#& feels like he needs to be useful maybe bc if he doesn’t have a narrative function why does he exist

[erinravenseeker]

Just had a middle-of-the-night “ohhhh” moment as I just figured out that Kim Dokja needs the Fourth Wall not because of the scenarios but because it was essentially his survival mechanism for life.

Now I have only read the novel once so I could totally be forgetting stuff & way off-base but this is what I remember. Inane rambling under the cut, major spoilers included.

We know he’s generally antisocial, placing himself outside of society like a reader, and he internally smoothed over Sangah’s rough points even before the scenarios, making her into a ‘character’ (a caricature of herself) that fit into an archetype.

Dissociating from reality & viewing himself as a reader is his coping mechanism & “WoS coming to life” provides a convenient excuse to keep ignoring that fact.

This kind of ties in with an idea I’ve been forming about the Fourth Wall, which is that KDJ is fundamentally incapable of believing that “The Characters” (read: everyone) can experience growth as a result of his actions. He exists outside of the story, he is in the audience beyond the fourth wall, so he cannot affect the characters.

Hence the paradoxical nature of the Fourth Wall. For as long as he is a Reader, the Fourth Wall is maintained. And as long as the Fourth Wall is maintained, he will continue to be a Reader.

(Warning this is where it gets incoherent and messy.)

Kim Dokja fundamentally NEEDS the Fourth Wall to be maintained. Not just because of the OD stuff, but because it’s the way he’s learnt to cope with existing. It’s also why dying is so easy for him—we know he cannot deal with the guilt of making people he cares about suffer, but if he’s just a Reader, that means he can’t really have any meaningful impact on their lives, so it’s fine for him to just… disappear.

Kim Dokja is not actively suicidal, he’s just invested himself so far into the worldview of himself being a Reader that to him, his temporary deaths no longer register as dying. More like… stepping out of the theatre for a bit.

It gets complicated when we hit OD. Because then we realise the KDJ we’ve been accompanying is essentially a self-insert OC. So we can ascribe the way he thinks to OD, including all the coping mechanisms and self-distancing. But where OD manages to escape the narrative along with SP, at the same time the KimCom Crew escape the narrative, KDJ actually kind of… doubles down?

Like, OD does what any Reader does and learns from the book. When KDJ says “I, someone of no redeeming quality, could be loved by the others.” It’s not just him learning this lesson. It’s actually kind of the opposite. OD is Reading this lesson so he learns that he’s allowed to accept the mercy of SP & the 999 crew. So they escape the narrative.

KimCom also manages to escape the narrative but KDJ… can’t. He comes to the conclusion that he was actually backstage all along. But that means he’s still not ON stage. A Character can’t feel for the Script Writer or Director or Stage Manager. So he doubles down on his separation from them, stepping into that role. And then then KimCom comes banging on his door backstage because they’re not just characters, they’re the Actors now, and KDJ disappears because he can’t deal with that, because he fundamentally cannot exist on the same plane as them.

I think that’s why I’m hopeful at a post-epilogue ending. KDJ The Reader exists at essentially a higher tier than the people around him, and so he believes he cannot be loved in a way that has a lasting impact on them. But he DID spend years being affected by WoS, by Yoo Joonghyuk. If he becomes the Character, and them the Readers… maybe, just maybe, he can actually accept that love.

[ourflagmeansgayrights]

man i saw this and i was gonna write a whole post abt how maybe the problem for these ppl isn’t that ed wasn’t punished enough (even tho that’s what they say) maybe it’s that it’s a poorly-executed redemption arc but they don’t know how to verbalize that.

and that would actually make sense bc ed doesn’t have a redemption arc in s2. bc the show does not think ed needs redeeming. even at his worst and most harmful to the people around him the show is deeply sympathetic towards him and gives us sooooo much screentime dedicated to showing us that everything ed does he only does bc he’s hurting. which doesn’t excuse any of what he does but it does shift the narrative framing away from an actual redemption arc, where a character needs to like, learn why the things they did were bad and try to make amends. but ed never needed to learn anything, he knew his actions were unacceptable and that’s why he did them. he was trying to be the most horrific monster he could be in hopes that someone would get sick of him and kill him.

so then i went looking for an old post i wrote abt redemption arcs to talk abt why ed’s s2 arc probably reads like a poorly-written redemption arc for ppl who are expecting an actual redemption arc and. i change my mind actually. because “is this character willing to accept that their behavior is harmful, to make amends for their past behavior if at all possible, and to try and become a better person?” yeah we see ed do all of that tho.

Accept Their Behavior Is Harmful: i mean aside from the fact that ed knew this the whole time, we also see ed talking to fang about how guilty he feels for how he treated the crew. but like this isn’t zuko slowly unlearning an entire lifetime of fire nation propaganda, ed doesn’t need a season(s)-long arc abt this. He Already Knows

Make Amends For Their Past Behavior: like literally the whole thing with getting pushed off the ship!! wearing a sack and a collar at the crew’s behest!! he’s very much trying to make amends!!!!!

Try To Become A Better Person: there’s a lot i could talk abt here but just on a surface level, he’s trying to quit his job where he attacks and steals from random innocent ppl for a living. like objectively that job does not make you a good person. and also that job makes him miserable and when his mental health is in the shitter sometimes he hurts other ppl in his efforts to hurt himself so like!!! he is very much trying to not be the kind of person who forces crew members to fight to the death anymore!!!!

so yeah, thinking this was abt a “poorly-written redemption arc” was giving these ppl too much benefit of the doubt lol they just want to see ed grovel and suffer for an entire season, which was never going to happen lmao. the show thought izzy had more to apologize for than ed and that’s why ed’s apology was one sentence and izzy’s apology was a whole speech on his deathbed. the show thought izzy needed more punishment for his actions than ed did and that’s we see izzy get put through the physical ringer in the beginning of s2 and ed getting beat to death by the crew happens off-screen. ppl can argue all they want abt how ed did so much worse than izzy but at the end of the day the show disagrees with those takes and that’s why it treats these characters the way it does. die mad about it.

[silverliing]

Mike’s wall art

I love seeing analysis about ST set design because it really spells out so much of the story without verbally telling you, and ive seen much discussion abt the details of mike’s room in s4 (that one way sign haunts me btw). buuut there are two pieces of visible wall art that I don’t really see get talked about on here (that i’ve read) and I just have a few things to say about them and what i think they might be telling us about Mike’s character and upcoming journey (hint: going into the UD)(hint: making plans and leading the party)(hint: byler)

so idk if this has been pointed out or if it’s common knowledge atp but the two pieces circled above are lithographs by artist MC Escher; Hand with Reflective Sphere (left)

and Relativity (right)

(a lil hard to see in this screenshot i’m sorry😢)

The artwork is beautiful as you can see (canon Mike Wheeler has great taste in art). Escher was most known for his intricate “impossible constructions” which are optical illusions of paradoxical space, he was also the inventor of the impossible cube:

this is some pretty cool nerdy, mathy stuff that I’d expect mike would be into, but looking at it from the context of his character and the direction of where the story is headed, there were 3 immediate possible readings that popped into my head which point toward 3 different (yet coexisting) directions:

He likes the art — It’s true, this art taps into Mike’s interests. Valid but boring. zzzz. snooze. You could argue that these posters should be taken at face value, but I just feel like in a show like ST —where the main cast knows of and is in various ways affected by an evil alternate dimension— having a character with wall art that references perspective/dimensional anomalies doesn’t really tell us much about his specific character or story. We’ve known that the ST set designers use a character’s space to show us who they are as people, these two artworks need to tell us something about Mike and his journey. And maybe Mike’s sensibilities about the world at large are shifting into nihilism with everything that’s happened in hawkins and the art reflects an absurdist outlook of future (teenage stuff, growing up, etc. etc.)

It foreshadows Mike’s s5 arc — I love this one. Mike is one of the few in the main cast who haven’t been in the upside down proper, so this art could reference not only that he’ll go into the UD in s5 but also that there could be dimensional anomalies involved in his travel or journey there. Perhaps this is how they’ll be able to find Max— by bending the laws of physics and using the mechanics of dimensional travel against itself, perhaps to open new doors or travel in different directions (hint: time travel 😏). And i think the reason this art is in Mike’s wall is bc it will be Mike who formulates the plan to find Max and retrieve her with the help of El and Will’s new powers 😏 (g*d knows i want to see leader Mike make a come back)(and Will with powers).

Will Byers — we know Mike and Will are tied together by the narrative and so I think these artworks could be directly pointing to Will with big red arrows. This point is corroborated by simply analyzing the formal qualities of the artwork, both individually and as a set. Hand with Reflective Sphere is about optics and perspective, about seeing, but also about the flattening of space. Relativity is about space, dimension, and paradox, but also about impossible perspective/vantage point. When read together the objective reading of them is about sight and space and paradox, about how the flattening of space helps us see something new and impossible. While Mike hasn’t experienced the dimensional travel into the UD proper, many of those closest to him atp had; El, Will, Nancy… but the reason i think these two posters remind him of Will specifically is because out of everyone else who has been in the UD, only Will experiences the feeling of being stuck there and of seeing into both dimensions at once; the stuck view-master, true sight. Mike associates these things combined (dimensional travel and dimensional sight/perception) with Will.

Also, Mike is a nerdy guy, he seems interested in this kind of stuff for the fun of it so he could’ve had sciency charts that reference the subject of visible light and paradoxes the way Suzie does, but instead he has not one but two fine-art pieces by a pretty big graphic artist that reference the subject of sight and space. Also, Idk what it is about the fact that it’s fine-art and not movie/game/dnd art that makes me also associate it with Will— the self-proclaimed visual artist of the show. The words are all jumbled up in my head rn but; artist. sight. all-encompassing. dimension. paradox. new perspective. -> -> -> -> Will Byers (is this a hint to wills powers??) etc. etc. etc. you get it

Secret 4th option (ties into #2)

Mike gets Vecnaed and this forces him into extensive self-reflection and the labyrinthian trials of finding himself and mastering his fears(maybe he’s already begun his self-searching and that’s why we see this art at the beginning of s4). cue cool musical montage of Mike navigating his own memories and mind-scape to find the answer that will make everything make sense while also hiding from vecna and buying the party time to find a way to end him.

[myfairkatiecat]

why'd you get so mad at that sophie/keefe sibling anon?

hope that doesn't seem rude

I didn’t mean to come off as mad or anything, sorry if the tone didn’t translate right! BUT! I did get a little frustrated, because this is something that people who ship non-canon ships rlly need to figure out.

And hello to you anon, and also to whatever anon send the original ask! Because considering the amount of anti-Sokeefe friends I have in this fandom, you totally might be one of my friends! Want to be clear—this isn’t because I have a problem with you not liking Sokeefe, the problem is with saying she saw him as a sibling in canon when she did NOT see him as a sibling in canon, because that has icky implications.

Since I don’t want to misrepresent anyone’s opinions, here’s the exact message:

Sophie never seemed romantically interested in Keefe, sorry

it was more like a little sister comforting her brother

That’s the part that bothered me, because that implies that in canon, the thoughts sophie has about Keefe seem more like a sister about a brother.

It’s one thing to read Percy Jackson and say, “wow, I just don’t really like a Percabeth ship :/” and that’s totally valid, like, ship whatever you want! Ship Annabeth with Piper if you’d like, or Percy with Jason or whatever!

But it’s another thing to say “Percy always saw Annabeth as a sister!!” 1) that’s a weird thing to say because they’re canonically together and so comparing them to siblings is really icky, and 2) if you actually read the books it’s very clear that he develops romantic feelings for her. Even if it’s not super prevalent in the first few books cause they start out as twelve.

So people who say Sophie never seemed to like Keefe until book 9 sound to me like if someone said Percy never liked Annabeth or considered her romantically until the kiss in battle of the labyrinth. Just because it wasn’t a focus of the narrative doesn’t mean it wasn’t there from the beginning—and it CLEARLY was!

It just sort of feels like a really icky reaction to not liking a ship to say they always acted like siblings when clearly that isn’t canon.

If you don’t like Sokeefe, maybe you can say you would have preferred it if Sophie saw Keefe as a brother. Maybe you can write fanfic where they’re just friends and have more of a sibling type relationship. But that isn’t canon and that’s FINE, you don’t have to be on board with everything in canon, but for the love of God not liking a ship doesn’t mean they were never interested in each other 😭

Especially cause the ask didn’t even say she saw him as a friend, it said she saw him as a sibling??? Hello??? That’s SUCH a weird thing to say about two people who are now canonically dating???

Like it wouldn’t really have bothered me if the anon said “I would have enjoyed kotlc more if Keefe was a brother to Sophie instead of a love interest.” Like, I definitely disagree, but I don’t care that much cause everyone can have their own opinions and enjoy whatever they like about the media or write whatever fanfic bc they don’t think canon did it right! You’re MORE than welcome to believe that Sophie and Keefe would have been a better dynamic IF they were siblings.

But don’t say that IN CANON Sophie treated Keefe like she was his sister, because considering the many specifically romantic thoughts she has regarding him, that is a really weird thing to say because it implies that people think that way about their siblings? And comment internally on how attractive they are? Like maybe even if the anon had used the word “friend” I wouldn’t have been as frustrated, though it’s definitely the case that if we’re looking at canon, Sophie has feelings for Keefe. They’ve kissed. They’re together. That’s canon. If canon isn’t your thing, read fanfic, but don’t outright deny what’s in canon in a way that has weird implications.

It’s almost like saying sophie never had a crush on fitz. It’s slightly different because she acknowledged that one more overtly beyond just commenting on how good he looked or how he made her feel, but it would still really frustrate me if someone said Sophie and Fitz had more of a sibling relationship in canon when clearly they had romantic feelings for each other. So like it has nothing to do even with the fact that I ship Sokeefe, I would get frustrated if it was about Sophitz too because you just can’t say that someone who has very clear romantic thoughts about someone always saw them as a sibling in canon

That has really weird implications??

Anyway. I know im not being super tactful but I do hope that anon sees this so they can understand what the problem was with the ask, which wasn’t that it was anti-Sokeefe. I’m super okay with someone not liking Sokeefe. Literally a bunch of my best friends in this fandom are anti-Sokeefe. One of them might even be the one who sent this ask, in which case, hey friend!! my advice to you is, if you want a sibling dynamic, go write some fanfic! But… don’t imply that “and she had to say, the beachy look really worked for him” is a normal thing to say about your brother, because it seriously is not.

Hope we can all continue to be friends! Again it’s not the anti-Sokeefe that bothers me, it’s the deliberate misrepresentation of canon in a way that has icky implications!!

Whoaaa that was long sorry

TLDR: Sophie has romantic thoughts about Keefe in canon, so saying that in canon they seemed like siblings is weird because that implies people normally have romantic thoughts about their siblings.

Have a great day :)

[opheliasam]

4.16 is literally the craziest most insane episode ever . Dean goes to heaven n sees sam for who he is via his memories (assumes this must bc sam hates him despite sam having done nothing to imply that… like these were his happiest memories.. sorry his happiest moments weren’t about u or john oh my what a transgression???? like what . maybe it’s not about u or john it’s just about sam . It’s not a reflection of what he feels about you just about what makes him happy) and after seeing . Sam for who he is . he resents him bc sam does not feel all warm n cosy about home but the thing is . That’s not his fault and no one is saying that it’s dean’s fault . he just assumes that this means sam hates me and sees me at fault and resents me which makes him in turn resent sam . For being different than the way dean saw him . Which is actually so fucking crazy it makes my stomach churn—peak toxicity … and dean throws the samulet away bc his baby brother isn’t baby brother-ing and he can’t stand that. He does not like who sam is outside of his little brother—sammy. He does not like sam—the person. And so the only way he can reconcile staying with sam is by getting him to BE not sam but sammy. But samny is just baby brother—endlessly enamoured and dependent on dean, all heart eyes and hero worship. But what this means for sam is that he has to cede aspects of his personhood and autonomy away until he becomes what dean wants him to be—because that’s the only way dean can love him without resenting him. He makes himself smaller and smaller to fit into the role that dean sees him as, and it is such a small space—and sam doesn’t want to be sammy. He doesn’t, he wants to be sam but time and again the narrative punishes him for attempting to be sam until he can’t trust himself anymore and turns to dean (stone number one) and dean betrays, and lies and manipulates and changes the rules all the time, but dean can’t be wrong, right? he did it all for a reason (some reason) So . So it must mean that sam is at fault even though he had no way of knowing when the rules change or why they do.. he just knows that he doesn’t know anything, and that he’s a mess and that he needs dean and dean protects him. (this is what he believes he knows but we know that is not objective reality—prolonged abuse leads to him rationalising and even revising history just so it can portray dean in the best possible light, despite it not being the objective truth.) Because that’s the only way sam can make sense of anything.

(I’m using the rhetoric sam employs in order to make sense of the things happening to him, and the deep seated denial of his victimhood.)

Because otherwise it would mean something that it cannot possibly mean—that dean loves him but he’s also tried to kill him multiple times over and he’s violent and he doesn’t like that sam is vegan or likes smoothies or books and he doesn’t like when sam talks back or tries to question a decision and he is so angry all the time and sam is so so scared of him . But it can’t mean that . It cannot. Because that makes dean an ab—so it must be sam. It must—has to be sam’s fault, it has to be because he deserves it and sam just has to try harder at being good so that he can absolve himself. He’s not a victim. He can’t be .. he can’t be , he wants this . He does he does. He. He has to.

[vamos-chilli]

My god people are so miserable in your tags, trying to find a problem everywhere . And btw haven’t you guys wondered that the vibe was maybe just a bit “off” because Carlos was just probably disappointed that he didn’t win that’s it, no need to insult or blame Charles when he did nothing. He won his race beautifully, so no need to be bitter. Some Carlos fans are being really annoying lately sorry

im ngl i dont even think the vibe was weird charles went to celebrate w whoever was collecting the constructors trophy i can’t remember and both of them gave carlos a spray before carlos went to spray max and they chatted before they left the podium like it wasn’t weird to me

but the main thing is people are always going to be like this in fandom . it’s a form of parasocialism in believing that we as viewers can understand the inner workings of our idols from ‘knowing them’ through the screen and coming to ‘recognise’ what we see as behavioural markers . happens all the time that’s why we end up with prominent shipping and rpf cultures in a lot of fanbases bc of our interpretation of how people interact with one another .

it can become obsessive for people, the majority of fandoms i’ve been in have been centred around real people and the subject of ‘truthing’ comes up a lot- the strict determination of a trait or personality of a person based on a second hand perspective of them, where the f in rpf is made redundant and people start to genuinely believe their headcanons of a person are applicable to their real life person . larry stylinson is knocking at the door .

because of parasocial and truthing behaviours peoples perception of drivers becomes tilted on what will best fit the subconscious narrative they are building- lando for instance i believe doesn’t deserve the mass hatred of mischaracterising as an awful person he’s been getting this season. nothing has changed between this season and the last except for the number of wins under his belt .

last year people felt the same hostility towards max . a few years ago it was lewis . its the relationship to our drivers as a competitor that’s changed . and those that pose a bigger threat receive the harsher penalties to their character .

it’s not an issue with carlos fans . it’s not an issue with lando fans or max fans or charles fans or anyone . it’s an issue of parasocialism that’s prevalent in every fandom for every character ever . we see it more for these drivers because they are top 5 drivers and they have larger fan bases . none of us are the big bad .

sometimes it feels like us vs them and i’ll tell you first i felt that way at the start of the season because genuinely i was being flooded with carlos hate in my asks and people posting the most insane negatively parasocial conspiracy theories about carlos having paid out the media to talk about him as if he didn’t just win a grand prix 2 weeks after surgery and be one of the most valuable drivers on the market for 2025 (i still get heated about that bc it was just plain disrespectful) . and yeah it did feel like it was carlos fans vs the lecfosi . because sometimes we let it be .

we build these insanely negative parasocial relationships with drivers and it consumes us. i’ve had to block ferrari fans for constantly posting carlos negativity and no doubt charles fans have had to block some carlos fans for constant driver negativity. lando fans will have gotten death threats over a race result even though that’s an insane thing to do and so have oscar fans .

everyone is annoying all the time we all annoy each other with our parasocial truthing of drivers personalities and the only way it’s actually going to change is if

1) we all take a step back to analyse our own behaviours and how we engage with negative parasocial behaviour

2) we stop making call out posts of ‘x drivers fans are so annoying’ because all it’s doing is reinforcing the narrative we want to build

[bestworstcase]

@sailorb00 tags here

#i was also on the fence about the EA siblings and Theodore being related by looks alone (#... and the alice + dorothy comparison#mostly chalked it up to coincidence but now that they're conf. to be from Vacuo it's looking less like coincidence fsdf#then is the girl on the desk photograph Alyx before she and Lewis found the EA?#And Theodore juat inherited it? He grew up on his great-great grandfather/uncle/who know's stories about the EA being real?#Maybe in hopes that one day his sister would return and be welcomed by family? even if they're generations apart#if Lewis's pseudonym is Theodore Im gonna lose it#I mean we dont know his or the EA siblings' surnames.#IS THAT WHY THEODORE DOESNT GO BY HIS SURNAME#BC OF THE FAMILY LEGACY???#ok imma go sit down now before i hurt myself w/ speculation fsdf

YEAH SAME on the being like Doubt.jpg about a relation between theodore and lewis on the basis of… skin color, basically, but the minute i heard “i couldn’t believe they were from vacuo,” that’s a deliberate choice to link these kids to the setting for the next major story arc, and that’s happening in conjunction with several developments in the 9.11 animatic that suggest history is about to become very important (soaring popular support for the crown—probable mountain glenn history-repeating-itself theme with salem razing vale—oscar mentioning vacuo’s history of colonization—plus the great war having ended with ozma’s use of the sword in vacuo).

it’s very. raises eyebrow. alrighty then!

so whatever lewis did after coming home, other than writing tgwfttw, probably has some narrative relevance—might be as small as something jaune needs to find closure, or it might be bigger than that, who knows, but if it was a hundred and fifty years ago and it matters enough to be in the story, then the story needs a vehicle to deliver this information in a manner that feels naturalistic and non-arbitrary. (jaune-stumbles-across-loved-one’s-memorial-statue-by-chance once is a believable happenstance; twice, a cheap contrivance.)

the simplest way to do that is to introduce a vacuan character with some connection to lewis, and the obvious choice there is a descendent, because lewis lived a long enough time ago that family lineage is kind of the only plausible reason for a living character in the present to have a meaningful personal connection to lewis.

(and it can’t be oz, because oz had no idea the ever after existed.)

this descendent-character also ideally should be prominent enough in the story to matter for reasons unrelated to their relation to lewis, to avoid feeling shoehorned in. and they are probably human, given the apparent rarity of interracial human/faunus couples.

that pretty much narrows it down to theodore, or the asturias twins. NOW hysterical as it would be for jax and gillian to be descended from lewis, finn asturias is obsessed with “the old stories about [his] family” and yet doesn’t drop even a single hint about the ever after, so i think we can rule that out.

which leaves theodore. hmm.

that picture in his office:

She still remembered that her attention had been drawn to one photo in particular: a black-and-white picture of a young girl in pigtails and a checkered dress with a small black dog. She hadn’t mustered the courage to ask who she was to Theodore. A daughter? A sister? Whoever she was, Velvet could see the resemblance.

plainly evokes dorothy, and even bearing in mind that there may be discrepancies (theodore is described as blue-eyed in the book but has brown eyes in beyond, for example)… there’s nothing in this photo to suggest a resemblance to alyx beyond ‘young girl.’ alyx doesn’t wear her hair in pigtails, nor does she have checkered patterns anywhere in her design, nor does she have a little black dog. so i doubt it’s her.

but black-and-white does suggest it’s old. ‘sister’ seems a lot more plausible than ‘daughter’ for that reason, and ‘mother or aunt’ even more likely than either of those.

(the other thing about a young girl with a small black dog in This story, is.

it’s a symbol for the deaths of the ozlem girls and the inescapable grief that underlies the whole conflict between ozma and salem—there’s a reason she sends a giant monstrous hound to capture oz and then huddles in the shadows miserably looking at conjured images of her daughters until oscar wakes up; the black dog reappears as this terrifying monster in conjunction with the surfacing of all this pain.

so the question is to what extent this small black dog in the photograph is Just Toto, and whether the specific narrative symbolism is or isn’t in play here; Did This Girl Die? that would preclude her being theodore’s mother but she could well be an aunt or great-aunt.)

of course the point of drawing attention to this photograph might be as simple as hinting at theodore’s quote-unquote real ozian allusion; not dorothy but the silver shoes lost in the desert. which is an interesting angle to consider with regard to this possibility of lewis being his ancestor, because on the one hand there’s the silver shoes carrying dorothy home yet becoming irretrievably lost themselves in doing so, and on the other there’s alyx, the white rabbit, guiding people home yet never able to return home herself. see the rhyme?

in a sense jaune and team rwby bring alyx home with them, in that they know what happened to her and if there are descendants of lewis still living in vacuo then the question of why she never came home can finally be answered. and if the descendent is theodore, then the intertextual confluence between him and alyx is more resonant than the surface dorothy-and-alice comparison; the silver shoes are the home the white rabbit returns to, as a memory, a hundred and fifty-odd years late. and it matters.

but also i have a little hamster wheel churning at all times in the back of my mind and right now it’s churning around: sixty, seventy years before the great war began, vacuo was a colonial territory of mistral—before the great war, it had no formal government, it wasn’t a state, and oscar references the history of colonization in the 9.11 animatic. so that history and the history of the great war—which was for vacuo a war for independence—is narratively salient. lewis was a child who grew up in vacuo during the fractious decades preceding the great war; he gives a face to this period in history.

and jaune told lewis and alyx not only that he was from remnant but that he was from more than a century in their future; he and lewis “compared notes on remnant.” jaune couldn’t believe they were from vacuo, “back before the war, before huntsmen.”

they compared notes.

jaune’s grandfather fought in the great war.

so lewis went back home to colonial vacuo fifty, sixty, seventy years before the great war knowing that the great war was going to happen. knowing that within his lifetime vacuo would fight for its independence and win. knowing that there would be peace in the end. according to what blake says in 9.2, in the book, alyx “didn’t know [afteran] customs and started a war between the townsfolk” and that takes on a really different subtext now that we know the story’s author was a man who grew up in colonial vacuo knowing that the great war was coming.

either lewis and alyx were vacuan, or they were mistrali but born in vacuo; either way the tenor of the girl who fell through the world suggests that lewis’ sympathies lay with vacuo. both options stand to be compelling if he acted upon this knowledge more directly than writing anti-colonial themes into his children’s book. or books. there is also the boy who fell from the sky, mentioned in after the fall, and alice’s adventures in wonderland does have a somewhat lesser-known sequel.

i doubt lewis fought in the great war himself—he was probably in his seventies or older by then—but if he had children they would have been of an age to fight for vacuo, and if lewis had passed down to them the stories he knew of what remnant would be like after…

y’see how lewis could have ended up playing a really important role in vacuo’s side of the great war, if he’d decided not to leave matters in the hands of fate? jaune told him about what the world would be like after the great war, but lewis also figured out that jaune knew more than he let on, figured out that jaune remembered a story lewis hadn’t written down yet. he knew that knowledge of the future could shape the future, because if it hadn’t been for jaune and jaune’s foreknowledge of his book, he might not have written it the way he did, as a guide for how to get out of the ever after.

so he goes home, knowing the great war will happen and what the outcome will be—or else knowing that it might happen that way. who did he become with that knowledge? what did he choose to do with what he knew? the one thing we know is he became a storyteller, and “storytellers have great power” is a prominent narrative theme.

salem inspired the world to rebel against the brothers by telling the story of what they had done to her, and speaking of her vision of a time when humanity could be free.

lewis…?

[twojamie-o-clock]

(this is going off of the s6b route in my head that goes from “save yourself” to “world game” (which I think is a pretty common path) but!!)

Do you ever think about how the first s6b companion DIES & how that sets the tone for the whole ‘season’……..like how Jamie is chosen maybe practically because he is allegedly “good at handling the rough stuff” or also somewhat selfishly because the Doctor knows it’s going to be so much more dangerous now……

and how that would explain why Zoe never crops up in s6b eu much until bigfinish steps in??? Like not just that she is so much safer than Jamie atp (on the wheel vs you know. a plantation or other consequences) but also bc s6b will lead to so much more danger and the Doctor knows this.

They actively know what they are roping Jamie into, and how that could go to show this sort of. “I love you enough to be WILLING to put you in danger” and this insane trust between them & the guilt the Doctor probably feels over all of it - but also the way they’re literally saving each other? Because Jamie was going to be unsafe either way, and in this the Doctor can, you know, be with him while experiencing different dangers. Working for the Time Lords of course won’t just be the odd visit here or there to save a planet but truly disgusting work that they care enough about to interfere with but are just ashamed enough to use the Doctor for it.

And all of this strikes you in the face and leaves you stinging because Serena died. Just like the Daleks’ Master Plan - which, like, outside of the show of course was the chaos of Doctor Who itself changing - starts off a very dark streak of companion deaths and chilling narratives through eu & tv canon until Steven’s eventual departure.

I wasn’t awfully attached to Serena, but it really shows Two how far the Time Lords will go & how little they care. The mysterious Players are never expanded upon but they don’t really need to be. This is a mission - approached as the Doctor’s first, I’m assuming was Terrance Dicks’ intention - where the Doctor’s assigned companion is another Time Lord. And yet she dies.

But it’s not just kicking off this era with a death that hits, it’s everything she represented - the narrow minded typical Time Lord who meets the Doctor & is so changed and enchanted by them that they begin to understand and unlearn their own programming. The hope that the Doctor might feel when they begin working for Gallifrey - maybe it will be alright after all, maybe they can make a difference, maybe being home doesn’t have to be so different from, say, their past family of Jamie & Zoe, because they too unlearned their own programming by traveling in the TARDIS. And then Serena dies. And while it isn’t entirely gloomy or haunting -

The way this ends is so….of course it’s intended to lead into the Two Doctors but it really says something to draw a reference to the dead companion who represented so much of the shape of s6b right next to Jamie….not to mention how quickly the Doctor uses her death to bargain for Jamie….god I really can’t say anything coherent about this. I just think Serena should get more of a highlight not just as a Time Lord “swayed” by the Doctor’s,,,eccentricities but as someone who affected them so much and their ensuing, new-ish relationship with Jamie. Again I think this can also sort of explain the general lack of Zoe in s6b even though it feels like wasted potential (I’m working on a Zoe s6b fic and,,it’s rough. I love her post-TWG eu so it’s a Time…) - not just because the Doctor is only allowed one companion, but because of this darker tone, for the plot and season as a whole as well as the Doctor and the foundations their reunion with Jamie is built on.

I’m not saying this is like my main headcanon for s6b of course, but it’s an interesting thing to entertain imo

[atopvisenyashill]

apologies if this comes off wrong, but I really did hate the way they made rhaenyra's grief(of losing her mother) about alicent in a way by having her be forced to meet the king, like couldn't they have waited atleast a day or smthg. They really didn't explore her trauma and the neglect, that she obviously faced by viserys that a large part of the fandom need to be explained to that viserys was a shitty father to her as well

also the narrative is always making viserys seem he didn't do none of that. Like this man cut open his first wife and abused the second till he was unable to. If they wanted him to be one of the good guys, they needn't have made him do that?

Sorry for the rant lol

ya so i think there’s three types of issues with hotd - there’s “not attached to canon” issues (shout out sara hess), there’s “not enough time” issues (hbo i will hunt your ceo for sport), and then there’s “sure do have some weird social opinions in that writers room huh” and i think that rhaenyra suffers a LOT from the “not enough time” issue but especially in season one (whereas alicent suffers from that - in part - in s2 but is more or less solid in s1).

there’s imo this continued issue with rhaenyra being so involved with plot she doesn’t get character moments to flesh her out. millie imo has the stronger writing but it’s still a BIG ass problem because it’s like - i just don’t think the audience at large realizes a) how much she’s grieving, stressed, overstimulated, and not thinking clearly during the millie years and b) the same way that alicent takes her anger at being forced to be a child bride out on rhaenyra bc she can’t take it out on otto & viserys, rhaenyra very much takes her anger at how she’s being dicked around bc of the succession out on alicent because she can’t take it out on viserys. and in the same vein as aliotto, nyra can’t take that anger out on viserys bc like - she loves him. he’s the patriarch. he chose her to carry on the family, and the throne becomes synonymous with viserys’ love so she can’t ever give it up because giving up would mean admitting that maybe viserys set her up for failure.

now EYE feel like this is really clear but it obviously ISNT as clear as it should be because even discounting the absolutely stupid & disingenuous way people will, for example, frame her “pushing out heirs” line, i think because she isn’t allowed to really SIT in her fear of dying in childbirth and her grief over aemma and the way her grief can never resolve itself because that means admitting viserys is a jag off, people just gloss over it and miss it when it is a huge driving force (arguably thee driving force) of her character and her actions.

which gets into the viserys writing. i’ve said it before i’ll say it again. i think he’s the best written character in the show, i think he’s the best adapted character from the book, but viserys is so well written and fleshed out and now he’s dead and a lot of the other characters are painfully underwritten. so was that screen time well used???? feels like maybe not!!!! it’s nice that they really got that core of viserys is that he murders his wife & regrets it forever & that’s why he is the way he is wrt the succession but well, rhaenyra is the co-lead of the dance, not viserys, and we should have seen more that rhaenyra’s trauma over her mother is also a driving force of HER actions as a young girl/young woman over her father who they knew was going to die a quarter of the way through the story.

and then you get to alicent. alicent in s1 js very well written (up until the fucking prophecy) & comes across clearly because she has the time to have the plot heavy AND character scenes. now i think, as the other co-lead, that’s important. but it’s also like. well. alicent doesn’t have very much choice when it comes to marrying viserys and viserys is very much the one with the most responsibility here. i think cutting the scene where rhaenyra calls alicent a whore was good bc even tho it’s very in character (and juicy as hell), i don’t think it gets across the core issue here - which is that, regardless of alicent’s feelings on the matter, aemma JUST DIED & nyra's dad is remarrying her best friend. that’s an insane situation to be dealing with and rhaenyra is right to be so peeved. and it’s like you say - she talks derisively about the way aemma is treated but always stops short of blaming viserys. not only is her father shacking up with her fucking best friend, but her father essentially turns alicent into rhaenyra’s worst nightmare (“made to push out heirs” for an old man who CLEARLY doesn’t love her). rhaenyra just has to live with it; she can't escape it, she can't stop it, she can't ignore it. i just don’t think they gave nyra the room to really show US how badly this is affecting her (whereas we get alicent picking at her fingers, the whole sequence where viserys calls her to his bed at night, scenes where she’s holding aegon & looking miserable, viserys just out and out negging her in public). rhaenyra just runs around too much, her character has no room to breathe, and that is to me the main issue with her writing - if what drives her character is kind of opaque because they never give her a minute to stew in it onscreen, well maybe they're not doing too good of a job getting her across now are they!

[coffbeanie]

One of my biggest “what if” thoughts for miraculous ladybug is “what if the writers let Nathaniel be another love interest for Marinette even after Evillustrator?”

(I elaborate on this under the cut!!)

Just bc as someone who was in the fandom (and by that I mean I watched the show on YouTube and saw fanart via Pinterest and google images) like before season 2 but after season 1 ended, Nathaniel not only seemed to me like a well liked character, but there was also a good amount of fanart with him and Mari

I feel like he was kinda the go to for people who didn’t quite like him with Adrien (I always wondered why she didn’t just pick him-he seemed just as cute and as nice and he liked her back) and I also see him as that “Luka before Luka” as in he was another guy to ship Mari with, and they’re both kinda emo with the artsy vibe

I say this bc 1. I think it would have been interesting story wise and 2. As someone who was present when Nath as a fairly popular side character it’s sad to see him be neglected by the narrative

1. I’m not saying the writers should have scrapped Luka entirely and replaced him with Nath- obviously not Luka’s important to the story. I also understand that having too many love interests would have been difficult to tackle, but it would have been fun to see Nathaniel go “oh yeah I had a crush on you lmao kinda awkward it’s fine tho i’m trying to move on and I might be into ladybug now” and to them have Mari do a double take and be like “crap maybe I do like you a bit”

Also I think it would have provided interesting development for Mari to have Marc as a romantic rival-characters like Chloe, Lila, and Kagami (at least when she was first introduced) were all kinda put into a bad light, Chloe and Lila cause they were just mean and manipulative respectively, and Kagami cause she first came off as kinda mean and cold, giving Mari enough reason to dislike them and question whether they’re good for Adrien outside of also being jealous, but Marc wouldn’t be like that for Nath-he’s a quiet kid who seems nice enough, and he just writes fanfics, plays soccer, and doesn’t want to be bothered. If liked Nath enough, she would just have to accept that she’s feeling pure jealously cause you can’t really hate him for any other reason, also could have led to fun shenanigans to her trying to justify not liking Marc when she really can’t, she’s just mad cause he’s getting close to Nath

Also cause it would have been interesting to see Mari almost be rejected-maybe it’s just me but I could never really accept Kagami as a romantic rival cause they always portrayed Adrien as almost hesitant to get with Kagami, and his love for Ladybug would triumph over all(yeah they would do Chat getting over Ladybug for an episode it barely lasted) so I couldn’t see them actually being together and having the both of them be happy. Also Chloe and Lila weren’t fit for Adrien just cause they sucked

And for Luka he’s just like still there, and while he knows now that Mari and Adrien are made for each other before he had this “but I’ll still be here waiting for you if you need me :D” vibe

I think Mari being rejected by a character romantically if he was presented as a legit love interest would add more to that “just a normal girl with a normal life” cause we all don’t get what we want and people we like aren’t just going to stay waiting around for us-if Nath clicked with Marc more than he did with her than she would just have to deal with it, and seeing her deal with a still kinda hard (cause rejection is difficult) but realistic situation (something must of could relate to as it doesn’t relate to superhero-ing) would have been refreshing

2. I understand as I’m typing that I’m slightly biased towards Nath (were all the fanarts I saw as a kid really that popular? Or was I just being given Nathaniel centric art caused that’s what I looked up? I can’t remember honestly) but I’m still disappointed with how he was being pushed aside in the show, especially when-the character who would draw his superhero self insert at first denying a miraculous when presented one, and having to share his hero debut with three other people

(Penalteam could have worked if it was more Sabrina centric cause it’s hard to get out of a toxic friendship so yeah she would have gotten her miraculous last, because while getting away from Chloe definitely took her some time, ultimately she was still able to do it and become a hero, and what a better villain for her to fight than a whole bunch of Chloes; Ivan, Marc, and Nath should have gotten their own eps and I stand by this)

Idk as someone who got into the show bc of the Evillustrator episode, it’s just hard to see my fav boi be pushed to the side :((

If you read all the way to the end, thank you and pls share ur thoughts!!! Especially any Nathaniel fans wanna know if anything else has thought of this.

[tossertozier]

ao3 literally didn’t let me put my thoughts into my end notes at the end of my new chapter of rewriting it. i’ve been CENSORED i’ve been SILENCED i will SHARE WHAT I HAVE TO SAY!!! (it was just too long.)

i hate the sequences that occur after the restaurant in the movie. i’m not even going to get into why it’s stupid. the introduction of the artefact thing is when i went from “this isn’t going to be a very faithful characterization adaptation of a character gold-mine book” to “this is going to be a bad movie.” what in the goosebumps was that. do we also need to find the map to treasure island. i don’t feel like explaining why i feel like if you get it you get it.

i am stoned as hell there is so much i wanted to tackle in this it is insane. how to hold a mirror to the first chapter, as the book does, without directly or senselessly repeating it. i find the sequel bizarre in its choices. i really do. why do we spend SO long retconning the clubhouse. what the fuck are we doing. why are we doing this. the kids are adorable, and i understand the desire to shove em back in there. but i genuinely think it lacks confidence in the adult cast. a film that doesn’t trust its ability to win the audience over with just the story they have to tell is a narrative that hasn’t been well thought through. because genuinely. the entire sequence added absolutely nothing of narrative value. also. it’s a retcon. just didn’t happen, and i guess they regretted it?

also i love my sweet little guy ben but how the FUCK did he build that.

he didn’t, he just didn’t. even “reinforcing the walls” those walls are at least 6 ft tall. there’s… there’s just no fucking way… by himself?? if we were gonna do this why not be like… plausible about it and be like “oh yeah this is what we did Together after the events for the sake of ~healing~ energy and we still had plenty of people in town that don’t like us” that would have been fine? i guess bc bill moves away at the end of the movie. maybe they did it in like the three days they had till bill moved? i don’t know. it was dumb. all around.

also.i feel characterizations are off in this entire sequence. stan and the kids with the bonnets felt like an unnecessary attempt at being wholesome. forced? maybe? i really want to stress i think the kids acting abilities shined with the material given.

the inclusion of eddie breaking the toy? weird. out of character. wonder why it was included. wonder if they were looking to recreate that improv magic that made that first movie so special.

i, obviously was absolutely taken with the storytelling of chapter 1, and i wanted to know everything. i did as much research back in the day as i could on the topic. i was fascinated by that these sent those kids to camp. i hadn’t heard of something similar in a project in a while, and i thought it was genius. (obvious nod to child actor ethics, hope they were being observed, etc etc etc) but i went to camp as a kid. camp is fucking magical for friendships. i’ve tried and failed many many times to write camp based fics because like the friendships and the feelings and experiences you have when suddenly untethered from your home base is crazyyyy. i had some of my deepest feelings of trust during my friendships at camp… like to this day. genuinely

the young cast chemistry in the first film is insane and it is what makes that movie and it is heartbreaking to accept that it was… literally never coming back. even if you mimiced the process however long later. a lot had to have happened to, around, between those kids in that time elapsed. that’s going to change whatever dynamic they had before. that’s perfectly fine, but when you literally coattailed that script on JDG and FW’s backs (i still laugh at “suck the wound!! get in there!!” in my head sometimes) and let dialogue come naturally as a result of the experience and the environment… you should accept you cannot script its continuation. love love love the kids. still think giving them the scene like that was a mistake. it was time that should have been utilized to fall in love with the adult losers before we start scaring the shit out of them.

gonna say it… not a huge fan of the scripting of richie. we’ll get into it later. the book makes it a point to say that richie as an adult is not a cruel man. the apology moment is IN the book over a joke that surprises him. being in derry brings him back to a part of himself he’s deeply uncomfortable with. having his dialogue have a bit of a mean streak with zero exploration of it bums me out.

now to the second part of this: shitting on the book, which of course i do reference several times in this now literal fucking essay as of course… ultimately it’s the holy book. it is canon, to me. IT is the book. these movies are adaptations. i’m going to be real here: i respect stephen king as an author. though my jokes may suggest otherwise. etc. it is his story and that has to be commended. these are his characters and plot and original ideas and that’s a fact.

the second act of the book is a mess. in order to kill an entity, you have to explain what it is. that’s… that’s just da rulez. you cannot end existence without at least ?? rationalizing it ?? i suppose ?? to your audience.

i think that’s why king won’t touch this book with a ten foot pole. i’ve seen him show a lot more interest in projects around some of his other books. his general regard seems to be like “go nuts don’t ask me to write a script” because he knows. i don’t want to bring drugs and shame into all of this but like let’s be real… the book doesn’t really make sense when it comes to what pennywise actually is, and it doesn’t even really seem like he tries that .. hard to make sense. yes yes shapeshifter… get it. but he also makes balloons and shit appear from thin air. fact of the matter is he bends not only his own form but the reality around it.

and yes : i get it. i understand that if you’re a fan of stephen king, and you understand his universe, it all becomes less convoluted. i genuinely understand that.

but the task at hand is to write a horror movie for mass-appeal. i’m gonna take a crack at explaining what it is, why it’s so fucking powerful, and how it can be killed.

(honestly the ending of the movie, i know i know we’ll get there, but i was literally holding a hand to my mouth trying not to laugh. remember kids, if you’re ever being bullied, get more people than your bully and bully them.) we also didn’t do any of the metaphysical stuff in the first movie… so… sending bev to the deadlights instead of bill was interesting… obviously i think the interpretation of what she saw was weak as hell idk just see where i’m going with this. i’m trying to do a lot all at one time for no reason!

but really king created a BEAR of a villain to try and make sensible in two hours. i’ m gonna try

[jemmo]

rambles on that last twilight ending

my thoughts on the last twilight ending are so??? im gonna need to sit on this one for a while, bc i loved this show so whole-heartedly that i don’t want to write it off bc of a ‘bad ending’, but it also means it’s hard to reconcile that the ending was… well, i don’t think it was bad. i think it deserves more thought than that, but i don’t think it did what it wanted to, nor did it keep with what the shows message was, or should have been. and we can say it’s as simple as day shouldn’t have got his sight back, but I don’t think that was the only thing. if he stayed blind, the ending still wouldn’t have hit right for me. none of it hit right from the end of ep 11 bc it’s like I could feel the intent of the writing, but it’s not what the writing actually was. and if it was given maybe 3ish more episodes and all these characters were given more time, i think an ending like this could’ve worked. but again, it all comes down to that damn ep 11 curse that I thought p’aof was better than, bc you can’t squeeze everything that needed to be reconciled after this breakup and everything they wanted to do into one ep, not with this show.

i didn’t hate the idea of a breakup. if you’re going with the narrative of mohk having a fear of being away from day bc of his trauma and so on then fine, that works. and so it works that they had to be away from each other to grow in that way, but I do think it was unkind to mohk to send him away on that note. some understanding, and day wanting him to go for his own good would’ve felt kinder, and even if they were his real intentions, they didn’t communicate that either. it just felt like day had no empathy for him. and yes he was probably hurting too feeling like no one was trusting him, but whatever, it could’ve been done better. and if they wanted to play on anything else, then hey there was that whole bit with the car and day thinking mohk was looking after him just for the money, why not use that and the fact the opportunities mohk got in his career were connections bc he was with day. day could’ve been like well that was the whole point, you don’t work for me forever, you can do whatever you want now, or even just played more on him feeling like he’s holding mohk back. idk, i just mean if this breakup was going to turn out to be 3 years, no contact at all, which it did, it should’ve felt bigger than a 5 second argument.

anyway, then the finale comes and again, if they’d given more reason for a breakup, i would’ve understand more why day keeps on denying mohk a second chance, which i already don’t like the phrasing of bc it makes out like he did something wrong and needs to earn a second chance which he doesn’t. the whole thing would’ve been more understandable if this was day realizing that they both grew and found happiness in what they’re doing and he didn’t want to ruin that when the breakup meant it could happen. or they could’ve completely 180-ed and shown that one of them wasn’t happy, or both, idk mohk had no one in the states and was incredibly hurt and lonely, day was struggling after losing mohk like he did and reinforcing the idea that he couldn’t be independent made him retreat again. just anything would’ve given more strength behind a need to push away, and would have made it more satisfying when love overcomes it all blah blah blah.

and as much as i liked the airport scene and the fact day did go after him, do you know what would’ve been more impactful? day, knowing his full ability, and going against his mom who still worries for his safety or going bc of his mom seeing that he’s not truly happy, bc both could’ve worked given different writing, getting on a plane by himself and going after mohk, seeing him be able to traverse it all. for once we watch day by himself and unlike at the start of the show, we’re not constantly scared he’s gonna get hurt, bc he’s confident and able now and we can just watch him go after mohk and be excited about it, like the end to any other romance story. and it would’ve meant mohk got this moment where, after looking after day so much and getting broken up with bc he cared too much, he gets to see day caring for him that much too.

and the sight thing. yes, with the time they had they shouldn’t have done it, it should’ve been that they manage to find their own happiness despite it all, then the whole show would’ve been about day accepting his situation and standing up for his own ability and his own right to independence and happiness, and it would’ve meant mohk could overcome his fear of loss and guilt over his sister and learn that he isn’t to blame for anything, bc now day can make his own decisions and is ok on his own. now if there was more time, i could’ve seen it working, but only with stronger writing. I would’ve loved to have seen a conversation over day getting his sight back, maybe him not wanting it bc he’s accepted the way he is much like how some deaf people don’t want implants, and the opposing argument of how not all people in his place can have the possibility of seeing again. we could’ve seen fear in the opposite direction now that he’s used to his life, and that damn first scene of part 4, we could’ve seen him then wanting to go out into the world and look after people like him, just like mohk did for him, bc mohk made him see the importance of having someone there for you that cares for you and sees you as a person, as normal, not as your disability. and funnily enough, do you know what made me cry at the end of it? then showing the pictures that were taken when day was blind. that’s the kind of thing i wanted to see, and wished i did if they had more time. day getting his sight back but still showing how connected he is to who he was at that time and while not being thankful for it happening, being thankful for the way he’s grown, and loving the person he sees in those pictures. to go from someone who hid himself and his blindness to someone who shares his story and helps and advocates vocally for those like him, despite not being blind anymore. that way you still get to give day his sight back as your happily ever after but manage to retain the message.

so yeah. they missed the ball. but i also want to remove this idea that an ending ruins a whole show. at the end of the day, it’s one ep, and when a show has done so much good in all its other eps, at least in my eyes, that’s the stuff I’d rather talk about and remember.

[mycringeaccount]

Sooo.. What actually was Mhoks character growth?

I’m still thinking about the last episode and why there had to be a time skip.

I mean it’s kinda obvious. To skip right to the character growth with minimal effort or time spend on it.

And because we really see absolutely nothing as to how Mhok has changed, we have to analyze his actions in the episode to figure it out ourselves. But even there I ran into the trouble of not really seeing any real changes in his behavior. Not from Mhok or Day, even tho at least we where shown some scenes from his life while they were apart.

The first thing that I found weird was how Mhok still treats Day as if he was his caretaker (which Night even comments on). Bc in ep. 11 that’s what the show told us needs to be overcome for them to be in a happy equal relationship. Even the mom said there is a difference between being a partner and being a caretaker. And bc the mom was pardoned and made a fckn relationship guru in this episode, that has to be important right? (No seriously f the mom and spoilers.. nothing this ep sets up is gonna be important urgh)

Then there is the whole flirting, Mhok perusing and Day mildly rejecting the advances. The same dynamic that they had before they got together.

So kinda nothing new.

But it’s just so weird to me how I really can’t make out a change in Mhok at all but he still seemed so ooc to me this episode.

So why is that?

Is it the fact that Mhok just went right in again, flirting after literal 3 years of break up and zero communication as if nothing really happened?

That you are supposed to believe these characters had some actual character growth but nothing was shown and then they just act the same?

That the conflict they had was so poorly handled, it kinda made me sick.

For not adressing Mhoks issues at all.

Or that the issue that the show wants me to believe was the cause of their break up, which was that Day thought he was holding Mhok back and therefore he led him go, was never resolved and in the end that’s exactly what happened again for them to be together. Mhok wanting to staying in Thailand for Day, instead of having a great career, was what the fight apparently was all about and in the end he just quit that same job and stayed in Thailand for their relationship. Good job narrative 👏👏

Ok but back to the actual question. What actually was Mhoks character growth now? What where the 3 years working alone in Hawaii supposed to be for?

One thing that did stand out to me, that was kinda different, was that Mhok seemed more invasive in his flirting than in the beginning. Like how he groped Day while trying on the suits. Or how he shushed him when asking if Day is seeing someone new.

Maybe Mhoks Growth is that he respects his own wishes now more, that he goes for what he really wants without holding back.

Like when Day tells him they not gonna get back together and at first he does what he is told and leaves ( just like he left when Day fired him or wenn Day broke up with him) but now he turns back and goes to confront Day again. Not accepting Days rejection this time and going for what he wants instead.

Which I find kinda iffy bc of course it seemed to be ok, bc we know that Day also wants to be with him. But the groping, the disregard of personal space or boundaries, it just doesn’t feel like green flag Mhok to me. I’m happy that for once he seemed to fight for what he wants but how the show handles that just seems so poorly executed.

There was such a good story to be told about Mhoks grief and how he feels so responsible for his sisters death and they just dropped it to make him more of a plot device for Days story. I really wish we could have had Mhok finding new friends and family and purpose in Hawaii, or in his life in general. Bc how the story is written, Mhok still only has a desire to be with Day. Day still being his one and only priority even after 3 years. As if he was not really living, just working and waiting for the chance to get back together and nothing else. You can actually write a character building a new better life and finding a purpose, but still miss and love someone. I think that takes nothing away from the love, in my opinion it makes it even more powerful.

[detectivechen]

so what can they do?

nobody likes a person who points out problems without suggesting solutions, so i’m back with what’s gotta give on the rookie.

imo their current problems aren’t rooted so much in ‘you can’t please everyone’, but rather ‘the writers are doing the absolute most to please everyone who ever existed in ~40 min.’

what’s the difference? the former puts the blame on the audience for ‘not getting it,’ while the latter asks the writers to take accountability for the directionless quality of their work. their method of ppl pleasing rn is highly unsustainable, so they need to course correct expeditiously or risk crashing and burning spectacularly.

here are some suggestions.

decline at least one of the regulars' checks.

help everyone on feds file for unemployment.

brush up on the neuroscience of reward.

put some respect on the psychology behind miller's law.

be warned: it's a lengthy below the cut! 😈

decline at least one of the regulars' checks.

alexi oprah-ed a lil too hard when handing out the series regular contracts this szn. s5 has a whopping number of NINE regulars/main characters: bailan (nolan and bailey), chenford (tim and lucy), wopez (angela and wesley), nyla, aaron, & grey. to be clear, that’s 9 whole actors who must be featured in at least one scene per ep, even if their characters don’t fit into the featured plots.

the number isn’t the problem, as s1/s2 had 8: the rookies (jackson, lucy, nolan), the TOs (tim, angela, talia/nyla), grey, & captain andersen. the problem is the writers’ propensity to give each couple their own storyline in nearly every episode. it’s unnecessary, and we’ll come back to this later.

solution? at least one of the series regulars needs to go. my vote is for bailey. she stretches the rookie universe too wide by pulling focus away from the mid-wilshire crew with her jane-of-all-trades shtick.

imo nathan and jenna’s lack of chemistry + their characters’ mr. and mrs. perfect 'brand' is the ultimate recipe for becoming the ‘pee break’ couple. so killing bailey off and having nolan process that resulting grief would give his too perfect character the depth that he so desperately needs to be likable rn. after all, bailey is supposed to his loml, right?

help everyone on feds file for unemployment.

tldr the last point? it's cool. basically, in order for og rookie to go back to its roots, the universe has to get smaller. solution? stop tryna make feds happen! let this upcoming episode be the last time the walmart version comes onto the brand name’s.

the ‘crossovers’ are most def the rookie’s way of minimizing their losses from their investment on feds. it’s doing so poorly that it needs to be propped up by the shock and awe that chenford generates. when feds eventually gets cancelled, most of s5 will be unwatchable bc of the crossover cliffhangers. idk maybe don’t force-feed us new characters that we don’t feel emotionally connected to? or at least buy us some dinner first, gosh. 🤷🏻‍♀️

brush up on the neuroscience of reward.

if the writers are feeling butthurt that their audience has been disappointed weekly since chenford kissed in 5x12, then they need a crash course on the neuroscience of reward STAT.

chenford was interesting bc the reward of seeing them give in to the pull was always unpredictable. so every time they kiss, it’s not like a reward, it is a reward. we get an intense dopamine high that keeps us up and posting all night, work and other commitments in the morning be damned.

the human brain is naturally wired to do everything it can to recreate that positive feeling, so we come back weekly to patronize the show in anticipation that something similar might happen again. so ofc, when it doesn’t happen again after one week, we’re understanding; it just happened last time. but when it doesn’t happen for the 4th week in a row? chaos. we go feral in search of that dopamine hit that may never come again.

solution? keep the narratives tight. if you’re not gonna give the audience a big moment like that, then supplement it with smaller, but equally unexpected moments. (to be clear, they shouldn’t be dropping big moments on the reg bc neuroadaptation becomes a prob. the unpredictability is what keeps the audience coming back. capiche?)

so if you’re gonna drop crumbs? make it mean something. take angela and tim’s interaction in 5x02 before angela transformed into a morose mom. ‘so remind me what you were doing again, in lucy’s apartment, when chris was bleeding out?’

this could’ve been called back in 5x13 when tim asked angela what’s poppin at nolan’s house during the heat wave. in one line, she could’ve said ‘oh, so dropping her off is what the kids call it nowadays, huh?’ or something to confirm to both chenford and the audience that everyone’s clocked the change in their relationship.

put some respect on miller's law.

miller’s law is the theory that the working memory can only hold 7±2 ideas at once. when the ideas are as complex as storylines, that magic number maxes out at 5. the recap sequence in 5x16 alone had us recall SIX. imagine how tired and confused i was when they also threw in celina’s dead sister trauma on top of an ebola + sarin gas drone firefight.

i understand that there is prob great external pressure from ABC for og to capitalize on its success by creating an empire, especially with grey’s on its last legs. so they’ve been trying to go bigger and better by throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks.

sure, every couple can have their own storyline…but not all at once in the same damn ep! sure, you can call back fan-favorite scenes…but not if the rising action takes too long, leaving no room for jesus a satisfying denouement! sure, you can give your marquee couple most of the run time…but not if their moments are the equivalent of an HS prom-posal! (leave no room for jesus here instead, i beg!)

the writing in the first three seasons of the show was more character-driven and intentional. talia kept giving lucy pointed looks until she broke up with nolan. nolan spent s2 building his house, only to tear it apart to exonerate himself. jackson spent half of s3 riding with a racist to make sure that he exposed that man’s sorry ass in front of his peers.

s4 seemed to be another attempt to expand the rookie universe by having the mid-wilshire crew follow-up on random lil cases that would be resolved in the same ep, but s5 is overdoing this formula. there are more conflicts that need to be resolved in multiple eps besides the tired elijah/abril/la fiera storyline.

so what does my wishlist look like for the couples? i guess you'll have to stay tuned to find out 😉

[ramblingdisaster73]

hi! i'm curious - what are your thoughts on some ppl (maybe mostly in the minority?) have made comparisons of the carlos & iris rescue scene in 4x03 being parallel to that of tk/carlos in the iconic Push, and how they've said it kind of undermines the emotional weight in Push?

personally, i'm trying not to put too much weight on it, bc i think it's probably not as deep as they're making it out to be, and it makes logical sense for carlos to tell her to breathe as she was near hyperventilating at the time (if my memory serves me well, i'm not planning to rewatch it so pls do correct me if im wrong) – but the more cynical part of me can see where they're coming from as well (e.g. with the framing), and it's starting to get to me a little

my heart really does hurt for tk in that moment tho :( it certainly didn't help that carlos was being a jerk during that scene - this will def always be a skip for me. there's angst and then there's being a jerk for no reason bc he's what, mad? i can't imagine what/how tk must be feeling at the time

also, idk. there's not much to work with here, a part of me wondered (if it was intentional) if carlos was that spiteful enough to purposely do all of that to get a reaction out of tk (i doubt this. it's fucked up, but it's whatever, he's already walking a tightrope between being petty and also being an a*hole. i honestly wouldn't be surprised if the writers are trying to play this up for dramatic purposes), or if they'd just wanted to be sprinkle in the additional ✨ angst ✨ to get a reaction out of the audience instead, if it was completely unintentional, or it really isn't as deep as that.

ig we'll never know atp, but i thought i could come to u and see what you think! i'm really liking the discussions we've all had in between the eps haha, i hope that's okay!

This got a bit longer than I intended.

The “Breathe, breathe” scene in Push was a huge moment for them (& us) after their breakup – but I don’t really think the writers intended to have Carlos tell Iris the same thing to cheapen the scene in Push.

I totally get the people who had that gut reaction of “what the fuck, why would they have him say that like that?” and feel like it took away from the Tarlos scene – I do. The first time I watched the ep (I have had it on repeat pretty much anytime I am home alone while I am writing.),

I had a similar thought process – when I watched it again the 2nd time though, it made more sense to me narratively & like you said she was hyperventilating & in a decent amount of distress – telling her to breathe was pretty much the only thing he could say here. Saying something like “calm down” doesn’t always help when you are not in a position to think clearly – simple direction is much easier to follow (I say this as someone who has frequent panic attacks & telling me to calm down is not at all helpful) so, if someone was telling me to breathe – I would be able to follow that direction – telling me to calm down would only make me panic more – because I have to think about HOW to calm down.

I really do think that they are making Carlos’ less than perfect sides more obvious this season, that is why what we saw last year as a little bit of pettiness (3x13) now feels almost cruel at times. I understand why there are fans that just can’t get into this storyline – why they are struggling so much.

I have said since at least last season, the writers did a real disservice to Carlos by making his appear so perfect on the surface for so long. By finding ways to put the blame for any issues between them on TK, or just glossing over his need to keep everything in boxes & his control issues – made it so some fans didn’t need to look deeper at the character – they saw this absolutely gorgeous man, saw the ways he supported TK – thought he was the perfect boyfriend/fiancé, the cop with a good heart.

Now, all of a sudden, they are being confronted with the fact that Carlos has a past, one that some just can’t fathom. They are being forced to acknowledge that Officer Reyes is not perfect and they really don’t know how to handle it.

If we had any in canon hints (other than deleted scenes we won’t ever see) of the actual closeness of Iris & Carlos – some of the people that are struggling with this arc – may have been able to believe that this person was so important to Carlos (NOT MORE IMPORTANT THAN TK, BUT STILL IMPORTANT), but – we didn’t. So now, they have to build that now – and Rafa & Lyndsy are doing a fantastic job of showing a real emotional (platonic) relationship.  

The writers had to do something that would SHOW us their closeness – not just tell us, like some of the other parts of the storyline – and this was actually (imo) a beautiful way to do it. I don’t really think it was to be petty or dickish to TK, just to show us the emotional connection the characters share. The fact that Rafa & Lyndsy have pretty great chemistry helps this as well.

Carlos was definitely walking the very fine line between petty & dickish, but I think the writers need him to do that for this part – the 3rd act. In a lot of media – the 3rd act is the hard part – either emotionally or mentally – they needed to set up the angst and tension for when Carlos got shoveled to kick off the 4th act.

Would we lose our shit if Carlos went missing while things were perfect for Carlos & TK? absolutely – we love them. BUT – to have it happen when things aren’t as stable, when they are both too much in their feelings/heads to see clearly – that is where the real pay off comes from.

We know that Carlos & TK love each other deeply, we understand why TK went to talk to Iris, we know that it didn’t trigger anything for her. Carlos – doesn’t right now. He is a man that thinks rationally (because he tosses his problems in a box & throws away the key) – but right now rational thought isn’t something he is capable of.

The man had like 15 seconds of not being noticeably stressed the fuck out on screen before that “dream” venue called him – he has been riding on pure emotion and avoidance ever since.

It is easier to lash out (or treat not so great) the people that you KNOW love you. You know that they will be there when you realize what you did/said. We all do it in little ways all the time, (we have a bad day at work, then go home – and every little thing builds up until you blow up – typically not at the people/thing that originally caused your irritation). In this case – I think that Carlos blames himself for all of it – and he can’t shove it in a box – he has to face it, especially in this 4th act.

Carlos KNOWS that TK loves him. But this man is TERRIFIED of his actions hurting Iris, that he seems as though he is ignoring TK, or at least dismissing him. I go back and forth between thinking that Carlos was more defensive to TK in the bunkroom than trying to explain it – but that is an emotional response from me. When I take my emotions out – I can see the way his anxiety is tearing him apart, he is scared to hurting TK, of TK leaving – not because of something TK did – but because Carlos hurt him emotionally. He is scared of jeopardizing Iris’ health and wellbeing.

He also can’t see that these two people, the ones he loves most (in very different ways), are stronger than he can see – especially in this particular situation.

*We have NEVER seen Carlos be the one to fall apart. He is used to being the one putting the pieces back together, for the most part – keeping a clearer head, & connecting the dots. Right now – he isn’t able to do that – but he also won’t let TK or Iris really help him – which leads to the shoveling.

I know that Tim and Ronen keep hyping up Rafa’s acting in 4x04 – but I am also really looking forward to Ronen’s as well. Both of these men have been doing such an amazing job of making us feel all these annoying feelings.

I think another reason people are struggling to see Carlos being more standoffish to TK in 4x03 is that we have watched TK handle this situation so well. Carlos tells him that he has been legally married to someone during their whole relationship, TK listens to him, listens to his reasons on why. We have watched TK handle it with grace – but are now being shown Carlos not doing the same. And it does hurt. It hurts because we know how much they love each other, how much they truly need and want each other. So, to see real friction between them (probably the most we have seen – especially since they broke up off screen) hurts. Going into those scenes knowing that the shoveling was coming hurt more.

The hurt is intentional from the storytelling perspective– but I am hoping & optimistic about a pretty good pay off. I have a feeling that a lot of this elevated pettiness will be gone like the ‘lasting ramifications of hypothermia for TK’ last season, so I am not worried about that continuing either. Once he is rescued, we will get the super tactile, loving, beautiful Tarlos – one that has become stronger through their ordeals – both separate & together.

When in doubt: Just remember Tarlos is endgame & all roads lead to the wedding.

I love the discussions that this show brings up & my husband loves that I have people other than him to talk to about this show.

[wander-wren]

i finally watched the first seven episodes of trigun stampede today and i have to say 👀👀👀 i have thoughts. i will attempt to be vague and not spoil things

first of all this is a puppy of a man and he is my new best friend

second of all, y’all weren’t kidding bout the christ allegory and all that. wow. it’s kinda goofy but like, also believable? in context?

i already knew going in that vashwood was a thing and i was waiting to see how gay, exactly, they were gonna be. and then one of the first things vash says to him is about how he has Good Person Eyes with his silly little smile and i’m like Oh okay. gay.

also it’s just, like, really sad. darker than i expected from what little i saw beforehand/the opening. (well. not the first four minutes. after that.) (maybe i should’ve taken the first four minutes as a hint.)

and more violent than i expected, ig i’m still new to anime and not used to my Silly Cartoons being full of The Violence. but also i get squicked by hand gore and arms are close enough to hands that some of the ep2/3 bits were. hm! hm. it’s cool tho. ig i should’ve expected something like that when there’s a bad guy named knives.

I HAVE A DUMB NITPICK ABOUT THE WORLDBUILDING THO. i do like the worldbuilding i think it’s really cool i love a good desert space planet. i like the sand worms. always gotta have sand worms. and the plants. it’s neat. but uh.

my question is why is the whole thing a desert and then there is ALSO the great sand ocean?? you can see the outline of the continent and everything?? but?? when we go to the great sand ocean it is literally just, yknow, more sand, and cars drive on it at the same speed as the ship, so like, what is the point. i thought maybe it’s like a big shelf, big drop off, like cliffs, but no? bc there is a genuine concern at one point about sailing into a town?? i’m so. i’m so confused. why is there an ocean. am i missing something??

ANYWAY my other nitpick is that meryl and roberto are very necessary to the story in the sense that they need to be there as outsiders to vash/knives/wolfwood/etc, as stand-ins for the audience, but like. they don’t DO anything so far. aside from occasionally doing one small useful task, they mostly just follow/drive vash around. i felt guilty about internalized misogyny for not liking meryl as much as vash/wolfwood, but cmon, one of them is a Smart Reporter who is interested in vash and has no sense of self preservation. two of them are very traumatized potentially not-quite-human gunslingers. and i like meryl! and roberto! i love a good grumpy mentor and his plucky newbie partner trope. they just don’t do much and dont give me a lot to latch onto.

yeah, that’s about it for right now. most of my thoughts are just that i love, love, love vash. so much. he’s so silly and strange and he’s a pacifist but he’s also veryy competent with a gun/in a fight. and he is sad. and he is a puppy. i want to give him a hug.

i saw that little thing about him refusing to eat after [redacted events] and how he “doesn’t deserve to cry” and meryl going “look at you!!” and clapping when he finally does, + him looking at wolfwood and repeating wolfwood’s comment about deserving to eat. oh my boy. oh i’m latching onto that so hard

same with wolfwood tbh tho i’m not as attached bc he came later and i’m still a little suspicious of some things. he’s also a weirdo but in a very different way. wow it’s almost like he and vash have really similar backstories but adapted in opposite directions.

(what if i was your narrative foil….and we were both boys…….)

oh! final thing is that i love the art style. the planets look so cool and the creature/machine designs are very neat and it’s just. pretty. yes.

hopefully i’ll have time to finish season 1 on tuesday? it doesn’t feel quite like a hyperfixation to me yet (which is good i don’t need to deal with that rn lol), but i’m definitely interested and want to take a wander through the fandom.