#and how every arc ends with a family dinner (ideal)

[last-braincell-standing]

call me a basic bitch but you give me a ragtag band misfits thrown together only by chance and who slowly but surely become a family who would die for each other and i eat that shit up every time

[applestorms]

thinking about how near refers to light at the end of the series— not really as light yagami, not even really as kira, and not quite as L, but rather an amalgamation of titles: L-KIRA, a twisted mix of two personas, masks on top of masks. no longer a person but a series of letters, a filtered voice through a screen. a man who has built his entire life in the space between lies, who cannot let himself stop for a second without the weight of his own guilt, his sins, crushing him. regrets repressed because this is the only way it could ever be, it has to be worth it, it has to, it has to, because you can’t even bring yourself to consider what it all means otherwise.

i am a firm believer that light yagami, the son, the student, the average human person, dies at the same time that L does. at least at the beginning of the series he has some semblance of normalcy to hold himself to, the Serious Student persona that keeps him walking to and from school and talking to people and eating dinner with his family at home. how many times do we really see him going outside, post-L death? how often do we see him outside of some L-based police HQ, talking to people he isn’t trying to manipulate? really, it’s no wonder he falls so far, alienated as he is from the rest of humanity. when was the last time he breathed long enough to remember what the sky looks like? hugged his mom, laughed with his sister? did he ever visit his father’s grave? does he remember what the breeze smells like? was he ever really happy? did he deny himself his only chance?

at least in the case of L and near the isolation feels intentional, a preferable choice, carefully and logically considered for all the pros and cons. light never asked for the position he fell into, that fell upon him, that he created for himself. he denies the death note being a curse, but it’s not like he could ever admit it if it was.

light’s story arc in death note really feels like a tragedy to me, specifically in the sense that he never really gets the chance to change. on a plot level this is true, much of the second half of the story post-L death is light utilizing the exact same strategies as before (taking away his ownership of the DN to Strategize, romancing a woman he doesn’t care for to use her, fighting a snarky troll of a super genius hiding behind a letter whose real name & face he cannot find), but it’s true on an emotional level too. light never really gets to grow up, he never gets the chance to truly question his ideals or goals without the world he’s built by himself crashing down around him.

i keep thinking back to the significance of matsuda asking him about his dad, how he could drag him to his death for the sake of all of this. light’s response, so truthful in its desperation, really sums it all up: he died for a reason. KIRA has to win, or his dad died for nothing. he cannot face the idea that he caused his own father’s death, so KIRA must be justice. there is no other alternative. KIRA is god, or light yagami killed his own father for a fairytale.

really, it’s so fitting that his name uses the kanji for moon. moonlight— not originating from the moon itself but a reflection, of something brighter, greater, more powerful than he could ever be. light dies the same way as every other criminal he passed his judgement upon, on his knees and desperate, pathetic, begging for life even as he knows he is doomed to the same fate of nothingness that he granted to everybody else. godhood denied. he said it himself, that he could never be anything more than a human, but somewhere in the fog he lost track of the person he once was. and it’s near’s cruelest observation that stands out the most to me in that final scene— that he never really had to be this. he could’ve stopped at any point, felt his guilt, paid his regrets, and moved on with his humanity still intact. light has spent far too long repressing and denying to ever consider that an option anymore— but there was still room for sympathy for the 17 year old kid who killed without thinking, long before he built up such a dedicated palace of lies to justify his actions and hide away his guilt.

L-KIRA dies on the floor of a dirty, abandoned building, surrounded by the people he spent years manipulating and lying to and betraying. light yagami dies in a helicopter, locked and chained to his only closest equal, holding a notebook that he would use to sound the death knell of his own fate and wearing his father’s gifted watch.

[mostlymaudlin]

ooooooh ok juicy sfc posts happening !! i rly honestly truly love to see it. here's my unasked for two cents, as someone who did find the story really hopeful. im posting this not to like, discourse or disagree or discount what im seeing, but to just maybe offer a different pov for ppl who might be trying to file this story away in a less devastating way.

i, of course, think baz deserves better than what he gets from his family. we all deserve to have families that love us unconditionally, and so many of us DONT have that -- including baz. that hurts !! i also think simon didn't deserve to lose his magic, and penny didn't deserve to take on the sole responsibility for keeping simon safe, and agatha didnt deserve to be shoved into every princess/damsel role ppl cast on her, etc etc. 

what i like so much abt this series is that ppl dont get what they deserve, but theyre still okay. its why i also love the end of awtwb -- simons LICH ER ALL Y crying lol. he got a whole mega-bucket of extra trauma dumped on his plate that he hasnt even started to process. but its still so clear that he's got the support he needs to live a good life alongside this terrible knowledge. the mage fucked him over even more than he knew, but he doesnt have to define himself by these terms anymore -- we've seen his growth in this regard.

bazs main arc in the series is about how he sees himself -- in crudely simple terms, he rly wants to be a Good Guy (you know, not a vampire, straight, a good pitch etc etc) but sees himself as cursed with that impossibility. this continues as his idealized Good Guy self develops over the course of the books into something that actually feels more achievable to him and is less reliant on the shit his family put on him growing up. 

the cool thing about snow for christmas is that -- just like when simon finds out abt the mage at the end of awtwb -- we get to see baz's new sense of self tested. we get to see what he's using to draw the lines of morality. and we get to see that while of course he still cares about what his family thinks, and it still causes him anxiety and trauma and all the shitty things that he doesnt deserve -- he has grown from that place where their value system can make him hate himself.

and moreso on the hope part -- the grimms value, above all, the ability to fit into the roles they think theyre supposed to hold. its bullshit, and they've both caused themselves problems and absolutely are fucking up their children. daphne fully had to be saved by a cult bc of it and shes still not over that mindset -- these ppl need therapy lol. so it's def sick n twisted that they're celebrating baz being able to hide better rather than celebrating who baz is, but is this not the utmost sign of love that they're capable of? baz gets to fit in better -- that's all they've ever wanted for him, whether we agree with that or not. baz seems to recognize the balance of this in the story. he narrates the rest of the dinner with a sort of dry, relieved, disbelieving tone. it’s like hes huffing a laugh, shaking his head, thinking, “did i really used to pin so much of myself on this stuff? how silly.” he is not distressed bc he understands his parents, and he has, again, divorced his sense of self from their expectations. so much so tht he says fuck it and gives simon the lil kissy at the end, because THIS is his new value system: he ALWAYS kisses simon goodbye!

so, is this a step forward for the grimms being more supportive parents? yeah, maybe not. maybe it never gets better than baz hiding his fangs at dinner and everyone doing the bare minimum to accept simon's role in baz’s life. that's not what baz and simon deserve. but it could be enough, because simon and baz have different ways that they measure their happiness by. they have each other and penny and shep and ruth and agatha and niamh and every other person they'll meet in the many, many years ahead of them whose opinions they can choose to make important to them, or reject. i love this for them! the true queer hope story imo. thats what i want for myself and for the people i love. 

to be clear: this story made me sob so hard i scared my cats. (im not rly a crier, they did not know what to do). i had to put it down in the middle because i couldnt see the page. any queer person who has Family Shit is bound to get whammied lol. but! i personally find comfort in the idea that we can coexist with people who are important to us but also very difficult to be around, even if its not totally what we deserve. its a very quiet, somber hope -- but that only makes it feel more real to me. 

[fuckmeyer]

hey bestie i'm finally here with that essay about jacob fighting for bella's humanity w/o being a love interest bc the potential that has! he's set up to be the perfect avenue for it! he's the warmth and sun that she loved from arizona; he's the community and family she could be deeply enmeshed in w/ charlie and billy; he's a childhood friend who grew up (which bella's going to lose the potential to do if she becomes a vampire! and she's going to forget that past!); he's someone who fixes up old damaged cars instead of having perfect ones, and they aren't the *same* but they're still good...he's literally thematically everything best abt being human that bella will lose, AND examples of the negatives she sees in humanity, (all the times she thinks abt how the wolves are fragile in comparison to the vampires)...and it would just be SO fascinating to see that played out w/out the romance. it would honestly be even more powerful! bc baked into smeyer's worldbuilding is that vampires prioritize their romantic partners above everything else and having jacob be the true contrast to that where he's a platonic connection that bella genuinely values equally and she has to think abt how becoming a vampire would cut her off from the potential of connections like that!!! i am thinking so many thoughts

BESTIE thank you as always for dropping the Jacob love in my inbox!

you're so right about Jacob being the perfect avenue to explore Bella's doubt about vampirism! the warmth & family & community & LOVE & acceptance & nostalgia she loves about humanity is all embodied in Jacob's character & in their relationship. she likes hand-me-downs & homemade gifts! she likes acts of service! she likes reckless stunts that remind her of her own fragility & weakness! she likes warm sodas & spaghetti dinners! she likes being reminded that she belongs somewhere! & THIS IS JACOB <3

the fact that their relationship isn't utilized to this end (or any end, really) is my biggest problem with Eclipse. Bella drops little hints in the narrative that she's nervous about becoming a vampire. there are so many opportunities— e.g. when Rose tells her story— for her to reflect on what she's giving up.

in the end, she doesn't sum up the argument in a compelling way & doesn't make her choice in a believable way.

in part because the event that kicks off her grand realization that she's not ready (AKA THE CONFLICT OF HER ENTIRE SERIES ARC) is ...graduation

big life event as a catalyst seems to make sense. but how relevant is it to her narrative? & once it's brought up, we don't we see her digging into why she's nervous. what about saying goodbye makes her not ready? what about getting what she wants terrifies her? what does she need to sort through? what plans does she need to make? we're left to wonder what's running through Bella's mind re: the biggest decision of the series...in a first person narrative. no!!!

Jacob, who embodies all these ideals of her humanity, should be the one to push her to this realization. the climax of her internal conflict should be focused around him: losing him physically/emotionally (or both), & everything he represents. there is so much weight that her relationship with Jacob adds to her choice if she's allowed to love him and Edward unconditionally! as a romantic interest, all Jacob's doing is pushing her away.

(& that's why this whole fucking triangle makes no sense. he loves her so much he remembers her from early childhood. he loves her so much he'll sit there for months & pick up her broken pieces. he loves her so much he'll spend every moment just doing silly little hobbies together. he loves her so much he wants to fight for her humanity "until her heart stops beating" AND EVEN AFTER. but he doesn't love her enough to respect her choices or opinions? he doesn't love her enough to know that by being an asshole, he's pushing her closer to death? imo this is where we see stephie's grubby hands moving pieces. Jacob loves her more than he's in love with her.)

& so, because the "i'm not ready" realization is tied to something Bella doesn't give a shit about, the realization that she is ready is equally empty

what makes her decide she's ready to become a vampire is GUILT & FEAR & ANGUISH. she's "ready" to become a vampire because she feels weak & useless. worse, this realization is not touched on as the event (the training sesh) unfolds. she has this realization OFF-PAGE & then shows up to Edward's proposal like "yeah i'm ready to become a vampire but first i wanna fuck :)"

& we're supposed to buy that? girl, you resolved nothing internally. you didn't show us what changed for you. you're making this decision out of fear instead of out of love. & we're supposed to believe this is what little miss "thoughtful & responsible" wants???

it's such a blatant disregard to all the growth she went through & the relationships she developed. you can't just turn Jacob in a fucking asshole & turn the choice into a non-choice & call it day. Jacob deserves better, Bella deserves better, & the readers deserve better!!

MAKE 👏 EVERYONE 👏 SUFFER👏👏👏

(in the name of love!)

[njararna]

agree!!! one of the things i loved in dotu/golion was the way they all supported each other. i actually believed they were a team who loved and cared about each other. when the lions first got wiped, pidge stayed calling them the whole time until they responded. in golion, akira genuinely believed in fala’s abilities and supported her all the way through, believing she could be the black lion’s pilot.

i loved vforce because of the sweet character interactions. pidge and hunk playing air guitar over the comms, allura and keith dealing with arusian civilians, everyone knowing about hunk’s ultra secret junkyard and keeping it to themselves, lance and keith arguing over who gets to self-sacrifice! these all indicate a deeper relationship. they spend time together, they bicker, they laugh at each other. it’s great! they feel like a family.

in vld, there’s so little of this. maybe in the first two seasons, where they actually had a show bible. but after?

to me, keith and allura’s relationship had ALWAYS been one of the most important parts in the franchise. it’s literally the core. yet in vld, they only meaningfully interact in season two (and it’s for the not-all-galra arc where allura, a genocide survivor, gets told ‘maybe you should be nicer to your oppressors!’ but that’s another post on its own). beyond that, its nothing! he’s irritated by her in the blue lion because she doesn’t know how to fly in properly, when any other keith would have been supportive. when they’re lost in space, keith gets on her for getting ‘cozied up’ to lotor, despite the fact that he had peaced out long before. keith’s only actual bond is with shiro which kinda runs out once you get to s8, so he winds up just…not really doing much outside of missions. i don’t even get the sense he hangs out with his team. i can’t believe he’s a good leader because he chose to be a foot soldier for the blades instead of sticking it out and compromising with his team. i can’t believe that allura thought keith was the ‘key to the galra’s future’ because she never gave any indication to think about him in any capacity past s4e1! it’s ridiculous, it comes back to this same issue of asking where is the respect for the source material; if you can’t even get the most iconic relationship of the franchise right, then what are you doing?

unity really is the core foundation of voltron, yet the writers insist on driving all the characters apart. keith joins the blades. shiro is a clone. allura learns alchemy and its not even related to voltron. pidge looks for her family. lance and hunk get approximately nothing because the writers can’t be assed to give them anything. these aren’t unifying character arcs, they specifically draw them AWAY from the unit. they go down paths nobody else can really follow. what does anyone else know about alchemy? nobody else can join the blades (considering its bizarre galra-exclusive membership, interesting for a group supposedly against the galra empire and its ideals, but i digress). kuron’s final battle is with keith because nobody else actually bonds with shiro in a meaningful way. the holt family plotline is holt family exclusive.

there’s no unity. there’s no base friendship foundation for them to fall back on. at the end of the show they meet up every year for a dinner about allura and then supposedly go their separate ways for the rest of it. contrast that with golion’s ending, where the five of them ran off from the festivities and celebrations just to lie in a field together, it’s almost painful how much they’ve lost the plot.

i am as always thinking about voltron. because i have issues. but i really and truly cannot get over vld’s flanderisation of lance’s character, it actually aggravates me to no end!!!

in the franchise, lance has been established to be an ace-flyer, incredibly perceptive (specifically in dotu and vttd, the source material + the closest sequel!), impulsive, and cocky—but his cockiness had SUBSTANCE. he knew he was that good. to me vforce has one of the best lance characterisations in how they get him: he’s a great flier, he’s a dependable figure of authority, he’s snarky, he bites back, he has the right amount of silliness and pettiness dotu lance had. in vforce, everyone could get teased by the narrative! it wasn’t one or two characters taking the brunt (hi vld hunk and lance!).

but in vld, they practically cut out all those parts of lance, the flying, the perceptiveness, his confidence, and then give it to keith (whose original personality had been then given to shiro). they leave him with the cockiness, but there’s nothing to back it up. they orchestrate keith and lance’s rivalry to be one-sided and terribly unbalanced because keith IS better than lance in a lot of things. this was never the case before, they had strengths and weaknesses that the other complemented and would sometimes cause conflict (vttd is a great example of this!).

i think the reason why it bothers me so much, is because this is first time lance has been latino and not white (not counting golion’s isamu in this). the first time! and the moment he is, they take away his skills and his strengths, have him bullied by the narrative and made into a joke, never taken seriously, and dialed up his flirtatiousness to over 9000. the only time i can actually recall lance being flirtatious in the franchise was in ddp’s run, but even then it wasn’t nearly as prominent or excessive as vld lance’s nonstop flirting. he gets keith’s leftover lion, he gets a sword like keith, he’s allura’s second choice, he never really finds his place in the team.

the arc of feeling like a seventh wheel or insecurity wouldn’t bother me if he had history in the franchise of this, if his character wasn’t established the way it was, but he doesn’t! and its not like vld’s narrative does much to disprove lance’s insecurity—in fact it winds up doing the opposite most of the time. on the surface vld and dotu lance seem similar, but deeper down i feel like the writers just…lost the plot. it’s not that you can’t branch out in reboots or explore other pathways, but it’s just so blatant to me in how they’d taken so much from him and passed it off to other characters. where’s the love for the source material in that? where’s the respect? i don’t know, maybe i’m just going on and on, but it haunts me.

[ramblingguy54]

True Colors: An Emotionally Fantastic Serious Game Changer.

If we’re to look back at Reunion as Season 1′s dramatic pay off for Amphibia’s message of toxic friendships, as Anne & Sasha’s conflicting dynamic showed us, then True Colors is a colossal expansive note on this big theme of the series. True Colors makes Season 1′s finale look like a walk in the park for what angst goes down between our three main heroins in Season 2′s climatic resolution. Everything that can go wrong does go oh so painfully wrong for these three kids. Anne, to no one’s surprise, gets double crossed by Sasha leaving things between them a Hell of a lot more bitter than they were previously, as if that couldn’t already be topped when Sasha tried to kill the Plantars before. Anne has had enough of her lies and manipulation not being afraid to tell Sasha straight up how awful of a friend she’s been in general, even hitting her where it hurts most of all saying, “No, I’m done listening to you! I’m done trusting you! You’re a horrible person and I am done being FRIENDS with you!”, going so far as to get a shaken reaction out of Sasha dropping her brave face act, making this girl try to wipe away the frog family.

Right off the bat, True Colors makes it highly evident this isn’t just another story of stopping a bigger threat, but one hitting much closer to home, overall. Yes, King Andrias is certainly a dangerous villain, who makes his presence and intimidating nature known to the others by True Color’s final act, which despite this Amphibia isn’t entirely putting him at the forefront, rather focusing on a more intimate study of Anne, Sasha, and Marcy’s big emotional conflict. This finale knows exactly where to put its focus of importance on, so I love that instead of it being action packed we’re getting the spotlight shined on just how screwed up these three of a friendship have, in spite of Marcy claiming in The Dinner episode, “We’re supposed to be friends for life. We don’t split up!’ . Very ironic stuff right there, indeed.

True Colors’ most powerful strength it adds to Amphibia’s ongoing profound story about healthy friendships is the thorough deconstruction of these girls defined “ideal relationship” as people. Before Anne came to the world of Amphibia this kid was afraid to stand up for what she believed in, even knowing especially well that stealing the calamity box was morally questionable, but did it anyway. Sasha was super manipulative, abusive, and used her power to control people, like she did a lot of toward Anne in their lives. Marcy, while very smart, wasn’t the most competent physically, who soon grew into being more independent without needing to rely on Anne always having to be there for her. These three were changed immensely by the events of being thrust into this world of sentient amphibian creatures. Anne benefited morally most out out of all three in taking up the mantle of responsibility and ironing out her own issues. She’s become a much stronger person all around. 

This episode asks us an important question though in nutshell with, “Have Sasha & Marcy truly changed for the better?”, since Anne has reached a point in her arc feeling genuinely content with who she’s become and the bonds that have been made with the Plantar family shown most notably with Sprig Plantar. Hence the whole purpose behind the song, It’s No Big Deal, with Anne feeling proud for who she is, yet not noticing a bigger issue right underneath her nose. That previous episode was meant to bring Anne’s happiness up only to bring it all crashing down in a devastating display of new revelations in True Colors. Every dramatic emotional beat isn’t just earned. Each significant moment is completely knocked out of the park by terrific voice acting, beautiful animation, and music composition that gave me serious emotional goosebumps. True Colors did exactly as Not What He Seems accomplished for Gravity Falls in shaking up its own respective dramatic stakes just when you thought it couldn’t get any higher for these protagonists. Shit seriously hits the fan here.

Did it ever occur to you, Anne? Sasha? That one of you knew more, than she was letting on? That ONE of you might’ve gotten you stranded in Amphibia on purpose...?

The big bombshell twist of Marcy playing a part too in getting them into this whole debacle completely flips everything upside down. Sasha pushed Anne into taking the Calamity Box, yes, but if Marcy never sent that photo because of her desire to stay with them together forever, then they wouldn’t have been stranded in basically a world full of dangerous creatures and who knows what else. Easily my favorite part of the episode, considering it adds more nuance to a situation that defined Amphibia’s story. It wasn’t just one person’s fault at the end of the day. Sasha bullied Anne into taking the box, Anne didn’t put her foot down to make a stand for something morally questionable, and Marcy took advantage of them both to benefit her own selfish desires for supposedly a “happy ending” not involving them staying apart, due to her parents moving away for a new job. All three girls played an important part on why they got landed into Amphiba. It’s why Anne’s statement to King Andrias, “The three of us may have made some mistake, but you...You’re evil and I’m gonna stop you!”, holds such a real weight to it, as this story continues to solidify how genuinely fleshed out their dynamic is.

Marcy’s super desperate plea to be understood by Anne & Sasha when Andrias revealed her getting them thrown into Amphibia purposefully was hard to watch. On one hand, I felt for Marcy because she didn’t want real life circumstances to tear apart that close connection she had to Sasha & Anne. Sure, she could’ve just kept in touch with them over the phone or chatting online, too. However, Marcy had known them since very early childhood. When you’ve been so attached to someone it can be a devastating thing, depending on just how vulnerable you are emotionally, to start drifting apart. Marcy represents that embodiment of toxic need for togetherness and couldn’t bear to let a possibility, like moving away, throw a wrench into her happiness and friendship, as well.

Never mind Marcy wanting to stay permanently in a different reality, rather than face her’s, but it made this person feel like something more. It gave her a chance to feel truly special in being able to live out a fantasy dream of having such power and freedom that a kid, like herself, couldn’t have had. The freedom to know she is plenty capable of making it out there on her own without Anne having to watch this kid like a hawk. So, to have someone, or something, try taking it away from her terrified Marcy of facing a terrible truth. That she isn’t strong enough after all to live a life without Anne & Sasha by her side completely, where Marcy will never feel truly worthy enough to blossom into her own person. It’s why that line, “I just...didn’t want to be alone...”, carries such a deep pain to it all. Marcy just crumbles into pieces accepting her greatest weakness. As much as Marcy fumbled the ball big time, it’s so easy to empathize with her on the idea of feeling competent enough. Marcy never meant to hurt Anne or Sasha, but the sad crushing punchline is she very much did.

Speaking of which, Anne had every right to be upset and mad, obviously. Anne has been missing so many things from her life before everything went off the wall. Hopping Mall especially highlighted Anne’s emotional desire to give anything just to hear her mother’s singing again. This teenager has been really dealing with a lot of grief in general quite honestly. Anne got into a high stakes battle against Sasha to save new friends, who’d practically became like an adopted family, which left the poor girl traumatized and heartbroken over the end result. She thought finding Marcy would help compensate for it and eventually be able to mend those complications with Sasha to boot. It’s simply painful to see it all blow up in Anne’s face to know not only Sasha betrayed her trust yet again, but realizing Marcy also played a part of responsibility in getting them thrown here. Matt Braly really just decided to slap future trust issues onto Anne finding out Hop Pop, Sasha, and Marcy were all super dishonest in their intentions at one point or another. Damn, I feel so bad for her.

It makes their embracing hug back in Marcy At The Gates so much harder to watch. Anne was super glad to see her again. Anne had wondered what became of Marcy or even possibly started to think she could even be alive at all. Then come to find out later on Marcy having intentionally ripped her away from a normal life must’ve felt worse then what happened with Sasha. Anne, already done with all of Sasha’s bullshit, thought she could at least expect better from Marcy not letting her down, but that too wasn’t the case. Marcy is very much as flawed as Sasha in what she has done. To think, Anne wanted so badly to get back home, yet she’s staring the very person dead in the eye, who ripped her away from it to begin with. Marcy knew Sasha would talk Anne into taking the box from that thrift shop, even if she wasn’t completely certain it would successfully teleport them away. Regardless of whatever good intentions someone can have in why they did what they did, it still doesn’t absolve them of said mistake. Fact of the matter is, Marcy tragically made her own bed, by choosing to mess with forces she couldn’t begin to comprehend and now has to face consequences, in spite of her not deserving them.

What really got to me was when Marcy tried to spin around Anne’s personal growth and close friendship with the Plantars as all entirely thanks to her. When she said, “I gave you this! I gave you everything!”, I was like, “Nope, that couldn’t be any further from the truth.”, seeing everything that has culminated in Anne’s journey of bettering herself. Marcy didn’t give Anne anything, but a one way ticket to cutting the kid off from her family, presuming she’d be fine with this idea. It’s all kinds of messed up, however what it boils down to is Marcy undermining Anne’s independence and agency. Anne’s moral judgement in decision making was what allowed her to create this new life she made for herself in Amphibia. Anne’s honesty as a whole led her down a path of togetherness, while Marcy’s lying landed her in a result of not wanting to be alone, costing her so much.

“I don’t believe this. We were so focused on each other we couldn’t see what was right in front of us!”

True Colors excels at earning each of its emotional beats because they line up with character motivations down to the last letter. Anne doesn’t want to trust Sasha anymore because of their already rocky past, which leads to her helping King Andrias regain control of his kingdom. Sasha not keeping a lid on her temper, wanting to rule over Amphibia, and trying to reinforce that power dynamic with Anne & Marcy only made things worse for her image of a changed good friend. There wasn’t a chance in Hell Anne would hear Sasha’s reasoning after she flat out tried to take away her frog family, by attempting to use the Calamity Box a bit ago in the episode. Marcy wanted to believe there was a happily ever after in seeing this world traveling idea as their only chance for salvation as friends for life, but it turned out to be something much more sinister, when learning of Andrias’ backstory and his true scumbag nature. All three of their motivations come clashing together, blinding them from a much bigger danger. Something that effectively puts everyone at stake.

Amphibia’s Season 2 finale works so excellently, given it covers important dramatic elements it’s been stirring around since Season 1′s early rumblings. Amphibia is a story centered around people’s need for emotional connections. True Colors builds miraculously off what Reunion already did quite well in showing friendships can become rough and they are never easy to deal with. When you have to make a stand it can be a tough pill to swallow on the reality check of maybe this “good friend” of your’s isn’t as nice as you previously thought them to be. Anne having been hurt one too many times now by her former friend sends that message close to home, so much so even Sasha begins to question her morality as a human being. It poignantly encapsulates how this trio’s complex friendship is a serious growing issue needing to be reexamined, overall.

What if Anne’s right..? What if I am a horrible person...?

Something I absolutely love to pieces about True Colors, also a testament to Season 2′s darn good writing, is how much introspective we get from each character on what they’re feeling. We’ve seen plenty of Sasha’s vulnerability before in other episodes centered on her issues, but now we’re getting to the root of it. Sasha is really taking everything more to heart, little by little. Sasha’s understanding what kind of an effect she has on people, seeing the damage it has caused made evident by Percy and Braddock in Barrel’s Warhammer. Grime once told her, “Some dreams have a price and not everyone is willing to pay it.”, where she’s questioning that idealism every passing minute the invasion plan proceeds further into reaching success. Sasha isn’t sure what to do with herself anymore feeling aimless. Those previous episodes had a real impact on her priorities more than she cared to let on with Sasha’s typical tough girl act. This kid has let her guard down more, which scares and confuses Sasha. She’s always used to playing the role of protector it contradicts everything Sasha stands for when the roles are totally reversed because now Anne has made her feel the tremendous change in their growth as individuals.

Sasha’s lifestyle has been all about control that after somewhat learning to be more considerate to Anne & Marcy’s feelings she feels beyond conflicted about what truly matters to her. The most screwed up part of it all is Sasha didn’t want to fight anymore, taking up a pacifist approach after seeing what King Andrias had been hiding from everyone. It’s a fitting punishment for Sasha to try bringing Anne over to work together once more, but getting her pleas for companionship outright ignored. Anne was correct that Sasha had wasted all the chances to be reasonable. Boonchuy tried to hear out Sasha before at The Third Temple. One wanted to start things over again to iron out their serious issues, but the other was driven by bitterness, while only remorseful to a degree at best, of seeing their once weak friend become so independent, mature, and stronger that it drove her up wall. Sasha wanted to take away that “problem” being the Plantars, since in her eyes they’re the source of Anne’s strength, driving a wedge further between the two girls in their heated Reunion 2.0 battle.

True Colors demonstrates the horrific price of no trust, communication, nor teamwork from the three main girls that Andrias smoothly took advantage of, as if they were fiddles. 

“That’s the thing about friends isn’t it? The more you love them, the more it hurts when they go.”

King Andrias is quite literally what I wanted Lunaris to be, where DuckTales’ Season 2 finale didn’t impress me on doing. He’s a serious big baddie to the main cast, who follows through on his threats of violence to demonstrate his wide array of arsenal and power. Andrias doesn’t just emotionally manipulate characters, like poor Marcy, but utterly crush them without an ounce of remorse for his actions. When he dropped Sprig out that window after Anne willingly let him have the Calamity Box back I thought they were legit gonna kill this boy off. The way Anne’s flashback montage of her good times with Sprig were eerily shot really didn’t help either on that note. Anne’s Calamity power finally activating is easily up there among stuff, like Dewey risking his life for Della’s disappearance in Last Crash, where the cinematography is shot and animated brilliantly. You feel Anne’s blind raging sadness in every hit she landed on those robots and Andrias. If anyone didn’t believe Sprig was like a little brother to Anne, then I dunno how anyone couldn’t view their bond anymore as such after this hugely defining scene. Anne went bloodthirsty when she believed Sprig to be dead further evidenced when she hugged him in relief afterwards exclaiming, “Sprig!? You’re alive!? Oh, thank goodness...”, which cuts deep so damn much.

Anne was ready to fight every one of Andrias’ troops in that castle to the death, if need be. Before Sprig came back from falling, thanks to Marcy’s quick acting, to comfort Anne, her only goal was to slaughter every opponent in that throne room, along with making Andrias pay dearly for even daring to lay a single finger on anyone of the Plantars. I’m not gonna lie, this pivotal power up reminded me so much Gohan turning Super Saiyan 2 after Cell curb stomped Android 16 into pieces with a smirk on his face. Anne Boonchuy’s maddening outburst is a classic testament to the idea of, “Piss off the nicest person and they’ll make it their mission to instill the biggest kind of fear/terror into you.”. showing this kid at her most vulnerable mental state, yet. Sprig & Anne’s cathartic embrace really messed me up in reinforcing just how these two respect, love, and would go above any of their limitations to help the other out. Sprig’s “death” scene was a masterful bait by the writers into making us think someone was gonna die and it was gonna be a poor kid, no less.  

However, it was actually all just a bait and switch for the real, “Oh, shit. They really just did that”, moment with Marcy unexpectedly getting run through with Andrias’ gigantic sword. In a last ditch effort, Marcy wanted to atone for what she had a hand in getting them all into. Marcy was ironclad determined in making her own stand for what was right trying to save the people she endangered. Akin to what Sasha did in Reunion for saving Anne’s life, Marcy does the exact same here. Although, unfortunately this time, no one is here to protect Marcy from escaping death, like Grime catching Sasha from plummeting at Toad Tower. Marcy couldn’t react in time because she was so focused on helping her dear friends out. She wanted to prove to herself at least one time, “I’ve screwed up so much stuff with my friends. Maybe, just maybe. If I get my friends back home, it’ll prove I’m not an entirely crappy person for setting these events into motion.”. Marcy’s own deep seeded remorse is what saved Anne & the Plantars, while being the cause of her own untimely demise at Andrias’ hands.

This scene is what no doubt encouraged the warning sign for younger viewers Disney decided to make for them. It’s impressive how far Matt and his crew are willing to go for intense dramatic content. Andrias trying to crush Polly with his fist after destroying Frobo with casual ease, dropping Sprig out of the window from up sky high, and stabbing Marcy with his powerful sword displays his cold blooded brutality. Doesn’t matter who you are. If you get in the way of Andrias’ plans for multiverse domination, then he’ll throw anyone into their own grave, be it man, woman, or child. That’s the mark of a truly terrifying antagonist.

Andrias didn’t care who had to be hurt or manipulated to get back the box, so he could invade other worlds with Earth being his next prime target for invasion. Marcy’s fate is a horrifyingly poetic statement, since Sasha stated to Anne in a flashback from Marcy At The Gates, “One of these days, she’s gonna get herself killed.”, with True Colors tying back to this line in a disturbing manner. Something that sends chills down my spine is we get to see the full extent of how far Andrias shoved the sword through her body. We don’t just see the entry point of where it hit her, but it even zooms out to show the whole thing. Real talk, I got serious Avatar The Last Airbender vibes from this scene. Reminded me so much of Aang getting suddenly zapped with lightning by Azula when he tried to enter the Avatar state. Marcy didn’t want to be alone so badly she ended up inevitably dying alone trying to send Anne back home to their reality. One Hell of a way to close off Marcy’s last moments in Season 2, until her inevitable resurrection happens in Season 3 now that King Andrias has her in a tube tank that looks tied to his master.

True Colors ends on a deeply bittersweet cliffhanger leaving the fates of Sasha & Grime totally unknown if they’ll get away by the skin of their teeth, or get captured by Andrias’ soldiers and robots. Anne finally returned home with the Plantars, but at a deadly cost of leaving her other close friends behind in Amphibia. After all the isolation, heartbreak, and endurance she went through with her frog family Anne finds herself at a total loss for words. Once again, Anne is in a state of solitude of not knowing if her friends are really okay or not, mirroring the start of Season 1 when she landed into Amphibia’s world. It’s safe to say to say that, “Finally me and it’s no big deal.”, lyrics have aged terribly for Anne’s realization of finding her own identity came at the expense of getting separated from friends she’s known since kindergarten. Definitely see Anne becoming a lot more protective of the Plantars now more than ever after watching Marcy drop to the ground from being stabbed in front of her eyes.

Amphibia’s Season 2 finale is exactly how you capitalize on a winning story telling formula of dramatic writing, lovable characters with layered depth, and increasing the stakes of your story in an organic manner. True Colors is a finale that should be talked about for a long time to come, as it not only showed how worth the wait it was, but reinforces why Amphibia is a truly great series. It’s unafraid to take its characters to dark places in a way that feels totally earned.

Amphibia Season 2 is everything a sequel to a first film should be.

[dalekofchaos]

I know you don't like Chloe Price anymore. But since you like to change things about your favorite things like Star Wars, DC, Marvel and Horror, how would you change how DONTNOD/Deck Nine handled Chloe?

A lot. I will start with BTS and then LIS. But to be fair, I’ve grown to like Chloe again. My big problem is how she treats Max, the fact that we cannot choose who Max focuses on(again I’d choose Warren and Kate if I could) and well the hateful and toxic Pricefield fans ruined Chloe for me. But here’s how I would change Chloe if I could

BTS

First of all, hire someone who actually understands how teenagers talk(especially teenage girls) and make the dialogue less cringey(this goes for both games)

Give Chloe more of a character arc. I don’t feel that Deck Nine did Chloe justice. The writers attempt to evoke empathy with Chloe feeling grief which is done via exactly one emotion- which is a very childish understanding of how loss and coping works. She had no character arc, considering she was the exact same character that we already knew in LiS Episode 1 (A bitter disaffected teenage youth with no regard for authority) so we didn’t get to see Chloe evolve into the character we loved in the first game. She just already was it.  The gameplay undid the narrative we were given about Chloe being a loner in that you can talk to and make friends with pretty much anybody and they all acted like they liked and were genuinely happy to see Chloe. Very rarely were there interactions with Blackwell students that ended with Chloe’s presence not being welcomed, only Wells, Victoria and Nathan showed contempt for Chloe(even with Nathan that goes away when he claps for her at the play)  The reason this is done is because the game wouldn’t be fun if Chloe actually was a loner. The core mechanic of Life is Strange is being able to talk to people and experiment with your surroundings. A game where nobody wanted to talk to Chloe works against the core mechanic. But in making her the main character it undoes the weight of the narrative of Chloe being alone until Rachel/Max. I just strongly feel that Deck Nine did not understand Chloe as a character and did not do her justice. We should’ve gotten Chloe at her lowest, evolving from Max’s best friend to the character we know in the first game and Rachel helping lift Chloe through the worse point of her life.  Chloe and Rachel together having fun rocking out and Chloe starting to live again and show that Chloe Price loves Rachel Amber and Rachel loves Chloe. Chloe losing Rachel and showing how Chloe has to deal with Rachel missing, how she became in debt to Frank and how she got involved with Nathan and how Chloe ends up in the bathroom. 

The game should have 5 episodes. The first 2 episodes focus on Chloe and Rachel’s first year together. Episode 3 focuses on 2011. 4 focuses on 2012 and the final episode focuses on 2013 and Chloe’s breakdown over Rachel’s disappearance. A bonus episode “Firewalk with me” to show us Rachel’s final days and the choices that led her to the Dark Room. Needless to say, those fans who were against LIS 2 would have something to look forward to cause Deck Nine would take their time with BTS in this scenario.

Make it very clear that David is abusive. The problem with their dynamic in BTS is that they go out of their way to make Chloe irrational for not giving David a chance. In BTS Chloe says she hates David because he calls her “girly” and the game practically implies Chloe is at fault for the conflict between Chloe and David for not accepting David’s photo...what kind of abuse apologetic bullshit is that?  Okay so start off by saying in her journal that “Joyce really remarried the first asshole she saw in Two Whales.” because by the time of 2010 in the canon of the first game, they are already married. Have it implied in her entry about David that it’s like “living Full Metal Jacket” that alone implies emotional and mental abuse if you’ve seen the Bootcamp scenes. Chloe in the entry would continue to say, life’s been a living hell ever since David entered the picture and Joyce takes his side every time. We would get the impression that David does not understand nor does he care about Chloe's depression and grief for losing William and Max moving away. When fighting with Joyce about David, say “he keeps hitting me and you keep defending him, how do you expect me to get over dad by letting some abusive asshole take his place?” Joyce would respond with “you keep pushing him, what did you think was gonna happen” And worse, David just started the Security Officer job at Blackwell. Needless to say Chloe is not taking any of this well. So when David and Chloe go to Blackhell, he’s basically ordering her around, talking down to her. Telling her “You’ve had two years free of having a father figure in your life. I am your father now. I’ve been showing you what a stable home is like, yet you keep pushing me.” Chloe back talks him and it results in David smacking her. David would then say “Look what you made me do.”  Later in the game, Chloe would get herself expelled just to get away from David and David would berate her and call her a loser. Near the end of Episode 3 or 4, Rachel would have dinner with Chloe, Joyce and David. Rachel would see the way David treats Chloe and stands up for her girlfriend. Threatens to call the cops on David if he ever hurts her girlfriend ever again. This of course would spark down David’s obsession with surveillance and his investigation into stalking Rachel, all because he wanted to save his pathetic fucking ass. 

Actually give Chloe a transformation. The problem with BTS, is that Chloe is the same character from the first game.  We don’t get to see how the innocent and happy Chloe  becomes the Chloe from the first game. She’s just like this immediately.  We should get a Batman Returns Catwoman like transformation for Chloe. Chloe’s had it with David, Joyce, Blackhell and now Rachel for leaving. So Chloe would basically be destroying her room and tossing everything away that belonged to the old Chloe. 

Make the game about Rachel helping Chloe down the worst moment of her life. Chloe’s “Rachel was my angel” comment showed a lot to how Chloe loved Rachel and how much she meant to her.  Chloe tells Max that Rachel entered her life when was at her absolute lowest and that it was she who helped her deal with the grief of having lost her father but the entire game is centered around Chloe being the one who is supporting Rachel as she deals with a serious family drama of her own.  What Before The Storm should have been. Rachel helping lift Chloe through the worse point of her life. If Rachel had stopped Chloe from committing suicide… as was the commonly believed interpretation to what happened between Chloe and Rachel up until BtS, then Chloe’s ”“she was my angel” would have meant it was truly special and real. But instead they bump into each other at an illegal concert and Rachel distracted some thug who works for Damon and we spend the game finding out who Sera is in a reveal we all saw it coming and only to have Rachel taken out of the third episode where Rachel never talks to her and makes the whole thing feel pointless. What the game should have been was Chloe and Rachel together having fun rocking out, becoming girlfriends and Chloe starting to live again and show that Chloe Price loves Rachel Amber and Rachel loves Chloe.

Do Chloe’s past with Victoria better. A minor change, but they kind of make Chloe and Rachel look like jerks in the Victoria drugging in part 2. If you let Rachel drop out the play, you drug Victoria or back talk her out of doing the play that she was given. Also it lines up with the first game better this way. In LIS, if you choose to take the picture with Victoria in paint, when seeing said picture, Chloe will say “Boo-Yah skank! Karma’s a bitch!” So I guess we can have Victoria bullying Chloe with her mean girl bullshit, Chloe fights back, Victoria gets scared, so Victoria helps get Chloe expelled by reporting her graffiti(as is the reason she was expelled from Blackwell)

When Rachel goes missing, we spend the final episode looking for her. It’s a very sad and tragic episode. We all know there is no hope in finding Rachel, but we still try anyway, in some hope that Rachel is still out there. So Chloe leaves up the posters, is in debt to Frank and tries to steal money from Nathan. Which leads Chloe to that faithful day in the bathroom.

LIS

Chloe does not park in the handicapped space(I don’t even have to tell you why this was a bad idea to begin with)

Chloe stops guilt tripping Max after the first truck ride

If you chose not to come out of the closet or not take the blame, after lashing out at Max, Chloe will apologize for lashing out at us. Same for if we chose not to fire the gun. 

Does not get pissy if we take Kate’s call, in fact prior to Chloe’s test, Max would explain the situation with Kate and Chloe would be understanding as she understands being depressed herself and would even help Max out in finding evidence to implicate Nathan and David. 

It’s not the handicapped fund, it’s the “Prescott Donation”(aka Sean’s bribery money) this way we can feel less guilty about not stealing from the handicapped fund and Chloe doesn’t look like an ableist

If Chloe does snap after finding about Rachel and says the same things she did about Kate as she did in canon. Max can then lose her shit and stand up to Chloe. Basically says the way she treats her is not okay and if she wants to help her find Rachel and seek justice for Kate, then things are gonna have to change or they are finished. Then Max leaves Chloe behind with Chloe realizing that she needs to change. Ideally something like Bojack Horseman “You can't keep doing this! You can't keep doing shitty things and then feel bad about yourself as if that makes it okay! You need to be better!  Chloe, stop. It's not alcohol, drugs, or your parents, David, Rachel or all the bad things that happened to you before. It's you. It's you. I want to find Rachel and get justice for Kate, but if this is how you’re gonna keep treating me...Fuck, man... What else is there to say?“ I know LIS came out way before BJHM or that particular episode, but it’s the perfect example of how Max could’ve stood up to Chloe’s toxic behavior

After the returning from her time jump, Max returns to her dorm and goes to Chloe. Chloe properly apologizes for how she’s been acting since they got back together and agree to put everything in the past so they can work together to find Rachel and give Kate justice

Max is given the option to enter the Everyday Hero’s Contest. If you saved Kate, Max with Kate’s permission, Kate would let Max take a photo of her in the hospital. And Max enters her photo at the last minute when she returns to Blackwell. If you did not save Kate, then Chloe would give up the Butterfly photo so Max can enter the photo. Either way Max will win the contest. Max wins the Everyday Hero Contest. Max gives an inspiring speech about how everyone can be a hero and that Kate has always inspired her, how much she loves Kate and that she hopes that Kate knows that she is loved by everyone in Blackwell and everyone, especially Chloe, Warren, Victoria would cheer Max on. This would also give Jefferson the means and opportunity to drug Max without killing Chloe at the Junkyard. Chloe doesn’t die because it’s a public place and Jefferson has Max where he wants her. It honestly works better than Jefferson magically appearing at the Junkyard with no explanation(and it never being brought up).

What could happen in Episode 5 is basically the same thing, only in an act of desperation, Chloe goes to David to help save Max. They put their differences aside to save the person Chloe loves the most and David gets to stop Jefferson. Chloe could not be there to save Rachel, but she can be there for Max. Chloe saves Max and Jefferson goes to jail. Together Max and Chloe goes directly into the eye of the storm to save everyone at the diner. However instead of using Warren’s photo to save Chloe, Max uses it to warn David about Jefferson and to reach the Lighthouse. The same choice is given to us and instead of a copout ending,  Max actually uses the photo to save Chloe and the town. Warns David and David barges in and catches Nathan redhanded with the gun and uncovers the truth of Rachel, Kate and Jefferson. Max warns the town of the storm. Everyone listens. After Jefferson’s arrest, the police clears the bunker of Jefferson’s predatory display and the town hides in the bunker. The town is rebuilt. A town can be rebuilt, but you can’t build another Chloe. Jefferson and Sean are rotting in prison and Nathan is getting the help he desperately needed. Chloe finally moves on from her hatred of David and the Price family gets to start over. A montage of Max and Chloe together either romantic or platonic and if you chose to romance Warren, a little clip of Going Ape, if just friends, then we see Warren, Kate, Max and Chloe Going Ape! It ends on Rachel’s funeral and the final scene shows the Doe spirit as both Max and Chloe smile as Rachel’s spirit finally rests. 

Chloe’s arc is lashing out at a cruel world, learning to let the right people in, healing and letting go of her hate and starting over. It just doesn’t work if she has to die to actually learn this and also that character arc goes out the window of you choose the save Chloe ending (and makes max look like an awful person for killing all her friends and Joyce). Chloe gets to live, she’s at peace knowing that Rachel was brought to justice, she’s willing to start over with David, she has her best friend and mother in her life. If you chose the Pricefield route, then Chloe is at peace with Rachel passing on and she starts anew with Max. If not, then Chloe still has her best friend and knows she will always be there and she will always be there for Max in return.

Also, I like the idea of Max and Chloe road tripping together as was demonstrated in LIS 2, but I also like the idea of Warren, Victoria and Kate joining them as well and they live in their own commune. Maybe Max, Warren and Chloe are in a poly relationship, while Kate and Victoria are together!!!

[pingnova]

my 15x19 and 15x20 meta copy and pasted from discord bc I’m in the middle of cooking dinner. tldr: Sam and Dean didn’t win and 19 was chucks ending.

19 WAS chucks ending. Galaxy brain they didn’t actually defeat him. if you count him being human and mortal anyway as that. I was reading that post someone shared about the framing making it look like we’re a spectator... like a play or a film? and Chuck had a line about this already: “omniscient, remember? why can’t anyone get that.” he does literally know everything so even tho Cas and Jack were oddities, that doesn’t stop him from knowing them too. he would have predicted all of that, including Sam and Dean allow him him to beat on them for time... even his decision to just beat them was sus, the dude can snap people into dust. When he talked to Amara in the bunker he said this was still the story he had written, he pointed out Jack was going to die when not even Cas knew what was going to happen with that bomb inside him. He knew Jack would explode in the empty and etc. he knew about Cas’s deal. He knew all of this. That’s why the ending feels so fake. It’s chucks ending. This isn’t the winchesters ending. We can all agree their friends and family would be in that, but Chuck was always obsessed with the winchester brothers doing their thing til the end. And it’s too neat that the thorns in chuck’s sides Cas and Jack aren’t mentioned at all. Y’all said the next ep is Sam and Dean hunting? Yo, Chuck would want them to defeat the big bad and keep hunting. Chuck said before the only reason their universe was so full of monsters and shit was bc he put them there to entertain himself w the winchesters. I don’t think Sam and Dean would BOTH keep hunting if it was really over, anyway. We all know Sam has Eileen and Dean has Cas. Sam asked a couple seasons back if there wasn’t some way to end all monsters permanently.... and his question was never addressed again. Chuck is still running the show I’m guessing. I mean, even his rolling in the sand thing was kinda melodramatic, and it’s been said before he’s not even a good writer.

Becky SAW this ending and hated it. She asked where Cas was. The last episode is called Carry On like the song, but the song says there’s REST for them. Continuing to hunt isn’t rest. In my ideal world sam and Eileen and Dean and Cas are rest. And. Can Jack really just. *take* gods grace? Who’s to say Chuck isn’t just like, possessing him. Jack seemed nothing like himself at the end there. He’s so passionate about his family. He would never leave. And that speech about being everywhere seems like it was supposed to be a kind of poetic end and a bittersweet comfort.

Becky wanted them to have rest, she talked about how she wrote them doing laundry and living life. That ep w Becky is everything we need to know about the finale arc.

they wouldn’t have had Becky mirror us SO well if they hadn’t known *exactly* what we wanted. and that they were going to address every bit of it. Becky is the mirror of the reformed Chuck. She realized she had an unhealthy relationship with the IDEA of a person instead of who they really were.

And again, I said I hated Michael’s random 180 to not caring that Adam was gone and wanting to be his dads favorite so suddenly. No, I trust my gut about Michael. He spent millennia in a box in hell and before that was abandoned, that first scene he had with adam is the core of him right now. They got along so well. He wouldn’t forget millennia of that. It was incredibly contrived, and Chuck sure does contrive.

Becky puts herself don equal footing with *god* as a writer.... because every person writes their own life, when it goes right.

CHUCK IS POSSESSING JACK. JACK ACTED LIKE HIM WHEN HE WAS ALL COOL AND SELF ASSURED. CHUCK DIDNT LIKE HIMSELF MUCH ANYMORE..... but EVERYONE loves Jack. Why not be Jack who is god? Chuck likes his ego. He likes to be liked. Jack was turned into an energy sucking vessel, which no one has seen before, but it could allegedly suck the power from god...... or maybe just make Jack a vessel for Chuck himself.

Anyway I need to microwave my brain, down my hydroxyzine, and stop chopping dinner I already cut my hands when I realized all of this.

EDIT: OH MY GOD THE BECKY MIRRIOR WITH THE META TALKING ABOUT THE FRAMKNG THEM LIKE@DOLLS@OR@TOYS BECKY LITERALLY HAD TFW DOLLS AND TOYS ITS JUST THAT CHUCKS DOLLS ARE LIFE SIZE IM TRYING TO CHILL OUT BUT I CANT

[rocketfool]

fawks - 62, 64, 52, 40, 15 | kass - 8, 16, 36, 42, 66 "rainy that's ten questions" "yes :)"

putting these behind a read more to spare people who are not interested in all of this because whoops it got long! 

FAWKS

62. Who does your character think is the most put together in the party?

THIS DEPENDS ON THE PARTY. of the main party, it’s definitely pierce. like sure he has some anxiety but he has not put goo in his mouth unprompted. so that pulls him ahead of fyn, who would be the second choice. of the surface party...probably valytra! like sure she collects souls in her necklace but she seems Polite and like she was a Pleasure to Have in Class, plus you have to have your shit together to be a spy (theoretically). kidar is...put together in that she’s extremely confident in who she is and assured of her own place in the world, but not the typical standard for “put together,” and fyn has put goo in her mouth, so. valytra wins. 

64. What is one thing they want each party member to know?

I’m going to do main party, and out of character! 

pierce: you’re so much braver and more heroic than you give yourself credit for. you deserve your place here just as much as anyone, and have personally inspired me to be a better person. but stop side eying me about scully I am WORKING on having a realization about this!! I’ll get there maybe!

jolene: we both put up such aggressive fronts to hide our vulnerabilities, but I’m discovering it is actually helpful to let people in and care for them, even if it makes you feel exposed. I hope you’re also coming to that realization and maybe one day (IN THE VERY DISTANT FUTURE) we’ll be more honest in our own friendship but for now lmao what is going on with blacksmith girl huh. I would like an update.

fyn: you’re the most optimistic and good-hearted person I know, and I hope you can see what an effect you have on the party. I’m very glad I’ve had you at my side for pursuing the black dragon wyrmspeaker, because I don’t know how I would’ve done it alone. also please stop putting goo in your mouth, we have enough money for quiche and lavender lemonade PLEASE. 

52. If your character was under quarantine, what type of quarantine person would they be? (Productive? Hobbyist? Lazy?)

oh my god fawks in quarantine is off the rails immediately, she cannot be left unsupervised. I think she starts her own youtube channel that people LEGITIMATELY think is supposed to be like a ~found footage narrative fiction channel or other creative project but...it’s never been stated to be and she just keeps appearing in videos to talk very urgently about cryptids and show everyone how she’s converted her kitchen to include a PROPER, homemade fumigation hood. so it’s very unclear. on that note, the vlog probably comes to an end bc she either 1) blows up her kitchen with her own experiments because it is NOT a lab, or 2) breaks into someplace she shouldn’t be and isn’t caught but then uploads the footage to ye olde youtube and it’s like...okay so this is you running around fantasy area 51 right? knock it off. 

40. Describe a corruption/redemption arc version of your character.

OKAY corruption arc fawks...like we all know fawks is very, very motivated by ~discovery and has a black and white way of thinking, she’s always poised on a precipice of discovering one powerful magic artifact that makes her risk it all LOL. she’s doing some character development in that area but I think there some very clear seeds of a corruption arc there--her connection to people (such as the party) is what keeps her on the...generally okay if not exactly the Right Path, so I think something awful befalling the party/people she loves where they are all killed would push her firmly into the dark side. I can see her getting lost in pursuing a way to “undo” whatever happened with time travel magic (wow like a certain tower we encountered) instead of reconciling it, and being willing to do whatever it takes to get her way. would prioritize herself and her mission above everything and everyone else, even if it threatens to rip the universe apart or results in killing people because she knows once she discovers this magic it will set things right, not just for her but its uses for the world at large...yeah it’d be bad. :/

REDEMPTION ARC is kind of what she’s on now. she’s discovering she has worth outside of what she produces for science/magic/etc! she’s figuring out she can open up to people and ask for help sometimes! she’s putting things right for her family! things are slowly coming up fawks...maybe.

15. Describe their ideal date. 

OH BOY. fawks is not really uh...into traditional expressions of romance. like she’ll make an effort for the right person but her preference is never going to be a fancy dinner and candlelight. honestly I think the ideal date would start off in the late evening (AFTER A LONG DAY OF SCIENCE), going to a museum of curiosities or for cryptids/the arcane, where she’s allowed to really go in deep with her date on the history of various items/the theories behind everything and listen eagerly to what her date has to say too (in any world where fawks is dating, that person has to have Opinions on this type of thing). they’d stay until close and then head to a food truck to grab something to go while fawks leads the date to a rooftop of an abandoned building she likely discovered cryptid hunting but realized has an amazing view. they’d sit out under the stars and eat together, chatting inevitably about how fawks found the building, maybe do some exploring of it together. and then they head to a 24 hour diner for milkshakes as dessert! 

KASS

8. What is something they cannot resist?

OOOH this is fun because there are a lot of ways to interpret the question. I think kass can never resist a bustling marketplace in whatever city he ends up in--he loves travel and finding out about the local culture, is always curious to see what’s for sale and what the gossip is about town from the merchants he meets there. he spent a lot of time in marketplaces growing up so they’re nostalgic for him--he also loves purchasing trinkets from them anytime he lands somewhere new, particularly if those trinkets are fancy scarves/boots/etc. foodwise, he’s a sucker for baklava and good red wine--he enjoys wine shops/bars over taverns because he’s bougie lmao. oh and if dancing is happening and he’s not the one playing the music, kass is involving himself as is his right as a bard. he can’t resist a good opportunity dance when he has the chance!

16. What keeps them going?

OH BOY a good question. I think kass is a realist in a lot of ways, but has held onto some amount of idealism. he keeps moving forward with the idea that he’s in a losing situation right now, but he’s patient enough to watch and see what way the winds will blow. he justifies his work with the understanding that he has a certain moral code for his behavior when he can make choices, versus when his hands are tied by the zhents. always is keeping one eye out for an opportunity to slip out of those binds completely. 

36. What makes them blush?

HMMMM I don’t think kass gets too worked up over flirting--sometimes it’s literally just part of his job, and in general he’s just confident in himself. and listen he’s been in plenty of seedy taverns and courts rifled with intrigue, so not a lot makes kass bat an eyelash at this point. the things that would make him blush would probably be genuine romantic gestures? he doesn’t have a lot of experience with them so someone doing something very sweet and thoughtful for him would catch him completely off guard. like even getting flowers from the right person, kass is just not used to that type of attention! 

42. Is there something your character isn’t very good at, but enjoys doing nonetheless?

kass would LOVE crossword puzzles I think. he’s been doing them since he was a kid and could filch a newspaper every once in a while, but he’s not super good at them. just enjoys having something to sit back and focus on while drinking his coffee in the mornings. I also don’t think he’s very good at cooking, but he enjoys trying out new recipes!

66. Outward Passion or Quiet Rebellion?

this is hard because I think kass feels pulled between the two very frequently. I think he’d much prefer outward passion, throwing himself heart first into a cause, but he definitely is more likely to commit quiet rebellion and does so frequently. like what the zhents don’t know won’t hurt...him. again, where he has the ability to, kass follows his own heart so he’s willing to work quietly to do some good. but he’d much prefer to be bolder, in the grand scheme of things. 

[codenamesazanka]

unpopular opinion: if shigaraki and dabi are "too far gone" and shouldn't get a happy ending, then neither should hawks

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

Hiya!!! Thanks for the ask! And my opinion is... somewhere between agree and neutral. I’m biased though because I don’t really care what happens to Dabi or Hawks ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(my order of preference is Shigaraki > Hawks > [that “can’t ya see” kid’s polite non-shark friend] > Dabi, so I can really only talk about Shigaraki, sorry!)

I don’t think Shigaraki is too far gone! (Also I don’t quite believe in “redemption arcs” as a thing, in that who and what someone deserves or not. i dunno, I have weird feelings and thoughts on it). And idk what a “happy ending” should look like or would entail cuz like, what definition of ‘happiness’ are we talking about?

Shigaraki’s alive? He’s alive and free? He’s alive and free and has nice dinners with All Might every weekend? My ideal ending is him pulling a bit of a Karma Houdini and disappears, and it’s hinted that he ends up a chaotic good/neutral vigilante/outlaw on the streets of, idk, Thailand, as a sort of atonement and he’s living with Spinner.

I feel like if the manga heads towards a path of ‘too far gone’, where Shigaraki’s story and feelings don’t even matter anymore, it’s just cathartic to see him be pulverized by Deku or even that it rouses our sadistic satisfaction knowing he’ll suffer for the rest of his life— well I really do not think the manga would go that path. But if it does, I think by then the stakes would’ve been ridiculously high and the mood much darker and pessimistic, that Hawks definitely didn’t get a happy ending. He probably already died in a particularly brutal way.

So yeah, if Shigaraki reaches that point, Hawks also reached the point where a happy ending isn’t possible for him.

Also: I don’t think Hawks will get a happy ending at this point, not after he killed Twice. A bittersweet one, maybe. But his deed is a stain on his story, his character, and he’s now a tragic/unfortunate figure who bears the brunt of the series’ grim contradictions and conflicts. Maybe like Twice, he’ll die, but at least with some degree of satisfaction, reaffirming that although he dies with regrets, his life had enough meaning. Maybe he’ll lose his wings and status, and his life will never be the same, with a goal he’ll never achieve and he knows it, but might as well keep living. So IMO, whatever happens to Shigaraki (or Dabi), Hawks’ chance for a happy ending is likely gone.

(*some thoughts for Dabi from a Dabi Disliker: at the rate he’s going, there’s no good ending for him either. I think the question is, what’s the happy ending for the Todoroki family and how does Dabi fit into that? That’s a large part of what his path ends up being.)

[davidmann95]

All-Star Superman #2

A scant year to the day since part 1!

All evidence to the contrary I actually have always wanted to go back to this, especially since I keep getting asked if I’ll do so and it stirs my omnipresent sense of guilt over my lack of productivity, and also the last year has not resulted in a mass turnaround of people realizing it’s a for-real good book and not just comfort food so this remains necessary. This isn’t going to be quite as in-depth as the first go-around - both that as the introductory issue and that as the introductory recap had a lot of groundwork to lay - but still plenty to cover, as this issue sets up Lois and Superman’s arcs for the series, which is rooted (amazingly, especially right off the bat, given the book’s reputation of being about how amazing Superman is) in how badly Superman’s let his fears and shortsightedness poison the most important relationship in his life.

If the first issue is the big classic Superman material - Superman saving the day from the monster! Lois and Clark and the rest of the Daily Planet crew! Lex Luthor’s sinister schemes! A ticking clock to doom! - this scales all the way down to the uncomfortably, stiflingly intimate. Classic archetypal Superman stuff gives way to the most Silver Age issue: casual huge ideas, relationship drama, misunderstandings, last-minute reveals that recontextualize the entire issue, and baaaarely latent psychodrama bubbling up at the edges. In service of that the visual framing here is not unlike a stage play, a limited set of physically connected locales as a pair of figures bounce off one another. Quitely and Grant’s work is therefore comparatively subdued next to issue #1, keeping to traditional panel layouts and wide or medium shots with a background color palate of mostly blacks and whites and grays with a handful of other colors popping out...until Lois starts to lose her shit at the end of the issue and we get close-ups and full black and white panels and eerie glowing and dutch angles and that unsettling abstract image of her clenched teeth, as the story starts to squeeze us like Lois’s gut.

She’s right to be unsettled for that matter; she’s alone on Superman’s turf (the one issue where that’s the case other than #6, and that one’s about how Smallville stopped being his home), the weird antiseptic alien lair of the ultimate super-hobbyist, and all the baggage of their relationship is spilling out into the open as she has less and less reason to think the best of this odd man who’s been lying to her for years. Unlike the Silver Age tales this is referencing, she’s absolutely on the money with her complaints about him: he’s been dicking around with her forever and thinks it can all be okay now (His little “What?” on the second page when she bursts his bubble says it all), and he’s awkwardly overcompensating trying to fix it.

While the Fortress tour serves to peacefully acclimate us to how utterly bizarre Superman’s world really gets past the traditional rescues (the little cubic starfield we don’t know the meaning of yet, trophies are floating rather than physically suspended, the glowing flowers in Lois’s room, “The Phantom Zone map room’s pretty dull unless you can see radio-negative anti-waves”), Superman himself is...humblebragging isn’t the right way of putting it, but it feels like he’s working way, way harder than he ever will again in this book to be cool and impressive and assuring. He’s a dope in love, but he can tell something’s up and that super-brain of his isn’t putting the obvious pieces together, or noticing that this is just putting her off further and further until, like Bluebeard’s wife before her, she stumbles through the threshold of the door she was never meant to, even of course in the end he’s still Superman and there’s a perfectly good reason. Not a good enough reason, however, for her accusations at dinner to not hit home - his mind may be expanding, but he’s still way up his own ass here in a genuinely unpleasant way that’ll be elaborated on momentarily. For now he’s left stammering that she should trust him and it’s limp and phony, especially compared to his big entreaty for someone to trust him in #10 (which’ll be right after he finally comes clean with her); while Superman may not be considered a savior figure by his friends in here the way he often is in the mainline comics Lois seems to be the only one who doesn’t look up to him at least a little bit, but that clarity means she’ll call him out where no one else will.

Across the next two pages it’s all laid out, and we get to the roots of where things have gone wrong between the two of them. Lois is paranoid, certainly, the panels are literally squeezing in on her, but with Superman seeming so out-there and alien like never before she would have every right to be even sans alien chemicals. But notably there remains throughout a part of her assuming the best of him wondering if maybe this is just another big misunderstanding or that he’s simply been mutated by the solar overexposure. And in her heart of hearts, she admits that maybe she wants this to be another big damn trick with a completely sensible justification, because the alternative is that this is the new normal and she has to accept that he’s a flawed mortal man. It’s ugly and it’s mean - especially since she likes Clark - and it’s human as hell in the worst, most understandable way. It’s not going to be until said mortality is staring her in the face that she’ll be able to accept it.

Superman, meanwhile...someone could write a thesis on these panels as an articulation of the Superman/Clark dynamic. The Mirror of Truth is actually preexisting, centerpiece of a Jerry Siegel/Curt Swan joint in Action Comics #269 that was later adapted into the Superman newspaper strip where Lois uses it to figure out Superman is Clark Kent until he tricks her into believing the mirror can lie, after which he tosses it in a volcano; here it’s survived, and curiously shows him as Superman rather than Clark, when in the original tale it displayed Kent even though that was fully the era of Clark as a disguise. In here too it’s Superman who’s the ‘true’ identity of the two and which this time is reflected in the mirror, yet as in #1 it’s Clark who says what he’s truly feeling. In that light, the final panel of the abandoned glasses reads like nothing so much as Superman using the mirror as affirmation that the truth of the solemn, steadfast Superman identity gives him licence to deny the uncomfortable emotions his squishy human farmboy side is dredging up, ‘lying’ to him in a way he had to fake in the source material. Those emotions however knock right on the door of what he can’t grasp here: Clark’s so wrapped up in his own head trying to do the ‘right’ thing that he’s overlooking how his attempts at self-sacrificing selflessness are hurting the people around him. Throughout the series he’ll come to rely on others, first at his lowest points with Jimmy and the Bizarros, until at last he comes to invest true trust in Lois, and the Kandorians, and Leo Quintum, and even Lex.

For now though Lois is deep in a hole, a brief but memorable meeting with the Unknown Superman of 4500AD - everything Superman seems to be becoming to her even before she wonders if it’s literally him, cryptic and masked and with a big ‘ol question mark right on his chest instead of the familiar comforting logo, even his gutbuster of a question reinforcing his distance from a recognizable human experience - leading her all the way to reimagining her Silver Age ideal happy ending of marriage and family with Superman as a Cronenbergian horror. It’s still a Superman story, it turns out he had the very best reason possible for wanting to keep her in the dark, but right through to the end he remains just a little condescending in his reassurance, and his gift of essentially bringing her up to his ‘level’ isn’t going to solve the problem. While the next issue lets us see the two of them properly in love, it won’t be until the elephant in the room comes out that they can come to terms.

Additional notes

* God Quitely is so good. Look at the way the seatbelt curves in the first panel! Lois’s bemused little disbelieving smirk!

* Pages 2-3: Aurora Borealis?!

* Lois is the only character other than Superman who gets to have actual narration (in both cases as looks at their in-text writing), the only one whose viewpoint is thus privileged in the same way as his.

* The key is the realization of this series’ aesthetic in a nutshell: the old-school idea in a sleek, shiny, clever new way that doesn’t take away from the fantastical toyeticness of it all. For that matter, the key is the centerpiece of a later bit with Superman that could be fairly described as the long-term goal of the book book as Morrison’s hoped-for perennial: “One day some future man or woman will open that door, with that key. When they do, I want them to know how it felt to live at the dawn of the age of superheroes.”

* This is A. The first note of a larger DC universe existing offscreen, something that I’ll go into more when discussing #8, B. A brilliant, concise, fun little summation of his place in Superman’s world, and C. Absolutely hilarious given Morrison suggested in his exit interview that this could be seen as much later on in the same universe as All-Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder, which entirely rewrites the tone of that moment.

* Already discussed the key but the muscles in Superman’s hand tensing a bit at picking it up is another great detail.

* The glimpse of the Fortress here is excellent: the statues of his friends and enemies instead of pictures because he does things bigger with the yellow electric something crackling at the end of it, the off-model but curious-looking robot appearing to glance at Kandor (are it and the bigger robot with the seats on top of it trophies, or Superman Robots with different designs tasked for specific purposes?), the classic Bad Penny Good For One Crime, the Legion time bubble that establishes his time-traveling credentials for later, the Titanic where he and Lois will dine when their relationship hits a proverbial iceberg, and most strikingly the space shuttle Columbia, his apparent rescue of which I have to imagine is a reference to Astro City’s Superman analogue Samaritan debuting by averting the Challenger disaster.

* It’s next issue that has my actual favorite Superman/Lois moment of all time, but “When we’re married fifteen years, when I’m sagging and he looks just the same, will he still meet me and say things like...” “These are for you. I picked them on Alpha Centauri 4.” is right up there.

* The technological aesthetic of the Fortress is so different than P.R.O.J.E.C.T., sleek and solid and cleanly-lit and antiseptic, beautiful and advanced but a little cold in its own way. As stuffed with wonder as this place may be, there’s something hauntingly empty about it, suiting both the tone of the issue and as a physical embodiment of Superman’s emotional state. The one part that goes against it is the forbidden room, it even has beakers and test tubes to sell the mad scientist vibe...though if you were to stretch it, it much more close resembles the human technology seen at P.R.O.J.E.C.T., and this is meant as a gift for one.

* The cosmic anvil made it along with the key into the CWverse, Lois used it in Elseworlds! I may not be expecting All-Star quality from the upcoming Superman and Lois, but it’s good to know the powers that be are using it as a reference point (beyond how it inspired Supergirl’s take on Cat Grant, a connection I discussed in a post that seems to have vanished into thin air). The whole page is perfect, Superman at his most joyfully benign and beautiful and godlike; it’s the one bit where Lois’s skepticism cracks a touch watching him feed his adorable little Lovecraftian abomination from beyond the stars.

* While he never appears physically aside from a statue Brainiac hovers over this series from beginning to end in name and deed, the ominous ultimate enemy of Superman’s past, the great trial overcome even as the scars forever remain. Morrison mentioned in the exit interview that he didn’t appear in here because he and Quitely already used him as the villain of JLA: Earth 2, but that if he had it would have borrowed Superman: The Animated Series’ take on him as a Kryptonian AI gone rogue. Personally I like his place in here as-is, a little totem parallel to the Justice League references indicating the breadth of Superman’s history between putting on the cape and Luthor’s final scheme.

* A pair of minor notes: Lois points at Superman with the pointy fork when asking him pointed questions, and while it’s not immediately clear on first read she does in fact ask the Unknown Superman exactly 3 questions (“Kal Kent?” “Will Superman and I ever marry and have children?” “What do you mean?”) before he replies with his own, as promised.

* “Oww.” and “Tickles.” literally could not be more perfect Superman moments.

* Worth taking a moment to marvel at just how many future plot elements are seeded here. There’s the obvious bit of Superman thinking about having a partner setting up the next issue, but we also for issue #6 have our first look at Kal Kent and Lois wondering “What if (the Unknown Superman) was really (Superman)?” when Clark will indeed pose as him, for #10 we get our first look at Qwewq, and for #11 not only is the Sun-Eater introduced but so is Robot 7′s malfunction as a result of Luthor’s tampering.

* The structure of the series according to Morrison is a solar cycle, beginning and ending at midday with nightfall in the center. If last issue was the sun at its brightest we begin the descent here, with Superman remaining larger-than-life and ultimately trustworthy but with his classic persona and habits held to an additional, unflattering degree of scrutiny.

[bestricecooker220]

best rice cooker 2020

Are you a housewife and looking for the best rice cooker? Don’t worry, and we will provide the best solution for how to make delicious rice with the help of the best rice cookers. In this platform, you will check all the best rice cookers reviews without any discrimination.

Now, in these days rice cookers are based modern on technology. Revolutionary process changes the technology and more comfortable the way of life of a current generation. Rice cookers are very important for every homemaker whose husband loves to eat rice.

Choosing the best rice cooker is slightly a difficult task in this modern age. Now, we can review the top ten best rice cookers of different brands. All features to understand choosing and selecting the best rice cooker for your home and make life easier.

Later on, in this article, we will discuss, or I will provide all the tips to select the best rice cooker with best features.

Now time to start to review all top ten rice cookers.

Best Rice cooker 2020

See the rice cookers reviews to pick the top and best model.

Instant Pot Lux Mini 6 Rice Cooker| Multi Cooker.

Instant Pot LUX Mini 6 designs in such a way to perform multiple programs. It’s not the best rice cooker but also used as a pressure cooker, steamer, slow cooker, sauté, and warmer. This multi-cooker is a design by instant pot American no one company of stoves.

Its help you in preparing any dishes faster up to seventy per cent than any other best rice cooker. Its build with the most advanced technology of the third-generation microprocessor. Its capacity to keep warms the rice ten hours automatically.

If you think you need a healthy food than don’t worry the slow cooking option is present in this best rice cooker Instant Pot LUX Mini 6.

For healthy food, stainless steel is used in an inner cooking pot and also no chemical coating to protect you for any chemical reaction.

Everyone wants delicious items than you need to protect their original flavour’s. This best rice cooker Instant Pot LUX Mini 6 can defend his tastes.

Today everyone is health-conscious and tries to avoid all those products in which a few chemical reactions. But there is the use of stainless steel in the inner cooking pot to protect you from any chemical reaction.

Food taste is also significant, and people prefer to eat anything with original taste. This Instant Pot LUX Mini 6 has the ability to faster cooking with its entire unique flavour.

Now a day, people are very conscious of the use of electric supply and try to avoid further use of electrical supply. This best rice cooker can save electricity with minimum use of 120V to 60Hz.

Why you prefer this instant pot lux mini 6 qt 6-in-1 cooker? The one most important reason is that it’s not just the best rice cooker, but it’s a multi-machine. Which is working not just like a rice cooker but also work as a pressure cooker, slow cooker, steamer etc.

Instant pot lux mini-reviews are the most popular rice cooker, but why? Now the answer is due to its multi-features and low electricity voltage 120V to 60Hz.while others have no multiple features.

Aroma Housewares ARC-954SBD Rice Cooker

Enjoy simple home cooking with the Aroma Housewares ARC-954SBD Rice Cooker, food steamboat and slow cooker. This is no 2 in the list. Healthy steamed and slowed cooked one-pot meals.

Aroma Housewares ARC-954SBD requires out the cook of home cooking – turning the kitchen time in your time. Set and forget about it! Help the children with homework, get creative at playtime or pick up this novel you have been waiting to dive in.

All while providing hot, hearty, and wholesome meals, the whole family will adore. This convenient cooker’s generous capacity cooks up to 8 cups of almost any range of cooked rice with technical functions for both white and Brown rice.

After the rice has completed, this best rice cooker will automatically switch to keep warm, so there is no need for tracking or stirring. The steam allows for healthy steaming of meats and veggies, even while the rice cooks below.

Need rice in a pinch? Save yourself time with the Quick rice function that cuts cooking time by up to 50%. Aroma cook function transforms your rice cooker into another two — Quart slow cooker promoting its use as a meal-making powerhouse.

With odor patented sauté,-then simmer sets function; you can further automate your kitchen. Reaching a high heat to sauté, or brown foods then switching over to a simmer once the liquid is added. This time-saving function is the best choice chilli, for Spanish rice, risotto, more and packaged meals.

The programmable timer in this best rice cooker is 15 hours for perfect meals for families on the go, providing rice ready when it is needed. And once the cooking is done, the interior cooking kettle and all accessories remove for easy cleanup from the dishwasher. Steam, rice measuring cup, and serving spatula included in this best rice cooker and Aroma Housewares ARC-954SB Rice Cooker.

Overall, any variety of rice (white rice, brown rice,) cooked perfectly with this best rice cooker. The dimension of this cooker is 8.9 x 8.6 x 9.3 inches with 15 hours delay timer.Pros

Perfectly prepared white and brown rice

Easy design and use

It comes with a little measuring cup

Cons

warranty claim issue

Dash Drcm200gbaq04 Mini Rice Cooker

Consumers in the market for a top-quality steamboat or slow cooker frequently end up buying the best rice cooker which is Dash Mini Rice Cooker. They might be used to Oatmeal, stew, soup, quinoa, rice, pasta, and even steamed veggies while they’re made to cook a variety of rice without burning or sticking to the pan or to make slow cooker breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, or sides. They come in a selection of abilities with attributes, making them purchase for the needs of every individual. There are best rice cooker reviews to steer you, but there is a Dash DRCM200GBAQ04 Mini Rice Cooker Steamer likely to be an alternative for anyone. They create or for one individual to have leftovers for meals.

Dash DRCM200GBAQ04, Mini Rice Cooker Steamer, includes a pan that is aluminium and will create up to 2 cups of cooked rice. It’s quite simple to operate, turning on with only the flip of a single switch. The warmer will keep your rice after cooking in the ideal temperature for up to hours.

For those searching for something with a style and flexibility that was more convenient, the Dash DRCM200GBAQ04 Mini Rice Cooker has to be taken into account. It’s got a 2 cup capacity, which suggests it’ll cook up to 2 cups of rice at a time.

It’ll also hold it warm for up that will take hours after ingestion. With eight different menu settings, it’s ideal for making very type of rice as well as side dishes or meals, large and small. It’s equipped with more technological advances that allow it to cook foods evenly while keeping the most flavours possible.

Probably the best feature is that it’s quite natural that will clean up thanks that will one nonstick pan surface with one distinctive dimpled design on the bottom. While the Fuzzy Logic cooker does have one more complicated operation than numerous other models, but it’s worth the extra time learning how it works whenever you consider how numerous different meals you can in fact cook in it.

Overall it is budget friendly with 8.3 x 6.5 x 16 inches dimension. It is super easy you just push the bottom and it cooks and then when it’s finished it goes to keep warm setting.Pros

One year warranty

Budget friendly

Easily move-able

Cute little non-stick gizmo

Quick and easy

Cons

No cons

Black+Decker RC503  Rice Cooker

With the aid of a BLACK+DECKER RC503 Dry/3-Cup Cooked Rice Cooker it’s potential to prepare food in a hassle free approach. Importance is assumed by this type of utensil because rice is considered an important grain and need to be ready in an efficient manner.

Filling the device that is preparing with quantity of water and granule and adhering to the cooking education is enough to prepare foodstuff in a way that is comfortable. BLACK+DECKER RC503 Uncooked Rice Cooker, 3-cup, White

For cleanup nonstick rice pot completely removable. There are many models where one has to make a 21, taking into account the aspects is important. To start with, when making a procure it is vital to make an estimate of the size that will be appropriate.

Deciding on the capacity is dependent upon the number of people for whom your cooking has to be achieved and the quantity of food. Option of a best rice cooker that is BLACK+DECKER RC503 Dry/3-Cup Cooked Rice Cooker depends upon the method that’s involved with the process of food preparation and the sources. A quality of rice cooker that is barely needs any maintenance that is regular. There are devices which need to be switched on to start the process that is cooking. The most accepted characteristics which need while making a purchase is your functioning mode to be given importance.

Occasionally, BLACK+DECKER RC503 Dry/3-Cup Cooked Rice Cooker is equipped with a timer and capacity of Yields up to 3-Cup (Cooked) Rice cooker.  A heat level controller is to fit the taste of a person in this best rice cooker. It’s feasible for an individual to arrive at an exact decision only after taking into account the various endowed qualities. One could make an on-line purchase after determining the various needs. Shipping of the cooker is usually accomplished with a day or two after placing an order. The writer of this article holds a fascination for cooking. He’s aware of the various cookers which are presented in the market.

Overall, the capacity of this best rice cooker is cooked 3 cups of rice and its dimension is 8.0 x 8.0 x 6.5 inches. Light indicator, nonstick rice pot, and automatically keep warm the rice are includes in its main features.Pros

Light indicator

Low price

Easier use

Low weight

Cons

No warranty claim

Aroma Housewares 6-Cup (Cooked) Pot-Style Rice Cooker and Food Steamer

Enjoy easy home cooking with the Aroma Housewares 6-Cup (Cooked) Pot-Style Rice Cooker and Food Steamer. Healthy steamed meals. It is Delicious one-pot dishes. Prepare all of this at the flip of a switch.

Aroma takes the “cook” Out of home cooking – turning kitchen time into your time! Help the children with homework, get creative at play time or pick up this novel you’ve been expecting to dive into. All while delivering hot, hearty and healthy meals the family will adore from this best rice cooker.

Black ARC-743-1NGB actually is Multi-functional use. Regardless if you’re in the mood for a hearty jambalaya, steamed vegetarianism and rice, or even a fluffy cake! You can accomplish it all with your arc-743-1ng cooker. The options are as imaginative as you are.

The Capacity and Dimensions of The arc-743-1ng is a 6-cup cooked capacity and measures 9.4″ X 14.2″ X 9.4″. And its Programming stainless collection is a proud member of ldquo and ours. Set it and forget it” mindset. These products are easy to use with one-touch operation which switches to stay warm automatically once cooking is completed, allowing you the liberty to take your time instead of stressing while you cook.

Don’t forget the other items (Accessories) his pot-style best rice cooker includes a non-stick inner pot, an aluminum steam tray, rice measuring cup, plus a plastic rice spatula.

You can easily prepare 2 to 6 cups of any sort of cooked rice, Steams meat and veggies while rice cooks below in this simple rice cooker. Simple, one-touch operation with automatic Keep-Warm .Great for chili, jambalaya, soups and a lot more! Full-view tempered glass lid. Power consumption is 120V or 60Hz or 350W.its Includes Steam Tray, Rice Measuring Cup and Serving Spatula.

Overall you can get some good quality jasmine rice out of this  best rice cooker if you’re willing to work around some minor inconveniences.Pros

Faster cooking

Turn off automatically

Easy to clean and to store

Cons

no on/off button.

Zojirushi (Uncooked) Rice Cooker

Zojirushi NHS-06 also known as Zojirushi NHS-06 3-Cup (Uncooked) Rice Cooker.

In all the best rice cookers, it is effortless to control and manage it. There is no technical process involved in it. You can easily switch off and on with a single button.

People are very conscious, and many people don’t know the exact timing when their rice cooked perfectly. in this best rice cooker (zojirushi nhs-06 3-cup uncooked rice cooker) has a glass lid, where you can easily see all the time. It also uses the stylish cold knob.

Mostly people like to use those cooking products which are easily moved from one place to another place or use them during trips. zojirushi nhs-06 rice cooker is easily transporting due to its cool handles.

We know that at sea level, the boiling temperature of the water is 100°C or 212°F.when rice absorbed all the water than the inside heat of zojirushi nhs-06 rice cooker rises immediately. The heater turns off automatically when the temperature above 100°C or 212°F in this best rice cooker.

Each Zojirushi rice cooker comes with a plastic measuring cup. This cup has a ability of 6-ounces, or approximately 3/4 of a U.S. measuring cup. The capacity of the best rice cooker counted in these 6-ounce cups of uncooked quick grain white rice. One 6-ounce cup of uncooked rice makes about 2 to a few, 6-ounce cups of cooked rice.

Overall, the rice we briefly rinsed and drained before cooking was perfect but it spatters and bubbles through the hole in the lid.Pros

Faster cooking

Nonstick inner cooking pan

Easy to use single switch control

Cool handles for easy transport.

Cons

No cons

Aroma Housewares 20 Cup Cooked (10 cups uncooked) Digital Rice Cooker

Aroma Housewares 20 Cup Cooked (10 cups uncooked) Digital Rice Cooker has some specific qualities. It’s not just a rice cooker but also uses to makes vegetables hearty jambalaya and rice, or even a fluffy cake. You may accomplish all of it with your arc-150sb cooker. The opportunities are as innovative as you are. Aroma professional plus rice cooker multi cooker produce Nutritious and delicious items. The use of built-in steamer function in our Aroma Professional plus Rice Cooker, for rich nutrient meals to be ready above while Soup, rice, or any other meal adding cooks below in this best rice cooker.

Aroma professional plus rice cooker arc-5000 is allowing you to save time without losing quality. This Multi-cooker includes all of your favorite cooking options. But also possesses the unique possibilities of saute-then-simmer STS and slow cook, making tasty, meals rich, and a definite family favorite.

The Capacity and Dimensions of this best rice cooker Aroma Professional plus Rice Cooker has a 20 cup cooked capacity elastic everywhere from 4 to 20 cups of prepared rice and measures 11.1″ X 11.2″ X 10.8″. Power Consumption is 120V or 60Hz or 860W.

User-friendly programming in this best rice cooker is also a proud member of our “set it and forget it” mentality. The cooker is incredibly simple to operate. Using our user-friendly digital panel, that switches to keep warm automatically. Once cooking is finished, allowing you the freedom to take back your time instead of worrying while you cook.

When you think you need aroma professional plus rice cooker reviews, then always remember some high quality of this product. Such as User-friendly programming, this item is also an honored member of our “set it and forget it” approach.

Due to user-friendly digital panel, this best rice cooker is incredibly simple to operate.  Using of our modifications (aroma rice cooker modifications), to keep warm automatically as soon as cooking completed. We are allowing you the choice to take back your time instead of worrying while you prepare.

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Overall this best rice cooker is Multi-functional, and user friendly programming with the capacity of 20 cup rice with dimension 10.75 x 11.13 x 11.25. It does also include rice measuring cup, nonstick inner pot.Pros

Multi cooker

Friendly programming

Measuring cup

Cons

all parts are not easily washable

people also love noodles so here are top 4 rapid ramen cooker.

Comfee 20 cups rice cooker

This best cooker  is manufacture by European company comfee. Everyone wants perfect rice very time and you know it’s not an easy task. COMFEE’ 20 cups Cooked (5.2Qt) Asian Style Programmable All-in-1 Multi Cooker has ability to produce perfect rice every time.

You know it’s a multi cooker use as a best rice cooker, slow cooker, steamer, yogurt maker and sauté. Some cookers have a special specification the can cook rice with 24 hours delay. The timer is fixed in it and you don’t worry it’s automatically cook if you give instruction before 24 hours.

People prefer to eat hot rice and one more specification is auto keep warm the rice in COMFEE’ 20 cups rice cooker. Fluffy rice ready every time in this best rice cooker because it’s developed the process of 6-step cooking. The steam valve and inner pot can preserve the steam and heat for perfect to simmer.

This best rice cooker is based on Japanese style. You don’t need to pick five or more different appliances for soup, rice, pasta, steamed veggies stew, sauté. The multi-functionality does it everything for you.

This COMFEE’ 20 cups rice cooker operating on normal pressure, and protect the safety of our value able costumers.

When rice is cooking than rice cooker is very hot so the use cool touch handle for your safety.

The design of this best rice cooker is in such a way that you can easily cooked 10 to 20 cup for your family or parities. The Sensitive touch panel and digital LED display technology use and its more user friendly than others.

Overall, this best rice cooker can cook enough for a whole day for the whole family great. And every time we eat the rice it takes as fresh as when it was first cook there isn’t too much steam that heat the rice to much till the point it dry.Pros

Multifunctional

20 Cup Capacity

Easy to clean

Cons

no cons

Zojirushi NS-TSC10 5 Micom Rice Cooker.

Everyday technologies have change and try to make life easier. In this Zojirushi NS-TSC10 5-1/2-Cup (Uncooked) Micom Rice Cooker used more advance technology for Micro computerized [Fuzzy logic technology]

The capacity of this best rice cooker is Up to 5.5 cups / 1.0 liter, Dimensions (W x D x H) 10-1/8 x 14 x 8-1/2 inches.

The use of reheating technology makes it’s a unique best rice cooker with beautiful shaped and also included two delay setting in it make more unique than any other products.

Its menus setting include many other features such as White/Sushi, Steam and Quick Cooking, Porridge, Brown, sweet, Cake.

Like many other best rice cookers this Zojirushi NS-TSC10 5 Micom Rice Cooker also uses LCD Display Panel which is easy-to- read and include clock and timer functions.

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Overall, if there is no problem in your budget than this best rice cooker is best for you. Rice made in this cooker comes out perfectly cooked.Pros

Fuzzy logic technology

2 time delay timer

Automatically warm

Cons

Warranty claim issue

Hamilton Beach (37518) Rice Cooker

Hamilton Beach is an American based company and their headquarters are in Glen Allen, Virginia. This company is operating science April 1910.

This Hamilton Beach (37518) Rice Cooker with dimension 8.2 x 9.7 x 9.9 inches is capacity of cooked 2 to 8 cup of rice in this best rice cooker but one thing you found in this cooker is its capacity not only to produce rice but also you can also use whole grains.

Many cookers lost nutrition of rice while cooking but this best rice cooker is very special or the most important function or top function of this cooker is to produce delicious and nutritious rice for you.

This cooker also used as a steamer and a combined basket included for seafood.

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Overall this cheaper best rice cooker which cooked a lot faster but the quality of rice cooked wasn’t the best. I am pleasantly impressed by the quality of cooking.Pros

Cheapest price

Multi-cooker

Wonderful oatmeal and steamed veggies

Cons

Slower than other option

How to choose the best rice cooker in 2020

A best rice cooker is no longer your typical on/off kitchen appliance. Some of them have features that we can only dream about 10 years ago. With a slew of different rice cookers available today, how do you know which model is the best for your household? Read the guide below to find out:

Size of the best rice cooker:

Size is one of the most important considerations when it comes to shopping for a best rice cooker. You don’t want to spend money on something that you can’t maximize the use out of, right? Most household rice cookers come in 3 sizes- 3 cups, 5 cups and 10 cups. A 3-cup rice cooker is ideal for people who cook for one to five persons. 5 cups and 10 cups rice cookers have recommended for medium to large families.

NOTE: A 3-cup rice cooker has a maximum capacity of 6 cups cooked rice. You can do the math for the other two sizes.

Cost of best rice cooker:

Before looking for a best rice cooker with the best features, you have to consider your budget first. For most homemakers, the price of a kitchen appliance is the number one deciding factor for them. When shopping for a rice cooker, you want to focus your attention to the models within your price range. This will help you narrow down your choices.

Features and Functionalities of best rice cooker:

If you are not that critical about the most advanced features and you are happy with just white steamed rice every day then you can make do with the primary cook/keep warm rice cooker. However, if you don’t mind spending some extra cash and you want a versatile kitchen appliance, you can go for best rice cooker that come with induction heating system, fuzzy logic technology and micro computerized technology. All these features supposedly result to better rice because of even heat distribution. The unit’s ability to adjust temperature and cooking time according to what type of rice you are cooking is something to watch out for.

These rice cookers also have different rice settings that will allow you to cook different types of rice or grains (white rice, brown rice, sushi, oats, etc.) ideally. A lot of models have an LCD panel which allows you to navigate through the menu easily. Some rice cookers can be used to steam vegetables and bake a small cake using a unique setting.

Style of the best rice cooker:

Although the style is not really necessary, you want a best rice cooker that will complement the overall theme of your kitchen. Manufacturers understand this that’s why we can see different styles and colors of rice cookers today.

FAQ.What is the best rice cooker?

Zojirushi NS-ZCC18 10-Cup Neuro Fuzzy Rice Cooker is the best rice cooker.

What is the best rice cooker for brown rice?

Aroma Housewares ARC-954SBD is the best rice cooker for brown rice.

What is the best rice cooker to buy?

If you have good budget then buy Zojirushi NS-ZCC18 10-Cup Neuro Fuzzy Rice Cooker.

What is the best rice cooker brand?

Zojirushi is the best rice cooker brand.

Which zojirushi rice cooker is the best?

Zojirushi NS-ZCC18 10-Cup Neuro Fuzzy Rice Cooker.

Which rice cooker is rated best?

Instant Pot LUX Mini 6 in term of sharpness, Cuckoo Rice Cooker in term of gaba rice and Hamilton Beach Rice Cooker in term of budget.

What is the best rice steamer cooker review?

Dash DRCM200GBAQ04 Mini Rice Cooker is the best rice steamer cooker review.

What is the best rice cooker on the market?

Aroma Housewares ARC-954SBD Rice Cooker is the best rice cooker on the market.

What are the best rice cooker and steamer?

Aroma Housewares 6-Cup (Cooked) Pot-Style Rice Cooker and Food Steamer is the best rice cooker and steamer.

Which aroma rice cooker is the best?

Aroma Housewares ARC-954SBD Rice Cooker aroma rice cooker is the best.

What is the best rice cooker to buy on a budget?

BLACK+DECKER RC503 Dry/3-Cup Cooked Rice Cooker is the best rice cooker to buy on a budget.

What is the best tried and true rice cooker?

Zojirushi NHS-06 3-Cup (Uncooked) Rice Cooker is the best tried and true rice cooker.

What is the best small rice cooker?

Dash DRCM200GBAQ04 Mini Rice Cooker is the best small rice cooker.

What is the best rice cooker for keeping rice longer?

Aroma Housewares 20 Cup Cooked (10 cups uncooked) Digital Rice Cooker.

What is the best rice cooker for home use?

Aroma Housewares ARC-954SBD Rice Cooker is the best rice cooker for home use.

What is the best medium rice cooker?

Aroma Housewares 6-Cup (Cooked) Pot-Style Rice Cooker and Food Steamer is the best medium rice cooker.

What is the best rice cooker serving 4 adult?

Aroma Housewares 6-Cup (Cooked) Pot-Style Rice Cooker and Food Steamer and Tiger rice cookers are the best rice cooker serving 4 adult.

Which rice cooker is best aroma or Oster?

Aroma is best but Oster is budget friendly.

Which rice cooker with best keep warm option?

Aroma Housewares ARC-954SBD rice cooker with best keep warm option.

Features on a Japanese rice cooker what do you need best?

COMFEE’ 20 cups Cooked (5.2Qt) Asian Style Programmable.

Which is the best white rice for a rice cooker?

Zojirushi NHS-06 3-Cup (Uncooked) Rice Cooker and some Panasonic rice cooker are  the best white rice for a rice cooker.

What is the best aroma rice cooker delay timer?

15 hours is the best aroma rice cooker delay timer which is in Aroma Housewares ARC-954SBD Rice Cooker.

Where to buy best rice cooker?

Amazon is the best platform.

What is the best rice cooker for sushi?

Zojirushi NS-TSC10 5-1/2-Cup (Uncooked) Micom Rice Cooker is the best rice cooker for sushi.

What type of rice is best in a rice cooker?

All type of rice.

Which is really the best electric all stainless pressure and rice cooker?

Instant Pot LUX Mini 6 is really the best electric all stainless pressure and rice cooker.

Rice cooker or induction which is best?

Rice cooker is best but you also check Fagor Pressure Cooker.

In which mode rice cooker is best?

In slow mode rice cooker is best.

When is the best time to buy a good rice cooker?

Black Friday is the best time to buy a good rice cooker.

Rice cooker & microwave cooker which is best?

Rice cooker is best.

[gurguliare]

Ok, ok, Hieron wrapup notes, pending epilogue

Hadrian: Strengths and problems of Hadrian’s arc are for me aptly summarized in the jump from 1) Hadrian eking out a moral victory of sorts over Samot and the gods at the not inconsiderable cost of taking judgment into his own hands one last time---it’s all well and good to talk about Hadrian being in no position to pass judgment, but then, he wasn’t with Jericho, either, and sending Samot to Aubade is not a neutral choice. Of course no neutral choice exists! and the important thing is he no longer considers himself a mere weapon in the hands of a higher justice, but a person making a decision, which (as it turns out) simplifies the decision exactly as much as being a weapon did back in the day.---to 2) Hadrian cracking a joke about how, if his wife and child were hurt, of course he would pursue Samot to hell and back. Hadrian the family man exists, conflict-free, on a planet of eyewatering sentimentalism. I don’t really understand why. It has something to do with how they chose to handle Hadrian’s “redemption” or anyway recuperation as a character capable of normal communal life, after what I guess we’re now supposed to understand as his antisocial spiral in s1---laugh with me, it’s good to laugh---with his somber diagnosis of Samot as having spent Too Long Away From His Family also applying to his past self. Um. 

Of course Hadrian was never intended as a reliable narrator, but it’s hard for me to do much with that when his narrative isn’t countered by anything else in the text; we meet Benjamin and (less often) Rosana in other contexts, but we don’t get their view of Hadrian, much, and when we do it hews to a narrow pattern of concern and exasperation, as if Hadrian were only an aging action hero this close to claiming his retirement benefits. They lament his recklessness but seem not to notice the dogmatism or the listless doubts that replace it. (That’s with the fact that doubt, if anything, makes him a worse husband and father.) Despite her often-stressed importance to the surviving followers of the church, Rosana’s religious feelings are largely a cipher, and she’s almost never in a position to witness or comment on Hadrian’s most dramatic struggles with faith. So “family” and “faith” remain separate, unable to complicate or inform each other. It’s a shame, because I theoretically am really charmed by the story where a man’s incrementally degraded---not even broken!---faith is the mechanism of his salvation, and by the end he and Samot have swapped places, Samot incapable of not pursuing bitter, futile, barbarous justice and Hadrian very relaxed. The problem for me is that Hadrian ironically restored to his devout family through heresy is never treated as the strange accomplishment it is, and it’s not something he has to work for; I know we get Benjamin scenes this season, I understand the narrative function is to gesture to the very thing I’m describing, but I don’t mean “work for” in the sense of “carving out more time for family dinners.” I mean “acknowledging and accounting for Hadrian’s failings,” rather than glossing his escape almost as a matter of removing the temptation of belief, problem solved.  

Hella: I’m in a similar place with Hella; I like the skeleton of her complete arc, I don’t think it ever got the development it needed and it’s missing some key connections. I got a lot of joy from Ali affirming the thread of Hella’s relationship to Ordenna, from s1 avoidance to s2 voluntary exile to s3 final, reluctant return and assumption of responsibility. For me, it’s compelling to look back and realize that Hella essentially begins in a place that Hadrian only reaches circa Winter: having not rejected, but unobtrusively fled, a culture which failed to inculcate her completely with its horrible values---in part because she was too cowardly to adopt them---but that left her with a tangle of blind prejudice and bravado, the relief of freedom making her that much happier to perform “big tough Ordennan,” as long as she stayed far away from Ordenna. I love... of course I love Velas, in concept, I love and will always love FATT’s shitty compromise cities, cosmopolitan and democratic of necessity rather than out of any high ideal. Yes! We get it! I imprinted on Terry Pratchett, I don’t need to say it every time! But the fact that Hella identifies with Velas and befriends Calhoun in Velas and that they have this common experience of “shit, maybe the world is a bigger place than I realized, maybe it’s not actually a choice between tyranny and anarchy every time” ... makes me really verklempt. And in Nacre they both fall back on old habits and Velas barely seems real; for both of them, Nacre has an unpleasant tinge of “reality” asserting itself over a dream---for Calhoun, returning there is obviously something he’s always feared, but for Hella it’s the discovery that the Ordennan state was more right than she knew, that gods and magic exist, and aren’t just bogeymen used to keep Ordennans off the mainland; and, on a deeper level, that Ordenna’s narrow pride is a reaction to a far older and more arbitrary authority.

So she kills Calhoun---“If she’s going to, then why don’t I?” Escape is so unlikely, caught between Ordenna and Nacre, that helping others find it would be a frivolous proposition: the only person Hella hopes to save is Hella. Then she goes home to learn that Velas is also in mortal danger, that the whole world will soon be Ordenna (and Nacre.) She’s ensured it. No wonder her nihilism at the start of Winter is much more marked, and she finally starts to accept that escape isn’t there for the seizing, that there isn’t an outside.

And then she... goes to Aubade?

This is where it starts to break down for me, as with Hadrian and his family. In theory, I get why actually showing Hella what it means to live away from savage god-eat-god imperialism gives her the courage and vision to face Hieron head-on. I think the line about “surrounding herself with clever people” is great and gets at the point that her education, her personal growth, are not meaningless just because they’re the product of artificial intervention, fantastical prosthesis. But, I dunno, in execution it’s so spotty. Part of it is that Adelaide has to come to her senses at the same time, but that process happens very quietly and never gets free of Hella’s orbit---the scene where she asks Hella for a reason to leave Aubade is good, but comes at the price of other scenes in which we see them, for example, negotiate the terms of Adularia’s existence together. Hella as Death’s Servant reads too much as "running Adelaide’s errands,” not enough as her ardent champion, and I’m not saying that every Ali character has to become a zealot before they’re done for me to be satisfied, but hey! If this is you redeeming Nacre and its ideals from the start of the show, then redeem those things! And give Hella the space for her return to Ordenna to feel like atonement, rather than “one last job”... it’s such a good atonement, is the thing, the only possible one, because for all that she’s changed, Ordenna is still the one place where you can imagine Hella Varal having something to teach people. 

Probably the solution to this would involve triangulating with the sentience of the Anchor; since Ordenna got the plans from Nacre, Adelaide should take partial responsibility in the cleanup there, as well, and not only in releasing Hieron from the curse. Keep the two plots in conversation to the end. But I’m not sure what exactly that would have looked like; something with Hella’s new body, maybe. 

Fantasmo: I love Nick. Thanks to Nick for half-assedly speedrunning Fantasmo through Fourteen’s bit of “in lieu of character development, what if: uplifting character regression?” I cracked the fuck up at him using “Dominate” solely to make Samot captive audience. Audience... to the world’s most insipid power-of-heart lecture, which was honestly very sweet as an obvious truth Fantasmo once knew, or knew well enough to mouth. I did love all the grace notes about the Last University in the finale, still nameless, still a refuge.  

[e-ampersand-c]

Noli Me Tangere / El Filibusterismo OCs

I have just graduated from Junior High School and let me just say, I still haven't accepted the ending to Jose Rizal's novels. I just can't. To cope with this, me and my friend have discussed and brainstormed and came up with our own version of the story where it still keeps the main themes of what Rizal wanted. We came up with 3 OCs in total (The two are mine while the other is my friend's. I still need to ask permission to introduce his OC). They have particular relationships with the canon characters and they also have side stories that lead up and link to the main story line of Noli and El Fili. Without further a do, let me introduce the girl on the right:

Maricela Amor San Augustus y Carmalita

When she is out in public and talking to important people such as businessmen, the soldiers and of course, the friars, she gives off the aura of the ideal filipina. Shy, graceful, polite and all ladylike. Though when she is with the people she loves and trusts, she is not afraid to be herself: Reckless, outspoken, confident, and carefree (basically chaotic good). Her family is among the wealthy in San Diego so she is well-known friends with Crisostomo and Maria Clara, Maria especially. Maricela loves to play violin and sing as influenced by her grandmother, so she plays duets with Maria Clara on the piano when they have the time.

Maricela has a bit of Spanish blood in her that comes from her father who is of Spanish descent but it is merely 1/8. Her parents died tragically a year ago, being assassinated by tulisanes on a business trip. She was left with all her family's wealth (being an only child) and was also left with her family's prized lands. Her parents death has caused her a lot of problems she has had difficulty in dealing with. The friars are out to claim her lands because of the reason that women should not hold any lands and that it goes against the law and church. The only possible way out of this is to marry someone in order to share the lands with her husband. Maricela is of marriagable age and most of the wealthy men in her town are fighting for her hand (or should we say lands), and are doing their everything. Sending flowers, dinner invites, and heaps of haranas every night. All of their work has gone in vain as Maricela is uninterested, in fact she hates all of the antics these men are trying to do in order for her to give her lands.

Around the time Crisostomo is back and is planning to open a school for the children of San Diego, Maricela demands him for help. She wants to deal with the friars in a convincing way to stop them from messing with her. She is on the verge of losing her lands and Crisostomo, being a kind-hearted man, agrees to help her (actually was forced to). He tries planning up a proposal, but it is taking a lot of time and effort so he is secretely finding her a suitable husband that will surely win her heart and stop her from annoying him.

To the man on the left:

Don Jose Enrique De Los Dantes y Ignacio

A Mestizo who looks scary and cold at first, but you will find him to be a very good gentlemen. You could say he is assertive and very attentive (being a lawyer and all). This chivalry side of his comes from his father who is a full blooded Spaniard. His father is a kind man who does not believe that the Spanish are higher than the Filipinos and tries to influence equality between the two races. Unfortunately, his father died when he was still 14 from a heart attack which affected Enrique greatly. He kept his teachings to heart and viewed the world how his father would. Being half Filipino and half Spanish, he strongly believes that the Filipinos should have their freedom just as much as the Spanish do, inspiring him now to become a lawyer.

Enrique studied in different parts of Europe, which leads him to meet Crisostomo Ibarra, making him his closest friend/collegue. They may have had different courses, but this did not stop them from hanging out and being good friends. They both had the visualization of a free Filipino nation and both dream to live in it one day (Through the right way of course, Enrique is what you call a lawful good). When he found out Crisostomo was returning back home because his father had recently died, Enrique couldn't help but feel the same pain his friend was feeling because he too has went through the experience of losing his father. It was also sad because in a few weeks they would have both received their diplomas but Enrique understood that this was for the best. He comforted him and assured him that everything will be alright before he took sail back to San Diego.

A few weeks after Ibarra left, Enrique earned his diploma and is now a fully fledged lawyer. His plan was to go back to his hometown in Batangas where his mother and grandmother was to finally be with them again but his mother advised him build his name in or near the capital so that when he returns he will have a heap of sure clients. Enrique was saddened by this but accepted her advice because in a sense she was right. This led him to the brilliant idea of starting in San Diego because firstly, it is near the capital and people are sure to need a lawyer that is within hands reach and secondly, Crisostomo lives there meaning he already knows someone who could help him and possibly introduce him to clients being a wealthy and known person in the town. Enrique also feels like he needs someone to talk to with the passing of his father. He writes a letter to him about his plan and will arrive in San Diego in a week.

So...

You could probably see where these two are headed based on their "brief" sypnosis.

Crisostomo is forced to help Maricela with her lands and his friend Enrique is coming to his town. Enrique is a lawyer and Crisostomo is trying to legit set up Maricela with someone.

Hmm...

Well I plan to draw up some scenes I have thought of and give the side story as a description to the drawing. I am not a writer and I am lazy to just write a well thought out novel for these two. I am also lazy to draw comics about this lol. I am most comfortable with this style of storytelling if it even fits into that category heh.

Maybe in moments time I'll introduce the final character that will be very important to the El Fili arc of this. (Yes we thought this far).

'Til the next time I get inspired to draw ;D

[flying-elliska]

Skam France End of S3 Questionnaire - my own.

I am so ready to enjoy Imane’s season, I will also never stop talking about s3 (I think we can all do both!!). Ever. It’s one of my favorite seasons of TV and media experiences and I can’t wait to analyze it to death. (I’m going to do the s4 questions in another post bc i want ppl to read them and this is already super long, fair warning) 

Favorite “big” clip : I already said Jeudi 17h32 (the bus stop farewell) but it’s such an understated scene, idk if it’s a ‘big one’. Apart from that, I love them all but ‘Vendredi 20h27 “T’es plus tout seul”’ just...did something to me on an almost spiritual level, I will remember it forever. It also give me a push on a personal level to reach out and explain some stuff to people. It made me believe in Love as the most important thing in the universe. I felt all my misgivings about being mentally ill and being worthy of love fall through the basket of my brain for one moment. Yeah. Also the parallel between God’s love and the Church and gay love, and that song, and seeing Eliott like that, and Maman Lallemant, and Lucas’ epic run, and the flashbacks, and the whole Petite Ceinture thing falling into place, dark/light and and and...yeah. Never will be over it. 

Favorite “small” clip : Several come to mind but I have such a soft spot for “Lundi 08h43 - Terre Promise” where they uncover the mural ? First of all that thing was much more beautiful than I thought it would be, aesthetics on point, and Lucas and Eliott being so open and unashamed like that made me feel so warm and fuzzy after all of Lucas’ repression of his own feelings and sexuality. The music and the filming are great in this clip, and I loved learning Imane knew Eliott already and seemed so happy for them, and the whole ‘you ask about politics on Christmas’ gave me such a family vibe. The whole ‘it’s a butt - yeah we gave it our all, body and soul’ was super ridiculous but in that way you don’t even care about when you’re so high on love. It was just super cute. 

Favorite romantic moment : There’s so many but I just can’t get over Lucas buying flowers and croissants for Eliott in “Samedi 9h53 - T’es pas comme les autres” even though he knows he might not appreciate it because he just wants to bring color and beauty at the edge of Eliott’s life ? As a mentally ill person the constancy and care and tenderness of it just moved me to tears. And it represents so much for Lucas’ journey beyond toxic masculinity too, and not being his dad, and letting his caring side out, and just. uggh. 

Favorite kiss : The first one, still. The symbolic of it is just...ahhh. It’s a kiss but it represents so much more - going beyond comfort zones, mutual recognition, stepping into each other’s worlds, understanding, the meeting of two souuuls. And the whole under the rain at night thing is cliché but it just works so well for them because it makes you feel all the relief and strangeness and right-ness of the moment. Their love is like a force of nature. 

Favorite line of dialogue : ‘Lucas, je t’aime.’ 

Favorite (non-Elu) character : Alexia Martineau, absolute bicon, I wish she was more present in the end of the season tbh. I love how colorful and confident and funny she is. Her style is goals, and as a bi plus-size woman the whole character is just therapeutic to me. 

Favorite set : La Petite Ceinture ! I just love the creepy-cool-poetic vibe of it, how well it is used as a character building tool for Eliott, how it shows a different side of Paris as a place, gives them a place of their own, how they go back to it later, what they did with Polaris, etc etc. I love the whole poetry of decaying secret places in general, it reminds me of places I used to take refuge in as a teenager, and now I really, really want to visit it. 

Favorite frame : The candlelit dinner in 19h25. That clip is a punch in the face, but visually, it’s so on point. It’s incandescent. The whole aesthetic of the clip (and the next) manage to be both romantic, and unsettling as hell. The whole idea of the houseboat with the fairylights and the light reflecting on dark water and the sounds of the boat moving.The intimate scenes that make them look like renaissance paintings with that golden light. The shots of that table in particular, with the candles behind the glass, and the two of them with the shotgunning and the blown pupils and the champagne glasses full of golden bubbles. The aesthetic is almost like religious iconography with the dark/light contrasts, light through glass ( the candle motif is repeated in the church scene) and the way it frames their feelings - it’s so f*cking intense, exhilarating, almost too much. It makes you feel both Lucas’ awe at being loved like that, how in tune they are, and the fact that Eliott’s manic episode is really about to surface, the brief descent into darkness to come. It does so many things. It’s gorgeous. 

Favorite Lucas character arc moment : Well, the whole of the season obviously, and things I’ve said above, how he cares for Eliott after his episode, the Remember scene, living his love out loud, etc. But in particular what sticks out to me is the articulation of the Jeudi 1h48 night scene, his coming out to Yann, and the Intervention clip because that’s where his self acceptance goes through the hardest point and makes it through. He lets himself come to terms with his emotions, and figures out that even though the reaction of the world might be hard, his own self expression is still the most important thing. He’s so brave in those clips, and the acting brings it to an incredible level. 

Favorite Eliott character arc moment : Again, the moment he says to Lucas he loves him. Because this is him, seeing Lucas and reaching out through his insecurities and telling him that what they had was real. But it’s also him validating his own feelings, believing in them, letting himself have this after a whole season of going back and forth out of fear of messing it up. He’s putting his own fears aside too, fears of being seen and vulnerable and daring for something better than a relationship that is just ‘okay.’ He’s finally going for it 100% and accepting Lucas’ love and his own capacity for it. It’s just...wow. 

Favorite other character arc moment : Daphné’s gaining confidence through the foyer made me super happy. But tbh, my favorite is Yann. He’s very underrated in general, I feel. He’s not as ‘ideal bff’ as Jonas or Skam It’s Gio, but his arc feels very important and meaningful to me. Seeing someone mess up and admit to his mistakes is super important. Because I feel there are soooo many straight guys who can learn from this - that casual homophobia is in the water of our culture and sometimes you just don’t realize what you are saying. And i feel, even though this isn’t directly adressed (and i wish it was) that Lucas also learns from this re: his words about ‘crazy people’ and what compassion and growing up means. I love Leo’s acting in general. Yann has a very compelling presence, calm (but a bit loopy at times), he feels deeply, and his betrayal at Lucas’ not sharing and subsequent realization he had messed up felt very real and mature for a 16 yr old. And how he embraces Lucas afterwards made me feel all fuzzyhearted. I wish we saw more of their friendship tbh. 

Favorite Axel acting moment : ummm every single minute he was on, like. He never once felt false. That guy is going places. One of my fave things is just the look on his face in certain scenes Lucas has with Eliott - how it completely lights up, and the contrast with his more closed off persona in the beginning. It’s like he’s a completely different person - younger, wilder, more alive, daring, unafraid, and absolutely thrilled to have found his soulmate. It’s beautiful. And the crying difficult scenes, how he’s not afraid to ugly cry and just go there and make it a real gut punch. He just goes through such a transformation throughout the season, too. It’s nuts to me they didn’t even film in chronological order. Lucas just seems so much more grown up and at ease in his own skin at the end of the season. Mind blown. But if I had to pick one : the look on his face at the end of Jeudi 17h32 - sadness to see Eliott leave, but so much happiness, and also like he’s coming to terms with his own journey and breathing for the first time ? So much in one frame. 

Favorite Maxence acting moment : tbh i was a little less sure of him in the beginning, but I feel like his restlesness and slight awkwardness and being a little too forceful at times (which some might have called ‘bad acting’) was actually a good acting choice ? Because Eliott feels so much, he’s so sensitive, and it would lead to feeling a little out of place around others, there’s so much emotion brimming under the surface he can’t always regulate it properly (I would know. it was painful to watch at times.) He really outsold it in the scene in “Lundi 17:21 “On verra bien.” where Eliott talks about his illness. That pain in his eyes when he says “I’m going to make you go through hell.” ? Ouch. He’s really good with his eyes in general, esp in the beginning when Eliott is the ‘mysterious new guy’ and the way he looks at Lucas at the end of ‘Not necessarily a girl’ ? Daaaaaaaaamn. 

Favorite (non-Elu) acting moment : Marilyn Lima as Manon. She was so good in every clip she was in. It almost made me want to watch s2 even though I hate Noorhell plotlines with a fiery passion. She just sold how bruised and sad and let down she was and it was a doorway to Lucas’ own empathy and feeling his own feelings, and reflecting on how true love should be supportive in the dark moments. Especially in the night time clip, they were so good together. 

Favorite social media moment : they were really good at it (we could have had more clips though) and my absolute fave is what they did with Eliott’s insta - the hunt for it at the beginning with the code, the cool drawings, the queer culture references, the somewhat alarming poetry, it all helped flesh out Eliott’s character in a way that we didn’t have with Even and made us fall in love so much more. The moment where we were all waiting for Lucas’ to discover Eliott’s insta (and the hilarity of the (probably made up) moment where Matteo/German Isak followed him first) with baited breath, was the most brilliant bit of intermedia storytelling I have ever seen. It was so cool. Also Emma and Alex’s insta stories made me like a Chriseva pairing for the first time, lol. 

Favorite music moment : Remember, obviously. The chorus, timeless feeling, epic rythm ? Just perfect. And Fête de trop : so powerful, thematically on point, made me discover Eddy de Pretto. Also brilliant use of piano music and how it’s related to them. I want a social media vid of Lucas playing ‘I love you’ again for Eliott at some point. 

Favorite bts/cast&crew moment : so many of them. But tbh I am especially grateful for Maxence’s openness about his own issues and his process on how he worked on the Eliott role. His Actor Factory interview where he talked about how mental illness can be so fucking lonely but life can still be beautiful had me cry like a little baby in my favorite café. It just made me want to be around creative ppl more, and dedicate myself to my own creative process seriously ? And his lives are also so cool. The dude in general is so effing relatable. (well, and cute tbh ahahaha). I also really, really loved Niels’ insight in the writing process. I haven’t stanned a cast this hard in forever and now I want to give everything up and try to write my own series lmaooo. 

Favorite fandom moment : all the theorizing and staying up late and shit was golden. I love talking with ppl and sharing the love. And it’s given me a lot more confidence in my own writing. But special love to the @renewskamfrance team and the whole thing, it’s been completely nuts and I am so happy we started this. 

…

Most romantic moment : I am realizing this question is a double but whatever, there’s no shortage of them. Eliott drawing Lucas as a hedgehog, the smooth artsy motherf*cker. And the insta in general. If someone made a cartoon animal version of me, that was also that fitting to my character, I would just ask them to marry me on the spot. I live for that artsy shit. I understand why Lucas was so into it right from the start. And of course the timeless cloud of queer intimacy that was Samedi 09h17. 

Moment that made you fall in love with the season : The piano scene, because it showed so much more depth in Lucas’ character. We were all Eliott then, falling in love with him and the season, and their ability to mix things up compared to OG. 

Most heartbreaking moment : Tied.  “Samedi 14h32 Intervention″ - I don’t think I’ve cried so much all season.  I’ve been there, too, and Lucas’ anguish at being ostracized and judged for something he can’t control, and his thinking that Eliott didn’t care about him, and Mika saying ‘you will have to keep coming out for the rest of your life’ all felt so impactful but the ‘fuck them’ at the end, so empowering.  It was heartbreaking in a good way, incredibly cathartic. Meanwhile “Vendredi 23:37 Une putain de lubie” is heartbreaking in the bad way lol, it stomps on your heart, the contrast with how happy they were only moments before absolutely brutal, and Lucille’s cruel words on top of it. Watching Lucas lose it like that was so difficult to watch, the panic of it, the absolute despair. But it was so well done. And of course “Jeudi 01:48 Viens on en parle pas″. So simple, so powerful, and we were all so tired when we watched it, it was super effective. 

Most funny moment : The ‘discovery of the butt’ moment was hilarious, also loved the boys’ reaction to Lucas telling them Eliott was his bf, the vodka sunday scenes, and the entirety of the scene in the second-hand shop with the scary dolls, but I just can’t get over Imane and the tampons in “Lundi 8:53 Quoi moi et Emma�� , that was just pure gold but it also shows how good she is at embarassing nosy ppl and inventive and it made me want to know so much more about her. 

Most enlightening moment :  The season as a whole has made me think so much about my own relationship to my emotions and love and self-expression. After the ‘Remember’ sequence I really had this moment of....I can’t hate myself anymore ? It was so powerful. And episode 10 in general. But in earlier episodes, ep 5/6 in particular made me realize how much I was also repressing my own feelings and how unhealthy that shit was. The whole thing was just in general a process. And after the last clip I had such a feeling of general tenderness towards the show, the world and wanting to give love more of a place in my life.  

Best aesthetics moment :  Like I said houseboat scene. The use of light throughout the season, incredibly beautiful, But of course the painting thing. It was just such a perfect use of aesthetics to make a point in the story (i don’t really care if it’s not realistic). Now they are finally living out loud in all the colors of life. It was such a radiant affirmation of love and pride and joy. And the mural actually looked really cool, suprisingly (I was expecting a brown-ish mess lol). 

Best change from OG: The show was at its best when it changed things up. I love especially that they made their own symbolism. I love the whole concept of the Foyer and how much more integral they made it to the story than Kosegruppa, how it comes to stand for togetherness and diversity. I love the girl squad being more present and the role they gave Alexia. I love Lucas being a pianist and taking more initiative in going after Eliott (it’s not a diss against Isak, his awkwardness was so endearing and it made sense) but it made them their own characters. But I think my favorite thing is how they changed around the sequence of events slightly in the last episodes - Lucas coming out to his mom after Eliott’s episode and Basile’s talk is tying it together better, it feels like he’s thinking about how he’s treated his mother in the past because of her MI and it makes it part more of the learning process ; his mother’s loving reaction is a perfect example of ‘you have to let MI ppl speak for themselves.” And them spreading the ‘minute by minute’ concept over several clips gave us a more in depth look into Eliott’s condition, which I will be forever grateful for, the talk with Lucille as well as Lucas learning he needs to take care of himself, too. 

Best similar scene to OG : Overall I liked that they kept the story structure of the OG, because honestly, it just works so well - the Isak character’s trajectory from repression to openness to compassion. Sana/Imane’s speech about  hate coming from fear, not religion. The few episodes that focused on Lucas’ self-acceptance more than the love story.  

Best group dynamics scene : Intervention. Loved the complementary of Mika as queer guru, Manon as nurturing presence, and Lisa as comical outsider point of view being so out of it. But also loved the ‘vodka sunday’ dynamics with Manon, Lucas and Emma getting wasted, complaining about their love lives, the sadness but also the solidarity, Lucas talking about his love life so openly and making gay jokes about himself, Emma’s whole messy girl thing and ‘he’s just a p*nis”!!!” had me laughing for hours. 

Best glow-up : Lucas of course. More in terms of character perception, Mika. He really annoyed me in the beginning of the season, he was mean and uncaring and lacking in boundaries, it was toeing the line of cliché, and I love how they showed us more depth to him, that they let him be deservedly angry, and how caring with Lucas he became, while still being slightly annoying, and their sibling dynamic in general, slightly antagonistic but super supportive. 

Best social awareness moment : Mika’s speech, Yann’s apologies, and Lucille and Basile’s talks about mental illness. 

Best symbolism : Polaaaris. Also God is gay now. And the first clip/end clip parallel, with them counting minutes. 

Best editing/filming/technical moment : the Remember sequence, and how they made the scenes used in the flashback a little longer, giving us the impression that their relationship is actually so much deeper than what we’ve already seen ; the parallels with the priest’s speech, the sunny vibe of Eliott laughing vs. his face in the ending shots, the music, the acting, the running, all of it.  

Best/most interesting cultural adaptation : The Foyer storyline and especially the sit-in moment. So French. It gave me flashbacks to my whole class staging sit-in protests in middle school (at 13!!!!) already for the wackiest of reasons, already practicing saying fuck off to authority and being rowdy little shits. It made me miss my country. 

…

Least favorite clip/moment : Mercredi 13:38 annoyed the shit out of me lol. It started out so well, with the summer of love aesthetics and Elu being all cute, but that lasted all of 40s and then we had an extremely unpleasant moment of Basile disrespecting Daphne’s boundaries and Arthur and Yann pressuring her to ‘give him a chance’ and how the misogynistic song he sent her is actually cute’ and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him ? I liked the end of season glow-up for him, but this scene was just gross. And I don’t mind having a POV that’s a little bit more loose than in OG but in this clip, it just felt jarring, how Lucas just flat out disappeared. I wanted to see Eliott interact with the squad more, and I resent the idea that seeing them just be happy and cuddly is not worthy of screentime for some reason. UGh. That was the one moment that the show pissed me off. Also, in the scene where Chloé offers her apologies (good) I feel like they validated her outing Lucas so he had to come to terms with his feelings. (which is a really bad message and I wish they’d written that with a bit more nuance.) 

Least favorite change from OG : Overall, this remains my least favorite boy squad. The insistence on Basile’s gross, creepy humor felt overdone, and I feel they spent too much time on him. The idea that he’s been taught bad things by society about what a man is, fits the overal theme, but did we really need to know that he wanted to bang his cousin ? Yikes. And Arthur and the 35-yr old too, what the hell ? I just felt that their banter was a lot less natural and flowed less well than in OG. 

Least favorite similarity from OG : Really don’t know about this one. Most of what they kept was good. 

Most disappointing scene : the banter scene between the boys in 18:14, I always loved the banter between the boys in OG. Magnus saying stupid shit about gay s*x and being shut down felt educative without being heavy. Here there was way too much of Basile being gross again. And it just didn’t flow as well, the pacing was way too fast. A lot of the scenes that were a bit disappointing to me this season had to do with timing tbh, too fast. 

Something you wish they’d added :  I wish they actually had Lucas say he realized he’d say messed up stuff about mentally ill people.

Thing you wish the fandom would take away from this season : Chill a bit before drawing conclusions, wait for the whole season ahahaha. 

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French word you will remember : I am French but I have never felt so validated in my overuse of the word ‘putain’. also saying mec/meuf a lot more. 

If you could steal one item from the set : Eliott’s camel jacket, I want one too, what a look. 

Scene you wish you could live in your own life : a lot of the romantic ones but also ? I wish I’d breaken into my high school to have a party at least once in my life lol. There’s a club next to my place in an old renovated school i reaaaally need to check out. 

Character you identify the most with : Eliott in general, Daphné for her overenthusiasm and awkwardness and spontaneity and optimism and drive to organize things. Lucas because of the whole trying so hard to control his image, being spiky on the surface and soft inside. 

Character you want to be like the most : Honestly, Lucas. Not in the beginning but his courage and his emotional intelligence and openness as the season progressed really are goals. It made me want to use my past painful experiences to extend compassion and be there for others, and learn how to be better at it. He’s going to grow into such an amazing man. And honestly his newfound pride in his relationship and pettiness are also goals lol. Imane as well, for how protective she is of her friends. And Alexia in terms of demeanour and confidence and funky vibe. 

Most relatable character moment : Lucas’ eyeroll. Emma and her lava lamp. Lucas being so immediately smitten with Eliott, because like, same. 

Fave fandom theory : lol I cracked up so hard at the whole ‘Eliott is a ghost’ thing, thx Billy Maier. I really don’t know why we were all so set on a bullying plotline, like why do we do that to ourselves lol ? 

Whew ! Well, if you read through all of that, you’re one hell of a nerd, and I love you !!! I’m doing S4 questions in a separate post because this is wayy too long !!! 

[statusquoergo]

Part I

I wonder if Faye feeds on everyone’s hatred for her or what, because she heads on into Donna’s office to ask for help with the massive amount of work she now has to do as the firm’s new managing partner, Donna greets her with predictable snark and sarcasm, and I swear I thought Faye was going to ask her for help finding a secretary but no! She asks Donna to help her get a handle on things.

Now, true, “You were the best secretary this firm ever had” is probably not the best way to convince Donna-the-COO to give her a hand, but everyone keeps insisting that this firm is woefully understaffed (despite apparently having plenty of associates and also enough clients to use some of them as bargaining chips), and as Chief Operating Officer, it’s Donna’s job to make sure the firm’s operations are running smoothly, so…if the managing partner needs a little help getting her work in order…it kind of is her job to get that done? I still think it would’ve been more reasonable for Donna to hire Faye her own secretary, but it’s not like she’s qualified to be COO, or doing…anything, at all, to deserve the position, so I mean. It’s just a couple of days and it’ll probably go a ways towards getting Faye off their backs, why not take one for the team?

On the other side of the floor, Alex and Samantha have some more weirdly endearing bonding time, and I admit I thought it was pretty funny when Alex told Samantha how important family is and she asked if he was trying to adopt her. Then he invites her over to dinner, pointing out how highly his wife and daughter think of her, she accepts, and this is definitely the first time I’ve actually kind of liked her as a character.

Harvey gets an impromptu call from Dan, that random CEO from before, who tears into him for taking out a full page ad (what is this, 2003?) bashing Faye’s old firm for endangering the future of Dan’s company, and seriously, who’s going to see that ad who’s going to, one, give a shit, and two, have any idea what it’s talking about if they don’t already know? Anyway Dan informs Harvey that his board fired him, Harvey exclaims that they can’t do that in the middle of litigation, and actually, he’s probably right, but who cares about logic, this is Suits, for crying out loud. He promises to fix everything, Dan threatens to sue him if he doesn’t (which I’m sure wouldn’t be long and drawn-out and expensive and totally not worth it), and Harvey immediately goes to Donna to bitch and moan about this situation that is of course in no way his fault. She tells him that Faye has her doing secretarial work, Harvey tries to storm off to tear into her, and Donna proposes that they go out to dinner instead to give him a chance to clear his head because they decided earlier that they don’t want Faye or their work troubles to come between them as a couple. Which I get, I mean, that’s sensible, but how is this Faye coming between them? Is Harvey being mad at her for asking Donna to do this work hurting his and Donna’s relationship somehow? Would Harvey not be pissed off and storm her office if he and Donna were still just friends? I can’t decide if this is him being chivalrous or patronizing, but I’m leaning toward the latter if for no other reason than that this show has a bad history of some pretty sexist sub-plots and throwaway jokes.

Katrina summons Susan to her office to reprimand her for disobeying her direct order by contacting that family friend of hers, and yeah, Susan should’ve obeyed her because she’s an associate and Katrina is a senior partner, but I still think it would’ve been a good idea for Katrina to tell her tell her up front why she didn’t want her to do it. Too late now, because Susan tries to blackmail her into keeping her on by threatening to tell Faye why Brian really left (he and Katrina had romantic tension, that’s why). I’m getting shades of “You put your interests above mine. I mean, I’m just putting mine back up next to yours” (s01e01); I wonder if this show knows how to do partner/associate relationships that don’t mirror Harvey and Mike.

Fast forward a little: Gretchen offers to do Faye’s work for Donna so that she and Harvey can “get [their] smush face on,” which, what does that even mean; Louis goes to bitch at Faye for stealing his secretary and we learn that she immediately saw through Gretchen and Donna’s ruse; Louis goes to complain to Gretchen and vow to get Donna back; she tells him not to do that because it was her choice to take the work on, he asks her where Donna and Harvey are so he can make sure they’re keeping Donna’s promise not to let their relationship interfere with his need for support, and she says he shouldn’t bother them and then immediately tells him where they are. Because logic.

On said date, Harvey and Donna are having a hell of a time talking about anything other than work, even though the entire point of this date is to not talk about work; they resort to “Water is wet” (Donna) and “Have you read any good books lately” (Harvey) before Harvey realizes that Donna reminds him of Ricky Garfield’s mom, a beautiful redhead he had a crush on when he was a kid. This is obviously an implication that Harvey has a “type” (that neither Zoe nor Scottie nor Paula matched, go figure), but it feels weird to me in a way I can’t quite put my finger on just yet. Something about infatuation or obsession or idealism or…something. I don’t like it.

Minor interlude to Alex’s house, where he and Rosalie reprimand Joy for backing Alex’s car into a lamppost and then lying about it and Samantha tries to blend into the refrigerator for a minute until they all sit down at the table for takeout Chinese. No, this is actually a good scene; it’s realistic without being too cheesy and incorporates the awkwardness without letting it ruin the evening. I still don’t much care for Joy, but the effort is pretty nice overall.

Harvey and Donna seem to have settled into some pretty easy banter as Donna confesses that she once thought she’d been poisoned by a Szechuan peppercorn; Harvey asks her what she did to deserve being poisoned, she says that’s neither here nor there, and he accuses her of being a black widow, at which point she corrects him that if she were the black widow, she’d be the one doing the poisoning. (Hold onto this for just a minute.) They keep up their irritatingly scripted repartee until Harvey has a brainstorm about how to save Dan, but he won’t deal with it until tomorrow because “tonight is for [them].” Then Louis calls Donna for that support he mentioned to Gretchen, she contemplates picking up, and Harvey talks her out of it, at which point we see that Louis is in fact at the restaurant and saw them ignore his call, and I get another flashback to him standing outside of Harvey’s office holding a poorly-timed cake meant to celebrate his and Mike’s success at working together just as Mike and Harvey decide to team up again. Poor guy. (I’m not sure if this show loves to self-reference or they’re just low on new ideas. Maybe both.) Oh, then Harvey says they should go to his place where he can pretend to be young Harvey and Donna can pretend to be Ricky Garfield’s mom and I think I’m starting to figure out what my problem with this is. (It has to do with idealization and romanticism and Harvey needs to go to therapy.)

Katrina asks Samantha how she knew when to give in when Katrina stood up to her, Samantha tells her she gave in when Katrina was right, and I’m so confused, does Samantha suddenly have a sense of modesty? Her character is so arbitrary, it’s giving me a headache.

The next day, probably, Harvey storms into Faye’s office and accuses her of having Johnson and Powell, which I guess is the name of her old firm, fire Dan during litigation thanks to a clause in Dan’s contract that allowed him to be fired during litigation. (Who the fuck would put that kind of a clause in their contract?) Faye denies it, asserting that a fifteen-minute phone call Harvey found record of in her LUDs (which he got…where?) was from Johnson and Powell rather than the other way around (which he should have been able to tell from the phone records) because, get this, they wanted to complain about what an asshole Harvey is. You know, in previous seasons, I might’ve taken offense at that, but at the moment, I think they’re really onto something. Anyway she invites him to subpoena her and points out that all he’s managed to accomplish thus far is getting Dan fired, so that’s gotta feel good.

Following up on the Katrina plotline, she escorts Susan to Faye’s office and boxes her into either disclosing the story about Katrina and Brian or dropping the matter completely; Susan ends up not ratting her out (for…not having an affair?) and Katrina admits that she was ambitious when she started out, too, but that can’t be all Susan has. I’m liking this dynamic, I hope Susan gets a redemption arc and sticks around awhile longer. (Not just for the overtones of Marvey, I also think it’ll be good for Katrina to have someone to mentor.)

Louis and Harvey have their final confrontation of the day as Louis declares that he’s taking that judgeship (that is not how that works), and Harvey clarifies that he and Donna ignored Louis’s call because they assumed it was about work, and also they weren’t laughing at him, they were laughing at some joke Harvey told right after they hung up on him. That’s all very well and good, but you know how earlier Harvey didn’t know what a black widow is? This time around, he’s unfamiliar with the phrase “tilting at windmills.” (It means to attack imaginary enemies.) I’m not saying that everyone has to know every idiom in the English language in order to be a functioning adult, but neither “black widow” nor “tilting at windmills” is especially uncommon, and the fact that Harvey doesn’t know them is…very jarring. Are they trying to make him seem dense? Out of touch? Socially inept? Did he entirely lose that part of his personality when Mike abandoned them? Is he faking it for some indiscernible reason? It feels to me like they’re trying to use these blind spots to make him seem more relatable somehow, or more likable, but for my money, it’s having the opposite effect as I’m finding it very irritating and out of character for him.

Samantha thanks Alex for bringing her over for dinner, declaring it precisely what she needed, kerfuffle and all, and confides that she’s been inspired by the fact that Joy is a perfect cross between Alex and Rosalie to find her birth parents. That’s nice, I guess? But…is she familiar with the concept of nature versus nurture? I don’t think this is going to turn out the way she wants it to. Also, I knew Samantha was a foster kid, but I didn’t know that she cared about her birth parents, and now she suddenly does with no buildup whatsoever, and I must say, I do not give a shit.

Donna shows up at Sheila and Louis’s place for a little bonding session, treating Louis to a “girl’s night” and promising him that tonight he’s “the most important woman in the room,” which is all very well and good but I can’t imagine it would’ve been any harder for them to say “tonight is all about you” and avoid making this into a whole gendered thing.

Finally, Harvey meets up with Faye yet again to cockily inform her that, as Louis reminded him, he’s the guy things always work out for; this time around, he convinced Kevin Miller (who’s apparently become the show’s official deus ex machina) to buy SensaTech, which I guess is the name of Dan’s company? And then rehire Dan because he built it from scratch. He seems to have also advised Kevin to allow SensaTech to keep Johnson and Powell as their legal counsel, thereby allowing Faye to save face (which I was unaware she had lost) if she’s willing to give Gretchen back to Louis. (Faye didn’t want Gretchen, she wanted Donna; it’s Donna’s fault Gretchen is working for Faye, because she wanted to skip out on work early to go on a date with Harvey.) Faye refuses, countering that he can resign if he wants to try extorting her; they each claim that they’re not going anywhere, and she closes out the episode with the line: “And for the record, you said you’d do anything to win this, but you haven’t crossed a single line. So as far as I’m concerned, I’m doing my job.” I guess she means that despite being resisted at every turn, she’s beginning to succeed at bringing them into line? But honestly, as a parting farewell, it really doesn’t have as much punch as she thinks it does.

I told you Louis wasn’t going to resign. Next time around, it looks like they’ll be going all in on the Darvey angle, so that’ll be…fun…