#these aren’t spoilers btw these bits were in the trailers

[chloesimaginationthings]

Happy FNAF movie day!

[itaroon]

Wave!! Surfing Yappe:  Sho Thoughts + Theory (?)

There are Spoilers btw!

I did a little digging, to have a bit more reassurance whether Sho would really come back or not. 

At first I thought he was dead for certain, but then I looked into the first episode and found that there’s a blonde figure watching over Masaki as he heads out to surf. Who was this person? It was Sho of course! He’s alive but is secretly watching and that this was the future competition Masaki participates in. 

Or so I thought. Looking closely, I noticed that his bang was a lot shorter than Sho’s and only reached the tip of the ears, and he seemed to have a bigger body. That can’t be right. 

There’s high chance that person is Sho’s older brother, Hayamichi Inada. 

That’s him. 

Furthermore, the trailer for the third part of the trilogy shows Hayamichi surfing while masaki and all his friends watch. While riding a wave, a reflection of Sho is shown in his brother. This would mean that Masaki sees the resemblance between the two brothers in him. I would say this confirms that Sho is certainly not alive anymore and that perhaps Sho’s brother oversees Masaki’s growth as a surfer. Here’s the Youtube video:

Yeah, I actually don’t want this to be true but there’s no explanation why for the difference in appearance. 

Also, Sho himself had mentioned that people can die while surfing. This could be foreshadowing his own death. 

Why did he do it? This is going to get a bit heavy. 

My guess is perhaps a parent was pressuring him to stop surfing because his other parent loved surfing and it was just a painful reminder. its hinted that Sho has a broken family. I’m guessing divorced parents? That’s why he moved to Oorai. 

But Sho didn’t listen to them and continued surfing until he got that one message. The parent must have threatened him in some way, and that took a toll on him , and in an act of rebellion, or perhaps purposefully escape all the built up stress, Sho went out in the storm. I don’t think they found his body because again, it was during a storm and it must have swept away. 

--

BUT, the way episode 5 was, it felt too unreal. It was pretty odd actually. There were implication of Sho’s death but, no one said anything explicitly. Perhaps the characters did mourn, but only looming sorrow was shown post funeral (?)

All the other boys came together to pay tribute to Sho, that part hit the most. And was the strongest implication of Sho’s death. Why didn’t the animators make anyone straight up say he was dead? What about the people Sho lived with? nothing was mentioned of them in this episode. The school would have contacted them. But we aren’t shown any of that, instead everything seems to be normal except the gloomy atmosphere through out the episode. 

is there something else at play? Did Sho abandon his surfboard just like Masaki was about to in ep 5? Sho could have up and disappeared while everyone assumed he was dead. the chances don’t seem very high to me, but its still possible.

(I would like to add, the manga has a different setting, in which Sho is very much alive. Annnd there’s also the game that’s coming out later sometime and he’s in it so I’m not sure why the anime is different.)

I’m literally seesawing between believing Sho is alive or dead. But him being dead seems plausible. Sighh Episode 5 was so confusing, and gave us more questions than answers. 

[eloarei]

Okay, I’m going to babble about Greedfall under a cut. I just have to.  tl;dr, you should have been able to romance Petrus and Constantin, no I am not taking critique.  Under the cut: 1500 words of basic Greedfall explanation, and then me lamenting ships that didn’t happen; includes spoilers (noted). 

So. Greedfall. Basically, I had never heard of this game until it was free on Playstation Plus a few months ago, and I was like “yeah okay sure, I’m not doing anything else”, so I played it. I had no idea what to expect. I don’t recall watching the trailer. From the icon, I expected maybe pirates? As it turned out, no pirates ...exactly? But kinda. They’re mostly just colonists with pistols and big hats. Lots of big hats. There are a faction of characters that live on ships, but they’re not pirates. I don’t think they’d appreciate being referred to as such.  Anyway, it’s a rather Dragon Age-like game. I don’t mind saying so, since everyone else has. It has its similarities and differences, but it definitely feels familiar in that way. It’s definitely not a copy, just... inspired, I guess.  You play as Lord or Lady de Sardet, (that’s a silent t, btw), who’s tasked with representing her people on the ‘new continent’ of Tir Fradi-- mostly to the other countries that settled there in the past few years, but also to the natives, who’ve lived there for ever and ever and actually respect the land, unlike you dumb colonizers.  The factions are real pains in the ass, but in a way that’s a litttttle bit charming. Theleme is full of propagandizing Catholics who aren’t above a little witch hunt now and again. The Bridge Alliance are all science-obsessed atheists who think progress is more important than basic morals. The natives are VERY in touch with nature, and have cool Russian accents, skull-like face paint, and sometimes branches growing out of their heads. (The natives have the most diverse opinions, so they’re the least annoying. In fact, they’re rather likeable, except that sometimes they hate you, and don’t bother with pretending they don’t for diplomacy’s sake.)  There’s also the Nauts (the pirates), the Coin Guard (mercenaries, but they kind of work for your country?), and the Congregation of Merchants, aka your country, which are basically neutral ground capitalists that everyone sort of doesn’t hate. (Theleme and Bridge Alliance despise each other, roughly a little more than they hate the natives.)  You’ve got one companion from every faction:  Siora from the natives, Kurt from the Coin Guard, Vasco from the Nauts, Petrus from Theleme, and Aphra from Bridge Alliance. They’re all representatives of their people, but also (as you might guess) non-extremists. Because otherwise you’d want to murder them.  Siora isn’t desperate to kick out the foreigners, she just wants her people to be safe and respected. Kurt and Vasco are basically just following you because it’s Kurt’s job and Vasco’s boss told him to. Petrus is a conniving old man, but he doesn’t shove God down your throat too much and seems to respect the natives, sort of. And Aphra has enough morals to agree that killing for science ain’t cool, and maybe the natives aren’t just savages. All in all, they’re all pretty reasonable.  Compared to Dragon Age, none of your companions (or other NPCs) have a ton of personality, but somehow they still manage to have a good bit, and I ended up really liking them.  SO LETS TALK ABOUT SHIPPING You can romance Kurt if you’re playing a woman, Aphra if you’re playing a man, and Vasco and Siora in either case. But, oh my god?, getting the romance to happen is practically impossible. Save first. I romanced both Kurt and Siora (in different saves; can’t do ‘em both in one), using a guide, but by the time I had thought about romancing, I’d already said one wrong thing to Vasco and screwed my chances hahaha. There’s basically 3 specific conversations you have to have with them, and each time you have to pick the right thing to say, out of three choices. If you offend them at all, there’s no going back. Wow. They’re not very intuitive, either.  ANYWAY. The romances aren’t all that interesting, but they add a bit to their stories, so it’s cool. I think my ship preferences with these four characters are Kurt, Siora, Vasco, and Aphra, in that order.  But you KNOW WHAT? I wanna romance Petrus. Yes, the old man. The bishop. And yeah, I know why you can’t.  (It’s spoiler time!)  You can’t romance him basically for the exact reason you should be able to romance him: he was in love with your mom. Your birth mom, who was a native, which you never knew about. He pined for her after she was captured and taken from her land, and when she was in pain and wanted to die, he didn’t help, and now he’s like “woe is me, I’m flooded with guilt”. Which is partly why he’s following you/ de Sardet around.  So you can’t romance him because he sees you as his kid... kinda?... ish?... I guess? Sure. Ok. I mean, that’s cute. I like it. He makes a pretty bad dad, to be honest, because he’s more like that one slightly morally corrupt uncle who lets you drink hard alcohol when you’re a teenager but only under his supervision. But he cares, and that’s the important thing. I don’t dislike dad-Petrus at all.  But you should still be able to romance him because of the good old classic “you’re so much like your mother”. Problematic? MAYBE. =D But a real missed opportunity. Also he’s my favorite companion. He’s a real manipulator. Gets excited about blackmailing politicians. Sounds like he’s smoked a pack a day. I just like the guy a lot. (And you know how much fanart he has? Like none. Le sigh.)  (Also very few ship fics with him; I’m not surprised, but of course I must remedy this. I’m 4k in already and it’s a lot of de Sardet thinking, and her friends poking at her.)  BUT ALSO, to move on from Petrus.  There’s a character I neglected to mention at all, because he’s not a playable companion (except for a tiny while in the beginning, iirc). He’s perhaps my real favorite character... or maybe tied with Petrus.  Yes, it’s Constantin, de Sardet’s “dear cousin”. Oh my lord, Constantin. What a cutie??? He’s basically the prince. He’s been appointed as the governor of their city on the new island, and he’s precious. Genuinely a puppy.  And I think you should be able to romance him. (It’s less crazy than you might think!)  MORE SPOILERS TIME  So, as it turns out (well, I already sort of spoiled it up there), because de Sardet is actually a native, s/he and Constantin are not actually cousins. They love each other immensely. The game makes no mistake about this. They’re absolutely besties. I think Constantin calls you his lucky star. He’s always so flattering, and seeing de Sardet just makes his day. And since it turns out you’re not really cousins, you should be able to romance him.  And do you know why?  I mean, because they love each other, clearly. But also, that ending. Good lord that ending. I mean, if you didn’t think that they loved each other that much, the ending basically says, “HEY ACTUALLY they totally love each other more than anything”, which makes it terribly depressing either way, because you can either... well, stay with him forever, to the detriment of literally everyone else, or, you know, not stay with him, in order to kind of save everyone. It’s already very heart-wrenching, but letting them literally be in love? GAWD. Talk about pulling heartstrings. It would have made the ending like... an actual choice.  (BIG SPOILER BELOW although you probably already guessed.)  Yeah so you have to kill Constantin to save the island. OR, you two can become the new gods, and everyone fears you and it’s terrible. Lordy. Just terrible either way, because there’s no way you played the game and didn’t end up loving Constantin somewhere along the way, even when the red flags started going up that he’d gone power mad. (Because even when he’s power mad, he still obviously loves de Sardet SO MUCH,  OH my god...)  So. As I said. You should be able to romance Petrus because, well, I want to. Need me that problematic ship, c’mon! And you should be able to romance Constantin because the whole plot is literally written that way??? It’s like the romance that is set in stone, you know? And it literally drives the plot.  The whole “Constantin gets native powers and decides he wants to be a god” thing was sort of predictable (as soon as it started happening, because shit, I didn’t have a clue what was going to happen before!), but overall I thought the game and story were pretty good. I recommend playing it if you’re got 40 hours free and it’s really on sale or something. I give it an 8.2 out of 10. (Higher if it didn’t start to feel kind of grindy at points. Lower if I’d had to pay for it. Much higher if they let you romance your pseudo-dad or pseudo-cousin, hahaha.) 

[lovelylogans]

:o Please please rant about the 100 and Bellamy!! I was only marginally into it so I don't know much but I love to hear your meta on literally everything!!

all RIGHT. spoilers for the 100 past this point! also i’m gonna go ahead and preface this with a warning about racism, and also that a lot of this is based off stan twitter, but like. they aren’t Wrong.

oh, also, i’m gonna go ahead and drop my stan twitter: i rarely make original posts, but, ya know. it’s a jumble of content. feel free to follow if u want.

also! there’s this whole thread of hiatus drama, if you want a fuller picture than what i’m giving you.

so a quick, general sum-up of some plot that goes into this Whole situation: the sixth season of t100 took place on a different planet, after t100 spent ~5 seasons on earth, so this introduced new characters and also the concept of interplanetary travel. in the season six finale, hope (the daughter of a character, diyoza, who was still pregnant with hope, because ~time travel~) stepped through what’s called “the anomaly,” says “i’m sorry,” and stabs octavia, dissipating her into green mist. bellamy, octavia’s brother (who has had Issues and a Lot of storylines centering around octavia, which is a whole other topic of conversation (ft. bellamy’s storylines centering around white women (bob morley, who plays bellamy, is half-filipino) octavia’s treatment by fandom vs bellamy’s, and you can probably tell which side i’m on by how loudly i screamed “YEEEEEESSSSSSS” when bellamy said “you’re my sister, but you’re not my responsibility anymore” after SIX SEASON of—okay you see, i’m getting off topic) 

anyway, the season closer was that octavia went through the anomaly, which (this is important!) a fair amount of the main characters saw (gabriel, hope, echo, and bellamy, namely) bellamy, in that same season closer, was running through the woods alone, yelling for octavia. season ending. good hook!

and then.... nothing.

seriously. the hiatus between season six and season seven of the hundred (the LAST season of the show, EVER!) there was next to no promotional material. no bts pics, no tweets from cast/crew, nada. nothing. which stirred up quite a bit of complaint in the fandom—one, it’s the last season, can we not have some promotion, and two, it’s the last season, and there’s no promotion by cast/crew/the cw, why is this happening?

seriously. the season seven teaser clip that got aired between episodes on the cw was released before the trailer. it became a meme, how long we were waiting for the trailer. like it was... what, 19, 20 days before the season aired, and all we had was like a stitched-together character poster?

there was also some drama throughout the hiatus, ft. the fandom getting on the news for not getting content in the hiatus, jessica harmon (who plays a guest role, nylah, and whose brother plays murphy) getting snappy at fans on twitter for asking for promotion, and isaiah washington, who played thelonious jaha (a character that died in s5) telling a minor (and also going into their dms!) that he’d call the fbi on them, good times, the 100 fandom is a Disaster and i live a nightmare every day

and then. the trailer drops.

which starts “where is bellamy?” like. people. were SEARCHING for bellamy. people were trying to be optimistic, but rapidly people were also coming to, like, the worst conclusions. however as always t100 fandom did have some jokes, so like, ya know

people were looking forward to other promo: the poster, and also, there’s this tradition of countdown bts photos for the show, and since bob and eliza (who plays clarke, the female lead) just got married, people had high hopes! 

and then came the poster (which had no bellamy, or characters at all) and then the OFFICIAL poster (which had characters, but still no bellamy) which started the hashtag #whereisbellamyblake, because, seriously, he’s the male lead and it’s the last season. also bonus screengrab of this from jroth (the lead writer’s) mom’s twitter lmao

so people rightfully had questions: the excuse that was being given was that including bellamy would be “spoilery,” except, like, it’s a poster? and the only shot of him in the trailer was him being dragged along the ground despite the fact that he was the thumbnail for the trailer? like, okay, which led to some twitter meltdowns, and some more, and again people were fearing the worst, because like, see lexa, jason has a BAD track record when it comes to fan-favorite ships. people were HEATED, people were RANTING, it was a MESS

also. the edited posters were pretty funny, okay, then bob and eliza, bless them, dropped some a+ twitter content, and things calmed down a bit

and then, countdown days started. usually, the order goes bob on one more day, and eliza on show day. except this year? eliza was one more day. which. people were going nuts. because it was a tradition! and keeping BOB out of a behind the scenes where there weren’t any spoilers? it just seemed unprofessional—especially damning, given jason’s past history with ricky whittle, who played lincoln, and was bullied off the set. people were worried that, one, this was affecting bob’s storyline, and two, well. remember that thing about fan-favorite ships? here’s a whole thread of that, btw. and a video of ricky whittle, here.

it is a genuine fear of a lot of the fandom that jason will, in all his pettiness, not give in to bellarke. which is kind of nutty, given that it’s the core relationship of the show, and he himself had said that he���d been foreshadowing it. bellamy and clarke are literally “the head and the heart” of the show.

oh, yeah. so hard cut to the showday pic.

cast. crew. writers. everyone.

except? no bob.

people lost their gotdamn MINDS.

there’s a lot of subsequent drama; the fact that apparently they’re pushing through clarke/gaia (even though there was ??? no previous evidence of this??) still no bellamy for four episodes (seriously, it took clarke, like, two episodes to even cotton onto the fact that he was missing at all)  a lot of criticism of jason (he’s shamed shipping and also, lmao, is trying to push through a spinoff?) and just. Yeah. 

i’m really burnt out when it comes to the 100 fandom; i’ve unfollowed a lot of the t100-centric tumblrs i used to follow, once the show is over i’m gonna unfollow a lot of the twitters and just, yeah. i care about bob and eliza, and i care about bellarke, but the fandom wears me out and the unprofessionalism of a lot of what’s gone down has kind of just? made me lose interest? they’re recycling storylines (esp centering around octavia and bellamy) and continuity doesn’t seem to really be a priority. i just... yeah. i mostly care about bellarke and the fact that i bond a lot with one of my real-life friends through this show. if bellarke doesn’t happen, i’m gonna be like Really... disappointed, mad, irritated? like. imagine. it’s literally So Easy. the actors got married, ffs, you’ve gotten in trouble for ending two ships via very tragic death (in the same season, even!) like how is this Not Clicking

anyway that’s my (entirely too long) rant about t100!!!!

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

alright alright alright it’s long overdue, but here’s my “Angel returns” theory from way back when her actress posted an image of her on twitter.

tl;dr: Angel is back and we see her getting digistructed in the dev trailer in the giant electricity machine thing

There’s some Commander Lilith spoilers below (main story and side quests) so if you haven’t beaten the whole dlc yet, don’t read!!

Alright so this obviously was kickstarted by the Sirentology quest lol 

I didn’t wanna say anything above the cut about that cause that’d be a dick move

let’s start with the thing I first noticed as soon as I walked into the prototype chamber!

ahahhaha yeah.

and if you’ve been following me since I replayed tales, then you might see where this is going

we see something similar here

this is from TFTBL, in the biodome where you find one of Gortys’s pieces (chassis? i don’t remember lol. the big ring one). It’s holding it up, like it’s being suspended in the air. I imagine this is the same technology Jack used to build Control Core Angel, keeping Angel suspended above the Vault Key. So this was built by Atlas, just keep that in mind, I’ll bring it back in a second.

You can see when Jack brings Lilith to the Vault itself, it keeps her stuck in the air, charging the Key

so obviously jack needed to improvise because he wasn’t about to bring Angel to the Vault with him, he wanted to wait until the key was fully charged.

I think Angel definitely got a little bit of leeway compared to Lily, though. I also think, since we don’t see any wires, the Vault key is sorta pulling the Eridium through Angel to process it and absorb it? and the thing above her is a pump/shield generator/suspension. As i understand it, in the new dlc we’ve seen Lilith actually flying with her wings in the final battle, and I do think Angel is using hers to move around (above), but I do think the Vault Key/machine thing is holding her suspended in the air. 

Anyway, the reason I’m bringing all this up is because of how Tannis acts in this DLC. @humphreyhornbeam commented on one of my interview posts with a great point and that is that “[Tannis] may or may not have blueprints and/or information that Jack used to create the Siren Collars and she may be the only one alive that has this info”. Which, oh fuck

Lemme point out some lines that are very suspicious from her just to let that sink in for a bit

we know Tannis has been studying Lilith for some time now, since the Assassinate the Assassins quest, and she has apparently dubbed such studies as “Sirentology”, hence the name of the quest.

so she wants to know exactly where Siren powers come from and how they act/appear over time (Understandably, we’ve seen Lilith’s exposure to Eridium allowed her to start teleporting)

we end up sending her the data through a console hooked up to the chamber

we don’t exactly get a choice.

normal reused console from other areas, with a little projection coming out of it (I’ll get to that soon)

Lilith comments this:

which… y’know… “she could have been so much more”. im not saying the devs are regretting killing Angel, but… that very well may be foreshadowing. Yeah, I’m getting there.

and Tannis is pleased (don’t think she quite cares about Angel).

so… i imagine Tannis is going to have some sorta hold on the story in the next game (”Tannis is not what she seems” is still relevant). Interviews have already confirmed this next game is focusing HARD on Sirens. This quest was 100% put in because of that. There’s no way they’d throw this in otherwise, it doesn’t make sense. 

This entire DLC was the devs’ way of ensuring we were prepared for bl3, and that means for (7? I’m pretty sure this dlc takes place about a year after the end of bl2) approximately 6 years, Tannis has access to some of the most in-depth Siren information. Ever. Remember, before BL2, Jack was smashed in the face with a Vault symbol and apparently got a shitload of information from it before that. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he learned some stuff about Sirens through that. He’s even the one who first confirms there are only 6 Sirens in the universe(s) afaik.

so what’s going on here? What’s Tannis going to do with all this information? We don’t really know a lot in regards to what she’s trying to study. As I understand it, she’s mainly focusing on Eridians in general, so her study of Sirens makes sense. We know she had a large stake in what happened to the Vault Key in the DLC (she’s very upset Mordy is just leaving his drinks in it). We know she’s extremely interested in what happened to Typhon Deleon (which I don’t think is coincidence considering what her focus is).

I want to believe she’s trying to use this information to simply discover more about the Eridians. I don’t wanna believe she’s going to use it for evil. Her introduction as a Dahl scientist stranded on Pandora seems super legit, so I can’t see her being of alien origin. I suppose I could see her teaming up with something of alien origin trying to find out where the Eridian homeworld is, since she’s wildly smart and I imagine would have at least 1 or 2 leads (concerning the Vault Symbol on a slab/floor tile we see in her infirmary on Sanc-III). 

Also, I know it is largely assumed the CoV thing is a broadcast from the twins to their cult, but that just… doesn’t make sense to me. I’m gonna go wildly crazy here and suggest that the broadcast wasn’t from the CoV, but instead the Children of the Vault are another entity and the cult picked up the name after hearing said Broadcast. I mean, seriously, do you really think a bunch of crazed lunatics are going to want to call themselves “Children of the Vault” without a larger influence?

HEAR ME OUT.

okay, I do not play battleborn. at all. so idk what the deal is, but looking at videos that show the morse code easter egg shows this

now i did a little looking, not a lot because I am not a fan of battleborn and my disinterest made me terribly bored BUT

this is what i think a “Varelsi” (the enemy faction of Battleborn) portal is SUPPOSED to look like: 

so, you know, there’s a difference. probably the reason it’s called “anomaly”.

And we know the code we get from those anomalies is in morse code

which translates to this (thanks reddit. It’s been 2 years since I upvoted stuff on that post, btw. time sure does fly.)

And y’know, I JUST did a analysis trailer of We are Mayhem, and you know what was in that trailer? Maya’s Phaselock.

let’s take a look at that, shall we?

so we know that Maya’s ability “allows her to lock an enemy in another dimension, preventing the desired target from fighting back for a short while”. Do you see where I’m going with this, yet?

yeah.

Compare the phaselock to the easter egg “anomalies”, they’re both cracks in our dimension, though Maya’s is white, and they’re both cast against a space-like/starry background which I think is our look into the “other dimension” her description mentions.

in fact, let’s look at some other Sirens we know of, more specifically, let’s take a look at Amara’s arms

I think that’s all the same “stuff”. idk what to call it. just… “STUFF”. yeaaaahhhh.

Anyway, this is all a convoluted way for me to say that I think that morse code message we hear is coming from that dimension that Maya can open a rip to. She uses it to imprison people? yeah. Probably the same dimension Lilith can phasewalk through. idk the deal with Amara’s arms but I assume they take their power from that dimension as well. I imagine that dimension is also tied to the Vaults. We know the Traveller “teleports” places, I imagine he’s doing something similar to Lilith: jumping into the other dimension then quickly jumping out. (okay yes i just likened Lilith to Kurt Wagner, whatcha gonna do?).

Consider the idea that Sirens are this dimension’s connection with the other dimension we see within their powers, and that’s where this message is coming from. I think that’s why Sirens can be used to charge the Vault Keys. But wait, there’s more.

(Sorry i totally lost my train of thought, i got SUPER distracted.)

I think Eleseer (the inside of Elpis in TPS) is connected to this dimension as well, or traveled to through this dimension.

the holograms of planets, the stars- I mean the whole thing looks like a giant void, and I get it, the moon is HUGE, but you think at some point you’d see the outside crust or something. You’d think at some point the mines would’ve caused the planet to cave in or something. Fuck, even the Crackening, which we all kinda know was caused by the Eridians, you think that would have shown this GIANT cavern inside the moon.

I think the whole above bit, Tycho’s Ribs, the huge Eridian base thing, is powering a large rift or something into another dimension, the dimension that the TPS VHs drop into on that giant platform with the cutscene and everything. I mean…

COME ON. is all that seriously inside a MOON?

there is even a bubble shield surrounding the platform they get off on, something very similar to the shields Axton has around his turrets. I think that may be to prevent the atmosphere from escaping, anything visiting from getting out, or, possibly, things from getting in. If this actually is somewhere out in space/another dimension, then it would make sense that they’d wanna keep their magical floating future-seeing platform from getting knocked by asteroids or raided by other aliens

Okay, and I know the “planets” all appear as holograms, but look at that galaxy. the nebulas. Those aren’t holograms. 

Eridian writing on the outside ring there? Oh boy bl3 theories here i come. That’s looking very familiar right about now after my We are Mayhem analysis.

cloud/nebula. clearly not a hologram

there’s even a fucking galaxy down here like… Yeah guys I don’t think we’re on Elpis anymore

Even the entrance to the Vault which… y’know isn’t that normal Vault-y shape is a giant hunk of eridium with a huge crack in it. 

and when you touch it, what happens??

You teleport inside, and it even plays the same animation as when Lilith teleports you during the Hunting the Firehawk quest. 

It probably looks less organic than the one in bl2 because this is powered by Eridian machinery, but it’s definitely the same concept- you fade back in all purple and shit

then this asshole shows up out of an actual Vault symbol, which makes me wonder why we traveled all this way and if Vault symbols are actually gateways somewhere and by walking inside one (unlike every other VH), Rhys and Fiona really DID get teleported somewhere

also, a little off-topic but does anyone else think this is what the eridians are gonna look like?

just… the face after u shoot the mask off.

how did i get to this topic…??

oh yeah Tannis LMAO SORRY

Okay POINT BEING

I think that the easter egg message is coming from whatever dimension all of THIS is. If it IS the Eridians, then maybe humans (or the Vault Hunters- the Crimson Raiders?) are the “Children of the Vault” and the Cult took the name because they heard the broadcast. Because as it stands, “Do not open the Vaults” just doesn’t make sense coming from the Calypsos’s perspective. They WANT the Vaults opened. You know who doesn’t? The Eridians.

So the line: “Tannis is not what she seems” then wouldn’t be coming from the CoV, but instead from an outsider watching us. You know… someone getting info to whoever is in that dimension… like the Watcher maybe? Or maybe the Eridians are just watching us in general, like they can see things from their dimension or homeworld or whatever. They had the Elpis Vault that could see the future, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they could see the present anywhere. 

Anyway

TANNIS

I don’t want her to be evil is what I’m trying to say. but you know what? I didn’t even get into the MEAT AND POTATOES of this post yet

here we go

you know this thing? It’s from the dev trailer for bl3. looks pretty similar to the above stuff, doesn’t it? And it’s powered by electricity, because if you watch the tubes get filled up/emptied out in the video. I’m still trying to determine if the footage was reversed or not because the lava (?? I think???) outside the window is falling upwards when it’s playing normally.

So you might be wondering? Why bring this up?

Cause I think it’s possible Tannis has built this using the blueprints she got from Angel’s prototype room. and why is THAT important? 

Well, hear me out.

this is what a digistructer looks like. Imagine 2 of those facing opposite each other, supercharged by electricity

Now we know Tannis has built Digistruct peak to create fake enemies for us, but maybe those don’t last long/aren’t stable enough

and yeah I think you know where I’m going with this

I think it’s possible Tannis has somehow created a machine to digistruct Angel for us.

and you might be wondering

“why the fuck would she do that”

BECAUSE

IF YOU LOOK AT THE CONTROL PANEL WHILE YOU’RE UPLOADING THINGS FOR TANNIS

YOU CAN SEE ANGEL’S FACE APPEAR FOR A SPLIT SECOND

which only ever happened while she was speaking using her powers!!! I don’t even think you actually could “record” that because that’s her using her Siren powers to talk in your brain!! It’s not a part of your ECHO or a tv screen, that’s literally part of her powers

so what if Angel uploaded herself into Helios, then when AI Jack came barging in she had to hide somewhere she wouldn’t be found/overwritten by him

and please tell me if I’m wrong, i’ve been staring at a computer screen all day/night

but that looks like a body to me. You can see the left arm on the right, then a torso, then another arm slightly behind that

even the electric bursts coming out of them create the shape of a body standing there. I can very clearly see the hand/thigh/waist on the bottom and the shoulders/opening to a shirt? on top there

idk lmao. I’m trying my best to explain why her actress would tweet a picture of her with no context and then PIN it to her twitter page

why britanni. whyyy

[praphit]

Doctor Sleep and The Mystical Black Man

So, I saw the trailer for this movie. I quickly realized that this was a sequel to my favorite horror movie "The Shining".

And I quickly realized that this movie trailer was promoting a movie that was STUPID - not just "stupid", but "sssToopid!" Nahmeen? There is so much about "The Shining" that I enjoyed, and it seemed as though this sequel was just going to be amping up the supernatural elements. Normally, it would have bothered me that a movie titled "The Shining" wasn't really about the shining. But, Jack Nicholson is so good!

I didn't care for his wife though. I could never tell whether Shelley Duvall's character was supposed to be kinda "out there" or that maybe Shelley Duvall simply wasn't a good actor. I also didn't even care about the kid and his shining. Like I've said many times before, kids aren't very interesting. Give him some crazy pills, punish him for writing “REDRUM” on the wall, and send him to his room! Give me more Jack and that creepy hotel! 

I was so busy shouting out "sssToopid!" throughout the trailer that I didn't notice what the movie was titled.

Later on, I saw a poster for this movie. 

Now, at this point, I still wasn't connecting this poster with that trailer. I saw the title and said to myself - "This is sssToopid." What the hell does "Doctor Sleep" mean anyway? I saw from the poster that Ewan McGregor is in it. What is HE Doctor Sleep? Is this a horror movie? What is Ewan McGregor the villain? How is he putting people to sleep? What is he choking them out? So, there are vampires, werewolves, demonic spirits, and then Ewan McGregor?! Look at this picture.

His nose is bleeding. Do you know why his nose is bleeding? - cuz he was thinking too hard. This is our villain??! C'mon, man!

Say it with me now - "sssToopid!"

But, once I finally connected the two, I then realized that because I'm a big Shining fan, I'm going to have to see this craptastic movie!

So, here we go! - the sequel to "The Shining" that we didn't need or ask for:

This sequel is about the little kid that I didn't care about (Danny).

Now, people, I'm about to put a hard lesson on you. Sometimes, cute kids grow up to be jerks. NOT ALL OF THEM! But, take ten cute kids you know... at least half of them will grow up to be jerks. People, this is not me talking, this is math!

Danny was one of the unfortunate ones. Danny grows up to be a real piece of shit. He does something awful in the beginning of this movie that is never really resolved. Perhaps it's bad writing or maybe they're just hammering home what a piece of shit Danny actually is.

Let's say that they made a movie from the perspective of the person who shot Bruce Wayne's parents. The shooter feels terrible, runs off, fixes his life and moves on. Some might be like "Wait a minute! What about the family that he destroyed?" ROLL CREDITS :) I'm talking about it more than the movie did, so I'll move on.

He ends up running away from himself, his alcoholism, and all of the crappy things he has been doing.

He runs off and meets a lovely man. I call him “lovely”, because at first sight of Danny (who is a stranger to him), he offers him shelter, a job, and a path to sobriety. A bit contrived wouldn't you say? Maybe there are people this thoughtful, selfless, and compassionate in the world... I damn sure haven't met them. People like that aren't raised in Baltimore (where I live). Here, if you ask someone for a dollar, you might get punched in the face.

So, Danny gets the miraculous help that he needs, and then finds someone else on this journey away from himself - a little girl who also "shines". This girl's shine is the strongest around, apparently. This girl has a cult of... pretty much vampires (who feast off "shiners") following her, which eventually springs a now clean Danny into action - this is the plot/thrill/horror.

Rebecca Ferguson is in this, btw 

- she plays the cult leader. SHE IS AWESOME! She nails the role! You can see why someone who's lost would be drawn to her and the cult. You can also see why the cult loves, respects, and fears her. So, if you're looking to start a cult, be sure to take plenty of notes from Ferguson's performance, and you'll be on your way! If done properly, being a cult leader pays well!

I also must mention that the mystical black man made his appearance again (played by Carl Lumbly). He’s actually the unsung hero of this movie. 

It's always good to have a mystical black man in your life. If you don't have one, you can count on me:)

There's a lot to love about this sequel (despite me making fun of the writing); it actually surprised me. I spoke about Ferguson, but her cult also has life to it. A lesser movie would have simply had randos in the background and never get into their personalities, or any dialogue or backstories. You get a sense of family from the vampire-like cult:) The CGI in this is also dope! All of the way through I was digging it. And I love the battle fought against alcoholism here. Danny wasn't some lovable, functional drunk - he was a drunk asshole like his drunk asshole dad. It was real. I thought that the movie handled all of that well.

My only real issues come again with the writing ( mainly at the end). There are a handful of plots lines that don't really need to happen (which would of helped this film be shorter, and it def needed a trim). The main thing that didn't need to happen is going back to the infamous hotel (not a spoiler - you see that action in the trailer). Now of course we want that epic fight at the end. I'm simply saying that based off of the writing, it didn't make sense. Going back to the hotel is stated as very dangerous, the little girl then asks "why they should even go back?"... and she is not met with a strong reason - cuz there isn't one. And everything that happens in the hotel from that point onis... kind of absurd. BUT, none of this took  away my enjoyment of the film. I didn't care about lil' Danny, but I care about the piece of shit he became. I care about the world of the shiners. And did I mention Rebecca Ferguson?? She has a hold on me. I'm willing to be her first cult member.

Grade: B

I have to say that the naked, old, ghost woman from the first movie is back! - and freer and more unashamed of her ghostly body than ever before.

It's like she couldn't wait to be nude and in front of the camera. There were times when it seemed like the camera person wanted to move away from her, but she wouldn't let them! - she wanted that close-up, baby!

You might notice that I didn't mention "Doctor Sleep" much. Yeah, that's because this movie doesn't either. Not unlike "The Shining" not really being about the shining. "Doctor Sleep" isn't really about the good ol doc. The doc is Danny, though I won't tell you why. But, even if I did, it honestly wouldn't matter. Him being referred to as that doctor does not move or build the story at all. THIS movie was actually all about the shining.

The way that this movie ends, I'm sure they'll at least think about another sequel. And I'm sure it'll have a title that has nothing to do with the movie. It'll be titled "Nude and Creepy", but won't actually be about that nude and creepy ghost lady until the 4th installment.

[dorky-spider]

Written Version of Dom’s Podcast #3

For people who don’t understand a thing going on or for those who struggle to hear it, I’ve typed out what is said in the podcast “Podcast 3 - father and sons chewing the fat...”

it is long so it is under a read more. Enjoy!

S-Sam 

T-Tom

H-Harry

D-Dom

D: Are we filming Harry?

 H: Yeah we’re filming

T: We are in atlanta GA

 S: Surprise 

D: We aren't supposed to be here are we

 S: We’ve come out to surprise tom 

S: 10 hour flight for a game of gulf 

D: Harry was definitely coming that was always the plan 

T: I knew Harry was coming and you did it very well actually. I’m glad you didn’t do it in a restaurant. It was a bit emosh

 H: that was the original plan

 D: It was pretty emotional. It would have been awful if Tom was just like “HI” 

T: yeah ah hi guys how you doing 

*pause* 

T: it took me a minute to figure out what was going on though. I was tired from working and I’m so homesick 

D: that’s why we came btw

 T: you didn’t just decide to come on holiday 

D: I cancelled gigs at pubs(?) to get here 

T: what pub? 

D: the turks head in Switzerland 

S: I thought it was the badcat 

D: Yeah S: ah thats a good gig

T: but yeah it took me a minute to figure out what was going on 

S: Your reaction was unreal

T: Because I saw your face first (Sam) and then I saw dad’s face and I really thought I was hallucinating

 S: its the sign of disappointment 

T: I was like I am so tired or I’ve had too many beers. Because I surprised dad in Edinburgh

 S: that was massive 

 T: and we have a video of that that we’ve never shown

 D: It got into my show didn’t it. The Glory year. Remember the Glory year? Other three: Yeah

 D: You had to leave, you had to leave before the end.

 T: oh did the video. Did the video play at the end of the show? 

S: no it didn’t play but dad spoke about it. 

T: ohhh okay 

H: dad’s not. Dad’s not able to do that

 D: I told the story about how excited i was and how I was wearing pjs, your (toms) pjs, coming off a first class flight. 

T: which I still want back btw 

D: what about the other surprise in um Thailand.

  T: oh yeah. That was a good one. You’re good at surprises

 D: your birthday and your end of filming, mom called me up in london and said dad, you old dog, come out to Thailand. So I wen, I flew out on Thursday and flew back on sunday.

T: oh yeah, I went scuba diving that day

 D:  that right you came out 

T: I came out and you came out from a pillar

D: and you were telling everyone what you saw

S:yeah bc you were on a ripstick(?) werent you. You were going around a fountain 

T: right right right 

S:and then dad just walked out

 T: my reaction was not as good as harry’s

. *pause* 

T: the surprise in Edinburgh, we surprised mom for her birthday. 

H: coming from Canada 

D: we’ve got a lot of surprises going on don’t we 

T: sam ruined that one S: yeah lets talk about the shit

 D: we kept this one quite 

T: I actually had no idea

 S: thing is though it was so on a whim 

D: well it was on a thursday that we came. Mom flew me in

 S: I think it was wednesday that we kind of thought about it 

D: nah

 S: I remember I was like are we doing this then and you said ah its all good 

D: yeah cool and here we are in Atlanta. Played golf today

T: ugh I played so bad 

D: Harry and I played Sam and … Tom. 

Everyone laughs

 D: I’m jet lagged and what was the score boys 

T: it was all square. We were one down going up the 18th and then dad cracked under the pressure 

S: I was one down

 D: and who won the hole then

 T: Sam did because I was exhausted 

S: I’m jet lagged

 D: Sam you played really well

 S: I did. I was very pleased. It was that driver you kno

w D: you diver was well. You know it was all very square.

 S: I was glad it ended like that 

H: We should have won 

T: no you shouldn’t have 

D: yeah we definitely should have 

T: no you finished like one hole on the front line 

H: your point is.? 

D: Harry lost his, how many balls did you lose man?

 H: too many man 

T: I lost a lot of balls. I think I lost an entire 

S: you threw one in the lake 

T: well that was a stupid ball. I missed the par

 S: yeah that was the problem, the ball

 T: it was all the balls fault.it was an oblong

 H: in golf you have expensive golf balls and they’re like 8 pound each

 T: no they’re 5 pounds

S: they’re expensive 

H:okay so 5 pounds. And I took paddy to play golf a week ago and out of his bag. He’d obviously going to your drawer and taken 6 pro-b1s. And i was like paddy you can’t be hitting pro-b1s. You can’t soi took all of them out his bag and out them in mine and replaced them with my crummy ones. I lost all 6 in 6 holes. 

D: its expensive being a dad with 4 kids but talking about expenses. We’re very excited because the brother’s trust has just launched this new event. It’s gone brilliantly. 

S: it was launched friday 

T: its raised over 90(?) thousand dollars 

D: what is it. It’s now sunday so we launched it Friday in london during the screening time  

T: what screening

D,S,H: we watched the avengers 

T: oh right 

D: your mom and I phoned it.

 S: oh is that why she left? 

D: yeah to make sure it was up. She was on wifi, she launched it. So while we were watching the film we were also looking at the counter at how many views 

H: how do you do that? 

D: mom’s got it on her phone T: 90 thousand is amazing already 

H: we can use that extra 2 thousand to replenish the golf balls we lost

D: actually that is a good disclaimer. None of the money is used for luxury holland  days out. All of the money goes to

 T: entirely non- profit

 D: yeah no one gets paid at the brother trust 

T: should we talk about the charities? We could each talk about one of the charities 

S: should we establish what it is?

 T: Why don’t you (harry) tell us about your trip to Kibera(?) 

D:wait before we do that, why don’t we tell people what they can win in the do’s 

S: why don’t you (tom) do that cause you’re the man 

H: you can see me 

T: harry will be there. So hang out with him. 

D: its the premier in LA 

T: its the LA premier for Spiderman far from home 

D: which we just watched the trailer of 

T: we just watched the trailer of. Which we dont know when it comes out and we can’t disclose any information for

 S: when is the premier? 

T: I think the premier is June 

H: ask for the trailer and then

 D: June 15th I believe … mid june

T: mid june but if you go online or on my instagram and the link in my bio, you can see all the details about when the event is and when it will be taking place. But whats really exciting is the ability to go to the far from home premier, we’ll give you $1000 spending money, we’ll put you up in a snazzy hotel. The winner will basically get the opportunity to fly with a friend from anywhere in the world to LA to attend the FFH premier with me. Harry will be there, Sam and dad will probably be there. On the carpet, we’ll take pictures, there’s an amazing after party that we’ll go to. Obviously we’ll get to see the film which is the most exciting part of the process. I haven’t even seen the film yet so you’ll be watching the fim for the first time with me watching for the first time which will be pretty awesome. And uh yeah, it’ll be pretty awesome 

D: it’ll be a great night. And that’s what people are entering the raffle for. The money that we raise guys we are really 

T (off camera): ow!

*pause*

 H: I really hope I get credit as your hand double in spiderman 

D: oh right yeah 

T: harry’s hand was in the first trailer 

S: yeah because when you unzip the suitcase wasn’t that you 

H: that was the first time I did it. It was terrifying 

S: were you nervous?

 H: oh my god

S: you’re just unzipping a suitcase 

H: no no no it was the first day of filming… 

*pauses for spoilers*

 T: start again.we were on set for ffh

 *Pauses again for spoilers* 

D: good I’m glad that resolved. So the brother’s trust when we founded it we have the idea that we would shine light on the charities that don’t get the publicity that big charities can generate. And we wanted to use charities that are very sort of cost effective. That sort of have most of the money going to the recipients not offices in london or new york. The big things what we didn’t want the money being spent on. And one of the charities is Lunchbowl and you just been to kibera so you 

S: you (Harry) go on all the trips, you do 

T: I know, you do all the cool trips H: I know, I’m the cameraman D: it was a great trip wasn’t it 

H: I went to Kibera, Which is the second largest town(?) in the sub saharan in africa and its the place of a charity we support, lunchbowl. What lunchbowl does is they have a nursery and now a primary/ secondary school and they basically take kids out of the slum and provide them with school and then on saturdays I believe it is they have a feeding program within the slum where they have 300 kids from within kibera come and they feed 300 children and they give them food and a stash of milk and then on sunday they have rugby. 

T: they play rugby?

 D: yeah they go to a posh school

 H: they go to a regular posh school in Kenya. The posh schools have it then they have these coaches that come 

S: we bought one of the busses, didn’t we?

 H: yeah. So one of things the brother’s trust did was we bought a bus which when I first heard that I was like why do they need a bus. But really the rugby ground is 5 kilometers 

D: a long walk

 H: so what happens is the bus is completely full to the point of them sitting on top of one another like this. And then what happens is when I was there, I saw like 20 kids at the gate. They’re just outside waiting at the gate and I went over with the head coach and he was explaining to me that these kids walked there 2 hours. Some of them are barefoot. To play rugby and then they get a meal afterwards. Another thing the bus does is take the kids from kibera to the new secondary school. I think the reason its so great is because the chance of a child making it to 5 years old is 50%. So you’re talking like the flip of a coin. So taking a child out kibera for the day. For 8 hours, 10 hours a day drastically improves the chance of survival 

S: mom was telling me during holidays they get really upset because they miss school so much.

 H: they say teachers can tell a massive change in behaviors after a holiday

 T,S: Really? 

H: because for these kids going to school is like, its like heaven

 D: and what they’re trying to do in kibera is what we take for granted. We have school from 4 - 18 mandatory, free for us in Britain/England. And what they’re trying to do is give these kids a chance to become educated.

 H: They want, so they used to have this school that went from I think 2-6 which is great but its not great because when a kid finishes at 6 years old where are they going to go? They go right back into the slum. So now that it goes up to 15, they only started that last year, that’s so massive for them. Because they can take a child from 2 years old to 15 and they can really shape the person they are with the teachers. 

D: its worth saying in light of what I was saying earlier, every pound that we give to lunchbowl, 97p is given to the children, 3p is postage. 

S: last campaign did 406? 

D: yeah yeah and we had a guy come over from america 

T: was his name Erik? 

D: yeah

T: he was really nice that guy 

H: we gave him a tour of set 

T: he came to set, we had a good time. He was lucky because they were about to tear down that venice set weren't they 

H: I feel like .. marvel police

 T: well that was in the trailer. There’s gonna be a red laser on your forehead 

H: right over there by the building with his marvel cap on 

D: and he stayed at the Sevoy(???) 

T: the venice set was so amazingS: I couldn’t .. they like dyed the water and everything 

*another pause* 

D: i don’t remember ever reading a marvel comic 

*tom plays a sound effect* 

D: what is that applause? 

S: are these like loads of sound effects? 

T: yeah its got loads of sound effects. I bought it for your … 

*Tom plays booing*

 D: Oh I’ve heard that! I’ve got that at work 

Tom (off camera): take us out sam. Send us home.

 S: okay that enough golf talk. But the main thing is the brothers trust campaign we’ve launch. You can go on Brother’s trust instagram and find the link, donate, and enter into the raffle. We can’t wait to see you at the LA premier. 

D: 2 people

 T: 2 people and 1 has to be over the age of 13 and its going to be amazing. Peace out. 

D: no more surprises.

[dotthings]

There’s a ton of John Winchester mirroring for the comic book store owner mentoring his successors and as someone else pointed out, “Jaeger” means hunter and they used footage from earlier eps for the fake trailer including John being their Jaeger stand-in. So a whole lot here about father figures, and mentors, and particularly John as someone who trained children to be warriors and is a complicated father role and there were costs to his obsession. Comic book store owner as a more benign mentor, until he became a ghost, but a parallel to John nonetheless. Are we not going to talk about the John Winchester and father-son pain parallel nod?

So let’s talk about that massive Jason Todd as Red Hood mannequin easter egg which is probably just meant as a fun easter egg because of Jensen’s planned Halloween cosplay. But the camera swept over a whole bunch of DC comics titles including Batman. While the Jason Todd mannequin is standing there in the comics shop. Just...standing there. Silent and heavy-laden with pointed significance.

Slight spoilers behind the cut for this ep and the dc animated movie Under the Red Hood where Jensen voiced Jason Todd and some batfamily and spn parallels.

Before I throw Bruce Wayne under the bus, the circumstances are a bit different. All of Bruce’s kids that he trained to be Robins came to him. Bruce isn’t exactly a picture of emotional stability and he shouldn’t have agreed to let minors become warriors alongside of him, but he also didn’t emotionally abuse them or tell them this was their only job and purpose in life and tell them they were worthless if they didn’t watch over their little brother properly. He was strict as a teacher, not denigrating or dismissive. And if Dick Grayson or any Robin had gone to Bruce and said “I just want to be a regular kid” I think Bruce would feel immense relief (and a little sad but mostly relief). Alfred would throw a party. Bruce would protect that regular life for the kids he mentored. All the Robins had to convince Bruce they could handle it, that they were ready, convince him to let them into his scary world, and Bruce, in all the iterations of the story, is strict about the rules and you aren’t ready until he says so and they all asked to be there. Begged, even. Even when Bruce was saying no you’re not ready.

There were however high costs. There’s a bunch of dead (and then un-deaded) Robins, there’s damaged Robins, there’s the Robin who didn’t die but left and became his own hero and became in some ways a better version of his adoptive father. There are also storylines where Bruce tells them nope that’s it this is too dangerous I don’t want to lose you so I am benching you. Which angers the Robins. Bruce knows the costs.

John is a different matter. Dean and Sam weren’t given an initial choice. They were raised into it from infancy. John punished outside interests, his kids looking beyond the hunting life. Bruce’s kids were always offered an education, college, options. It helps that Bruce was a billionaire with bottomless resources of course but John and Bruce both had a choice how they mentored their kids, how they treated them personally and yeah I’d say Bruce comes out looking like the better dad, with both of them in a zone of no dude don’t let kids be warriors. But allowing them and drilling it into their heads that can be their only worth and role in life are two different things. Nonetheless both Bruce and John are complicated painful father figures.

BTW Dick Grayson, the first Robin’s parents, were named John and Mary. And Dick was trained into the slightly perilous family business of being a trapeze artist, but with lots of safety nets and love and his extended circus family around him. Sam and Dean had no safety nets, there were no safety nets for John, and they had little sense of community. Also John and Mary Grayson died due to sabotage while performing without a safety net.

Should I bring up the fact Sam, Dean, and Cas are training Jack who is effectively still a child to be a hunter—but with lots of safety nets, with Cas telling him his own worth, instead of “this is your only worth.” With choices because Jack is the one begging to go out in the field while Dean is playing protective batdad saying no. If Jack said he wanted something else, if Jack decides he wants to go to college someday, or just be a guy who works in a comics shop and has friends, TFW is going to support him.

What’s interesting about Jason Todd showing up in this ep of spn is that Jason is the most tragic Robin and the one Bruce always felt the most sense of failure on. Jason is the Robin who died (there’s another one who did too but DC also undid that, and Jason was the first to die). Under the Red Hood effectively is the story of someone who thought his father didn’t love him enough. So it’s the high cost of training children to be warriors writ large and the Red Hood animated movie brings in a lot about insecurities from both Bruce and Jason’s end—I failed you, you didn’t love me enough. Jason’s also got sibling jealousy issues. Jason had behavioral problems, he was a bit of an asshole, he was basically good, but Jason was the 2nd Robin and had to follow Dick Grayson who is a really talented, good-hearted, smart, handsome, universally loved, gold standard of Robins, and became Nightwing who can hold his own as Batman’s equal.

Jason was murdered by the Joker and that was the end of him for decades. His memory haunted the batfamily. His memory taunted Dick with the potential for his own failure and he haunted Bruce. There’s a story where Bruce blows up at Dick saying Jason was just like Dick—brash and over-confident and so Dick could have been killed just as easy. Anyway Jason’s story was over until DC brought him back from the dead and while not gone all over to the dark side Jason was pretty messed up emotionally, tried to steal Nightwing’s identity in one SL, and uses violence to do his work on levels Batman was adamantly against. (note I have no idea if these backstories on the batfamily are still considered canon or not what with all the reboots but they are part of an emotional continuity in how I know the characters—it’s comics and animated series and there are emotional consistencies across all the canon versions and maintained through the reboots. Still, discussinf what’s “dc canon” is a mess).

Oh and Stuart was stealing from his mentor and in one of the Jason Todd origin stories, Batman found Jason when Jason stole from him (the batmobile hubcaps. Jason had moxy).

I was also a batfamily fan when I got into SPN and early seasons SPN sent all my batfamily parallel radars beeping. So now, that Red Hood mannequin, being in this ep? With those other parallels about John running strong already in place? Of all things, they put this ouchie of a batfamily nod in there? That is some easter egg. That thing was just begging to be meta’d, it was asking for it.

[shithead-central]

i don’t normally care about media all that much but holy fuck venom: let there be carnage may be the worst sequel i have ever seen. WARNING FOR SPOILERS BELOW!!

the way they didn’t deliver the hype from the first movie at all is acc sorta hilarious. every bad choice that could have been made was made dear god this movie is bad. all of the cuts felt abrupt and the scenes were short and barely kept the narrative going, it feels like the movie was like 20 min long. soooo many of the scenes made no sense at all and added NOTHING to the movie like the scene at the rave or when venom interrupts a mugging. the fight scenes felt so weird and forced and the whole ”they’re not symbiotic!!!” reveal by the end would’ve been the corniest thing ever if it wasn’t forgotten like five seconds after. also frances’ death was so anticlimatic. not that enough of her character was shown for her to even have an impactful death. girlie was honestly just there to be loud and be the kryptonite to the symbiotes. also her ability also wasn’t explained and it could’ve added so much to the story if the writers just once sat down and decided to figure out what her potential as a character could’ve been. aside from that mess, how carnage came to be was never truly explained?? like, at all?? kassidy bit eddie and now he has a symbiote? this was never expanded upon and not a single fuck was given from the writers and i hate this movie SO MUCH. the jokes fell flat most of the time, and while they were clearly going for what wirked the first time, boy did they misunderstand the assignment. either the jokes were akward and felt forced, or they had no buildup/went by too fast. AAAAGHHHHHH the worst part is that i love the first movie so much!! when i saw the trailer for v:ltbc in the cinema i became more exited for that movie rather than the one i was there to see. btw sorry for no paragraphs or proper grammar, i’m way too upset for that rn. These aren’t even all the things i dislike avout the movie aughhhhh

at least the bitches were allowed to be gay in the end. bless

Tl:dr

”Venom: let there be carnage” sucks ass and you shouldn’t get your hopes up.

[shaykeijser]

riverdale 2x16

 here are my thoughts/reactions to this weeks episode that no one asked for, which will include spoilers (obviously) so i’m putting them under the cut. i’ve already watched the episode so these aren’t my first reactions technically but they’ll be the same. 

caution: i’m not a fan of jughead or the core four. so i’ll be poking fun/getting annoyed at them.

- why did betty not go straight to alice with the dna test? why would she give chic, who she thinks is capable of hurting her, the opportunity to last out at her? i also still don’t get why she didn’t just get a normal dna test. like you’re a journalist, get the full truth, not just some of it

- i fucking called it!! why do ya think hal wanted nothing to do with chic? remember when he said “you’re letting this stranger into our house”? he wouldn’t call his own son a stranger

- fp is the dad and that’s the facts (that wouldn’t make bughead wrong don’t even try to defend that)

- chic is such a good creep IM LIVING FOR IT

- if it wasn’t a for-profit prison it wouldn’t be the worst idea. but it is so :///

- southside high was falling apart at the seems. the old students were aware of that and were plenty happy to go away! yes the lodge’s had other intentions with shutting down the school, but overall it was a good thing. there’s other, more valid reasons to not like the prisons that aren’t being talked about!!

- lol we know that veronica running for stuco wouldn’t end up well

- fred getting more screen time <333 (even if i don’t totally agree with him)

- does everybody at this school watch the same tv shows how is jughead quoting scandal (which i had to google) universally understood? i’m actually a sophomore and my friends and i quote vines.

- why isn’t ronnie defending herself? she gave that look to archie so he could defend her. where did kick ass veronica i don’t take no shit’ lodge go??

- ‘hunger strike for southside high’ BOI 

- ‘for it to re-open’ i had to pause this when i first watched this scene. he went there for like 2 weeks. toni was his only true friend for the majority of it. he didn’t like the idea of it and didn’t like what he had to do to survive there. the other students were happy with it closing!! why you gotta be so extra?? and if he really wants to get out of riverdale to be a writer he shouldn’t be trying to go back to a school that had teachers who gave up hope on their students

- ew ethel (i was eh with her all together but i’m still >:( over how she got mad at veronica for what hiram did to her father. veronica was one of the only people who was comforting her and tried to make amends. we can’t forget that when that all was going down veronica didn’t like her dad)

- WHY ARE KEVIN AND JOSIE SITTING ALONE

- wait jk i remembered 

- HAHAHA ok i’m josie (don’t get me wrong i like veronica and is the only tolerable lead for me atm but that slushie thing is really funny. it was sorta uncalled for, but she is working with her father soz)

- props to veronica for being the bigger person in this scenario

- 'what are the odds your father’s gonna be the first inmate in that prison?’ #boomroasted #thatwasatheofficereference #didanyonegetit

- lol at least veronica kept her cool for a little bit (go her btw)

- MY POOR CHERYL NO

- mama blossom is shady and nana rose is sassy

- that tea’s gonna be poison i’m calling it

- why would ethel’s dad want a job at the prison? he was a businessman

- veronica’s own parents are threatening her UGH

- power to veronica for wanting to run but this isn’t gonna end well

- TONI’S HOT & even if her audition flopped cheryl still would’ve made her member #lovemybabies

- tbh i didn’t like the lodges being the main plot point and i’d still prefer for the serpents to get more screentime than them BUT this is getting interesting

- drag him archie

- i want to see other south siders fighting for this why does jughead get to be the leader of this revolution (that i’m here for!! except for the school thing bc it doesn’t make sense)

- y’all have been having friendship problems since the ms. gr**** thing i think the trains have been getting closer than you think jug

- FINALLY, THE CHONI I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR

- something bad is gonna happen to cheryl i’m calling it, and nana rose

- (about what betty said after cheryl opened up) betty let chic into her and her family’s life can she not just be cautious from a distance and let her mom enjoy having her son back

- of course toni’s in the bed you sly little bird cheryl

- y’all gonna fuck? kidding this the cw that’s only for het couples

- THEY GONNA KISS AWE

- ok fuck why can’t we have some happiness for once

- penelope and claudius pushed her, i mean penelope had obviously prepared a back up plan incase she didn’t die (mentioning sundowners syndrome)

- #ProtectCherylBlossom

- aw archie’s mom is back i’m happy 

- YES SCHOOL THAT BOY FOR DISRESPECTING FRED GO MAMA ANDREWS

- charles melton looks really hot with a bruised face oi oi (so does jordan connor)

- that lowkey sounds like a bribe veronica.... 

- fang, toni, and pea are in this scene?? new favorite scene

- honestly, if any other serpent was the one in jugheads spot i think i would be all for it lmao

- i thought mary (andrews) was gonna also give archie the safe sex talk that he archie never got dang

- mary’s giving good advice though let’s just hope archie will listen to it

- I LOVE KEVIN 

- kevin had the right to tell chic, she was the one who forced him into the poorly planned catfishing (like seriously - she shouldn’t have been there and they shouldn’t have done it at a school). kevin has barely got any good storylines that actually continue and i’m so damn happy that he’s sticking up for himself. betty only reaches out to him when she needs help.

- betty talking about her darkness and saying ‘darkness’ in general is the most cringey thing ever. she has some sort of mental illness. i don’t know what but they shouldn’t have taken this ‘darkness inside of me’ approach.

- i wish V tried to become josie’s friend before asking her for an endorsement. actually, i wish the show resolved their friendship ages ago. they’re the one of the few WOC and overall i’m tired of girl x girl friendships being ruined like this

- it’s got so bad that veronica had to bribe josie to endorse her. i know this isn’t gonna go well

- sweet pea looking like an out of focus snack <333

- DRAG HIM JUGHEAD (lol you can tell how much i don’t like archie being up hiram’s ass that i’m praising jughead)

- give betty cooper therapy, you cowards

- ‘i caught the black hood’ bitch no you didn’t that hoe still out there & i’m taking that theory to the grave

- sheriff keller woah i forgot about him

- my boy fp!!

- omfg imagine when betty tells jughead that chic’s dad isn’t hal they better have him be like “...what if it’s mine” (i just realized that sorta sounds like jughead saying ‘what if the kid aka chic is mine’ and that’s not what i meant, i meant that chic’s dad is jughead’s dad but that made me laugh so i’m keeping it)

- oh sHIT something’s gonna happen @ this concert/rally for veronica’s campaign thing

- kevin’s filming it yeps something’s happening

- ope i knew it ethel is passing papers out 

- woop there it is

- i don’t ~really~ get why betty’s mad 

- JOSIE’S APART OF IT WTF I DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING but i should have :(

- this show tries to be all about female empowerment but then they have two girls banding together to bully an already manipulated and hurting girl. smh

- again, i don’t ~really~ get why betty can’t trust her anymore

- :((( i feel so bad for ronnie. she’s being manipulated by her parents and i really want her out of lodge industries. she’s taking blame for the shit that her parents have done

- THIS IS WHAT I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR

- HAHAHAA THE WIG OH MY GOD

- “i was guessing” congrats betty, you’ve played yourself

- the offer that hiram made to fp actually sounds nice :((( if only he wasn’t so shady 

- archie is so far up hiram’s ass he sounds exactly like him

- YOU GO MARY! SCHOOL YO CHILD

- finally a parent (alice) talks bout safe sex to their kid (betty)!!! my mom is gonna be so happy when she watches this episode (yes i watch riverdale with my mom, no it’s not awkward during sex scenes because we watch every show together so we’re used to it)

- “absolutely not.” keep telling that to yourself alice

- alice cooper is my favorite cooper

- “he’s dangerous.” bitch so are you? you held a lighter up to his face?

- i thought alice killed that drug dealer is that what betty is saying he did

- cheryl doesn’t have red lipstick on in this hospital scene something’s gonna happen

- nana was being poisoned by the tea :((

- i guess i’m remembering this wrong i thought alice shot him (about the scene in chic’s room)

- how did betty not remember that he didn’t touch anything

- CHERYL DROP AND ROLL OUT OF THAT CAR NOW

- look at archie being all smart aw

- why is betty next to kevin?? stay away from my baby (kevin)

- this scene is actually really powerful? even though them chaining themselves to the school is a repetitive and cliche thing to do, the aesthetics and the filming of it is really cool

- can we see all those young serpents more often pls

- what is jughead talking about why does he think they’re gonna lose riverdale high? is it because of veronica running? bc no one’s gonna vote for her after those flyers

- uGH i can see him being a good president

- why is betty so done with her and veronica’s friendship? i really don’t get why she’s so mad at her?

- jughead, betty, and fp all living together. that’s a concept

- SOMEONE WRITE A HEADCANON OF ALICE BUSTING INTO THE TRAILER TO GET BETTY BACK AND THEN WE GET SOME CUTE FALICE ANGST

- i’m happy mary’s staying bc maybe with her around we’ll get more fred screen time #canyoutellilovefred

- FUCK YEAH FRED IS RUNNING

- toni topaz is the caring type of girlfriend who goes to her girl’s house when they aren’t in school pass it on!!

- but really though where is cheryl what are they doing to her

- CHERYL DOESN’T DESERVE THIS SHE’S BEEN EMOTIONALLY ABUSED FOR YEARS AND HAS LOST A BROTHER, FATHER, AND BEST FRIEND 

main takeaways

~ veronica is being manipulated by her parents and doesn’t deserve half of the shit that’s getting thrown at her

~ jughead is still cringey and extra

~ toni is the girlfriend of all of our dreams let’s be honest here

~ cheryl blossom doesn’t deserve this bullshit

~ betty cooper is mentally ill

~ chic is fp and alice’s son

~ #FredForMayor

[mcgregor]

Just some thoughts that comes to me

!!! SPOILERS !!!

Hey, I wondered about some things !

Actors/directors said many things in interviews that didn’t end up in the movie. Same for the trailers/tv spots, there’s a lot of small scenes that finally weren’t in the movie. Those interviews/articles actually give us some backstory that aren’t mentioned in the movie. Like Anthony Mackie said Sam had been doing his thing alone since CW and then joins up Steve & Co in IW, but we could never guess that from the movie alone! They don’t mention it. There must be tons of deleted scenes !

There was actually very little of Steve in the movie :/ No? And he doesn’t talk much.  He was a pleasure to look at though hehe .I’m a bit disappointed that they didn’t take a bit of time to give him some “down scenes” where he just talks with Nat, Sam, Bucky or others. Example: I adore the Steve/Nat/Sam friendship, and from the trailers and all, I was hella excited because they’re seen together. But even though, they’re always together on the screen, they don’t even talk ?! No dialogues between them. None. I totally get why they couldn’t exploit these types of relationship more (with all those characters and stories to show) but I can’t say i’m not a bit disappointed on this. The other side, the “space” side got more time I think. 

Really thought there would be the Steve/Tony reunion in this movie, but well, still one year to wait ! Pretty excited to see the original team work together again though! It’s no coincidence. Almost like they want to close a circle. And I already feel like it’s gonna be heartreaking.

Had some problems with Tony lately, but I didn’t mind him at all here. I literally gasped when he got stabbed, and got teary eyed. Still think he ends up with most of the screen time, and that’s it’s not really fair, you know? His fight scene with Thanos was amazing though. And i had some doubts about the armor, didn’t really like the visuals, but NO, it’s so cooooool~~

The humour was great ! Loved the Thor/Rocket duo! THOR THOR THOR ! he was everything in this movie! He’s finally the god character he was supposed to be! Thank you Ragnarok for starting to show it! He is so badass, I adore him!

Groot literally dies twice in the MCU ! Talk about bad luck !

Wanda and Vision were so sweet ?? Never really shipped them or cared much for their relationship. But oh damn ! Btw, Wanda, who already lost her brother, has to kill the man she loves, all that for nothing because Thanos still ends up getting the stone and then she dies ?!!! So sad!

One thing that makes me particularly happy though. For weeks i’ve seen countless people, on every damn website possible say Steve was gonna die. And i’m literally gloating because they were oh so wrong. Like, I don’t know how many polls i’ve seen on twitter that listed Steve as the most likely to die. The Russos played us all so very well. Didn’t really think they’d actually follow the comic so well on this case though, wheee didn’t hesitate to kill so many *o*

This ending though .... it was eerily quiet in the cinema, scary, intense

[racefortheironthrone]

Thoughts on Spiderman: Homecoming

I’ll put my short, non-spoiler version above the cut for people who haven’t seen it yet: it’s good. It’s really good, head and shoulders above the Amazing duology and it holds its own against the Raimi films more than you would think. 

Specifically, it has two major strengths: first, as many people have noted, Tom Holland’s Spiderman feels like a real teenager way more than either Andrew Garfield or Tobey Macguire did - in part because the movie makes the most of out its science high school setting by giving Holland a secondary cast of other teens to bounce off of, and by making the conflict between his superhero life and his regular life being about high school things generally (making Lego Death Stars, Academic Decathalon meets, detention) instead of just about his romantic relationships. 

Second, as other people have noted, Spiderman: Homecoming feels way more New York  (more of a neighborhood Spiderman, you could say) than previous Spiderman movies. The Amazing movies’ idea of New York was some abstracted Times Square theme park, and with the best will in the world, even the Raimi films portrayed an extremely white New York that didn’t go beyond Midtown canyons and various landmarks. But Homecoming felt like Queens, from the multicultural student body at Midtown Science to Spiderman and the Prowler (you were great, Donald Glover!) arguing over which bodegas have the best sandwiches, to the jokes about how the outer boroughs aren’t well-stocked with tall buildings to web-swing off of, to Spiderman’s interactions with neighborhood locals who get pissed when would-be superheroes web their hands to their cars or repay subway directions with churros. 

Protagonist

So let’s start with Tom Holland. For all that people complain about the Marvel “machine,” one of the things the machine does very well is make sure that their writers and directors nail the main characters, even if that’s at the expense of the plot, because you have to sell the audience on the character to get the audience to care, and because superhero plots are generally pretty secondary anyway. And Homecoming does a really good job of building on the excellent work that Civil War did. To quote myself:

“I buy Tom Holland more than I ever bought Andrew Garfield or Tobey Maguire - Tobey was always a bit too soft and saccharine for me to buy that he was the irreverent snarker behind the mask, whereas Andrew’s performance was way too much of an over-reaction to the backlash against Spiderman III, and came off as way too cool.

That’s the thing about Spiderman/Peter Parker that makes him tricky: he’s a nerd and a bit nebbishy (although he kind of ages out of that a little - there had to be something there that Mary Jane Watson liked), but once he puts the mask on, he gains the confidence to express himself, even if that is as a smart-alecky motor-mouth. There’s a side of Peter Parker that has an ego, a yearning to show the world that he’s not Puny Parker any more - after all, the first thing he did when he got super-powers was to get in front of TV cameras - that makes him prank J. Jonah Jameson to get back at him, or not just fight the Kingpin but relentlessly crack fat jokes at him.

As I’ve said above, it’s really easy to grab one part of that personality and not the other. And one of the things I really like about Tom Holland’s Spiderman is that I feel like you have both...”

So how did Homecoming build on this? First, the nerd side of Peter Parker was nicely contextualized by his high school (which because it’s an elite magnet school is full of nerds) - he’s extremely high-scoring (he’s bullied by Flash because Peter’s constantly showing him up in class, and he’s the lynchpin of the Decathalon team until MJ steps up in his absence) but you get the sense that he feels like he’s maybe too smart for school so he sometimes gets himself in detention and probably hurts his GPA a bit by not doing homework in favor of his own projects; he’s a joiner (Decathalon, band, etc.) because he’s not very socially confident (hence his small friend circle of Ned and MJ, hence his mini-freakouts about Liz’s party and the eponymous dance) BUT he’s also someone who over-extends himself and then quits (holy crap did that one hit close to home), so he’s seen as a bit of a flake. 

Second, that nerd side nicely parallels his super-hero side, with the wonderful euphemism of the “Stark internship” (god, no wonder Flash is jealous). Peter is desperate for recognition, to get called up to the big leagues, to the point where he’s constantly biting off more than he can chew (literally taking the training wheels off too early) to prove himself to “Mr. Stark” and then tries desperately to hold everything together or explain his screwups away when it blows up in his face. (Notably, all of the major action setpieces in the movie except the last one involve situations where Peter’s over-enthusiasm has actually created a bigger problem: foiling the bank robbery causes the bodega fire, his investigation of the alien power source causes the damage to the Washington Monument, his web-slinging damages the fission gun that damages the ferry, etc.) At the same time, he’s trying to live up to the image of what he thinks a super-hero ought to be, whether that’s in posing for commuters and doing backflips for hot dog vendors or making quips at bad guys (notably, his smart-alecking always comes off as a mixture of nervous posing and too much energy rather than coming off as mean). 

But most importantly, at root Spiderman is a genuinely selfless hero - his first thought is to save the bodega owner and the bodega cat, he gives the ferry rescue everything he’s got even if he comes up short as 98% sucessful, he tells criminals to shoot at him rather than at anyone else, and in the film’s master-stroke, he goes all-out to save Adrian Toombs who’s repeatedly tried to kill him the moment he realizes that his wing-suit has gone unstable, because Spiderman doesn’t want to “instant death” anyone. And he’s utterly determined, as we see in the whole third act where he goes right after Toombs despite getting his ass kicked by the Shocker, then pulls himself out from the rubble Toombs buried him under, then gets himself onto the Quinjet then saves Coney Island from the crashing Quinjet, and on and on....

Antagonist

So...Michael Keaton. While not given a ton of time, Keaton does a great job reframing Adrian Toombs as the voice of blue collar upper-middle-class resentment, justifying theft and murder with his hatred of Tony Stark and the 1% on the one hand and the need to provide for his family on the other, and selling you on how this guy gives more and more reign to his dark side while trying to hang on to his hypocritical moral code. Also, it was an inspired idea to build on the idea of the Vulture being a scavenger by making him both a salvage operator and someone who later makes his money by stealing the aftermath of the Avengers’ battles and turns them into weapons. (BTW, even though the wings were re-done as military high-tech, they still had some personality - the way they draped down feather-like when he was resting on the billboard, the way he used them to pick up Peter and maybe use them as blades.)

Critically, the movie didn’t kill him off. See, Marvel’s villain problem isn’t always about how generic they are (although that was a problem for Malekith and Ronan the Accuser) but that they constantly kill off their villains which means that there’s no opportunity to build up a relationship between hero and villain - Robert Redford’s HYDRA true believer or Ultron would be great recurring villains, except they’re dead now. If Keaton ever wants to reprise his role, it would only take a jailbreak to put him back in the mix gunning for revenge according to his own code. 

Also, the movie did a good job seeding future villains. We see the mantle (or rather the gage) of the Shocker get passed on in the film, the Tinkerer seems to get away in the end so is on hand for future movies, we get a great setup for why the Scorpion would go after Spiderman, and we even meet the Prowler who’d make for a great frenemy villain. 

Secondary Cast

The kids are more than all right, they’re damn fantastic. Ned was a great audience stand-in as well as a voice of reason, was great as “the chair,” and even got to use the webshooters, Liz Allen nicely avoided a lot of “superhero girlfriend” pitfalls, Flash was a nice alternative to the over-used jock archetype, and Zendaya was a genuinely oddball presence who makes for a very different MJ than we’ve ever seen before (my friend @elanabrooklyn thinks that she’s basically comics Jessica Jones in all but name, which I would be ok with). 

Marissa Tomei as Aunt May could have used more screen-time, but what there was, was great, from the ongoing gag that she’s completely oblivious to the fact that pretty much all the men in the service sector she meets are in lorb with her, to her very real mix of showing concern and trying to encourage while giving a teenager room, to her final F-bomb - which thankfully cut short the “Aunt May can’t know” storyline. 

RDJ as Tony Stark actually didn’t over-shadow the film as much as people had worried - mostly, he’s there being simultaneously neglectful (answering some text messages, providing some encouragement outside of post-crisis situations, and actually explaining why you’re doing what you’re doing would be a good idea, Tony) and over-bearing (tracking devices and surveillance cameras are not a substitute for communicating, Tony), which is sort of how you’d expect him to handle being a mentor/surrogate father on his first go-round.

Plot

Despite how confident people were about what was going to happen in the movie from the trailers, the film actually did a great job throwing the unexpected at you, whether it’s the suburban lawn-chase sequence that wasn’t in the trailers, or the FBI showing up on the ferry, or the fact that Peter and Ned were directly responsible for the Washington Monument crisis, or why the Vulture and Spiderman were on a plane. 

More importantly, the high school plot really really worked and intersected nicely with the superhero plot - Peter’s indecision about using his Spiderman persona to boost his and Ned’s social standing leading into the suburban lawn-chase, the Academic Decathalon giving the Washington Monument rescue real stakes, and best of all, the moment where Adrian Toombs opens the door for his daughter’s date and the commonplace dad/boyfriend tension goes into overdrive.  

[hellyeahomeland]

"The episode that chances everything. The latest Homeland will leave you speechless". What is this all about? Have they always promoted the final chapters in this way?

Today I’m introducing a new feature which I’ll call FANDOM HISTORY WITH SARA. Please take a seat and grab a cup of coffee (or glass of wine) and let me take you on a brief history of finale promotion for our dear little show.

SEASON 1: 

The year, 2011. We’ve just been treated to the literal abomination on my SOUL that is “The Vest.” Can you even fuckin’ believe that episode exists?? Anyway, can you also believe that the episode promo Showtime released for “Marine One” which remains Homeland’s best episode and also one of the single greatest pieces of television ever was THIS? They gave away the whole fuckin’ thing!! That’s where my aversion to spoilers starts. FUN FACT: When I was originally binging slash becoming obsessed with our dear show I watched it all on Showtime OnDemand and they showed some version/semblance of that as a promo for S2. That is, while I was watching mid-season one episodes in which Brody’s fate is at question they’re showing clips of him PULLING THE FUCKING VEST TRIGGER AND IT FAILING. TAGLINE: “THE TELEVISION EVENT OF THE FALL. QUESTIONS WILL BE ANSWERED. SECRETS WILL BE REVEALED. AND NOTHING. WILL EVER. BE THE SAME. PREPARE. TO BE. BLOWN AWAY [BADUM CH].” (accurate, accurate, and very very accurate) 

SEASON 2: 

The year, 2012. We’ve just been treated to the literal train wreck that is “Broken Hearts” and the first half of “In Memoriam” (the original title of that episode, by the way, was “The Motherfucker in the Turban”… wonder why they changed it). ANYWAY the promo for that finale was a minute long and basically gives away the entire plot. I have very fond memories of watching that promo about 400,000 times. TAGLINE: NOTHING. WILL. PREPARE. YOU. (accurate)

SEASON 3: 

The year, 2013. At this point I guess SHO has caught on because the promo for this finale was a) completely unrevealing and b) depressing as shit, in keeping with other 2013 promotional gems such as “The One that Ruined To Build a Home” and “The One that Almost Ruined Adele.” (Oh, 2013. We had a time.) ANYWAY this one features music from Mass Effect which I’m told is a popular video game but all I’ll really remember is how the music swells when Carrie walks into the church and the strength of my convictions after watching that Brody was toast. For a trip down memory lane check this post in which I, spoiler-free, predict the meaning of that title and recount the shifting nature of Showtime’s promos; or this one, inspired by the voiceover. ALSO in lieu of a proper finale we got Claire IN A BUN (this was the origin of HAIR IN A BUN btw) being goofy in Morocco. 

SEASON 4: 

The year, 2014. The year that gave us “don’t touch my fucking gun!” among other things. The mood is not exactly right for a Mass Effect trailer so they go for more cryptic instead and craft something that had me panicking for a week that Dar was gonna fuck everything up (guess I was two years early). That promo was fairly uneventful but lemme tell you the story of two photos and one magazine that turned the HL fandom upside down:

Phantom Hand. Oh, phantom hand. The fandom went literally crazy trying to determine whose hand is there coming out of the left side of the frame. Was it Saul? Dar? Max? Virgil? Brody, risen from the dead? MUST BE KHAN! Turned out to be Quinn, which is the most logical explanation actually.

Bench. People also flipped their shit over this photo of Carrie sitting on a bench. Who is she waiting for? Is Quinn just out of frame? There aren’t enough bodiless hands here for our comfort!! 

But the story doesn’t get REALLY good until two days before the finale, December 19, 2014. That would be the day that dalliance anon entered our lives. To get the full picture, you’ve really gotta start from Point A. (Dalliance anon then became a meme in this fandom because every few months or so someone would write into the blog with a salacious bit of non-news and sign off with “this is the dalliance anon” until I told dalliance anon not to come back because it was affecting my health.)

SEASON 5:

The year, 2015. tbh I don’t really remember much about this promo. I don’t even remember if people were freaking out about Quinn possibly dying. 2015 was a weird year… what I do remember is that in the days leading up to the finale AG gave a series of interviews–obviously to avoid post-episode press–in which Quinn’s fate was mentioned zero times. The big promo photo freakout took place over Carrie and Otto at his cabin (if you’re wondering when that happened the answer is it DID NOT and fandom freaked out for nothing… kinda). TAGLINE: ONLY. ONE. EPISODE. LEFT. (accurate)

[killingdoll]

Warnings: spoilers galore, careless language, maybe inappropriate jokes

I watched the season premiere on Saturday and since then had been debating with myself whether to write a review for this spectacular opening of a new season. You see, last season I wrote a review for each episode and though it certainly had its fun, it was a bit tiring as well. Scratch it, much tiring. And being the lazy ass I am, I don’t really want to relive that ‘pain’. Still, my affection for this show is running strong and the newest episode definitely deserves some attention, so here is my thoughts (or rant):

Ooh, New Orleans. How I miss thy sights. How long has it been? 10 months?

Never realized I actually miss Vincent’s voice. Love the way the episode begins with his voice over on Nola scenes. My friend who watched with me thought his cadence was “poetic”, to use her word.

So, they indeed have an anniversary for the fall of the Mikaelsons. Nola residents sure have a weird way to ‘pay respect’ to the founders of their city.

Even better, a special event is held annually so that ‘tourists’ can witness the suffering of Klaus Mikaelson. What kind of tourists? Those with fangs, of course (and fancy cars that usually have a fresh, bleeding human corpse as accessory).

This vampire looks familiar somehow. Oh, I remember her. Sofya. The one-episode guest star in the previous season. I did remark that she kinda looked like Bex; maybe someone heard that and decided to change her look. Now she’s a brunette. Her profession remains unchanged however.

  And now she’s working for Marcel and maybe hooking up with him. Beware, Marcellus, for Bex is coming back to town and she can be intensely jelly.

On the other hand I don’t think we’re in need of a love-triangle subplot.

But if they’re going that way then I guess it just have to roll with it.

Oh Klaus. And his Fifty Shades in Chains. Who knows? It may be the title of the next instalment of the Fifty Shades of… Whatever.

He even has a collar! Damn Marcel is kinky. Just not sexy-kinky.

And that’s about 5 minutes into the season premiere perhaps?

Hayley sure has a night cozy house in the middle of nowhere. I wonder how she got it, by compulsion or the Mikaelsons’ money.

Guess not all the money has gone to Caroline Salvatore’s school. Ha-ha. (I’m being sarcastic btw.)

Yeah, the romantic-but-morbid-but-still-romantic scene in the trailer.

Look, look. Hope’s big girl now and she’s wearing that magic-restraining bracelet in the second season. Nice come back.

That means she hasn’t used magic once in 5 years? Hope she’ll get the hang of it quickly when the bracelet’s taken off because Auntie Freya’s gonna teach her a lot of badass shit.

Mary! Dear old same Mary who’s still salty with the Mikaelsons after all these years. Please don’t spread your saltiness to the little girl; they’re her family who all love her.

… which is what Hayley is quick to reinforce. Hayley f*cking Mikaelson.

Determined Hayley is the best Hayley. Glad last season she finally picked a side.

Josh… Not sure how I feel about thee… I mean thee are nice and all but…

Hah, my guess is right!!! Marcel has removed Papa Tunde’s blade from Klaus.

So, Klaus is like Marcel’s secret counselor or something?

Alistair Dupence(?). Did I get his last name right? Oh well, whatever. Just another item in Klaus’s never-ending list of enemies.

… who barges in the city and starts making demands. Hello, upgraded Original there. What makes you think he won’t play dirty and bite you somewhere nobody sees (double entendre very much intended).

His accent is more memorable than his person actually.

Srsly, after 5 years and he hasn’t found Hayley and Hope and the slumbering Mikaelsons? C’mon she hasn’t even left the country! Aren’t your resources a failure? I guess Hayley’s really good at covering her track and laying low but still…

And he throws the gauntlet! Wonderful. Mano a mano. Man to man… except put Klaus in chains and starve him beforehand pretty please?

That Hayley and Hope’s hug though.

Hayley’s in a black dress. OK, I’m so used to seeing her in shirts, jeans, leather jacket and boots that this new look is… startling. Looks very good on her though. Don’t get me wrong, but she can wear that dress at both a funeral and a nightclub.

I have a feeling she dresses to attract her prey’s attention…

… who is Keelin, a wolf. Is this the bisexual wolf I’ve heard rumors about?

Hayley doesn’t waste a second, doesn’t she? After five years she’s become very vigilant.

Let’s see… dimly lit, pretty dirty place: check, bondage: check, crazy contraption that’s likely to cause pain: check and check. I wonder why this place reminds me so much of Saw.

But Hayley doesn’t want to play; she’s in for business…

… which is gathering Keelin’s venom and waking sleeping beauty Freya up.

That Hayley and Freya’s hug.

I guess Freya’s so accustomed to this sleeping-for-years-and-then-up-and-walking shit she doesn’t waste a moment for her stiff, lethargic muscles to flex and goes straight to work. That’s big sis for ya!

Hayley VS Alistair’s lackeys. Hayley: 1, Alistair’s lackeys: 00000000 (can I add the zeros to infinity??)

Her f*cking wolf form though. ♫♫♫♫ Who let the wolf out? ♫♫♫♫

But the most gruesome awesome kill goes to…… Freya Mikaelson. Srsly brain melting? That’s a novelty.

She probably has so much energy pent up in her. Poor that vamp dude. Next time buy a life insurance. That way your wife and kids will get compensation.

Once again this show proves women are a force to be reckoned with.

Klaus VS Alistair (plus crowd). Klaus: 0, Alistair: 1. Some ranting on Alistair’s part later… Klaus: 1, Allistair: 000000…

See the similarities?

I seriously think Klaus should expand his diet to vampire blood as well. I mean Alistair’s full of healthy blood; why doesn’t Klaus just sucks him dry? He’s been pretty starving, hasn’t he?

“Meet…… your…… maker.”

Too bad Marcel has to choose this very moment to be a dickwad. Why, Marcel, why?

Marcel’s boast kinda gets on my nerves.

“You want more?”

Hayley’s making badass taunt while standing in her gloriously nude form. I’m fine. I’m so fine. Are all wolves natural naturalists?!

Elijah’s really the expert in creepy killing. Is this a throwback to the pilot where he killed all those vamps who were ganging up on Sophie?

Haylijah reunion.

The kiss! I’m not a Haylijah shipper but still…

Vincent mentions Cami and Klaus immediately shuts up his threats. “You stayed my hand and quelled my rage” indeed.

Even better, Cami will make an appearance in the next episode!

“When it comes to my family’s safety, I don’t negotiate.” Mikael’s beloved daughter speaking.

“After all this time…” “Me too.” They really don’t need many words, don’t they?

“A child after my own heart.” The moment they will get to meet Hope will be s-p-e-c-t-a-c-u-l-a-r!!!

And now they’re going back for Klaus!

Kinda agree with Klaus about Marcel’s not escaping his shadow and being weak. Kinda feel bad Klaus gets daggered for that. “Why’re you so hell-bent on proving him right, Marcel?” to parody Vincent’s words.

Overally, a good episode and a strong start for the season. Looking forward to the next episode.

[Rant] Gather Up the Killers – The Originals 4×01 Warnings: spoilers galore, careless language, maybe inappropriate jokes I watched the season premiere on Saturday and since then had been debating with myself whether to write a review for this spectacular opening of a new season.

[kitto-toberu-sa]

Tri Spoilers

I feel the new trailer has kinda spoiled some of the films best moments since they take some of the tension out of it... On the cast talk, they didn’t say much of interest, since we hadn’t seen the movie, so anything interesting would have been a spoiler...

Cast Talk Sora’s va had invited other cast members to her concert and they came, so she felt like they were family. They twirled around in the uniforms and said they thought the movie was interesting. Next broadcast is those two + Mimi, with Takeru as the MC, because he’s cheerful and able to chat. He called himself ponkotsu (useless, terrible etc) and said he found it difficult, so Sora should do it, but she said she was ponkotsu too. Mimi’s va is the ‘you can do it’ senpai, so the announcer said the three of them probably balance each other out lol

Warning: I was working on three hours of sleep and did have a teeny tiny bit of alcohol before the movie (I get tipsy easily :/) so I may or may not have missed something. 

Shipping moments - honestly whenever someone asks me about a ship moment I never know if they’re talking friend or romance. Because in all honesty, character A can look at B and half of tumblr will say it’s code for them dating. So when y’all say ‘moments’ I never know what you’re thinking because half of you exaggerate nothingness into canon. So when I’m asked about moments, I talk about times when characters interacted. I hope that clears things up.

Also please slow down on the shipping asks. I deleted over 10 messages. Patience is appreciated. So is not being rude. I’m happy to talk about literally any ship, but don’t spam me and demand answers. You make your ship and the fandom look bad. (Also why are y’all on anon I don’t bite lmao)

We start off with a flashback, done in an old timey style (like old movie cinema noises, flickering visuals etc. I thought it was rad like it made me so happy I love it) HIMEKAWA AND DAIGO ARE DIGIDESTINED. (HE’S A GOGGLEHEAD I LOVE HIM) So we see their final story and that’s hella cool but I can’t read kanji and some of it was written in kanji so :/

Looks like she was possessed like Hikari? Glowing eyes and shit, mentions of light, hope, Yggdrasil and homeostasis. (Apparently they were the original chosen which seems kinda blegh to me but w/e)

So they both know they’re chosen and Maki works her butt of to try and get them back (looks like she may have made reboot in order to reach her partner?). At one point Daigo tries to get her to STOP (even though she just wants to see her partner??? Bakumon/Tapirmon)

“I’ll be your new partner”

I fucking squealed HOW CUTE

But also what a dumb confession you nerd. This looked to be high school or uni btw. She was favourable to that. It seems they dated for a time but he forgot everything? (Which explains why she’s so bitter 24/7)

In any case, the kids are stuck in the D World with no way to contact anyone (Gennai isn’t answering) or to get home. They eat. Koushirou goes on a lecture about Oolong because Mochimon said it was nice. Mochimon is looking for a polite way to say ‘I honestly don’t care’ since Koushirou is rambling about it while everyone is doing their own thing. Sora made food for everyone. Everyone’s bonding but Piyomon is being an unreasonable bitch. I can understand her being scared, confused etc, but she’s full on aggressive the whole movie, and it literally makes no sense. It’s distracting, not like the first Piyomon we knew and it doesn’t advance the plot or characters.

Ah, there’s also a few scenes where they’re trying to bond with their Digimon. Hikari’s whistle smells like her so they bond pretty quick and it’s pretty cute. Tsunomon is hiding even though yamato is standing ages away just looking over his shoulder. Lots of ‘DON'T EAT ME PLZ’ which is cute and Mochimon is adorable.

Koushirou is busy so Mimi tries to feed him!!!! He goes bright red and puts his laptop in front of his face, saying he can feed himself. I’m screaming everyone loved it they’re SO CUTE. Sora made some weird shit with jelly beans and whipped cream. Koromon is the only one who likes it. Everyone else thinks its fucked up. I wouldn’t eat it.

Everyone Digivolves because of food? Palmon has a cute scene where she’s all like ‘Am I cute~?’ and Mimi is like YAAAAS YOU ARE! YOU’RE THE DIGIWORLDS NEXT TOP MODEL (okay not a direct quote but shush) which is super cute since Mimi wasn’t impressed with having an ‘ugly’ digimon originally so it really shows her development and growth.

Meikuumon appears, runs away and then disappears through a portal. Meikuumon is very odd, going from crying to being incredibly angry the whole time. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. Meiko gets to the Digital World after her Digivice changes.

Sora is upset because Piyomon is being a bitch so Taito try to comfort her. They sit on either side of her, so it’d be an excellent opportunity for them to both show interest in her. Or for Yamato to go ‘dude, my girlfriend/love interest, back off’. But no. Apparently neither of them know more than ‘Sora’s upset’ and have no idea what’s really wrong or how to help, so they’re using each other as back up to try and make her happy.

How many years have they known each other now? They should have some type of guess at how to help her inidivdually. It makes me wonder if the epilogue is tri canon because this could have set Sorato up perfectly, but if you didn’t know the epilogue, you honestly never would know. Everyone would assume it’s Koumi that’s the official pair.

Agumon floats by on a log? So Tai goes to help and Sora walks off. Tai says the same line Piyomon said about taking care of herself and she’s all like ‘don’t say what Piyomon said!!!’ as if Tai knew about it??? The whole scene is funny, but it’s filler and just goes ‘boys and girls are SO different they CAN’T understand each other?!???!’. It’s basically Taito speaking in unison and going ‘girls are troublesome’.

Considering they don’t know how to comfort her and they’re constantly together, I wouldn’t say it’s a win for anyone but Taiorato fans, and due to the bad writing, I don’t think you can call it a win.

At some point they’re discussing Meiko and Hikari’s like ‘ehhh Takeru, don’t you have a crush on her?’ and he’s like ‘don’t worry, my number one person is...’

-looks at Yamato-

‘Isn’t that great, oniichan?’ (Taichi)

Tsuntsun Yama makes his appearance again. I LOVE IT.

Everyone (Meiko not included) is deciding what to do and Jyou is old reliable Jyou again. Takeru mentions how he’s like Jou of the past and Mimi wonders if he’s responsible now because he has a girlfriend to look after. Jyou can tell by her tone she doesn’t believe he has a girlfriend. I live for these jokes tbh.

Everyone gets separated when the big bad attacks. The scene of Jyou/Pata/Pal is adorable, since we see Palmon and then it pans up to Jyou. It looked so dramatic but then it’s Jyou and two weak/girly looking Digimon against a stormy sky and everyone just burst out laughing. 

Tai and Gabu are together. Tai’s shouting for everyone. Gabu joins in.

“YAMato... kun”

He’s too embarassed because they aren’t close enough and stuff to just say ‘Yamato’. Tai is a bit miffed that Gabumon won’t use honorifics on him lmao Gabu’s the cutest little muffin and everyone loved it. It happens again later when he and Yamato are reunited and Yamato is like ???  why honourifics??? and Taichi’s still pissed he doesn’t have honorifics lolololol

Anyone Tai and Hikari meet up and Tai’s like ‘well all their memories are gone it sucks’ and Hikari’s like ‘I don’t know. This way, Plotmon doesn’t remember all the bad things that happened to her. I think it’s okay this way.’ AND DAMN THAT HIT ME. Abuse isn’t something you just magically get over. It’s a lifelong fight. Honestly it was really simple and wasn’t elaborated on, but it seriously touched me. It says a lot about Hikari and her relationship with Tailmon to me.

Palmon draws Mimi on some rocks. Koushirou and Yamato are together and Koushirou just shows photos of everyone having fun which is cute, but do we really need all this bonding stuff? Tri has been really well character driven, but it rebooted to 0 character for the Digimon so I just feel like it’s a bad decision and I’m worried about the time it ate up, since it leaves less time for plot.

Piyomon and Sora are in the desert, Piyomon tries to ditch, they find Meiko. They go recoop and Piyomon doesn’t want to talk to Sora but she happily does whatever Meiko says? Which considering how little she trusts Sora, why would she trust some random human she just met? It’s honestly so cringey and Sora and Meiko were uncomfortable with it, and it made no sense. Sora deserved better.

Ken appears to Sora and Meiko. He shows himself to be Gennai. But apparently is NOT Gennai, but is on the Digimon’s side. Whatever the fuck that means.

Also, he licked Sora’s face while pinning her down and felt all over her to steal her Digivice. It made me hella uncomfortable. It wasn’t necessary, the cast is already freaked out by him, he’s stronger and smarter than them, so it did nothing except make the audience uncomfortable. Sora didn’t make much of a reaction either, so it was weird and unnecessary and not what Digimon is about. 

Maki finds her partner but obviously it doesn’t remember her. She seems really shocked? Like what the fuck? She probably knew this would happen, or the amount of time it’s been could have changed things. Instead of being understanding or sad, she goes berserk and grabs it and shakes it? Girl needs to chill (honestly made me uncomfortable, like imagine shaking a small child? ew)

(Meanwhile, Huckmon fills Daigo in in Maki’s office and just info drops really. Daigo has some nice hacking skills tho. Mostly cuz he knows Maki too well lol)

By the end of the movie everyone except Tailmon is at their final form iirc. That was pretty rad, except I’m pretty sure Takeru’s digivice said MagnaAngemon instead of Holy? Also, Butterfly was playing instead of Brave heart for some of the evolution and that’s weird and wrong. (I love it but it isn’t the evolution song :/)

The end battle is everyone going ‘oh shit Sora/Meiko are in trouble lets get Gennai away from them’ and for some reason they’re on a boat? Okay then. Taito run off with Hikari and encounter Seadramon. Hikari is left to float by herself while the other two drown. They're ultra gay because Taichi can’t swim enough so starts drowning (even though he should theoretically be more athletic than Yamato? Or at least equal) so Yama comes back and swims around him to save him? But they both drown and the AguGabu’s friendship saves them and they Digivolve. As you do. They monologue and shit, but, as much as it’s my OTP and Yama is bae of baes, it didn’t fit the tone, the situation or anything. It wasn’t important. Generic friendship stuff.

Nobody really brings Sora back to her normal self, but Piyomon comes to her senses after Sora tries to save her and is repeatedly smashed into a mountain. Meiko does try to comfort Sora before they’re all attacked and is all like ‘Digimon are our partners’ and using the words Sora used to comfort her (this is right before Meikuumon attacks her too lmao so Meiko tries to help Meikuumon and then they’re all attacked by gennai).

So the others come up with a plan to distract Gennai from SoraMei (which backfrires because Sora runs off to help everyone and he can teleport? So he’s like lol thanks for leaving Meiko wide open nice).

JYOU FULL ON TACKLES GENNAI IT’S BRILLIANT AND COMES OUT OF NOWHERE FUCK DIGIMON I’M USING MY FISTS WHAT A BRAVE GOOD BOY

Piyomon gets captured, Sora tries to save her and is smashed up against a wall of ice numerous times. Piyomon digivolves, mostly everyone else does and a giant Tentomon appears?!? Because Koushirou used a hologram, nice. There was no reason for Palmon and Gomamon to be on the sidelines. Nice fight tho. Takari scene were ice is crashing and Takeru is looking out for her, but that’s what he’d do for anyone, and I’m honestly sick of her needing to be saved (happened like, three times this movie? Yuck no thanks)

Anyway Gennai plot drops and I don’t really get it but it looks like he was using Maki to make reboot so Digimon who were sealed away could be reborn and Meiko is needed for some reason (maybe due to Meikuumon’s virus?). Yggdrasil seems to be the big bad. Gennai is trying to get Meikuumon to do something but it won’t so he strangles Meiko until she passes out (I honestly don’t believe she’s dead) and Meikuumon evolves.

The end.

---

My thoughts:

Weakest movie so far. Many scenes were enjoyable but since the Digimon are memoryless, it didn’t add to development, character or plot wise. Enjoyable scenes were also dragged out too long, leaving little room for plot. Plot came out of nowhere and was unexplained (where the fuck are the 02 kids) and Sora honestly just cried a lot. This should have been her and Meiko’s movie, because Taito didn’t do much plotwise and Sora’s arc was written too weakly to carry the movie. At the end of the movie everyone kinda paused, going, ? oh, that’s it? It didn’t feel like a complete movie

Felt a little like filler. I enjoyed it, but I’m very worried about the pacing the last two movies need to fit everything in.

Especially if the epilogue is canon. They’re either glossing over everything (ie Sorato) or … I don’t know. Like, to show a relationship, all they need is Sorato standing next to each other, Yamato attempting to comfort her alone and like, one or two lines a movie where they show concern for each other on more than friends level. But Koumi + Jyou/Mystery Woman get more than that, so it’s worrying to see how it will end out.

I honestly don’t care if they rehash the epilogue. I like it as it is, but unless they did something majorly off like pair Meiko with Yamato I’d probably be happy with it (I only wouldn’t accept this as it comes out of nowhere). I don’t think there’s really been tonnes of Takari hints (some, yes) but I wouldn’t mind betting that Koumi has good chances of being canon, though Mimi doesn’t always seem to realise Koushirou likes her, so maybe not. But if any couple was going to be canon that wasn’t originally canon, that’s where I’d put money. 

[sleepymarmot]

Andromeda liveblog: day one

Spoilers!

Eos/Tempest:

The Vault is beautiful! Even though the moving bridges, just like the floating rocks on Habitat 7, are blatantly copy-pasted from Trespasser.

Drack said the fight was fun. Of course it was -- that was the first time I used Annihilation/Charge/Nova!

Military or science -- how is that even a question? :D

Even back in the trial, I instantly became fond of the Tempest crew, in a way different from the Normandy. Not bound by the blood they spilled together -- but a team of nerds and people taking care of those nerds, pretty much. Feels more like the Enterprise!

What helps is that there's already a net of relationships between everyone -- I was thinking about it when Drack was revealed to be Kesh's father and talked about their problems with Tann and their relationship with Vetra. The Nexus backstory really gives depth to this game.

I didn't expect this, but I actually do like Peebee! Since her first trailer appearance, I've been annoyed with her -- obligatory asari LI, shitty design with a sexualized outfit and eyebrows, manic pixie dream girl-ish image -- but her personality won me over. She's a bit similar to my Ryder, and they clicked instantly -- two young, energetic explorers. And she doesn't seem too quirky so far, just a very extroverted nerd. And she has something nice to say about everyone on the ship!

You know, I've been wishing for a romance with a nerdy but genuinely nice person (unlike a certain elf...) and looks like I have not one but two -- and female! -- options here! :D 

The first flirt option with Peebee is good, the second is not.

Ah yes, a readheaded religious wlw written by the same person as Leliana... Look, Leliana is special to me, but this is just annoying. Maybe because Leliana is special.

Another convo with Vetra: "Someone had to know" "Did your father?" "I'm not sure" LOOK THE CONFIRMATIONS JUST KEEP ROLLING IN

Oh, here comes the flirt option I've seen on Youtube! I feel a bit awkward hitting on both of them repeatedly... Will I, on my seventh Bioware game, finally encounter a jealousy conversation?

Peebee has attractive personality, but Vetra's fashion style is obviously superior.

*looks at Liam's handsome face, sighs and stops herself from hitting the heart because that'd be a bit too much*

Nexus/Hyperion:

I love that Tann is the only real politician around, and everybody won't stop complaining about him, even though he's completely benign :D

It's a great feeling that doing sidequests is completely justified this time. In this game, it's literally my job to fly around and ensure random strangers' wellbeing! Oh look, someone on Reddit made a post appreciating this too.

"Your father is my problem. He's everyone's problem. We're all paying for Alec Ryder's ego. He preyed on Jien Garson's trusting nature and bulldozed us to this godforsaken place" !!! More evidence!! (Random angry woman on the Hyperion)

This is a great way to introduce flashbacks! And to reveal information gradually.

SAM is basically the third Ryder child, huh.

The camera angle and lighting in SAM's room is one of the most flattering in the game.

I'm glad we're actually giving spotlight to the transhumanism theme, unlike with Shepard...

Or maybe SAM is Ellen's reincarnation somehow? It's clear Alec somehow intended to save her with it, but how? I'm genuinely enjoying this mystery. Alec sure has a lot of character and presence, especially for a character with so little actual screentime... You can see his shadow over the entire story.

There's some nice animation at Scott's bedside!

"Is dad okay?" Shit. Shit. Now that's a choice...

(I mean, what she's saying will turn out to be true, hopefully...)

I didn't lie about Habitat 7, though. That's not as important.

Holy crap, that was an emotional scene.

I like Garson's Super Ethical VI Interview.

Professor Gerik in the lab on Nexus has a letter about us being invasive species and preserving local biodiversity! That's nice. (But on the other hand, we'd endanger it just as much if the Scourge hadn't done it first.)

Female Salarians look like male Salarians and sound like female humans. I should just learn to live with the fact that there'll be no real Salarian voices in this galaxy... Ugh.

Ahh Drack is visiting Kesh!!

Have I mentioned how fond I am of our new council/advisors? Kandros is a bit bland, but the other three are great.

30 minutes after I said that SAM is like another sibling to Ryder, he got infected with a virus. Give this family a break!

Of course the hackers were wrong etc, but the things hacked!Avina says are still absolutely correct...

BTW I chose to unfreeze merchants first -- to get the bigger inventory. Ugh, the lack of inventory was one of my favourite things about ME2 and ME3...

I had to read a walkthrough for "Station Sabotage"...

I like the design of Zara's face.

The Nexus sidequests are all about intrigue and investigation! Just like the main one about Alec, and the characters' backstories related to the uprising. Nice. I feel like a detective. It really gives the game a unique feel.

The saboteur has a good face too. And another sympathetic voice re: the uprising.

Tempest

Cora the gardener!

Damn, that speech about acceptance sure sounds like she's not talking about biotics... Why is she straight, Bioware?

Poor Cora. I can only continue to admire her ability to not hold grudges -- something that impressed me about her when Ryder became the Pathfinder.

It's so cute that the crew members have a group chat, have I mentioned? Really makes the ship look alive.

Vetra, Peebee, Gil and Liam are chatting like old friends! And the fact that they're playing poker reminds me of the Enterprise even more.

Eos

A timed mission to save colonists... with driving... I was so nervous!

FUCK I can't figure out this Fiend fight

I died like four times already what the fuck

Why can't I charge?! What do you mean "wrong target"?!

Also autosave glitches me through the floor every goddamn time!

Died about 8 times, I'm going to replace Peebee with Drack and turn down the difficulty

Oh thank fuck, this time it worked.

*can't find the evidence in the cave* *fast travel back to the start three or four times, get stuck on rocks*

Oh, here it is. Yeah, I enjoy playing detective, but I'd like less bugs!

I died and the game got stuck on reload

Alright, some sidequests are in the level 3 radiation zone which I don't know how to clear, and I can't find the bodies of the dead colonists. It got boring anyway. Back to the ship!

Tempest

Gil sends me an e-mail mentioning Jaal, whom I haven't even met...

Kallo's still arguing with Gil -- I'm pretty sure there's something going on he's not noticing... Nobody else has anything new to say. Let's advance the plot, then.

New solar system/Tempest/Nexus

Whoa, I didn't expect things to get so intense immediately!

Sooo, are you going to explain how the angara got the translators working within several minutes?

Are you trying to tell me the kett and the angara aren't related, despite having exactly the same faces?

Jaal's cape flapping is mesmerizing.

I don't understand, why is everyone being so weird and unprofessional?? Instead of opening normal diplomatic talks, they stand in a circle and say shit about Jaal in his presence. Why the hell are they being so entitled? If the angara help us, of course we need to offer something in return.

Liam, what movie night?! We're kind of busy!

Well, at least Jaal isn't going to let me exhaust all conversation topics in one go! :D

"I LIVE IN AN ESCAPE POD" :D

Stop! Prompting! Me! To! Flirt! With! Gil! Two different times in the same conversation -- what??

Okay, by this point I'm pretty sure that the poker mentions are not just a coincidence but a deliberate reference to TNG. 

When will I have enough materials for an asari sword? Maybe a quick trip to the Nexus will help. *immediately gets buried under sidequests*

What, you don't have laws for attempted murder? That has never happened in the entire history of Milky Way? Bioware sure likes to create a complex situation then make you decide between two extremes. I let the turian stay, but I'm not impressed.

What, and they didn't even tell the public what really happened? Ugh.

Pacified the protesters successfully.

Was prepared to go and realized I forgot one sidequest on the Nexus, went back... I need to stop doing this! It's ruining all momentum.

Havarl (not sure about the spelling)

Main plot again, here we go!

Oops, clicked on the wrong button and now my team still has Vetra instead of Peebee.

Nice scenery.

Okay, it's stupid to leave the planet just to swap squadmates, but it's even stupider to explore this planet without Peebee.

Oh right, there is a spot here for a forward station. (Don't the angara mind?)

There's an entire alien jungle, and nothing is scannable? Really?

@myself stop fucking dying... how am I supposed to fight enemies I don't see without any reasonable cover...

Oh, right, this is normal water, not the Deadly Electric Water. That's a relief, at least.

Oh look, normal cover, I can use my ranged powers like an adept/sentinel I intended to be instead of novaguarding.

Spent like half an hour trying to find a way towards the forward station mark on the east, gave up. This Pathfinder isn't very good at finding paths...

Let's find the gay turian Pathfinder!

What am I going to do with all this nickel? These aren't the materials I'm looking for, Bioware

And finally, after exploring everything else -- the Monolith!

This happened again: the profiles refuse to switch mid-fight. WTF???

"Follow the Remnant river?" You mean, what I've done an hour before? I sure hope the Remnant didn't respawn...

So the Remnant are Order and the Scourge is Chaos? I see we've arrived to witness an existential struggle of cosmic forces...

Why are my companions so useless during exploration? They don't give advice, they don't even have banter like in DA.

Oh GREAT, a jumping puzzle, and in the dark too.

I must say, the design is really beautiful, they nailed the intersection of "Alien", "Ancient" and "Powerful" here. Though I'm salty because it's just a sci-fi variation of the ancient elven design from DAI, which means DA4 won't be able to use it probably.

Nice view! @people with powerful PCs, please photograph these things for the rest of us!

Novaguarding+shotgun (only a Katana!) is so powerful I don't feel the need to do anything else...

We're nearly at the top and there's a health pack. I better save...

The plot thickens!

Oh. Is THIS the forward station I've been looking for? No wonder I didn't find it lmao. They should have just covered it in fog...

Why are shields so much harder to take down than armor? Ugh, that boss. At least on the second try I managed to kite him...

Yes, I climbed the column. Whatever. I got some Vanadium! Finally, I need it for my asari sword.

Oh, okay, THIS is the forward station from above. OK.

One of the enemies I had to defeat in a camp got stuck somewhere and I had to run around for 10 minutes before I found him, except I didn't even see him and he apparently died when I approached, but idk how it happened.

I met the reincarnated dude. And that's enough for today.