#that bonus is one of my favorite tk moments lol

[howtosingit]

Tag Game: 911 Lone Star Fandom Edition

Tagged by @rmd-writes and this is probably the first tag game I've done in... *checks calendar* I can't count that high 🤷🏻‍♂️

When did you first start watching Lone Star? Who or what introduced you to the show?

I've been watching since the pilot premiered on Sunday, January 19, 2020 🙃 I actually was still watching OG 911 at that time with @emisfritish and we were trying to decide if we wanted to watch the upcoming spinoff or not, so we checked out the trailer. Saw that first little clip of Carlos Reyes and that moment of Tarlos getting down to business in 1x02 and I was suddenly way more interested in LS than I had ever been in OG (sorry not sorry). And though she never really joined the LS fandom, I do still get to experience @emisfritish watching LS episodes for the first time (even if it's sometimes months after they air) and it's one of my favorite things.

Which season is your favorite?

Season 3, for sure. Best viewing experience of any season, really strong storylines, so much more Carlos than the previous 2 seasons (combined), the full tarlos arc from exes to fiancés and all the really good growth for them in-between those two moments... I don't know that the show will ever reach those heights again, but I'm so glad I got to experience every moment of it in real time.

[Seasons best-to-worst, imho, are: 3, 4, 2, 1]

Who is your favorite character? (Bonus: If you answered TK or Carlos, who is your favorite besides them?)

LOL such a mystery, my favorite character is obviously Caleb. Love that dumbass. (Real answer: my top 3 characters are Carlos, Grace, and Judd.)

Top five episodes. Go!

Oh goodness, okay...

Push Bad Call Saving Grace Riddle of the Sphynx Donors In Sickness and In Health (sorry I know that's six but rafa is just so fucking good)

If you could pick any character to be given a "begins" episode, who would it be and what would that episode look like?

First I will say that I'm really happy that we don't do "Begins" episodes with LS because I remember wanting to skip so many of those when watching OG (never grew attached to any of the characters, maybe I'd like them better in LS but let's not risk it) and I think there are more organic ways to incorporate backstory into the narrative than to say "here's 45 minutes of backstory!"

ANYWAY For a very long time my answer was uncontestedly Carlos Reyes, and I would still love to get every single moment of his life from his birth until now, but also... I don't know, I think at this point in the show we've gotten so much of Carlos's history (through what is sometimes messy writing, sure, but we still got it) that it feels selfish to keep asking for more when a character like Paul still feels really undervalued on the show. So, maybe Paul? But, also Carlos because... I'm me 🤷🏻‍♂️

What is a scenario or storyline that you would like to see in season 5?

Honestly, I would like to see Carlos have to face the consequences of his actions in the s4 finale. I love him, I would die on every damn hill for him, and I fully tracked his rationale for why he did what he did, but it was still really messed up, and I would love to see him battling with those decisions and what they mean for him at the top of the season. I'm not against Carlos struggling and messing up sometimes (two of my favorite episodes are "Cry Wolf" and "In Sickness and In Health"), but it's a way more interesting narrative if we actually see him confronting his mistakes rather than them disappearing into the unknown like most of the consequences on LS... Also, Rafa would destroy scenes like that and I always want to see Rafa at the top of his game.

Would also love to see him get a different job but that seems unlikely and we'd lose that glorious utility belt strut

What do you think is going on in this still?

I do think it's most likely related to Gabriel's murder. It could be an update on where the Rangers are at in the case, it could be them calling Carlos in to assist with something (undercover Carlos mayhaps?), or maybe Carlos got suspended after what he did last season and this is him receiving a call from his boss with an update on his job status... honestly, no idea, but it's making me want to know things so fuck you tim minear

We all know about the elusive 5x05 spicy scene that has been teased, so what is your prediction for how it could possibly top 1x02?

See, I thought elements of the 2x12 sex scene were better than the 1x02 sex scene because there was all of this added intimacy and emotion between them, which just makes every touch and kiss and look and breath that much deeper and richer and sexier. Like, that look Carlos gives TK after taking his shirt off while straddling TK's thighs? That's sex right there. So, honestly, I don't know what they're going to go through between 5x01 and 5x04, but as long as the 5x05 scene contains all of that context that makes the moment about them and how they feel to be with each other, it's already topped 1x02 in my opinion. Rushed, casual, fun sex is great and hot and obviously I didn't hate it, but the combination of lust AND love? You can't ever beat that.

Where was the Tarlos honeymoon in your mind?

You know, I honestly don't know... I haven't really thought about it. Their honeymoon has kind of been a non-thing for me, so I hope wherever it was it was peaceful and exactly what they both needed.

Shoutout one of your favorite fan creations.

I know this says one, but there are so many different types of creations and I won't be able to mention all of them (it's been FOUR YEARS OKAY) but I want to try to share a range...

I absolutely have to start out with all the incredible work that @reyeslonestar gave this fandom: I have this one printed and framed, but I also love this one and this one and this one and THIS ONE. Also love this one by @whatsintheboxmh so much. I also love these two NSFW pieces by @a-kinkajou (but the AO3 links seem to be broken so you'll have to look at the SFW versions here on tumblr and just trust me).

ALSO I really love fanvids and in particular this one and this one (SOBBING) and this one and THIS ONE. While I wish I could list every gifset that has sparked an emotional response for me, it would be impossible, so I'll share this one (@maxbegone) because it makes me smile, these two because the vows are ev-er-y-thing (@danieljradcliffe), and this one because the Carlos Reyes Strut is also everything (@evanzbuck).

I mean, the Teacher AU. It's the teacher au. You don't understand, it's THE TEACHER AU (@three-drink-amy). I'm already so in love with Call Me, but that's no surprise since it's from the writers of iconic works like these (@welcometololaland @rmd-writes) The Knave verse is beyond iconic at this point (@liminalmemories21). This Carlos begins fic is really beautiful (@freneticfloetry) and this early fic has one of my favorite Carlos characterizations ever (@singerofsimplesongs). I'm always down for a firefighter!Carlos AU (@reyesstrand) because the man should be wearing turnouts.

Tagging: I'm not going to tag anyone because I think this game was going around a few days ago and I missed the train, but if anyone likes the questions and wants to answer, they should!

[kingdomblade]

Digimon Kizuna thoughts

All spoilers will be under the cut!

Fresh off of Tri when Kizuna was announced, I wrote up some hopes I had for this movie. Without looking back at that list, I'm pretty sure this movie managed to not hit any of the things I wanted off of that list - but I'm still walking away completely satisfied. The characters, the story, the setting all feel like completely natural progression from how I remember them, it manages to tell a compelling story in a fairly short movie, the animation and designs are drop dead gorgeous. It's clearly a labor or love and I'm thankful for everyone who worked on it. In some ways it leaves me wanting more - I'd love one more entry with the 02 group as a focus, and I think there would be a lot of value in an entry that focuses more on Digimon intigrated with the human world rather than yet another story about kids discovering Digimon. But if this is the last time we see these twelve in this form, what a way to go. 

This is absolutely stream of consciousness writing while I’m on my second watch through of the day (In lieu of livetweeting - I’ll spare my followers that much lol). Is it rambling? Absolutely. It may or may not be of interest, but I thought it would be something fun to do regardless. If you decide to read, I hope you enjoy!

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Tom Fahn’s Agumon is noticeably a bit lower pitched even compared to Tri, weather he can’t take his voice up as much or if it’s a different portrayal I’m not sure but it still fits him really well - Tentomon’s voice feel slightly different too. Funny enough Gabumon is somehow lighter and more childish than his original portrayal, but it also fits him well.

Both Tri and Kizuna have such a weird process to their casting - They got back actors that as far as I can tell haven’t done much if anything since their days on Digimon, they’ve gotten back actors for side characters with bit parts. They’ve hired new actors that seem to take the original voice into account and take their own spin on them, and then they hire actors with absolutely no regard for how the original sounded to the point that it just plain conflicts with the established character. It’s all over the place and it’s weird.

Johnny Yong Bosch's portrayal seems slightly different from Tri, maybe he's playing him slightly older, maybe it's the slightly different personality, maybe I'm imagining it. Something about it reminds me of Doug Erholtz's portrayal, which is an added bonus when JYB was already one of the best of the recasts. Minutes in and I'm completely sold on Nicholas Roye's Matt as well, it sounds like a natural progression from his Adventure voice.

In a vacuum Griffin Burns is a decent Davis, but he's one of the recasts that immersion breaking because not only does he sound nothing like Brian Donovan, but his take on Davis is higher pitch than Donovan's so it's impossible to hear him as older. The fact that Donovan was supposed to reprise his role is just salt on the wound. With the insane amount of delays that this dub got, they surely could have brought him back onboard... It's a  shame that 2 our of 3 roles I've heard of Burns have been a replacement of another actor, hope he can get more roles where he can shine more. On the other hand, Bryce Papenbrook as Cody is brilliant casting coming from his 02 voice for what little we get to hear of him.

Yolei didn't sound to great in her video message, but by the time we see her in person her VA has gotten into the role and captures her really well. Hawkmon sounds fine enough, but I'm way more upset than I should be about Armadillomon's voice considering he doesn't have many lines. A recast was mandatory here, and 'medium-deep southern accent' should honestly be pretty easy to replicate but what we got was horrific. What casting director knew enough about the characters to know that Hawkmon had a British accent but not enough to know what an armadillo sounds like??

Mimi is just straight up Sakura now! I actually thought Kate Higgens would have made a great Yolei, kinda funny to see her here as Mimi now.

Not only did Agumon's "Polly want a cracker?" line slay me, but there's something about Tom Fahn's portrayal that really hits me, even though he's not even my favorite Digimon. It hasn't even been a long time since I've heard it - Tri wasn't that long ago, and I just rewatched Adventure/02 within the past few weeks, but hearing him made me a bit emotional, ha. Same thing happened with his first appearance in Tri, and that was after having seen it in Japanese and knowing what was going to happen!

The opening battle is like a complete screw-you to Tai's arc in Tri with Greymon smashing into buildings and Tai completely unfazed. I'm here for it, lol.

The remastered Digivolution sequences are nice but in true nostalgia fashion I kinda prefer the originals, haha.

Izzy's computer is counting down a 'time rimit'.

Agumon says something to the effect of “Aren’t I always hungry?“ and I don't feel like it’s a reference/jab at Tri, but it got a chuckle out of me anyway.

Tai's classmate is blatantly voiced by JYB too, ha.

Matt gives his location as 'inside the restaurant' when calling an ambulance which seems... not helpful. Love that Tai's reaction to a girl collapsing is a confused "Is she drunk?"

An article on Tai's phone is written in perfect English and he gets message from the name Izzy specifically so I'd assume this is a change for the US release. Subtitles would have been perfectly fine but it's a nice effort to keep immersion.

"The ol' Izz-master" I’m so, so glad they got Jeff Nimoy to write this script, bless Toei.

Only 4 of the Digidestined participating in the battle against the Digidestined is kinda disappointing until I realized that it was a throwback to Our War Game - TK and Izzy get to participate more this time around! As per usual Tentomon (Kabuterimon) manages to sneak in a hilarious line here.

'Lime Magazine' just doesn't have the same ring to it...

TAI'S MAGAZINES...

Tai calling Agumon 'little buddy' is the second scene to hit me right in the feels.

Matt is the only one to reach out to the 02 kids during the movie, I wonder if he felt guilty about what went down in Tri and kept in touch with them a bit more since.

Seeing Kari and TK tied up in a dark room like that is actually one of the more shocking scenes in the movie. That could have ended very differently if this was a different movie...

Meiko shows up for literally one scene with Meicoomon which has... interesting implications. This movie retroactively makes her more tragic as well, as even if she didn't sacrifice Meicoomon there's a chance their partnership would have dissolved anyway - almost a complete lose-lose, there was no way for them to be happy together.

Himekawa is also retroactively more tragic as it's possible she would have been able to see Tapirmon again here - one shows up in the crowd shot!

Honestly this is the movie Himekawa deserved - she was a really interesting character that got wasted and underused in Tri, and while Menoa parallels her in a lot of ways her stoicism just isn't as interesting and Hime's decent into madness was.

L'il Joe has black hair now?

I'm pretty sure Menoa doesn't say "Oh shit" but honestly I'm gonna pretend she does.

I mentioned on Twitter how Leomon doesn't die in this one because he never showed up, but there's one fighting an Eosmon in what I think is Osaka and he doesn't die, and GOOD ON HIM, HE BROKE THE CYCLE!

Omnimon having limbs sliced off got an audible gasp from me.

Matt ACTUALLY got to curse in this movie, character development!!

"Just one thing: Meow" I had to pause the movie, I lost it

Story wise, theme wise, character wise I get it, but mad Sora got screwed over in this movie. Would have been nice if 'To Sora' was included inside of the movie at least.

I still don't like Agu and Gabu's new evolutions, but they did feel really earned and a natural extension of the plot. What better way to spark an evolution than such a huge sacrifice? Izzy's perfectly timed 'prodigious' was the icing on the cake, coming at such a fitting emotional moment and possibly being the last time we'll hear it from Izzy.

When the Eosmon start disappearing all over the world there's a shot of an exhausted lone Numemon who had clearly held off the Eosmon with all the poop that is strewn about. THAT is the next story I want to see.

Unfortunately this movie is in the Tri School of Only Using Champion Level. It's actually pretty inexcusable that we we don't see WarGreymon and MetalGarurumon one more time, but even the other characters should have gone up to Ultimate if not Mega for one final sendoff. I wish we could have seen them truely fight as a team once more, even just for fanservice.

My strongest complaint with the movie itself is that it just kinda... ends. The ending is super emotional, but it just skips ahead afterwards and says 'things are going to be ok!' and ends. I would have liked to see the rest of the kids once more, seeing how they handle the fallout or how they might support Tai and Matt - or maybe a little about what Tai and Matt have taken away from this whole things. Just felt like we needed an extra couple of minutes.

Will we see these particular versions of these characters again? From what I can tell this movie did well in Japan and it’s trending pretty well on Amazon, so who knows. I hope if we do, it’s because the writers come up with an idea they really believe in and not just for the sake of a sequel. But if not, I’m definately greatful for what we have.

[luvdsc]

i just saw a thing, and got really inspired by it, and immediately thought of you: could you describe some of your mutuals as characters in an au? if you don’t have time to then it’s okay!

hi, honey bee! 🐝✨ i was torn between writing a fic idea for each one where they were y/n with their bias or how i described my biases here, but I kinda mixed the two together :’) I only did a few of my mutuals, but I hope this is what you’re looking for, lovebug! 💓 also, it’s really sweet that you thought of me omg thank you so so much 🥺🥺

@winetae :: ave is that one mom friend who scolds you for going out to a frat party and coming back at like 4 a.m. the next day even though you have a midterm at 9 a.m. but she makes sure to wake you up in time for it and hands you a granola bar, a filled up hydro flask, and some aspirin to take before the exam. she has the cutest outfits all the time with her oversized soft sweaters and pretty floral long skirts, and her instagram is one of those super aesthetic ones with pretty pics of cakes and tea and has like 30k followers, so she’s always up to go with you to the latest trendy place like the dog cafe slash boba bar that just opened up down the street. she’s always put together and probably has like matching rose gold minimalist furniture all around her apartment with lots of plants everywhere and perfectly placed round mirrors on her walls and it all looks so nice and you’d find her place in architecture digest or something until you go to her kitchen and all she has is like...... bread, a pack of ramen, and some wine and cake in her fridge. but it’s ok because her boyfriend jaehyun knows how to cook and he brings over groceries after stopping by the corner store after his last class and he makes her masterchef worthy dishes because it’s what she deserves

@nochanchu :: miss mel is the girl you bump into in the bathroom of the club you’re at to celebrate your friend’s birthday. there’s no other place better for an instant girl bond than there LOL you’re halfway drunk and she’s tipsy as heck, but you notice the super pretty eyeshadow she has on and you compliment her on it, and her eyes light up and she’s telling you the name and brand of it so you scramble to take out your phone to take note of it, and then she notices that you have a picture of a well known place from your hometown as your phone wallpaper, and she’s like hold up pause you’re from there too??? And then the two of you swap stories and favorite restaurants and it’s so funny because out of all the people to meet, you meet someone from back home out here. and you realize she could’ve been one of your friends when you were younger because there were actually so many opportunities where your paths would’ve crossed, but they didn’t— not until now, in a funky, neon lit club bathroom in nyc all because your friends decided on a spontaneous bday trip and because she and her boyfriend hyuck came out here to celebrate their anniversary. you swap numbers with her because she has this to die for restaurant that she wants to recommend, but can’t remember the name of at the moment, and six months later, it becomes the go-to brunch place for you and her on your weekly friend dates :’)

@eggyukhei / @hyoseobie :: tk is the girl you randomly sit next to on the first day of internship training. she’s dressed neatly in a pretty maroon blouse with tori burch flats and looks way more put together than you will ever be. you’re already a day behind on training since the internship started on the day you had your last finals and you were unable to actually go on the first official day. you’re haphazardly pulling out the laptop from the company backpack filled with electronics and other important paperwork that the recruiters handed to you earlier and trying to figure out how to log in. she takes pity on your not too tech savvy self, even though this job is literally in IT, and shows you that your login info is clipped to the front of one of the folders in the company backpack. you make some sort of meme reference as you thank her and are pleasantly surprised when her eyes light up because she understands the meme and even thinks you’re funny. you start discussing other memes excitedly while you both wait for the instructor to begin, and to think, if you never sat next to the girl with the stylish pretty glasses, you wouldn’t have made one of the nicest friends you ever had. bonus: at your out of state weeklong training, some loud intern named yukhei invites you to this bar with all the other interns for $1 shots and you force her to go with you instead of staying in the hotel room and watching anime. he tries to get her to dance with him all night, but she keeps getting distracted by the cute college bartender named doyoung who makes her a shirley temple on the house

@latetaektalk :: linh is the pretty freshman girl in the poetry elective class you decided to take on a whim. it’s a lower division class, so there’s only a few other upperclassmen in here who are taking it as a grade booster. the professor pairs you up for the quarter, and you have to dissect a different assigned poem each week together. you end up meeting on the third floor of the business building every thursday and sit out on the balcony with your laptops and poetry books. during the first week, she texts you if you want anything from the boba shop she’s stopping by beforehand, and soon enough, she’s memorized your order, while you always make sure to bring her a freshly baked chocolate croissant from the cafe on the first floor. by the time you’re finished with each assignment, the sun is setting, and you both always make sure to snap a couple pictures of it for your insta stories. and even after the class is over, the two of you continue with your weekly boba and croissants ritual for the following quarters and during one of your catch up sessions, she tells you about a cute boy named mark that she met in her calculus class :’)

@aqiaquas :: steph is the older, mega cool, way out of your league girl you meet in kyoto, japan when you’re on a backpacking trip around asia with your friends after graduating uni. out of luck or perhaps fate, you’re seated next to her in this hole in the wall sashimi bar that serves the best sake nigiri you’ve ever had in your entire life. you start talking to her as you wait for your sushi to come, and you find out that she’s travelling alone and has been to so many countries all around the world. she tells you amazing stories about her trips to korea, switzerland, china, and her life back home, and you aspire to one day travel as much as she does. the two of you trade phone numbers, and she joins you when you decide to go visit kinkaku-ji and walks through fushimi inari taisha with you until you’re off to the next country with your friends. you continue to keep in touch with her and she sends you postcards from every place she visits with the coolest anecdotes and fun facts she learned about the place, and you carefully pin them all up on your wall amongst your paintings and other knickknacks you collected. and one day, you receive a postcard from her of the gyeongbokgung palace and on the bottom is scribbled: p.s. i met a boy. his name is jeno ♡