#and doesn’t have as big an impact or impression with viewers

[theblackdragon-studios]

Rereading this I want to clarify-even though no one asked or called me out on it-that I am referring to mystery villains that pop up in the middle of the story that aren’t established as villains at the start of the show or game or whatever, or as the final boss especially. They just get introduced and you’re supposed to accept that this is the Big Bad now. Not the character you spent at least a whole season watching and thinking this is the final boss I am eager to see the heroes defeat.

I will give DB some grace…they were a small studio working for a big company that very likely wanted their show to fail. They did what they had to to keep people watching, and I don’t know this for sure, but I don’t think they had much time to do things.

However, I want to give some examples of villains that showed up halfway through the source and that are the Big Bad that worked:

Fire Lord Ozai from Avatar: The Last Airbender

Emperor Belos from The Owl House

Ganondorf from Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Demise from Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Odin from God of War 4 & Ragnarok

-

Ozai: It was made clear in the very first and second episodes of the show that Zuko was not the main threat. Ozai is mentioned at least twice in that time, and Zuko being a prince makes it obvious he isn’t the one in charge.

When General Zhao enters the picture, we still know Ozai is the main threat. Though it helps that Zhao is killed at the end of season 1, I think it was…when the Water spirit drags him under and into the Spirit World. Plus his motivation wasn’t very big. He just wanted to be the one famous for slaying the spirit of the moon…never planned to take Zuko or even Ozai’s places or anything.

Azula was also established as being motivated by her unfailing devotion and loyalty to her father (and a resentment toward Zuko) and while she was the most entertaining and eerie villain in the series, we are made aware very early into her introduction that she is just another pawn in Ozai’s war strategy.

Belos: The first episodes of TOH are mostly episodic, building up the world you’re entering and exploring while hinting at the darker elements as it progresses. From wild magic being illegal to weirdos being imprisoned, then the school system and Lilith’s introduction.

There wasn’t an established central villain in that show before this. As far as the audience knew, it was a dark comedy in a magical land but soon it is revealed there is someone behind all these decisions and rules, and that that is the bad guy (though I was told he tricks you and the hero into thinking he’s not a few times…but that’s fine. Because he is still established as the Big Bad and those trickery moments make you hate him even more. Then you learn what a scumbag he truly is when you get his backstory.)

Ganondorf: Twilight Princess (and A Link Between Worlds, but that one reveals the twist much sooner) is the only game I have knowledge of in the franchise (meaning there could be others) where you spend most of it believing the Big Bad is the villain you hear about most of the game (Zant, in this case). Only to learn during his boss fight that he was just a servant of Ganon’s. This would fall under the category of “bad villain reveal” except Ganondorf has always been understood to be the central villain of the Zelda franchise, so him showing up like this isn’t too surprising to veterans of the franchise.

Yes he is a “mystery villain” brought in late to the game, but the clues leading up to it establish why. Twilight Princess takes place after one timeline of Ocarina of Time. At the end of Ocarina of Time, Ganondorf was arrested and we think killed…but turns out he was banished to the Twilight Realm.

But still, he is the central villain of the franchise. Anyone that knows the Zelda lore knows this. He didn’t just show up as a new, never before seen character in that game and steal the spotlight from the villain we’ve been watching and fighting all game (Zant). He is a staple of the series as much as the other two in the trio.

Demise: I’m including him because this is another example of a villain that comes in late, but was established early on as the Big Bad. Except it is different from TP!Ganondorf. Ghirahim is the villain you run into most of the game…but he does make it clear when you meet him that he is working for someone. On top of that, the imprisoned is established the first time you fight him as being an ancient evil that is the true bad guy. There is nothing sudden and “new more evil bad guy, who dis?” about it.

Odin: This counts too, because he doesn’t show up in person until Ragnarok, much like Ozai isn’t truly revealed until Zuko’s return home, but he is talked about constantly. The first game is building him up through dialogue, Mimir’s stories, and side quest stuff as being the Big Bad. Not to mention that’s the theme of God of War: The pantheon leader is the final boss. No one we spent hours with was watered down for Odin to take center stage. They were all working for him, and the villain we deal with in the first game is dead, so of course he can be pushed aside.

Those are a few examples of Big Bads that show up late done well.

Unless your villain we spent hours to seasons following is killed and stays dead, introducing a new Big Bad that is just that character but more powerful is bad writing, in my opinion.

Either you establish from the beginning that the villain we’ve been watching was working for the Big Bad and/or has personal relations to that Big Bad that makes the reveal more interesting, you kill off the other villain, or you show hints at this Big Bad early in.

Don’t be Dragon Booster, basically.

TL;DR: I hate secret mystery villains that have never been mentioned in-story as being a bad guy before they show up half-way through the source. It’s only appropriate if they are established from the beginning as being the main threat even if you don’t meet them for a long time, or the original established big bad is dead and stays dead.

Some examples of this trope done well are: Ozai (Avatar: The Last Airbender), Belos (The Owl House). Ganondorf/Demise (Legend of Zelda games), and Odin (God of War franchise).

👀 Curious about your rant abt Word and Meggy. Also, what are your headcanons for libris for the ask meme 👀

Rant

With Armeggadon it’s not only his entrance into the show’s plot, but also his reveal. As in what he actually looks like. But on top of that: I find secret villain pop-ups annoying. Because they remove the focus from the original villain and make that villain out to be pretty pathetic in comparison. I don’t care how important your ancient evil returned character is to your plot, it isn’t an excuse to water down the villain we have been watching before this new guy has shown up.

Have a mystery villain that appears, fine, but don’t use them to make your central villain either less threatening to pathetic or to redeem the central villain just because there can’t be two villains…or because somehow he suddenly gives a damn about his errand boy-I mean “beloved” son. 🙄

Apparently the writers had stuff planned with him, explaining in DB Academy who he was/is and his history with the war. That sounds interesting, I like that…but in the process Word Paynn has been reduced to an annoyance at best, nonexistent to the conflict anymore at worst. Why can’t he and Armeggadon work together? They have the same goal and the same motivation, and yeah it’ll lead to one screwing the other over in the end…but it gives Word a reason to be a threat still and possibly MORE of a threat.

But no, Word gets his ass kicked then needs rescuing by his ex-friend and then by their children so all four can temporarily beat this ancient evil returned before going back to the status quo (sort of, since Word’s final moments are to cheat at the final challenge of the series for his son then bitch to the judges about why Artha shouldn’t be allowed into the Academy-cause the kid was badly injured at the beginning of the episode…and a hint at redemption for Moordyd going forward) while it’s foreshadowed that Armeggadon is the new major threat to all of them, Moordryd included, who was the puppet he (Armeggadon) was manipulating.

I’m not a fan of this direction with stories. I don’t want a secret mystery villain to take the spotlight from the established villain, followed by the established villain being watered down to be less threatening than the cool new one. Especially when I liked the villain that is being replaced or weakened by this new guy. If they were using it in an attempt to show Word isn’t beyond redemption either, they did a poor job of it.

That’s my rant.

Bonus: Armeggadon’s design is also not great. They were going for ancient battle armor, but it isn’t impressive to me. Makes him look like a hammerhead shark/spider hybrid trying to be a human.

Change the helmet maybe, and he might have a more impressive silhouette. Also a signature dragon. Not the same model of the failed artificial Black dragons scheme Word had in When Darkness Falls.

DB Ask Meme

11. What are your headcanons for X character?

Headcanons on Libris? Well…a lot of them are from my own rewrite project for the show (yes, I have one…but it’s got a twist that lines up with my personal tastes in these things) but one can be applied to that OR the show itself:

Rivett was able to sneak Libris into the Academy through Grey cloaking gear, which made Libris’ colors and texture appearance change so he passed as a hybrid Star-Class of some kind. This was how they got through the Academy and eventually Rivett was able to help Libris evolve.

As for why Libris went through the Academy…probably because Libris is a Black Sheep of the Grey dragons. He thinks differently from them, since he was said to have fought in the original Dragon/Human War. He probably could read the signs as well of another War stirring and agreed to work with Rivett in an attempt to find a way to stop it.

Except much later when he hears the horn, he thinks he was too late and his mind turns to doing what he can to keep the fighting from escalating further. It takes Beau proving he is the reborn Dragon of Legend for Libris to see that all hope is not lost and that war can still be prevented.

If a war actually breaks out later, I think Libris would join the fight again, and this time it would be more devastating because of the sheer size and power of the Evolved dragons like him.

Dragon Booster Ask Meme

[animegirl3476]

Another day, another discourse comparing and contrasting Shoya and Shoko’s relationship in A Silent Voice with Katsuki and Izuku’s relationship in My Hero Academia.

At the end of the day, you’ll never get a 1:1 comparison with these two cases due to the fact that 1) They belong to vastly different genres, 2) One is far longer than the other and 3) One is a grounded character drama and coming of age tale.

But…

I think that A Silent Voice provides a fairly good basis for judging the way MHA handles the relationship development of two characters, where one used to bully the other and an arc of atonement occurs. More importantly, comparisons to A Silent Voice highlight the shortcomings of Katsuki and Izuku’s relationship development and allows me to understand and actually communicate what I don’t like about the way the story handles it.

In my opinion, what sets these two stories apart in the way they handle the atonement arcs of their respective bullies is the way they portray consequences. The big “C” word tends to elicit a hostile reaction from certain fans, who assume that your idea of consequences must necessarily involve the bully character being gratuitously punished and made to suffer as retribution for their past actions. But a consequence is just the “result or affect of an action or condition” and can range in severity, it can have many different effects.

A Silent Voice uses social consequences to prompt change from its main character. Shoya’s bullying results in him being shunned by his classmates and friends, and the story goes to great lengths to show how his actions not only hurt his victim, but that they also hurt people he cared about. His mom has to reimburse Shoko’s mom for the damaged hearing aids (when she is already short on money) for example. Furthermore, the knowledge of his past is something that impacts the way others perceive him, and that change in perception is essential to his arc.

More importantly, A Silent Voice makes it clear to the viewer/reader that despite Shoko generally being a kind and forgiving person, the bullying still hurt her deeply enough to leave a long lasting impression. Shoko is receptive to Shoya’s will to change, but the story doesn’t ignore that Shoko suffered greatly and that the bullying made her sad, frustrated and even angry. Her negative emotions are not overshadowed by her desire to see Shoya become a better person.

The thing that holds me back from enjoying Katsuki and Izuku’s relationship development is the lack of consequences Bakugou receives for his bullying (which is directly connected to the way the narrative denies Izuku both agency and introspection) The hard truth is that Bakugou faces little to no consequences for his past behaviour, and one would think that such a topic would have to be brought up at some point because, ya know…he goes to a hero school. A HERO school, a place where people train to be role models, help people on a large scale and protect those who cannot protect themselves.

The first scene we see with Bakugou depicts him as the opposite of a hero. A mean bully who beats up people weaker than him, and this is emphasized by the fact that he targets Izuku, who has no means of defending himself. Despite this, he gets into UA, which isn’t necessarily a problem because it communicates a major flaw in the system that cultivates heroes (Overlooking certain problematic traits in favour of innate talent and strength) BUT, the information that he used to be a bully never comes up among his classmates in any major or lasting way. We saw his classmates, and even his new friends discuss or think about how much they abhor bullying. The students of class 1A do not like it when people abuse their strength to pick on those weaker than them…yet that never seems to connect back to Bakugou’s past as a bully.

This issue is exacerbated by the lack of attention given to Izuku’s side of the story. In stories that involve the atonement or redemption of a bully, it is CRITICAL that the victim’s side of the story is treated as something equally important to the bully’s side. It’s not something that can just be overshadowed by the bully’s side, it must be focused on in order for the atonement arc to work.

It’s disappointing that Izuku lacks the introspection that Katsuki gets, and very unsatisfying that it effectively lets Katsuki off the hook for literally every bad thing he’s ever done. The ways the bullying might’ve impacted Izuku for the worst is hardly ever discussed because every time the narrative approaches the topic, it always pivots to Izuku praising Katsuki for the things he did right. This is a big problem, because it silences any discussion that focuses on Izuku’s feelings and shines the spotlight on Katsuki instead.

Before I end my little tangent, I also feel the need to say this: Pointing to any instance of Katsuki’s suffering throughout the series IS NOT EVIDENCE OF CONSEQUENCES! Any bad thing will happen to Katsuki and people will proceed to say: “SEE?! Did you see that?? Katsuki HAS faced consequences! How can you say that he never faced consequences for his actions? Why do you want him to suffer?” It’s so disingenuous and it’s a terrible argument that refuses to criticize the text.

[doyou000me]

Love In The Big City series adaptation: Episodes 3 & 4

On Knowing The Story and Characters (and their trash) Beforehand

CW: homophobia and attempted suicide 

I am late in writing this (@lurkingshan I’m sorry if it’s any extra trouble) but… it took a while before I managed to get through episode 4. This week was heavy. I cried. Episode 3 and 4 hit hard, and deep, and I am so very grateful that I read the book beforehand. Even going in prepared, knowing more or less what’s to come, I wasn’t prepared enough. How do you watch this, you who have not read the book and cannot brace for impact? 

After watching episode 3, I thought I was going to write quite a light hearted reflection this week. I took notes on the characters, especially Hyeong/Young-Soo and Eomma/Go Young’s mom, and I thought I was going to write about how we who have read the book are able to see through these characters’ bullshit from the very beginning. I was going to ask how they come across to the viewers of the series who haven’t read the book, and wonder how different our understandings of events and characters turn out. 

Then I watched episode 4, and it derailed everything. 

As much as the prior knowledge of having read the book allowed me to brace for impact at times, I also believe it gave a deeper understanding of what’s going on below the surface - and that makes some scenes, some lines of dialogue, cut all the deeper. 

The focus of episodes 3 and 4 is, to a large extent, homophobia and the fear of how others will judge us. 

We have the mother, who is religious and makes her every move to look good in the eyes of her fellow church goers and God - but I get the impression that the judgement of those around her is what she fears the most. She fights against judgement when her husband, Go Young’s father, cheats on her. She works hard to become successful and prove herself. She sends her teenage son to conversion therapy. She doesn’t wish to meet the person that her son sees as most important in his life, because she doesn’t want to face the fact that, after everything, there is nothing she can do to change the fact that her son is gay. 

Then we have Young-soo, simply called Hyeong in the book. He is a deeply complex character with many layers, and we dug deeper into him after reading part 2 of the book. Long story short, due to his past, he has a very complicated relationship with western influences, religion—and his own sexuality. It all boils down to a deeply rooted homophobia that not only affects himself negatively, but seeps out of him in a toxic poison of mixed signals and harmful actions. 

Between them, we have Go Young. Go Young, who has graduated, has lost his deeper, more meaningful relationships where he was safe and accepted, is struggling to make a place for himself as an author, is forced into a role as carer for his ungrateful mother, and is trying to live his life true to himself as an out and proud gay man. 

Go Young is in a position in life where he needs someone by his side. He needs someone who can support him, help him, share his burden and shine some light in the darkness. He seeks purpose, meaning, understanding—and finds Young-soo Hyeong. 

In the beginning, in spite of all the bullshit he spouts, he gives off an aura of being someone who has a deeper understanding of life—or, perhaps more importantly, he’s handsome, fit, and (once they get to that point) good at sex. In spite of all the mixed signals, Go Young can’t stay away. 

But the more we as viewers learn about Young-soo along with Young, we understand that there is no deeper understanding of the universe and meaning of life. There is little difference between Young-soo and Young’s mother, in that they are both unable to see Young for who he really is. Instead, they see the version of him that they are willing to tolerate, while constantly (more or less actively) working to change him and put him on a course to an “acceptable” life. 

Throughout episode 3 and primarily episode 4, we see how this wears on Go Young and it finally becomes too much when Young-soo denies that there was ever any love between them. We see Go Young come home, and in the harsh light of the kitchen lamp, he makes himself an ice coffee. With efficient movements, he gets the ice from the fridge, then goes to find the pills. Swallowing them down with his coffee drink, he takes pill, after pill, after pill–

And black. 

This scene plays out similarly, if not exactly the same, in the book. His mother’s words, when he wakes up in the ICU, are the same: 

“Don’t try so hard. We all die someday, anyway.” 

These are the first words from a mother when her son wakes up after a suicide attempt. There is no happiness, no relief, no reassurance, in those words. There is no welcome back, no thank God you survived and there is no why would you do such a thing? And Go Young, strapped to the machine, just stares at her blankly, his eyes dry and expressionless, because he has given up and expects nothing else. 

The ones who do welcome him back, who are overjoyed at seeing him awake and remind him that he is loved and that there are reasons to live, are his gay friends. The T-aras are shut out of the room, on the other side of a glass. They’re not allowed to be there, and in the book, they aren’t there—but I am very grateful that the adaptation added them as a hint of light after such a heavy episode. 

It is thanks to them that Go Young finally cried and finally decided to move again. 

Similar to the book, we get a time skip. Young has moved on. He has aged. He still cares for his dying mother, but while the hurt isn’t gone, he knows now not to expect anything from her. And when his own manuscript gets sent to him, full with corrections that Young-soo has made in red pen in an attempt to correct the story of Go Young’s own life, Go Young throws it in the trash. 

“It is not my trash.” 

So move on. Get rid of the trash. Be weary of the trash that others carry with them, and do not make it your own. 

Even if that trash is homophobia, put it where it belongs. 

[markantonys]

wot 1x05-8 Rewatch Now That I’ve Read The Books thoughts! book spoilers ahead

i was never more attracted to mat than i was in this one scene of him looking evil and sick in his cloak with his hood up. me and rand shaking hands on being into evil men

rand is such a baby when they arrive in the big city awwww

and we get to the greatest betrayal of modern cinema: when rand and mat enter the inn room and it looks like there’s only one bed, but then the camera angle switches to reveal a second bed!!! heartbreaking

haha i love this scene with moiraine and nynaeve where moiraine’s trying to give her advice about the tower. moiraine is such a fond mom and nynaeve is having absolutely none of it.

the glorious momentary ot3 that was egwene/perrin/aram

rand says that egwene thought she was “jain farstrider herself reincarnated” is this just a shaky word order and it actually means egwene thought that she herself was (male) jain farstrider reincarnated, or do we have female jain farstrider in this verse? also, i feel like egwene (even if she was very young and perhaps not fully understanding of how the wheel works at the time) thinking that she could be jain reincarnated implies that jain has been dead for a long long time, thus sealing the nail in the coffin of the chances of noal making it to the show (not that i ever thought he would)

i like the change of it being egwene instead of rand who was obsessed with that book. it fits with egwene wanting to see the world and have adventures but rand being happy with his little farm and his everyday life!

The Cauthor Promise!!! i hope this will come up again in the future now that they know rand is tdr - i could totally see rand asking mat to fulfill that promise and kill him and mat being unnerved by this behavior. i’m also very curious how mat finding out rand is tdr will go down in the show since he’s now the only one of the ef5 who doesn’t know (although egwene, perrin, and nynaeve were too busy fearing the immediate danger to rand’s life to have yet reacted to the long-term implications of him being tdr). on the one hand, i could imagine that mat having spent so long fearing HE was tdr, and knowing that rand feared the same thing and still never considered leaving him, would make him more empathetic towards rand and more willing to repay the favor and stick by his side. on the other, wouldn’t it be a gutpunch if rand said “no matter what happens i’m here” to mat when they thought mat was tdr and then mat reacted completely the opposite way upon finding out it’s rand?

also wondering if mat’s memory loss might come into play here. maybe he forgets being afraid that he was tdr and rand supporting him through it, or maybe he forgets this promise they made to each other. i’m definitely expecting the show to milk mat’s memory loss more than the books did - mat was always complaining about holes in his memory but he never actually seemed to be missing anything important, so i think the show will make his memory loss more impactful and tragic in order to beef up his motivation to mess around with a dangerous object of the Power in order to get his memories back. what if he forgets his sisters???? 😭😭

i say this all the time but boy, will galad joining the show!whitecloaks be a hard sell. they did make a distinction between regular whitecloaks and questioners back in episode 2, and showed that regular whitecloaks are less extreme given that guy’s willingness to tell moiraine to seek out aes sedai healing, but i didn’t really pick up on that until this watch knowing from the books that that distinction exists, so to a show-only viewer it definitely was not enough to override the overall impression that all whitecloaks are like valda. and as you guys know, this deeply colored my opinion of galad in the books!

when egwene was clapping back at valda MAN i saw shades of egwene owning elaida in the dinner scene!!! i can’t wait to see what madeleine madden does in future seasons!

interesting that liandrin notes that while the aes sedai are a super powerful all-women organization, there are plenty of other areas of the world where men are in charge. take that, male readers who insist that randland is a whole matriarchy just because women have more power than men among one small segment of the population (channelers).

one of my favorite examples of “non-readers are more observant than some readers think”: after nynaeve’s story about egwene’s fever when she was young, i was thinking “ooh i wonder if nynaeve healed her with the power then without realizing it” only to go online and see readers complaining that that story was repurposed to showcase egwene’s strengths when in the books it was meant to show that nynaeve had healed her with the power without realizing it. i can’t speak to whether the show truly *intended* people to get that impression from the story, but at least one non-reader was able to make that conclusion based on the information the show had provided up to that point!

time for forsaken speculation! i was hoping to analyze all the statues and see if i could figure out who they all were, but yeah, i got nothing lmao all i know is that there are 8 total and it seems to be 4 men and 4 women. so let’s make some guesses based on those numbers!

the women: i feel pretty confident that it will be lanfear, graendal, moghedien, and semirhage. mesaana's activities would be the easiest to be absorbed by another forsaken or cut altogether, and she simply is far less memorable and iconic than the others. lanfear, graendal, and moghedien are all shown to be talented with TAR, and all of them are alive and have an Activity Gap around the time that mesaana is most relevant. i don’t really think that graendal would vibe with infiltrating the white tower (or maybe that’s just what she would want me to think!), but i could easily see either lanfear or moghedien. and seeing as both of them don’t do much during the last battle and their endgame fates are respectively TAR defeat and seanchan enslavement, it’d be easy to sub one of them in as egwene’s adversary who gets defeated in her pre-last-battle TAR battle (if that makes the show). i could also see making just the black ajah responsible for the strife in the tower and not an actual forsaken.

the men: ishamael ofc, and demandred, sammael, rahvin, and asmodean will duke it out for the final 3 spots. this is harder to say who could be easiest to cut, so let’s weigh our options.

demandred: it would be pretty easy to cut him since he’s only really relevant in AMOL, and they could just axe shara altogether and say that that continent doesn’t even exist in this verse. and then taim could be the one to wreak havoc on the battlefield and kill gawyn, which would make egwene’s killing of taim feel much more like poetic cinema. however, demandred is my favorite forsaken and i don’t want him to be cut! there’s also the real possibility that the show will go for taimandred since the books set it up so perfectly and didn’t follow through, so that would be a good way to keep demandred in the show and bulk up his role in the earlier seasons.

sammael: the most obvious solution would be to merge him and demandred since they have the same personality of being obsessed with/jealous of LTT, and demandred is the gucci to sammael’s walmart in that respect, so if one of them had to go i would want it to be sammael. another reason to cut sammael is that it’s basically just a quicker and less emotionally significant version of rahvin’s defeat. the moridin/balefire thing could happen with rahvin in caemlyn and we could just axe sammael and illian.

rahvin: i think that caemlyn being under control of a forsaken is too crucial to cut, as caemlyn is a Home Base and thus this plotline has tons of significance to a number of main characters, namely elayne, rand, and gawyn. (i do kinda think morgase will actually be killed by rahvin in the show since she doesn’t make any huge plot contributions for the rest of the series, and her actually being dead will give more weight to gawyn’s hatred of rand (i initially typed “rand’s hatred of rand” because my brain was ahead of my fingers and then was like okay that wasn’t actually what i meant but it’s true) as well as elayne’s arc of coming into her own as a leader without relying on her mom. plus the show will probably want to cut down on the number of characters wherever it can for the sake of streamlining/simplifying the story and saving money on actors.) and the forsaken who is holding caemlyn getting balefired by rand also feels pretty important, as that’s his first Real Big Balefire Use and also lays the groundwork for “not even the dark one can bring back a balefired forsaken, so we should balefire all of them,” so this would preclude that forsaken being able to crop up later on in the story and take on someone else’s activities. so i do feel that this plotline doesn’t have leeway like the other male forsaken’s do, and thus rahvin will have to stay.

asmodean: potentially controversial statement, but i think asmodean would be easy to cut. he’s important for only 1.5 books, and the only thing he does is teach rand how to use saidin, which any other male channeler could do. sammael and rahvin are busy at this time, so demandred could teach rand and then disappear mysteriously and reappear later in the series. however, it would be difficult to explain why demandred would be willing to teach rand since he’s not a lame ass coward like asmodean. the other option which i think could really work is that taim enters the story earlier and teaches rand, which would be a natural lead-in to rand giving him control of teaching the asha’man. or rand could just not have a teacher at all until he starts learning from LTT. but it IS a really fun and interesting dynamic to have rand and a forsaken working together ish, and pretty unique in the series, so it would be a shame if this was cut or if the teaching role was given to the ostensibly-not-evil taim. UPDATE: one of the statues has a little guitar, so asmodean has definitely made it into the show.

overall, i would most want sammael to be cut and am leaning towards it as the most likely, but i think demandred is also a real possibility, and asmodean would be easy to cut but they probably won’t since he has such a unique role in the story compared to the rest of the villains.

will anything ever be more romantic than rand pulling a sword he doesn’t know how to use on a full ass aes sedai and warder to protect mat?

if i hadn’t already been spoiled that rand was tdr at this point in my first watch i FULLY would’ve believed they were setting up dragon mat and warder rand. the vibes are there!!!!! rand and lan having a warder faceoff to defend their respective channelers!!!

“bless his heart he tries” rand al’thor: a summary

rand looks like such a confused, scared puppy after the exorcism, i just wanna wrap him in blankets!

i wonder if the rand-moiraine convo was filmed post-barney’s-departure in order to set up the whole “moiraine not trying too hard to grab mat through the waygate since she thinks he’d choose the shadow if he was the dragon and went to the eye” thing. i think it probably had to be, or if it wasn’t, then they unintentionally set that up perfectly!

prayer circle for Elayne Bath Scenes in future seasons. they are an integral part of her character and of my enjoyment of the story!

i love the contrast between rand (and nynaeve) hiding out for days trying to avoid moiraine and keep her from finding out mat has something weird going on vs. egwene telling her all about perrin’s eyes and the wolves as soon as she sees her. really illustrates the different levels of trust they have in moiraine specifically and sets up that growing divide in their levels of trust of aes sedai in general.

no life, no love of one’s own, nothing but the seat.................the amyrlin not being allowed to date in the show verse has fascinating and delicious implications for gawene!! not to MENTION that “a wisdom never weds” and egwene having to choose between her personal and professional desires right off the bat in 1x01 now becomes foreshadowing. i think that this change (if i’m right in interpreting that line as meaning it is Genuinely Forbidden for amyrlins to have romantic relationships?) will be another instance of adding more weight and depth to a character/relationship. i personally always enjoyed egwene and gawyn’s relationship struggles and found both sides sympathetic, but i know most of you think gawyn is just being a brat about his girlfriend having more power than him (but that’s not true okay! it’s HARD to date the wizard pope!), so if this layer were to be added, wherein gawyn is not only struggling with dating the wizard pope but also with the fact that he can only have a relationship with her if he keeps it a secret from everybody, it would bolster up his side of the conflict because that WOULD be a lot for egwene to ask of him. just as her putting her job at risk to have that secret relationship would be a lot for him to ask of her. and so it will be all the more romantic when they both decide fuck it let’s make this work!

ok here ends my homophobic moment of making a moiraine/siuan scene all about egwene/gawyn, sorry everybody (no i’m not, i fucking love gawene man)

egwene looking at the amyrlin seat!!!!!! 😭❤️

still can’t get over the PERFECT acting that is egwene’s face journey during “you’re the strongest channeler we’ve seen in a thousand years..............nynaeve al’meara” djfkgj iconic!! i love her your honor!! and nynaeve is also perfect in this scene!

really curious to see how moiraine’s exile oath will come into play later! that’s the joy of the show inventing new plotlines, we readers still have fun surprises waiting for us! although i suppose moiraine never goes anywhere close to tar valon in the books again, so it may not be relevant anyway.

haha now i can see why people fussed about the oath rod being used for this purpose and wondered what the fuck the teleportation painting is and how it works (a ter’angreal whose original intended purpose is unknown, i assume), but i just do not care about lore/magic system rules and will never mind the show bending rules or inventing new ones, for the most part. i guess the abusing of the oath rod - i.e. it being used for something besides the 3 oaths and only the 3 oaths - does become important later in the books, but christ alive i hope they cut the black ajah hunters subplot from the show.

moiraine going “at first i didn’t trust you, but now that i know you, i...............[changes the subject]” is SO iconic jkdjfgh

me @ certain readers re: the opening of waygates: SHUT UP ABOUT AVENDESORA LEAVES!!! SHUT UP ABOUT AVENDESORA LEAVES!!!

who caaaaaaaaaares if channeling can also open waygates. i literally didn’t even remember about the leaves in the books until i saw people complaining about their absence in the show recently. and waygates are barely relevant after book 2 anyway! plus, rafe did say that the leaves opening waygates is still canon in the show and will likely be shown in s2.

baby rand’s anguished little face when he realizes mat stayed behind!!!! i’ll never get over it!!!!!

and [perrin watching the ferryman voice] he’s gone

even after having read the books, i have 0 problem with mat dipping here. a) the actor left so What Else could they do, and this was a very smooth way to write him out of the last 2 episodes all things considered. they unintentionally set it up really well in earlier episodes with mat wanting to return home to his sisters, especially 3 and the convo with dana. my coworker who watched the show but hadn’t read the books was surprised when i explained this behind the scenes info to him because mat staying behind came off like a planned plot beat to him. b) it will make even more sense if they say in season 2 that mat’s still connected to the dagger and it was drawing him back to tar valon to find it. c) so what if mat isn’t the perfect “hero who says he’s not a hero but always does the right thing” already in s1? this will give him an opportunity for character development! which it sounds like they are indeed going for in s2 based on donal’s comments about mat’s s2 character arc. and d) eotw mat is a little bitchboy who absolutely would have dipped if moiraine and/or rand hadn’t kept him on a toddler leash at all times.

1x07 cold open!!!!! incredible showstopping spectacular!!!!! absolutely the best action sequence of the season and one of the best scenes overall. it sets the bar SO HIGH for aiel as warriors, and i absolutely can’t wait to see more in future seasons. imagine ayoola as aviendha fighting like that...........i am so ready to thirst 🥵

and i love what a repudiation of the Martyred Mother Of The Chosen One trope tigraine is. she is in the books too, i suppose, but actually seeing her fight onscreen and die violently of battle wounds rather than pass away beautifully and tragically in childbirth hits different than reading it.

people who complained about her not being veiled the whole time are so silly. if anything, it’s actually MORE impactful to see that rule broken here - she had her veil off, she didn’t want to fight, she was just looking for a safe place to give birth, and her attackers gave her no choice but to keep on fighting without even having time to pull her veil back up.

rand’s inner Mat Stan #1 comes out in full force!! his “he wants to fuck mat so bad it makes him look stupid” episode! the way this episode served so much cauthor when mat wasn’t even in it! man, rand’s sense of abandonment by mat hurts so good. they trauma-bonded so hard while traveling alone together for all that time and then mat LEFT and rand feels adrift!!!

rand vs. moiraine and egwene re: mat in this episode is literally “you don’t know all the facts” “which are?” “i love him” bless his HEART!!!!!! it’s giving “oh, mat kidnapped you, seanchan empress? well, i’m sure he had a good reason.”

i looooooove the change to machin shin! give me personalized psychological torment that sheds light on each character’s deepest insecurities over generic spooky talk of blood and gore any day! and of course it ends up being a really good vehicle for the reveal of rand being tdr.

egwene gifted child impostor syndrome you are so important to me!!!!!

nynaeve apeshit power blasts you are so important to me!!!!! i’ve watched the season 3 times by now and every single time i tear up both at this one and the episode 4 one.

amalisa’s tower backstory was a great addition! it tells us a bit more about how the tower works, hinting that becoming a full aes sedai is difficult and lots of women try but aren’t cut out for it, and also sets her up to have enough experience to lead the circle in the next episode, but also too little experience to keep from getting power-drunk and burning herself and the other women out.

“there is a man they must find. a boy, really.” you didn’t have to come for mat’s life like that moiraine djkfjg you’re already siccing the red ajah on him! i am SO excited to see where this plotline goes. i think it’s pretty safe to say that mat will have a traumatic experience at the hands of the reds (and we know from descriptions of that scene they’ve been showing at cons that at least part of his time at the tower is spent in a cell and suspecting that liandrin wants to kill him) and this will inform his fear of the power, which is a crucial aspect of his character, but one that i always felt was NOT sufficiently explained in the books, at all. like yeah, the power would be scary to any non-channeler, but no one else makes it a whole personality trait like mat does lmao. bonus points if moiraine sending the reds after him is learned by rand and becomes a wedge of mistrust between him and moiraine, since by the end of 1x08 he has a much more trusting and positive attitude towards her than he ever does in books 1-5.5, and it would probably be important for both character arcs that the mistrust be maintained in the show (tho i would also love if they just did not do that and had them be mentor-mentee besties for the next few seasons. a girl can dream!)

“what is it? mat?” egwene notices that rand’s upset and, despite the fact that they all went through psychological torment an hour ago, her FIRST thought is that he’s upset because of mat leaving 🥺 matrandgwene V (with rand in the middle and sibling-spouses mat and egwene) is SUCH a good polycule actually

min.........................................................

brace yourself for a long rambling section!

min is 10000000000000% my BIGGEST regret about reading the books! she is so cool and funny and chill and respectful of other people’s privacy in the show, and my opinion of her was neutral to positive, and then the books made me despise her! and i’m fairly confident that most of the things i most hate about her in the books will not be a thing in the show (her changing herself for rand and insisting on dressing in a way she finds uncomfortable but thinks he would find sexy (and she never realizes that he already liked her the way she used to dress and behave), her possessiveness of him and unwillingness to share when elayne and avi are totally selfless and onboard, her using her viewing to bully them into letting her have a piece of their pie (to use her own gross metaphor), the way she puts way less effort into setting up the polycule than elayne and avi do yet gets to reap all the rewards while they get almost no time with rand, her utter lack of storyline, character arc, personality, interests, or goals outside of Being Rand’s Girlfriend, etc etc etc) and so i most likely would never ever have had a problem with show!min if i’d never read the books.

that being said, i still don’t have a problem with show!min - when i sit back and enjoy her scenes in a vacuum. but the second that thoughts of book!min start worming their way into my mind, i become arthur clenching fist meme djkfjg luckily, this min is so vastly different from my detested book!min that it’s pretty easy to separate the two *while i’m watching*. once i stop watching and go back to my regularly scheduled programming WOT Thoughts, book!min takes over again and i hate the character again. i’m really hoping that by the time min becomes a bigger player in the show, it’ll have been long enough since i read the books that show!min will be able to take over as my mind’s primary min - show!perrin already went right back to being my mind’s primary perrin (and many/most other characters too, but using perrin as the example since i disliked him in the books but am fond of him in the show), so hopefully the same will happen with show!min when we have her for more than 3 scenes. of course, i had significant enough show!perrin screentime before meeting his book counterpart that he was able to maintain a hold on me throughout, and i never HATED book!perrin like i hate book!min, mostly just found him annoying/boring.

going along with the min and perrin comparisons, i saw a good post once explaining how show!perrin is the person that book!perrin claims to be but isn’t i.e. genuinely thoughtful and slow to act, while book!perrin claims he is but then often blurts out other people’s secrets and flies off the handle, etc. and the narrative doesn’t really feel intentional about this disconnect between How Perrin Sees Himself and How Perrin Actually Behaves in the same way that it does for mat and nynaeve. the same is true for book!min. she claims to be a mature and worldly woman, a jaded city slicker, someone who minds her own business and never spills other people’s business around, someone far too sensible to throw her life away and become a fool for a man. but in reality, book!min is a fairly naive and inexperienced girl from a tiny backwater “city” (large town) who constantly blabs other people’s secrets and shares viewings about a person with people who aren’t that person and starts acting like a 14-year-old with her first boyfriend once she decides to pursue rand and gives up her entire life to follow him around and curl her hair and dress “sexy” for him. and the narrative never acknowledges this disconnect.

show!min, though? she hits every point on the first list in reality, not just in her own head. she is actually a mature and worldly woman from a big city (and she comes off as enough older/more mature than rand that her going “but he’s too young for me!” would actually be believable, unlike book!min who’s like 2 years older than him and way less mature), she’s a jaded and sensible customer service worker who is Done With Your Shit, and there’s no way THIS min would sacrifice every scrap of her own dignity just to get rand to sleep with her. there is also no way that rand will be her first time having sex, that was one of the most unbelievable parts of the books lmao rj’s own No Sex Until Marriage (or until you’re with the person who will end up being your life partner) cultural underpinnings came through too strongly for every single character except mat. anyway, show!min even says “people’s secrets are their business, no one else’s” when the gang goes into the bar in 1x08 to ask her what she told moiraine about rand and then actually holds her ground and succeeds in not telling them anything, and i was like wow book!min could Never!! and unless i’m misunderstanding her later scene with rand, she actually did know that he was tdr (or at least the ~Special One~ moiraine was looking for) in that first scene but DID NOT TELL moiraine and instead waited for rand to come to her on his own so she could tell him in private and let HIM decide what to do with the information. book!min could never!

and the fact that Certain Readers whined about her casting and claimed that she’s ~too old~ and ~not hot enough~ (and not white enough lbr) already tells me that the show is taking her in the right direction, i.e. they’re not just gonna go for Sexy Lamp Hero’s Girlfriend Min using the most conventionally attractive (but still Tomboyish And Not Like Other Girls, In A Sexy Way) actress they could find. and thank god for that!! kae alexander brings so much more personality to min in 3 scenes than she ever had in 14 books, and she is so HOT god! if the show can make ME thirsty for min and make certain book!min lovers complain that she isn’t hot, then you know it’s doing something right!

it’s probably the queer vibes that are turning me onto her and certain straight male book!min lovers off of her, isn’t it lmao book!min is arguably more painfully heterosexual than book!perrin (at least he has the occasional mildly homoerotic moment with rand) but show!min gives off IMMENSE queer vibes. i could definitely see the show making her date elayne and/or avi in addition to rand! (and of course elayne and avi dating each other is basically a guarantee.) i also am 90% sure i remember rafe saying something about “people with no gender” in the context of romance and queer relationships in the show (i think it was the q&a where avi’s casting was revealed) which made me wonder if we could perhaps get canon nonbinary min? although i think she’s referred to as a woman in these episodes. still, maybe she could have a lil arc where being forced to be elmindreda in the tower makes her realize Why she’s so uncomfortable with wearing dresses and being treated as female. who knows! this is just wild speculation on my part, but i so would love to see it.

okay so WHAT IS THIS RAND BABY VIEWING????? that does Not look like a randlayne or avirand baby!!! that better not be a rand/min baby!!! i find it incredibly hard to believe that the show, with its progressive attitudes, would pull THIS level of Babies Ever After, by making one of the few women who doesn’t end up having babies or ever show much interest in having babies in the books (bar a couple “oooooh i wonder if rand will knock ME up too!” comments that always felt forced and ooc to me) end up having a baby. my only hesitation is that if they were to split the polycule up into rand/min and elayne/avi, then maaaaaybe min might get the Dragon Reborn’s Babymama arc? but i do have a very hard time seeing the show go that route (esp since the 3 women viewing and the blueprint of alanna’s polycule and rafe’s comments about polyamory in the show seem to be a preeeeeetty good indicator that he’s intending to keep the polycule, though i won’t FULLY stop being nervous until i see it with my own eyes lmao) and elayne’s pregnancy is pretty important to HER arc, specifically, in large part due to the viewing making her take bigger risks (and one could also argue that her pregnancy is politically important during the succession in that it gives her the stability of having heirs already on the way), so i don’t think they could/would cut that or give it to min instead. but if not a rand/min baby, then what the fuck is that baby viewing all about???? i remember on one of my book recaps somebody speculated that it’s a Metaphorical rand/min baby, i.e. it’s the viewing that tells min she’s going to fall in love with rand, but the baby is just a symbol of their future romantic connection rather than a literal baby that they’re going to have together. i could buy that! though i think if that was indeed the intention, it could lead to a lot of false expectations from viewers that rand is gonna knock up min at some point. or maybe the baby is a metaphorical baby that has nothing to do with any of rand’s love interests? hit me with your baby viewing interpretations!

speaking of min’s viewings, it’s interesting that they seem to be much more abundant here than in the books - she has multiple quips about how she knew someone was about to come into the bar. of course, they could just be quips, but at least one of them (when she says “you’re gonna want to move” to a patron just before the gang storms in in episode 8) does seem to be a genuine glimpse of the future, as that patron has no idea about her gift, unlike moiraine and rand, so she wouldn’t be making a joke to him about it. it could also be just some small, comedic dialogue meant more for the audience, just to illustrate that Hey, She Can See The Future, rather than a real indication that she is actually having THAT many viewings. i will keep an eye on this in future seasons!

and we get to The Fight!!!!! time to pull up the diagram i made upon first watch of that scene, which i still stand by and can’t wait to add to when more characters enter the mix (my only edit is that mat is Definitely in love with perrin, not just maybe a little bit):

marcus rutherford, you did NOT have to get right up in josha’s face and stare at his mouth while saying “the only WOMAN i’ve ever loved was my wife,” but you did and we’re all grateful for it. inspired.

also rand goes to BAT for mat here, damn okay!!! he is like “egwene you’re my girlfriend but you do NOT talk shit about my boyfriend”! he just comes out with a whole ass essay about how wonderful mat is when literally nobody asked! in all seriousness, this is, of course, rand projecting about a hell of a lot of things. but also he loves mat.

on a rewatch, there were definitely signs in 1x01 that perrin had a crush on egwene, although i didn’t pick up on them at all during my first watch. and while i remember being initially disappointed and annoyed that they pulled this twist when i’d been so enjoying perrin and egwene as a rare example of a deep but purely platonic m/f relationship, i think that the fallout of the fight goes on to show that it’s really Not That Big A Deal and wasn’t intended to be. when rand and egwene are making up, they immediately brush the perrin situation aside - it wasn’t even remotely the real reason that either of them were upset during that scene. then in the next episode, perrin shows no jealousy of egwene saying she loves rand and even says that he loves him too, and the two of them have a making up moment that’s just as sweet and platonic as all their past interactions were. at most, i think perrin had a teenage crush on egwene and perhaps was initially with laila to get over her, but grew to truly love laila in a deeper way than he’d ever felt for egwene, but laila still knew about the crush and felt jealous (she does say “i know” when perrin tells her he loves her and to me it felt like she was being truthful, like she really does know that perrin really does love her and she acknowledges that but can’t help feeling jealous anyway), and so of course perrin would feel guilty about it and laila’s death compounded that guilt. tldr: perrin’s crush on egwene did exist at one point or does still exist, but it’s a small background piece of his guilt over laila’s death and on its own is almost as unimportant to him as it is to egwene and rand.

that hysterical and angry and hurt and tearful laugh josha does in this scene? boy oh boy, i can’t wait to see him take on taint-influenced rand!

what’s more iconic than nynaeve stirring up drama between the other three and then peacing out to go get some dick? queen shit! good for her!

hilarious that on first watch i was like “aww i wish it had been a slower burn” when lanaeve slept together and then i read the books and it turns out their eotw pacing makes their s1 pacing look glacial

but i’m glad they fucked and that the show did away with nynaeve’s shame surrounding sex! it broke my heart in WH when she had some thought about how she was too embarrassed to talk to HER OWN HUSBAND about sex or something like that. and the show very much can still do the arc of lan trying to push her away For Her Own Good even though they’ve already had sex - in fact, that will make lan’s guilt over ~giving into temptation~ and giving nynaeve false hope for a future together and nynaeve’s hurt and frustration over him pushing her away hit all the harder.

randgwene my beloveds 😭😭😭 “i will always stand by you, you know that. no matter what happens. no matter what comes.” 😭😭😭😭 i am going to make so many randgwene in s1 vs. later seasons gifsets someday, i just know it.

rand: do you think i’d let someone else be your warder? gawyn:

i love that we never see nynaeve with one fewer stitch of clothing, but the post-coital scene opens on her rebraiding her hair, and for her that’s an even greater indication of past intimacy (and of now putting her walls back up) than seeing her redressing.

obligatory #RandThirstposting for that shot of him getting out of bed

dragonmount is still a fun mystery for show-onlys! or i, at least, was like “rand remembers that mountain so that means he’s TDR................wait but he was a baby??? how does he remember the mountain??” the dragonmount + LTT connection (and the extent to which rand shares LTT’s memories) is still to come!

min was “a kid” when she saw tam in tar valon and had a viewing of him finding baby rand (her first ever viewing), so show!min must be somewhere in the range of 6-12 years older than rand. we love to see it!!! i am always relentlessly asking for more older woman/younger man romances in media (and like i mentioned above, even now when they’re both adults, min does look like/vibe like she’s a fair bit older than him, which i love)

tigraine’s face when tam puts his sword down and offers his hand 😭😭😭😭😭 i choke up every time!!! that actress was so absolutely fantastic without having a single line of dialogue. and i really love the change of tam being there and helping her in her final moments and perhaps giving her reassurance that her baby will be safe, rather than her having to give birth alone and die alone thinking her baby will also die alone in the snow, and tam just stumbles across them later.

and we get the 3 beautiful women viewing, which rand thinks is a joke but we know isn’t. (unless they’re splitting the polycule into 2 monogamous ships and it’ll turn out this line was just a comedic easter egg a la mat claiming he was a horse trader, which his dad actually is in the books but isn’t in the show. but that would be extremely cruel of them, not to mention they would know they were deliberately setting people up to have false expectations for a major plotpoint, so i have to believe it’s a legitimate viewing.) i really hope that min does NOT share this viewing with elayne or aviendha in the show (or rand, tho i don’t think he ever learns about it in the books anyway), or at least not until the 4 of them are already in a relationship and then she can go “haha guys i actually foresaw that this would happen!” and they can all laugh about it. but in the books, as i mentioned above, i hated how it felt like min was using this viewing to bully elayne into letting her make a move on elayne’s boyfriend when she went to caemlyn with the embassy, and in general, i felt the viewing was used as too much of a crutch for rj to get the polycule together. even worse, it wasn’t actually necessary because he already had a much better way to make it happen - one polycule member comes from a culture that practices polyamory and thus can explain the concept to the other members and get them onboard with it - baked into the story and just used the viewing instead, mostly. it would feel so much better if the 4 of them come to an arrangement on their own terms because they actually want to, and because aviendha explained to them that this type of relationship is possible, rather than just because min said fate said so.

on the other hand, min fighting fate re: falling in love with rand is the only semblance of a character arc she has, so they’ll probably keep it in the show (and hopefully do more with it and have her eventual coming to fall in love with rand against her better judgment feel natural, like aviendha’s arc, rather than her just randomly changing her mind one day and deciding to throw herself at rand with all she’s got) and i’m not sure how else they could make the audience aware that min has had this viewing if not by having her tell another character about it. hmmmmm. i guess they could have her complaining about it to unconscious rand like at the end of TGH.

maybe the third beautiful woman is actually egwene, maybe the viewing is about rand’s past and future girlfriends. here’s how min/rand can still lose-

actually now that i say it, egwene in the polycule is a fascinating idea...........i remember that the egwene/rand/elayne vibes were really strong in TGH/TDR! egwene was constantly thinking about how pretty elayne is! and when they met bain and chiad, egwene was all blushy about the thought of sharing rand with elayne in bed! and she has good chemistry with aviendha in TSR/TFOH. and she and mat would be excellent sibling-spouses. and gawyn obviously needs to get fucked by rand. it all works! i feel like the show’s strengthening of randgwene is gonna make egwene/rand/elayne into another “ship i wouldn’t have thought too much about in the books but is fire in the show” next season. i can’t wait!

nynaeve apologizing voluntarily for her own wrongdoing! her and egwene joking about sex! book!nynaeve is shaking!

I’ve Read All 14 Books And I Still Don’t Understand Why Readers Hated 1x08 So Much, And At This Point I’m Too Afraid To Ask

even when people are generously like “oh it was only because it was hindered so much by covid” i’m like i didn’t even notice any sort of quality drop?? it’s just as good as the other 7 episodes to me?? maybe it’s my show-first blinders still on too strongly (i do remember that after the episode aired it felt like there was a sharp divide between most show-onlys loving it and most readers hating it)

lews therin is SO hot!! jesus christ!! no wonder all the forsaken have been obsessed with him for 3000 years! and i love how he has his baby in the room while he’s talking politics with a coworker, you never see that with male characters. i remember seeing a long time ago an excellent post about the show’s commitment to Men As Caretakers (this, mat with his sisters, rand with mat and his dreams of being a stay-at-home dad, lan with moiraine, etc). boy it’s gonna hurt in a future scene when we see LTT realize he killed that baby!

also very interesting to me that in our one scene of him thus far, he’s anchored in his connection to his child rather than to ilyena. this and rand’s own beefed up interest in having kids compared to how he was in the books gives me hope that elayne’s pregnancy will actually affect rand’s life in some way! “guy fated to die any day now finds out that he has babies on the way whom he’ll never get to meet” is probably one of the biggest Wasted Emotional Opportunities in the books (and there are A LOT).

“i love him, perrin” “so do i” ef4 polycule is REAL yall

i love rand asking moiraine if it was hard to leave lan behind, he’s trying so hard to bond with his mom and she shuts him down so fast

ugh daniel and zoe’s chemistry is so GOOD!!! i’m definitely predicting that nynaeve blaming moiraine for rand’s “death” will end up causing strain between her and lan and being one of the things that pushes them apart again for their mutual pining slowburn phase (in addition to lan wanting to push her away For Her Own Good)

ishamael: [reveals his actual face] rand and the audience: oh no he’s hot!

love that he just starts caressing rand’s face within 1 minute of meeting him, that really is the vibe in the books. also him pouting that lews therin is stupid in this age and not even TRYING to be a worthy archenemy! i love this actor so much, he brings a sort of playfulness to ishamael that’s so fun to watch. and that’s the essence of many of the forsaken, sure they’re villains but they’re Fun villains (unlike the whitecloaks and seanchan). can’t wait to see more of him and meet some of the others next season!

IS THIS FAT LITTLE MAN ANGREAL MY BELOVED?????? he doesn’t look especially fat, and moiraine says it’s a sa’angreal, but i’m choosing to believe it’s him!!!! i actually don’t remember at all where rand got him from in the books lmao not like i just read them or anything. did he get fat little man angreal from rhuidean, or was that the choedan kal?

nynaeve being unable to listen to the wind is because of her block oooooh i’m smart and know things now

haha i feel like on first watch i, like rand, didn’t entirely realize moiraine would be included in the “anyone who goes to the eye and isn’t the dragon will die” until they have that conversation now. she just felt invincible to me! i love her fond little “oh my stupid son” look when he tries to tell her to stay behind.

okay so WHAT is the deal with the eye in the show verse???? all along i assumed that the characters are correct in saying this is the dark one’s prison and that the show got rid of shayol ghul altogether and moved the prison here, but then more recently i saw readers all saying that show!eye is actually just a seal and and not the prison itself. so is that true and people in-universe just...........don’t know that shayol ghul exists? bc iirc moiraine pretty definitively says that the eye is the dark one’s prison. how would she not know about shayol ghul??? one instance where i am now MORE confused after having read the books than i was upon first watch lmao

so, okay, it would make sense if they think the eye is the dark one’s prison and they’re sealing it up but it turns out it’s actually only a seal which ishamael tricked them into breaking, and i think they only decided to go to the eye in ep 6 when siuan had a dream saying moiraine had to bring the dragon there, so maybe ishamael planted that dream to trick them into coming to the eye and breaking the seal? but HOW WOULD MOIRAINE NOT KNOW THAT THE PRISON IS ACTUALLY AT SHAYOL GHUL????? i was really gunning for them to have gotten rid of shayol ghul completely (it always felt like a mordor knockoff to me) and made the eye the prison, because it would be such a fabulous full circle moment if rand came back here to fight TDO in the last episode of the last season.

rand’s dream life 😭😭😭 the lighting!! he is such a soft sunshine baby!! hair glowing in a conveniently placed light source!! the lord of the morning!!

and the actual baby is THE cutest baby i’ve ever seen in my entire life oh my god

and rand HOLDING the baby??? smiling at her??? +10000 psychic damage. #RandThirstposting. i think that every season should include rand holding a baby, as fanservice to me specifically. rand holding babies, shirtless rand, and elayne bath scenes are all i need out of this show.

ishamael concocting the most tempting situation for rand he can think of: oh and i’ll make sure he knows specifically that mat is around and an integral part of his life, that’ll do the trick

the real answer is probably that mat’s presence in particular is important to rand right now due to how shaken he is by mat’s abandonment. but also, rand is in love with him and wants him to be his spouse and co-parent right along with egwene. matrandgwene truthers rise!

what do you guys think this dream stuff is? like, how is ishamael doing it? is it some kind of TAR or dreamshard shit (i did not understand dreamshards in the books lmao) or is it like an actual manipulating of the pattern into showing possible futures the way the dark one and rand do in AMOL?

me on first watch: this has felt like such an equal society all along, why would they suddenly decide that only the men are in the army here and the women stay behind to protect the city? so annoying

me on this watch: wow, look at the women actually wearing armor and loading weapons! incredible! the books could never!

it IS still annoying though, i really don’t know why they decided to keep that one relic of book worldbuilding when all the stupid Women Can’t Be Soldiers stuff was eschewed everywhere else in the season.

“how can we sit here and do nothing” “i’m standing” ICONIC!!!!!! top 10 loial moments. actually every single line loial has is a top 10 loial moment.

moiraine cradling rand in her lap a la mary cradling jesus in the pieta statue, except she’s holding a knife to his neck, CHEF’S KISS

people really got pressed when agelmar died? i could not care less about that dude. and i’m all for cutting down on the number of military general characters lmao there’s way too many in the books (i think it should be only bashere and mat in the show, and MAYBE bryne only because he’s important to egwene’s and especially gawyn’s arcs, but NO ituralde)

people getting pressed that a circle of 5 or 6 women, two of whom are extremely strong in the power and one of whom (the one leading the circle) has received a good deal of formal training, were able to take out the entire trolloc army by themselves But having no problem whatsoever with the book version of a single man who has absolutely no clue what the fuck he is doing being able to take out the entire trolloc army by himself - misogyny, plain and simple!

even so, thankfully most people i’ve seen have agreed that it was good that the show split up the eotw final battle stuff so that non-rand characters could have something to do. and rand has many many power blasts in his future, i’m A-okay with him losing this one! especially since it felt like a symptom of rj not knowing exactly where he was going or how many books he was going to write and rand’s power levels/ability thus being repeatedly adjusted and retconned throughout the early books.

i looooooove josha’s acting while rand is channeling, you can see so clearly both the ecstasy and the taint of saidin affecting him (and it makes you believe that he really MIGHT go mad with power and break the dark one’s chains rather than strengthen them)

WHAT ABOUT WHAT SHE WANTS!!!!!!!!!! KING ICON LEGEND STAR!!!!!!!!!!!!

the way this perfectly parallels his final book confrontation with the dark one when he gives up a seemingly ideal future because it takes away the agency of the people involved 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 given what a Theme agency and lack thereof is in rand’s overall arc, i love that that seed is planted early on here.

here we have rand giving up his dream life with a wife and a baby and a cozy home because a) it’s not what egwene would want and b) he has a more important duty to the world that must come first. so if the final episode of the show doesn’t end with rand cozy in caemlyn with his wives and babies, finally getting to have that dream life for real now that his duty to the world is complete, i WILL riot!!!!!

back to the circle, which seems to be the most hated aspect of this episode. as i said above, hating that they’re able to destroy the whole army is just plain misogyny. it’s book canon that a circle of multiple channelers is extremely powerful, and amalisa has tower training, and we saw in TGS that a circle of novices led by one trained aes sedai can do serious damage (doubly so when you consider that nynaeve and egwene’s power levels seem to have been bumped up in the show so that they’re unusually powerful for any channeler rather than only unusually powerful For A Girl - and hating that is, again, misogyny - and thus amalisa basically has the power of two nuclear bombs at her disposal).

second, people in the circle can get killed against their will if the leader draws too much from them. this is obviously a change from book lore, and i absolutely love it! circles are super OP in the books yet bizarrely underused, so adding in this huge counterbalance and high risk makes it make sense that channelers don’t just whip out a massive circle all the time to solve all their problems. it will also lend a ton more credence to women being afraid to link with men and vice versa later in the series, and make the level of trust on display when they do link together that much stronger (also, the show had better get rid of “only men can lead mixed gender circles” or SO HELP ME GOD lmao). and just think of how much tenser the cleansing of saidin will be when there’s a real risk that rand might draw too much from nynaeve and kill her and she wouldn’t be able to drop out of the circle to prevent him from doing so!!! and honestly, now that i think about it, it doesn’t even make sense that this isn’t a thing in the books? if anyone can kill themselves by drawing too much, why would a circle create a magic barrier to prevent someone else drawing too much from them, when no such thing exists for somebody channeling on their own?

and finally, egwene healing nynaeve from the brink of death when egwene isn’t supposed to be good at healing with the power. this complaint, i can see now that i’ve read the books, but i still just don’t really care idk it doesn’t bother me. i know this scene was hugely affected by covid restrictions (rafe said that the plan was for egwene to heal nynaeve with herbs/cpr and her wisdom training, and they didn’t find out until the day of shooting that the actresses weren’t allowed to get close enough to make that happen) and so i cut it tons of slack for that, and also, god knows eotw is full of ideas and occurrences that ended up being dropped or contradicted altogether later in the series as rj figured stuff out while he went along, so i don’t mind at all if the show going forward just ignores that this happened haha and they could also explain retroactively that nynaeve wasn’t that badly hurt (her burning makeup IS way less drastic than amalisa’s and the other women’s who were actually killed) and thus it didn’t actually require all that much skill in power healing from egwene. there’s a very clear visual contrast between egwene’s small wisp of power here and nynaeve’s blinding power blast earlier, so little risk of people mistakenly thinking that egwene is just as strong in healing as nynaeve is. egwene’s healing here looks more equivalent to kerene’s, a green with presumably no particular skill/strength in healing.

very interested in how the hunt for the horn will go down! from what little tidbits we’ve seen from s2, it seems it’s just going to be perrin and loial while rand and mat are doing their own thing. i would love for perrin to be the one to blow the horn since he needs more to do and in the books mat doesn’t even blow it at the last battle so what does it matter, but i’m sure they’ll probably find a way for mat to be the one to blow it at falme anyway.

and rand enacts his plan to wander off and let his friends think he’s dead! every time i think of the “babygirl you don’t even know how roads work” world heritage post.

i can’t WAIT to see the others react to this in the next season!!!!! will they believe moiraine, or will they see through her careful phrasing of only ever saying “he’s gone” rather than “he’s dead”? will they think he’s dead for the entire season until they run into him at falme in the finale (at least i’m assuming that will be the structure and tear and callandor will be pushed to a later season) or will they find out within a couple episodes? will mat cross paths with rand before or after learning about his alleged death and him being TDR?

i’m especially curious about the randgwene trajectory. by the end of the season, we’ve had a switch - rand is the one accepting that he can’t have a future with egwene and letting go of that dream, while egwene has decided that she doesn’t want to leave him behind (although i think in their 1x07 convo she’s probably trying to convince herself that being with rand and being aes sedai can coexist but knows that they can’t really). egwene thinking he’s dead and going through that pain will make a Gentle Falling Out Of Love process much more difficult. on the other hand, when she finds out he’s still alive and made her think he was dead on purpose, maybe she’ll be so mad that she’s like “okay we’re broken up for good i’m over you” djkjfg i do think that by the time they reunite it’s likely they’ll go for the angle of, they’ve both changed too much and they recognize right away they don’t fit together anymore and never can, but it will be a much more emotionally complicated breakup than the book version. particularly since according to book timeline, this should be when rand is getting together with egwene’s best friend! what’s gonna happen with randlayne in the show!!!! i would love love love love for elayne to join the waste crew (so much bonding time with rand AND avi!) since the tanchico plotline is mostly about nynaeve vs. moghedien and elayne isn’t strictly needed for that, and then elayne can go to salidar later with egwene and meet up with nynaeve there for the trips to ebou dar and caemlyn, but it feels pretty unlikely that they’d pull her out of the tanchico plotline and make that just a nynaeve solo roadtrip.

also, the implications these randgwene changes have for gawene! i assume they’ll meet at the white tower, which would be the perfect opportunity to lay the groundwork for their romance (an opportunity the books just completely wasted), but egwene grieving rand at the time will complicate that. perhaps in a good way! i could see gawyn being smitten with her right away but keeping it to himself since he knows that’s not what she needs or wants right now and instead choosing to be a good and supportive friend to her. maybe they establish a nice platonic emotional connection next season that will then develop into a romance when they see each other again later on. another couple that definitely needs more time together early in the series but i’m hard pressed to think of a way to make that happen (since gawyn being left behind at the tower and not knowing where egwene and elayne are is a pretty integral part of his arc). i suppose they could dial back their LOC-era romance into only the beginnings of a spark and a flirtation and save their actual getting together for TGS era since they do spend a lot of time together in the last 3 books, and maybe gawyn defecting to egwene’s army will happen a lot earlier in the show if he’s given significant screentime every season rather than only appearing in 1 prologue scene per book (if that) from books 7-11 lmao

i was editing this post right before i went to bed last night and then i had a dream that i was watching s2 and show!gawyn sucked 😭 i don’t remember what was wrong with him but i remember being heartbroken haha manifesting that NOT to happen next season! it will certainly be interesting to now be in the position of anxiously waiting to see how my beloved book blorbos turn out onscreen rather than just tuning in and meeting my screen blorbos fresh with no prior knowledge of them.

SO glad that the girls are ta’veren in the show. “it��s more empowering for their accomplishments to be their own rather than the pattern influencing stuff” and yet somehow a good chunk of the readers who claim that are also the same ones celebrating the boys’ accomplishments at the expense of egwene’s 🤔 and the girls DO have plenty of ta’veren things happen to them in the books, they’re constantly having unlikely coincidences, people blurting out things they wouldn’t normally say around them, etc. i’m curious how ta’veren will be portrayed in the show, i feel like some of the more obvious “ta’veren is just an in-world lore excuse for Everything Happens To The Protagonists” instances could come off kinda corny in the show haha but we’ll see!

so there definitely IS a seal at the eye that cracked, but is that all the eye is? or is that one big seal on the floor just like the Final Boss seal that will progressively get more and more cracked as the small individual seals get destroyed, and the dark one really is imprisoned here at the eye? or ooooh maybe the eye IS a prison, but for the FORSAKEN rather than for the dark one, hence moiraine’s misinformation that the dark one is also imprisoned here?

the seanchan aesthetic here and in the s2 sneak previews is fantastic. i really like how colorful they are, avoiding the “villains all in black” visual cliche and instead going crazy over the top, as the seanchan should be. and the mouth coverings on the damane is a very chilling touch! and i love that they’re speaking a different language, most unrealistic part of the books was the fact that apparently the whole entire world (not only every single country in the westlands, but also seanchan and shara) speaks the same language lmao i do get it for story convenience though, it’s hard to make anything happen if your characters can’t talk to each other. i wonder if it’s the old tongue they’re speaking in the show or a new made-up language. it would kinda vibe if they still spoke the old tongue since they’re so obsessed with preserving hawkwing’s legacy! (if hawkwing was even old tongue times? fuck me if i know anything about wotworld history)

[tutuandscoot]

Things I love about VM: Post Skates

4. They always hold hands/cuddle as they make their way- essentially the whole way back to the boards and don’t make a big deal out their reaction to their skate as they leave, whether it was good or bad.

All these performances ranged from history making/career defining, to incredible, emotional, average (by their standards), disappointing, etc.. but every time, they hold hands- dance hold or proper or even the pinky hold™��- switching between all of these, cuddles, shoulder rubs, back pats, tushie taps, arm cuddles, kisses, squeezies etc.. and they are all 1000% real and genuine. On some level I just think they really don’t like be separated from each other.. they love being close and touchy feely.

Sometimes when teams separate/one lets go it’s to grab a gift that’s been thrown on the ice for them- but not even in this case did TS let go/move away from each other significantly to do this:

One time Scott caught it on the full while they were holding hands, and another time at COR in 2012 as they were just about at the boards he picked up a pair of pointe shoes that had been thrown for T (retrieving presents for her).

Also at nationals before the 2010 olys there were lots of things thrown (because they were at home), including lots of kinda soft red balls, so they both picked one up while holding hands (there are more examples from juniors but I’m talking essentially about seniors).

I understand teams doing this but also, and as is the point of this, it ruins the flow and dynamic between the two skaters and takes you out of whatever, even vague trance you as the audience were left in by the performance. That’s why there are gift retrievers, so the team competing doesn’t have to pick things up.

Yes, the two examples are brother sister teams.. a) sorry that’s just what I grabbed without scouring hundreds of competitions and b) it doesn’t matter.. same rules apply- you are an ice dancing pair - that is the only relationship that matters in these competition scenarios.

The main thing I particularly dislike though, is teams just not holding hands or at the very least skating close to each other as they leave the ice. You should remain a team, maintain a connection till.. really you are out of sight of the audience- so even in the K+C, but at the very least for the whole time they are on the ice. When they separate it doesn’t look like they are a team, it looks like there is something between them causing them not to stay together as they leave, it looks kinda.. lazy, but also unsupportive of each other, and I personally like that there is an element of strictness and rules in this sport- and part of that should be (even if it’s an unwritten rule) maintaining the belief for the viewers of a “partnership” between the two till you are out of sight. on some level it is all a performance- all part of the package (and in TS case it is completely real and genuine as well). Through this small gesture TS extend that impression we get from the moment they step on the ice before competing, throughout their program, and until the last moment we see them that they are a team/partnership/couple, whatever you want to call them, whether they are elated or disappointed, they remain a supportive, inseparable team till the very end. I’d like to say I also believe that teams/skaters should never let up that/if they had a bad performance. I was always taught you keep smiling/exuding confidence till the moment you are out of sight. I’m not gonna say TS always did that.. there were certainly times they let their disappointment show, I would like to believe exiting this way has no impact on the score, but you never know, therefore I think the best thing is to maintain confidence till the end. But I understand it, and I don’t blame them/any skater for it, however TS always maintained a sense of professionalism- they never made a huge deal out of it if it wasn’t their best skate. They didn’t blame each other, nor did they have some big breakdown/ take up time/ make a scene etc.. they always came back to each other and impressively kept their physically and emotions very minimal, and the other always kept whoever messed up/felt bad safe and calm as they made their way off the ice, therefore it was never some big dramatic moment that took you out of the performance you just witnessed.

[themovieblogonline]

They Cloned Tyrone - A Blaxploitation Delight with Stellar Chemistry

Juel Taylor's directorial debut in They Cloned Tyrone is an incredibly fun film. The movie highlights a perspective of America that is often either ignored or misunderstood. This genre-blending movie pays homage to the iconic Blaxploitation films of the 1970s while infusing a fresh and contemporary twist. With an all-star cast led by John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx, the chemistry between these three is electrifying. As the intriguing plot reveals itself, we get pulled deeper into a world where identity, responsibility, and deception collide, leading to an unforgettable experience. The Good: In 'They Cloned Tyrone,' the acting chemistry between John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx is tastier than macaroni and candy yams at Thanksgiving dinner - and believe me, I'm hungry for more! One of the film's undeniable highlights is the incredible acting chemistry between the stars of this movie. Boyega's portrayal of Fontaine is a little mind-blowing. The actor immerses himself in this role, disappearing into an abyss of talent and reemerges as the hypnotic character. Jamie Foxx delivers a character that's as funny and witty as any and gives us a hint of the kind of sketch comedy characters the actor was known for in the 90s with his character Slick Charles. Teyonah is sultry and witty making Yo-Yo not only hold her own but also a scene-stealing character. Kudos to first-time director Juel Taylor, who impressively serves up a delicious blend of blaxploitation elements with a fresh and easy-to-digest presentation. Walking away from the film, I found myself craving for more of its flavorful goodness, wishing it didn't end. The movie feels effortless and just seems very natural in its tone, structure, pacing, and delivery. I really can't say enough good things about how well this movie came together.   The story flows smoother than a fresh set of jheri curls, and that's a fact! What elevates the experience to another level is the seamless on-screen chemistry of our talented leads. It's remarkable how well they mesh together, especially considering they didn't even do rehearsals before filming. Their chemistry is a testament to their talent, making every scene crackle with energy and authenticity. This camaraderie adds an extra layer of enjoyment to this already delightful cinematic treat. As viewers, we get to witness the trio's journey uncovering a government conspiracy. This whole story is just s one big rollercoaster ride you're glad to be on. The Bad: While 'They Cloned Tyrone' nails many aspects, the film's ending leaves a bit to be desired. The last act of the film, while ultimately satisfying, isn't without issues. The idea of Isaac, Fontaine's drug dealing gang rival, suddenly switching sides to lend a helping hand feels somewhat forced. Like, what is the motivation for his sudden change of heart? A more natural transition would have given the story a stronger impact, but it doesn't ruin the film. There is a lot to enjoy for audiences who love to see an Avengers Endgame moment where the heroes all band together to take down the big bad of the movie. Kiefer Sutherland's character is both entertaining and perplexing. His mood swings between merciful and ruthless, all while desperately seeking power and attention. left me questioning his true intentions. It's like he's a rollercoaster of personality traits, which can be a bit disorienting for the audience. This erratic nature makes it challenging to fully grasp his motivations, and at times, it pulls me out of the experience. Regardless, Sutherland's performance is still enjoyable, adding an interesting layer to the narrative.   Overall: 'They Cloned Tyrone' stands as a delightful tribute to the blaxploitation genre while introducing a fresh perspective that leaves audiences eagerly anticipating what the future holds for this unique universe. Whether you're a fan of blaxploitation films or simply seeking an entertaining and immersive cinematic experience, this film delivers on all fronts. Get ready to be swept away by the charisma of John Boyega, Teyonah Parris, and Jamie Foxx as they navigate a world of cloning and government conspiracies. Despite the minor hiccups, 'They Cloned Tyrone' is a must-watch until the very end. Stick around to learn the meaning of the title and discover how the movie sets up potential sequels. Whether you're a fan of the genre or just looking for an entertaining time at home, 'They Cloned Tyrone' delivers a fun experience that's worth a full watch. Its innovative blend of blaxploitation charm, satirical humor, and outstanding chemistry among the leads is a recipe for success. The movie leaves you hungry for more adventures in this intriguing world, prompting you to stay until the credits roll to unveil the significance of the title and the potential for sequels. Read the full article

[simply-intense]

Unlocking Digital Success With Simply Intense : Top Digital Marketing Trends for Trinidad

The Shift to Personalization

One of the most significant trends in digital marketing is the shift toward personalization. Customers today expect brands to understand their needs and preferences. Personalization can include everything from tailored emails to customized product recommendations. This approach helps businesses connect on a deeper level with their audience, fostering loyalty and encouraging repeat business.

Simply Intense emphasizes the importance of creating personalized experiences for customers. By analyzing data and understanding customer behavior, businesses in Trinidad can tailor their marketing efforts. This not only enhances the customer experience but also drives sales.

The Increase in Video Content

Using video content is another trend that is becoming more popular. Videos are interesting and efficient in communicating ideas. Instagram Reels and TikTok are two examples of platforms that have popularized short, attention-grabbing videos. Companies can take advantage of this trend to present their goods, share their narratives, and establish a pleasant and interesting connection with their audience. Trinidad is a creative hub where businesses may create original video content that appeals to local consumers. Simply Intense assists companies in creating engaging video marketing campaigns that inform viewers about their goods and services while also providing entertainment.

Accepting Influence from Social Media

Social media is still a very effective digital marketing instrument. Through social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, marketers can communicate directly with consumers. Influencer marketing is a particularly notable trend. Working with regional influencers can help companies become more credible and reach a larger audience. In Trinidad, influencers have a big impact because of the strong communal links. They can help companies establish a more sympathetic first impression with potential clients by introducing things in an approachable manner. Simply Intense understands the importance of this strategy and helps brands choose the ideal influencers to spread their message.

The Significance of SEO

Another essential component of digital marketing is search engine optimization (SEO). It guarantees that a company’s website appears highly on search engines such as Google. Reaching potential clients and drawing in organic traffic require this. Content optimization for voice search and local searches is becoming more popular, which is particularly important for Trinidadian enterprises. Businesses can attract clients who are looking for goods and services in their area by concentrating on local SEO tactics. Simply Intense, a agency for Digital Marketing in Trinidad offers advice on content and website optimization, assisting companies in making a lasting impression on local customers and search engine rankings.

Making Use of Data Analytics

Digital marketing is changing how organizations approach the platform thanks to data analytics. Businesses can make well-informed judgments regarding their marketing strategies by examining client data. With the help of this trend, businesses can better focus their ads and increase return on investment by learning what works and what doesn’t. Utilizing data might give firms in Trinidad a competitive edge because they frequently encounter particular obstacles. Simply Intense provides Transformative Marketing tips with data collection and analysis tools and tactics to make sure their marketing campaigns are efficient and meet customer expectations.

Using Automation and AI

Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are becoming essential components of digital marketing. These tools can offer insightful data, expedite procedures, and enhance customer service. For example, chatbots can respond to consumer questions around-the-clock, improving the user experience. Businesses in Trinidad may manage their marketing campaigns more effectively by implementing AI. We promote the use of these technologies to raise customer happiness and engagement levels, freeing up companies to concentrate on developing connections rather than being mired in paperwork.

Utilizing Content Marketing to Build Communities

The goal of content marketing is to provide insightful and timely information that draws in and keeps users interested. This trend is all about creating a brand community and telling stories. Content marketing can assist firms in establishing a personal connection with their audience in Trinidad, where culture and community are highly valued. Simply Intense invites brands to use blogs, articles, and social media pieces to share their experiences, learnings, and expertise. By doing this, companies may build a devoted clientele and position themselves as leaders in their respective industries.

Mobile Optimization’s Power

Websites and marketing tactics must be mobile-friendly as more people access the internet through mobile devices. Given the increasing use of mobile devices in Trinidad, this development is particularly significant there. Conversion rates can be greatly increased and the user experience is improved by a mobile-friendly website. We assist companies in ensuring their online presence is mobile-friendly, enabling potential clients to easily browse and shop from their devices.

Final Thoughts

[unitedstatesofworld]

Charles Todd Hill HGTV: A Rising Star in Home Design

Have you ever wondered who is behind those jaw-dropping home makeovers on HGTV? Enter Charles Todd Hill, a name that's quickly becoming synonymous with cutting-edge design and heartwarming home transformations. With his keen eye for detail and passion for blending style with functionality, Charles Todd Hill HGTV projects are nothing short of captivating! Whether you're a fan of minimalist aesthetics or intricate interior designs, his work speaks directly to homeowners who crave beauty and efficiency.

But who is Charles Todd Hill, and what makes him stand out in the bustling world of home improvement? Buckle up, because we’re about to dive deep into the life and career of this rising star on HGTV. Spoiler alert—there’s a lot more to him than just pretty homes!

The Journey of Charles Todd Hill

Before his name became synonymous with HGTV, Charles Todd Hill started as a small-town designer with a big dream. From a young age, he showed a flair for transforming ordinary spaces into extraordinary ones. Whether it was rearranging his childhood bedroom or giving advice to friends on how to spruce up their living spaces, Charles had a gift. But, as with all great stories, it wasn’t an overnight success.

From Local Designer to National Fame

Hill initially built his reputation working with local clients, creating functional yet stylish spaces that people couldn't stop raving about. Word spread, and before he knew it, he was getting calls from clients across the country! But how did he transition from local fame to national recognition on HGTV? Simple—passion, dedication, and an undeniable talent for seeing the potential in every space.

Charles Todd Hill HGTV Breakthrough

Many people think getting on HGTV is purely about luck, but in Charles' case, it was talent meeting opportunity. One fateful day, an HGTV producer stumbled across Hill’s work on social media. Impressed by his ability to transform ordinary homes into magazine-worthy spaces, the producer reached out, and the rest, as they say, is history.

His first appearance on the network was a hit, and it didn’t take long before viewers were asking, “When can we see more from Charles Todd Hill HGTV?” His shows not only focus on design but also on the emotional impact that a well-designed home can have on a family. It’s not just about the paint colors or the furniture—it’s about creating a space where memories are made.

Why People Love His Designs

So, what sets Charles Todd Hill apart from other designers? For one, his ability to balance aesthetics with functionality is unparalleled. But more importantly, he listens to his clients. He doesn’t just impose his ideas—he collaborates, ensuring that every home reflects the personality of its inhabitants. He believes that every space should tell a story, and through his work on HGTV, he helps homeowners tell theirs.

Here’s a glimpse into what makes his designs so beloved:

Personal Touch: Charles doesn’t believe in cookie-cutter designs. Each project is unique to the homeowner's needs and preferences.

Sustainability: Eco-friendly designs are a hallmark of his work. He prioritizes sustainable materials, making homes beautiful and kind to the environment.

Modern Elegance: His signature style is sleek yet cozy, with an emphasis on natural light, open spaces, and clean lines.

The Power of Transformation

It’s not just the homes that get transformed in Charles Todd Hill HGTV episodes; it’s also the people. Watching homeowners see their renovated spaces for the first time is what makes these episodes so emotionally charged. You can feel the joy, the relief, and sometimes even the tears of gratitude! After all, home is where the heart is, right?

Charles' Design Philosophy

Charles Todd Hill believes that homes should be more than just a place to sleep—they should be sanctuaries. His design philosophy revolves around comfort, practicality, and beauty. He often says, “Your home should be the place where you feel most yourself.” And that’s exactly what his work delivers—a perfect balance between personality and functionality.

Why HGTV Fans Can't Get Enough

There’s no denying the appeal of HGTV shows, and Charles Todd Hill’s contributions to the network have only increased the buzz. His easygoing nature and genuine love for design make him an HGTV favorite. Fans appreciate how relatable he is—he’s not just about luxury, but about making every space work, no matter the budget.

What's Next for Charles Todd Hill?

So, what’s next for this rising star? While Charles has already made a name for himself on HGTV, there’s no doubt that his career is just getting started. Rumor has it that a brand-new series is in the works, and if past episodes are any indication, it’s bound to be a hit. Fans are excited to see how Charles continues to push the boundaries of home design, and we’re here for it!

Conclusion

In a world filled with home renovation shows, Charles Todd Hill HGTV has managed to carve out his own unique space. His commitment to creating beautiful, functional homes that reflect the heart of their owners is what makes him stand out. Whether you're binge-watching his episodes or eagerly awaiting his next big project, one thing is for sure: Charles Todd Hill is a designer worth watching.

So, next time you find yourself flipping through the channels and stumble upon one of his transformations, be sure to stay tuned—you just might find the inspiration you’ve been looking for!

[ariaallenblog]

Reach a Wider Audience with Your Movie Trailers: Boost Your Promotion with Buy YouTube Views

Movie trailers set the first impression for your film, showcasing its most exciting moments to spark curiosity and draw viewers to the theaters. However, no matter how impressive your trailer is, its impact may be limited if it doesn’t reach a broad audience. The Buy YouTube Views service helps you maximize this impact by increasing the view count on your trailers.

The Power of Trailers on Viewers A movie trailer provides viewers with a glimpse into the film, building excitement and anticipation. Trailers are the first and most crucial marketing tool for a film. A well-crafted trailer can attract viewers to the film and create buzz. Since trailers play a significant role in influencing cinema choices, having a high view count on your trailer can boost the popularity of your film.

Strengthen Your Promotion Buy YouTube Views enhances your trailer’s visibility by rapidly increasing its view count, helping your videos rank higher on YouTube. High view counts make it more likely for YouTube’s algorithm to recommend your trailer, allowing more people to discover it. This means more people will become aware of your film, effectively strengthening your promotional efforts.

The Importance of View Counts High view counts reflect the audience's interest in your trailer, which boosts the credibility and popularity of your film. A widely viewed trailer piques interest and drives audiences to watch the film. Additionally, high view counts serve as valuable marketing data for filmmakers and distributors, helping them predict the film’s success and shape their strategies.

Reach a Broader Audience With Buy YouTube Views, your trailers reach a larger audience on YouTube and are shared by more people. This service is especially crucial for promoting both big-budget productions and independent films, playing a vital role in the promotional process.

In conclusion, by increasing the view count on your movie trailers with Buy YouTube Views, you can boost your promotional power and reach a wider audience. Amplify the impact of your trailers to enhance the success of your film and attract more viewers.

[my-music-1460]

How to Use Your Artist Profile Picture to Attract More Fans

Your artist profile picture can be a powerful tool in attracting more fans. As an artist, your profile picture is often the first visual introduction potential fans have to your work and persona. A well-crafted image can draw attention, create interest, and encourage people to follow you. In an era where social media and online presence are pivotal for success, understanding how to leverage your profile picture effectively is crucial. This article explores strategies to use your artist profile picture to attract more fans, offering detailed tips to ensure your image captivates and resonates with your audience.

Make a Strong First ImpressionYour profile picture is often the first thing potential fans see when they come across your online presence. Making a strong first impression is crucial.

High-Quality Image: Invest in a high-quality, professional image. A clear, well-lit picture can make a significant impact and set you apart from others.

Engaging Composition: Ensure your profile picture is well-composed. Use the rule of thirds to create a balanced and visually appealing image. Positioning yourself off-center can add interest and draw the viewer's eye.

Show Your PersonalityYour profile picture should reflect your unique personality and style. Fans are drawn to authenticity and personal connection.

Authentic Expressions: Choose expressions that reflect your personality. Whether it’s a genuine smile, a thoughtful gaze, or a playful look, let your true self shine through.

Appropriate Attire: Dress in a way that reflects your artistic persona. Your clothing should be in line with your brand and the impression you want to make. For example, if your art is edgy and contemporary, your attire might reflect that style.

Props and Settings: Incorporate elements that are indicative of your work. This could be a favorite tool, a piece of your art, or a setting that reflects your creative environment. These elements can provide context and make your profile picture more engaging.

Be Consistent Across PlatformsConsistency is key when it comes to building a recognizable and trustworthy brand. Use the same profile picture across all your online platforms.

Unified Brand Image: Consistency in your profile picture helps in creating a cohesive and recognizable presence. Whether it’s social media, your website, or professional networks, a consistent image ensures that people can easily identify you.

Trust and Reliability: A consistent profile picture enhances trust and reliability. It shows that you are professional and dedicated to maintaining a cohesive brand.

Leverage Lighting and BackgroundThe quality of your profile picture is significantly influenced by lighting and background. These elements can enhance the visual appeal of your image.

Natural Light: Natural light is often the best choice for profile pictures as it provides a soft, flattering illumination. Try to take your picture near a window or outside during the golden hour (shortly after sunrise or before sunset).

Studio Lighting: If you’re using artificial light, ensure it’s diffused to avoid harsh shadows. Softbox lights can provide even and flattering illumination.

Background Selection: Choose a background that complements your brand and doesn’t distract from you. A simple, uncluttered background keeps the focus on you. Solid colors or blurred backgrounds work well.

Engage with Your AudienceAn engaging profile picture can encourage your audience to interact with you and explore your work further.

Eye Contact: Direct eye contact can create a sense of connection and trust. It makes you appear more approachable and engaging.

Expressions: Use facial expressions that convey warmth and friendliness. A genuine smile can make a big difference in how approachable you appear.

Body Language: Open and relaxed body language can make you appear more inviting and accessible.

Highlighting Your Artistic EnvironmentIncorporating elements of your artistic environment into your profile picture can provide additional context and interest.

Studio or Workspace: Taking your profile picture in your studio or workspace can add authenticity and give viewers a glimpse into your creative process.

Artistic Tools: Including your artistic tools, such as brushes, instruments, or digital devices, can help convey your craft and passion.

Psychological Aspects of a Great Profile PictureUnderstanding the psychological impact of your profile picture can help you create an image that resonates with your audience on a deeper level.

First Impressions: Your profile picture is often the first thing people see, so it needs to make a positive impression. A high-quality, professional image can convey confidence and competence.

Colors and Emotions: The colors in your profile picture can evoke different emotions. Choose colors that reflect your brand and the message you want to convey.

Facial Expressions: A genuine smile can convey warmth and positivity, making you seem more likable and friendly. Avoid overly serious or neutral expressions that can appear cold or uninviting.

Technical ConsiderationsThe technical quality of your profile picture is just as important as the artistic considerations. A poorly lit or blurry image can detract from your professionalism.

Resolution: Ensure your picture is high-resolution. Low-quality images can appear pixelated, especially when displayed in larger formats.

Aspect Ratio: Most platforms have specific requirements for profile picture dimensions. Make sure your image fits these requirements to avoid awkward cropping.

File Format: Use a common file format like JPEG or PNG to ensure compatibility across different platforms.

DIY vs. Professional PhotographyDeciding whether to take your own profile picture or hire a professional photographer can depend on your resources and needs.

DIY Photography: If you choose to take your own profile picture, invest in a good camera or use a high-resolution smartphone camera. Pay attention to lighting, background, and composition. Use a tripod or a stable surface to avoid blurry images.

Professional Photography: Hiring a professional photographer can ensure a high-quality result. Professionals have the skills and equipment to create a polished and flattering image. They can also provide valuable guidance on poses, expressions, and settings that suit your brand.

Regular UpdatesWhile maintaining a consistent image is important, updating your profile picture periodically can keep your online presence fresh and current.

Reflect Changes: If your appearance changes significantly, update your profile picture to reflect this. This helps in maintaining authenticity.

Stay Current: Periodic updates can keep your profile picture looking current and relevant. This shows that you are active and engaged with your audience.

Interactive Elements and EngagementAn interactive profile picture can encourage your audience to engage with you. This can be achieved through creative elements that invite interaction.

Call to Action: Use your profile picture to direct your audience to other content, such as a new art piece or an upcoming exhibition. This can be done through captions or additional images in your profile.

Behind-the-Scenes: Share behind-the-scenes images along with your profile picture. This can provide a more comprehensive view of your artistic process and environment, fostering a deeper connection with your audience.

Conclusion:

Your artist profile picture can be a powerful tool in attracting more fans. Make a strong first impression, show your personality, be consistent across platforms, and focus on lighting and background. Engage with your audience, highlight your artistic environment, and understand the psychological impact of your image. By following these strategies, you can create a compelling profile picture that truly represents you and resonates with your audience. Regularly updating your profile picture ensures that your online presence remains fresh and relevant, helping you attract and retain fans.

[a2zbookmark]

Top 5 Pinterest Marketing Strategies in 2023

Whether you're a beginner to Pinterest or just looking for tips, there are some important strategies that you can implement now to increase your chances of success on the popular social media site. These Top 5 Pinterest Marketing Strategies that Pinterest is using to dominate the Internet in 2023 are pretty straightforward.  They spend a significant amount of time and money on their site, they use social media effectively, and they work hard to make sure their product images are beautiful. With so many marketers trying to make a name for themselves on the world’s most popular social network, it can be difficult to stand out. If you’ve got what it takes to succeed in this crowded space, keep reading for some helpful insight into how other companies have promoted their business on Pinterest. Here are five of them:

Copyright is a real thing on Pinterest

Whether you are a small business or a major brand, it is important to understand copyright on Pinterest. The social platform is a big visual search engine and a lot of people come to it for inspiration. If you are not aware of the rights you have, you may be infringing on someone's copyright. There are several ways you can avoid infringement. The first way is to ensure you are using proper keywords in your pin titles, descriptions, and board titles. This will ensure that the right users can find your pins. Second, you can create secret boards that are only visible to a certain group of people. These boards can be useful for your followers, but they can also be a great way to promote your brand. Finally, you should check your analytics. Pinterest will show you how many unique viewers you have each month. You should also note the numbers at different times of the year. These numbers can fluctuate based on virality and the season. However, you should always make sure that your numbers are going up.

Promoted Pinterest ads have a snowball effect

Despite being the smallest of the big three social networks, Promoted Pinterest ads are a powerful way to drive sales. They have a snowball effect and can help you expand your audience reach. Unlike other types of advertisements, promoted pins are a permanent part of the Pinterest home feed. While the Pinterest site doesn't offer any specific keyword reports, some keywords are effective. One of the best ways to increase your impressions is to use a smart algorithm that delivers ads to the right audiences on all platforms. Another useful feature is the ability to filter your campaigns by the 30-day most saved pins. This will show you which content is working for your business. You can also granulate audience layers to improve your ad distribution. Pinterest ads can also be geo-targeted. This is a great way to get your ad in front of viewers in other countries. However, only certain countries are allowed to promote their pins, including Canada, Ireland, and the UK.

Brand logos and names make your pins memorable

Using a brand logo or name in your Pins can be a good idea, especially if your brand is new and you want to make a name for yourself. It can also help your Pins stand out from the rest. But, there's no need to be overly concerned about your branding. To determine whether your Pinterest content has a brand logo or name on it, you can check out the "pin it" section of the site. You can also go to Pinterest's Trends tool to find out what's hot on the site right now. For example, if you're selling a high-ticket item, you can try using the Rich Pins feature to send users to in-stock products. You can also use text overlays to increase your message's impact. But how do you know which type of content to create and which types to avoid? Luckily, there are a few best practices to follow. You can also test the waters by creating a few sample Pins for your blog.

Educational content can help you reach new audiences

Educators are active users of Pinterest, with 73% using the platform for professional reasons. Education marketers have the opportunity to reach new audiences by advertising their content on this popular visual social platform. Pinterest ads should be colorful, with high-quality product shots, and include text that is relevant to the educational content on the platform. Educators are looking for information on a variety of topics, including how to do something, tips, and inspirational content. The visual platform allows users to bookmark products and save them to a list. The ad copy should include headlines and a call to action. It's a good idea to create an infographic to provide quick facts about your brand.

Don’t Be Afraid to Experiment

No one strategy can work for everyone. Learning from other companies’ mistakes is the only way to succeed on Pinterest. As with any business, it’s important to take risks and experiment with new strategies. Some of the brands we’ve interviewed have used Pinterest in ways that we hadn’t even thought of. We get it, you want to be safe and conservative.  We get that, but safe and traditional just don’t cut it in the online marketing space of 2023. Don’t be afraid to try out new strategies. It might cost you a little money upfront, but in the end, it could be worth it. When using Pinterest, you never know exactly how things will turn out.  You never know if an advertising campaign will work or not. You never know if someone is going to click on your ads or not. You never know if your brand will be seen or not. You never know if it will all pay off or not.

Conclusion

So, there you have it, our Top 5 Pinterest Marketing Strategies in 2023. With so much at stake, these brands are just a few examples of how other companies have promoted their business on the platform. Whether you’re an experienced marketer or a brand new to digital marketing, you can learn something from these. check also:- What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? and how it works? SEO for Restaurant: 5 Proven Strategies to Increase Online Business Read the full article

[reviewgenuine]

Ocqlar Review : Front End With Feature & OTOs Details

Welcome to the new Ocqlar review which is a video animation app. Convert conversations used by Chat GPT into extra awesome amazing videos in your own way by using this OCQLAR. This software can convert AI Based Image generation, text-to-speech web to video. Believe it, this software will bring a big regulation in video creation.

ChatGPT Conversation To Videos : Ditch your old video creation process and convert your simple to simple conversations into video content into visually interesting video content. Let OCQLAR do the heavy lifting and transform his dialogues into visually appealing videos so he can bring creative ideas to life and it’s time to convert imagination into real wild.

Text To Speech, Translation And Voice Over

Experience the unmatched power of global communication with our advanced text-to-speech voice translation and our voice recording feature. Remove the language that is hindering your progress and let connect with your audience across the country. If you want a professional voice over or record your own voice then this software get you covered with all.

Convert Website And Articles To Videos

Do you know you can convert your website and articles into videos? Now you can use the software and convert your website articles into videos. Convert your webpages blogs articles into professional animated interesting videos. With our innovative web to video feature you can link your simple videos and create a great impactful video so that more people watch it and your views will increase.

Videos In Any Dimension

With this software, you can convert your video into any dimension which is beneficial for you. With our available stunning templates, you can make your video in any design and add flair to videos and make a long lasting impression. Now your audience will become more likely to watch your video and that will boost your income.

Custom Animation:

It’s time to convert your static objects into animated videos and let your audience know more and more about your videos and make them memorable by adding transitions. It doesn’t matter if you are newbie in this platform with easy steps.

What This Software can do for you

Attention Grabbing Animated Explainer

Capture the attention of your audience and boost your sales by making animated videos. No Expensive Investment Needed for this. With OCQLAR, you can make captivating video, that too what you have to do is just give command to the software and how it will make video which will be engaging for the viewers and that convert traffic to your sales. Let’s say goodbye to those costly production and use the OCQLAR.

Ready-Made High Quality Templates

By using this software, you can use a professional design template which is already imported in it. Simply, what you have to do is to choose those templates, customize them with according to your vision and let the conversation de animation come. To you in life

Advanced Canvas Editor With Full Customization

OCQLAR Review : How Can I Use the Software?

Why You Should Use Ocqlar Software For Videos?

Time-Consuming : Creating animation required extensive manual work, taking up valuable time and resources.

Expensive Software : Obtaining professional animation software was costly, limiting accessibility for smaller businesses.

Steep Learning Curve : Mastering animation tools required extensive training and expertise.

Limited Creativity : Non-designers faced challenges in crafting visually appealing animations without prior experience.

Lengthy Production Times : Delayed campaigns due to time consuming animation creation

Effortless Creation : User-friendly interface and templates for easy animation creation.

Cost-effective: Affordable solution, no expensive software required.

Simplified Tools : User-friendly interface for professional-quality animations.

Unleashed Creativity: Stunning animation made easy for all.

Quick Turnaround : Accelerated animation production for timely campaigns.

Also Read : Music & Video Softwares

Ocqlar Software Review : Benefits of Ocqlar Software

AI ChatGPT: Effortlessly Transform Interactive Conversations into compelling videos. AI-powered image generation: Create visually stunning scenes and animation that captivate and enhance video quality.

Instant Pre-Made Templates: Jumpstart your projects with customizable templates. Ocqlar offers a library of ready to use templates, perfect for promotional videos and explainer animations.

Dazzling Animation Effects: Add mesmerizing visual flair to your animations with Ocqlar’s stunning effects. Elevate your projects with dynamic transitions and captivating particle effects.

Clear Audio and Sound Effects Intensify Your Animation

Are You The One Who?

Cant pay a freelance animator $50-$300 Per Hour? Not really a dilemma!

Ocqlar generates your video in minutes, complete with gorgeous animation. Forget about spending hours in front of your PC create a simple video with end result wasn’t intended to be. Simply choose a template or create from scratch with the animation effects you want, customize and render it.

Costly Video Tools With Hefty and Monthly Fees?

Pay once with no monthly or huge price! Ocqlar automatically creates your video in minutes with stunning animation and more elements. Forget spending hours hammering the keyboard, or starting from scratch. Just select template, edit with your desired animation effects, customize and render.

No need for a Learning Curve And Technical Skills!

Yes! just easy drag and drop video creation software. Just simple! Edit, customize and edit your video, click render, and done. Save time and money and amplify your results! While simplifying your life with all-in-one video creation software with Ocqlar.

Are there any hosting Fees? Does it work on Mobile and other devices?

No hosting fees at all! It’s a Cloud based solution! You can access your video editor from anywhere around the world, all you need is the internet connection and can use any device, you will not miss any time if you like to create videos anywhere.

It Has Rendering Fees If I Render More Videos?

Some of the sample videos created by Ocqlar are :

Ocqlar Demo Video

Source: https://reviewgenuine.com/ocqlar-review/

Note: The article contains affiliate link. If you buy from our links, we will receive a little amount of comission.

[asherlockstudy]

How to do perfect staging: a lesson from Italy

I mentioned at some point I might actually make a post drooling over Italy's Måneskin performance and staging. I was kinda bored to be honest and decided against it but then all those trashy rumours that try to bring the winners down seemed so disgraceful and embarrassing to me that I decided again to do it. Now, the truth is that their performance was a little better in the semi-final introduction act. Perhaps this was due to the anxiety of the Grand Final. This is why I am going to use photos and gifs from that act and perhaps this will show to some that the perfect package might need a little bit of everything, and not just slap your language on the audience's ears with the expectation that this alone is always enough. *Did I make this too personal?*

Anyway, I digress. And I don’t mean that the Grand Final performance wasn’t still the best of the night, I just mean it wasn’t at the same God Tier level as the semifinal one.

Here's why the Italians took advantage of the Dutch stage until its very last millimeter and way more cleverly than any other country.

This is the only act that starts from the back of the stage, where the singer Damiano David waits for us alone.

Even with the rest of the 25 competing countries, this intro makes you forget that you are watching a contest with 26 countries as guests. Unlike anyone else, Italy looks like the host, like this place belongs to them and the frontman waits for you to show you around and possibly drag you to the world of Måneskin. In fact, you almost forget it’s Eurovision - this now looks like a Måneskin concert or, even better, a more private space of theirs with an ominous industrial feel. One of the most impactful things now is the lighting. Take a look at it. Almost all contestants throw all the lights on themselves or on some important prop they have prepared. The Italians are the only ones who chose to just light the stage itself. The simple white lights on the black stage give the impression of depth and it is the only act which shows emphatically the size of the stage. Why this? Well, we already established that in the first seconds the viewers feel they are in a new space belonging exclusively to Måneskin - the lights make us feel that their area is vast and dark and we are about to be drawn to its depths.

Damiano indeed guides us to the front as he sings, where the rest of the band are on the top of a platform. The other members won’t come down and join Damiano until he sings the appropriate verse “Buona sera, signore e signori” (=Good evening, ladies and gentlemen) and accompany it with a theatrical flamboyant bow (that feels very Italian). That’s when, technically introduced to the audience after the official greeting, bassist Victoria de Angelis and guitarist Thomas Raggi come off the platform and join Damiano.

There’s nothing excessive about the visual effects. Only the use of white lights that give the perception of depth and in the background the big shadows of the group’s silhouettes. They are in the front and they cast their shadows in the back; they create to you a feeling of being trapped by them but do you really want to escape?

When the second verse starts, Victoria and Thomas take the paths left and right of the stage and leave Damiano alone. They take even more advantage of the stage and in a typical classic rock band way. These two play with the side cameras but the focus is more on Damiano, whose verse sounds more like a tongue-twister. Since the cameras are rightfully on Damiano, I must now address the elephant in the room. Damiano is particularly attractive. In fact, the whole band is almost mind-bogglingly attractive and they clearly take a lot of care about how exactly they are going to look but Damiano, as the frontman, does especially so. So let’s talk about the outfit. They all have essentially the same outfit, however it is cut differently for each based on the person’s looks and personality. Isn’t it fantastic?

Damiano, who oozes confidence and sex appeal, has accordingly the most “provocative” outfit of the four. His chest and arms are bare so that his many tattoos can be seen. I’ll talk about the other outfits later as they all have their place in the... uh... white lights.

During the second chorus Victoria and Thomas return at the center and after the chorus it is time for the first solo; Victoria’s. The cameras are now on her but the lighting remains modest to accentuate the dark beat of her bass.

Victoria is the only girl of the group and the most dressed of them all - how refreshing! Her outfit is more similar to Thomas but she is buttoned up in the front. How does she wish to underscore her uniqueness as the woman of the band? But of course, with long flamboyant girly sleeves that come to delicious contrast with her aggressive stomping and her wide strides. Both her hairstyle and her outfit is inspired or basically just outright 70′s classic rock look.

It’s time for the bridge of the song right after her solo and Damiano has his attention on her and also draws the viewer’s attention to her some more. This part of the song is lower and softer - in relative terms - that’s why Damiano “chooses” her to sing it to. The lights now turn red, the intensity rises but there’s light flirtatiousness between them, with many smiles to each other and the camera that turns around them as they launch at each other playfully.

Then the song gets darker, more intense, the guitar stronger than the bass and Damiano’s voice turns to a scream. For this part, he turns to his bro, guitarist Thomas and he now draws the attention to him.

He grabs Thomas by the neck in an intense, intimate way (that doesn’t mean sexual, just intimate. His interaction with Victoria wasn’t sexual either). It is clear that through different ways Måneskin want to stress how good and close their relations are and that their singer, who is apparently a show stealer by birth, wants to ensure that they all get equal amount of attention from their audience. I love this.

True enough, nobody is left behind! The last chorus starts with a drums solo and Damiano goes up to the platform to now meet and introduce to us Ethan Torchio. Ethan stands up and his giant shadow is on the now blue background: this is the moment for the - so I hear - somewhat shy drummer to shine in his own aesthetic. The Italians leave none of their assets to fall down and Ethan’s impressive hair rightfully steals the show.

Just like Victoria and Thomas look alike, so do Ethan and Damiano, that’s why their costumes are the most similar. Ethan has a vest that covers him more than Damiano but leaves his arms bare. Because whose else the arms do you need to see if not the drummer’s?

This song has something peculiar because it was not a song originally written for Eurovision; it slows down in the end and  does not end on some impressive note from the singer as usual but with the last solo we expect, that of the guitarist, because everything is fair in Måneskin! The focus has to leave Damiano, so now it’s the time for the visual effects to finally catch fire, literally,  because nobody is allowed to take their eyes off them! Måneskin use a huge amount of pyro that however feels appropriate for the intense chorus and the ending guitar solo.

Thomas steps up for his solo and I forget we are in 2021. This is the most 70s thing I would ever hope to see.

In a hell of pyro, Thomas looks like he was tranferred right from a 70s rock ‘n roll concert. His outfit would be gladly taken by Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones. The unbuttoned jacket with this boho tie, such a classic 70s fashion touch. His haircut and even his FACE are the epitome of the 70s - what an ending sequence!

But hey we reached the end and this is Eurovision, the song slows down dangerously. Like I said, the Italians forbid us to get distracted. The attention must return to Damiano ASAP. Damiano says one last line and takes the audience with him to the very end with a death drop.

There you have it. Måneskin had me holding my breath for the full three minutes and I did not want to take my eyes off my TV. There are countless shows that are awesome - in this very Eurovision as well - but I was impressed by how they seemed to have found the perfect balance for everything in every single moment. They found the perfect stage concept for the song, they relied on visual effects only when they needed them and they stressed every twist and turn of their sound with a perfectly fitting move or interaction. They also all effortlessly could hold your attention and they made sure that they all would, with members often helping bring out other members. This performance was beautiful and, above all, clever which is why it was undoubtedly the worthiest of the win.  

[lostbbygorl]

LEVI ACKERMAN AS A YOUTUBER:

✨ It was Hange's idea, not Levi's

✨ Levi hates attention usually, so when Hange suggested he start a channel that millions of people can view anytime, he wanted to smack her

✨ But then Erwin and Mike kept harping about (Mike wanted to see him do a sparkly intro)

✨ He wanted his friends to leave him alone, so he grudgingly decided to make one video

✨ It was a rant video LMFAOOO

✨ He basically exposed all his friends names and the fact that they wouldn't leave him alone until he made a video

✨ Well, everyone liked that. I'm not kidding, he's like a 30 year old Joanna Cedia man rose to fame lightning fast

✨ Even though his video kinda lacked structure, it was FULL of meme potential and Gen Z did their thang so Levi's suddenly trending

✨ Levi is the only one from the group who doesn't use social media so when Levi and Hange show him that the whole internet is simping for him his eyes widen like in that scene where Eren suddenly titan shifted

✨ He saw that his comments under the video were mostly positive and that men and women alike were complimenting his good looks and he's super confused cause our rough baby is actually super soft and insecure and he doesn't understand that it don't matter if he ain't tall and tanned and that he's scarred, he's fine asf

✨ Well that was an ego boost and Levi realized he wants to make videos

✨ Levi is shy asf so his intros are super curt and he gets straight to the point

✨ His viewers love his dry, dark humor and unfiltered behavior

✨ Wattpad authors love his deep voice, and well, so does everyone else

✨ His viewers are a literal CULT and Levi's like Corpse Husband but with a face

✨ He's still wondering what the main focus of his channel should be so for the first one month of running it, he usually takes subscriber requests

✨ Levi isn't as ~mysterious~ as he likes to think he is lol. His subscribers figured out his undercover teddy bear personality as soon as he stuttered in the second video's intro. Also, all his psychology student fans kept posting body language analyses in the comment section. His second video was basically him reacting to the memes people made

✨ After that, he started making house tour videos and working/studying productivity tip videos and just YOLO cuz his fans eat whatever up

✨ Levi DEFO has an aesthetic house and bedroom. He's too tidy and classy not to

✨ With each video, you can see the editing getting better

✨ His following keeps growing and he finally opens up a social media account he barely posts on

✨ Levi finds meme culture annoying so the memes that people send him just get eyebrows raised at

✨ Levi TRULY started loving being a youtuber when he started getting paid cuz that check was SWEET (I mean he's a capricorn guys cmon)

✨ He reacts to memes and Gen Z slang cuz he has a mostly Gen Z fanbase and now he's getting trendier much to his friends surprise

✨ He starts saying "All facts no printer" and "spill the tea" unironically. He also likes the grunge and alt aesthetic

✨ You know what else comes with being a handsome edgy older youtuber? THIRSTY FANS

✨ Levi knows what fanfiction is but he doesn't know fanfic terminology so when Hange comes over to his house one day and starts laughing hysterically at "Levi x Reader 18+ smut" he's confused

✨ When Hange and explains and shows him the smut his soul leaves his body I-

✨ He reviews his smut very seriously on his channel the next day and the SMUT AUTHORS HAVE ALL DEACTIVATED-

✨ Levi isn't extremely fond of the way he's being sexualized but he's a grown man and he's just gonna take it though he hopes it'll stop. You know what Levi does like? FANART

✨ Levi finds it impressive that his young fans can use him as a source of creativity and that he's someone's muse. He makes it a habit to like whatever fanart he comes across on social media and leave an encouraging comment

✨ The first time Levi smiled on his channel was when he saw a chibi fanart of himself

✨ Levi doesn't really wanna do collabs initially but when a younger, more experienced youtuber suggested a collab he wasn't against it surprisingly

✨ The internet BROKE when THE Sasha Blouse made a video with Levi where they made dalgona coffee

✨ Levi didn't realize how big Sasha is till he saw all the comments on social media and he considers the collab with Sasha his first celebrity encounter

✨ Sasha and Levi end up becoming an unlikely friendship duo and fans LOVE the personality contrast (I love Levi and Sasha's interactions and I love personality contrasts so stfu Levi and Sasha's friendship >>>>>)

✨ It takes Levi at least a year to realize how big his impact is. He first realizes this when a little girl recognizes him in public and tells him all starry eyed that she started cleaning her room more after watching his videos and he's internally crying

✨ Levi also makes more friends because of this platform and Sasha isn't the only one. He surprisingly became fast friends with Eren, Connie, and Jean (AKA the kings of the gaming world), and he's on better terms with his cousin Mikasa ( A well known fashion vlogger) after he opened his channel

✨ He is now the father of younger, more chaotic youtubers and he honestly loves the light it brings to his life

✨ Has he changed after fame? Well yes and no. Levi is the same hardworking, introverted, sophisticated man he was before fame, he just grew better communication skills and has a wider friend group now

✨ He doesn't think he's above anybody though he has more confidence now, and he treats his fans very politely. He's super humble and anybody who has met him praises him

✨ Youtube brought only positive changes to his life and he doesn't express it much but he's very grateful to for his subscribers and fanbase

✨ He never knew that he'd actually like being surrounded by so many bright people and that he'd actually like broadening his horizons and making new friends. He's experienced many different things like playing horror games with Eren (he didn't flinch) and mukbangs with Sasha

✨ He liked each experience in his own way though he liked some less than the others

✨ After a life of gloom and loneliness, this is a nice change for him and he's quietly but warmly welcoming it. He feels accepted and he feel like he belongs after blowing up. People love him for his weird humor, scars, and brash personality. They want more of him and he's influenced them in a good way

✨ Levi goes to bed every night tired yet happy after his actual job, his job as a youtuber, and his many fan interactions

✨ And the money too of course BUT BESIDES THE POINT-

✨ Overall, his channel is super binge worthy and 10/10 content

✨ Do subscribe

[themovieblogonline]

The Machine Review: A Tonally Confused Blend of Action and Comedy

The Machine, directed by Peter Atencio, presents itself as a film that doesn't quite know what it wants to be. Oscillating between a high-octane action extravaganza and a raunchy comedy, the clash of tones leaves the movie feeling disjointed and unbalanced. While Bert Kreischer delivers a decent lead performance, essentially playing an exaggerated version of himself, the overall experience falls short of being truly exceptional. Fans of Kreischer's stand-up comedy may find some enjoyment in seeing him do more of the same, but for others, The Machine proves to be a forgettable and relatively lifeless venture, despite some occasional moments of humor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwDKLEaJxMk From the outset, it becomes apparent that The Machine struggles to find its identity. The filmmakers seem torn between creating an explosive action flick and a crude comedy, resulting in an incongruous mishmash. The transition from intense action sequences to raunchy humor is often jarring and fails to establish a cohesive narrative. This lack of coherence prevents the film from achieving a sense of purpose and clarity, leaving viewers uncertain of what to expect next. Bert Kreischer's performance in The Machine is solid, but it doesn't veer far from his established comedic persona. If you are already a fan of his stand-up routines, you'll likely find enjoyment in seeing him reprise a similar character on the big screen. However, for those unfamiliar with Kreischer's work, his portrayal offers little that feels fresh or remarkable. While his comedic timing and delivery are undeniably entertaining, it leaves one yearning for a more nuanced and layered performance that could have elevated the film beyond its superficiality. Although The Machine does manage to elicit a few laughs, the overall experience is largely forgettable. The humor, while occasionally successful, lacks the cleverness and wit necessary to leave a lasting impression. Many of the jokes rely on crude and predictable gags, leaving the film feeling derivative and uninspired. Moments of genuine comedic brilliance are few and far between, leaving the viewer longing for more substantial humor that could have elevated the film's overall quality. One of the film's redeeming qualities lies in its inclusion of great cameos. Throughout The Machine, notable actors like Mark Hamill and other personalities make appearances, injecting brief moments of excitement and intrigue. These cameo performances offer a refreshing diversion from the film's shortcomings, providing glimpses of potential that, unfortunately, remain largely untapped. While these guest appearances add a touch of excitement, they cannot salvage the movie from its underlying weaknesses. Visually, The Machine showcases competent action sequences that serve their purpose but lack innovation. The choreography and special effects are serviceable, but they fail to deliver anything truly groundbreaking or memorable. The action, though entertaining at times, feels formulaic and lacks the innovation necessary to stand out in a crowded genre. The film's visual presentation ultimately feels safe and uninspired, contributing to its overall lackluster nature. The Machine suffers from an identity crisis, trying to blend the genres of action and comedy without finding a harmonious balance. While Bert Kreischer's performance offers some familiarity and amusement, it fails to deliver anything exceptional or groundbreaking. The film's humor, while occasionally funny, lacks the inventiveness and wit needed to leave a lasting impact. Despite the inclusion of notable cameos, The Machine ultimately falls short of its potential, offering little more than forgettable entertainment. For those seeking a memorable and cohesive cinematic experience, The Machine fails to deliver. Read the full article