#and now I'm going to start season 6 onward

[gyroshrike]

If I need to the sole person who ships Morgan and Rick then so be it

[mamayura]

Okay, yeah, I genuinely think that we will once again go back to this time period after the season 5 finale and before season 6

There are too many crucial things the special either left out or even contradicts with information we get in the last scenes of season 5 which takes place right before the new school year, whereas the special is right BEFORE the summer break. In France that break is 3 months, but even if it's not that real life number, then its was still the summer break and we obviously still need answers to unanswered questions.

Let's start with the most obvious thing:

1. How did Cerise get the Butterfly

We didn't see when or how Cerise got the Butterfly Miraculous and what on EARTH she did in the Agreste Mansion if she supposedly didn't watch the last battle and therefore SOMEHOW still doesn't know who Ladybug is.

Say "it's bad writing" all you want, but not explaining that AT ALL is a new level of neglectful. They didnt had to have her be there for almost the entire end battle. And SOME explanation is due to HOW she got the Butterfly.

Especially because

2. We never saw Marinette looking for it

At the end of season 5 Marinette explains that she turned into Aquabug and looked for the Butterfly, but couldn't find it.

I know its easy now to just say "Marinette is lying through her teeth", but this is something where it makes no sense for it to be a lie. A moment like this HAD to have happened, and I think it was hinted at in the special:

I think THIS is where her searching as Aquabug must have taken place, too, and it's why she afterwards runs crying to Nathalie.

It must have because right afterwards Marinette holds the press conference where she already states that the Butterfly is lost. AND Marinette at no point in the special is shocked or confused about the Butterfly being gone. We never get the moment of Marinette realising she forgot to look for the Butterfly and then her not finding it.

The special just smoothly transitions into her already knowing it's gone and not being surprised when it's already somehow in a villain's hand.

Combine this with us not having seen what Cerise did in the Mansion and how she even got the Butterfly, then yeah, I'm fully convinced that we'll be coming back to this, even if it's maybe gonna be in season 7 bc the show is frustrating like that.

Then of course:

3. Cerise's wish

We never got an explanation what her wish was. We know it was fundamentally changing the course of this time-line, threatening to end this one and creating a new one, but that doesnt mean you can just write it off as "Cerise wanted to nuke reality"

Cause Alix explicitly says that its not THAT dramatic. This wasn't Chat Blanc who almost wiped out all of reality. So Cerise's wish must have been something big, but not reality-shattering.

I would even go so far and say that the point of her using the wish was for the story to already get through with that for her character right away because she won't be after the wish in the show proper the way Gabriel was. That she had to realize that she cant just use the shortcut, because she's supposed to put her head into it and try to accomplish her goal herself. That this is what changed history, her using a shortcut. So her plan from here onwards will show us what she wished for.

---

As of right now, I would even make the argument that Gabriel's wish actually caused Cerise to loose her memory and this was her attempt at getting it back hence why she freaked out the way she did in the end.

Cause remember, she has known for ALL OF SEASON 5 that Gabriel was Monarque. Him being dead should not be the disqualifying factor here. She already KNOWS that. And it makes no sense that she didnt find out who Ladybug is in the Mansion.

So what I've already speculated for a year now is that Gabriel's vague wording of his wish will be the deciding factor here.

Because Gimmie is an individual, too, like all the Kwamis. The all-mighty personification of Reality and yet they're not allowed to actually be part of reality besides for the wish-granting (which Gimmie COMPLAINT about) and even there in their eyes people are asking for a mere grain of sand of the vast potential of Gimmie's power:

Meaning in short: I'm pretty sure we're dealing with genie logic now and Gimmie (aka God, I guess) used Gabriel's AMATEUR mistake of wishing something in the vaguest way possible (Gabriel, you fucking MORON!) and used the massive wiggle room to flex their power a bit and change reality into what they think is fun and interesting to watch play out.

Cause that's what Genie logic is. A genie doesnt fuck people over for no reason. A genie is an ancient and all-mighty being that's locked away, can't use its magic freely, and is dependent on the puny, young, and stupid humans who cant ever see the forest for the trees. Of course they grow bitter and deceitful to be able to live out any individuality and freedom in their awful prison.

Plus, I also find it the fitting route for the show to go that in the end we have to understand and help the abused Kwamis and powerful, but enslaved entities of nature, too. Gimmie is not wrong for being pissed and bitter about their awful prison, we just need to find a better way so Gimmie doesnt do shit like that anymore because of their exclusion in the reality THEY PERSONIFY

4. We never saw Marinette give Adrien back his amok rings

This even contradicts information we got at the end of season 5:

Adrien EXPLICITLY says that when Ladybug gave him his rings, she that this and that. But we SEE her saying it to him but not giving him his rings. So this doesn't check out. Adrien getting his rings is one of the most important moments too that just like the other ones was just skipped past with not so pretty implications.

Not to beat a dead horse, but people are really underplaying the head-fuckery Marinette is doing to Adrien with her STATED INTENTION of changing his memory to something better she decides for him, and especially when this isn't the first time she did this.

Sorry to break it to you guys, but it was already established in "Pretention" that Marinette's go-to solution is telling Adrien lies to make him believe his abuse isn't real and Gabriel is better then he is:

The scene has both Marinette and Adrien acknowledge that Gabriel is being controlling and doesn't allow Adrien his free time anymore so he can't see Marinette anymore. But once Adrien is sad about not being able to stop his father, Marinette does a 180 claiming that his father totally changed and allows him all the freedom he needs. Which he objectively DOESNT and she just pointed that out, too.

This is not some out of character thing Marinette is only now tragically being "abused" into doing by a dead Gabriel. She already did this before. This is nothing new. Its now just taken to a new level.

Combine this with Marinette being the second biggest liar in Miraculous (check out Flightfoot's post about it for more details) and how much she's for example still burring and isolating Chat Noir in lies and secrets so she doesn't feel uncomfortable in what she continues doing to him, even in the special when she just leaves him to believe his absence caused the death of an innocent man who's son is now an orphan

People are really too willing to keep ignoring or downplaying that lying, secret keeping and twisting the truth to her needs has already long become Marinette's default way of doing things.

No, she isn't ill-intentioned, but what Marinette does is incredibly harmful. You dont HAVE to be ill-intentioned to be able to genuinely hurt a person in a way that crosses the line. This is one of Miraculous' worst messages yet through Marinette herself. Saying "I meant well" automatically means the damage doesn't get to count because you felt bad for having done the bad thing so it actually getting to be BAD would be "mean" to YOU.

You can be toxic and hurting someone without meaning to or being "evil". That's why victims end up stuck in such relationships, it's because the person harming them is a 3 dimensional individual. And right now Marinette is pretty much borderlining doing just that and has shown the same tendencies long before the finale and special. This isn't new and was already harmful back then.

And PLEASE stop getting hung up on word definitions. You sound just like an abuse apologist who talks their or a friend's way out of accountability by a damn technicality bc you dont wanna face that you or a person you like can do a genuinely bad thing with no way around it. That it's not just some vague theoretical OTHER person who can do it, but a person in your life.

Now this of course doesn't mean that Marinette is an irredeemable monster (I literally just said that she's a 3 dimensional individual and not il'intentioned) but here is to hope that these ugly sides of Marinette will FINALLY be held to proper standards, so we can finally move past them.

Cause the way this end scene now reads is that after 3 months of summer break Adrien has started to seriously suppress his memories of the finale the way Marinette did in "Derision" because of all the insane trauma and loss he experienced. If Marinette suppressing her memories in "Derision" is valid, I dont wanna hear shit that what Adrien was put through "wasnt bad enough to warrent it". He lost his home bc his father send him away as punishment (yes, sending your child away means the child doesnt get to be in their home. DUH), he was seperated from his girlfriend and friends for what was supposed to at least a year, he had no idea if he would see Nathalie again because of her worsening sickness, his father was sick too, he has no choice whatsoever in his future, and he had nightmares of nuking the world blasted in his brain while being locked and watched in a white cell to be forced into submitting to control.

If Marinette suppressing her memory because she was bullied by Chloe is valid, then dont you dare imply that this isnt. By the end of the summer Adrien's memories could easily have been like a pile of playdoo and Marinette is out here spinning a web of lies that gives her validation in having done the "right" thing because he takes it and smiles.

By all mean, Cerise has all the dirt on Gabriel ever since "Revelation" and now the finale too. Let's just hope that the situation at hand will be taken care of properly instead of insisting that the situation doesnt exist at all. Cause that's not helping anyone.

Marinette's IS an opportunistic comfort liar and maybe if people would stop acting like that makes you a 1 dimensional demon we could actually acknowledge how realistic it is for Marinette to have continued changing how Adrien remembers things here so he's "happier" and Marinette herself can keep telling herself the same lies until she believes it too. Because Marinette does that a lot. It doesn't make her evil, but this is what happens when a person only gets free passes and isn't actually asked to work on themselves:

They get worse and so are the consequences of their actions on other people. Just like it should be with anybody else, it takes A LOT to actually cross the point of no return, but you cant just say "I'm a complex human being, so it can never be me". Cause that's actually the quickest way for you to end up acting in a way that no one should have to forgive you for. No matter the good intentions.

I've come to accept the solid likelihood that now Marinette and Cerise have switched roles in their established dynamic. Now Cerise is going to try and out the liar and Marinette will continue lying to cover herself.

Cause you also have to remember that Marinette just left the new villain with every other information in the notebook. She just took out her name, that's it. It is now unfortunately very likely that we'll get the dynamic from Ladybug and Chrysalis (if that's still her name) that Cerise will publicly try and reveal Ladybug's lies but Marinette will just assumes that this person can reveal the truth however she likes and Marinette as Ladybug will just claim something else everytime because she knows that most people will blindly believe Ladybug as authority and greatest hero ever.

Dont act like this hasnt been consistently built up for the last two seasons now of how Marinette uses her position of power. This is not out of nowhere and even the special only goes further in that direction with that "Only Ladybug will hold the truth and decide for the world what it is" speech.

You do you, but I will not ignore what I'm seeing. I'll instead try and figure out how there can be a happy ending despite of this being the direction of the show.

[libraryofneith]

Old Dog, New Tricks (Sandor Clegane x Female Reader)

Summary: After Sandor Clegane is rescued from the Stranger's door, he is forced to consider a future without violence, without abuse, and without servitude. Can he find a new purpose? Can he help more than he has harmed? And can he share a purpose with anyone else?

Fic Tags/Warnings: whole fic is 18+, minors DNI, cursing, violence and gore, eventual smut, some serious smutage, takes place season 6 onwards, canon divergence, last season what last season?, reader has a name, third person POV, grumpy x sunshine reader, sunshine character x sunshine protector, i am a sucker for the "grumpy old man who's mean to everyone except this one special person to whom he is unbelievable sweet" trope

Notes: this is not my first time writing game of thrones fanfic, nor my first time writing for this character, but it is my first time uploading for this character on tumblr. Those of you familiar with my work will know I've got another WIP and don't worry I've not forgotten it! I've already got 12 chapters for this so hopefully won't keep you waiting too long for updates. And won't keep you waiting too long for the smut which let's be real is why most of us are here, smut kicks in at chapter 11 and then we do not stop till dawn, I started this years ago, like pre pandemic years ago. Largely forgot about it until I discovered an old memory stick with a bunch of unfinished stories and now i'm back on my game of thrones bullsh!t. Might even re-upload an old AO3 fic of mine that I deleted years ago because I stopped liking it. Who knows? Anyways, that's enough rambling from me. On with the story, and as per, like and reblog to increase visibility and let me know if you want to be tagged when this story updates.

Fuck. Buggering fucking hell. Buggering shitting seven hells this hurts! I. Hurt. Everywhere. There’s something… something I need to think about. I said I’d watch over it… what is it? Eyes. I can see eyes. Someone’s here with me. Is it that big bitch? Bugger it all I can’t see properly! Who are you? What do you want? I can’t fight. I can’t fight. What the hell am I going to do? Bloody hell! What is it I’m forgetting? They. Whoever they are… they’re giving me something. A drink. Probably poisoned. Fuck I’m thirsty. But I can’t. They want to kill me. Shit I can feel it. I can’t fight them. Leave me alone! I don’t want your poisoned piss. Oh. It’s water. Fuck. Shit me. I feel like lead. I need to sleep. I can’t. They’ll run me through first chance they get. I’m drifting. I can’t stop. Maybe that water was poisoned after all. To hell with it. I’m ready. At least I’ll die in a bed. At least I think this is a bed. If only I could remember what I’m forgetting. Fuck.

---

I know. Eloquent right? Not to worry dearest reader, by the time you're done with this chapter I'll have the next one up which has more content.

[major-comet]

The Best Red vs Blue Watch Order Guide Ever. Of All Time.

So. You want to watch Red vs Blue, huh? Maybe you read my long post about how it's so weirdly incredible yet impossible to recommend and now you want to give it a shot. Or maybe you have seen the show before, but it's been a long time and/or you didn't watch any of the mini-series or anything and want to give it another go. Either way, looking at a show with a 21 year history is kind of daunting, and you have no idea where to start.

Well luckily for you, I've done the work for you.

This watch guide will cover all 19 seasons of the main show, most of the mini-series, and some of the PSA's and other such bonus content. There will be links provided for where you can watch everything I talk about. This Google Drive (from reddit u/Exitity, unsure if they also have a tumblr) has all of the individual episode uploads, and most of the stuff I'm going to be talking about, although I'm trying to use YouTube links wherever I can. Any links will be colored in light blue for additional visibility.

Couple of quick things before we begin.

When possible, watch the individual episode uploads rather than the "complete" editions. The "Completes", while they may provide a more streamlined viewing experience by cutting out all of the bumpers and outros and such, accomplish this by cutting out a lot of jokes. RvB has a lot of jokes that happen during the fade to black at the end of an episode, and a lot of those get lost in the edits. There's also some things that just straight up get cut for seemingly no reason. Side note, the DvD/Blu-Ray versions seem perfectly fine, and honestly are even better to watch than the individual episodes if you have them. They're like a best of both worlds - adding some extra music and such (ESPECIALLY in the first 5 seasons) that really helps make a nice presentation of the show. If that's an option available to you, I recommend it. Otherwise, stick with the individual episodes.

At the end of each entry in the list, I may present a Side Quest section. This will include anything I feel you should watch that isn't necessarily canon, but helps add some extra life to the series. This may include some behind the scenes stuff or a selection of the PSA's and the non-canon mini-series. This stuff can be really great for building out the characters in a way that doesn't necessarily affect the greater story, and can especially be good for interactions between characters that maybe don't interact much in the main show. Anything I put in a Side Quest is strictly optional, but will add to your viewing experience. Obviously, there's a lot more bonus material than what I'm putting here. I'm just putting down some of the highlights. And if you end up liking the PSAs and such then just know: there's so much more for you to explore.

Early RvB is very much a product of it's time, and sometimes you'll get hit with a line that stops you dead in your tracks. Adult-oriented comedies can always be a minefield, and RVB's roots as a show made for Halo fans in 2003 definitely don't help. However, while this is the most common in the first five seasons, it never really stops being an issue. The purpose of this guide is simply for watch order, but if you have any specific trigger-related questions about any season of rvb please feel free to shoot me an ask or even a DM - i'm more than happy to help.

Okay, let's begin, breaking it down by arc.

The Blood Gulch Chronicles

You may hear people telling you to skip the first five seasons of the show and just pick up with Season 6. Those people are lying to you and do not have your best interests at heart. The first five seasons are pretty much strictly comedy, and from Season 6 onward the show starts to explore deeper themes and stories while still falling back on that comedic foundation. Skipping straight to the deeper stuff doesn't work very well IMO, because those five seasons are spent getting to know the characters we're going to be following for the rest of the show. The stuff that happens in Blood Gulch never stops being important - whether it's side characters showing back up again later on, or laying the foundation for a lot of the moments and story lines that make some of the later seasons so special.

Anyways, the watch order.

Season 1

Season 2

Season 3

Season 4

Out of Mind - Mini-series

Season 5

Blood Gulch Side Quests

Tattoo Point/Counterpoint - Season 1 PSA

A Message to the Science Community - Season 2 PSA

Real Life VS. The Internet - Season 2 PSA

All of the deleted scenes, honestly, but This One in particular because asphodel and I quote it all the time.

The Outtakes/Bloopers - I'm not gonna put the link for these and the deleted scenes for every arc, but just know that you should watch them after every season/arc. There's some great stuff in there.

The Season 5 Alternate Endings

Either watch it Now, or after you watch the finale, but I highly recommend the 2003 Season 1 DVD Commentary. It's just Burnie (Church/Lopez/Vic) and Geoff (Grif), and it's really nice.

If you've ever watched any behind the scenes stuff for RvB or even rooster teeth as a whole, you have almost certainly seen This Clip, which is a behind the scenes of the voice recording for Grif and Simmons' lines in episode 1.

The Recollection

Recovery One - Mini-series

Season 6 - Reconstruction

Relocated - Mini-series

Season 7 - Recreation

Season 8 - Revelation

Recollection Side Quests

First! - Season 6 PSA

Small Rewards - Season 6 PSA

Rock the Vote and Rock the Veto - PSAs made to encourage RvB viewers to register to vote. Which at the time you could do on your xbox 360. These are here mostly as a "wtf" historical piece.

Halo-Ween - Season 7 PSA

Valentine's Day - Season 7 PSA

Fire Safety: Where There's Smoke... - Season 7 PSA. genuinely one of the best.

Holiday Plans - Mini-series

The Reach PSA series - Three parts total, only part one is linked.

Project Freelancer Saga

Season 9

Technically there's two mini-series that take place during Season 9 - being M.I.A. and Where There's a Will, There's a Wall. I really love them, and would recommend watching them after S9, but if you really want to roll into S10 you won't miss much. Weirdly there's a place later on that would be a great spot to circle back to these, but I'll save that for later.

Season 10

Project Freelancer Side Quests

This is a great spot to circle back to older side quests you may have skipped, btw.

The Season 10 Table Read BTS - Season 10 was the first time they ever did a full cast table read for the show, and it's cool to see a few snippets from it and hear the crew talk about it.

Matt Hullum Talks to Himself - watch this after M.I.A. it's a live table read of part of the script, with a focus on a conversation between Sarge and Doc (who have the same voice actor)

This 10 Year Retrospective that was put out around Season 10. Watching it now, knowing that they were about halfway through the lifespan of the show / company gives it a whole new perspective.

RT Oz - PSA

Remember Not to Forget and Voting Fever - PSAs made to promote the launch of Halo 4. Voting Fever is one of the Best Ever (and listen to the full version of That's How Voting Works afterwards!)

This Interview between Burnie and Trocadero talking about the music the band has done for the show. This playlist also has a bunch of other behind the scenes and other such bonus stuff from the DVDs and Blu-Rays, it's great to keep around.

The Chorus Trilogy

Season 11

The Chorus Journal Entries - Only three have fully machinimated versions, the last one is just the log entry. Bridges the gap between 11 and 12

Season 12

Season 13

Chorus Trilogy Side Quests

#1 Movie in the Galaxy - PSA

Getting Away From it All - PSA

#1 Movie in the Galaxy: 2 - PSA

Uh. I think the RvB Holiday Special goes here

Matt Hullum (Sarge) reading an excerpt from 50 Shades of Gray at a book signing.

Season 14 - Anthology

I get it: not everyone loves the Anthology format. I truly do recommend watching all of it at least once - or if you haven't in a long time. My only Side Quests are to say that this is the perfect time to go back to M.I.A. and WTAWTAW if you skipped them after season 9, and that if you skipped the #1 Movie In the Galaxy PSAs during Chorus, watch them now before the third one, which is in this season.

The Shisno Trilogy (seasons 15, 16, and 17)

Season 15

Season 16 - The Shisno Paradox

Season 17 - Singularity

Shisno Side Quests (this is taken from our survey data because it's been so long since I've watched much of any shisno-related stuff)

Hard Truths - PSA

Diversity - PSA

Cultural Appreciation - PSA

Lopez's Technical Guide to Empathy - PSA

Unreal Estate - PSA

Caboose's Guide to Finding Your Home - sequel to the Guide to Making Friends from season 14

RvB: Zero + Family Shatters

okay so here's the deal. If by this point, you're really just interested in the characters you've been watching for the past 17 seasons and not so much the story or anything - you may not get much from watching Zero. I do think it's interesting to watch, if only because I think it's got a lot of missed potential. Zero is not served well by being a season of RvB, I think I would have liked it a lot more if it were stand-alone, though that doesn't fix all of my issues with it. If you wanna jump straight to the series finale, you absolutely can. It's a pretty short watch, though, and I've heard that Family Shatters was better. I'll watch that one at some point.

Zero

Family Shatters - spinoff

Restoration

This is it! The series finale.

I'm not doing this with an other season (though I do recommend going back and watching all the teasers and trailers at some point), but before you watch the finale you should watch The First Trailer For It. I think it sets up the season really well, and helps make some of the rushed set-up exposition in Restoration make a little bit more sense. honestly this should just be considered the first scene of the finale. Then watch the finale, and then you are done with all of the main show of Red VS Blue. Go forth, and be free.

Final Side Quest

I'm putting anything that came out in the nebulous time between Zero and the finale in here. I'll come back and edit this once we find out what on earth is going to be on the Blu-Ray.

Offensive Driving

First Person Tutor

Moving Out

The Video RT Made to Announce Master Chief and Blood Gulch Were Coming To Fortnite. This played at the game awards and my soul almost left my body

This is also where I'll put QvsA, which is the Grimmons mini-series, though I haven't actually watched it myself yet. They're all on youtube.

My all-time favorite RvB fan edit - doesn't actually have any clips post-anthology, but I think the end is a great time to watch it.

If none of this makes sense, or you just have any questions at all - I am More than happy to help answer your queries. I hope this helps :) Also if any of the links are broken please let me know.

[mangosaurus]

Ceratosaurus, Dilophosaurus, and Compy for the ask game! Btw I’m so happy you get to finally participate in it 🧘‍♀️

HEHE same here! kind of wish i was around while it was still getting passed around by my mutuals so i could have sent in my own asks, but better late than never >:)

1. Ceratosaurus - Favorite character design from both series? (Also who in your personal opinion, had the best glow up from CC to CT)

AW MAN THIS IS SUPER HARD. of the nublar 6 my favorite designs in camp cretaceous are tied between yasmina and brooklynn from s3 onward, mostly because i love the way they both wore their hair. in chaos theory darius totally wins over everyone else though, the team really nailed his design there (but i am really fond of some of the concepts the artists came up with during pre-production! same goes for the other campers, especially brooklynn. that bleach blonde pixie cut is my roman empire tbh)

as for biggest glow up ... i feel obligated to give that one to ben, if just because of the growth spurt. also gonna take this opportunity to go on the record and say LEAVE KENJI ALONE I GET THAT HE'S SUPPOSED TO LOOK A BIT ROUGH BUT HIS HAIRCUT ISN'T THAT BAD 😭😭😭

2. Dilophosaurus - How did you discover Camp Cretaceous?

so, i didn't actually start watching camp cretaceous until a few months after the final season wrapped up—i think sometime around september 2022? but i had some close friends who had been keeping up with it for a while, and after hearing them talk about it so much i was like, hey, i want in! which is funny, because i was never really into jurassic park/world before then? i was more of a marine biology kid than a dino kid growing up. but even without knowing the ~lore~ of the franchise, CC and its characters still managed to reel me in, and now i'm here nearly two years later and my hyperfixation is still going strong!

3. Compy - Favorite duo/trio/friendship and why?

favorite purely platonic duo goes to ben and yasmina EASILLYYYY. they just get each other on such a personal level, and i love seeing ben go from this kid yasmina begrudgingly tolerates to someone she trusts enough to confide in, both in JWCC s5 when she realizes she might harbor romantic feelings for sammy, and then again in JWCT s1 when her relationship with sammy has hit a rough patch. shout out to yasmina and darius though, their interactions in JWCC s2 were really sweet, they don't get enough love imo. i've said this at least three billion times before but if kenji is darius's shitty older brother then yasmina is darius's cooler older cousin

as for my favorite trio, i feel like most people would probably say either yasammy + ben or the original three (darius kenji and brooklynn) but for me it's darius brooklynn and ben 🥹 their individual dynamics all mean so much to me, and it doesn't hurt that i also lowkey highkey ship them as an OTV with darius in the middle (although if i had to seriously ship ben with any of the girls, it'd be brooklynn, lol)

🦖✨ JWCC/CT ask game!

[dr-futbol-blog]

Conversion, Pt. 6

Sheppard is in the infirmary undergoing some tests and given that it was late in the night during the previous scene and it seems now to be broad daylight based on the outside view, the tests seem to have taken quite a bit of time. This is where we start getting further indications that Sheppard is not acting like himself. Sheppard is still being tested as we join in, lying on a gurney with his eyes closed, while Beckett and Weir discuss him further out. And although they think they are having the conversation privately, it is likely that Sheppard actually can overhear them.

Beckett: The retrovirus isn't breaking down in his system like we hoped it would. Weir: You're positive? Beckett: Yes. In fact, it's beginning to alter his DNA. If this is allowed to continue, he'll devolve into a creature similar to what Ellia became.

Given that Ellia's wraithness seemed to be a none-too-subtle analogy for homosexuality, it is notable that they use the words 'retrovirus' and 'positive' in the same context here. Sheppard is 'devolving' into a creature similar to the wraith that had wanted to cure herself from being a wraith, his disease starting with skin lesions. This is not intended as a Very Special Episode but back when the episode aired, they were only in the early stages of developing gene therapy treatments for HIV, so similar research as conducted by Beckett and his team here would have gone into developing cures and treatments for the virus. The analogy is made uncomfortable by the fact that the wraith are so unequivocally evil. And even so, they did very much go there with the previous episode.

Weir: How long do we have? Beckett: I'm not sure exactly. Weir: Ballpark! Months, weeks? Beckett: Days. We have days.

Assuming that Sheppard could overhear them, he knows that he is on borrowed time from this moment onward. This does affect his decisions, his disposition. We can also clearly see how unsettling all of this is for Weir. She is trying to keep herself together, but it is obvious that this is affecting her. She is worried for him, and she cares about him a great deal.

But it also emphasizes the unfairness of it all, how throughout this episode we can see her try to cope with this, we can see her try to comfort him about it, we can see her emote and, later on, even get sympathy from an outsider because of how all this must be affecting her. And at the same time, McKay is not able to react to this any more than he was allowed to react to Sheppard dying at the beginning of the season. We get only one scene in which we can see McKay's heart breaking when he is told that it is time to say his final good-byes to Sheppard, but otherwise he manages to keep all of it concealed the way he always has, the way he must, the way he is expected to.

While Weir can let everyone see how this is affecting her, McKay has to keep his emotions concealed, and this is true both in-universe and toward the audience. Not being allowed comfort when a loved one was dying was one of the heavy costs of DADT, and a well-known one at that:

As the numbness began to wear off, it hit me how incredibly alone I would have been had Joan been killed. The military is known for how it pulls together and helps people; we talk of the "military family," which is a way of saying we always look after each other, especially in times of need. But, none of that support would have been available for me, because under DADT, I didn't exist. DADT's Other Victims: Military Spouses and Families

Weir: OK, what's the plan? Beckett: I've injected him with a viral inhibitor. It should slow down the retrovirus as far as his cognitive abilities are concerned but I'm afraid that's it so far. We're exploring various treatments that may or may not be effective, so... Weir: No, Carson, we don't have any time to explore. Come on, there's gotta be something in the Ancient database that can help you find a treatment! Beckett: I know that, Elizabeth. We're doing our best!

What is strange is that they do not seem to have any use for McKay as they are exploring these options. It does not seem like they have even informed him about any of this going on. We are to think that between McKay getting the splinter removed from his hand and the team going on an egg hunt, he had no contact whatsoever with Sheppard or the rest of his team. That he did not even know any of this was going on even though the first time we do see him, he is already full on dissociating. We have no indication of what he was doing all of this time but supposedly installing Solitaire on the Daedalus consoles is one of the options.

This is not to say that Sheppard and McKay necessarily would have been in contact in the meanwhile, as Sheppard seems to use isolation as punishment for himself, and there is nothing worse he can do to punish himself than to cut McKay off. The fact that he believes that he can safeguard McKay's life with the same action just makes this option more attractive to him. As far as he is concerned, right now not having any contact with McKay has only positives for him. It is the fact that neither Beckett nor Weir think to employ McKay in solving this that is more curious. It is possible that they believe that he is not a neutral party, that he has a conflict of interest enough to want to keep him removed from this because both of them should be aware of what Sheppard and McKay are to each other.

Weir: I'm sorry, I know. Of course you are. Beckett: You should talk to him. He's hiding it very well, but if I was him? I'd be scared to death.

Beckett tells Weir that it is the fact that he can empathize with Sheppard, it is putting himself in Sheppard's shoes that gives him the ability to tell that Sheppard must be frightened. But as mentioned, it may be that neither Beckett nor Sheppard realize that the Ancient DNA facilitates some kind of a connection between them, may have given rise to some small level of partial telepathy between them. Beckett is a doctor that has empathy for his patients, and this is normal for him, this has been how he has been his entire life. Sheppard is good at reading people and their motivations, and this is something that he has been using to his advantage ever since he was a child. Sheppard and Beckett had an immediate rapport as they met each other on the Antarctic base.

What it means here is that Beckett is almost certainly correct about Sheppard being afraid and hiding it, and Sheppard being in need of someone to talk to. And the fact that Sheppard feels like he has no one to talk to? Is evidence of the fact that he has severed his connection to McKay, and this is something that he is most definitely doing not to punish McKay but to punish himself. He thinks that it is what he deserves. He is not thinking about how much it must be hurting McKay because he thinks that it cannot possibly be as great as his own pain, and how ever much it might hurt, it is still better than McKay ending up dying for him just like everyone he loves inevitably do. And given that we later learn that McKay believes Beckett was keeping McKay away from Sheppard on purpose, if Beckett was be aware that Sheppard would not be able to talk to McKay at this time, it would make sense for him to ask Weir to talk to him instead. Whether Beckett understands why Sheppard had asked him to keep McKay away from him or not, Beckett was honouring his request and hence sent Weir in instead.

Sheppard: How am I doing'? Anything that has you speechless has me concerned. Weir: You're gonna be fine.

What this tells us is that this is the way Sheppard himself communicates. When he says that there is nothing to worry about, something is direly wrong. When he says that he is fine, he is actually five flavours of fucked up. It is because to him "fine" means "barely holding it together" that he interprets Weir as meaning the same. Also, he is just confirming the fact that he could overhear them. He is a dead man walking.

Note also that while Sheppard makes the observation that anything that has Weir speechless is concerning, the same could definitely be said about McKay. And while no one makes the observation about him during this episode, we may note that he is uncharacteristically quiet and subdued throughout. McKay is speechless for most of the episode, in fact. Everything that we are able to see Weir express is something that McKay is not allowed to express.

Sheppard: Wow. That's dead man talk. Weir: No, it isn't. Sheppard: Have you seen this? Weir: Beckett is gonna figure this one out.

In The Siege (S01E19), McKay described being forced to undertake a space walk without a tether as the "flight of the dead man," which may have been a reference to the series of poems entitled The Book of the Dead Man by Marvin Bell.* Now, it is interesting that neither McKay nor Sheppard actually says that they are the Dead Man as, with regards to the poems, either one of them could be the Dead Man or the Dead Man's Wife. The poems are not about death so much as they are about life, and they are about love. And let us recall that we have, in fact, seen Sheppard die in 38 Minutes (S01E04), so he literally is "the dead man". And McKay himself is the dead man in the sense that Sheppard had believed him to die on the Ancient weapons platform where the flight of the dead man was mentioned.

Sheppard: I think I already have. You know who I'm starting to feel like? Ford. Weir: Now, what happened to you is completely different.

This seems out of character for Sheppard. Not that he is thinking about the parallels to Ford but the fact that he confesses it to Weir. This is the kind of thing that Sheppard would have kept to himself previously. He would never have admitted it to anyone. Ford is a sore spot for him in more ways than one, and having to admit to himself that he is now becoming something just like the young soldier he had been unable to save requires the kind of self-awareness Sheppard is simply not capable of. It is more likely that Sheppard would be deep into denial about this, and even if he had admitted it to himself in some dark recesses of his mind, he would never confess it to other people.

No matter how close you think the friendship between Sheppard and Weir is, this is out of character for him, and this is the point. Like Sheppard tells her in a moment, he feels the same as being under the influence of Codeine. The way he is talking here? The things he is saying? Are the result of his inhibitions now being lowered. He is talking the kinds of things a drunk man would talk. And Weir never seems to catch on to this fact, merely thinking that Sheppard is confiding in her because they are just close like that.

Sheppard: I know, I know. Still, I can feel it. I mean, I can feel it changing me inside... like he did. Weir: I don't think that's even possible. Look, you're very worried...

Sheppard can feel himself changing mentally, and this is the reason he has made sure that McKay would not be able to get anywhere near him. He does not know what is happening to him but because he thinks that what is happening to him is similar to what had happened to Ford, who had tried to kill McKay -- we were explicitly told by Teyla in Trinity (S02E06) that the reason they had given Ronon "sanctuary" was because he had saved the life of her friend -- who had changed almost instantaneously from someone who had thought of McKay as his friend to someone that was capable of killing him without remorse, it meant that Sheppard was taking no chances. He could not trust his own judgement, he could not trust his own mind about this.

Ever since The Storm (S01E10), Sheppard has feared that he himself was the greatest threat to McKay's life and now it seemed like it would only be a matter of time that he would either seriously injure or try to kill McKay. Whether or not McKay knew about it, whether or not the audience would ever catch on to it, making sure that McKay would not be able to get anywhere near him was the first thing that Sheppard did.

Sheppard: No, no. No, it's... One of the best weeks of my life was when I got my wisdom teeth out. I was on codeine for a full seven days. This is kinda the same. I know I should be in pain, or at the very least freaked out by this, but hey! I'm not... and that freaks me out more than anything.

Now, the thing about the wisdom teeth and the Codeine is again the kind of thing that Sheppard would not normally tell Weir. McKay has a habit of trying to bond with people by sharing personal information about himself, Sheppard does not. Quite the opposite, Sheppard likes to keep things close to his chest, and he prefers to stay a mystery to most people. He does not like sharing personal information about himself, and he certainly does not like to share things about his personal history. It is mostly inadvertently that we ever learn things about him.

This is not Sheppard feeling so close to his best buddy Weir that he wants to share it with her, this is not Sheppard being open and honest with her. Sheppard is, as he tells her here, under the influence. He is saying things he would not normally say. But regardless, we do now learn this about him, and it is rather concerning that this is the case. One of the best weeks of his life was when he was spaced out on drugs, when he could feel no pain. We get no hint as to when this was or how old Sheppard may have been. Some people have their wisdom teeth out when they are teenagers, some when they are adults. The normal time to have them out is between 15-25, and so this could be anywhere between high school and him already being in the army.

And it is possible that what made this week one of the best weeks of his life was that there were other good things taking place during this time, or that he had suffered some terrible pain prior to it and could no longer feel that pain either while on drugs. It does tell us that there have not been that many good times in his life. But it does also tell us, as he says "one of the best," that the has had other good weeks in his life too. The week between the end of The Defiant One (S01E12) and before he had to shoot Dr. Peterson in Hot Zone (S01E13) may have been one. The week between Weir's birthday and the long-range sensors warning them about the imminent attack of the wraith may have been another. He has had some good weeks in his life, but not that many.

And it is interesting that Sheppard says that he thinks he should be in pain. Beckett said that he knows Sheppard has a high pain tolerance earlier, so it could be that he is not even referring to physical pain here. There is a strange scab on his arm, why would that necessarily be causing him pain? But if Sheppard had been in some other kind of pain before this and was now not feeling that pain, well. That might freak him out more than anything.

Weir: We're gonna beat this. Sheppard: 'We're gonna beat this'? 'Beckett will figure this out'? 'You're gonna be fine'? You really suck at the whole bedside manner thing. Weir: I know, I'm sorry. Sheppard: But I appreciate the effort.

Both of these are further evidence of the fact that Sheppard is acting out of character. For one, he would not previously have been as harsh with Weir. But at the same time, his need for a "de-hurtful retraction" seems similarly off. It is this, his final line, that makes him sound more drugged out than anything else. It might all be true, but he normally would not have said any of it out loud and certainly not to Weir. Normally, Sheppard's response to Weir would have been "I'm fine" and that would have been the end of that discussion. He would not have been fine, obviously, but he also knows that talking about it would not have changed anything.

But given that his inhibitions are lowered here, it does raise the question of whether this is how Sheppard normally talks with McKay when other people are not around to hear it. Because Sheppard is clearly disappointed in how Weir responds to what he just shared, he had been expecting something else, some other kind of a reaction. Sheppard points out that Weir is giving him platitudes and that is precisely what he would never get from McKay. McKay's "bedside manner" is very different. He is direct, honest, and rarely if ever says the expected thing. McKay also knows Sheppard intimately, is able to communicate with him in ways that other people could never. We see Weir turn her face away as she says that she's sorry, where McKay made the effort of looking Sheppard in the eye when he was apologizing, even though it was anything but easy for him. Sheppard appreciates when someone shows that they care about him without having to sugarcoat things. Weir may get an A for effort, but she does not actually make him feel any better. What ever Sheppard was looking for, what ever he needed, he could not get it from Weir.

During that scene behind Sheppard's door in Trinity (S02E06), we did not get to hear him say an awful lot, but his tones were much softer than that we usually get to hear. And over the years, we do get the impression that McKay has learned an awful lot of things about Sheppard that were never uttered on screen. So Sheppard has shared things with McKay of this nature. And given that Beckett had ushered Weir to go talk to Sheppard because he thought, for some reason, that Sheppard would have no one else to talk to at this time, it is possible that all of this is a selection of things that Sheppard would actually have wanted to tell McKay. But he could not, not now. He had made sure of that himself.

Continued in Pt. 7

-* One of the poems seems especially relevant for this episode, especially if we interpret McKay as the Dead Man and Sheppard as You (with the hands):

About the Dead Man and Your Hands

Mornings, he keeps out the world awhile, the dead man. The dead man, without looking, believes what you said of the garden. He knows the color of a rose is the color of a rose is the color. He sees the early sky lit by a burn toward which we sidle. He will take care of you, the dead man will do that. He will wait for your hair to grow back. He thinks the things you touched are lucky to be yours. The dead man knows where to be and where not to be, how he survives. He is aware, at all times, of your place, your dog [Shepherd], your rug, your roof, your chairs and tables. Here is his own table, from the basement of the “as is” shop. The dead man is of this old table, he is of his front and back doors, he is of the tea on the burner and the burner, too, he is. It cannot stop the dead man, that others have caught on. The dead man at his worst still looks his best.

(and given that the poems usually come in two, the second one is also interesting as this episode is the only time we see McKay eating soup, and he is the only character we see eating soup; although this one has more of a Sheppard feel to it):

2. More About the Dead Man and Your Hands Nights, he lets in the world, the dead man does it, always. By any late night, he has lost the need to believe. The dead man plays a nighttime piano, he blows a nighttime horn, he sings more after midnight. Dead man's music is nighttime, call it earthly, call it planetary. The dead man feels the high registers heard by animal ears. He feels the rumbly pedal note struck by redwoods enlarging and tectonic plates lurching. What is it about his hands and your hands, is it the absence of certainty? He has stirred distinctions into a broth, a soup, a stew, a gravy. You cannot find yes and no, true or false, in a dead man's soup. So what if they have caught on, the dead man is out front and stays up later. Hence, when the dead man maketh eyes, he's gotcha. He'll care for you, now that he's gotcha, and he hath giveth his hand. He can't talk about the children if you are going to cry.

[buckleyreid]

So here are my unpopular (?) thoughts on season 7

Personally I think this may have been one of my least favourite seasons of the show so far, only higher than season 5.

I feel like there was way too much going on for a 10 episode season, where the first 3 episodes were spent on a giant emergency that really only involved 2 of the characters (I'm still disappointed that we didn't even see the actual rescue from the cruise, but alas).

I have this sense that there was a whole lot going on but at the same time we spent barely any time with these characters. For example, besides the wedding episode I feel like Chim was barely there this season, same thing for Maddie. Eddie only got a decent plot from episode 7 onwards and Buck stopped having a plot after episode 6.

It's pretty obvious from my account that I love Buck and Tommy together, but I really dislike how they seemingly have been dating for a couple months now, yet we didn't get to see any of that on screen. With this being Buck's first queer relationship, it would be important to show how he's navigating everything and I wonder how they'll go about it in season 8. If we're just supposed to pretend the relationship is still new, or if we're acknowledging the relationship as something that's already an established part of both of their lives.

Moving on to the finale, I thought it was extremely underwhelming exactly because there was too much going on. We didn't even have time to see the 118 sit with the news of Bobby's heart attack, no talks in the hospital room between them, nothing. The most we got was seeing Eddie pray for Bobby but that was from an outside perspective. Instead, we moved right along to Athena playing vigilante and terrorising Amir and I think it's a shame such a good scene between amazing actors had to be shoved into a cluster fuck of an episode.

The pacing issues really boil down to how disorganised this writers' room seems to be, and as a showrunner I feel like Tim should really get ahold of that going into season 8. It shouldn't be hard to brainstorm the season as a whole before starting the writing process so you know where your characters will start and where they will end. That way you can write accordingly while not having a whole bunch of storylines going on at the same time and underutilising an amazing cast of characters or scramble to cut scenes because there's not enough time to air them. I could see how maybe the strikes impacted that process, but still... hopefully it's better next season.

Also, season 8 please bring on the emergencies!! The lack of calls the 118 responded to this season only showed me how incredibly crucial they are to showcase the characters' relationships with each other. I miss the 118 banter, the teasing and the funny one liners while they sit together in the engine. I miss when the episodes started with "911 what's your emergency?"

The only real winners of this season were Hen and Karen and, while I wish the other characters had had more fleshed out storylines, I also think they very much deserved to have their moment to shine.

All in all, besides some stand out moments, this season fell really flat to me and I'm kinda sad about it. If anyone has any other thoughts I’d love to hear it.

[pearl-kite]

Hi I know this is out of nowhere and sorry if you answered it before. Also totally ok if you don’t want to answer

But your blog got me super interested in the redacted asmr thing

I did some research and you seem to know a lot about so do you know if there’s any like, chronological order I should watch them?

Love your blog!

Absolutely no worries! I like getting stuff to respond to, it's the opposite of a bother <3

So Redacted Audio, formerly Redacted ASMR, is a channel on youtube with a, quite frankly, massive amount of audio, and since it's been running for over 4 years now it can be a LOT to sort through. Fortunately, he's done a really good job curating and organizing playlists for the different speaker-characters.

Everything is within the same universe, and many of the characters have interacted with each other. The context is that the location is a fictional city named Dahlia set somewhere in California, which is a "cornerstone" city for magical society. The best way to get a solid rundown on magic and the setting is to listen through the Freelancer Season 1 playlist.

This one is already arranged in chronological order* and also has the benefit of giving a sampler of sorts for a wider variety of speakers. One thing to be aware of ahead of time: While this was actively being published, Erik hadn't decided who the listener-character (nicknamed Freelancer) would be romancing, so it starts off with a lot of potential toward all of them except Caelum. As it went, there were polls in the discord server that he used to run, and popular consensus eventually narrowed it down to Gavin. The first time I listened was after all of that, and I was more fond of Damien, but I'm personally pleased with Gavin now, and this playlist has been one of my favorites to just revisit if I'm bored.

*Well, mostly. There was a point where the channel got a strike for some of the audios being too spicy and he removed and/or edited some of them to try to avoid being demonetized. The first Gavin audio is one of the ones that got edited, and #3 on the playlist accidentally got relocated. It's been a long time, but I think it was originally after what's now #6, the second Caelum audio.

Aside from that one as a good introduction to the channel as a whole, there are some "main" characters that have had the most attention.

One is a group of wolf shifters: David, the current head of the pack (Chronological for his listener. A lot of people aren't super fond of the earliest ones for him, #3-5, because the character evolved a bit and they aren't really representative any longer) Asher, his second Milo, another pack member, which is absolutely underselling him, he's one of my favorites

There are a couple of vampires: Vincent, the OG for the channel Sam, a common favorite who's listener is a member of David's pack

While most of the playlists are specific to character, there are a few thematic ones as well, all of which are chronological within themselves. Now, chronology with respect to each other can start to get a bit confusing, because of how long it's taken for some of them to play out.

If you want to get a feel for the characters before worrying too much about timeline, I'd listen through most playlists as they're arranged with one main caveat:

When you hit the audios titled Inversion, give those a pause until you've listened to more speakers. Inversion was a huge crossover he did that has 10+ speakers involved.

A personal favorite has been Vega. I'm actually super not fond of the first audio he's in, which is also in the Freelance list, so I skip that one when I relisten. The first one in this list is that one with the Freelancer, but the second and onward has a demon listener nicknamed Warden. We just got an update on his story today/last night and I've been a little unwell about it 🙃

I am realizing I could go on and on and on and I kind of have, so I'm going to stop there. Hopefully that's enough to dip your toes in. I'll gladly help out with any follow-up questions, too :3

[archenarrow]

Meta Shaped Thoughts

So the Meta remains one of my favorite things in fiction and my brain is full of it again, as it does periodically. I'm just gonna ramble an amount and try not to spin off on too many tangents but still probably will go off on several.

Basically, started with the transition from Agent Maine, to the Meta, to that third thing that happens post AI fragments. Y'know, that thing where it's still just what's left of Maine under that helmet, but it seems to still identify as the Meta. The Councilor refers to it as Agent Maine again, but he is still distinct from who Maine was before Sigma got into his head. Also its pronouns shift around with these, Agent Maine is he/him, the Meta is it/its, post AI the pronouns sometimes go either way (I think, I will admit that I haven't checked recently).

Anyway, though, starting with Agent Maine: he is on the Freelancer leaderboard for the scenes we see, but he is consistently low on it. In fact, every time we see him fight a Freelancer level foe in season 9, he loses. This is very much in contrast with how we saw the Meta in seasons 6-8. The Meta had been portrayed as an unstoppable death machine in pretty much every appearance it had. It wasn't impossible to drive it off, but it always came back stronger. Agent Maine on his own wasn't this dangerous, however he was indestructible. It reminds me of the old Sgt Rock comics. For those who didn't read them, the Sgt Rock comics are about Sgt Rock, a U.S. army sergeant during World War 2. Sgt Rock was a boxer before being a soldier, and while he wasn't a great fighter, it was impossible to keep him down. Having to beat the immovable object became a rite of passage in order to fight the actually good boxers. Anyway, I feel like Maine might have served a similar role with the Project Freelancer leaderboard, you need to be able to beat him in order to really make it into the big leagues of the Freelancers. Like, Maine just doesn't stop. He can't beat Tex in sparring, but he's the only person who is able to keep fighting past the point where his armor is supposed to be locking him in place. He seems at a stalemate with the Charon/Insurrectionist ODST up to the point where the other guy gets a gun, but being center massed with a sniper rifle, having a magnum mag dumped into his throat, shooting him with a magnum again, hitting him with a truck, then hurling him down and off an overpass all fails to kill him. Another thing is that he seems friendly with a few other Freelancers, I see people bring up his relationship with Wash, but he also seems like one of the folks who is closer to Carolina based on their banter during the heist. She jokes with him about being a baby, his lack of subtlety, and shows way more concern for Maine's injuries during the heist than she did with say North's injuries at the oil platform.

And that leads into Maine being paired with Sigma, Carolina giving up her AI so that Maine can communicate more easily (there's probably another tangent in here about ableism in Project Freelancer). Carolina later feels responsible for what Sigma would do to Maine. but we immediately see Maine becoming thematically more the Meta, even if the transformation takes time. There's the very obvious stuff, like the sequence of Maine gearing up before the assault on the Insurrectionist base, how it shows that we are very much entering Meta territory now. And the switch is immediate, from this point onwards, Maine doesn't lose a fight. In fact, Maine/The Meta begin getting back at everything that had previously bested Maine. Maybe some of this is just showcasing how much of a difference having an AI and being able to use his equipment (I forget if it's canon that Maine's equipment was strength enhancement or if that was a fan idea) makes in a fight, but there's a feeling of vindictiveness to it when Maine holds the soldier who'd shot him before helpless for a prolonged period before finishing him off. How he gives the other soldier from the freeway a moment of relief and then realization before throwing her into the sea. And also that friendliness with the other Freelancers seems to dry up, there is no more banter with Wash or Carolina, even when fighting alongside each other. The most we get is other Freelancers looking on Maine from a distance with concern about these changes. Maine's transformation into the Meta, the parts of it we see onscreen at least, is fast. His characterization changes rapidly once he is paired with Sigma, of course culminating after the crash of the Mother of Invention, the additions of Eta and Iota making the Meta fully into what it was when we first saw it in Recovery One and season 6.

But then Maine's body outlives the AI fragments, even if it still seems to identify as the Meta rather than Maine. And we see some personality changes, reverting more towards what Maine was like beforehand. It jokes with allies, heck the fact that he can work with allies again is notable. But ultimately, he still has that need to acquire AI again. I do feel like there's a few different reads on what that need to reacquire an AI. I think some of the things in the show itself blame it on Maine himself and some desire for power on his part, especially that bit at the end of Restoration. But the more interesting read to me is that it's more akin to an addiction. The Meta has been the Meta and can't go back, he can't just be a human brain working on its own now, it needs something to guide him. It literally can't function like it used to without another mind to run its equipment.

Anyway, that's a pile of thoughts on the Meta. I think that's most of the coherent stuff so I'm going to post this while my brain just kinda keeps chewing on it.

[sunyot]

Must See T.V. Moments - Invincible 2024

*****SPOILERS for SEASON 2: EPISODE 6*****

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I'm in my T.V. Phase now...

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*******I MEAN IT. SPOILERS AHEAD******

The 'parasitic alien' remains a classic Super Hero villain. My personal first introduction to this villain came from watching Batman Beyond. In a two-episode Saga, Terry gets the opportunity to fight alongside The Justice League of his era. Naturally, he finds discord only to discover... well you get the idea.

This concept plays on one of our fears as people: being controlled. As gamers, we're so used to being puppetiers. Yet imagine Being the puppet. Imagine further maintaining a small hint of consciousness; an out of body experience where you watch your every action taking place. We might wonder if we'd still feel pain? Would we feel anything at all? The parasite would probably have a total lack of self-preservation, and that scares us.

This show still reigns as one of the best-written shows on television. Robert Kirkman handles tension so well. I'm avoiding reading the comics, but when I see an episode as good as this one it's very tempting. The series integrates so many layers, adding a density to the storytelling. Amazing story craft like this, in my opinion, is the cause of fiction withdrawal. I know the feeling well.

Sometimes, a series feels like it's speaking to you personally. It becomes a drug that taps directly into your veins. I keep a list of shows on my phone that give me this feeling. Maybe one day I'll share them. Really, I keep them to remind myself which shows give me the true feeling I'm searching for. I do this in the hopes of limiting my sometimes lengthy searches for new entertainment.

Let's start with the obvious.

Do you Ship 'Mark X Amber' or 'Invincible X Atom Eve'?

Fans of the series remain vocal about their preferences. And I get it. They prefer for Mark to spend the majority of his time as Invincible, the superhero. They want to see him at his most powerful, going on adventures, fighting alongside a crew, and receiving the admiration of beautiful potential partners. Seeing Mark in a more ordinary human life could feel less fun. And Amber is, in a way, a representation of that. Her groundedness reminds Mark, and the audience, that he's still just a guy. This can cause conflict between the audience and certain characters. Protagonists often serve a cathartic outlets for viewers. Fans of Twilight want to see the quiet, studious, normal young lady swept up into an extraordinary series of events. Seeing someone like themselves, allows them to live vicariously through the plot.

Likewise, superheroes serve as one of our culture's best self-insert fantasies...

This is good. This is healthy, I'd argue. Being able to explore yourself in an idealized fashion can help people create fragments of identity which can sometimes become the sparks of our moral centers. All that said, writers like Kirkman, understand that stitching these fantasies to universal human experiences are what make them memorable. It's the filtering of the wild through the boring that make our stories sing.

In real life, we have relationship problems. We screw up. We do poorly in school. We fail at our obligations time and time again, while the world forces us to push onward because our obligations are always with us. As Mark continues to try and do the right thing, his humanity outshines his Viltrumite heritage.

*****SPOILERS for SEASON 2: EPISODE 6*****

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Rexsplosion reads Home Decor Magazines - Invincible 2024

"I actually thought Rex died..."

This series plays with tension brilliantly. It also avoids having too many moments of relief. When the immediate danger fades, the characters still live in a state of worry. They're always waiting for the other shoe to drop. We learn something quirky about Rex, but only because he almost died. This semi-sweet moment humanizes him, yet emphasizes the ominous nature of the series. Our heroes have to take their happy moments when they can get them. The Team, now scattered, became a question mark. This world cannot afford uncertainty surrounding its heroes. We saw their near demise in Mark's absence.

And with a few quick scenes of Mark's loved ones, we're of where he's most vulnerable.

This brings me to my favorite aspect of the episode:

- The Fiction inside the fiction -

This will always be one of my favorite methods of storytelling. Seeing characters in fiction read or watch their own fiction lets us see how they relate to their world. Sometimes it's done through myths and legends. Sometimes in other clever ways...

When Mark receives a box of science fiction stories (stories written by his father) we are able to more directly relate to the character.

This look of wonder and skepticism on his face. This is all of us...

My father introduced me to Star Wars. He had the original trilogy on VHS tapes. He recorded the movies when one of the major networks aired them without commercials. I wore those tapes out, watching until my imagination expanded to the vastness of any epic tale; spilling over into my daily life sunshine I could carry in my pockets.

At this moment in the show, I am Mark. I'm sitting on my bed, hearing my father's voice as the story plays out on the pages and in my mind. And I'd wager, I'm not the only one.

In dramatic fashion, we now get to go on the journey inside this new universe. This fiction within a fiction is crucial as it becomes the notion of creation from the perspective of beings we know to be created. How funny is that. Funnier still, to Mark this tale plays as cinema. Whereas to us, it's still animated; which is a wild concept when thinking of sentience.

Even the title 'The Man with the Invincible Gun' ...feels like foreshadowing to me.

*****SPOILERS for SEASON 2: EPISODE 6*****

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I'm sure most of you caught on quick, realizing that these stories are based on Mark's Father's real adventures. I think it's funny seeing a character like Mark, superhero, space traveler, one of the strongest beings in the Universe, forget all that, and lose himself in the story. Again, this character trait displays Mark's humanity. Of course, he eventually realizes that these stories are far from lore.

Knowing his father, it's probably safe to assume these were not heroic journeys of an idealistic space explorer. More than likely they were unsuccessful Viltrumite invasions of unsuspecting alien inhabitants. I also think we'll at some point get to meet some of these aliens and learn the truth of these encounters. But still, it's fun to dream.

This episode makes me want to read a good book...

It also makes me want to write. It's been a while since I've done that either.

A few more things. Seeing the Seth Rogan alien makes me wonder when I'm going to be able to hear him as his own character because every time he talks, all I hear is Seth Rogan. His is the only character that does that to me. I'm hoping my brain eventually adjusts.

Also, let's readdress the title screen.

What does it mean this season? In Season 1, the answer felt obvious. The blood splattered across the title showed the surprising violence of the heroes world, which slowly dragged Mark deeper into its depths. In this season, the classic 'Invincible' logo cracks away to reveal a red one.

What's the meaning, I wonder. Mark might be one bad event away from turning into Omniman, a true Viltrumite warrior, like the Mark of the other Universe. And speaking of other Universes...

Our friend Giant-Brain-Outside-My-Body-Man returns to get a bespoke suit from a tailor with four arms.

This tells me that no matter the universe, timeline, or year, nothing feels better than wearing a fresh new suit. We also get to see him do a little multi-dimensional hopping.

I wonder which Universe this could be...

Cryston

[7grandmel]

Rip of the week: 17/06/2024

The Legend of Cage: Staff Roll

Season 6 Featured on: The Legend of Cage: Beneath the Mask Official Soundtrack

Ripped by Grambam36, Ashley, minindo, MJ, smileyshirt

Requested by crickqt! (Discord)

Y'know, I thought long and hard about what rip to return to the blog with, a month away from it all. At first I felt like doing something grand and triumphant, something truly important to the channel's legacy like a Season premiere or finale, something in the spirit of A love letter to this wonderful community and my amazing friends or File Select Fusion Collab. But then I started going down the opposite path, maybe to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the Snowball Park - Super Mario 3D World post and by extension the one-year anniversary of this whole blog, I ought to feature something just as irony-filled, a subversion of all your expectations, a big meme-fest all around. That was appealing in some way, but both of these ideas felt like two opposite-end extremes of SiIvaGunner's whole, neither felt like the right way to truly embody what I love about the channel enough to be befitting for the blog's "revival." And it was then that I realized that the most explosive way I could return with was with something I'm truly passionate about, something I've had bubbling internally as something I've wanted to cover ever since the beginning, but never found the right opportunity to truly get into. A feature months in the making, is at last here.

That's right - it's time to finally talk about The Legend of Cage, and The Legend of Cage: Staff Roll.

A lot of what makes SiIvaGunner such a rewarding channel to follow is how well it remembers... just about every one of its thousands upon thousands of loose threads, ones woven since all the way back in 2016. It's as if every rip posted on the channel is bound to end up receiving some sort of tribute years down the line a la Violet Snow Memories, or alternatively rips lead to in-jokes perpetuated by individual rippers that then end up catching on as background gags alongside the channel's typical operations like with guess what​?​?​?​?​?​?​?​?. And due to its nature of allowing just about anything from anyone to be uploaded, Season 1 was when this was at its absolute peak - so many of the channel's ongoing running gags began all the way back during its first year due purely to the whims of individual rippers. The joke with The Legend of Cage stems from an in-joke with content creator Criken, wherein one thing led to another and after three years of development we'd end up receiving a texture pack wherein all faces in the game were replaced with variations of Nicholas Cage. The year was just the same as SiIvaGunner Season 1 - 2016 - and just a few weeks after the texture pack released, the joke breached the Vinesauce barrier through a stream by Vinny - and barely a week after that, the SiIvaGunner member kyokuP struck gold with Cage Town, First Day. It was hardly amidst Season 1's most popular videos - after all, it required knowledge of like three seperate rabbitholes of in-jokes and investment into Vinny Vinesauce's most recent streams at the time, but it was a bit that wound up sticking - as Season 1 progressed, more and more Majora's Mask videos wound up releasing, almost all of which continued the bit that kyokuP started.

Like a lot of these less-prominently-pushed Season 1 bits, it wound up falling to the wayside as the channel moved on with a more narrowed focus during Season 2. But, as is always the case, the SiIvaGunner team never forgets, there's always SOMEONE on there who's attached to the silliest of things - and one legend by the name of GramBam36 took it upon himself at the start of Season 3 to bring back The Legend of Cage-posting in full force. From Season 3 onward, due in huge part to the enthusiasm expressed by one of the channel's coolest rippers (seriously, this is now my 7th post on a Grambam36 rip, SUNGORE and this are only scratching the surface), one of the channel's most bizarre jokes was back on its feet - two years later, the original Criken bit, the Vinesauce stream that inspired it, had all been mostly forgotten, yet the show kept going on. Rip by rip, slowly, the soundtrack to The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask grew closer and closer to completion, each of its many tracks given a Cage-ification due purely to the commitment to the bit. And, again, to reiterate: No special attention was being drawn to these rips whatsoever. Like with Collision Chaos Good Future JP [CD Beta Mix] and so many other nuggets in SiIvaGunner's back catalogue, this was purely a passion project underway as the channel's gears kept turning at standard speed. That was, at least, until the final stretch of Season 6, and the SiIvaGunner All-Star Nuclear Winter Festival.

The Nuclear Winter Festival (aka "DoomFes") is a whole other can of worms to get into that's far too large for the scope of this post, but the most important throughline to it (and the Season as a whole) was a sense of...bittersweet finality, for lack of a better word. We all knew deep down that the channel itself wasn't ending, but every part of DoomFes felt specifically focused on tying up loose ends, giving us closure to threads left dangling for all too long. The Metal Gear SGFR album, Paper Jams, the SiIvaGunner AI storyline a whole, all things that felt like coming full circle at long last - and, amidst it all, was a silly little event focused on a 6-year old channel in-joke finally reaching its climax. With The Legend of Cage: Beneath the Mask Official Soundtrack, and with The Legend of Cage: Staff Roll, it was finally time to finish off what was started all those years ago. The joke of putting Nicholas Cage textures into Majora's Mask had taken three years to realize - and after double that time, the SiIvaGunner team was at last able to match the texture pack's visuals with something just as quality in a full-soundtrack remix album, with The Legend of Cage: Staff Roll sitting as the proud crescendo to it all.

It's easy to forget all of this borderline-sappy lore when actually experiencing the rip in question - It is, for all intents and purposes, the culmination of six years worth of Cagey goodness. Led by Grambam36 alongside incredible rippers like minindo of Beautiful Dreamer fame, we're at last given a The Legend of Cage rip with full-on YTPMV visuals, in turn helping depict the rip as a journey throughout the entirety of Majora's Mask, as its medley-like nature of Majora's Mask Staff Roll theme allows it to revisit some of the all-time classic Cageposts very seamlessly. It feels celebratory, of course, due to the very tone of the Staff Roll theme in general, but also due to all the aforementioned context of where Cage-posting was on SiIvaGunner during Season 6 - this event, the one effectively marking its death, was the first time this dumb running gag had really been given special attention by the channel, yet that was part of what made it all so special. I wasn't an "avid" listener of these per se as someone who hasn't played Majora's Mask myself, but I knew of their existence, it always made me happy to keep seeing them crop up - and The Legend of Cage: Staff Roll was the most perfect sendoff these rips could've ever hoped to get.

There's so much to dig into with the rip's quality itself that I don't know where to begin. The rip's opening is front-loaded with such well-done adaptions of iconic Cage sounds, the "Can-can-I get my prescription, PLEASE!!" interlude has stuck with my head ever since I first heard the rip and it only continues from there with Cage sounds being used for just about every part of the original song, the lead, the percussion, the accents, everything. Particularly in this opening section, it slots into my absolute favorite flavor of YTPMV a la The Streamer, where vocal bits from the sources used are audible to a degree where you could reasonably sing along to the song being used. It's all just as much of a delight to hear here, going through the classics of "NOT THE BEES", "A-B-C-D-E-F-K", "Prickly Pear" - yet the rip, as a collab ought to do, escalates into really fun alternate takes on Cageposting, with different visuals, different samples used in different ways, yet all still celebrating the meme's weird yet ever-present legacy on the channel.

Even a year and a half removed from The Legend of Cage's official first and last tribute on SiIvaGunner, I'm still not quite sure where it sits with the fans. The Legend of Cage: Staff Roll, as the most perfect distillation of everything the project ever aimed to be with fantastic visuals to boot, only barely cracked ten thousand views - the original Cagepost that started it all in Season 1 still just below fifty thousand. It was, contrary to the sounds used within the rips themselves, never the loudest meme, nor a very intrusive one, yet it was part of a running gag that was just so fun to see still go on years after its intended legacy passed, with SiIvaGunner's band of YTPMVs teaming up to finish the fight that a bored Season 1 contributed started. Even though it was far from the most popular gag, Grambam36 remembered and absolutely ran with it: and that, to me, is the kind of energy you can only truly get here on SiIvaGunner.

(( And, of course, the kind of energy you'll find with many of its lunatic fans, like myself ;] ))

[chelledoggo]

my Hazbin Hotel first watchthrough

(DISCLAIMER: this post is being typed as i'm watching. there may be inconsistencies in my attitude as i go on.)

🛑SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT🛑

Ep 1: blehhhh...

Ep 2: overall: "eh." villain song was pretty good.

Ep 3: something something something plot plot plot- LOOK IT'S THE SILLY SNEK AND EGG BOYS. 💖 "I'll Be Your Armor/Keeper" was a damn good song, even if at this point in the series i couldn't fucking stand Charlie.

Ep 4: ...okay i'll admit. this one for all its heavy subject matter was... handled alright. was nice to see Charlie finally grow some goddamn balls and show some righteous anger. kinda wanted to strangle Husk here until he actually showed some empathy. "Poison" was a good song, even if Angel's VA was pretty weird and pitchy at points. "Loser Baby" was a good one though.

Ep 5: i feel conflicted as a Christian finding Lucifer so charming. /j /lh also i think Charlie's starting to grow on me. and it only took over half the series. also fuck you Mimzy. the Alastor vs. Lucifer song was a goddamn bop. and "Hell's Best Dad" was beautiful.

Ep 6: WHOA. WHOAAAAAAAAA. WHOA. I FEEL LIKE AN IDIOT FOR NOT SEEING THAT COMING. this episode is hitting all the Christian Universalist and deconstructionist sweet spots for me. and God i love Emily, poor bab. ;~; ALSO YASS ANGEL STICK IT TO THE MOTH MAN.

Ep 7: all my hate for Charlie is gone. i just want her and Vaggie to be happy. i feel so bad for both of them. also "Out For Love" beats the entirety of Steven Universe's soundtrack in every category lol

Ep 8: oh gosh this... ohhh... this was phenomenal... like i started out hating this show and now i'm just itching to see what goes down next season!! i'm glad i stuck through!

misc. notes:

i hate that this series basically requires you to watch the pilot to understand the first episode. luckily i've seen it but...

i like some of the background character designs.

i like the little one-eyed gremlin girl thing.

i know we're supposed to like Charlie but GOD she's annoying. I RECANT THIS STATEMENT

Alastor best character.

i kinda like Sir Pentious. he's silly. and i love his egg boys.

Vaggie's just as done with this shit as i am but the difference is she loves Charlie where as i just want to strangle her lmao.

Velvette's kinda hot ngl.

Camilla too.

seriously though am i supposed to like Charlie? when do i start to like her? I ALSO RECANT THIS STATEMENT.

i feel like i would like Charlie more if she wasn't essentially a ripoff of every "quirky" Disney princess from Rapunzel onwards. AND I RECANT THIS ONE TOO

okay, as of ep 5... i'm starting to not hate Charlie so much.

why do some of the denizens of heaven look like demons?

ep 6 is where this series finally really grabs me ngl. glad i stuck around. i'm on the beginning of the finale as i'm typing this point and i'm excited to see how it concludes.

OH GOD IT WAS WORTH IT

the angels of heaven really do seem to be the "american evangelist/dispensationalist" archetype. they don't know why a soul can't be redeemed after death. they don't question it. they're not allowed to because... it's "breaking the rules" or whatever. as someone who grew up in that kind of environment, that really resonated with me.

[familyagrestefanblog]

Honestly, I'm kinda surprised that I (personally at least) haven't seen anyone bring this up regarding how season 5 ended and what it might mean for Marinette in the future.

Of course it's important to discuss what Gabriel wished for, concidering he rewrote all of reality to his liking and we will have to deal with that. Of course thats a priority.

But there's a very specific angle that's not to be underestimated in my opinion, and I'm just surprised that even after all these months I've yet to see anyone bring it up.

The very specific angle of: Marinette Dupain-Cheng doesn't know what Gabriel Agreste actually wished for and is a highly paranoid person who thinks herself to death.

So if Cerise as Chrysalis will from season 6 onwards be out here and manage to raise the absolute hell for Marinette she's being set up to unleash, then we can absolutely reach a point where Maribug might genuinely come to the conclusion that the reality around her is the product of Gabriel wishing for Ladybug's/ Marinette's demise since that's by itself not an unreasonable conclusion to reach.

Clarification: There is this frustrating approach going around in the Fandom about the wish. Yes, one can wish for ONE thing only. Mate, if I make the wish that the earth NEVER had land mass above the water in the first place, then reality would be rebuild with a completely different chain of evolution here on earth that led to a different "equivalent" of us humans. It would change earth as we know it entirely, and yet I still only wished for ONE thing. Guys, get tf creative please.

And that would obviously mean she'd want to undo the wish to get out of this new reality bc that would in her mind be what it needs to SAVE reality from Gabriel Agreste's legacy and get back to her family, friends, to Adrien, and Chat Noir even.

You know, similar to what Toxinelle wanted.

That would also obviously include that Marinette at some point, when everything spiraled far downwards enough around her, starts mentally distancing herself from this reality she's in - like a villain, only that she's not - and comes to think of this reality and it's people kinda as "collateral damage" because whatever happens here isn't really important since Marinette wants to get back to her actual reality anyway. Meaning she might actually push away her friends and family ect.

Honestly, it all depends on how much hell Cerise/ Chrysalis raises for her. Cause once Maribug is pushed beyond a certain line she will be out here screwing herself over further and further by being caught in a mental devil's circle, where she then WILL become a person who needs to be fought/ pushed back againt for everyone's (including her own) safety but that would reinforce Marinette's paranoia that she's trapped in a reality specifically designed to turn against her.

The original mission Ladybug and Chat Noir were once chosen for is now OVER, but in Marinette’s head the war against Monarque could go on. Even Chrysalis to some degree would then merely be an extention of Gabriel in Marinette’s head. So "getting rid of her" by using the wish would on paper not be an extreme action, but merely fighting fire with fire.

And yeah, all of this would also mean that at some point Marinette would justify in her head to turn against this reality's Chat Noir, to get his Miraculous and make the wish. In her eyes she wouldnt really be betraying Chat Noir - HER Chat is waiting back in reality for her while THIS Chat was made by Gabriel to keep her here to met her demise.

(if you want it angsty, let her find out where he was locked up and by whom in the season 5 finale, without letting her know that he's Adrien Agreste. Cause Adrien and Kagami having been locked up by Gabriel (and Tomoe) in all that global chaos still meant they were save enough because of their parents being their captors, to keep them out of everything. But give her the vague information that Gabriel Agreste held Chat Noir as civilian captive under horrible nightmares too, in a different country and in some white hell cell, and you tell ME that she wont be motivated to get through this new reality's Chat Noir to get back to hers. Especially when Chrysalis is out here turning everyone against her? Of course she would want to go back to her Chat Noir who's her anchor and who sacrificed himself to keep his Miraculous safe from where he is? Which she would in turn feel horrible about cause she then LOST. Honestly, all things concidered, Adrien Agreste and Kagami Tsurugi were fine enough in Gabriel's (and Tomoe's) grasps, but what reason does Marinette have to think that Monarque would show Chat Noir the same concideration? Especially when he had just send away his Miraculous?)

Yes, this would also mean that Marinette would slowly distance herself more and more from Adrien, bc even if she thinks Gabriel made the wish in Adrien's benefit doesn't it mean Marinette agrees with the outcome. For all we know Adrien will go back to working for the Gabriel brand now so in future he can step into his "hero father's footsteps as his heir to uphold his legacy (since Adrien already HAS the needed career for it, he would just need to learn under Tomoe and Nathalie as his father's successor until he's of age)

Yes, this would mean that the friendship between Marinette and Alya would get seriously challenged since, by all means, Marinette’s dialog at the end of S5 still names Gabriel and Monarque as two seperate people. So Alya may know Gabriel Agreste made a wish, but not that Gabriel was Monarque and why Marinette is getting more and more paranoid. Add how Cerise normally tends to use Alya against Marinette, this isn't unlikely to happen again.

Alya may very likely at some point take over as team leader (the way shes set up to do) bc Ladybug doesnt trust her own team anymore and they somehow need to save her from herself.

I'm just saying. It's kinda weird for me that I saw no one ever even humoring this angle. We're talking about Marinette Dupain-Cheng, and you're trying to tell me that she's not ever going to think back to the fact that's she LOST against Hawkmoth and doesn't know what he wished for while basically being locked up in his new reality in which Lila/ Cerise will rise as the new Butterfly?

Did you WATCH the Paris special?

Come the fuck on...

[neospokenworld]

SPRING ANIME 2024 FINAL THOUGHTS

So just like I did months ago with my first impressions post, here are my final thoughts on every anime I started watching that was ongoing this season. I'm gonna list them as they end to be more organized and not have it jump around, so before we start, here's a quick section about the anime I dropped:

Astro Note: I forgot it existed past the first episode not gonna lie lol, I'll probably resume it in the future since it was a fun first episode but other than that nothing else to say

High Speed Etoilé: I wanted to like this so badly, the story could've been interesting but from what I saw it never hooked me at all, plus the 3d was very rigid so overall it wasn't as good to continue

Spice & Wolf: This is one I'll surely resume in the future, I was liking what I was seeing but one day I just lost track of it and never returned. What I saw left me with a very good taste so this is one that I have to resume someday

Okay, now we can begin:

DUNGEON MESHI

Started watching this one when it was at episode 18 and caught up to it really quickly. I honestly wasn't expecting to like it for some reason but as soon as I started it I knew it was gonna be a fun ride altogether. Nice characters, a good story, excellent animation (I mean it's Trigger but this is like my 2nd anime from them) and food that I would 100% eat if it was real lol. I'm glad it's getting a 2nd season because I really wanna see how it continues

BARTENDER: KAMI NO GLASS

This was beautiful, what else can I say? I mean I knew that this anime would be different after watching the first episode, even joking to myself while watching it ''This is premium anime'' lol. Everything from start to finish had this soothing vibe to it that I absolutely enjoyed and not gonna lie I think from episode 6 onward it knew how to push the right buttons on me to make me more and more emotional, by the time I finished the final episode I was on tears of happiness hearing the credits. I don't know how the original was but I think this is a gem of an anime that surely deserves to be talked about more

YORU NO KURAGE WA OYOGENAI

It never stopped delivering peak, back when the first episode aired I knew it would be something special, and while it felt just a little aimless past the episode of their first concert, I think in the end it wrapped up the main points kinda nicely. This is a show that got me feeling emotional on a near weekly basis and always knew how to share banger episodes. Even if it wasn't yuri in the end it was still a beauty of an anime in my opinion, it only needs to polish a few small things here and there to be basically a masterpiece imo and hopefully the manga that is coming along with it can do it

SHUUMATSU TRAIN DOKO E IKU?

This was such a fun ride overall, I gotta admit back on the first episodes I had a feeling this would be something that would break me when they were close to Ikebukuro, but even if in the end it didn't it was still a really good ride from beginning to end. One thing I liked was how the conversations between the girls were a bit faster than in most anime out there, I don't know but that made them feel more natural to me, it was cool to see all of them interact with the weirdness of the world and ngl this finale actually moved me a little lol. Not the best but still a pretty good one all in all

PS: Both the Opening and Ending here are severely underrated, Ga-Ton Go-Ton is on my top 3 for OPs this season and Eureka is easily my favorite ED for the season, both of them are just so good both visually and musically it's surprising to say the least

Part 2 will come when the other 4 end, so probably early next week

[yuraimi-lee-bunny]

What, to you, is the stupidest anti-rc argument.

Uffff.... … I have several points, and the last one I will mention is the best known but where I want to give details of why it doesn't make sense.

It's a boring ship

I don't know why many say that as an argument, when that isn't an argument, it's an opinion. And it's okay if you find the ship boring (as I think Caru+++ is SUPER boring, but I'm not saying that as an argument, and much less I'm going to say it to anyone who likes that ship because it's basically disrespect)

Tastes aren't arguments, they're opinions, and everyone has their own taste and if it isn't harming anyone, then there is no problem.

2.- It's a straight ship

……….Again, it's an opinion… and a very strange and illogical one. I don't want to get too into that because everyone has their headcanons (and in my case it makes me laugh because I have the headcanon that Carmen and Gray are bisexules, so in my case "straight ship where?")

Whether it's an LGBT or straight ship, it doesn't take away from how beautiful it can be (and again, if it doesn't hurt anyone, then what's the problem?)

3.- Age difference

Ok, the truth is I don't see any sense in this, because to begin with it is almost canon that Carmen was born in 99. According to the creator, he mentioned that VILE students enter the academy at the age of 20. Doing the math, Carmen was 18 years old when she met Gray and she was 20 (approximately). That's two years difference, it's not much. Also, I think, the vast majority of shipers, we started to love Red Crackle when they were both older (20 and 22).

(And sorry for mentioning this, seriously, sorry, but Julia must be at least 4 years older than Carmen, and I don't see ANYONE saying this argument to be "against" Caru***… so sorry, just please, don't be hypocrites)

4.- Gray left Carme brainwashed for 6 months.

Ok, I would love to give a lot of details about why this seems very unfair to me, but I can't because I would be giving more details about Gray's character analysis and I don't want to make this post long, so I'll get to the point:

Let's remember that Gray returned to VILE, and was basically on probation. The Faculty knows how close Gray is to Carmen. They trusted Gray above all to not let Carmen regain her true self. It's true that Gray was okay with this (until the fair scene) but understand something: Gray was between a rock and a hard place. Yes, wanting Carmen to return, but on the other hand having the eyes of the Faculty on him. He did something 6 months later because he no longer had Carmen in his sight, he could no longer take care of her, she was already in the complete hands of the Faculty, and worse still, hearing what she would do to Shadowsan, that's when he took the risk.

Gray in itself didn't really want to return to VILE (in my analysis I later show the evidence), being on probation, then taking care of Carmen, both being on the radar of the Faculty so that everything was fine… don't believe that Gray was afraid for his life?

Because let me remind you something: NO ONE leaves VILE.

Thus, I consider it a little empathetic that they don't understand why Gray didn't act quickly to make Carmen return to normal (I even bet you that if he had seen the red team at some point, he would do something to make her return. Although that is a 50/50 of probability) But again: Gray didn't do that to manipulate Carmen, he did it because he had no other choice.

Finally, the best known, the one that we have all known for 5 years and continue to use incorrectly:

5.- They treated each other like brothers/That ship is inc+++.

.... oh my....

I just can't take this argument seriously… It's so ridiculous. Look, they're not even blood brothers to begin with. They looked like brothers in their VILE academy years. Carmen only ONCE said that she saw Gray as a brother, and then said "But this time, it may be the start of something more." From season two onwards, she stopped saying that Gray was a brother to her.

Now, I understand the point that when two people have spent years treating and being educated as siblings, it basically counts as an insanity if they fall in love within the story or if the fandom makes the ship (a good example: Luther and Allison from The Umbrella Academy)

But Gray and Carmen were NEVER raised to see each other as siblings, and it was only for one year, and then everyone went their own way. Obviously that idea of "seeing each other as brothers" could change, especially with EVERYTHING that Gray and Carmen experienced.

So sorry, but that ince*** thing is one of the most illogical arguments to be against Red Crackle.

And look, to finish: If someone doesn't like Red Crackle, that's okay, that's normal. But don't use "arguments" to denigrate the ship, when in addition to being invalid, the ship itself isn't harming anyone, and above all: why do you want to say this just to make someone feel bad because like Red Crackle?

Anyway, these are just my observations, thanks for your ask. If anyone knows another argument that is used against Red Crackle, you can write it, I only know these 5 hahaha.

[unchataparis]

In Terms of Moving the Plot Forward

It's an easy criticism to reach for: that villains are more likeable than heroes because they make plans and commit to action rather than waiting and preventing.

Take the MCU, for example, the most popular superhero franchise in the world, and all its heroes are defined by how much they waited. They never made plans on how the world could be better. They didn't do community work or planted commons gardens or contributed to NGOs. They simply showed up, fought villains, and left.

For five seasons, the heroes of Miraculous never did anything to forward the plot. For five season, Marinette and Adrien showed up on the site of Akuma battles, fought, won, called it a day and retreated to their homes.

They never tracked down where the Akumas originated from as to attempt to determine Papillon's location, they never investigated persons of interests that they suspected to be Papillon, they hardly bothered to dive deeper into Miraculous history to try and figure out where the Miraculous came from and how they could've landed in both their and Papillon's hand.

Case in point, in the episode Volpina, Adrien came across the Grimoire, realised that it contained undiscovered information about the Miraculous and – didn't do anything else with it. It was returned to his father and he stopped asking questions.

When Marinette discovered the existence of Master Fu and the Order of the Guardianship, it could've been an excellent place to move the plot forward. Marinette could be fully and wonderfully inaugurated into the position of Leader of the Miraculous Team, not just because she happened to take command, but because she trained for, studied for, and deserved the position. But nothing happened.

An argument that this is a kids' show could be made, that the plot needs to be episodic in order to attract the attention of its target young audience. But I'll bring one of the best children's animated TV show as rebuttal: Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008).

Like Miraculous, Avatar also started out with episodic, solve-it-within-twenty-minute plots, for the first season. As soon as Avatar hit the second season, they begin to go onward with the story. While there are still clip episodes and episodes dedicated to trivial plots, Avatar consistently advanced and managed to finish three seasons.

Miraculous, on the other hand, took five seasons to finish the first arc of its narrative. Adrien and Marinette still hasn't figured out other's identities, Adrien still has no idea of the truth of his father, and I still have no idea what the Guardianship is meant to bring into the story. They're simply there, as a voiceless supervisor to whatever Marinette chooses to do.

Season 6 might be the start of a more interesting and relevant narrative, now that there's a new Paris, permanent holders, and a new villain.

Lila/Cerise however, will have to be quite wily to be able to match against 18 Miraculous Holders and the Guardianship.

Either way, there's so many new directions that Season 6 could take us that I'm quite excited. I simply hope for the second arc of the series can live up to expectations.