#the season on the whole is weird disjointed and messy

[themthistles]

was s2 of sweet home sponsored by the korean army whats going on

[graceful-not]

Uhh a response to @ccbcrazy 's video on Conya except it got too long and I put too much effort into it to just make it a reblog. So uh. VERY LONG rambling about why my feelings on Conya are complicated that somehow managed to have way too much Jay in it. why does he keep sneaking in here goddamnit.

OKAY SO FIRST OF ALL YEAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!! THE SILLIES EVER!!!! I love the way you organized the bullet points! Made everything very easy to follow (other than all the times the audio cut out RIP 💀) but. yeah . yeah them. they are sooooo. SO! UAUAUUA.

I agree with most of your points (and relate very very much w/ that bit about being ace and the Love At First Sight trope, though I'm aro and not ace), and ESPECIALLY with how Skybound handled everything (I could say so much about how much I hate despise the way they resolved Jaya in Skybound it's so icky I hate it I hate it I hate it I HATE IT), but I don't really have much to add to them, so I'll here are my random disjointed thoughts that sometimes and sometimes do not align with yours:

at some points, the emphasis on how it's something guilty and forbidden and how she "wants him but she can't have him", to quote that one Cole fangirl. It.. sat weirdly with me? As well as the phrasing of "the narrative wants him to be self-sacrificing", when talking about Cole on one of the slides. It feels weird to phrase it like that, as if the narrative is pushing him into that role rather than it being part of who he is, y'know? And the reason that the "yearning for what you know you can't have" aspect felt strange to me was that Cole putting friendship over his romantic relationships is a VERY significant thing about him for me. He values his friendships and family over any kind of romance, and would rather forfeit a potential romance than lose a friend, even if that friend hurt him. Which felt weird when the rest of the slideshow made it clear that you, like me, enjoy Conya because above all else, Cole loves Nya as a comrade and an equal. As a friend, before and even IF he loves her as anything else, which as you point out, isn't something we can definitively say about the other relationships (especially Jaya. I like it, I really do, and I'd say I think I like it more than Conya? but it's. it's VERY complicated and messy and they aren't really stable like. At All. for a while.)

And that part of Cole resonated with me a lot; the part that's perfectly fine not pursuing Nya because he doesn't NEED that connection like Jay does, because he's satisfied and content with where he is in their relationship now, after they both calm down and he realizes it isn't worth it, because it isn't even something he wants all THAT much. (The larger issue is that Jay was against him spending time with her at ALL, even as friends, because he was being possessive and insecure which is a whole host of other things-)

And actually? Y'know what? I'm gonna talk about Jay for a bit bc I feel like, though you did have a few slides on it and touch on it, you didn't really talk about how Jay is a very fundamental aspect of Conya's dynamic in-canon, as Nya's Yang and Cole's best friend (A title which he bestowes upon himself, I might add.) Jay is... Not Very Secure In His Relationships for the first few seasons. It stems from feeling inferior and weak compared to everyone else, which grows into clinginess and possessiveness for the ones that DO choose him, because he's afraid they'll leave, which in turn pushes them away because he's being Weird About It. He has this habit of... sorting those closest to him into neat little boxes that reassure him (Nya as his girlfriend who loves him and finds him funny and won't leave him and Cole as his best friend who's loyal and supportive and also won't ever leave him, and, as you'll note, he's the one that starts both of these, with asking Nya out and proclaiming Cole as his bestie during Skybound.) And when those people step out of those boxes, the change unsettles him, and he panics and doubles down on his tactics, sometimes even resorting to violence (which makes things worse and pushes them away more and... you get it. it's a whole cycle.) So.. Nya and Cole and their interactions are very defined by What Jay Will Let Them Do, for the first few seasons. What won't set him off, what is Good and Innocent and won't make him insecure. S1-7 Jay would NOT have let the hand nuzzle happen. But I believe S8-15 Jay WOULD. Because he's actually secure in his relationship with Nya and they trust each other, and he trusts Cole, etc. etc.

And I feel like them having an undercurrent of romantic tension kind of spits in the face of that?? I dunno. It makes the intention a little wobbly. I like the idea that it comes from a place of camaraderie, where platonic love can also be deep and intimate and layered, and not just repressed romantic feelings. Because the thought that either of them are just pining and never having that resolved makes me sad for all three of them :(.

But I DO like to think that Cole is a little bit madly in love with all of his friends in different ways (just like me fr..) and Nya's the one he latched onto back in S3 because she's a girl and heteronormativity. Cole has a lot of love in his heart ok and he cares about them very very much 🥹. And he loves and supports them and maybe he wants to kiss some or all of them but he can't do that so he's fine where he is. really he is. he's fine. HES FINE!!! he's okay when she puts a hand on his shoulder and he doesn't know how to express that he loves her so so so much and he missed her but not in the way that Jay loves her, in a different way, but he feels like it's just as important but Jay obviously didn't see it that way and he doesn't know if he does now, and how he loves them all different but so so strongly and how can she and Jay even make it so simple it's so EASY for them to wear the Yin/Yang relationship label it just FITS even though none of those relationships are alike how can the same label work when the love is obviously so different and he doesn't know if Nya even could understand that, understand how much his heart bursts with affection and fondness for her and the others, but she DOES she DOES get how you can love someone so much that there maybe aren't correct words for it, that's why Jay was the one to propose because she was just happy the way they were, and she's happy the way they are now and she's happy the way she and Cole are now except she can't be because they keep getting TORN APART and they can't ever really be happy because they're all always in danger ALL THE TIMe- sorry got carried away aha.

but yeah. And then Jay is there. and i can't let myself think Abt Conya too long because I get really sad about him. bc he's not LIKE THAT. He doesn't Get It like they (and I haha was it clear I am maybe projecting) do. The labels are comforting to him, rather than unneeded or even restricting in the way they could never encompass the full force of the feelings. They're like signifiers that the love is real, is there, is Official, which isn't something the others need because they already take the loving as a fact and a given, and Jay doesn't! He doubts his relationships and needs the reassurance of the labels, to be able to say, definitively, "This is my Yang, which means we love eachother romantically and complete eachother and are missing a piece without eachother and" (do you see where the problem is. The proposal scene was so cute but I think about his little rambly speech a little too much BUDDY WITH ANY OTHER PERSON ITD BE CUTE BUT WITH YOU AND YOUR TRACK RECORD ITS CONCERNING) But that also means that when the "rules" are broken he thinks it means the love is also broken because now the label has been dismantled and that's! NOT TRUE!!! AHH!!!!!!!! I truly think he would be cured if he made out with someone other than Nya (w/ her permission obv) for like ten seconds but he would literally never do that. but it would fix him I know this in my heart if Nya told him to go out and get some bitches he would be cured of All of His Complexes he would experience Enlightenment through the knowledge that he could do that and his relationship with Nya would still be valid and their feelings wouldn't change just because he did it and he would ALSO get to kiss someone about it. Literally win-win. Maybe it could even be Cole. this is how mudshock shippers stay winning.

And THATS always been my biggest issue with Conya. They never know what to do with Jay. Because if he found out Nya doesn't love him and is IN LOVE WITH HIS BEST FRIEND he would literally never recover all of his self worth issues that he overcame down the fucking drain bitch!! because everything bad he thought about himself has been proven true! AND THE REASON HE ACTS LIKE THAT IN THE FIRST FEW SEASONS IS BC THATS EXACTLY WHAT HES TERRIFIED OF HAPPENING!! And because he's so insecure and also has so much amatonormativity entrenched within him because the rules and restrictions reassure him, he's diametrically opposed to Conya! so I can't let myself have a Conya AU without Jay unpacking all of that and being Okay with people experiencing love differently, and then maybe realizing he doesn't have to love so restrictively anymore either, and THEN Conya can be whatever the fuck is going on with them in peace. Or he finds out Nya is in love with Cole and almost loses his shit before they both tell him they are also still in love with him. And he's like "oh thank God wait Cole ur in love with me" and that would fix him. Imagine thinking you're literally the worst and then you pull both Nya AND Cole while actively being kind of a jerk to them. how do you have the self worth issues after that shdbsjdb.

anyway go watch the video 👍

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

what's up kids it's that time again already

because I am extremely ready to be done with season 4 !!!

Gotham 4x17

something wild I've just realized is that at this point there are only 18 episodes left of the entire show, since season 5 was retooled into a half season that only got 12 eps and had to cut several ideas and characters including, among other things, the presence of Man-Bat. that's odd partly because I've spent something like nine months chipping away at Gotham at this point, and it's very strange to imagine my life now without any more Gotham to liveblog. it's also strange because this is no way feels like a story that's nearing any kind of conclusion, and I have to assume that when it inevitably comes the end will be as abrupt, brutal, and messy as every other aspect of Gotham up until that point.

anyway let's see what fresh hell is in store for us this time

god we've really abandoned all pretenses here Bruce is Batmanning on every level except for actually wearing a bat cowl

Oswald looking UNBELIEVABLY cunty atm I'm OBSESSED

bitch!!!

it would have been so cool if Bridgit had literally any kind of consistent personality or motivation but alas it is not that kind of show

a cool thing about the show never technically letting Cameron Monaghan's character be referred to as the Joker is that I don't technically have to like the Joker! and that's a huge relief because I do in fact like Jerome very much

oh my god they stumbled into an interesting Riddler moment again. this rules. like realistically this is about as good as guy whose whole gimmick is riddles could probably do for himself.

Lee got rid of her shitty bangs AND has acquired some sparkly fingerless fishnet gloves I love this for her

oh boy Jerome in a dog cage better not be a writer's poorly disguised fetish

I am once again asking what the point of making him Solomon Grundy was it lasted like ??? six episodes ??? people come back from the dead on this show all the time it didn't have to be a Thing

the thing is that if I didn't already know what the reveal is going to be (there's a second Valeska and Cameron Monaghan is going to play his own twin) I would simply have to assume they were going an incredibly bold gay Joker route and having Jerome hunt down his ex boyfriend

hey this is unhinged. like there have been a Lot of stupid storylines in this show but this genuinely so dumb and SO unnecessary

they want me to believe he stapled a live barracuda to someone's face as if the Riddler could possibly control a noble barracuda

there are just so many men in this city that Lee should be permitted to dismember with her bare hands

oooh baby Orphan Black this is not they are STRAINING to keep from having to show two Cameron Monaghan's at the same time. this is so disjointed

Hatter and Scarecrow getting sent to kill Jim and Harvey but immediately giving up because Harvey uuuuh screamed and ran right at them is ??? lmao??? you are so bad at your jobs hit him with some fear toxin or something?

also exactly no one on this show seems willing to actually run like their life is on the line which is really creating a very weird ambience. Mad Hatter and Scarecrow are doing the white person half-jog across the intersection while being chased with a gun

anyway Jerome just gave his brother a little smooch on the head but I don't think I'm insane for saying it seems like he wants to put his entire tongue in his twin's mouth. and that is hands down like the most normal thing going on in this episode.

RESPECT FOR LEE THOMPKINS: LOST !!!!!!!!!

[deep-hearts-core]

2023 - Semifinal 1

yall. besties. yesterday was eurovision, and i watched it 45 minutes behind everybody else, and i VOTED, and it cost me a stupid amount of money and im probably never doing it again! n e ways here goes

Norway i've had mixed feelings about this entry since it was selected (largely because i was bitter about the mgp results lol). this wasn't... terrible, but i felt underwhelmed? i liked the opening in italian and i respect alessandra for how much FUN she's having onstage, but she seemed weak vocally in a lot of places, there were a couple spots where she strayed from the key, and the removal of her cape was so quick, i wish they'd lingered more on that? camera shots also weren't timed perfectly i think. and ofc i've said before that these lyrics bother me and that it goes just a little too hard in the chorus. i respect the sea shanty vibes however i disagree that it is actually a sea shanty. ok. puts down mic.

Malta sigh. this is such a delightfully fun song that i've been so pleased by since its selection but the staging fell so flat. i love dav jr's dancing, it's excellent, but we needed more camera time on the saxophone. we really could have had epic sax guy 2: malta edition on our hands. also there were too many graphics (to cover the set changes) (i liked the set changes but were they worth the graphics? no) and i wish we could have actually seen the costume change. i dunno. it's still a really fun number and they sounded great but the staging was messy and they also chose a bad bad recap clip lmao.

Serbia ok, so i used to hate this but it's grown on me a lot especially since this performance. this song knows what it is and it plays to its audience. luke suits this song to a t (naturally, he wrote it, yknow?) and the outfit, the dancers, the set, the lights, everything felt cohesive! except for the graphics, i didn't need the graphics. also can i just say im a wide shot hater yall know this but the slow zoom out after the first "samo mi se spava" was INCREDIBLE. the only good wide shot in the history of eurovision.

Latvia i have zero technical complaints about this. vocally, and in terms of staging, this was flawless. the song isn't really my style but i don't actively hate it, mostly i think the beginning flows a little weird? it's funny, watching this i was like, if they qualify they could win the whole thing because juries will love it. and then they didn't qualify. which, like, ok, this is a jury song, but huh? this was a technically perfect performance!

Portugal my preshow winner! the first act of the night i felt was dwarfed by the stage a little, and she didn't seem fully comfortable vocally, but the performance was still so much fun and i think i actually shouted "fuck yeah" to my empty apartment when she hit that last high note.

Ireland man, idk if the singer was sick or nervous or what but the mic was so far from his mouth at all times and he sounded so strained. it makes my voice hurt just to listen to. and i mean, the song is fine, ultimately generic but fine, and i liked the all gold staging. but i cant get over how nervous conor looked and sounded.

Croatia as one of my preschoolers used to say, "i didn't really like that". because first of all, not that im against politics in eurovision, but how was this not disqualified over political grounds? the ebu's hypocrisy is showing. secondly it's not cohesive, it's disjointed until right at the end. and i don't like the onstage aesthetic at all. makes me kind of uncomfortable. in the end i don't think it's an effective joke entry. i know people are hailing it as being thee anti war song of the season or whatever but i don't think it's that good and i think people like it because of the caricatures. which like. fine. but don't hold it up against, yknow, switzerland or whatever and say look see croatia is the good anti war song! because it's not... it's not good.

Switzerland now look i get the tone deaf accusations i really do. maybe its my perspective as a usian here, but i think this is allowed to be a commentary on like, masculinity and conscription and the glorification of war to young boys, i don't think it's telling ukrainians and russians to just sit down for some tea, you know? anyway i missed most of this performance yesterday bc i was busy voting (i was behind the stream but i checked tumblr at the right time and scrambled to give votes to portugal) so this was really my first time watching. i was surprised when it qualified but technically it was actually very good, pretty good staging and remo sounded basically like in the studio version, he's got a gorgeous voice. the song is generic, switzerland has sent basically the same song the past two years, yknow, theyve found their groove and theyre sticking to it thats fine. i dunno. i don't hate it.

Israel bro... why was this good. listen like i'm not huge on this kind of song i thought it was pretty annoying initially, like i didn't extremely hate it nor did i think there were subliminal antipalestinian messages in the lyrics or whatever i just didn't enjoy it. and while noa didn't sound great, she had good energy and the staging fucked?? that dance break?? i was expecting it to be messy but it blew me out of the water which i guess i should have expected from israel but shrug. also free palestine tho the ebu turns a blind eye to israel's atrocities while cutting off russia because the ukrainian perspective is more palatable and like, fuck that it's deeply hypocritical.

Moldova while vocally pasha isn't all that solid, the stage show and songwriting here are both phenomenal. this is pasha at his finest. i love all the jumps he does, i love the drumming, i love that the backing vocals are live!!!! this fucks so hard

Sweden i'll say it: this wouldn't be getting as much hype if it weren't loreen. it's not a bad song, even if her vocals aren't as spotless as they were in 2012 and even if that outfit is objectively just terrible, but the name recognition does a lot. great staging though. the close staging is what made euphoria work and it's doing the same thing here. i've said this since melfest: the only way i'll be truly happy with this is if loreen pulls a johnny logan and becomes the second person to win twice. like karmically that is the only thing that is allowed to happen here. if she gets like third or something i'll be deeply dissatisfied. (i'd also find it deeply funny if she placed like 20th but that's just because i like to be a hater.)

Azerbaijan that performance gave 1970s, 1990s, and 2011 all at once. truly atrocious outfits and vocals weren't outstanding but then again it isn't that kind of song. i think we always knew this one would get lost because it's so much more mellow than the other acts but it's just SO low energy. the outfits i think led people to believe this would be a more energetic number than it was. and there's a place in eurovision for numbers that are just vibes like this but it didn't work, yknow? staging was the best part of this though, not a standout by any means but it was good it didn't detract from the song at all.

Czechia underwhelming. this song goes hard in studio and i knew it wouldn't translate 1:1 live. i love the outfits and i don't hate the hair extensions, shockingly. i think it's a great opening and a great bridge but the mix between prerecorded and live backing is rough and the stage felt too big for them. still good tho. love those harmonies and the lead singer's voice is beautiful and delicate and just, mmm.

Netherlands i am going to say it again. you could have picked me, a somewhat trained singer who knew the song, up out of the us and dropped me in liverpool with 24 hours notice and i still would have done better than mia nicolai. listen, the staging was gorgeous and dion did great. i love the song, i think it's beautiful. the key change... better for the singers, even if the piano in the beginning sounded distorted and very obviously pitched down. but MIA. my god. she didn't sound good, didn't hit her high notes (the prerecorded backing vocals did it instead), and she had TOO MUCH ENERGY. mia stop bouncing around this is not the mia show this is not a pop banger mia please. it was distracting and it totally ruined the experience for me.

Finland it took me a while to understand why everyone loves this, but i get it now. like serbia's entry, it knows what it is and leans into it and does all of those things well. like, kaarija doesn't NEED to be a great singer, because the way the staging works with the music and the rap balances it out. again, it's cohesive! it's funny to watch it's fun to bop to i know it's a commentary on alcoholism even if i can't understand the lyrics and that staging. is really fucking cool with the dancers and the crate and the lights. and also i love how all of finland has rallied around the guy. helsinki 2024, if i had to place bets i think this is definitely a contender.

My personal qualifiers: finland, portugal, latvia, moldova, sweden, czechia, serbia, malta, israel, switzerland. i'm floored that this list includes serbia israel and switzerland u guys. but it does.

Miscellaneous thoughts: THIS YEARS HOSTS. hannah alesha and julia you will always be famous <3 they're fucking iconic they're so good and julia opening the semifinal was great, idk much hardkiss music but she's a great singer. alesha's rap was also super fun. and hannah's french. "see, we do bother to learn other languages!" lmao. i love alyosha but how do you get alyosha here and not have her sing sweet people. it would have been topical!!! like cmon!!! rita ora was good although i think i join every other esc fan in being slightly salty about it. like oh we're good enough for you now? my god the lines were open for what felt like forever. is it always that long? why was there no countdown timer? DUSTIN THE TURKEY! THEY GOT DUSTIN THE TURKEY!

[bullfrawgs]

I never did the writeup for all of the episodes in SU Season 5 like I was going to. At this point I probably won't. Season 5 is so weird in comparison to the other seasons. It has the great opening arc of Steven in Space with Lars. Then it has the townie Eps, which was praising at the time for their incredible ability to make me feel anxious waiting for resolution to the Connie plot, to the Lars plot, to the whole town changing (Kevin Party is such a good episode for the manner in which it juggles all of that tension)

And then the next episodes, where Lars is brought back, are great episodes, I love new Lars, but it's so sudden being off screen and also kinda breaks a lot of the townie tension all at once with anticlimax?

And from there the season just gets weirder. The pink diamond reveal I guessed like a season earlier (Steven is literally right on the money in his rant in Storm in the Room, but also he couldn't possibly have yet known half the stuff he was right about), followed by the truly lovely wedding, and then the ending...

Oh that ending...

It starts with Yellow and Blue's Heelturns. This series has an MO for villains and it's that a good friendship speech will cause a change in a character toward good but that change may take time. Peridot and Lapis, even when they're open to friendship, take a while to fully settle into their cottage core aesthetic. Given the time limit they were stretching against I understand why Blue and Yellow's heel turn was so short but their change was the shortest and most wild and it did cause whiplash. From there, while it was probably a good move to pivot from the genocidal stakes to stakes more grounded in generational trauma in order to have a story that can conclude in the allotted time, that change also left me somewhat bewildered. The series built itself up so so well across the previous 5 seasons and it had to break a lot of its buildup in order to fit in the runtime.

The finale basically only survives because of the 1 Gorgeously Animated Shot (you know the one) and then the wall to wall music in the last 10 minutes. It hits the right nostalgia notes, and a just barely somber tinted chord, to make you forget that the ending was not really able to pay off a lot of what it had been promising.

So in the end my thoughts on the end are very similar to the end itself. Messy, disjointed, tinged with a bit of sorrow? Idk. If you read this i'd love to hear your thoughts about the ending in the comments/reblogs. Good or bad. I'm giving Sugar a lot of leeway in my analysis on the basis that the schedule screwed them over, but that's not the only valid read.

[cina-full-moon-xanadium]

Franchises are messy.

They just are. When you’re dealing with something like Kamen Rider which has gone on for over 50 years, or even just looking at a specific section of it that had gone on for just under 20; all these entries are going to look super disparate -- because they are! There is little use in directly comparing OOO to Kabuto to Hibiki to Gaim to Decade to Ghost. Certainly there’s some overarching general similarities, but on the whole these are wildly different stories -- and when you’ve got crossovers or things that group them together as all the same franchise, all Kamen Rider, that’s gonna look weird, isn’t it? Back in the days of Showa it’s not hard to see what Stronger, X and Black have in common and how they may flow from one another, but something like Fourze has little to do with Wizard and Faiz teaming up with Zeronos is really strange. It’s a bunch of shows that have nothing to do with each other, hastily all grouped under the same banner.

But that’s why we like it, isn’t it?

Maybe technically, there is a cleaner way to do it. Perhaps you could have had these shows be more thematically consistent with each other, perhaps the ‘Kamen Rider’ moniker could have been dropped after a few seasons if not for marketing, perhaps the designs and backstories could have had more in common, perhaps once it was clear they were doing big crossovers and Rider was going to last for a while they could have established a stricter continuity that made sense to the viewers... but that’s not what Heisei Rider is to me. 

Heisei Rider for me was wonderful coming from a background of other franchises like Transformers and Marvel which set out every few years to create The continuity, The clean, perfect version of it all that solidified everything you liked into one clear version, just remaking everything you’d seen before all the time... but Heisei Rider despite belonging to a franchise with a very popular starting point that continues to be infamous and pop culture legend in Japan to this day set out to just create new stories every year. Most of them would feature a ‘remodeled human’ of some kind, yes, and you’d usually find similarities in what they’re saying; but the sheer joy of watching Fourze, and then what was airing of Build at the time, and then W, and OOO, and later Hibiki and Agito and Den-O and Kuuga... and finding something fresh and new each time with a defined beginning and end? It was wonderful. It didn’t matter if they didn’t all fit together neatly into one combined tapestry, it didn’t matter if some didn’t live up to all the potential they could, it didn’t matter if some technically weren’t as ‘Kamen Rider’ as they could be... they were all just stories, with most if not all infused with genuine creative vision; and all of them inspired someone.

Over Quartzer is itself an extremely messy movie, which naturally makes it the most Zi-O a Zi-O movie could be; but in being something that messy and disjointed it hits all those key points better than any objectively ‘better’ movie could. It knows it’s messy almost from the start, in fact, but that just plays into its favour -- why doesn’t this fit into the show’s continuity? Why is the Drive tribute here? How does anything about Tokiwa Sougo being a double make sense? Why aren’t Amazons and ZO and J and all the rest considered Heisei Riders? What is Woz’s goal? What makes a Kamen Rider in the first place? Why is Norider here? Does any of that matter, though, if it’s succeeding at telling its story?

Well, I mean, that’s up to you to decide. It’s an insane movie! I won’t be surprised if most don’t like it. For me though it exemplifies what I loved about Heisei Rider and how its imperfections mirror life in a way that trying to re-do the same thing over and over until you reach The Definitive Version simply can’t, and for that I’ll always love it as a send-off to all 20 Heisei Riders.

[spaceorphan18]

SpaceOrphan vs Glee Season 3

for @yesandmusicals who wanted to know

Yes, let’s talk about my dislike of season 3, because that’s always fun!

So, first of all, I want to say for the record, I actually don’t believe Glee was ever that well written.  I’m not one to bash RIB (though I have issues with them), but I think the novelty of the show, coupled with the great music, good performances from the cast, and some fun things within production, made this show memorable.  And, in the beginning, it had Jane Lynch delivering some dark and edgy comedy, which people were fascinated by.  

But were season 1′s plotlines all that good?  There’s a fake baby, and standard teen drama, and Will going through some kind of weird mid-life crises at 29, and most of the interesting characters were really in the background for most of season 1. 

And then season 2 happened and... I don’t think it’s that great?  You’ll have to forgive me - cause I’m a Kurt/(Blaine)/Klaine fan - and I do think Kurt’s story in the first two seasons is best this show ever is as a whole, but I think a lot of season 2 was a mess, and kind of coasted on being popular.    Season 2 became big and flashy and everyone loved it until they didn’t anymore.  The show really had a quick shelf life, and looking back, it’s kind of surprising the show made it all the way to six seasons.  

(I actually really enjoy season 4-6, so I’m glad they stuck it out.)

Anyway -- by the time season 3 came around, the burnout was real, and they brought in new writers (who I don’t think helped much) -- and the show was now trying to service so many characters that most of the (terrible) plot lines they had were stretched way too thin -- with the exception of the Finchel story line that went in circles cause they were waiting for the inevitable conclusion to happen in season 4.  

To be more concise, though, here is a list of reasons why season 3 is my least favorite:

The aforementioned big cast of characters who got episodes devoted to them instead of the long arcs that seasons 1 and 2 gave the characters.  This made the season feel disjointed and messy, and no one got a satisfactory amount of screen time.  

On top of that -- they were backed into dealing with The Glee Project, and while Unique and (arguably) Joe were decent characters, Rory was not. He felt like the most pointless character to ever waste time on.

The season is broken up into three segments (1-8; 9-14; 15-22; sectionals, regionals, and nationals) and while this structure is all fine and dandy on paper, the plot lines for the first and third segments were terrible.  (I don’t necessarily mind episodes 9-18 plus The First Time, but the beginning and the end of this season just kinda sucked.)

In the first third -- we have possibly the worst story lines of the series.  I don’t think Santana’s coming out was done very well.  No one cared about Sue and Beiste in a love triangle.  The student elections just were weird.  And then there was Shelby and Puck -- and I can’t say how much I HATE that story line, because it leads to some of the worst moments the show has.  People often don’t even think about Puck that much, so this isn’t talked about very often -- but even beyond the grossness of a teacher/student relationship, how Puck treats her is truly one of the most disgusting displays of a relationship on this show.

There was the issue that they literally did not know what to do with Quinn so they made her crazy, and then hit her with a truck.  I’m not even a Quinn fan but, good god.  

The last third was marred by the fact that Rachel Berry was given everything on a silver platter and I wasn’t here for the -- give Rachel everything show.  I don’t hate Rachel, she was a great character in season 1.  She’s a great character later on in the series.  But the writing around her character, especially at the expense of many other characters, became grating -- especially in episodes like Promasaurus and Props.

One of the by products of season 2 was that Hummelberry became a thing, and instead of understanding that Kurt worked just fine as his own character, they now had to tie Kurt in with Rachel, their stories became paralleled, her issues became his issues, and he became her emotional prop of a sidekick.  

Which also made Finchel and Klaine stories become paralleled a lot (glee loves parallels, and it used to parallel Wemma with Finchel - which makes more sense, tbh.) 

Because Kurt was relegated to sidekick for Rachel, Blaine ended up being relegated jukebox singer, with little to no development outside his one episode and the rare Klaine story line.  

I think they mishandled some of the bigger social commentary stories.  The Kurt/Bullying storyline resonated with a lot of people, so suddenly Glee felt the need to go address all the issues facing (young?) people and it ended up doing a 180 from its darker roots.  And thus we get an awkward Santana coming out story that focuses more on Finn; Karofsky’s suicide attempt in a tonally disjointed episode, and Beiste’s spousal abuse story line - which is... what?  

Also, let’s not forget that Sue being pregnant for half the season is indeed a story line.  

The competitions I think were pretty bland, since it was already telegraphed that they were going to win Nationals because they lost the year before -- and half the cast is graduating.  The show outgrew it’s original premise of underdogs trying to win a competition, and while the writers clearly needed these posts for their structure, the character arcs were far more interesting than the weak aspect of competition. 

And then, of course, the whole issue with the Tongue Tied scene during Nationals, which yes does annoy me about the lack of Klaine kiss (the fact that the writers didn’t even think that Kurt and Blaine should celebrate together tells me that it’s more than just censorship) but more so the fact that Emma gives her virginity away as trophy for Will that disgusts me more. 

As for the censorship thing, while I think there might have been some, I think it’s more so that the writers couldn’t focus on any one character for any length of time, and Klaine in the background was not Tike in the background.  And in comparison, when Finchel is getting all the foreground, fighting for scraps made it difficult to watch everything else.  Not helping is the fact that Darren was doing movies and musicals, and wasn’t around for a bit that also added to lack of screen time.  

Oh, and Finchel had an argument over chairs.  I don’t actually hate the scene, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it.  

Did I forget anything? 

And I know, I know - damn, S.O. that’s a lot.  Believe it or not, there are some good things (COOPER!) about season 3, I don’t hate it to the point where I can’t watch it or anything, and all the rest of the seasons have a ton of flaws as well, but unlike every other season, the high points don’t outweigh the “meh”-ness that this season unfortunately suffers from, hence me liking it the least. 

...and now you know the rest of the story.  

[panharmonium]

some disjointed thoughts about stranger things 2 under the cut (concealed to hide spoilers from my sister)

so, season 2!

i’ve gone into every season of this show knowing absolutely nothing about it.  i’ve had no exposure to the fandom or to reviews or anything that would indicate what it was about or how good the seasons are in relation to each other, which i like, because i know my opinions are my own.  season 1 i watched back in the winter, i think, and it was amazing.  blew me away. 

i just finished season 2 and i’m like...not as into it?

and i’m glad i had no preexposure to anything, because if i had, i’d worry that i was just being influenced by other people’s opinions, but i genuinely don’t know what people think of the various seasons.  i’ve been stringently avoiding anything about this show, have it blocked on tumblr, etc, so i could watch it cold.

i’d have to watch it again to really pin down the places where my investment was flagging, and i’ll probably do that eventually, because i know my roommate will want to see it, but my general impression was this: they had me hooked in the beginning, and then they started to lose me.

- i feel like overall it was 9 episodes where very little substance actually happened.  plotlines were stretched out over a reallllllly long period of time and became paper-thin.  like nancy and jonathan?  the only thing they really did over those entire nine episodes was make a tape recording and send it to the paper.  that was their whole story, and it could have fit in one episode.

- and what did happen felt like it suffered from a lack of focus.  can i explain this in more detail without watching the show again?  not really.  but i just mean that in S1, i could tell you what each of the main character’s arcs were, and i could lay out how those arcs had clear beginnings, middles, and endings.  in S2, i can really only do that for El (and even that i feel like got messy by the last third).  

- the horror vibe was different this season.  it was LESS scary, to me.  S1 was a CREEP factor that had my skin crawling - it wasn’t like...creature horror - it was the unsettlingness.  the whole parallel world thing was so - well, the only word for it is unsettling, like.  you felt like you could take a step and accidentally wind up somewhere no one should be - the idea that you can be trapped so close to somebody and yet so far away - you just felt like the world was inside out (or upside down, if you will).  and so much of the fear in the first one came from how incomprehensible and uncertain the entire situation was - you didn’t know how things worked and nobody believed you when you tried to tell them what was happening.  that scene where the christmas lights spell out R-U-N?  scariest fucking thing i’ve ever seen.  but S2 changed it to be like...it felt like more of a monster flick.  like a zombie movie or something - lots of creatures running around that you can just shoot with a gun - that’s just not really the same vibe as the first season, and i didn’t find it quite as interesting.

- i don’t want to be That Person, because i liked maxine as a character in general, on her own terms, but from a writing perspective - what even was the purpose of her introduction?  her and her brother both, honestly, the whole family.  i feel almost bad for saying that, because i can guarantee that there were people out there complaining about her being introduced because “they just wanted to have another girl; it’s so stupid, blah blah,” cue more sexist stuff, etc, and that’s really not where i’m coming from, but for me, from a general storytelling perspective, i don’t understand why she or her family were introduced.  they were superfluous to the story.  they didn’t need to be there.  and since i don’t even feel like the returning characters got enough development this season (see point #2), i don’t understand why we spent so much time on her/her family/her introduction to the Party.  it felt like filler.

- stranger things S2 did that thing teen wolf does where 2/3 of the way through the season it drops a tonally-different expository/flashback episode that does a lot of the legwork tying other shit together while also being completely disconnected from the rest of the plot, which is basically an info dump and is my least favorite way of relaying plot/getting characters to the spot the writer wants them to go.  i think kali was the most interesting new character we met this season; i was rapt every time she was onscreen, but i don’t love the “we’re going to shove all of the character development and background info into this one episode and at the end El has had her turnaround and goes back home.”  it didn’t feel believable to me.  are we ever going to see those people again, or were they just a plot convenience to serve the aforementioned purpose?  (idk, i haven’t watched S3 yet, so...we’ll see.)

- some weird...minor tonal changes/dropped plots?  in S1 one of the running undercurrents was how mike and nancy’s mom wanted them to talk to her and she really did care about what was going on but they couldn’t connect to her and that bothered her, whereas in S2 it’s like - that theme has been dropped; she’s not involved in their lives really at all, and her and ted’s spousal relationship is just being played for laughs, and there was that REALLY weird scene with her like...lusting after billy??????  that was so fucking bizarre.  

and until one line in the very last episode, they dropped the whole thing about hopper’s daughter, too - the way they wove that into the first season was brilliantly done, and just - you don’t see a bit of it in S2, and that felt off, to me.

- killing bob was a bad call.  it was gratuitous, AND it was contrived - who the hell is running for their life and then just stops dead in the lobby to smile at their girlfriend?  ANY SENSIBLE PERSON WOULD KEEP RUNNING FOR THE DOOR.  like - bob died, but the doctor survived????????  the doctor, who was attacked and immobilized and defenseless in a stairwell, somehow wasn’t killed??????  of course not, because he needed to survive, so he could get El her papers later....that entire thing irritated me.  it made no sense.  that was actually the point where i said to myself “uh-oh.  first Bad-with-a-capital-B decision this show’s made.”  

- lack of consistency in terms of how, exactly, Stuff Works.  in S1 it was like - the Upside Down is everywhere.  the demigorgon could come through anywhere, if you were unlucky.  that was part of what made it so creepy - there’s this whole other world and it is RIGHT THERE with you, and sometimes the fabric separating the two universes gets scary thin, and bam, you’re somewhere no human has any business being.  whereas in S2 it’s like - ok, things are coming through this one portal and spreading through tunnels underground, in our own dimension???  like at first i thought hopper had actually entered the Upside Down in the tunnels, but then it seemed like the tunnels were still on our plane, just gross-looking.  so why in S1 could the demigorgon come through the ceiling of will’s house, or through that tree in the woods, or take barbara through the pool?  why did the lab people think burning that little gate would help, when the first monster from last season was obviously popping into our dimension from all sorts of other places?  

- this is a minor quibble, but it was driving me up the WALL in the last couple of episodes - what in god’s name were they injecting will with???  and HOW.  mike just grabs that syringe off the counter like “we need to make will go to sleep” - there is NO reason that anyone in the room would know what was in the syringe or what the correct dosage was or HOW TO GIVE AN INJECTION IN THE FIRST PLACE.  joyce gives it???????  by stabbing straight down????????  into will’s arm????????????  what the hell kind of injection technique is that?!?!?!  that’s not....how that works.  ever.  and maxine does it to billy too, in his NECK - just straight in there.  there is no....look, people in human medicine can weigh in better than me here; maybe things are different, but just from the veterinary perspective, you can’t just stab a creature any old place you want, and giving something via any route that isn’t intravenous isn’t going to drop an animal immediately, AND you do not have control over how long they’re going to be out.  if you give a sedative, you can’t just wake an animal up by wafting ammonia under their nose.  AND the animal is likely not going to be actually asleep until you also give an anaesthetic induction agent, and if you do give an anaesthetic induction agent, you’d better have some monitoring equipment and a breathing apparatus hooked up to your patient!

look, it just - the “go to sleep” injection was used to solve too many critical situations for me to just ignore it.  it bothered me.

anyhow.  overall, i didn’t hate it.  but i thought it was way less cohesive than the first season, and therefore way less effective.  i’m still curious to see what happens in S3, but my expectations are lower now. 

[if you wanna talk to me about this, you have my permission, but ONLY if you’re able to do it without talking about S3 in any capacity, including your own personal evaluation of how good/bad it is in relation to the other seasons.  i like to watch without knowing other people’s opinions of things, otherwise i feel like my viewing experience is colored by what i hear.  thanks! :) ]

[traitor-boyfriend]

watched the new ep the other day. av club-style notes to follow:

- they're really still on the farm huh

- the mexican joker bit was not particularly funny off the bat. got old super quick and kind of a weird pop culture pull to incorporate

- randy: fuck south park

- i think utilizing kyle and his family into the atmosphere around migrant detention took a stand on the whole concentration camp v. detention center w it ultimately being a meaningless distinction meant to distract from the horrific reality; illustrated by the one guy saying something to the effect of "we can't hold a jew here. people might think we're racist." horror is horror

- in typical south park fashion they stop just short of condemning cbp/detention agents and leave it sort of vague as to whether they are casting them merely as bumbling idiots unaware of their cruelty "just doing their jobs" or true arbiters of inequity via malicious compliance, unaffected abuse and neglect. it seemed a bit of both though the scene of ect being performed on a child made me lean towards the latter interpretation

- cartman's presence is odd. not that he revels in human suffering but in that his being there really doesn't drive the immigration plot much. i think it's incredibly naive that so many people believe him having the -sudden- realization that kyle is jewish and making the historical connection to the holocaust was actually sudden, and that cartman had a genuine moment of self-reflection blah blah blah. cartman did not suddenly forget kyle is jewish. cartman did not suddenly remember the holocaust. he is well aware of both, routinely and continually. cartman is a sociopath and a sadist who receives pleasure and gratification by causing suffering to others. cartman is a bad person. let's all put our brains back in our heads

- kyle and his aluminum foil yarmulkes

- randy and his crusade against people growing their own weed wasn't very attention grabbing but i did think him teaming up w the execs to take out medmen was decent commentary, obv mirroring the ongoing scrutiny of juuls/vaping and the shadowy role the tobacco industry is privately playing behind the scenes in driving the fear factor amongst the public

- overall kind of a messy ep. i think the lack of overlap between the a and b plot made it feel disjointed b/c that plot layering is typical of south park, esp when it's at its funniest. i hope there's less randy this season b/c the tegridy schtick is gonna very quickly outwear its welcome. curious if the next ep is still going to have them in detention. mid-tier ep. late season sp tends to have its best towards the middle of the season

[aeon-wolf]

Legends 4x15

Last episode before the season finale and I think it was a reasonable one all things considered. 

I generally do think that Legends has escaped the S4 Arrowverse curse (Supergirl has as well from what I’ve heard). I definitely don’t think it’s their best season as far as pacing and story cohesion is concerned, but I don’t think the season has been bad. 

My few gripes with the show are usually compensated for by how much I love Legends in general and I’m very much willing to overlook some things that I might otherwise hate on another show that I wasn’t as invested in. 

- I think the whole Gary storyline has been... weird but also it does make sense. And I’m glad that everyone is coming around to realizing that Gary has been kind of abused by the team and the bureau, basically forever. Gary isn’t my favorite character, I kind of find him more annoying than anything, but I think it was an important lesson for the Legends (and Ava) to learn. 

- I think Mona has become a much more relatable character in the past few episodes and I hope they continue to improve her character, whilst still keeping her Mona. I will admit I have been rather turned off by her personality, but I thought that it was more a personality clash with my own, rather than disliking her. Like I’m not a huge fan of overly optimistic, love conquers all, bubbly characters in general. Gary is probably a prime of example of that. I tend to relate to and enjoy characters more like Sara or Zari. Or even Mick. But I think her character has been far more relatable and well balanced in the last few episodes than she was early on. And I do hope she stays for S5. It sounds like she probably will since Ramona was saying on Twitter that she’s heard people’s criticisms of her character and will continue to improve or whatever it was. 

- The fairy godmother plotline thing... Okay I think it was a cute idea and a good premise, but I also wish that it had been at least teased earlier. I don’t count 4x02 because we didn’t really learn anything about her in regards to how it’s transferred, who she was prior to being a fairy godmother, etc, etc. I did like the small snippet of backstory that Tabitha was just a fairy godmother in 4x02 and I guess time passes differently in the real world and Hell and that she had been there for centuries and Neron saved her. It makes the storyline make a bit more sense than it has imo. Nora being the fairy godmother now is interesting and I’m looking forward to seeing how they rectify that in the finale. I have a suspicion that it’ll be something similar to Aladdin where Gary (or whoever her charge is) might be able to wish her free? Or she might trick Tabitha into taking it back. Or something like that. Who knows at this point. And then I’m not entirely sold that Tabitha and Neron aren’t going to backstab each other at some point. 

- The Neron plotline, I kind of hate that it’s the penultimate episode and only now are we really finding out what Neron’s endgame goal is. That he’s collecting souls to become the king of Hell. That was apparently teased earlier in the season, very briefly according to Zari, but I feel like the Neron thing has been so disjointed all season that expecting that to be a satisfactory way to foreshadow this is a bit of an ask. I don’t have anything against the actual plotline. I think it’s kind of cool, but I wish we had known about it earlier as to build more suspense, rather than just accepted confusion on what the fuck was going on in regards to Neron. 

- John... I don’t know a lot about John’s backstory since I didn’t watch the solo Constantine show, so I don’t know if those demons he met were cameos or what, but it was interesting to find out a bit more about the workings of hell. I’ve done a bunch of research on demons myself for a fic I’ve been writing and for him to namedrop Satin, Belial and Beezelbub was kind of cool to me. I kind of want to be mad at him for choosing Astra over Ray, but a part of me sort of understands why he did it. Astra has haunted him for a long time, and we got a few snippets of it in the episode. And it was kind of sad (though not surprising) to see that Astra wasn’t the small child he envisioned anymore. 

- If they kill off Charlie’s character in the finale I’m going to cut someone. I really do want Charlie to stay for S5. Watching her basically sacrifice herself for all the magical creatures and Mona was a nice character development moment (though I do feel like she’s been neglected in this manner since the mid-season finale). It’ll be interesting to see how her shapeshifting powers will play into the finale. 

- And young Zari finding the dragon egg... ooo that’s going to be spicy for the finale. I wonder if because she intervened in her own past, that present-day Zari might have a grown dragon after the timeline settles into the ramifications of leaving it there. It seems that Zari is going to be our ultimate MOTHER OF DRAGONS. I wonder if the reason that Jes was laughing so hard about the mother of dragons thing at Caity during Clexacon was because Caity had expressed her interest in that but they made that Tala’s role instead. I don’t know, but I really do want to hear the rest of that story once the season is over. Someone should ask that at ComicCon. 

- Caity and Jes tap dancing was kind of hilarious. I was a tap dancer for a good ten years of my life so it was kind of nostalgic for me. I know Caity has said she dislikes it and thinks she’s not too good at it, but her timesteps and pickups and whatnot were pretty good. Jes’ as well. 

Honestly, I’m really hyped for the finale, but at the same time don’t want the season to be over. But then also excited for what the finale will bring us for S5. I do kind of hope they go back to their roots and perhaps tone the magical creature stuff back a bit. Obviously not get rid of all of it because I want Nora and Charlie to stay, but find another reason for anachronisms. I think the idea of meshing time travel with magic was good in theory but ended up being a bit messy in practice. 

[kalico-to-the-letter]

REVIEW // RWBY | 6.7 | “THE GRIMM REAPER”

AKA heart eyes. Lots and lots of heart eyes.

Welcome in to my review of Volume 6, Chapter 7, entitled “The Grimm Reaper”.

In this episode: An emptied Vault is revisited. A former badass tells her story and passes the torch. The sun rises on a new city, an emotional reunion, and an adorable family.

Just…

INHERITANCE AND THE RESET MENTALITY

This is a really weird episode. It’s a dip for RWBY this season, especially when set against the lofty, excellent standards of the recent few episodes. It’s the first time that the pacing of the season has noticeably suffered, and explicit key moments are not as impactful as they could have been.

But at the same time, there’s a lot of entertainment – and fun, in the final third of the episode – to be had. The introduction of Saphron Cotta-Arc and her adorable little family just had me smiling all the way to the end of the episode. Maria’s flashback was a dazzling fight display against Grimm and people alike.

In a way, it’s something of a mid-season reset. The negative jaunt through the snowy forest is immediately brought to its end, and Team RWBY is reunited with Jaune, Nora, and Ren in the city of Argus – a port-of-call on the way to Atlas. Maria is re-established as a potential mentor for Ruby. Cinder and Neo, who have shifted into more forefront roles as primary antagonists, have officially set on a path of eventual intersection with the protagonists.

This shift in direction is actually also reminiscent of last season, and the pieces starting to take shape are similar as well. I’ll say right now that after the compelling start to this season, it would be disappointing if its back half ends up rehashing or acts as an extended revamp of last season’s endgame material.

In any case, what this episode does present is a series of threads – with three key instances and one minor instance – being inherited or passed to the next in line, but with strangely mixed results.

Neo inherits Cinder’s Ruby problem – though it is a problem they share – in a scene which doesn’t quite work. For one thing, they wind up back in the Vault at Haven, where Cinder was defeated by Raven, a bit of unnecessary table-setting. There’s no reason for them to go to the Vault. Does Neo really need to be convinced about the status of the Knowledge Relic to align herself with Cinder? Especially when they already settled their differences?

There was some worthwhile exposition in this scene, as it formalised Cinder’s machinations. She is frustrated that Salem won’t let her go after Ruby – and never really let her know why – but is willing to bet on the idea that everyone forgot about Neo’s existence after Volume 3, and puts her on track to pursue Ruby in her stead. So we get some kind of hinting as to what Cinder’s true intentions may be; there is a possibility of her – at some point – coming into conflict with Salem in some form.

That said, the pacing issue rears its head both here and in the Maria “Grimm Reaper” flashback which follows. This Cinder exposition should really have taken place the last time we saw these two, after they had their little scuffle. Placing it here is just disjointed.

And this affects the flow into the next segment, the Maria flashback.

Don’t get me wrong – the technical work here was really cool, and seeing Maria with her twin axes and her skull mask bringing down a Nevermore was great, even before she brought out the silver eyes. After the flashback, Qrow eulogises the Grimm Reaper as a legend, and pretty much says that Maria is supposed to be a big deal.

But one vignette does not make a legend. And it’s not so impressive when she, just after beating a Nevermore with some ease, is beaten by a few bandits and blinded by a woman we’ll probably never see again. There are better ways for Maria to have lost her eyes and still be actualised as an impressive hero, and this execution was both rushed and forced. The saving grace is that the sequence as a whole is solely designed to tell of her “fall”, and that the end point of this sequence positions Maria as Ruby’s next big mentor, the one who will help her hone her Silver Eyes and carry the mantle into the future. That’s good, and everything about this sequence is understandable. But the journey to that end point needed some more fleshing out.

The last key inheritance thread involves JNR, who finally get the signal necessary to place a call through to Ruby’s group, and in so doing, hand off their own little subplot to the main heroes, bringing them all together in a realignment of their goals.

This was weird too.

The previous episodes have done a great job of building up tension in a number of aspects, not least of which is the continually underlying issues within Team RWBY. Suddenly, Jaune calls Ruby, Yang drives them up a hill into the sunlight, and all that tension is immediately dispelled. Throughout the remainder of the episode, any sign of issues between the girls is sidelined in favour of having us fawn over Saphron and Terra Cotta-Arc – and their cute son, who really just drives home the episode’s whole theme of passing missions and legacies on to the next in line.

Hopefully, the stasis placed on Team RWBY’s impending problems won’t last long, as there is still a lot of fertile ground in that conflict and any others still lingering from what happened with Ozpin. (Not to mention that abandoning such a promising subplot would be a ridiculous dereliction of storytelling.)

But there is still some way before the Gang even gets to Atlas, as they have run into a wall as far as securing transport is concerned, so again, I can’t just dismiss what this episode is trying to do. I like this episode, and I like the new elements it has introduced; there is just the potential that we get both sides of the coin and things end up a bit messy heading into the final act, which would be disappointing after such a strong early run.

OBSERVATIONS

It’s nice that Jaune was so emotional after being reunited with Team RWBY. He’s been a largely okay character in recent years, and as someone who sat through his bullshit in the first three seasons, his current character is fine with me.

Terra and Saphron are currently wrapped up in a dispute over the city’s Relay Tower. I would bet on Team RWBY getting involved in this subplot as a means to securing passage to Atlas. Any excuse to see more of the Cotta-Arc family is fine with me!

None of you have the privilege to be with me in the room when I watch these episodes, but rest assured that a coffee table got flipped over when Saphron said “my wife”. Listen, I don’t care what you say – it means a lot to me personally when these characters are confirmed as queer. I had some issues with how they revealed Ilia last season, but the reveal of the Cotta-Arc family just elicited unabashed joy on my part.

“Shut up there’s food!” – Ruby.

The jump cut from the Cotta-Arc living room to Team RWBY getting the gate shut on them was a low-key fun ending.

GRADE: B-

“The Grimm Reaper” is entertaining and intriguing enough to pass by smoothly and work in the grand scheme of things, but its function as a mid-season reset episode is nullified by the sudden interruption to the heroes’ struggles in the snowy forest and all the compelling elements it created, and the reemergence of RWBY’s longest-running issue: pacing. From an ill-placed Cinder/Neo scene, to a Maria flashback forcing the idea of her past glory, this is an episode laced with present and potential issues as it is filled with good intentions and high moments. A fun episode, but not without its flaws. – KALLIE

[pass-the-bechdel]

Brooklyn Nine-Nine season three full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

73.91% (seventeen of twenty-three).

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

33.21%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Three (episode three ‘Boyle’s Hunch’ (41.66%), episode eleven ‘Hostage Situation’ (45.45%), and episode twenty-one ‘Maximum Security’ (40%)).

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Eighteen. Seven who appeared in more than one episode, three who appeared in at least half the episodes, and three who appeared in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Forty-eight. Eleven who appeared in more than one episode, six who appeared in at least half the episodes, and four who appeared in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Nothing bad, but nothing particularly impressive either, which is a let-down for this show. It has encouraged its audience to expect a higher standard (average rating of 3).

General Season Quality:

Messy. Not disastrous, but not quite the sure thing it felt like it was in the first two seasons. It’s still a good time, but it feels unfocused and occasionally tone-deaf.

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

Well, the good news is that despite the stats not being as good as I hoped they might be for this show, they are an improvement on the first and second seasons, albeit a negligible one. Something is better than nothing. Not that the something we got was that dire; I’m just not really sure what to say about it, in the end. I said it was messy, and I meant it.

The season started out ok, with the status quo all changed up, Holt in the PR division, the Vulture in the Nine-nine. I do think it was a good move, not dragging out that set up for too long, but they had good fun with it for the few episodes that it lasted, and most importantly, they milked some great character/relationship fodder out of it, proving that it wasn’t just a bang-and-bluster idea to close out the second season, with no real fallout on the other side. As much as we both want our Captain back and can feel fairly sure that we’ll get him, delivering on that and returning to the status quo within the first episode or two of the season would have cheapened the event. A handful of episodes of hardship followed by an emotionally satisfying sacrifice to restore the natural order is much, much better. It’s not about shocking twists, it’s about character arcs, and the journey to Holt’s reinstatement was a quality one that enhanced the personal and combined narratives of Holt, Jake, and Amy. Unfortunately, it seems like the quality journeys and character-enhancing narratives kinda stopped there.

Obviously, various other events took place after that arc concluded, and many opened up new avenues of exploration for our characters. The problem is the consistency of that exploration, or rather, the lack of it. The personal lives and narratives of the characters seemed to be on-again, off-again, there was little sense of them as developing events that remain in play even when they’re not actively on screen. For example: there’s no forgetting that Terry has twin girls at home in the first two seasons, even though the kids and his wife are almost never on screen. Terry mentions them often, he has sub-plots relevant to his home life even if the home life itself isn’t depicted, and even when there’s no explicit evidence that he’s a family man, it remains present in his personality; he’s responsible and settled, he’s not on the dating scene, he’s a paternal presence for the rest of the squad, etc. There’s a consistent image of Terry Jeffords that maintains our memory of his personal details even when they’re not active elements of his on-screen behaviour or plots. The fact that he just welcomed a third child this season, however? Easily forgotten. It almost never comes up at all. A major change like that SHOULD be reflected in his character (Terry is extra tired lately; Terry is taking extra shifts for the money OR Terry is avoiding working overtime so that he can get home to help with the family; Terry is more stressed; Terry is extra friendly because he’s full of familial love and it’s overflowing into his work life). Normally, these are exactly the sorts of things that would be incorporated into subplots that allow us to explore different facets of the character, thereby reinforcing the audience’s retention of new character details while also allowing the character to get into whatever fun little not-necessarily-meaningful shenanigans the plot wants of them. This season frequently lacked this kind of basic character consistency, using characters for random not-necessarily-meaningful shenanigans that could have happened at any time in the series, or with any character. WHO is involved becomes irrelevant, because their personality isn’t being used to enhance the plot, there’s nothing being continued or fleshed out or just reinforced in the audience’s memory, and that leaves us with nothing much to hold on to. Stuff happened, and maybe it was fun in the moment, but you forget it almost as soon as it leaves the screen.

The consequence of a lack of character engagement - not the same thing as just having the character’s be present - is that disjointed effect that I complained about regularly across the season as I struggled with subplots that I frequently forgot were happening even mid-episode, despite the fact that conceptually at least, they were fun ideas. Nothing was using the characters properly, and so their personalities seemed to be shelved whenever they weren’t being handed specific single-episode personal content, and the consequence of THAT was that sometimes even when the characters were ‘on’, they felt off, forced, awkward, because their behaviour wasn’t consistent with what it had been the previous episode when they were given some meaningless subplot that existed for no other reason than to make sure all the actors earned their paychecks week by week. And that’s part of the problem, again: shenanigans written not for character, but just to fill space, just to give whoever isn’t involved in the central plot of the episode something to do in the meantime. They were much, much better at making the narratives flow together in the first two seasons, so that even perfunctory busy-work subplots didn’t FEEL like perfunctory busy-work subplots. Again, the key to that was character engagement, not just character presence. The shenanigans should be driven by the personalities of the characters; if the personalities of the characters are being molded to facilitate a shenanigan, you’re getting character presence, not engagement. 

AND THEN THERE WAS PIMENTO. As I noted while watching the episodes, both the dude and the plot he brought with him were erratic, sometimes super serious, high-stakes, and not funny, and sometimes slapsticky weird-for-the-sake-of-it comedy, and the tonal back and forth was a mess. There were aspects of Pimento’s very clear need for intensive therapy which I was not comfortable seeing as the butt of a joke, and of course the whole plot of FBI moles and witness protection which brought us to our season finale and the status quo shake-up coming in to next season was a cut entirely above what the show had served us previously. At mid-season, they did their very own Die Hard episode, and I was delighted by how they balanced the action-movie-style jeopardy with the show’s traditional comedic flavour. The Pimento episodes and the story that followed was still fun, still good watching, and it was some of the most character-consistent and engaged plotting they had turned in over a very patchy season, but it also set a strange precedent on a wobbly foundation. I’m not sure the show can sustain this level of serious intrigue, or that it intends to, and my concern is that it’s hard to back off from something like this and return to being irreverent without leaving a weird dark cloud over the show. Pimento and his game-changer narrative came out of nowhere, meaning that even when it was good, it was out of place, and I’m not sure what else I can say about that until I’ve seen how it plays out in season four. It just feels kinda like no one was paying that much attention to what kind of stories they were telling in this season, or how it was hanging together, or whether or not individual characters were having meaningful narratives that continued to impact their lives in large or small ways as time went by, the way that normal things do. I guess my wish-list for season four is looking pretty clear at this point. Nine-nine?

[holding-out-for-an-antihero]

Season 12 Rewatch

Average Episode Rating: 3.22 / 5

Favorite Episodes: 12x19 “The Future,” 12x22 “Who We Are,” 12x10 “Lily Sunder Has Some Regrets,” 12x12 “Stuck in the Middle (With You), 12x06 “Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox”

Least Favorite Episodes: 12x21 “There’s Something About Mary,” 12x09 “First Blood,”  12x05 “The One You’ve Been Waiting For,” 12x13 “Family Feud,” 12x07 “Rock Never Dies”

The Good: Mary's return is handled really well - she get to be real/messy and have complicated relationships with both Sam and Dean. The nephilim plot is also interesting, especially because it allows Cas to grow as a character in ways that we haven’t gotten a chance to see up to this point in the show. I enjoyed the actress who played Kelly Kline and liked how her relationship with Cas was handled.

The Bad: All the stuff with the British Men of Letters is incredibly tedious - I don't really care about any of the new characters (with the occasional exception of Mick), and the whole plot has this weird pseudo-libertarian political subtext that I could have done without. Additionally, Lucifer is just not a compelling character to me anymore, no matter what vessel he uses.  His continual back-and-forth with Crowley has been going on for way too long and alternates between being boring and gross.

The Verdict: S12 felt very disjointed to me - there's a lot going on, and it just doesn’t fit together very well. It’s almost like two separate concepts for a season were both shoved into one season. Unfortunately the plots that get the most screentime (BMoL, the Lucifer nonsense) are also the least compelling. There is good stuff in S12 (Mary, Cas, Kelly, some fun MotW concepts) but most of the rest is highly skippable.

Season Ranking: 4, 2, 5, 3, 11, 7, 6, 8, 1, 10, 12, 9

[deecherrywolf]

And my world was pink and blue

Disjointed Voltron S6 thoughts under the read more :)

So season 6 happened. Here are my thoughts on it as a whole, will be disjointed and a little muddy - I’ll do it by character I guess.

First off, Lotor was a disappointment to me. I was saddened by the turn of events but wasn’t surprised  the thing with the alteans was crazy and wow. But he’s always been a villain and sadly that’s what happened.

Along side Lotor - Haggar was a disappointment, but I hope maybe she’ll have a bigger stand in the next season. His generals were also disappointing.

I felt for Allura, who was blinded by lotor and his pretty words. But overall, I wasn’t that in enthralled with Allura this season - she was wonderful yes but a diff character stole the light for me. She still had a lot of fantastic moments in this season <3

Lance, oh lance - you love sick little bean !! I’m rooting for you!! If anyone says Lance doesn’t respect Allura after this can eat my entire ass. He loves her full stop. You can tell he is maturing (and his love with it) but he is still out goofball <3

Hunk was amazing this season - worked his intelligence and him with the governess was so funny

Pidge was also amazing. Her using Shiro’s arm code like that, knowing a situation like this could occur? Fantastic.

Ok now to the two who stole the show.

Shiro, poor Shiro, he’s been through way too much and I hope that now that his soul is free from the black lion he will be able to rest. I really hope the production team retires him from Voltron- have do like he did in season three. I think it would be good for him. But wow his scenes were pretty damn powerful!! (and lmao dnd shiro cracked me up)

Keith. My sweet son. Fuck. I don’t even know where to begin with Keith. He was easily the best character this season (who am I kidding he’s the best all around) his brotherly bond with Shiro was so great, his learning of his mom and dad and the backstory they share, his maturing and finding that peace he so desperately needed felt so good!! Those flashbacks sobs. Every scene that had Keith in it, my heart soared!

I’m just floored by this season. There was some messiness to it, yes, but over all - it was great! But that animation?? FANFUCKINGTASTIC!! I adored the animation in this season holy fuck. 11/10

Now to pull on shipper goggles in my analysis and for shits and giggles. (don’t take all of this for serious lmao)

ALLURANCE IS CANON KING BITCHES

like I will be shocked as HELL if they don’t end up canon give me the sweet cotton candy dw!! If anyone DARES try to say Lance doesn’t care about Allura after this, I will kick them in the jaw.

Lotura ship sunk im crying.

I hope punk does develop romantically tbh, bc all the time they spend together would make it so sweet!

Sadly, the emphasis on family bonds w sheith make my thought of it becoming canon near nonexistent. The life or death i love you made perfect sense for a western family to say to another and while I still hope that maybe it will develop into something else, the fact this is the second time family is brought up with sheith (twice in this season actually) and jds saying it that way too… well, yeah. Still a good valid ship tho.

Lance cried over Shiro, maybe shance moment?? LOL

Crack pair time Ok Ok hear me out Allura/Romelle

Eh? Eh? Anyone on the sapphic canoe w me?

Or they could Naruto end it for us and have Pidge and Hunk, Allura and Lance, and Keith and Romelle all get married and have kids lol

someone also mentioned Kroila and Shiro and I just laughed man like, it would be so weird fffff I think Kroila wouldn’t do that, even if Keith’s dad is dead (or is he really *squinty eyes*)

Ok I’m done.

[drink-n-watch]

    Genre : Action, comedy, supernatural, urban fantasy, science fiction.

Episodes: 12

Studio: Bones

  Cities are like people. They’re living things with a mind and personality of their own. Some are calm and reserved, others brutish and loud. There are cities that are such powerful personalities that you can always tell when someone’s spent a little time there. Then there’s Hellsalem’s Lot, a city with such a powerful persona that a Hellsalem citizen can be spotted from a mile away. OK, half of them are weird looking aliens and the other half such hardened and blasé humans that they really should count as a distinct species. It’s an exciting place to be, without a second worth of boredom, if you can survive it. So what is a gentle soul like Leonardo Watch doing there? And how is it that in a city ruled by ruffians and overrun by monsters, a nice guy is slowly changing everything?

I randomly decided to pick up the first season of Blood Blockade Battlefront a bit before Halloween and was delighted to find that it had a Halloween specific episode to easily fit into my Halloween posting schedule. I just wrote the word Halloween a lot. I speak my posts in my head, so it’s starting to sound weird… I really enjoyed that first season and I knew I was going to watch the second one sooner rather than later. How awesome is it that the second season has a New Year’s and Holiday themed episode! Talk about kismet!

I hate it when this happens

In many ways, I found that the second season of Blood Blockade Battlefront (and Beyond) felt more like a first season. As much on the production front as the narrative one. If you’ve read my review for season 1, you may remember that I considered it stunning. I still do. The scenery, the cityscapes and the wonderful framing and scale is still present. But the visuals do seem a little pared down this time around.

There are much fewer scenes with countless extras and background characters. The action is still as fluid, but art style gets a bit less detailed. It’s a beautiful looking series on its own, but when you compare it to the first season, it looks a touch less polished.

On the flipside though, the voice actors have clearly gotten more at ease with the characters and what I thought was a great sounding voice cast has turned into a wonderfully cohesive ensemble that seems to be truly enjoying the material. In fact, if visuals might have subjectively gone down a notch, sound design on all levels has improved. Except for the ED. I loved that season 1 ED!

the city is still gorgous

And when I say the show feels like a season 1 in the narrative as well, that’s not a bad thing. The actual premise of the show was roughly established in the first season, although it’s a slightly messy show in that regard and the story always felt a bit disjointed. This season though has a much more focused narrative and actually started to establish the various characters in a way that truly got me to understand and are about everybody like never before.

So much of the world-building and character development happened this season rather than the last. And that may be brilliant.

I really enjoyed the storylines this time around. Although a bit more episodic in structure with narratives moving from one character to the next, establishing the personalities and history of each, rather than some larger overarching storyline, episodes somehow felt more connected to one another.

connections are great!

In many ways, the theme of season 2 of Blood Blockade Battlefront (and Beyond) is perfect for a Christmas viewing, because, at its core, it’s a story about families. Biological, nuclear or found. It’s about the bonds that hold us together and how the people around us shape the person we become. And it was very pretty.

Blood Blockade Battlefront and Beyond is a silly show that does everything at breakneck speed. It wears its name well as everything is dripping with blood and fighting but in a cartoony comedic way. Objectively, the body count must be astronomical, yet I would call it a feel-good show. But when it calms down a bit and concentrates on the characters, it truly shines and is often unexpectedly touching.

For instance, I don’t recall a series having quite so many working parents and honestly addressing the difficulties working mothers face in balancing home and career. We truly see that every member of Libra is a distinct individual, with their own set of values and beliefs and how those can be smoothly integrated into a working whole. And in a beautiful but of bookending, season 2 ends in the same way season 1 did. With a brother and sister who really love each other and want to save one another.

By balancing equal parts zany over the top action and small emotional human stories, Blood Blockade Battlefront and Beyond ended up becoming an entertaining and joyful celebration of relationships in all forms that left me eager to celebrate the coming holidays with the ones I love (by watching anime if I can trick them into it!)

K.K.’s husband also rocks – great ladies attract great men

Favourite character: KK (loved her before but now I actually know why) and Steven (we barely got to know him in season 1 but it turns out he may be the wildcard character of the ensemble)

What this anime taught me: It’s always worth giving a chance for people to betray you.

The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind.

Suggested drink: Alexander’s Sister (close enough)

Every time Leo is having a bad day – take a sip

Every time there’s an instance of casual murder – take a sip

Every time we see Klaus’ cross – take a sip

Every time we see Michella – cheer

Every time there’s a cat – take a sip

Every time a member of Libra ends up all bandaged up – raise your glass

Every time anyone’s getting drunk – join them

Every time Chain lands on someone – take a sip

Every time Leo gets mugged – feel bad for him

Every time anyone mentions their kid – take a subtle sip

I’ve decided to stick to Pinterest for my screencaps. It’s just more fun and easier to update for me.

    Blood Blockade Battleground and Beyond – If You Can Make it There… Genre : Action, comedy, supernatural, urban fantasy, science fiction. Episodes: 12 Studio: Bones Cities are like people.

[junker-town]

Andres Iniesta’s struggles were the saddest part of Barcelona’s collapse against PSG

The Blaugrana look to be heading out of Champions League, and it’s hard to watch a club icon’s decline in real time.

Paris Saint-Germain embarrassed Barcelona on Tuesday, 4-0. It seemed that every PSG player decided to play at their best in the same game that each Barcelona player, minus Marc-André ter Stegen, who tried his hardest to keep the scoreline respectable, and Neymar, who was a futile positive in the attack, was at their worst. There’s an abundance of disappointments in terms of players, some who can serve better as vehicles for the systematic failures of Barcelona this season than others. That’s you, Andre Gomes. You’re the hill that Luis Enrique wants to die on.

Gomes has played badly before. He’s tedious in movement, cowers under pressure and seems to always push the ball too far ahead of him, even with his long legs. Sergio Busquets had tough games in the first few months of the season, where he looked as he did now, like a store-brand version of the maestro that he is. Giving the ball away, late in tackles or otherwise a step too slow and overwhelmed by attacks. He’s already in the tasking position of killing attacks and counters before they start, in a Barcelona team that leaves him in a frightening amount of space, which makes the job more difficult than it already is, and his sense of timing and position more paramount. When he plays badly, it shows in the worst way possible, as it did against PSG.

Lionel Messi is a bit odd as well. His standard is excellence. He does such a multitude of attacking jobs, so well and so frequent that to see him struggle as he did against PSG, to see players take the ball off of him repeatedly, takes time to register. It’s absurd. Yet, we’ve seen this happen before, especially with Argentina in major tournaments. When teams make it a mission to double team and get him off the ball as soon as he gets it. Even though in this game, he lost the ball and struggled numerous times in one on one situations. He played badly on his own.

Luis Suarez just couldn’t get on the ball because the creation wasn’t happening. And when he did, he lumbered over and lost it, which is not too shocking because there was no one for him to combine with.

The defense was under duress for the whole game, and you can only fight against waves and waves of attacks until they finally drown you in goals. That’s not to absolve Jordi Alba though. He sucked.

But the one disappointment that was really surreal to watch was Andres Iniésta.

Iniesta was weird because this was his type of game. This is where he usually is at his best. In these games where Barcelona need someone to be the release valve from the opponent’s pressure. To beat two defenders with a feint and a turn, to relax the midfield and run circles around his counterparts — the juniors who wish to be him eventually. They needed Iniesta to be the building block for their attack and the lifeboat for their defenders, and he just wasn’t there.

Well, he was there, but not Iniesta as we’ve known him for a very long time. This was the half-fit version and old version. The one ravaged by injuries. The one that is painfully making his way to the fringes. This was a very declined Iniesta.

Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images

At his best, Iniesta is a great representation of what Barcelona does. The game flows through him. He exists in an almost supernatural dimension where he can hypnotize opponents with one and two touch passing, beat defenders by using their own momentum against them and see the entire field. Even behind him. In those moments, he’s omnipresent.

When he’s playing really well, he dictates what happens in the game, even if he doesn’t make the final pass or score a goal. He makes everyone around him look more calm and composed, because they have him to combine with and he never seems to take a bad touch or make the wrong pass. He gives the attackers freedom to run and be themselves because he will either find them with a pass or bring the ball up to them, and he puts the defense at ease because they always have him as a last-ditch option. Then he combines with the midfield, drifting and passing around in such a mesmerizing manner that the other team realizes that it’s just better to sit back than to try to take the ball. When defenders do try to put him under pressure, he wriggles out of it masterfully, and so they have to respect him and back off in fear that he will turn and take them out the game with a few touches. All of this makes him so invaluable.

And when he’s doing that, when he’s in his zone, Barcelona are irresistible. They flow. Things come easy. Everything is fun. When he’s not, it’s all disjointed. When he’s giving the ball away against PSG, running into dead-ends and being spooked by defenders closing him down, he doesn’t look like Iniesta and Barcelona don’t look like Barcelona.

They look like a team that was out-scored, out-shot and plainly out-played by a great and prepared PSG. It was a game where they lacked control, and coincidentally the best and usual architect for that role struggled.

The surrealness of him playing badly in this game is doubled and emphasized by Barcelona being overran. And it shows every time they lose by a large score. They have no idea how to deal with such a reality. A world in which the predator becomes the prey. They just look stupefied.

They continue doing what they’ve always known because it’s always worked, and the hope remains that it will again.They don’t know how else to be. Iniesta does it as well. He couldn’t do anything else but play as he’s always known. To desperately try to control the game, even as it ran by him. To try triangles when he was misplacing the pass. It’s always worked for him and his play is so innate that he should feel a defender ten yards before they try to surprise him from behind. And when he doesn’t and the ball is taken, he looks just as astonished as his teammates did when PSG kept scoring and they couldn’t.

This is not to say that he is at fault for the result or that he is the only one who had a miserable game. Just that it’s almost a vile and unexpected thing that this decline should sneak up on him. In the same way that it doesn’t feel real watching Barcelona get destroyed by PSG, even if this type of result has happened before. Each time is just as absurdly comical.

It was telling that when Barcelona needed to make a change to gain a foothold in the game, Iniesta was taken off for Ivan Rakitic. That’s how bad he had been. One of the best midfielders of our generation substituted in a game that called for him the most. He just couldn’t get anything going and Barcelona couldn’t either. His era is unfortunately coming to a close, as they all do, and it seems fitting that this Barcelona cycle is ending with him as well. They will regroup and rebuild for a new round of dominance, and they will do so without Iniesta. They will have to find someone else to run the show. But the truth is that only Iniesta can do what Iniesta does. Barcelona will have to build a different identity after him.