#s1e6 spoilers

[oldbookshop]

–Run. –I'm normally the one that says that!

↳ DOCTOR WHO: Rogue

[marchessa]

A loyal crew...

One Piece (2023) S1E6

+Bonus

Part one of this gif set

[jessescoldbrew]

Cassian murdering Arvel Skeen is one of the most nuanced and complex moments I’ve seen happen in Star Wars and I’m going to be thinking about it for a long time. Diego Luna is brilliant. The myriad of thoughts and emotions all being portrayed in Cassian’s face and his tone. The anger that brews after Arvel admits he doesn’t have a brother. Cassian’s silent realization that he’s going to kill him.

No words.

[forasecondtherewedwon]

The Artful Dodger, tumblrfied: "Bully in the Alley" 7/?

[lovetgr76]

Jackson Lamb and / or Catherine Standish caught smiling...

[beeclops]

They’re Mallah and the Brain!

Yes Mallah and the Brain!

One is a genius,

The other's insane!

[marlinspirkhall]

?? Chakotay Captained a ship with a hologram of his ex-girlfriend ex-Captain serving as his first officer? That's so deranged, I support it.

[darkfire359]

What could have been: sympathizing with Ed in season 2

I've talked before about how much I love Ed and all his complexity. I've written more fanfic about him and Izzy than any other characters, in my entire history of fandom. And unlike many people, I wasn't unprepared for the dark direction his arc took in season 2; I wanted him to commit MORE atrocities, and I happily made comparisons between him and another one of my favorite characters, Hannibal Lector.

But one of the key things I wanted after he committed atrocities was for him to feel bad about it. And I thought we'd see that! After all, S1 Ed was so tormented about killing his dad (who was abusive and violent towards) him that he never killed (directly) again! He was so broken up about trying to kill Stede in s1e6 that he ended up crying in a bathtub. Just like he cried in the window sill after committing all the kraken horrors in s1e10. It seemed like this was a guy scared of his own inner darkness, convinced he was a monster, who would go around saying things like "I'm not a good person" and "You were always going to realize who I am."

And so even when s2 went darker than anyone expected—when he cut off more of Izzy's toes, and shot him in the leg, and made crewmen fight to the death for experiencing love, and sailed the entire ship into a storm to murder-suicide his crew—I was still ready to accept all that moral ambiguity and give him a hug afterwards. Because of course, I figured that after Ed was brought out of that dark place and those suicidal urges, he would feel horrible remorse. How could he not?

I was looking forward to seeing him break down crying, convinced he was an irredeemable, unforgivable monster. (Which of course, would make it all the more touching when people inevitably did forgive him, and when he did redeem himself). Maybe Ed would even go too far with trying to atone, like in Mercy, one of my favorite post-s1 fics. Probably, I figured, Ed's quest for redemption would be one of the main themes in the second half of season 2.

So it was strange to watch e4, when Ed looked nothing but annoyed at everyone for chaining him up and banishing him, and then he went to hang out with his old friends like he'd done nothing wrong. When after the crew unanimously voted him out, Stede brought him back to the ship literally that same evening, and Ed saw no problem with that. Okay... maybe he's still processing?

Then e5 came, and that episode was about Ed's redemption. Yay! Except... Ed didn't seem to care? Other people made him wear the bag and the bell. He asked how long it'd take people to get over it, guessing "like a day." He gave an influencer-esque non-apology to the crew. He said "I took a man's leg" rather than calling Izzy by name. He literally doesn't remember the circumstances of pushing Lucius off the boat. He does ultimately give a real apology to Fang—for tormenting him years ago, rather than anything from his actual kraken era. I love e5 for the Izzy+Stede dynamic, but watching Ed be an unrepentant asshole here is painful. There is nothing about this that convinces me Ed wouldn't slide right back to being evil if Stede were to leave again.

And the thing is, it didn't have to be like this! We could have gotten Ed breaking down crying with guilt like in s1e6, and it would have made him much more sympathetic—not to mention the fact that Ed really is just an adorable cryer. Alternatively, we could have had some real deep diving about why Ed never apologizes (is he afraid of seeming weak?) or why he's so uncaring about others' pain (has he seen too many friends die over the years, to the point of going numb?)

By episode 6, it seems like most characters have moved on. Stede says something about Ed turning poison into positivity, which feels completely unearned. He pays for the party—but he'd previously tried to make the crew throw their cut of the loot into the ocean. He makes some attempts to best Ned and protect Stede, but Stede ends up saving the crew instead—from a pirate who only showed up in the first place because Ed was intentionally trying to piss him off. Ed is sad that Stede kills someone, and this would be a great time to again make Ed sympathetic! To have him talk about how he doesn't want that for Stede, because his own violence has weighed on him so deeply. But nope.

E6 does see Ed actually apologize to Izzy—and he's terrible at it. He's just like, "Sorry about your leg," makes no eye contact, and flees immediately afterwards. We do see some hints that this shitty apology isn't really indicative of Ed's true feelings, given how he has those flashbacks to the scenes of hurting Izzy seemingly haunting him; but it's very brief. It would be a great time to address Ed's horrific tendency towards conflict-aversion and avoiding awkward conversations in relationships—the same tendency that made s1 Ed never inform Izzy that the plan to kill Stede and the Revenge crew had changed. This would be another great opportunity to help us sympathize with Ed again—to have us see how it's not that he doesn't want to communicate these things, it's that these conversations are terribly stressful and anxiety-inducing for him. But nah, why would OFMD need to include those things for Ed?

E7 happens, and still nothing. If anything, there was a great opportunity for Ed to at least show himself to be a kind person to Stede—maybe nobly stepping in to save the day, even though he's annoyed that Stede's getting all this attention now. You know, like Stede did for him back in s1e5, when the situation was reversed. But nope, Ed runs off to be a fisherman, not having learned any of the earlier season's lessons about whims. He only stops being a fisherman because he's bad at it.

I was still hoping for something big in e8–some huge selfless, gesture that Ed would do to cover for all of his inability to do the little gestures. Ed is good at grand gestures! Swimming back to the ship after he left, then taking the Act of Grace in s1 was HUGE. Very selfless, very sweet! He could have done something like that for Izzy, Lucius, and the traumatized crew. Some kind of heroic gesture to help others more than himself. But nope. In some sense, Izzy dying is one of the greatest indications of Ed's wasted potential, because we narratively had a great opportunity for Ed to be able to save someone... but he didn't.

(Admittedly, Ed is not a complete dick here—he helps Izzy when he's limping, he says some genuinely apologetic stuff when Izzy's dying, and he finally gives Izzy his attention and care. But then after the funeral, he's still like "Well, that's that.")

It's so frustrating. It's not that I don't want to like Ed, or that I don't want to sympathize with him. I really, REALLY do! I don't even need Ed to successfully do anything to earn forgiveness! I'd take Ed trying and failing. I'd take him wanting to try, but being so convinced of his monstrousness that he never makes the attempt. But give me something. Anything other than the unexamined apathy that he has so much of the time.

The thing is, s2 lost the ability for Ed's mistreatment of people to be just another "of course he's violent, he's a pirate" quirk. They were pretty explicit about how abusive Ed was (Jim's comment in e1, the joke in e4 people assumed Ed had hit Stede) and how much he traumatized people (Lucius and the whole crew very clearly have PTSD in episodes 4 and 5). This is serious stuff, which he did to other main characters, which is going to make a lot of viewers look at him pretty harshly.

And that's manageable—Hannibal Lector managed to be most textbook-abusive asshole in the world, committing atrocities and generally being unrepentant left and right, and viewers STILL found him lovable and sympathetic. You can do that! But you need to:

a. make it clear that anyone with the relevant information calls them out for being awful, even multiple episodes later

b. make it clear that they care deeply and genuinely about their wronged loved ones

c. make them willing to actually make REAL sacrifices

I watched so many people start to dislike or outright hate Ed in season 2. It made me really sad. But I couldn't blame them for feeling that way. For all that Ed is supposedly one of the two protagonists in OFMD—a character whose mistakes should be the most understandable, whose mental state should be the most resonant—the show seemed to entirely drop the ball on writing him as such.

[kevin-prices-left-sock]

BRO WHAT EDWIN JUST GOT SNATCHED WHAT

[benedictconsultingbatch]

Percy Jackson episode 6. Wow. So many good things. I still want longer episodes. I want more of it all. But everything we got was soooo good. Grover talked to the animals on the truck and found out that the drivers were trafficking them. I would have loved to see Percy talk to the zebra but 🤷‍♀️ And then Grover's like I gave them a satyr's blessing they'll make it back to the wild safely and Percy says what about the people and Grover is like 🫤 didn't think about that

Annabeth called Percy seaweed brain for him to toss the coin for the Iris message!!

There were some parts of the episode that felt straight out of the book. Grover talking to the animals and then them just being released in the streets of Las Vegas. What Luke said during the iris message. All the different things at the lotus casino and grover forgetting why he was there. and time passing faster. In the book they maybe don't remember what the lotus flower is at first but it made sense for them to know before going in that they shouldn't eat anything. Of course they knew that.

Percy called Annabeth wise girl!

Finding pan was a vr game! My poor sweet grover he really felt like he was so close :(

Percy ! Driving ! oh ! my god! him trying to drive straight is like me trying to go straight in a video game. I kind of thought that Annabeth would drive cause she's the really smart one. Then again, percy has been in more cars. but in the end it didn't matter cause he still didn't know what he was doing.

the envelope from hermes that said to the dumb kids !!!! loved that

interesting change that the nereid gave percy 4 pearls. I wonder what the plan with that is.

[maaruin]

You can make the Agni Kai between Ozai and Zuko work in two ways:

Zuko disobey's Ozai's order to fight and Ozai punishes him for it - the scar is a result of that punishment.

Zuko obeys his father and fights which leads to Ozai (not holding back) absolutely trashing him because he is much more skilled - the scar is a result of that fight.

But trying to combine both makes it a much weaker scene. Pick one and commit.

[piedude]

CORTOSIS I FUCKING KNEW IT WE'RE SO BACK

[insteading]

The scene at the beginning of s2e8 of Our Flag Means Death is comic, but the resonance with s1e6 ...

So much of Ed's trajectory as a character is about grappling with his need to respond to his own father's violence. He walked away from piracy in part because safety in that life required controlled, strategic violence, which has had great personal costs to him forever.

"Control your Pop-Pop," as silly as it is, is a request for an intervention and protection he didn't get when he was younger. It's not that he can't protect himself-- we know he very well can-- but I think he wants a do-over of his interactions with his father that doesn't leave him feeling alone.

I think "Control your Pop-Pop" is also self-directed in a couple of ways: to his young self, who is still within him and traumatized, and to his current self, who is trained to respond to threat with a strategic violence that would be overkill here.

A little later, Ed makes his second Bond girl entrance of the series, emerging in the leathers he had just buried at sea. We've been hearing the noise in his head for a bit, since he sees the wreckage of ships in the harbor and immediately fears that Stede is dead. Among the static and the dim sounds of British sailors dying in his hands, there's a distorted version of Voi che sapete playing, which of course is what The Swede was singing the night Ed had a flashback to killing his father, behind Stede's narration:

Stede-- or Ed's fear for Stede, or horror at having promised to kill Stede-- calls up the kraken in s1e6, inadvertently triggering Ed. And it's Ed's fear for Stede in s2e8 that returns him to the scene where he buried his old life, to dig it up for the occasion.

Poor Ed has a lot going on in the season 2 finale, and I hope he's enjoying some restorative warm blankets, good food, and orgasms.

[hylianengineer]

I really like Red. Everyone loves a badass female character, especially when she's fighting to defend her home and spitting in the face of a thoroughly detestable despot.

"Hang me you bastard. I'll be dead. But there'll be more like me who'll seek the same revenge. You started this. I just fought back. But you'll pay for what you're going to do to me."

[forasecondtherewedwon]

Fanny is me, I am Fanny.

[skygemspeaks]

wait a second wait a second.

how did buggy not drown on the way to baratie?

chuu had him in a bag, but we saw that the three of them swam from arlong park to baratie

was the bag water proof? but if it was, then wouldn't he have run out of air instead? or maybe they swam fast enough that he didn't run out of air