#I've tried to plot with some people but mostly haven't heard back

[arandomaewblog]

this is my first time posting anything in the AEW fandom so please be nice! this is also just me trying to not lose my mind while being around my family for the next three days so if it's not good I blame it on that

basically this is a situation in which you've been friends with the AEW roster for so long that even though you're not a wrestler yourself you still get invited to hang out with them or whatever; I'm trying really hard not to overthink the plot because if I do that I'm never gonna write anything so just like take it with a grain of salt and tilt your head and squint or whatever

I'm rambling so here's you and Hook making out in a closet. enjoy.

****

"Name of the game is Seven Minutes in Heaven!"

Everyone in the room groans.

"Stop trying to get everyone to make out, Max!" Bowens shouts, but Max ignores him.

"It's not me!" he swears, holding his hands up in front of himself defensively. "It's all up to the bottle!" Max gestures to the empty Tito's bottle in the middle of the table. Bowens just rolls his eyes and lets it happen.

You start by just watching everyone else play - some of the pairings are ridiculous and would probably be do-overs if Max wasn't in charge, but he is, so there are no do-overs. Whoever the bottle lands on is who it lands on. No exceptions.

It's fine and fun and you're having a great time until it's your turn and the bottle ends up pointing at the guy you've had a crush on for months but haven't really spoken to all that much because he keeps to himself most of the time: Hook.

"Shit," you say to yourself, knowing nobody else in the room could have possibly heard it because Max is YELLING, all but shoving you and Hook into the closet himself. (Well, he tries guiding Hook, but Hook snatches his arm away and turns to face Max so fast that Max immediately takes his hand off and backs up a couple steps.) You open the door and step in, thankful that it's more of a walk-in closet situation so you have more room to back up and let Hook in after you. The doors must have some sort of soundproofing on them, or just be really thick, because when the door closes behind him, it's almost completely silent. You don't know what to do, mostly because being this close to the man you've been crushing on for months is...overwhelming, to say the least.

"So, uh..." Hook starts, his voice softer than you were anticipating, "what do you wanna do?" He looks up at you, hood still up and hair all in his face like normal, and fuck so handsome.

Not freak out and make you think I'm a weirdo, you think, but say something completely different and totally unexpected, even to yourself: "Can I say something?"

He nods.

You take a deep breath. "I know we don't know each other that well because we never really talk but I've had the biggest crush on you for months now and I don't know if you're that kind of guy, we can definitely talk about it later if you want, but all I want right now is for you to grab my face and kiss me until neither of us can breathe and I forget about all the people out there."

It's dark in the closet, so you have no idea what expression Hook has on his face right now, but he doesn't say anything right away. You're about to backtrack when he speaks.

"Too many people for you, too?"

His answer catches you by surprise, but it makes sense that he'd also be overwhelmed by it all. "Yeah," you say, softly, and you gasp when he steps into your space, your faces so close but still so far away.

"You wanna forget about 'em?" he asks, softly taking hold of your chin and tilting your head to look at him. All you can do is nod and try not to buckle at the knees when he cups your jaw and moves in closer.

"Let me help."

Thinking back on it later, you were expecting him to kiss like he fights: methodical, calculating, always three steps ahead of his competitor - but it's the exact opposite. He's methodical and almost cautious, yeah, but there's an uncertainty in the way he leans in, a small gasp of surprise when his lips finally meet yours, something that feels like relief when you start kissing him back.

Honestly? It's better than you'd imagined, and boy have you imagined it a lot. His lips are soft, his hands gentle, one holding your jaw and the other slipping around to your lower back. It starts as little individual kisses, and you'd be cool if it stayed that way for the whole time but something happens that makes you gasp, which leads to Hook softly biting into your bottom lip, and at that point all bets are off. The mild sting makes you groan, which makes Hook chuckle, a rumble deep in his chest like he's amused.

"Oh, you like that?" he asks teasingly, and again, all you can do is nod.

[stra-tek]

I would like to ask your opinion on the NuTrek set designs! I haven't watched strange new worlds or discovery (those are the nu prequel ones right?) mostly because I'm afraid they won't be good? Like they won't hold the same silly charm as TOS or TNG, and part of that worry is the ship design. I love that TOS bridge LOOKS like it's from the 60s, LOOKS like the ship is kinda held together with spit, sillystring, and human stubbornness, because that's how our real life space program was back then. From the pictures I've seen, I don't like all the fancy lights everywhere on a ship that looks completely different in TOS. I know they probably had to update it for marketing so like I get it but! What do you think and are the new sets distracting? And are the shows good? Thanks!

The sets are definitely very different to the old ones, more in line with the recent movie version of things where there are big windows in front with amazing space vistas and very hi-tech touchscreen panels everywhere. Personally I love them, they kept a few little callbacks to the originals like the Enterprise having some of the old jelly bean buttons on the consoles next to the modern flatscreen panels. I never found the brightness distracting but I've heard others complain about it. I only complained about Picard's third season where for 9 episodes they basically leave the lights off and you can barely see anyone😆 While Discovery has it's own look, the Enterprise has a kind of modern retro vibe where some things are now HUGE and SHINY but you'll spot stuff almost unchanged from the old show, like the Jeffries Tube Scotty was always tinkering in.

As for the shows themselves, they're a mixed bag (as were the originals)

Discovery had tons and tons of BTS drama, the people running the end of the first season weren't the same who started it so storytelling is somewhat uneven. And it's different from classic Treks in that it's one main plotline per season and there is one definite main character rather than an ensemble. Then they had two big shifts in direction: The first season is dark and mysterious, involving war with Klingons (who speak subtitled Klingon and like the sets have been reimagined to look far more alien) and mirror universes. The second tries to be much lighter in tone and more like the recent movies and has a plot that makes less and less sense the closer you examine it (but I still loved it), then they jump to the distant future where they're a relic in a universe that's changed a lot. It's also the queerest Trek ever with gay, nb and trans characters. There's some violence and swearing and a story about a former POW who was sexually abused in the first season but it's not all quite as it seems.

Strange New Worlds spins off from the second season of Discovery (but you don't need to have seen it first), and tells TOS/TNG/VOY style standalone stories which range from saving worlds to battling alien monsters to utter fluff but unlike the originals, what happens has lasting effects on the characters. It's got a mix of young versions of known characters, some have been changed a lot (Nurse Chapel is a total badass in this version, Spock is married to T'Pring and she's a huge part of his life) and others who didn't do enough in TOS to really be called changed, like Dr. M'Benga. They also have Kirk's brother on the crew and he's derpy as hell and we love him. It's the one most like classic Trek, but it's definitely more of a modern reboot of the concept even though officially it's a prequel in the same continuity (even going so far in Discovery as a "previously on" with clips from "The Cage" and then next season there's an episode called "Unification III", follwing on from the TNG two-parter and featuring the characters watching a clip from it). So don't get too hung up on all that stuff and just enjoy!

Hope that helps!🖖

[ageofpiracyrp]

PLOT DROP 31: THE POSSIBILITIES

Zuytri welcomes visitors to the KBW, and seems relieved that people actually seem to want to visit her. She ushers Skylar and Ali to the side to tell them how happy she is to know that those two are still going strong. It might be clear to an emotionally intuitive person that there is both jealousy and genuine appreciation to see love in action. Zuytri has surprisingly been (mostly?) enjoying being single since the last visit. The reopening of the KBW has been keeping Zuytri busy.

She murmurs to her friends that there is something that she needs to say

"This is... something that I've been wanting to show you for a few months but haven't worked up the nerve to ask about. Your Comms team alerted me that you'd be planning to stop by, but I don't want this to just be a one night sort of deal. Okay! Okay. So. I didn't want to discuss this before. I really don't like the topic. But- but I almost broached the topic with Karmel. A couple of months ago. It's still on her mind. I worry about her a lot. But... there is something I've never told her. Ever. I didn't want to tell her but there was a lead that I had that I just... never told her about. I tried to forget about it, and it almost worked. About- about djayyar like us. And extending lives. But there was a ship a while back. Not a pirate ship- legitimate business. It was this djayyar captain named Nyessanie. Basically operated a traveling mechanical service- not like Derros. More like if your mechanics went around to help ships as small as Derros that needed help. But... she adopted kids. This went on for years. Centuries. All of this happened before Karmel was even born. A lot of those kids went into the family business. Those kids of hers- a lot of them were djayyar. But not all of them. Not all. Few of those kids... lived a really long time. Too long." Zuytri swallowed hard. "Nyessanie passed away a while ago. Certainly over a hundred years ago. About a hundred twenty. I never met her in person, but I heard stories. Always really admired her... Honestly, Karmel maybe even knew of Nyessanie, but I'm not sure she connected the dots. Or maybe Karmel already knew all of this and it didn't go anywhere." She exhaled, shaking her head. "But I can tell you that Nyessanie's youngest is still alive. Erkuss. One hundred and seventy-six years old." Erkuss seldom live past 150. "Moved to one of the moon retirement communities of Kor'Sel'Koo with that healing low gravity a few years back. We never... talked, but I kept tabs."

Well, of course that's all very interesting news, but what's also interesting (in a bad sort of way) is the (EXTREMELY WEIRD WOW) news that Hero had to share with the entire crew. Apparently, some overzealous trio of space galx cops has been questioning the Gilmore Girls-wanter about Illegal Earth Goods, so it isn't safe to travel to Kor'Sel'Koo just yet.

The KBW isn't the worst place to stay, after all. And the Qraxoldov crew isn't such bad company, right? They even seem excited to see Ian again and catch up on what's been happening.

[taiturner]

for the ask game: twd, fear and world beyond :)

GIVE ME A TV SERIES AND I'LL TELL YOU....

TWD

Favorite character: Alden, Sasha, Aaron

Funniest character: Eric is the first person that comes to mind (I love when he's petty<3) but I'm blanking on everyone else

Best-looking character: Magna, Siddiq

3 favorite ships: Aaron/Eric, Denise/Tara, and the most unpopular opinion of all but Rosita/Gabriel is So special to me. Honorable mention to Elijah and Lydia, I know their development happens in the background but the parallels between them are so loud anyway and those last few episodes really got me.

Least favorite character: N*gan

Least favorite ship:  Lori and Sh*ne, get him away from her

Reason why I watch it: I know most people hate the bloated cast but I love it for that reason. I favor the later half of the series when there are so many different communities intricately linked, it makes for some really fun dynamics everywhere and there will really never be another show that gives you that

Why I started watching it: I basically had to bully myself into liking apocalypse shows (which is so ironic now because... my favorite things). I tried once and didn't make it past the pilot but then I picked it up a few years later (when season 9 was airing) and got hooked

FTWD

Favorite character: Grace

Funniest character: I'm blanking 😔

Best-looking character: Luciana

3 favorite ships: Grace/Morgan, Sherry/Dwight, Al/Isabelle

Least favorite character: Troy

Least favorite ship:  I'm mostly blanking on every other ship in this show but actually the first one that comes to mind is Charlie (a 12 year old) and that 16 year old 🧍‍♂️ why'd they do my girl like that

Reason why I watch it: I don't always love the plot but I do love the characters so I've been holding on for them

Why I started watching it: I think I might've watched a few episodes of this before I ever started TWD but I was bored... I started again at season 4 because I heard about Al and I loved the concept of a journalist still interviewing people in the apocalypse, then I eventually went back to watch it all.

WB

Favorite character: Iris and Leo are tied but Hope, Felix, Huck, and Silas are sooo close behind.

Funniest character: Elton maybe

Best-looking character: Sorry to be a Joe Holt stan but ♡ Leo

3 favorite ships: Felix/Will, Iris/Percy, Huck/Dennis

Least favorite character: This is one of the rare shows that I love love love every single character so it's really hard to answer this so. I guess Jadis because I have the least connection to her. Everyone else is my family <3

Least favorite ship:  I don't think I really have an answer for this because I liked all the established ships... I think Lyla/Leo were cute even though she was betraying him :( so I guess them for technical purposes.

Reason why I watch it: People call it a "teen drama" but I think it's much more aligned with "family drama." At its core its entirely about FAMILY! And the family dynamics in this show are so incredible. The complex siblings, complex friendships, putting your entire trust in someone that's inevitably going to betray you, it's so good to me. I also think coming of age in the apocalypse is a really fun story to tell, especially since these people have lived in the apocalypse for 10 years but haven't actually experienced it. People who hate this show are boring <3

Why I started watching it: I had basically just finished watching TWD for the first time when this show was announced so I was excited to see it from the start, and the premise of it all sounded really fun and I was sooo sad when the premiere got pushed back like... a year. This show is my best friend now.

[mcrmadness]

🤡 & 🦅 & 💞 for fic asks?

Kiitän! ^^ Ja hupsis, unohin näköjään tän melkeen valmiina tänne drafteihin :DDDD No, parempi myöhään ku ei millonkaan!!! Kai :D

🤡 What’s a line, scene, or exchange you’ve written that made you laugh?

I have several actually, I try to write stuff that could make one laugh too and if no one else finds them funny, at least I do. Here's one I wrote to one of my WIPs and which I still find clever and funny lol:

From that on, it was not an unexceptional sight to find them sitting or lying so close to each other that one could have called it as cuddling. Except that no one else was there ever to witness it happening, as they mainly spent time with each other, so it was not exactly a sight. And anyone witnessing that would have gotten cops called after them, unless it was something else with eyes, a random spider, for example. Real spider webs were an authentic decoration for a young goth-punk's room, after all. Not everyone had those! (Mainly because they would clean up more often than once in a blue moon.)

---

🦅 Do you outline fics or fly by the seat of your pants?

Hmmmm. I've never heard the second saying before but I guess it means the opposite of the first one :D Anyway, I think I'm more of the latter. Most often my fics are just built around one scenario and then I will just expand that to either forward or backward or both, so there usually isn't even any particular plot to follow. With the current multichapter WIP, tho, I have some sort of a plot, even tho it also is built from MUTLIPLE various scenarios that I have then tried to fit on the same timeline. Which had led to me creating some sort of a plot to the back of my mind.

There isn't usually much happening in my stories because they're fanfics that are often just a timeline of two characters and their friendship/relationship, so there isn't much to focus on. For years I have been playing with an idea of an original story but haven't been able to create any because I can't come up with OCs that would be interesting enough for me to hyperfixate on, and I can't come up with a story that would be interesting to read yet alone write. So, basically plotless fanfics it is.

---

💞 Who’s your comfort character?

I don't think I have any. Especially if/when this is about fanfics, I literally write only about one fandom and mostly of 2 characters only. And I don't find either as comfort characters because they are based on real people (which means: yes, it's RPF), and I don't get attached real people. At the same time, they both are comfort characters in a way because I'm mostly channeling my old emotions and sometimes current emotions in them. The hurt/comfort scenes especially is me channeling lots of bad experiences of me being bullied etc. and no one comforting me, so with these fics I can write A being sad or angry and then B understanding them perfectly and comforting them.

If we can forget about the fanfics part of this, then one of my comfort characters is Deadpool. But I have never read any Marvel fanfiction, actually I have never even had the chance to read actual Deadpool comics because I can't find those from Finland. But I am a huge fan of the movies + I have the video game (and LEGO Marvel video games too, one of these was actually the first time I even saw anything about Deadpool anywhere).

[maryellencarter]

Memed from @thisbluespirit , whom I just tried to tag as lost_spook and got really confused for a minute...

Favorite color: Blue, mostly

Currently reading: Uh. Am I reading anything? I'm slowly working my way through the "Jigen Daisuke" tag on AO3 from oldest to newest, I guess that's the closest. Sometimes I go through a phase where I read piles of books in a day, sometimes I don't touch anything but fanfic for months (and not always too much of that).

Last TV series: Lupin III. I'm currently working my way through Part 4 sort of "back to back", watching each episode with the subs and then the dubs. The dubs didn't have the correct Yuji Ohno music and I haven't seen the subs before, so it's a hell of an experience not just hearing the Japanese cast for the first time on these episodes but hearing Tornado or Zenigata March and just seeing what a damn *difference* it makes, having the right music, especially now that I know the music enough to recognize it.

I'm kind of glad I saw the dub before I knew what was missing, because the dub cast is good, but the music... god, "With a Gun In My Hand" is practically a different episode entirely without Tornado, without the history of having the same theme tie together every damn time Jigen does something badass since 1977. "To Hear You Sing Again" is a *completely* different episode without the moment where Yuji Ohno reaches thirty-six years into his back catalogue and pulls out fucking "Fire Treasure" and smacks you right in the heart with it.

Last movie: Uh. I'm not sure if it was Mystery of Mamo or Legend of the Gold of Babylon. I know the last one I saw *part* of was Mystery of Mamo, because I was doing a breakdown of Kobayashi's performance versus Epcar's in a particular scene for a couple of friends. (Kobayashi-sama brings the anguished screaming Lupin's name like nobody else -- I haven't heard Akio-san make an attempt yet, but until and unless he pulls that off, Kobayashi-sama is the one and only. Epcar knows he doesn't have the same vocal range, but he uses the magic powers of being the dub writer and knowing his own strengths to kick me in the gut possibly even harder than Kobayashi, which is a fucking *achievement*. Usually Epcar's a solid 9.5 but Kobayashi is an 11, when it comes to the Jigen angst.)

Currently working on: God, what aren't I working on. We've got the "Disreputable Company" sequel, JiZeni porn-with-feels and a ton of plot, on track to hit at least 50k by the end. We've got the "A Little Vacation" sequel in two parts, FuJigen PWP with snark and cuddles. We've got the "Silence of Ishikawa Goemon XIII" sequel, which is a lot more lighthearted than you'd expect from the title being "The Funeral of Jigen Daisuke" but it's still got a royal fuckton of feels, some of which we have yet to write. We've got that one PWP involving Lupin decorating his people with stolen treasures and taking very sexy photos.

We've got the G-rated GoeYata piece for @tabbiewolfreblogs slice-of-life zine "Between Heists", which needs a final polish once I can get a minute -- I'm pretty focused on the Disreputable Company sequel right now, because we have the rest of the outline all complete, we just gotta actually write it. I've got a brief Jigen praise kink thing somewhere that also just needs a final polish and a title if I can *find* it. There's a werewolf thing I was working on but I got too distracted by the human parts of the porn and ran out of steam, which I might see if I can pick up again. And there's a really complicated thing that may or may not ever see the light of day, which involves closeted repressed transfemme Jigen and also involves me writing a shitton of really personal trauma-coping stuff...

I'm not tagging anybody. Consider yourself tagged if you want.

[gascon-en-exil]

A Game of Thrones 10th Anniversary Season Ranking: Part 2

Link to Part 1

Time for the bottom half of the list. The four seasons here will surprise no one, but the order might.

#5 Season 6

You can tell what I most what to talk about here...but there's an order to these things.

S6 actually has a bunch of great ideas, but they drown beneath the most slapdash plotting and character work the show has seen yet in order to set the stage for the narrower conflicts of the last two seasons. It's notorious for bringing back characters who haven't been seen in a season or longer only to kill them off (Balon Greyjoy, Osha, Hodor, the Blackfish, Rickon, Walder Frey) or awkwardly graft them back into the main plot (Sandor Clegane, Bran). There are plot threads that ought to be compelling but are too rushed in execution, like the siege of Riverrun, Littlefinger's hand in the Battle of the Bastards, or Daenerys's time back among the Dothraki and then finally getting the hell out of Meereen. Arya hits on the only interesting part of her two-season sojourn in Braavos - a stage play, of all things - only for it to stumble at the end with a disappointing offscreen death and some incomprehensible philosophy ahead of the start of her murder tour of Westeros. There's also so much cutting off the branches, enough to be conspicuous; the final shot of Daenerys leading an armada of about half the remaining cast she assembled partially offscreen says that better than anything else. Well, not anything....

Highlight: Without exaggeration, the opening of S6E10 is easily my favorite sequence in all of GoT. The staging, the music, the mounting suspense even as it becomes increasingly obvious what's about to happen, the twisted religious references particularly in Cersei's mock confession to Unella, Tommen throwing himself out a window because he can't deal with the reality of how terrible his mother is, how Cersei gives absolutely no fucks whatsoever about murdering hundreds of people at once in a calculated act of vengeance largely prompted by her own poorly thought out actions - I love it all. It's the single most masterfully-executed act of villainy in the whole show - Daenerys torching King's Landing probably has a higher body count, but the presentation there is all muddled - and if I had any doubts about Cersei being my favorite multi-season major character they were silenced in this moment. The explosion of the Sept doesn't sit perfectly with me, because I liked the Tyrells and because of what I said about deaths like theirs and Renly's in the previous post under S2, but I think that unease only cements the strength of this sequence. It's an overused phrase in fandom these days, but GoT at its best is all about moral greyness that gives its audience room for multilayered reactions. Cersei nuking the Sept and making herself the sole power in King's Landing, which in a sense is just a more overt example of the kind of character/plot consolidation elsewhere represented by Daenerys's armada, is one of those events that's impossible to approach from a single angle if you care about any of the characters involved. And hey, it's not in the books (yet, presumably), so unlike Ned's death or the Red Wedding the GoT showrunners can take the credit for realizing this one.

Favorite death: Even leaving aside the Sept and related deaths there's a lot of good ones to choose from in S6. Ramsey is cathartic but too gory for me, Osha's was a clever callback but a little delayed, it's hard to pin down specific deaths when Daenerys incinerates the khals, and Arya only gets half credit for Walder Frey and his sons when she saves the rest of the house for the opening of S7. I'm thinking Hodor, not so much because I enjoy his character or the manner of his death but because it's a clever bit of playing with language (that must have been hell to render in other languages for dubbing) wrapped up in some entertainingly murky consent issues and some closed time loop weirdness. It's all very...extra? Is that the word for it?

Least favorite death: Offscreen deaths continue to be mostly letdowns, in this case Blackfish and the Waif. Way to botch the ending of Arya's already near-pointless Braavos arc, guys. Speaking of Arya, this spot goes to Lady Crane, whom the Waif somehow kills with a stool or something. It's a dumb way to send off an entertaining minor character.

#6 Season 8

I swear that I'm not putting S8 this high solely because of Jonmund kind of sort of happening. I've never been very interested in either of them and the sex would be far too bear-on-otter to suit my pornographic preferences, but even so the choice to close out the series with them is hilarious.

I really don't need to elaborate on why S8 is down here; everyone who's ever watched the show has done as much in the nearly two years since it wrapped up. I do however need to explain why I've ranked not one but two seasons below it. My biggest argument here is that I don't believe it's fair to critique S8 for problems it inherited from earlier seasons. A non-comprehensive list:

Mad Queen Daenerys: unevenly built up beginning from S1 and continuing in some form through every following season

The questionable racial optics of Dany's army: also seeded as early as S1 and solidified by S3 with the Slaver's Bay arc

Cersei only succeeding because she makes stupid decisions and then lucks out until she doesn't: apparent from S1, directly lampshaded by Tywin in S3, fully on display with the Faith Militant arc of S5-6

Jaime not getting a redemption arc or falling in love with Brienne: evident with his repeated returns to Cersei throughout the show as one of the most consistent elements of his character, particularly in S4 and during the siege of Riverrun in S6

Tyrion grabbing the idiot ball/becoming a flat audience surrogate mouthpiece: started in S5 around the time the showrunners ran out of book material for him and wanted to make him more of a PoV character and his arc less of a downward spiral, although I've seen arguments that changes from the books involving his Tysha story and Shae set him on this trajectory even earlier

The hardening of Sansa's character: began in earnest in S4 and never let up from there

The strange ordering of antagonists: set down by S7's equally strange plot structure - the Night King had to come first with that setup

CleganeBowl and the dumber twists: from what I've heard the whole thing of writing around fans on the internet guessing plot twists started pretty much when the book content ended, so S5-6 maybe?

Yes, there's plenty to criticize about S8 on its own merits...but just as much that was merely the writers doing what they could at that point with deeply flawed material.

Highlight: This may sound cheesy, but the better parts of S8 are almost all the cinematic ones, whether that's E2 being a bottle episode with tons of poignant character send-offs before the big battle, a handful of deaths with actual satisfying weight like Jorah's and Theon's, and an epilogue that incorporates both closure for individuals and the broader uncertainty of messy socio-political systems that GoT has always been known for before working its way back to the Starks at the very end for some tidy bookending. Even imperfect moments like the Lannister twins' death and the resolution of Sansa's character felt weighty and appropriate based on what had come before.

Favorite death: Forget about the audio commentary attempting to flatten Cersei's character; Cersei and Jaime Lannister have an excellent end. Cersei especially, as the scenes of her stumbling her way down into the catacombs as the Red Keep crashes down around her really show off how her world is abruptly falling apart and how she retreats into her own self-interest at the end in spite of her demise being at least partially of her own doing. There's some stupid moments associated with these scenes, like Jaime dueling Euron to the death and CleganeBowl, but I can excuse those when the twins end up dying exactly where you'd expect them to: in each other's arms, in a ruined monument to their family's grand ambitions that, like Casterly Rock itself, was taken from another family.

Least favorite death: Quite a few dumb ones in S8 have become forever infamous. Missandei sticks out, and for me Varys too just as much because of how the writing pushes him to do the dumbest thing he could possibly do purely for the sake of killing him off ten minutes into the penultimate episode. But no one belongs here more than Daenerys Targaryen, killed at the height of a rushed and uncertain villain reveal by a man who takes advantage of their romantic history (who is also her family, because Targaryens) to stab her in a moment of vulnerability - pretty much only because another man tells him that Daenerys is the final boss. Narratively speaking that might be the case, but even so this is the end result of multiple seasons of middling-to-bad buildup. Not even Drogon burning the symbolism can salvage that. Also Fire Emblem: Three Houses did this scene and did it better.

#7 Season 5

...Yeah, we're going to have to go there.

Sansa's rape is not a plot point that personally touches me much. It's terribly framed in the moment and the followup in later seasons is inconsistent at best, but it's not a kind of trauma I can relate to. On the other hand, in the very same episode Loras is tried and imprisoned for homosexuality, and Margery faces the same punishment for lying for her brother. That hits much closer to home, not just for the homophobia but also for the culture war undertones of the not!French Tyrells persecuted by a not!Anglo fanatic who later reveals himself to be the in-universe equivalent of a Protestant. The trial is just one part of Cersei's shortsighted scheming, just as Sansa being married off to Ramsey is part of Littlefinger's, and both of them get their comeuppance in the end...but it's unsettling all the same. I especially hate what the Faith Militant arc does to King's Landing in S5, swiftly converting it from my favorite setting in GoT to a tense theocratic nightmare that only remains interesting to me because Cersei is consistently awesome. What's more, pretty much everything about S5 that isn't viscerally uncomfortable is dragged out and dull instead: the Dorne arc, Daenerys's second season in Meereen, Arya in Braavos, Stannis and co. at Castle Black. The most any of these storylines can hope for is some kind of bombastic finale, and while several of them deliver it's not enough to make up for what comes before, or how disappointing everything here builds from S4. S4 has Oberyn, S5 has the Sand Snakes - I think that sums up the contrast well.

Highlight: S5 does get stronger near the end. As much as his character annoys me I did like the High Sparrow revealing his pseudo-Protestant bent to Cersei just before he imprisons her, and there's a cathartic rawness to Cersei's walk of atonement where you can both feel her pain and humiliation and understand that she's getting exactly what she deserves (and this is what leads into the climax of S6, so it deserves points just for that). The swiftness of Stannis's fall renders his death and that of his family a bit hollow, but it's brutal and final and fittingly ignominious for a character with such grand ambitions but so little relevance to the larger story. The fighting pits of Meereen sequence is cinematic if nothing else, and even the resolution to the Dorne arc salvages the whole thing a tiny bit by playing into the retributive cycles of vengeance idea (and Myrcella knows about the twincest and doesn't care, aww - no idea why that stuck with me, but it's cute all the same). Oh, and Hardhome...it's alright. Not great, not crap, but alright.

Favorite death: I don't know why, but Theon tossing Myranda to her death is always funny to me. Maybe because it's so unexpected?

Least favorite death: Arya's execution of Meryn Trant is meant to be another one of the season's big finale moments, but the scene is graphic and goes on forever and I can't help but be grossed out. This is different from, say, Shireen's death, which is supposed to be painful to witness.

#8 Season 7

I can't tell if S7's low ranking is as self-explanatory as S8's or not. At least one recent retrospective on GoT's ruined legacy I've come across outright asserts that S7 is judged less harshly in light of how bad S8 was. If it were not immediately obvious by where I've placed each of them, I don't share that opinion.

Because S7 is just a mess, and the drop-off in quality is so much more painful here than it is anywhere else in the series except maybe from S4 to S5 (and that's more about S4 being as good as it is). The pacing ramps up to uncomfortable levels to match the shortened seasons, the structure pivots awkwardly halfway through from Daenerys vs. Cersei to Jon/Dany caring about ice zombies, said pivot relies largely on characters (mostly Tyrion) making a series of catastrophically stupid tactical decisions, and very few of the smaller set pieces land with any real impact as the show's focus narrows to its endgame conflict. As with S6 there are still some good ideas, but they're botched in execution. The conflict between Sansa and Arya matches their characters, but the leadup to that conflict ending with Littlefinger's execution is missing some key steps. Daenerys's diverse armada pitted against Cersei weaponizing the xenophobia of the people of King's Landing could have been interesting, but there's little room to explore that when Cersei keeps winning only because Tyrion has such a firm grip on the idiot ball and when Euron gets so much screentime he barely warrants. Speaking of Tyrion's idiot ball, does anyone like the heist film-esque ice zombie retrieval plotline? Its stupidity is matched only by its utter futility, because Cersei isn't trustworthy and nobody seems to ever get that.

And how could I forget Sam's shit montage? Sums up S7 perfectly, really. To think that that is part of the only extended length of time the show ever spends in the Reach....

Highlight: A handful of character moments save this season from being irredeemable garbage. As you can guess from my screencap choice, Olenna's final scene is one of them, even if Highgarden itself is given insultingly short shrift. S7 also manages what I thought was previously impossible in that it makes me care somewhat about Ellaria Sand, courtesy of the awful death Cersei plans for her and her remaining daughter. The other Sand Snakes are killed with their own weapons, which shows off Euron's demented creativity if nothing else. I like the entertainingly twisted choice to cut the Jon/Dany sex scene with the reveal that they're related. And, uh...the Jonmund ship tease kind of makes the zombie retrieval team bearable? I'm really grasping at straws here.

Favorite death: It's more about her final dialogue with Jaime than her actual death, but again I'm going to have to highlight Olenna Tyrell here for lack of better options. She drops the bombshell about Joffrey that the audience figured out almost as soon as it happened but still, makes it plain what I've been saying about how Jaime's arc has never really been about redemption, and is just about the only person to ever call Cersei out for that whole mass murder thing. There's a reason "I want her to know it was me" became a meme format.

Least favorite death: There aren't any glaringly bad deaths in S7, just mediocre or unremarkable ones. I still think the decision to have Arya finish off House Frey in the season's opening rather than along with their father at the end of S6 was a strange one that doesn't add much of dramatic value.

[scifinal]

DW s12e10: It's Quite Unfortunate That This Child Keeps On Regenerating

It's only fitting that the first post on a blog called "SciFinal" should be about a season finale.

Not that fitting is the fact that in said post I'm going to begin where it all started for me.

Part One: How I Even Got into This Mess of a Show in the First Place

While I call myself a huge Doctor Who fan, even a – *gasp* – Whovian, I must admit I am not as familiar with the franchise as I would like to be; I've seen the new show, I've seen Torchwood (though, admittedly, I had to force myself to finish the fourth season – but that's a story for another day), I've listened to a handful of audio dramas (including Kaldor City, which I consider to be canon for both DW and Blake's 7) – mostly Torchwood audio dramas, but who cares, – I've read a couple of comics, I've got a novel or two somewhere on my bookshelf, I've seen the first couple of seasons of the classic show, but that's about it. I can't say I grew up with it – it wasn't on TV when I was a kid, there isn't an official Ukrainian dub, et cetera, et cetera. I first heard about it when I was about thirteen, when my classmate did a project about something they liked – and was pretty dismissive of my peers' hobbies at the time, believing myself to be somewhat above them, so I didn't pay much attention.

Then somebody finally pressured me into watching it (I believe I was fifteen or something back then) and I loved it. The first two episodes of the first season, I mean. I watched those, texted my friend something like "consider me a Whovian now!" and abandoned the show completely only to return to it maybe several years later.

I loved it. This time, for real.

Doctor Who has been with me ever since that time, it has a big soft spot reserved for each and every Doctor ever in my heart, and for each and every companion. I know full well it's cheesy, and it's stupid, and it's technobabble-y, and it's glorious in all of its cheesy technobabble-y stupidity.

And I hate this finale.

Part Two: Doctor, Why

I hate this finale – because I hate Chris Chibnall. Mind you, not the gentleman himself (I don't even know what he looks like, and I can't be bothered to Google), I hate what he did to Doctor Who.

Now, when it was revealed that the would replace Steven Moffat I felt... nothing. What did you expect? I had no idea who the man was. I know now he's made Broadchurch, and I know he wrote a bunch of stuff for Torchwood back in the day, including Cyberwoman. I had to drop Broadchurch because of how well-handled the depressing atmosphere was, and I love the flawed, dumb, sexy-cyber-bikinied, almost-fifteen-minutes-of-Ianto's-whining-including (I know because some time ago I literally cut almost every single moment of Gareth David-Lloyd whimpering, moaning, groaning, screaming, and mugging at the camera out of the episode and made those bits and pieces into a beautiful clip show called "I HATE THIS" to explain exactly why his face was and still is so punchable) mindless fun that is Cyberwoman (this is also one of the two episodes in which they actually do something fun with the pterodactyl living inside Torchwood's underground base). The latter also led to the creation of one amazing in how it develops Ianto's character audio drama entitled "Broken". I love Broken. I am now forcing you to look at its cover because of how much I love it.

Here we go. Now, back to the point of me rambling pointlessly

In his video "Sherlock Is Garbage, and Here's Why", a well-known YouTuber hbomberguy pointed out how Steven Moffat's problem is that he is more than capable of writing a good one-off episodes, but ultimately fails at managing multiple complex, overarching stories, as visible when you look at the difference between Moffat's individual episodes and his run on the show.

Now, I believe that Chris Chibnall suffers from the same affliction: he's a good screenwriter but a terrible, terrible showrunner. Sure, he's made Broadchurch, but Broadchurch, in its essence, was a complete singular story with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There were no bigger, incomplete arcs expanding at the expense of other episodes, and the show did exactly what it was originally designed to do: it told an uninterrupted story.

Here comes Chris Chibnall's run on Doctor Who.

Now, while Steven Moffat was ultimately not very good at managing overarching stories, he tried to do so nonetheless, and the fans seemed to like his attempts. And while I can't be sure as to whether it was Chris' original vision for the show or he and his co-writers were merely trying to emulate Moffat, he attempted the same. A friend of mine has even pointed out how, to her, it was painfully obvious how the writers of the finale were desperately trying to copy Moffat's style (to give you some context, she grasped it from a 30-second clip of the CyberMasters' reveal, and that clip basically consisted of me filming my laptop's screen and laughing at their design, making the video wobbly and the audio distorted). At the time of writing this post this friend hasn't seen a single episode of Chibnall's era and, as far as I know, has no wish to do so – mainly because of two reasons that both have something to do with the finale:

Somebody's already spoiled it for her, so who cares;

I ranted to her about how shit this finale is and now she hates everything about Chibnall era.

I am very sorry for the latter, since I genuinely believe there are some nice episodes in these seasons, and I especially like the "historical" ones, they really are quite a lot of fun, I like Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison fighting badly CG-ed alien scorpions, I love Lord Byron and Mary Shelley running around a haunted house trying to escape from a Cyberman (even though it's all too similar to the Agatha Christie episode from Russel T Davies' run), I adore that episode about Rosa P–– oh, wait, no, that one was crap and ripped off Blake's 7... Anyway, I love Jodie Whittaker's Doctor, I am a big fan of Graham, I like Ryan just fine, and I can put up with Yaz, even though it's been two seasons and I've still got no idea what's her personality supposed to be, and I absolutely love the new Master (he reminds me of a cute little pug with a big Tommy gun). There is plenty of good stuff in these two seasons, they are lots of fun to watch, but this finale... Oh god, this finale.

Part Three: We Had All of Time and Space at Our Fingertips and We Ended Up with This

We are getting to the point of this whole thing. I would love to begin with the obvious, the twist, but there's so much wrong with this who-cares-how-many-parter than this one big thing.

It is inept. It is impotent. It is incompetent. It is bad at almost everything except its okay camera work, somewhat good (for a British TV show, I mean) effects, and its really solid performances.

Its editing is tone-deaf to the extreme. There is a moment in the final episode where Ko Sharmas asks who will be the first to cross the Boundary and step into the unknown, and immediately it cuts to Yaz walking towards it, all fast and silent. I would love to show you a clip of it, but I don't have one and I can't force myself to download the episode and sit through this shitshow again just to present you with a ten-second clip. Nonetheless, that part is not edited like a dramatic moment. You edit comedies this way. Bad comedies. Bad editors edit bad comedies this way.

Its plot is incoherent. There are several plot threads in this finale, and they're managed in a way that doesn't make the viewer care about all of them at the same time, rather the viewer goes "oh, I've completely forgotten this was happening" and then, before they can even begin to care, the show cuts to something else. It's all over the place and oh so annoying.

The plot armour is painfully obvious despite every attempt to disguise it. There wasn't a single, solitary second when I believed the Doctor was really going to sacrifice herself and, lo and behold, here comes the old guy ex machina to do it for her. The only questions I was asking at that moment were "How are the writers going to prevent the Doctor's death now that they've seemingly created themselves a way to go on forever?" and "How can Whittaker care so much about her performance in this scene she's literally almost crying?". I wholeheartedly related to the Master asking "So why are we still here?" and shout–– hiss–– mumbl–– whatever-ing "Come on, come on, come on!" – at that point I've suffered through at least forty-five minutes of utter nonsense, people going preachy, religious Cybermen with Dalek motivations, that absolutely ludicrous scene in the previous episode when the show was trying its worst to make me perceive autonomous flying Cyber-heads with laser eyes as a serious threat, a shit twist and... Oh.

I've got to finally touch on the shit twist, haven't I?

It doesn't make sense. No, I mean it. I guess it makes sense from the show's writers' standpoint to retcon everything in a way that would allow them to go on forever without having to come up with a way to circumvent limited regenerations, yes. And I won't be touching upon all the lore people say this twist has ruined. No. It doesn't make sense as it is.

The twist is revealed to us by a madman that claims to have hacked into a database, claims to possess control over the Doctor's mind, and gives the Doctor and the audience no actual solid proof that the Timeless Child is, indeed, the Doctor. We have Ruth, sure, and she's nice enough (damn, I want that vest), and she's a Timelord that happens to own a TARDIS that looks like a blue police telephone box, and she calls herself the Doctor. Here's Ruth:

I really like Ruth. She also makes no sense from the show's timeline standpoint, since the Doctor's Type 40 TARDIS only got stuck looking like a police box in 1963, so there's no reason for the Doctor to not remember being her.

We also know that the Judoon have identified Ruth as "the Fugitive"... except in one of their previous appearances in the show they weren't able to identify their targets exactly and thus were seeking out non-humans. There is a possibility that they were only looking for a Time Lord on Earth.

You know what? It's possible that Ruth is actually the Master messing with the Doctor. I have just as much proof of this as I have of the fact that the Doctor is some kind of an endlessly regenerating superbeing.

But this is not the most maddening thing here. I loathe it, but I don't loathe the twist itself: I loathe its lifelessness, I loathe how empty, how unemotional, almost robotic it feels. When somebody'd spoiled the finale for me, I got angry, and I started asking questions, and when later I saw the actual thing...

This gif. I can't even explain how accurate it is. I stood there, in the middle of my kitchen, episode paused, holding a cup of cold tea and desperately looking around as if in my surroundings I could somehow find that emotional reaction that this show failed to evoke. I was ready to burst into tears of how empty it felt, and how empty I felt, and how the same show that has Christopher Eccleston go from literally foaming at the mouth with pure hatred to shocked silence in a matter of second because of one sentence that you, a viewer, can't help but be astonished by failed to make me feel the tiniest speck of literally any emotion. And slowly, I felt that vast void in my chest fill with sheer, pure, flaming hatred for the person who made me feel nothing, for the story that left me not bored – but empty.

And the next moment, in its own unique way of being absolutely tone-deaf, the show introduces the CyberMasters, looking ridiculous, being asinine in concept, making me burst into laughter with their dumb design. Wow.

So.

Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who is no longer a show. Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who isn't even, as somebody on Stardust said, a fan fiction. It's a rollercoaster. A lackluster rollercoaster that lifts you from the vast caverns of frozen hell, devoid of any life whatsoever, soulless and abandoned, to the heavenly torture of being so bad, so utterly awful and ridiculous, that you can't help but laugh as you watch something you used to love be distorted and deformed to the point where you can't recognise it anymore nor really care. This is what Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who has become. And I'm going to continue my ride on that grotesque rollercoaster. I'm going to pirate that ride and get on it again. Because I'm a masochist. Because I want to feel something, even if it's hatred towards those that make me feel nothing.

Because some time ago my fifteen-year-old self watched the first season and learned a lesson that I hold dear after all these years – that I can't abandon hope, and that someday, somehow, things are going to get better. That the future is being written right now. That the future can change.

[pamiedrawnic-acid]

Re:Zero Review

Borrowed photo

Ola! It's been a while since I made a review and I think this is the 4th time that I'll be reviewing an anime. Oh well, me reviewing something means this show is really amazing cause I got a lot of beautiful things to say about it. Yes, I only want to review things I've found beautiful because it's really not in my nature to rant about something since it's really tiring and I hate negative thoughts! 😆

Well, let's get down to the business, first things first, what's with Re:zero?

Re:zero or starting life in another world is what exactly the title tells us about. It's a story of a typical shut in guy who suddenly got into another world, with this story a game-like world, set in a medieval era, where magics were not a very unusual thing and where humans and humanoids live together. Fortunately, our protagonist, Subaru, was very fond of playing games so he had already an idea on how to start or how to literally "play the game." Such a generic story isn't it? It's supposed to be but it's actually not.

Normally, in such stories, the protagonist is supposed to have an unknown ability that will only be released when the situation calls for it. Most of the time it would later on revealed that the protagonist in an important part of the world, either a part of the royal blood, a saviour, a god etc. Also in some stories, there would even have a character who would appear in front of the protagonist and explain whatever is happening. Likewise with how Subaru expected it, I was also expecting for the same thing. However, what happened was really unexpected.

[SPOILERS ALERT] He died but then he was reset to his last save point; literally like a game. The difference was, he would not know where or when was his save point unless he would die and be reset. Also, this ability of him do not allow him to have any choice. Once he died, he would automatically go back and complete his mission, which he still needed to figure out. The only rule is that, he would die over and over unless he could solve the mystery or found the "happy ending." Thus, "quitting" was not an option.

At first I thought that it was such a very convenient ability. At least you'll have another chance, not just once but as many as you want until you find the happy ending. But as I moved to each episodes and as the story goes deeper I've realized that NO it's not very convenient.

Subaru can reset from death thus, if there was something not good happening with his life, with his friends or even with the kingdom, which would result to their deaths, then he was the only one who could change it. Imagine the pressure and the burden that he was carrying?!

Subaru did not have any choice but to go over and over into an ugly situation not until he could find the solution

Have you tried solving a math problem that needed you to go over from the scratch because you know somehere in between you made a mistake but can't find it so you have to do it again? Or a science experiment that ended in a bad result so you need to go back to procedure 1? A project, a drawing, or anything~ anything that you were doing but did not go well so you have no other choice but to do it again, over and over, not to mention that your only option was to finish it. Frustrating isn't it? Imagine how frustrated, irritated, desperate and tired Subaru was? Not to mention all the time he needed to go back just to witness the death/s of the people around him.

Lastly, [SPOILERS ALERT] Subaru's ability was actually a cursed from some witch, which he couldn't tell to anyone because everytime he tried to, the witch would squeezed his heart to the point that he could almost die. Out of desperation, he actually tried to tell it to someone but that someone died. Imagine how difficult it was for Subaru to face everything alone? No one could understand him not because he didn't want them to but because he COULDN'T. (cursed that witch I definitely wanted to tear her apart! 👹)

I've read a lot of comments from somewhere on how people disliked Subaru because he was a helpless, hopeless, useless boy. Because he did not have any special power or because he was weak. Well, after all he had been through, is he still useless?

Yes, he showed us the time when he almost quit even resorting into running away because he had failed so many times and thought that there was no other choice but to leave. He showed us his frustrations, desperations, helplesness and weaknesses, that he actually admitted and you hated. Well, on the other side of the note, I commend the writer for doing a great job because I believed that, that really what he wanted you to feel. Congratulations! You've been his victim! 🙊 Going back, Subaru really became a hateful character those times but if you are going to watch the anime and try to put your feet into Subaru's you will understand me or perhaps him.

He was disheartened for who knows how many times. He was fighting all by himself. Despite of having his friends and allies who supported him with his actions and especially to those who gave him courage and moral supports, no one really knows what he was going through. He was all ALONE. But still at the end of the day he would always proved to us how strong he was; mentally and emotionally, and that, stories only ends once you've reached the happy ending so life's goes on until you became happy! Quitting was never an option!

The only downside I've seen with him is that [MAJOR SPOILER] when he did not choose Rem despite of all the things she had done for him and even asked her to help her save Emilia, the woman he trully love. He was such a cruel man, a fact that actually Rem accepted and even told him outloud which he actually agreed with. However, despite of that, I still believed that he only showed how faithful he was to the woman he love. For me he was a man of word who knows how to fulfill his promises.

I'm sorry for defending Subaru so much but I really like how his character was made in this story. Everything, including his downsides, just fell rightly into the plot and that was something you wouldn't find mostly in the animes now a days. Another thing is that, I really liked how he could accept his own flaws but would still do something to compensate with it and not to be a burden to all the powerful people around him. He was the weakest but he was also the embodiment of willpower and unending hope which made him the strongest!

Story wise, as I've said, it was a very typical but was also different at the same time. It actually gave me the feeling that it was something that I've seen before but actually I haven't. I think it's because of how the story was narrated by using the main character. The writer was actually succesful in making me experience what the main character is going through, as if I am Subaru himself. Both of us learned things about the realm at the same time. Both of us believed that some things will happen, like on a typical story, but then will hit us the least that we have expected, as if both Subaru and I were played by fate. For example is what I have said from above, when Subaru first arrived on the kingdom and he thought that since he was summoned in a different world he would definitely have a super power, which made me believed also, but he actually never had. He also remained as an outsider, someone who do not hold so much of a power, a weak human with no special fighting ability except for his naturally strong body and an incredible amount of willpower. He was not revealed as a saviour but he made himself as the saviour of the kingdom. In the end, his journey to the other world actually made him a better man; wiser and stronger mentally and emotionally.

Overall, this story was very unique on its own way. Every seconds of each 25 episodes was worth watching as you wouldn't want to missed any sudden heart attack moments and important information that will be necessary for the future. It was actually a dark story that gets a little bit of depressing but would lighten up in the end. It's a complete pack of action, drama, suspense, mystery, romance and comedy with a bonus of life lessons and words of encouragement. YOU DON'T QUIT, YOU ONLY CHANGE YOUR PLAN and STORIES ALWAYS ENDS WITH HAPPY ENDING; It's not yet the end if it's not happy.

I can actually give this series a 10/10 score if not because of the hanging questions they left after the last episode. I hope this would be answered on the next season (if there will be!). I've heard that there will be an OVA but I don't think it will be enough to tackle everything and give the story a solid conclusion. This is the kind of anime that worth having more season! Anyway whether they'll decide to give it a season 2 or not I will still recognize this anime as one of the best I've watch for being unique and unpredictable as well as for having a well constructed story and characters.

Rating: 9/10 - highly recommended

[renaite]

"Hm..."