#And in s8 we could have seen them but they FORGOT

[puppychase]

“The Mayhem on the Cross”, Season 4 episode 21 (1/2)

[artnassertia]

I am so tired of all this discourse about s8 and Sam's actions at the beginning. Because there are only two types of people. The first ones hate Sam, blame him for everything and, to be honest, I can completely understand them (I am a Samgirl myself). The second ones justify him and all his actions and for them he is white and fluffy, he did everything right.

For me, all this is nonsense and an example of how people don't know how to think wider. And it's not about some deep analysis of the character (although, of course, this is welcome), not about trying to understand whether he did right or wrong. But the fact that in general the entire beginning of the s8 is complete nonsense. And it's not about the characters, but about the script.

Yes, I think that the blame here should be shifted to the writers.

You need to understand that in a show like Supernatural there is a HUGE number of writers. Each episode is written by a separate person. And each of these writers feels, sees and understands (or doesn't understand) the character differently. And if during the series it's not so noticeable, because small things can be different. And the fact that after the fifth season we are shown very little about the characters themselves, and not about the global plot, only helps to blur this difference. Then the end of the s7 and the beginning of the s8 stand out from the general picture too much.

The writers were in a hurry. The writers needed to somehow develop the line they went along and create a conflict. And the situation was such that... there was nothing to create a conflict from. Because, looking at the development of Sam as a character all this time, the viewer understands that he, just like Dean, would do everything possible to find his brother. Those who refer to their agreement "not to look for each other" probably forgot the beginning of the fourth season, where we were clearly shown that Sam absolutely goes crazy when Dean is in danger or dead. And it would be one thing if we were shown that Sam really changed his point of view. But no, there was no development in that direction. The only thing we were shown was that Sam wants to be more independent. And this is a normal, correct desire (especially in their relationships). But NOTHING told us that he can just… forget about it. Just do nothing. Just not look for Dean. Like can you imagine that this lore freak wouldn't look for any information about what happened to Dean? They tried to make a parallel with the beginning of season six, but they didn't understand that the situation is FUNDAMENTALLY different.

Because later, in season nine, Sam changes AGAIN. He is ready to do anything for Dean again, he goes crazy again when he dies, he is ready to destroy everything in his path and sacrifice everything in order to get his brother back to him.

Then what was the beginning of season eight for? Why were we shown this? Why did Sam suddenly become a bastard then? Because of a woman? No, because the writers needed a conflict between the brothers. And they decided to do it at Sam's expense, because guess what? In this show, everything is always at his expense.

For me, their meeting in the first episode is just another proof. They haven't seen each other for a year, Sam doesn't know what happened to Dean, Dean doesn't know what's going on in the world after the Leviathans were left without a leader. But how do they greet each other? Dryly, unsentimentally, as if they haven't seen each other for only a week. Their meetings were brighter even after they haven't seen each other for a couple of hours on another case. Honestly, I think even Jensen and Jared didn't like playing this, so tasteless it was.

I don't deny that Sam could have lived a normal life this year. But only after he broke down from ignorance, after he made every effort to find out something, after he realized that he couldn't help in any way. And only then, after he can accept it, he would have hit that damn dog.

And all this is not the character's fault. It is the fault of the writers, who have given up on all the logic of Sam's development and have not found another way to implement their ideas. In addition, the further we go, the clearer it becomes that they are doing this not only with him. Only Dean remains more or less stable, the other characters change almost beyond recognition with each new season (just look at Cas' entire storyline).

I think it's just dumb to put the blame on the character here. Because if you love Sam and follow his development, you'll understand that this whole situation is completely out of his character. Not to mention Kevin, who Sam would NEVER leave alone after all they went through.

So, yeah. The writers of beginning of s8 sucks. That's all.

[castielmd]

Castiel's physical strength.

Today, I want to bring the agenda of the raw strength Castiel wields — partly canon; then diving into head canons.

Currently, I'm watching S8 and specifically S8EP08 brought a thought to me. I don't remember a lot of the past seasons [speaking 4-6], so I will be focusing on this specific scene. You're welcome to share other incidents!

In this episode, they [Sam, Dean, Castiel] are essentially working a case about cartoons coming to life.

Castiel and Dean are seen investigating a bank where an anvil was dropped on a person. Short scene proceeds:

Dean: "Hey, can you lift this?" [referring to anvil]

Which Castiel does, fairly easy.

So I'm wondering — how far does his strength go, speaking on a purely "physical-possessed-vessel" basis. He can lift something this heavy, which Dean obviously couldn't since he wouldn't have asked otherwise.

Shallow research on anvils revealed that they can weigh up to 500 pounds [~226 kg]. Given that the anvil we saw on screen appeared to be quite large (my assumption is, it reached to their kneecaps), I would like to assume that it's at least somewhat in that weight range. Definitely above 100kg in my opinion.

So, answering the question, Castiel is very strong, just hands-on. How have I not noticed this before? Or maybe I did, in hindsight.

———

Somewhere down the line in S5EP18 [Point of no Return], Castiel is seen to beat Dean up. Quite brutally so. Dean, whilst not really showing active signs of fighting back, doesn't seem to have a chance to either. He gets flung back by Castiel and then proceeds to ask for it to be finished.

Dean: "Do it."

Dean: "Just do it!"

Castiel then relaxes his fist, and proceeds to tap Dean out, not complying.

Castiel only used physical force to beat up Dean. Therefore, it seemed like just a fight between "humans" — there's plenty examples of Sam and Dean beating each other up and it gets bloody. Hence I never paid it much mind. After the anvil incident though;

Dean didn't [HC: couldn't] fight back and was down, when telling Castiel to end it. This can be chalked up to Dean's general suicidal tendency [wanting to surrender to the angels, being used as vessel] or/and acknowledging the difference in strength between them — that Castiel has the potential to end him.

Now, to the fun part. I propose the idea that Castiel could've ended Dean with one punch. I even think he could rip someone's head clean off, if he wanted to. Maybe he did and I just forgot. If he's lifting something this heavy [anvil], he should be able to distribute that raw force into combat as well. He's trained for combat after all. Dean, as human, is #not built for this.

Which leaves no question but only the conclusion, that Castiel is precisely and actively deciding how much strength he puts behind each punch/kick/pull/choke.

Summarizing so far: Castiel wields a lot of strength and is controlling his output.

———

In my opinion, it is out of Castiel's good heart that he spares Dean. Dean has disappointed him gravely, and Castiel says so.

Dean: "What, are you crazy?"

Castiel: "I rebelled for this? So that you could surrender to them?"

Dean: "Cas, please!"

Castiel: "I gave everything for you. And this is what you give to me?"

Yet, he doesn't kill Dean, which would've arguably been easier than watch him all the time to make sure he doesn't surrender himself to heaven.

So he estimates how much impact Dean can take, and lets him live. Yet the fight is personal and close enough to convey the message of hurt, betrayal and disappointment. I don't want to turn this into a "Dean is Castiel's weak spot." discussion. I want to give credit to Castiel for being kind enough to let him off; and in control enough to hurt but not kill.

———

And this leads me to my final point — practice and mistakes.

I'm wondering, whether or not Castiel had to learn to channel his power. I'm not sure if Jimmy was his first vessel, likely not, but even so: in his first vessel - did he have to practice basic touches? Fighting to disarm instead of kill? How much time did it take if yes?

Were there any incidents where he applied too much? Perhaps he ripped off a door handle once. Maybe aimed for a friendly pat on the back and sent the person flying. Perhaps, it even was easier for Castiel around other angels in vessels; since they could take it/are on par.

I'd also be interested how much conscious effort it takes. At first it might've taken a lot, then became easier until it was automated.

———

I felt the anvil was a strong reminder, to me at least, of Castiel's strength and competence. The show tends to make me forget it. For example, most of the episode in S8 was centered around his "incompetence" as a hunter. Ridiculed for his attempts to help on his own, and never acknowledged for useful contributions. But he is, inherently, capable. He's knowledgeable, strong and smart. He's simply adjusting to fit in [e.g. this whole post about strength] — yet this way they forget what he is. And if he doesn't adjust, attempts to bring in his own abilities, he is condemned and shunned.

———

Anywho, that's all. Castiel is strong and very capable. I wish they'd notice it more. Perhaps a display of strength would be nice, one that is not focused on an anvil.

Feel free to leave thoughts and own theories.

Edit: I forgot he became a seraph. So some of this strength might've come later on, although I'd like to stick with the thought that he outranks humans by far in simple physical strength even before becoming a seraph [and could've ended the fight with Dean much sooner and a lot differently.]

[its-moopoint]

With a long hiatus between S7 & S8 again SC are continents apart. Shippers have no problem with him barely in the UK since March and in the US till end of August. Before C's photo today in London, they were saying she's with him, somewhere not wanted to be seen together. After C's photo, they don't need to be together because they are not joined at the hip and after working together for months they need some space between them. This is how they convince themselves and reinforce their fantasy.

Anonymous

I see Cait is still in London, rings back on 🙄 (Aisling Bea's IG) and it looks like she cut her hair again! I hope people chill now, Sam is working in the US and for now Cait is chilling in London, I assume, hoping the strike ends soon so she can go back to work. They don't need to be attached at the hip at all times. Spaces in their togetherness and all that.

bat-cat-reader

Finally a sensible and consistent anon. 😍

Their agendas were programmed with a lot of time, the strike has only meant a change in them. Cait would be working on her film in Europe and Sam working on promoting his gin in the US. Work, not vacation 🙃

shoutlandish

I’m in the mood to say this, so I will. How many weeks can a man be separated from his wife and children without feeling lonely and desperate for affection? That goes for the wife as well. If they don’t find ways to be together, they are headed for a cliche Hollywood divorce. Oh wait, I forgot, they are not together! 😏

shoutlandish

They seem to have a lot of space in their togetherness. 🤔

poughkeepsielass

@shoutlandish Well, they desperately want us to *believe* that there is a lot of space between them. At this point for me it’s like whatever…. 🤷🏻‍♀️

out4321

She could have finished the match and went directly to the airport so, who knows? Agree they don’t need to be attached at the hip. After spending 8 months working with my partner bet I’d need some space in order to keep my sanity. So it’s a big whatever for me.

2truthsandalie5

When something seems out of character, you have to wonder a little JMO.  Also that would be photoshopped very easily, it would be more believable if it were a selfie  with the two friends enjoying a pint and women's soccer.

shoutlandish

@out4321 What about the kids? What do they need?

bluemaypop

@shoutlandish I’ve wondered about that too. So many separations, some for weeks. Not good for the couple or children.

happysunnyyellowlove

People assume to know how much time Sam and Caitriona are actually separated based on SM posts. In truth, we know nothing of how they spend their time. I’m sure whatever the case may be, it works for them. We see what want to show us and make us believe. And it works.

mariaae 

We only see what they want us to see in addition to their official public appearances. Yup, they’ve been apart lots of times when not filming OL but I think they have always managed that well.

auburncurlslass

Their schedules were already setup prior to the Strike…which added a hiccup to their plans..like last year.  This time, it’s a world wide problem that could not have been foreseen either. My bet is that she will hook up with him in LA when his Sassenach Spirits Traveling Road Show concludes in LA, later in August.  But hey, what do I know….

zeya-zg

Well said @bat-cat-reader, finally a sensible anon and kudos to you, anon, on having a healthy outlook on what relationships are. especially with both being in the industry and Sam having a promotional tour is not something to drag family along. that does not mean something is wrong or does not make them any less together. 

Anonymous

We already have the very private Cait located, from now on people will assume she is in Europe. Work done. If, from now on, she continues in radio silence she can move freely without us actually knowing where she really is…just like Sam.

bat-cat-reader

Good point anon, Sam we already know where he has to be but not with "who" he can be in the background and out of prying eyes 😉

Anonymous

Not sure why people are upset that Cait is in London. Surely both SC had work plans for July and August. Sam in US and Cait filming Amateus (now on hold). She'll be kicking her heels for the next few weeks. Waiting for her to turn up in US later in August.

And this is prime example of how it works: they always win. Hope for an scenario, if it doesn't happen then what happens can also be used for their narrative. Not being seen together means they are never together for Tait. You have shooting break and SC going their separate ways and it's called work.

LMFAO such hypocrisy.

[kmze]

My attention span had spread thin by the time of s8 so I barely remember anything except a few sc moments and I'm probably in the minority but I loved loved the first proposal and more than the second one.Your post also reminded me Bonenzo was actually a thing.I don't know why I thought he died in s6.I would love to know though what you think about how different the finale would have been if kevin hadn't returned.

Oh yeah I think when I watched it lived I zoned out on a lot of the plot because I was so tired after S7 and was just happy to get good SC scenes but on rewatch I really enjoyed it. I think a lot of it was that there was so much chaos in S7 with them driving around and different locations and finally in S8 it was basically back to Mystic Falls with all the familiar sets. I liked that it was a new species of villain with the siren and I liked when they used the creepy whistle and I liked the search for the macguffins felt like S1. God Bonenzo lol, I have the most complicated feelings about it because on one hand I'm glad Bonnie got a guy who was completely and totally devoted to her and loved her but Enzo is so... he should have died in S6! And in S8 they give me nothing, just meaningless dialogue and dances.

I actually think the finale would have been pretty similar if Kevin stayed away because Brett Matthews basically said that in his EW podcast breakdown on S8. The writers planned out the whole season once they decided it was going to be Damon dying and they liked the idea of Damon compelling Stefan to let him die, which I agree with that was the only way Stefan would have left him. KW came back around 8x11 and was like Stefan killed Enzo he has to die, which I don't buy. I think what happened is his brain exploded at the idea of Stefan and Elena both being human at the end of the show and not together and basically guilted Julie into changing it. The writers only made Stefan human because they needed the brother who lived to be mortal to do the final scene. And because Stefan was human when KW came in the writers wouldn't feel as strongly about him living as they did prior, plus he was absolutely miserable as a human!

So what I think would have been different in the finale is Damon would have seen Elena in limbo and they would have had a heartfelt goodbye. It would have been a great full circle moment from 1x22 when he said "he came to the town to destroy it" and now he saved it. Stefan still would have offered the Boarding House for the school as part of his atonement and the 'S' would have been the Salvatore one (like in the kitchen) rather than the 'S' on his ring. Damon probably got some memorial wing or the library (not sure Damon knows how to read though). Probably a SE scene at Damon's grave that would have mirrored their meeting at the graveyard in the pilot. Still could have done the Klaus letter, Bonnie's ending would have stayed and I think Elena would have left MF for med school and we'd see some scene of her with her family watching over her maybe with a new guy or not. Stefan would have done the final diary outro and said something about how he lived a long life helping his wife with the school saving kids being the man he was supposed to be and that's the end of his story (FULL CIRCLE AGAIN) then he'd find Damon in peace like the ending scene we got.

Edited to add: Completely forgot to say I LOVE THE 8x02 THE MOST! I mean I do think the 8x14 proposal is one of Stefan's best speeches (it's that or the 6x22 one) and it's beautiful and sincere but that first one was SO THEM! And I'm more partial to their relationship as two vampires/immortals than Stefan ending up human, that was always the root of their relationship and Caroline helped Stefan accept more of his vampire side and here he was proposing to her with eternity being the goal. And I kind of love that people hate on it because they hate that it wasn't a cliche speech and Steroline got a proposal catered exclusively to them, like no other ship on this show could have done that proposal. And the kiss was probably their best kiss.

[justletmeplayminecraft]

I just realised people might not know about the stream Pearl and Grian did together as part of their RTX 'Building a Mega Base' series. It's not available on Twitch anymore but I do have some highlights from when I watched it (bugging friends with quotes comes in handy sometimes!)

This took place around early March 2021 (March 1st, I believe!)

Grian was a lot more chilled out! You could actually hear his keyboard and mouse as he moved around.

They both dislike doing interiors (or did at the time)

Pearl: 'Griba is my nickname for Grian and that's what I will call him'

Grian: 'I'm not a huge fan of streaming in general. It's different. Different kind of energy's required.'

And later on 'All these twitch things are crazy to me, I don't understand them. Wha- hype trains and stuff, there's just a party going on and I don't understand. I'm too old to understand!'

And again 'This is why I don't stream. I can't focus on what I'm doing and then, like, keep up with everything'

Where's Maui? Grian: 'He's sulking in the other room because my office door is closed.' ... 'He moved the mouse in one of the timelapses because he walked around on the desk.'

Grian makes lots of thinking noises. Little hums and whistles.

Pearl: I've been working with Grian for... Four years now. So imagine building with a friend.

Grian: I've learnt a lot from you about the detailing that I forgot. You just remember things that I've not done in a while so I just forgot.

This was about chimneys, for the record.

Grian: I- I saw people asking why- why not use mushroom blocks in survival, I was losing my mind!

Grian: Don't you think that endstone is a waste of an opportunity? ... It could be a bop of a block.

This clip of Grian losing it over a wall being one block off

Grian's solution was to erase the final line.

Grian: 'It's still off.' Pearl: 'That's because we haven't finished it yet.' Grian: 'No... It's still off.' Pearl, continuing to place blocks: 'That's because we haven't finished it yet-'

Pearl: 'I saw a few comments on the video actually, saying the castle isn't that effective because you can just walk up the terrain and get over the wall' Grian: '... Sorry who can walk up a cliff?'

Grian got into explaining the rivalries between the English and the French.

Grian: 'It's a little bit difficult for me to figure out because I'm a dumb dumb.'

Grian: 'For me it's about tickling the creative bone, so doing something I've never done before ... So once I've done something, it's unlikely I'll do it again' ... 'And despite the meme about me building rustic houses, there's only one tutorial on my channel for rustic houses.'

Pearl: 'NPC Grian, we haven't heard about NPC Grian in a long time, actually?' Grian: 'He's gone.' Pearl: 'He's poofed' Grian: 'Haven't seen him in a long time' Pearl: 'He's like the Herobrine of your channel' Grian: 'Yeah. I made up a character called robot Grian, and he existed solely because I was ill and needed to use a synthesised voice to record a video.'

Pearl calling Grian 'Gri'

Pearl (Grian's cat) is named after her colour, whilst Maui is named partially because of Moana, because he's loud, and the breed. Yes, Grian asked Pearl for permission to use her name.

Grian's brain briefly forgetting how words work (also the 'Things I can pin on the fridge like Grian made this, age 27.')

Pearl: Do you ever get recognised in public, Grian? Grian: Well, I haven't been outside in like a year, so-

They got distracted by how glass blocks refract light with the RTX shaders

Grian wasn't around for a lot of the stream (he was doing stuff) but it was very fun seeing them interact in a casual setting. And I'm very excited to see them interact more throughout S8!

[nobleriver]

Hey umm...

do you ship whouffaldi?

just a general question i like to ask...

Oh, I don't mind questions.

Personally, I view 12 and Clara as an extremely codependent, increasingly toxic friendship. Toxic as in destructive, not abusive. 12 and Clara being together in the TARDIS was acidic. And those are some of the most painful relationships. When you love each other so much and you never want to leave the other, but you have to. You have to say goodbye because you're corrosive. You're hurting each other. And as much as you try, you don't know how to stop being corrosive.

I think this take on what would happen if the Doctor/Companion dynamic morphed into something twisted was beautifully written and honestly, executed to perfection. Season 9 is probably my favorite season.

And I really enjoy the comments Moffat made on that being the reason the TARDIS didn't like Clara at first (which implies he had been considering this ending for Clara from the beginning):

“The TARDIS, being aware of all time simultaneously, was also aware that Clara was the precise motivator that would drive the Doctor to an extreme that was dangerous for all time and space.”

“[The TARDIS] knew, that although the Doctor loved her very much, she was bad for him and that the coming of the Hybrid would be the result of their association.” (DWM, I think Issue 502?? Not sure.)

[Side note: This makes me wonder if the TARDIS intentionally crash landed in Amy's backyard. Because Amy and Rory had to become companions, or else Melody would have never been born. And even if she had been, she wouldn't have been River, the time travelling, gun-toting archaeologist. And that would have caused all sorts of paradoxes. And broke time. Again. But back to Clara.]

All the other companions had something or someone to ground them to reality, to life outside of the Doctor. Rose had her mom. Martha had her passion for medicine, her siblings and her quarrelsome parents, four people who relied on and needed her. Donna had Wilfred. And Amy had Rory. And then she and Rory built a life apart from the Doctor, where their daughter would pop in their backyard for a drink and to catch up on life. But Clara...what grounded her?

In S9, we barely visited the school.

We saw her family in present day once in S7, and her grandmother once in S8. And not once in S9, which I believe was intentional (I suspect to further highlight she was losing who she once was and becoming addicted like the Doctor - and to the Doctor). To be honest, I forgot she had a family. They're practically nonexistent.

And who else was there? I mean she had the two kids she babysat in S7, who promptly disappeared into the void of nowhere to be seen or heard of again in S8 and S9. Then, she fell in love with Danny Pink in S8, but that relationship was highly strained and eventually imploded because she was also in love with the Doctor, arguably even more in love with him (Clara confessed Danny and the Doctor were the only two men she ever loved in Last Christmas). Maybe if Danny had lived, Clara's ending might have been different. Only Moffat knows. But Danny didn't. And she was left behind. Without a tether. All she had left was the Doctor. And she was all he had too. She was his tether. And the codependency of their friendship promptly crossed the point of no return.

And the Doctor could see it happening. He tried to protect her:

"This is my own fault...Do you know what you need? You need a hobby! Or even better, another relationship!" (9.03)

He knew she needed something or someone to ground her. A tether to the outside world. Or else, just like him, she would lose herself.

However, all warning signs were ignored. And viewers watched as Clara slowly walked off a cliff. And the Doctor fell right alongside her.

[kittydemon9000]

SO MERLOPIAN KAI PART 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

So, with Kalmaar, he ofc immediately goes to his parents about his feeling, slightly placing his revenge on hold. They are...dubious about it, but Maya raises the point of how there has never been a human/merlopian hybrid before, and from what Ray has told them about having two EM parents it’s possible for Kai to have some water abilities himself, which could be what gave Kalmaar his feeling. So, they agree to look into it.

Moving on..... Uh. Kai doesn’t have a fun time in S6, as briefly as he’s there. You see, Nahdakahn knows exactly what buttons to press and is able to get Kai into a panicked state where he, on the verge of a panic attack and mental breakdown, just says “I wish that I could just be normal! I wish I could just go home! I wish I could be with dad and mom and father and Kal and Bentho and Nya!!!”

The “normal” comment comes from how they weren’t able to completely hide Kai’s heritage since yeah, there were other people on the boat who saw him. That and he also tried a lot less to keep it hidden. And because some humans are assholes, he has to deal with that.

So ofc, Nahdakahn interprets it in the worst ways and as two wishes. Kai is now a full human yes….but was also sent to where the fish fam currently were……which just so happened to be at the bottom of the ocean.

So yeah, double trauma for both groups. Kai got to experience what drowning felt like, and his fam was essentially forced to watch him die since there was nothing they could do. They were too far under to take him to the surface and too far from the palace to take him there.

But dw, it gets even worse.

You see, the whole reason Nahdakahn is being this malicious about Kai’s wishes is because he learned that Kai was the reason the Preeminent was destroyed, thereby destroying Djinjago.

Nahdakahn is then able to do a “oh? Is this not what you wanted? I thought you wished to be normal.” Which ofc sounds really bad since it’s in front of his family. “But, I understand. You grow tired of the stares in the street, how they whisper behind you back about what you are. Not human, not merlopian, not normal. Just a freak masquerading as one of them.”

This ofc supremely pisses off the fam. Like, weapons drawn ready to commit murder.

But then Nahdakahn stop them with a “ah ah ah, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. After all, I am the only way your son has a chance at living. So go ahead. Make a wish.”

Trimaar ends up being the one to do it, and is smart enough to know this uh will twist it in anyway he can so says. “I wish for Kai to be sent safely to the surface without harm done upon him.”

Blah blah blah, your wish is yours to keep, Trimaar realizing “wait there’s a lot that could be interpreted” but too late BAM now Kai’s kinda stuck on the Misfortune’s Keep.

And he....generally has a pretty bad time. Think Jay but this time it’s personal.

However, Kai’s appearance had Trimaar get the Merlopian army and start heading to the surface. The remaining ninja have a brief moment of “are you kidding me two enemies at once” before learning that this is Kai’s lost family and they’re here to help.

So now the ninja have a whole ass fish army to help them, plus a very protective, very angry fish family.

But for the rest of canon, the only difference is that when they’re leaving Tiger Widow Island, Nya gets snatched along with Jay(who was taken because he hadn’t used his wish yet) and they aren’t stuck on the island, and then later that Kai gets sucked into the sword when the ninja launch their rescue mission.

But yeah, it gets all Un-Happened by Jay’s wish(which at seeing Kai physically hurt and being emotionally torn apart at his baby sister dying, wished that none of this ever happened and that Nahdakahn was never found), only like canon Nya and Jay still remember what happens.

Nya is now firmly on team Kai Is Alive and tells her parents everything about what happened and the wish Jay made, and more importantly where Kai is.

Unfortunately, they need to take some time and prepare. Trimaar and Maya have been doing their best over the years to open the populace possibly making bonds with the humans, but now it’s finally happening. They can’t just go up there out of no where, since from what Nya has told them 1) most humans don’t even know they exist and 2) in the past few years they have been subject of many attacks, mostly from non-humans, so they need to make sure the humans understand they don’t mean any harm.

So DotD happens, then the beginnings of S7 :)

Right out, Kai never liked the museum curator. Up to that point he’d only ever caught fleeting glimpse of him but something about him Kai just despised. As a result, he also visited the museum as scarcely as possible, and thus didn’t notice a very interesting painting containing a two very strange figures.

When he learns his name was Dr.Saunders.....things don’t go well.

It happened when Kai brought the helmet with his dad’s symbol on it. As much as he disliked the curator, he was the most likely to be able to recognize what kind of helmet it was.

Then in his anger he gets himself captured.

He’s taken to a special cell lined with vengestone and has guards around the clock, and Krux takes extra care to make sure Kai doesn’t know where Ray is.

ofc it’s around this time that the Merlopians arrive and express their wishes for a possible alliance between their two races. Unfortunately they showed up at literally the worst time, and double unfortunately the people in charge of diplomacy decide to bring some of the ninja in as an extra precaution because of the villains have been running around.

So the people who join the meeting are Lloyd and Jay from the ninja(they would’ve brought Kai but he hasn’t returned from his missions yet and isn’t answering their calls) as well as some police officers and from the Merlopians is the whole royal family plus a few guards.

Both Jay and Nya have a silent moment of staring at each other since “I know and I’m not sure you know but I think you know but I don’t want to say anything since you might not”

And just as they’re about to start, The Time Twins attack. Because why the hell not.

They’re actually able to hold them off for a while, but unfortunately there are too many Vermillion. Then Kalmaar whips out his Water Powers which causes him to get kidnapped since they need both Fire and Water masters for the blade.

While they’re recovering, Lloyd then gets a panicked call from Zane saying that he checked the museum footage and Kai has been captured. The gets overheard by the royal family, and then Lloyd asks why they looked so upset at which they learn(sans Jay since wish) that Kai is royalty. The eldest son actually, and thus first in line for the throne, as well as being presumed dead for the past five years.

So basically Krux has kidnapped the King and Queen’s husband, the crown prince, and the second in line prince(if anyone knows a more fancy term for this please let me know)

Maya, Trimaar, Nya and Benthomaar are not happy. Not with the Ninjagian people, no they’re fine, but they’re bout ready to murder Krux, and they don’t even know about Ray yet.

So they offer any help they can.

Zap back to how Kai and Kalmaar are doing.

Kalmaar is….kind feral tbh. Like, he’s biting, clawing, trying to strangle them with his tentacles, and before they got vengestone cuffs on him was trying very hard to drown anyone.

Ofc, this does little to the Vermillion and soon Kalmaar finds himself in the cell right next to Kai’s. He’s overjoyed to see his brother again, albeit upset that this is why.

They both reluctantly come to the conclusion that there isn’t much they can do at the moment, and there are many Vermillion guards right outside their cells, so they decide to start catching up.

And for pretty much the rest of the season canon is pretty much the same, just shuffle around the characters a bit and add a protective Fish Fam. 

Though their little trip back in time is quite sight for the Past EMs, especially because of how Kalmaar is using his powers, which leaves Kai mostly stuck in his Fish Form. This time they don’t even bother trying to explain, just give instructions on how to defeat the Vermillion and jumping into the battle. 

And I mean just imagine that from the EMs perspective. An enemy you thought you defeated just returned with a giant metal creature and an army of snake things that don’t look like any kind of Serpentine they’d ever seen. Then a shark person and squid person??? show up and not only do they know how to fight the snake things but they also seem to be Elemental Masters???? Despite the fact Ray is very much alive and they didn’t even know there was a Water EM. Then the two not only summon dragons but they also fuse their dragons into an even bigger one with two heads.

And then all of them disappear into the sky without a trace.

W i l d

But yeah, after that it calms down quite a bit. Kai spends the time skip before S8 reconnecting with his family and his dad, and through some tech courtesy of Borg they're able to bring Ray with them :D

And Kai actually goes to meet the Jade Royal Family since y’know. He’s the crown prince. He’s kinda important and legitimately forgot about it. Luckily Kalmaar is able to help coach Kai through it, but is also a bit smug about how he finally has something to teach to his older brother. Kai was actually the one who suggested asking the ninja for help protecting the mask.....but we know how that inevitably ends.

Bentho, Kal and Nya were actually on the ship for this particular adventure, and then Nya and Bentho were dragged along when they got sent to the First Realm. Bentho, despite being the youngest sibling and to the surprise of literally everyone, was actually really good with kids and spent the most time with Little Wu, right behind Cole.

But yeah S9......Nya and Bentho have a really bad time in the First Realm beause of the heat, but at least they don’t get captured. Kai on the other hand....

Yeah at some point he gets accidentally splashed with water and well.....it definitely doesn’t help with the Oni accusations. The Dragon Hunters decide to burn him along with the Wind Dragon, which moves up their Build Our Own Dragon time table.

After they escape Faith is actually pretty chill about the whole fish thing, but she does ask a lot of questions. 

And then S10..... kinda the same. They end up dropping off as many people as they can with the Merlopians since the smoke can’t reach them.

I might make a Part 3 for the rest of the seasons, but yeah. this is where we’re at.

[americachavez]

did cas really tell dean to kneel before their new god? did that actually happen? i thought him beating the shit out of dean in that alley was the most unrestrainedly horny thing this show had ever done ACTUALLY you know what scratch that new question: top horny moments from the cw's supernatural (2005 - 2020)

getting this ask feels like my sins of the last week have been weighed against the Trials I Have Gone Through since the premier of supernatural on the wb in september of 2005 and I’m not sure if it is a punishment or reward

some notes before we begin:

the ep with dean’s male siren was like, conceptually horny but not actually that horny because the dude was uglie. I’m sorry to this man

all you sam girls out there. I respect you but I do not respect jared padalecki who is JUST tall and has zero sex appeal. but those eps where he’s like, drinking ruby’s blood and then eating her pussy are. you know. I’ll give you that

I am ONLY UP TO SEASON 10 so fair warning this is not comprehensive but the horniness does seem to drop off sharply after the mark of cain is no longer in play lol gotta love a good demon murder tattoo plot

this is easily the most insane thing I’ve ever done, including the destiel manifesto

S1 EP12: the scene where dean gets healed by the faith healer, on his knees with a hand in his hair and looking somewhere between religious ecstasy, brain death and an orgasm. starting this list off great

S1 EP22: azazel possessing john winchester. no I will not explain further if u know u know <3

S3 EP10: dean being taunted by a dream version of himself, this is where we first got the daddy’s blunt little instrument line. still burned in my hippocampus a good 13 years later thank yew

S4 EP1: dean crawling out of his own grave covered in grave dirt. hot. the HANDPRINT. HOT. also tangent but this reveal after the s3 finale was WILD back in 2008 I hollered in my dorm room after canvassing for obama. simpler times man

S4 EP 1: cas’ intro scene. the barn. the shadow wings. the hair??? getting stabbed in the chest by the man you just pulled out of hell. getting aaaallll up in that personal space. his little eyebrow. “you don’t think you deserve to be saved.” OUTRAGEOUSLY FLAMING

S4 EP02: “I dragged you out of hell I can throw you back in.” <<< this angel tops. mark dean down as scared and horny etc

S4 EP16: this ENTIRE EPISODE but specifically the part where dean tortures alastair as some kind of foreplay and then alastair kicks his ass. carved you into a new animal. jesus.

S4 EP16: wait I forgot about the part where cas also gets his ass kicked and looks all....hm. dazed and covered in blood while he’s on his knees and about to die. yeah.

S5 EP4: I mean this entire ep is unfairly horny considering everyone is dying of a zombie plague and hasn’t showered in like, 4 years but if I had to pick one hmmm. the dean/dean interrogation scene with the panty kink yeah I know it’s not original but hm. it happened. also misha collins just being able to convey that CAS IS A FLEXIBLE SLUT with a single roll of his shoulders. who SAYS this man can’t act!!!!!

S5 EP18: the ALLEY SCENE. DEAN DOESN’T FIGHT BACK. CAS HOLDS HIM UP OFF THE GROUND AND THEN THROWS HIM ACROSS THE ALLEY. WHY DID EVERYONE THINK CAS COULDN’T TOP. you all had brainworms.

S5 EP18: when cas locks dean in the panic room to stop him from saying yes to michael and “well cas not for nothing but the last person who looked at me like that I got laid” I hate this show. wait I think the blow me cas line is in this episode too what the fuck were they on here

S6 EP5: the scene where dean gets turned into a vampire. between the old dude who I think calls dean a pretty boy (??) and soulless sam....watching??? no ******* but there were just some absolutely foul energies in that scene and I still do not understand WHAT they were thinking

S6 EP20: cas doing a double smite on two demons by slamming them to the ground and then shoving another demon back in its vessel and then smiting him in the same motion. TOP. ENERGY.

S6 EP22: season 6 is possibly cas’ horniest season because he’s like, going through angel puberty after getting his first boner for dean, but the final cas eps are. whoof. cas eats a bunch of souls and proclaims himself to be a new god in order to handle said boner, and then the season ends with cas telling them to bow down and profess their love to him, their new lord, or he will destroy them. note: the way this is framed makes it look like cas is only staring at dean while he says this, even though sam and bobby are also there. the season ends with dramatic zooms on both cas and dean’s faces respectively. this made me actively regret ditching this show after s5 lol

S8 EP??: literally EVERY SINGLE PURGATORY FLASHBACK. cas dean and benny are all purgatory hot in the “pop 10 cranberry pills and risk the UTI” kind of way but also. dean being the hot girl bottom between two tops who hate each other. I really. whew. I need to go take a shower.

S8 EP17: if I get canceled for including the crypt scene on this list I blame you bud. but dean on his knees begging a brainwashed cas to stop killing him WAS sexy. how many times has dean been on his knees in this list wait there’s another one coming up next jsldjfsldkjf

S9 EP2: abaddon getting dean on his knees (YEAH) and pulling his hair and praising him for always coming when called HELLO???? the only thing that ruins this is dean says “I can’t tell if we’re gonna fight or make out” because this is the CW and they won’t let him say fuck

S9 EP6: ah. this entire episode is Emotionally Horny but the horny horny part is when they’re in the car and dean is telling cas to unbutton his shirt and. watches. I know this was on my destiel manifesto but I need it here too

S9 EP9: cas, covered in blood, slitting another angel’s throat and eating his grace after getting tortured. that shot alone made me understand why this website was so goddamn horny for misha collins for nearly a damn decade

S9 EP11: MARK OF CAIN BABEY. cain watching dean beat up a bunch of demons as an audition for taking on the mark, while crowley also is a fucking voyeur to the whole thing. cain is also a hot silver fox with daddy energies. I said what I said

S9 EP 16: dean getting the first blade. he’s chained to a pillar and being menaced by a foppish dandy who wants to add him to his “collection” (WOW). dean then kills him with the blade and whew. murder is sexy sometimes

S9 EP21: dean being pinned against a wall by abaddon’s power, then using the mark of cain to break her hold, calling the first blade to him psychically and then killing her. god the mark of cain is hot

S9 EP23: dean waking up with the demon eyes NUT

S10 EP2: demon dean beating up that dude with the boring backstory and kicking his ass. really was a go on baby I got your flower moment because I hated that dude and I love demon dean

S10 EP3: demon dean being chained up and taunting sam about how his brother is gone, then hunting sam through the bunker. demon dean in general was VERY fun for me, someone who loves trash

S10 EP9: dean going berserk and killing a bunch of pedophile rapists/child abusers. I’m sorry I know this show is trying to preach morality at me about monsters and unnecessary murder and humanity or whatever but we blew past that like 8 SEASONS AGO. also the mark of cain is sexy

S10 EP14: the rest of this list is really gonna be mark of cain stuff isn’t it look I’m here to have fun. cain and dean’s fight. cain continuously tossing his mane of hair back and taunting dean with the picture of what he’s going to become, who he’s going to kill. dean begging cain to tell him that he can stop, and then ultimately killing him. rip daddy.

S11 EP4: again I have not watched this however. every shot of this episode is PRESTIGE TELEVISION because driving a muscle car is sexy. and especially the shot of dean all beat to hell and begging his car to start and giving her a little kiss from his fingers to her dash. ugh. masculinity.

S12 EP10: the bearded salt-and-pepper daddy look returns, only it’s an angel this time and he’s wearing a vest and shirtsleeves and he swordfights with a hot redheaded lady in a suit and an eyepatch. this show is good sometimes!!! and oh fuck lol I just realized this is the same guy who played krissy’s hot hunter dad in s7 probably the first guy who’s hotter as an angel than a hunter. huh.

S12 EP 11: dean riding larry the mechanical bull to “broomstick cowboy.” I have no idea where this factors into the ep but I have seen. the youtube clip

S13 EP23: from what I can tell s13 is way more emotionally horny than boner horny, although dean burning cas’ body was sexy. but the horniest part was dean saying yes to michael and then michael taking over and saying “thanks for the suit.” we are going to ignore the silliest fight scene in existence as well as the final shot ending on a FREEZE FRAME like a goddamn tiktok

S14: not gonna pick a specific moment because I have not watched yet!!! but michael dean is hot. idk why michael is weirdly hot and I cannot stand any iteration of lucifer on this television programme. it should be the reverse but I’m forever an older sibling stan apparently. someone who is catholic could probably explain this better.

S15 EP13: genevieve padalecki and danneel ackles fight flirting as ruby and anael I CANNOT BELIEVE THEY HELD OUT ON THIS TILL THE LAST SEASON

I know I am missing things but this is already an absolutely incomprehensible screed. I know I’m missing shit from the latter seasons but give me time I’m pacing myself

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Communication Theme 2.0 - Specifically, the Mailboxes

Okay, I said I’d talk about the mailboxes this week. Go back and read the Communication Theory if you need a refresher, but here’s a little background on how it all came about.

The gist is that back in 6x03, I started noticing mailboxes. Specifically, in the sequence where Daryl is riding around on his bike looking for Rick. Really, he’s kind of screaming into the radio for Rick to tell him where he is, because he can hear the Wolves attacking Rick and wants to help him. I had no idea what the mailboxes meant, but while he’s riding along, we literally see like a dozen of them, and I didn’t think that could be accidental.

Eventually, someone came up with the idea that mail is a form of communication over long distances, hence the Communication theme. We added other types of communication in, including over a radio or walkie talkie (also a form of communication over distances) and even Morse Code. Reminder, we saw the Morse Code poster behind the music box in 5x16.

Which isn’t really used for communication much in the show (though Maggie did use it in 11x02 to tell them she was beneath the train) but back when humanity’s big goal was to build the first transcontinental railroad, it was used in telegraph offices and the like. (We totally went down a huge telegraph/transcontinental railroad rabbit hole a few years ago. ;D)

The other thing we’ve seen a lot of are mail trucks. Usually the really long, generic kind that carries mail cross country. Interestingly, we’ve seen them several times around Dwight. Once in 6x06, when he was introduced, and again during S8 when AOW was going on. 

Both times, we saw blond, very Beth-ish walkers with head wounds as well, which is why the idea of Beth showing up around Dwight in Fear has persisted so much. I’m sure there’s a reason for those symbols around him, but we aren’t clear on what it is, yet.

So, the short of it is that I’ve grown used to noticing mail boxes, mail trucks, and the like. So, in 11x05, Eugene passes a mail track (in this case, one of the short, fat ones used to deliver residential mail in neighborhoods) pulled by a white horse (a Beth symbol). I didn’t really know what to make of it, and didn’t spend much time on it. I pretty much just wrote it down in my notes and then forgot about it for the rest of the week.

When I was writing up my posts, I saw it and started thinking about it, and everything in conjunction with it, and that’s when it all sort of came together for me.

First off, it occurred to me that we saw this RIGHT before Eugene used the radio to contact Rosita. So if the mail and the radio (both communication forms) are synonymous, that sort of makes sense. It doesn’t explain the white horse, but the mail symbol sort of pointed to or led to the radio symbol. Then I started thinking about the fact that, in this case, the communication (radio signal) was interrupted. And it was probably purposefully interrupted by the CW. So the communication, after a point, was no longer being had. I’ll come back to that.

But the thing is, back in 6x03, Daryl was ALSO on the radio, TRYING TO FIND RICK.

Okay, I need to do a quick refresher on our analyses of the S10 bonus episodes. I’ll try to sum up quickly, but most of this only came about while we were watching the bonus episodes, with an emphasis on Find Me and Diverged.

I’ve always gone back to that 6x03 sequence because it never made any sense. They never told us why Daryl just suddenly, without warning, changed his mind, abandoned his search for Rick, and went back to Sasha and Abraham. It wouldn’t have been difficult to give us a 1-line motivation or thought from him.

After the episode, a fan asked Norman about it and why Daryl left Rick and went back to Sashraham. Norman got very uncomfortable and clearly didn’t really want to answer. He made it seem like he didn’t want to give spoilers, and just said something about how it wasn’t only about Rick. It was more complicated than that. But it was never explained in the show. It’s not like it became clear in subsequent episodes or something. To this day, it’s still a question mark.

So, I knew it was a foreshadow of a future template, but I didn’t understand what for a LONG time. Long story short (haha, not really) we saw a representation of the exact same template in Find Me. Daryl looking for Rick (this time because he thinks he’s probably dead) and he leaves Leah to search for him. Then, seemingly for no reason at all, in the middle of the forest, he changes his mind and goes back to Leah.

In both cases (Leah and Sashraham) they have massive parallels to Beth.

So, the gist is that I think this is a template for something that’s going to happen, probably during the spinoff. I think Daryl will either hear Rick on the radio, or else some news that he might be alive, and go searching for him. Carol will go with him, but they’ll have a falling out soon after and separate. I’m not sure how the Beth stuff will play out, but I think Leah/Sashraham represent her in the template. So, I think we’ll have a situation where Daryl hears something about the CRM, but can’t be bothered with it. He wants to look for Rick. But then something changes his mind (that they really aren’t even giving us hints for in the template) and he stops looking for Rick and goes toward the CRM instead, and THAT is how he’ll finally come face to face with Beth.

In fact, this theme goes ALL the way back to Alone, when Beth asked, “what changed your mind?” That was a foreshadow of something changing his mind in a big way that will make him gravitate away from his search for Rick (which for the record, Leah couldn’t do) and toward Beth.

Okay, so why am I telling you this? Because the communication theme (mailboxes) is present during 6x03. Not so much in 10x18 (cuz random mailboxes out in the middle of the forest would be weird) but he did write Leah the note, much like Beth wrote the thank you note in Alone, and of course the episode was spilling over with other Beth symbolism (spoons, broken pictures, yada, yada).

So, I guess the gist of my mailbox theory is that it (sort of) represents the same thing as the Matrix theory. It just represents the communications aspect of it. I think the mailboxes represent the CRM, and the war, and everything that’s going on around them that TF just isn’t aware of.

Think of it this way: we see Daryl driving by the mailboxes in 6x03. So, he technically sees them, but he doesn’t really register them. He doesn’t focus on them. He’s too busy searching for Rick. It perfectly backs up what I said a few days ago in the Awake/Asleep theme about how Leah was Daryl’s first hint at waking up to the truth, but he rejected it in favor of searching for Rick.

We also have had some weird, one-off communication symbols, such as the balloon Enid and Carl found in S6. It was just so random. It was BLUE. And there was a note, but whatever had been written had faded so they couldn’t read it.

Interrupted communication.

You could also look at it as a lack of communication between members of TF who are in the CRM, and those who are not. We know that Rick, Heath, Beth, and probably Michonne, are somewhere inside the CRM, but there’s been no communication from them, so the rest of TF has no way of knowing where they are or whether they’re even alive.

Lack of communication.

So, what does the white horse and the mail truck represent?

Well, white horse = Beth. And you could argue that, since they’re low on gasoline at this point, the horse pulling the mail truck is what’s making communication by mail possible. So, I think it represents that Beth is the missing link that will restore the communication. Which could be literal (restoring communication between members of TF outside the CRM and inside it), political (opening lines of communication between members of TF and the CRM itself) and also just in terms of “opening their eyes” to the CRM/the Matrix, and what’s actually going on around them. I just picture her motioning frantically toward mailboxes and being like, “Guys! Look! This is what you keep missing!”

And it makes me want to go examine all the mailbox references (haha; not gonna happen anytime soon) because there really have been some interesting ones. Back in 7x01, when Morgan was taking Carol to the Kingdom for medical treatment, he was carving some of his mysterious symbols into them. Still don’t know exactly what to make of that, but Morgan’s group in Fear is much closer to awareness of the CRM than Daryl’s group is. And a bunch of them were taken by Isobel and Al in a black helicopter, so I think we’re nearing the time when Morgan’s group fully meshes with the CRM in some way. I’m sure the mailbox foreshadowed some future arc for Morgan.

So now we have 11x06. Connie and Virgil saw a mailbox, which signaled the house, and then it was down when Kelly’s group passed it. (Lack of communication, perhaps. Here, showing that Kelly didn’t know where Connie was and had no way to contact her. Plus, with the mailbox down, they didn’t surmise, as Virgil had, that there might be a house nearby.)

But also remember that the whole Connie/Virgil sequence in 11x06 is a foreshadow of something to do with Beth. Think of it this way. Virgil first checked the house and pronounced it empty, except for them. But he didn’t know about the cellar and the spaces behind and between the walls. So, he genuinely thought it was safe, but that’s because he couldn’t SEE the danger. Connie could. Or did. She saw it in a way he couldn’t and had to tell him there was a danger there he couldn’t see.

Another way to interpret the fallen mailbox is that if the standing mailboxes represent that the “dream” or Matrix is intact, meaning TF doesn’t know the truth, maybe the fallen mailbox represents them waking up from the dream and finally seeing/understanding the truth. In that case, the fallen mailbox is there solely as a foreshadow of that future arc.

Okay, that’s all I have on the mailboxes. Didn’t I tell you a crap ton of theories were going to come out of this episode? 😉

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

Lotor seems to have a lot in common with Chloe Bourgeois from Miraculous Ladybug since they both seem to have great potential of getting redeemed, but the writers decided to screw them over and make them all the sudden villan for no reason even though both shows main protagonists have done far more questionable things than them, heck both shows even romantasize the protagonists creepy stalking behavior

Hi, anon. Thanks for the note! I’ve never watched Miraculous Ladybug, so I’m afraid I don’t know too much about a Lotor vs. Chloe comparison? I’m sorry, though, if that show triggered some unhappy memories about VLD!

In terms of protagonists being worse than the villains, I personally struggle with that statement for Voltron? VLD is complicated because the show starts by treating war/battle as a fantasy violence video game. Like, the Galrans are mostly robots or one-dimensional soldiers who are torturing, killing and conquering. So our protagonists are already light-years ahead of that incredibly low baseline. And it’s easy to cheer Team Voltron on when you know they’re just blowing up robots or a pure-evil villain. It’s that whole fantasy violence thing without accountability. Then, the show gets increasingly more complex in terms of the politics, and the costs of war (with Ulaz’s death, for example), and the humanization of the enemy. But in this environment, our protagonists are still a bunch of ill-prepared teenagers running with scissors. Like, the original paladins of Voltron were leaders and rulers with a history of navigating wars and alliances. These paladins? They grew some over the show, yes, but they still had to go from playing a video game and screwing up flight simulators (or living a royal life in peace-time), to handling actual death and collateral damage in an active combat theater. I doubt Galaxy Garrison had training in their curriculum for how 17-year-olds should handle that. And all of the other older authority figures around Team Voltron and Lotor just totally and utterly failed them.

So I think my frustration with Team Voltron has cooled a lot over the years. From an in-show perspective, they were surrounded by supposedly competent advisors and intelligence officers who should have been able to at least question certain decisions or behaviors. But they did nothing constructive to prepare the paladins for war besides training them to kill.

And in the case of s5-s6, all of these experts and allied civilizations gave Team Voltron the green light on an official alliance with an empire they had seen brutally torture/experiment, enslave, and colonize. Actual weeks had passed between s5-s6. And yet, we never saw Kolivan warning the team that this was a really bad compromise for the Voltron Coalition to make; we never saw the paladins having to handle upset questions from their vast allies, who no doubt had recent memories of trauma at the hands of Galran military officers. But the instant Lotor is revealed to have also been a quintessence vampire in some way, like every other Galran officer with a body count they’d allied with, that’s the uncrossable line for Krolia, Coran, Kolivan watching this all go down—? Like?

When Shiro linked the Voltron Coalition to Galran military intelligence, what the heck did they think all of these soldier reports included? Military commanders happily sipping cocktails with locals on a beach? So I don’t think it quite hit the paladins yet that they weren’t working with uwu morally unproblematic people with easily forgivable pasts or a clear record of trying to make up for that past. And Team Voltron had zero guidance for how to navigate pursuing justice/reparations while also not leading to another war or worse outcome. Ultimately, even all of these concerned authority figures forgot about the show’s most plot-important victims that they were fine with dissolving the alliance over.

(RIP Patrulius in the harvesting pod, did you ever get out??).

The incompetency of elder authority figures also feeds into my frustration about Lance’s character, and how it was once again Coran in s8 who pushed him into this weird 1950s dating construct where Allura isn’t an agent over her own body. Like, Lance is still pretty young here, mimicking all the toxic masculinity he’s picked up on, and Coran’s behavior is supposed to be…better. Like, even Lance himself was uncomfortable in that scene, and that was wild to watch.)

And speaking of the ongoing failures of authority in the story, I still can’t believe that Coran didn’t cut in on Lotor in season 5, even, to warn him that exposure to the rift was known to make people lose control over their darkest thoughts. I could plausibly believe Allura didn’t think to question this because she was doe-eyed over Lotor and desperate for anything that could secure peace. But it’s not like Coran, who is supposed to be a king’s advisor, didn’t see this happen with Zarkon and Honerva. He could have questioned Lotor’s plans, and that actually would have been fascinating. Because if Coran, being a king’s advisor, had employed that kind of logical foresight, we might have seen something unsettling in Lotor that could more clearly foreshadow a fatal flaw he wasn’t working on (you know, like that classic Icarus Syndrome). But this show just didn’t question itself or self-reflect, lol.

So I don’t think anything Team Voltron did was them necessarily intending to be cruel where they wanted trillions to die in the name of justice, but their ignorance and the blatant inaction/silence or questionable guidance from anyone with higher credentials or experience resulted in some very uneasy outcomes.

But those outcomes were what this show wanted to keep the drama rolling.

I can’t speak for Chloe’s arc and the reason for why she misses the mark, but Lotor’s fall resulted in another several episodes of big robot battles and extended drama to meet a predetermined 78-episode directive. And given that the production team complained about having no breaks at all through the development of this show, I doubt they had time to weigh the cost of every decision they made to keep drama going. (I mean, we saw several other haphazard, concerning things happen since the beginning of the show; the colony twist wasn’t an isolated incident of plot over-complication and questionable handling of topics a;sdjfasf.)

I do think it’s easy to stay bitter about things and to let that poison everything, including even other shows. And I don’t think that’s a mentally healthy place for me to be—even though, clearly, I do still have frustrations with the art of story construction, lol. So I guess... canon is someone else’s story, but I do have control over how I respond and how I might try to tackle hard topics in my own works. And I’ve got to work with that.

I hope for what it’s worth that you can still find things worth enjoying in your other show, and that you can explore the characters and the stories in ways that are meaningful and feel right to you. It might help as well to look for shows and media that explicitly do have redemption arcs for a main antagonist or villain, or that handle traumatized or abused characters well.

[everlastingfable]

a jumbled mess of my thoughts about voltron

This’ll probably be the messiest post you’ll ever read. I’m done trying to finish this and edit it into something coherent, so I’m just combining the 3 drafts I have written out into one massive post. I doubt anyone will read this whole thing, but each draft is a sort of rewrite of the last, so there’s a lot of overlap. But there’s also a lot of new thoughts too as I kept thinking about this. There’s also a lot of unfinished thoughts.

There’s mostly negativity in this btw. This fandom had/has an amazing ability in making you think that this show was utter garbage. on par with riv//erdale or s//pn, but it really wasn’t. Like many shows they had weak points, it was never perfect, but it’s much better than we’re told to remember it as.

Intro from Draft 3 because I liked the way I started it:

This is all of my thoughts about Voltron, the show itself and the fandom. I have tried to write this post out for over a year or two now, so it was originally intended to be my final thoughts about the show. Obviously, it’s evolved since then into whatever this is. There may be some things that I’ll be wrong about, because I’m not about to dig through hundreds of discourse posts and old interview videos to prove a point that I doubt anyone’s gonna care about. This will 100% be based on my thoughts, opinions, and experiences.

That said, I don’t even know how to begin to describe how much I love this show. I’m probably one of the few people who have no regrets about enjoying this show as much as I do. I’d wholeheartedly recommend watching it, because it’s genuinely a good show. Voltron did the unimaginable for me. I don’t usually enjoy sci-fi stories. I especially don’t enjoy mecha stories. Yet somehow, Voltron combined the two and made a show that I loved so much I can’t stop thinking about it even though it ended over 2 years ago.

Draft 1: thoughts about a year after it ended without rewatching any seasons since it ended

It’s been about a year since voltron ended. I never wrote my thoughts about s8/the show then so here it is now. Because I decided to wait a year I honestly don’t remember a lot of specifics. But I still have a lot to say about it. This is very long and is basically everything I have to say about this show. I love voltron. It’s been an important part of my life during college. 90% of all papers I wrote were about voltron. But as much as I love it, I won’t deny that it fell apart at the end. 

Note: I tried to categorize these thoughts so I don’t get off topic and can talk about everything fully. But because they overlap so much there’s definitely some minor repeats when I connect two parts but decided to hold off talking about it all the way until the right section.

PRODUCTION

This is something I’ve expressed concern over while it was airing, but in a span of 2 and a half years, they premiered 78 episodes. That’s a lot, especially when you consider that production for s3 started after s1 premiered. There’s a lot of really good voltron review videos out there that aren’t just “oh I’m so cool I hate voltron” but there was one that talked about how the production was a mess and the writers couldn’t make up their mind for the endgame ship. And while that doesn’t sound like an important issue, it really does show when it comes to how characters are written together and (I think) the fandom war. 

Summarizing what that video said because I don’t remember who made it, the writers/producers never made up their mind on which ship was supposed to be endgame (klance, sheith, allurance, kallura). And this really does show in the show itself. I don’t like klance. I especially hate it because of my experience with the fandom, but I won’t deny that they were sometimes written romantically. The same goes for sheith. And that’s the problem. 

I don’t think the world building parts of the show was fully developed either. Shiro was supposed to be a teen like everyone else but then he was an adult. His and keith’s relationship was honestly vague for a good while. I don’t think anyone really knew how each characters’ relationships with each other was supposed to progress. Was allurance always supposed to be endgame? Because they didn’t really interact that much until like season 6, and then it was kinda sudden from what I remember. There was very little, if at all, parts where we were shown oh allura might like lance romantically. Keith’s relationship with the main cast didn’t exist for like 3 seasons. It was messy. 

Speaking of which, keith disappeared for a good portion of the show. I assume it’s because steven yeun was busy. Which is fine but then I think about how quickly voltron came and went, I wonder why they couldn’t slow down a bit so they could still have steven voice keith during those episodes. Maybe it’s because of how much I love keith, but he honestly felt like a central character to me. 

If I think about teen titans, for example, this show also had 5 main characters. Sometimes certain characters would get a spotlight for a season, but all-in-all they were fairly equally represented. It didn’t feel like robin was the main character. But that’s how I feel about voltron. Keith, and shiro to an extent are the main characters. A good portion of the plot relies on them. Shiro got kidnapped, keith leads them to the blue lion. Shiro is the leader with keith has his right-hand man and they mostly interact with each other. So when shiro “dies” and keith takes over, it starts to feel like keith is now the main character. Now he’s the leader and the arc is about him growing into becoming the black paladin and stopping lotor, who is his main enemy. But then he disappears. 

Again this is most likely because of my bias towards keith, but the episodes after that felt lackluster. Lance didn’t really get his character growth to become a good second-in-command. Because that development was supposed to be based around keith. :P. A big part of lance’s growth is to learn to stop needing to feel that he’s better than keith. And him accepting keith as the black paladin was a huge part of it. But with shiro as the leader again lance loses that development. Keith’s not in the picture anymore, and the person in-charge was already in a leadership position and has nothing to learn by being there. 

Before I go way too deep into my thoughts about the plot/characterization, I do want to mention the animation. The fighting scenes are amazing and one of the most beautiful 2d animation I’ve seen. That is, when it is actually animated and not just the camera panning on a still image. Here’s where my biggest concern over the time comes in. 2 years is absolutely not enough time to animate that many episodes. I was genuinely worried for the animation company because it could not have been a good experience. And yes, we got more episodes sooner, the quality definitely dropped and it’s a real shame. Who knows when we’ll get another american cartoon in this style. I love this animation style but it takes time and a lot of skills to do, so not that many companies do it. I honestly wished they took their time with the show not just to get more time to animate, but also to flesh out some of the plot.

PLOT

As hunk said in one episode, they don’t linger on dramatic events that just happened. This show is very fast paced, and that’s not a bad thing. But they never took the time they needed to really feel the weight of everything that happens. Keith’s galra heritage reveal was basically swept under the rug. So was the shiro clone, lotor’s death, zarkon’s death, naxzela, and so many more. In general, that was a big problem with how the episodes went. If it wasn’t for the sheer number of fanfics covering those topics, they were really swept under the rug. It honestly kinda felt like the writers didn’t know what to do with the aftermath of their reveals. But some of these were pretty essential to the plot of the story. 

Keith’s part galra! So he doesn’t look it but there had to be obstacles with voltron forming the coalition. He’s part of the race that caused this war. I honestly think we should’ve seen that reveal become part of the plot, or what was the point of it? They could’ve just as easily wrote keith to be a regular human just like everyone else. Taking the time to add that part of his character needs to have some significance in the story. And yeah, they had krolia appear but she wasn’t really a significant character except to kinda magically fix keith’s problems. In general it felt like they forgot parts that they were foreshadowing with keith. Why could he turn purple sometimes? Did that quintessence he was hit with fix him or help him hide the galra parts? Why does he look so human? What is up with him having that quintessence sensitivity? I’m all for shows ending with some questions unanswered because sometimes it’s impossible to answer it all and let it feel natural, but this just felt like they forgot or decided it’s too much of a hassle and just ignored it.

Okay going into more specifics now, s8 was kinda meh. It especially felt bad because it came out the same day as spiderverse which had a very similar villain motivation, but objectively done better. I think honerva’s motivation came out of nowhere. We see in the flashback episode that she was so intent on getting knowledge that it literally destroyed daibazaal. So, it was established that her motivation is knowledge. Even though she lost her memory and regained it, as haggar she was still very focused on quintessence. We know she was gathering a lot of it, and maybe they said it and I forgot, but we never knew why. Family wasn’t really shown as a motivation for her. Even with lotor it didn’t seem like she wanted to be a family again, but instead was using him for her own unknown motivations. Anyways, the season felt awkward. And the new dynamic they had really needed more time. The last season should’ve expanded to be at least 2 more. It would’ve fit a lot better imo. S1-2 would have zarkon as the main villain, s3-6 would have lotor, and s7-8 would have haggar, who was also the puppeteer throughout the entire show. But she didn’t appear for s7 and her motivations didn’t really make sense in s8 so it evidently felt rushed. There were also so many major characters in s8 we needed more time to see them interact. 

So the ending with allura becoming constellations. Gonna be honest that whole last part had me confused. Especially with the fact that I barely remember what happened, why are the old paladins like trapped in the lions? I could excuse the other 4 but zarkon? Especially a zarkon that’s not corrupted? It was weird and didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and that’s all I’ll say about that. I don’t even want to try to suggest an alternative because I think that whole last half of the season is so messy it can’t be fixed. But it was so obviously pandering to the fandom it hurt. Lance getting those marks was so obviously referencing when people wanted lance to be altean in response to keith’s galra heritage. The shiro/curtis kiss was very “look see he is gay and not just because we said so” while nice, was very weak (why wasn’t keith in the shot?).

Despite my complaints, I remember liking s8. I really liked the addition of the atlas, even though it didn’t feel like we were watching voltron anymore sometimes. S7 had to be one of my favorite episodes since s2. Not to say that s7 is better or worse, but I really like it because it felt like a genre shift. I usually don’t like space sci-fi or mecha stories. Voltron somehow managed to combine the two and make me love it. S7 did not feel like either of those. First, a good half of it took place on earth. And I believe two episodes didn’t even have the main cast, and when team voltron finally made it to earth, voltron wasn’t even there until the final battle. I genuinely loved it. I think it was a very well done invasion/apocalyptic story that doesn’t get told in animation that often. But if I think about s7 with the rest of the show, it was awful. It broke up the tone the show usually had and it was a very different way of storytelling that voltron didn’t have before. It wasn’t a space sci-fi mecha story, it was an apocalyptic action story. Voltron was so unimportant they sat on a moon for episodes. It stopped becoming voltron and started becoming a spin-off. 

I do have to add that I absolutely loved the color themes in s7. We already had purple for the galra, but in s7 it was very obvious that alteans are themed blue and earth is themed with orange. I loved it so much and it was great. I do like that they gave shiro something to do. Honestly not killing him off in s2 made him an awkward character afterwards. But I didn’t like that they brought back sendak. There was no explanation for it and it wasn’t good imo. He didn’t really do anything besides conquer earth then die. Haggar was also absent the entire season which definitely didn’t help her storyline in s8 because we didn’t know what she was doing the entire time except abandoning everyone who was loyal to her. 

I’m usually not a fan of time skips, it has the tendency to gloss over character development or create glossed over recap. Honestly I wish voltron spent more time over the blade of marmora massacre or just the bom in general. They received no rest. Literally everyone part of that group died except for kolivan. Speaking of that episode, there was no explanation for how keith was able to know where macidus was about to appear and that honestly bugs me. There’s so much about keith we don’t know. He has so many abilities we were just never told. 

Again a lot of problems within team voltron is that there was never any follow up on things that happened, like keith leaving the team. He becomes the black paladin and no one bats an eye. Lance did make one comment about keith leaving but then it wasn’t ever mentioned again. I get that the writers/producers wanted the dynamic the original had, but they didn’t take the time to work up to it. Keith wasn’t a natural leader, but he suddenly is because he spent 2 years on a space whale with his mom and a space wolf. Like I mentioned earlier, voltron feels like keith is the main character but then they dropped him for a few episodes, realized that he’s important and added him back in while saying “oh he went through a time skip so he grew into the role he needs to be in now”. It feels like a cheap pay off.

I’d like to specifically talk about my thoughts on each season and work back but honestly I don’t think I can remember s3-6 separately. So they’re being chunked together. 

Lotor had the potential to be a really great villain. But he had to be foiled with keith. They have a lot of similarities that I think could’ve really played off well together. Lotor isn’t really allowed to have a leadership position. Yeah he was technically in charge while zarkon was recovering, but haggar didn’t really allow him full control. But, he was a great leader. He knew how to read his enemies and form an alliance. Meanwhile, keith had a leadership position thrusted to him, and frankly he wasn’t a good leader. He tends to keep to himself so he never really has to make decisions with a team. It could’ve been great, but shiro had to still be in the story. I’m honestly conflicted about this because on the one hand, I think it really ruined character developments for the main cast, but then I loved the clone shiro plot line. I think keeping shiro prevented keith from growing. He was able to remain dependent on shiro instead of actually bonding with the rest of the paladins. And of course he had to just go awol. Also, lance didn’t really get to have as prominent of a role as I think he could’ve had with keith. 

These seasons are also when the lions stopped being sentient robots that specifically choose their paladins to just really cool spaceships. We don’t get that level of bonding that was so prominent in s1 and 2. That’s also something I’m conflicted with. I think the lion swap was a great way for character developments, but it also removed a lot of it. It kinda made the bonding feel useless. The swap also changed the dynamic of the group. Instead of shiro and allura being co-leaders, and everyone else feeling like they’re on equal footing, it felt like Keith was the leader with lance being a needed right-hand man. Hunk and pidge were off doing their thing and allura was a leader but also not. Maybe if they had spent more time working with this dynamic it would’ve felt better. But they didn’t and it didn’t. Voltron also implied that allura was the only one that could control the castle ship, but then she goes to become a paladin and who’s driving the ship?

I do wish we could’ve gotten more about the altean colony and the reveal about lotor’s plans, but that got overshadowed and forgotten by the clone shiro reveal. Maybe I just missed it, but I wasn’t sure what the galra empire and lotor were collecting quintessence for. Was it just to make mechs to rival voltron? Lotor’s death was also very unclear. 

The coalition was a much needed thing, but I think very badly executed. They were gathering people from malls. These people are regular civilians who probably don’t know how to fight or fly a ship. I thought it was really weird that they were just getting regular people (aliens?) to sign up like they’re applying to be part of the army. But we never see them maybe join the rebel force matt is part of to learn how exactly to help. I think about avatar and how they also had a rag tag group of people to fight against the fire nation, but these weren’t just regular people living in a village. They were either warriors or very skilled benders. The voltron coalition was just regular people. That genuinely annoyed me because the voltron show just felt like those army propaganda ads, but exciting. Not to mention it was a very hard to watch episode. 

It was definitely making fun of how the fandom complains about how characters are getting reduced to a certain characteristic. But it wasn’t done in an entertaining way like the ember island players episode from atla because some of those were legit complaints (like hunk being the fat/food guy) and that stuff wasn’t resolved. Like the ember island players made fun of sokka constantly talking about meat or katara crying all the time, but the show made it very clear beforehand that these characters are much more than that. Is hunk really more than the food guy? As far as the show mentions, the only things he’s done was make the machine to help find the blue lion, and help save the balmera. All of which was in season 1. After that hunk honestly took the backseat in voltron.

I mentioned earlier, but the time skip on the space whale felt like we were cheated out of keith’s character development. I mean we got development, but we didn’t get to see it. The vlog short showed that keith believes a lot of his problems stems from not having a mom (and a dad) in his life. But instead of seeing keith learning to trust and open up to people despite having so many people in his life leaving him, we get a cute montage of him with his mom. As if it makes sense that two years with his mom would fix everything. (side note, I know a lot of people were saying how obvious it was that krolia was keith’s mom, I genuinely did not know until she said so at the end of that episode).

I’m not gonna talk about my thoughts on s1 and 2 because I’m pretty sure I live blogged those and honestly I don’t think I remember it. 

CHARACTERS

Now I’m finally talking about the characters and I’m starting off with keith as if I haven’t talked about him enough already. I love keith. He’s undeniably one of my (if not the) favorite characters ever. And he’s obviously a fandom favorite if we’re considering the two biggest ships in the fandom. Or maybe he really is just the secret main character of voltron. We know so much about him, for someone who loves keith, it’s great. We basically know his entire backstory, and yet we know no one else’s (except maybe lotor but even that’s iffy).

I never rewatched a single voltron episode since it ended, and I can’t watch any of the connected shows (meaning shows that have the same ppl that worked on it or the same fans, think dragon prince and she-ra) because the fandom was the absolute worst one I’ve ever been in and parts legit trigger me. I am fascinated with fandoms. I love it. I chose my major because it was the closest I could get to just learning about them 24/7. But the voltron fandom was so incredibly toxic and over two ships? Honestly the fandom itself was a major reason why I couldn’t get super invested in the later seasons. I get afraid when it seems like a certain ship might happen. I actually hoped that certain characters just didn’t interact. (I’m not gonna get much deeper in this because I don’t want to touch this topic with a ten-foot pole, at least not now) Aside from that, I think that the plot and characterizations for voltron got really messy post s2. The lion switch was never handled well imo, and post switch the lions lost that sentient personality that was established in the first two seasons. It also didn’t make sense aside from the writers wanted everyone in the original lions. Or at least, we never got the proper character developments into those roles. Keith left right after becoming the black paladin. 

I think another major problem with the show is how some decisions felt like pandering. I remember hearing that they didn’t kill off shiro because he was a fan favorite, so he had to stay for marketing and to make more money. But then keeping shiro alive would’ve derailed the original plot idea. I wish I could see how the story would’ve played out with shiro staying dead.

Draft 2: rewatched the show then started writing this

So I wrote a draft of this like a year ago, realized I don’t remember the show much, so I rewatched the whole show and started rewriting my thoughts.

Pre-rewatch thoughts: It was a good show that was poorly executed

Mid-rewatch thoughts: it’s a really good show that just has some weak points (the second half of lotor’s arc, team voltron’s importance in season 4-6 it feels like a lot of filler episodes until keith shows up again)

End-rewatch thoughts: it's actually a really good show. It has some weak points and some really strong points. Season 8 was confusing though. I went through most of it going yeah okay I guess that can happen.

Final verdict: it's a genuinely good show

What went wrong

It ended on its weakest season, which was also the most abstract and different season. While the main antagonist changed throughout the seasons, it still continued to be the galra empire. Even when lotor joined, the team was still fighting fractions of the galra empire. Meanwhile, season 8 didn’t have any conflict with the galra. The antagonists were honerva and the alteans, who are very different types of villains compared to the galra. There was also little build up to that change. Sure, we got to experience that briefly in season 3 when they went to the alternate reality, but I don’t think that was built up well. Also, the protagonists and the audience are just not prepared. We don’t know how the alteans work like the extent of their abilities, but we were given dozens of episodes to learn about the galra. As a result season 8 just wound up with me feeling confused and thinking “uhh sure I guess they can do that, that makes sense maybe?”

It could not pick who its protagonist is. Yeah the five humans plus allura (and coran?) are the main characters but most shows with multiple major characters still focus one one character as the protagonist. Like atla has aang, adventure time has finn, umbrella academy has five. Voltron just never picks someone and the group constantly changes too, so you end up having to not focus on any character for the sake of time. Of course not all shows do that. Teen Titans had each season focus on a particular member of the team, and tbh I was wondering if that was what they were planning for the show, especially when season 2 was so Keith focused but guess not.

It feels like they did not have the time to fully flesh out the story. Voltron came and went so incredibly fast. They had 8 seasons (technically 6 if you group up the halved seasons). But also the show only lasted 2 years. It honestly horrifies me to think of the time crunch everyone on the team was going through, especially the animators. You can see the drop in quality as there were very few scenes that involved actual animation for the middle bulk of the show. So then, how much time did they have to develop the story, in addition to execs telling them what they can and can’t do. There’s so many arcs that seemed to start then get forgotten, and I don’t blame the writers for that at all. Although I wish we could’ve learned more about Lance and the Altean sword and Keith with his apparent quintessence sensitivity, they probably just didn’t have the time to plot those out.

It had too much outside influence. Such as, the writers wanting to kill off shiro, but then being forced to keep him on the show because the execs said to. And honestly, the fandom. For example, the whole last episode with Lance getting the Altean marks (an obvious omage to ppl wanting Altean Lance).

What went right

There’s a reason why the show became so popular (aside from being a reboot of a popular 80′s show) and it’s because of the characters. I’m not about the whole “we become attached to characters because the writers did them wrong but we fans can see the potential and that’s why fan works are better” bs that I see going around this site all the time. The first season particularly wrote these characters so well. They’re relatable but also intriguing enough for you to care about what’s going to happen to them. 

Some thoughts regarding popular fandom discussions:

It’s a plot-driven show with character-focused fans

I like to think of there being two ways to tell a story: by being character-focused or plot-driven. Plot driven shows are ones like atla, young justice, legend of korra, etc. There’s a conflict that gets introduced and the story revolves around that conflict. Character-focused shows are ones like adventure time or we bare bears, they’re less concerned about a plot line and focus more on the characters interacting with their world. Of course all stories incorporate both parts, just some focus more on one than the other. So, here’s where I think a lot of the issues about voltron and the fandom comes from. Voltron is a very obviously plot-driven show but the fandom is very character-focused. I won’t deny I loved the episodes about keith. Season 4 and 5 were hard for me to watch because I missed my boy. But that’s where the arguments come from. People get upset that their fav isn’t in the spotlight

It didn’t queerbait

I understand watching a show for representation, I really do, but voltron is not that show and that's okay. Not every show has to be revolutionary in its representation of marginalized people. I won't pretend to know the harmful tropes for marginalized people. My consumption of media is not usually diverse. But I will stand by my stance that a large part of voltron's later seasons is about the casualties of war. So of course a lot of people died. I also firmly believe that the producers had a much easier time adding diversity to their own created characters than the main voltron characters, because of rights and all that complicated nonsense. So as a result the ones who were more expendable and could die were also the same characters that they could add diversity too.

I’m gonna add the definition of queerbait here so we’re all on the same page:  Queerbait is a marketing technique for fiction and entertainment in which creators hint at, but then do not actually depict, same-sex romance or other LGBTQ representation.

But here’s the thing. We were told at comic-con or one of those cons that Shiro is gay, and he had a boyfriend. They actually gave us that. Yeah it wasn’t as explicit as She-ra got, but that’s another point for later. There was no lying about it. Shiro is canonically gay, and his boyfriend was Adam. If anything, this whole thing came out of wanting Keith in a relationship with Shiro or Lance. Yes. I will admit, there are plenty of scenes between Keith and Lance, and Keith and Shiro that can be read as romantic. Someone correct me if I’m wrong but did any of the cast members tease the possibility of Kl//ance or Sh//eith (VAs don’t count, sorry but they don’t really have a say in the story)? Because unless they did, and they did repeatedly, the fandom queerbaited themselves. So many people in the fandom were so certain that Keith would be in a relationship with one of them, there was basically an all out war. Even if there was a chance, did you really think the creators (who were pretty active in early fandom days) would continue that development? It was so so toxic they were forced to shut off any possibilities of that.

In regards to minority characters

Again, I'll admit vld is not the place to go for real, proper representation. Their characters tend to be characters that happen to be a part of a minority rather than a minority character. wtf does that mean? Well, you can swap (earth) races for just about any character and it wouldn't make too much of a difference in how they act. There's some lines that wouldn't work like Lance's "I'm just a boy from Cuba" but other than that there would be no significant change. Of course this goes down to preference. Would you want a minority character whose struggles reflect those in real life and as a result be defined by that aspect of themselves, or do you want a character that just happens to be a part of a minority group but whose life is not really affected by that? 

Draft 3: months after the rewatch, mostly an attempt to reorganize the previous two drafts

I’m gonna start with the negatives just to get the ranting off my chest. Season 8 was bad. Yeah. No argument there. Although I wouldn’t say it was bad in the same way Game of Thrones and Supernatural was bad. Rather, it was an interesting and complex premise that didn’t have the build up it needed and honestly needed a few more passthroughs to iron out some parts. At worse, I felt it was confusing to the point where I just accepted whatever new worldbuilding thing they threw at me. The issue with Season 8 vs Seasons 1-7 is that Season 8 had a completely different villain, and a brand new cast dynamic. We got 7 seasons (65 episodes) developing the Galra as the villain. We got to learn who they are, their motives, how they operate, etc. Not only that, but they were pretty basic and easy to understand villains. They’re conquerors. They don’t have any sort of magic, they really just use brute force to attack and enslave the planets. In striking contrast, the Alteans in Season 8 weren’t conquerors. They didn’t care about controlling the universe. They also had magic abilities that our main characters don’t understand and didn’t explore. Season 8 had villains who could create illusions, mind control, and manipulate quintessence. The Alteans are leagues beyond the Galra in terms of complexities as an antagonist, but they didn’t get nearly enough time to be fully developed.

Also, Season 8 essentially doubled the cast size. So despite the fact that we have yet to see much of Keith-as-the-black-paladin Voltron group dynamic, now that screentime is being balanced with the MFE pilots and other Garrison characters. Essentially, there were too many characters, and too little time to flesh out the ideas of this season. A side note, Haggar’s (Honerva?) motivations were lame. I think it would’ve been much more interesting if her plans were just to continue the research she did 10,000 years ago with the rift. That would’ve also brought back the rift monsters which we never got an answer for. What even are they? Instead, her goal to have a family again is really weak. Even in the flashbacks she never showed any care for the more familial aspects of her life. It didn’t make sense for that to be her drive. It also didn’t help that Season 8 came out on like the same day as Spiderverse and the antagonists for both had the same goal, but Spiderverse did an immensely better job.

Another thing that didn’t make sense to me was Keith giving the speech to the rest of the Galra. He is not the right character to give that speech. Sure he’s Galra, but he didn’t even know for most of his life. For him to say “we” like he’s also a citizen of the Galra empire feels so weird. He never grew up with the Empire’s influence, and we never saw him experiencing Galra culture with the Blade. He learned about the Galra as an outsider, and despite the fact that he’s part Galra (he doesn’t even remotely look Galra), I don’t think that gives him the authority to say a speech like that. The speech is similar to Zuko’s at the end of ATLA, and that makes me feel like it would’ve been a lot better had Lotor said it. I think even Kolivan would’ve been a better fit than Keith. 

The more I’m writing about Season 8, the more I’m remembering just how messy and confusing it was. Additionally, the last bit of Season 8 was so obviously pandering to the fandom it gives me second-hand embarrassment. Lance getting those marks was so obviously referencing when people wanted Lance to be Altean in response to Keith's galra heritage. The Shiro getting married was just to make it more obvious that he’s gay, but had no build up. (There were definitely more but I didn’t write myself a list and I’m not rewatching that season)

Second, “Voltron queerbaited”. [this was posted before here]

Speaking of which, Voltron premiered summer of 2016 and ended in winter of 2018. That’s about 2 and a half years where they aired 78 episodes. That’s stupid fast, especially for an animated series. I’m constantly worried about what the people working on that show had to endure. For sure, Season 3 with Shiro coming back wasn’t written until at least Season 1. I recalled the execs demanding that Shiro not be dead since he was a popular character. It’s honestly concerning how little time they had to work on the show, and it unfortunately showed. In the later seasons, a lot of the shots were just still frames that moved across the scene. And the plot line with Lotor could’ve used some work. Although, I think Shiro being forced in there was also a reason for it being so shaky.

I honestly hate Seasons 4 & 5. I cannot tell you what happened because my brain keeps erasing it. Obviously, the lack of Keith had a huge impact on my opinion of those seasons, but it also felt like a whole lot of filler episodes, and not the fun ones with character development. With Keith mostly out of the picture, and Lance becoming the right hand of Voltron, that should’ve been a great time to develop Lance to become a second-in-command. To have him go through an arc where he overcomes his insecurities. It would’ve also been an amazing time to develop his and Shiro’s relationship. But we didn’t get any of that. 

I genuinely believe Keith was supposed to stay the black paladin and Shiro wasn’t supposed to come back. Keith would be an amazing foil to Lotor. They’re both half-Galra. They’ve both been given a new leadership role that they don’t want. The middle arc always felt so weak to me, and as I mentioned earlier, the Allura/Lotor interactions were awkward. It feels shoehorned in because someone has to interact with Lotor and I guess the writers decided Allura was the best option?

Season 3-6 felt like the epitome of what happens when showrunners are forced to do whatever the execs say and have no time to properly develop their story. I’ll forever be bitter at all the character and relationship development we lost because of that. We never got to see Keith really learn to open up to the team and start to trust others. But Keith still had to get to that point, which is why I assume they had the time jump for him. It’s so disappointing because we lost what could’ve been a great character development. It also made Keith being the Black Paladin again feel cheap. We didn’t get to see the struggle he had to be the leader Shiro saw he could be. He was just suddenly leading them and they worked like a proper team.

Voltron also had a lot of plot holes. Now, I don’t expect shows to answer every question, because it’s impossible to tie everything up and leave no questions unanswered in a natural way. But, there’s a lot of things that felt like the beginning of a plot line or honestly needed some answers. Like, Lance shifting his bayard to a sword. What was the point of that if it was never mentioned again? It felt like that was an important start to an arc for him that just got forgotten. Also, what was up with Keith’s quintessence sensitivity? How was he able to sense where that druid was. How did he know he could summon his bayard to him. I think the part that bugged me the most was that Keith was the only one who did that. Also, Keith’s eyes becoming slitted during his fight with Kuron was never addressed, and I really wish it was. It felt like such a throwaway moment that could’ve been interesting to explore more. Although I’m not too upset with that one as I think we were given enough to piece together a reason for it. 

[sakura-haruka]

Mike aka captainpoe is talking shit about me so let me get things straight.

He’s gonna do screenshots of what will makes him look like the victim, like he always does so you will have to believe me on my words (since I coun’t found our conversations by pm) but most people who know me or I've been following me for a long time know that I usually stay out of the drama. Big thanks to my friends for telling me what he was doing behind my back like the adult he is.

3 years ago Mike started following me, I was back then a small blog and I thought “wow a big blog is following me!”

He started to talk me and really fast told me to send him my edits by messages and I did! he also reblogged me on his mcu blog (and his sw blog too... I think).

I was really stressed with a big exam around July and I became obsess with EVERYTHING, I was a true pain in the ass to everyone. I’m not gonna lie. So yeah I also became obsess with my Tumblr notes, I did gifs to relax but it was not working very well back then. my behavior was childish and I apologized to him after! 

(He accused me of wanting to be reblogged on his sideblogs, it’s true, but it’s natural to me to reblog everything that people send me or tag me in on my sideblogs, I sincerely don’t understand people problem with reblogging on sideblogs things ).

When he got harassed on here, more like called out (it was actually around the same time I was a dick)  he asked me to take his defense and to reblog a post he made, he was basically whining about how he was the victim and never harassed anyone, he sent me messaged telling me that he was a married man in florida and never did anything against the once upon a time fandom, wasn’t homophobic and meh meh meh... Back then I believed him because he was the nice guy who was helping me getting notes in the MCU fandom. He used me, after talking to other members I realized that I wasn’t alone. 

I WANT TO APOLOGIES TO THE POEPLE I DIDN’T BELIEVED BACK THEN. I KNOW WHO HE IS NOW. 

He started being aggressive but nothing worriedly when TLJ came around, it was a real little thing but I wasn't shipping Rey x poe and I felt like it was problem for him that I wasn’t shipping them. I didn't thought too much about it but still, it left a bad taste in my mouth, I wasn’t talking a lot to him after that.

When I had problems and got hate on my blog he didn't do shit to help me. 

I was still sending me my edits because... Notes. I can’t lie about that, like every  creators here I want my edits to get notes. 

I think we haven’t talked for a verrrry long time, I was sending my edits that’s it. 

Last year he asked me to join my GOT blog, after all the reblog he did for me I thought It would be really bitchy to me to not add him as a member. But I also noted that it was funny how he joined both the B99 and the GOT fandom once he realized that it was very popular. 

He did edits on the blog so no problem at all, until s8 ended. I’m like everybody, I hated that season but when someone join my sideblogs, especially my got one, I am very clear about the no hate rule (I had problems with that on this blog before). But he thought that since he was popular he could do what he wanted, I deleted the two first he reblogged, one of them was calling people to harass D&D and I hate what they did but as someone who has been victim of bullying at school and still suffer from that I was disgusted by what he posted but I haven’t told him anything since he’s really popular and I didn’t want to create any drama... I have a life so I  finally forgot about it. 

My laptop broke and gosh, I really understood who he was at that moment! I sent a messages to all the members of my sideblogs asking them to keep the blogs active while I can’t, normal stuff for an admin. I had my tablet with no photoshop... spidey got “fired” and like a lot of other people I thought about that scene in iw where Tony told him “you’re an avenger now”, lucky me I have already made that gifset before so I took my tablet and just reposted my own gifset, it took me so long because I had to convert it back to gif format because of Tumblr... Anyway, later he sent me a message accusing me of having copied him and I haven’t seen his gifset so told him exactly that. He then accused me of doing that ALL THE TIME with endgame and I told him “listen bro we’re both using the same 30 seconds YouTube clips that marvel gave us”, like 20 other people (they were not a lot of people because that channel was weirdly unknown), it’s true that I was doing them after him but it’s just because I have a life and cannot always do gif, I make them when I have time. He also basically told me that I must be rich for having replaced my laptop that fast, I haven’t, I was using my tablet but even if I did replace my laptop, mêle toi de ton cul ( I have no English expression coming to me ).

I really understood who he was then. 

He totally stopped making edits for my got blog, because it stopped trending so it wasn’t interesting him anymore. 

a few months past and I think the only thing he told me is that he was scared of clowns... Literally. 

And then the BIG ONE, I know he was a douche but omg. Mike asked me to reblog ALL his posts on a sideblog I'm only a member of. He told me that the admin have blocked him because she was shipping reylo and well reylos hate him because he’s posting shit on them , they were a huge misunderstanding then (because i’m French and I may not have explained myself right) , I told him that I wouldn’t reblog him if the admin didn’t want to see his posts on the blog, he was blocked! and I was, at the same time, talking to another member of this blog who is a close friend of the admin and she agreed with me. he was very insisting and I told him that the admin was checking what we add to the queue and would certainly delete his posts, it was the big misunderstanding that could have hurt the admin of the blog, I just meant I know she checks what’s happening because she told me when I don’t tag a post with the right tags, it’s just what a good admin (unlike myself) does. I also told him that it was a new blog with “only” 14k followers, he must have something like 50K followers sooooo, and that his edits were getting 100K notes, more than anybody here. He became... I have no words to describe that. He told me that it was a dictatorship if I couldn’t reblog what I wanted, and that I should leave the blog, I stopped answering pretty fast after that. 

 In our last conversation I was vulgar. (it’s in the post he sent to my friends), he really need to get over it, I’m French and from Normandie : I am vulgar! wtf. It’s also the last thing he ever posted on my game of thrones blog. It was a Sunday either two days after after the last star wars movie came out or ten days ( I don’t remember if he waited a week or not) but he reblogged a text post from his blog sending hate toward the writers of both got and sw and spoiled the entire Star Wars movie on my game of thrones blog, which was “the drop of water that caused the vase to bleed” like annoy me all you want but when people goes on my got blog they don’t want to be spoiled, it was so rude and mean and that post had nothing to do there and it was at least the third time so I told him to “fucking stop” and since mr thinks he is the king he went all “you can’t talk to me like that” “I'm an adult” meh meh meh. I told him to never go in France ‘cause he wouldn't like us. And it was the last time we spoke.  Nothing to do directly with me but I would never do what he does to get notes, that man he’s ready to use any big events such as pride or women’s day to get notes. I do make edits for those events too but I'm actually a bisexual woman and not an heterosexual man and I really don’t think he’s doing those edits to show his support to those movements but just to get notes, this year he did the same thing with blm movement I thought it was disrespectful at best, he even made the famous “I we burn you burn with us” gifset  from the movie and no, just stop dude.  Making that gifset of Naya before she was even found was awful, a lot of people are doing gifs to feel better about things but I don’t think it would have came to anybody else mind to have it ready in their draft. It actually make me think of myself because after they died I made a gifset of Carrie Fisher and Stan Lee  and in my head  it was a tribute but now that I think back about it I wouldn’t make gifset when people dies anymore, I said it once again but in my head it was a tribute to those wonderful people life and work.  I did to feel people and myself a little better in those situations but it didn’t makes me feel better. I thought about it even more, especially for Carrie, because I couldn’t stop thinking about Billie and losing my mom is the worst thing that could happen to me. You can say that, at the end, Mike makes me realize something. 

He has been calling out for his behavior but instead of facing it like an adult he just want to take people down instead of him, I'm one of them and I certainly won’t be the only one.  it’s someone who doesn’t know how to face the consequences of his behavior and still think he’s untouchable, me and one of my friend said that he thought he was the king of Tumblr and I sincerely think that in his head he is. 

Sorry for the grammar I'm French and it’s almost 4 am so I'm gonna check the grammar tomorrow. 

[zeppelin-and-unicorns]

15 and 18

15 - If you write OC’s, how do you decide on their names?

Just answered that one here!

18 - Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

Oh my God, I have so many!! Beware, this is going to be a very long answer. Click on the thingy to read more!

Last year, back when I first started writing fanfiction, I had a lot going on in my mind, and at one moment I had to choose which stories I would actually work on, and which ones I would have to drop it for now. There were five stories in total, and I dropped three of them.

Two of those five stories evolved and they became When The Levee Breaks and Map of the Problematique, the other three are still unnamed and undeveloped.

I'll give you the main summary of them, because why the hell not?

The first story is a pretty fluffy one, I've abandoned it because there are already a few stories like these in the fandom and because I got too invested writing my other stories. Also, a huge chunk of it is written in the first person, because I started writing it at the beginning of the last year, and I've learned that I don't really like writing in first person anymore... Writing WTLB is hard enough already lol.

This story would narrate the beginning of Jackie and Hyde's relationship while Donna and Kelso were still in California, but there are a few twists: Eric doesn't mope around in his room most of the time, and he develops a really nice friendship with Jackie (that friendship would turn into a small crush later), and Eric and Donna would not be endgame.

There's a lot going on at first, in this story, Hyde actually plans on "wooing" Jackie once he's sure she's over Kelso, they flirt a lot and he's aware that he's going to make a move on his best friend's ex. Jackie's also very interested in Hyde, but for a while, she thinks he'd never be interested in her.

Their flirting wouldn't last long though, I had planned on making them get together at the beginning of the story (I think it was in chapter five?), the rest of the story would narrate them hiding their relationship from their friends and how close they are getting to Eric and Fez.

I've planned on writing lots of sweet friendly moments between Jackie, Hyde, Eric, and Fez. In fact, there are quite a few scenes written out already, and in one of them they're all in a circle and it's the first time Eric realizes that Jackie's not as bitchy as he thought she was. Here's one of the circle scenes I've written:

"You know what?" Jackie announced, ignoring Fez's sobs and passing the joint to Hyde, thanking God that he was probably too high to notice how goosebumps rose all over her body when his fingers brushed against hers "I hope Michael gets syphilis from a random beach whore and goes blind."

"Odds are pretty good of that happening." Hyde nodded as he took another hit "Of him getting an STD, I'm not so sure about becoming blind, but I'm sure once he gets back to Wisconsin we can convince him to stare at the sun long enough for that to happen"

Eric snickered "Yeah... I hope Donna just... Never comes back, I hate her... Yeah..."

"No, you don't," Jackie said flatly to him "You'll probably marry her if she ever does come back."

Eric stared at Jackie for a few seconds before sighing dejectedly "... yeah, you're right..."

"But, hey, we can bash on Michael some more if you like, it's fun!"

"You're right, it is fun! " Eric nodded, smiling at the petite girl sitting next to him on the couch and wondering when did he start to actually enjoy her presence.

The whole google doc for this story has over 7k words of random dialogues and random moments I came up with. I'm not going to lie, it has potential, lots of it actually, but I don't have the time to work on it now.

The story would be overall a light read, it would've been M-rated because I did start to write a sex scene, but it would be overall something funny and cute. For example, one of my favorite moments is this one where Eric almost catches Hyde and Jackie:

"Oh my God…" Eric muttered in awe, glancing at the two very guilty-looking people sitting on the couch.

Hyde and Jackie exchanged a look, they were caught. Crap.

"Is this what I think it is?" Eric said

"Look, Eric…" Jackie started to explain, but stopped when she saw the huge grin forming on Eric's face. She looked at Hyde and apparently he was just as confused as she was.

"You're watching Star Wars!" Eric said in glee "You're geeks!"

"What?!" Hyde protested and looked at the TV, where he could clearly see Leia and Luke kissing on the bridge "We're not geeks, you're crazy"

"Steven, stop," Jackie said "Fine Eric, you caught us, we like Star Wars"

This story would end in a nice place, but... well, there would be a lot of changes.

Here's the thing, I was kind of really hating Kelso (and Donna too, a little bit) when I started writing this, so I chose to write something that might be a little weird for a few people. In this story, Donna and Kelso would have a fling in California, and Eric would catch them on the spot when he arrives to get Donna back.

It's not something Eric would be able to forgive. And even after a lot of talking, he wouldn't be able to get back together with Donna after seeing her with Kelso.

Coming back to Point Place, Eric would try to make a move on Jackie, he would kiss her for like, two seconds, and she would've pushed him away and blurted out that she's in love with Hyde. Hyde would arrive at the basement a few moments after that, and Eric would be completely freaking out. It's a funny scene lol.

Things would get messy for a while, but in the end, Jackie and Hyde would go public and have the happily ever after they deserve, Eric, Fez, Hyde, and Jackie would continue their friendship, Donna would move to California for good, and Kelso wouldn't hang out with them anymore.

There are a few stories that are somewhat similar to this one, like Summer Lovin' by leoasc, One Difference: Donna and Kelso Have a Fling by MistyMountainHop, OPERATION: REBOUND by ShanghaiLily, and there are probably a few more that I can't remember the names right now.

The second story is a heavy one, like, really heavy.

I got the idea of writing this story when I was watching a Grey’s Anatomy episode, so yeah, its a dramatic one lol.

The episode that inspired this story is the one where Richard is in between life and death, and Meredith is the one he chose as his next of kin. Which means that she’s the one the doctors report to, and she’s the one who decided how he was going to be treated. Meredith took some risky decisions and they’re literally the reason why Richard is alive.

I remember that when I saw this episode, I was also reading a fanfic... Being more specific, I was reading The Right Road Lost by zpplnchick, and an idea just popped into my mind... What if Jackie was the one with the memory loss? How would Hyde deal with that in a post s8 universe?

I know there are a few fics that deal with that subject, like Steven Who? by kezztip and Redemption Road by SkittlezLvr79, but believe me, my story would’ve been waaay different than these ones.

Here’s the main plot: Jackie and Hyde talk things out, and Hyde asks Jackie if she could ever take him back, promising her that he would never, ever give up on her again. She says no, because y’know, she’s a freaking self-respecting woman, but this talk would make her think, a lot, because she can see that he actually meant it every word, and she has never seen him this determined before.

As she was driving home, she would crash her car, and things would get pretty serious pretty quickly.

Her situation would be very critical, I planned on making Hyde suffer a lot in this, guys. I’m just downright cruel to him, because I believe that nothing would hurt him more than seeing the person he loves the most going through absolute hell.

Decisions would have to be made, and that’s when they find out that Jackie’s next of kin is no one other than Hyde. After her mother left her and her father went to prison, Jackie asked her father’s lawyer to provide her with a few papers that put Hyde in charge of her well-being if something ever happened to her. She forgot about it after they broke up, and well... She is going to be very thankful for that later.

Hyde’s shocked, but very pleased to find out that he’s responsible for her, especially since everyone seems to think that her death is inevitable and that they shouldn’t prolong her suffering.

After a very enlightening conversation with Mrs. Forman, Hyde decides that he’s not going to let anyone tell him what to do, and that he’s going to follow his gut.

The next few months would be complete hell, Jackie’s situation is very critical, she would go through a lot of complications and Hyde would’ve been a complete mess. He would watch quietly as Donna, Kelso and Fez stopped showing up to see Jackie, disgusted at how quickly they just gave up on her. He would listen as Donna rambled about how what he was doing to Jackie was torture, and that he must really hate her if he’s not willing to just let her go (which would end up causing a major fallout between Donna and Hyde), but he would never question his decisions. He just knew that he was doing the right thing, and no one but the Forman’s seemed to understand that. 

Hyde showed up to see her at the hospital every single day for months. The whole hospital staff knew him as “the Sleeping Beauty’s prince”, and he hardly ever left Jackie’s side.

After a few months, she wakes up, and he’s right next to her when that happens. It’s honestly a pretty touching scene, he’s just so happy and so relieved to see her awake after everything she went through, and they have a beautiful moment.

Seriously, I cried hard when I wrote that.

They would both cry, share “I love yous” and a few kisses, and it would’ve been beautiful, but the magic’s killed when Hyde realizes that Jackie thinks that they’re in 1978. She doesn't remember the nurse, the “get off my boyfriend” incident, Chicago or Sam. The last thing she remembers is him driving her home after they emptied her family’s ski cabin.

Hyde is divided between telling her the truth and losing her, or not telling her and being with her again.

He would let her think things were okay between them for a couple of days, until Eric shoves some sense into his head and he comes clean about everything. After telling her everything that happened, he also tells her that he loves her and he wants to be with her, but that he completely understands if she never wants to see his face again.

It’s safe to say that Jackie’s absolutely crushed. This breaks her, but she had the Forman’s by her side to help her go through everything, and Hyde also never leaves her. Sure, he gives her some space, but he doesn’t stop checking up on her, and slowly, they begin to form a nice friendship.

He takes her to her physical therapy appointments, and her doctors appointments, he helps her in every possible way he can, and she falls in love with him all over again.

The story would end with her making a full recovery and giving them another chance.

I've abandoned this story for three reasons, reason number one being: I was at a point where I really disliked Donna, and her character is not a nice person at all in this. Now that I understand Donna's character better, I refuse to publish a story where she behaves the way she did in this one. I could've changed her behavior, but the whole point of the story is "Hyde is the only one who hasn't given up", and having Donna acting like herself (nice and supportive) would kind of kill part of the plot.

Reason number two is: There’s already too much drama in Map of the Problematique, working on this story along with WTLB and my other WIP’s would drive me nuts.

And the last reason is... I didn’t know if people would like reading a story like this. I was afraid that some people might think that all of this determination is extremely OOC for Hyde, and I can kind of see why they would think this way. 

The third story would’ve been an angsty one, and I started writing it after I finished watching the first episode of season 6. You guys can probably already guess why I was inspired to write an angsty story after that episode...

Here’s the thing: I absolutely HATE the way Hyde treated Jackie in the first two episodes of season 6. I hate that he cheated on her and had the audacity to be offended that she didn’t take him back right away. I wanted to kick his ass for acting the way he did, it was truly disgusting of him and he did not deserve to be with her again after everything he’d done.

I do like that Kelso was the one that brought them back together, but the rest of that storyline is just... yuck. I truly hate it.

I wanted to fix that. I wanted to give Jackie a very girlboss moment, and I wanted to see Hyde groveling to get her back, so well... I came up with a story idea.

The story would be a short one, it would have 10 chapters, 15 if I got too inspired, and it would consist of Hyde groveling while Jackie didn’t give him the time of her day.

Sure, Jackie and Hyde would be endgame, because it’s me and I would never write a story without a happy ending, but Hyde would have to fight for it, a lot.

@snookstheallmighty is currently writing a story that is very similar to the one I was working on. It’s called “Friday I’ll Be Over You”, and it’s pretty great! You should totally check it out later! I’ve sent her a few parts of my story draft a while ago, and I gave her full permission to use it on her story!

I think this is pretty much it... I have plenty of story ideas and many, many google docs with random drafts and dialogues that popped up in my mind out of nowhere, but these are the ones I’ve fully abandoned and will probably never work on again.

[missjackil]

My 15x17 Opinion

Unity

Wow! This one was a rollar coaster ride! I’ve seen positive and negative responses from y’all but I’ll say, though it had its flaws, I thought it was basically what I watch the show for. Tension drama, emotion, twists and turns and all that good stuff! 

We start off that Sam is still angry with Dean and giving him the silent treatment. A typical Winchester argument occurs but comes to a painful halt when Sam says, concerning Jack “We dont give up on family!!” and Dean returns fire with “Jack’s not family!!” OMG I could HEAR Sam’s heart shatter! Dean isn’t wrong in his follow up though, they both care for Jack a lot (Sam evidenty moreso) but he’s not family at their level, or even Cas’s level for that matter. This isn’t anything we shouldn’t aready know. Michael!Dean even pointed this out in s14. 

I don’t think this means Dean doesn’t love or care about Jack at all. In fact Im sure he does even if he still holds a grudge, but he’s not on Sam level, no one is... nor is he on Mom, Dad, Bobby or Cas level, but maybe Rowena level? Id say somewhere between Rowena level and Kevin level.

Sam loves Jack and apparently thinks of him as his son, though he never says it. He has said “He’s our kid!” but never said Jack is like a son to him. Im not going to go too meta on this, but  I kinda think Dean’s line of thought is “Well Sam and I both have died to save the world, why can’t Jack?” and Sam is thinking “Enough of this damn dying to save the freakin world!” but thats my opinion :) 

Of course Jack overhears which also hurt and he asks Sam if hes mad at him. Sam weighs his words so well to make sure Jack knows Sam understands and appreciates the mission, but he thinks its wrong.

I have mixed opinions of the Amara and Chuck portions. I think Amara was great! I really like her, but I was distracted by an OTT Chuck that I really didnt like. Not just on a bad guy level but the childishness was much more like a bad impression of Lucifer than any Chuck we’ve seen. Im still hoping beyond hope that Chuck gets redeemed some way though I think its not very likely. But it aint over till its over and SPN has surprized me a million times before.

Adam and Serafina were annoying. I thought it also very weird that Dean thought the woman must be Eve when he killed Eve in S6. Guess they forgot s6, but thats ok, I try to forget it too!

So Jack becoming a bomb is the only way to defeat Chuck. Im gad to hear Sam call Dean out on his “Its the only way” attitude. I flash back so Sacrifice in s8 when Sam was going to martyr himsef ... again... and when Dean found out Sam would die, all of a sudden, this isnt the only way!! “We have enough information to turn the tides here... think about what we know....” to show Sam that they do have options, and yet, when it doesnt have to do with Sam’s life, Dean becomes somewhat of a defeatist. (its ok Dean... I know theres a “Samception” to every rule 😉🤜🤛)

Meanwhile Sam and Cas figure out how to get to Billies Library. Im kinda sad they keep using Meg as The Empty, Im so down for Megstiel, I wish theyd go that route instead.  Anyway, she confirms that Billie needs him so maybe if she starts kiling him, Billie will come. Sam lies his way out of that and tricks her into giving him God’s book. Now we have that and Im curious as to why Billie and/or Chuck need Sam. I still think for Sam to die, Dean needs to kill him and this is why Chuck manipulated Dean to pull a gun on him, which goes well with OG Death needing Dean to kill Sam, or “Ill do it for you” and OGs Death’s eagerness to reap him. This is intriguing, and I cant even meta on it, because I have no clue LOL

So we have this crazy physical fight between Sam and Dean which leads us to Sam’s touching speech. “What about me? Would you trade me?” The line that of course, stops Dean in his tracks. I THINK that if Billie resets everything that Sam stays dead from s2? Or maybe just since she has been Death and Sam would stay dead when he got vamped in the AU? Im not sure, but Sam didnt seem to mean that Dad would have stayed dead from before Mom made her demon deal, or that would just mean neither would exist.

Sam tells Dean that he’s always protected him, from Dad, from Lucifer etc... and I see a lot of controversey on Tumblr about this statement as an attack on John. I don’t really think so, though no matter how much of a John fan you are, the show never paints him as an ideal father. Its not “these new writers” its every writer since the Pilot. Since season 1 John has been depicted as an obsessed man who raised them to be hunters, left them alone as children for days/weeks at a time and had anger and drinking issues, all while showing that he loves his boys, wants them to be safe and ultimately only wanted what was best. I dont see the show ever depicting him as physically abusive, so its not hard to imagine that Dean would have stepped into a verbal argument between Sam and Dad to distract Dad before it got messy like we saw him do a couple times in S1. 

So Sam goes on saying he didnt always like “it” either being protected or the form of protection used, but regardless, its the only thing he could rely on, and the ony thing he knew was true. And in this moment while Dean still wants to kill Chuck, Dean probably believes its whats best for Sam too, to get off the wheel so to speak, but if Billie wins, would he no longer have Sam?? YIKES!! Winchester tears all round! And ya know, I actually like that Sam just said “put down the gun” instead of like “believe in us too” something about it made it feel more critical. Like Dean had lost his shit and Sam knew it. Dean could cry and hug him and tell him he loves him more than life, but Sam is still in danger of Chuck manipulating Dean into killing him, untill Dean puts down the gun.

Meanwhile Chuck talks Amara into becoming part of him again, to be one. This also gave me feels. But now here comes a super pissed off, super charged Chuck who has had it with these boys. “After everything, you still do this!!” and now they get to watch Jack die.... maybe.. to be continued. 

So yeah I reallly liked this episode despite the annoying issues. Definitey on my “watch again” list!

So on a scale from Bloodlines to Lebabon I give Unity a 8.5. Thanks guys I needed that!

[butterfly-winx]

Seen a lot of talk about relationships in people’s rewrites, and I wanted to share my headcanons for the “butterfly fic” AU! (I’m currently going on an S6+ timeline, so the story starts off with all canon couples and then... crumbles from there)

Bloom x Sky: The two of them got together for real at the end of S2 in this timeline, after the identity shrouding/theft both of them pulled made their start rocky. They both understand why the other did it, but it doesn’t make it any better or easier to bear after months of insecurity, thinking they would be dumped eventually when the truth came out. S3 though S4 they are well off, but then the whammy hits when Sky loses his memories during the oil rig rescue mission. He still knows Bloom and that he loves her, but even after a year he doesn’t feel like he can recover the version of his self that he has been before. Bloom tries to assure him as best as she can, showing him that she can learn how to love the “new” him as well. Their lives end up on hugely different trajectories that lead to their relationship slowly crumbling over the S8 timeline, during which Bloom is going crazy worries about her sanity and reliability (👀). Bloom also slowly finds herself developing feelings for Stella after the other confesses. In the end Bloom and Sky go their separate ways amicably.

Stella x Brandon: So, Stella confesses to Bloom, then how does SxB work out? Well, both Stella and Brandon are home of sexuals in a mutually beneficial fake relationship. They did date of course back in the S1-2 time, fully conforming to what society expected of people of their standing. Stella believed as long as she could find a guy ok enough to settle with, everything would be fine. She could be happy. Brandon on the other hand was a bit more aware of his crush on Sky, but he though if he hid behind a relationship with a conventionally feminine and attractive girl he could squash all rumours and budding feelings. Internalised homophobia is a bitch that did a number on both of them. Though this is not to say there are no real emotions between them. Stella loves Brandon deeply, they consider each other their respective closest friend. In that vein, Stella would do anything to make life as stable and comfortable for Brandon - after his childhood had been less so - including marrying him to make him a prince. Since Solaria supports polyamory, this comes at no additional strain for her. His presence in the meantime wards off other suitors and creeps, for which she is very thankful, as it gives her space to figure out her feelings about Bloom. And oooh does she have many. She eventually confesses during the S8 timeline, but has to wait quite a while for a positive response, after which Stella and Brandon both come clean about the nature of their relationship to the rest of the world. In the end, Stella is lucky enough to celebrate not one, but two fun weddings.

Brandon: He gets his own column, because his story goes on separate from Stella’s. While the engagement to Stella is still on the table in the S6 timeline, Brandon struggles both with his crumbling team of Specialists and his feelings about the new recruit. Alright, he did not recruit Roy to the team because he thought he was cute. Brandon thinking that and low-key flirting with him came after they settled on the addition to their team. But BxR doesn’t have a long future after Roy believes Brandon cheated on Stella by sleeping with him. Plus his tension with Layla eventually lead to Roy leaving the team mid S7. Long after that, Brandon gets over his crush for Sky, just when Sky is in the middle of a life crisis and Brandon tries his best not to get sucked in too deep again, but that hurts Sky and irreparably damages the close friendship they had before.

Flora x Helia: Ah yes, unproblematic faves. Don’t change what isn’t broken. (Their S5 trouble isn’t about Flora being jealous about a literal teenager,  but rather about her shock of him being so willing to close off and leave behind people from different stages of his life.) The two of them would be set for marriage if such a custom existed on Lynphea, but they definitely plan on raising a family on planet once that is an option again.

Timmy x Techna: Equally low drama zone. They felt a bit pushed together when they first got acquainted as their friends started to date each other. Techna was having their gender identity crisis for the majority of S2 so a relationship was furthest away from their mind. They softly flirted in S3 as they grew closer, which as we know ended in Timmy losing his marbles when Techna got sucked into the Omega portal. He confessed right as the rescue mission was still happening and the two of them have been going strong since then. In S5 they even move together, which Musa joins in S6 (they had a two bedroom flat, just in case they needed the extra space from each other, when/if things weren’t working out, but they were using only the one bedroom anyway, so Musa was welcome there) Surprising everyone who knew them, Timmy and Techan were actually the first ones to get married. After Timmy’s family was becoming more and more hostile, denouncing him for his choice of career, Techna thought it was the most logical thing to get married and grant Timmy much better social security. The two of them plus Musa living together were falling into a tooth-rottingly cute domesticity, until life got unexpectedly difficult.

Musa x Riven: The drama central couple that never should have gotten together. In retrospect everything was super clear to Musa: they had gotten together after Riven had rescued her from Shadowhaunt, playing the hero he had always wanted to be - this streak for glory being the thing that ruined their relationship down the road. Riven’s insecurity got the best of him during S5 and he couldn’t stop comparing himself to Sky, feeling helpless even beside Musa herself. She of course was incredibly offended her boyfriend only wanted her as long as she was waifish and he could swoop in for the rescue, so as soon as Domino was restored the two of them broke up, Riven going his own way, away from the Specialist team itself. Reflecting over the mistakes of her relationship cause Musa to realise she was forcing herself to like a lot of things about Riven, and maybe she was actually also interested in women as well. Layla welcomes her to the wlw world and suggests Musa put herself out there. However Musa doesn’t find love anytime soon (not like there weren’t options out there, like Galatea would go on a date with her in a heartbeat if Musa only asked) And then after moving together with Techna and Timmy, the three of them fall asleep on the same couch one too many times for Musa to start thinking there might be something there, a bit more than just friendship.. and then of course she ruins it, cause....

Riven x Darcy: He enters the story again in the S8 timeline, and disappears quickly again after Flora gives him the worst advice of her life (that she thought he looked genuinely happy with Darcy, hoping he wouldn’t force the thing with Musa). So he goes looking for Darcy, unintentionally setting off the whole plot for this arc, because Darcy is not where she should be prison and she is not there on her own accord. Darcy and Riven continue to have a thing on and off (seeing as she is a wanted criminal and shit) and that drives Musa up the wall. She may or may not still have feelings for Riven. Upset, she looks for an outlet with her quarantine mate, and that ladies and gents, is bad decision central

Stormy x Musa: Bad decision central. A drunken one night stand, let’s not talk about it anymore.

Layla x Nex: A sweet one sided crush that goes nowhere. Nex tries, but Layla is nowhere near ready to date again when he steps into her life in S7. He takes the rejection with dignity and the two of them try to remain friends, as best as they can, when Nex suddenly becomes the biggest critic of Layla’s chosen relationship in S8 (he means well of course, and once again, despite the Riven-vibes he gives off, he knows when to shut up).

Layla x Orion: A girl can only handle so much flirting on galactic starsailers before she starts noticing a kind of chemistry she tried to suppress from budding for years after a huge personal loss. Are LxO a match made in heaven? Probably not, but they offer interesting perspectives to each other and are both happy with a casual relationship at that point. Things get tense about a year in when Layla pitches that she does want something more permanent and Orion’s first instinct is to nope out of there. But despite themself, Orion has to realise they really like Layla way too much just to let her go because of their attachment issues. The actual relationship between them is a bit on hold until after everything in the Universe is sorted, but in the meantime Orion becomes the biggest supporter of Layla going her own way and exploring independence away from what people expect of her. Deciding that being a nymph and protecting the whole Universe is way more important to her than following the path the circumstances of her birth set out for her, Layla eventually settles with her partner sailing the winds of the cosmos.

Daphne x ?: Immortal Queen. Needs no one in life except maybe her right-hand woman to lean on 👀 

Some one-sided crushes that went nowhere, but were sweet anyway:

Musa x Layla: not a secret that Musa had a thing for Layla when she transferred to Alfea in S2

Sky x Riven: Due to his amnesia, Sky idiotically forgot he was already out as bi and had a whole crisis, as he developed a tiny crush on Riven of all people

Icy x Tritannus: Gets an honourable mention here because it wasn’t true love, but obsession with power on both sides

Musa x Stella: Not as pronounced as Musa’s other crushes, but on the down low she always softly admired Stella and it turns out what she felt wasn’t envy like internalised societal expectations made her believe 

Diaspro x Sky: Once again, a bit more obsessive than loving. Diaspro saw Sky like a lifeline and she hyperfocused on being able to call a husband her own. After her betrayal and prison time she mellows out, gets pardoned and gets a kind of “stupid, but loving” bf who would kiss the floor she walks on.