#and he dealt with them super well in contrast to previously not having consequences in one instance and not fully apologizing when he was

[gayofthefae]

People judge actions based on reactions and Mike is a prime example. He is a very hated character right now but consider this

Season 1: Mike said to El (twice, I believe) "What is wrong with you!" She ran off hurt but returned within a couple episodes. (People often like to parallel him saying this in season 4 to the cliff scene when he didn't but forget the times he did. He didn't get worse or more hypocritical you just picked bad examples). I don't remember him directly apologizing for this, though he did validate that she was not a monster and he did not see her as such and that could be counted for one of these instances.

He is widely forgiven and even forgotten for this.

Season 4: Mike initiates an attempt to understand and console El. When confronted, he cannot say I love you but tries to say everything else he can to make her feel better. She is crying, speaking poorly of herself, and angrily throws letters while confronting him. After many episodes apart (which he spends brainstorming how to fix things and she spends not bringing it up once) he apologizes to her in full, hitting every point and taking full responsibility, at the soonest opportunity.

He is widely antagonized for this.

[spacegunmar]

initial thoughts on part 3, because i’m digesting still. spoilers abound, ye be warned.

things i very much liked

barbara painting as her way of remembering

on that the stricklander painting and the angor painting are both fucking dope. does barb take commissions??

strickler and nomura training jim

strickler’s fUCKING WINGS I CANNOT FUCKING BELIEVE THAT’S CANON NOW

morgana’s whole deal like holy fuck she’s hot and i want her to murder me just so i can have the honor

merlin being a shady bastard, thank god

ANGOR ANGOR ANGOR!!!!

angor’s entire plotline, though minor, was super important to me and i’m so so glad it got a resolution

gunmar calling draal a dog and triggering angor’s flashback to his time with strickler

the whole claire vs. morgana dynamic. very very good.

strickler introducing himself as “walthalomew stricklander” to merlin like the fucking nerd he is

morgana made changelings and I Die

weird uncle dictatious

barb being concerned about nomura aka heart eyes motherfucker

troll jim aka the cutest boy alive i love him so much

honestly??? most of it??

season 2 was markedly stronger than season 1, and i think that season 3 was even stronger than season 2 tbh

things that did not sit as well with me

how strick/lake ended up. i’m not inherently against it because i think there’s potential for an interesting relationship there, but they did it in like. the worst way possible.

no consequences for strickler??? fuck that noise. barbara basically being reduced to a damsel in distress??? Y I K E S.

seriously she was mad at him for like 5 minutes and there was no fucking like..... real, genuine apology, or consequences, or anything on strickler’s behalf. that plotline literally went from “i’m mad at you walter you suck >:^(” to “eeeee!!! save me walter i love you!!” with......... no kind of natural development or..... anything. like...... he didn’t do anything......... they just all kind of went “lol okay strickler’s cool now”

also no consequences for the other shitty things he did to like.... almost every character

i love walter but holy fuck the dude needs to deal with the repercussions of his actions

anyway enough about that

draal’s death felt kind of empty tbh. lusey pointed out that that it felt very much like a setup for jim to say “this is for draal” when killing gunmar and not much else, and i’m inclined to agree. them not really talking about him dying or dealing with it made me not feel as much of the emotional weight as i think you’re supposed to, especially when you contrast it with how they dealt with AAAARRRGH!!’s “””death””” after the P1 finale. draal is like... a pretty major character with an important plotline, and so his death didn’t really feel like it matched with that

a lot of the characters that previously felt more 3 dimensional before felt very 2d this time around

it was super emotional and powerful a lot of the time, but didn’t quite manage to make me cry. maybe i’ve just got a thicker skin now lmao.

but overall, i really liked it, and i think it was a wonderful conclusion to a show that has come to mean so much to me, and i’m excited to watch it again and hopefully fall in love with it all over again.

...........

of course, one final gripe because i’m a fucking gay disaster and you probably were expecting this if you watched P3 and you know what My Whole Deal is in this fandom

no???? strickrot??? interaction????? AT ALL????? they were in the same goddamn room?????? and you didn’t have them say a single WORD to one another?????????

like their relationship is far from the most important one in P1, but especially after that tease of gunmar triggering angor’s flashback, i thought we’d get something. this is meant to antagonize me, sebastian botboyfriend specifically. they knew that i saw the truth that angor rot and stricklander fucked in canon and they had to stop me.

oh well the strickrot conspiracy continues because even though he exploded there’s not a body and if there’s not a body i’m gonna pretend that the next thing that happened after The Gang walked into the shadows is that angor (miraculously having cheated death at least a second time) kidnapped stricklander and now they’re gay troll married somewhere whilst also hating each other’s guts. the end. god what a good fucking show.

thank god strickrot is canon.