#the ending is kind of meh but we’ve established i’m not good at those

[padfootastic]

so, for s&h sarurday, we’ve got outsider pov of mob boss sirius and a bunch of scary looking mafia underlings showing up to a school play with inconspicuous weapons to see kiddie harry dressed as a tree. confusion & ‘oh my god the boss has a what?’ ensues. slightly crack-y.

Clark Forrest hadn’t planned on going into this line of work, not when he’d graduated with an honours degree in Business Administration. But the economy was…not doing great, bills had to be paid, and he knew someone who knew someone who had very enthusiastically hooked him up with this job so here he was.

Applying his hard earned education to being the accountant for a mob boss.

If only his poor mum, may the Lord bless her soul, could see him now. She’d faint right back into her grave.

To his boss—Mr. Black’s—credit, he wasn’t that kind of mafia, the one with the indiscriminate killing and plucking toenails off and kidnapping children. Clark was sure there was some kind of…illicit activity going on - he wouldn’t be a mob boss if there wasn’t, would he? - but he hadn’t seen anything of the sort as of now, so he could happily go on believing nothing was amiss.

Well, unless you counted the occasional blood on the rug.

That - was clearly one of the more, uh, colourful activities Mr. Black engaged in. He tried not to think hard about it. It could always be red wine?

Was it really a surprise then, that Clark thought it would be something similar, when almost the entire, er, gang was called in for an important meeting?

“Alright, this one’s important so listen up,” Mr. Black ordered.

Now, here’s the thing. For those who hadn’t seen the man, it would’ve been very hard to picture the kind of—aura he had. Outwardly, he was attractive, almost unnaturally so, with high cheekbones, a sculpted nose, grey eyes that were known to inject terror into the hearts of the toughest of men. His hair was cropped close to his head, and he had jewellery pierced through his entire right ear. Tattoos ran down the length of his arms, creeping up the hem of his shirt to skirt around his jaw, peeks of ink around the ankle when he walked.

He looked dangerous, yes. No one would dispute that.

But he didn’t—feel dangerous. Not at first.

Because Sirius Black had an accent as posh as the Queen, with a pleasant smile adorning his face, like he’d just gotten back from a walk. Clark had been under the mistaken impression that the man wasn’t fit to hold the position he did - maybe he’d just gotten it through inheritance? a placeholder, perhaps? - because someone who drank their tea with more milk than tea in it, who sniffed delicately into handkerchiefs and said ‘excuse me’ when he burped—that didn’t seem like a mob moss, never mind that Clark’s only experience with the underworld had been in the form of smuggled DVDs and pirated clips.

It wasn’t until he’d seen what happened when someone defaulted on a payment that he realised exactly how deadly the man was. The screams from behind closed doors still rang in his ears sometimes. The unbothered expression of neutrality on Mr. Black’s face as he exited the room even more haunting.

Coming back to the situation at hand, though, Clark’s back had automatically straightened at Mr. Black’s tone. His brows were furrowed in a deep frown, lips pressed into a line, and he was looking at all the assembled members intently.

“Tomorrow, 9am sharp, not a minute before and not one after—You’ll be outside Collingswood Primary. I want all of you dressed casual. Jeans, jumpers, t shirts, you get it. If I see a single obvious sign that you’re packing, I’ll have you strung upside down from the London Bridge quicker than you can turn the safety off, get it?”

It took a second for Clark to realise he was actually expecting a verbal answer and he hastily added his agreement to the chorus of ‘yes, sir’ and ‘affirmative’ ringing around the room. Mr. Black stared at them for a few seconds longer—seconds that felt like they were stretched into hours. Clark could feel the sweat beading on the back of his neck, not even daring to blink as Mr. Black’s gaze skimmed over the room, only stopping on his for a millisecond. Finally, he nodded and gestured to his right.

“Lupin will give you the address and be your point man for the event tomorrow. We’re going to be undercover in public, which means subtlety and respectability. I expect everyone to show it.” With one final nod, he swept out of the room without a glance backward.

It was like a collective breath was released in that moment because Clark could feel his chest deflating, eyes blinking rapidly in an attempt to understand what just happened.

Did the big boss just tell them to go incognito at a…primary school? One where actual, real kids went to study? Clark was confused because—he could’ve sworn they didn’t do that. Mr. Black hadn’t said it out loud but Clark had always gotten the impression that children were off limits. But that was clearly not the case here.

Maybe he needed to rethink his earlier ‘no kidnapping children’ conviction, and also his employment while he was at it.

Speaking of which, why was he there anyway? He was an accountant, had never been ‘out in the field’ so to speak a day in his life. He couldn’t even identify the parts of a gun if his life depended on it, for Christ’s sake.

Really, the only thing they all had in common was that they looked like they could blend into a crowd—as opposed to Mr. Black and a couple others who looked like they’d stepped off a biker gang catalogue at any given moment—which is, perhaps, why they’d been selected. All the better for going incognito.

“Alright lads, you heard the boss,” Lupin said, before rattling off the address for somewhere in Chelsea. Jesus. “Be there at 9 on the dot, you hear me? That’s when entry starts and it’s first-come-first-serve. Obviously, we want the best seats available. No excuses for being late because if you are, then that’s shop cleanup duty for a week. Alone.”

“But that’s a three man job, at least,” one of the others cried and the almost-sadistic smirk that flitted on the man’s face reminded Clark why, despite his mild mannered looks, he was one of Mr. Black’s main enforcers.

“Guess you won’t be late then, huh?” he replied with a nonchalant shrug.

Clark hastily swallowed all the questions he had at that.

x

The next morning, the sun was shining bright, the sky was blue without a single cloud and Clark was standing in front of Collingswood Primary—a large, sprawling brick structure with faculty members dotted around the grounds—at eight fifty seven, feeling exceptionally awkward in his polo shirt and khaki trousers.

He tugged at the collar as he surveyed the place. It was a posh neighbourhood, no disputing that. He couldn’t remember ever stepping foot in the area before today and it almost felt like even the air here was too expensive for him to breathe. It was making him even more nervous, then, to imagine what they could possibly be here for. Clark had spotted almost every single person from yesterday’s meeting scattered around the place.

McKinnon was leaning against a tree, phone in hand, and he was slightly envious at how comfortable she looked, while he was sweating in his loafers. Lupin, Meadowes and Longbottom were gathered around the far end of the lane, coffee cups in hand and periodically glancing around. Pettigrew was stuffing a bagel in his mouth, hunched over like he didn’t realise everyone could see him. Clark’s lip curled instinctively at the sight.

Another look around and he realised the man himself, Mr. Black, wasn’t here. Did that mean they had to do…whatever it was…on their own? He wasn’t prepared for this. He was just an accountant who’d taken a wrong turn in life and ended up in this position, both employment-wise and existentially, no matter how cushy the pay was or how many free coffees he got from the communal Keurig.

It was as he was spiralling in the thoughts of what could have been (what if he’d gone into trade school like his da wanted? what if he hadn’t failed third semester corporate finance and had gone into a different kind of cutthroat sector? what if he hadn’t thought a call centre was beneath him? what if—) that he heard a voice call out.

“Mr. Black! Welcome, welcome.”

His head snapped up just in time to look at the tall frame of Sirius Black standing beside a lady who was almost half his height—literally, the top of her blonde bun barely reached his chest—at the front gate. Mr. Black was dressed…differently. His usual leather-jacket-distressed-skinny-jeans look was switched out for a very respectable button down shirt and trouser, still skinny fit of course, and he looked—normal? Not like he was the head of the most terrifying organisation this side of the Thames, not even with the tattoos that were visible all the way from where Clark was standing. He could see him taking the old lady’s hand in a handshake.

“Headmistress Martin, you look lovely as always. I trust you’ve been well?”

Inexplicably, the lady (which—headmistress??), who must be as old as Clark’s grandmum, blushed. “I appreciate that, Mr. Black. You know, I’m glad to catch you here today, I wasn’t sure if you’d be able to make it.”

“As if there’s any way I can miss…” their voices trailed away as they made their way inside and Clark cursed the missed opportunity. He still didn’t know what was happening, and at this rate, his head was hurting because the most recent interaction was telling him there was something else at play here. It didn’t quite seem like they were here to kidnap kids for ransom or blackmail now.

Just as he’d shifted his worldview for the third time in so long, Lupin walked over the entrance and made a signal for the others to follow. Clark, being the closest, ended up directly behind him, which gave him the chance to…subtly listen—not eavesdrop, not his fault people talked too loud these days—to the man’s conversation with the teacher at the gate.

“Six for Harry Potter,” he said, handing over…tickets?

“I just saw Mr. Black go in too,” the teacher replied after writing it down in her clipboard. “Quite a popular kid, that one, isn’t he?”

“We’d like to think so.” Lupin smiled and walked in, seemingly familiar with the building and leading them like a line of ducklings to a door marked ‘Auditorium’. At this point, Clark was—yet again—calibrating his entire worldview. They were here for a…show? A kid’s show, at that? Were they going to drag a kid straight off the stage? Or, was he wrong, and were they here for a parent?

That would actually make more sense. Maybe they had a…client or someone who was hiding, but even cowards could be good parents, right?

He kept telling himself that as they took their seats somewhere down the middle, all in one row. He ended up squished in between Lupin and Longbottom, which was great, really. He could get all the inside gossip without any of the work.

“So when’s the kid coming up?” Longbottom asked, looking around curiously. “And where’s the boss sitting, anyway?”

“Sirius would be somewhere in the front row there. See.” Lupin pointed a finger towards the center of the auditorium, where a fancier set of couches were laid out. Mr. Black was sitting on one of them like he owned the whole place, with the Headmistress and some other distinguished looking officials in conversation beside him. “The lucky bastard, gets the good stuff while we’re stuck on these bloody chairs.”

Sometimes, Clark forgets that these two men went way back—no one else could dream of referring to the boss man like that.

“As for Harry, there’s some sort of a—choir, I believe? Then the play. Shouldnt take too long, it is primary school, at the end of the day.”

“Speaking of primary schools, do you know why we needed to bring our…pieces to one?” Longbottom questioned. Clark barely swallowed down the squeak that followed that line of query. He’d almost forgotten they were…packing. “Does Black think we’ll get attacked out here or something?”

“You know he doesn’t,” Lupin rolled his eyes. “But he’s not taking any chances when it’s coming to Harry. If you think you’re armed, you should’ve seen the assortment he strapped to himself today. If I didn’t know him, I would’ve had him chucked straight into a facility, I’m telling ya.”

“Mate, I know him and still feel the urge sometimes.” Both of them snort in unison at that and Clark is just sitting there, slightly terrified and mostly confused, at the turn of the conversation.

As the—program commenced, Clark keeps a tight grip on the handles of his seat, watching each child and member of the audience carefully. He doesn’t knew what he’d be asked to recount later, and he has no wish to make things harder for himself by losing himself in the spiral of wondering what the fuck was going on. His time at this particular…organisation had taught him two things, if nothing else: head down and no questions. It was how he’d skirted past everyone’s radar so far and he wanted to keep it that way.

The choir came up on stage and performed an—interesting variation on pop songs he’d heard on the radio. Lupin and Longbottom clapped politely when it ended and Clark joined in until the host on stage announced ‘Annual Play! Our little actors have put their heart and soul into this, so please, show them all the love you can’ which led to another round of applause, slightly more raucous this time. He could see Mr. Black was one of the more enthusiastic ones in the audience. Huh. He didn’t think he’d ever seen him smile so big before.

Just as he’s focused on now unnaturally white the man’s teeth were, Lupin leant forward to face their entire row.

“The boss’ kid is coming up now and he expects maximum participation from all of you.”

“The boss’ what?” Clark’s glad that McKinnon chose to voice what they were all thinking because he didn’t think he was brave enough for it, no matter how much he wanted to know.

“His kid, Harry. Keep up, Marlene,” Lupin sighed, like they were being the ones being unreasonable here and not the fact that an entirely new facet about their…organisation’s head had been revealed to them.

“Since when did Black have a child, what the fuck.”

“That’s not important, what is is the fact that Harry’s about to be on stage right now and if you get caught talking during his part, you bet your arse he’s gonna have you cleaning blood off the rug for the whole month.” With that, he turned back to facing the stage, considered the matter closed—no thought given to the others who were stuck in varying stages of disbelief and shock.

“How, er, how exactly are we supposed to know which one the kid is—and does he have a name?” Pettigrew asked, craning his neck around everyone between him—in the last seat—and Lupin.

“It’s Harry, didn’t you hear, Pettigrew?” McKinnon snarked.

“He’s just coming up, wait…” Lupin mumbled, looking intently at the stage where a bunch of kids dressed in colourful fairy tale costumes had arranged themselves. “There! That one.” He pointed towards the back corner of the stage where a small cluster of children were gathered. Clark squinted, trying to identify what was going on. Surely, Lupin didn’t mean—

“The tree?” Meadowes said, incredulously “That’s what we’re all here to see, a kid dressed as a common garden tree?”

Somehow, he didn’t think he could be more shocked and yet, when Lupin nodded, completely seriously, Clark was. His eyes zeroed in on the tree in question—not a hard task considering there was only one—and could just about make out a bunch of hair escaping the band sitting on his head. There was a pair of spectacles sitting on his nose, a bit too large in Clark’s opinion, and his face was pulled up in a wide smile. He was looking straight at the front row and even sitting as far back as he was, Clark could see the joy radiating off him. Cute kid, really, but did nothing to make sense of the befuddlement he was feeling.

Clark turned to his side, saw the varying expressions of confusion and shock lining everyone else’s face, and felt immediately gratified. At least he wasn’t alone.

He went through the rest of the performance barely registering what was happening, like moving through a fog, clapping when Lupin and Longbottom did—which was apparently whenever the tree, sorry, Harry so much as moved—and sneaking glances at Mr. Black all the other times.

It was astounding—the man was leaning forward, elbows planted on knees, an expression of complete rapture on his face like he didn’t want to be anywhere else except here, watching a kid dance around in a plastic shrubbery costume. He clapped frequently and loudly, even letting out a taxicab whistle one time that made Clark double take most comically. The guests on either side of him only smiled indulgently in his direction and that, more than anything, drove home how much of a regular Mr. Black must be among them.

An indeterminate amount of time later, the kids bowed, the host announced the end of the show, and everyone clapped harder than they had so far. Which was really saying something considering how much their group had contributed to the cumulative applause. And that’s not to even mention Mr. Black. But now, everyone was on their feet, and Clark could feel his palms stinging under the onslaught of his enthusiasm. Better that than be reprimanded later, though.

Once the cheers had died down and the host was finished with their closing credits, Lupin turned to them. “We’re going backstage, let’s go.” And promptly got up, walking down the aisle towards the stage. Clark blinked at his abruptness, used to it by now but still not quite, before turning to his other side where Longbottom was flapping his hand in a ‘well, go on then’ motion. He decided to listen and scurried away after Lupin, absently wondering if they looked like a bunch of ducklings following after mama duck. And wasn’t that a thought—the mighty thugs of the London underworld, relegated to animal metaphors.

“Wonderful event, Mr. Smith.” Lupin shook hands with an average white guy at a side entrance. “We’ll just go in here to see our boy, yes?”

“All…of you?” The guy asked, eyeing their procession dubiously.

“Well, of course, Harry’s our favorite little guy,” Lupin replied in the same pleasant voice. Clark didn’t bother to clarify that none of them even knew there was a little guy until an hour ago. If the boss wanted them to say his kid was their favorite, then that’s what they’ll say. It didn’t take long after that for them to be let in. Clark would be more worried about the school’s safety if he hadn’t seen Lupin walk circles around the smartest people he’d ever seen. School cops were no match.

“An’ an’ an’ did ya see the whole t’ing?” An excited voice was saying as they turned the corner. Clark craned his neck and felt his brows creeping up when he assigned it to their favorite little guy—Harry. Who was currently being cuddled—there was no other word for it—by Mr. Black. Harry had his arms wrapped around the man’s neck as he talked and Mr. Black was looking at him with a kind of laser focus Clark had never seen before. And considering he looked after their entire operation’s accounts, that was really saying something.

“I saw the whole thing, baby,” Mr. Black replied, voice soft. Clark and the rest of their entourage were frozen in their positions, not wanting to disturb their conversation. “You were beautiful.”

Harry bit his lip at that, eyes gaze falling to rest on Mr. Black’s collarbone rather than his eyes. “I was jus’ a tree, though, Siri.”

Mr. Black’s eyebrows turned down. “And you were the most perfect tree I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

“But it—that’s—trees are boring. Anyone can be one,” Harry’s lower lip looked a bit wobbly there and Clark had just a second to despair, no matter that he was standing too far away to be expected to do anything, before Mr. Black took over, swift and practiced.

“Harry, my love, if anyone can be a tree, and yet it was you that was chosen, then what does that say about you?” Personally, Clark thought that bit of philosophy, while profound, was a bit too complicated for a child.

“But—“

“And,” Mr. Black gently cut in, “If you were boring, then I wouldn’t have cheered as hard as I did, would I? It’s a matter of pride for me that my godson makes such a lovely tree.” He tweaked the kid’s nose, making him let out a wet giggle. But, even Clark, inexperienced as he was around children, could see they weren’t out of the danger zone yet. The kid was still looking a bit troubled there. Clearly, Mr. Black had picked up on it as well because he turned to their little association with an expectant look on his face. Clark hadn’t even realised he’s noticed them but of course he did.

“And if that’s not good enough for you,” he continued teasingly, turning Harry towards them. “Then you can ask any of them and they’d say the same.” Mr. Black’s raised eyebrow was sufficient warning.

Harry, on the other hand, was unaware of the looming danger because he burrowed into his…parent? guardian? uncle? (Seriously, what was the relation here?) as he noticed the bunch of strangers standing there like idiots.

“Who’s they, Siri?” he whispered loudly.

“They’re my friends from work.” Clark pushed down the hysterical snort that wanted to emerge at that statement. “And they came here just for you!”

“Really?” Harry’s eyes—a bright emerald, now that Clark was closer—opened wide in surprise. “All for me?”

“All for you, baby,” Mr. Black reassured him before clearing his throat pointedly. Clearly that was the cue for Lupin, who’d been standing just as quietly, to jump in for he strode forward until he was right in front of the pair.

“Hello, Mr. Harry,” he offered a hand to the kid, who returned the solemn handshake with a grin tugging his lips. “I see you’re well.”

“You too, Mr. Loo-pin,” Harry giggled before leaning forward in Mr. Black’s arms. “Did ya see me pre-pef-peform?”

“I did, you were really quite something, kiddo,” Lupin ruffled his black hair, showing a level of familiarity Clark should’ve come to expect by now. “Thank you for letting me come.”

“But I din’t—“ Harry said, eyebrows furrowed adorably.

“We wouldn’t have seen such a great show if you weren’t acting in it, now, would we?”

“Hm.” While Harry seemed to consider that, Clark and the others had managed to get over their shock to make their way to their boss and his kid.

“Hello, Harry,” Meadowes grinned, bright and friendly, taking the lead. “You were so cool up there!”

The poor kid looked at her with rapidly reddening cheeks. Clearly he wasn’t immune to her charms either. Figures. “T’ank you, miss.” Clark could see Meadowes biting down on her lip, eyes softening in adoration.

“I thought you were the best one on stage, Harry,” Clark added, keeping one eye on his boss who was staring at all of them intently and another on Harry who couldn’t see to stop blushing. As he received another stammered thanks in reply, the others stepped up for their turn at congratulating the kid.

When all of them had finished their round of pleasantries, not that it was much of a chore—while a tree was certainly a forgettable role, Harry was adorable enough to win all of them over—Mr. Black smoothly stepped into the conversation. He ran a gentle hand over the boy’s unruly hair, smoothening it fruitlessly before tucking a few strands behind one ear.

“Will you believe your poor godfather now? Or do I need to shout from the rooftops?”

Harry swatted at his chest feebly, making a face at the gentle teasing. Despite knowing that this was just a kid—the boss’ godson at that—Clark held his breath in anticipation of how such an action would be perceived. Surprisingly (or perhaps not) the boss only grinned, a shocking display of emotions Clark hadn’t ever seen before today.

“So, ice cream in celebration then?” he asked. Clark, still stuck on the relationship reveal, almost replied in the affirmative before realising that would’ve been a supremely awkward thing to do. Clearly he wasn’t the one being asked here.

“Yes, please, Siri!” Harry chirped, bouncing a little in excitement. “Will—will your friends come too?”

“Will they, now?” Mr. Black repeated, looking at them with a raised eyebrow that communicated very well his feelings on the matter. The four of them, Longbottom and Lupin not included, immediately fell over themselves trying to communicate a variety of reasons for why they ‘couldn’t come, so sorry kid, maybe next time?’ in a way that didn’t hurt his feelings or get themselves strung upside down.

“Oh, otay then,” Harry blinked, looking a bit overwhelmed at the sudden onslaught directed at him. “T’ank you for comin’!”

Meadowes was unable to stop herself from cooing this time. Mr. Black snorted softly before inclining his head in their direction, saying ‘thank you’ and dismissing them in one smooth move.

Longbottom and Lupin stayed back, engaging Harry in conversation, while the others slowly walked away, trying to wrap their heads around the events of the day. He could hear snippets of Meadowes and McKinnon conversation, speculating on why they needed to be armed if they were just here to watch a kid’s play, and immediately increased his pace so he didn’t have to hear about things like that again. He really did not want to think about the unsavoury aspects of his job right now, not when he was equally baffled by everything.

Instead, he wondered if he should go job hunting again. All this stress surely wasn’t worth it, was it? Not if he wanted a place right next to his mother in the near future. Maybe he should think of going into the call center industry he’d written off earlier. It didn’t make use of his degree but it also didn’t have guns, the pay was decent, and there was no definitely no blood to clean up on the rug.

[iamanartichoke]

Natalie Holt implying that Loki slept with Sif before cutting off her hair honestly makes my blood boil. The first Thor movie showed us a sympathetic character that was an outcast in Asgard, and a scapegoat in his family. Everything now just seems like Marvel trying to take all of that away. So many people are saying, "Well, now I know why Sif doesn't like him, lol!" And that is exactly as intended. We are supposed to see Loki as an ass and everyone else as a saint for putting up with him. :(

I'm just really baffled at how it's either a) supposed to make sense, or b) explain anything about their dynamic?

Like, okay, let's assume that they do hate each other bc they slept together. Why would that be? Even if you catch feelings and get rejected, that's not really justification to hate someone. Ideally you'd just go your own separate ways but since Loki and Sif shared a social circle, that probably wasn't an option, in which case the next best thing is to just be civil while you move on/get over the feelings. No hatred necessary, and certainly not for centuries.

I don't believe that either of them is stubborn enough to harbor a grudge over being rejected. Sif bc I wouldn't believe that she caught feelings for Loki anyway, and Loki bc while he would certainly be hurt, and his pride would be wounded, I just don't see him holding onto that for longer than it would take for him to move past it.

And where is the hair-cutting supposed to come in? Are we implying here that Loki is so childish and petty that he cut off Sif's hair in retaliation for her not returning his feelings? (Seeing it written down like that, I am guessing this is exactly the implication, bc of course it is, smh.) Was he 12 when they fucked, or ??

So here's the thing, though. You pointed out that the first Thor movie showed us a sympathetic character who was an outcast and a scapegoat but no, actually, it didn't. Thor 1 showed us a jealous, vindictive loner turned villain. That's the problem - the MCU isn't taking anything away as much as they're trying to re-establish the characterization they intended for him to have all along.

Thor 1 left things out that would provide more context to Loki's motivations. Thor 1 actively deleted scenes that showed Loki as sympathetic. Thor 1 set up a "good brother vs evil brother" black-and-white dichotomy between Thor and Loki, in which the narrative and the supporting characters all behaved as though Loki was innately the evil brother and there wasn't even a question about that. Thor 1 was Thor's movie, and while I obviously have no problem with that, it being Thor's movie means that to a lot of the audience, Loki was never going to be perceived as sympathetic. In order to make Thor the hero of his story, Loki has to be the villain and most people just accept that at face-value.

Is Loki sympathetic? Yes. Was he an outcast in his society and a scapegoat in his family? Yes. Was he evil at heart? No. Did he do bad things? Yes. Did he intend for them to turn out as terribly as they did? No. Etc.

These are all things that a lot of us know because we've taken the time to know them. One needs to be interested/invested enough in Loki to make the effort of interpreting his motivations and his characterization but, that said, having a vested enough interest in Loki to be an active fan doesn't necessarily mean interpreting him sympathetically. There's this weird divide and things that seem obvious in hindsight, such as Loki's sympathy as a character or the nuances of what he was really trying to achieve in Thor 1, are things that a lot of the audience + his fandom either don't pick up on or don't care to see.

There's a reason 2011-13 Loki isn't as popular as Ragnarok Loki. There's a reason there are so. many. posts. in this fandom that start off with "I love Loki, but -" and then proceed to drag him. There's a reason why a lot of his fans are like "lol I mean he did murder all those people though?" or why the "you just like Loki/apologize for Loki bc you want to fuck Tom" argument is so prevalent. There's a reason why headcanons like "Loki just fucked his way into the GM's inner circle" are treated as canon, or why nobody questions whether or not it actually made sense for Loki to randomly betray Thor right before the obedience disk scene.

The reason is that Thor 1 didn't show us who Loki really was, and because of his portrayal in that movie and in Avengers (subtext and word-of-god confirmation is clearly insufficient for the wider audience to realize that Loki wasn't acting of his own accord - no, he's just evil), there are very many fans who are just never going to see him as anything besides villainous at worst or "a fun but greasy little shit" at best, who causes trouble and does shitty things for the lulz.

"Loki cut Sif's hair for no other reason than to be a dick after they fucked" falls perfectly in line with that characterization, and the result is that you get tons of fans who are like "LOL that's SO Loki!" or "No wonder Sif hates him!" etc. And if, in 2021, ten years after Loki was introduced into the MCU, people are still coming away from his narrative arc + his own series believing that he is, or ever was, just a rotten little shit who caused trouble for the lulz? Then that is clearly the Loki that they see, that they stan, and that means whatever he means to them, and regardless of how our portion of the fandom may object and cry foul, there's honestly just nothing we can do about it.

So, I mean, there we are. People can feel however they want about Loki. It is what it is. And I think I'm just tired of getting upset about it. Re Loki/Sif, I will share my opinion that it's a trash headcanon and laugh at it, but I'm tired of allowing myself to get genuinely upset about how other people perceive this character, especially when there's nothing I can do about it and the only person who ends up suffering is me when my mental health spirals downward (bc I care way too much about fiction and I have no problem admitting it).

I didn't intend for this to be so long, and obviously this is not any kind of rebuttal against you or your ask personally, anon. It just gave me an opportunity to put into words what I've been feeling for quite awhile. It is what it is.

I also feel it's worth mentioning, again, that I think Natalie's soundtrack is absolute fire and I have nothing but respect for her as the composer in this series, but I do not think that earns her any merit in how she perceives these characters. Loki/Sif is her headcanon, and she also said that Loki looks at Sylvie the way he looks at his mother, which is like, and how do you think he's looking at his mother, Nat? Cause uh. I don't think they are the same. I know most people won't agree, but I feel like her words need to be taken with a grain of salt and not accepted as canon based on nothing more than her position of being someone who worked on the show.

I should put this behind a cut, but meh. Also, I know a lot of people reblogged/added onto my Loki/Sif post from last night and I was going to engage but I just don't have time, so please accept this as my general response + stance on the entire clusterfuck.

[amwritingmeta]

15x19: A First Ending

This was a good episode! Oh, I know, I know - we didn’t get Cas back. But oh, boy, that should mean that Misha shot for five of eight days for 15x20 and that makes me want to rub my hands together with the hope of what that might mean. All the good things!

Oh, don’t hang your hopes on mine btw. I had very high hopes that we’d get Cas back, or very strongly established as coming back (as per 13x04) with a final scene of him waking up in the Empty or something like it, and that didn’t happen, but omg I’m so glad they didn’t.

When Jack started praying and reaching out to Cas my heart almost stopped. 

If Dean doesn’t instigate Cas’ return, then oh it would take away too much!

But then Jack’s moment didn’t lead to anything, and now, the more I think about it, there more it feels like a plant. A reminder of how he prayed to Cas the last time, and woke him. We shall see, eh?

And then we got Dean telling Chuck to bring Cas back, which was a pivotal plant as well. I’d been worried if they hadn’t mentioned Cas more than once, with Dean telling Jack and Sam that Cas sacrificed himself to save him, yeah? 

If there had been no more Cas for the entire episode then, narratively speaking, I would have started wondering what role Cas might actually play in 15x20.

But Cas was mentioned more than once. We even got to hear his voice and have that fake return to stir our... I almost wrote loins, but that’s not appropriate so let’s change it to stir our... martinis. 

Ah yes. We could all use a drink, I’m sure.

The dog as well! Dean was so happy and he carried the dog and petted the dog and put it in Cas’ spot in the backseat and was all, yes, emotional substitute! And then... poof. Because it’s not going to be that easy to replace Cas. *fingers crossed*

Here’s mostly why I’m hopeful for something quite different as the actual finale of the show, the proper wrapping up of these character journeys:

This first ending is for those who have followed the show explicitly to watch these two brothers. (yes there’s a word for them but let’s not)

It ends exactly how these viewers -- and quite possibly the writers who wrote it -- always saw the show ending. It gives an emotionally satisfying wrapping up of all the thematic threads of the show and gives the brothers their hard-won freedom, and keeps the brothers riding in Baby, together, indefinitely. 

And these viewers and fans will always be able to stop watching the show there and keep that as their perfect ending.

Except it’s not the ending-ending. Is it?

This episode neatly and gorgeously wrapped up the Michael/Lucifer/Chuck storyline. It wiped the slate completely clean. Especially with Michael killing Lucifer and Chuck killing Michael. These characters just completely annihilating  each other because they’ve all served their purpose.

And Chuck being drained of his powers and ending up ignored, never to be worshipped again, or even remembered, is such a fitting ending for him! And with Dean refusing to kill him, leaving him to his fate, I’d call that Dean integrating his Shadow.

No more fearing it. It’s powerless. Thanks to Jack (Dean’s inner child) who now holds all the power in the universe.

I’d say Dean Winchester has reached a point of internal balance.

And for all of these good things: Chuck powerless, Jack the New God, surely helping to fix what Cas broke by restoring Heaven (I’m assuming Heaven will be repopulated or that God’s grace will level it out) and Jack stepping into shoes that Cas once tried to fill and failed to, to the detriment to so many of his kin, is simply stunning.

I cried, properly, at Jack’s speech. It was beautiful.

But for all these good things and wrappings up of stuff, didn’t the ending feel kind of superficial? Like stuff was missing in those final five minutes or so? Like... I don’t know... Sam mentioning Eileen maybe? Because surely she was brought back along with everyone else, and one episode ago he was losing his mind over the loss of her.

And they didn’t even mention Cas. Jack mentioned Castiel as a good influence, but Cas was just bunched in with “everyone we’ve lost along the way”.

Meh.

Hey, it’s fine if all you care about is Dean and Sam and you think that they’re at their happiest when they get to drive along a road in Baby, listening to tunes and play-fighting and reminiscing about all those people that have come and gone, while they know they’ll always remain the same.

I mean, if we hadn’t gotten that montage at the end of this episode (a fucking MONTAGE ppl) I would’ve started thinking that maybe Misha was coming back to shoot flashbacks for 15x20, as we got to see the brothers remembering Cas (like with Mary), taking a walk down memory lane and driving around to well-known locales for a final hurrah.

But we got that fucking montage, ppl.

Leaving me to feel that they probably won’t also spend forty minutes rememberembering those same people. You know?

Also, dull. And Dabb is anything but dull. And Dabb loves pulling on stuff he’s hinted at in the first ep of the season. 

And I remember reacting to Sam being the one to escort the kid and her mother into the, what was it? The high school, right? For safety.

While Dean and Cas had that tense exchange by Baby, where Dean couldn’t not ask if Cas was okay and Cas saying, hopefully, that he was, but Dean remaining stone faced and distant. “Awkward” is what Belphegor called it.

Oh. Please let there be awkwardness in 15x20. I beg on bent knees. Beg, I say!

Anyway.

What is 15x20 going to be about if it isn’t about finally answering the question of what will make the brothers happy?

A balanced universe, of course! But freedom without love... sounds kind of lonely to me. 

So, have they answered the question of What do I want? yet? Is this what they want for themselves? More of the same? This season has hinted that it isn’t. It’s hinted very strongly that it isn’t.

So, I’m holding my breath that Dean’s final confrontation is to do with happiness and daring to want it for himself. Daring to admit to wanting it for himself. Daring to go after it... 

Cas does not belong in the Empty.

And hope that it’s telling how Jack didn’t even think to get Cas out of there and bring him home. God got Lucifer out of the Empty so Jack definitely has the power. 

And Dean didn’t ask him to get Cas out of there, not because he doesn’t still want Cas out, but because it would ruin the first ending for the people who want Cas to stay dead. Yeah? 

It’s kind of beautifully done, to my mind, as a nod and a thank you to the people who have supported one reading of the show. It’ll be difficult for them to go apeshit when Dabb and the writers can simply tell them they don’t have to watch further than 15x19 and be content that they’ve got an ending that lets them cling to the brothers as the begin all, end all.

And yes, I remain believing we will get Dean and Cas together-together before the end of the show. I have no clue how much of a together-together we’ll get, but for the show not to give us a clear understanding of how Dean loves Cas back is unthinkable at this point, and will stay unthinkable until the show tells me otherwise, because nothing but those two together makes even a lick of sense to me.

Dean’s feelings were in the subtext this episode because that’s where they always have been and hopefully fingers crossed because this ending wasn’t for us, it was for other sides of fandom, giving them room for denial, if they simply don’t want to see that what Dean wants is Cas back.

Our ending isn’t happening until next week.

Dean: It’s a helluva time to bail. There’s a lot of people counting on you. People with questions—they’re gonna need answers. Jack: The answers will be in each of them. Maybe not today, but someday.

For me this may be setting up for 15x20.

Dean could be said to be accepting the reality of Cas being gone this episode. He starts off not telling the whole truth about what happened with Cas (of course), he’s drinking himself stupid, he tries to demand of Chuck to bring Cas back, he finds that emotional crutch in the doggo and he moves into acceptance because what else can he do?

Especially if he’s still reeling and is struggling with his fear of happiness, with not feeling deserving, with it being easier to simply let it all go.

But.

Letting go of the need is healthy, allowing it to make way for the real want that is about choosing Cas, not because he feels lost without him, but because Cas completes him...

That would be something. 

(oh shush let’s get with the romance) (Jerry always brings it)

The brothers love each other, but throughout this narrative there’s been hints that they both long for more. So much more. It would be so weird if it didn’t all wrap up with more being wanted and chosen and offered and had.

So if the answers are to be “in each of them -- someday”, then maybe Dean just needs to reach a moment where he’s ready to admit to himself that he can’t stand the fact that Cas died not knowing that Dean loves him back.

I wonder if Sam will push for this admittance... I’d like to witness that conversation, that’s for sure.

And Eileen. I hope she’s back sooner rather than later next episode!!

What’s next episode going to be about if it’s not about the breaking of old patterns to make way for new ones...? Are we going to follow the boys around as they do laundry and cook and make a few tentative plans for their unknown future? They won’t be hunting much in 15x20, at least if Dabb is anything to go by. I guess there might be something brief as a final The Boys With Their Weapons Doing Their Thing, but... it won’t be a case episode. And it would’ve been strange if it was, you know?

So then. Hope. One more week breathing eating sleeping on hopes and wishes and we shall simply have to wait and see what we get.

I have every faith it will blow us away, but I’m also sitting pretty. Reining in those horses lest they run away with me. And whatever comes our way, I’m so grateful for this show!

[vivithefolle]

Not sure if you already talked about this. (I’m pretty sure you have) but someone seemed to notice that when the trio get into fights, Hermione’s always in the right. Even when she’s supposed to be wrong she always seems to be half right. That kind of bothers me. Especially since it’s evident in the whole Scabbers situation.

I have indeed, on Quora, so let’s move yet another answer of mine to Tumblr!

Hermione is seldom wrong in the Harry Potter books. Sometimes she makes mistakes but those mistakes are either completely swept under the rug or downright ignored.

It’s partly due to lazy writing and partly due to Rowling’s own growing bias in favour of her Author Avatar that was fuelled by Steve Kloves, the primary advocate of the Hermione Granger Is The Perfect Girl Ever line of thinking (an utterly ridiculous line of thinking mind you).

Lizo: Steve, Hermione is a character that you have said is one of your favorites. Has that made her easier to write?

Steve: Yeah, I mean, I like writing all three, but I've always loved writing Hermione. Because, I just, one, she's a tremendous character for a lot of reasons for a writer, which also is she can carry exposition in a wonderful way because you just assume she read it in a book. If I need to tell the audience something...

JKR: Absolutely right, I find that all the time in the book, if you need to tell your readers something just put it in her. There are only two characters that you can put it convincingly into their dialogue. One is Hermione, the other is Dumbledore. In both cases you accept, it's plausible that they have, well Dumbledore knows pretty much everything anyway, but that Hermione has read it somewhere. So, she's handy.

Now this, right here, is the exact core of the problem.

Rowling herself admits it: if she wants the readers to have information, she puts Hermione in the scene. Hermione is our primary means of exposition because, like *grits teeth* Sssssteve puts it, it’s easy to assume that she’s read about it somewhere and it makes sense.

That’s all well and good but at first, if you notice, Ron also gave us exposition about the wizarding world, mostly about its culture. He was able to recall the exact year of the Wizarding Confederation that outlawed dragon breeding in Philosopher’s Stone! He explained what were respectively a “Mudblood”, a “Squib”, and Parseltongue, Hermione doing a little exposition about the history of that last one! He was also able to identify Sirius, after being dragged into the Whomping Willow, as an Animagi!

But then Goblet of Fire happens and you can notice the first change that will exponentially grow through the books: instead of Ron, pureblood Ron, born-before-the-end-of-the-war Ron, lived-through-the-aftermath-of-the-war Ron, identifying the Dark Mark, it’s instead Hermione, muggleborn Hermione, lived-as-a-Muggle-for-most-of-her-life Hermione, has-no-idea-about-the-emotional-impact-of-the-Mark Hermione who looks terrified as the Dark Mark shoots into the sky!

And it only will get worse, by the end of the series, Hermione pretty much knows about everything the plot needs her to know, instead of having to work with things she knows but can’t always apply to the situation:

Suddenly has a deep knowledge of Magical Law (in the will of Dumbledore’s chapter, while we had Rufus Scrimgeour who could have provided it to us, or to a lesser extent, Ron could have explained how a wizarding will basically worked)

Is suddenly an expert at finding edible plants and mushrooms. Apparently books are always the goddamn answer in JKR’s world, you can literally learn anything from them

She can decipher all the Tales of Beedle the Bard (may I remind you that they were written in Runes, okay Hermione may have a few years of Ancient Runes education BUT I once tried to translate a 3k+ story I had written for fun, from French to English, which means I knew what the subtleties and intentions were, I knew which turns of phrase I had to preserve so it would make sense in the end, and it still took me two gruelling weeks to get a satisfying result!)

Has suddenly grown a sense of quick-thinking (escaping Xenophilius’ house, using the jinx to make Harry’s face weird-looking) despite it being the only remaining flaw she had at the time (remember when she turned her back on her enemy while he was still conscious just to compliment Harry, and almost died as a result, even though she had been training in the DA to learn how to fight Death Eaters?) Quick-thinking under pressure can be learned, but it takes time and a lot of work to force your brain to override its instinct - and it’s fine because we’re all human and different. But no suddenly Hermione is the Greatest Strategist Evah™ and those silly boys (who actually were the original quick-thinking ones, and one of them was established as the strategist early on) better be grateful for this literal goddess because she protects them from all harm with her superhuman brain.

Somehow knows about Quidditch stuff - she knows about a Snitch’s “memory-touch”. Why should she give all the answers? Why can’t Ron give us this particular tidbit of information?

And then when we come to something Ron actually knows, the damn narration itself goes “woah a book that Ron has read but Hermione hasn’t??? shocking!! incredible!! Ron is not dumb, somebody call the news channel”. But… is that really so surprising? We’ve never seen Hermione read wizarding fiction or even Muggle fiction. We’ve never seen Hermione with anything other than schoolbooks in her hands. Of course Ron has read books she hasn’t read since she doesn’t seem to read fiction at all!

Sorry, bit of a tangent over here.

There are only two characters that you can put it convincingly into their dialogue.

So, that’s one part of the problem: the fact that Rowling, after making Ron our insight into magical culture and Hermione our provider of knowledge, ended up saying “eh whatever I guess Hermione can tell us everything we gotta know because it’s more convenient for me”. Which is a decision that was not based on Hermione’s character, but simply lazy writing. Long story short, it probably went: “Could Ron explain this bit of trivia? Meh, better make Hermione say it cause she’ll have read it in a book. It’s convenient and I won’t need to bother myself with exploring Ron’s characterisation.”

(And thus completely forgetting that Ron could maybe ask his big brothers via owl and provide us with a good heap of extra advanced knowledge - Bill is supposed to have aced his NEWTs after all.)

The other part of the problem is quite simply that Hermione is more often than not, either painted as a victim by the narrative (which makes more people take her side, classic manipulation tactic), or made to be right anytime it’s about a plot point.

Hermione’s mistakes are never explicitly stated, corrected, or even pointed out as being unethical.

Hermione only gets one mistake expressedly pointed out as being a mistake: her misadventure in Polyjuice Potion. The rest of them? Even her crush on Lockhart can’t be counted as a mistake - people get crushes all the time, based solely on physical appearance, it’s not something awful or terrible (Except when it’s Ron who crushes on someone. Ron crushing on someone is absolutely forbidden, and he must be punished with much ridicule and humiliation if he thinks he can get away with not worshipping Hermione like the goddess she is. The nerve of him, really.).

Throughout the books Hermione eventually morphs into Rowling’s Powerful Angel of Vengeance, that punishes the people who dared to do something she disliked - Rita is silenced but at a very ethically dubious price; Marietta gets scarred for life because she was more loyal to her mother than to a bunch of people her friend insisted she hang out with; Umbridge is led to a very, very alarming fate that is never made clear but some people have ideas and they’re not all very kid-friendly; Ron first is “helped” without knowing it because Hermione can’t be bothered to have faith in his capabilities, then when he fails to dutifully reward her for “helping” him, she causes him bodily harm before actively bullying him for not mind-reading her interest in him; causes even more bodily harm to Ron because that’s how feminism works; etc.

Hermione’s mistakes are always justified through the plot itself (which is lazy writing).

Turning into a cat? Only affects her.

The Firebolt? Scabbers? Well, in the end, it was really sent by Sirius Black and Crookshanks really wasn’t the culprit. Therefore all the feelings that were hurt and all the trust lost are irrelevant because Hermione was right all along.

Trying to free the house-elves? Well, it’s the intent that counts, right? And we’re never told enough about house-elf lore to know whether they’re poor brainwashed victims or powerful Penate-like symbiotes who need to serve a wizard to survive?

Kidnapping Rita Skeeter, trapping her and blackmailing her? Rita may be one foul little beetle, but that’s going a bit far, isn’t it? Harry approves? Oh, well, I guess it’s okay then…? A main character can’t have a dubious morality, right?

Manipulating Harry into forming Dumbledore’s Army and forcing him to relive a traumatic event with the same woman she’s kidnapped and blackmail and that she knows he hates? In the end, it all works out for the best and Harry’s hurt feelings don’t matter since it’s all about the greater good.

Using the centaurs to get rid of Umbridge (which poses the highly distressing question of what did the centaurs do to her?), realizing that the centaurs aren’t nice little horsies that are going to gently obey her every orders like good Disney princess’ companions, my goodness could this be an opportunity for character growth - nevermind, here comes Grawp the Giant Ex Machina, saving her arse and protecting Hermione from all that scary possibility of introspection. Thanks, Grawp Ex Machina.

Trying to dissuade a highly stressed-out and irrational Harry from rescuing Sirius by telling him exactly what he needed not to hear, a.k.a. “you have a saving people-thing” which causes Harry to completely go bonkers and go save his godfather without thinking twice? Well she was right after all, it was a trap! Nevermind how mind-boggingly insenstive and inadept at dealing with someone else’s feelings she was being, she was right! That means it wasn’t Hermione’s mistake!… probably. (Geez, I’m sensing a pattern here…)

Endangering Cormac’s life (Confunding him WHILE HE’S ON HIS BROOM) to promote Ron’s success? Oh but that’s so romantic! (Yeaaaah, how romantic to display exactly how much faith you lack in your crush. Top it off with a broken neck and that’s a picture perfect first date!)

Assaulting Ron with magic and causing him even more scars than he already had? But he was being cold with her first, right? And he totally should have known she was asking him out! It’s not like her invitation was even worse than his attempt to ask her out two years earlier! Plus she’s just a teenage girl expressing her emotions, anyone who tries to find fault in this is a disgusting abusive misogynist pig! Ha!

Getting all jealous that Harry is better than her at Potions, then pretending she’s not jealous by claiming that TEH BOOK IS EVIL, HARRY, and giving him the cold shoulder too? But no, she’s right, look, Harry used Sectumsempra and he almost killed Draco, nevermind that he’s very horrified about it! Hermione was right, like she always is!

Hermione Obliviating her parents, which pulls her from the “ethically dubious” zone into the “wow okay I’m pretty sure that this counts as a violation of basic human rights” zone, makes her one of those quirky wizardfolk who have the privilege to control those simple-minded Muggles because it’s for the greater good? But nooo she’s crying about it so it’s obviously very sad and angsty and it shows her devotion to the cause!

Splinching Ron while fleeing from the Ministry? Eeeh, but he’s fine, they’ve got Dittany, he’s good as new!… blood loss? Anaemia? What’s that?

Hermione was wrong about the Deathly Hallows not existing? Um, um, that doesn’t matter, LOOK DOBBY IS DEAD AND HARRY IS BACK TO LOOKING FOR THE HORCRUXES!! Therefore Hermione was right, the Hallows weren’t important for their quest, therefore the Hallows might as well not exist, HERMIONE WAS RIGHT NO REALLY I’VE GOT RECEIPTS -

The books never forget to remind Harry and Ron of their own shortcomings and moments of weakness.

Harry’s wrath and recklessness cost Sirius his life. This is the lesson he has to learn from his entitled behaviour in OotP: actions have consequences, and the greater your responsibility, the greater the cost will be.

Ron’s envy and insecurity lead him astray; they’re used to humiliate, ridicule and torture him throughout the books. They’re supposed to teach him that he’s worth something - but how is he supposed to believe that, when nobody ever tells him he’s worth anything? When nobody ever apologizes to him? When his feelings are taken for granted over and over? When his two friends seem to discard him whenever he does one thing wrong?

Hermione is never punished. Hermione is never said to be wrong, never shown to be wrong, never called out on her behaviour. From Prisoner of Azkaban to mid-Deathly Hallows, she stays exactly the same character. She doesn’t grow up. She doesn’t learn. She doesn’t change. She has virtually no character arc.

The only time, THE ONLY TIME IN SEVEN BOOKS, the only time we have something remotely resembling a call-out of Hermione’s horrible behaviour is with this sole quote in HBP:

Harry was left to ponder in silence the depths to which girls would sink to get revenge.

Note how it’s about “girls” and not Hermione in particular, which implies that any girl would do what Hermione does to Ron. Thanks for the generalization, JKR, but I like to believe I’m actually a decent sort of person that doesn’t resort to petty cruelty and exploits my friends’ insecurities whenever I’m angry with them.

Hermione NEVER has to apologize. Hermione NEVER has to learn from her mistakes because she’s always presented as a victim when she really isn’t. Hermione NEVER develops into something more - she’s emotionally stuck at fourteen years old. Even less than that when you consider that her reaction to Ron’s return in Deathly Hallows is to trash him with her fists - and she was going to get her wand!! The utter psychopathic b- wanted TO THROW BIRDS AT HIM AGAIN!!! - and this reaction is an appropriate one for a four-years old girl, but certainly not for a supposedly “mature” seventeen-years old.

(Yes, because what separates a child from an adult is the ability to reign in your emotions and not succumb to your impulses. Exactly what Ron did when he left the tent (notice that he had drawn his wand, then he left before he could start hexing Harry), he left to calm himself down. Exactly what Hermione fails to do when Ron returns (she has the impulse to strike him and immediately succumbs to it, which proves to us that The Brightest Witch Of Her Age has all the maturity of a very small child).)

All of that, on top of the awful portrayal in the movies which removes all of Ron’s characteristics to stuff them into Hermione and turns her into some impossible epitome of perfection, eventually contributed to the portrayal of Hermione as the one who is always right and knows everything.

Add to it JKR’s own ridiculous bias (“Ron was quite emotionally immature compared to the other two”, yeah right I don’t see him trying to force freedom onto unwilling creatures or making Harry fly into an irrational rage with mere words but you do you, Jo) and the sexist misconception that “girls are innately more mature than boys”, and you get yourself this apparent behemoth of righteousness that was literally the sole reason why those two silly boys survived everything, and don’t you dare criticize this angel of perfection OR ELSE.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

The Daryl and Leah Spoilers - Everybody BREATHE!

Okay, let’s talk about it. We’re gonna have to talk about it. The Crappiest Spoilers of All Time. (We’ll just abbreviate them CSAT, okay?)

Yes, I saw them. Yes, I spent most of the day yesterday talking about them with people. Yes, we went up and down and forward and back and right and left trying to figure out what the hell. Actually, I literally got 68 Asks about this yesterday. 68! Lol. I may have sarcastically told a couple of people it was 400. It wasn’t that high. But even when something big happens, I don’t generally get more than about 20, so this was a lot.

***Below I’ll be talking about all kinds of spoilers for 10x18! If you’re not someone who wants to know, stop reading now. You’ve been warned!***

Okay, let’s start by attacking this head-on.

Does this suck? Yes.

Am I happy about it? Obviously not.

Does it change my opinion about Beth’s return? Not in the slightest.

And in all seriousness, I’m not trying to make light of this. I totally understand how everyone is feeling right now and I feel the same. But if you’re doubting or losing hope, please keep reading. I really think the things I have to say after talking to people in the fandom literally all day yesterday will make you feel better.

So I’m going to talk about some things that are suspicious to me about this, and also about some reasons why, even if it’s exactly what it looks like, we don’t really need to worry. I’m also gonna give you a possible way this could actually be okay, but I’ll warn you that scenario is mostly head canon and not super likely to be the case.

Context

The first thing I’m going to point out is that we really, REALLY do not have the full context for this episode. CSAT are big, but there’s a lot we don’t know about what’s going on here. I have a thousand questions and we can’t really be sure of anything until we know the answers. Which we won’t until we see the episode.

And I don’t mean things that make me doubt CSAT are true. I mean like, what is Leah doing out there? Why did no one else ever meet her? Why did she disappear? Did she go on her own because she’s a jerk, or was she taken? Is the CRM involved? We simply don’t know.

These are just a few, and the answers might profoundly effect the way we view these events. So, I’m just saying there’s a lot we can’t be sure of and we should be taking these with a grain of salt. I’ll come back to these questions in a minute. 

The Psychology

So, my first reaction to this was that it’s not entirely unrealistic. Is it out of character? Yes, for sure. They’ve pegged Daryl as a character who wouldn’t do something like this, so it’s definitely out of character for him. I’m totally with ya on that. But I also feel like this isn’t a real relationship for him. What I mean is, it might be something of a rebound or an act of desperation on his part.

Think about what we know about this part of his life. He’s just lost Rick and is devastated. According to these same CSAT, Carol abandons him. AGAIN. I think he’s feeling very depressed and lonely and would reach out to just about anyone at this point. It doesn’t mean he’s in love with her. And yes, I know about the note he wrote to her, but I still think that can be explained by his state of mind. If he’s not feeling like he belongs anywhere else, and Carol has specifically told him she’s not coming back, why wouldn’t he go with someone who’s promising him companionship? I don’t like it, and I know it’s not what everyone wants to hear, but I do understand it.

I promise I’ll move onto happier things. Like this:

Patterns:

We’ve seen this pattern with A LOT of the TWD couples. They put one or both of them together with a small, short-term love interest. And that always happens RIGHT BEFORE they hook up with their soul mate. So, let’s review, shall we?

Carol had Tobin, and right after she left him, she met Ezekiel. Rick kissed Jessi, and only a month after she died, he and Michonne finally got together. Enid was with Ron when we first met her, but it was obvious Carl was meant to be her true love. You could even point to Abraham and Rosita. Their relationship was a bit longer and more established than these others, but the fact is Rosita wasn’t Abe’s soul mate. Sasha was. And now Rosita is with Gabriel, so…

My point is that Leah may be Daryl’s Jessie. Or Tobin. Take your pick. But the pattern is that this will be short term and he should be finding his true soul mate VERY soon after. Just saying.

Is This a Healthy Relationship?

Someone in my group pointed this out. CSAT says she asks him to choose between her and the rest of his life. I didn’t think much about that until one of my FB groupies pointed it out, but it’s really not cool to do that to him. It’s almost passive-aggressive. The way I see it, when you fall in love with someone, you want to get to know their family and participate in every part of their lives. If this was a true, committed relationship, she would WANT to go to Alexandria and meet his friends. She would WANT to help him in his search for Rick’s body. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.

So, in terms of how Daryl feels about her, well, loneliness is a different feeling than real love, and I’m not sure this is the healthiest relationship for Daryl to be in.

Scope, or Lack Thereof

The thing that I think most of the fandom is on the same page about is how out of character this is for Daryl. How out of left field this feels.

I’m mean, this is Daryl. Daryl Freaking Dixon. The writers know about the shipping wars. They know that no matter who they pair him up with—Carol, Connie, Beth, Leah, someone else—it’s going to be a huge deal. For them to do it like this just doesn’t make sense.

Now, I don’t think we have a definite timeline on this. We have two possibilities.

1)     I’ve seen some people say he’s sleeping with a complete stranger, which is very out of character for him.

2)     I’ve also seen posts that claim the two of them meet and develop a relationship over time. That would be less out of character, but it would also mean that the writers developed an entire relationship for Daryl in only one episode…and then took it away.

Does that seem logical to you? I just don’t buy it.

So, at the very least, if this turns out to be what it looks like on the surface—a real romantic relationship for him—I’m gonna say it’s not going to be a big one. It’s not going to be end-all, be-all of Daryl’s love life.

My Praying-This-Headcanon-Is-True-While-Also-Trying-Not-To-Get-My-Hopes-Up-That-It-Is Theory

All right, everyone. I honestly wasn’t sure I should even include this. I don’t want to get people’s hopes up about it. But the more I think about it, the more I think it’s a distinct possibility. 

So, @wdway said this first, and I kind of just glazed over it like, “Meh, probably not.” But the more I thought about it, and the more I talked to people and hashed things out, the more sense it made.

Let me go back to some of those questions I asked at the beginning. Why did no one else ever meet Leah when he was in a relationship with her? Yes, because they were out in the woods together, but it talks about him going to see Carol and going to Alexandria and looking for Rick, which is why she asks him to choose in the first place.

But if you have a sustained relationship with someone, why wouldn’t you introduce them to your friends? Why wouldn’t he have taken her to Alexandria with him? It’s really odd to me that this happened at a time when Daryl was completely on his own out in the woods and NO ONE in his life ever saw or met her.

(Once again, I have to point out that with how vague CSAT are, we can’t know for sure that no one else knew about her. Maybe when we watch the episode, it will show that someone did, but this is the vibe I’m getting right now.)

What else do we know about this point in his life? He’s deep in the throes of his grief over Rick, he’s withdrawn to his robotic, survival mode, which he always does when he’s lost someone close to him, Carol has just abandoned him, and he’s lonely. People who spend too much time alone DO tend to go a little crazy.

So, here it is:

Is there any chance this Leah woman…could be a hallucination?

Honestly guys, that makes WAY more sense to me than that she’s real. Because everyone in the fandom who’s saying this is out of character for Daryl is 100% right. Everyone who’s asking why the writers would do this is 100% right to be asking that question.

And let me tell you, it’s not just us asking it. The entire fandom is. Obviously, all the shippers. And while I’m sure there are some in the non-shipping fans who are glad Daryl is getting a love interest, even they think it’s a little weird. Cuz, you know, it is.

But this show regularly does hallucination story arcs, and Daryl himself even has a history of it. I’m just saying.

People have also suggested that it would sort of makes sense given what I said above about the “unhealthiness” of their relationship. Maybe her wanting him to choose was really more about his sanity and leaving the delusion behind. Again, just a thought.

Then there’s the suspicious timing of CSAT.

Suspicious Release of CSAT and Hype

While messaging with @monroelibrarian0626, she said something I hadn’t thought of that made a lot of sense. Does anyone else find it suspicious that they said we wouldn’t be getting screeners for several weeks and then literally two days later all these spoilers about Daryl’s sex life drop?

It’s not rocket science to know that tptb intentionally leaked these to drum up viewership. Everyone is totally going to watch to see what this is all about. But it also seems to me that they may be releasing just enough information to get everyone all hyped up and then it won’t end up being what it seems. Here, I’ll just give you part of my text message with her because she explains this point better than I do.

But yeah, I get that impression that she's not real, and that's really good promotion and hype for the producers to draw in more viewers. Don't miss it! Daryl is gonna have sex! And then, boom! You find out it's a hallucination. I remember with LOST, there was a preview for next week's show, and in it, the Korean guy, Jin, was shown saying, "It's going to be alright." And he didn't speak English then, in season 2, so it was like, OH MY GOD! And here, when the episode aired, Jin speaking English was part of Hurley's hallucination. Could be along the same lines! --@monroelibrarian0626

Doesn’t that just make a certain amount of sense? Especially given how out of character this feels for Daryl? No matter what you think of the writers on this show, they just really don’t betray the way they’ve set up their characters like this.

Now, once again, I’m really not hanging all my hopes on this. I’m preparing myself for the outcome of her being real and this being a real relationship for Daryl. Mostly because I don’t want to get my hopes too high. And I would suggest you all make your peace with that being the case. I’m just throwing this out there as a possibility. Even TD aside, given how out of character this feels, it would make more sense to me than that they’ve actually put him in this relationship.

It could also that once we actually see the entire episode, depending on what the other details of the story line are, it might be really obvious that she’s real and the detail will explain a lot of this away. That’s a real possibility. Once we learn about other parts of the episode, everything I’ve said here could easily go straight down the toilet.

Another outcome is that she could be a hallucination, but we won’t even know it because Daryl doesn’t. If he doesn’t realize she wasn’t real, the viewers might not be told that, either.

Other Things I’m Side-Eyeing

Check out this tweet, specifically the emojis he uses. Don’t you find those suspicious? Fish? A violin? A sunrise? Boat? Hourglass? Now, this guy got a screener. He’s not one of the writers or someone close to the show who would know the overarching grand plan, so I’m not suggesting he has some inside knowledge of Beth’s return.

But why would he use these emojis? There’s no reason for him to tie them to Leah. The only answer there can be is that he saw these things in the episode. He simply added them to the tweet as hints of what we can expect. And if all those symbols are represented in the episode, this is going to be a super heavy Beth-symbolism episode.

Not to mention, have you checked out Leah’s costuming in detail? Her boots are damn close to what Beth’s looked like. And sitting on the porch, the bag on her back looks a LOT like the one Beth carried in Still. 

I feel like she’s a Beth stand-in. And I think that will be true whether she’s real or not. Again, if we go with the Tobin/Jessi/Ron pattern, she’ll be a forerunner of Beth, so having Beth symbolism around her isn’t surprising.

But once again, this isn’t something we need to worry about.

And don’t even get me started on the damn cabin motif. I’ve been thinking about this since I did my 5x09/Tyreese post last week. I’m not going to go into details here because I don’t even have it all straight in my head yet, but it has some interesting ramifications for this Daryl/Leah situation.

So, pretty much everything that everyone is saying (including me) is pure conjecture until we actually see the episode. I know that’s probably not very helpful, but it’s the truth.

So, what’s my main point about this? It’s this:

I hope she’s a hallucination, but even if she’s not, it doesn’t bother me overly much. I mean, of course I’m bothered because I don’t like to see him in a relationship with her, but I mean I’m not bothered where Beth is concerned. It doesn’t change the fact that I think she’ll still be back, and this will just be a blip of some kind in Daryl’s story. And if she’s real, and it’s following the Tobin/Jessie/Ron pattern, Beth (his true soulmate) should be surfacing VERY soon thereafter.

So, we basically don’t know anything until we do, and I know the fandom is collectively losing its mind. I know this is going to be hard to get used to. But try to make your peace with it, in all its possible iterations. Try not to let it freak you out. Hold the line, TDers. Hold the line!

[parachutingkitten]

Season 5 Analysis

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: I am going to be applying the concept of criticism to a TV show you presumably love and adore as much as I do. If you do not want your idea that the show is immaculate to be challenged, I would not advise reading past this point.

Additional Disclaimer: This includes criticism of Nya’s arc, so if you’re the type of person to get catty about this subject, turn back now.

Mood for this season: It’s spoopy time.

You don’t need to, but if you are interested, and haven’t seen my analysis of past seasons, you can find those here:

Pilot - Season 1 - Season 2 - Season 3 - Season 4

You can also find all of these, and future installments, on my blog using the tag #analysis 

Hey everyone! I’m still doing these things! Let’s see, when was my last one? Over two years ago...? Yikes, I owe y’all an apology. I really didn’t mean to put these off that long. Anyway, get ready to hate me, cuz although (for the most part) this seems to be the fandom favorite season… I think it’s overhyped. I know, don’t kill me. I’ll explain myself. I don’t think it’s bad or anything, it’s very well structured, but I definitely wouldn’t rank it among my favorites. First, for a little context, I am making a one second of every ninjago episode video right now, so I’ve been binging the series and all it’s shorts back to back, so I think I’ll have a bit more to say about connective tissue between seasons, and hopefully you guys can look forward to more of these analyses between now and the new year when I’m releasing that video. I’m also officially a film major now so… sorry if I come of as extra pretentious or get too deep. Anyway, let’s jump into the thick of it, shall we? 

Plot

This is probably the area I have the fewest number of complaints about. This season has a breakneck pace and it keeps everyone busy. I think that’s why people like it. Everyone’s favorite has something to do. Which brings me to the question… which ninja’s season is this? Lloyd is on a lot of the promotional stuff, but he’s possessed and out of the picture for over half the season, so that can’t be right. Cole turns into a ghost, and the season is a ghost season, but that can’t be right cuz I don’t know that I’ve ever heard anyone claim it was his. Nya reaches her true potential, maybe it’s hers? Well, she does have a large b-plot, but she is consistently not a part of the a-plot. Kai has a whole thing with being protective of Lloyd, he has his fear of water, maybe it’s just another Kai season? Thing is, it’s no one’s. It is an ensemble season, and I think that’s a healthy thing for ninjago to keep doing. The more we label certain seasons for certain ninja, the more complaining we’ll get about who’s turn it is for screen time that we’ll miss out on telling a good story. Also, If the season is focused on a ninja you don’t like, you are less likely to like the season (see my next analysis for that can of worms). Again, this season tells it’s story really well. Morro directly ties into the ending of last season, and Nya’s getting water powers was foreshadowed the season before. That’s some cool connective tissue to start. The opening episode establishes the three different things the ninja will be looking for, and for once they’re actual tools instead of a series of weapons, blades, masks, whatever. I like that. Jay has some really good humor, Zane has his speech changes, Kai has his irrational fears and protective instincts, Cole has his ghost angst, Lloyd has to deal with his father’s passing, Nya is a new water ninja, Wu has a shop to run and a student to reconnect with, even Ronin has an arc about developing morals and gaining friends. There’s the mystery about how to deal with the ghosts, what the rules are, there’s the leader subplot, the ninja’s money situation, and lore of the different realms, they even worked in Skylor and Borg, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on. This is a tightly woven script that manages to include a lot of new concepts that you get pretty quick. I don’t feel like there’s even that much fat to cut. The opening is a little slow and strange, and the cloud kingdom episode feels a little unnecessary, but I do like the idea of visiting a different realm early in the season so the audience isn’t caught off guard in the climax. Again, the plot all works for me, it’s the other stuff I find myself pretty meh on.

Characters

Ronin

I’m pretty sure Ronin is the only new (non villain) character introduced. I like him a lot. Ninjago needed a true wildcard to shake things up and be unpredictable. I also think he’s pretty nicely woven into the action of the plot. I think his introduction is a bit strange. Like, the ninja already know him, but we’ve never seen him before? Just the way they talk about him sounds like they’re quickly recapping who this guy is for those who missed previous episodes. It’s fine if the ninja already know him but either 1) Introduce or foreshadow him a season earlier or 2) Introduce their dynamic to the audience before it becomes plot relevant. Maybe the ninja are grumbling about him being a nuisance while tea shenanigans are going on or something. Or maybe you have a scene of him stealing the scroll and making snarky remarks about the ninja while he does it. Idk. just something so his sudden plot relevance isn’t out of nowhere. Also, I don’t hate his and Nya’s dynamic, but I know a lot of people love it, and I’m just not totally here for it. Is he supposed to be a father figure for her? Mentor? Frienemy? Just plain friend? (love interest???) it’s not super clear and I could have used some clarification. I also like his use and tie to the next season, so overall, well integrated character.

Nya

I’m adding in Nya here cuz she goes through a major character change, and how she’s handled is one of the things that rubs me the wrong way about the season. A lot of people will probably disagree and/or hate me for this section of the analysis so… here we go! The thing she has to get past to reach her true potential is fear of failure (supposedly) and the solution to that is to just… not care as much? First of all, I know this isn’t supper important, but the fun thing about the ninjago elements is that every elemental master matched up personality wise with their element. Jay is the energetic master of lightning, Kai is the hothead master of fire, Zane is the calm and calculating master of ice, Cole is the strong and dependable master of earth, Lloyd is the literal child master of energy. This especially goes for all the new season 4 masters. So what qualities are often associated with water personalities? Well, serenity, control, flexibility, elegance, patience… calm. You know, like a Zane type character (the element directly adjacent to hers). These are things that Nya isn’t - or at the very least don’t define her. (there’s also something to be said about water and its ties to more feminine qualities, which Nya has been actively shown to reject, but I won’t go into that rant here.) She was designed as the fire master’s sister, and when you try to fit a fire personality into a water shaped character mold… it doesn’t exactly mesh well. It doesn’t make sense. But, like I said, whatever. Maybe that’s the point? Like she has to change her personality to be more in tune with water? Sure. But let’s talk about this fear of failure thing. Because that’s the stated thing that dialogue tells us she needs to overcome. But when has Nya ever been afraid of failure? Fear of failure means avoiding doing something because of fear. Nya is ridiculously persistent, always has been (you know, fire personality). She tries training when no one tells her to, she makes her own alter ego to try and be a hero and save the people who would constantly tell her she wasn’t ready. Wu says she only wants things that come easy, but that’s never been her character before now, she has carried the team with her tech, research, and covert ops that no one forced her to do, all things which are not easy. Fear of failure is usually characterized by what if questions. If Nya is so afraid of failure, why don’t we hear her saying stuff like “but what if I’m not strong enough, what if I can’t save them in time, or worse, what if I lose control of my power and end up hurting people?” Cole shows much more of a fear of failure this season surrounding his insecurity about being a ghost. He wants to sit out from missions because he’s not sure he’ll be able to do it - he’s afraid of failure. But whatever, the writing isn’t clear at expressing her true setbacks, but she does display a real problem that a lot of people have and I think could have been well done if set up correctly. She shows an undying persistence that gets her too close, and makes her increasingly incapable. She lets her frustration hinder her progress (again, fire personality trait), and I think that’s interesting because I don’t think ninjago has done this character arc yet. The supposed solution to this problem is that she just needs to… care less? And yes, I kind of see where they were going with this, we sometimes cloud our natural potential by thinking about it too much, but saying “you need to stop caring” is the absolute wrong way to word it. Caring is not her problem, the problem is her control over the emotions that come from her caring. Caring is a good thing, and teaching kids that if you’re ambivalent about your problems, they’ll go away is not a good message. What she needs to do is take a step back. She needs to take a break, stop to think, and look at the big picture instead of hyper focusing on the roadblock directly in front of her. The usual and much better wording of the moral I think they were going for is “stop overthinking things”. Teaching kids to look at a problem from a different angle and give themselves time to cool down is a great thing. And just think of it, in the climax she could have this ah-ha moment where she steps back and looks at the bigger picture - the whole town, surrounded by the ocean - and gets the idea to sink the preeminent into the water, you could even easily tie that back into the bucket exercise, and that’s what triggers her true potential rather than the current… I’m honestly not sure what. Random flashbacks and the end of the season approaching quickly. Alternatively, you could tie it more directly into samurai x, and make her struggle with letting go of the past and allowing yourself to give up something good in your life to progress to something better. Anyway, I don’t think this was a bad decision long term, she needed to be solidified on the team as a full fledged ninja, I just think this season doesn’t handle the transition that well. Anyway, whatever, I’ll be waiting for your hate comments in the notes.

Romance

Um… there’s none this season? Like there’s a few Wusako moments that are still as weird as they were in season 2, but they’re really not prevalent. There’s also the Jay seeing the future thing which has some weird implications next season (again, some interesting connective tissue between seasons), but that’s about it. Maybe that’s part of why I don’t love this season? Like where’s the pixane? Lol, I’m kidding. But maybe that’s why a lot of people do like it. If you don’t like the canon ships… this is a nice little safe haven for you. Rare for a majority of the series.

Villains

So Morro is a good idea… in theory. I know he’s the fandom’s favorite edgy boy, but idk I think the brand of angsty teen they ended up with was more of an angsty 13 year old than 17 year old. His voice is really grating and I always want to yell at him to just… go get some cough drops. Stop throat screaming, use your diaphragm man! Also, everyone goes on about his last minute redemption, but as far as season 5 goes, he has like half a second of a change of heart. Literally, when Wu comes over and he’s drowning, he’s still being a persistent little idiot like “you never cared about me nooooo!” and it’s only at the last possible second that gives him the crystal, and even that he does it kind of saltily. The preeminent is pretty cool, I like her concept, her design, all that. All the other ghosts are fine I guess. Nothing super memorable out of them, although their aesthetic, especially when there’s a bunch of them swarming around is pretty cool. One last thing was I never understood how Morro “becoming the green ninja” worked and what exactly it was that… did for him? Like he didn’t actually get the power of energy, right? I don’t remember him using it. Did just him defeating Lloyd make him the green ninja? How does that transfer work? And why did he need it to take over the world or realms or whatever? Like I get that it’s supposed to give him more power and what not but idk, it wasn’t super clear. That’s a minor thing though.

Climax

Pretty cool. I like the ATMOSPHERE. Green light is a hard thing to use and justify correctly, but it works really well here, especially with the dark kinda gray blue sky complimenting it. When the preeminent starts walking into the ocean, it’s genuinely terrifying, but you understand exactly how it works and why she’s strong enough to do it. Nya’s true potential is again a little out of left field and could have had some better motivation put behind it. Like what is it Nya learned in that instant? To not be afraid to protect people? She’s… been doing that. Idk. I’ve hit on that enough for now. Overall, there was good variety. I like the green ninja fake out, I like the realm hopping, I even like the little Garmadon visit and Lloyd getting the robe. I feel like we didn’t need a part one and two, you could have had different titles. I mean come on. But hey, now we know, if Pix had only been there, the whole climax would have been wrapped up in like 10 minutes apparently. Pix for the win.

Humor

Really good. Like I’m surprised how much I laughed. Jay wasn’t annoying humor, it was good stuff, there were some good running gags, there’s a solid fourth wall joke about who the lead ninja is at the beginning of the season. Overall, I am pretty impressed. My favorite joke was perhaps the bit where Jay is sarcastically positive, the voice acting is just really solid. Then again, there’s also the whole Borg scene where he roasts half the ninja, that’s solid stuff right there. There’s just some really solid character interaction this season and the humor feels a lot more natural and less forced.

Drama

Okay, we’ve got a lot this season. Y’all know how I feel about Nya’s arc by now. It does not work for me. Ronin’s relationship with her is alright, but kind of comes out of nowhere. Ronin’s solo plot about kinda working for the ghosts works. Cole’s ghost angst works for the most part, although I wish he would have actually skipped a mission and then gone in to help save his friends once they can’t do it without him. That was probably the most solid drama of the season. The other main thing we have this season is Kai’s whole… fear/protective streak. This also doesn’t really work for me. Like, I get that Lloyd and Kai are friends and stuff, like his whole true potential was centered around Lloyd. But like, why does it have to be framed so weirdly? Sometimes in trying to make it seem like Kai is protective of him, it seems like the other ninja just like… don’t care about him? Not all the time, but there are some weird vibes. Also, it doesn’t really go anywhere. No one learns anything about themselves from this subplot, nothing comes of it, there isn’t really a payoff. Also, Kai has yet another irrational fear, this time of water, which really comes right the hell out of nowhere. They try to explain it away like “Oh, Kai feels powerless and so water can get to him” but like… what? That’s the exact situation he was in at the end of season 2 and he seemed perfectly content to literally swim across the ocean (which um… what do you mean the sworn protector of ninjago can’t swim?). Where is this coming from?! Again, it doesn’t really go anywhere, there’s not a point where he has to learn to confront it or he grows because of it. It’s just pointless stuff added cuz the writers like giving Kai vague trails to try and develop him. The cloud kingdom is kinda cool. That last minute twist about them working with Morro is… stupid and unnecessary though. 

Spotlight Episode

I really like the Spinjitzu master tomb episode. Some cool riddles, I like the first two rooms a lot. I do think the third room is a bit strange. Like, the clue was “don’t look ahead” and the solution was to look beneath them, which is the exact same solution as the previous room. Like, you already have magic ice that shows the future, why not play into that? Don’t look ahead could maybe mean don’t look to the future, the opposite of that being the past. Maybe they have to draw on their past adventures to solve it somehow? Learning from the past is a good lesson, right? But overall, I really like it. Some real solid humor this episode. This episode has the sarcastic Jay optimism, Kai totally stalling for time, Zane dealing a pretty sick burn on Cole, just a lot of fun stuff. I like it. It just has great energy and nothing feels like it’s drawn out for too long.

Misc

The aesthetic this season… can be inconsistent, but the main ghost vibe displayed in the opening theme is really solid and I really like it

Speaking of the opening, Ghost wip is great and the opening in on par with last season’s (which is my fav) for sure

Ice age references… okay.

Chima references…. OKAY...

Okay, but like Deepstone can… kill ghosts? Or not? Is it just something ghosts can touch? It’s supposed to be like water in weapon form, right? Like that’s how I understood it when they first introduced it. Wouldn’t the deepstone bars kill Ghoultar then? And then like, Cole’s bike is made of deepstone. He uses it as a weapon. Wouldn’t it kill him? It kills other ghosts when they touch it. How… how does it work?! I need answers!!!

The captain of the steam boat says they’re going as fast as possible, but later Ronin comes in and cranks it up like twice as fast… that always bothered me like, why would he lie about that? Who is this captain and why is he so chill about everyone’s lives?! And then later Wu cranks it up yet again, like the ship had slowed down to it’s previous speed. What the hell is happening with the controls of this ship???

So pissed that the nasty CGI nightmare cloud monster that chases the ninja is named Nimbus. Totally forgot about that. I have an OC with a cat named Nimbus… I promise, there is not going to be a stupid twist bout the cat being the monster thing in Mists of Fate. That would be very stupid.

I was all excited that season 13 gave us minecart chases, but I totally forgot season 5 gave us one first. I really like the return to the caves of despair btw, good reuse of a known location.

How many times this season did we do the: 

Kai: Oh, I don’t like water, I can’t do it uwu  Cole: ...You serious?

Thanks for reading! And if you got this far… I don’t know. I would love to hear your thoughts if you have any! These are just my opinions, so don’t think too much of it if you disagree.

-Kitten

[constablewrites]

In Which I Give Way Too Much Thought to the Sex Lives of Animated Characters

I’ve fallen off the wagon on my weekly posts here, because ::gestures vaguely at 2020:: It isn’t that I haven’t had observations to make, more that I lacked the particular motivation to actually write them up. But there’s one thing that can always drive me to the keyboard: getting nice and annoyed!

Star Wars Rebels is a deeply irritating show, mainly because when it is good, it is truly excellent, but there’s a lot of meh to wade through to reach those moments. It seems to be aimed at a younger audience than Clone Wars, and lacks that show’s advantages of both the well-established characters from the films and its urgent newsreel energy (because who needs Act I when Tom Kane can just yell exposition at you). There are a lot of interesting ideas and setups in Rebels that just never get properly explored, but the one I found most disappointing was the relationship between Kanan and Hera.

(Major spoilers after the cut. Go watch the show, it’s not terribly long and, as I said, the good stuff is really good.)

I was surprised by how much Kanan’s character grabbed me. Maybe it’s because I find the concept--someone who knows he’s unfit to be a mentor but has no choice but to fake his way through--to be highly relatable as an elder millennial, or maybe it’s just that I glom onto protector characters. He has great chemistry with Hera, and I am a shipper of the highest order. So when the final season started focusing on their romance, it should have been catnip for me.

Reader, it was not.

Oh, the interrupted kiss when they’re trying to get out of the city on Lothal is solid ship-tease stuff, to be sure. But then you get to 4x7 “Kindred” (not gonna link a video because I couldn’t find a good one and the damn things always get taken down later anyway). Kanan asks if she’s ever thought about their future together, Hera demurs and says that he knows how she feels. He isn’t so sure, so after a bit of cockblocking from the A-plot, she kisses him for the first time (that we see). The exchange is brief and doesn’t quite fit the established dynamic, but it’s fine.

The problem is, immediately after that kiss, she gets on a ship and leaves for rebel command. The next time Kanan sees her is the rescue mission that kills him. So for the [Babies Ever After] epilogue to make sense, one of these things must be true:

Force ghosts can fuck

They find time during the harrowing escape to sneak away and hook up

Hera is already pregnant when she leaves Lothal

Not only do the first two seem unlikely, but the third point works with most of the rest of the series. A show with such a young audience was probably never going to state outright that two characters are doing it, so they just have to imply it in ways that older viewers will pick up on: Hera calls Kanan “dear” in the very first episode. They talk to each other about things they don’t talk about with the rest of the crew. And Kanan being squirrelly on Ryloth? That isn’t a guy meeting the father of his best friend or even his crush, that is [recognizably] a guy meeting the father of the girl he’s boinking.

I don’t have a problem with a kids’ show not getting into detail about the love lives of its parental figures, and I honestly think more media should feature healthy, established couples. But I feel like the writers realized that they couldn’t show the impact Kanan’s death has on Hera if their relationship is entirely off-screen. So they did finally make it clear that this is a romance--but they did it in a way that makes it seem like the romance started right there at the end, since Hera’s unhappy “We’ve talked about this before” gives the impression that she’s turned him down in the past. And that just doesn’t add up. (Not to mention the sudden ramp-up makes it pretty obvious that one of them is gonna die.)

But this isn’t Fandom Bitching Wednesdays. Was there a way to do it differently?

Potential fix: Cut the kid. Probably the most straightforward, since that’s what creates the out-and-out plot hole Issues: Also the most depressing option. Kanan’s son is the thing that gives him a happy(ish) ending, allowing a part of him to live on beyond just the memories of his friends. Plus, it makes their interactions in the early seasons kinda confusing if they were never supposed to be in a relationship at all.

Potential fix: They were in a relationship but were very private about it and avoided any PDA around the rest of the crew. Conversation plays out more or less the same, but Hera’s reluctance to talk is because she’s aware that the others are watching, and the kiss is significant because she’s choosing not to hide anymore. Issues: My vote for most satisfying option, but would still benefit from a scene or two earlier in the series setting it up. Also means that if you wanted to keep the bit at the fuel depot where Hera tells Kanan she loves him as a big climactic moment, you would definitely need to establish why she’s never said it before. (Especially because she calls him “love” during the evacuation of Chopper Base.) There are plenty of options for this that would fit in with her character--perhaps something about her own parents, or how they’re in a war, or how she just thinks it’s less complicated if no one knows--but you would have to pick one and show it.

Potential fix: They were in a relationship but it wasn’t “serious,” or perhaps was even a strictly friends-with-benefits arrangement. So when Kanan is asking about their future, it’s not a new thing but an escalation, and builds more naturally toward Hera saying she loves him. Issues: This is how I tried to headcanon it initially, because it’s the only thing that makes any of it make sense as-is. And it’s easy to see how Kanan would have initially been happy with that setup (more on that in a second), but less so for Hera, with her pet names and talk of how they’re a family. As above, her reason for putting up that barrier, and for keeping it up this long, would need to be clearly established.

Potential fix: FWB but reverse this scene: Hera is the one who wants more and Kanan is resisting. I mean, come on guys, the “Jedi are forbidden to form attachments” thing was right there. It’s a stupid rule, but you have the opportunity for Kanan to acknowledge it as a stupid rule and reject it. Kanan is also exactly the kind of guy who would try to ride out the loophole of “It’s okay that I’m in love with her if I never say it or call her my girlfriend.” Variant: they were in a typical relationship but Kanan pulled back when he trained with Bendu to control his emotions, so what Hera wants isn’t something new, but rather what they had before. Issues: The dynamic of “girl wants romance, boy can’t express emotions” is pretty played out. The fact that Kanan broaches the topic by asking what would end her involvement with the Rebellion further adds an interesting angle that builds on stuff that’s been brought up before--war is all she’s ever known so she doesn’t shy from it, while he feels like he’s already survived one war and wants to be done with it--and you lose that if she’s the one who raises the question. It also follows that he would then be the one to say “I love you” at the fuel depot, which somewhat dampens the power of his sacrifice to say that for him.

Perhaps the real lesson here is that sometimes there aren’t any perfect solutions to story problems, just a series of trade-offs. This is especially true in a serialized medium, where part of the story might already be out there by the time you realize you would need to make changes to it to properly set up where you want to take it. If you missed the chance to show us a very important conversation, the best you can do might just be to reference that it happened and hope (in vain) that your audience will just roll with it instead of being nitpicky bastards.

And maybe Force ghosts just fuck, I dunno.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 260: GOD IS A WOMAN

Previously on BnHA: Virtually all of the known pro heroes in existence split into two big groups (each with its own weenie hut junior subgroup) to launch a massive surprise attack on the League of Pliff. Endeavor’s group, in Jakku, stormed the hospital where Ujiko works, which amazingly seemed to catch him completely off guard, so I guess we’ll see how that goes. Meanwhile off in the woods somewhere, Midnight’s group (ostensibly this is Edgeshot’s group, but I call it like I see it guys) prepared to attack the villains’ main HQ at the Overlook Hotel, while my infant son Kaminari Denki complained too loudly about being stuck on the front lines. Meanwhile the rest of 1-A (sans Tokoyami) is either tucked away safe in the woods, or perched just outside of Jakku ready to begin the citizen evacuation. I suggest that everyone enjoy this brief period where the good guys appear to be safe and victorious while it lasts.

Today on BnHA: MIRUKO!!! Okay lol. A lot happens in this chapter. Aizawa uses his quirk on Ujiko, who immediately starts melting away into a crispy-fried old man because apparently this motherfucker had the immortality quirk all along. And then Mic and Aizawa yell at him, and the other doctors are all “pardon us but what the fuck” and the heroes are all “NO TIME TO TALK, HE’S EVIL” and then we find out that Ujiko is a fucking Twice clone, so that’s just great. And the real Ujiko is of course down in the basement, along with LORD EVEN KNOWS HOW MANY HIGH END NOUMUS, and for a moment it honest to god looks like we’re screwed. But then MIRUKO, YOUR NEW FAVORITE CHARACTER, KICKS DOWN ALL THE FREAKING DOORS AND FLATTENS POOR JOHN-KUN AND IS ALL “BOOM, YOU LOOKING FOR THIS?”, and let me tell you guys, FOR A MOMENT I SAW TRUTH. Anyway so next chapter she’s probably going to have to fight zombie Jeanist or something, but for now? Life is good. REMEMBER THIS DAY.

so just like last week, before I get started I’m gonna do a quick follow-up on chapter 259. really, Viz’s version wasn’t all that different from the fan scanlation this time around, so this will mostly just be reactions to things I didn’t notice and that other people pointed out

first off, a couple people mentioned that the thing Mic is holding up appears to be some kind of throat spray. which seems to track, so I’ll just say again that I have a very morbid curiosity about whether or not Mic could actually kill someone with his quirk. and this curiosity has only intensified since my google search

so yeah. will we ever get to see something like this?? STAY TUNED

also, I got a couple of conflicting answers about Naomasa’s quirk. someone said his quirk was lie-detecting, but another person said that’s actually his sister’s (LOL I HAD NO IDEA THERE WAS A NAOSIS, I REALLY SHOULD JUST READ VIGILANTES) quirk. and I never actually followed up on that lol sooooo. let me just do that real quick

okay so he doesn’t have a quirk listed on the wiki, but it says that his codename (??) is “True Man.” so that does seem to imply that his quirk is similar if not identical to his sister’s quirk, which is indeed a truth quirk (Polygraph). although the “she can’t detect a lie if the person is relaxed” seems to call this ability into doubt a bit. still pretty powerful though I guess

moving on now, last but not least let’s discuss the most relevant and controversial thing that happened this past week. (incidentally, I added an ETA about this to the previous chapter recap a couple hours after I first posted it, so in case you don’t what the asks below are referring to, it’s that.)

so... I have mixed feelings about this. thing is, after reading up on it, it seems like the fans who were most upset were those from China, Korea, etc., which is actually completely understandable given the historical context. Japan doesn’t exactly have a great track record with being sensitive about all of the horrific shit their military got up to during WWII, so while I still believe that Horikoshi wasn’t intending to be disrespectful, I can understand them not being inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt

that being said, I keep thinking about this tweet by aitaikimochi:

and despite what Horikoshi said in his apology tweets (about how he didn’t intend for the name to be associated with that particular historical connection), I still can’t help but think that he absolutely did intend to reference Unit 731, with the intent of (a) linking it to this vile, disgusting piece of shit character as a commentary, and (b) perhaps subtly pushing some of his Japanese readers who have never heard about this particular part of history to learn more about it. like, I know he offered up some dubious explanation about it being a reference to Ujiko’s rotund nature, but that seems really iffy to me tbh. that’s one hell of a coincidence if that’s really the case. idk

and you know what else -- and here’s where I’m really whipping out the conspiracy goggles -- I also can’t help but suspect that the decision to go back and change the name in the volume release is coming more from Shueisha (who I half-suspect weren’t themselves aware of the “maruta” name association until this blew up) than from him. because unfortunately this seems to be the standard Japanese PR response any time this subject comes up -- offer a vague statement of regret, and immediately proceed to wipe any mention of the subject from existence. because god forbid people actually talk about this or acknowledge that it happened

and so ultimately, while I do empathize with those who were upset by the name, I think it’s unfortunate that this is just getting swept back under the rug so quickly and will no doubt be forgotten about within a couple of months, because my gut feeling is that Shueisha was ultimately more concerned about what their Japanese readership might think about the controversy than what the Chinese and Korean fans thought. I could be wrong about that, and maybe also giving Horikoshi too much benefit of the doubt, but meh :/

anyway! so now that we’ve gotten that topic out of the way, let’s see how many pages it will take before the heroes finally realize just how much of an “oh fuck” situation they’ve gotten themselves into!

so the cover page is Hawks and Endeavor, but more importantly (to me), it establishes that this is indeed a hotel/resort and not a mansion, as the readheroaca team randomly translated it as last week. like does that look like any mansion you’ve ever seen. come on now

anyway so now my question is what happens if someone actually tries to stay at this hotel. do they just book that shit on trivago and enjoy a week up in the mountains surrounded by very strange but seemingly nice people, and just never suspect a thing? like, Gigantomachia lives in the basement here. I’m just saying. how dense can these hypothetical travelers be

also the hotel is apparently 80km from the hospital, or about 50 miles for us troglodytes who still use the imperial system. so pretty safe to say neither team will be able to provide backup to the other in this case. I will try not to think about this

so now Ujiko, the man without a name, is screaming while Endeavor and his group just STAND THERE LIKE TWENTY FEET AWAY. what the fuck

I swear to god he looked so much closer in the previous chapter. WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING. HE’S GOT NOUMUS IN THE BASEMENT!! CAN YOU FUCKING ARREST HIS ASS ALREADY

YESSSS AIZAWA

what are the odds that the next panel features Aizawa Shouta looking more pissed off than we’ve ever seen him. oh my god. it’s probably going to be hot af. I’m not sure I’m ready

booooooo

that is more or less the opposite of hot af. Horikoshi why you gotta do me like that

well well WELL!

you mean to say Mr. Innocent Quirkless Philanthropist isn’t actually quirkless?? even though he wasn’t actually innocent?? and he wasn’t actually a philanthropist either?? well I am just SHOCKED. who saw this coming. how could this happen

also for real this is creeping me the fuck out though

it does make sense though. I just can’t picture AFO entrusting so much of his operation to this dude if he actually was quirkless. because he’d view someone without a quirk as being lesser/inferior. so Ujiko almost had to have something up his sleeve. although it’s possible he could have been granted a quirk, rather than being born with one I suppose

!!!!

DO NOT TELL ME THIS MOTHERFUCKER HAS THE FUCKING IMMORTALITY QUIRK. WHAT THE FUCK. IS HE JUST GOING TO SHRIVEL UP INTO NOTHING. NO FUCKING WAY HE GOES DOWN THAT EASY WHAT THE HELL

(ETA: and does this mean that if Aizawa ever visits AFO and uses his quirk on him, AFO will also instantly age like 200 fucking years? could that actually kill him?)

duuuuude. Nao’s speculating about whether the Noumus’ regeneration ability actually stems from this quirk. ...but that can’t be the case, can it? otherwise AFO would have been able to heal his injuries from the battle with All Might. we know for a fact he’s known Ujiko for at least 15 years. but still, either way it’s still one hell of a powerful quirk

which now seems to be unraveling before our very eyes. uh...

anyone else getting Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade vibes? “he chose... poorly”

oh MY GOD!!

do it Mic do it do it do it

oh my god. well he’s not killing him with his voice, but instead this is happening

nooo Mic. I need you to be less anguished and more murdery. I don’t want feels yet!! goddammit

I mean it’s not asking for too much, is it? I just want a teensy little bit of satisfaction before the shit hits the fan. just torture him a little bit. just a little!

oh hey some doctors are intervening because the heroes look like psychopaths right now

s2g if one of these fuckers gets in between Ujiko and Aizawa’s line of sight and he fucking gets away -- !! oh my god. I can’t fucking take this. ffdffjjjk I’m so anxious you guys, I could never be a hero the stress is too much

so instead of explaining it to these rightfully concerned people, the heroes are just pushing them aside and telling them to stand back. and like, on the one hand I get it. they’re on the clock, they have to eliminate John-kun before the hotel villains get wind of the attack, and they don’t have time to explain an entire series’s worth of backstory to everyone who asks about it. but on the other hand, I also just want them to shout “HE EXPERIMENTED ON CHILDREN AND CORPSES AND CREATED THE NOUMUS!” or something. just so they know. I need them to know goddammit

but at least the patients seem to all be pretty chill about it lmao

-- holy shit. okay, three things

that panel with them moving the beds is my favorite

the panel with Tora holding this one guy who’s suddenly IN LOVE is also my favorite. oh man. Tora you are the manliest

combat with the WHAT DID YOU SAY NOW

so they knew?? well that sure fucking explains why Endeavor made the executive decision to keep his son and the other kids as far away as possible. but also, what? so like they must not realize that there are more high ends, then. right? or else they surely would not be so casual about this

holy shit?!

just how thorough was this investigation?? I really need to stop underestimating the heroes huh. should have learned my lesson after Kamino. these guys do their homework. it’s just that there’s always some one last thing that they failed to account for

so what is it going to be then in this case? Tomura is the one controlling them now? shitttttt

oh god. yeah, Miruko’s just casually kicking down the mortuary door and she’s all “we know who’s controlling them!” so I assume they believe that it’s Ujiko. which is honestly what I myself assumed up until about ten seconds ago, so fair enough

SDKFJLSKHGLK THERE IT IS

hot. a. f. just like I said. excuse me sir but there are laws against smoking in a hospital. because you’re smoking. get it. ...it’s because you’re hot. ...yes sir I’m sorry sir I will stop now

so Ujiko is sobbing and screaming “let me go!!” and okay but where is Present Mic? do you see, Mic. this is what I wanted, okay. but it’s all right, I understand that you were upset

ohhhhhhhhhh ffffuuuu

Endeavor with a worried look and lots of dots followed by an exclamation point, and then a closeup of Ujiko’s mouth looking surprisingly sinister as he reiterates for them to let him go. I’M SURE THIS IS ALL FINE. WE’RE ALL FINE. THAT’S OKAY HORIKOSHI, YOU CAN END THE CHAPTER HERE, IT’S GOOD. WE GOT LIKE WHAT, EIGHT PAGES? THAT’S PLENTY, REALLY

FUFFFFFFF NO MIRUKO DON’T GO FLYING INTO THE VOID! THE VOID IS BAD

HOLY SHIT

jesus christ. Miruko does the exact same thing as Katsuki where she sees a wall and she’s all “FUCK YEAH.” goddamn. it honest to god gave me a boost of confidence even as I watched her announce that THE NOUMU ARE DOING THE EXACT FUCKING THING SHE JUST SAID THAT THEY WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO DO

and also that is 100% a black Noumu there on the right side. so confirmed, the big guns are here too

HOLY SHIT TIMES TWO

THIS FUCKING HOSPITAL REALLY HAD THE FUCKING ASTEROID WORM FROM EMPIRE STRIKES BACK IN THE FREAKING BASEMENT, AND YOU ALL COULDN’T FUCKING DETECT THAT?? GET BETTER DETECTING TECHNOLOGY YOU DUMB HEROES

but nice save, Aizawa!! I personally would not have had such quick reflexes upon being confronted by a giant monster lunging out of the floor to stick out its multipronged DRILL TONGUE WHICH IS ALSO ITS BRAIN, haha. can someone please check on Horikoshi to make sure he is doing all right. I have some concerns about the mind that drew this

holy shit the drill tongue Noumu is actually drilling into Ujiko. like there’s blood and stuff

-- SHIT

THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE THE DAMN GOGGLES YOU ASSHOLE!! “BUT MAKESTE YOU WERE THE ONE WHO WANTED ME TO TAKE THEM OFF SO THAT I COULD LOOK HOT.” WELL JUST LOOK AT HOW WELL THAT TURNED OUT! THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER LISTEN TO ME

(ETA: well it turned out not to matter BUT STILL.)

lmao Endeavor looks so fucking mad

“THIS IS WHY YOU HAVE THE DAMN GOGGLES YOU ASSHOLE.” I know, right?!

...aaaaaand this is happening

lol. good job @blessedgirthma​ you called it. it’s a clone! hahaha, fuck

and so the bad man lives to see another day. bets on who will eventually be the one to take him out? just remember how long that list is. lots of enemies, Ujiko. you’ll get yours

but right now I guess we have some other things to worry about

by the way we best pray to god that it was Twice who made that clone and not Ujiko himself, because if Ujiko has managed to replicate that ability on top of everything else, we can truly kiss the world goodbye

but anyway! so that’s Noumu!Tomura confirmed then, in my book. and there are the 11! does this mean they’re not at the hospital?? all I know is they had better not be out on the outskirts of the city where my babies are

also is Ujiko talking to himself here. it almost seems like his words are coming out of the clone’s mouth. but Twice doesn’t have that kind of clone puppeteering ability. so then who is this guy bragging to. -- oh my god can he see us

lmao he’s plopping into his science chair and zooming halfway across the room

don’t misunderstand me though, one panel of being super relatable does not make up for a lifetime of horrific and nauseating crimes

-- THERE ARE MORE VATS!!! HOLY SHIT

THERE ARE MORE VATS. THERE ARE MORE VATS

there is at least one more row than I recall seeing in that previous chapter way back when. so even more high ends. in addition to the 12 (11 considering Endeavor subsequently fried one) we previously saw

and also I just realized, he did say “this” hospital. meaning he is still in the basement? so these guys are still right under their noses, then? oh god oh god so much to process and all of it is terrible god

GAAAAAAASPPP

MILADY!!!!!

holy shit. you guys. what the fuck. the hell was All Might thinking going to U.A. to pick a student successor when Miruko was right fucking there. like I’m just saying??

and also, fuck me he is getting away

OH MY GOD

SHE FUCKING MURDERED POOR JOHN-KUN JUST LIKE THAT WHAAAAAT. YOU GUYS I CAN’T BELIEVE MIRUKO IS THE NEW MAIN CHARACTER OF BNHA, TIMES ARE WILD

lmao and that’s the end of the chapter. holy shit. all I need is for her to say “I am here!” and I’m set. I leave it in your capable hands. why was she not in charge to begin with. number five hero my ass!! smdh for real though guys lol

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

So 5x18...

...Well hot d*mn.

Man when Supergirl fires on all cylinders...HOO BOY.

Case in point: *gestures to all of 5x18*

To be clear: I liked this one.

A WHOLE LOT.

Not that I disliked 5x17, necessarily. It’s just that 5x18 was more... Entertaining? ...I dunno. I dunno how to explain it.

...Okay yes I do and that explanation is: Someone remarked on Kara’s use of language and Kara overcompensated on the ‘NOooOOooOO I’m totally 100% normal!’ AND there was a musical quote AND it was WHILE TEAMING UP WITH ALEX TO FOLLOW A LEAD.

But I’m getting ahead of myself let’s backtrack...

TO THE TOWER! WITH ALEX! NIA! KARA! AND M’GAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!

June Foray voice: WOULD YOU LIKE TO STAY FOREVER?!?!?!

I know I’m not the first person to make that reference but it’s always fitting and, for real, recurring character status WHEN. (I mean. Obviously I would prefer series regular but that feels like a big ask considering that all future TV production is...uh. Ah. Erm....

...Up in the air. At the moment.)

And then we check in with the Luthors and Non Nocere isn’t working???

I am shocked! Shocked, I say!

And then we’ve got Obsidian doing something ill-advised which is basically the company’s MO at this point but KELLY AND WILLIAM ARE ON THE CASE REGARDLESS.

(So that’s kinda the one thing I’m sad about re: the Crisis reset; Andrea’s character development. But she’s sticking around for next season so I’m not too upset that she remains...kinda...one note for now.)

And THEN the library scene. 

It was so gooooood.

Then Leviathan and okay. Alright. Okay. Huge points in this episode’s favor: Rama Khan feels like a far more significant threat. And I feel like 80% of that is the fact that they just let him wear normal clothes. Thank you, show. Thank. You.

Also the rock effects were way better in this episode because they weren’t footing the bill for a giant crossover episode this time around

I am a little confused, though, by what has and has not happened with regards to Rama Khan on Earth Prime. Did the pre-Crisis stuff...happen? The dialogue...kinda made it hard to decide one way or the other. ‘He hasn’t been seen on this Earth for 100s of years’ but then also, ‘a chilly place you know quite well.’ So...he...did go to the Fortress. And fight Kara? But...all that stuff before Crisis...???

...Not gonna bother with that right now.

POINT IS...Leviathan is finally like...invested in killing Supergirl* and menacing in a very real way which both raises the stakes and makes it personal and that’s way more interesting than ‘nebulous evil organization that must be stopped.’

*I know they kinda sorta already did the whole, ‘let’s kill the Kryptonian!’ and invaded the Fortress but I don’t know what to tell ya, it was just lackluster.

J’ONN AND M’GAAAAAANNNNN

I am firmly in camp: I don’t care if they’re never green again I love seeing them in the super suits with their human faces IT’S GREAT.

Love that Nia’s snoring interrupts the moment.

Also love the deck of Rama Khan playing cards, that must’ve been a fun project for the graphic designers.

Then we’ve got William and Kara at CatCo and it’s baked goods! A hilarious line delivery by Staz! A ridiculous fabrication involving a shy, violent cat!

...Now I want Alex to actually own a shy, violent cat!

“Cats love me, for some reason.” “Of course they do.”

Side note: Love Kara’s blazer.

And then it’s ALIEEEEEENS TO THE RESCUE!

WHAT A TEAM UP, FOLKS.

We love to see it.

The interrogation scene is good n’ tense and ramps up to a very impressive showdown in the DEO (but BEFORE the sparks really start flying we get that rad shot of Kara leaping through the window and doing the superhero landing and it’s just

Perfection.)

Also perfect? Lex playing a game of transmatter pickle with the prisoners.

Then we jump back to the DEO where things are not going well!

Like, really really bad! 

But J’onn and M’gann save the day! If not the building!

RIP DEO. 2016-2020

Obituary: The DEO headquarters is survived by its elder sibling, the DEO desert base.

Look none of the favs work there anymore save for Kara and Brainy and they’re both gonna be better off working freelance for J’onn but I do expect Brainy to at least pick up some additional cash by working as a Lyft driver next season.

Me, watching the characters struggle to make it in the gig economy: I feel so seen.

The final portion of the episode is just ALL ACTING and I must say...good stuff.

Like. This cast, man. They take the plot points I’ve been ‘meh’ about all season and they turn in some stellar performances and suddenly I’m like STANDING OVATION, CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHERE THIS GOES.

Also, reason #342 I love Jon Cryer’s Lex: that scene with Lena.

Terrifying.

Full disclosure: I went in to this episode fully prepared to be really annoyed with whatever was going to happen with Lena and I still don’t...love the trajectory of this season, being so tied up in her personal drama but. 

But.

Katie McGrath’s performance...went an awful long way here. In making this...not as bad as it could have been.

Like tearfully admitting she was hurt? And that hurt was the basis of all the nonsense she pulled? Finally owning up to the fact that this was never truly about the greater good but that it was all rooted in some personal issues and OUTRIGHT STATING SHE WAS BEHAVING LIKE A VILLAIN????

I am. Extremely impressed.

EVEN MORE IMPRESSIVE THOUGH: Kara remaining distant both physically and emotionally throughout that scene! Not in like, a cold uncaring way, but in a, ‘I have emotions and I have a right to feel them and set boundaries in regards to my trusting you right now given all that has transpired’ kind of way.

GOOD. YES. GOOD.

(Lex’s outburst has that kind of same Nice Guy undertone--albeit more pronounced and rage-y--as Lena’s in the Fortress. Like, ‘I supported you and you still rejected my plot to take over the world’ and ‘I was kind to you and you still messed up my mind control’ which...I dunno I might just be digging in too deep here in order to further justify the character turn but I think Cryer’s performance regardless is a really sobering wake up call for Lena, different than Lex stuff we’ve seen before. It’s close and intense and uncomfortable in a way that really sells the motivation.)

“You’re a monster...but that doesn’t mean I have to be one too.”

Wow. Might be...the first time I’ve liked Lena all season.

...whispers: might be the first time I’ve liked her ever at all

For real: credit where it’s due, that was an excellent line read.

*insert applause here*

CUT TO ADORABLE J’ONN AND M’GANN MOMENT 

D’aaaawwwwwwwwww

But, look, it’s a little undermined by the fact that they both gotta try and embrace in those bulky super suits, I’m sorry, it’s true

...Maybe it’s more endearing that way?

HEY remember how I foolishly assumed that the now-unemployed Alex would simply continue to work with J’onn in an investigative capacity and, ya know, NOT jump straight back into costumed badassery? 

HA. HAHA HAHAAAA.

Those leaked set photos make sense now.

OH NO, WILLIAM!

Real glad Staz confirmed he’s returning. Otherwise I would not be able to DEAL WITH THE STRESS.

I already talked a little bit about the loft scene but some additional points! Beautiful lighting. Wonderful score. Excellent performances all around.

A truly great end to a truly great episode.

Like, it makes me retroactively sad, that we’re only getting 5x19, as opposed to 5x19 and 5x20 because I wish that the crew/writers/actors had a little more space to let all of this good work they’ve done settle and breathe. 

(But also, it was good that they stopped production, from a safety standpoint, so. Can’t be too upset.)

And, regardless of how the next episode goes down (b/c I’m gonna be real, SG always does really great set-ups for their season finales and then kinda...rushes to the finish line and that can only be further exacerbated in this particular case) I’m just really impressed with this effort here.  

...but also LET’S TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE SOME WILD GUESSES. Specifically, what is Alex’s vigilante name gonna be??? 

...

Alright I generally try to avoid addressing specific fandom complaints in these things b/c I generally try to avoid the fandom itself but of course some stuff has already leaked through all of my blocks/muting so:

‘Lena didn’t apologize!’ The words ‘I’m sorry’ were not said, sure, but 1.) season’s not over and 2.) for Lena, admitting she was wrong is huge. HUUUUUUUGE. It’s solid character growth and I really wish various subsets of fandom would recognize that it’s not fun, when fans hold on to negative stuff from characters’ past and refuse to acknowledge that the characters have changed.

‘Brainy should have seen this coming!’ This one is kind of more down to personal preference I guess but I feel like they’ve established that Brainy’s got a bit of a blindspot due to his feelings about his friends, so I don’t take this as a knock against his intelligence so much as him being stretched fairly thin because he’s playing all sides, and worried about the people he loves. YMMV, though. 

All the ‘fix-it’ stuff re: the last scene, by making Kara immediately forgive Lena. Lose me with that nonsense, bleh. 

[xsecretblastsx]

1x15 - Desperately Seeking Serena

Here we are with a new recap this week. Believe it or not I’m still aiming to do at least two of these per week. So far I’m not there yet, but oh I wish, I’m going way too slow. Anyway here we go, as usual recap’s under the cut.

Thoughts I had while watching the episode:

A rare ocassion when we see these kids actually worried about school.

I love that Blair’s revising with Dorota.

Chuck being Chuck so he will outsource, I’m pretty sure if he actually tried he wouldn’t be half bad with these kind of stuff, but why would he bother.

Aww Dan cried whenever his dad didn’t walked him too school. He had a nice a dad, and yet...

These one of those times I wish I was american just to get the real scope of the SATS, also was that little thing Blair’s using?

Honestly it never made sense to me why there was only once spot in Yale for Constance, like isn’t this suposed to be the kind of school that like to promote that their students are really likely to get entrance to an Ivy? 

Blair is right somehow one must always say her name in full: Nelly Yuki

Perfomance anxiety? You ain’t wrong, and sadly that’s something you’ll get to know eventually about Dan Humphrey

I normally like when Chuck and Blair’s outfits matched but the colours of these coats are really obnoxious.

Those glares, there’s a short road from hate to love, just saying. Also if only Serena knew that figuring their issues out is going to take quite some time. About 5 years.

We hava name: Georgina Sparks.

I wonder which part? No Serena, i don’t want any visual, not even momentary in my head of Chuck and Georgina. UGH.

Sorry Jenny, but Blair’s SAT session do sounds so much better.

Hello Georgina.

What is the one thing no one in our group has? Compassion? that was funny.

Funny that Elise points out to Jenny about Queen Elizabeth didn’t had a King, and a year later Blair’s going to tell her the same. Nice bit.

Vanessa, always hating the rich kids as if it was a full time job, even when Nate’s being nice.

Sorry Blair, but I hate your outfit, too many dots.

Of course Nelly Yuki has to be asian. 

So this was the way Serena was pre boarding school, as much as Georgina is obviously a bad infuence I’m glad we god a snipet of it.

I wonder if Chuck was always Serena’s choice when she needed help with Georgina, because it seems in some ways like this isn’t the first time, and he gets it.

This is the part of S1 when Dan really starts to get on my nerves, because sure Serena is lying to him but he has a way of questioning her that sounds a tad desperate in not a good way. And it’s all so centered around him, he leaves her there like... I can’t deal with this right now? 

Getting dumped at a Flor Rida concert, I guess I would have reacted the same as Nelly Yuki.

Not gonna lie, I’m not a fan of this plot that has Jenny wanting to date a dude just for his money, she’s like 15 and it’s just sad.

Nate and Vanessa, a couple I actually didn’t mind, and I always felt Vanessa was at her less judgmental self when she dated Nate. 

Not the right choice Serena. And yet in a weird way it’s make sense. It ain’t easy to let the past go.

The sound of your own voice distracting you? thanks Jenny for pointing it out, I swear that Dan’s in love with the sound of his own voice.

“Like I want to believe in myself” having Serena say this about the way Dan’s look at her, says a lot about their relationship.

So Serena thinks Georgina knew the old her better than anyone.. mmm interesting.

As much as I like Rufus and think he really tried his best, and overall was a good Dad, he never had any idea of how to handle Jenny. Half the time he only makes it worst.

How nice it was for Nate to convince Vanessa to take the SAT.

Those batteries are not from that calculater, I think I actually had that calculator at one point in my life.

Even though i feel her relationship with Nate was doomed, is never easy to see your ex-moving on.

What’s going on with Chuck’s outfit? Yellow pants, purple sweater, multicolor shirt, it’s so bad and yet I don’t hate it.

For some reason, there’s something about the way Dan’s holding Serena’s face and the way he talks to her, that creeps me out for no good reason. 

So Georgina has something on Serena, and even Chuck’s curious. The good old days when everything was a mistery.

This is the point were Dan’s double identy gets really disturbing. Hi Sarah, meet Dan, we don’t know it yet but he’s as messed up as you.

So this episode, is not a fave in the general sense, because it’s basically just the introduction to Georgina’s character but on that front these is just setting up the stage for the big climax, and all the other subplots here are pretty meh, with Blair’s and Jenny’s battle from the throne in a very dull point. The real interesting part in this episode is that we get more insight into Serena.

it’s been established since the pilot that Serena has a wild passed, an so far her story centers about being this bad girl turned good girl. She has this change of heart because when she ran away after a particularly bad night, her absence is one of the reasons her little brother ends up atempting suicide, she’s also really guilty that her drunken antincs led her to betray her best friend and she doesn’t want to be that way, as much as the show likes to make it seem Serena changed her wild ways when she started dating Dan, that’s not the case. I think the biggest wake up call for her was what happened with Eric.

Dan is a positive influence, and he gives her the respect and positive attention that sadly was lacking in pretty much every interaction she had withe the opposite sex, as I mentioned in a previous recap Serena believes that thinks of her as real human being, he likes her for real reasons, not only because she’s hot or an “It girl”; she believes this because he meets her when she comes back and was not the same girl as before, so in a way he fell for the “good Serena” and so it’s one of the reasons she keeps up trying  her best. 

As we see this episode Dan falling in love with this version of Serena is a double edged sword, because it leaves little room for her to be anything else; he’s make it no secret that he detests her world, and he walked away in anger on their second date when he discovered something of her past he didn’t like, he’s constantly judging her almost all the time, sometimes in a lowkey way, but other’s he’s very straight forward about it. By this point in the series Serena feels really in love with him, and as she says to Georgina the way he feels about her makes her want to believe in herself, so she can’t lose Dan’s love, and she knows how’s he’s going to react if she tells him about her past with Georgina, and therefore she must lie to him. 

This makes me feel really bad for Serena for so many reasons, because how shitty things must have been in the past for her to believe this is the kind of love she deserves, sure it’s her first love and she’s sixteen and sees him in rose tinted glassses, but when one stops to think about is a relationship where she can’t be honest, like if lying is your best option to keep your relationship on good terms that’s a sign that’s something no good, and it’s not like the true would be something like “Hey Dan guess what, I’ve been doing this “bad” thing behind your back all the time we’ve been dating”, no she’s afraid of letting him know her past, something that’s not her anymore... imagine if people couldn’t change, or have a past that they wished were different.  It’s just wrong, but she can’t see it because his love is something she never had and it’s precious and she hasn’t experienced anything better.

There’s also a very interesting line in the middle of the episode related to this, she tells Georgina that no one knew her old self as Georgina did, and this interesting because Serena’s not only trying to hide Georgina from Dan, she’s also hiding her from Lily and Blair, because to Serena Georgina represents the worst side of her, and that’s something she can’t let them see, because I guess she’s really afraid they may changed her mind about her, or even worse love her. This is why I also feel she turns to Chuck in this episode, in part because I feel in her wild days they somewhat tend to hang out with the same type of crowd, I image they often found themselves in the same parties doing drugs and wild stuff,so he already knows more about her worst side, but mostly I feel she calls him because she doesn’t care about what Chuck thinks of her, she knows he cares somewhat, but she’s not as important to him, not in the way Serena and Blair care about each other, and so Serena deep inside of her fears that if they knew, really knew they would love her less. This is somewhat a paralell to the way Chuck’s sees himself, so having him helping her with this, only reinforces this for me. 

Georgina’s presence this episode beside the fact that’s she’s a really messed up person (like honestly how awful it is she evens drugs Serena this episode) and letting us know that she has something on Serena, what I really find interesting is that she brings to light that there’s a part of Serena that’s missing. She’s been stiffling some part of her personality, their first outing sure they’re drunk but for the most part is harmless, they’re just joking around and fooling clueless idiots dudes, Serena only gets mad when drugs are involved. Serena likes to party, to be a bit wild, to be free, and it’s something that’s been lacking, and instead of learning healthier ways to let this part of her shine, to figure out that one can party and be free as long as it doesn’t get’s out of control, she totally shuts down that part of her, and that’s why it takes Georgina so little effort to convince of spending some time together. Even if she doesn’t want to realize it, she misses it. 

Finally, I would like to say hi one more time to Nelly Yuki

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

I rewatched Girls’ Last Tour episode 10, and I’m inclined to call it the weakest episode of the show up to this point. It’s still pretty good, but compared to what we’ve had before like, well, let’s talk about it.

So the first minisode this time around is Train, and to just establish where this episode sits already, Train is the first minisode of this entire rewatch that I did not remember at all. I’ve not remembered shot-for-shot, scene-for-scene of every minisode obviously, but I’ve by and large been able to recall most of the sequences of events every time around. Not for Train though, this felt completely new to me. So we’ve already got a minisode that’s dramatically less memorable than the rest of the entire show. Fortunately I remembered the next 2 minisodes fine but we’ll get to those when we get to them.

But yeah, Train. They go on a train, they talk about more physical concepts than they usually do, like how them going on a moving train means they’re going faster than usual, and then Chi brings up the rotation of the earth as contributing to their speed as well, and they also start talking about clocks and time and how their time is constrained by how much food they have. And then the minisode ends with them arriving at their destination.

And that’s Train. It’s a really short minisode where it doesn’t really feel like anything was said or done. It’s fun to watch in that “hey these girls are cute and I want to see them do things” but so is every single other episode, so this one hasn’t really got much going for it. It’s just forgettable and doesn’t add much, really.

The next minisode, Wavelength, fortunately fairs a bit better. It’s kind of like, it does the same thing as The Sound of Rain but in the opposite direction, I guess? Yuu still has the radio from the graves in Memories, even though Chi told her to put it back oops, and it manages to pick up on some waves and play a song that sounds pretty depressing to Chi and Yuu, and also it has singing which is important because the singing from The Sound of Rain was non-diegetic. From listening to this music that evokes sadness instead of happiness, the two just end up talking about the power music can have on people, and they take it a step further by contemplating what effect waves can have on people too. Cause sound is a wave, you know? And then where that leads is Chi reminding us that light is a wave, and then we get this big striking shot.

Certainly looks foreboding, and it’s enough to actually move Chi to tears. She claims her eyes hurt or something, which could be true, not necessarily from the sun but maybe there also. Or maybe it’s an emotional reaction, and as she was saying, light waves might be able to make you sad too. Who knows. And then that’s about it for Wavelength. It’s just, fine really. Doesn’t do a lot for me, they don’t really say a lot, they don’t really do a lot, but it reflects an earlier minisode with The Sound of Rain and it’s got some memorable shots, so, that’s why it fairs better than Train.

The last minisode this time around is called Capture. And the only thing that really happens in Capture is we meet this small alien-like cat thing which we call Nuko. Nuko’s voiced by Kana Hanazawa because great seiyuu are the only seiyuu allowed in this show. Nuko follows Chi and Yuu around and speaks through radiowaves, the fact that it’s able to speak evokes empathy in Chi so they decide not to eat it. And that’s it. Hanazawa, Ishii, and the little machine all got full length minisodes to themselves, and Nuko’s introduced in the tail end of the show’s weakest episode. Nuko’s gonna get more screentime obviously, but it doesn’t get the best introduction, which leaves this entire minisode being another one that’s just, meh.

It’s got some cool environments though.

And that’s episode 10. Having explained myself to a hopefully satisfying degree, I can feel content calling it the weakest episode yet. Saying that though, I don’t necessarily have the fondest memories of the next 2 episodes, aside from a moment in the last episode I strongly remember loving. We’ll see how it goes though. I’ve got the show at a 9/10 at this point, and I do think these last 2 episodes are gonna dictate whether we see that move to a 10 or not.

[calleo-bricriu]

what's the de sade ripoff book like anyway?

It’s like listening to someone who thinks they’re a genius but who’s really sort of–slightly below average at everything ramble on and on and on for over 400 pages about how they’re a genius and everyone around them is making their life horrible because they don’t understand how much of a genius he is.

Also, alcohol isn’t a stimulant at all, let alone a strong one. I guess, to be entirely fair, if I found out my Mum had a sex dungeon in the house I’d probably need a drink as well.

A lot of drinks.

And an Obliviator.

Finding out your mum has a sex dungeon is a pretty reasonable excuse to drink a lot.

Anyway, this author is allegedly a doctor, he ought to know damn well alcohol isn’t a stimulant.

I really do just love how it’s the same exact story, only with worse writing and set in Dresden–then Hamburg–then…New York City.

Some guy named Newcomber completely flips out any time someone says a woman’s name around him in his own house. It’s never explained why. I feel like that should have been an important plot point? Maybe he’s assuming everyone’s already read the book he blatantly lifted from.

Men just need to not be allowed to describe women in their books if they’re going to do it like this: “Seated in a large leathern chair was a dainty piece of pink-cheeked, dark-haired, ebon-eyed femininity. Her sealskin jacket fitted snugly her lithe form, and a fascinating toque rounded off the saucy, childlike appearance of the young woman.”

That’s the sort of description that makes you feel like you need to run a Scourgify through your entire brain.

I’ve read, as I mentioned yesterday, de Sade; all of his uncensored garbage and the difference is, de Sade knew he was a shite writer.

He was just one of those obnoxious people that feels the need to be edgy for shock value; to get a reaction. He wasn’t ever trying to be good at it, he just wanted to get a reaction and have people pay attention to him, which he got–usually in the form of prison.But, the end result of that is that his writing aged in a way that makes it so completely off the wall ridiculous that it’s more funny and less shocking now.

Like–right, if you’ve never read 120 Days of Sodom you should, because all it is is this list of increasingly improbable to impossible scenarios, in actual list form, that are discussed by the characters like they’re going over a list of chores they need to do that afternoon.

One involved mice and cannons, actual cannons, that somehow didn’t result in death or injury to anyone (including the mice), another had to do with somehow arranging it so a woman would give birth to a goat, which would then become a sex slave–the goat, not the woman, I think he forgot there was a woman involved in that one by the time he got to the impossible goat baby–and when you read something like that, you know damn well the person writing it was writing what they were writing as bait to see how mad people would get about it.

This idiot, however, didn’t appear to get the joke and is taking his own…version of Justine very, very seriously which leaves you more with a really creeped out feeling than a, “HA! I can’t believe anyone fell for this, it’s so obviously written as over the top with intent to offend people too stupid to get the joke,” sort of thing.

So, moving on from the creepy description of childlike femininity–and who says woman like that anyway?

Ms. Femininity gets up and gives the, “Never Say A Woman’s Name In My House For Any Reason Ever” Newcomber a kiss and he just sort of shrugs it off, which makes her concerned but since he never bothered detailing whatever backstory these two have I guess I’m just supposed to make one up. Guessing that, because it was described as “armorous” they’re lovers but, it might have had more of an impact if he’d–mentioned that previously at some point?

This is only page sixteen, as an aside.

She was gossiping with his mom and mom let slip that he was leaving Dresden and she’s upset but again, no backstory given between these two so we don’t even know how or why she knows his mother. All we know about that relationship is that his mom grosses him out probably because of the sex dungeon thing, which is a fair reason to not want to visit your mother’s house.

So he’s pretty meh about the kiss hello, she loses her mind about it and says he’s being cruel then flings herself onto the sofa for a good cry about which he doesn’t even care.

His name is Leigh, apparently, which is a perfectly common German name, as is Newcomber..

And she’s–Tahitian (but upper class, he’s emphasised that, can’t have him screwing around with a commoner from Tahiti, obviously) and grew up in…Honolulu and got married to a US Navy officer two years before she met the guy in Dresden that she just kissed and is now crying over while the author scrambles for a backstory.

Great, got married at sixteen, is now referred to as a “child-wife” and somehow his deployment from Honolulu landed her in…Dresden.

He should have known not to leave her alone in Dresden because, since she’s Tahitian, that means she’s just going to start cheating on him the second his back is turned (which appears to be what’s happening here).

An entire page later, we find out her name is Obera, and the guy whose mom has a sex dungeon who straight up ignores her is apparently the love of her life despite the fact that all we’ve seen so far is that he’s straight up not the least bit interested in her.

That finally ended and we’re back to her crying on the sofa and he tells her to knock it off because it makes him feel mean–when he was just mean to her not even two full pages ago. Leigh’s got a terrible memory, I guess.

“Finely-molded limbs”. Stop it.

A few paragraphs of Obera going on about how Leigh’s sister, Mizpra, is a complete and utter bitch and Leigh agreeing with her that Mizpra is, in fact, a complete and utter bitch. I might be too if my name were Mizpra.

At this point, in the middle of Obera trying to explain some theological lecture she attended, the author butts in to tell us that the lectures are FACTS then references some article in Popular Science Monthly from May 1989 called, “Witchcraft in Bavaria” right after Leigh starts talking about how Dresden has lousy weather and they’re going to the Rhine because the climate is that much different–five hours barely South and mostly West of Dresden, though it might be closer depending on where along the Rhine they’re going; its a river, and it’s not exactly a short one.

It also apparently has a climate similar to Honolulu which tells me he’s never been to either place but, it’s fiction, so why the hell not?

I’m only on page 22 now, as an aside.

Suffer with me, this is awful.

So he’s already planned this whole thing, someone named Frau Leidmann will lie to everyone and tell them that Obera is traveling with some old woman, he’s sending a telegram from…New York asking her to meet some made up person in Hamburg which, incidentally, is five hours North of Dresden and if you’re trying to aim for a warmer, closer to Honolulu climate here, you don’t want to be going North but okay, fine, we’re going to Hamburg.

Author really ought to have consulted a map before writing this.

“Was it right that he should take her with him and wreck her life?” Um–if you have to ask…

Wonderful, well, at least by now she’s 18 because she got married two years previously at 16.

By page 23 he’s essentially admitted he doesn’t like her much at all but she’s hot and young so he’s going with that. Not creepy at all.

“He would throw her aside as he would any other obstacle. Was this love?” …no. We established that two paragraphs ago when his thought was straight up that he didn’t love her.

Can’t take her back to the US with him but–he’s–that part was never mentioned at any point, as far as we’ve known until page 24 is that the guy lives in Dresden, his sister is a bitch, and his mom has a sex dungeon.

Nothing dignified about his appearance, likes his laboratory, doesn’t have a real job, nobody understands him, I’m starting to think it’s less that his sister is a bitch and more that he’s just kind of a whiny creep.

So, that’s the end of chapter 1.

Chapter two starts with him explaining why he named one of his dogs Bridget and why he’s mad that Obera could not possibly care less. I couldn’t possibly care less either but he explains it anyway in the weirdest possible way, “They do not associate the name with the beautiful, refined, and historically interesting woman who gave it such prominence. How can you associate a noisy, china-breaking, red-headed, befuzzled, opinionated ruler of the kitchen with Bridget the Goddess of Poetry, the Gaelic Muse, the sentimental, impulsive Sappho of ancient Ireland?”

Man, don’t talk about your dog that way, just don’t. I don’t like where you’re going with it.

Dagda gets a much shorter, “he was the all-king, almost the Zeus of ancient Ireland.”

Ah, and Obera is, of course, a princess. A Tahitian princess.

From Honolulu.

Which is famously in Tahiti and not a six hour flight–a thing that didn’t exactly exist in 1901 so I’m assuming it would have taken a hell of a lot longer by boat–North on an entirely different set of islands.

Okay.

You know, at least de Sade knew where physical locations of places were.

Do you know how bad something as to be that, not even 35 full pages in, you can not only recognise it as a direct derivative work of the Marquis de Sade but also have it be abundantly clear that it’s, like, a version of it so poorly done that the only reason you’re still reading it is because you kind of now want to see just how much more idiotic the story can get?

That’s what this book is like.

“He arose and went to her, took her on his lap, and talked to her as though she were a child.” No. No, stop that right now.

Four pages of him explaining that the reason why he ordered, ordered, her to read a childrens book was to prove to her how all folk tales are all the same and nothing is original and something about random Greek philosophers, then Why Catholics Are Right.

I might have been as bored reading that as Obera probably was having to listen to it.

HA! SHE FELL ASLEEP WHILE HE WAS TALKING!

She has a nap, wakes up later, and has somehow…uh…received a letter from that guy she married in Honolulu basically saying, “We both made a mistake. Divorce time.” and is somehow upset by this despite it being established in the last chapter that she wasn’t super interested in him anyway as the first thing she did when he ended up deployed was start fucking this idiot of a pseudo-intellectual.

…and this is somehow Mizpra’s fault, so I’m assuming she tattled, then he straight up jumps from, “Yeah I don’t love her, she’s just hot I guess” to “I LOVE YOU LET’S GET MARRIED DEFINITELY NOT TO SPITE MY SISTER!”

That’s not sarcasm. That’s exactly what it was. Right after he does the, “I love you! I’ll marry you!” (twice in a row at that, nobody talks like that) he moves right onto “the bitch can’t laugh at you getting busted cheating if we get married” which is not entirely sound logic but that’s where we’re going.

Robert Mesney hopefully got out of this stupid plot by realising what was going on and filing for divorce.

Actually, he doesn’t even ask her  to marry him he tells her that he’s going to marry her and doesn’t give her the option to object which I guess is just fine because at some point during his rant about his sister being a tattling bitch Obera fainted and he just…didn’t notice until he let her go and she fell over because of the being unconscious thing. Even then he didn’t really care, he just sort of went, “Oh.” and dropped her back on the bed.

Now she’s talking about his “aged countenance” which might be a little more fair if it hadn’t been mentioned that he’s 25. It’s not exactly old enough to count as “aged countenance”.

Apparently he’s also an alcoholic, which they keep referring to as dipsomania. Good idea, marry the 25 year old alcoholic who the plot has established doesn’t even love you (nor has he shown it at any point in their interactions apart from shouting it at her after finding out his sister told her soon-to-be-ex-husband that Obera was cheating on him), that’ll go well for everyone involved. I don’t see what could possibly go wrong here.

The servant at this place in Hamburg has been going on for five and a half pages about how Leigh is a drunk and how it’s his mother’s fault or something then just rambling on about his own family tree for no actual reason and how he’s somehow related to Leigh but also is looking forward to the time when the last Newcomber dies.

That’s chapter 2.

Chapter 3 starts with the fact that Leigh said he’d be back by lunch and it’s been three days and he’s still not back; I guess, to be fair, he didn’t say by lunch on which day.

He’s just out binge drinking in Hamburg.

Shows up four days later at four in the morning and immediately starts drinking again and none of this is a red flag for her.

Now they’re–he’s going to Paris, she’s going back to…the US from Havre, and he’s somehow decided it’s a better idea for him to not also go to the US via Havre but to instead go to Liverpool and leave from there. Okay.

This is only page 44 out of 408.

Mizpra wants to control their mother to snag most of her estate out from under Leigh, it appears as though she’s just his stepsister anyway, Mrs. Kassel is apparently a nice lady because the author hammers that point away for a good two solid pages and she’s going to New York with Obera because she apparently owns a house on Fifth Avenue.

All right.

She just randomly tells Obera that crooked noses and mental illness (sorry, “bad psychic quality”) runs in the family. Still no red flags for Obera.

Skips right to the wedding which has…no detail at all. Literally the only mention it gets after all of that build up is, “The wedding took place at Mrs. Kassel’s, who attended to every detail,” then moves right on to Leigh getting a flat in uptown and a job at a hospital and to mention that his mother’s letters were “curt, unresponsive, and insulting” for which he blames Mizpra.

Couldn’t be the fact that he ran off to the US with a still married 18 year old without telling anyone, why would that bother someone’s mother?

He either gets fired or quits at the hospital, it was never mentioned either way, and has irregular work so now they’re behind on bills and Obera’s “condition” requires quiet and rest and…Mrs. Kassel to take her on a vacation I guess. Time skip from spring to autumn and, to nobody’s surprise, Obera comes back with a baby and her idiot of a husband is still unemployed and also didn’t seem to notice or care that she was gone (because that’s never mentioned) for almost a year.

By this point, Leigh straight up hates his mom and Mizpra is a “moral criminal” but it’s not explained how, just that she is.

Mom, Mizpra, and a whole bunch of their maids suddenly turn up at an uptown hotel and he just–takes off to go and see them despite having spent the last few pages going on about how he can’t stand either of them.

Sister’s got masculine handwriting which is somehow important to know.

Oh, let’s see, what else are we learning about Mizpra: Large jaws, muscled neck, small hips, uncomely waist, large hands, bold frame, coarse features, a “masculine larynx” and she–author keeps refering to Mizpra as she so that’s what I’m going with here–tells him to fuck off and that she’ll call the police if he tries to see mother.

So, instead of trying to reason with her (also why did they come over from Desden if they didn’t want to see him?) he just tells her she looks like a man.

“Mother doesn’t want to see you.”

“YEAH, WELL YOU LOOK LIKE A MAN! CHECKMATE! I AM SUCH AN INTELLECTUAL!”

Great display of the long winded nonsense the author gave everyone about what an intelligent intellectual this idiot is; best he can come up with is to tell his sister she looks like a man.

He still doesn’t have a job.

It’s been almost an entire year, how have they not been evicted from that flat yet?

Oh, but he has money to go out and get trashed again, though.

And he’s rambling to the bartender about people staring at “crippled children” for some fucking reason while the bartender pretty much pretends to listen.

He drinks because he’s a genius. That’s it. That’s the reason. He’s a genius and nobody gets him so he drinks.

58 pages in and I can kind of see why this guy’s sister doesn’t particularly care for him. I don’t particularly care for him either and, so far, am kind of on Mizpra’s side on this one.

Random name dropping list of famous people who had epilepsy or who were alcoholics or drug addicts. For an entire five pages. Nothing else, just a list, until he gets to Edgar Allan Poe who apparently had a psychic incubus problem instead.

One long paragraph held together by semicolons that says nothing at all.

Five pages about how his drinking problem is literally just like lycanthropy only, instead of turning into a wolf, he just goes to a pub and does so more often than once every full moon.

Same thing though. Exactly like lycanthropy which we all know is caused by thinking you’re a genius then being mad that nobody else agrees with that self-assessment.

More internal dialogue about how everybody is an idiot except him, because he’s a genius that nobody understands.

Somehow.

A few more pages of comparing himself to Nero which is not strictly the best comparison someone could make unless he’s planning to burn New York City down.

Couple of pages of internal dialogue about how he shouldn’t have to get a job because he’s a genius and people should just pay him to grace them with his presence.

End of Chapter 4 and I can’t keep reading this anymore today. This might be the worst thing I’ve ever read and not at all for the reasons the author was intending; it’s not shocking unless you’re shocked by how badly it’s written.

It’s so bad it’s almost exhausting.

[helihi]

The Good, The Bad, and the Dirty: RWBY Vol 6 Ep 13

#GayForSummerRose

#BeesConfirmed #RenoraStyle #RTWhatAreYouDoingWithMyEmotions #ThisShitIsIllegal.

Overall rating: 8/10.

A.N.: RT provided us with an official “Look how far we’ve come.”

The Good:

Okay, I can definitely say I love this season finale more than the vol 5 finale. yes, even if Vol 6′s greatest tragedy is having no Raven in it, I have to say, the rollercoaster of emotions the last 16 gave me were a thrill.

Where to start?

Let’s kick it chronologically. Watched it 2 more times for this.

"Yes, and we just ruined the only thing capable of stopping it.”

I want to applaud Kara for her delivery of this line. It was cold, in a very Grimm tone. Loved it!

I think the structure of the episode was well thought as most of the contents of this episode belong in this section:

Set up:

This whole episode is mainly centered around Ruby. She is the one the camera will follow and point and for reactions, this is crucial for the emotional beat of this episode.

Cordovin’s redemption is set up at the beginning of the episode and follows a good narrative in the next 16 minutes. 

Blake’s state and struggle is acknowledged by those around her, specially Yang and Ruby. This scene is great, not only because it cements that what Blake went through is not something to be shrugged off, but because also provides with one of the most wholesome moments of the whole episode: Ruby looks at Yang and she knows.

Maria comes in and paints an objective: 

The utilitarian route - They take the chaos as an opportunity to run.

The idealist route - They stay and fight, even if they are at a disadvantage.

Camera focuses on Ruby for choice —> Team for back up —> Back to Ruby for confirmation. She is the one who makes the call.

Strategy one: Doomed to fail.

Ruby states that she HAS to do this.

Build up:

Cordovin reaches her breaking point as she listens to Ruby’s resolution.

Cool flight sequence.

Plan fails.

New strategy which focuses a lot more on team effort. I love the scene were Blake goes over to Weiss. We are Weiss stans first, RWBY fans second. The fact that everything feels connected, shows you this was more thought out than the Vol 5 ending battle sequence (With the exception of Cinder vs. Raven vs. Yang). Ren and Jaune are out of the game, no aura. Yang and Nora are to distract the Leviathan. Blake is there for emotional support, she has no aura and Gambol Shroud is broken. Weiss is giving Ruby method of transportation.

Ruby faces the Leaviathan: This is the official RT RWBY “Look how far we’ve come” montage, I say this not only because this is meant to show Ruby’s memories, but because most of the time, the clear point of view of these is not Ruby, but the audience.

Toddler Yang + Young Taiyang: Emotional connection to childhood from Ruby/ Reminder of the fan favorite Burning the Candle episode.

Zwei joins the team: highlight of the time at beacon/everyone’s fav corgi.

Food fight: call back to the ‘good ol’ days’/ Everyone’s favorite fight sequence.

Blake loves tuna: nice team building/One of the funniest scenes for the FNDM.

Penny: scene were she tells Ruby she wants to leave Atlas.

Vomit boy: First time Ruby saw Jaune/Some old FNDM nicknames.

Team JNPR at the noodle station.

Pyrrha —> ANGST TRIGGER.

Jaune training at night: Ruby was woken up every night by this/Sad Arkos moment that hit everyone.

Yang losing an arm: scarring memory for Ruby to see her sister like that/one of the most telling shots of Vol 3 ending.

Yang closing up: see above.

Pyrrha dying.

Penny dead.

Ruby’s powers don’t work, focus on the Leviathan noticing her. Zoom to the lamp.

Pay off:

JINN INTERVENTION! Set up for future volumes, probably one of the smartest moves Ruby pulled up ever. And it’s perfect tied in to the way Ruby react after being reminded of the relic’s existence and how it affect Grimm, established in earlier episodes.

Continuation of montage:

Team RWBY ready for mission: fond memory/of of the iconic moments of the first volumes.

Weiss apologizing: Official beginning of their friendship/Iconic moment of vol 1.

Blake cheering: old classes/meme’d image.

Yang telling Ruby she will always be there for her: emotional contrast to the last Yang flashback/connection of Yang’s short to her self-sacrificial nature/mother hen attitude.

Vol 2 Ending: crisis avoided when the bad guys were easy to deal with.

Dance: Another excellent scene from vol 2.

Team JNPR together.

Qrow’s first appearance: emotional core of Ruby/Qrow relationship.

Oscar hopeful.

María giving Ruby lessons.

Penny when she confirms they are friends.

SUMMER ROSE OMFG

Gotta say, I wasn’t expecting to see her this soon, but I am so fucking glad to see her! I can finally draw all the Team STRQ I’ve wanted to draw! She's so fucking pretty aaaaaaaaaa

Does this confirm STRQ backstory soon?

Ruby is able to stop the Leviathan momentarily.

Cordovin redeems herself.

Now, we get to skip all the fight, which I find to be a great choice. After the last 3 episodes of constant action, we need a breather. We need interactions, a slow down of the pace and some discussion.

We get the small closing scene for the Qrow and Ruby arc. She restates her love for him and Qrow realizes he has someone new to inspire him. It’s very important that he hesitates before taking a drink, and actually pouts his flask down down.

María is also inspired by Ruby. After patting Qrow in the back (metaphorically), we get a reinforcement of team RWBY + JN_R + Oscar as the new generation who take on the mission of saving the world and protecting others as huntsmen.

We got some wholesome and organic exchanges between the kiddos. It’s so refreshing and welcome to see them interact, even if it seems like something so ordinary and miniscule.

Bees get confirmation Renora style. Volume 7 will be filled with filled with Bumblebee y’all! Happy to see they will explore their feelings for each other after they settle the Adam fiasco. They can move on and build a healthy relationship together.

When the Renora kiss tho.

Oscar reveals that Ozpin helped him land the ship. This is super important! Ozpin shows that he has faith in them, and instead of taking over, he shows his support and guides Oscar. This is a very good sign, even if it leaves a sour taste in everyone’s mouth.

Good for the Ozpin arc.

I love the way Atlas looks! It’s an interesting way to protect the city from oncoming Grimm attacks after what happened to Matle. I wonder however, how they keep the city up and what plan of evacuation/defense they have for the impending invasion.

It’s clear the set up for the next season is more political and I’m all here for it!

The Bad

The way Yang and Blake to join the others at the beginning of the episode has me face palming. How the fuck could they have gotten there in time when they were both tired, with no aura left and shocked after what they went through?

That was cheap as fuck, I’d rather they fly to pick them up, that woudl have added what? 1 minute to the 16 minute chapter?

The Dirty

The first scene of the whole episode is completely disconnected for everything else, and though it’s a clear set up for volume 7, I feel it would have been a better post credits scene than the one we got with Salem that was a huge meh.

I will make a Vol 6 review in the future (cause I can’t decide if I like it better or worse than Volume 5), but for sure, the Cinder scenes are completely out of place and only serve for set up for volume 7. They are so clumsily implemented, I can’t believe they couldn’t set up a theme to have them make sense.

Anyways, this is here for the following reasons:

Good callback to Pyrrha’s death. That exchange clearly triggered the audience because boi we’re not over that.

Cool new outfits, kind old how the CRWBY keeps pulling these outfits change to indicate a new arc and make it so obvious.

WHERE ARE MY RWBY ALTAS OUTFITS. I NEED THEM NOW.

Nice to see Neo’s Semblance being explored. She has limits, and we know more of how it works.

Still disappointed Neo doesn’t use sign language. I’m pretty sure Cinder would be able to get some context or read her lips, but whatever. I guess it’s too complicated to animate.

Overall rating: 8/10.

A.N.: Okay I am very gay for Summer someone body please help me the thirst—

[gotgifsandmusings]

Will you be doing a write up about your thoughts on Solo? Really curious and excited to hear your detailed thoughts on the movie and why you thought it was so bad!

Ideally I’d have had time today for a very thorough write-up or video, but I can at least give my quicker take now.

FULL SPOILERS FOR SOLO BELOW.

I mean...we know where the character ends up.

But still.

FULL SPOILERS FOR SOLO BELOW.

Here we go.

The unofficial tagline of this movie should be, “hey, if you think SJWs are ruining Star Wars, this is the film for you!” Or maybe “If you’re still really really angry about the EU being nixed, come watch Solo.” And most definitely, “If you feel TLJ ruined the integrity and fiber of SW by ‘shitting on the fans’, pandering to liberals, or giving us Rose Tico, grab a bucket of popcorn!”

(And yes, I know TLJ is polarizing from all sides of the fanbase.)

This was, without question, a movie that plays into all the worst instincts of the white, male gatekeepery segment of the SW fanbase. And I mean, it’s a fucking Han Solo prequel; I sort of expected misplaced badass worship going into this, because most people seem to miss that Han is an adorable puppy dog.

Now, to be clear, I honestly went in with an open mind. I was never particularly excited this movie existed, since Han is the second most boring choice from the OT for a prequel (Luke clearly being the first). However, after learning Ron Howard took over and seeing the trailer, I had a feeling that while I wasn’t likely to love this movie, it might still give me a fun ride.

It was so weirdly not fun at all. Like, it’s paced very strangely. We’ve got Han’s opening sequence where he escapes Corellia (and leaves his gf behind), a sequence that sort of catches us up to his time as an imperial soldier (they mention him getting kicked out of the navy in one sentence, and given that’s where he learned to fly, it felt strange) and defects because he hates these purposeless horrifying wars (that’s why you always bring a clone!) and meets Chewy in the process (oh hey he happens to speak Wookiee), a train robbery sequence where we watch Thandie Newton get squandered and we’re not given any real reason to care about this being successful (they tried with some bullshit that he could go back to Corellia for his gf with the money, but that relationship was never exactly established), the Kessel run team assembly and run after meeting the Crimson Dawn organization (and surprise...his gf!), and then what I guess is the final showdown following the Kessel run that involves “betrayals” with people who never promised each other anything, set-up for a Qi’ra spinoff with Darth Maul (??), Han being totally onboard with the rebellion but he won’t go with them for reasons, and then the final winning the Falcon scene to fill in all the gaps, as he heads to Tatooine to go work for Jabba right away.

So, there’s all these pieces, and it kind of has the feeling of playing through a level in a video game. You’re sitting waiting for the next cut-scene, because during the mission itself, there’s not any reason to particularly care about the stakes. I suppose you vaguely want Han to survive, and Lando, but there’s really nothing that this movie seeks to say or explore other than “here’s what happened.”

Which just...isn’t centered around a character worth that exploration, I’m sorry. Han begins the OT as a “look out for myself” struggling smuggler, and very quickly finds himself compelled by something greater than himself. This movie couldn’t get him there, but then they couldn’t think of a reason how to not get him there, so he just randomly chooses to go off and be a pirate.

The one tenuous thread is “trust nobody,” and surprise surprise, his romanticized teenage girlfriend has ambition in a crime organization and after telling Han she’s going off with him, she doesn’t. But there’s nothing that connects that moment to Han then going and giving over the fuel to the Rebel Alliance that had showed without asking for anything in return. Also, after that moment, Han is stranded on a planet that has nothing but desert lean-tos and an oil refinery. The whole movie he was just trying to get to a place where he could be ‘free’ and ‘explore’ or something (like a Disney Princess?), driven by his great love. There’s really nothing that would have logically stopped him from becoming a rebel at that point in time. Was it distrust? Because then why did he just hand over the fuel out of the goodness of his heart? 

Sorry, this is a rabbit hole. Things happened because they happened. The great untold story of Han Solo is apparently “I got dumped by a girl I didn’t think would dump me, and that made me a sad loner for 20 years.” To be frank, there’s really nothing that particularly connects this character to Han Solo in ANH. Other than significant dice ownership, I guess.

What makes it worse is that there’s so much idiotic “AHA, we filled in THIS moment!” Like, the music literally swells any time something ~iconic~ from the OT happens. Han gets handed his blaster (it’s literally a random gun) and we recognize it. MUSIC!! Chewie sits in the copilot’s seat. MUSIC!!! The dialogue is even clunkier than that. “Chewbacca, huh? I’m going to need to think of a nickname for you.” “You’re the good guy, Han.” “I know a gangster on Tatooine who always is looking for work.” I have never groaned or rolled my eyes more during a film than I did for this one.

It’s the anal “every detail needs explanation” style of writing that plagued the EU, and kind of led the SW fandom to that stupid, curative gatekeepery vibe it held for so long. Not one single thing actually pushed on any ideas of the OT, or took a remote risk, or was even inventive. 

Then there was the very angry stick the writers decided to shake. You know who sucks? SJWs. Let’s make them a big ol’ joke! So we had a droid that was for droid-rights, in a very “played for laughs” kind of way. At one point Lando asks if she needs anything, and she says “equality?”, and he just rolls his eyes. At another point she starts a droid and slave revolt on Kessel, and he’s like, “oh that stupid droid is at it again!” Quite literally a straw-feminist who got in the way, was so shrill and annoying with her demands, and then got herself blown up. Lando even full on says he would have had her memory wiped, but she has useful navigational information.

And really, the whole movie just felt pandering to the fans who would appreciate those jokes. The ~sanctity~ of Star Wars and Han wasn’t touched or questioned in any way, and written with such self-congratulatory dialogue it was legitimately embarrassing to watch.

My favorite example is the Darth Maul scene. It’s not really work getting into, but at the end, Qi’ra talks with him via hologram, and he’s the leader of a crime organization sorta in league with the empire. (Does he know Palps was Sidious?) It’s very clearly Maul, but first he lowers his hood. Get it? Then he stands up and shows us his robot legs. Get it??? Then he force-calls his lightsaber to him for literally no reason, because the conversation is basically her pledging her devotion and not needing to be convinced or threatened in any way. THEN he lights it up and it’s his iconic double-sided blade. GET IT????

I could not stop laughing, and Griffin ended up having to poke me in the sides because I think the people in the row were starting to turn around. 

I honestly think this is a worse film than the prequels. There was no reason for it to exist, and no story it was even trying to tell. Lucas’s story was pretty terrible for Anakin and the rise of the Empire, but at least it existed. It also felt kind of revenge-fic-ish in a way that’s sort of hard to articulate.

Donald Glover was the one shining spot of the movie (even if he uncomfortably had to roll his eyes at the concept of equal rights), and it really just makes me sad it wasn’t his prequel in the first place. 

Also, Qi’ra is the most non-character character I’ve seen yet. She has pretty much no personality, and then the big ~reveal~ at the end that she betrays Han is kind of like, “okay?”, since we have no grasp on what she’s been up to, or what her motivations are at all. We know she thinks Han is hot. That’s it.

Anonymous said to gotgifsandmusings:

Is Solo trying too hard to be Guardians of the Galaxy?

No, it demands to be taken seriously. Which is not helping its cause.

I guess this ended up being longer than I expected. I really was in the mood to see something that was just kind of, “eh, this isn’t great, but it’s fun enough,” and at worst I expected it to be in the “meh” category. Instead, I was actively cringing in my seat. My best hope is that I can appreciate it ironically in a few years. 

[katiekeysburg]

many many many thoughts on Infinity War

i’m not sure this will even make sense.  spoilers

why does the read more not work on mobile

spoilers

spoilers

spoilers

last chance

GOTG

My favorite thing about the movie, by far, is the role the Guardians of the Galaxy played in it.  They are my favorite, so that’s not surprising, but I honestly expected they’d be more like guest stars.  They will probably be benched for most of the second film tho, so I guess this makes up for it.

Everything about meeting Thor is absolutely perfect.  The crew’s fawning over him, Peter’s jealousy, “a pirate and an angel had a baby”.  Thor assuming Rocket is in command because Peter is being so childish.  I was laughing so hard for the whole thing, but my favorite moment was when Rocket goes to leave.  Peter has a short aside with him, not unlike their aside when Peter, Gamora and Drax leave Rocket behind on Behar in GOTG2.  Except they part on better terms, indicating how much both characters have grown.

Canon Starmora caught me a bit off guard, but then it’s been a couple years since GOTG2, and now the unspoken thing is now spoken.  That’s an area rich for fanfic to fill in.  I think my main issue was that tonally that seen just careems all over.  Gamora’s flashback, begging Peter to kill her, then they’re kissing.  Then Drax interrupts.  Of all the moments in the film, this one need to breathe a little more to let it happen more naturally.

My favorite part of the movie might be the bit on Knowhere: Gamora’s grief when she thought she killed Thanos, and Peter’s attempt to kill her.  The first GOTG shortchanged Gamora’s decision to move against Thanos and why; at that point she’s just made up her mind.  So I loved seeing a bit more of their family dynamics.  Peter’s attempt to kill her went on a bit too long IMO, but I loved the whole concept.  I didn’t think he’d be able to do it, but he tried! My poor baby.  He’s grown so much.  I can forgive him his ultimate actions, they are understandable and there’s plenty of material to support him.  

Gamora’s too make sense.  I am most upset about that particular death, as her character arc is REALLY NOT COMPLETE.  In my GOTG2 meta I discuss how she’s just barely begun to learn to deal with her emotions.  She’s apparent come some distance since then, since she can tell Peter she loves him. But if this is really the end for her, she won’t ever get to complete her arc and I hate that.  I assume she’s bound with the soul stone and will be back, but I HATES IT PRECIOUS.  FUCK YOU RUSSOS/MARKUS AND MCFEELY IF YOU RUINED THE ARC OF ONE OF MY FAVES.  It would be a really poor choice to fridge her like that, for fucking Thanos and Peter. FUCK.

Anyway, all the Guardians are used to absolute perfect effect within the larger story and with perfect characterization so bless James Gunn for co-producing. Mantis and Drax could have been easily sidelined, and while they don’t really have arcs of their own, they are used to great effect.  

THOR

Thor is my second favorite part.  He zings with everyone, although I didn’t expect the team up of him and Rocket.  It makes perfect sense to send him on a quest, which mirrors his quest to be worthy of the hammer in the original Thor.  It even requires a trial.  And his arrival on Earth with Rocket and Groot is one of the greatest moments ever put on film.

Kinda pissed about Loki tho, even though what we did see of him was perfect.

Other than the Guardians, Thor and Hulk are the only characters who haven’t been in character stasis since Phase 2.  Which is thanks to Ragnarok so BLESS TAIKA WAITITI

STARK/STRANGE/PETER

The Facial Hair bros are not my favorite, but I do appreciate the Stark/Strange pair up.  Their friction is immediately believable and it works. This is Tony’s worse nightmare - not only was he worried he was going to die in space, but now Peter Parker is there too.  It’s really the only climax they could do for Tony at this point, although I’m pretty pissed his character has basically been in neutral since The Avengers.  We’ve seen him try to overcome his fears, try to compensate for them, try to protect against them, and he hasn’t really grown much as a character since then.  He’s struggled, but it hasn’t gone anywhere and it leads him here anyway.  Worse, rather than just be responsible for the Avengers who are at least powerful adults in their own rights, he has Peter who is there because of his actions.

Just cause Tony is a popular character is not a good reason to leave his character spinning until they could get to this movie.  BAH.

Thank goodness for Peter.  I died at his Aliens references.  He lightens up the two Facial Hair bros who would otherwise get too dire.  This group gets a lot better when the Guardians show up tho.  They all get to zing off each other.

I just want Peter and Peter to talk more pop culture.  I really need to write that fucking heist fic for the two of them.  SO MUCH. Fuck.  Anyway, Tom Holland was pure perfection and also used really, really, really well.  

THANOS

I saw praise for developing actual motives for a villain and making him understandable.  Overall I feel pretty meh about Thanos though - he works excellently as a foil for both Avengers and GOTG but independently I don’t think he’d be that interesting.  He’s certainly no Loki or Ego.  It made sense to make this movie his movie, his quest, given where it ended, but I still feel it was a little underdeveloped.  Why go after the stones right this second? What’s he been doing since the Avengers, besides having the gauntlet made?

TEAM CAP

If this movie makes one mistake, it’s who they choose to leave on Earth.  The problem with sending all your funny people to space is that everything on Earth after that sort of lagged.  The only relief was really Bruce reacting to everything he had missed while he was gone, plus whatever lines they could scrounge up for Rhodey and Sam and Oyoke.  The sidekicks do all the heavy lifting but the Earth scenes lack the cohesion of the rest of the movie.  It’s mostly set up and dreary exposition.  If I cut anything out of the movie (besides making every battle shorter) I would cut out Rhodes talking to the Colonel.  That whole scene is WAY too long to establish that Cap is still a criminal and Rhodes was on the other side. 

Honestly, of the many failures Civil War had, one really evident one here is the lack of my ability to care for Vision and Scarlet Witch.  Neither of those characters nor their romance has been developed enough for the importance the plot tries to place on them.  It was present in Civil War but never really clicked.  I think it’s partially the ridiculousness of the very young-written SW in combination with the ridiculous purple android.  The relationship never manages to feel real.

The best part was Black Widow, Scarlet Witch and Oyoke all fighting together, and I want my female Avengers movie.

Cap is given basically nothing to do but show up and look cool.  I’m assuming he will therefore have a bigger part in the next movie, but FUCK if I’m not still pissed at the Russos/ M&M for continuing to kick the Stucky can down the road.  As far as I’m concerned, they’ve never reached and real emotional catharsis or resolution that was promised in Winter Soldier.  Poor Bucky literally keeps getting PUT ON ICE as they used CW to set up this movie, and used this movie to set up Avengers 4.  Deeply uncool. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

The ending sucked.  I hate walking out of a movie theater on a down note.  I get where we are in the structure and why they did it and it will ultimately be fine, but it’s not a great place to end the movie.  It was almost as bad as walking out at the end of Deathly Hollows 1.  It would have been worse, had we not known pretty much everyone that dies has another movie scheduled.  I am kind of glad most of the Guardians are gone actually, since if Gamora is gone at least the others aren’t there to mourn her.  Pretty harsh to leave poor Rocket alone tho, as he’s the least capable of dealing with it. He’s going to make a good foil for Tony in the next movie. 

The stinger at least helped.  The nerd boys in the row behind me thought Fury was calling Nova and I had to correct them that it was Captain Marvel.  They were like “Oh, her.” Fucking sexist ass nerd boys can’t get excited for Captain Marvel.  It will be a great move into Phase 4 to have her show up and work with Gamora in the Soul stone to save all these emotional constipated male superheros who just can’t seem to deal with their issues.

Putting Avengers members with the GOTG crew really just highlights how much of Phase three has been treading water to get here, for every Avengers character but Thor and Hulk.  I absolutely blame Markus and McFeely and Civil War for this too.  Poor Tony has been stuck since IM 3 but Civil War could have done a lot more than look cool and manufacture conflict to get everyone in the right position for this movie.   

TLDR: Infinity War is better than Civil War but suffers for the lacks in CW, just as it’s buoyed by the strengths of the other franchises.  And fuck Markus and McFeely.

[sandwichbully]

Wienery, 18 July 2018, National Hot Dog Day

   We got time for story time? I got time for story time. Let’s do story time.    Once, back when Daddy Charlie was dating ex number four, he and ex number four went to the Wienery and Charlie ordered a pair of slaw dogs, there called Clevelands. Fourth ex ordered French fries.    (This is why I’m a bad son: I can’t remember my mother’s birthday but I can remember what an ex girlfriend ordered at a hot dog joint two or three years ago.)    Anyway, something about the dogs wasn’t sitting right with me and I started feeling a bit grody while I ate my second dog in the car on the way to Target. No 4 kept telling me to just stop eating it, just throw it out the window but it was too good and I kept telling her, no, I could make it.    She told me she didn’t want me getting sick so just stop eating it already.    We got to the parking lot and I’m burping and groaning and No 4 keeps telling me to throw it out and I’m finally like, “OK.”    We get in to Target and No 4 goes to the customer service counter to return something, I walk over to a waste basket, look over my shoulder, see No 4 is occupied with the lady at the counter, and tuck the fucking dog in my mouth.    We’ve established this about me: All my partners are smarter than me and I am a glutton.    Anyway, I’ve been to the Wienery a few times since and never put myself in any distress, so it must have been something else.    Since today is National Hot Dog Day, according to Twitter (@CharliePauken), I decided I wanted to get a really good hot dog. I didn’t want a chili dog since I’ve been eating those for dinner all week - when you live alone, one can of chili dog sauce lasts a lloonngg time - and I didn’t want a plain dog, Walkin’ Dog didn’t have any “holiday specials”, so I checked out the menu at the Wienery, even though I already know it alright, checked the Google Map, ten minute bike ride away, looked at the non-dog part of the menu and saw “Philly Cheese Steak”.    How had I not seen their cheesesteak before? Well now I had to go, it’s been eons since I last had a cheesesteak. So I get to go here, get a hot dog on the appropriate holiday and also get a cheesesteak.    A cheesesteak.    I had practically given up on ever finding one again.    OH.    RAPTUROUS.    JOY.    I biked over there, there was only on other person in there, I must have missed the lunch rush. The guy behind the counter helped me out right away. I got the Cleveland, the cheesesteak, and fountain drink. (I opted for Mello Yello. Mello Yello, For When You Want Mountain Dew But All They Have Are Coke Products. Mello Yello, For When You Look At Coca-Cola Down At The End And You Think, “Meh.” Mello Yello, Because You Know The Chances Of Blowing The Bag Are Pretty Nil Compared To The Others. Mello Yello, Because These Diabetes Aren’t Going To Develop On Their Own. Mello Yello, Because, Look, You Just Felt Like It, Alright?)    It took me one solve of my 3x3 Rubik’s Cube and one solve of my 2x2 Rubik’s Cube and then the guy brought my food over.    Let’s start with the slaw dog. The Vienna Beef frank had a salt-cure tone riding on top of a rich umami underneath and the coleslaw was creamy and tangy and, almost most importantly, crisp. The poppy seeds on the bun were pretty much there for aesthetics.    The cheesesteak gets points docked only because they don’t use Cheez Whiz (and whatever this was* was there I think just for the dreaded “stretchiness factor” because it sure wasn’t there for flavor). Otherwise, the meat possessed a rich flavor under a perfectly balanced seasoning and the onions and peppers were chunked largely and perfectly grilled, imbuing a semi-sweetness to the sandwich. It was also large enough that I wasn’t sure I would finish it three quarters of the way through.    I griped yesterday about my ten dollar lunch and today I’ll sing about my ten dollar lunch: A slaw dog, a cheesesteak, and a fountain drink with refills. I am completely satisfied with what I ate.    I was overdue to bully review the Wienery and there was honestly no better day than today. Go to the Wienery where they got six kinds of franks served sixteen ways. It’s the best decision you can make. As long as you don’t tell your doctor about it. Because he looks at you funny for eating potato chips once a week. Imagine the look he’ll give you if he finds out you’ve been eating nothing but fucking hotdogs since Monday. He’d positively go into fits of apoplexy.    Go to the Wienery.    Don’t tell your doctor.

* I was going to do the Sysco joke again but I can’t say for sure that it is and Sysco would seem to run contrary to the literature on the “About” page of their site. So let’s hope.