#the way all couples not only get a proper amount of screentime

[ceruleanmusings]

Ravi Panikkar - Pain & Panic

a/n: so this is the intro scene to a ravi centered fanfic that i've been working on, on and off, for the last couple of years but i've been too scared to post. the minute ravi was introduced i fell in love with him. i wish he had more screentime or was used as more than comedic relief when the writers gave us a good backstory of him having had cancer as a child! and then the (potential) trauma of losing civillians! since the show won't explore his backstory, i will! i hope anyone who reads this enjoys! this also contains an oc.

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Why was it after someone recovered from an injury or got a clean bill of health or walked away from a near-death experience, they’re told they have a new lease on life? Did the last one expire? How long was the new lease supposed to last? A month? Two? Twelve? Fifteen? At what point were they able to renegotiate and ask for better terms? Maybe they could get a good deal if they renewed on a three-month basis.

Granted, no one wants to live their life counting down the days they have left. That is, not unless that’s their only option. But when other options present themselves, what else are they supposed to do instead of count time? They were used to it. Habits die hard. It wasn’t theirs anyway, the new amount of time dropped on their laps. It was borrowed so it was best not to get too comfortable with it.

I didn’t.

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No matter how many times he rifled through his bag, checking and rechecking and rechecking the contents packed and in their proper places, Ravi Panikkar couldn’t shake the feeling he was forgetting something.

Blowing out a breath, lips vibrating at the effort, Ravi dug a hang through his thick, dark hair, staring down at the stack of books, notepads, extra clothes, toiletries, and towel. His eyes raked over every nook and cranny of the bag, shifting through the checklist popping up in his mind. But he always came up short at the end, a big blank spot pulsing at him, taunting the less-than-stellar results of his mental faculties.

Not that he needed the reminder; the scar on his chest did a good job of that.

“Okay, one more time,” Ravi muttered. Removing the items, he placed them on the bed in reverse order. Maybe seeing it all in front of him again would jog his memory. It may not exactly be a muscle, but it needed to be stretched and warmed up too. He needed to be wide awake and on full alert.

Slapping his face with his palms, Ravi shook out his hands and blew out another breath. “First, towels. Then the pants, shirts, books, notebooks…” As he spoke, he picked up each item and replaced them in the bag, mentally adding a little checkmark in his mind as he went. Underwear, check. Socks, check. Pens, check. Gloves, charger, toiletries, sunscreen, bug spray, watch, utility knife, power bars, flashlight, chapstick, bug spray, and wet wipes. Everything was back in its proper place, stacked large to small, bottom to top, and he even had a little space leftover. And yet the little neon sign in his head flickered and pulsed, pointing to the empty spot on his list.

What was he missing?

Turning on his heel, he left his room and made a beeline for the living room, snapping his twitching fingers along the way. The living room welcomed him in with remnants of his late-night cramming session: flashcards lay scattered around the floor like fallen autumn leaves, workbooks left open and discarded on the couch, tangled up with the gray bed sheet spread across the cushions, uncapped highlighters and dried out pens scattered across the coffee table. A pristine snapshot of the day before his life changed.

He still had time to back out, to change his mind, to respond to the email that’d been sitting unread on his computer the past couple of months. He could get back on track and this little derailment would be a little blip in his life plan. He could put all this in the rear-view mirror and never think of it again. That way everyone would win and he didn’t disappoint anyone else. Except maybe himself…

Sucking in a deep breath, Ravi placed his hands on his hips and began to pace. Every few steps he’d let out the breath he held only to suck it back in a moment later. His heart pounded against his chest and tingles popped at his fingertips. “You’re okay, you’re okay. You’re good! This is a good thing you’re doing. You want to do something good and that’s what you’re doing.” His voice was small or was the ticking of the clock on the wall drowning him out? With each ratchet of the second hand, the ticking got louder and louder, becoming a series of slamming doors, sealing his fate.

No turning back.

“Ravi?”

The scuffle by the door stopped him in his tracks, his hands flying up to cup the back of his neck, still breathing hard. Something metal scraped against the other side of the door and, a second later it swung open due to the kick of a booted foot. Ravi watched as a mass of plastic grocery bags rustled and shimmied and swung their way in through the open door, hanging off light brown arms, one lifted neon orange Doc Marten, and between the clenched teeth of his roommate, Betsy Payne.

Betsy managed to hop into the room, turn, and close the door with her extended foot. A muffled laugh of triumph sounded around the bag handles between her teeth, her lips curling up in the corners, brown eyes shinning. Her long braids swung with the movements, the gold rings and cuffs adorning the ropes clinking together and brushing against the plastic bags digging into her arms, puckering her skin, leaving deep indents behind.

“Why didn’t you take two trips?”

Her answer became muffled around the bag, but he knew what she said anyway. She said it all the time. Two trips are for chumps! It was a spectacle at this point, seeing all the ways she could come up with not having to go back and forth to her jeep. Her stubborn streak was a mile wide and equally as deep.

The smile slipped from her face and the lights in her eyes dimmed with flooding concern. Her head tilted to the side and his breath caught for a second beneath her curious gaze. It left a trail as it swept across his face, then ran from head to toe and back again. Her shoulders sagged and she spoke again, the words still coming out a mumbled mess. Are you freaking out?

“Little bit,” Ravi replied, nodding. His head jostled like a bobblehead, coming very close to the way his leg bounced before he forced himself to get up and get ready for his shift. The packing helped his jumpy limbs until he forgot something. …What was it?

“Aww.” Her compassion was short lived, being replaced with a cry of shock when the bag slipped out of her mouth and smacked against the ground. The resulting crack made both their eyes widen and drop their chins to look at the floor, where oozing yellow goop spilled onto the shiny hardwood. “Oh man! Those were the eggs!”

“Here, let me.” Ravi took the bags from her, untangling her limbs, collecting them in his hands with ease. Once set on the kitchen table, he rifled through the bags for the perishables, putting them away. Next came the frozen food and sweet treats, then the dry food, the cans, bread, junk food, and finally produce. Everything in order and everything in its rightful place, checklist complete. He didn’t miss anything.

“Ah, see, you’re already putting those firefighter skills to good use. Bet all those hoses are heavier than those bags though.” Betsy slipped past him, hand dragging against his back, juggling a paper towel roll and the cloth-pad mop beneath an arm.

“They weigh about the same with all the ice cream you buy.”

Betsy shot him a look. “It’s for emergencies.”

A smile cracked at Ravi’s mouth as he shoved his hands in his pockets. Leaning against the entryway wall, he crossed his feet at the ankles and watched her grimace while scooping up the yolk in the paper towels. “I don’t think watching Riverdale counts as an emergency.”

Betsy snorted. “You’ve clearly never seen Riverdale if you don’t think stuffing my face with ice cream to numb the pain isn’t an emergency.”

“So why do you watch it?”

“I don’t. Not regularly. That’s the point.” Betsy balled up the paper towels and dragged dry patches against her fingers, scraping off excess yolk. “It’s my last choice if there’s absolutely nothing on.”

“You can’t even settle for a Lifetime movie?”

“You know I can’t watch those without you. I can’t make running commentary on the characters’ stupidity alone.” She tossed the wadded ball at him and he ducked out of the way. It landed with a wet smack against the kitchen floor. Ravi gripped the front of his jacket and looked for any wayward stretch of yolk or egg white. It was still a perfect navy blue, the red and white lettering on the lapel as bright as when he first received it the day prior. He hadn’t gotten his uniform yet. That was for tonight. “You’re not freaking out.” Betsy speaking again grabbed Ravi’s attention. She looked at him through the parting curtain of her swinging braids with every push and pull of the mop. It gave a mechanical whir as she pressed the button on the handle, shooting cleaning mixture on the floor.

“I still am.”

“Why?”

“Because. What if…I was wrong? What if I’m not cut out for this? What if I’m making a mistake?”

“Ravi, I did not let you carry me over your shoulder up and down six flights of stairs every day for fourteen weeks for it to be a mistake." She paused in her mopping, leaning her weight against the handle. "You were one of the best in your class. I don’t know anyone else with a brain like yours. There’s no one else more cut out for this than you. You’re even made of the right material: big heart, patience, and a trusting face that’ll make a Disney prince envious." He cracked a smile at that. "It’s a winning combination, if I do say so myself. Besides, people need to see you. Maybe there’ll be other little brown boys and girls that’ll grow up thinking they can be firefighters too.”

“You think?” He couldn't keep the hope from leaking into the skepticism attached to his words.

She nodded. “I know. There’s not enough of people like you out there. Someone needs to save people, why not you? Besides, you’ll be fulfilling a lot of people’s dreams of being rescued by a handsome fireman. We can’t let that go to waste.”

“Do people really dream of that?” He asked with a laugh.

“Do people really dream of being saved from their worst nightmare or that worst fear, cradled up against the strong chest of their savior, carried to safety, held like a baby in their big, strong arms? Yes, yes they do." Throwing a wink his way, she added with a large grin, "And I’m one of them.”

His cheeks burned and he crossed his arms, giving her a look. “As long as you don’t intentionally go looking for trouble.”

“Moi?" Her eyes widened and she let out a little gasp. "I would never! I can’t believe you’d suggest such a thing!" Then, waving her hand, she continued, "Besides, I don’t need to create emergencies for you to come to my rescue. You do that often enough." She resumed mopping. "That’s how I know you’ll be okay, by the way. But you won’t know unless you try." He hummed. She wasn't wrong. "Isn’t your shift soon?”

Soon. He hated that word. How many times had it been used whenever he asked when he was leaving the hospital? “Yeah, I was about to…um, I was getting ready.”

“Why don’t you get the rest of your stuff? And I’ll get you your dinner.”

“You made me dinner?”

“Of course. I figured you’d be spinning yourself into a circle by now." She peeled the dirtied mop pad off the green mop and tossed it in the nearby trash. "Feeding yourself is the last thing you should be worrying about.”

Reaching out, he placed a hand on her arm, stopping her from moving past him. “Thank you.” It was very sweet of her to be looking out for him. Especially after the last few weeks with the firehouse training schedule keeping him away and, when he was home, keeping him up at all hours. It couldn't have been easy dealing with him when she was on her own late-night bartending schedule.

“My pleasure. I gotta find a way to repay you somehow.”

He sighed. This again. “Bets, you know you don’t have to—”

Her waving hand blocked his protests. “I was going to make jambalaya, but I didn’t want to make everyone else in the fire house jealous and have a reason to dislike you.” Or more of a reason. “So I went with a breakfast sandwich. On a croissant.”

“Fancy.”

“I figure by the time your shift ends it’ll be morning and this way you don’t haveta make a pit stop before coming back here to crash.”

“Good call.”

She made the waving gesture again, this time shooing him away. Ravi followed her direction, going back to his room to grab his bag. After one more check—a quick one—he zipped up his bag and hefted it onto his shoulder, nearly folding to his side at the dropping weight. Hmm, maybe he packed too much. But it was better to be safe than sorry, right? “What were you going to do the rest of the night?” he asked once he was back in the living room.

She stepped on the heels of her Doc Martens, leaning against the wall for support as her shoulders lifted and dropped along with her sigh. “Well, I have some pictures I need to edit and get to Izzy tomorrow and I told Ms. Johnson I’d take Bear out on his walk. And the Goldsteins asked me to have dinner with them.” Her head tilted to the side and heat crawled up his neck at the look she pinned him with. It was very reminiscent of the look his mother would give him as a child. “Which I assume you had something to do with.”

Ravi rubbed the back of his neck. “…I might have asked them to invite you.”

Her head thudded against the wall when she tilted it backwards to groan. “Ra-vi!”

“I just…didn’t feel right with you being here alone," he said.

“I’ve been here alone before. I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, but last time—”

“I told you, I just had a bad night at work.” Her words were as stiff as the cross to her arms. “They happen.”

“I know you know this but if you want to talk about it—”

“Nothing to talk about." Her hand sliced the air, arm extended, blocking his words. "Except how you’re gonna be the bestest firefighter ever!”

He rolled his eyes. She was great at changing the subject. He'd let her off the hook, for now. “That’s not a word.”

“Because there’s not enough words in the English language that can describe how awesome you’re gonna be!" Her energy was as limitless as her smiles.

He grabbed his abandoned bag and slung it over his shoulder. The plastic on the strap creaked and groaned under the weight of the bag hanging off him. He ran through the checklist in his mind again. Check, check, check. Everything was in its place. Besides, he had a feeling if he stopped to look again Betsy would shove him into the bag and drag him to the firehouse herself.

Sucking in a breath and letting it out slow, Ravi took the steps towards the door and his future. He had one foot over the threshold when Betsy spoke: “Ravi, wait.”

“What?" God, he hoped she didn't have some sort of cheer waiting for him. Or a pinata she insisted he bust open or a mariachi band stashed somewhere. He appreciated her support but sometimes she didn't know where to draw the line. "I’m gonna be late, Bets.”

“Okay but I don’t think you’ll make a good first impression showing up at your first shift without shoes.”

Huh? Ravi dropped his chin and wiggled his toes. His bare toes. The cool grip of the hardwood into his feet, making a chill crawl up his spine. Oh.

So that’s what he forgot.

[badedramay]

Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!! So Maya and Hamza are playing Sikandar’s grand aunt and uncle. And Sikandar’s granddad has an affair with Maya’s character? Ngl sounds like this could either be pretty amazing or a complete disaster. Momina is turning all the Hum power couples dysfunctional lmao.

we don't know. Rahat is not a named character and Jahanzaib literally had a two line mention where it was told he is deliberately sent away by Waqar so he could fuck his wife. That's it. We don't know what happened to the adulteress Chachi or Jahanzaib if he knew about the affair or not. The POV is strictly Sheheryar's who is dealing with the reality of his father being a horrible person and how his affair with his own Bhabhi caused Ammi Jee's early demise. Waqar has a bigger impact on the story than Jahanzaib.

The only reason we know Hamza and Maya are paired up together is because of Hasan Kazmi's tweet which isn't 100% true tbh cuz he ways MK and Topi are paired together but if MK is Vittoria and Topi is Sheheryar then these two characters have ZERO interaction in the story. So how can they be a pairing?? Mehmood (FK) and Vittoria had 13 years of marriage canonically before they divorced which gives the show an opportunity to give the pairing an ample amount of screentime so again..how aren't they a pair?

I'll say again - this is literally all speculations based on a news and imdb page both of which have not been officially endorsed by either the show's makers or the actors. these could be all true conjectures but nothing is confirmed until we get a proper OFFICIAL announcement from the team. so just relax and hope the team wakes up soon.

[gunsatthaphan]

🥺 

[anxiouspotatorants]

Whoopsy daisy I made a Shadow and Bone random thoughts post:

The costumes in this show are impeccable. I was drooling over all the keftas and the ball gowns in 1.05 and the crow outfits. Hell, even the winter-camo outfits that Mal, Mikhael and Dubrov wore in 1.04 were amazing.

Am I the only one who isn’t surprised by the kruge pronounciation? Because I thought it would sound like how English people say Scandinavian words and I wasn’t wrong.

Coming in to this show as someone who had only read the Six of Crows duology, I expected to at least tolerate Malina based on the trailer clips. I kid you not: less than five minutes into the very first episode they owned my ass. That might be a new record for me.

Seriously the friendship? The pining? The finding home in each other and being able to acknowledge their faults and apologize to each other? Both of them having massive “fight me” energy and protecting each other? Hugs?? Why am I surprised that I ship this?

Some of those scene transitions/flashback edits were so good! Like I know they repeated that meadow scene a lot throughout the season, but the cuts from kid-Mal looking at the rabbit to grown up Mal psyching himself up for the fist fight? Poetic cinema.

The Darkling was horrible and I love it. He wasn’t a carbon copy villain, nor did his complexity redeem him. He was a perfectly complex and understandable monster and I am living for it. I have not been so happy to despise a character in ages and I genuinely bow in gratitude to both the writers and Ben Barnes, because I finally got to enjoy watching a character I did not for one second root for ( #writevillainswellagain)

Look I already loved Jesper in the book but his on-screen translation elevated him from a fave to the fave. I was worried that they would push him into a comedic relief-role, but he got to keep both his heart, his depth, and his humour. Kit Young did an amazing job bringing what was already a great character on page to an even greater character on screen and I once again applaud.

Am I a bit bitter that the casting had some interesting choices for certain roles (aka hiring light skin and mid-size actors for explicitly darker skin and plus-size roles)? Kind of. Do I think there are important discussions worth having about this? Yup. Do I also think that every actor hired for Shadow and Bone did an amazing job and deserve zero hate and massive amounts of love? Also yes.

I had Alexei for one episode and one episode only, and I still miss that poor sucker. This show did a surprisingly good job with making me care about a massive amount of characters considering the screen time they had and the amount of episodes this season had. Good job.

For some reason I expected Inej to be a lot more brooding based on how I perceived her in the books but I love what Amita Suman did with her. Her translation completely recontextualised everything I remember from the books and just brought this truly fresh character to life. Assassin with a conscience indeed.

Also I did love the Kaz we got in this season but I can barely contain myself as I wait for season 2 to be made and for a certain flashback to take place because that moment in the book was visceral and it stayed with me for a long time and I knew before the show announcement that this flashback could become a television moment. 

Speaking of Kaz the crows were so chaotic and messy and I’m here for it. Their interactions with each other and their improvised back-up plans were everything. I somehow didn’t expect the crows to become the comedic relief of the season but it honestly makes so much sense.

A couple episodes in I still didn’t get the Zoya hype (remember I haven’t read the books) but was a massive Genya fan. By the end of the season I was like “oh both of these girls are getting redemption arcs and I am here for it”.

Speaking of redemption I still don’t like Matthias. I’m sorry but I just don’t. I get that he is important to many and that they like his relationship with Nina, but I just don’t have the patience for him and feel like Nina can do better. I still want him to get a redemption... but maybe not through a romance with the grisha woman he repeatedly slutshames, is bigoted towards and chokes at least once (twice if that SoC scene from book 1 happens). That being said this is just how I see him, so feel what ever you feel about him and ship to your heart’s content!

Alina’s journey through this season made complete sense to me. It hurt to see certain things, but they were necessary in my eyes. Seeing her go from this essentially insecure but brave girl to a manipulated pawn to an even stronger and more self reliant girl in spite of everything was amazing. It did feel like a well-written hero’s journey and I’m looking forward to seeing where she goes next.

Apparently a lot of book-readers don’t like Mal (and I am not here to change anyone’s mind about that) but the Mal I saw on the show was amazing. I actually kind of wish we had seen more of who he was outside of his relationship to Alina (f.ex. other flashbacks than the meadow, maybe something about any of his missions while separated from Alina pre-show), but I also loved what we got of him with Alina. We still got to see a guy who was brave, stubborn, flirtatious, a bit judgemental but with a strong sense of humour, and a lot of loyalty (to Alina but also to his friends). I can hardly wait to see what’s next for him.

Milo the goat. Where do I even begin. Not only did we get that Jesper-scene, but their farewell actually became a Chekhov’s gun for Mal in 1.07? Milo is the true hero of the season.

Speaking of 1.07 I loved the tent scene between Alina and the Darkling. She both got to be realistic about her feelings for the Darkling and stand up for herself and for others and call him out. The way I interpret the Darkling, he is the kind of villain who creates a saviour narrative around himself but cares more about power than anything else. He’ll say he’s doing everything to protect his people but is the first to kill the very people he claims to love. And Alina’s tent-speech really hammered that in for me.

I adore Baghra. Is she morally dubious? Yes. Was she incredibly mean to Alina during training to the point where it might have been excessive? Yes. Did she not take any of the Darkling’s bullshit and act as the proper mentor for Alina when the Darkling had said that he was going to train her? Yes. Am I kind of a Baghra stan now? I mean maybe.

The antler-collar was so evil and gross but from a visually narrative stand point it was perfect. 

Also I still have no idea who David is but I want redemption for him too. Honestly I feel like half the supporting cast is gearing up for redemption arcs next season and I am excited for most of them.

Nina’s reaction when she hears Kaz on the boat? Priceless. Actually the whole boat scene from when she goes up on deck again to the cut back to the fold was priceless.

That being said the final scene had me even more ready for season 2.

Jesper kind of gave me messy period-fantasy James Bond? Does that make sense?

And Mal kind of gave me Lois Lane energy? As in he’s the mortal love interest that many assume is the hero/heroine’s weakness but actually functions as their emotional strength and inspiration? Am I reaching here or am I getting somewhere?

Mikhael and Dubrov. What a duo. Absolute madlads.

Also I’d like to see more Nadia if that is possible? Because the few scenes we had of her had me intrigued but then she sort of disappeared? Is she going to be important or was she just more of a temporary supporting character? 

I entered this show a casual Six of Crows fan with mild interest in Kanej and I finished this season a mess. A mess who ships Kanej and Malina and Genya with that David guy even though they had about 30 seconds of screentime together and Zoya with redemption and Jesper with main-character status (hey we’re not getting Wylan until season 2 at least) and kind of those two Ravkan army guys and Nina with anyone else and Matthias with a better redemption storyline and the Darkling with karma! Also, a mess with a whole new set of comfort characters!

[moviewarfare]

A Review of “Mulan (2020)”

I am still waiting for that all Asian cast American movie that will be the "Black Panther" for the Asian community. So far the only proper all Asian cast American movie is Crazy Rich Asian and that was a rom-com about rich people which isn't what I am looking for. The Disney live-action remake of Mulan (1998) is a proper big-budget all Asian cast movie that aligns with what I am looking for. However, Disney live-action remakes have been mostly a miss apart from "The Jungle Book" and "Cinderella". Mulan (2020) is directed by Niki Caro who won lots of awards for her movie Whale Rider(2002) but it does make me wonder if they couldn't have just hired an Asian director but whatever.  The trailers though seem to suggest that this remake was actually attempting to do things differently from the original which intrigued my interest. Unfortunately, due to coronavirus, this movie got delayed and then shoved to streaming with a hefty price instead of going to cinemas. I actually avoided watching the original Mulan recently just to make myself go into this movie with a more open mind and to have a sort of first time watching experience again. Therefore, I am going to avoid comparison with the original in this review. So after watching this, did the movie live up to the expectations? Note: unlike my previous reviews there is going to be a fair amount of minor spoilers here so be warned.

Firstly, visually the movie is quite beautiful. There are some gorgeous shots in this movie such as the martial art practice by the lake, Mulan running on the rooftops and even the war itself was quite visually pleasing. The cinematography isn't "Roger Deakins" level of stunning but it is definitely really good looking. This is also elevated by the really good set design and costumes. The set design allows for great scenery and the costumes feel authentic. These really help pull the audience into the movie and the era that Mulan is set in.

Secondly, the score by Harry Gregson-Williams who has done the score for movies like Shrek and The Martian does a pretty good job here as well with Mulan. They use a lot of wind instruments that are heard from a lot of Chinese movies and pretty much use them here. The score generally works and it really helps create the atmosphere for each scene really well. Also, the orchestral cover of Reflection from the original Mulan is used in this movie and is just really awesome,

Now my gripes with this movie. Firstly, is the lack of emphasis on emotional moments. It feels like the movie brushes over a lot of what I would consider quite important. The scene where Mulan makes the decision to go to war is one of the important decision she makes. However, the movie just has her pick up a sword and then the next scene she is in armor and off to war. We don't get any emphasis on how important this decision was and the sacrifices she had to make until halfway through the movie for some reason. This happens a couple of times as well such as when there is a destroyed town which shows the horror of war but they only spend a couple of seconds here with minimal reaction from the characters and it's then just off to the next scene. Another being a character dying and it's just whatever. The movie feels really lacking in a lot of humanity but there are a couple of banter moments between Mulan and "friends" that have some fun in it.

On that note of characters, the supporting characters are rather bland. Honghui (Yoson An) acts as a love interest, rival and ally for Mulan which is all there is about him.  Commander Tung (Donnie Yen) sort of mentors Mulan and knew Mulan's dad but that's really it. The Emperor (Jet-li) is a badass and wise emperor who barely appears in the movie. Bori Khan (Jason Scott Lee) who is the main villain also barely appears in the movie despite being the bad guy who started the war. The Witch (Gong Li) who is probably the worst character in this entire movie is like Mulan but bad. These are all the relevant supporting characters but there are others who are so forgettable I don't remember if they even had names.

The character arc which is part of the story is not great either. Mulan's decision to finally be true to herself and not hide that she is a woman just sort of happens because she got beaten up. Instead of it happening in a dramatic way it just feels rather random. Also, Mulan is special because she got lots of chi which ruins the message of the movie. Instead of feeling like she earned her place in the army and gaining the recognition of her comrades through her efforts it instead feels like she only got it because she is the chosen one. So the message is now "be true to yourself only if you're the special one". The Witch also goes through a character arc as well but it is extremely rushed and dumb. She makes choices that don't even make any sense such as divulging the main villain plans or sparing Mulan constantly or the really dumb choice at the end of the movie. Her addition to Mulan is pointless and if anything took away all the screentime from the main villain instead.

The action scenes are also mediocre which is such a shame. Asian movies have always nail action scenes with their amazing choreography but in Mulan it is BORING. The trailers made it seem like it might be in the veins of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" withs it floaty yet elegant style of fighting. However, it instead really plain and overly edited with many cuts.

On that note of edits, there are some weird edits in this movie that make it feel like there were important scenes that were cut. Minor spoilers but there is a scene where Mulan is riding a horse towards the enemies army in an open field but then the next scene suddenly has her behind the enemy hiding behind a rock with no explanation whatsoever. There is also a scene where after Mulan has decided to be true to herself in which she saves an ally but makes a choice to disappear into the fog. The next scene is then showing her dramatically coming back to her allies seconds later. It is so weird and took me out of the movie for sure.

I also have to talk about our main lead actress Liu Yifei who plays Mulan. She sucks. She plays Mulan with no charm or charisma or even a personality. The tone in her voice is always the same and the only real change in her voice is when she is pretending to be a male with a deep voice. She also makes no expression whatsoever, it always feels like she has the same neutral expression in every moment even when someone died its the same expression. At least Donnie Yen and Jet Li are good in their roles though.

Overall, the movie is not the all Asian cast American movie I am waiting for. It is just another inferior remake from Disney. It has none of the fun that was in the original so the movie just ends up being boring. There are some things you can enjoy in the movie with some pretty good moments sprinkled in there. Additionally, it is still pretty much a retelling of the original Mulan so the overall story is still there. It just isn't as good it could have been. Such a shame...

[ally-writes-many-things]

Chicago P.D rant

Fair warning to the Burzek shippers, you might not like this one. So, you might wanna skip reading this. Also just making this clear, I'm not talking about all Burzek fans, just the ones who act like this.

Why is it that any time Upstead gets a cute moment or any screentime Burzeks wanna shit on it? I'm not taking about this season because obviously this season had plenty of Upstead moments. Last season, any time Upstead got a second of screentime, they would throw a fit over it and Upstead "stealing" Burzeks screen time. Burzek has had a lot of screentime together. I understand the frustration that it seems like Burzek is being left in the dirt but yall gotta remember that us Upstead had waited for 3 seasons before an Upstead kiss, or a love confession. We deserve this screentime as much as y'all deserve a proper storyline. I, myself, don't ship Burzek but if Burzek gets a screen that is romantic or even just them saying they care about each other or whatever, I'm happy for y'all because I know it brings y'all happiness. Yall need to realize that Burzek is NOT the only couple on the show. Now on to this season, it doesn't make sense for Kim and Adam to rush to the alter. Considering she was left for dead and is suffering from PTSD. Kim has started that she wasn't ready to get married to Adam. The one person that deserves more screentime rather its romantic or not is Kevin. Kevin has had the least amount of screentime especially when it comes to romance.

P.S I know that Upstead were complaining about not having screentime too! But I've seen Burzeks do it way more. I rarely see Upstead fans shit on any scene that Burzeks is in but like I said, I know it happens.

[inmyarmswrappedin]

You said in your tags what has less views Fatou's or Bilal's season.

Since I love stats, I've obtained all the youtube views from each season that has aired in the last year (Amira N., Nora, Fatou, Tiff and Bilal) to see what the average, highest and lowest views each video got. I'm excluding wtfock because they don't have their clips on youtube and since they have deleted their website I can't see how many likes each clip got, which is what I would have used instead of view count.

Amira (Skam España) Average views: 523K Highest viewed: 1.5M Lowest viewed: 303K

Nora (DRUCK) Average views: 224K Average full episode views: 554K Highest viewed: 909K Lowest viewed: 110K

Fatou (DRUCK) Average views: 149K Average full episode views: 318K Highest viewed: 462K Lowest viewed: 81K (note: this clip is from new year's eve, all other clips got over 100K except for the one from christmas eve)

Tiff (Skam France) Average views: 139K Average full episode views: 255K Highest viewed: 400K Lowest viewed: 97K

Bilal (Skam France) Average views: 74K Average full episode views: 113K Highest viewed: 174K Lowest viewed: 54K

As you can see Bilal's season did quite a lot lower than the rest of the seasons. I will say that there are certain factors effecting the numbers. Such as time, Amira's season has the highest views, but it is also the oldest out of all the seasons, Bilal's being the lowest but it is also the newest. Druck being geo-blocked and also Fatou's season airing around the holidays, as I noted the lowest viewed clips were published during christmas and new year's.

Omg anon ⛲, I could braid your hair in an affectionate fashion. This was exactly what I was looking for. I'll add a couple more ideas to your suggestions for the reasons some seasons performed better than others.

As I've mentioned a couple times on my tumblr, Spanish is the most widely spoken language out of all these versions. Even when youtube removed the option to add subscriber subtitles to a video, Skam España remains available to any Spanish speaker, including all of Spanish-speaking Latin America.

On the other hand, the Movistar channel didn't include the clips from Alejandro's, Lucas' or Joana's POVs. So it is nice that Amira's season performed this well (we do have to keep it in mind that Amira's dad chasing Alejandro in the car was a youtube clip though), seeing as it was a total mess.

I remember that wlw fans organized to rewatch Fatou's season, in order to guarantee a renewal. So that is one reason why these numbers are better than they were when the clips initially dropped. Afaik, there hasn't been such a campaign for Bilal's season. (Or Tiff's.)

As for Bilal's season, I actually think it would've been better for the purposes of getting views, if they'd been upfront about this being a Jo-heavy season from Bilal's POV. I think if it had been advertised that way, they would have gotten more views from the girlboss crowd (a demographic Skam France is clearly interested in).

In general, I believe it's better to announce mains early, and definitely to be clear about twists like double mains, bonus clips, and large amounts of screentime for other characters. It gives fandom the chance to get invested in a main they might not be interested in otherwise, or to simply prepare for unpopular decisions. Viri was announced as the second main in s3 a couple weeks in advance, and the Amira N.'s season bonus clips were announced along with the trailer in the press release. Ismail has been announced as a main almost a couple months in advance, Nora was announced several months in advance. Compare with Skam France hiding Lola for all of s5, and the Tiff season trailer, which dropped only a couple days before the season proper.

[captain-hen]

What are your thoughts on Bucktaylor?

putting this under the cut:

i'm gonna be honest, i saw some potential for them before 4x14. did i think they were otp material? no, but they had the potential to be interesting, if the writers had handled the development aspect of it correctly and maybe fleshed taylor out a bit more as an independent character outside of buck (she's definitely been treated better than ana, but...still not that great in my opinion.)

all of that flew out of the window in 4x14. they just shoved them together with zero development, the show is trying to act like taylor was pining all along when she seemed so utterly disinterested in 4x12 and we still don't know why she rejected buck (twice!) to begin with if she was secretly interested in him all along. even if they wanted to have her reject him while still being interested, they should have a) given us a reason as to why and b) made it obvious to the audience that she was actually into him despite the rejection.

my real complaint at this point is how the writers, for some reason, decided to give b/ucktaylor the amount of screentime that they did in the very action packed finale, an episode that should have focused purely on the mains. they should have wrapped up the romance stuff in 4x12, clearly the lack of development isn't a problem for the writers and the only thing that changed between 4x12 and 4x14 is that one of them was reeling from a severely traumatizing incident, so...yeah. it would have definitely reflected better if they wrapped up that nonsense in 4x12.

look, for me personally, i can't get invested in ships that aren't slow burns. and tbh, b/ucktaylor is very boring as a ship without the prospect of proper development and a slow burn because without that, they're just your average white couple who are attractive and were just dancing around their feelings for no apparent reason. they have zero of the appeal that any of the other relationships on the show have.

and i...really don't want to see them take up anymore screentime at this point. i mean, michael and david, one of two queer couples on the show who were established in s3 itself probably had less screentime in s4 than b/ucktaylor. that's messed up. and they're far more interesting and we never even saw them kiss once (unlike b/ucktaylor!). make it make sense.

i honestly don't think they'll last for very long tho. obv i can't say for sure, i'm not a writer on the show after all, but i think its evidently obvious that they really aren't a good fit for each other. they're way too similar, i think it says a lot that it took buck being traumatized by what happened to eddie to bring them together (tho i will be pissed if eddie was shot just as a stepping stone for b/ucktaylor), the real emotional, intimate moment of the episode was between buck and eddie and i've talked a little here about how the first scene between b/ucktaylor makes it clear that buck doesn't even trust her completely yet.

so yeah, i don't see this lasting for long. i just really hope they don't take away screentime from the mains while deciding what to do with b/ucktaylor, however.

(oh and just as a heads up, nonnie, if you wanna ask me about b/ucktaylor that's fine and i'm happy to give my opinion, but do censor the ship name, we don't want it to end up in the tags because of tumblr's messed up search function. we need to be respectful to the shippers, after all <3)

have a great evening! <3

[ravens-words]

Ok I'm honestly sad! Alex is my favorite! He is not in the main plots in episodes 1-4 and now he is going to be the last one to have his video come out which makes me think he isint important for this season. IDK if they released them in order of importance but it sure feels that way. I mean Kyle's video was just released today so Alex has to be next..... right?! Also the fact Tyler was on set way less than everyone else and he kept going back and forth to LA while everyone else stayed and filmed. This season it feels like they are giving Kyle and Maria more and Alex nothing and will sideline him. Im glad Maria and Kyle are getting more but it shouldn't have to come at the cost of sidelining Alex. I just want Alex to be at the main focus as well. I obviously want Malex but I also want more of Alex because his character has so much potential and so many stories they could do with him or just at least include him in what everyone else is doing instead of giving him a side plot away from everyone else. I mean we only get 13 episodes..... I honestly wish the show was moved to the fall line up and got 22 episodes so that all the characters and couples could have proper screen time and be built up properly and not rushed into 13 episodes. 💔

Alex is my favorite, too, Nonnie and I'm sorry you're sad, but let me try to lift your spirits up a little?

This is the 3x1 synopsis

Alex isn't mentioned in it once, and yet we got:

- Michael mentioning him twice, and Kyle once.

- Three F*rlex scenes, one of them possibly setting up his arc this season, and one giving us hope for Malex.

- An amazing Kylex talk , something we've only seen in season 1.

- The videos- I know nothing about good promos for shows (and neither does the RNM team, apparently) but you can look at it like that, which is a possibility or, it could be that they're saving it for when Alex's DS arc begins.

- If you're right about Maria and Kyle getting more screentime, then I'll be very disappointed. Alex deserves more screentime for sure, especially considering how much he can bring to the table. He deserves to be integrated in the group, he deserves more friendships and appreciation from the group as a whole.

- I would love a 22 episode season. Can you imagine the amount they could do? But also, can you imagine how much they can drag things out? 13 episodes are a blessing and a curse imo lol.

[wunderlass]

I’m feeling so deflated to be writing this post. S1 had its flaws but those could be placed at the feet of a freshman showrunner who could learn from her mistakes going into S2 and up her game. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, and S2 was a mess.

S1 had a clear central plotline: the mystery of Rosa’s death, leading to justice in the form of Noah’s death and Rosa’s resurrection. S2’s central plotline was…um. The kidnappings? Leading into the plot to blow up Crashcon? I think? But there was so much other stuff gong on it’s hard to tell.

Carina – if you happen to come stumbling into the tags for reactions – you’ve already acknowledged that you struggle to edit your scripts down for length. And it does show in the finished product. But you also struggle to edit your ideas down to fit into the episode count you have. There were too many extraneous plot threads this season, too many guest characters, and the ideas you had were shoddily and sloppily executed.

There were shining moments scattered here and there and the occasional good episode, but for the most part this season lurched from badly paced episode to badly paced episode. Stuff was crammed into each episode and yet somehow the plot also treaded water until 2x11 when it all kicked off – and this was because so much of what happened in the earlier episodes didn’t feed into the main plot. Even Max’s death, the overarching motivation for many characters at the beginning, was shoved to the side for other ideas.

And the payoffs for each of these storylines was too often underwhelming. Max can’t come back because he’ll be full of dark energy and a destructive force! Resolved in 30 seconds by him blowing up a pile of stuff. Max can’t remember Liz! Fixed in the same episode. That pattern continued with the finale feeling like it was trying to wrap up all these storylines without really having a story of its own. The various cliffhangers from Crashcon were tied up before the title card and then let’s spend the next 40 minutes treading water again.

There were good moments in the finale. Max and Isobel’s discussion, the Maneforrest kiss, Rosa and Helena’s reunion. But as for the rest? Hear me whine:

-          Jesse’s death was anticlimactic. His line about “no more Manes men” makes no sense given as far as he knew Flint (and maybe Clay?) is still alive. His death should have been poetic because one of his son’s killed him but it didn’t hold the weight it should have, possibly because it came so early in the episode.

-          It would have been far better if Jesse had discovered that Harlan killed Tripp and buried him beneath the shed. How awful would it have been for his entire worldview to be shaken by that revelation? How perfect would it have been if he discovered that Tripp loved Nora? If he died after learning all of that, becoming desperate and sloppy in whatever scheme he was trying to pull off (self-immolation via the bomb?), it would have been a fitting ending.

-          So many characters this season were badly served. Alex, Michael, and to a lesser extent Max, had real arcs and progression. Alex especially you can see them setting up his growth for a payoff in the finale. 

-          Kyle was shafted, shoved to the side for the Steph storyline that didn’t feel like it was going anywhere, and I suspect we got a lot of that cut away to make room for other stories.

-          Rosa’s story started off strong and then mostly got tied into rehab or helping Isobel. Them having her out and about in public in Roswell is complete nonsense.

-          Max had a line for Isobel about her becoming her “entire self” this season, and that rang false to me. We’ve only seen Isobel develop her powers. Her personality has shifted each episode, fractured and inconsistent, dependant on what the writers needed her to do. She didn’t get much of a storyline of her own – the abortion was redundant, serving as a political soapbox for Carina rather than anything that served the character – and while she’s found out more about her heritage, that’s never been as important as Michael or Max finding out about theirs. She said she wanted to become more like her mother and that never went anywhere.

-          I was so hopeful that Carina had listened and understood the criticisms with Maria’s handling in S1 and worked to improve it. She certainly gave her increased screentime. Except, so much of that screentime was tied into Michael, and latterly Isobel. She lacked interactions with Liz or Rosa. She was in two whole scenes in the finale and after she broke up with Michael, she disappeared from the story, and if that doesn’t say it all…

-          And that break-up was contrived bullshit. I’m not saying this as a shipper. It felt like they’d planned to have them break-up in the finale and wrote it even though the motivations hadn’t been properly established. Seeds were sown but they were communicating well as a couple and resolving their issues as they went along. Suddenly those issues got un-resolved and were enough to break them up.

-          The most galling part is that so much of what follows comes from Tripp’s diary, and Maria is excluded. This is her story too! Louise was her great-grandmother! Rather than sitting around her in the hospital room reading this stuff, they do it in the Crashdown.

-          Which fits the pattern of what’s happened all season. Maria found out she was part alien and it was about her powers, rather than her legacy, rather than what happened to her great-grandparents.

-          And it became clear that it was done so they could do the Nora/Tripp and Malex parallel.

-          Which completely solidifies for me where Carina’s priorities lie. She’s been clear that Malex is her favourite ship on the show and Michael is her favourite character. But this season has shown that she’s incapable of ensuring her favouritism doesn’t screw over other characters.

-          The sad thing is this really does show up in marketing. Carina always pushes and praises Vlamis and barely ever mentions Jeanine on her SM. Media outlets write about Malex as the centre of the show and they aren’t supposed to be. We have a sci-fi show with a Latina leading lady and nobody cares – not the showrunner, not the media (outside of Latinx-centric publications), not the fandom. I’m not Latina and it frustrates me so I can’t imagine how actual Latinx people feel about that.

-          Maria was dragged into a love triangle that Carina never had any intention of doing justice to. Maria and Michael were always only ever meant to be a pit-stop on the way to a big Malex reunion. Sadly it’s clear the same goes for Maneforrest. Why write something if you’re only going to do it half-arsed? And it clearly was. That’s why the Maria and Michael break-up was so perfunctory and illogical.

-          While I’m on the subject of Maria – last season Mimi was clearly deteriorating and didn’t recognise adult Maria anyway. Now that seems to have shifted to Mimi’s mind moving through time. It’s still unclear if this is the alien DNA or what was done to Patricia Deluca in Caulfield. I don’t understand why they introduced both elements – apart from being able to give Maria a line about unethical science which OH BOY what a contrast with Liz.

-          Speaking of Liz.

-          Wow.

-          If the central storyline was the kidnappings and Crashcon shenanigans, she really had no involvement with that all season apart from the very end. All the investigation went to other characters. Her mother was involved, but not Liz.

-          Let me repeat that.

-          Our lead character was not involved the central storyline of the season.

-          Alternatively, if you think Max learning about his history, and all of the reveals about 1948, and Maria’s heritage etc etc were supposed to be the main storyline…

-          Doesn’t matter because Liz wasn’t involved in any of that either!

-          Liz was a subplot in her own show after they brought Max back. Hell, she was a subplot even when she was working on that.

-          The narrative focus really has centred on Michael, Alex, and later Max.

-          I wonder what they have in common with each other.

-          If you don’t believe me, check out the screentime figures for this season. Liz had the fourth largest amount of screentime in the finale, and she’s only had majority screentime in a handful of episodes all season (2x01, 2x07, 2x11).

-          And then realise that the plot kept moving after Liz left Roswell. She’s just not part of it anymore.

-          I watched the finale and kept asking myself where Liz was because she kept disappearing for whole chunks of time.

-          She was in her own subplot about science for the back half of this season, and honestly, I’m going to have to write an entirely separate post about Liz and ethics in science because NOPE.

-          Max was right. Liz deserved to follow her calling but she had options that didn’t involve risking the aliens.

-          As such the Echo break-up was stupid but whatever, based on this season I guess it needed to happen.

-          Did Max even care that Liz left? He loved her for twenty years and then when he had her, it didn’t matter anymore? What the fuck? Are we ever going to get answers as to why he fell so hard and loved her for so long, or is the “Malex is cosmic” story more important?

-          Also the whole thing about the Genericorp lady not being interested in Liz based on meeting her at the Crashdown was stupid. You hire scientists based on the previous work they’ve done and their credentials. Diego’s word should have been enough to convince her, and then maybe an actual proper job interview to make sure she was a good fit. Not “let’s sneak into her secret lab to look at what she’s working on”.

-          When Liz does leave, she only says goodbye to Rosa and Kyle. Arturo is mentioned but not seen. Which means the whole ICE sequence this season, which should have been a solid motivation for Liz to take the Genericorp job on its own, has been resolved without a proper payoff. All that stress – scenes that I know felt genuinely stressful to some viewers because of how close to home it hit – and we don’t even get to see Arturo seeing his “genius daughter” leave with his future secured.

-          It’s plausible that Liz said goodbye to other characters – Maria, Isobel, Michael – off screen BUT SHE’S YOUR LEAD CHARACTER AND HER LEAVING TOWN SHOULD CARRY SOME EMOTIONAL WEIGHT FFS

-          Compare Liz leaving and arriving at the ocean to Buffy Summers leaving Sunnydale in Becoming Part 2. There is no contest.

-          It’s clear to me that the audience Carina writes this show for is herself. And that’s fine. Plenty of writers do that. But that means she’s writing a show for the women in fandom who like epic mlm romances with lots of angst. And the problem with that is that this show has a Latina lead who is not being done justice.

-          This is not me railing against Malex. There is space in the show for both things. This is me expressing my frustration at a showrunner and creative team who are not taking care with all characters equally.

-          Carina uses her platform to throw in politics and use characters as mouthpieces without considering their impact. She thinks she’s educating the straight white people in the audience without thinking about how scenes of ICE intimidation, homophobic violence, and racism will affect the people who are impacted by those things in real life.

-          Am I done with the show? Probably not. I’ve got fics I want to write and while I’m not hubristic enough to think I can write better than a team of professional writers, I’m going to at least try and do some of these neglected elements of the show justice.

-          Hubris. Remember when I thought that was going to be a theme of this season? Apparently not. There was no theme, unless “no editing, we die like men” counts..

[popculturebuffet]

Close Enough: So Long Boys And Clap Like This

ON this hour’s episodes: Josh decides to have a vasectomy after a pregnancy scare and soons end up dealing with second thoughts and bostonian robots while Alex regrets getting his after meeting what are maybe his children. Then Josh finally sells a game but it falls through and takes up extra jobs to avoid telling his family while Bridgette is forced to get a real job on her birthday and Alex enjoys inudstrial humis. Clap Like This under the cut. 

So Long Boys

Aka the greatest vacesctomy based comedy episode since Brooklyn Nine Nine’s “Choclate Milk”. If you don’t know the show or don’t remember that episode if you are a fellow 99er it’s the one where Jake thinks his superior officer and friend Terry getting a vasectomy means chopping his penis off. I mean it starts off just assuming he’s making a joke but it becomes blurry if he’s just making quips or genuinely thinks that’s how it works. It’s also easy to compare these two because they both, while vastly diffrent and great episodes in their own rights: have a simlilar beat to the plot: a character trying to get a vasectomy for responsible reasons but being unsure they don’t wnat more kids. It’s just Brooklyn Nine Nine is more also about Jake being hurt Terry dosen’t think of him as a friend, a position he reverses while Close Enough has indentured pop and lock teenagers, a dark ride dedicated to scaring people out of kids and bostionan robots that sound like JFK from Clone HIgh. How does any of this fit together, let’s take a look. 

So we open with Josh and Emily having a huge pregnancy scare, which was caused by the birthday sex from the pitch trailer aka Josh trying to pass it off as “we’re just doing our taxes sweetie!”. In other words the main bit I wanted to see transfered to the show proper. And while there’s a few joke this scene is mostly played for drama.. it’s not out of tone with the rest of the show. What really has made this show work for me is it combines regular show antics, but with the added maturity of having an older cast dealing with growing up. A bunch of 30 somethings to start instead of a bunch of 20 somethings so instead of dealing with stuff like video game competitionts, guys nights, and dating woes, it’s more dealing with juggling family and friends, having a job you hate and trying to ballance your career with your passion.  And here is no diffrent: Josh and Emily HAVE no money, live in a cramped apartment with their best friends and a newly divorced couple which as we’ve seen isn’t always easy, and work jobs htey utterly hate and would have to double down on, snuffing out their real dreams, in order to support this kid. Josh outright says he’ll get a second job and give up his video game development which wihle it’d probably be miserable for him would be a sad neciscity. I myself do this blog on the side while trying desperatley to get an actual paying job, it sucks and their situation is compounded by having a kid on top of it who needs their support and attention. It’s stressful enough without adding a second child. Thankfully it’s a false alarm.  However Josh, in a show of responsibility decided to do something about it and get a vasectomy. Still being josh though, his getting one also involves a massive and hilarious vasectomy party, where a bunch of people we never met, and alex and bridgette obviously play party games involving pinning sisssors on testies and theires even a breakdancing sperm. Emily and Pearle’s reactions are gold to this: Emily, before the opening, tells Josh he’s not allowed to plan parties anymore, understandable while Pearle genuinely didn’t belivie they were dumb enough to have a vasectomy party and gives out an understandable “Damn you white people” when she’s proven wrong. Alex also gets set up for his subplot in the episode mentioning he got his a year ago, which given his and Bridgette’s relationship was probably falling apart around then was a good call. I do however like this: Something big happend and Josh is taking responsibility for it, while still being josh about it, but it shows how unlike a lot of idiot heroes in adult cartoons,he’s still a genuinely nice guy who tries to do what’s right, and has more than one brain cell. he has two thank you. So Alex drives josh to get a vasectomy, while Randy presumibly watches Candace as we only see her at the start (Peale was watching her during hte party to help keep her in the dark for now) and finish of the episode. Meanwhile Emily, Bridgette and Pearle have a small B plot having brunch mamosas and boxing up candace’s baby stuff. We also find out for 100% sure our heroines nationatlities: Bridgette is japanese while Emily is Mexican. Mostly because Bridgette always saw Emily with a bigger family and only half for racist reasons that get her handcuffed to a pipe by a drunken Pearle. This show really needs more of Pearle asa every time she shows up she’s a fucking delight and if the show hopefully returns for season 2 I could easily see her getting more screentime. Emily ends up in tears and realizing she may want more kids, which is.. resonable. Their only 32. While it’s resonable to want or have any amount of kids, except like 20 like that one tlc show... I never watched it but when the only two things you hear about a show you don’t watch is the weird, archacic dating setup they have that feels like it produces a good marriage as much as Charlie Sheen did, and that the mother won’t stop having kids despite it nearly killing her  multiple times and having you know 20, you kinda don’t want to watch it.  Anyway it’s resonable to want a family of any size you want, Emily realises she’s not sure she wants to stop at 1 just yet.  Meanwhile in the A-Plot Josh has come to the same conclusion after finding out that not only is this version of a vasectomy he’s getting permentant, mostly due to ball scorching done by robots, but after a hilarious but deeplly insulting carnival ride in the clinic that’s supposed to Scare josh out of having kids and features two teenagers fighting and pop and locking, a goblin and a wall just saying why why why why, impilng kids ruin your sleep, your romantic lives and are terrible. Josh however understandably takes offense to this, and seeing a brother and sister.. only make him not want to deprive candace of possibly having a sister oneday. Again while he and Emily are in no way in position for a second kid now.. they have time and Josh could easily sell a game at some point: he almost does in the next episode. ONe of Emily and Bridgette’s songs could go viral. Or Josh could end up finding a much better day job or Emily could get a promtion at hers. While not wanting to have a second child while they can’t support one is the right move, Josh realizes not wanting ot have one at all, at least in their spectfic case, was an overreaction to a scary situation.  Josh decides to think more, despite the doctor offring up some pubic scaping for extra, and he and Alex end up finding the Teens from the ride.. who are in fact real kids who look an AWFUL lot and act an awfl lot like alex and are basically indentured to the doctor,who treats them like crap and has them undder contract to pop and lock for him and look at his new pubic hair designs (”Those nights are the hardest”). Josh decides not to go through with it but the bostioan robots who do the procedure refuse to let that happen and leave Josh, Alex and the Twins on the run, while Alex himself reconsiders parenthood as he’s now proud of what he thinks are his kids. As the four are cornered it turns out the doctor is also a prisoner.. but an unsympathetic one since he can A) go home and B) is willingly collaberating with obnoxious robots to do a dangerous verison of a serious procedure to save his own ass and is karmically atomized. When Alex brings up his thinking the kids are his, they sadly explain he isn’t: Their dad’s a republican senator (Tot hteir shame the girl, who I almost forgot to mention is voiced by the wonder Kate MIccui, in her second role in a JG Quintel show. HOpefully if there’s a season 2 or the show stars having arcs they can find a full role for her on the show. ) and Alex finds his sperm he donated ended up in a dumpster.. but is determined to protect the kids anyway. Thankfully our heroes are able to escape with Emily, who sneaks ina fter the robots locked down the faicility’s help, with Josh bummed because he was proud for being responsible as the two discuss still wanting to have kids, with Emily pointing out .. this is STILL responsible. Not going through with something you have doubts about and having an honest talk with your partner is the responsbe thing> The five of them escape, and while Alex knows he’s not the teens father, offers to be there for them if they ever need it.  Wrapping things up at a skating rink, The Ramierz’ skate and Josh and Emily plan to do their taxes again later, though likely with a rubber this time, and Alex got his vasectomy reverse and is really weird about it to Bridgette’s annoyance. Also 20,000 years into the future subhuman cavemen versions of hismelf are the dominatne lifeform Neat. Overall this ep was really good, having great character stuff for Josh Emily and Alex, while still having some good bits for the rest of the main cast minus randy who I feel the show honestly forgets exists half the time, with drunk Pearle being a delight. But it’s the emotional core for both sides: Josh and Emily hastily deciding to not have more kids before wondering if they want to keep the option open while Alex realisses he might want to be a dad himself and his bond with waht he thinks are his kids and protectivness of them is really sweet. It’s also not lacking in great jokes; The entire rollercoaster of “DON’T HAVE KIDS” is just black comedy gold from start to finsih including the green goblin for some reaosn, the boston robots and vasectomy doctor are great vilians and overall the episode is just really good and really mature for an episode that also makes plenty of testicle scaping jokes. You can do both. 

Clap Like This

And continuing the trend from the last few episodes, we have the weaker one (though Golden Gamer was still pretty damn good), second this time around, though like Golden Gamer it’s still decent.  The plot is a bit simplier and starts with Josh FINALLY selling a game to two idiot tech billionares, Clap LIke This, a game about clapping along that actually seems really damn fun and I wish were real like Ladder World.  While Emily enjoys being able to spend money and her husband finally living his dream or so she thinks, Bridgette, who we find out has been on an allowance from her parents, is cut off on her birthday and has to get a job at a forever 23, one of the few times this show has used an offbrand and not nearlya s awesome a name as “Plugger Inners” it feels lazier if only because again, Plugger Inners exists. But as was revealed earlier, the two guys who bought it went broke and the deal feell through but josh, feeling terrrible about them not being able to afford the finer things anymore, hides it from his family and takes as many shifts as possible at plugger inners. He also runs into David Hasslehoff doing his best mitch von malibu as he just.. throws more money at josh to do what his son asks. Or nephew or whatever. I went back and redited this after finding out that really was him and supposed to be him. I’m also calling his annoying son Hobie for reasons that will be come clear if you’ve ever watched allison pregler’s baywatching series but it’s always fun to see the hoff in something. Especailly the time he made this really embarassing music video. 

But alass the 200 dollars Hoff made off “jump in my car”  that he gave josh isn’t enough and with him having taken all the insltation jobs josh is forced to turn to black market insltations including one where he installs a tv while jaws eats a guy.. I genuinely wish they’d used this song.

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Thoughts on Chikai no Finale

As the title implies, I just watched the brand new, released nearly a year ago, Hibike Euphonium movie - Chikai no Finale. And like, yeah.

I suppose I should start by saying that I was already feeling pretty cautious about the movie ever since all the trailers and promotional art made it very clear that a key plot point of the movie would be Kumiko’s relationship with Shuuchi, who I will henceforth call Shoe, which uh, really annoyed me, because the pair have so little chemistry, especially compared to what Kumiko has with Reina, and it just seems like all the characters and the narrative itself wanted to push Kumiko and Shoe together for the sake of having a straight couple.

Now as for how my fears were actualised in the movie proper, Kumiko and Shoe as a couple is, kind of a waste of time. The movie opens with Shoe confessing, and then what little time is spent on their relationship basically amounts to the same type of stuff we saw between them when they weren’t a couple. except Kumiko is a little more approachable. There’s like one scene between them that’s romantic and Kumiko breaks off from it anyway. Outside of that their relationship is just Reina and newcomer Kanade kinda talking to Kumiko about Shoe . It just didn’t feel like an element of the narrative that was developed well or needed to be juggled with everything else going on. And the movie seems to agree with me, because somewhere around the 1 hour mark, Kumiko just tells Shoe that she’s balancing a lot right now and doesn’t want to be doing this as well. It’s an anticlimactic end for an undercooked plot point that I never appreciated even conceptually in the first place. So that’s cool.

Kumiko does tell Shoe he can ask her out once they’re done with high school if she still wants to date him though, which I’m still opposed to unless their relationship can actually develop, though I gotta note that I think it’s weird that Kumiko returned the hairpin Shoe gave her as like a symbolic gesture, cause that thing was a birthday present so it shouldn’t really represent your romantic relationship, but whatever.

And yeah, newcomers. The third years have graduated, and new first years have arrived to take their place. We see Ririka from Liz and some others and stuff, but the actually important faces are Motomu, Mirei, Satsuki, and Kanade, all of whom are important because they joined bass.

Satsuki’s barely a character beyond being a cute face, knowing Mirei, getting along with Hazuki, and failing the auditions. But I liked her, again she’s cute, livens up the place and her chemistry with Hazuki is endearing in a different way from how Hazuki gets along with, say, Midori. She doesn’t have enough screentime to be distracting but they also clearly don’t want her to be super important, which I can respect since yeah they’re balancing a lot and not all of it needs to be drama. I do hope she can amount to more in whatever the sequel project looks like, but for now she’s fine.

Motomu’s slightly more of a character but it’s all very undercooked. He reacts real negatively to being called his surname and hates how he’s small and looks girly, but off screen he grew to admire Midori and befriended Shoe, and uh, yeah that’s literally it. When compared to Satsuki I think he’s a little bit worse because he gives off the impression of being edgy and a source of drama, but it kinda just, never amounts to anything and is tossed under the bus. The fact that he has drama and it didn’t matter made me feel like I barely actually knew who this guy is, whereas Satsuki I at least got an idea, even if she’s just sort of a trope. So I hope this kid can also amount to more in the future, but he’s not started with a strong impression.

Mirei is the newcomer we spend the second-most amount of time on, and she’s a bit of a weird one. She’s very punctual about how much time she spends or doesn’t spend at practice, which gives off the impression that she only wants to do the bare minimum, but actually she’s pretty good at her instrument and manages to pass auditions regardless. The real source of her character is that she’s also kinda edgy and hard to deal with, because she like, does want to be accepted by people, but she’s standoffish and struggles to deal with everyone. And her character arc sort of ends at the Sunrise Festival where Kumiko and Kanade are basically like “do your best and be friends with people” and then Mirei accepts the nickname she previously rejected, and is able to befriend Hazuki and the like because of that. She’s fine, she’s less endearing to me than Satsuki but she’s got more of an actual character arc than Mirei, and like with those two I do hope she can amount to even more in the future, since, even though, yeah, she has an arc, it does kinda just feel like more time wasted here that could’ve gone somewhere needing it more.

And saving the most important newcomer for last, we have Kanade. First of all, mega cute design and voice, the moment she appeared on screen and spoke I fell in love with her. But second of all, that love started to dwindle, and get confused, as the movie went on. Kanade as a whole is a very confusing character I’d say, compared to the other 3 she’s very involved with the plot and actually spurs development in other characters as much as herself. Her actions just through me off though, because our very first impression of her is just, someone that’s cute and maybe into music. But the moment we get to know her at all, she seems like kind of a shitter that’s difficult to deal with. She seems to intentionally agitate the other new first years just for the hell of it, and similarly eggs on Kumiko for, very little reason that I could tell. But then as the movie goes on it’s made clear that she takes year relationships very seriously, she’s super pissed off when Natsuki, a 3rd year, asks her for advice. And then where that goes is that she tries to fail her own audition so that Natsuki won’t be salty about a 1st year getting priority over a 3rd year, drawing parallels to the Reina and Kaori trumpet solo of the first season. I just really don’t get why Kanade’s so reluctant about making enemies and that’s her character flaw she needs to overcome, yet opens the movie up seemingly doing just that.

The other thing is that a lot of what Kanade says relates to past events, and since she got all the info off screen it’s like, what? She’s kinda just nudging you on the shoulder, being all “remember this?” and it’s pretty annoying. I also don’t really get the parallel she tries to draw between Kumiko and herself, to the point of describing their personalities as mirrors. Maybe it’s something that would’ve made more sense to me if Kanade got to actually develop more and our understanding of her improved, after all this culmination of her arc happens a little after an hour in whereas we’ve had 2 seasons to get to know Kumiko by this point. Who knows. Once again though I hope we get to know Kanade a little bit better in the sequel project.

So to kinda just address the elephant in the room that I’ve been hinting at for a while now, yeah nah this movie is not well paced. We really do just rush through Kumiko’s entire 2nd year of high school in under 2 hours, compared to the 2 seasons we had for her 1st year. And in these less than 2 hours, we have the obvious plot progression towards nationals to worry about, so the start of the band at the new school year, practice, Sunrise Festival, practice, auditions, practice, and national prelims. But then there’s also the aforementioned new first years that have to be characters and do stuff. And there’s Kumiko and Shoe’s relationship as well that we’ve gotta balance. And just to keep going, the now 3rd years that we know and love have got to still be characters as well, and in fact, that one girl that was in Team Monaka who parts her hair with the love heart things, Tomoe Kabe, she actually gets to be a character too. And then all of this is juggled with this theme of the future, Kumiko contemplating what she wants to do as Shoe, her dad, and Reina ask about it. The movie wants to do a lot. And it just doesn’t really have the time for most of it to breathe, so near enough every conflict, hell even the smaller moments, it all just feels undercooked. Simply put, story should’ve just been told in a longer format, that’s all.

About those 3rd years and existing characters though, they actually are done pretty solid - Kabe grows to be much more than I ever thought she’d amount to, and while her dropping out of the band to just be a manager is something where the impact isn’t really felt because we don’t know her that well and it happens pretty late into the movie, it’s something very different for a character in this franchise to do and I appreciate that it addresses the subject matter of people losing the ability to play instruments from inflammations and shit. It’s cool.

Nozomi and Mizore are pretty much speechless the whole movie, but that’s honestly perfectly cool with me, we already had Liz and the Blue Bird for them to shine, this movie doesn’t need to give them more focus, on that note btw it should probably go without saying but Liz is essential viewing if you wanna watch this, and I would say watch it first as well, cause they do perform Liz in this movie and I can’t imagine it would have close to the same impact did I not know the story behind that.

Natsuki and Yuko are also really great, the former especially has a lot of great development in this movie and it’s great seeing her let those emotions run out towards Kanade, fucking champ. We also get to see the retired 3rd years, Asuka, Kaori and Haruka, none of whom we spend a lot of time on because they’re really not important to the narrative anymore but that’s kinda how it should be, it’s basically a cameo and it’s one I’m completely okay with.

As for the now-second years, Hazuki and Midori don’t really amount to much, which has kind of always been the case, but Reina gets a good amount of screentime, so that’s cool. Vows to be a professional musician and shit, I wish her luck. She also gives Shoe shit for having chemistry with a first year girl, something I forgot to mention earlier but is another plot point that’s unnecessary, although again so little time is wasted on it that I didn’t really care.

That’s more or less every narrative thing I want to talk about right now, so to state the obvious for a second, movie looks and sounds amazing. One thing I really appreciated about the aesthetic in particular is that we saw more shots at different times of day than the show’s usual golden hours thing, and there were a lot more miscellaneous angles of locations we are familiar with, just now we’re seeing them from a new perspective. I don’t think that thematically means anything, really just a different type of prettiness for the hell of it, but I’ll take it. Music’s amazing, voice acting’s really solid, the newcomers give strong performances, etc. Kumiko didn’t really have any big emotional outbursts at any point like in the first 2 seasons, so Tomoyo Kurosawa didn’t really get to flex as hard, but I don’t mind, she still sounds great and I think it shows some growth from Kumiko, gives this movie more of its own identity too so that’s cool.

Having said all that, the score that I gave this on MAL right now is 7/10. I do think it’s overall a positive experience despite the number of problems plaguing it. But let it be noted that Hibike’s one of my favourite anime series and I will inevitably revisit this movie, so all this stuff is subject to change. After all I wrote this post immediately after seeing the movie and having not looked into what anyone else thinks about it, so hey I’ve still got the opportunity to learn something new.

One last thing I want to touch upon is those themes of the future that I mentioned earlier. Lots of people in this movie ask Kumiko what she wants to do, and in a post-credits scene, it’s revealed to us that Kumiko has become the president of the club. Now I don’t think this is something that needed to happen for her character, and in some ways I find it a little weird since in-universe it elevates Kumiko to a position of importance that she didn’t really have, and the only real reason for it to happen is that we need someone who’s now a 3rd year to be president, and we’ve only got like 5 named characters to choose from. But still, I think this could be interesting, it’s an avenue for development we’ve not seen for Kumiko and I can understand her wanting it, become more like her cool senpai Asuka and discover more about herself in the process. So actually I am in favour of it, and I really hope that whatever format the story of her 3rd year is told in, it’s told as a TV anime or movie series (series, not a singular movie) because good god that idea could be so great that it needs to breathe. And then I do actually want Hibike to continue into Kumiko’s adult life but that’s neither here nor there so.

And yeah, end of post.

[yaboylevi]

hey vivi how are you? hopefully you’re doing good ! question in your personal opinion do you think that we stopped seeing eren’s caring side towards levi bc of what happened in RtS arc? do u think like in a way he resents? or feels betrayed by levi’s actions? i mean eren trusted levi kinda blindly i would say so maybe he felt a little deceived by levi ? anyways i’m just curious on ur thoughts on this, have a good day! :D

Okay hi, so…I got this question once in the past already and I decided to not reply for various reasons. I didn’t really feel like replying to this either, as you could guess by how long it took me to actually reply (I actually typed a full answer 3 times in these 2 months but deleted all of them aahh). But I have a question for y'all I would really love hearing an answer to: Is this a common interpretation/headcanon in the ereri fandom recently?

So, anyway… if they were real people experiencing such a development, based on MY feelings and how I’d react, I would say yes, it would be normal for Eren to have developed a sort of resentment once things calmed down a little and he thought back on how absolutely unfairly Levi treated him back then: he agreed to give Eren the serum only to take back the offer at the last moment; he basically told him to shut down his own feelings, dismissing them, when Levi himself couldn’t do the same; he lost his patience and punched him in the face with such strength that he made Eren lose half of his teeth. I understand why it happened: Levi is not emotionally mature at times, imo, and it was a charged development with important lives at stakes and they were all mentally and physically drained. But he didn’t even apologize.

Granted, no one apologized. However, Eren and Mikasa were made to feel responsible for everything that went down by a number of people (Hange, Floch, the other military in Paradis), and were punished for it. I don’t feel Levi held them responsible because I think at one point he realized he acted worse than them and also understood why they all behaved that way.

Either way, Levi never apologized, even though we could argue that Levi telling them to never regret their choice (as if they even had a say in the matter…) and ruffling their hair was a sort of double apology (i.e: I forgive you and I hope you can forgive me). If it was real life, it wouldn’t be enough, in my opinion.

So long story short, I would feel betrayed alright, if I were Eren. Because Eren has always believed Levi was the better man, someone he could count on to be fair and mature. Levi was none of those things during their altercation on the rooftop.

But if I were to look at the whole situation through the lenses of what is ACTUALLY portrayed in canon, I feel the answer to your questions is no, as it isn’t given the proper depth, for 3 reasons:

1. It seems like there were no grudges left amongst all of them. Especially in chapter 108, they all behave naturally, as they used to do before the timeskip, before the Shiganshina fiasco happened (Isayama would’ve shown it to us if it wasn’t the case). I feel there is tension only between Eren and Armin. Also, there aren’t many instances where the 104th need to rely on Levi’s mentorship as before because they aren’t at war, and international matters are in Hange’s hands so they all rely on Hange when searching for an opinion. But I would like to believe that, when Eren couldn’t see eye to eye with his friends, he consulted with Levi, because they often talked about “feelings” rather than “actions” (so it doesn’t matter if they’re at war or not in their case), they have very similar opinions and went through similar experiences in the past. But so far there’s nothing that supports this in the manga. There’s just that tiny panel of Levi saying that they’ll talk later, but I feel it was forgotten/unimportant. Anyway, no grudges mean they have all forgiven one another because they all understood the others’ actions in Serumbowl…or Isayama simply didn’t care about exploring such conflict amongst them because he had other, more important things he needed to tackle in the story, so he made all of them forgive each other off-screen, with no repercussion whatsoever on their relationships.

2. Eren and Levi barely interact during and post-timeskip, and what we see of their relationship is a shadow and/or a copy-paste of what has already happened in the past (Levi kicking Eren, Levi thinking back only to their first encounter as if everything that happened later on had no weight, Levi acting as Eren’s bodyguard, Levi thinking of Eren as hope). Nothing new, whereas Eren’s relationship with other characters has changed quite a bit.

If we consider it from Eren’s point of view, he stopped opening up to his friends after talking with Yelena, but before that, he was quite open about his opinions with both his friends and Hange and Levi. Levi, though, during these moments, felt distant, opinionless, almost like a background character. And it’s true, Eren kept secrets from his friends and comrades, but he was justified, considering the military’s and Hange’s treatment of Eren himself when it came to his titan’s powers. He always spoke his mind in every other instance. We don’t see Eren and Levi talking, because…I don’t know. But I don’t see resentment from Eren, nor from Levi. And Levi, oh, he should have a lot to talk about. Not only with Eren. With Mikasa, too, about their shared family. With Hange, about Erwin. But he’s just…there.

So the fact that two characters who used to share so much screen time together, who shared such a relationship where one of them used to guide the other, and the other used to open up to the mentor in private in the past, and who both used to play into the same themes of the story, now share close to no screentime, conversations, and themes, makes me think that it is either just to show Levi’s distance to their cause as a whole and Eren’s frustration with everyone in general, OR Isayama simply has no intention of keeping their relationship relevant anymore. And this last point brings me to number 3.

3. Isayama has dropped a significant amount of relationships or characters throughout the series, and sometimes it was very disappointing (Annie, Bertolt, Historia, Ymir, Mike come to mind). I didn’t think it could happen with the series’ most popular character and the protagonist, as they had consistent importance together throughout the whole series until the change of POV in the Marley arc (so for 80 chapters), but it may have as well happened for real.

With Levi dead or out of commission most probably until the end of the story - and so he will never meet with Eren again to have one of their usual talks - and with Eren in the middle of probably the last fight of the story where he will almost certainly die, I can see closure for Eren only in regards to his friends of the 104th. That’s also where the main focus of this whole arc has been. No closure for Levi re:most of his “bonds”. And again, in Eren’s memories in ch120, we see a shot of Levi from the Female Titan Arc, even though Eren and Levi had other relevant conversations down the road. Couple this with Levi’s flashback of an Eren from their first meeting in volume 2 (?), and I get the feeling Isayama has no intention of making them relevant to each other ever again. He decided to 1. make Levi’s character about revenge - and I’m curious to see what he will do with Levi, because he has already punished him for it so I’m waiting for a conclusion - and to emotionally separate him from the main cast, and 2. to make Eren a solo player who may have absorbed Levi’s teachings in (maybe) the wrong way, but his mentor won’t ever be there to confront him about it, because it’s not important as long as Armin, or someone else among the 104th, will act as Eren’s moral compass.

And it is kind of disappointing. It feels like wasted potential and abandoned character development. But I’m also biased about it.

–

tl;dr:

1. Eren has stopped talking to everyone in his group of friends after talking with Yelena. Levi is the one who feels the most distant in such group prior to that.

2. The fact that Eren hasn’t opened up to Levi about certain things could be: a. because we still haven’t been shown this (but I gave up on it, as new important memories were highlighted in ch120 and Levi’s not part of them); b. Eren doesn’t believe Levi has answers for him anymore or that his opinion is valid, as following the Serumbowl fiasco (but there is nothing that supports this in canon); c. Isayama just doesn’t feel their relationship is important to the story anymore.

3. My personal opinion is that Isayama just decided to take a different route with them singularly, in particular axing Levi’s character, and they will never be relevant to each other ever again.

[romancemedia]

My Thoughts on NCIS: Los Angeles S10

Now that the tenth season of NCIS: Los Angeles has officially come to a close here are some thoughts of mine on about this past season, including a specific storyline and certain characters that I have been wanting to get off my chest.

The Mexico Mission Investigation & The Mexican Cartel

When season 10 started I was really looking forward to seeing what the season had to offer after the team’s seriously rogue and off the books mission to Mexico. They would be facing serious consequences for their actions and soon after an investigation was launched. Personally when the investigation began I had high hopes it would last at least until halfway through the season, similar to the team’s hunt for the mole or Kensi’s recovery back in season 8. I was really hoping and wanting to see more of the investigation last longer and felt this would have been a great storyline to expand on, but I’m disappointed that it ended so quickly. I felt they closed the door too early on what would have been a very entertaining storyline for the season. Heck, I was even hoping there would be a courtroom scene at some point.

Another thing that bugs me is the Mexican cartel. When it was revealed the team along with Mosley and her son were on a cartel hit list I was expecting this all to be part of something bigger. The investigation combined with the team being hunted down and pursued by the Mexican cartels would have made for something great. In the end, while I understand there were other cases and episode plots to deal with I simply can’t help but strongly feel they missed out on what would have been a really great potential storyline for the season.

Mosley’s Departure

Now don’t get me wrong. I Am Glad That BITCH is gone, but I still feel she didn’t get a real punishment after everything she put the team through. Seriously, after how she treated them throughout all of season 9 and everything she did/put them through in the finale, I feel she didn’t get any real retribution. I wanted Mosley to get RETRIBUTION!!! What really upsets me though is the fact that she never even apologised to the team, but mostly importantly, she never even apologised to Deeks who I feel she still owed the biggest apology to. It’s no secret that she never liked our beloved LAPD Detective, but after how she treated him in the finale by FIRING him, I wanted to punch her in the face repeatedly over and over again. Yet despite how she treated him and what she did to him, Deeks still went on the mission to Mexico and risked his life to save HER SON. Honestly I was REALLY hoping we’d get a scene with her apologising to everyone, but especially Deeks in particular since there is no doubt in my mind that she owed him the biggest apology of all.

When Mosley finally did leave, I felt it wasn’t the best way for her to depart the series. I wanted a scene where she was fired publicly in front of everyone at OSP, considering it’s exactly what she deserved after how she treated everyone. I feel she just got away to easy and I’m still peeved that it was never revealed what exactly was said between her and Rogers. I was kinda hoping it would lead to something bigger, but I guess we will never know what was said between them. I will say that, part of me was hoping that Mosley would return for ONE EPISODE ONLY so we could see a real proper conclusion to her storyline. Again, while I’m glad Mosley is GONE, I’m just disappointed as I feel she didn’t get what she truly deserved. Granted while she may have gone into hiding and is currently on the run from the Mexican cartels, I just feel she didn’t get any real just deserts. In short I wanted her to be punished like Linda Barnes from Criminal Minds.

Not Enough Densi

This was the season where Kensi and Deeks FINALLY GOT MARRIED after being engaged for a full season and a half. However, while I am VERY HAPPY the couple finally made it down the aisle and are starting a whole new chapter of their lives, I can’t help but feel disappointed with the lack of any real screentime for the couple. The only episodes that I feel where we got any real honest to goodness Densi was To Live In Die and Mexico, The Prince, Better Angels, Smokescreen and of Til Death Do Us Part. I just feel that despite these episodes we haven’t gotten many scenes between the couple this past season. I feel that Callen and Sam along with Eric and Nell got more screen time compared to Deeks and Kensi which annoys and frustrates me To No End.

I feel we were robbed as I would have LOVE to have seen more wedding planning going on and heck I would have loved it if we saw a rehearsal dinner, bachelor/bachelorette parties or even Kensi and Deeks on their honeymoon. Not to mention the lack of kissing that award goes to none other that Neric. It’s obvious they are the coupe who have gotten much better screen time compared to Densi this past season. Don’t get me wrong while I like Neric, Densi is my OTP of NCIS and with this being their wedding season, they should have gotten more moments together. Even after they got married, there was very little to almost no screentime for them. My wish for season 11 is we get a lot more Densi again like back in the good old days, equal amount of screentime for all the partners, but my biggest hope and wish of all is... a Densi Baby!!!

Louis Ochoa

During his short time on the show, I really liked the character, Louis Ochoa. I felt he was a great addition to the team, WAY better than Mosley that’s for sure. He was her complete opposite. Ochoa actually truly cared about the team and wanted to protect them from the fallout of the Mexico mission. While he only had limited screen time, he quickly became one of my favourite characters of the season. I’m sad he had to leave the show after only being apart of it for a short amount of time. I would have liked to have learn more about him and even have an episode focusing on his daughter, Marianna. I would have liked to learn more about her too. In the end, Rogers did grow on me as he did with everyone, but I was honestly hoping that Ochoa would have replaced Mosley and become the new Deputy Director of OSP and become a new main character.

Hetty Lange Absence

In the beginning I didn’t think much of it when it was revealed that yet again we wouldn’t see of fan-favourite character, Hetty Lange this past season. Don’t get me wrong. I LOVE Hetty, but after learning she wouldn’t be appearing, I didn’t think much of it at the time as I kinda got use to not having Hetty around as much when she was absent for most of season 9. However, when I look back on season 10 now, I can feel the void that had been left behind by Hetty’s absence which made me realize how much I missed and wanted her back. When Hetty finally did come back in Densi’s Wedding episode that is when I felt it. I felt and realised what we had all been missing for so long. Hetty’s spirit, wisdom, encouragement, laughter and most of all heart. How the team has managed to survive without Hetty is astonishing and I’m glad she was back even if it was for a few episodes by the end of the season. However, I will be especially looking forward to season 11 as I can’t wait to see Linda Hunt fully back in action and better than ever.

Overall, season 10 of NCIS: Los Angeles was alright and I would rank it a 7/10. I hope season 11 is much better with a lot more Densi, Hetty and more interesting storylines that are fully expanded on and not thrown away after just a few episodes.

[sieben9]

“the final battle” impressions

{Quick request to anyone reading: I’m watching OUaT for the first time, and I want to avoid spoilers. So, if you want to discuss something spoilery, I’d be grateful if you could start a new post for that. Thank you!}

Ah Once, what am I going to do with you?

I mean, this episode was definitely an Experience™, that much is certain. Just… ::sighs::

Look, if I try to sum it up, I think the best I can do is “this was twenty minutes of a really good finale stuck inside a rushed ninety-minute wtf-fest. Also, those twenty minutes belong to a totally different season.

this is the sort of thing you’ve got to foreshadow at least a LITTLE

The acting was pretty damn good, though.

(Fair warning: don’t open this on mobile, there’s a ridiculous amount of pictures under the cut)

OK. So. Couple of things that I really liked up front, so I can gripe in peace later on. (And readers can skip whatever part they wish ; )

First, and I realise this is a weird thing to enjoy, but I loved how utterly despicable I found Fiona in this one. She may have hung around like a bad smell for most of the season without really doing much, but she sure stepped up her game for the occasion.

Seriously, if Rumple hadn’t killed her, I would have found a way. “Our son”, indeed.

Though, please, have some pity on the poor guy. At this point, he has killed both his parents, and one of them twice. That can’t be good for anyone.

oh look the wall robots are still there

And speaking of Rumple… dang, that was a good scene in the mines. What I loved most about it was that this was literally all him. Nobody would ever know what he did in there if he didn’t tell them, except for himself, and he still made the right choice. Despite being offered everything he ever wanted, despite being under the influence of his curse just as much as ever…

before you ask, yes, my mind did go Places

…and more literally than it’s usually shown. Well done, pal. I should probably be more excited about this, but despite the tense buildup, I feel like the scene kind of fizzled as a whole. Maybe because he already made the exact same choice earlier, and was just confirming that he really meant it, too. Still, it was a good moment, and I was very proud of this walking human disaster by the time it was done.

Some more on the topic of Rumple: congratulations on his acting skills. Rumple’s, not Robert Carlyle’s, specifically. Because there’s no way in hell I could have seen these photos…

…and kept a straight face. Honestly, I’m half convinced that they were a test by Fiona to see if he was awake after all.

Oh, and the book!

The book made it across! And you know why? Because Belle and her son have True Love, even if Gideon cannot remember that, because Fiona is The Worst. And Rumple worked so hard to make Gideon remember; it was heartbreaking to see. I mean, he had to do that for… what? Five hours? And he still couldn’t stand the thought that Gideon might believe his mother didn’t love him. It was a good scene, OK?

On a sillier note (but still unambiguously positive): Emma’s wardrobe came back for the finale!

I don’t know, it’s just nice to see.

Other things I loved a lot:

Any and all interactions between Regina and her now-settled other half. Just. Pure joy, even in the midst of the wtf-ery. And with the obvious standout-moment when the Queen goes and sacrifices herself to give the others that tiny bit of time they need to get back to their world and help Henry (and Emma, but I think we all know who the priority was in this case)

Just… damn. I’m still worried about this woman’s self-destructive streak in general, but this was a good moment. (It also helps that she got better. ‘cause that could have been really depressing otherwise.)

Oh, and since we’re speaking of Regina (or the Reginas, plural), I absolutely adored the speech she gave Emma. Just… I mean, I expect the hope speeches from Snow (and that one was pretty good, too), but this? I mean… wow. Please compare and contrast with season 1. Except you don’t have to, because Regina already did that, and it was beautiful.

Then we have an actual mirrored TLK (see below for a botched version…) in this very good moment:

Like, yes, I love bookends, and this was a great one. Calling back to the “holy crap why didn’t I see this coming” kiss in s1 worked surprisingly well, considering how little interaction Emma and Henry had this season, but there’s enough material in the show in general to make me buy into this. Like I said: sucker for bookends.

In general, I feel like this episode was at its strongest whenever re-focused on the family relationships between the characters.

And to close it out, the ending montage.

Just... it’s like Snow said. They get to live their happy endings now. Snowing finally have the time to be a proper family (and David got a dog!). Regina is accepted and loved by her people (and the Queen gets to have a completely “new adventure”, as Robin so aptly put it.) Snow can do what she loves and doesn’t have to fight all the time anymore. And Emma finally has a place in the world; one where she can settle and be comfortable and doesn’t have to be alone anymore... and I’ll just leave it at that. It’s a good ending.

And no, I haven’t forgotten it--obvious special mention to this bit here:

Yup. Killed me dead. And I died happy, thank you very much. They’ve been through so much bullshit, and now they can be together, and raise their son in peace, and won’t be really worried when he doesn’t stop growing, either.

I also want to give a special shoutout to the five six people who immediately made sure that I knew that 1) the kiss wasn’t scripted and 2) we, as a fandom, are extremely lucky to have Robert and Emilie. (For those who haven’t seen the interview in question, it’s here, and here)

The finishing dinner was nice, too, even if I’m not sure what the whole Last Supper imagery was supposed to do.

Listen, I’ve been going “just let them be happy!” for way too long to complain much when they finally are. Also, I could write an essay on the range of emotions Rumple goes through when he comes through that door and people are actually happy to see him and his family. Or about that look that passes between him and Regina, because I caught that and it made me cry! I don’t think either of them ever imagined they would really be this happy again when they first met and they’ve been through so much crap and just... guh. I like this. It’s a good closing shot.

And now, the rest.

Because frankly, this wasn’t a great finale. It wasn’t even that good of an episode. It was everything wrong with the 4B finale, only more of that.

For example: What was the deal with making Emma lose her belief? Since when was her belief required for the magical realms to exist? The only person who’s ever had even something approaching that function was Henry. She didn’t need to believe in magic to keep it alive, she needed it to break the curse.

And this was never set up as the Black Fairy’s plan. Not even a little. This came so out of left field, it wasn’t even in the same stadium! And it’s so frustrating, because this wasn’t a bad plot, as such, but there was no build-up, no real payoff, nothing. Or, let me put it differently: this was a perfectly fine plot resolution, it just had no business being attached to this season.

Everything felt rushed, there were about five dozen plot points, none of them with any time to breathe and somehow, we still got that terminally boring climb up the bean stalk.Sorry, David, you know I love you, but what was the point of that sidetrack? Nothing happened. There was no try-and-fail cycle (because there wasn’t time for one) and honestly, if you needed a handwave for how they got back from the magical realms, maybe you could have gone with a less time intensive one?

And that moment where Snow kisses David back to life? Yeah, unearned, again. And dear show: the cut-in from the first episode worked for the split-heart curse, because you were subverting it. But here? It just didn’t do anything. This wasn’t a parallel. David wasn’t cursed, he was crushed by a beanstalk.

And speaking of things that don’t make sense…

For the love of fuck. Her ankle? Really? This is such a cliché that even the slasher genre doesn’t do it anymore. And it’s a dumb cliché, too. It’s rooted sexism and it makes it look like you didn’t have any other ideas. I get it, you don’t want Belle with Rumple at that final point so she doesn’t influence his decision. Here’s a thought, then: let her stay behind for a good reason! Or, hell, if you don’t want to write a scene for her (the writers sure seem to be allergic to giving Belle any screentime), let there be a fork in the road! They don’t have the time to check each one, let Belle go one way and Rumple another. It’s still a lazy plot excuse, but at least it’s not the stupidest cliché in the book.

And one more thing…

::sigh:: I have such mixed feelings about this?

Because on the one hand: Gideon had a life that nobody would want. He was kidnapped, imprisoned, kept in the dark and abused for all of his twenty-eight years, and even if he got free, he would never get that time back. Nobody would ever choose that for themselves.

At the same time… Gideon died. The person I got to know over the last half-season is no more. He’s gone. And he never had any say in the matter. Hell, he didn’t even get to say goodbye. It’ just such a messed-up way to get a wonderful thing.

(Also, while I’m on that topic… yes, I did notice that Rumple didn’t recognise his very tiny son at first, and I realise that it’s because he’s never seen him before. It prompted a particularly long “oh noo…”, too.)

And finally…

… that cliffhanger/teaser, though, huh?

I have so many questions. Why was Henry in that monster forest? Why is he now in an apartment and doesn’t remember his daughter? When did he get a daughter? (Also, who with? Enquiring minds would like to know.)

So. I know, like, three things about s7, and one of them is the cast list. Please try not to spoil anything else, because that’s already way more than I wanted to know going in. Seriously, I’m a reasonably grown adult. I can deal with a couple of surprises.

[daresplaining]

Luke Cage Season 2: Some Thoughts on Misty (and Colleen!)

    Misty had a strong, compelling arc this season. In many ways it was the same as her story last season-- negotiating her role as a cop and the limitations of the justice system-- but it has remained a powerful exploration of her character, and so we wanted to discuss it a bit. 

    Of course, the biggest change in Misty’s life this season is the loss of her arm. While the injury occurs in a very different way in this universe than it does in the comics, the fallout is similar. Misty is forced to reevaluate her whole life, her career as a cop, and her identity itself.  

    Misty is one character who required more attention than she got this season. Her emotional progression took place in between the action, when it felt like it should have been front and center (but heck, maybe that’s just because we’re big Misty fans). That said, her scenes are great. In the comics, Misty comes out of her accident feeling broken and worthless. She is relegated to desk duty, but can’t deal with being benched in this way, and so she quits her job with the NYPD and starts up a freelance detective agency with Colleen. Here in the show, her reaction is a bit different. She still feels a certain degree of self-loathing and despair, but she also retains more of her fighting spirit-- which is perfectly in-character. She refuses to quit, despite a lucrative retirement offer and the barrage of pity and scorn she faces from her colleagues at the precinct. Her reaction to getting benched is to go out in the field anyway, determined to prove to herself that she can still do the job, while still faced with the undeniable truth that things are different now. 

    In the comics, Colleen was a major force in digging Misty out of her misery, and we were overjoyed to see her perform this same role in the show. Since Luke and Danny got an episode-long team-up, we would have liked for Misty and Colleen to receive equivalent screentime, but even their small scenes together are fantastic. Their training scene in particular is great, and is-- as we’d suspected-- an expanded version of a pivotal flashback panel from the comics. 

Misty: “Hey, Col, what’s the use-- I’m right-handed, remember? I’ll never be any good as a leftie. Might as well give it up.”

Colleen: “If that’s what you want. Thought you had the guts, though.”

Deadly Hands of Kung Fu vol. 1 #33 by Chris Claremont and Marshall Rogers

    Since this stage of Misty and Colleen’s lives only takes place in sparse flashbacks in the comics, it’s a thrill to see it expanded upon here. Despite MCU Misty’s tough, confident demeanor, the loss of her arm has rattled her, and the fact that she feels comfortable expressing this to Colleen is proof of their growing bond. In this universe, Misty’s injury is given extra significance via its connection to her basketball playing, and thus her perception of the world. The loss of her dominant arm unbalances her, mentally as well as physically, and this, with its direct repercussions on her crime-fighting career, frightens her. This is a powerful extra layer to her emotional journey, which we found really effective.

    And just like in the comics, as expressed in the above panel, Colleen isn’t having it. Her no-nonsense approach to Misty’s struggles is emphasized by Misty’s anger at being pitied in earlier scenes. This is a common disability narrative; we also see it with Matt (in the comics and the Netflix shows), who hates being pitied more than anything. In the show in particular, this plays a key role in his initial bonding with Foggy. Here, Colleen performs the same service-- she doesn’t give Misty sympathy, to a degree that Misty clearly finds both refreshing and irritating. The reason Misty doesn’t want pity from other people is because she sees herself as pitiable, and hates it. Colleen tries to shake her out of that self-image altogether, both in the gym and (to a greater degree) in the bar afterward. 

    Another neat little detail of Misty and Colleen’s interactions is that they mirror Luke and Danny’s conversations later in the season. Colleen tries to fix Misty’s mindset and restore her emotional balance, just as Danny does for Luke during their team-up. There are even parallel meditation scenes and discussions of chi. It’s great! (Now all four of them just need to team up.)     

    Misty continues to struggle with her disability and the resulting complications throughout the rest of the season (as she should), but her time with Colleen contributes to her decision to face the problem head-on by acquiring a prosthesis. It seemed a little surprising to us that she didn’t already have something considering the amount of time that had passed between The Defenders and this show, but we could also imagine her just not wanting to think about it. It’s a big decision, and requires the proper mindset. And of course, our buddy Danny is there with the save! We’ve talked before about how much we love that the arm is Rand tech in this universe, but another detail we love is the fact that the arm isn’t a perfect, magical remedy. It’s strange. It’s clumsy. It requires an adjustment period, and Misty isn’t all that enamored with it at the start. In some ways, this undermines the power of her getting the arm. She demonstrates a certain degree of super-strength, but we wanted more smashing and butt-kicking! But there will be plenty of time for that in the future, and we appreciated the adjustment period, which added a nice element of realism to this aspect of her story.  

    The arm arc would have been great on its own, but it is coupled with a continuation of the moral struggles Misty faced in Season 1. Once again this season she is shown the limitations of the justice system, and attempts to work around them-- often breaking the rules in the process. This is tied into the aftermath of Scarfe’s corruption. Misty realizes how tempted she is to go down that same path, and it frightens her. She is pulled in opposing directions in her identity as a cop: she fights to keep her job and prove that she’s still effective after the loss of her arm, but in doing so she disobeys orders, thus risking her job. She needs to see justice done, but the limitations of the justice system nearly lead her to break the law. She wants to be a cop, is terrified that that will be taken away from her, yet angers her superiors again and again. She goes back and forth on this part of her identity, giving up and then coming back. For a significant period of time she even quits and goes off on her own. 

    (Oh, Misty...)

    Obviously, as comics fans, we want Misty to leave and form her detective agency with Colleen (looking at you, Iron Fist Season 2...). But this emotional tug-of-war added poignancy to her decision to keep her job. It felt right-- a natural outcome for her journey this season. It’s somewhat amazing, given all of her insubordination, that she wasn’t fired anyway. But a great job has been done these past two seasons to demonstrate that above all else, Misty wants-- heck, needs-- to be a cop. And there’s power in her fight to keep that position.   

    Misty has remained one of our favorite characters in these shows, even disregarding our pre-existing love for her character in the comics, and we’re psyched to see her again soon in Iron Fist!