#the execution was so fucked in s5

[botslayer9000]

sigh. maybe i don't like she-ra after all

[maddy-ferguson]

This might be an odd complaint but I really don’t like how people act like Byler endgame would just excuse every other shitty thing that’s been done to everyone but conveniently attractive presumably straight white men in this show writing-wise. I’d be more than happy to have Byler be endgame and I expect it, but the amount of racism that’s been brushed off is ridiculous in and outside of the show. The weird St*ncy moments this season, the fact that she doesn’t get a storyline related to her trauma. Even season three was incredibly white of them. Joyce not getting hardly any scenes with Jonathan and Will these recent seasons. All of it and more—it won’t suddenly go away and make everyone on that writing team geniuses. And this isn’t to sound ungrateful or anything, but it really is disappointing sometimes. They exceed tremendously at some points such as the Upside Down lore but as for other aspects…

not an odd complaint at all! the only thing byler endgame makes okay is the fact that they didn't use will's feelings to fix a straight couple. there's so many other things they got wrong, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that the people writing the show are white men. and white women. white people

NOTHING they do could ever make what they did to lucas right. having their one black character go against the little white girl in season 1 which resulted in people being racist to caleb irl, having billy literally get physical with lucas and say he's gonna kill him and then saying in an interview that they "think" that billy was racist like they didn't write it themselves, the fact that it's literally never brought up again...lol. i know stranger things isn't a "this thing that happened was wrong. let's talk about it and try to make it better :)" type of show but still. it's crazy. also this regarding erica in season four

and you don't even have to dig that deep to find things that byler endgame won't fix: like you said, stncy being pushed on us and on nancy again in season 4? 98% sure it won't be endgame but like. why did you have to put us through that. WHY. and yeah lol, remember when they brought nancy back to that pool at the end of volume 1 like they remembered she was traumatized by the death of her best friend and then...nothing happened? idk, it's just so weird

also, the byers being sidelined? for will i guess you can rationalize it and come up with great and convincing meta reasons as to why his character was sidelined in seasons 3 and 4 (which, yeah, fascinating, i will still hate it ten years from now, no matter how important to season 5 will is), but what about jonathan? what about joyce? how does one justify the fact that winona went from being the reason 75% of people older than 15 started watching the show to having less screentime than fucking jason in season 4? it is annoying when people act like byler endgame will make everything right and will make stranger things a perfect show because it really won't

[coffeegnomee]

Ok just caught up and like. What the fuck man. 

I literally all can do is just sit here and hope and pray that the old members stick it out and help the new members understand what lifesteal is actually about.

Because lifesteal has the reputation of being the lying and betraying and killing people server. 

But it is just Not That. Like obviously those things have happened on the server, fine. 

But lifesteal is far far far more about teammates. Believing that they will have your back. Working together to do cool shit. Trusting each other. 

It’s about commitment and honor and respect and working together on an interesting goal. 

It’s about not screwing over your teammates for a cheap moment that ruins the rest of your relationship on the server. (Mapicc showed this perfectly this week too! He ended the experiments because he’d rather have a teammate than execute a crazy emotional manipulation arc on Zam and really push him over the edge.) 

They sacrifice for each other. They protect each other. They pick each other up when they get killed by their enemies. They encourage them when they’re down. Help them be strong against their fears. Get each other gear and hearts and make sure they’re safe. Spend hours on each other’s arc together in vc all night. 

They lie to OTHERS for their team. They protect the wormhole for months even when they don’t want to or believe in it at all.

They do tiny little things that they know the other person will like just so they know they love them and appreciate them being on the team. They say it too, to each other’s faces. 

It’s about loving each other bro. There’s a massive fucking reason why there’s so much shipping fanart man. They fucking love each other platonically so damn much and so damn perfectly that you can make it romantic and it’s like not even like all that weird.

It makes me so fucking mad that you could boil down this beautiful server into lying and killing and go on it and be like, I heard princezam betrays every team he’s on obviously we should betray everyone and be on the lookout for every single person being a betrayer. 

Zam fucking lost his mind over betraying team awesome and eclipse. He AGONIZED for MONTHS before pulling the trigger for eclipse and he didn’t betray team awesome until after their massive arc together that he was completely loyal to, finished it out as a team, and only when they looked like they weren’t going to give up their unfair advantage did he seek to leave them. And he fought them and left.

The fucking respect he has for a team is insane.

And same goes for Bacon and Mapicc. 

as for others:

Ro only betrays if he gets a better offer (from mapicc) 

Leo betrays when it’s interesting for the story to have a juggernaut.

Spoke betrays only when he has his own bigger plan to execute that will create something interesting for the whole server to encounter. 

Clown only betrays when you go against his morals of creating content by chaos. 

I can’t even think of any notable betrayals from before s5. Most of the server does not betray ever. Most of the server never lies. 

They only lie and betray when it’s for the benefit of the content. 

And that’s what fucking makes me so upset about this. Bacon is doing this arc for the BETTERMENT of the server. He literally says he’s doing it to make other people’s lives on the sever more interesting. It ain’t even about him. He’s not even making a video about this. He just likes to do cool shit on the server because it’s fun to craft an overarching story for everyone to play into.

It’s never been about hearts man. 

The most valuable resource on the server is content. 

And Bacon understands this. In a way that quite possibly could make him a worldender like spoke and clown. He’s really getting into the role of strategizing fun things for the server to do for no other reason than someone has to do it and that it’s good for the server. 

But the new members just do not understand what “for content” means. They just kill randomly. They don’t defend each other. They don’t tell the other teammate to give the heart back bc it’s been proven enough that they’re innocent. They’re constantly suspicious and will only meet if there are no enemies online. 

It’s not about the hearts man. 

It’s about the team.

[genericaces]

more rambling about a s5 au: lindsey comes back for a redemption arc to act as legal counsel for angel's team. this ostensibly gives gunn a reason to opt out of the lawyer operation, but he does it anyway because he doesn't trust lindsey not to fuck them over.

lindsey acts as a moral foil to gunn, who comes to believe his necessary contribution to the team (since he's no longer their only lawyer) is being the defender of the group's principles while working at w&h. they frequently butt heads while working on a case, but eventually develop a begrudging respect of each other's respective strengths.

this hostile-to-friendly-rivalry arc is tested when it comes out that w&h was responsible for some demon problem that's been plaguing gunn's home community. gunn has, unbeknownst to himself, been somehow contributing to it while working at w&h; lindsey knowingly contributed to it when he was last working there as a lawyer. lindsey is forced to confront who he was, while gunn is forced to confront who he’s becoming.

since he was involved in the project, lindsey uses his insider knowledge to help come up with a plan to fix the problem. they execute it, something goes wrong, and lindsey risks his life to ensure the plan goes off successfully. he expects congratulations and a pat on the back from gunn, but gunn isn't interested in absolving lindsey's sins (or his own), and their warming relationship freezes over.

at some point, gunn lets himself get taken by the senior partners in an effort to deal with his guilt over various lapses in judgment/perceived moral failures. during their rescue mission to the holding dimension, lindsey stays behind in gunn's place so he can escape, assuring gunn that he's the lawyer the team needs right now. their mutual arcs culminate in lindsey rejecting the idea that redemption is done for recognition, and gunn rejecting the idea that guilt/self-punishment is inherently redemptive.

eventually after being busted out by illyria, lindsey is there to empathize with gunn about losing parts of yourself (body, mind, and/or soul) to w&h, relationships to power when you've grown up without it, and what it means to live with the consequences of your actions. both of them reflect on the nature of redemption/forgiveness/intent as they grapple with how to own up to an appropriate share of the blame.

[familyagrestefanblog]

The existence of the Ox miraculous is such an unnecessary ugly detail when you think about Ladynoir and how Chat Noir served as the punching bag and scapegoat for Ladybug, Alya as Marinette's actual partner in season 4, and the whole team in every single way pre-s5

The Ox gives the power of immunity even against any other Miraculous power. One would think with Adrichat's self-harming tendencies that canon had Marinette make entirely about herself because "they're haunting her so much", and her still narratively entirely unchallenged tendency of leaving Chat Noir behind on the battle field as sacrifice or bait to possibly have whatever the hell done to him so she can be save and sound while she and everyone else can look and be cool on his expense

With all that, one would have thought that if Canon Marinette truly loved Chat Noir "sooooooo much" and is oh so haunted by his self-harming behavior and him always getting hurt so she sidelined him "for his own good"

Then how come at no point did Marinette do the actually caring thing by giving Chat Noir the Ox miraculous since he's ALWAYS left behind BY HER so she can leave the battle field and execute her plans with the others save and soundly? If her Chaton's well-being was oh so important to her and it always "pained her so much" to see him getting hurt then why was the Ox only used 2 insignificant times by Ivan at the end of season 4 when it could have saved Chat Noir ALOT of suffering all the way through?

Or the turtle. Or ANY OTHER Miraculous for that matter?

Why was Alya getting two miraculous in Hack-San perfectly fine with Marinette but heaven forbid Marinette is actually expected to ACT like she gives a damn about Chat Noir's well-being as his leader, guardian, partner, and friend and not just the show having her claim superficial words that hardly have anything to back them up once they actually have to mean something?

Its almost as if Canon inherently doubled down on having Marinette be the kind of leader who will only do things in a way that primarily benefit HER while everything else gets swept under the rug because she isn't maliciously intentioned and then never brought up again. And unfortunately it was her who was written to prioritize making an unnecessary team of 18 miraculous holders no one ever asked of her to form (Su-Han even told her NOT to give out the miraculous like candy),

so Marinette was just made to not consider Chat Noir either at all or simply not as worthy enough of any kind of consideration in her entire leadership/ guardianship or actual safety, support, or ANY KIND of resource since that wouldn't be narratively about her, now would it?

She can't have Chat have the Ox because she might need Ivan as Ox in 4 months and she doesn't want to have to ask Chat to get it back or end up NOT getting to use this ONE other Miraculous out of a whole ass box, because that would involve a basic ass conversation Marinette can't have apparently or her not getting to use all of the miraculous however she pleases at any given point

The horror. Now she would have only 14 miraculous to work with!

As per usual, count me fucking unimpressed by Marinette's writing. The negligence towards Chat Noir on even the most basic level is insane and she was declared the epitome of leadership and kindness for this.

Cool that Marinette already decided in her head that Ivan is suitable for the Ox miraculous and he should get it in future, but Chat Noir needing help and protection wasn't some theoretical case, it constantly happened right in front of her eyes and even by her own freaking orders too because she never thinks of him in ANYTHING and the show glorified the hell out of her as leader for doing all that

Why is looking into ANY detail only making Marinette's side of Ladynoir so much worse ever since season 4? There is no escaping this! Just don't add the Ox with this power or actually have Marinette be a good leader towards Chat Noir. But noooooooooo.

[fritoley]

The Dragon Prince Thoughts 6x01 - Startouched

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Spoilers below the cut

“We are, all of us, stardust. Held together by love, for an instant.”

OMG THE MERCIFUL ONE IS SO PRETTY

Why do her eyes glow but not aaravos’??

I completely forgot about what happened in s5

“I’m alive?!”

H E ‘ S A L I V E

LMAO THE WAY TERRY JUST PICKED HIM UP

“Blood of child.”

OH MY GOSH CLAUDIA

gurl got her azula arc on

OMG SHE KILLED SPARKLEPUFF

how did she even know about the spell?? 

Did aaravos tell her something off screen

Viren’s ready to lose his shit seeing claudia with her missing leg

I’m surprised he didn’t

Terry just accepting all this is wild

“I must face my truth…in Katolis”

Okay wait i was not expecting that from viren 

I wonder what’s going on in his head. What does he want to do in katolis?? Why would he leave claudia behind when he knows he could be executed? Does he want to atone? Pay the time for his crimes?? So many questions

Claudia’s hysterical screaming is really reminding me of azula

I think it’s hilarious opeli is completely fine taking soren and ezran’s shit but on the edge of a breakdown when serving viren back in the first saga

Like they still stress her out but at least she’s not trying to arrest them for treason—

Barius being real about not telling the other kingdoms the other rulers were willing to follow viren which means they could still be not on the best terms with xadia

“Lots of books. I like books.”

Callum’s clueless narration is the funniest shit lmao

OOH RAYLA’S HAIR IS SO LONG GAHHHH

“Sometimes I wonder where my mom is too.”

LISSA MENTION

BRO WHAT WHY’S HE HOWLING TOO HAHAHAHAHHA

“The inside is my famous brown sludge, melted and molded.”

Brown sludge is chocolate it’s canon

Wait if it’s candy won’t it eventually melt—

“But you’re never going to leave me. Because I’m leaving you first.”

WHAT THE FUCK WHY DID CLAUDIA JUST LEAVE

Like i know she’s losing it but REALLY—

this episode was jam packed with all kinds of buildup, and i thought it was suuuuper fast-paced. I’m excited to see what they’re going to do with the pearl, starscraper, and zubeia, but this time i REALLY think they’re finally going to talk about lissa. Not bad overall.

[acoraxia]

What’s the relationship between Nüwa and MK? Creator-creation, messed up deadbeat-mother-son dynamic, or smth else entirely?

I have no idea what S5 has in store but you know the idea of Xiaotian and Nü Wa having this weirdly fucked up and strange dynamic is so fun actually

Because at the end of the day people compared Rose Quartz/Pink Diamond to Sun Wukong and I winced and screamed internally because ‘no, no, that is not him actually the dialogue ‘why did you create me’ reminds me more of Nü Wa and her antics’ and then she was revealed and I cackled. Ahem.

Qi Xiaotian clearly does not need a family. He doesn’t—season 4 makes it very clear that Pigsy is his dad and the rest of the group are his family. If Season 5 has him questioning this I will be questioning Season 4’s decision to have Pigsy and Xiaotian have that “son” moment between them.

Nü Wa feels like someone Xiaotian will resent, respect and rebel against altogether. I do like the idea of her being this wonderful person, of course I do, but she is also a god. She called forth THOUSANDS OF DEMONS to handle a guy because she “couldn’t go against Heaven’s will” and then when three of her demons were doing great in making sure the guy was the last of his dynasty, she had them executed.

It doesn’t matter that she was the one to task them with it, no, what mattered is that she thought they were too cruel—and yes, Su Daji was cruel, but she also sent demons to do this task. Demons.

Not only that but she is also clearly powerful enough to 1) patch the sky herself and 2) create life from nothing (cough, cough, get Pink Diamond’s VA to voice her I dare you LMK)

Xiaotian and her having a relationship feels like creator and creation where her creation asks “why” not because they hate her or because he didn’t ask for this—but because she has done nothing to aid or help him, she left him into the world and has not even tried to make contact with him, she watched the world almost be destroyed and yet she decides to show up now? When everything is ok? When, essentially, he is grown up and doing great without her?

“I have made you and I will always love you, as I do with all my creations.”; “You have failed in all the ways that matter.”

At least, in my AUs and Headcanons that’s how I’ll always portray them because that concept is so fun.

You did it again Nü Wa you created a monkey capable of destruction, how could you do this with a smile when you know how painful it was in the first place?

[castlebyersafterdark]

wow, im so curious as to you thinking the show could have done with more time and episodes? even aside from the bloat of s4, i felt like s3 especially could have benefitted from some major tightening up. like editing a novel down. the stuff with nancy and jon felt long-winded, like the endless running down corridors in the hospital. and my casual viewer friends will surely love it if will is the secret hero, because by s3 sauna episode they were like 'are they really gonna keep repeating the same solution which is el just points and screams at every monster who appears?' lmao

i mean, i think they should have kept more of the mystery and put in less of the visual horror, but i do love the metaphor of it all. its just the execution of s3 for me was a bit jarring. too much neon. your eyes need a visual break from all the colour and repetitive outfits. s4 took the biscuit with mike's windbreaker - if it wasnt for byler i would have been rolling my eyes. i mean, take your shirt off! white t shirt in only one scene? it's gotta be important otherwise why subject me to cerulean nightmares for 6 episodes in a row.

anyway, i know s5 is gonna reveal All The Shit, but i truly loved knowing nothing in s1. Stranger things is at its best as a mystery thriller not a horror imo.

See here's the thing and I KNOW it's an unpopular opinion in today's mindset in regards to TV/Movies - I am not one of those people who would ever complain about a movie being over 3 hours. I am not someone who complains about filler. I want more. I am fucking greedy. I miss filler episodes and diverging storylines and a B plot and a C plot and a Useless plot. I wanted to see more of the Party actually in school together. I wanted to learn more in-depth backstories to the kids at the lab. I wanted to get the plot of the First Shadow play as a several-episode flashback arc. Etc. So many possibilities. And I know all of that might make it a very different show and the entire vibe might change but I just really love Stranger Things and while it's so great - I'm always going to want more.

It's frustrating to me with the limited screentime already so much does feel repetitive. I like Hopper but I'm frustrated by how I'm unable to solidly weave the Russia plot into my theorizing, I draw a blank there. I get frustrated with the repetitive El storylines where other characters could be expanded on. Just thoughts. A lot can be said.

[nicnacsnonsense]

Just finished “Lies My Parents Told Me” and woof, that was rough.

Spike & Buffy are just bizarrely flippant about the fact that Spike’s trigger is still active. Like I am pro-keeping Spike alive, but given that he can be forcibly turned into a bloodthirsty killer at literally any moment, some precautions need to be taken!

Giles meanwhile is the only person treating the trigger with the seriousness that it deserves and is actively trying to fix it, but when he isn’t able to immediately solve the problem, he just jumps straight to murder?

Giles is like, hmmm, I cannot trust Buffy’s judgement about Spike as I suspect she may be emotionally compromised, so instead I am going to ally with Robin, who has point-blank admitted to me that his judgement around Spike is emotionally compromised

The audacity of Giles telling Buffy she needs to be a general while making and helping to execute on a major fucking decision behind her back

Why is Giles on the Spike hate train this season? I feel like he trusts Spike and likes Buffy working with him less this season than he did in season 5. Except this season not only does Spike have a soul, which makes a huge fucking difference in how we treat Angel, Spike went and got his soul of his own accord because he wanted to be a better person for Buffy. And Giles gives him zero credit for any of that. (Honestly no one gives Spike enough credit for that this season, though Buffy does at least try.)

I don’t like Buffy saying she would sacrifice Dawn to save the world if she had to. Not even because it bothers me that Buffy the person would say that, but because it kind of undermines the overall narrative of the show. S3 Buffy kills Angel to save the world. Cool, powerful statement about the character. S5 Buffy refuses to kill Dawn to save the world, saying that she doesn’t know how to live in a world where these are the choices. Also a powerful statement, and all the more meaningful because she has changed her mind since the last time. S7 she says she would sacrifice Dawn to save the world actually, and now I no longer care. None of these statements are powerful any more because apparently Buffy’s just generally wishy-washy about the whole thing.

Spike says he doesn’t feel bad for killing Nikki because he’s a vampire and she was the Slayer and that’s how the game is played; she chose it. No she did not! Like that’s the whole thing, the huge running conflict throughout the whole show, not to mention the big Shadow Men reveal just two episodes ago. The Slayer is *chosen*. One girl in all the world is chosen without her consent to have all this power just thrust upon her and then be forced to fight evil and protect the world.

In general just not a fan of the condescension dripping off Spike in that interaction, like oh my mom loved me but yours didn’t love you.

Oh my god, Spike, that’s his dead mother’s coat. You stole that coat off the body of a woman you had just murdered. Just let him fucking keep the coat.

[fangirleaconmigo]

Finished S5 of Justified and Raylan’s behavior with Boyd is just so unnecessarily dramatic. Like he’s a one man high school production of whatever the shit he’s got going on.

I mean. Whenever Raylan needs intel on the criminal element, he *could* just ASK Boyd for it. We all know that. He knows it. I know it. You know it.

He could literally fuckin walk into that godforsaken bar/site of more executions than I can count, and he could say:

Hey Boyd. There’s a kid in trouble. OR he could say Boyd, I’m in trouble. OR Boyd, I need your assistance.

And GUESS WHAT BOYD WOULD DO

He would flash his pearly whites. He would do his narrow hipped vest wearing gay little swagger. He would sit down next to him and something like

well, Raylan Givens, I do declare, like the philosophers say, it is my pleasure to assist the golden son of Harlan blahdeeblahblah. He would serve him some whiskey and scoot in close and he would help!! Because they dug coal together!!

Boyd is a criminal far beyond anything Raylan has ever contemplated. However, Boyd’s hometown, his community, and his former partner in coal extraction, MATTER to him. We all know that. Raylan knows that. All these people Raylan wants intel on are outsiders and as far as Boyd is concerned, fuck outsiders.

There’s a hierarchy of loyalty and Raylan, lawman though he is, is Harlan. Raylan is HIS. So his loyalty will be there first, fuck the US Marshall service this is Raylan Givens.

We. All. Know. This.

But can Raylan just be a normal goddamned person and ask for information?

Noooooooooo no of course Raylan Givens has to swagger in with his little hat cocked, his gun out, his dick loaded, and start threatening Boyd, punching his bar staff, giving him ultimatums and threats to “force” Boyd to give him intel he woulda given him if simply asked.

Why does he do that?

Because Raylan is HYPER AWARE of the fact that he treads that line between outlaw and lawman but he NEEDS that distinction between him and Boyd. He NEEDS it or he (in his mind) becomes his daddy or he becomes Boyd.

So he has to put on this big production every time. He has to go through these motions of harassing Boyd for no reason.

Because GOD FORBID he admit they have a bond. GOD FORBID he admit they could be friends in another life. Hell he could *be* Boyd in another life. GOD FORBID he admit that his obsession with Boyd outstrips every passion he has experienced in his romantic relationships. GOD FORBID he notice that he is prioritizing his obsession with Boyd over his own child.

He cannot cope with any of that! If he acts like a normal person with Boyd, it all comes tumbling down.

So he just goes through the motions and acts out his little high school production of a John Wayne movie every damn time. It’s this whole rigamarole he drags his colleagues along to witness and I’m embarrassed for him!

Raylan! Get your shit together! Get in therapy! (No, don’t. This is way more entertaining.)

[somuchbetterthanthat]

Not to randomly write about bbc merlin abruptly at the tail end of 2023 or anything, but i had a sort of dream and now i need to write something or it'll turn into my head all day

but like, wouldn't it have made SO MUCH MORE SENSE if, in season 2, Merlin had not listened to the dragon and told Morgana that he had magic? Because 1. they're friends, and at this point why would Merlin suspect Morgana to ever turn evil? 2. it allows them, for a few episodes, to be genuine allies about this -- Morgana trust Merlin enough to come back to Camelot because she believes that together they can change things in the inside, and you can even had wacky hijinks where Arthur is persuaded that Merlin and Morgana ARE fooling around and he's like "good lord man do you WANT to be beheaded"

but then of course Morgana starts to get frustrated with Merlin's way of doing things; Morgana meets Morgause, and Morgana wants Merlin to approve of her and Merlin is like "no" and Morgana gets annoyed because does merlin WANT to help sorcerers, or is he happy being Arthur's shadow and will push everyone else under the bus for him? and then you can have the actual events that happened and that i don't quite remember because it's been like, what, ten years since i watched this show. Anyway. Point is, Merlin ends up poisoning Morgana and Morgana disappears, then reappears a year later determined to bring Merlin down, or, at least, knowing now in her mind that Merlin has been corrupted by his love for Arthur and will never shake the status quo, and hating him for that.

And so THEN it would make so much sense that next time the dragon is like "oh this one will be evil" about Mordred, Merlin BELIEVES IT; because he didn't for Morgana and look how that turned out! I mean i guess you could also do the reverse (Merlin trust the dragon the first time, Morgana turns evil but he considers it a self fulfilling prophecy and his fault so when the dragon says mordred is evil he goes "fuck off" and befriend him and Mordred still brings doom at the end, but i feel it work better the other way around ngl)

ALSO ALSO ALSO ALSO, instead of 1. the horrible s4 plot with Gwen and the fake magic love triangle nobody helps her with, and 2. Merlin's magic being revealed on the last episode,............. You could give the s4 plot to Merlin, sort of. Everything is going well, and then Arthur discovers Merlin has magic, but because of Morgana shenanigans he believes Merlin is /scheming/ with her/evil sorcerers, and the thing is, he /can't bring himself to trial Merlin for magic/, which would mean direct execution, so he goes for betrayal and exile him, and Gwen comes to tell him goodbye and promise they'll fix it and she legit doesn't care about the magic and Merlin smiles sadly but he thinks he's ruined it; maybe he even thinks Morgana was a bit right -- although they're a stubborn voice that says /he didn't trial me for magic/ and then, adventures, stuff, magic, reunion, big moment of friendship and devotion and declaration of love, and then we can enter s5 for a "new age" where arthur and Merlin work together to bring magic back to Camelot properly.

[theerurishipper]

One thing that just isn't letting me go is that even all of season 5 goes out of its way to proof over and over again that Maribug in s4 having prioritized her partnership with Alya and making herself a team of 17 miraculous holders over Ladynoir was the wrong way to go.

Season 5 shows that, actually NO, Ladybug does NOT constantly need all kinds of other miraculous holders, Ladynoir as a PARTNERSHIP is more than enough to even go up against akumas with extra miraculous powers.

Ladybug doesn't need Rena secretly hidden somewhere as her actual main partner, she needed Chat.

The Resistance is almost utterly useless in s5 if it wasn't for Ladynoir getting seperated again in "Kwamis choice" and "Representation" (they even set LB and CN on the wrong path in "Illusion")

It's crazy how s4 was out here DEMANDING that Maribug is doing not a single little thing wrong by constantly ditching Chat Noir on the battle field to execute her actual plans with almost always unnecessary temp heros, while barely communicating her plans with him or just not spearing him any thoughts even when he's left behind on the battle field to take whatever he's being put through emotionally and physically while trying to survive all alone, so Ladybug herself can leave safe and sound and return and win looking cool with others.

And now the Resistance barely had any use in s5 either (for all it is, Chloé's akuma in Kwamis choice wasn't even important). What did Maribug waste all that time on the oh so necessary team for when "Recreation" couldn't make it any more obvious that all Ladybug ever needed was CHAT NOIR?

She was given the Resistance and every other hero they met around the world in exchange for Adrichat and they all were beyond fucking pointless. Nothing but visual spectacle with no actual purpose. And then of course Marinette becoming Bug Noire, loosing bc she was all alone and tried to connect with Gabriel to solve all this, bc - you guessed it - she didn't had her partner Chat Noir by her side.

It's stuff like this that makes season 4 even worse bc that season refuses to portray Maribug as anything but 100% justified and correct for doing EVERYTHING on Chat Noir's expense and yet the end result of season 5 still keeps it consistent that she did it all wrong. The just just refuses to own in bc Maribug being wrong is something that OPTIONAL for the viewers to ackowledge.

Especially "Penalteam" after "Kuro Neko" is the worst offender in this. Yes, that episode WAS about teamwork, but looking at it now it's so fucking obvious that it should have been about LADYNOIR healing and not being yet another Chat Noir torture porn episode so Ladybug can build an unnecessary team of 17 miraculous holders while letting Akuma Chloé have her way bc Marinette agreed to play entirely by her rules to use this opportunity to cement how "amazingly justified" she is for prioritizing the unnecessary team over Chat and actual effectiveness. Making it so much harder for herself than necessary and then using that as an excuse too.

Cause Adrien in Penalteam suddenly not knowing how to play soccer wasn't a retcon from "Furious Fu", it's was deliberately done to showcase how unbelievably insecure Chat was by the by Ladybug's side. In Furious Fu Adrien was still confident in their dynamic, so even if he didn't know all the rules in theory he still did very well by sheer instinct.

But all that was gone by Penalteam bc everything was always blamed on Chat and Ladybug settled the conflict in Kuro Neko by making sure Chat understands that HE is the problem in all of this, SHE has never done ANYTHING wrong, and he should in fact be grateful that she likes him so much that she even wants him back.

Meaning Adrien in Penalteam knew he wasn't perfect in soccer and immediately told Ladybug to "get the REAL team" bc he learned as CatWalker that even at his most perfect he wasn't good enough for her so nothing could ever justify risking inconveniencing Ladybug by having only him as partner when he might make a mistake.

The only true job Ladybug had in Penalteam regarding team-building was turning around to Chat, when he said that he doesn't know a thing about soccer and she should get the REAL team, and for ONCE give him support in return. Telling him to believe in himself and his abilites cause, NO, she KNOWS for a fact that he can play soccer, they already played it together and he did very well back then too.

THAT was the team-building that should have happened in that episode, but looking at Marinette shocked face in that moment she already forgot that she ever played soccer with Chat in the first place and 100% agreed with him taht they aren't the real team anymore the moment he needs any kind of help.

This episode also cemented it for the rest of most of the show's narrative from here that most Ladybug does is speaking big fancy words about how much Chat seemingly means to her but the moment he needs more than pretty words from her he has to go back to sucking it up and getting over it and better by himself (meaning becoming PERFECT for her in s5) bc Ladybug doesn't back her words up with actions bc that goes too far for her.

See her hyping them up in this episode and the moment Chat tells her of his insecurities it's immediately over with "partnership". Her CLAIMING that she's the epitome of a supportive and loving partner doesn't mean she actually is. She leaves him to pain and humiliation the moment he needs more than nothing.

So her then proceeding to once again abandone Chat on the battle field so akuma Chloé can emotionally and physically torment him - remember how badly Chloé bullied Marinette, one would think she wouldn't want Chat to accept that he deserves this kind of treatment for owing up to a weakness. But hey, Marinette seemingly concidered this unparalleled kindness he should THANK her for -

Getting the whole unnecessary team and helping THEM which meant leaving Chat all by himself who just told her he doesn't know how to play soccer, leaving him to humiliate himself further on a grand scale while also not being able to properly participate in the team building bc LB immediately forgot about what Chat said the very moment he told her and isn't paying attention to him either because proofing herself superior in her pissing contest with Chloé was more important.

It's especially interesting how right immediately once Chat - the easy bullying target - gets punished by Chloé for calling her out for expanding the length of time the match goes on just because SHE lost (by taking him out by unfairly tricking him and attacking him with several of her clones) only THEN does Marinette immediately summon her lucky charm to actually make a team plan against Chloé, using the powers and teammates in a way that actually makes sense.

So apparently she genuinely had only waited for Chat to be taken out to do her job. Cause she didn't wanted to be "in the wrong" for not having him use his powers in her plan or ask anything of him he might not be good at bc thats not useful to her so she rather waited for Chat to do something himself that gets him taken out so he blames himself and not her.

And the only thing to "make up for that" was Ladybug still drawing him on the whiteboard among herself and the other 9 holders to actually do their job, so she can pad herself on the back for "having done her best to include him"

Man, that episode is beyond aggravating bc all she had to do was turn to him when he told her he doesn't know how to play soccer and for her to get the REAL TEAM and for once do her job as his friend, "partner", leader and guardian by giving him emotional support and help him believe in himself and his abilites she should KNOW he has.

But no, we couldn't have that.

Because Maribug couldn't be asked to take an ounce of proper accountability for her bad treatment of Chat Noir so he had to build his entire confidence up DESPITE of her and not thanks to her, while almost all Marinette does even by the end of season 5 is throwing around big words of how much she loves him and how she's treating him with such unparalleled kindness, generosity and unconditional care and support

While even in season 5 her actions barely back that up. It's just Chat Noir having stopped asking the most basic things of her, meaning she is barely ever challenged to proof taht she actually meant that she feels sorry. And in most moments where she COULD have shown an improvement from s4 she mostly didn't do it bc she needs an invitation and 7 essays to convince her to HELP HIM.

Tbf I'm pretty sure that Adrien not knowing how to play soccer was a retcon (within the same season lmao) to justify Ladybug having to get the team together so that we could get the whole gang introduced. But if we were looking for an in-universe explanation, I think your interpretation of the scene is very interesting.

And I agree with your other points too. The show loves to pretend that Ladybug doesn't need to support her partner and that if anything happens between them it's actually his fault and she shouldn't be expected to apologize for anything or fix anything. And I haven't actually watched Penalteam in a while, so I won't speak about that. But what you've said seems to be what I'd expect from this show, so I'll just assume you're right about this like you are about the rest of it.

But I will say though:

It's especially interesting how right immediately once Chat - the easy bullying target - gets punished by Chloé for calling her out for expanding the length of time the match goes on just because SHE lost (by taking him out by unfairly tricking him and attacking him with several of her clones) only THEN does Marinette immediately summon her lucky charm to actually make a team plan against Chloé, using the powers and teammates in a way that actually makes sense. So apparently she genuinely had only waited for Chat to be taken out to do her job. Cause she didn't wanted to be "in the wrong" for not having him use his powers in her plan or ask anything of him he might not be good at bc thats not useful to her so she rather waited for Chat to do something himself that gets him taken out so he blames himself and not her.

I don't think this part is fair. From the little I remember, I think she just used her Lucky Charm after Chat Noir got caught because she realized they needed to win now. I don't think reading an ulterior motive into that is really supported. She does fail to provide him any kind of support, but this particular criticism is too harsh, I feel.

But yeah, you're right. I did feel that Penalteam tried to, idk, nerf Chat Noir so that the existence of the other holders could be justified. And they frame this as 100% a good thing in the season and show us that Ladybug doesn't need Chat Noir, she can call on her team and even use both Miraculous herself. And then they have her lose, but we're supposed to pretend it's a win, so like, what are we supposed to believe? This show went off the rails lmao.

Thank you for your ask!

[moistvonlipwig]

*rolls up sleeves* fandom: cwsg: 1, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

(is that too many, your choice if it is :D)

14 answered here! rest below zee cut

What was the moment in the story that I started shipping my OTP from this world?

Well, I got into the show via the fanfic-to-reaction-video-to-actual-episodes pipeline, so this question is a little hard to answer. But in terms of the things that first piqued my interest, I would say for Supercorp it was the secret identity thing and the subsequent reveal by Lex, and for Guardiancorp it was the 16 scars reveal in S4.

15. Which character would I choose for the chopping block if I knew the writers wanted to kill someone?

Meh. This is not a show that's suited to killing characters off. They should've put J'onn on a bus seasons before the end but they shouldn't have killed him, and as much as I dislike Mon-El they no doubt would've had him go out in some kind of heroic blaze of glory that would've been so much more obnoxious to me than him just fucking off to the future forever. Maybe Winn? He could've had a little hero moment and died saving James or stopping his father or something IDK.

16. Which character’s death would (or did) make me rage-quit?

I mean, I only got into the show post-S5 when I knew there was only a season left, so, I probably would've just followed the fandom to the end out of morbid curiosity regardless of what happened? But Lena, Kelly, or Nia dying in S6 would've been pretty unforgivable to me.

17. What is the world-building aspect of the story I have the greatest admiration for?

Hm, well, I don't think world-building is necessarily the show's strong suit -- just look at how they can never decide how long aliens have existed on Earth and to what extent humans are aware of them, for example. I guess I will say I think setting the show in a different universe than the other Arrowverse shows was a good choice. I mean, I'm pretty sure they made that choice because they were on a different network, not for story reasons, and they eventually undid it, but I think it helped to make the world feel less crowded and easier to grasp compared to Earth-1. (Confession time: I hate the Arrowverse crossovers & have never made it through a full one. I hate having to do homework and watch another show just to understand what's happening in the show I actually want to watch. That's why I stopped watching The Flash for a few years in the middle of its run and only picked it up again during COVID -- I got so sick of being expected to know all these people. Supergirl still does the annoying crossovers, of course, but they do it less often by virtue of being on another Earth.)

18. What is the perfect number of books/seasons/movies needed to tell this story properly?

I have no idea because they did not have a long-running story in mind. (Which is fine. To be clear. It's a network show, you should never expect a network show to have a multi-year plan.) I think six seasons could've worked fine if they had better ideas & better execution of those ideas.

[damnjackiemore]

The way everyone is excitedly freaking about the new Ryan interview, taking it as gay eddie confirmation, that Tim recently gave him the call about gay Eddie, and I'm just so past that initial frenzy and excitement because it's so clear cut and obvious that that's where Eddie's storyline is going in s8.

Idc if you wanna call me so deep in delusion, but there's just no other narrative way to continue telling Eddie's story without it leading to a coming out.

Everything about s7 (catholic guilt canonized, return of the ghost of Shannon, Eddie's romanticization of his marriage, permanently changing his relationship with his son) has laid the groundwork for gay Eddie(that has already been there!) for the general audience to see and understand.

ON TOP OF, the insider who revealed that Eddie has always been gay and that they've been trying for YEARS to reveal it to the audience. They tried it in s5 with the Ana breakup, and in s7 with Tommy.

s8 is finally going to be it.

Fuck whatever executive, higher ups that have been shutting down gay Eddie because Tim Minear has now completely backed them into a corner.

EDDIE DIAZ IS A GAY MAN

[sammygender]

SEASON EIGHT FINAL TAKES

LIKES

- KEVIN. <3. my beloved. he deserves so much better.

- crowley main villain would be so good if they utilised him consistently….

- trials would have been so insanely good if they’d been throughout the whole season instead of in like. The last 5 episodes.

- its nice that sam got to be happy with a girlfriend and a dog for a little bit before he was inevitably dragged back into toxic codependency w dean

- meg!

- dean is a dick in a way that gradually becomes interesting

- brainwashed cas is a cool concept!!

- i finally started actually going hard for destiel 8x17 was crazy…. i need you….

in short all the concepts this season were cool and interesting

DISLIKES

- killed meg :( just as i was starting to really like her

- dean is a dick

- sam has like no arc until the trials (why the fuck do the trials start so late nothing happens)

- benny. i’m sorry. i had zero interest in his entire character. they picked the wrong time to introduce him because by the end id warmed to him a little because dean had stopped annoying me quite so much and i could appreciate how fucking gay they were. but like. how could i want to see dean’s stupid macho vampire boyfriend at the start of s8 after he kept yelling at sam for trying to heal and break the cycle and move on. i didn’t even want to see dean

- purgatory was fucking boring. that’s not what purgatory is. go read the bible

- as always, cas pops in and out of the season, only showing up for good episodes and skipping the bad ones, which is a shame, because bad episodes would’ve been vastly improved by cas

execution of everything was awful. first half was just so mediocre. spent the whole time waiting for the trials. Trials were great though! finale stretch was really good which i think means i’ve put it over s6

rankings for me personally rn

s4 > s5 > s3 > s1 > s7 > s2 > s8 > s6

s2 is much better than s7 but s7 means the world to me so it has to be higher sorry. (I liked s7 a lot!). s5 is also better than s4 but s4 is when i first became a true samgirl so it is beloved to me

[triviallytrue]

yeah, sure. mild spoilers under the cut @kata4a

brief summary: TMA is a horror podcast with five seasons that starts with episodic monster-of-the-week stuff and eventually widens out into a unified plot.

the most straightforward thing i can say about TMA is that the execution on the micro-level is very good - individual horror concepts are great, the characters tend to be pretty well-written, some individual episodes really shine. on a macro level, though, the show has several tendencies that make it a lot worse.

season 1-2 are mostly one-shot horror stories which are almost universally good to great, and season 3 marks the major transition to more of a plot focus. at this point the horror takes a backseat, since once you understand more of what's going on, everything is less scary.

in this way, the worldbuilding is kind of a blessing and a curse - things follow well-defined rules, kinda, but scary things having rules makes them less scary. conversely, the setting is very well-put-together, to the extent that if you pay enough attention, you can conceivably figure out plot-critical elements prior to them being explained to you. i liked this a lot.

i also really liked how clever some of it is. many people just end up completely fucked, regardless of what they do, but there's several great examples of humans doing clever things to fight the supernatural and winning.

one classic one from the first few episodes is a guy who has a fucked up coffin locked with a skeleton key, and he finds himself waking up in the middle of the night holding the key, having slept-walked toward the coffin.

locking the key away doesn't work (he just finds it again or it magically returns to him) so instead, he freezes it inside a block of ice. the cold wakes him up before the key melts and is usable.

i wouldn't say this type of thing is central to the show, but it comes up a fair amount and it was one of my favorite parts.

but on a macro level the show feels very flawed. it has a consistent tendency, starting in season 1 straight through to season 5, of killing off interesting characters that i like and centering boring characters that i don't. there are lots of phenomenal characters, which will leave you baffled about why certain specific ones got so much airtime.

there's also a reliance in s4 and especially s5 on a certain romantic relationship carrying the podcast, and uh. it is not interesting enough to justify center stage, let me tell you that.

i also have highly specific gripes about the finale, which (without completely spoiling the show) are intertwined with the above issues and left me feeling like the tone of the finale and its actual content were extremely disjoint.

all seasons have great moments that i think about a lot, but having listened to all of it, my impression of the show as a whole is as a work that is less than the sum of its parts.