#so s1 wasn't done by the time they released this

[darlenicy]

Finally found the source in which Darcy was described as "Jewel of Darkness"

Translation ⬇️

ICY

HEART OF ICE

Source of energy: ice

Deadly powers: ice-rain and ice spears

Icy is the leader of the Trix. Thanks to her charisma,she gets everyone to follow her rules.

STORMY

PRINCESS OF WIND

Source of energy: wind

Deadly powers: approaching storms and thunderstorms

Stormy is passionate and testy. She thinks that she's more powerful than Icy in secret.

DARCY

JEWEL OF DARKNESS (sounds so good omg)

Source of energy: darkness

Deadly powers: hypnotic waves and rays

Darcy appears silent and calm. She's devious and scary (scary lmao). She studies her enemies carefully to find out their weak points, then she attacks!

Yes, not me buying the full card set to get this little information on the trix 😂

[letomills]

So about my current job that I mentioned in that post.

Yep, they fired me. Or my trial period that ends on Friday 24 won't be renewed, whatever. First thing she said after that was that team work didn't seem to be my thing. I guess it speaks to how fucking autistic I am that I didn't even know what she meant. Obviously I'm not a people person but I didn't think I was doing badly on that front. I just thought my problem was that I wasn't working fast enough - so no, I wasn't stopping to chat with the team in an effort to bond with them or whatever it is that people do (what do I fucking know, I simply do not have those brain cells, what can I say). She wouldn't elaborate on what I was doing wrong when it comes to team work, but she did confirm I wasn't fast enough for what was gonna hit them in September anyway.

I don't know what I'm gonna do, right now what little faith I had in my ability to work around people is gone, which basically means that I don't believe I'm employable. Tomorrow is a holiday, I can think about it then.

I've started work on CC for CelestialSpider's Lady Apple body shape. The set of showerproof skins repo'd to S1-S4 + alien is done. Before releasing them I'll finish the clothing pack so I can release them at the same time 🍎🍎🍎 [edit: clothing pack is here, showerproof skins are there.]

[buttercupyellow]

BBC Merlin character ages & birthdays

Arthur

the only one even close to having a canon age is Arthur

at a minimum he's 20 - Uther in 1x01 says that Kilgharrah (the great dragon) was captured 20 years ago, which likely means that the Purge ended, or began to end 20 years ago. The Purge began shortly after Arthur's birth as Nimueh was thrown from the court and Uther began executing every magic user in Camelot.

We don't really have a max age, but I'd say 25 as that's how old Bradley James was at the time of S1 release.

So Arthur's age at the beginning of S1 is 20 - 25

Arthur also "comes of age" in S1 (which is slightly strange as medieval coming of age for boys would be more like 17 i think, plus he also goes on the heir's quest in S3 which is roughly 1 - 3 years later - which doesn't seem to correlate to any age in particular???). The only age of "coming of age" significance between 20 and 25 is 21, so while ridiculous for medieval period, it's highly likely that Arthur turns 21 in the first season.

Arthur's birthday is a little harder. The interpretation I lean towards is Areoway on Ao3's theory that his birthday is prior to Beltane (May 1st) sometime in late April, as in 4x03 we have Arthur's Birthday -> Uther's Death -> Arthur's coronation. and later in 5x03 we have Arthur's coronation -> visiting the Stones of Nemeton to contact Uther's spirit, which was said to be traditionally done on Beltane.

Since Arthur goes to the trouble of travelling to the Stones (at least 2 days ride with a small company aka Merlin) it stands to reason that he also obeyed the Beltane rule and it was just plot convenience that he learned this in time to travel there.

I counted the days and it seems to be Arthur's Birthday -> 2 days -> Arthur's coronation in 4x03. Arthur's coronation anniversary -> 1 day -> arriving at Nemeton on Beltane (May 1st) in 5x03.

Which would put Arthur's birthday on April 26th?

Merlin

Merlin has some canonical information, but less than Arthur.

Uther tricked the Dragonlords into bringing Kilgharrah (the great dragon) to Camelot where he then massacred the Dragonlords, save for Balinor who escaped. Kilgharrah is known to have been captured 20 years ago, so this happened 20 years from 1x01. Balinor then fled to Ealdor in Cenred's Kingdom which is roughly 2 - 3 days away from Camelot City.

This means that Merlin is at a maximum 20 years old in 1x01, more likely 19 to account for 9 months of pregnancy.

However, I think the more likely choice is that Balinor and Hunith spent at least a year together, to build a relationship strong enough that Hunith would never marry, and Balinor would still have affection for her (enough to take a strong interest in Hunith's love lofe aka whether she got married) at least 20 - 21 years later.

This would push Merlin back to 19 - 18 years old in 1x01.

However, since the only "coming of age" age that's viable in this fictional world is 21, and Merlin changes from "young boy" to "young man" in S4, and there's a 1 year gap between S3 & S4 + a 1 year gap between S2 & S3 + 1 year per season to complete 3 seasons worth of episodes... meaning roughly 5 years has passed once we reach S4 =

Merlin should be roughly 16 in 1x01.

So he's anywhere between 16 - 20 years old.

Colin Morgan was 22 at the time of filming, so his age cannot match regardless of how canon is twisted (he;s also got a bit of a baby face).

As for Merlin's birthday, it's never seen on screen, or mentioned as having happened aside from being born & becoming a "man" between S3 & S4. So it's kind of free space.

I once again very much like Areoway's theory that he was born to be the opposite of Arthur, so his birthday is on the opposite month to April, which is October.

For a more solid date, my sister chose October 4th as that was opposite the 26th (Arthur's birthday) on her calendar.

Morgana

Morgana is a little tricky to place.

Uther says she wasn't around 20 years ago, perhaps implying that she wasn't born 20 years ago. However that could imply a lot of things, such as she wasn't in Camelot City at the time, or she was too young to notice anything amiss (basically 0 - 6 yro).

In my opinion, it makes little sense for Morgana to be younger than Arthur, as she is also Uther's child.

Some may argue that Uther wouldn't cheat on Ygraine, but he was known to have gone behind her back, without her knowledge or consent, to conceive Arthur with magic (how else would he keep it secret between only himself, Nimueh and Gaius). So it's not strange for him to lie to Ygraine.

In the legends also, he concieves Arthur through deceit, disguising himself with magic to appear as Ygraine's husband, having sex with her and then later marrying her without her knowing that Arthur was ever biologically his.

Uther and Ygraine also seems to be a retelling of the Arthur/Guinevere infertility plot of the legends, as it's Guinevere, not Ygraine, that's unable to concieve. To prove that it was Guinevere's failing, and not Arthur's, Arthur then fathered multiple illegitimate children.

It seems more likely to me that Uther was unable to concieve with Ygraine (and as someone without strong ties to Camelot, as he states he wasn't from here in 1x01, he needs an heir to continue his legacy) so he sought out Vivienne to test if he was the infertile one. Vivienne was alone, likely as per Uther's doing via sending Gorlois into battle, of high birth, and was already friendly with the royal household, so she was a suitable match to have a make a back up heir with.

Morgana's birth proves that Uther wasn't infertile, and that Ygraine was. Causing Uther to turn to magic to force Ygraine to concieve.

So Morgana is older than Arthur by at least 9 months, making her roughly 20 - 21 in 1x01.

Katie McGrath's age when S1 released was 25, so I'd say Morgana's maximum 25.

So she's 20 - 25, much like Arthur.

(if she's at the older end, 25, and Merlin's at the younger end, 16 I'd argue that's ok bc he was crushing on a beautiful older woman and it was never reciprocated).

As for her birthday, we know that she has one birthday on screen in 3x05. There's no real events to connect this too, so it came down to a guess. On my timeline, which counts each day that passes in the each episode, her birthday landed in June. Specifically, June 10th.

Gwen

Gwen has literally nothing going for her.

She is a love interest of Merlin's in S1 so she should be similar in age to him. and she's also Arthur's love interest in S2+ so she should also be similar in age to him.

So at the extremes she's between 16 - 25 years old.

My preference is that she's 18 to fit between Merlin being 16 (so that once 5 years pass he's 21 & a "man" & Balinor had time to build a relationship with Hunith) and Arthur being 20 (about to turn 21) in 1x01.

Her birthday is even more up in the air.

Seeing as how Arhur's birthday fell in Spring, April. Merlin's fell in Autumn, October. and Morgana's fell in Summer, June. I think it's reasonable to give her a Winter birthday, December, January or February.

I personally chose January 17th to place her close to the middle of Winter, but it's a bit random tbh.

-

So that would put their ages in 1x01 as: Merlin, 16. Gwen, 18. Arthur, 20. Morgana, 22.

Making their ages in 5x13 roughly: Merlin, 27. Gwen, 28. Arthur, 31. Morgana 33.

[mellarkably]

ur so right abt the way that scene between ben and devi was shot because every single moment when we see devi making out with someone (or about to have s*x) is so driven by her “horny side” only, for paxton and des she just wanted to have s*x and get over with it and with ethan she just was on her horny and active rush which is good but the ben/devi scene, yes it was framed with a sense of urgency between them but also so much care and love. the lighting, the touches, the hands, smiling at each other and just everything about it was beautiful.

and call me crazy but i am happy the show didn’t do the typical “devi only has s*x with ben” narrative because i was about sure they wouldn’t have her have s*x with ethan and they did and was surprised because most shows don’t do that. ben and devi lost their virginity together and that’s already special but they didn’t have devi pondering around waiting for ben. she got to experience a little bit of fun and discover her preferences and be comfortable with it (and maybe ben did so too with margot) and then they get to make love to each other and know what it means and the differences in that and now they can start a relationship when there’s some level of experience and they can just explore what they both want.

some shows tend to do the opposite for “romanticism” so i am glad they did not.

OH ANON HOW I LOVE YOU FOR THIS BECAUSE CAN. WE. TALK ABOUT IT!

i already predicted a while ago that the show would have ben and devi make love again but this time it would be much more natural and easy for them:

i agree with you. i think it was important to show benvi's first time as being awkward, and having it pale in comparison to her next time with ethan, who is far more experienced. it allowed devi to have fun (and im assuming its almost certain ben also had sex with margot) while embodying the whole, fun time NOT a long time thing. im sure they both learned a lot about their preferences like you said during those respective relationships.

but going back to what i loved most about 410's sex redo - how it was the ONLY sex scene in the show that wasn't shot like a high school steamy fling type of deal.

of course, there's that big damn kiss that's been building up for four years with more steam needed to be released than pati's rice cooker, BUT, the lighting. the song, the actors' natural chemistry. the tone itself already feels so much more serious than any other romantic scene in the show.

i honestly thought it would end here, so imagine my surprise when they continued - and i think this second part is what sets it apart from all the other intimate scenes in the show.

henna shot. i fucking died. ive talked enough about this on twitter and im sure other people are talking about this but it is just so symbolic for devi as an individual, her relationship with her culture and how she doesn't have to separate that from her romantic endeavours because she is desirable as she is! s1 devi would faint! she absolutely would!

and now this shot, which is what the tags you're referring to were about, has me still going cuckoo bananas like. pulling away to smile at each other. they're literally in fucking love. this is love. this is not the show trying to gain an audience using steamy scenes, or devi being horny - not that there is anything wrong with that either - but she is so visibly content and comfortable and happy and you can see it in her smile. both of their smiles in fact.

that small moment is what makes this scene for me.

anyway sorry for the huge rant. if you couldn't tell already i really love this scene! it was very well done.

[kaseyskat]

hi it's nyx here once again to talk about lark vs henry and what that meant for sparrow because i swear every episode that shows even a Little bit of sparrow's actual personality is controversial.

"nyx what do you mean by this" well it's a very blatant fact that sparrow does not get much nuance in the fandom: this is especially prevalent when examining hero's conversation with normal where she explicitly calls out lark and rebecca alongside sparrow and yet sparrow is solely blamed. because of this, every time we do see sparrow be his genuine self in the show - from talking to scary and shielding her from violence to taking charge of grant and lark and wanting to help the teens to the most recent episode's case of him not believing in animal captivity - i've noticed people quickly jumping on him for being hypocritical but nobody asking why he would be hypocritical, or why he's made choices that clearly do not reflect his actual beliefs.

so let's talk about that, shall we?

i know i've talked about this before but it bears repeating: sparrow is complacent. he has consistently made decisions that go against his own beliefs, bottling up his actual thoughts on the matter in order to "keep the peace". we know this, this is a canon fact, he said as much about lark and rebecca's affair!

why does he do this? well to me, what makes the most logical sense is that this stems all the way to lark and henry's conflict. if the rogue card is only predicting anger and not enforcing it, that means there is more to lark's anger than just what happened with walter. part of that is his fear of being unable to protect the people he cares about, being helpless in situations where he could've done something, yes, but i do believe there's another root cause to his anger, one that would fuel him for decades: sparrow.

...well, more specifically, how henry changed sparrow.

we know that lark wasn't the happiest about the lovewolf split. after the lord of chaos arc, sparrow starts very slowly developing a separate personality, enough so that he and lark aren't necessarily the same kid, one unit, the same person twice. sparrow tried to teach lark his new philosophy, it was ultimately rejected. lark doesn't understand it! but he loves sparrow regardless. that disappointment, that resentment of how sparrow had changed... it goes back to henry, to henry giving sparrow that speech and reinforcing those beliefs!

we also know that originally, sparrow didn't want to pick a side. he wanted them both to get along! to reconcile! and we know that lark didn't tell him about what he saw on the throne, which has me believing that there were, perhaps, other things that lark didn't tell sparrow in crucial moments: such as his decision to release the doodler, since we really don't know if sparrow knew. sparrow would've been happy to reconcile the two, and it makes sense if this was something he didn't know but something that shakes his perspective: aka, what happens if lark doesn't confide in him. to get lark back on his side, he has to be on lark's side irrevocably, which means abandoning his peacekeeping and mediation to choose lark wholeheartedly.

so by the time the ep23 flashback happens... sparrow has lost that bit of personality he had started to form in s1. he's lark's other half again, helping him with plans, sharing his ideas. he has... you could say, lost his confidence in being a lovewolf, because despite his best efforts, it only brought more strife to his family and he doesn't want to lose lark. we know this! he doesn't want to lose lark!

and then, they find out the prophecy, that one of the twins will have a kid who will save the world. think about everything we know about lark, how stubbornly persistent he was on fixing things Himself since he puts the weight of the world on his shoulders alone. lark doesn't blame sparrow or henry, he only blames himself. would he jump at having a family to fix his mistakes? no.

but sparrow would.

so sparrow takes that burden from him. sparrow has hero when he is twenty, and lark gets to be the cool uncle who helps around the house and hero blames both twins equally so we know they did this together. sparrow doesn't want to lose lark again, he doesn't want to be himself, he adapts to rebecca's views because it's easier than admitting that maybe he shares some of the same- definitely makes him marrying a vegan centrist make sense, right? he can use rebecca as a scapegoat and it Works. his own personality gets shafted in favor of being the same man twice with lark, he bottles everything up, he disapproves but never says as much.

and he fucked up with hero. clearly, he knows that. hero has a regular life now at a private school with a job and an internship and she's a massive dweeb and i don't think any one of you could look me in the eye and say that lark approved that. it was sparrow's decision! and we know what lark thinks about sparrow's parenting: i need every one of yall who truly believes that lark would be a better father to normal to go and relisten to normal's introduction scene in ep1 and then to the end of ep24 again where lark explicitly tells normal that being the mascot is a waste of his time when he could be learning "actually useful" skills (like hunting and survival- and yall still think sparrow was the one having hero kill deer?) and that he's too soft-hearted and naive and that is sparrow's fault for being too nice. normal would not be the same kid if lark was raising him and that is NOT a good thing lmao

all of this to say. i am so tired of people understanding lark's nuance and understanding grant's nuance and understanding the s1 dads and their nuance and how their trauma fucked up their relationships with their kids and yet sparrow is the one yall bash every other week repeatedly without ever wondering like. huh. maybe it is strange that his actions now don't hold up against his actions in the past. maybe there's something else going on that is consistent with literally every other aspect of his character. it is so tiring to go into his tag and see the same things over and over and over again repeated on loop every time we see sparrow's actual personality slip out beyond him perpetuating the "same man twice" persona. he's nuanced! they're all nuanced! and that's a good thing!

sparrow's biggest issues are his complacency, the way he upholds decisions that might not really be the best decisions because it's easier. his love for lark and his desire to fix things clouds his judgement and yeah, that means he goes against his own morals frequently; or at least, he did. so far in the season though, with how he's treated normal being in the line of fire and getting into his mess, he's definitely already realized this and is putting in the work to ensure that normal doesn't go through what hero did- something that lark is not doing. sparrow's also been the best towards the other teens consistently, the most willing to listen and change his perspective (as demonstrated again in ep24- really i just think people need to relisten to ep24!) and he's definitely not the best dad but that can be said not just about all the kiddads but also about literally every dad in this podcast, because that's what this podcast is about. thank you for reading and i hope i don't have to make this post again in a few weeks <3

[podfeels]

Podfeels Adapt8ion Notes: Episode 2

hello! dare again, and i know that last time i said we'd be releasing these gradually in "the coming days", but, well, life happens. specifically, life happened to where i was unable to write these notes at all. as such, i passed the duty on to another dedicated member of the team. im gonna let them take over from here, and god Damn she was so much more thorough than i wouldve been, but whenever theres a place where my input is needed, ill pipe in with purple text like this! now to get to the real shit:

hey it's luna stagelights here for some adaptational notes for podfeels. i'm only really here to talk about script differences, i can't exactly speak for art and sound design because i wasn't involved in that part of the process. ill pitch in with sound design when necessary, but art was mostly covered in the general S1 post we had the first time.

anyway letsa go

so episode 2 is interesting from an adaptational standpoint because it was the first episode we had to do basically entirely on our own. for episode 1 we had sarah’s changes already, and the decisions she made from there served as as a sort of guideline for what we’re doing from now on, although as time went on we found our own sort of groove for this sort of thing, and we’re not super tied down to the way sarah did it as much i think.

on the topic of the actual changes though: chapter 1 of godfeels 2 part 1 begins with a flashback to pages 5283-5288 of homestuck, with John and Jade watching Con Air, with John declaring that “this movie fucking sucks!”. the episode begins a bit before that, with some noise from the movie itself, specifically audio synced to the footage on screen in the original comic. this change isn't really that major in the long run though, mostly just adding detail to help sell the scene better.

left is the original, right is what got put in the episode. there are a few inconsistencies between what i show here and the scriptlog shown in the episode , but i re-edited the doc to match what you hear in the actual episode.

lot of narration cut and replaced with sound. this is going to be EXTREMELY commonplace as we go forward. 

ok so this line wasn’t actually changed but I do distinctly remember there being some discussion about this, as john says “w8ke up” like “waitk up” here, which i thought felt awkward, however we came to the agreement that john is the kind of dork ass nerd who would say typing quirks like this aloud. but this does actually bring up an issue we’ll see a lot later on, and that is “how the fuck do you vocalize typing quirks”, especially with the inordinate number of gags that rely on presence of a typing quirk. the answer we’ve come to seems to be “on a case by case basis”, but usually characters don’t talk as if their typing quirks are a factor unless theres a good reason.

more lines changed from “texted” to “called” to reflect the change done from texts to calls as it’s an audio format, in line with sarah’s adaptations in episode 1.

“delete that message” was replaced with “forget i said that”, because it’s a call and that wouldn’t make sense.

another minor adaptational hurdle was dealing with emoticons in text. it’s another case by case thing, sometimes it can be just a little sound, sometimes if theres an emoticon at the end of a line we can just remove it and factor it into the delivery of the line, but with lines like this we just simply added terezi doing a little laugh to convey a similar emotion to the emoticon.

the “whoops shit” was added along with a sound of rose snoring, evoking the effect of being too loud on the phone while a friend is asleep, to reflect that it’s a call

the >:x is represented by terezi making a little ‘zzzp’ sound.

this is another answer to the emoticon problem, sometimes you just add a line there instead. 

text does a fun thing with color here, but we couldn’t do anything about that. I think there was discussion about having the va’s for the character who’s colors are represented in the text saying the line, but there was no way to get that to sound even remotely good so we just left the line as is. sometimes when adapting shit things like this will just have to be cut.

oh now THIS is a fun bit.

dare mentioned the talkpogs in the adaptation notes for episode 1, i can’t exactly go too into that part myself because it’s not my wheelhouse, but there is an INCREDIBLY fun bit in the youtube version of this, where terezi does her trademark scribbles on her own talkpog, just for the bit. in the audio-only versions, this bit is missing, and the scribble sound effect as she scribbles on her talkpog are also absent, because they’re a part of a joke that’s simply not there. the bit is still *kind of* there in the audio only version because in both versions terezi clears her throat. its also the first place where the talkpog coloration rules are demonstrated! in our talkpogs, the inner circle is their name color, and the outer ring is their text color. so when she draws on the hey dweebkid this you face, her outer ring shifts to john's text color!

another minor change, just having it be a more natural end to the phone call by adding some words.

after the call we added a new bit of dialogue here, as a way to more naturally transition between chapters, as this episode covers 2 chapters of the original fic. as time goes on and chapters get longer though, covering multiple chapters in a single episode becomes less feasible, often leaning towards us having some later chapters being planned to be multiple episodes.

the rest of the episode is basically entirely made up of narration, and there were actually no adaptational changes made in the narration! 

but there is one last moment. the text originally ends with a section break and then a text of vriska saying “there you are”, and for this episode we simulated that paragraph break by leaving in a bit of silence as if we’re going to cut to credits, before having vriska show up. in the video version, we also had that texton top of 7 dots, reminiscent of vriska’s spidery left eye (or the pokemon registeel, if you’re like me and for some reason that was where your mind wandered to first)

_____

so thats it covered! thank you to stagelights for doing the breakdowns for these episodes! tomorrow we'll have episode 3's breakdown released as well! (and this time i mean it for certain, because i scheduled it at the same time as this post >:P)

[zaptap]

some of my thoughts on splatoon composers for the new songs before ordertune reveals it

ryo nagamatsu: so he left nintendo in like april of 2023 (shortly after splatune 3 released). my thoughts at the time were that he could have still composed stuff for future updates and side order. yoko and the gold bazookas was probably him since ink theory was him. and his name is in the side order credits. it'll be interesting to see who did the grand fest big run music though, because so far nagamatsu has done ALL of the salmon run music in s2 and s3, so either it was all done almost a year and a half in advance or they replaced him (or maybe they could've contracted him to do it as a freelance job, idk)

shiho fujii: her only new contribution to splatoon 3 up through fresh season 2023 has been wave goodbye. in the past, she'd done all the new squid sisters songs (but not the alternate arrangements, such as s2's final boss music). liquid sunshine and tomorrow's nostalgia today were both by yumi takahashi though. so--shiho fujii also did all of the abxy music in s1 and s2, but is that still the case in s3? or did she get replaced there too? we'll see

asuka hayazaki: she showed up to splatoon to do the sashimori songs in s2, and that was it for a while. but her name was in side order's credits, so she must have done something, and now sashimori is back, so those new songs might be hers too

yumi takahashi: just found out blushing tides has "You★Me Grand Mix" in the japanese title. You★Me is a fictional composer who, in the splatoon universe, worked on tomorrow's nostalgia today--so it's basically a splatoon universe name for yumi takahashi and that's confirmation she did that track (similar to how shiho fujii's is Shy-Ho-Shy). not surprising since shiho fujii hasn't done any new arrangements of her splatoon songs after the initial ones

dont have anything particular to say about toru minegishi, toshiyuki sudo, or sayako doi i guess. sudo did all the deep cut songs but idk if he'd've done the special splatfest arrangements

looks like the side order credits include some extra names that weren't in the base game--kairi hamada (whose only other credit on vgmdb was "music" for the mk8d dlc, so it seems like it wasn't just for sfx like some of the other names on there? without an ost release for that it's somewhat unclear) and masato ohashi (who did a lot of music on tears of the kingdom--i'm not going to go through that soundtrack until i beat it, so i don't know what exactly he did though)

[divinekangaroo]

i might be super late to the party but i was lurking in he tags and: i would LOVE some more explanation/in depth study of what was going on with Tommy and Finn, especially in the last season. I am still, not confused per es, but just wondering alot about some of the choices

This is so interesting, isn't it, particularly when you look at it comparing what 30yo Tommy says to 11yo Finn in S1 versus what 43yo Tommy says to 25yo Finn in S6.

I will warn this isn't coherent in ANY WAY as my infant is being grumpy, but here's a lump of things which struck me as worthy of indepth consideration:

-S1 Tommy telling Finn "don't be me" versus S6 where Tommy basically forces Finn to break his promise to his wife and drink, a mimicry of all the things Tommy has done (go abstinent, fall off the wagon, break promises to his wives).

-Finn being present at all the various violences the Shelby brothers commit, including as a child picking out his own machete (!!!) for one of the mob battles (think it was Epsom?); doing this well enough that he had a reputation -- Songbird Lady in S5 knew enough about the Shelbys to name her new Songbirds 'Tommy, Arthur and Finn'.

-Accidentally or deliberately, Tommy having set up Finn to develop Tommy's vices - cigarettes, drinking, drugs, whoring - pretty much all by the time Finn turned 16. But S5 Tommy nevertheless being very opposed to Finn developing Tommy's vice for violence and risk-tasking, albeit framed as 'we're too high in criminal hierarchy to do grunt work now' not 'you of all of us never have to risk yourself'

-Finn being involved in and integrated into all their illegal business but as a sort of free labour, gopher ('go for'/fetch like an apprentice, or a squire to a knight) - manning the door, bringing around the car, etc

-Finn seeming to hero-worship Tommy, but actually having a brotherly emotional relationship with Arthur. Tommy to emulate, Arthur to actually be a brother.

-Finn and Arthur being the only ones willing to entertain a conversation with their father on his return - Finn trusted Arthur not Tommy, Finn had no father figure, and Tommy did not fill this father figure space or Finn never would have gone with Arthur.

- Tommy brokering Arthur, John and Polly's marriages, and endorsing Ada's partnerships before the family accept them (and Tommy doing what he likes with his own marriages). Then, this way S6 Finn asks Tommy about marrying a girl 'who likes the life' and Tommy telling him no, 'find a girl who doesn't like the life'. And then Finn marries Mary with Tommy's endorsement to the family, and Mary tells Finn not to drink until after 6pm. I did wonder if Mary was the first girl, or was Mary a different girl that Tommy found/endorsed? Because Mary doesn't seem like a girl who likes the life if she's setting limitations on drinking time?

- Finn was effectively raised by Polly. The Shelby mother and father were gone by the time he was 1. Arthur and Tommy (and John) were gone to war by the time Finn was 5, and only returned at when he was 10. Finn had no father figure, ever.

---

So there's this odd push-pull where Finn is clearly one of the Bad Shelby Brothers, because at that time, having him integrated and present in their business was likely the best and easiest way to signify he was protected as well as keep an eye on him. They also used him very much like a squire to their knights, doing the labour and supportive chores and shitty jobs in order to learn the higher level jobs. But then those many conflicted occurances where it seems that Tommy wishes Finn wasn't so involved? Tommy wishes in many ways Finn was less invested in the business so Finn could be released from it? But maybe he doesn't, because Tommy in multiple circumstances challenges Finn with presentation of a vice and Finn always, always indulges -- even if that time, Tommy said don't rather than do?

---

Then we have this interesting symbolic thing happening in S6 between Duke and Finn and Tommy, all revolving around watches.

Duke steals Arthur's watch -- 'I can tell the time' - and in S5, Michael's supposed takeover piece has this strong sense of time -- time for the next generation to step up and time for old men like Tommy to step off the stage and Michael fully brings Finn into it (with Finn's consent/support, or unexpectedly??) and the camera focuses on Finn. So, linked to Michael's failed takeover via the motif of time, Duke can also tell it's time for the next generation, demonstrated by getting one over on ol' Arthur?

Then, Duke only believes Tommy is his father after Tommy explains about Duke's mum's watch that actually, Tommy stole in his youth; and Tommy's brought Duke into the fold so preciptiously because Tommy's (due to terminal diagnosis) running out of time to tidy up his family's loose ends and has to do this now. But also, Duke is symbolically returning time to Tommy that Tommy otherwise wouldn't have by bringing back Tommy's decades-old stolen watch?

Then Tommy has that explosion at Finn about drinking when he wants to and uses Finn's watch to make his point: that says Shelby and you're a Shelby so you tell the watch what time it is. Behind all that is this sense that I bet Tommy wishes he could control time, too, because he'd love to wind it back right now that his time is running out, but also, Finn is a young Shelby and could determine it's time for himself to step up if he simply stopped doing what Tommy kept telling him to do?

In a world where Tommy wasn't running out of time and/or Duke didn't appear, I imagine Finn may have been brought to one side for a quiet chat about Billy Grade and his role in Polly's death. I imagine Finn would have been absolutely destroyed that his sole true caretaker figure was dead because of his loose tongue. I imagine he would have killed Billy, or at least supported Billy being executed. But in this world, Tommy is dying and running out of time, and Tommy is delegating many of his painful tasks to others to do because he can't do everything right now, and why not test both Duke and Finn? Test this next generation as to their readiness to take his place? And who's left in the next generation but for Finn and Duke given Michael's proven himself unsuitable and Charlie is far too young? (I'm sure Uncle Charlie probably had some secret remit to re-home Duke if Duke failed in that scenario too)

---

And I also find it a super interesting parallel that Tommy forces Finn to demonstrate Shelby family loyalty by shooting his best friend, an act Tommy himself did with shooting Alfie for Alfie's betrayal that nearly killed Arthur. In this instance Arthur only almost died so Alfie only almost died - whereas Billy had to really fully die.

---

I mean, none of this gets to a satisfactory conclusion, it's just a bunch of conflicted threads/thoughts. I feel Tommy was vaguely treating Finn like a squire in a faint anticipation of one having Finn step up and take over the business from him, there's a near 20-year age gap between them, but Tommy was always conflicted by this because 1) he didn't really want his littlest brother to have to do the same shit he did, and 2) Finn was not leadership material, smart or cunning in any way, he was really just a consumer of the Shelby proceeds and always obeyed and never really acted to assert himself in the hierarchy. This faintest possibility of Finn taking over was then derailed heavily by Michael who was smart so Tommy dropped those vague unformed thoughts about Finn, but after Tommy knew Michael would be out of the picture in some way in S4 when suspicions start to rise? Finn starts to show up again in Tommy's arc in a very different way, and is put under various levels of pressure, right up to this S6 contrived scenario between Finn and Duke.

I get a sense that over time, Tommy challenged Finn repeatedly with situations of vice, corruption, conflict, difficulty, in the hope Finn would demonstrate enough strength to push back against Tommy instead of performing the vice. But Finn never did, and even when he fucked up, it was a silly mistake not worthy of any respect, not even in the way Michael is worthy of the respect of being killed; and so he is always framed in Tommy's mind as the weak one. There's a clannish behaviour (where clans are about constantly fluid status, not granted/earned and static rank) where you only get status if you behave in a way that already is of that status. Finn never, ever did this. Tommy then contrives a situation of extreme pressure as a last ditch effort to see if Finn will stop being that squire, weak one, or will he finally act according to the status he should be able to claim.

It's also this working class thing of dumping shit and abuse on your sons until your sons are strong enough to force you to stop. Finn's not a son, but that mentality...

---

I'm sorry this is so rambly, one of those fun things that it takes more time to be brief and succinct than just word-vomit on a screen XD Post S6, I have only two fic concepts in my to-write list, and one of them is 100% about Finn, trying to reconcile all of the above. I think Finn's actor did an amazing job of packing so much pain into that final scene it'd be a disappointment if any eventual movie doesn't give him a heavy arc.

[my-mt-heart]

First of all, thank you for being always so insightful and open to discussion with anyone! You're one of the few I genuinely rely on when I need to talk and share ideas/doubts. I was thinking about the whole marketing discourse. Let's be clear, amc sucks at that, it did with all the spin-offs (which I only recently found out are more than 20???) and surprisingly with the three main ones as well because everything they did wasn't certainly enough compared to other networks. Amc has always done the bare minimum and every info about the richonne/negan&maggie spinoffs that reached me was mostly because of their fans. Yes they got promos and interviews (I think Dead City/Lauren&JDM even did more interviews than Andrew & Danai) but from my point of view their fandoms did most of the job. I don't even follow any of them but I used to have my twitter timeline full of their posts every single day, at any time. I remember they used to bomb any inch of their spaces with videos, speculations, headcanons, fanarts, endless convos and all that, which I think contributed to attract a lot of curiosity out of their fandom and it worked!!! I kept seeing so many tweets full of replies and theories and hype that I had to go on a mute spree because I couldn't take it anymore. Now my point is... why don't we do the same thing?? We as a fandom can do a lot to create hype and the target people (those who have stopped watching the show after negan showed up or so) would follow us because enthusiasm is what attracts the old fans who gave up. That's the real deal! We are!! TWD main accs would ultimately follow the flow, but we really... REALLY need to start it. Dead City next seasons (that'll air in 2025) is already being promoted and the fans are already talking about it, richonne fans are still being loud and lit like if their show were still on.... why can't we do the same? We constantly complain about Amc not being there for us but the first ones that should are... US. We need to be present and make noise and above all enthusiast!

You don't need to convince me that rallying works. Melissa wouldn't have had the option to come back if it weren't for all the noise her fans made. No one she worked with was offering her the support she deserved, so we had to do it.

With TBOC's promotion, it's a catch 22. Caryl definitely sells. Their fans can definitely build hype, and AMC can definitely save their money, but it's still their responsibility to release content that'll kick the target audience into high gear so that they stay motivated to post, speculate, make posters, and all the things, which would then reel in the Carylers who left at one point or another, which would then get the attention of the GA, and so on and so forth.

What they're doing instead is splintering what should be a reliable viewership. Norman's buzz words, reposts of fanart, and photos of Melissa/Carol just existing are hyping some of us while others are scratching their heads at why Carol is reduced to a subtitle, why the teasers are shipbaiting Daryl with a nun, and why two. fucking. years later we're still hearing about showrunners getting fired and Melissa being left out of S1 because she wasn't important enough. I would love to be enthusiastic enough to do the heavy-lifting, but if that's what's being asked of me, why do I need to get punched in the face first? How do I go about promoting a Daryl and Carol show if I can't even tell if that's what I'm really getting? Why aren't they leaning into what all Carylers love about their relationship? Why aren't they capitalizing on Caryl's/McReedus' chemistry? And if all of that is what half of Carylers who have stayed this long are feeling as well, the chances of getting lost Carylers to come back are slim, the GA/new viewers won't see the buzz, and supplementing with viewers who hate Cary/Carol won't work either because they aren't going to be in it for the long haul.

So again, if AMC wants my help, then I want them to motivate me. Tribeca will be...interesting? Because on one hand, the McReedus panel could be very reassuring, but 201 spoilers that will inevitably leak could be polarizing again depending on what Zabel and Nicotero did with it, and if that happens, well, I wish AMC luck trying to promote the rest of the season.

Thanks for reaching out. Sorry this probably isn't the answer you were looking for.

[thelaurenshippen]

Hi! I literally just discovered Bridgewater today and oh god am I obsessed or what. Almost done with season 1 already and even stumbled upon your blog on the same day too! I have soo much to say and ask but lemme start with, you've done a fantastic job with everything and the entire cast is stellar. How was it working with Misha? He's phenomenal here (could never get enough of him)... Also, is there a chance to ever get any bts footage of the recording process? Such a bang up job all around

ahhhh I'm so glad you like it!!! I can't wait for you to hear season 2 :)

Misha is wonderful to work with!!! he was such a pleasure to direct and, then, when I was working on the scripts for season 2, he had some amazing feedback and great ideas that I incorporated into the scripts.

gosh, I wish we had bts footage! sadly, we didn't film any of the recording and, at least for S1 (I didn't direct S2, a wonderful director Brendan Hughes took over), there weren't actually that many bloopers or anything! we had very little time to record, so there wasn't a lot of bts stuff taking place tbh. I personally have some screenshots of the zooms and what-not, but because of the way releases work, I can't actually share any of those.

thank you so much for listening!

[valkyrieandstrangeridingaragorn]

Have you seen the new promo art for Loki season 2 yet? I think they just released it today, and I just happened to see it and....yuck. It's gross. It's like a brown and orange nightmare. It's still very, very eerily fascistic, only now with Loki as part of it., which is a whole other separate level of wrong.

Seeing it now, it gives me the feeling that Loki is going to spend the rest of the Loki series dressed in that 3-piece Brown Vomit. It's like "TVA agent" is his identity now. Not a god, not a superhuman, not any kind of formidable force, just some pitiful simp who works in a cubicle and wears the same ugly brown suit every day.

Sorry for the delay in answering!

I just checked because I hadn't seen it and.... yikes. So many yikes. I'm so glad I'm not watching it.

Other than the fact that it's quite telling Sylvie is nowhere to be seen, these two pics disgust me:

When S1 ended I was worried about two things: S2 confirming that everything pre-S1 wasn't the "real" Loki but a guy who said and did whatever HWR decided... or that they would make him head of the TVA. Seems like the latter is a possibility, especially considering the two pics above.

The TVA doesn't need to "change", it needs to be destroyed and burned to the ground.

You know what this reminds me of? TWS. I know but hear me out: Fury was telling Steve and the others that Shield could be salvaged, that maybe taking down the bad guys would be enough. And what did Steve say to that? Absolutely fucking NOT. It all goes down because the organization itself allowed Hydra to grow which meant Shield had been corrupted from the beginning.

And at the time the MCU seemed to agree with that, but not anymore. Now it seems they might think the TVA can be salvaged, that maybe if the guy running the thing does so "the right way" then their side of fascism is acceptable.

And then of course what bigger insult to Loki's character than turning a previously anti-status quo god of outcasts into a fascist who runs a corrupted organization that had spent an unknown period of time destroying entire universes and killing people they had deemed lesser than.

Loki wasn't a villain in the past but if they end up doing this to him? He will be one. One of the worst, in fact. And what pisses me off the most is that the more I see these things... the less I like him. They're completely ruining a character I used to love so much to the point of my blog having pretty much nothing of him these last few months. So well done, I guess.

[jellybeanium124]

actually you know what the more I think about that taika cameo in that shitty simpsons episode the more pissed I get. because taika and the simpsons could be so fucking good. like, early simpsons, and I mean early early, like s1-3, and taika waititi movies are like, in the same family. super early simpsons have this sort of slowness to it, this reality, this mundanity. the family struggles financially compared to the inexplicably financially comfortable simpsons of today. there's a lot more focus on childhood stories. "lisa's substitute" could be a taika waititi movie. so could "moaning lisa." "three men and a comic book," even.

and lisa? lisa would be the ideal taika protagonist. not the pop-culture-worshipping holier-than-thou-ing, zombified little-miss-know-it-all of the HD era, the real lisa simpson. this 8 year old girl who's sensitive and smart, but still a child. her father's a drunk and her mother, a kind, beautiful soul, and brilliant painter, had all her hopes and dreams crushed and remolded into homemaking and child-raising.

give! me! a! simpsons! episode! where! lisa has to come to terms with the real world at the tender age of 8!!!!

I mean like, I understand that they probably can't just let taika guest write an episode of the simpsons. or direct. directing an animated project is going to be super different from directing a life-action one anyways, who knows if he'd want to.

but the simpsons has done clever and thoughtful homages before, even recently with "barthood" (released 2015, fuck that's 9 years ago). they could've done an homage. they could've parodied his style. they could've made something thoughtful. homer and lisa stories have been some of the most touching stories on the show. or, they could've just focused on the kids and done a bart and lisa story.

but they didn't do any of that. they didn't write anything thoughtful, or creative, or even good. they wrote drivel, and racist drivel at that, with two jokes around the asian-caricature character kumiko that were genuinely painful to sit through (and this show has a history of being racist towards asian characters).

they wrote taika as a hyperactive egomaniac with no attention span and gave him 0 direction. his performance in this episode is undoubtably the worst acting performance I've ever seen from him. and like, you know, not all actors are cut out to voice act, but I don't think that's the problem here. I think the problem here is that taika read a shitty script, and it was season 35 of the simpsons so who gives a flying fuck, and he read the lines because this was a paycheck. why bother giving this project effort if nobody else was putting any effort into it either? why bother giving this project effort when they write you as the worst version of yourself, a persona that probably gives you a sense of comfort and control when you're choosing to do it, but probably doesn't feel that great when writers who don't know or care about you write it for you.

and, to be clear, I don't mind that he's the villain of the episode, or even that he wasn't written exactly as himself. like, of course it should be a persona of him on the simpsons. all celebs get a simpsons persona when they guest star as themselves. I think I just hate the fact that it's pushing a narrative that he's a shitty guy that's similar enough to his real life persona at a time where people are violently attacking him for no damn good reason. and the fact that it's poorly written with no love or care for anything. not taika, not the simpsons, not tv, not art, not anything.

[hostilemuppet]

Imagine, during quarentine, you got reaallllllllly into a Netflix show. You heard mixed things about it, people either loved it or hated it, but you decided to check it out and. What do you know! It scratches all the right itches!

Then you start to realise, hey, a loooot of the people in this community are in it because they like the actors and not the story or characters. And thats fine! To each their own! But then these people start to dominate all conversation about the characters. People will ignore what is explicitly stated in the story, because it paints a certain character in a bad light, and that character is played by their favourite actor! They are basically experiencing an entirely different story than you are, and it REALLY gets frustrating once YOUR favourite character is demonised to paint the characters played by their fave actors in a better light, despite THEIR faves not being any better than yours is!

You start to heavily dislike these characters that are always elevated to the tippy top despite not deserving it, and although you don't think they've done anything wrong you resent the actors too! But now that your rose tinted glasses are off. You realise the actors? ARE actually pretty shitty people! Nothing criminal (yet), but they're clearly assholes. You stick to your little corner of the community, and you'd LIKE to ignore them, if it wasn't forced down your throat all the time

Then more and more comes out. One of the lead roles was joking about beating women? The director (who also played the titular character) was grooming minors on Snapchat, and basically everyone on the show stands with him This? This is horrible. You feel sick. You can't support the show anymore. You leave, even though its hard and it took up a large amount of the last couple years of your life, and it hasn't even gotten an ending yet! Its been through development hell for months

You learn through your friends and mutuals who are still watching (albeit not happily. None of them support the cast and crew. But they've come this far, they just need the end) that they FINALLY released the ending, but it is increasingly obvious it was damage control. It shows the groomers character in a positive light, being forgiven by the people he abused while doing nothing to earn it. You feel even sicker

The director goes on to announce a sequel. You doubt it will happen, what with the development hell the first one went through, but you judge anyone who says they plan to join the sequel series. Anyone who willingly works with a groomer isn't worthy of support

After ages of thumb twiddling and empty promises, someone who worked on s1 (and was treated very poorly by fans. Well call him Q) announces hes directing his OWN show. Its important to him, and draws from his upbringing.

Two weeks after the first episode, the old director (well call him D) announces HE is ALSO starting a NEW SHOW! WITH THE SAME PLOT! BUT BETTER! AND HE THOUGHT OF IT FIRST! TOTALLY! BELIEVE HIM GUYS!

And people are pissed. Obviously. Q doesn't say anything himself, he's busy with his new show. But his friends, the cast of his show, make it very clear where they stand on the matter. They don't name D, but they do nothing but praise Q for his ideas, and for doing it first.

All hell eventually breaks loose. People from all corners of Hollywood show up. People you'd never think would be within 50 ft of ANY of this. Everyone takes a side. Most people are on Qs side, but are generally respectful and don't name D at all. The people on Ds side? RANCID. Qs tweets about his own show get derailed to be about Ds, and thats not just fans! From people Q once considered FRIENDS

But thats not to say the fans were angels. They were DEMONS. You say you're proud of what Qs accomplished, WITHOUT mentioning D? They tell you to kill yourself, or how they're going to kill you. There is SO MUCH racism and xenophobia directed at Q. D knows about it. He says something offhand. He doesn't care.

More and more people get involved. Q hasn't acknowledged anything, aside from liking a couple tweets that vaguely refer to whats going on. All of Ds remaining friends are choking on his dick "defending" him. They all immediately get torn to shreds, bc the only people staying with D at this point have just as many skeletons in their glass closets

Thats basically the summary of what im going through rn

[chirpsythismorning]

Oh my god, how are they gonna arrange the schedules? If Finn has Ghost Busters 2 then it means he's gonna be filming that for months, and what about the other schedules then 😅? I sometimes wonder if the show will just come out in 2025 bc of different schedules and bc the actors either have different projects or are busy with smth else

I know it's super disappointing, but it's very possible s5 won't premiere until 2025!

I answered an ask about this a while back, but basically if we're wanting s5 to be top notch quality, then settling for a s5 release in 2025 is what we're looking at.

Finn made the comment that he was looking forward to being able to drink with some of his cast-mates at the next premiere since he'll now be of age this time around, and he wont be 21 until December 2024... Unless they plan on premiering that literal month, the premiere probably wont be until the following year some time (early 2025).

Noah also made a comment about it when asked if it was coming out soon, and he basically just changed the subject saying that they're main priority is doing the story justice by ensuring it's all well done and satisfying.

Netflix has not come out to give a year for release yet and it's because they are probably pretty sure it will be 2025, but they know it's going to piss people off so they're going to wait a little bit before breaking the news.

Also just thinking about filming scheduling like you said, it takes a lot longer than it usually does for a number of reasons. I'm pretty sure s1 only needed like 6-7 months to film and only like 3-4 months for post-production. But the level of the story was so much less grand. We also had actors that had no experience and so therefore there wasn't much demand in trying to fit with their schedule bc they had no other work.

But now they're all A and B listers with crammed schedules.

We're talking 10+ months of filming and AT LEAST 8+ months of post-production. Best case scenario they would be ready for a premiere by DEC 2024 at the earliest! That gives them a lot of wiggle room assuming there could be delays and what not.

Remember they didn't finish filming for s4 until Sept. 2021, which means they needed about 8 or so months for post-production with the May 27th, 2022 premiere.

When we're talking about like major CGI dragon battles potentially, we're looking at the high end of the spectrum for time spent of VFX in post-production, so something close to what we saw for s4, more or less (about 8 months).

And then you have to think about all the planning that goes into the promotion and the advertising and contracts with products that is planned months/years in advance and that all rolling out to get people pumped.

Then there's also the fact that their choice of when to release it usually has to be sort of unique.

It has to premiere on a Friday, and it has to preferably be at at time that works best for Netflix in combination with all of their other releases.

There are no interesting Friday dates in late 2024... The most interesting date I can find is Friday March 21st, 2025, which would allow for the release to match up with the setting of the show (especially if we're circling back to birthdaygate and what happened in early s4 that was misconstrued bc of will's unreliable narrator arc).

Also... arguably we want a later release bc then it means we get to be here a little bit longer. Bc once this is over, it's over forever. The end!

ST5 in 2025 wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, assuming that promotion for that season would start as early as late 2024 and also be really consistent leading up to it, followed by us getting it and having to, only to move on forever.

It's kind of sad thinking about it. I don't want to.

Also it's possible we could get split into two volumes again bc this is the end and they really want to milk the excitement of it. Having it premiere once and be done is only ensuring like one month of hype, whereas 2 volumes split up between a 2-3 month period ensure like 4 months of hype, and that's a good way to end things with a bang.

Maybe we'll get lucky with a vol one in late 2024 and a vol 1 in early 2025? We'll have to wait and see as we get closer!

All I know is it wont be 2026, so we can just rest knowing that's not a possibility... right?

[valoisfulcanellideux]

hello! i am going insane over your post! i will also say though that i think i heard pixl say one time that s2 wasn't ending soon, or at least it wasn't ending like s1 was

Yep, he talked about the 'not ending like S1' thing in the stream I transcribed that section from, although I summarised that part as it wasn't relevant to the general post, which was about the origin of the Ancient Capital.

I think we have maybe another month or so left of S2, at best. Pix has said that when the 1.20 update releases he'll be going back to Survival Guide, and although we don't yet have a release date for that I suspect it's getting close. End of May to early June would be my guess. I've been keeping a close eye on Xisuma's channel for snapshot videos, and when he comes out with a pre-release video, we'll then have a rough idea of a date.

There's also a couple of little niggles from S1 that stick in my mind. I recall an old stream discussion, where Pix casually mentioned - quite without rancour (in fact, he was perfectly nice about it) - something along the lines of his having gone away IRL for a short while, and when he came back the whole Xornoth arc was done and dusted, and he'd not been able to participate (or perhaps been waited for so he could join in) in the end of it. And then, of course, the latest update at the time then dropped, so he left to go back to Survival Guide. Leaving us with the mystery of the Copper King's wanderings.

I still wonder how that must have felt. Even though he was perfectly, well Pix-like in his mentioning it, it must've stung a bit to not be included. And I wonder if, this time around, he'll have more of a hand in 'the end' (in whatever form it comes), either because they'll be winding up before 1.20 drops, or maybe... juuust maybe, because the others want him to play a bigger role this time around.

Of course, this is just me speculating (and wishful thinking, about that 'playing a bigger role') and it's probably completely wrong. I've no idea which stream that was from now, but it really stuck with me, and I've been thinking about it lately.

[skyeward-otp]

I miss Portwell they deserve so much better. If Rina really has been planned since homecoming then Portwell should of never been a thing because EJ doesn’t deserve to be heartbroken twice by a girl he really likes just for Ricky to somehow win her back in his life. I am so disappointed by the way the writers treated them there are other ways to make Rina happen that don’t involve EJ getting hurt in the end for putting his heart out there and to get nothing in return.

Goodness, I miss them too. they really did deserve better. they were just...so perfect. for being a teenage couple on tv on a disney show, you know? but like...they were so cute, and honestly, the heart eyes every time they looked at each other was magical.

honestly? i've learned over the years to not always trust every word that comes out of a showrunner's mouth, or that they'll treat my favorite characters/ship write. I've been burned too many times. a lot of them will bend truths and sort of stretch things done in the past to make it work for the narrative they're trying to create in the present. obviously not all of them are like that, but that tends to feel like the general vibe of a lot of showrunners. say whatever you need to say to make the majority happy and keep them watching your show, even if it alienates others.

also...how soon did they know that Olivia was gonna leave the show? i doubt they knew during the filming of s1 since she didn't really start taking off in her music until s1 was released (i'm pretty sure). and it definitely felt like the plan was to always make Rini endgame, no matter what else happened. and then they gave Portwell all of these beautiful scenes through s2, after setting up their rivals to friends to lovers arc so wonderfully, showing the both of them moving on from past relationships and focusing on themselves and finding that companionship and understanding in each other that they weren't finding anywhere else. something that wasn't intended as romance, in their eyes, but they were both happy to let it go there when the realizations hit them.

i really feel for EJ too, having two girlfriends that both ended up with Ricky in the end, proving to him, in his mind, that he's not good enough to have these two girls that he thought were amazing stick around or come back. that there's something he's lacking if he loses two girls to the same guy within the span of roughly a year, a guy that both girls already had some degree of history with.

if EJ is gonna be in s4, I need the writers to treat him better, like honestly. i will write his storyline if I have to. let the boy have a meltdown finally, or something, because of all the pressure he's always under (he should have had one in s3 and i will stand by that). let him find friends who will support him unconditionally and stand by him (like yeah, the wildcats are great, but they were all constantly bagging on ej during s3 [if i remember correctly, I've only seen it once] while he was trying to direct a show he didn't want to direct in the first place and it really didn't sit right with me). let him find a girlfriend WHO WILL STICK AROUND LONGER THAN A FEW MONTHS (as much as i love gina and portwell, my boy deserves some happiness too)

all in all. i love EJ the most. Gina is wonderful and amazing. Portwell will always have my heart. as much as i wish they hadn't broken them up, couldn't they have at least given them a better ending than that? like honestly. they all deserved better.