or will have all season. And this was more Tyrus screen time than we’ve had in 3x11, 3x13, and 3x15 combined which is a damning indictment of Disney’s censorship. Partly this was likely because the writers were trying to pad his screen time a bit since he was originally supposed to be gone for 3 eps in a row instead of 2. Funnily enough, because his story line was left intact even with the cut ep and re-shoots it now looks as though he may actually get a little more screen time in these final 7 eps than Marty does.

It’s impressive too because all of TJ’s scenes were filmed over two days; it makes such a difference when they’re actually allowed to have him on set for more than one day and that they let Luke and Josh actually have scenes together and took advantage of them being older and able to work longer hours.

This ep really built TJ’s character back up and it’s easy to see that the writers knew they had to get the audience back on TJ’s side and remind them of his and Cyrus’ dynamic especially since he was supposed to have been gone for 3 eps in a row instead of 2. 

Josh did a great job hamming it up at the trial. Loved the ‘’you’re showboating’’ ‘’thank you for noticing your honour’’ bit. And Cyrus adding ‘’sir’’ when he was pretending to respond to himself from the witness box was good too. Love that Cyrus took the time to change back into a suit before hearing the verdict.

It makes such a difference for Cyrus’ character is TJ is in an ep or not and I don’t even mean from a shipping perspective. In non TJ eps Cyrus is almost always reduced to therapist friend or comic relief, when TJ is an ep he usually gets to be an active character and actually get to do things. 

We had Buffy saying he used to be the worst and is now the best and Cyrus taking credit for seeing the good in him which was a nice reminder of the amazing growth TJ has had. And of course, there was no real reason to have TJ be the one to help Buffy get to class except to make him look good in the audience’s eyes.

I know a lot of people wanted to see more of Buffy and TJ’s friendship but I’m fine with their brief interactions. The only reason he had so much time with her in S2 and why the end of S2 set up a friendship between them was because Garren had left and they didn’t know they could get him back.

Such great growth on Buffy’s part from the girl who wouldn’t even pass the baton to her team mates back in S1. The Spikes have largely been treated as a joke but we really saw a great dynamic between them and Buffy tonight; they all felt like a real team for the first time ever. And it was interesting seeing Buffy’s room and seeing her doing normal teen stuff with people outside of the GHC. Glad the Spikes got a win and glad Buffy was able to bounce back from her injury and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. 

Very sweet last scene between Jonah and Amber, it was a nice call back to 2x01 when Amber confided in Jonah about her family’s money problems. It was messy but they did help and support each other. I’m happy that Jonah will now be in a more secure place. 

This was also the last confirmed ep they filmed at the Spoon and Jonah watching Amber get him a milkshake is a sweet way to say goodbye to a location that was almost a character in and of itself. We also got to see one last glimpse of the ginger waitress who we’ve seen in a couple of eps.

I liked that Jonah pointed out how well the GHC know each other; he’s a part of the friend group but he’s always stood apart from the GHC itself. 

I also liked that Jonah didn’t know what an existential crisis was. Always funny when they lean into dumb Jonah. 

Jonah and Andi had a sweet scene; glad he’s self aware enough to know he’s not a good advice giver. Liked the callback to Jonah scaring Andi. 

Bex is doing her best. Andi is definitely reacting like a teen. 

No Kira this ep which was great.

Shout out to the FBI and SLPD for shrinking the gap between TJ’s appearances. As much as cutting Ham has ended up damaging the other story lines it will definitely make Cyrus’ story line age much better. Having TJ be gone for 3 eps in a row only to come back after the wedding and only being able to have this kind of screen time and nice scenes after the wedding is so transparent that even kids would have noticed why that was.

Negatives:

I plan to have a happy finale night so I’m going to get my criticism of Terri’s handling of Tyrus out of the way now. I’ve seen quite a few posts on different social media sites wondering if TJ was in the cut ep and that’s why Kira isn’t mentioned or if there were cut Tyrus scenes but the plain simple truth is that this is just bad writing, some of the worst Terri has done. It’s not a satisfying explanation but it’s reality. 

I’d like to hear Terri one day explain what she thought she was going to accomplish with this internalized homophobia plot line on a show with so many restrictions and with an audience that doesn’t know TJ is gay. I don’t think there is a good explanation but I would like to know what the hell she was thinking. She’s always shown such care with the gay story line and to just drop the ball so badly when the show is almost done is more sad than anything else. Thank god Disney let her have canon Tyrus in the finale.

It’s clear from the writing of S3 that they knew from the very start that Tyrus couldn’t canon until the finale, if at all. It’s been nothing but drama that keeps them apart up until now: Buffy is still kind of mad at TJ, Reed had a gun, Jonah is mad at TJ, Bubbe Rose dies, Kira comes in. TJ isn’t even involved with the Spikes after 3x04 and barely had any scenes with Buffy and he hasn’t had a single scene with Jonah since so it’s not like those plots were meant to have an impact. And Terri would have known that TJ could only be in 9 eps max this season and she was the one who cast a 14 year old to play Kira, knowing that Raquel just wouldn’t be able to be on set nearly as long as Luke which of course she did because she knew it didn’t matter how old she was because Kira and TJ would have limited screen time anyways. And she would have known that the look back had been edited to make it look like TJ was straight and yet she still went ahead. 

Honestly, Terri is lucky that most of the audience will never know that TJ was supposed to be struggling with his sexuality in 3x13-3x15 because if they did this story line would come off as much worse than it does for them. I can buy that she wouldn’t have known how far she could go with canon Tyrus until close to the finale itself but that just makes her decisions even more baffling. If she ends up being able to have a textual ending then she has to have TJ be confident or it just won’t make sense. But if Disney said no to canon Tyrus then there’s no way they would have let her properly explore an internalized homophobia arc anyways which makes it all pointless. 

Now that we’ve seen up until 18 we can see just how defensive Terri’s instagram post back in November about not complaining about Disney censorship or queerbaiting was. At the time all she had actually accomplished was Cyrus saying the word gay which was historic and wonderful but only one ep. There’s obvious censorship by Disney and it would have been even more apparent if it wasn’t for Stoney’s arrest. And up until now there’s really nothing differentiating  Tyrus from queerbaiting as Cyrus hasn’t even been able to say he has a crush on TJ. I know she’ll do a good job with Tyrus in the finale but I really hope she doesn’t do something egregiously bad with Kira’s ‘redemption’

It doesn’t make sense that no one would mention Kira. We had TJ scenes over 4 days in universe and no Kira in sight. So either she’s not clinging to him or he told her off. It’s all just so her appearance at the party can make Cyrus flee to the bench for one last bit of contrived drama. 

We finally ended the very poorly plotted Jamber arc. It’s clear that they first decided to get Jamber back together, likely to keep Jandi apart and as a shocking twist, and then worked backwards from there to figure out how to make it plausible and settled on Jonah also having financial issues. The problem being is that those financial problems were largely ignored and we never got an in depth exploration of Jonah or Amber’s psychology. It’s not like they didn’t have time for it since Amber set a new record for recurring characters, excepting S2 Bowie. It’s hard to say Amber has had a true arc over the series. She definitely got nicer but we’ve only really gotten character development from her these past couple of eps. She’s in the same place she was back in 2x01, newly broken up with Jonah, with parents who fight, and forced to work at the Spoon to help support her family. 

Loved that the Spikes were watching footage of their game with the Spartans, which hadn’t happened yet, at their sleep over. Back in the S2 finale when Buffy announced that she was founding a girls team I never imagined that they would be written as a joke and barely shown. I’d guess that was another casualty of them being able to get Marty back for S3.

Looking Ahead:

I’m a lot more content with the show ending after S3 after seeing these recent eps. There’s been way too much filler and a lot of bizarre decisions. Yes the cut ep and the re-shoots hurt a lot of plots but it doesn’t seem like the originals were all that much better. It’s clear that the Muffy plot in 3x17 ended after the bowling alley and Amber’s plot ended with her leaving Cyrus’ house which means that Marty went with Buffy as her date to the wedding in the original 3x18 only to friendzone her and tell her to get her foot checked. And Amber still went with Jonah even though she knew he had been lying to her and they only broke up at the wedding. I’m sure the Mack family A plot would have been great but the B and C plots look like they would have sucked. 

Terri’s never had a show that went beyond 2 seasons and I think in some ways she struggled with plotting out 21 eps worth of story lines. Better to end now when the show will go down as historic then drag it down in a potential S4. And better for Terri’s reputation as well, she gets to end the show as a visionary whereas if we got a S4 she’d likely end up with more of a Michael Jacob’s type reputation. 

Also this ep shows that any hope for seeing canon Tyrus in S4 was just a dream. Disney is clearly only willing to let things get textual in the finale itself. Even Mack Chat didn’t mention Cyrus once tonight despite him having a big role in the ep. An odd game Disney plays with showing the bench scene in promos but not letting Mack Chat get too gay. 

New finale promo sheds a little more light on things. Two Cyrus waving scenes, probably one is before the bench scene and one is after. Bench scene starts with some extras near the fire and once they leave is when things get textual. TJ and Marty will probably have an interaction after both Tyrus and Muffy canon. Looks like there doing something with Jandi but again I don’t think we get canon Jandi, just something ambiguous. Bowie and Bex dancing in the back ground, Bowie in his dad’s tux and Bex possibly in her wedding dress. Obviously they’re already married but it’s probably them re-creating the wedding they had planned for but didn’t end up having.

Next ep is one with a ton of re-shoots and should feature the new wedding. We’ll see how smooth it is. My one hope is that we get some word that Jonah has told his parents about his panic attacks, even if it’s off screen. 

[crossbows-and-moonshine]

Let The Flames Begin (Chapter 14)

I hope this doesn't come across as fillery. I really wanted to add this in and give you some insight into my interpretation of the brother's relationship and it’s actually important to my story.

--------------------------

Daryl was hiding out in the garage. Since the day before, hurricane Merle was on the warpath. Daryl decided to get the fuck out of dodge and avoid him, not wanting to deal with his bullshit or end up with the pair beating each other black and blue. It had been a few days now and the three of them spent most of their time in the main house. The treehouse still smelt like death and even though they all never discussed it, they had all been affected by the shit they saw that day, even Merle. So in the day, they all found themselves hanging out in the main house. It was bigger and there was plenty of shit to do, things to look through and be nosey at. Daryl was currently looking through all the tools in the garage when Merle stormed in, his face like thunder.

“Daryl, ya better tell ya little girlfriend to give me my shit back ‘fore I throw her over the damn walls,” he growled, glaring at him. Daryl quirked his brow confused, looking at his brother warily.

“The fuck ya talkin’ about?” he asked, earning a growl in response.

“I’m talkin’ about her stealin’ my stash! She fuckin’ took it and when I ask her about it, she tells me she don’t know what I’m talkin’ about!” he snapped. Daryl heaved a sigh, resisting the urge to roll his fucking eyes at him.

“Maybe she doesn’t man! Maybe ya lost it,” he shrugged. He realised he said the wrong thing as Merle's eyes darkened, his jaw clenching. This explained the moods, he was starting withdrawals.

“I ain't lost it asshole! She took it! I know she did, so tell her to give it back if ya want her to fuckin’ live!” he seethed, storming back out of the garage.

Daryl closed his eyes, groaning to himself. He really didn't want to have to deal with this today, or any day for that matter. He knew she wouldn't have done it to purposely piss him off. Merle was an asshole depending on what he took and he knew she would only be wanting to help. Still, Merle withdrawing was the last thing they needed right now and now he was left to fucking try and solve the problem. He walked inside the house, knowing where to find her as he trudged up the stairs. Sure enough, he found her in one of the bedrooms lay on her belly on the bed as she read a book.  He stood in the doorway and she glanced at him, gracing him with a little smile.

“Ya need to give Merle his shit back,” he sighed, wiping that pretty smile right off her face. She blinked at him, her face suddenly looking colder as she glanced back to the book.

“No idea what you're talking about,” she muttered, turning the page as she wouldn’t look at him. Girl was a damn bad liar and he heaved a sigh as he walked fully into the room, sitting on the bed. He sat with his back against the headboard and chewed his thumb.

“Charlene, I know ya wanna help, but this, it ain’t the way alright? Merles been usin’ for far too long. He can’t just quit cold turkey like this. He ain't just gonna be an asshole, but it's dangerous for him,” he said quietly, picking at a thread in the ugly orange blanket.

She chewed her lip, silent for a moment before she closed the book and sat up, turning to face him.

“You know he's gonna run out some time right?” she asked him, not looking at him as she toyed with the edge of the book cover.

“I know, but we don't need to do this now. We need somewhere more permanent when we do this shit girl, and I need to keep ya far away from him when it happens,” he admitted, looking at her through his lashes. She wiped a hand over her face with a weary sigh, finally meeting his eyes. He held his breath as he looked at her imploringly.

“Daryl...He needs help. You say it's dangerous if he stops but what if he doesn't stop? He fucking strangled me, he jumped off the truck bed, giving me concussion in the process and then we got separated from you because of it. I know he's not used the harder stuff since, but what about when he runs out of the rest? When the hard stuffs all he has? Then what Daryl?” she frowned, her eyes boring into his.

He lowered his gaze as he swallowed thickly, clenching his jaw.

“Ya think I ain’t thought about that?” he lamented, shaking his head. He was starting to get annoyed, of course he had thought about all of this, it didn't mean he wanted to deal with it right now though.

“You're not helping him any by prolonging this,” she sighed, hoping to god she could get through to him, but when his face turned to her at her words, his eyes hardened and his nostrils flared.

“Fuck you! I ain't helpin’ him? Ya don't know shit girl. Ya been with us what? A couple of weeks? Ya don't know me or him, ya sure as fuck didn't try to know us before all this. Now we’re a use to ya, ya think ya can just fuckin’ butt a nose in where it don’t belong?!” he sneered, unable to quell the rage flowing through his veins. Merle was always a touchy subject with him, he couldn't help it. She frowned, shaking her head as she stood up and he watched her with a glare. She resisted the urge to tell him she did try to get to know him before all this, how she always tried to talk to him and he didn't want to know. How she put up with Merle’s bullshit hoping one day he would just stop and not be an asshole anymore.

“I know you care about him Daryl, but sometimes when you care about someone, you have to do things that aren't that nice in order to help them. Things are gonna get out of hand if they keep going this way, the dynamic between you...I don't think you'll deal with it until it's too late,” she muttered. She was about to go and grab her pack where the drugs were stashed but Daryl stood up with his jaw set.

“The fuck does that mean? The dynamic between us?” he spat, once again getting defensive. She inhaled a deep breath and pursed her lips.

“He's the big brother, you're the little brother. He leads, you follow. I know you argue like an old married couple that hates each other, but I know you both care. I know you don’t wanna see him go through withdrawals again Daryl, I know it's hard. But if he keeps going the way he is, the only shit left will be the hard stuff. Then what's gonna happen? He's gonna hurt people like when he strangled me? He's gonna put us all in harm's way like when he jumped from the truck?” her big green eyes were pleading with him and he knew every word she said was true, yet he couldn't seem to say that. His mouth could never betray his brother like that, his heart didn't have it in him to witness Merle withdrawing again, not now. It was always hard to see his brother in such a state, knowing he couldn't do a damn thing about it. His anger ebbed away, he had no control over it as her eyes just blinked up at him, all fucking shiny and green.

He swallowed thickly and looked down, unable to take the weight of her gaze, feeling so much like a small boy under her watchful eyes.

“I'll deal with it, but not today,” he muttered, knowing she would be disappointed in him, he was fucking disappointed in himself. She shook her head, sighing as she grabbed her pack. She rummaged around and grabbed the bag with all the drugs in, handing it to him. When he glanced at her, she couldn't even look at him and he felt the pang in his chest. He was nothing but a failure, always was and always will be. He didn't know why it was bothering him so much now. He took the pills, willing his mouth to open and say something, fucking anything for her to stop making him feel like a piece of shit. But nothing came out. Instead, he just inhaled a shaky breath before swiftly leaving the room.

He stalked down the stairs, his mood turning sour as he went off to find his brother. He just knew to look in the garden, when Merle was itching for a hit, he hated being cooped up. He walked out and saw Merle pacing around the garden and Daryl stormed over, throwing the bag of drugs at him a little harshly. He hated the way his brother's eyes lit up at the sight of the drugs and he watched tensely as Merle practically ripped the bag open and got out a couple of pills of fuck knows what, swallowing them dry.

“I knew I could count on ya baby brother,” he grinned gleefully, seeming to relax already just because the bag was in his hands. Daryl didn't smile at him though, he just glared as he clenched and unclenched his fists.

“We need to talk,” he stated seriously, making Merle look at him amused and quirk a brow.

“Oh yeah? About what?” he smirked, like he already knew where this was going.

“Ya can't keep doin’ this Merle. Ya gonna run out soon. Ya said yaself ya can't just quit like that, can't go cold turkey. Shouldn't ya be tryin’ to wean off it now? Whilst ya still have some left?” Daryl frowned, hoping his brother would see some fucking sense.

Merle just boomed a laugh and Daryl clenched his jaw as he rolled his eyes. Did he really expect anything different with this conversation?

“Don't ya worry about me little brother, I’ll be just fine,” Merle gave him a toothy grin as he went to step past him. Daryl sidestepped him, standing in front of him and the pair glared at each other for a moment. Daryl knew he should fight this, he knew he needed to get his brother to understand what was going to happen if he didn't wean off them now, just how bad it was going to get. But the look his Merles eyes made him lower his head, instantly submitting to him. It was almost like a learned reaction at this point and he shook his head as he stepped out of the way, letting Merle into the house. He hated himself, he knew Charlene was right about the dynamic between them. It was fucked up yet Daryl couldn't ever seem to shake the hold that Merle somehow had over him. He knew deep down it was born from their traumatic childhoods, but that knowledge did little to actually help him when it came down to it.  He heaved a sigh, walking over to the picnic table and plonking down, not knowing what to do now.

Merle walked inside and sat on the couch. He tossed the bag onto the coffee table and glared at it as he wiped a hand over his face wearily. His relationship with drugs had always been complicated. His body craved them, fucking needed them by this point, but his brain wished he hadn't ever touched the stuff to begin with. He had been weak to start using. Wanting to erase all the pain and suffering he had been through. And now at the end of the world, they would all pay for it. He wasn't stupid or delusional. He knew his brother was right. He did need to wean off the drugs because if he waited until he ran out, going cold turkey could fucking kill him, or worse, end up getting Daryl and the girl killed. The thought made him feel ill and he lowered his head. Despite him knowing all this logically, it was another thing completely when you're an addict to get your body to fucking cooperate. To fight the deep need to use, to stop that feeling like you're drowning when you haven't had any.

If he was on his own, he wouldn't have give a shit really. But he didn't want to do this to his brother. He didn't want to get his brother hurt or killed because of his selfishness. He always put on airs about being such an asshole, and most of it was just his nature. But when it came to his brother, there wasn't a damn thing he wouldn't do if it meant Daryl had one more breath on this world. Sure he treated him like shit and talked down to him, but he did it because he was scared. Daryl was all Merle had, and once Daryl realised that he wasn't trash like Merle was, once his baby brother realised he didn’t need to sink this low, he would leave and then Merle would be all alone. That thought scared him more than anything. Daryl was like his lifeline, despite the fact he never showed it that way. He needed to keep the upper hand, he needed to keep the boy submissive so he could make sure he never left him, to make sure he would always be there to keep a watchful eye on his little brother.

Keeping Daryl safe had been second nature to Merle since they were children. He had already failed him in the worst way. Not that he would ever voice those thoughts out loud. When they were children, he would hide Daryl or make him go to the woods to stay clear of his father's rage. Merle would often put himself in the line of fire just so Daryl wouldn’t be subjected to the same horror he had. But after their mother died, it all got too much. The beatings got worse and Merle started using and hanging with the wrong crowd. He knew he would kill his father, so he joined the military in hopes to escape. He hoped stupidly his father wouldn't hurt Daryl, he hoped that his baby brother would be safe, that maybe his dad just fucking hated him instead. But deep down he knew. He didn't ever want to admit to himself, but deep down he knew what his father had done to Daryl. And that feeling of failing him so horribly, it was the worst feeling in the world. He needed to get his shit together. He needed to try and wean off this shit so he could finally do as his brother had begged him for years, get clean. He knew it would be hell, for all of them since his moods were gonna be a bitch. But he had to do this for Daryl. There was no way in hell he was going to be responsible for his brother getting hurt or killed out there, because of his selfishness, his inability to put others first.

He thought back to the night he strangled the girl, what she had said to him. He hadn't remembered at first but somewhere along the way his memories came back to him. She had asked him who was supposed to look after his brother if he was high all the time. He had snapped, lashing out at her because that was what he did, he was a Dixon. But he knew deep down she was right. He was worried, because he knew she was fucking right and it killed him. Because no matter how much he loved his brother, no matter how much he vowed to keep him safe, as soon as that desperate need started clawing at him, feeling like he was drowning unless he took something, fucking anything, nothing else mattered. Logical thought would go out of the window, all he would be able to think about was how he needed to use and he would cave every time because he was weak and pathetic. But it couldn't continue like this. He’d already fucked up enough when he used the harder stuff and he didn't have any desire to do that again. To see that look of disappointment and anger in Daryl's eyes like the night he pointed his bow at him, when Merle’s hands were wrapped around the girl's neck. He needed to fucking get his shit together. He needed to change.

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[seddm]

One week later

I think that this time, despite the magnitude of what happened in the show, managed to have a mostly non-kneejerk reaction to it, but a week (and a looot of thinking) later, I think I got a better understanding about how and why I feel about this episode, S4 so far, and the show’s future as a whole. Going to make this a bullet-point style list because making a single conversation about all of this would be either too long, or end up feeling disconnected at times anyway. Bad things first, then the good ones to close on a positive note, for a change.

THE BAD

- The thing I always loved the most about this show has been its ability to use individual events and interactions between the characters in almost any given segments, even ones more fillery in nature, as a way to slowly advance the growth of the characters from a pre-established Big Event™ to the next one. This always gave the show an aura of strong continuity despite its storyboard driven and episodic nature, and allowed me to claim that even events clearly facilitated by some sort of plot based compulsion (such as the Truth Cube in Sleepover, or the photo booth in Booth Buddies) were still largely natural, just more flashy ways to push the characters in directions they were already taking.

The first episodes of S4, up to Curse of the Blood Moon, didn’t really do this. They felt heavily more compartmentalized than the usual: S3 ended in an explosive way that seemingly set up all the characters for immediate changes or payoff, but then this current season kinda ignored that. Not completely, because both Moon Remembers and Ransomgram has Marco tell Star things like “rip the bandaid off” and “own up to your mistakes”, which could be clearly applied to the “Tell Tom about the kiss” situation (never mind that she didn’t do that, it was still relevant and her going the wrong way about it was part of the point), but between an increased focus on plot and plot exclusively, and a two parter season premiere that chose to focus exclusively on finding Moon (reasonable decision, really, but it ended up making 40 minutes of show feel a bit empty on the emotions side, in my very subjective opinion), Curse of the Blood Moon seemed to happen a bit out of the blue, especially considering that Star and Marco’s feelings were apparently so strong and so intrusive to justify even Tom being able to see them in the former case, and Eclipsa’s comfort and counseling having been needed multiple times offscreen in the latter. Things that we didn’t see at all in the first 7 episodes, with the exception of Star never reacting to Tom telling her that he knew the kiss with Marco didn’t really mean anything. It’s not a necessarily tragic scenario, especially if the show purposefully wanted to wait for Curse to kick start a new chapter in the shipping of the show, but this bridging between seasons taking one third of the last one felt a bit excessive and largely devoid of sufficient build up to me.

- Kelly / Kellco. Anyone who’s familiar with my blog should know that I always struggle to never insult ships, characters or elements from the show that other people might like. And even now I don’t want to cheapen the value of personal preferences at all, nor tell anyone “No, you can’t ship this!”. But at the same time I have to say that, in the context of the show, these new Kellco developments look (ready to eat back my words in the future, as usual) extremely pointless, and handled badly. Kelly feelings something for Marco, kinda unilaterally liking him, that’s something the fandom has been speculating ever since Lava Lake Beach. They shared an emotional moment over heart break, and then clearly developed a friendship from there, and hanged out more. Kelly’s lines in The Ponyhead Show then confirmed without doubt that she felt something from Marco, but that he seemed to be largely unaware and oblivious about it. Just like you’d expect Marco to be, especially a Marco who spent the previous season focusing on how strong and intrusive his feelings for Star were.

At this point essentially everyone, me included, expected for Kelly’s World to be used as a way to bring up Marco’s unrequited (as far as he knew) feelings once again, to introduce Curse of the Blood Moon. I expected Marco to either go something like “Sorry Kelly but I’m not ready to give up on my feelings for Star” or, at worst, a frustrated Marco who’d have thought and reflected about Kelly’s feelings for him. Instead, out of the extreme blue, we got a Marco who was uncharacteristically all too aware of the situation, going “I don't want these feelings for Star they're getting in the way of other feelings" while being all blushy and then being more than receptive to Kelly’s emotionally confused flirting. Now, if this was reality, there would be absolutely nothing weird in a kid like Marco being dual in his feelings, really liking Star while also being tired about all the pain those feelings have been bringing him for the better part of a year and being receptive to another girl being ready to jump his bones. But this is not reality, and these events absolutely lacked any form of proper build up, they were (wow, I can finally use the word Starco haters have been throwing around for years!) forced. Not entirely, but for a great deal. Jarco had Sleepover and Naysaya providing a strong buildup to the ship revolving around Marco overcoming some personal hurdles; even Tomstar didn’t immediately go for the ship after the well-timed dance in Club Snubbed, but first had Demoncism, giving some sort of basis to the exes getting back together, and Tom and Star had a pre-established relationship and we both knew that Tom still wanted Star, and that Star still had hung up feelings for Tom, if just physical attractions ones (from her behavior in Blood Moon Ball and Mr. Candle Cares, very spread out over the show, I admit). Meanwhile Kellco went from “ok they shared an important moment one season ago and Janna teased Kelly in a holiday special episode but after that their interactions have been nothing but background ones” to “Marco and Kelly lose track of time reading about fighting on a bench, then as the warm hues of the sunset wash over them they fight hand in hand, as one body and one spirit, and the fireworks and music happen and there’s more blushing in a single scene that there has been in the whole show and in all the kisses in it so far”. That’s... very, very, very heavy handed. Very “manipulative”. Especially since Kelly and Marco aren’t even properly together yet I guess, since Marco might have gotten over his feelings for Star (hahaha yeah as if), but as far as we know Kelly still isn’t completely over Tad. So where is this relationship going to go from now? Why does it exist? In what ways it doesn’t shit on what Jarco already taught Marco? How is it going to “end” once Marco inevitably realizes he still feels thing for Star without making Kelly look like a throwaway rag? Obviously I don’t have the arrogance to assume I know how things are going to play out from here on, so who knows, maybe Kellco is going to be part of an important arc, but from where I’m standing, from what I know now, it’s hard not to see it as a hamfisted attempt at going “Haaaa these confused teens, it’s only fair that they get their share of experiences!”. Which is ok, sure, fine, but FICTION ≠ REALITY and things need some kind of build up and reason to happen. If it’s just supposed to be padding to keep the situation in a status quo for a while, “Marco is with Kelly and Tom is with Star and everything is right in the world and they don’t have to think about their feelings anymore” then... bleah.

- This is tangentially connected to both the previous points, and it’s not really THAT bad, just me being a bit nitpicky about a still legitimate direction the show decided to take: by having this constant comparison between THE OTHER SHIPS and STARCO, now stronger than ever after Curse, the former being very casual but also ultimately unrewarding, “we hold hands we blush a little and we are ready to kiss and be a couple”, while the latter being “dozens of life changing events are needed to progress the ship even by little; NOTHING BUT PAIN can ever come out of Starco for the people involved until it’s officially recognized as being completely and utterly full, pure, complete, mature and life lasting love”, can kinda give a wrong message about relationships and teen love, or an annoying one at least. “Hey kids, don't try to actually have fun or be happy with romance, because that's not how True Love™ works. If you actually find it kind of easy to be happy with your significant other, that isn't love!" [quote by @ngame989]. Obviously I’m using a hyperbole for the sake of clarity, and it’s clear that Star and Marco’s relationship is based on finding it easy to have fun together, always. But if we talk strictly about romance and the way the show approaches to it, it’s kinda undeniable that Starco has been nothing but a source of sadness so far, and the only genuine moment of happiness, this one, lasted about three seconds and overlapped with a realization of True Love.

By now I have fully accepted that the show is not going for an early Starco relationship to then show it growing and changing as the two make the first steps together, but that they’re waiting for a “ok we’re both completely sure this is what we want”, and it’s a completely fair direction for the show to take, but it also contributes to this “fetishization” of true love. Still, execution matters way more than the larger brush strokes in this case, so we’ll see.

- The timing. I’m going to talk about why this incoming arc can actually be a very good thing in a moment, but at the same time introducing the idea that the Blood Moon might have forced feelings now, 30% through the last season, when absolutely nothing before that ever referenced of foreshadowed it, and with essentially no references to the Ball throughout the show (last direct one was in Naysaya and it was Tom throwing shade at Marco...), feels kinda jarring to me.

- This is a bit more of a personal note, but not entirely: Star and Marco enter a dance in their memories with the specific goal of “destroying their feelings”. One minute into spending time together having fun without any kind of distraction for the first time in forever, they literally fall in love. Not crush, love. The whole setup of the Severing Stone’s function literally confirms that. What kind of tension can Kellco and Tomstar deliver now that we know that Star and Marco can and will fall in love with each other if given a moment to truly think about nothing but each other and themselves? The endgame was kinda clear before as well, but now it has officially ruined any chance at making other ships feel worthwhile - beyond their value for the growth of the characters involved, obviously. I mean their intrinsic value as a ship / source of romantic drama.

THE GOOD

- Even if I’m not a fan of the timing, I can see a lot of potential in an arc revolving around the question “Are these feelings genuine? Is Marco/Star the person I truly love and want to be with?”. Now, obviously we know that the feeling were genuine and that the Curse didn’t force anything, so it’s not really the answer to the question that matters. What’s important is how they’re going to get to that: by having Star and Marco more or less directly tackle this question in a context where there is apparently no sadness and pain brought from unwanted feelings, some positivity can FINALLY be associated with Starco as a romantic relationship. Obviously we don’t know how things are going to play out now, but if both dorks are now convinced that they are only friends (something that didn’t happen at the same time since early S2) they can enjoy their relationship to its absolute fullest, and see along the way, together this time, that they both want more. I don’t know if one or both of them lied about not having feelings anymore, or if it’s placebo effect, or if the Severing Stone has some lingering after effects. What I know is that these two now feel like they can be completely comfortable around each other once again, while still having all the feelings of friendship that were the base for the romance once already,

and that the last time they had a moment to truly be together with each other and enjoy their feelings to their fullest, they fell in love, like love for real, certified by the Severing Stone taking that moment away as a price.

So yes, we all know the answer to this question already (articulated a bit better by the show’s composer in this post),

- Curse of the Blood Moon as an episode itself is far from being without merits: it opens with a wonderful display of one of the many sides that make Star and Marco’s relationship so adorable, with the duo having a secret cereal date at night without waking up Meteora; shows how in sync and how well they understand each other (yes, this was a set up for the scene but you can’t tell me it’s the curse’s fault, that’s bullshit); it literally had Marco tell us that he likes every single thing about Star and her personality (again, not the curse’s fault. That’s bullshit.), and the dance itself was utterly perfect and pristine and had Starco fun, Starco flirting, and Starco love all happening the moment they could focus on each other and forget about the rest.  Also, while I’m not necessarily the biggest fan of Tom having achieved “good boy status” simply by getting slightly better with each episode instead of taking some affirmative action on the nature of his relationship with Star, I don’t mind seeing him helping his friends, at all. Sure, this can contributed to making him feel more “pathetic”, with scenes like the spat on the elevator apparently underlying a lack of compatibility between him and Star compared to her and Marco, as many other scenes before, and that’s the part I don’t particularly enjoy, but the overall journey he went through, that’s good. It should have featured more defining moments of change in my opinion, rather than a simple “little by little always better and gets points for trying”, but it’s still vastly preferable to a world where we can’t get some Tomco bromance moments, and this kind of relaxed situation, as infuriating as it can be at times, could potentially contribute to what I said in the first point, give Star and Marco the chance to understand what they feel for the other in a completely or almost completely positive way.

- This is connected to the first point and not necessarily an objectively good one on its own, more like something that further contributes to feeling like there’s potential for things to develop nicely from her on: the brunt of the romance in Starco fell on Marco for most of S3, at this point Star was less of an active player than him when it came to liking each other. But Star is the Main Main Character, we can’t have that happen. With this new turn of events, with things being “reset” into New Game +, the spotlight moves once again on Star and this time we can finally have the Main Main Character answer the question “do we love each other?”. Obviously Marco is surely going to have a role as well, he’s still a protagonist, but it’s Star’s story before anything else, and this “Free Will and Choices” arc can easily tie Eclipsa / ruling Mewni to Love, and strongly relate to the blonde (ex) princess.

- On the same note of “elements that makes one hopeful about the show’s potential but still don’t really confirm anything about what’s going to happen”, we have this quote from one of Adam’s interviews:

Adam describes Star as someone who is “all over the place” in terms of life as compared to Marco who unlike Star has yet to outwardly reveal his feelings. “But, she’s one of those people who so much stuff is going on for that she doesn’t necessarily, in my opinion, she doesn’t really have time for a romantic relationship. She’s too busy. She’s got a lot of things going on her plate,” he explains. “But, she’s one of those people who, in my opinion–I’m not saying this happens, I’m just saying this is why I like them–I feel like she’s going to be one of those people who is gonna stop one day and have a second to breathe and then dust is gonna settle and she’s gonna look and see through all the settling dust and fog that someone has been there with her the entire time and she’s gonna see Marco,”

and while there’s absolutely no way to confirm this, especially since everything Adam says is always nebulous PR talk that has to be taken with eighty grains of salt, looking at list of episode post-mid season finale suggests that this “dust settling down” might happen sooner than later, the second half(ish) of the season having way more episodes with titles suggesting either Earth things, or a generic downtime for the teens to focus a bit more on their own lives, and a little less of Eclipsa. Obviously there’s still necessarily going to be plot happening, but I can also see how they could be going (strong emphasis on the could) for a journey that allows Starco to finally happen in the series finale in an explosive way, with both Star and Marco being utterly sure that this is what they truly want, and that they love each other, not just like or crush.

Cornonation Doop-Doop / Britta’s Tacos Beach Day / Gone Baby Gone Sad Teen Hotline /  Jannanigans Mama Star /  Ready, Aim, Fire The Right Way /  Here to Help Pizza Party /  The Tavern at the End of the Multiverse Cleaved 

To conclude and sum up, my greatest issues so far are with the way S4 handled romance and relationships in its first 7 episodes, rather than with the new arc Curse of the Blood Moon apparently set out, or with the idea that the show is almost certainly going for series finale Starco (still kinda hoping for just a little something before that though, with the finale being the true celebration of what they have). It’s not the show I’d have liked the most, but it’s still one that has all the potential, so far, to honor the kind of build up Starco had, and the amazing characters Star and Marco are. But this first third personally disappointed me in a number of ways, and it kinda hinders my ability to fully trust this potential to actually become the reality of a good execution. But “hinders” doesn’t mean I completely lost any hope, and there are certainly dozens of ways to properly pull this off. We’ll see.

[arcanelucario]

Hi, I’m Troy McClure ArcaneLucario and you may remember me from such fanfics as Linked Through And Throughout or Always or for some reason from A Second Chance. Or perhaps you know me from my Twitter or Instagram or I dunno...maybe even one of my YouTube accounts or Imgur or god knows where. Or maybe you don’t know me and just happened to stumble across this post in a drunken rampage across Tumblr when looking for art for one of your ships that actually makes sense as opposed to the absolutely terrible ones such as KacChako or KiriBaku or AruAni or whatever else which you see people for some rarted reason ship and try to cram down your throats. (oh boy I can smell the hate already...y’know...despite the anosmia)

Or maybe you remember me from this post from March of this year (2019 for you cucks from the future...or past) in which I claimed I was gonna write a text post detailing everything that’s gonna happen in His Warmth...and then didn’t.

Well,

And so, below the oncoming read more link thingy I will attempt to recall everything I have planned for this fic so far. And I guess this post not only works for you, but also works for me because I’ll have everything written down so I can check back here for reference. Anyway, spoilers ahead so this is your last chance to turn back should you wish to remain unspoiled for the day I finally get back to writing His Warmth. Oh and I’m not just doing this cuz I feel bad that some people said they wanted to see this and then I never got round to writing it.

Okay I lied, this is your last chance. Anyway, lets get to it. Welcome to the world of His Warmth.

So far in the fic there’s only 2 chapters: The first introducing us to the characters and the school they are attending, and the second starting off with a flashback and then back to current time, but you guys knew that already. Just for the record, at the start of chapter it says the flashback takes place 5 years prior, but I’m gonna change that to 8 years instead because the ages make more sense that way and also cuz I’m bad at maths and stuff. I’m also probably gonna change the ending of that chaper, cuz when I wrote it I kinda rushed the ending and regret ending it the way I did, but maybe I won’t. Who knows? Probably not, sounds like a lot of effort.

Now for shit you don’t know, whoooooo.

In the oncoming chapters, what I’m thinking is I’ll attempt to build a friendship between Annie and Mina as I intend on making them be best friends, (probably) re-instate the friendship between Annie, Reiner and Bertolt and then rekindle the friendship (and crush that Eren has) between Eren and Annie. I’ll try to do this in actually realistic way that is doable in a high school setting, and there’ll likely be a number of (small-ish) gestures from Eren towards Annie that reaffirms her of her feelings towards Eren, ones she hadn’t had since her younger years. These won’t be anything crazy, just stuff like perhaps a small gift or buying her something to eat when everyone’s hanging out in a group, or giving her a hand with something. I dunno...well actually that’s a lie, I sort of have an idea. At some point I’ll also have Annie start sparring with Eren again and teaching him her moves.

To be honest I don’t actually know how long all that is gonna go on for, but eventually we’re gonna come to the start of some conflict. One day Annie will come into school acting differently than before. She’ll be quieter, more tense than usual and have a sort of afraid energy about her, and she’ll be covering her face with her hood. She’ll approach Eren and order him to fight with her, which Eren will notice as unusual because usually she’ll ask to spar, not order to fight. Instead of talking with Eren, Annie will just lead him to their usual sparring spot, and they’ll begin their usual routine. Not long after though, Eren will notice that Annie’s attacks weren’t the same as they usually are, instead they’re switching between strong and precise hits with the intent to cause pain, and weak and sloppy ones that are nothing like her. At some point Annie’s hood will fall off, and Eren will realize the problem. Annie’s face will be revealed to be bruised and scarred, signs of abuse. That’s right, I’m making this one of those fics where Annie’s dad is the bad guy. At this revelation, Annie’s attacks will become more hectic and uncontrolled, meaning Eren can find an opening and stop her from fighting, which he will do. Eventually Eren will be able to capture Annie in a hold, and she’ll sort of calm down soon after. She’ll beg Eren not to ask what happened (though he’ll have a bit of an idea), and Eren will ask Annie what she’s gonna do next, and tell her if she wants to, she can crash at his (and Mikasa’s) house. For now, Annie will remain undecided but she’ll vaguely respond, and then follow Eren back to school...and then promptly disappear.

After all that, Annie will start skipping school, and to everyone’s knowledge she’s not been going home since that day, and on the days she does go to school she’ll avoid everyone. This’ll lead to Eren, Reiner, Bert and Mina following her after school, trying to figure out where she’s been staying. Turns out, she’s been hiding out on the streets because she had been afraid, and didn’t know what to do or where to turn, who to trust. Reiner, Bert and Mina will all try to offer her their help but Annie won’t make any decision. After they leave, Eren will once again offer a place at his house, and they’ll discuss hypotheticals which Eren will figure out aren’t actually hypotheticals. Annie will tell Eren she’ll think about it, but for now to let her be, which he’ll do.

The next day at the end of school, Annie will finally approach Eren again and ask if his offer is still open, and that she accepts it. So Eren will go with her to the place she’d been staying the past few days, get her things and then take her to his house. And this will be the start of a whole new chunk of the story. Having Eren and Annie live together will be a very interesting dynamic to write about, and I’m honestly excited for when I get to do this. At first, it’ll be awkward for the both of them but over time they’ll get used to it, and it’ll be sort of like a couple who had been living together for a long time.

Anyway, in this first day of Annie staying with Eren, there will be some awkward stuff between them, and the two of them won’t exactly get along but Annie will learn to get along with Eren and throw him a bone. After all, he is helping her in her time of need. Oh and something will happen that will lead to Eren and Annie sharing a bed. Also, along with this chapter there’ll be a flashback to a time in their childhood where Eren had stayed the night at the Leonhart household. 

Now in these chapters we’ll have lots of fun stuff, and there’ll come a moment where Annie realizes she does actually have a full on crush on Eren, but that now isn’t the time for her to act on her feelings and that things could become weird otherwise. There’ll also be a chapter that involves Historia, Ymir and jealousy. Not gonna say anything more on that part. Unless you want me to?

Next up we’ll come to a Christmas chapter, where Eren and Mikasa will go stay with Grisha for Christmas, and Eren will invite Annie to come along, who will reluctantly agree after a bit of convincing, initially not feeling that she should attend another family’s Christmas. This is gonna be a pretty sweet chapter in my opinion, and if I remember correctly I believe I have at one point ages ago talked about a little bit of it in the EreAnnie Discord. Anyway, in this chapter Eren is gonna give Annie a present, one that is gonna mean a massive amount to Annie, causing her to temporarily have a strong emotional reaction and have to take a step outside. Eren will follow her shortly after, and will notice something about her, and in this moment the two of them will realize that they don’t just have crushes on each other, but are actually in love...though neither will actually admit it (or actually maybe Annie will have realised this in a previous chapter, I can’t actually remember atm). But in an attempt to cheer Annie up, Eren will get in a snowball fight with her, and this will work, and will lead to a moment where Annie considers kissing Eren, but at the last second decides not to. After this, they’ll head inside and Annie will take part in the first of many annual Yeager Christmas photos where they wear silly sweaters.

The next chapter or two will likely be something fillery (or maybe not and I’ll just skip ahead to the next thing) and then we’ll come to a valentine’s day chapter, where for the whole time Annie is wondering if Eren has got her anything, and if so, what? At the end of the chapter Annie will force Eren to reveal what he’s done, and it’ll turn out that he hasn’t actually got her anything, knowing that Annie wouldn’t have actually wanted anything, and also that it would be weird since they aren’t dating. Because of this, and also to repay him for everything else he’s done, Annie will make a surprise move and will out of nowhere kiss Eren on the cheek, but close enough to the point where their lips will slightly touch. This’ll of course freak Eren out, but he’ll calm himself down quick enough. And no, this doesn’t mean they’re dating, that’s still a bit off. Also, along with this chapter will be another flashback, one that takes place before the previous flashback.

After this I believe it takes us to a pretty big time-skip, and we’ll come to summer vacation (I guess)? So there’ll be a plan for a beach trip with everyone, and so one chapter will focus on insecurities that Annie has about herself and her body (which will involve a brief flashback), and so Eren will have to help Annie regain her confidence...and he’ll sort of accidentally peep on her when she’s trying on her bikini or whatever. And then the next chapter is the actual beach episode chapter, which may or may not involve a reference to a Brian Hyland song. This chapter will also involve a small fight between Eren and Annie, and then a disaster will strike. Not gonna say what, but just know it’s gonna be pretty god damn big, like tears will be shed (in the fic, of course). This will lead to Eren and Annie leaving the beach early, and everyone else agreeing that Eren and Annie need to admit their feelings and get together, and fast.

The next chapter will be about the aftermath of the beach trip, and might possibly create some tension. There will also be a reference to a Barenaked Ladies song. Anyway, after a few days, Eren and Annie’s friends will have thought of a plan to get the two dorks to admit their feelings, so it’ll go along the lines of something like Mina talking to Annie about whatever, and then she’ll bring up stuff about Eren and talk about Annie’s crush on him, and nag her to the point that Annie accidentally has an outburst where she admits that she’s in love with Eren. And at the same time that this is happening, Mikasa and Armin will have just happened to have brought Eren to the same place where Mina brought Annie, and Eren will overhear Annie’s confession. He’ll want to go to her and talk about it, but Mikasa and Armin will convince him to leave it till later, when they’re alone. And so, that night before they go to bed, Eren will ask Annie to wait up, and he’ll hint at the fact he overheard her confession and will cause Annie to start shouting at him. At first it’ll seem like she’s angry at him, but Eren will quickly realize that it’s not anger, it’s her passion and feelings coming out, that this is just because she loves him, and that he loves her back. One thing will lead to another and Eren will confess to Annie and interrupt her with a kiss, and then they’ll end up doing adult stuff and having sex...or doing taxes...I’m not really sure what happens in there, never really paid much attention in sex-ed.

ANYWAY, after all that lovely jubbly stuff, the two lil fukin dorks will fall asleep in each other’s embrace, content at their newfound relationship status. The next day they’ll officially start their relationship together, and will enjoy the stage of their relationship which I believe is referred to as “the bubble”, at least according to Parks & Rec. From then on we’ll have a bunch of adorable moments between them, and they’ll be much happier.together, which everyone will notice.

We’ll then maybe get a bit of filler, or perhaps I’ll skip time again, and something will happen in our lovebirds relationship, and I mean something big. Annie’s dad would have secretly started trying to reach out to Annie again, but this isn’t something Annie has revealed to Eren, creating distance between them. Eren’s protective instincts will sort of take over him, and he’ll accidentally get mad at Annie, saying she should have told him. They’ll fight, and Annie will freak out and attack Eren (causing either bleeding or a black eye, probably a black eye) which she’ll feel guilty about, but before either can properly react, she’ll grab whatever of her things she can and run back home to her dad.

Now broken up, there will be a lot of distance and tension in Eren and Annie’s friendship, and Mikasa will start to get real protective of Eren and will kinda dislike Annie. Eren will be depressed as hell, and I’ll have a little segment where Levi (one of the teachers at the school) will question what’s going on, at which point Petra (his wife and the school counselor) will walk in and tell him. I’m actually considering having Petra be a counselor for a few students throughout the fic, but I’m undecided on that as of now.

Anyway, for a lil bit we’ll have all this go on, and we’ll have a chapter detailing Annie’s perspective after all this, which will involve her back at her dads, but things will take a dark turn again, and Mr Leonhart will once again hit Annie, at which point she’ll finally hit back and break his leg (or something like that), but then she’ll run away from home. At first she’ll run to stay with Reiner and Bert, but her dad knows where they live and will find her there so she’ll run again. I might have Annie stay on the streets for a couple more days, but all I know is she’ll think about her options, and that the only thing she can do is go back to Eren.

So, that will happen. Annie will run back to Eren’s house, and on the way will run into him. She’ll start to trip over her words, and will panic and try to run away, but Eren will catch her and bring her inside. I’m not saying he’ll instantly forgive her, but he will realize that she’s scared and alone and needs to have someone there for her, and that someone has to be him. We’ll have some sweet moments, reminiscent of earlier moments from the story, and I can’t think of the words to describe it but...it’ll be pleasant. Eren will tend to Annie’s needs, and will help her understand that he’ll always be there for her, even if they aren’t together. Eventually, Annie will get super drowsy, and so Eren will carry her to his room where he’ll put her to bed, but before he can leave, Annie will beg him to stay with her and sleep in the same bed again. At first Eren will turn it down, but then will now realize the true nature of his relationship with Annie, and the true nature behind everything that has happened. This isn’t everyone else’s regular relationship, it’s their’s, and it’s so much bigger than what he previously thought. So, Eren will do what she asked, and lay with her once more.

The next morning, Eren will wake to Annie staring at him, and will notice that she looks exhausted. It turns out that she spent most of the night looking at and holding onto Eren, making sure he wouldn’t leave her side. Eren will try to reason with her, letting Annie know he’d never leave her side, and then he’ll excuse himself, making a decision that will be for the best for both of them. This decision has him making a call to his dad, asking if he and Annie can come stay with him for a few days, and stating that it’s finally time for him and Annie to reveal what’s going on, why Annie has been living with Eren. Grisha will accept, and then Eren will return to bed with Annie, telling her about the plan, and telling her to go back to sleep before they leave. Later that day they’ll start their journey, and Eren will talk to Annie about their relationship and where they stand, and will talk about problems that everyone has in their relationships, whether it be romantic relationships or that of father and son, which kind of cheers Annie up and helps her see what she couldn’t before.

They’ll arrive at Grisha’s, and they’ll reveal the whole truth, leading to Grisha helping Annie with her situation and Mr Leonhart being put away for his crimes. I’ll then have something surprising happen between Eren and Annie (not gonna say what), and eventually Mikasa and Jean will come to Grisha’s as well, helping out however they can. And that will be the final proper chapter of the story, before the epilogue, that is.

AND THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is His Warmth. Or rather, like 90% of it. I’ve actually still left some stuff out, and may still come up with more things for it. But yeah, that is more or less my vision for this story, my masterpiece. Not sure when I’ll actually get back to writing it, but maybe this will be motivation to do so. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my crazy rambling, and I hope you’ll enjoy the finished product, cuz I know I sure as hell will. Please feel free to let me know what you think.

[nerdomlover]

Rewatching Cardcaptor Sakura

Warning Opinions and Spoilers ahead!

So, my friend while loving Cardcaptor Sakura had never seen it before all the way. So, he ended up watching all of during the last two weeks or so, so he can finally watch Clear Card. Needless to say I ended up re-watching it as well.

So, how did it go? Well....

Okay, I originally watched all of Cardcaptors when I was about 12. When I say Cardcaptors I mean the horrible English dub, the one that has an awesome theme some....That’s the only positive. When I was about 13 or 14 I watched all of Cardcaptor Sakura in the originally Japanese, along with the movies. 

Young teenage me was pleased. It was cute and I loved Sailor Moon at the time as well. So yay!  

But watching it again was... a time....

First off, we watched it with the re-dub. Like the english one that came out in 2005 or something. To properly explain Cardcaptor Sakura has 4 English Voice casts! FOUR. That’s more than any other anime I think. 

What the fuck?! *sigh* At one point we were watching the first movie and our roommate that had been passively watching it with us look at the screen when Yukito was talking and looked at him and asked, “What happen to his voice? Who the fuck is Julian?” Thus the meme #not my Yukito was born. But, yeah, to explain I was not a fan of the newer dub. 

Maybe it’s the fact that because we watched the movies too we had to compare the voices but it did not hold up well compared to the other casts in my head. Seriously, my favorite cast ended up being the cast from the second movie and that’s sad since I had to watch the series cast the most.

Also, speaking of the series, 3 to 4 episodes made me mad. These were episodes that for some reason had scenes that were not dub. Yeah, there are episodes in the middle of an episode when all sound is cut and subs just pop up and these are usual in association with anyone’s feelings that can not be called heterosexual or friendship. This was stupid an annoying. Clamp is know for their romances that pushes the envelope of what is normal so what the fuck? Guys.

But enough about the dubs. What about the show it’s self? 

Well, theme songs were all still great. Third seasons being my favorite. Though I forgot the second season even had a different theme song.

But you know, I also forgot about the first season being so long...Like it’s 35 episodes? and the second season is just 10? And the third is 23? Stop with this uneven numbering! So, yeah. That was a thing. 

And it’s so filler-y! Honestly, me and my friend were going to watch ever episode. Everyone we swear! But it got the point were right after Syaoran got there we looked at each other and said we have like 10 episodes or so before Meilin gets here and we said fuck it! 

We started reading off the summaries for every episode and talked about if we wanted to it or not. Yeah, that’s a problem I think. We went 5 to 7 episode without watching an episode because it was so repetitive and fillery.

Yes, it’s aimed at young kids but it was so tiring. So, many episodes just didn’t matter. Like, I may like the stuff with Sakura’s mother’s family but it’s not important to the plot and really doesn’t go anywhere in the long run besides fueling my anger. Same with Rika and the teacher subplot. 

But, that’s fine right? Well kinda no. Removing that subplot I got a really stupid thing I didn’t notice. All the Yukito and Sakura bullshit! Ugh, yes, it’s commented on in the story at the end. Yes, it even makes sense. But if you know anything about Cardcaptors Sakura or Tsubasa Chronicles even you know it’s not going to happen. Yukito and Touya are Clamps soul pair and Sakura and Syaoran are one of the staple anime couples so going through this plot is grating even if it does give Sakura some much need character development and growth. 

But it’s agitating even during that test at the end of season 2 you see a prefect opportunity for a character arc for Sakura concerning her connection to the cards or her friends and family but it ends up revolving around Yukito.

Speaking of Sakura, while a lot of characters I now appreciate as more fleshed out, two characters were hurt by reviewing. Sakura and Eriol. Yeah, two very big characters right?

Look, Eriol is an ass holey character and that’s never going to change. His backstory just doesn’t explain him enough or his motives and it might get changed when I read to manga or watch clear card. But Sakura shouldn’t have been hurt by this reviewing. 

It could be she just plays into the magical girl tropes a little too much for me or it’s because she’s technically just a kid at 9 but she’s so slow. She takes forever to figure things out and is not as strong of a character as I remember. This is my opinion of course and it could be just cause I know how things turn out but I didn’t feel good about Sakura’s slow starts on everything. 

Seriously, you should know by after Meilin that no transfer student is just a transfer student!

The most active she was to me was during the movies and that’s kinda sad. But in the end I’m kinda glad I rewatched it. The 90′s cheese was adorable to revisit and it made me appreciate for proper dubs now a days. The story and plot are still good to this day and I am glad I wanted them but the filler is almost as bad as Sailor Moon’s.  

But Cardcaptor Sakura is still great, I understand why it’s one of Clamp’s most popular series and why Clear Card Exists and watching with my friends was very fun.

[bizarrebird]

Getting back into the old Buffy rewatch. For the record, these are probably gonna be sporadic as I gotta kinda sit down and watch and type scene by scene, but I like doing them, so I’m gonna keep going with it. This episode, which in most shows would be really fillery, I’m gonna cover cause it has one of the most iconic speeches in the whole show, the big Lie to Me spiel from Giles. This episode also deals with some heavy themes and interesting developments for Buffy, and I’m always about that good character stuff for my best girl

So here we go with Season 2, Episode 7: Lie to Me

And we’re starting in a creepy playground. Promising. Drusilla’s here, trying to eat a kid. Like I’m amazed no other vampires have already gotten here. Kid this is Sunnydale, the fuck are you doing? Luckily Angel shows up and scares the kid off (probably to go get eaten by a sludge monster off screen, this is fucking Sunnydale don’t leave your kids unsupervised) He and Drusilla have a weird moment where she clearly knows her and remembers things about her mother. It’s because of this history that he tells her to take Spike and go, but Dru knows Angel won’t actually hurt her. She tells him how she knows he’s fallen for Buffy just as Buffy shows up on a conveniently close roof to watch them get a little too close for comfort and then OPENING CREDITS

To school we go where we find Jenny Calendar and Giles talking about the surprise date Jenny’s planning for them. It’s flirty and cute and I’m sure nothing will mess up this relationship in the very next episode (remember kids, if you’re happy Joss Whedon hates your guts and wants you dead) Sad Buffy is here and she and Giles start talking shop. Giles encourages her to take the night off to go be with her vampire boo (which is sweet, thanks new dad) but Buffy’s a little iffy on that. Next we go to Cordelia being precious in a class where Buffy and Willow are passing notes about the girl she saw Angel with the night before. They leave the class and start talking about it as Xander gets there and immediately wants to know about Angel possibly doing bad things

Okay like, I get that this is supposed to be funny or endearing or whatever, but it just comes off amazingly creepy that Xander “has a happy” when he hears about Buffy’s current boyfriend doing something wrong, cause that means he might have a chance with her. This is beyond ‘cute funny crush’ territory, it’s just obnoxious, why do they hang out with Xander, like ever

ANYWAY

It’s time for the main plot of the episode to start, so here comes Ford, Buffy’s old friend and former crush from her last school, who’s apparently transferred to Sunnydale for his senior year. And oh man, another guy who Buffy knows and is talking to, here comes JEALOUS XANDER TO THE RESCUE. And isn’t that just super endearing. Buffy and Ford explain how they know each other and Buffy’s clearly super thrilled to see him (which doesn’t stop Xander from being a complete and utter tool the entire time, of course it doesn’t, nothing can stop him, literally nothing) Buffy invites him to the Bronze with them that night and takes Ford off to the admissions office in time for Xander to be super gross

Cut to the Bronze where Scoobies + Ford are playing pool and swapping stories. Xander’s still just feeling extra dickish this episode (when is he not) and Buffy goes to get a soda, only to find Angel conveniently brooding by the counter. Across the room, Willow and Xander tell Ford a bit about Angel, how he’s dating Buffy and is older than her (with all the times this comes up it’s really, really rare that it’s mentioned that the age difference is a little sketch, but hey, vampire love story, what’cha gonna do?) When asked, Angel says he stayed in last night and Buffy knows he’s a giant liar face, so she goes back over to Ford and after a very awkward introduction with him and Angel, Buffy pulls Ford out of the club to take a walk, where they talk a little about Angel before Buffy spots a vamp and tries to distract Ford... but that doesn’t quite go as planned and he follows after her (hello ominous music what are you doing here) and gets a full view of the stakeage, which doesn’t seem to surprise him at all. He tells her that he already knows she’s the slayer

We go to Willow and Buffy talking on the phone about the situation and how it’s kind of a relief for Buffy honestly. Meanwhile, Ford heads into the creepiest warehouse possible where there’s a club of people dressed like vampires hanging out and listening to intense music. Ford seems to be sort of in charge here and pops some pills as he promises that soon they will have the chance to ‘die young and stay pretty’. If you didn’t get that Ford is creepy yet, we then see him mouth the difficult to hear speech of a vampire creep in a movie that’s playing in the background of the club

Back to Willow, who gets a knock at the door as Angel arrives to ask her for help. After a little awkwardness (which is super precious, I honestly wish these two had more scenes together, they’re both very much comedic actors who play off each other so well) she invites him in. He asks her to track down information on Ford, which... kinda gives Willow pause and she asks if he’s jealous. Angel admits that he kinda is, cause Buffy is the one shining light in his guilt hole of misery, but he’s still pretty sure there’s something off about Ford. Willow immediately finds something, checking the records and finding that Ford doesn’t actually go to their school. Before she can do more, she has to shove Angel out of the room as her mom calls up to her, and she promises to find more info for him later. He asks her not to tell Buffy

And we very soon see at school the next day that Willow is terrible at lying to Buffy and is instantly a nervous wreck as soon as she sees her, very quickly making an excuse to leave. Giles arrives to give Buffy info so she can contact him that night in case something goes wrong. He’s vaguely concerned when Ford already knows about the vampire situation, but Buffy explains she didn’t tell him, he somehow just already knew (which no one finds suspicious. at all) That night, Buffy takes Ford on a tour of Sunnydale and they spot two vampires heading into the school. She gives him a cross as she leads the way in. They get separated when one of the vamps tackles Buffy over the railing. Ford manages to subdue the other and makes some kind of deal with her we don’t see the end of. Buffy handles her vamp easy and finds Ford alone, saying he dealt with the other one

Meanwhile Xander, Willow, and Angel check out a lead that takes them to the creepy vampire fanclub warehouse. All of them are immediately weirded out, cause they actually live in Sunnydale. They get approached by a groupie, who tries to talk to them about the ‘lonely ones’ (which is like a cool name for vampires or some kinda creepy supernatural species, but not here. all vamps are assholes here. Yes even Angel. Sometimes especially Angel) Angel comes over to shut her down and she goes all tumblr on him saying that he doesn’t get to say who’s valid and leaves. Angel says they should get out cause he knows this type, vampire fans who are really, really upset Twillight won’t be out for a few more years. But that doesn’t explain why Ford is there, so now they definitely know something’s up with him

Back at the library, Buffy’s called in Giles and Jenny, and finds that she pulled them away from their date at a Monster Truck rally, cause Jenny thought it would be a good change for him. Oh Jenny, honey no, you’re trying but... no, no, no. Buffy gets things back on track to talk about the vampires near the school. She already sent Ford home and as she’s mentioning the vamp he took out, she spots a familiar picture in a book: the girl Angel was with the other night. DUN DUN DUNNNNN. Turns out that’s Drusilla, who Giles says is Spike’s lover who was thought to be killed in Prague (idk where that info is coming from, but I’m guessing the Watcher’s Council??? God, they just suck at everything, can’t even keep track of which vamps got dusted) but surprise! She’s... okay well not alive, but not dust, you get the picture. As Giles goes to look for more books on the matter (Oh Giles, don’t ever change) he runs right into a vampire, who literally no one noticed was just rifling through his office this whole time I guess. The vamp makes off with a book and Giles is very offended, but Buffy points out the more pressing point that Ford said he killed that vampire

We go to Dru, trying to get her dead bird to sing to her as Spike enters to ask abut her trip outside the other night. She doesn’t give him much of an answer, even when he brings up Angel, but she’s more about the bird until he tells her a little sharply that it’s dead cause she didn’t feed it, just like the last one. Dru gets all sad and pouty so Spike gets sweet again cause he crumbles when his lady love is sad. He apologizes and offers to get her a new bird just as Ford??? walks right through the front doors???? Spike wonders aloud if he has security here (apparently not, they just don’t make good vampire help like they used to) Te vamp from the library shows up with the book as Ford makes an offer, trying to talk Spike into the typical villain “you have 30 seconds to live/talk” thing. At Dru’s prompting, he reluctantly does the thing and Ford explains he wants to be a vampire. Spike’s hesitant cause he doesn’t really like Ford (not his type, he likes his men taller and more broody) but Ford offers a trade, him getting all bitey for the slayer

And that brings us to Buffy’s place as Angel arrives to tell her Ford isn’t what he seems. GASP Nooooo really? Who could have guessed???  Anyway, Angel tells her the deal about the creepy vampire place and how he and Xander and Willow have all been talking behind her back about this (definitely not for the first time showing in some ways, Buffy is still on her own, and her friends will other her when they need to) She’s mostly not happy about the behind the back going and demands to know about Drusilla. Before he tells her, Angel asks if she loves him (not out of the blue or manipulative at all) Buffy says she does and still wants to know. Angel tells her Drusilla was the worst thing he ever did. Before he turned her, she was a pure, sweet girl (troubled by visions although I think that comes up more when this story is revisiting in Angel: the series) and Angel drove her insane, killing her family and eventually driving her into a convent before he finally turned her. Buffy’s clearly a little sorry she asked, but they gotta get back to the present and Ford, cause they still don’t know what his fucking deal is

This brings us to one of the creepier brightly lit scenes of the series thus far, where Ford encounters Buffy at the school and asks if she wants to come out again with him that night. The camera angles are all spinning and super ominous and it’s actually shot in a really interesting way that I’d get way more into if I was a different kind of film nerd. But I’m not, so we go into the school where Buffy runs into Willow and Xander, who she’s not super happy with, who ask if she knows what’s up, she does and is still (understandably) upset and leaves. Xander can only think about the fact that Angel was in Willow’s room, showing that he’s not just concerned about the guys Buffy dates, but in any woman he’s remotely connected to showing any interest in any other guy

Moving on we go to Ford and his creepy crew, who are super jazzed about the lonely ones coming to bless them. None of these fuckos would make it ten seconds in the rest of Sunnydale, how are they alive in this bunker. But before the vamps can show, Buffy gets there first and Ford subtly signals to have the door shut behind her. Buffy is not pleased especially with Ford’s excuse of ‘everybody lies’ and tries to convince him and everyone else that they’re being stupid and that vampires are picky about who they turn... until she realizes what he was up to and that he was going to give them her (this realization goes fast cause we’re running short on screen time and need to move things along) Ford admits to it as Buffy realizes she’s been trapped in the bunker with them, the door’s rigged so it can only open from the outside and the vampires are on there way as soon as the sun sets. Buffy looks for another way out, but there isn’t one. She tries to talk Ford into letting the others go, but they’re real dumb and won’t listen

Brief scene of Spike getting his forces ready and bringing Dru along. Back in the bunker, Buffy tries the door again, conveniently getting her and Ford up onto this separate upper platform thing for serious talks. Ford admits that the others are probably just gonna be snacked on and won’t get changed (here he crosses the moral event horizon) but he’s cool with it because he will deffs get changed. Buffy tries to explain to him that being a vampire isn’t as glamorous as he thinks and that it basically just makes your body host to a demon (okay tbh for all the focus on vampires and souls here, the show could really do a lot more with it, but that’s another post for another time) Ford then dramatically admits that he’s already dying

And honestly, Ford is a good tragic villain and sometimes I wish they had done more than just a single episode with him, largely because of his connection to Buffy and her past and what that could mean for her as a character, but alas, this is a Joss Whedon show where he only pretends to give a shit about his female characters. Like shit the actor plays this scene really well and it’s a super interesting idea to explore with how the supernatural could fix common problems, but at a cost, and Buffy is super heavily impacted by it, but nah, not gonna make this a long running thing, why bother

ANYWAY Buffy takes a second to compose herself and then tells Ford that she’s sorry for what he’s going through, but he’s still a shit and even dealing with his health issues doesn’t make what he’s doing okay (cool motive still murder.gif) What solidifies Ford’s shittiness is that he calls the other people sheep, just doing the vampire stuff for kicks and giggles, but he doesn’t have a choice. Buffy disagrees, saying that yeah, the hand he’s been dealt is a terrible one, but that doesn’t justify what he’s doing now.

And like, okay, for all btvs’s flaws, it very much hammers in an ‘ends don’t justify the means’ message, which is honestly super cool, and I wish more shows would do that now. For the most part (and there are definitely exceptions to this, which I will cover when they come up) when people screw up in Buffy, there are consequences, and they can be fucking harsh

God, okay, this moment with Ford and Buffy up here is so good, someone yell at me later to write more about it

Ford somehow managed to knock out Buffy???????????? right as the vamps get there. Okay sure, fine. The vamps start eating everyone  (surprise, surprise) and Buffy spots Dru, who’s away from everyone just being weird and obvious in her glowing white dress. Buffy holds a stake to Dru’s chest and threatens Spike, who calls for everyone to stop. Following Buffy’s demands, he lets all the groupies go. The groupies wise up and run and Buffy gets Spike to back off enough for her to throw Dru at him and have time to escape, the door shutting behind her, trapping the vamps... and Ford

Buffy gets out right as the Scoobies arrive. She says they should go, cause the vamps are gonna get free eventually, but the have to come back... for Ford’s body. Back in the bunker, we see the vamps trapped and Spike admitting that Ford did in fact give them Buffy. We don’t get to see exactly what went down and in the next scene, Buffy’s walking into the bunker and she finds Ford’s body, unsure whether or not he’s been turned

Sometime between this scene and the last, there’s been a funeral and Ford has been buried (vamps are very patient and only wait till the most dramatic moment to rise, clearly) So we go to Buffy and Giles in a graveyard where Buffy puts flowers on Ford’s grave. They talk about how Buffy wishes this could be easy if she could just hate him and how she thinks Ford wanted to be the villain, but he was really just scared. She talks about how nothing is ever simple anymore and how she doesn’t know who to trust and it’s all just so confusing. Giles says that’s just part of growing up and Buffy asks if it ever gets easy. Vampire Ford pops out of the grave and Buffy stakes him without thinking

Giles repeats her question and asks what she wants him to say and Buffy says the show title “Lie to me” And here comes that iconic speech

“Yes, it’s terribly simple, Good guys are always stalwart and true Bad guys always distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats We always defeat them and save the day No one ever dies And everybody lives happily ever after”

And Buffy calls him a liar as we go to credits

FINAL THOUGHTS: Okay, there is... a looooot to unpack in this episode. You could write entire essays on it, and I’m sure people have. But the main thing is that morals are complicated and Buffy doesn’t know how to deal with it all the time, but she does her best. This is a really, really solid episode and definitely worth some analysis.

Next up, Season 2, Episode 8: The Dark Times (only cause Ethan Rayne is here and I love him)

[winryofresembool]

Things We Lost in the Fire, ch 28

aka Caleo uni au

Fic summary: Calypso starts studying at a new university, but to her annoyance her new flatmate is a loud mouthed mechanic who also likes to sneak his dog in whenever. But as she learns to know him better, she realizes they might have more in common than what she first thought. Eventually, even the darkest secrets come out…

Chapter summary: At Waystation, pt 1/?

A/N: Alright, an update and this time /almost/ on time! So, here's the thing: we are starting the so called 'Waystation arc', which will be many, many chapters because I have way too many ideas despite the fact that Leo and Cal won't even be there that long. So, please bear with me, I know this chapter is kind of a fillery one but I can't really skip the introductions 😅 More interesting stuff will definitely happen soon enough!

I hope that you guys enjoy (seriously it really always warms my heart to see your wonderful comments ♥) and maybe leave some nice words if you feel like it!!

Words: 2700+

Genre: romance & hurt/comfort

Warnings: none

previous chapter / AO3

...

”So, here we are…” Leo told Calypso when he stopped his car, the faithful Argo II, in the yard of Waystation. Both of their exams were finished and Calypso had taken a few days off work so she could join Leo at his family home for the holidays. “What do you think?” he asked, possibly a bit nervous about his flatmate’s opinion. Calypso could understand that; she knew that it was a very important place to him.

She took in her surroundings: a big, old house where the family lived and several other buildings such as a garage and a shelter for the animals next to it. Even though she and Leo were still in the car, she could already hear the sharp barking of Festus the German shepherd somewhere further in the yard. The place wasn’t all that showy especially compared to what she had seen in her childhood, but there were a lot of mysterious corners and fascinating looking objects around that screamed to be observed more closely. Unlike the place where she had been living several years of her life, to her this place… seemed home-y.

“It… looks cozy,” she finally answered Leo's question when she realized he kept looking at her expectantly. “I think I can see why you like it here.”

“Yeah!” Leo seemed happy to hear Calypso liked it. “I like to call it a well organized chaos - just the way it should be in Leo’s world. But c’mon, my fam must be waiting already.”

“Let’s go, then.”

Leo barely had time to open the door of the car and stand up when Festus ran and jumped at him, trying to drown him in wet dog kisses.

“Woah, buddy! I’m glad to see you too!” Leo exclaimed and attempted to pet him even though it was hard because Festus was all over the place. “It’s my holiday break so I’ll be here with you for a long while! Isn’t that great?”

Festus gave him a small bark and wagged his tail even faster as a response. Calypso followed the exchange between the boy and his dog with amusement.

“Not sure if I should be jealous of your… you call it bromance, right?” she teased, while smiling widely. Already she had noticed that Leo seemed more relaxed in this place, and for some reason that made her feel warm and fuzzy even though she tried to battle such feelings.

“Aww, why would you be jealous? I have space in my heart for both of you,” he winked and Calypso had to look away so that he wouldn’t see her blush - again.

“No reason,” she mumbled and got out of the car as well, causing Festus to leave Leo alone and come to greet her instead. “Hi, you!” she managed to say while getting showered with love by the dog. “I guess this means you still remember me!”

“Of course he does,” Leo grinned at her. “I think you made quite an impression on him earlier. Hey, boy!” he whistled at the dog who returned to him. “I’m still your number one man, right?”

“Now who’s jealous?” Calypso chuckled at him. “He was just getting started with me.”

“That’s what you think,” Leo claimed. He had already taken his luggage from the car and now he was waiting for Calypso to do the same so he could lock the doors. She just stuck her tongue out at him instead of replying to his comment.

“Wait, are you planning to move here?” He asked with amusement when Calypso dragged her suitcase out of the car. Even though she would be staying at Waystation for less than a week, she had taken quite a lot of things with her just to be sure she wasn’t missing anything. “Not that I have anything against you living with my family… It’s just that that…” he pointed at the suitcase, “… looks a bit excessive considering we’re not staying that long and we can just drive or even walk back to our flat any time we want to if we need something.”

“You can never be too well prepared in situations like this!” Calypso stated, pulling her suitcase behind her while Festus followed her happily.

“Okay, okay,” Leo put his hand up in defeat and started following Calypso towards the house. “I believe you.”

…

“Calie, Calie!” a young brown haired girl exclaimed happily when the flatmates made it inside the house. “You came!”

“Hi, Georgina!” Calypso greeted the girl. “I did promise you, and both you and I know that promises should be kept, right?” Even at the risk of the trip being very awkward because of everything that was currently going on between her and Leo, she wasn’t planning to disappoint this little girl. She knew too well how that felt.

“Right!” Georgina agreed with her. “So, how has my brother been lately? Super annoying, as usual?”

Calypso was unsure what she should answer to that question, especially since Leo was listening right next to her. “Umm… he hasn’t been that bad, in my opinion… Sure, he has his annoying moments but I think the exams have kept him so busy that he has mostly been behaving himself.” She smiled at the girl, one part of her hoping Leo knew better than to take her too seriously. But then again, they had been bickering since day one, and apparently, he still liked her.

“Yeah, and Calypso has been somewhat behaving herself too, thanks for asking,” Leo intervened, looking slightly annoyed. “Well, what about you, sis? Did you pass all your tests?”

“I did but the math one was super difficult! Maybe you can help me with it when the school starts again?” Georgina gave Leo the kind of puppy eyes that would have been hard to resist for anyone. And sure enough, Leo’s frown melted quickly when she kept looking at him pleadingly.

“Of course I can help! That’s what I’m here for, right?” he answered without hesitation. Then he frowned again. “But where are our mothers? I thought they’d catch us like hawks the moment we arrived.”

“They’re probably busy making a big dinner,” Georgina noted. “I don’t think they’ve talked about anything else except you two the whole day…”

“Really?” Leo asked. “That’s… weird? I do visit here often enough…”

“Yeah, but how often do you visit with a girl?” Georgina pointed out sneakily. The girl was really observant for her age, Calypso thought. She and Leo exchanged quick looks before Leo answered.

“Listen, Georgie. Cal and I are friends. And flatmates obviously. But we are not dating, I hope you know that,” he said firmly, even though Calypso could sense that he wished he could have told her something else.

“Then how come she’s spending the holidays with us? Doesn’t she have her own family to spend it with?”

It was an innocent question, as Georgina had no idea about Calypso’s home circumstances, but it had still hit a bit too close to home to Calypso and Leo knew that. That’s why he rushed to answer for her: “Hey, now, miss Nosy! Cal has her own reasons why she prefers spending the holidays with us, and she doesn’t have to explain them all to you. The main thing is that she’s here and I hope you won’t bother her by asking more of your annoying questions.”

“Now you’re just being rude,” Georgina grimaced at him. “But fiiine, I won’t ask more questions. I’ll go tell moms that you guys arrived.”

“Go do that,” Leo sighed, and rolled his eyes when she was already out of sight. “Sorry ‘bout that,” he told Calypso as he showed her where she could put her outerwear. “For the first 15 years of my life I didn’t have a sibling and somehow I thought it would be great to have one… She /is/ pretty great most of the time but no one told me beforehand that sometimes siblings can be quite nuisances too.”

Calypso’s face fell a bit as she thought about her own sister and how much she sometimes wished she could see her again. Luckily Leo seemed to realize pretty fast that he had said something wrong.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry! I didn’t remember… I mean, I know I’m lucky to have a sister like her, I just… Um, I’m just gonna shut up now.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Calypso tried to calm him down. “It’s an easy mistake to make. I haven’t talked about her a lot to you…”

“As someone who has also lost a family member, I understand why you don't wanna do that, Sunshine. But hey,” he stepped closer to her, sticking his index finger close enough to her chin that she had to lift it, but not close enough that it would have touched her. “You’re visiting casa de Valdez & co and we have a rule here that we should put the nasty stuff behind us, at least during the visit.”

“You mean like, ‘Hakuna matata’?” Calypso asked, having heard the story of Leo loving Lion King as a child. As their eyes met, she could feel the butterflies flying in her stomach again.

“Yep, now you’re speaking my language, babe.”

“Babe?” Calypso raised her eyebrow but was interrupted before she could say more because Leo’s adoptive mothers finally entered the room. Calypso had already met Jo earlier, but Emmie hadn’t been with her and Georgina that time. She had a long, grey braid, and something about her posture told her that the woman had done a lot of sports back in the day. She was wearing an apron over her work clothes and she was smiling at her in a friendly manner when their eyes met.

Jo greeted Calypso first.

“Hello, it’s nice to see you again.” Then she pointed at the woman next to her. “This is my wife, Emmie. You haven’t met her yet, right?"

“Correct.”

“Well, hello dear,” Emmie spoke, shaking Calypso’s hand. “You must be the Calypso I keep hearing so much about. I’m not sure which of these kids has been more excited about your visit; Georgina has been asking Leo every time he visits when he’ll bring you with her. I guess that day is finally here!”

“Oh, that’s sweet,” Calypso mumbled, a bit overwhelmed by the excitement with which Leo’s Waystation family welcomed her. The more she heard, the more it felt like they really thought that Leo was bringing home someone who was /not/ just a flatmate. Despite that, she knew these people were just trying to be polite, so she couldn’t get angry at them. Especially since in different circumstances they may not have been wrong. “Thank you for having me. I’ve been looking forward to seeing this place! And of course I haven’t forgotten that I promised to teach Georgina some baking so I had to come.”

“I hope it’s not too much trouble,” Emmie said, a lot like Jo during the visit to Leo and Calypso’s flat. “Leo has of course told us that you’re a rather busy person these days so we wish you get some resting time too.”

“No, it’s not a problem at all,” Calypso shook her head, smiling at Georgina who was looking at her expectantly. “I like having something to do with my hands; I’m not used to just sitting around.”

“That’s great,” Emmie said approvingly. “I don’t think you will have a boring moment in this household. Now, let us show you to our guest room upstairs and then we can all go dine together.”

“Sounds good,” Calypso agreed and started following the women further into the house.

…

After setting her things into a guest room with a big bed, an old mahogany desk, some flowers by the window and a fascinating looking bookshelf, Calypso was led into the dining room where the dinner was waiting.

“Smells so good,” she told the others before she knew what kind of meal Leo’s mothers had prepared. “Reminds me of something I’ve tasted at home…”

“A little bird told us that you like Greek food,” Emmie said mysteriously.

When Leo had told his mothers Calypso and he would be visiting Waystation, they had asked him what kind of food she liked. Calypso had once mentioned that she missed eating some of the traditional Greek foods she had gotten as a child, so that’s what Leo had suggested. The women of Waystation had ended up making moussaka and along with it (much to Leo’s dismay) some salad with lots of olives in it.

“You didn’t...!” Calypso exclaimed when she saw what was inside the frying pan, clapping her hands together. “I loved it when mum made this when I was a kid! I probably last ate it when I was 10…” Something warm rose to her chest when it sunk into her that someone had seen that much effort to make her feel welcomed. “Thank you so much.”

“You’re very welcome, dear,” Jo said. “We know you’re a very important person to Leo – even though he may be a bit bad at expressing his real thoughts sometimes – so we wanted to make sure that you know that you’re always welcome to visit us.”

“I’m sure I would have been convinced about that even with less effort,” Calypso reassured Leo’s mothers, pretending to ignore the hidden meaning behind the older woman’s words. “But I appreciate it a lot.”

“Guys, I don’t know about you but I’m starving, so can we please skip the pleasantries and just start eating?” Leo asked impatiently, drumming a glass on the dining table with a spoon.

“Some things never change,” Georgina joined the conversation, elbowing her adoptive brother. “Leo’s always so impatient when it comes to food.”

“But Leonidas,” Calypso started when she took a closer look at the salad that was being served, giving him a lopsided grin. Clearly Georgina’s mischievousness was already getting to her. “Are you really that excited about olives? The last time I checked, you weren’t particularly enthusiastic about them.”

Leo seemed a bit less excited about the food when he realized that she was right, but before he had time to comment, Emmie spoke first.

“What? You made Leo eat olives? That’s a story I’d like to hear,” she urged Calypso, and the latter mentioned did not have to be convinced twice to tell the story.

“Alright. One Saturday evening we decided to cook some Greek and Mexican style food just for fun. I of course had some olives in the salad I made and asked Leo to taste it, but he didn’t like it so somehow we ended up making a deal that if I eat one of his chilis, he eats his olives.”

“Yep, and you lost,” Leo pointed out immediately.

“I’ve said this before and I will say it again that it was an unfair bet! Those chilis were /hot/. Olives can actually be consumed without burning your mouth.” Calypso retorted.

“Wait, are you talking about the chilis that Leo has gotten from here?” Emmie asked. “Ouch, Leo, those things really are spicy. I am on Calypso’s side here; it /was/ an unfair bet.”

“Not you too!” Leo protested, crossing his arms. “Nothing happened; she only ate a little and I gave her some bread and milk afterwards. And eventually we both laughed at the whole thing.”

“Wow, brother, that was almost gentlemanly of you,” Georgina stated, clearly proud of the fancy word she had just used. “Calie, he would probably have just let me suffer if I had eaten that chili pepper.”

“Yep, because you’re just a little twerpette,” Leo replied while ruffling Georgina’s hair affectionately.

“Ahem,” Jo finally interrupted the banter. “I love hearing these stories but we don’t want Calypso’s welcome dinner to get cold, do we? So let’s dig in.”

The others didn’t have to be told twice. As everyone was eating the moussaka (Calypso noticed Leo had even taken an olive on his plate to show the others he could) and chatting about various things, Calypso really did start feeling welcomed and she even caught herself thinking that Jo was probably right; she wouldn’t be having a boring moment here.

[starlightgakuen]

Fall 2017 closing ranking and ratings

Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou - Hands down the anime of the season, bar none. A mix of moe goodness with a tinge of melancholy with so much of the series themed around the fact that the world as ended, a definite much watch. 9/10

3 Gatsu no Lion 2 - Admitted not as good as the first season, it is still one of the better ones this season. With great characters and moments of joy and tears all in the same episode, you have no idea what to expect in each episode. It does have a certain problem of focusing a little too much time on unimportant side characters (like fricking pigeon racer dude), and the plot moves a little too slowly at times, but still a great watch all the same. 8/10

Love Live Sunshine 2 - Not as good as season 1 or the 2nd season of the original, LLS2 still does not disappoint, ensuring character developments all around for the 9 girls. I still like the dynamics of Aquors more than Muse, in that the 9 of them really feel like close friends, more than Muse’s 8 different pairings + 1 girl, but the overall plot fails to capture me as much as the original’s. 7.5/10

Blend S - A generic moeblob, yes, but I love the characters. There isn’t a single female character that is dislikeable, and Kaho is my single favourite female character this season, so all it a little biased if you must. That said, this is pretty much Working! if Working had less dislikeable characters. 7/10

Kino no Tabi (2017) - I wanted this to be great, but alas, it was just fairly average. Something about this reboot failed to capture my attention and imagination as much as I would have liked, and I can’t quite put my finger on it. 7/10

Mahou Tsukai no Yome - A western Natsume Yuujinchou in every sense of the word, from its good points to its bad. While I greatly enjoy the world building, the slow, sometimes snail pacing of the plot kinda makes me frustrated, but it’s still a fantastic watch all the same. I just hope it won’t end up like how I feel about Natsume Yuujinchou (which essentially dragged on so many seasons that I kinda lost my faith it in). 7/10

Himoutu Umaru Chan 2 - Getting this out of the way, I disliked half the cast of the original series. They were annoying, and stuck to their tropes a little too stiffly. That said, this season kinda took me by surprise in that a slapstick anime such as this actually had decent character development. Characters I didn’t use to like (including Slyphin and Ebina) started growing on me, and I basically like the main 4 dynamics. Even my favourite Kyrie stopped being just the awkward emo girl and started helping her friends. This is character development. 6.5/10

Yuuki Yuuna prequel/sequel - The slice of life/dark mahou shoujo to follow IMO, something that many tried to emulate after Madoka, but none really does it as well as YuYuYu. While the prequels are essentially repeats of the movies, which are already good to begin with, the sequels are fillery content that fail to match up to the high standards of its prequels. 6.5/10

Aikatsu Stars - A strong case of falling out of love, the Venus Ark arc (pun not exactly intended) was every much as disappointing as the DreAca arc in the original, except that, unlike in the original, AS does not have the benefit of a strong cast to help them get past this bump. Looking forward to the end of the Yume series and on to the next girl, hoping that Aikatsu rises back to its former glory. 6/10

Cinderella Girls Gekijou - Short clips about cute Cinderella Girls doing cute things. 6/10

Konohana Kitan - After some of the most cookie cutterish starts for an anime I have seen, this series actually started growing into its own groove in creating a certain charming world building and backstory. It’s still not the greatest anime in the world, but far from the worst. 6/10

Idolmaster SideM - Introduction of all the units in the series, blue emo kuudere idol goes rouge and fights with the team, regrets his decision, comes back stronger. At least in the 2nd season, the red genki idol won’t enter depression, RIGHT? Seriously, how many times do we need to recycle this plot, scamco? 5.5/10

Top 5 girls of the season:

Hinata Kaho (Blend S)

Tsushima Yoshiko (Love Live Sunshine)

Motoba Kyrie (Himouto Umaru Chan)

Kawamoto Hinata (3 Gatsu no Lion)

Togo Mimori/Washio Sumi (Yuuki Yuuna)