#we are finally getting to some plot!

[unpersoniverse]

Skén:nen sá:sewh

as promised, here's Precious boy™ getting kissed by Precious wife™ because he deserves all the love in the world :cc

translation: Get home safe

[blueskittlesart]

is detcon actually good

no <3 hope this helps

[holocene-sims]

next // previous

fág slán leis an dúshlán a bhí againn an mhí seo mar go dtí seo, i'm on the upside of the sea-saw 🎵

say goodbye to the challenges we have had this month, because so far i’m on the upside of the sea-saw

[moeblob]

Honestly? Good anime imo! I really enjoyed Aileen. I enjoyed Claude. I enjoyed Isaac and Keith and Rachel and Almond and Ribbon. I enjoyed Belzebuth and the flock of ducks (Walt/Kyle/Auguste) and Jasper.

[kat-chan02]

oh. my. god. i swear if i see one more person hating on and complaining about the caitvi sex scene im gonna throw hands!!! it's like they've forgotten that,, you know THERE WAS ANOTHER SEX SCENE IN SEASON 1 ?! don't remember hearing any complaints over that. just because it's a queer couple doesn't mean that people should just hate on the scene. if you weren't mad about Mel and Jayce getting it on,, you shouldn't be mad about Cait and Vi either.

[deiaiko]

#23.2 Teases

Dan sighed wistfully. He couldn't help but feel jealous as he witnessed the couple kissing.

It must be great to be Grace. He was attractive, rich, powerful, talented, and respected. He had everything every person in the tower could ever wish to have. So it should come as no surprise that even Princess Endorsi would want him.

But despite all that, Dan didn’t want to be in Grace's shoes. Power and fame came with a price, and he knew how hard Grace had to work for it.

Maybe he wasn't actually jealous of Grace's charm. He was just not willing to let his goddess, Princess Endorsi, pick anyone else as her partner.

Dan let the realization sink in, sulking while chewing on another spoonful of meat curry. Gyetang must've felt even sadder than him, considering that his reason to join their team was to meet Princess Endorsi.

"What happened?" the guy in a tracksuit –Sibisu, if he remembered correctly– asked, as he and the others took a seat.

"Princess…" Hatz trailed off. "She used her tag to 'talk' with Grace. And when they returned, Grace had a kiss mark on his cheek."

That was a surprisingly objective summary.

"You know, I realized something after kissing him." Boss commented. He was looking at Princess Endorsi mirthfully. "The kiss mark on his cheek earlier was tilted in an odd way."

Princess Endorsi raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

Boss waited a few beats. Then he shrugged. "Never mind. I was simply sharing my thoughts."

Princess Endorsi gave him a long stare, before her eyes lit up in realization. She chuckled, "How observant."

Dan could only sit there. At least he wasn't the only one that was confused. After all, he didn't really pay attention to the mark position before Grace wiped it out, so he didn't know what kind of odd that Boss meant.

"Woah! Bam–"

The Khun guy whisper-shouted, loud enough to pull Dan out of his thoughts.

"–You learned how to use chopsticks?" 

Khun looked pleasantly surprised, and it kind of baffled Dan. He didn't think anyone, especially from the Khun family, could be impressed by such a mere act.

Viole grinned sheepishly. "Yeah. I've wanted to learn it ever since you showed me how."

The smile that crept up on Khun's lips was genuine and fond. It was a familiar expression, one that Dan often saw Boss wearing when he looked at Grace.

He noticed that everyone was also looking at Khun and Viole, as the conversation around died down. Hatsu coughed, and Princess Endorsi rolled her eyes.

Khun, noticing this, glared at everyone. "What?"

Sibisu waved his hand dismissively, grinning. The others avoided eye contact.

Grace smiled as he glanced at Boss…expectantly? Teasingly? Dan couldn't tell.

Boss glanced back at Grace, smirking.

Grace chuckled, as if they were gossiping telepathically.

They did that enough times that Dan had gotten used to it. Exchanging looks without words as if they could read each other's minds. And honestly, Dan wouldn't even be surprised if they revealed that they actually had a telepathic ability.

Khun was now frowning. Dan could imagine two cat ears on his head pointing backwards. "Are you making fun of me?"

Grace quickly waved his hands in front of him. "What? No! I would never."

Boss laughed at Khun, as if daring him. "You are so obvious, it's embarrassing."

Novick coughed, trying to hide his laugh. "It somehow reminded me of that one time Grace tried to make a perfect apple pie, and we ended up having a week’s worth of pies. All because he wanted to impress Boss."

"The pie was delicious. I was impressed." Boss nodded approvingly.

Grace closed his eyes, smiling proudly. "Worth it."

Oh, the lovebirds, Dan thought to himself. Khun must've reminded Boss of himself, which was probably what he and Grace were making fun of earlier.

Princess Anaak raised her hand, palm facing Boss and Grace. "Please don't kiss again. I'm trying to eat."

Dan heard Viole whisper to Khun. "So that's what a kiss is…?" Which was just another whiplash to him.

The more he learned about Viole, the less he fit a slayer candidate's fearsome and mysterious persona. FUG's god, as they called him. He was still a kid at heart, clueless and learning.

"What's up, Blue Turtle? Did you finally find your banana?"

Khun whipped his head, and Dan noticed a light blush on his cheeks. "What does that even mean?! Stupid crocodile."

"I wonder who's actually the stupid one," Hatz shrugged.

Khun growled, took a deep breath, and sighed. "Let's just ignore them, Bam."

It seemed like Khun was used to being antagonized by his own team. But Dan thought that he might understand why.

The strong temptation to tease and nudge the lovebirds, especially when they were so obvious yet clueless. Case in point: Grace and Agni, when Dan was new to their team. He couldn't keep himself from smiling at the memory.

He enjoyed Grace's old team’s company so far. He used every opportunity to join the conversation, especially when everyone started bickering and exchanging stories. The cafeteria had never been so lively before with only the five of them.

The chaotic energy that Grace's old team brought was like adding new flavors into the mix. Only time could tell whether it was a good combination or not, but he hoped that they'd get along. Especially because it would be a lifelong regret if he were to lose the chance to have Princess Endorsi around.

Masterlist

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Bonus explanation under the cut:

[thegreatyin]

And thus, with the passing of 24 hours, Caeru's ambition truly comes to an end. Major Nemesis spoilers below the cut- we're talking endgame ambition business here. Mostly on a character RP front.

The Doomed Scientist made quite a few... choice decisions, in the end. Killing Cups once and for all, recording his story as one of grief-

And sparing what little remained of Mr Mirrors, leaving it free to roam Parabola as it sees fit.

Some of them, he can explain. Others, he's still left to feel... discontent.

Cups needed to die. That much was certain from the start. It was a tyrant, as all Masters are, and complicit in the bargaining and eventual destruction of four (potentially five) cities, as all Masters are. It was an obstacle. A murderer. A petty monster that felt no remorse even on its deathbed, and it went out of its way to ruin multiple lives just because it felt owed its own sick and twisted idea of revenge.

It killed his first love. It looked him in the eyes and he knew what it had done and he knew from the start it was going to die.

Perhaps, in the end, it knew too. And yet it still pleaded, and wanted to live, and-

It made a bargain.

A bargain Caeru didn't take.

Not because he didn't want to. Gods, he wanted to. He wanted it. He wanted it more than anything else in the world. To have Greylu back, to give him the gift of life, of love, to show him the wonders of the Neath and the beauty of the correspondence and all of the people Caeru has met and loved and found home with along the way-

But. He couldn't.

Because Cups was a monster. And no matter what, it deserved to die. And he could not, in good conscience, allow it to live.

Even if sparing it meant everything he's ever wanted.

So he's left here, now. With a bloodied traveling coat, and a bloodsoaked knife, and a favor finally fulfilled.

And nothing to live for. No resurrected lover, no charming visits to Helicon, no slow dances in the living room, no memories to rebuild and lives to live and he won't live again-

Nothing. All he has is a coat born of obligation, not to his love, but to people he's never even met. To lives he's never even touched. To a paramour, still alive, with hair of rose-pink, who doesn't even remember her own brother's existence.

Cups didn't die for Caeru's sake. Cups died for the sake of all who wanted it dead. For the revenger's court, and the ghost screaming in his ear, and the reckoning that will not be postponed indefinitely.

And Caeru, who acted as a tool to carry out their wills? Who all but betrayed his own lover, just to satisfy a cause he never knew existed?

All Caeru is left with, is regret. Regret-

-And grief.

[clowningcrows]

sorry this is the ONLY discourse ill allow myself to participate in post finale of agatha all along (or i fear i will lose my mind entirely), but DAMN some people out here rn after the finale being like “i’m sorry you didn’t get the agathario smut you wanted” BITCH!!!! I WASNT ASKING FOR THEM TO FUCK ON SCREEN!!!! i didn’t even need them to get together or even get any semblance of a happy ending!!! i didn’t expect a happy ending in the least tbh!!!!! but you know what i did expect? a final ending. a wrap up. a satisfying and complete finale. a conclusion that actually answers any one of my remaining questions or gave us more context for scenes that we’ve been missing context on the entire time. and i’m sorry but this finale didn’t do that at all. and it’s obviously not bury your gays but jesus christ it wasn’t a good conclusion either. at best it’s honestly a cheap set up for a season two or further content with billy that will prob include bits and pieces of agatha

[ohsweetflips]

my neutral dragon age trait is that 50% of the time i'm like "the more i critique the games, the more i love them. i can appreciate each game for what they are but my criticism and frustration over what they could be are a sign of love" and the other 50% is like "this is the writing of the dragon age series. sure. why not. this may as well happen."

[holocene-sims]

next // previous

october 3, 2021 2:00 p.m. morensong coffee house

[grant] thank you for meeting me so last minute.

[cerise] yeah, it’s no problem! actually, i'm glad we could do this sooner rather than later. this has been at the back of my mind for a while–the curiosity has–so when you texted me yesterday, i was, like, i need to know. i may be going out of town for a week, but i'll try to make room in the schedule for this before i leave.

[grant] are you traveling anywhere exciting?

[cerise] iceland. it’s a big family trip to celebrate my parents’ 20th anniversary. as in, my mom and my stepdad’s anniversary. i mean, he’s my real dad as far as i'm concerned, but technically my stepdad. i think you get what i mean, i don’t know why i'm over-explaining.

[grant] wow, that is exciting. well, i hope you guys have fun. i hear it’s just as gorgeous there as you think it is.

[cerise] anyway, thank you again for asking your–our, i guess; that’s still weird to say–dad some questions on my behalf. i'm sure that wasn’t easy.

[grant] i should warn you that it’s not necessarily a wealth of information.

[cerise] that’s okay.

[grant] there was a lot going on when i talked to him, and if there were other questions i could have asked…

[cerise] it’s okay.

[grant] i wouldn’t have been able to think of them, and now, uh, the line of communication is closed, so i can’t really go back and...

[cerise] i said it was okay, didn’t i?

[cerise] the basics are enough, and you already put yourself out for a stranger. if i want to know anything else, i'll find the right moment to get my my mom talk about what happened.

[grant] do you want me to just get right into it?

[cerise] whatever you prefer.

[grant] so, uh, essentially, my parents were attending a medical conference of some kind in detroit. they were still married then, but my dad was unhappy with the relationship. he met your mom at the conference, and then he had–as far as i'm aware–a one-night stand with her. she found out my dad already had a family, they agreed to not be in each other’s lives, and he paid her child support.

[grant] that’s what i know. i'm sure there’s more to it, but...

[grant] oh! right, “the more” is that there is a nonzero chance we have more siblings out there.

[cerise] huh.

[cerise] i'm almost surprised there isn’t more drama. that’s a pretty mundane story. a one-night stand with someone you know nothing about is the oldest story in the book.

[cerise] weird, i feel better now. my curiosity is sated. well, i am wondering how the affair even happened if your mom was right there and about the potential other children, but that’s a whole can of worms.

[grant] well, i'm glad you feel better.

[cerise] and the story does make sense. i always wondered if there was some big thing with the secrecy, but if it’s because your–our?–dad was a married man, i get it. my mom is a very good person with strong morals. i know her, and she would not want anything to do with someone if she were aware they were cheating and had a family, and she wouldn’t want me to have any business with them either.

[grant] she made the right decision to stay away. he’s unnecessary. your lives are a billion times better off without him. if you’re thinking, “how can he say that?” just trust me.

[cerise] i mean, i can’t be upset about it. i'm not sure what i potentially lost out on, but what i've had in life with my parents has been perfect or just about perfect, so i'm not going to question her choice.

[grant] you didn’t lose anything. not to say trust me again, but trust me.

[cerise] i'm sorry. this probably is far less of a flippant thing for you.

[grant] don’t worry about me. it’s all good.

[grant] i am just really glad you feel better, and i'm glad i could be of some use to you as well. it’s a lot easier to use me than your mom. i have never met her, but i'm guessing she’d prefer to just forget about all this stuff, and i hope she has.

[cerise] i was frustrated she wouldn’t tell me the truth, but i get it now. this may be a classic story, but it’s still, you know, an embarrassing one. if i found out my boyfriend were a married man tomorrow, i would melt into the floor and stay there.

[grant] anyway, i know we’ve been sitting here all of ten minutes, but i should let you go. once i finish drinking this coffee, i will get out of your hair. you have things to do–exciting things. go pack and travel and have fun and all that.

[cerise] hey, you don’t have to leave already!

[grant] no, i don’t want to take up your afternoon. at least no more than enough to tell you what you were waiting a few weeks to hear.

[cerise] i mean, i blocked out time to do that and talk to you generally for a bit.

[cerise] i don’t know how to go about all this, but i wasn’t planning on benefiting off your connection to your–our?–dad and then peacing out. i figured we could be acquainted, if nothing else.

[cerise] unless that’s too much for you, in which case, totally get it. no pressure. my existence must be weird for your mom and siblings. i'm assuming you have siblings.

[cerise] or maybe they don’t know. i also get it if you’re keeping this situation on the down-low. i can assure you that you’d not be alone in that. i'm not sure i could tell my parents right now that i know about my origins or that i've met my bio dad’s son. not yet.

[grant] definitely don’t do that before the big anniversary trip. but no, don’t worry about that either. i don’t have siblings. not anymore. and my mom...let’s not even go there. there’s nothing to worry about on those fronts.

[grant] it’s not that it’s too much, basically. i have zero problems with you, and i have no family left who would have a problem with you either, so.

[grant] i just don’t want to be in your way, not today or at any point in the future, and i will be. you don’t need my dad around; you don’t really need me either.

[cerise] i don’t care if you are, honestly. you are my brother. that feels weird to say, but you are, and you haven’t done anything wrong. i'd like to know my brother.

[cerise] this is maybe the only regretful, i don’t know if that’s the right word, part of all the secrecy and the way i came to be. i get along with my step-siblings. what’s wrong with getting along with the half-siblings? or half-sibling?

[grant] i should have also warned you i'm kind of in a dour mood entirely because of my dad. sorry. not because of you or this whole thing, though, to be clear.

[grant] i wanted to meet to get all this off my mind so i have no other reason to think about him, hopefully, for the rest of my life. i'll be in a more conversational mood soon-ish, once i'm done thinking about him.

[grant] this is going to make me wishy-washy. i don’t want to be in your way; i don’t want to be a source of awkwardness in your family if they ever know you know me, but…

[grant] okay. i wouldn’t mind getting along with my half-sibling. maybe we could meet up when you have time again.

[cerise] yeah, i'll text you. i might be busy for a while with work when i'm back from my trip, but…

[grant] text me anytime. we’ll figure it out.

[purplespacekitty]

donna troy, kyle rayner, jason todd trio run when???

[youngpettyqueen]

I need the Doctor Who finale NEOW because I really cant decide how I feel about Wish World and I need the second part of it to solidify my opinions

(spoilers in the tags you have been warned)

[butnobodycame627]

like I get that Miraculous has its problems. But okay listen to my hot take my real hot take. I like the most recent seasons the best. Everyone like "oh the show is shit now it used to be so much better" and I'm sitting here like. Okay but there's so much interesting story and plot threads and characters and character dynamics I'm fucking insane I am invested

[heyclickadee]

So, I’ve been trying to square the idea that The Bad Batch is from Omega’s perspective with the fact that there are a lot of things we, the audience, see happening, but are never addressed, because they’re things with which Omega never interacts. And of course it’s not literally from Omega’s perspective. There are sequences and two entire episodes she isn’t there there to see. Something that could be interesting, though, is if this show is from Omega’s perspective in the sense that things can happen without Omega, but they’re never pulled together or unpacked until it’s time for her to do so.

So, for example: We get a scene in “Faster” between Millegi and Cid in which Millegi calls Cid on her old habits of throwing people under the bus (“Hustlers like us never change.”) Cid is actually offended by this and replies with, “I might surprise you.”

There are two important things about this moment. One, we’re given a little bit of insight into Cid and the fact that she seems to want to have changed—she doesn’t want to be the person who stabs people in the back. Two, this moment is here entirely for the benefit of the audience. None of our main characters are here to witness this, so it’s not something that leads them to accept the idea that she’s changed only to be shocked when she betrays them later on. The thing they hear from Millegi is, “Watch your backs.” None of them was ever given a reason to doubt that—not even Omega, who seems to like Cid well enough and will go to bat for her, but still knows she’s not that trustworthy.

But we, the audience, are given a reason to doubt that Cid will betray them. A small reason, in that scene between her and Millegi, but a reason still. What plays out, however, is what everyone expected; Cid betrays the batch at the worst possible moment, surprising absolutely no one. Millegi’s, “Watch your backs,” plays, even though it’s not something we needed to hint that Cid would sell them out; Cid’s, “I might surprise you,” the hint that’s there just for the audience, never comes full circle.

Except…it’s not just empty, either. We do get a few hints that Cid doesn’t really want to betray the batch, that she may have been trying to get them to stay away, and several fairly big indications that she hates herself for what she’s done while the betrayal is playing out. (She looks less than proud, let’s say, when she takes the money from Hemlock, and blurting out a half-confession, half-justification to Wrecker in the first place.) So it is actually consistent in that, as suggested in her scene with Millegi, she’s unhappy being the person who stabs people in the back; but because we follow up on the other foreshadowing, and because Omega doesn’t see Cid again by the end of the non-epilogue portion of the show (she could have seen Cid in the gap; anything could happen in the gap), we never get a moment where Cid surprises us by explicitly showing that she’s changed. It’s not something that gets dropped or changed as much as it’s something that stays consistent, but doesn’t come full circle.

And there’s a lot in The Bad Batch that’s like this. We do, for example, see moments showing that Hunter, despite being a good man trying his best, is flawed and practically kneecaps himself with indecision and crippling self-doubt. Because of what Omega’s relationship with Hunter is, however, we never quite get around to unpacking that. She sees Hunter the way a lot of younger kids see their parents, so his flaws remain present rather than explored. that and instead unpack his relationship with her. Crosshair, despite his incredible redemption arc, ends the series with a lingering sense of guilt and a feeling that he deserves to die; but because of how Omega sees Crosshair—as someone who has made mistakes but who is, at the end of the day, her beloved little brother—we never quite unpack the source of his guilt or his turn from being implicitly to explicitly suicidal. We see clues and signs that Tech might have survived the fall—including one metatextually from Omega herself—but because all these clues are directed at the audience and go unseen by most of the cast, especially Omega (who doesn’t know she’s in a story where literary devices exist), we don’t ever deal with them. We see the build up with Rex, the senate, and something that looks like it’s leading to a clone rebellion, but we only really deal with the implications in moments that directly impact Omega’s story, like Echo leaving. And so on and so on—we could pick this apart for ages.

Whether or not this is a criticism, though, depends entirely on the framework. For example: If The Bad Batch as is really is the whole story and there’s nothing else, and never was anything else, then, yeah, it’s a disaster. It’s not just tripping on the finish line, it’s losing the race because you kept turning down dead end streets and having to climb over buildings to get back on the racetrack.

If, however, there does end up being more and we’re really at the end of part one of however many parts there are, what we’re looking at was never thought of as an ending, and what we’re getting is going to come with a bit of a POV shift away from Omega (not that she won’t appear at all, but that she won’t be the POV character), then it could all end up being a phenomenal piece of storytelling in the long run. I mean—I’m actually annoyed at how well it could work if they actually pulled something like that off. There’s still criticism to be had, but my criticism would be more focused on terrible audience management driven by an obsession with spoilers, the social media/marketing around the show being what it was, and a failure to really nail the transition with an episode that really seems to have been written more as a season finale (we didn’t get a long finale, I’m convinced we just got episodes 15 and 16 smushed together, and “The Cavalry Has Arrived” was just the title of the episode 16 that got applied to both), but had to also function as a series finale without being allowed to resolve anything but the Hunter-Omega arc. Basically, fumbling the transition between chapters somewhat rather than fumbling everything.

And the second one is what I lean towards, partly because it is weirdly consistent, and partly because despite the many (many) characters, plots, and subplots being left unresolved, none of it really has the hallmarks of something that ran out of either time or budget (at least, I don’t think so, now that I’ve been unable to stop thinking about it for two months). Things that run out of time usually cram all the resolution that they can into as little time as possible, and there were ways to resolve everything in the “terrible but at least still resolved” fashion by adding a couple of lines or even a voice over from Omega in the silent parts of the epilogue (cheapest, fastest solution and it could have done late, after everything else was locked down, any time before the episode was uploaded). Things that run out of budget usually cut anything that’s expensive—like, for example, a ten minute multi-character fight scene with particle effects that doesn’t have a plot reason to even be there unless we’re not actually done with the CX plot yet. Or rain. Or an outdoor set that only appears in one episode for three minutes.

TL; DR: I actually think there’s something interesting going on with the storytelling here if we’re not actually done with the story yet, but also it would be really nice to know for sure if there’s anything more coming because it’s either amazing or terrible and there’s nothing in between.

[markantonys]

WOT season 3 episode 1 title is "to race the shadow" (source)

[magnusmodig]

ovo whispers menacingly abt his grandstanding .