#this is GREAT holy cow

[roominthecastle]

I don’t know how aware you are of fanfiction, but the leading ACGAS-ship, or relationship, is Siegfried and Mrs Hall. How do you view that relationship and the fan response to it?

SAM: I don’t read fanfic and perhaps I should, although I would be wary of reading fanfiction about Mrs Hall and Siegfried, only because it might give us ideas! It’s a fascinating relationship based on a very strict and well-established principle, which is that I employ her. I call her Mrs Hall and she calls me Mr Farnon.

At the same time, the real power in the house is Mrs Hall, and I’m wise enough not to question that. It would be extremely unusual for them to have a relationship, but nothing is impossible. I am enormously grateful for her presence and, increasingly, for her wisdom, kindness, and attention. And that is likely to become more important, not less. They’re two people with important histories of marriage, heartbreak, and their own problems with children — either having them or not having them.

And one of the wonderful things about All Creatures Great and Small is that things never happen too slowly. More and more, we’ve rightly chosen to put off emotional payoffs. So I would say to people holding a candle for Siegfried and Mrs Hall, “Never say never.” I haven’t seen the scripts for series four, so I don’t know what happens, but professionally, I’ve never been happier than when working with Anna Madeley. I love her portrayal of Mrs Hall, and Siegfried does too. Beyond that, who knows?

I would love to see it.

SAM: They’re sort of married already. You can tell a lot of story just by holding hands.

[pia-duo]

Dance Doctor, Dance!

[crashing9against9the9walls]

But I'm in the trees, I'm in the breeze

My footsteps on the ground

You'll see my face in every place

But you can't catch me now

[jessicas-pi]

y'know I'm a little surprised that the Princess Bride reference didn't win, but then again, this one is also a great choice

Sabine’s face is set in determination. “Okay, I’m gonna ask you a really weird question, and I need you to be honest.”

“Sure.”

“Completely honest.”

Ezra nods. “Of course. What is it?”

“If I asked you to, would you fake-marry me?”

Ezra stares at her.

“…would I fake-marry you?”

“Yes. If I asked, would you? Because—” She sucks in a breath of air, and he can sense her spiking anxiety. “Because, you’re my best friend and if I had to choose someone to spend the rest of my life with it would be you, and my family thinks you’re great, and—and if we were fake-married then when I go back to the Ghost you could have the bottom bunk in my room and you wouldn’t have to share with Zeb anymore, and it would be fun, right? And—when we’re older, maybe we could adopt a kid, or a Padawan, and let’s be honest, it would be hilarious for the Countess of Clan Wren to have a Jedi son-in-law, and you don’t have to say yes, obviously, this is just random and hypothetical and—okay, it’s not hypothetical, but you can say no and I’d understand, but—”

He interrupts her with a touch on the arm.

“Sabine.”

She winces and looks away, but Ezra smiles.

“I would totally fake-marry you.”

Sabine meets his eyes instantly. “Really?”

“Really. We’ve been fake-dating for two years; this is just the logical next step, right?” he jokes, but she stays serious.

“You don’t need time to think about it?”

“No. Honest.”

For a second, their gazes hold, and then Sabine nearly tackles him over in the second enormous hug she’s given him that day.

“Thank you,” she whispers, squeezing him tightly for a second before letting go, and she sounds so relieved that it makes him wonder if there’s some bigger reason she wants to fake-marry him. (Probably complicated Mandalorian politics.) “You’re actually kind of great, Ezra Bridger.”

“And somehow it took you this long to figure it out,” he banters back.

“Very funny.” She punches his arm with a laugh, then clasps his hands and meets his eyes and smiles so warmly that he would think there was something more behind it, if he didn’t know there wasn’t. “So, who are we thinking for wedding guests?”

Ezra thinks for a moment pretending to be solemn, then cracks a grin. “Can we invite all the guys who said you were out of my league and pity-dating me?”

“Only if I can paint Chopper pink and make him our flower droid.”

“Deal.”

[fowlblue]

helloooooo sailor-

[parachutingkitten]

Forgive me for like yapping at you for a while this is gonna be a long one, and I totally get if you don't respond to this at all and just delete it from your inbox it's just something that has been bothering me sooo much

And before I start I want to clarify this is not hate! I'm just intending to like. Discuss yk?

So in your video analysis of female characters in ninjago I was quite excited to get to the bit about Harumi because she's a really interesting character and absolutely one of my favorites. But when I did it was like you missed every major aspect of her character and motivations and it was especially disappointing because like. The video was worded to accomodate new/non-fans who don't know about these characters! And it's disheartening when a character is completely misunderstood especially in a video where the point is to explain these characters and how they are often misunderstood or poorly represented by the writers

I think you were really hung up on the idea that Harumi had any good motivations for what she was doing which is just. Not true. Harumi never wanted to help people who had similar situations to her. The whole point of her character is that she's held onto her anger and hatred to the point it's all that drives her, which is what makes her death so impactful- It's the moment she sees the error of her ways and the fact that she's only perpetrated the same cycle that hurt her.

You brought up the fact that it didn't make sense for her feeding the poor to be an act. But it does if you think about the rest of the context of the scene. I know it's easy to miss things when you're trying to get all the information together for a video like that so I totally don't blame you for this one, but Lloyd brings up the fact that her room seemed ransacked and her window was blown open. The intent there on Harumi's part was to get him to follow her so he'd see her doing something "good" that'd throw him off her trail. This is something she does OFTEN. Like when the ninja are discussing who the quiet one could be or when Lloyd is shocked by her ability to throw the machete.

Harumi, in the oni trilogy at least is consistent with her motives. They screwed her up real bad in crystalized, but in the Oni trilogy the point of her character was that her worldview was fucked up and she didn't care who she hurt until she realized that she was being no better than the people who hurt her.

I think since there is such a drastic tonal shift when we get to the Oni trilogy, you were probably unintentionally looking at it through the same lense as the rest of the series where the themes and such are very surface-level and spelled out easily so again I don't like hate you for not understanding her motives or hell even falling for the manipulation tactics she employed that the viewer was supposed to look a little more into but I needed to like ramble about it SORRY this ended up much longer than I intended ^^; don't feel pressured to respond or anything

OoOOOooo! I usually answer my asks in order, but this one is real tempting right now, so I absolutely will respond. And before we get into everything, I want to extend you the same exact courtesy you did me. I'm just here to discuss. Absolutely zero hard feelings or hate.

First off, I think that is a great, and perfectly valid interpretation. Have fun with it. It's certainly a little more cohesive than what I got out of the season. I do, however, think you underestimate how much thought went into my video. As a bit of behind the scenes, Harumi was absolutely the piece of the script I was most paranoid about missing something for, because I don't have the same love for the character as most of the fandom, so I was thinking about her characterization a lot. Unfortunately, I have in fact considered all the pieces you have presented here. I just don't think those pieces actually fit together so neatly as presented in the show.

Specifically, I think it's very clear that we are supposed to have some amount of agreement with/sympathy for Harumi. Her backstory in flashback is supposed to be very heart wrenching. We see her child self go numb at the end, not angry, it's not trying to show us the start to a hardening progression, it's showing us harumi, currently angry at what happened to the little girl she used to be. If she were supposed to be a pure evil villain like Aspheera who's just evil because she is, whose justifications don't really line up, they would not have tried so hard to make us cry about her past. The backstory is structured so that it seems to give her a proper motive. She outright states her motive in her villain reveal monologue. If the point was to highlight how far from those original motivations she has strayed, it should have, I don't know, been highlighted in narrative? Have people bring it up? Have people try and appeal to her supposed motivation, have it not work, and then realize how far she's gone?

Harumi going to feed the poor was a move to throw Lloyd off the scent? What kind of 4d chess is she playing? She's got to assume lloyd will come look for her after happening to see a trashed room in a very narrow timeframe, follow her, and then talk with her while feeding children, all so that he... trusts her? After he already very clearly trusts her? All the other examples you bring up are harumi misdirecting attention after they start to catch on to her with minimal logistical effort. This is not that. Feeding the poor would be an insane preventative measure to take with a ton of extra complicated steps, that ultimately doesn't even gain her any new advantages. At that point, it's just bad writing. And if this was supposed to be an example of how she's betraying the motives she claims to be fighting for, again, it should have been highlighted in the narrative. As we have it, it's only brought up as an example of how manipulable the ninja are, not how far she's strayed from her purpose.

Now, is what your trying to say here what they intended to portray? Very likely. That's what the best written version of this character looks like. It's the only way her arc in the oni trilogy makes sense. Which, I do praise once I get to my season 9 bit. I talk about the cycle of hurt, and how good her death is, on multiple levels, and I end with an overall positive outlook on the character as flawed but ultimately impactful until we get to crystalized. But again, that is not what actually got portrayed to us in season 8. Do not give the writers credit for dots that you were able to shuffle around into making sense. I think I make it pretty clear that I understand Harumi isn't supposed to have a reasonable motive in the review. My confusion is at the narrative dissonance this reveal has when we get to it, because of the hints that tell the audience to relate to Harumi as a villain. The backstory, the attempt at a logical motive, and the girl boss feminism twist all point us in the direction of there being something she's actually fighting for. I think they did a bad job at portraying the ideas they wanted to get across, and my goal in the review is to highlight where those dissonances are, because the writing on her character to portray these ideas wasn't done correctly.

That, on top of the basic factual timeline errors in her backstory and logistics around her plan just push my perspective over the edge for me. I wasn't blind to the points your making here, I was intentionally de-emphasizing them to bring attention to the poor writing that tried to show us those elements. My thesis is that harumi was underthought, and I stand by that thesis. I have yet to come across an argument that has convinced me otherwise, though I don't discount that there may yet be one out there.

But even if you do read my analysis as a shallow first time viewer's perspective on things(which again, I assure you it isn't), if the point the writers were trying to get across doesn't translate to a first time viewer, isn't that a problem?

If it makes you feel any better though, one of the top comments under the video is a thread of people trying to explain their interpretations of how harumi's character makes sense, so there is discussion being had about this stuff.

[workingforitallthetime]

jordan martinook is never not gonna be My Guy, and it makes me so happy to see him have the two best seasons of his career on the tail end of a three-year contract that he wasn’t even certain to be offered.

[sallysellsseashellssundays]

The Waters of Mars Rewatch

I've already ranted about this to @witchofthemidlands but just need to write down my thoughts after rewatching The Waters of Mars yesterday

When you write this episode, Rose, The Parting of the Ways/Bad Wolf, Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, Smith and Jones, Partners in Crime, Midnight, the entire S4 ending, THE END OF TIME you can have as many Slitheen fart jokes as you'd like Mr. RTD *bravo*

Also, I'm losing my mind as to why Ten went to Mars specifically, could it have been b/c Jackie and Donna always said he was from Mars?? And he really was making an effort to leave initially and not affect history...it's fascinating to see his final response as more and more people die compared to, for example, Voyage of the Damned. He's really at a point in his life where he's been broken down enough that he loses it completely

This SHOULD have been a two-parter episode there is so much to explore with the Mars crew and I even see parallels between them and the crew from the Impossible Planet two-parter it would have been wild to see the end of this episode paralleled with that storyline. Roman is like Toby, Yuri and Mia maybe like Danny, Ed definitely like Jefferson, Scheffi is like Scooti?, Adelaide like Zach etc. idk but I see a lot of parallels

My absolute favorite tiny detail is Ten expressing dislike for the robot but as soon as Roman talks about robot dogs he goes "actually hold up a moment" lol he will be loyal to K9

Adelaide is a badass I love her so much and I find the contrast between her and Lady Christina just one episode prior to be fascinating, I think Adelaide is exactly the type of person that Ten needed in his life at that exact moment

The Doctor speaking Martian...it's crazy how easily it could have turned into a Midnight 2.0 situation for him, I think Adelaide is the difference here she exudes so much authority

The fact that they took the time to focus the camera on Mia and Yuri holding hands, like 1 second only, but I go insane for that recurring theme in RTD's era especially considering how much that relates to timepetals and how distraught Ten is after losing Rose again and Donna

Speaking of Donna I love the Pompeii reference I could write essays about that as well as the mention of the Journey's End storyline with Adelaide as a child, RTD isn't hitting you over the head with it but you can definitely see all these links between what Ten lost in that episode and the Pompeii situation and his mental state in this episode aaahhhh what a masterpiece!!!

DT's acting in the final scene gives me CHILLS, he literally feels like an entirely different character as soon as he steps off the TARDIS, I feel the hairs on my body stand with the look in his eye. I am not a huge fan of Joan in the Human Nature two-parter but I think that was an interesting set of episodes and I also think it works solely b/c DT can very convincingly make you feel that John Smith is different from the Doctor even though there are some remnants there, same here in this episode. It's the Doctor but there's something there that is very un-Doctor.

[starfiresky]

Spoilers for KH2 and 3:

I JUST BEAT KH2. And oh my GOSH Sora and Riku absolutely KICKING trash, riding some hover bike through space together and cutting buildings in half 😱 I was fangirling hard (I was screaming, lol)

Also, I’m dying. I knew what would happen at the end with the door to light and Sora turning into Roxas for a sec and Kairi into Naminé— but holy cow it’s totally different to see it in motion and not just read about it online or through the manga/novels. (Also everyone looked GOOD in those end scenes. Especially Roxas 🥹) I loved the way the way Sanctuary got all soft with Sora and Kairi’s interaction. 😭😭 And then how he kept the lucky charm ❤️ I shed a tear.

Okay okay, but when Sora and Riku are looking out at the waves together, and Riku’s like: “nothing’s changed, huh?” And Sora responds with “Nope. Nothing will.”

BECAUSE I PLAYED KH3 FIRST I JUST BROKE DOWN LIKE— Sora, you have no idea what’s gonna happen to you, you have no idea how much things are gonna change 😭😭😭 and the fact that he’s standing at the same place he’s going to fade at in 3.

Ughhhh, best KH ending ever. It’s a masterpiece.

Just a fragment of my thoughts but yeah— go play KH2 if you haven’t already (and if you have go replay it now!)

[spaciebabie]

Fireball and cherry cola tastes like christmas!! Def one of my favorite drinks

OOO THAT SOUNDS GOOD

[nutria--oscura]

Y'all are insane in like the best way possible <3

[foxhole-pipe-dream]

Also I realized I've written two fics where a man flirts with Neil, Right In Front Of Andrew 🤭

[cheadarchesse]

Silt Verses was my reason for getting through the day today, but HOLY COW WHAT WAS THAT EPISODE

[rileys-battlecats]

the other apprentices drauma dumping / venting to mudpaw is SO FUNNY to me. yeah the little guy killed a man and was abused tell him abt ur least fav task. friendship

mentioned in this post

YEAH HAHA. The mentors are like "be nice to mudpaw, try to include him in your friend group :)" and the apprentices are like. well I guess I'll try talking to him *unloads all their issues onto him*

[therubberduckcult]

Love you Hobie, wish you had better fans than what you're dealing with right now

[junkandstuff]

I AM!

CAUGHT UP!!

WITH ONE PIECE!!!