#And tbf I’m only on episode 6

[waterberry-strawmelon]

Quick question for all my Dungeons and Daddies homies out there—

Is season 2 as funny as season 1? What are the best things about season 2? How easy or difficult has it been for you to reconcile the season 1 versions of the sons versus the season 2 versions of the sons grown up? (Or in other words, how have you been able to handle the characterization differences/changes/developments that occurred in between seasons?)

I’d love to hear people’s personal experiences (especially any listening differences!) between seasons 1 and 2 :)

[harmonicabisexuals]

X Files Rewatch: Season 6

overall thoughts: i really liked this season on rewatch! tbf, i think i had only seen about half of the episodes when i originally watched this season but most of the new episodes (to me) i really enjoyed and of course it was great to go back and revisit some of my favorite episodes i had seen already. I love that they really hammered the idea of dreams/resets and fate vs. free will this season and there’s some great metas i read about those themes, i especially love the idea of viewing this season as a “concept album”. 

msr: this season really is all about one step forward two steps back in terms of the question of belief/the truth and msr relationship to each other. the x files is closed, the x files reopens, the syndicate is destroyed, krycek and CSM blackmail skinner, they find the alien artifact. mulder pretends that the FTF almost kiss never happened, then tells scully he loves her two episodes later. scully almost dies and they seem closer than ever but then diana returns. things are tense and awkward but the events of milagro and the unnatural shock mulder out of his complacency. i think thematically the conclusion of this back and forth (and the tensions regarding belief that reached their peak in folie a deux) is resolved in field trip, when they each realize that they need the other to push back against them, that only together are they able to make progress in their work and also to feel like a complete person. the ending shot of them reaching for each other in the ambulance is the conclusion of the season long arc, where they are more mentally and spiritually on the same page than ever before (the romantic side will take slightly longer imo but that’s bc they are scared idiots lmao).

writing: no surprise that i still worship at the alter of vince gilligan but I also really enjoyed his collabs with john shiban this season: dreamland I&II, monday, three of a kind, and field trip are all solid episodes. and I have to give credit to chris carter for writing triangle and how the ghosts stole christmas, idk WHAT he was smoking while writing those episodes but whatever it was his third eye was WIDE open. (which of course then slams shut for two fathers/one son)

directing: poor rob bowman was given some really mediocre episodes this season, but i still love drive and he added a nice characteristic feel to his other episodes even if the scripts were bad. I would have loved to see his take on milagro, especially bc i think he could have connected it better to never again, but i still think kim manners did a good job, especially when he was more imitative of rob’s style. field trip and monday are also kim manners episodes that i really enjoyed from a directing standpoint. chris carter’s continuous shots ala the west wing in triangle were super cool, and david duchovny had some really lovely shots and especially transition shots in the unnatural.

hair: every time mulder and scully are separated and/or have to face the mortifying ordeal of leveling up their relationship they get out the kitchen scissors 🙄 

favorite episodes: drive, triangle, how the ghosts stole christmas, the rain king, tithonus, monday, arcadia, field trip

77% worth rewatching (may be a bit generous bc i’m including two fathers/one son even though i hated those episodes but they are relevant to the overall plot)

individual episode reactions under the cut:

The Beginning- okay slay cognitive dissonance and regression

Drive- Vince Gilligan KNOWS how to make a riveting hour of television!!!!

Triangle- this is television!!! also so west wing coded with the continuous shots 

Dreamland I- what happens if they get out of the car!!! chaos

Dreamland II- that goodbye scene with the sunflower seeds :((((

How the Ghosts Stole Christmas- Chris Carter’s third eye was WIDE open

Terms of Endearment- mulder “I’m not a psychologist” LMAOOO this episode is not serious

The Rain King- so silly so romantic I fucking love it

S.R.8819- the ending…I screamed

Tithonus- so striking so sad so horrifying so good

Two Fathers- mulder playing basketball :)))

One Son- making!! it!! personal!!

Agua Mala- they’re MARRIED

Monday- chilling…horror show groundhog day

Arcadia- they’re fake married, and heteronormativity is a prison <3

Alpha- Scully is sooo crazy jealous lmao

Trevor- bad story beautiful directing

Milagro- do male writers deserve rights?

The Unnatural- shut up mulder I’m playing baseball :))

Three of a Kind- bimbo scully call me

Field Trip- thematic conclusion to the tensions of folie a deux and season 6 as a whole!!!!

Biogenesis- diana is evil evil evil 

[humanoidtyphoons]

i do like that bai feng jiu gives up on dong hua, 6-7 episodes in tbh. like she tried, she gave it a good go, she acted cutely and pettily, was immature to ji heng… but in the end, dong hua saw her only as a pet fox (which to be fair, she was that! he knew her more as a pet than a fairy attendant! he didn’t know that she was an immortal being!)

and she doesn’t blame him for that! she agrees to go home with si ming when the wedding of dong hua/ji heng approaches

like she knows she acted out of line with ji heng, but i also don’t think she can bring herself to regret her actions that much… she’s still immature tbf… but idk

ofc plot is going to have them interact again. i remember dong hua’s mortal trials! and after!

but still, there’s something about this persistence ship, that bai feng jiu does genuinely relent in pursuing dong hua (and doesn’t hold against him for not reciprocating!) that i’m really liking

so yeah, she can mope in ep 7, and refuse to say that dong hua is at fault (bc he isn’t!) this is an outcome of her actions, and she accepts that

and i find that refreshing tbh

[bambioleo]

I’ve come back and with story! @savlon-bhoi zoe asked and I deliver:D

on todays episode of truly embarrassing but girlboss moment of siva’s life I bring to you the time in year 8 not even in highschool when I went to the math club of our school and fair and square beat the 20 boys (well the actual competition had 4 guys) in the club(I was the only girl there cause my friends and the other girls fkn didn’t like math) to become Rubik’s cube champion

so what really happened was that I was in 8th grade and the math club was supposed to be for year 8’s to year 12’s but no one from year 8 really went the club was just mostly of year 11’s and 12’s and they were all these self proclaimed gamer computer geek god level egoistic guys who thought that girls were not good at math which in itself was wrong on their side but oh well they were stupid and I go saying I’m joining the club cause my math teacher told me to since I was selected to go on this national mental math competition as our school’s representative and these guys first mock me for being so little and a girl ans for thinking that I could ever join the club and yada yada so again I was a very feisty pre pubescent so I go say this to my math teacher and I said though I do not need to prove anyone of my mathematical abilities these guys need a reality check and so they kept the first ever math competition of our school so we had to um solve all these logical and pattern based questions and hella arithmetic problems and I came out on top beating the frikin year 12’s yeah? and these idiots are still at their ego complex and they said I was just a little faster to press the buzzer and the sums were easy anyways (which I got a perfect score of 200 in and their highest was 170) so we go okay fine whatever and I ask what should I do for you guys to let me get in the club? and they say to 12 year old me that I should do two things I should first win a Rubik’s cube competition with 4 guys who knew how to solve them and then beat atleast one of them in arm wrestling cause they knew prior hand that I was learning taekwondo and so I said fine whatever at this point I didn’t care really but also I wanted to get in just to get them out of their complex that girls aren’t really on the math club and so happened the first Rubik’s cube competition in the school it happened in the auditorium and my math teacher literally brought every single child from year 6 onwards to come see the match cause you know it was a big deal then tbf I think maybe even my teacher must’ve thought that there is a chance I might not place first, but he was still anticipating it and so we start right? and I finish first took me all of 20 seconds to finish and all of us were celebrating and everything and those fools said my teacher shuffled my cube so he must’ve rigged it apparently so we said fine we’ll do it again and so we made our it person shuffle all our cubes and started again and this time I finished first again but in 15 secs so they were humbled to say the least and they backed out of the arm wrestling when I asked lmao I was really truly ready but they didn’t wanna do it so we didn’t :D and next week I go the national math competition place first in my age category come back and they guys took me in the club as their own and I was made club president and that’s how the guys and I went from sorta enemies to mathlete buddies and older brothers

this one’s not too nice of a story but this was what came to my mid first today lmao

Bore ho rahi hu, koi aur movie script life incident hai kya sunane ko?

hmmm now that you ask, hai kuch mere paas (kuch zyada actually) give me a prompt on something or give me thoda sa time aur cause I’m gonna go have lunch rn so I’ll come tell you something in half an hour?

[antiloreolympus]

10 Anti LO Asks

1. No cap but Persephone's hair, when it's short and flat, really does look like Rachel Smythe.  

2. honestly i feel like if rachel kept her original style more serious aspect like the kronos stuff would actually carry some weight, because the current style is so cartoony looking with such oversaturated colors and goofy expressions  at every turn that i just cant take any of it seriously. i dont get how she had a style made so much better for young adults and older readers while still being stylized but now it looks like a lazy knock off of the steven universe style.

3. There's a really good theory that LO Zeus swallowed Metis because she's a fertility goddess, which would in turn give him enough power they needed to take out Kronos, so it'd be a tragic circumstance and desperate choice over just Zeus being awful. It gives him so much more nuance and shows what tough choices he made to win and earn the respect to be king and I can't wait for Rachel to NOT use it because Zeus is a meanie who is against Persephone and the fans would NEVER accept it. Yaaaay. 😒

From OP: To clarify, Demeter does say in the story that Zeus swallowed Metis because she’s a fertility goddess so it’s not a theory.(Episode 145)

4. “Persephone speaks her truth” is what Webtoon sent as an notification…. She basically didn’t. 

5. the UnO creator is finally coming back after over half a year off and you can tell just off their social media they're so much happier after a real break. I would so like to see RS do that but I just don't see it happening.

6. im not at all suprised Rachel went with the "hades finds out by accident" route. does anybody remember why hepheaestus is there???? was there any alluding to his presence???

7. i swear, no one in lo even talk like actual people. i know some writer friends who work out their dialogue by saying it outloud and taking out whatever sounds unnatural to the human ear, but rachel just goes guns blazing into weird cringey dialogue, esp when its trying to sell how into each other hxp is (why would demeter say hades looks like a man dying fo thirst and that her DAUGHTER looks like a sparkling river?? like who talks like this, esp about their own child??)

8. theres this one webtoon artist on featured who does nothing but suck up to rachel any chance she can get, meanwhile im p sure rachel doesnt even follow them? and theyre constantly kissing up to her and webtoons and dont see anything wrong with how they overwork themselves as a single artist while the actual company doesnt even promote their comic and theyre still living off commissions to survive. like girl, focus on yourself over hoping rachel might one day help you. she wont.

From OP: Tbf, they may be friends on discord or something else.

9. i feel like a big problem with the writing too is it wants us to go off a modern value system, yet at the same time wants to use the "its ancient times" excuse for how hades and co. act very badly, especially by modern standards (he owns slaves!!), but also wants to weave "good and bad" together but cant show the shades of gray because bot rachel and her fans do not want the characters to be complex, they can only be wholly good or bad. under a real writer this would work, bot it cant under RS.

-----FP Spoilers/Mention-----

10. I don't even know where to start. What was that filler chapter? An attempt to give P any character development? Why making her naked additionally? It's just repetitive attempt to fix what should have been fixed long ago and I'm not buying any of it. And P again doesn't care how awful person H is (wanting for his slaves to suffer eternally) cause I guess he looks "cute" holding a hen lol. She brushes it off like it's nothing. I'm sorry where is Helios?

[mindibindi]

Beyond disappointed in Ted Lasso. What were they thinking?!

The writing is a complete betrayal and insult to Rebecca’s character and Hannah’s skills as they’re being seriously underused. It’s also insulting Sam’s character.

Hoping someone pulls Rebecca’s head out of her ass tbh. Sam shouldn’t be getting caught in the crossfire of her looking for romance. I know he showed up at her doorstep but she still should’ve turned him away, and not even messaged him in the first place.

Hey, I'm with you, Anon, though we do seem to be in the minority. Sam is definitely not blameless here, he is also in the wrong. But if one of them is more in the wrong, it is Rebecca. I can't speak to whether her head has left her arse as yet because I have quit watching (at least for now). I hear she called it off with Sam in the most recent ep, though not because of any major crisis of conscience or because anyone in her inner circle expressed any reasonable reservations in response to her bad behaviour. And to be honest, I'm not sure we should need to hope and pray that Rebecca's precocious god-daughter, her slimy ex-husband, or the brutal British press will act as a moral compass on this ill-advised relationship. Both Rupert and the press have been set up to some extent as the villains of the piece. And a 14 year old should never have to school her elders on what is and isn't acceptable. Nora's needs have already been neglected by Rebecca for far too long.

If a moral position is to be taken on this, it needs to be taken by the show (because stance matters) and/or by its characters. But the show has for the most part depicted this relationship as ill-advised but ultimately hot, sweet, funny and romantic. As for the characters themselves, Sam has shown at least once that he has some moral backbone but seems to be adorably clueless when it comes to fucking his boss who keeps trying to set boundaries with him. Meanwhile, Rebecca's whole arc in s1 was about learning not to misuse her power for her own selfish ends. In season one, she misused her power within the club in order to exact revenge. In season 2, we have seen her misuse her sexual power, though I still cannot see to what end. I'm a bit at a loss as to what exactly she gets out of this 'relationship' but then I'm a grown woman so I have absolutely no interest in sleeping with a Harry Potter enthusiast barely out of his teens. I couldn't think of anything less sexy and more ick. I was certainly hoping for better character development for her this season.

As to what the writers were thinking, obviously I was not in the writer's room, but I would guess that they were thinking that any drama is good drama, people are stupid and fan devotion will trump any meaningful critique. In other words, they were thinking exactly how every other television writer thinks, despite the fact that this show posited itself as 'not like other TV shows'. This, to me, is where the blame really lies. Not with the characters or with the actors who are doing their best to sell this ludicrous turn of events. It must be noted, however, that both actors were completely blindsided by this relationship that had supposedly been so cleverly foreshadowed. Newsflash: if the people actually living these stories did not see this coming then you haven't foreshadowed shit. Sure, there were a handful of people that paired Rebecca with Sam but this does not constitute proof either. Fans have free-range to imagine and re-imagine characters. In some cases this may extend to imagining relationships between characters who have barely, if ever, interacted. There may be little to no evidence that these characters have even clocked each other's existence and some fans will still ship it. The existence of a handful of shippers does not legitimise such a problematic and divisive plotline making it onscreen.

But wait!, you might argue, this may not be a case of a popular show seeing just how far they can stretch fan devotion. This may not be a case of fan service to a handful of shippers. After all, the creators mapped out the entire three-season arc of Ted Lasso before they even pitched it to Apple. This was their brilliant plan all along! To which I would say: then maybe they should've rethought their second act based on people's strong reactions to their first. Ted Lasso was touted as the show we all needed in 2020. The writers and creators have all marveled at the chord it struck considering it was conceived prior to the pandemic and all the chaos it wrought. And while there is something to be said for having/sticking to a creative vision, there is also something to be said for being flexible and responsive to your audience and the cultural zeitgeist with which you're engaged. Season 1 of Ted Lasso told its story so gently, without creating distrust, division or unnecessary anxiety. It did not treat its audience like a gaggle of stupid lemmings to be led over a succession of narrative cliffs. THIS is what I mean when I say the show has broken with its brand. And look, this whole dark forest thing would be okay if the narrative arc was as well-crafted as s1. Season 1 gave us meaning, cohesion, comfort, sense in a senseless time. It was an almost perfectly crafted season of television. And I kept the faith for 6 episodes, despite the first half of s2 being pretty damn wobbly. But the follow-up to this stellar debut has been less than extraordinary so yeah, perhaps they should've thought a little harder about what made s1 so special before throwing it all out the window.

But wait!, I hear the faithful say, you don't know how things will pan out yet! Wait until the season is over and everything will make sense! But -- wearily and once again, I say -- we should not need to wait until the end of the season to understand what the hell is happening. By this point (over halfway through the season and show) we should have a v clear idea of the show's themes and the characters' arcs. And tbf, from what I can tell there are some fab things happening in other aspects of the show that I wish I could watch and enjoy. But my biggest fear at this point is that they are going to use Sam to solve Rebecca's childlessness. That, like Rupert (because the parallel cannot be avoided), she will become pregnant with a young fling and the show's attitude to this relationship will ultimately be: oh well, it was a bad idea and didn't work out for them but it was all for the best in the end cos who can be mad about a cute lil baaaayyybbbeeee??!! If they do go down this path then I will definitely be abstaining from the rest of the show. I will simply recall my repeated viewings of s1 with fondness tinged with regret at just how badly they fucked up a good thing.

Ultimately, Anon, I think this may be a case of there simply not being a diverse enough perspective in the writer's room. I am not saying that every single woman or every single person of colour will necessarily object to this relationship. I am simply saying that women and people of colour will be more sensitive to the issues of gender and race that are relevant here but that have not been fully or sensitively acknowledged in the writing of this plotline. Neither am I saying that Rebecca is the first woman to sleep with a man much (much, much, MUCH) younger than herself or indulge in an ill-advised relationship. But the comparison with Rupert both works here and doesn't because Rebecca is not being written like a white woman, she is being written like a white man. Realistically, only a white man can engage in this kind of hugely imbalanced relationship seemingly without any major moral qualms or societal ramifications. Not to put too fine a point on it, but this kind of relationship is reserved for all the Bills and Joes and Brendans and Jasons out there -- not for the Rebeccas and definitely not for the Sams. We are way beyond the point in feminism where we believe that liberation is simply the right for a white woman to behave as badly as a white man. The truth is that whatever wealth, power and privilege Rebecca has, the rules are different for men and women. She will not be treated the same as Rupert if and when this affair is uncovered. She will be treated far more savagely than Rupert ever was and Sam will be treated far more savagely than Bex was. This is not an argument for the equal treatment of these two relationships. It is an argument against how the relationship between Rebecca and Sam has been envisaged, i.e. through the wrong perspective. In writing from a 'neutral' white male pov, the show has invisiblised all the many issues activated by this storyline and revealed a blindspot that was always there.

As much as I loved and still love season 1 of this show, it has definite blindspots when it comes to representations of race and gender. There are at least two moments in s1 that stand out for me as being so obviously written by a man. Not necessarily because of what they do but because of what they don't do: what is missed, absent, unacknowledged. I was willing to overlook such minor failings in a debut season for many reasons. But s2 seems to have exacerbated these minor flaws rather than correcting them. And here I can't help thinking of Tina Fey speaking of the diversification of the writer's room at SNL during her tenure as co-headwriter. This notoriously male-dominated environment only began to shift and produce better work when a greater diversity of minds, voices and persepectives was allowed in the room. In this richer environment, she notes, different jokes played differently. Different sketches made it to air. Different perspectives were represented and different performers were celebrated. I can't help wondering if this plotline would have made it to air if there had been a female writer, a writer of colour or both further up the chain of command to challenge the ideas of the straight white dudes in charge.

One of the reasons I didn't think Ted Lasso was for me was that it centred a straight, white, cis-het, able-bodied man who rose to a position he didn't earn. That is just not a pov I would normally choose for myself, especially now that there is such a rich array of alternative perspectives through which to view the world. But I think the show won a lot of females fans with its first season largely due to its portrayal of Rebecca. She is the first person we meet. She is arguably the protagonist of s1. And while she would have been figured as a villain in previous pieces, the show never took that stance with her (because again, stance matters). Other elements like the depiction of female friendships, all centred around Rebecca, made this show female-friendly viewing. But imo, the major reason this show won over female fans (this one, at least) is because, in this post-MeToo, post-TimesUp era, it stood up and said: domestic violence is not okay, we stand with women and all victims of abuse, we will defend you, we know words can hurt, we know it can happen to anyone, we know all about toxic masculinity, we do not take this lightly and we will support you in your healing. Needless to say, this is how women hope men will act when they speak of their most difficult experiences but it is not how they always do.

The shift away from Rebecca this season has however meant that the white male experience is more centred than it was in s1. Rebecca's journey to recovery, health and happiness has been trivialised and sidelined, reduced to a highly questionable sexcapade. Meanwhile, we get overwrought manpain at every turn. We get Beard wandering around London (no, I haven't seen it and no, I don't need to. We've all been raised on white dudes thinking they're genuises when they have a figurative wank all over our screens). We get NO queer represention at all. And the only other female characters on screen are in care/service roles to men. The father/son, mentoring and toxic masculinity themes are all still there but they're no longer balanced out by ANY other competing perspective. One of the reasons I was okay with Ted failing upwards in s1 was that he used his power and privilege to lift up others. He was the one in service. He used his enormous privilege for good, as anyone with such privilege must. (Admittedly, it could be argued that this is just another version of a white savior narrative).

My point here is that I'm not sure that peeking behind the mask at the sad clown is as revolutionary as some might believe. We love it because it's familiar. But this is a narrative with a long and problematic history. Do I believe in tearing down toxic masculinity in all its forms? You bet. Do I believe that patriarchy traumatises men as well as women and every other minority in existence? I mean...nowhere near as much, but absolutely. Do I believe in men expressing their feelings and going to therapy? Wholeheartedly. But I am also aware that 100 or so years ago, we were in a very similar place with our narratives. Everyone is looking for a recapitulation of modernism and frankly, this might be an indicator of just that. Whenever women and people of colour have demanded rights and recognition, there has always been a resurgence of tales about just how frickin' hard it is to be a white man. Minority genders and non-white people have never in western history been as visible or vocal as they are now. So forgive me (or don't, I don't care) if I critique a show not only for centering fathers, sons, boys and men but for blindly and boldly writing one of its only female characters and one of its only black characters as if their gender and race just do not exist. There are many other power differentials at play in this relationship, including age, experience, wealth and position, but race and gender are the two that patriarchy is most invested in invisiblising. So I don't care how brilliant they think they are, I will not trust the writing of a bunch of white dudes trying to tell me that race and gender are irrelevant.

[aquariusshadow]

Live!Blogging HSMTMTS s2x8

Well, well, well, who would’ve thought my streaming site would have the episode up early. I can finally get a Live!Blog done at a decent time for once.

Rip Rini. That’s my only prediction for this ep.

Lesss goooooo

--

“napoleon over here” jfc haha

“because winners don’t freak out” good mantra miss jenn

Lets take a shot how many times Ricky says “Nini”—I’m at 2 already with one minute in

Awwwwwwww look at gina giving ej pointers for the dancing

“biggie” idk how I feel about that nickname for big red but you do you Ashlyn

Why am I surprised that this rendition is really good

Big red you’re killing it

To any of yall who remember Unus Annus (memento mori ☹ ) plz tell me you remember their “version” of the gaston song???

Cuz that’s all im thinking about

EJ your voice is so good we’ve been robbed this entire show

Beautiful, absolutely beautiful, well done well done

Awwww poor seb

Tbf I’d probably try that out too ngl haha

We’re already calling ricky ‘you-know-who’ and this show is well known for it’s harry potter references…..yikes

3

Asdlhjsdlhfasdfh

“No offense Ricky, but it’s not all about you.” Daaaaaaaaamn

Ricky

Sir

What are you doing

Why

Aldfaksjdfahsdf

Yes asking people to collab is legit

Yes this could also be some creep

But stop being clingy and obsessive ricky good lord

Oh so NOW he regrets one of his bad choices with nini

4

Hehe portwell smiling at each other all throughout the ep

HFLDKJHGJFGGH

WAIT

ARE WE ADDRESSING IT

EJ LIKES HER HOLY SHIT

AJDFALHSDJFASDLFHASDFJASDFLASDFJASDFHASKFDJASDLFS

I MEAN IT WAS OBVIOUS

BUT I DIDN’T KNOW IF/WHEN/HOW THEY WERE GONNA ADDRESS IT

I stg if my video doesn’t stop glitching imma sue something

Oooooooooo ej’s dad

Oh

Oh no

Ej never told his dad about duke

WAIT

HIS DAD PULLED STRINGS TO GET HIM IN

Sir

Mr sir

Mr fucking sir

Of course he’s one of those parents

Miss jenn does have a strong soprano range I’ll give her that

Poor seb

He just wanted some rehearsal time

5

Honestly ricky I think you can still call her nini

6

Even big red is tired of listening to the same shit with ricky

7

I do feel for the kid but man

Ooooo kourt’s mom

I like how we’re seeing more of the parents

Her mom is so supportive

That’s so nice to see

Yaaay some of their relationship was real afterall

Even tho Howie scuffed up

Yea kourt you tell him

Yea I have a feeling ricky just kinda froze while taking the career apititude test

8

“I did not come home for you” hell yea nini you tell him

Everyone in the restaraunt is just staring lmao

Rip Rini?

I will be very very very mad if they make up at the end of the ep and continue on like nothing happened

Awwwwww Ashlyn made a Big Red career collage that’s so cute

Oooooooooh I see the conflict now ok

Big red you should tell her what you really want

There you go

Look at that communication

Rini take notes

Awwwwww mazzarra made her a lil mini snack/coffee table to help her relax

That’s very sweet

And he’s the only one of her love-interests that actually knows how to HELP her

Man he’s smitten with her isn’t he

Gina’s hair is so pretty here I love it

She smiles every time she sees ej ehehe

And he’s helping her crochet <3

Look at portwell’s communication skills here

Maaaaaaaan

Even tho they are different

Both of them are listening to each other and are still helping each other

While rina had stuff like that in common

Season 2 scuffed them so bad gina was just unhappy

Aka gina’s list on why she likes ej

This is so cute

Jasljdsflhasdf

“you’d see what I-the rest of us see”

Plz don’t play with my heart yall

I wasn’t sure if Gina liked him back romantically or not

Portwell Nation rise up

Ashlyn I love you but whyyyyy did you ruin the momenttttttt

Oh my god

Why are Rini being happy and cute when they JUST blew up at each other

Im so confused

Is that normal for relationships?

To go from a major fight then being super cute and happy like nothing happened????

Ok now we’re talking about it…..

“At YAC I liked who I was there” uh…Nini weren’t you kinda miserable there?

Oooooooooo

Here’s the thing

Right now Ricky is clinging onto the safety feeling

And Nini JUST said she didn’t want to be ‘safe’

Im glad he told her about the insta comment

Are they….are they actually breaking up now?

Alright this is probably the best way they both could’ve ended things

A mutual, understanding, emotion filled break up with no hard feelings

That’s gonna help both of them in the future I think

Assuming the writers don’t throw them back together at the end of the episode

9

My heart does go out to them tho :/

Howie does have a very nice voice

LOOK AT DOMESTIC PORTWELL

GUYS LOOK AT THAT

THAT’S SO CUTE

HE PUT A BLANKET OVER HER LIKE COME ON

SHE FELT SAFE ENOUGH TO SLEEP ON THE COUCH NEXT TO HIM

rina could never at least right now

Ok we got all the ships in this song

Except for Rini

If this is foreshadowing im very content

Awwww ricky ☹

Beautiful Howie

I loved that so much

Great voice

Great ending to an episode

--

Did I actually keep track of how many times Ricky said “Nini” in this episode? Yes, yes I did. It helped me stay more focused ironically enough. Luckily half of those were in conversation with Nini so that wasn’t awful lmao.

So I was right about Rip Rini. Incredible. Hopefully they stay broken up for a while and focus on themselves. RICKERAPY CAN FINALLY SHINE!!!!!

Also, EJ likes Gina confirmed? Portwell nation, how we feelin today?

[coffeeviolinist]

Honestly I keep forgetting that.

Though tbf that claim was made almost 6 years ago so idk if it still holds up now. I’m guessing that at least a couple more months have passed at this point.

And honestly, even though it was said by one of the producers, I have trouble believing that by episode 880, it had actually only been six months. There’s just way too much stuff that’s happened for it to be plausible.

ShinRan? For ship bingo

I absolutely adore ShinRan. It's adorable how much they care about each other, and they have potential to be a great power couple. The problem is that lately, it's getting harder to justify Shinichi continuing to keep her in the dark about what happened to him when he knows how much she misses him and, theoretically, should know that she can be trusted with his secret.

Of course, technically speaking Shinichi has only actually told two people about being shrunk into Conan, and one of them died not even ten seconds later, so I don't think it's specifically about keeping her in the dark. It's more so that he didn't want anyone to find out, but people keep figuring out what happened anyway. So for that reason, I don't think his secret would be too much for their relationship to overcome, but I do think it would require time and therapy for them to move past it.

Therein lies the problem. I'll be honest, Gosho isn't always great at writing romance. When/if Shinichi tells Ran the truth, I have a feeling that the scene will be written so that Ran brushes it off right away or at least brushes it off fairly quickly because "you're still a good person and I love you", which would be pretty unsatisfying.

Plus, while I understand him wanting to protect her from the BO, I feel like he should trust her a little more to take care of herself.

But then again, maybe Gosho will surprise us all and actually write ShinRan endgame (if that's what the plan is for them, of course) in a way that feels fulfilling. We'll have to wait and see.

[itsclydebitches]

Hello! I'm liking yours metas about rwby and you're mention of Blake and Yang relationship give me thoughts.I think, my main problem with them is writers idea to not confirm them as a couple because it actually hurting Blake and Yang as a characters. They kind of stuck in this status quo after V6 and since then didn't have any significant development both as a couple and as standalone

Hi there! 

Agree completely. The lack of confirmation for their relationship isn’t just a problem because of queer baiting fears and such (though that’s obviously a biggie), but also because their characters are basically on hold until they move past this forehead touching stage. Granted, I think all of Team RWBY have lacked compelling arcs the last two volumes, but Yang and Blake are particularly lacking: 

Instead of allowing Yang to be a part of the Summer conversation with Qrow, she’s left taking selfies with Blake 

Neither are at the party when Tyrian attacks, instead they’re out dancing in a scene we don’t see. (Tbf, Jaune, Weiss, and Oscar aren’t there either, but I’m establishing a pattern here.) 

We do get a moment between them in the truck, but as I and others have pointed out, the response to Adam’s death was both incredibly mild and coming episodes too late. It was a scene, not an arc. 

Which reminds me: fixing Blake’s weapon wasn’t important either. 

We establish that they’re now keeping a secret from the group and have betrayed Ironwood, but neither action results in anything. The others don’t care that they made the decision to talk to Robyn and Ironwood’s descent is presented as too extreme/far gone to be a true result of that choice. 

Yang takes a stance against Ruby... and then that’s immediately dropped too. Despite Ren agreeing with her, Yang reverts to her Volume 1-7 perspective that her little sister can do no wrong. 

She is shown struggling over a disagreement with Blake... that does not exist.

I do think it’s good that they had Yang confronting Salem and recalling Summer, but it’s a little late by this point and, as others have said, a rather limited response when Yang has lost a great deal recently too. It’s fine, but could be better. 

Yang also gets to talk to Ruby about Summer, a conversation that doesn’t go anywhere this volume and was dropped for the foreseeable future because everything else is going on. 

Yang is definitely the one coming out on top though. At least she has the seed of an arc trying to take root. Blake, despite living in the city notorious for the slavery of her people has: done cute ship things with Yang, hung out in a mansion drinking tea, told Ruby she believes in her So Much, and begged her to help during a fight. Fans aren’t wrong to complain about Blake’s treatment lately. Not only does she not have an arc, but she has regressed in terms of fighting abilities and emotional complexity. (What happened to the girl who challenged her teammates’ world views?) 

We get a nice backtrack on Yang’s disability arc by reducing her arm to just something that’s “extra”/helping make Penny human/being a part of the whole “disability is a metaphor for evilness” arc 

Then Yang’s character really takes a hit when she regresses further to her “Impulsively revs semblance and jumps into a fight to save someone” behavior, to say nothing of the story nuking her power level to justify that fall. 

Blake tries to save her though! Compared to Ruby and Weiss in that moment, Blake is written extraordinarily well. 

This is the final, culminating moment for them this volume though: the story trying to convince us that half the queer ship is dead.

Then Blake has a tiny moment where she struggles over who to help and instead of her semblance evolving like I assumed she just... helps Weiss? Okay. 

And I think that’s it! As said, Yang is in a better place than Blake atm, but neither has what I would term a compelling arc. The closest we’ve got is their relationship and, as said, that’s been stalled since Volume 6. They’re not the only ones — I still can’t believe Weiss went to Atlas and didn’t get a real arc either. She makes her father’s arrest into a joke, he dies without her knowing, she sticks her weapon in Whitley’s face and immediately forgives her mother. Winter gets more consistent, active development  — but Blake and Yang have been struggling for a while now. The show needs to make them canon and then either give them some relationship conflict to explore (like renora) or, better yet, give them individual arcs because they’re their own people even while they’re a couple.

[wizardysseus]

i was thinking about once upon a time (abc) in bed this morning so i decided to write this list

subject to change, since awhile ago i was in the middle of season 6 when they took it off netflix and i never quite got around to picking it back up. i’m gonna finish if it kills me i promise

top 5 things about once upon a time

5. anna frozen

when ouat introduced frozen characters, most fans decided the show had jumped the shark. they were not wrong. however, it was this very thing that allowed the show to be fun again! after an excruciatingly bad season 3 (we will get to that), bringing on anna and elsa literally transported directly from their own unaltered story in cheap ass versions of their unaltered movie costumes allowed the show to let loose and do... basically whatever it wanted. this became the hallmark of the show for those who stuck with it: absolutely not making sense at all, but being fun about it. post-season-three ouat becomes a totally different soap opera from season one, but by god you are never bored.*

personally, the flashback episode where anna annoys rumpelstiltskin and gets the better of him and he’s so fucking mad about it is like top 10 episodes**

4. 2x16 “the miller’s daughter”

this episode is just another personal favorite. it exemplifies what this show was really good at when it was good, and also where everything went wrong. i think cora is a great example of a good ouat villain, i think the twist on the rumpelstiltskin story is great, i think the dramatic beats really work.

...and in typical ouat fashion, cora immediately dies and two more villains we don’t care about at all are introduced. (sonequa forgive me you know i’m in love with you but tamara was nothing. it’s not your fault.) yes we get that great scene of snow aggressively doing archery practice while listening to “bad reputation” but was it worth killing off a compelling villain just as you’d dug into her story?

3. the commitment to regina’s redemption

and lana parrilla in general. i mean i’m gay and she’s hot but the worse the show got, the more acting lana gave it. and this is just speculation, but i think lana is more comfortable with drama than with camp? because regina becomes a much more interesting character as someone conflicted and on the path to redemption than as a villain. and by god, they were gonna redeem regina.

if only she had been gay we really could have had it all.

2. rumpelstiltskin

the sweet spot with rumpelstiltskin for me was seasons one and two when he was unabashedly bastard, there was an attempt to make him sympathetic but nobody except belle actually liked him, you weren’t quite sure how much he knew, he was pulling all the strings, and he was just really fucking weird. it will surprise no one who follows this blog to hear that that is my type of wizard.

1. season one

it’s a good season. it’s a good season. there are some bad things about it, but it was extremely watchable. it was doing fairy tales with occasional disney nods in a (mostly) cohesive fashion. the lore and the magic hadn’t sprawled out of control yet. it had the strongest relationship, imo, between emma and henry, and emma and snow. as for iconic episodes, most of the greats are here, plus sebastian stan as the mad hatter and giancarlo esposito as a series regular. the crowning moment for me is the scene at the end of skin deep, when regina confronts gold in the town jail and he reveals that he remembers his real name (after beating the shit out of belle’s dad with his cane obviously). god. that is some good television.

worst 5 things about once upon a time

5. the adoption politics but everyone knows this one.

4. WASTING the talent

you had the love of my life sonequa martin-green and gave her nothing. you somehow scored oded fehr as jafar and gave him nothing. you had giancarlo esposito and regina literally forgot he existed. i will kill you

3. rumpelstiltskin.

it’s no secret that robert carlyle was acting circles around most of the cast; my opinion is that the showrunners felt that if they committed to either his redemption or his villainy, they would never find someone else with the talent to fill his shoes as bastard wizard. so they flip-flopped on him every half-season, which ruins his story longterm, slowly kills the light in robert’s eyes, and gets reallllllly old. it’s also no secret that my favorite rumpelstiltskin is bastard wizard, but they screwed over belle BIG time in the process and for that i will never forgive them.

also like. the rumpelstiltskin fairy tale is antisemitic to begin with and they did not minimize that by comparing him to a lizard and naming his storybrooke counterpart mr gold. they just. did that.

2. THE FUCKING NEVERLAND ARC GOD IN CHRIIIIIIIIIIIST THAT HALF-SEASON IS EXCRUCIATING

1. captain hook

*it’s my opinion that if you are bored, you’re watching a hook-centric episode. every time i dropped the show and forgot about it for months at a time, it was because i had been in the middle of an episode about hook and just could not get through it. how do i describe all the things i don’t like about what killian hook jones did to the show? with subpoints!

1a. the episode where gold gives him back his hand and he never changes.

**this is actually the same episode i mentioned about anna and, like i said, it’s one of my favorites and not at all boring. look, i’m not pretending this list isn’t subjective as hell.

remember when hook blackmailed mr gold into magically reattaching his hand, which gold has been keeping in a jar, because hook has a date with emma and wants it to go well? but also, gold tells him that if he reattaches his hand with dark magic, it will turn him evil? and then hook spends the episode doing evil things, only for mr gold to tell him “i was just messing with you! the hand was not evil, you gave yourself permission to be evil ;)”

yeah, that’s basically hook’s mo.

1b. episode where emma tells him his brother is lying to him and he learns the exact wrong lesson from this and never changes.

so emma goes to the underworld to get hook back after he dies (while being evil and doing villainous things). they find his brother down there, too, and emma senses that he has a dark secret (because he does) and is lying to them (because he is). but hook always idolized his older brother, so he won't believe her. when emma confronts the brother directly, hook interrupts to rant to her about how he knows what this is ~really all about.

actual dialogue:

HOOK: i don't need proof to know what's really going on here. emma, when are you gonna admit that this isn't really about my brother? EMMA: what else would you think it was about? HOOK: us. you think if you can prove that liam is a villain, then i’ll somehow feel like i was less of one.

who... would EVER come to that conclusion. and why is the lesson he learns at the end “perhaps i do deserve saving after all” (another direct quote), and not “NOT EVERYTHING IS ABOUT YOU, BECAUSE EMMA WAS LITERALLY RIGHT ABOUT YOUR BROTHER LYING TO EVERYONE”????

1c. the emma dark one arc, where hook never changes.

this would be the arc that leads up to the above underworld arc, and it is deeply dumb, entertaining, and hard to explain. suffice it to say, during this whole arc, killian (along with emma) has all the powers and ~~~Darkness~~~ of the dark one (formerly rumpelstiltskin). unlike emma, he is not aware of this for most of the season. the moment he finally finds out, he turns on emma and goes through with all the revenge plans he’s apparently been holding onto since season two.

it’s supposed to be sympathetic, because emma made this choice for him to be a dark one, which is clearly awful, when he didn’t want it. so i get that. but on the other hand, it is..... boring. because (a) it's nothing we haven't seen him try to do and fail at before, his motivations really aren't that complex. and more importantly, (b) he was the dark one the whole time! the only thing that changed, that made him act evil, was finding out about it. at that point, it's not the ~~~Darkness~~~ making you do evil things. it’s just you. because you’re a dick.

how is this arc resolved? well, he dies. after the underworld arc (which i very much enjoyed tbf), a sizable part of robin hood’s death episode is devoted to people telling emma to slow down and grieve for killian, since at least two arcs have revolved around her inability to let hook go when he is literally dying or dead. (it’s been said a million times but being his girlfriend really sucked the personality out of emma and i miss her.) and in the end he just... comes back anyway. no explanation given; he says it must be a reward from zeus for killing hades... while he and emma make out literally in front of the coffin of robin hood... who actually died fighting hades. killian died half a season before. while he was evil. and emma reverts to tearful girlfriend.

it’s insulting. it’s grating. and it is a Killian Hook Jones Guarantee that his episodes will involve some measure of this.

like, is it more or less the same shtick that the writers kept giving rumpelstiltskin, too? backsliding and screwing over his love interest who gets less and less say in the matter? yes. definitely. the crucial difference is that i, personally, love rumpelstiltskin, while i find hook boring and not self-aware. but clearly i have had a lot of fun complaining about him! again, this is not an objective list.

conclusions

this show ran for 7 years. it got cancelled not because it deserved to, but because no one liked the soft reboot. it was on until 2018.

[khashanakalashtar]

Fic questions

Tagged as usual by @the-lincyclopedia!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 

114 across pseuds. 90 non-podfics.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 

397,048. 

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Technically 25. But AO3 counts The Avengers (Marvel) – All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Marvel all separately, not to mention Captain America (Movies), Black Widow (Comics), Hawkeye (Comics), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), and Daredevil (TV). Writing for Star Trek TOS and AOS also feels like it shouldn’t count as two fandoms because it shares all the same characters. Also Untamed only has a fanvid in it, and I feel like Les Mis shouldn’t count because I wrote that as a crackfic inspired by a friend and have never been in that fandom and don’t know the characters. So roughly 19? Maybe 14, because when I talk about fandoms I’ve written for, I’m just gonna say Marvel for all those up there.

Other fandoms include, mostly in alphabetical order: Angel: the Series, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Battlestar Galactica, Check Please!, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Sherlock, Supernatural, The Italian Word for Kisses, Torchwood, Vampire Academy Series, and 13 Reasons Why, the last of which is only on FF.net.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? 

Disrespect (Avatar, 1341)

Inconvenience (Avatar, 930)

Keep (Avatar, 853)

Five Queer Avengers and One Straight One (what it says on the tin, 840)

Slip (Harry Potter, 778)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? 

Generally! Sometimes it takes me a couple years to get around to it, but I like to reach back out.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? 

Oof, that’s difficult. Jackie Was a Friend of Mine ends with having to walk away from a soulmate after nearly losing them and getting no closure. Harry Potter and the Scarred Heart ends with the pairing still lowkey angsting about the breakup twenty years later, but tbf that’s second in a series which overall ends happily. Swing Bi Sometime ends with “But Hermione had had enough of girls and their empty promises, and she looked away. She swore never to swing that way again,” and Cursing Distance ends with “we’ve been growing apart I guess and I just saved your life but I just saw the way you look at Spock and I think I’ve lost you anyway.”

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the wildest one you’ve written?

Oh man, was this question written for me?

Back in 2013-14 I wrote this series based on the premise that all possibilities and all of time was collapsing, based on a specific Doctor Who episode, and wrote massively crossed-over crossovers for it. At some point I went back and pruned the fandom tags so they would only show up in the tags for fandoms that featured prominently, but the original tagging had every fandom that featured at all, including:

Doctor Who (DW)/Battlestar Galactica/Torchwood/Harry Potter/Star Wars

DW/Angel/Torchwood/Sherlock/X-Men/Battlestar Galactica

Battlestar Galactica/Vampire Academy/Lord of the Rings/DW/Avengers

Avengers/Harry Potter/Torchwood/Buffyverse

DW/Sherlock/The Lion King/101 Dalmatians

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I once received what might be called a request for better tagging phrased very cruelly.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? 

Definitely. What counts as a kind of smut? I have M/M, F/F, F/M, polyam, PWP, porn AS plot, trans smut, werewolf, podficced smut, porn with feelings, casual sex, kink, every position I can think of off the top of my head, creator chose not to use archive warnings, enthusiastic consent, mild dubcon…I don’t write noncon, though.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen? 

Not as far as I know. 

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I’ve had at least one request, but no follow through.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? 

Not really, but I’ve done pod-together and written for very specific prompts. Ciirii and I started writing a fic together but only got as far as, like, a scene. 

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship? 

I’m a multi-shipper, leave me alone. Kirk/Spock will live in my heart forever, but I think Wangxian might beat it for favorite. That could also just be because that’s the current fandom, though. I’m really a sucker for “I will choose you against all sense and reason, against everything the world has to say, over and over”

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will? 

I always kinda wanted to write the second half of True-Blue Sub.

15. What are your writing strengths? 

Use of language to either amuse or compel the reader. I never get notes about description or pacing when I get my stuff beta’d, though to be fair, I rarely do. I’m a fucking fantastic editor. I’m apparently pretty good at researching a disability that I don’t have and then writing it, going by the comments on Disrespect!verse.

16. What are your writing weaknesses? 

Motivation. Long-form plot.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? 

I don’t enjoy it. I always feel like I’m getting it wrong, even in Spanish. I have a deep and abiding need to be realistic about it so I am never gonna sprinkle speech with translated “yes” and “no” and leave the complex stuff in English unless MAYBE in the case of “that’s how it is in canon.” It irritates me to have to leave the fic to look up what’s being said. I wrote in Spanish for Kent because it was a fic for Pau, whose Kent is Mexican. I’ve dropped in a “desole” for Jack, but that’s about it for French. This does not apply to swearing.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for? 

Star Trek: Alternate Original Series.

19. What’s your favorite fic you’ve ever written? 

Don’t Need to Compromise is the one that comes to mind. It’s messy and it’s beautiful and it’s real. New Face of Failure is also really good, even though it was hard as fuck to write. I Need Direction to Perfection is also up there, and so is Disrespect.

Tagging @becauseanders, @queendollophead-ao3, and @lanautisticzhan

[thegoodomensdumpster]

I WATCHED GOOD OMENS IN FRENCH SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

and it wasn’t that bad. Here are my thoughts, barely edited as I wrote most of them while watching the show.

EP 1

OK i like god’s voice so far

possibilité d’embarras gastrique is a good formulation, I wonder if it’s the same in the book ( I think I kinda need to read it in french now...)

aghghdhgs « primo-délinquants »

of course subtitles don’t match the audio for a variety of technical reasons but when you get things that have very different underlying meanings i find it… not good This one about Crowley being evil / a demon : subtitles : « c’est ton travail » - « it’s your job » audio : « c’est dans ta nature » - « it’s in your nature » i mean dang

crowley sounds like a little shit asking az about his sword

« T’AS FAIT QUOUA » - he just loses his shit (kinda giving me some le coeur a ses raisons vibe)

ok crowley sounds very nerdy when he tries to explain that he took down the phone network, i think i actually like this voice acting

ligur sounds… very suave (im a little ill at ease)

crowley getting called mon chou by satan freddie mercury is a thumb up from me

i see the part where aziraphale speaks japanese wasn’t dubbed over and we can still hear michael sheen. it’s a bit disturbing considering french aziraphale has a higher pitched voice (and he sounds soooo much more anxious than sheen, give this angel a xanax )

“sandwich bœuf cresson” ( beef and cress sandwich ) deirdre really who makes this kind of sandwiches

im being reminded that the chattering nuns prepared little cut outs for their explanation about the antichrist switch… such dedication to useless crafts (it made me laugh on my first viewing and it’s still funny to imagine that some of them either ordered or built these things themselves just so they could make this two minutes long presentation for the most important act of their satanic nun careers)

retire-toi vil démon infernal, créature des abysses XD i swear az doesn’t sound even remotely convinced when he is saying the « get thee behind me foul fiend » line in french, it’s just too over the top for credibility, it sounds like it’s straight out of some super intense dnd session

they still can’t say bouillabaisse (which, like, weird because french, but still valid). nice touch is crowley couldn’t say soupe de poisson (fish stew) either and said poupe de soisson (sish ftew)

warlock mah boy how can you be a teenager and not like dinosaurs

c’est un dinosaure un nullosaure plutôt - apply burn heal

La façon dont warlock s’est exclamé « C’EST NUL » m’a fait penser au nain de naheulbeuk

the english version has nothing on french speaking aziraphale for the second hand embarrassement during the magic tour. it’s over 9000 i literally hid my head in my jumper when he was presenting harry the bunny. Horrible experience, 0/20, would not recommend

EP 2

oooh agnes has a lovely voice !

why is young newton having such a quality dub for the three sentences he has to say

dick turpin’s name is jesse james (tbf dick turpin is not known AT ALL in france, i discovered him reading good omens)

shadwell is pure chaos (as expected). No particular accent for him though, the chaotic energy was probably enough. Would have made me laugh if he had like, a chti or a marseilles accent.

aziraphale is so fucking stressed out by crowley’s driving i thought he was gonna explode

« tu es un gentil garçon » => « you’re a nice boy » said az to crowley DANG THAT’S SO INFANTILIZING AZIRAPHALE YOU’RE TALKING TO A DEMON FROM HELL NOT TO PINOCCHIO

ARGH FIRST MON ANGE OF THE SERIES i’m hit straight in the heart

anathema’s mom doesn’t have a spanish / latino accent at all when talking in spanish…. why...

dog being called toutou is definitely adorable (it’s basically « doggy » but way cuter imo)

tickety-boo has become ça gaze. that’s valid. it’s corny but i still use it unironically from time to time so ... i stan

EP 3

« je répands la fomentation » « i’m here spreading foment » « quoi tu fais des crêpes au froment ?????? »  « what you’re making crêpes with wheat ??? » love the fact that we shoehorned in one more ref to crêpes

az called crowley mon cher camarade, unintentionnal communist propaganda ftw

« pas de repos pour les… bah, pour les bons » « no rest for the… good »  – az was so deflated about the ineptitude he realized he was saying, he felt zero percent commited to his sentence

i was wondering how they would play aziraphale not being able to speak french in the bastille and they opted to have him stutter a bit and say to his executionner « excuse me i’m anxious » XD

« vous êtes le 999e aristo à mourir par mes soins. Mais vous êtes le premier en costume beige » « you’re the 999th aristocrat I’m going to kill, but the first one in beige attire » yeah i guess now that az isn’t english anymore his most noticeable feature is his cream aesthetic

« c’est au cas où ça tournerait en eau de boudin » « j’ADORE le boudin » => « in case it all goes pear shape » - the literal translation featuring food in french is « turning into black sausage water ». I don’t know what pear shaped inspires to english native speakers but the mere mention of boudin always make me giggle, it’s such a funny word and such a funny food

OH !!! no terrence rampa for the tv series, we’ve got anthony J. rampa. Rip terrence petit démon parti trop tôt :’(

« tu roules trop vite pour moi rampa » SERIOUSLY i know we can still infer « rouler » (here as in driving, but literally rolling) as a metaphor for their relationship but you could have said TU VAS TROP VITE that would have been so much better argh

has anathema got an emergency stock of potteries to break in case of emotionnal crisis ?

« Rampa, un démon très futé, il m’oblige à redoubler d’effort » « crowley, a very clever demon, he forces me to make double the amount of effort » oh so admitting you’re making an effort there aziraphale ? :))))))

dang i really want to know how shadwell said that major milk bottle died because not only did he die in combat but aziraphale’s reaction is a bit intense, it must have been quite a tale (this could be a crack fic prompt : «The Epic Tale of the Death Of Major Witchfinder Milk Bottle, by Sargent Witchfinder Shadwell» )

des sorcières et des phénomènes sorciéreux x)

CROWLEY CALLED AZIRAPHALE DUCON ?????? EXCUSE ME ????? #NotMyCrowley #CrowleyWouldNeverDoThat  #CancelAnthonyJRampa2K20  => ducon would be an insult, the gathering of du and con, con being a very nasty but common swear word, and associating it with du- makes it extremely patronizing. it’s like « absolute pathetic digraceful moron +++ ». thanks i hate it *frowny face *

EP 4

l’apocalypse c’est pour aujourd’hui juste après le goûter : it could be translated as « apocalypse is scheduled for today right after tea time » except that « goûter » is not quite tea time but rather the little sugary snack kids take when they come back from school and that most adults drop out of (i haven’t and i’m sure az hasn’t either). thanks aziraphale for having exclusively food related notion of the time because tbh same

ligur has no right to be this sexy between ariyon bakare and his french voice actor that’s just not allowed

radio crowley’s voice vs french ligur’s voice, who has the sexiest voice : FIGHT

(jk french agnes nutter’s voice is by far the sexiest)

gender neutral doesn’t ‘quite’ exist in french but pollution has been assigned a female voice actress and masculine pronouns (i’m saying it doesn’t quite exist because officially we have no gender neutral, but it’s a serious wip among lgbt+ circles to the point where it’s started being used in a few medias)

hastur « en attendant qu’un plombier vienne » / « while waiting for a plumber to come » does hell have a special plumber unit or do demons have to call on human plumbers for their pipes damages ? Dang hastur having to call a human plumber for hell’s plumbery is another damn good writing prompt for a crack fic

Michael is called Michel in the subtitles but Michael in the audio *shrug emoji*

EP 5 

to get a wiggle on has become « il faut qu’on se remue les fesses », literally « we need to shake our butts » like, yes, se remuer les fesses is a common expression to say « we need to act in order to get things done » but it really casts the image of people shaking their booty to some music and obviously crowley thinks the same Weirdly enough I have almost nothing to say for that episode. Sorry. But we’ve discovered most voice actors and actresses so far and no bit of dialogue really struck me as worth discussing or pointing fingers to mock it.

EP 6 

« on va BROUTER quelques derrières » - « we’re gonna lick some butts » OK THIS IS UNQUESTIONNABLY FAR SUPERIOR IN FRENCH THAN IN ENGLISH you thought LICKING butts was good ??? you really thought that ???? AZIRAPHALE HERE SUGGESTS TO GRAZE BUTTS. TO NIBBLE THEM. TO EAT THEM. TO. MUNCH. ON. THOSE. BUTTS!!!! not just licking, guys. This is as serious step beyond licking. (oh yeah he should have said « botter » instead of brouter btw, which is really just kicking, fyi)

« moi je crois en la paix, pétasse ! » wow, language, pepper (fyi i think « pétasse » is far far worse than « bitch » even if it means roughly the same, pétasse is almost never used while bitch is rather common, so it’s a swear word +++)

Dagon sounds like she’s got a nasty cold. #GetDagonIbuprofen2K20

I can confirm that Crowley offers Aziraphale to not just stay at his place, but to move in with him. « tu peux t’installer chez moi si tu veux ». omg they were roommates.

Bad translation strikes again : i don’t know why, but the french dub doesn’t have the « tickety-boo » / « ça gaze » being referenced as Rampa / Aziraphale is being knocked down, which is… a real mistep. It was narratively significant and I’m quite mad the translators missed it.

The Jesse James explanation from Newt has become very nonsensical, instead of the neat and to the point pun « wherever I go I hold up trafic » we’re getting a circonvoluted « because it’s a crime to mechanic’s diligence ». I’m not judging that one too hard, I have no idea how to make it better, and that’s probably how it was translated in the book as well thirty years ago, but it definitely doesn’t have the same impact. On the other hand, it definitely IS a very bad joke that doesn’t even deserve a chuckle, so Anathema’s embarassement really matches the audience’s (aka mine).

OVERALL :

I wasn’t convinced by Crowley… I mean, Rampa’s voice at first, but as the nerdiness showed up it really grew on me. I still think that french dubs have often problems with some voice inflexions every here and there, and for instance in Rampa’s case it was when he was annoyed or frustrated ( at the Globe when complaining about horses and Shakespeare’s plays that aren’t comedies, and also when discussing Azirphale’s magic tricks, it’s like… there is a step between having the right amount of grumpy complaining and overdoing it that is overlooked. It’s overacted, it should have been a bit quieter imo. I don’t mean to criticize voice actors too hard either but as an audience watching french dubs this is a very recurring problem and it always feels off to me. It’s actually one of the main reasons I avoid french dubs whenever possible.)

I have a hard time judging Aziraphale’s voice dub because it clashes so much with both the idea I had formed with it when I read the book and Sheen’s delivery that I just… kinda filtered it. It was too high pitched for me, and too anxious (though for this last point I must admit it could be funny at times, but I’m not fond of this character portrayal). The rest of the cast was rather good, nothing to complain about. There wasn’t anything stellar either, but everything that needed to be conveyed was and it was professionnal. It was also very homogeneous, no voice really struck me as being way too bad or way too good compared to the others, so it was really consistant.

So I don’t have much to complain about overall despite a few wonky translations here and there, BUT there is one thing I felt very robbed of : Crowley calling Aziraphale « mon ange » happens only once, when giving a lift to Anathema, and I’m almost certain they translated it that way because otherwise the joke about Anathama mistaking them for a couple wouldn’t work. So, they were forced to make it that way. The rest of the time Crowley calls Aziraphale « l’angelot », and despite being literally translated by « little angel », it feels sarcastic more than anything else ( the « L’ » in front of « angelot » is part of the reason why, it creates some distance, the other reason being that this word in itself has a very corny vibe and people being affectionnate to each other wouldn’t use it as a term of endearment). So, that’s a shame.

I like the English dub much much MUCH better than the French, but the french wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be. The voice actors and actresses were quite good, the dialogues mostly faithful and endearing despite a few really missed steps. It really had its moments. Props to brouter des derrières, that one was fantastic.

[dreamingofscully]

5x12. “Bad Blood” - X-Files Rewatch

This post is going to be a bit different than all the others. Because Bad Blood is just so special. Above pictures are (some of) the funniest contrasts in the stories told by Scully (left) and Mulder (right). I’ll include others in my summary below the cut!

"That's not the way it happened at all. I mean, what are you afraid of? That if you tell it the way it really happened, that you'll look like an idiot, like me?" - Mulder, to Scully

Here's some opinion as opposed to observation. Bad Blood is maybe the best episode. It is just so brilliant. It's fantastic to see the story from both Mulder and Scully's perspectives, and see them in a more humorous and exaggerated light. They are both inaccurate in their own ways, but I think overall Scully's side is probably more correct, Mulder's being coloured by wanting to exaggerate his side because he loves LOVES trolling Scully and he's a bit miffed at her inaccuracies.

The teaser has to be the absolute best of the whole show. Well, except for all things.

Their facial expressions this entire episode. 

Mulder kicking the garbage can. XD I love love LOVE this. Throughout the whole show you see him lashing out with physical violence when he's frustrated, and you see it manifested in such a light-hearted manner here.

"I didn't do the ... (She makes a stabbing motion) with the thing."

Gillian covering her face trying not to laugh. Do we have bad blood bloopers? I'm sure they are wonderous.

***

SCULLY’S VERSION

"C'mon Scully, get those little legs moving."

Mulder admiring the dead guy's clothes. He's so innappropriate haha.

Leaning close over the dead body.

Mulder's jealousy over Scully's flirtation with the Sheriff.

"Dana" LOL

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What am I even looking for?" - Scully (Mulder puts his hands on her shoulders.) "I don't know." - Mulder

Some Sheriff Hartwell flirtation analysis/relationship analysis

Scully enjoying attention from an attractive guy. We saw in Chinga, trying to get Mulder to react to her subtle hints of giving a gift to a "guy". He didn't take the hint. I'm SURE she's exaggerating her attraction in the story to make Mulder jealous. Also possibly still pissed at him, wanting to get a reaction out of him. A meaningless fling would take some of her pain away, perhaps, because he doesn't really matter to her - there are no emotions beyond lust. She enjoys being desired, as would any woman. Pursuing something with Mulder is dangerous because of how strong her feelings are. After Emily - she's hesitant to risk anything, to take any chances emotionally, because of how much pain it caused her to love someone only to lose them so shortly afterwards.

During Mulder's tale, he tells Scully "Never say I never did nothin' for ya", giving her some alone time with the Sheriff. indicating he's still not thinking he and Scully could ever be together. He thinks she deserves a normal guy, or at least someone who isn't him.

I love the autopsy scenes. Scully talking about stomach contents like it sounds delicious, then ordering the same thing later. Scully is WEIRD you guys, and I love it. Someone like this just ... doesn't stop being weird. Doesn't change specialties so drastically. She LOVES this shit you guys.

"I just put money in the magic fingers!"

Jumping on the bed with her and laughing evilly. Poor Scully.

When Scully figures out the pizza was laced, her concerned gasp and "Mulder!"

Doctoring him in the room, touching his face when he's lying on the floor.

"Shaft!" LOL

Standing close when they argue about her version.

*** MULDER’S VERSION

Scully's look making Mulder feel like a moron. He's so nice and concilliatory in his version, haha.

"Well, it's obviously not a vampire." - Scully "Well, why not?" - Mulder "Because they don't exist?" - Scully

“Hoo boy.” - Scully, at Sheriff Hartwell

Mulder giving the Sheriff buck teeth.  😆 Jealous much?

Prattling off knowledge about the history of vampires. He knows how to stretch out a tale - keeps delaying telling Scully about the meaning of the shoelaces.

Scully's "Why skip ahead? What happened then? (silence) Mulder? You shot out the tires, and what then?" XD Mulder (AND the Sheriff) can't shoot, which is where the trope comes from perhaps? Contrast with Scully's incredible marksmanship from the previous episode.

Mulder's puppy dog eyes when he comes to Scully's room all muddy.

"What do you mean you want me to do another autopsy?! And why do I have to do it right now?! I just spent hours on my feet doing an autopsy, all for you. I do it all for you, Mulder. You know, I haven't eaten since 6:00 this morning, and all that was, was a half a cream cheese bagel, and it wasn't even real cream cheese, it was light cream cheese. And now you want me to run off and do another autopsy? What the hell happened to you?"

"Finally you left" ouch. 😥 Mulder's pretty bitter about the Sheriff so he's definitely making Scully look worse than she is. TBF Scully made Mulder look pretty random and nonsensical in hers.

Mulder using Scully's room/bathroom. In his tanktop + boxers. *heart eyes* Also, they agree on pizza toppings. IT'S MEANT TO BE!!!

Concedes that he ate her dinner. 😆

Her "Creep" in Mulder's version of the phone call Scully got at the morgue, haha.

*** AFTER THEIR STORIES

Walking close in the cemetery. Putting his arm around her neck when giving her the alone time with the Sheriff.

Drugged Scully.

Mulder riding the coffin.

Examining her neck at the end. Where des he put his hands after that??

"That is ... essentially, exactly the way it happened." - Mulder "Essentially." - Scully

The ending with Skinner must be EVERY SINGLE TIME THEY FINISH A CASE. Which makes it funnier.  😆

[tumblezwei]

This is the kind of thing I was referring to when I sent a bad take ask about some not liking Renora for V7, but I think they're missing some important details that happened in the Volume(like WHY Ren is more standoffish after 7-1; because the Ace Ops got the jump on them): www(.)reddit(.)com/r/RWBY/comments/hnpx9d/this_is_bad_why_rens_v7_arc_doesnt_work/

I mean, the biggest red flag is when this person says that the Nuckelavee fight was the “climax” for Renora instead of like, finally giving them some backstory to solidify their characters and set up future arcs. It didn’t resolve Ren’s emotional outbursts, it introduced them. 

And you point out exactly why Ren acts the way he does, because they were beaten by a team that got the jump on them and had the relic taken from them, if only for an instant. Volume 4 showed us how deeply Ren cares for his family, including Nora, and how easy it is for him to fly off the handle when that is threatened. In volume 5 he’s mostly stable for him bc it’s spent primarily training; and while they have their run in with Cinder, they come out on top and with a relic to boot. In volume 6, he’s not with RWBY when they find out about Salem, and the spotlight is taken by Jaune and his fight with Oscar, so we don’t really get to see how he feels overall about the situation. 

And then in volume 7, they get arrested by the Ace Ops, the relic is taken, and they’re pretty much stripped of the agency they had in the previous volumes. Volume 7 also makes it clear that no one has a plan, but Ironwood does. Ironwood is the only person who seems to have things under control, and Ren latches onto that. He wants the people he cares about to be safe, and he realizes that they way they are now, they won’t be able to do anything against Salem.

 If anything, volume 7 is what we should have gotten in volume 6, but the show didn’t have time to properly address then. This is Ren’s reaction to Salem, attaching himself to the first line of support that he can find and focusing all of his energy into becoming stronger. He doesn’t humor Nora’s antics anymore because he’s scared and doesn’t want to be distracted. 

I’ll say that Ren’s storyline was practically shoved under a rug after like...episode 10? But tbf they had bigger issues to deal with at that point.

Long post short, I’m baffled by how someone can be surprised that Ren is portraying even more anger and fear at being confronted by the concept of an immortal being out to destroy humanity than he was at a slightly specialized Grimm attached to childhood trauma. Volume 4 set the precedent, it didn’t conclude shit. 

[finnskeeper]

Critical Role - Campaign 1 (Thoughts Machina): The Beginnings

So I’ve finished 3 full episodes and I have tentatively ranked my favorites:

1) Vax - I mean, come on. You all knew what this was. Also Liam O’Brien is a gift and must be protected at all costs.

2) Vex - Rangers are my go to class, and she has a bear. I mean, she’s practically 1B. Which, you know, is pretty on brand for the twins.

3) Grog - I just love that Travis is all in on this 6 Intelligence Barbarian. I can now see where the “leap first, look second” mentality came from.

4) Percy - Porting firearms into D&D? Excellent. Shooting an illithid with a rifle, then trying to shoot him again immediately when he gets up? Amazing. 

5) Tiberius - Dragonborn sorcerer is a classic, but I do love them. Tiberius looks like a fun twist on it, being descended from a red dragon. I hope that comes up at some point. (Yes, I’m aware that Orion doesn’t stick around long, and why. But for the moment I am enjoying the character.)

6) Scanlan - He’s only so low because I haven’t seen him do much (though that lightning bolt was pretty good.) I do enjoy the songs though.

7) Keyleth - I love me some druids, but Keyleth hasn’t had the chance to really stand out yet. I can’t wait for her to bust out, though. This is another one I expect to move up.

8) Pike - TBF, I just met her. Seems cheery. Even in the Underdark. Lovely.

[whateverthedragonswant]

and the rewatch continues

So rewatching most of season 5 and dipping into season 6, after coming from season 4, I found some things very interesting, things I actually had forgotten about and some that just hit differently now that the show has ended:

Season 4:

Brothers - different iterations: Had that finale happened after this season, it might have made better sense (though I STILL say the manner of Dean’s death is laughable)

Destiel & Cas: While Cas and Dean have some uncomfortable staring contests and there’s chemistry, I didn’t get the whole Destiel vibe (this is just my personal take), yes there’s a bond there, a growing partnership so to speak but I feel like Cas is not around enough for it to be in the forefront of the story or even to demand Dean’s attention in a way. Like Cas made his big entrance in 4x01 and we saw how things took off from there for the story and for this connection/bond between he and Dean but Dean is early season Dean and Cas is early season Cas. Though I found Cas’ interest in everything Dean Winchester to be intriguing (and he put Dean back together with his own hands, I just...this really does become the greatest love story ever told, I swear), I personally didn’t get the whole UST vibes that has been talked about. I actually found myself wanting to go deeper into Cas’ story (a la 6x20 style) aside from Dean’s and Sam’s. 

Anna: That whole night with Anna was purely that: a night. There wasn’t a whole lot of chemistry between Jensen and Julie and it’s very clear that this whole sex-on-last-night-on-earth thing is for comfort, for both characters. I kind of get why they switched up gears there for Dean’s angel role, even if they didn’t intend for Destiel to read as romantic at all initially. 4x09 & especially 4x10 were so obviously trying to ying and yang the brothers and the sides that had chosen them/complemented them: Anna | Ruby, Heaven | Hell -> eventually Michael | Lucifer. But back to Anna, while I enjoyed her character and would have loved to delve deeper with her, I am glad Cas was the one who got to stay. Anna and Dean had no chemistry, outside of a couple of glances before the big hookup/last night on Earth deal, there wasn’t really anything there. Tbf, they didn’t have a lot of private time before that, except maybe one convo. To me, in this scenario, Anna was a source of comfort (after she tells Dean he needs to forgive himself for what happened in Hell which I very much appreciated, someone had to tell him that) and attraction, letting her have her last night on Earth, a hookup, etc. But there was nothing deeper there. And for this bond with an angel to happen, there needed to be something deeper there. Perhaps had Anna been around longer and didn’t go the way she did in season 5, it might have but I honestly tend to doubt it. We all know Cas and Dean’s (Misha’s and Jensen’s) natural chemistry is off the charts. I’m not sure Anna (Julie) could have competed with that had both Cas and Anna stuck around together. I know I’m completely biased here, but I almost felt like Anna and Cas had more chemistry together, it might have been because they got more face time, I’m not sure. But I thoroughly enjoyed watching it all go down again.

Adam: Omg I forgot about how Adam wasn’t Adam when Dean and Sam first met him. That was heartbreaking on so many levels, but mostly for Adam and his mom dying the way they did and of course, for Dean and Sam. Namely Dean because he was the most affected by finding out about Adam’s existence. And I swear I fell in love with Dean more in that episode as a character because despite his pain, his anger, his hurt, he still tries to do the right thing by Adam, to honor his dad’s wishes. And John...that mf’er doesn’t deserve any of those boys as his sons. What an asshole through and through. 

Season 5:

Destiel & Cas: And now we see Cas becoming a bit more forefront and the vibe has changed...slightly. Now it’s a partnership turning into a friendship. Dean and Cas get a bit more face time and it shows. 5x03 was awesome and of course the wholly unnecessary line of “One, Bert and Ernie are gay” -- like where did that come from? I still loved it. It was tough to see Dean and Sam go their separate ways in the beginning but we still got some gold out of it with 5x03 and 5x04. And thankfully, we get more into not only more of the angel and apocalypse lore this season, but we also get to see how Cas’ relationship with the Winchesters is changing and more of what makes Cas tick as a character in his own right. And of course, bamf!Cas was very present. 

Brothers: Once again, had that finale happened after this season, it might have made more sense (sans the junk death) - because it’s very obvious that the co-dependency is alive and well here and it would have made more sense for their characters - while they have others outside of the two of them they are caring about (Bobby, Ellen, Jo just to name a few), it’s still the exclusive Winchester-only club. I truly enjoyed watching these two working together and moving towards the season finale. Dean’s memory of Sam and the fireworks, Dean talking about how Sam’s best memories weren’t the same as his (shocker, John Winchester is a d-bag, I’ll keep saying it), Dean struggling to make the decision to say yes to Michael, having to agree with the plan for Sam to say yes to Lucifer to try to trap the latter, Dean showing up to the cemetery -- all of it was incredible and the two of them were the beating heart of the show at that point. 5x22 will always be one of my favorite season finales for that show. It was pure awesomeness, truly epic and perfect.

Dean: holy hell, they really, really threw a lot into Dean this season - not that they hadn’t before, but damn. Each season just amps up the Dean game, just like I remember, and I am happily here for it again. No offense to Sam at all, but Dean is just so complex, so complicated yet straightforward, and there’s so many layers to him that they just keep peeling back and they feed us well each season. I swear, if you turned the sound off and just watched that scene where Dean tells Zachariah to call Michael, where Dean and Sam go their separate ways, you would know exactly everything Dean is feeling and thinking thanks to the incredible talent of one Mr. Jensen Ackles. Just really incredible. How this man never got nominated for an Emmy at any point for this show just astounds me. Yes, I know that show wasn’t considered a contender for that type of award run, but dammmnnnn. He deserves it and more. Watching this season and season 4 really brought back the original reasons I fell in love with Dean as a character in the first place. One of the best characters ever, I’m telling you. And may I just say, I hated that they brought back John’s leather jacket for him in the season finale but I get it, it was Kripke’s swan song (did I just do that? I believe I did) so we of course went back to core Winchester things, not just in story but every element. I’m ngl, I was so glad to see Dean shed it though when he is sitting down to dinner with Lisa and Ben.

Apocalypse: I thoroughly enjoyed this whole plot line - this really was high stakes, more than ever before, and though angels were dicks, there was Lucifer of course and a mysterious though mostly absent God behind the curtain - you just never knew what was going to be thrown at you next, just like the boys were going through.

Heaven/Mary: even though this definitely has to do with Dean more so, I did enjoy them seeing Ash and Pam, Ash’s setup, and of course Mary being there, seeing how such a good memory could be manipulated by the dick angels and the horrible things Mary said to Dean. Of course, I felt for Dean but it was interesting to see that whole scene play out. Plus we got even more confirmation of what we’ve known all along: John is a bonafide asshole and Dean really did experience facets of spousification, even before Mary died (which just makes me so sad for him, I swear if they don’t put a Cas vs John scene in the reboot... because you know Cas will win that thumb war)

Meg: ngl, I wasn’t really crazy about this iteration of Meg - I don’t mean Rachel Miner’s version, just this particular performance, which I chalk up to whoever decided they wanted her to go this route in her performance - I couldn’t believe it was the same character, the same actress - I am so glad the show/Rachel developed the character we all love to hate and secretly really love to how she was in later seasons

Jo: omg Jo. I have to admit, in season 2, in the first episode she showed up in, I despised her. She was like that bratty teenage kid who’s a real pain in the ass and whines and doesn’t get it. But after that episode, I grew to love her with each one she was in. She became a bamf in her own right and I loved seeing that come through this season especially. Her death was horrific (what is it with this show killing off bamf female hunters in such a gruesome way? it brought back horrible Eileen flashbacks for me personally, and for them to turn Meg and Ketch into somewhat redeemable characters after that... you know, I swear...) but heroic and I had never been more proud of my girl. Except the scene with Dean in the kitchen. As much as I love my chaotic hunter son, I was glad to see Jo flip him off in the way she did. So proud. And then her goodbye with Dean, I had forgotten exactly what he did so I was going “omg, she just saved you, Dean, this girl has feelings for you, she deserves at least a kiss, kiss her. right. the fuck. now!” and sure enough, he did, on the forehead, which I was like okay, well I get it, he doesn’t return those feelings but he does care about her but dammit, she deserved for him to plant one on her. and then he did and I was just gone, I was a complete bawling mess. And her goodbye scene with Ellen, and then her death along with Ellen’s sacrificing herself to stay by Jo’s side and give the boys a chance to get out of there...yeah, I didn’t stop crying for about five minutes. I cannot tell you how much I miss those characters and I would have sold someone else’s right arm to make their return in the series finale happen. Besides the obvious characters that should have been present, Ellen, Jo, and Ash deserved to be there (just not Samantha and Chad, if we can get a “Cas helped” for the third major character/lead, we can also get a “Ellen and Jo went to assist in setting up the honeymoon suite above the roadhouse - I said what I said).

John: usually, I cannot abide giving any time to this jerk, never mind talking about him, but I have to say I enjoyed seeing pre-loss John in 5x13. That conversation he has with Sam I think is so glaringly important. I know it was for Sam to forgive John and heal, but the fact that John himself is saying “how could he do that to you? he was supposed to protect you” -- yep, that was pure poetic cinema in my eyes. Because pre-loss John is right, how dare post-loss John do that to his boys? There’s no excuse anyone or this show can give him. As much as I love JDM, post-loss John Winchester will never be okay in my book.

Adam: omg Adam. First of all, I loved his dynamic with Sam and Dean. I really, really wish we could have had him around longer just for that alone. What an awesome character we could have had giving Dean and Sam a run for their money. “Well, we’re working on the power of love.” “How’s that going?” “Not so great.” -- give me an episode of the three brothers on a milk run hunt (sans generic mask-wearing vampmimes) with all of the fixings and I swear we would get done!Sam, consistently being roasted between Dean and Adam, and then Dean thinking he’s got a mutual now, a BFF, and Adam turning right around to roast him as well. It would be epic, I tell you, epic. I wish Adam had gotten a better end, this season and at the end of the series. He certainly deserved better. And this may be a random observation but why did Michael take Adam at all? I know the countdown had begun and he was desperate to grab a vessel so he could fight Lucifer at the appointed time and Dean was not giving in (that he knew of), but what chance of victory did he think he had without using his true vessel? Using that logic, I guess Michael’s end in the series makes more sense now...? Who knows.

Chuck: Swan Song (5x22) and the lines, “Endings are hard. Any chapped ass monkey with a keyboard can poop out a beginning but endings are impossible. You try to tie up every loose end but you never can. The fans are always gonna bitch. There’s always gonna be holes. And since it’s the ending, it’s all supposed to add up to something. I’m telling you, they’re a raging pain in the ass“ -- did anyone else feel like that was Kripke speaking or is it just me?

Season 6:

the whole Lisa thing: while it was nice to see Dean go domestic, I have to say I was more invested in Dean and Ben’s relationship development than I was with Dean and Lisa’s. The chemistry just wasn’t there, I have to be honest (he and Anna actually had more chemistry for a few minutes than he did with Lisa this whole season). I don’t doubt they loved each other, it was real, and Lisa was good for him at the time but it just didn’t have that spark. I loved Lisa as a character in her own right, but I was happy to see her and Dean eventually go their separate ways. Though my heart broke for Ben on that one. He and Dean really had a whole father-son bond happening there. I appreciated that when Ben called him, even that one time that nothing was really wrong, Dean dropped everything and headed right over. They had a bond of their own happening outside of Dean and Lisa’s. I think Dean ultimately made the right choice in the end to keep Lisa and Ben safe (though they should have been able to choose if they wanted this), but God did that cost him and we see it in that scene outside of the hospital with Sam. How much that hurt for him, and for us to see how it killed him to do it. I’m still grateful that he got to see what the domestic life was like and that he got a reprieve from hunting for a bit. It made complete sense as to why Cas didn’t want to pull him back in to ask for help with Raphael.

Destiel: Welp, now there’s definitely an emotional relationship happening. Meaning the bond has become even more forefront and not only is Dean affected, but we also see that Cas is, too. Dean’s reaction to finding out Cas was working with Crowley the whole time, Cas’ reaction to Dean choosing to save the two boys instead of focusing on finding Eve, Cas’ reaction to Dean’s stance on the Crowley situation, Dean’s finding out Crowley kidnapped Lisa and Ben, Cas asking Dean to trust him, Dean seeing Cas becoming the new God and needing to summon Death, etc. It was fantastic. While it hurt during some moments, I enjoyed seeing the dynamics and reactions to these situations play out. This is definitely a friendship now, a family relationship formed (and still forming) like Dean says in 6x20. Imho, Jensen and Misha knocked it out of the park this season when it came to that relationship. I loved it.

Cas: holy hell, 6x20 has become one of my all-time favorite episodes of SPN. I loved seeing Cas’ POV. Cas was already a fave character of mine but this episode made me fall in love with him all over again. This was incredible and I’m so thankful they fed us so well with this one. I really enjoyed seeing Cas as a character stepping into the forefront, right there with Dean and Sam. Yes, he was a part of TFW before this, but you have to admit that in this season, it becomes a whole new ball game. Really amazing stuff and of course, Misha slayed it all.

Meg & Megstiel: I was so happy to see the iteration of Meg return that we know from later seasons. Maybe I’m just too used to that version but to me this felt more effortless for the character and for Rachel, that really let both shine. Personally, I’m not a Megstiel shipper. While I love their dynamic, it just isn’t there for me, but I really did enjoy their scenes together. Cas felt as if he needed a little shaking up so to speak so I think she was perfect for that. Plus, I have a hard time forgiving those in the show that sic Hellhounds on my bamf female hunters so that might be partially the reason for my bias, just saying. (I never really forgave Ketch either)

Samuel...& Co: I just...why? Don’t get me wrong, I liked Mitch but this felt a bit...I don’t know...off? Other than some place for Soulless!Sam to go while Dean was playing house and for nabbing Alphas for Crowley, I don’t get what the point of this story line was? Was it to show us that Mary’s dad was a d-bag? Check. Was it to show us how people sometimes make the worst decisions when it comes to their family? Double check. Like, we kind of already got that and it was just unnecessary confirmation if that makes sense. And the thing that kills me is that Samuel was in Hell (or goes to Hell, I kind of did other things in the background during that arc) but he loved his daughter enough to betray her sons and do the wrong thing but John gets to go to Heaven? This still confounds me. Though I enjoyed Gwen and it was a shame she couldn’t be a family contact in another state for the boys later on to pop up every now and then.

Soulless!Sam: I enjoyed this part of Sam’s arc but I won’t lie, I was relieved like everyone else when he finally got his soul back though waited with bated breath for the other shoe to drop. But it was interesting to see this side of Sam.

Dad!Dean: I know I mentioned Dean and Ben above, but that one episode with the shifter!baby, that was priceless and God, did I love it.

I just loved going back to this for both boys