#and then she didn't take it off all episode

[subrosasteath]

Making another post actually, because all of the symbolism in Win or Lose is amazing.

Having anxiety be a creature that just grows and grows, and eats away and crushes Laurie down until she can't speak or walk like she used to? Having Laurie's dad always be under the sun, or some kind of light to signify that while Laurie is religious, and looks up to god, what she's really looking to is her father?

The way armour is necessary for some jobs - Frank need to be able to take criticism, and still stick firm to what he knows is true, - and that relief of taking it off? And when it bleeds into personal life, what can he even do? When he's been heart, because he can't open up, doesn't that just make it harder to shed that in the first place?

And then Ira, whose perspective reminds me a lot of Captain Underpants, and is so, so sweet. He's just a little kid, and a little weird, and he just wants friends who like him for that! And he wants his big sister to like him, and spend time with him! And he's so imaginative, the scribbly, cartoon style of his little world he spies through? I was just in love. The fact that he kept picturing the teenagers as super heros and rebels and good guys- and just the fact that he sounds like a kid! Are you kidding, that autraulian joke? I laughed so hard because I've heard kids talk like that, that's what shy, caring little kids sound like when they've been shot down before!

Yuwen's mini me inside his heart screaming like me!!, the version of him he doesn't let out, because it's cardboard and flimsy and so easy to crush. I'm really amazed at the way they portrayed Yuwen and Taylor, because i remember being in middleschool, and while I never dated (cough cough aroace), the depiction of them "picking out curtains and moving in" feels so real, because I do believe that's what love will always feel like, no matter the age. Being in middleschool doesn't mean the love isn't true, or isn't there just because it's not likely to last. And the way they depicted kissing, not by showing them kiss, but by showing what it felt like? I was amazed. Baffled. I can't believe I haven't seen more things like that.

(It's actually incredibly interesting to me, that 2/3 main male characters shown so far, have gimmicks of protection. Protecting themselves, their emotions, and who they are as a person, because they feel they can't be open and honest, they feel they can't trust their emotions to guide them.)

I talked about Rochelle and her mom in a seperate post, but the gasp I let out when I realized Rochelle's gravity was weird because she didn't have the stable force of a mom? Oh my god. Rochelle feels like her family is upside down, that she has to be the adult, and because of that, every force in her life is turned upside. She has no one to rely on and nothing to ground her, until her mom is finally there for her, no phone in hand at the end of episode 4. Gravity rights itself because her mom is there, fully present, to help her.

The way they contrasted Rochelle's episode's mood with her mom's was fantastic, because her mom's felt like a performance. She's performing, always, because she doesn't know how to be otherwise! She performs being a good mom and performs being happy for her audience, and even performs at the party, wether she wants to or not! That was an audience! And everything about her performance has bleeded into the way she sees the world, how everything's pink and sparkling and upbeat. It's only when she finds Rochelle do we see her not performing, we get to see, for the first time, who Vanessa is for just Rochelle. For just her family.

I'm so invested, so obsessed, SO READY FOR THE NEXT TWO EPISODES!!

(As a sidenote, if you haven't seen the storyboards of the cut trans scene, here's a link to the internet archive of them. I can't find them anywhere else. But the Picasso style falling apart, the shattering and splitting of identity, because Kai is scared, and has to act both parts and it's confusing and hurting her and oh- it really just punches me in the gut.

Here's the link directly to the archive: https://archive.org/details/23fr-4r

and the link to the reddit post i got it from: https://www.reddit.com/r/lostmedia/comments/1hhj1zh/partially_lost_deleted_storyline_from_upcoming/

please go watch it if you like the show it's absolutely beautiful <3)

[markantonys]

3x02 - 3x03, let's go!!! (i didn't rewatch 3x01, too excited to move forward! also, i like to watch each episode only once as the season is airing, and then do a full rewatch a while after it's all out)

my mind is whirling with all the content, so there will probably be a lot i forget to comment on! i'm hopping all over the place out of order and also mentioning full book spoilers as i'm mixing in speculation with reactions.

first, of course: GAWYN!!!!!! he's here, and he's perfect!!!!! recalled as shouting thank god it is my boy!!!!! i can't believe he fucks djkfjgj was not expecting that, and galad fucks too! this is wild. i guess all the trakand sibs are horny as fuck in showverse, good for them.

i loved the family dynamics we got here! every single character constantly dunking on how annoying galad is was specifically designed to cater to me, thank you rafe. even a literal forsaken will take the time to dunk on galad! (mat finally bursting out "mate HAVE a day off" was the hardest i laughed in all these episodes, truly the most perfect expression of the way galad makes a person feel)

it is interesting to me that galad is established as the stronger personality with gawyn more of a sidekick, since i'd assumed it would be the opposite in s3 due to the coup storyline being more important for gawyn, whereas galad's whitecloak stuff might not come into play until s4. as of now, both brothers are only credited on imdb for eps 2&3, so either the imdb credits aren't fully accurate or this is all we see of them this season and they aren't involved in the coup. we do have ep8 filled out with 40-something castmembers now (initially only the first 7 eps had gotten updated), so i'm inclined to think imdb is now more or less accurate (bar potential surprise castings that are being held for spoilers like moggy was in s3 - more on that later) and we will not see the brothers again this season. pretty surprising given how important the coup is for book!gawyn, i'd thought it was a surefire opportunity to flesh out his character by showing more of his coup involvement than the books did rather than less, but we'll see how it goes! if we don't see either of them again this season, then that definitely lends weight to the criticisms of the show buckling under the number of characters it has and some of them not getting the attention they need this season; hopefully by the end of the season, we'll have gotten a fair amount of deaths to clear out the stage a bit (and the good news is we don't have a TON of super-important new characters left beyond everyone who's arriving in s3, mostly just tuon and the rest of the forsaken).

it's also possible that maybe ep8 will only show siuan being deposed in the hall and it ends on a cliffhanger, and then the actual coup and tower battle takes place in 4x01, although splitting it up like that would feel like an odd choice structurally so i don't think it's that likely (unless they just really could not fit a whole battle into ep8 and had to punt it off til 4x01).

re: the family tree, galad was introduced as "galad of house trakand" and he was a pretty young child (maybe even only a toddler?) calling morgase mom in the flashback, which made me think he might just be her bio son, BUT i see in the end credits he is named as "galad damodred". so maybe they've kept him as her stepson - i know he does call her mom in the books too, so it was more his age in the flashback that was noteworthy, since book!galad was.......i think somewhere in the 7-9 range at the time of taringail marrying morgase and gawyn & elayne being born, but maybe they've just condensed the timeline and said there was only a few years between tigraine disappearing and having rand (who is around gawyn's & elayne's age, so the gap between them and galad would indicate how long tigraine was in the waste, IF she is galad's bio mom in showverse). it's also possible the credits just goofed a little and gave him his book name even though he doesn't have it in the show, because there wasn't any indication in the actual episodes that galad is not morgase's bio son and E&G's full brother, and i'd think they would've made a passing mention of it if they wanted to set up the reveal that tigraine was his mom. hopefully, whatever rand learns about tigraine's story this season will make it definitive one way or the other as to whether she had another child before him!

back to the trakands! i was not expecting cutthroat morgase, but i dig it. it really emphasizes the instability and high stakes of a succession - the books allude to morgase's succession being very tumultuous, but this cold open makes that extremely clear, and will set us up to understand why elayne is in such a precarious position when she finds herself involved in a succession of her own (and i'm sure the book!succession arc haters would be glad if the show injects a bit more GOT-style backstabby violent politics into it lmao although, i wouldn't be surprised if morgase adopting that type of politics here will end up being a contrast to elayne doing her best to take the higher road when she rises to the throne, similar to how we need to see siuan making bad calls as amyrlin so that egwene will truly feel like a better amyrlin when she succeeds her).

i really loved the look we got at elayne's and morgase's relationship and at elayne as an individual character. we can feel the weight of expectations and duty upon her, but also see the genuine love between mother and daughter and how much elayne looks up to morgase. it's a great depiction of a mother-daughter queen-heir relationship, where we get to see both the familial and political sides of the dynamic. there's clear familial love there, but it's also not as straightforward as normal parent-child relationships are.

gaebril played me so well, i truly thought he was a longtime part of the family and rahvin had only recently assumed his identity, but no! he really did only show up a month ago but is using compulsion to make everyone remember him as a longtime part of the family! it took my breath away, it was so diabolical. the fact that the show took the time to give him and elayne a one-on-one scene makes me hopeful that elayne will get to be involved in defeating him and taking back caemlyn in showverse (s4 avimatrandlayne battle polycule taking caemlyn together PLEASE i need it for my health)

our forsaken meeting was so much fun! love Scottish Sammael and the dynamics between the three we see in this scene, plus evidence of all the inter-scheming when rahvin hints he's working with graendal and semirhage while scheming with lanfear and sammael and THEN talks to moggy afterwards.

on that note, putting on my clown shoes after my speculation last week that semirhage was cut! she's in! this means that demandred is out (SOB i love him), but i mean, we can't one HUNDRED percent rule out asmo either, yes that one statue looked like it had a guitar but maybe it's something else, or maybe covid rewrites ended up having long-term impacts such that their original forsaken plan as of 1x06 ended up changing. i will wear my clown makeup for as long as i can before accepting that we won't see taimandred! but if it is indeed asmo in the last slot, how will we see him? still as rand's one-on-one tutor, or will he be involved in the black tower storyline? as of now it's not clear how much saidin training rand actually needs at this point. will he be able to be self-taught and asmo/demandred would be solely reserved for the black tower rather than rand's personal tutor? if they use asmo but give him a black tower storyline instead of his own book story, it would be strange that they didn't just use demandred as taimandred. but who knows what might happen!

as of yesterday, ann ogbomo was one of the only leaked actors who isn't yet credited on imdb, so now that we have confirmation of semirhage, i think she's going to play semirhage in a 3x08 surprise stinger scene that they're keeping off imdb for now - maybe showing up to nab the male a'dam as a Surprise Tool For Later. if this is the case, then i might expect a seanchan storyline in s4 so that we can get a look at what semirhage is up to, similar to s2 introducing moggy in the stinger and then having her be a big presence in s3. we'll definitely have to wait to see how the tanchico storyline ends, but i'd have two predictions for a potential s4 seanchan & semirhage presence: 1) structure for fewer total seasons - tanchico falls to the seanchan and mat gets stuck there and meets tuon with the invasion, so basically skipping to WH for him (though he'd probably also form the band, but in tanchico and in the context of trying to fight against the seanchan invasion). 2) structure for more total seasons - mat rejoins rand in s4 for his dragon's general plotline and forming the band, and we possibly meet tuon at home in the seanchan court in a made-for-the-show plotline involving semirhage, and they launch the second invasion in s5, at which point mat leads the campaign against them on rand's behalf and meets tuon then. i think as long as we get minimum 6 seasons, structure #2 (which is much preferable to me, for cauthor reasons) would work just fine, so structure #1 would probably only be if they're told they will only get 5 seasons and need to really hop to getting the endgame set up.

on the subject of mat, i love him in these episodes <3 donal continues to deliver such a charming and endearing performance, while also getting at the vast emotional depths mat has below the shallow-seeming surface! in the books, mat ranks around #4 fave for me (elayne #1, rand #2, egwene #3), but whenever a new season of the show comes around, i often find myself enjoying and looking forward to his scenes the most of everyone because donal just brings so much vibrance and depth to the role (as did barney before him!). i loved his convo with siuan, her persuading him to hand over the horn by being like "i'm sure you're not an idiot, riiiiight?" was so funny, and then we get the word-for-word book convo about her comparing him to her uncle.

i already posted about it, but mat being surprised but game at what he thought was a suggestion of a bi orgy!!!! he is not beating the allegations!!!! also pretty sure he had a line like "your brothers know how good i am with a staff" to elayne at the end lmao and meanwhile, the Nobody Wants Mat Carnally saga continued in full force, i was howling. poor mat! he's like, the ONLY character who hasn't fucked yet djkfjghj rand come fuck your man, he's begging for it! new biggest question for s3: will mat ever get laid successfully?

mat blowing the horn 🤝 mat dueling the princes: scenes i didn't care that much about in the books but got emotional watching in the show. it's because the same arrangement of mat's theme from the horn scene was used again at the start of the duel! it always gets me!! i think it's the most beautiful and emotionally-affecting piece of the show's musical landscape so far.

the music in these episodes ROCKED oh i really really hope we'll get a second album of in-show music later on to add to the themes album that released today! i love the new rand theme, and i love how perrin's new theme includes familiar bits from the original s1 goldeneyes theme and expands on it. all the andor music in ep2 was absolutely incredible, a particular standout of the season's music so far.

back to mat, his relationship with min is quite fun and i like that they didn't just instantly make up after their big fight in s2, but i am starting to lean on the side of "okay, this relationship doesn't need to be THIS big of a focus" haha but now that they're headed for tanchico, i'm sure we'll get more of each of them interacting with nynaeve and elayne too and not just each other, and likewise of nynaeve and elayne getting to expand their social interactions from just each other. i look forward to some mingling! though we did get some great mat-nynaeve scenes already in the first 3 episodes.

the redstone doorway in the 13th depository was just an easter egg after all! so we're back down to just the one doorway visit by mat in tanchico, and we know he is 100% getting hanged, but who will rescue him? at this point i feel like it's going to be min, since they had her foresee it and they're building up her and mat's relationship...........ngl i would be soooooo mad if cauthor cpr went to min instead haha i'd rather nynaeve be the one to save him if it can't be rand! but we'll have to wait and see.

elaida is making inroads at the tower! and most importantly, i have finally unlocked a Favorite Minor Aes Sedai with tsutama. my girl!!! i'm guessing we won't see her again this season, and maybe not for the rest of the show, though i'd really love it if she does come back to the tower eventually in a future season to restore a reds-who-oppose-elaida presence, which could be handy depending on whether the show is going to include pevara and/or silviana.

over to perrin's plotline. i love faile!!! very excited to see more of her. "i've never seen someone try to give themselves up and fail" and in doing so perrin captivated her instantly, she's so loser-sexual haha they have a great vibe between them so far, just kind of a curiosity on both sides and some fun banter, with hints of a deeper connection to come but nothing too overtly flirty yet. i look forward to seeing how the show will manage to get them into a position of kissing by the end of the season - we'll probably get some good development in ep5 with the rescue sequence.

otherwise, not too much from me about the two rivers stuff. it will still be the plotline i'm least interested in like it was in the books, but this time i AM still interested in it rather than finding it boring like i did in the books! i agree with @butterflydm's thought in her review post that us seeing alanna keep a handle on herself after one warder's death makes me suspect maksim will also die later this season, and the double-loss will make her go over the edge and do The Thing in s4. i really loved her and perrin's conversation about grief, i choked up a little! and we get confirmation that perrin does have a family and they're alive haha but conveniently offscreen since there's no time to deal with them (same with tam and abell, i'm guessing that at least with tam they couldn't get the actor back this season because i'd imagine they would've wanted to include him if it had been logistically possible).

now on to the waste crew. not a ton going on for them in these episodes, which i expected, since ep4 will be huge for this storyline. no further avirand interactions, much to my sorrow!!! i really hope they get some good relationship development in the second half of the season (and maybe some interactions in ep4 if avi comes to rhuidean with moiraine and rand to do her own trial). the reveal that egwene's renna dreams aren't only PTSD, but also lanfear deliberately doing that to her constantly in TAR: diabolical and heartbreaking! lanfear's speech to rand about wanting to kill the dark one so she can be free of her oaths is so convincing that it's good we also have the scene of her tormenting egwene to make us remember that she loves being evil and maybe isn't being honest with rand here and/or has ulterior motives for wanting him to kill the dark one. but she puts on such a good performance that we can't help but be taken in!

i believe we got confirmation that there are no choedan kal in showverse, and the strongest male sa'angreal is callandor and the strongest female sa'angreal is the sarkonen (aka the orb moiraine will find in rhuidean). definitely a good move to cut down on the number of Super-Powerful Magic Toys that exist, i think.

randgwene continues to drag on, but it did give me the vision of rand cuddling and soothing someone after a nightmare, and that was very wholesome and made me happy haha i am curious how they'll frame the breakup because right now it feels like there's still a TON of love and long-term intentions there on both sides and feels more like we're watching a rough patch in a strong endgame relationship than the final days of an ill-fated relationship, but we shall see.

moiraine and lan both trying to wingman each other with melindhra was so funny djkfjg (also, if we don't get at least 1 rand sweat tent scene, i will hit the roof! i want that man objectified!) and we've set up an interesting look into lan's backstory and his feelings on malkier & kingship. not a storyline or character arc that ever interested me particularly, but happy for the lan enjoyers getting to see him fleshed out more this season!

okay, that's everything i can think of off the top of my head! loved the multi-episode drop to sink my teeth into the season, but very glad it's only one a week from here on out so i can absorb each individual episode more.

[collectivephilosopher]

ARCANE WASTED POTENTIAL (PART 6)

(An analysis of Arcane's missed opportunity and what could have been. The title might be a little confusing but since I've started by it, I've decided to stuck with it to avoid anyone feeling gaslighted :p)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5

About Vi and the enforcer.

To be frank, I'm not against the idea at all. I knew she was a cop in the game so I figured she will be too in S2.

Didn't think they'll botch it but sure.

I made a post asking for anyone's opinion about Vi becoming a cop, specifically in act 1:

See the post here

And from there I can take some points as to most people's problem with this topic.

1. It could work but it was not handled well. I thought people would be against the idea altogether but I was wrong.

2. Vi's shift to my sister is gone was not shown/too fast.

3. Vi feeling sympathy for the councils makes no sense. And if the point was that she was feeling sympathy for Caitlyn instead, it still not believeable enough that she would wear the uniform of her oppressor.

As for me, mostly I agree with this reblog.

It would be believeable that she was guilt tripped into joinning the enforcer in act 1.

I do like the fact that Vi looked awkward and clearly doesn't really want to wear an enforcer outfit in episode 2. That character point was fine. The problem is whatever happened that leads to it.

1. The Jinx part

I agree that it's so jarring that Vi so quickly decided on her sister is gone. Even if this is a character trait (however you want to spin that), we need to see what lead Vi to this conclusion. Aka not having it happened off screen.

You can say Vi stopped seeing Jinx as her sister in the end of season 1 but like... why? Jinx never said they're not sisters anymore. Jinx just said they both have changed.

Even so again, I need to see the innerworking of Vi's mind. Show me her lamenting about Jinx, thinking about her sister for once because all the scene before that is Vi looking at Caitlyn and looking sad/guilty (which I will discuss more in the next part).

2. The councilors part

This is yes, I agree too. Why the hell is Vi feeling bad about dead council? Just in S1 she watched Jayce (accidentally) killed a child and her reaction was showing Jayce her knowledge about the reality of the shit happened in Zaun. She's aware of the councilors' doing. Like, it doesn't have to be her, just look at other Zaunites. No one gives a shit about the councilors dying (they give too much no shit in fact that it became another problem which i will not discuss here) and from episode 4 we know that Zaunites will jump at the chance if they have the strength like Jinx.

Mind you, Vi ending up in stillwater is because the councilors wanted a pound of flesh for Piltover (whether Marcus' doing or whatever lead to that).

"Oh she's feeling bad for Caitlyn not the councilors."

Okay but still not enough. Not enough for her to suddenly think her sister is gone, not enough for her to accept the badge. And it was true. Vi rejected the badge.

Until like, the memorial attack. I don't really get Vi's line of thinking here.

First, she really should be stoned that pilties have funerals and a fucking memorial. Second, I guess she feels bad for that one crying child...? Third, she accepted the badge because caitlyn said,

"Everywhere I slice it, if I go after your sister alone, one of us comes back in a box. It's all coming apart."

So what Caitlyn is saying is basically if she goes after Jinx alone, either Jinx or she will die. And she won't know which one will happen. And Vi's response was... I'll help you... to... what...? To make sure it's my sister who died instead...? I guess at this point she doesn't see Jinx as sister anymore... so... okay man.

3. The Zaun part

I need to see more of the grey too. First we're not gonna discuss Caitlyn's usage of the grey because I'm honestly tired of it. But I need to see how Caitlyn convinced Vi to do it to Zaun. Vi should know about the air quality down there. She grew up with it. But I guess the arguments is that they only use it against "criminals" and they "deserve" it. Y'know, if we ignore how gas works.

My quick fix to this is honestly? Just make Jinx go through with her promise of war. Make Jinx terrorize Piltover more. Make her bombed more enforcers daily. If the attack has not stopped, it would convince Vi more to stop Jinx. It would also help shaping Zaun's image of Jinx.

I don't usually bring League's lore but In Lol Jinx is the mad bomber that Zaunites have mixed feelings on. On one side she put Piltover on their place but on the other side, she also have hurt Zaunites too.

I'm not gonna talk too much about Jinx here since I'm gonna discuss about her in my next post.

And honestly about the entire Vi being an enforcer thing would've make so much better sense if the show showed us Piltover on interpersonal level. As in, showing us what it is like to be normal piltie, not just the high standing houses. The most we get is Jayce who was a toolmaker and Viktor who was a Zaunite living in Piltover. What about other piltovians? We were not shown them as individual but rather a system. And as a system, yes, they are in the wrong.

Enforcers too were only shown as monsters (in S1) and incompetent (in S2) except for caitlyn. We were never shown other type of people who joined the enforcer because let's be real here, they can't just be a collective group of monster.

And you know what? Thinking about that I can't think of any worst wasted potential than these guys:

First, why are they in the show if the show isn't going to expand more on them? I talked about how Isha's potential was wasted as narrative tool for Jinx's character arc but these guys are way worse because they don't provide any function for Vi's character arc.

The most they do is Maddie being Caitlyn's rebound and Noxus' spy. (But let's be for real, that happened just because the writter wants a "third person in a relationship" character to be hated on.

My poor sweet summer child was made to be hated and cheered when killed.

Oh hey it rhymed

Seriously we don't know their back story, their motivation as enforcer, their feelings, something that made them human. Scratch that, fish guy Steb doesn't even have a line.

Why were they even chosen to be in this super elite team? Hell Maddie was just a junior officer.

My quick fix to this is to just make them all Caitlyn's trusted friends or something. That'll give Caitlyn a motivation to choose them.

Imagine if these guys actually have a character. Imagine that they're actually super excited to hunt down Jinx because Jinx is this hot topic myth amongst the enforcer at the moment. Imagine if Loris joined the enforcer because he was from the undercity or knows someone from the undercity, or just someone close to him really, who were hurt by the mobs down there so he thought joinning the enforcer will make the undercity a "safer place". Imagine if Steb is actually Caitlyn's senior had it not been for Caitlyn's "DeCorATeD OfFiCer" thing and he had a brother who was falsely accused and was thrown in stillwater (SOMEONE would certainly relate to it) so now he joined the enforcer to reform the system but he's struggling. Maddie could openly have a crush on Caitlyn and her and Vi could bond together in that topic, idk. LITERALLY ANYTHING.

I honestly can't think of any other way of Vi's character to progress as enforcer (alright to be fair they did drop enforcer vi plot in the middle) without going with the Attack on Titan route.

Eren came to his enemy's land expecting to see devils. But he then he ate the same food as his enemies, sleep in the same bed and live in the same roof and he realized they're not devils but humans. Children who has been taught doctrines about their enemies. He understand that and still he chose to be a monster and kill all of them.

This could've been Vi's route. That she thinks oh not all of them is bad. There are normal people too like me. People who were working, struggling to make ends. People who are trying to fight, to make the system better.

Now with this information, Vi can then CHOOSE for herself (despite the maybe her rocky guilt tripped start as an enforcer). Whether she'll think these people don't deserve the grief and terror Jinx brings upon them OR she could even think of how these people, struggling as they were, still have ten times better lifestyle than Zaunite. And she can chose to go back to Zaun. But by then it'll be Vi's decision.

[asha-mage]

WoT S3, Episode 1 Assorted Thoughts

One fun detail about the opening scene that leapt out to me on re watch is that the camera takes time to linger on all the members of Liandrin's evil girl posse as their entering the Hall. Nice subtle bit of Foreshadowing.

Shout out to that one Yellow Sister who is just loving the drama. Hope she survived and is doing amazing.

One thing that's fascinating about this moment from an adaption perspective is that in the books, none of the Wondergirls ever get a moment of confrontation with Liandrin the way Nynaeve does here- in fact it's one of the original injustices that despite their heroism and everything they've been through their punished for supposedly 'running away'- a ruse meant to protect them from suspicion that might arise if it was none they where tied to Liandrin post her Darkfriend reveal. This is a bitter pill for all of them to swallow and is part of what motivates them to join the hunt and bring down Liandrin. But here Nynaeve gets that moment of confrontation- a chance to stand and accuse Liandrin in the Hall itself, lay bare her crimes for all to see. And it doesn't play out at all like Nynaeve or anyone else probably imagined it would- because of course it doesn't. The world is more complicated then that, and their are precious few moments of true triumphant justice to be had. I think it's a credit to the show's writers that it feels like it fits in the kind themeatic schema Jordan used.

God the effects and the combat in this scene just rule so HARD.

The way Tsutama just fucking WASTES Jeanie's warders is so hardcore

As an aside man Maksim's 'Thank the light! Jeaine! Chesmal!' is so freaking heartbreaking, because it's not like these are random sisters- their ones Ihvon and Maskim (and likely Alanna) know and probably like. Same with Nyomi's cold blooded 'I don't have to listen to your bullshit anymore' next scene. It really drives home the horror of the Black Ajah.

What if a friend you've known, maybe for decades or even centuries, was secretly working to kill you and destroy everything you believe in- you have inside jokes and a working rapport and yet they have committed their entire soul to destroying everything you hold dear, and would kill you in a heartbeat. God it's so awful and it rules.

I really hope we get more of Ispan. Her actress is so pretty and goes so hard despite not having any diaolge.

The cut in half Amyrlin seat framing Siuan as she and the others rush to cut off Liandrin's Evil Girl Posse is so *chef kiss* in terms of Foreshadowing.

It's so on brand for Alanna that she's ready to take on Liandrin's entire evil girl posse in front of the gates of Tar Valon with nothing but her Warders for backup.

Alright new content time, let's goooooo!

Holy FUCK Alanna you GO. Also bye two sisters I couldn't place in my id round up!

Bye Ivohn! Knew that was coming but still, you ruled. RIP a real one.

God Moiraine and Siuan in this scene are just so augahuaghuaga!

Woof that's a lot of dead Warders.

I really love the stone dust and debris on Nynaeve here, it really sells the raw carnage and destruction.

Two things- I really love that the show gives time to the Two Rivers folks as just a unit, and I also love Moiraine taking this moment to highlight one of the always present tensions in the books: who knows what, and who is telling who what. People like to boil down a lot of the conflict in WoT to 'miscommunication' but the truth is Jordan was fascinated by how people trust, and how they communicate and the things that poison that well. Glad to see the show picking up that theme.

Man if it aint peak Wonderboys behavior to UTTERLY and immediately ignore Moiraine's advice, at Mat's urging no less.

I am really glad their ruminating on the fact that killing Renna didn't make everything right with Egwene- it doesn't undo her trauma or lessen the burden of what she went through. However a triumphant it felt in the moment, violence can't heal or build, and that really is just a straight up central theme in WoT.

God. Mat's random bouts of the Old Tongue really are just incredibly unsettling aren't they?

SNAKES AND FOXES

Lanfear and Moiraine's scene is so so good. Exactly the kind of 4d mind chess I adore about this series.

Siuan is in such an interesting position right now contrasted with where she is in the books at this point- especially in her relationship with Egwene. In the books Siuan has all the leverage because it's not yet a question of if the Wondergirls want to be Aes Sedai or not. Moiraine has essentially passed custody of this trio to her, and the power dynamic is very clear. But with Siuan and Moiraine divided, and the Wondergirls very clearly in Moiraine's camp, she has far less leverage. She can't force Nynaeve and Egwene where she wants them. It's a good bit of set up for the later nuances of Egwene and Siuan's relationship.

Elayne is REALLY popping off in these back to back scenes.

I have to admit to a bit of disappointment at the arches being so truncated, but it's the same problem with Nynaeve's trip last season: to fully adapt these chapters you'd need devote a whole episode to them each a piece. And that just isn't feasible.

DELICIOUS Moiraine and Rand power struggle scene followed IMMEDIATELY by a Siuan and Egwene power struggle scene. So many kids disrespecting their mentors.

Everyone conituning to make progress Rizzing up Rand's LIs except for Rand, meanwhile Mat is playing knife based kissing games. They must both think Perrin knows what he's doing, and yet I know that Faile is on her way.

All of which is to say- the loser Wonderboy energy is entirely on point.

I love the mirror with Egwene and Rand's scene here about the arches, to their season 1 scene about the Women's Circle test.

Nynaveve and Mat's scene is so good.

BUBBLE OF EVIL SCENE AW YEAH

OHOHOHOHOH the symbolism of the axe destroying the ring, the cards being heroes of the horn! Not to mention all the deliberate juxtaposition of sex and violence.

Moiraine and Lan deliberately letting the situation get Worse before they help in order to push their point.

All the parting of ways are so gooooooood! Also can't wait for Faile to get her girl gang.

Nynaeve and Lan just killing it in every scene their in.

Moghedian freak behavior continues I love it. Also hi Jaichim! Wasn't expecting to see you! Believe it or not this probably a better fate then you got in canon, so rejoice!

[weirdestcornelius]

One thing I will greatly appreciate the crit community for is allowing people to have a space to vent about all this stuff because it's fucked and very tough to just take in. It's hard to just forget it all and move on and not feel really dumb for ever believing all the lies and performative inclusivity/safe space curating. With something like SCH it is pretty impossible to separate the art from the artist cos of the intentions of the author and how certain characters are just based on shitty people as important characters and thus can't be divorced from the work. If any of the victim's of KC and her terrible friends are listening. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you weren't believed for a long time. I'm sorry that fans like me blindly stood by KC's side and kept giving her the benefit of the doubt. I'm sorry that we didn't do right by any of you for so long. I'm sorry.

I've said it so many times (not angry obviously) but I don't blame anyone for trusting Kc. I did myself for a LONG time up until I got in contact with Emsody (again, cut them off a while ago), and even then I still believed she wasn't as bad as they were saying kit was. I looked up to Kittycorn as a public figure for a long time, even taking inspiration from her to make my own ocs. She's the person who got me back into drawing after a long, very horrible depressive episode that kept me from doing anything but sleeping and dragging myself through life.

But despite all that, it's important to remember that she's not a good person by any means. It will take a lot of genuine work and effort for bug to make up for her past decisions and even then not everyone will forgive her. She deceived hundreds of people and silenced damaged victims. Squeak tricked us into believing the community was a safe space when it genuinely wasn't. I don't feel angry at anyone who trusted her, because I did too. It's not any of the fans' faults.

[amethystoceandespiser]

Ok, here's a controversial opinion i have: i despise the mayority of Loona's ships in the hellaverse.

Let me explain, her lack of exposure through out most of the series led to her go from one of the supposed main characters of the show in season 1, to a completely underdevelopted, overshadowed advertized extra in the second. LITERALLY, she interacts more with other characters in the merchandise than on the show itself. Season 2 has her talk in 5 episodes, FROM A SEASON THAT HAS TWELVE, with no discernible growth in either character or bonding.

My main issue with Loona is, that she's been shown as a horrible person to hang out with, with no redeemable aspect to her character that would make someone be interested in knowing her better.

Her three most popular ships, are also my biggest NOTPs within the show: loona x vortex, Loona x beelzebub and Loona x Octavia.

Right from the start, i actually didn't see anything remotely romantic with vortex, a friendship could serve as a way to flesh out their characters and explore how hellhounds have a function in hell's society, but whatever interest i had evaporated in queen bee when the episode that should have focused on Loona and her interactions with other people of her species was overshadowed by blitzø. Sacrificing interesting worldbuilding for cheap drama that is unadressed by the narrative.

Loona x beelzebub: completely neutral at the begining, currently hating it with passion. The thing is that if this relationship were to happen (i hope not), it would be the stolitz trash dynamic all over again since, while its supposed to be scandalous a relationship between two demons from different social rankings, thanks to bee x vortex the nuance this narrative had, is lost and give us no reason to get invested on it other than two hot girls dating. Everyone base this ship more on phisical attraction rather than emotional bonding, that would lead to the same romantisized abusive dynamic stolitz has, since it ignores beelzebub's involvement with the dog pounds where Loona was adopted, which is more than fucked up. IT would make sense for Loona to hate her, hell, she didn't have a positive reception of bee while meeting her in canon to the point that she wanted to go home.

Now the biggie: loona x Octavia, a.k.a. owling at the moon: this ship has always been in the begining be a neutral point for me, i understood why people shipped them for the similarities in backgrounds and clothing style that could make them bond, back when i shipped stolitz i didn't like the idea of them as a couple since if their fathers were dating, they would become sisters, not to mention the 5 year age gap. After "seeing stars", i saw a potential friendship between them that would be Interesting to see grow through out the series, bit still didn't like the idea of romance for them and i didn't know why, bit now i have the answer... Loona is naturally an abusive person through and through, with how easily she attacked blitzø in the begining of the episode after he gave her valid criticism for the first time in all the series, taking in count that the previous one wanted to portray phisical abuse as something with Stella and Stolas ¿why should i take her abuse on blitzø as funny? ¿Or Stella's abuse as serious? That's without mentioning that she went to search for Octavia when she didn't have any kind of care or motivation to do so in the first place rather than plot reasons.

The way that she convinced Octavia to forgive her dad, when he was more occupied flirting with blitzø, un hindsight came off as manipulative rather than heartfelt, where a moment of bond, became ruined forever by the context this had before and after. ¿In what way can we be sure that Loona won't try to harm Octavia for the most minor of inconviniences? ¿In what way could Octavia be emotionally vulnerable and secure with someone like Loona that more often than not, doesn't give a shit for anyone else but herself?

For the record, i try to give my point of view from a storytelling perspective and the characteristics that where shown canonically displayed by these characters. If you disagree, good, more power to you. But my ultimate conclusion is that Loona is not emotionally intelligent enough to be in a healthy romantic relationship when she hasn't shown she could grasp healthy friendships in the first place. What she needs by the end of the series are friends, not romance.

[sol-thorne]

Ina11 headcanons again because I am rewatching the FFI arc and got new ideas:

-Hiroto's hair isn't naturally red, or at least not this vivid. He dyed it to please his father because it made him look lore like the original Hiroto, and after Aliea disbanded he kept doing it out of habit.

-What I'm saying is that sometimes Endou and Midorikawa help him touch up his roots and end up with red stains EVERYWHERE.

-Tobitaka tries very hard to be menacing but he also loves his karaoke too much. He's been caught many times singing pop songs using his comb as a microphone while getting ready in the morning.

-Toramaru being so young makes everyone self conscious about their language. Tsunami in particular tends to swear a lot and Haruna gives him hell for it if he does it in front of the younger boys.

-Fudou also swears a lot, to the point Kudou had to reprimand him.

-Fuyuka is soooo self conscious about her appearance and it takes her a lot of courage to dress differently than she usually does. What I'm saying is that during that one episode where Rika tricks her into doing romantic stuff with Endou she is fighting for her LIFE but she really wants to help so she pushes past her insecurity anyway.

-Kidou needs absolute silence to be able to fall asleep. He told Gouenji once and then didn't notice how the rooms next to his got suddenly very quiet past 8PM (Gouenji did the stareTM to deter any noise)

-Kudou may be a strict man but he brutally underestimated how much he would have to police the corridors at night to enforce curfew because 1) half the team -see Endou, Kabeyama, Tsunami, Hijikata, Tobitaka and Kurimatsu- gets hungry and goes to the kitchen for midnight snacks and 2) the other half -see Kidou, Gouenji, Kazemaru, Fubuki, Hiroto, Midorikawa and Tachimukai- physically can't stop themselves from going into the neighboring bedrooms to gossip.

-There is an epidemic in Inazuma Japan where all the players will find hair in their uniforms, bags and sometimes even their bedsheets. The reason for this being that Kazemaru, Midorikawa, Tsunami and Tobitaka having such long hair and doing so much physical effort, their hair gets everywhere. At some point Endou finds blue hair in his food and just shrugs it off.

-Fudou is secretly fuming about not being part of the gossiping groups but he's too proud to admit it.

-There are two gangs. The ones who make their bed very neatly before going to practice (Kidou, Gouenji, Kazemaru, Hijikata, Hiroto, Midorikwa, Tachimukai, Tobitaka) and the ones who leave their room like a tornado went through it during the night, pillows on the floor, comforter torn off the mattress (Endou, Kogure, Kabeyama, Tsunami, Kurimatsu).

-Haruna monitors the gossip. She keeps flowcharts of player relationships for her own enjoyment. Fuyuka ended up giving it to her father, who ended up seriously using it for team strategies.

-Pranks do happen, mainly during the couple of days the team is forced to stay inside before the Australia match. Kogure started them, obviously, by simply taping doors closed or stealing items, but it spurred an entire chain reaction, which led to Tsunami and Haruna teamig up to remove the slats from Fudou's bedframe. They managed to remove two before he caught them.

-Endou falls off his bed at a frequency that is downright alarming. Sometimes his neighbors just hear a *thud* but Endou keeps snoring and will not wake up until someone shakes him awake, even if he's on the cold floor.

-The boys are explicitly forbidden from going to the girls' rooms. But Kudou forgot to specify the opposite and so Haruna spends her time crashing into the boys' rooms, especially her brother's, sometimes falling asleep there.

-Speaking of Kudou, he scares them all at the beginning, rightfully so with his severe and cryptic behavior. So much that the few players who don't always use he/him pronouns (see Kazemaru, Midorikawa and Fubuki) are at first afraid to correct him. Fuyuka gets wind of this, tells her father and he immediately adjusts, which earns him big trust points from the team.

-Tobitaka and Hijikata aren't really educated on queer people and get very confused sometimes, but they're trying their best.

-Tobitaka in particular learns that Toramaru is trans pretty late and immediately goes into big brother mode.

-At some point, Kogure breaks into Kidou's rooms and parades in the corridors with one of his capes. Cue Kidou and Haruna chasing him through the entire building and everyone else watching and not lifting a single finger to help them because it's just too damn funny.

[thechy-fychannel]

Could you elaborate on the house praise kink pls? 👀

I thought I answered this ask ages ago omg I'm sorry I'm literally the worst 😭

House's entire Thing is that he needs to be Right. He needs to be proven Right and told he's Right. The only thing he ever wanted to hear from his own father is that he was Right and he did the Right Thing. I think that being such a core piece of who he is directly translates into the bedroom.

House holds such a negative view of himself but also has such a desperation to be right. So even if he wants to be good, he views himself as bad, therefore he must prove that he is bad in order to be right. This is why we see him constantly choosing to do the wrong thing, it's just to prove himself right that he was bad all along.

I often think about that scene in the poker episode when they figured out that he was right and the patient that he lost 12 years prior actually had the diagnosis he thought it was all along. He has a full body reaction to it, slams his cane and makes everyone in the room jump because goddammit I was right! I was good! It wasn't my fault! He carried the weight of her death with him for twelve years and you could literally see the weight lifted off of him when they confirmed the diagnosis.

All of that to say— I firmly believe that he goes a little bit insane for being praised in the bedroom. He is cocky when it comes to sex, he's never been ashamed about it and makes it obvious that he believes he is good in the bedroom. And when he's proved right and told he's good and how good he can make the person he's with feel, it's that same high he gets from being proved right. He just needs to hear that he was right, that he was good, that he did the right thing.

And there's also that part of him that yearns to be told he's good when he believes he is so bad, as we all do. He's only human, and a human who has a very negative view of himself. I think he, just as much as anyone else, wishes that he was told otherwise by someone he loves and trusts and believes.

I think this is reflected back in the way he treats the fellows; specifically the instances where he tells Foreman "I can't forgive you, Foreman. There's nothing to forgive." Or when he told Chase "you reevaluate your life when you mess up. You didn't mess anything up, you were just stabbed." Or when he tells cameron that he was proud of her when she killed the patient who was suffering and wanted to die. He wishes he had someone who would tell him that they're proud of him, that things are not all his fault just because it feels like the fate of the world rests on his shoulders, that he doesn't need to be forgiven for doing what was right.

He would never allow those things to happen in his every day life. But in the privacy of his bedroom, wrapped up with someone he can be vulnerable with, someone he trusts enough to show them the most vulnerable parts of himself, that would be the only time and place where he would accept those words and let them take him higher than any drug or puzzle could.

[simply-ellas-stuff]

I have never watched the Teen Wolf movie. I don't know if I ever will, but I saw someone talking about how Eli, Derek's son, must've been born during season 3b/season 4 because the movie takes place thirteen years after season 6, and that reminds me of a really early theory I saw about Eli.

I don't remember who made the theory, or if maybe it was just a random post. Let's get that out of the way. And most of this is just me putting random thoughts down into writing.

But the idea basically was what if Eli is Cora and Stiles' kid but is being raised by Derek because something happened to Cora, and Stiles just doesn't know he has a kid.

I think I read somewhere that Cora and Stiles were meant to have a romance but the storyline was scrapped when the Actress had to the leave the show for another. And to be fair, Stiles and Cora have a few scenes in 3a where they seem to be completely, or almost completely, alone - and I don't just mean the ambulance scene.

Which brings me to this -> If it did happen, the timeline would kind of at up as to why (in-world) Cora didn't return to Beacon Hills after 3b and why she doesn't come back to the series at all. Cora returns to South America to the pack she'd been living with, has her kid, keeps the father a secret from everyone (including the father and her brother), but then maybe something tragic happens? Maybe she was attacked by the hunters from season 6?

There is a time skip in the last(?) episode of Season 6 where we meet Alec and it's two years after the Big Battle that happens in the same series finale episode. Maybe somewhere in those two years one of Cora's packmates from South America arrives on Derek's doorstep with this hyperactive kid whose a lot like Stiles but a LOT like Cora and explains something happened to Cora and Derek is the kid's only family.

Derek "I don't know how to do things like a normal person" Hale never has the heart to really explain to this kid who his mother is and what happened to her, especially because he couldn't give him an answer as to who his biological father is, so he planned to do it after the kid manifested his lycanthropy? Maybe... idk

BUT ALSO

There is another sad possibility. And a not-so-fun one either.

What if Eli is Kate's son? I mean, what if Eli instead of being born between seasons was conceived between season - with Kate and age-regressed-teenage-Derek? I mean, we don't really know all of what happened in the time she had Derek in Mexico. We also don't know if maybe she might've done something to the wolfsbane-knocked-out adult Derek as she brought him to Mexico. I mean, she had no problem grooming him and abusing him before - why would she now? Maybe she got off on the power trip? Or it was a manipulation tactic?

That could also explain why Kate didn't really show up again until season 6, then at the end of Season 6 she gets shot with Yellow wolfsbane and what if after she kills Gerard, she herself died? Leaving Eli behind. Maybe Eli was presented to Derek by someone who knew Kate, an old friend or something who didn't know the full story of everything.

Either way, I feel like something about Eli's birth is wrapped in tragedy.

[emcapi-gaming]

ARKOSE AND EUTROPE USED TO DATE? HAVE YOU SAID THIS BEFORE?? THIS IS NEWS TO ME IM CHEERING SO HARD FOR UR GUY

OHHH YES they have HISTORY. Messy history. It's entirely possible i have not elaborated on this before lol. (Oh boy this got long because holy shit there is a LOT going on with these two, and it is some CHOICE drama.)

The relationship between Arkose and Eutrope happened a couple of years pre-Domebreak. Eutrope was earlier in her career but her star was rising fast. At the same time, Arkose was starting to go more significantly downhill with the levin sickness, and needing to use visible mobility aids (stiff ankle/foot braces + platform crutches for balance and stability) on a more regular basis. This came with the profoundly annoying side effect of getting stared at when they went to the gym, which led them to look for somewhere a little more private to work out. That search led them to Tritails through a mutual friend connection with Yaana.

Inevitably, they ran into each other (it took a little while, since Eutrope was spending less and less time at home as she got more famous and, as a result, far more busy) and Arkose was like "Yaana, holy shit, when were you gonna tell me Wicked Thunder was your sister???" because they have always been a huge nerd about the Arcadion (they go by K.O. as a nickname). Arkose, fortunately, managed to get over their initial nerd-squee reaction and the two of them hit it off really well, enough that they eventually started dating.

Which was all well and good for a while. And then Arkose got the bright idea of "hey what if you tried using some of your electrope powers, y'know, in bed." Eutrope was definitely hesitant, given that she had no idea how it might interact with their condition, but eventually agreed to try it.

It seemed to go alright. Arkose absolutely loved it, and had maybe a little more numbness and tingling afterwards than before, but nothing too major, and definitely less than they expected.

Until they woke up the next morning more or less feeling like they got run over by a truck, because they were all the way to the "bad" side of their "bad vs good days" spectrum. No need to guess the reason - it was obvious that there were indeed some significant side effects, just on a bit of a delay.

The thing was, even in spite of that, they really liked the electrope experimentation. It was one of the very few things they had found that really made them feel alive.

Because, see, Arkose is an Azem shard. They were born for adventure - to travel the world, to explore, to fight gods and monsters. Instead, they were born into a very small, very confined fragment of a world, with an environment that is slowly killing them. And between growing up, which left them with less and less new experiences and places to discover, and the increasing physical limitations from the levinsickness progressing over time, it felt as though that bubble was actively shrinking around them, and they had no good way to cope. Consequently, their mental health was also going downhill, and they started having derealization episodes if they spent too long in Solution Nine without going outside.

Anything that can could through that was nothing short of a lifeline. Honestly, even with the side effects, convincing their girlfriend to shock them like an electric eel (ooh girl) is probably not even that far down the scale of bad coping mechanism options.

So Arkose decided to just... not mention the little tiny side effect of getting completely whammied the day after. Which they knew was objectively kind of a dick move, but hey, they're the one making the tradeoff, it should be their decision.

It didn't take too long for Eutrope to notice that Arkose always happened to be "busy" or "not feeling well" for a day or two after doing anything with electrope. She put two and two together, confronted Arkose, and proceeded to (very justifiably) dump them. She felt as though they were using her, at best, as a way to satisfy their adrenaline-junkie cravings (more or less true); at worst, as a tool for self-harm (not really the case, at least not intentionally).

That breakup was definitely the main trigger for Arkose hitting their personal rock bottom in terms of mental health, though they managed to eventually claw their way back up somewhat. The peak of their mental health crisis and the resulting turnaround was also the catalyst for a lot of other things; most notably, the decision to stop wearing a regulator, and a subsequent massive falling-out in their friendship with Sphene, which is a whole other story.

Arkose and Eutrope weren't really on speaking terms after the breakup. Yaana mostly took her sister's side and drew back on their friendship, though she didn't cut Arkose off completely, and they were still allowed to use the gym as long as Eutrope wasn't around.

Yaana and Arkose largely reconciled their friendship after Eutrope disappeared, because she reached out to them in the hope that they might have some kind of lead. Arkose had some pretty significant personal growth in the intervening time and was able to recognize, in retrospect, how badly they had fucked up. And although they didn't have much interest in trying to reconcile with Eutrope, they threw their full effort into trying to find out what happened for Yaana's sake. (Most helpfully, they were friends with Shale by that point and convinced her to help - obviously without success, but with a lot more progress than Yaana had been able to make by herself.) As mentioned, Arkose is still a massive nerd about the Arcadion, and as Yaana has been starting her own fighting career, they've been helping her scope out opponents and come up with strategies.

Then Ardwin helps drive an exploding train into the dome and lots of other stuff happens, after which Ardwin decides fighting in the Arcadion sounds super fun.

Ardwin and Arkose actually meet through Yaana, after she volunteers to be Ardwin's second. They get along like a house on fire almost immediately, but they only figure out the soulmate situation sort of on accident, through a very convenient side effect. (Bear with me for a second, because it does become particularly relevant.)

Rejoinings work on the principle that a big enough aether imbalance forces it to flow from a higher concentration to a lower one. Ardwin already found out it works with soul shards, too: on the First, Ardbert was able to take a little bit of the Light from her when they touched. Not much, because he didn't have a corporeal body, but enough for her to temporarily feel better. Their mini-Rejoining was a lot more effective, though - basically the difference between bailing out a leaking boat, and patching the hole.

So, when her and Arkose touch, they get the same thing, but with levin. It's only a temporary fix; as long as Arkose is in Heritage Found, or any other environment with really high levin, they'll naturally trend back towards imbalance. The siphoning effect also only gets triggered at a certain threshold, so it has something of a cooldown. In the short term, it's really effective; in the long term, if combined with spending the majority of their time outside the dome, it means Arkose is now gradually getting better, instead of worse.

But then, of course, Eutrope comes very dramatically crashing in at the awards ceremony, demanding Ardwin's soul.

Which... makes for something of a complication, because Arkose is ALSO in the camp of "needs Ardwin('s soul) to treat my very serious degenerative condition." So Arkose is like "Sorry, I have dibs. If you want her, you're going to have to go through me."

So that's layer 1 of the current extremely dramatic situation.

Layer 2 is that some especially dedicated/enterprising fan, deep in an Arcadion fan forum somewhere (or perhaps the S9 equivalent of Tumblr), has seen the gossip/speculation that Ardwin and Arkose are in a relationship. And then they dig up the tidbit, which isn't very common knowledge because Eutrope was significantly less famous then, that Eutrope and Arkose were ALSO previously in a relationship.

That post proceeds to massively break containment and go viral across pretty much the entirety of Solution 9 Social Media because OH EM GEE LOVE TRIANGLE?!?!?!

(Metem is losing his mind because he literally couldn't have wished for better publicity/hype for the Ardwin vs Wicked Thunder match. The whole Arcadion marketing team is having an absolute field day. There are - arguably tasteless - T-shirts with TEAM ARDWIN and TEAM EUTROPE being printed, a la Team Edward/Jacob, and they are FLYING off the shelves.)

Anyways, the whole situation there is sort of in a holding pattern following the first Arcadion tier, so I'm very curious to see where it goes next. Arkose and Eutrope are definitely over for good, but the DRAMA of it all, my GOD.

[chasingfigments]

Wheel of Time, Season 3, Episodes 1-3

Some scattered thoughts about the first three episodes of the season, including vague full book series spoilers.

(Why vague, you ask? Because I've only read the series once, and a majority of that was over twenty years ago at this point, and I am disinclined to do in-depth research for this post beyond googling spelling.)

1) I appreciate that they're having Siuan lay the groundwork for her own destruction. I'll admit, the coup caught me entirely off guard in the books, but here I can see the very careful build up:

Barring one Ajah's Sitters from the Hall.

Revealing that only 11 people (a simple majority) are needed for a vote to pass.

Siuan did not deny Liandrin's charges, and instead dodged them with the Black Ajah reveal, while still admitting that if Liandrin were telling the truth, Siuan could be deposed for what she did in Cairhien.

A number of Sitters were killed in that fight, and between that and the four that jumped to Liandrin's help, the Hall is going to have a chunk of (probably) new Sitters who may not be inclined charitably toward Siuan.

Sending Tsutama out with (presumably) seven of Tsutama's hand-picked Reds, leaves Galina and Elaida behind for power grabbing. This is extra bad for Siuan given that Tsutama seems opposed to Elaida from the start (by refusing that gift).

2) I think the show is going to keep masking/inverting weaves as a thing, primarily because Egwene did not see any of Lanfear's weaves in the "mirror" bubble of evil. We were firmly in Egwene's POV in that scene, so the audience should have seen something. Nynaeve also didn't see what was happening with the playing cards and Mat. (Then again, it's possible that the weaves were small/subtle enough Egwene/Nynaeve didn't spot them...but I'm not willing to do a frame-by-frame rewatch looking for that)

3) This is contrast to the very clever split-second pauses before Rahvin used compulsion on a BUNCH of characters in episode 2. No one in Tar Valon was capable of seeing him do that, so the audience didn't see it either. I do hope the show continues to play with POV like that now that more of the Forsaken are out.

4) LOLing over the Forsaken meetup where they point out that last time they were all fighting each other only for Rahvin to turn around and be dealing with Moghedien behind Lanfear's and Sammael's backs. And we've got confirmation that Nae'blis is still a thing.

5) Yesssssss, we're keeping Semirhage. Given the Forsaken statues we saw in season 1, sounds like we're getting Asmodean. I'm not sure if I want Semirhage fucking about with the Seanchan (we saw Ishamael doing that last season) or if I want her to take over Mesaana's plot. Maybe she can have a cold open of murdering the Empress and then jaunt over to the White Tower.

6) Mazrim name drops! Is Taimandred not happening? Or are we getting Mazrim's ascension much sooner? Either way, I hope this means Shara doesn't come out of left field in the last battle because that made no fucking sense. Taimandred did, and I'll never not be angry that it didn't happen. XD

7) Thank god they changed the Morgase + Rhavin plot, btw. I'm glad that in 2025 we're not going to have "competent queen destroys her queendom by going crazy over Some Guy" + slutshaming that happened in the books. I like that we saw Morgase murder her formal rivals to secure her power because when she starts cleaning house in Andor (we got that Bryne name drop, so there's some alienation going on already), it's not out of character for her to do this--she's purged folks before. This also makes Elayne's eventual succession crisis have even higher stakes, because like fuck is anyone going to want to fold to her once they've made their own claim because they remember what her mother did when she won.

8) It does not seem like the Choedan Kal + access keys are going to be a thing. We'll miss out on some great visuals without the giant statues, but we also won't get the Amayar's mass suicide, so that's fine with me.

9) Mat's slow build-up of annoyance with Galad and Gawyn was hilarious and made his eventual beatdown of them immensely satisfying.

10) We've already got Galad's disdain for Aes Sedai! (Though that does not stop him from fucking Novices/Accepted. XD) I wonder if we'll actually see his recruitment to the Whitecloaks in the show.

11) The Gray Men are horrifying (and also I hope we see some actual female Soulless because those were allegedly a thing we never got to see on page). Let Moghedien take a lady apart in a horrifying manner!

12) Awww, I want Mat and Min to make up eventually. Her new viewing of him was horrifying (but fun! because of course that was going to happen I do not understand why so many people thought we'd totally miss the Snakes & Foxes in the leadup to this season??? why was that even a serious worry).

13) I'm not necessarily opposed to Aiel taking in outsiders (though Tigraine was a pretty notable exception, from what I remember?), but I'm a little surprised they're repurposing Melindhra and using that as backstory for her. I doubt they'll have Lan hook up with her, but I guess this hint of a connection to Malkier could serve as a way to get her close with Lan (since Mat's off to Tanchico).

14) Very much appreciate that the show is not glossing over Egwene's PTSD or Mat's--PTSD from prior lives? (I'm not sure how to classify it, but he's also having a hard time right now.)

15) Awww, Bain and Chiad flirting with Loial was very cute. I do like that they're following Loial here, and I'm going to assume Aviendha fulfilled her toh to Perrin in the battle at Falme.

16) Ryma is free! 😭😭😭

17) ON THAT NOTE, I think we're actually going to avoid the endless the-black-Ajah-and-Seanchan-don't-exist-or-if-they-do-they-aren't-threats nonsense in the books. The White Tower was so infuriating in the books under Elaida's rule, but they've got the attack in the Hall, they have Ryma and her testimony, and the show is putting its work in to make its antagonists competent instead of caricatures, so I doubt they'll backslide and deny those things.

18) Not at all worried about not seeing Egwene and Elayne's Accepted tests--we got the "full length" version of Nynaeve's last season, and we'll certainly get flashbacks to Egwene and Elayne's as they are relevant. We had other things that had to be covered first.

19) Elayne and Aviendha hooking up is the best change they could have made to Rand's harem plotline.

20) Liandrin rescuing that child bride was both very nice and also horrifying, but hey, mind wiped and alive is probably better than dead? XD

[eternalera]

no cause im actually so pissed at mark in the latest episode??? like i get why he didn't fight/hesitated to fight the first few times and stuff like that cause yknow he doesnt need to fight and he's going through some stuff right so like, i get it and also his morals and everything. but holy shit... WHY DIDNT HE FUCKING FIGHT!?!??! like there's literally no reason for him not fighting. yes he rants about how "oh what if they find eve" BUT LIKE ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!??! he's a hero, yes he's traumatized and yes thats a reason to not fight but when you look at his morals and the people that he cares about and who he doesnt know are safe. like take oliver for example, he knew oliver was out there and fighting OTHER HIMS WHO ARE STRONGER THAN HIM and despite claiming how he loves oliver he doesnt do anything to find him or help him. then you have debbie. with oliver you could at least make the excuse that "oh he has powers!" BUT FUCKING DEBBIE!??! DEBBIE WHO DOESNT HAVE ANY POWERS??? also- im 90% sure that mark knows that these other hims are NOT nice or kind people and are most likely sadistic and HAVE killed debbie in their universes. but okay just fuck her i guess the girlie got her leg broken and slammed into the ground ig my bad fam also shes hooked up to probably the BEST equipment she could have at the moment in the SAFEST place possible but my b just stay there and yap about how "oh i messed up, i messed up so badly" and not to anything about it. i didnt know we were in THAT arc today alright fine go off ig. AND THEN HE HAS THE FUCKING AUDACITY TO LOOK AROUND AT ALL THE DAMAGE THAT HAPPENED FOR THREE DAYS YOU WANNA KNOW HOW LONG THAT IS!?!? THATS HALF OF A FUCKING WEEK AND GO. "damn so much death happened, man i really wish something couldve been done to stop it" LIKE ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!? YOU SAT THERE. MOPING. ABOUT A GIRL YOUVE BARELY HAD A DECENT CONVERSATION WITH (that wasnt you just whining). WHILE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE FUCKING DIED.

HOW THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO EXPLAIN THAT SHIT TO THE WORLD. "hey invincible where were you when all of this was going down? hey why didnt you help?" "ermm sorry my gf got knocked out and hurt and i just wanted to be with her instead" LIKE ?????. like oh yeah worry about fucking eve while peoples families are being destroyed!! hahaha so relatable!! and the worst part is that this wouldnt even be a problem if his morals werent so strict and if he werent such a hyopcrite. like i dont even care what happens next i just want him to feel fucking BAD about that and everything that happened because OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL.

and dont get me started on the "youve got every hero out there fighting for you right now you dont need me" bs. like hahahaha may i point you to s1 perhaps?? mark... buddy... there are 10+ (practically) VILTRUMITES FLYING AROUND AND WREAKING HAVOC EVERYWHERE.

REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED LAST TIME!??! REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED WITH NOLAN!??!!? AND HOW NOT EVEN YOU COULD DEFEAT HIM. LIKE ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW??!?!? YEAH THEY KINDA DO NEED YOU ACTUALLY. THEY KINDA REALLY DO. like im sorry but this is so stupid, get off your ass and at least save some people. you dont even have to fight yourself if you dont want to but make sure people are safe. then you can maybe feel a little sad when you see them dead or whatever.

cause basically what he did was see a person bleeding go "oh how sad" and then did nothing to stop the bleeding, watched as they bled out and then was like "if only there was smth i couldve done :((( " LIKE WHAT!??!? im just so pissed-

[the-stove-is-divorced]

Fresh off seeing the finale at last! (*´▽`*)

I will say I really, really enjoyed this episode which drives me even crazier because you guys really did save the budget for this episode FR? And it could be good... this whole season... ( I am curling into a ball and screaming). And yes, actually people being caught in the destruction! A body falling beside Conquest, people in cities, ripped apart from the very shock waves, like yes, THANK YOU.

I love Conquest so much oh my goodness, I know you're iffy on the VA but I'm giggling, thoroughly enjoying that he's an apparant outlier in the Empire, people avoid him. LIKE!!! THAT'S CRAZY! Being called a freak by the Violence is Great: The Empire is interesting! The fact there's protocols that limit what he usually does, and Earth is now an exception to the rule is a tidbit I will be chewing on furiously. The fact he whispers his soul baring secrets knowing his victims cannot tell them when they're all dead? UGH, LOVEEEEEEEE.

Conquest? Peak, I love himmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. It's so funny to me how supportive he was for Mark to try fighting him for a second, too?? Nolan step it up some random guy is doing better for your kid :/ Like, I cackled. Obligatory acknowledgment of s1e8 fight parallels and all that. I will say that (s1) fight did have a bigger crowd though, but I'll take the inclusion of people!!! I like that!!!

I will say repeating the scene of Cecil telling them to hurry up was unneeded? We got the message, my guy. Also there is something retroactively funny about Mark's Two Certified Kills being backtracked, like damn, he can't even kill one guy? I get Cecil keeping the body, I really thought he'd try analyzing the corpse or turning into the Undead Soldiers but him barely revived/secretly alive made me tilt my head a little. I understand the information standpoint, but also, damn, did Mark kill the guy or you got re-frying his brain back to motion? Because, again, it's kinda takes away Mark: I Kill Now when both his kills weren't kills.

Also, HNNGGGG Debbie what did they do to you. Rae and Debbie and Eve all being the more cry-reaction to grief like there isn't so many flavors to that shit irks meeeeeee. Rae, now the Mourning Girlfriend. Big Sigh. I know we need to see her reaction but her dynamic with Rex still upsets me. Debbie being so??? Sorrowful guilty and openly self blaming also irked me. I miss when she threw a wine bottle at Nolan. What I'd give to see her angry again. Like, her allowing Oliver to go was so crazy to me? Like that's a Viltrumite. You know he's not gonna leave when it gets serious? I liked Eve never explained that whole thing (I'd love if she was guarded, and secretive as potential contrast to s visibly distressed and chatty Mark) and it WAS COOL seeing her changing density and doing some real damage, I wish saw that kind of shit before, pre-Super Eve Mode ofc.

Slightly confused why Oliver didn't seem phased by nearly snapped in half like a toothpick, though, even if it some hesitation. Like, bro, your teeth fell out. Your tormentor described how your body will rip. You felt it.

But what drives me FUCKING INSANE is that if we simply reordered the fucking season, Mark ended it with WANTING to kill (hiding Conquest's survival, let linger at Cecil eyeing the body, employee saying "Your orders, sir?" for ambiguity, because it takes it away to me???? Am I crazy???), AND STARTING it with being SO irrationally anti-kill would've been PEAK. Mark says he doesn't kill but he never shows it. It feels more like he's too inexperienced to kill on purpose, when he keeps fucking losing for around 6/8-ish of a WHOLE SEASON, if not refusing to fight. If Mark doesn't kill, like you said, it should get in the way. It should be extreme. It should cost him so he's pushed to the brink. Literally seeing him struggle with Seismic, trying not harm Multi-Pauls, the dragon, not because he feels irritatingly weak (consequence you do not show me him holding back, like a clenched fist, or a moment of rage before he calms himself down), but because he's holding back to the point of irrationality.

Cecil calling Mark the strongest irks me to this day, that mf stays losing??? You're saying one thing and showing another. Is every hero just that much weaker, so this is all we got? Also surprised Cecil didn't try shutting her down as a power grab as he would Mark, but then again Cecil has tunnel vision for that kid, clearly.

BUT, LIKE YOU SAID, OPENING WITH POWERPLEX WOULD BE BRILLIANT. It justifies his anti-kill policy since hitting him literally escalates the situation, and every situation after should challenge him further and further. Or, if he does kill here and there, show me him desperately rationalizing it, so when he deliberately chooses it, it's A CHANGE. Like, he insists he "defeated" the other him's, or it doesn't count because it's just him. Or Levy made him, and then he escaped anyway. Then, someone ask would you have killed him? If he didn't escape? With Mark denying/lashing out, of course, he wouldn't, he's not Nolan! Or, he didn't mean to so it doesn't count, it can't count. Let his mf deny it so badly. Let him be so challenged he struggles to even process it's not feasible.

Like, how delicious (to me lol) would be the Cecil V. Mark be if Mark won't even admit he killed people? Like have him be absurdly anti-kill.

And yeah, it just seems like they meant one thing, but are showing another? Or their attempts aren't landing because they won't show us Mark thinking or establish where he is from the get go and have that build smoothly. Literally, Mark repressing so fucking hard would be interesting! Mark avoiding it makes sense! Have him talk about everything around subjects. Oliver asks about Nolan, and Mark gives him stories of Nolan, not answering the question. Have him talk, since he clearly yaps at Eve, but a demonstration of his avoidance and desperation. Sighs, opens another google doc lol.

AND YES EXACTLY! Make him realize they're people, and they're him. He can almost forget what they're doing, because it's fun taking about comics and their favorite things, tiny dimensional differences, and Mark saying cartoonishly evil things makes me cackle. Sinister Mark glares him down and he blurts about drowning orphans or something and everyone's sold. I'm crying. Mark tries gathering info and they're just joking with each other. They all don't like Levy, and Mark joins in on a rant and they agree with him, but he remembers who they choose to be, and sours. oh my goodness, "him having to really face how much of what he does is a choice. him getting to struggle w what that choice means" <- peak, exactly, exactly. Mark chooses who he can be, and that kind of stuff weighs on him.

And exactly? I wrote her for the two-shot, and I won't pretend I'm suddenly like rewriting 100% world building, but I realize she can easily comment or know about so much more stuff than Mark does, like the new head canon news channels/articles/etc aren't allowed to post Hero identities, which would explain how these mfs walk around maskless. It can ground the world into reality by explaining how any of this functions for daily living, commenting on both hero aspect and the civilian's.

The insistence to make people only existing with relationships is soooooo irritating. Can any of you guys stand on your own? It's so annoying! Like, I already wary of most romances, personally, it's the ace-aro partially, I don't get it, but I also know when it's not written well? Like, I want to want to care about Eve and Mark but I can't. I am neutral to Paul, at best but he also retracts from Debbie screen time! Back away! Back I say! Like, does she even like him? I know assumingly, but if I'm not crazy, he liked her, first, no? And she's giving him a shot. Correct me though, the irritation may be painting my memories lol.

Also if Debbie can pull werid alien then have her new interest be interesting at least. Also the demon thing is something? For a second I was horrified it was gonna be the mummy again and lose my shit.

Mark agreeing to go hang out on a beach w Debbie instead of refusing and the beach is Beach City (am now officially thinking too much about this crossover lol)

The way I got caught up on our back and forth I almost forgot this, lol! AND OH MY GOODNESS, IMAGINE? I forget exactly what which point Debbie makes the beach offer, but I’d love when exactly in SU/SUF-timeline they’d go? There’s something so fucking funny to me about them going during the SUF-timeline and always narrowly missing the strange, Steven-shaped mental breakdowns in the back. I know those don’t occur in a single day, but it’s tickling me. How could they miss anything? I don’t know I just think it’s funny.

Though, post-SUF is interesting if Gems can see the similar “world on your shoulders”, Mark has going on! Steven can shunt the narrative in the Gems’ minds, which I think is neat, if I’m not misusing the phrase since the guy’s on the road far away. Or maybe it’s just before Steven goes and they stumble into each other. I’d kinda love Pearl and Debbie interacting, honestly, if they could talk about loving someone who hurt you, hide things from you, even when you thought you knew them so deeply, and they left you to raise a child. Pearl being in a well adjusted space, and Debbie still grieving.

Honestly, the gems could help train Mark, they’re got experience and similar-ish powers in strength, sturdiness, and they can jump/run fast enough for flying to be vaguely similar enough to lecture about, I think. Or Lapis Lazulis, haha! Peridot with her trash can lid! Garnet, I’d love to see if she told Mark anything about his future in vague, well meaning advice. Or even giving relationship advice considering Amber. Or, importantly, how to convince an entire reign to end their colonizing ways, lol. Is Mark perhaps willing to start a war, take advantage of being related to any leaders, or fake his own death to varying results?

In general, there’s something so fucking funny to me about Nolan, in the sake of comparison, being Pink Diamond coded. Like OH, did an important or well respected of the colonizing empire come to earth and learn the beauty of its people and nature, including faking/lying/omitting things about his identity and background to being in, only to feel conflicted when his responsibility still remained, and he tried to free himself from them? Yikes! We’ve been through that before! Like gimme Pink Diamond and Nolan outfit swap rn. This is tickling me so much oh my goodness.

[ptieuca]

buffy + angel's cross

[trashlie]

ILY FP 258

I can't believe we're actually passed episode 250 lmao I Love Yoo is truly the never ending story (affectionate). I appreciate how much of the story we really get to dig into at this pace and while I know a lot of people have long-since dropped it, I imagine the rest of us (those reading this post because why else are you here?) also appreciate it. And that's what is even more refreshing about this episode - if refreshing is even a word we can use to describe it. Getting the extra scenes from other characters, a look at their lives and from these glimpses, what we can glean in the unsaid between the lines.

Can you believe I used to prey on Kousuke's downfall? There's so many posts of me talking about him from a different view, believing that the only way he could grow and develop and make the changes necessary to make him a better person was for him to crash and burn, to fail so significantly that he would be forced to pen his eyes to reality. But here we are, me, fervently swaddling him up like a baby and shoving him into my pocket because GOD he needs to be protected.

I don't even remember when it was, that my view on him began to shift, when I went from "he's interesting but awful" to "GOD THIS IS MY SON AND I WILL FIGHT EVERYONE YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH ME" but.... lol there's no going back!

That's enough rambling, let's jump in.

There is something so painfully devastating about every time ILY confirms to us something we have long-since known or suspected through nuance, foreshadowing, reading between the lines, etc: That Kousuke isn't Rand's biological son, that Shinae was at the formal for Gun Kim, that Kousuke has been manipulated his whole life. Nothing in this episode regarding Kousuke is actually new to us. We have known, and talked about, for months and months long before the confirmation reveal that Yui drugs Kousuke - that he has been manipulated by her his entire life, that she orchestrated his life to manipulate him into situations she could take advantage of. It's the way she spoke about Rand's affair around Kousuke, the way she commodified Rand's love so Kousuke became convinced he'd never earned his father's love, the way she spoke of their family vs others and convinced him from such a young age that everyone was out to get them, to destroy them, and that he couldn't let them get close, couldn't let them near - and how Nol was very much a target planted in his mind.

But it's the fact that he is speaking of this and acknowledging it! Until now, Kousuke has heavily lived in denial. Again, we know this. We talk a lot about the chasm between reality and the reality he believes in. We talk a lot about how Kousuke couldn't face reality, even though on some level he knew everything he believed and was told was not quite true not quite real, but that he was so afraid of the truth, he couldn't do it. Kousuke admitting that he's been driven by fear and envy explains everything about him, and why he could not accept the only unwavering unconditional love he was offered.

A few weeks ago I saw a video on instagram of this father talking about a conversation he had with his daughter, who was feeling a little uncomfortable with her friend group. A new girl started to play with her and her best friend and she said she wasn't exactly jealous, but that maybe it was that she was afraid that there wasn't enough love to go around. Her dad had to explain to her that love is not like a pizza - it's not finite, a limited amount that could be taken and hogged by someone else. But Kousuke never learned this. His father's love was commodified and he was made to fear this other kid who he mistakenly believed knew a version of his father he'd never been privy to. He never learned that love is finite, that Rand could have enough love for the both of them, and feared that Nol would hog it all - that he WAS hogging it all because whether or not it was good or bad, Nol received more attention that Kousuke did. And that speaks VOLUMES about how Kousuke sees Rand, what he thinks of their relationship. In his mind, he is still unworthy, that he's not noteworthy enough.

This part gets to me so badly. We, as omniscient readers, know that Rand has tried his best, but that Yui runs a spectacular interference with which he can't compete, largely because of the roles their family have placed them in - Rand the busy businessman, Yui the mommy homemaker. But no matter how hard he tries, it isn't good enough. Rand tries to reach Kousuke, but the manipulation and paranoia are so far gone that the times Rand does have the chance to convey his feelings, Kousuke can't even believe it, because he thinks he's not good enough to deserve that love, that he hasn't fully qualified for it yet. And despite that, Nol, who Kousuke feels hasn't done half of what he has to deserve Rand's love, gets the attention. It doesn't matter that it's negative attention, that Rand barks at Nol, that Nol feels Rand hates and regrets him, because ultimately, it's still more than Kousuke receives. And worse, to him, every time Rand is busy reprimanding Nol, he turns away from Kousuke to do it.

I want to make it clear that this is a deep trauma point of Kousuke's. He's never learned healthy love and the only person who gave him healthy love was someone he was set to fear and fight. Something I think about a lot is the flashback to Kousuke, in the bushes, watching Nessa and Nol's display of warm affection, before Yui appears literally looming before him. In that moment, he witnesses something he's been deprived of. "We're not like other families"'. He's told from a young age he shouldn't compare himself to those healthy families, to warm and affectionate relationships that he will not cultivate in this household. From such a young age it is normalized, that they aren't like others, that they are cold and distant. From a young age, he's made to stuff down his feelings, his tender wants and desires, in order to earn them. To be a good little boy who makes his parents proud. To make his father look his way.

There's also something about the way he says "I've been a good boy" that echoes Shinae learning she's been manipulated by Yui, devastated and angry and yelling about how she's been a good girl so why do these things keep happening to her, all she wanted to do was help her dad. Two people who, from a young age, felt they had to be so obedient, so good, to not be a burden, and despite following the rules, despite doing as they were told, despite trying to be whatever version of "good" they believed in, the world still beat them up and mistreated them. The world still punished them.

As Rin in our discord server pointed out, though, to some degree, Kousuke is very much a person who can - and does - act out, when he's emotionally high-strung. He's a volatile man, and it's largely to do with the fact that he's been drugged to placate him for so long. He never learned emotional regulation, he never learned how to deal with high-stress situations or to face conflict or to own up to things. This is something that some readers who hate Kousuke and expect him to act a certain way because of his age are missing. You don't just learn these things with age. You learn them with experience and Kousuke was deprived of the opportunity TO have those experiences. He never had to learn these behaviors, and now as an adult he cannot function when overwhelmed.

Idk this whole episode is just heartbreaking. It's devastating. I remember when I was someone praying on Kousuke's downfall and now I want to take it all back ;___; I always believed he had to crash and burn to be able to see the world for what it really was and to face his fears, but this is somehow so much worse.

And even though he's drunk, I don't think he's going to forget all of this in the morning. Rather, I think what he's voicing are things that have been plaguing him since waking up in the hospital. From that moment, we saw him wary and distrustful of his mother, we saw his concern for Nol rising above everything else, but grappling with the understanding that he doesn't deserve to stand in front of Nol anymore. These aren't epiphanies coming to him just because he's drunk; it's more like he's only voicing them because he's drunk. But even when he sobers up, he will probably still be haunted by these fears, these agonies, these truths, this understanding.

How does he face his mother after this? How does he face anyone? He may not even feel like he can trust Jayce - who while very kind to him, is still employed by his family. He may not even feel like he can trust Hansuke (though I really hope that's not the case).

He's so miserable and it genuinely hurts to have him lay it all out for us - everything we've known and suspected, like how it was so painfully clear he WANTED Nol's friendship, their brotherhood, but feared it, didn't believe that there was enough love to go around, that there could only be one of them and that even if it was for good or bad reasons, Nol cast him in the shadow. And all these years, watching as Nol, as Yeonggi, grew into this person who sounded so very much like this unknown version of their father, someone funny who makes others laugh, someone goofy, someone so boyish in the ways Kousuke was never allowed to be. Watching as he gathers friends, while Kousuke, so unlikeable, is wanted only for his money, for his status, for the clout.

He doesn't even know WHO HE IS! Questioning his own traits he's believed of himself, wondering if this is even him, if these parts of him are real or does he just act it, say it, pretend it, while trying to fulfill a role he was shoved into. That makes me feel SO deeply sad, because it's something I've been anticipating for so long: Kousuke wondering WHO he really is, how much of him is real and how much of it is the result of manipulation.

And that moment that he catches himself and says no no that's offensive and rude you can't be like that. ;AAA;

For him to admit how much he envies others, how much he craves the kind of connection others have, the kind of family others have, to feel that love and warmth that he's been deprived of, forced to endure this solitude because, as he believes, he didn't get the good parts of Rand. And what will happen when he learns that Rand isn't his father? That he never stood a chance to inherit any of those traits. Kousuke has operated on this belief that, if he tries hard enough, he can earn the things he craves, but I fear learning about his parenthood will make him think that no matter how hard he tried, he would never earn that, because none of it was ever him, could have gone to him.

I think this is where Shinae, in the future, will come in. I feel so very strongly that she will be someone who helps Kousuke to see that this isn't true, that these kinds of personality traits aren't something inherited, but rather something learned. For him to one day realize it's the paralyzing fear that holds him back, not his genetics. Of course, I acknowledge this will still take a lot of therapy but...

Something else very remarkable to me is the way Kousuke recognizes Shinae in Shinhye, because their eyes "feel the same" and he opens up to her - on some level, whether or not he is consciously aware of it, Kousuke knows, or maybe just wants to, that he can trust Shinae. That she is someone who is safe. He even knows how she feels about his mother. I don't think we'll see a lot of Kousuke and Shinae's friendship until we're passed our timeskips, but it makes me feel a little hopeful about it, that she'll be able to reach him, because she feels like someone who is safe. It's the way he sees Nol in her and wants to try to have that do over, a relationship with someone who  has unconditional love for him. It's the way he knows he mistreated Nol, that it was wrong, that he took it all out on this kid he was so afraid of because he had no other outlet, and he wants to do better but knows that there's nothing to salvage anymore.

But also, it just makes me hope more and more that in the future we WILL see a reconciliation between the brothers. As I say every time, it doesn't mean they have to become brothers or friends, but I just want them to see each other fully. Kousuke knows what he did to Nol. He doesn't deny it, even if he might not say it out loud unless he's drunk. But Nol is still so in the dark. Yujing is trying to tip him off and make him aware of it, but I hope one day when Nol realizes it, when he finds out that Kousuke, too, was Yui's victim, that he wasn't the only one, that Kousuke was made to fear Nol's love, he might.... understand. I'm saying understand here loosely because I don't want people to get the idea that I mean Nol will forgive him and Kousuke will be justified, but rather that Nol would be able to understand why Kousuke felt that way, and move on. But I can't help but hope that it will lead to an understanding, a reconciliation, where maybe they can try to be in each other's lives.

I think it's also interesting that Shinhye was somewhat honest, even if she wasn't very forthcoming, with Kousuke about her own family. It sounds like her mother has been gone for a long time, that she's been on her own the whole while, and I think it reinforces the idea that she believes both that Simhan is her father and that he rejected her, that he didn't want anything to do with her. It lines up, too, with how she feels that he wouldn't react well if he saw her (although I think she credited that to looking like their mother). In the same way that Shinae has felt abandoned and cast aside by their mother, Shinhye probably thinks their father never tried reach out, to find them, to maintain a relationship with her. Or perhaps it's that her mother fed her lies about him, made her believe him a different type of man, made her believe there would never be anything of their relationship to salvage. And given that she's the one who Kousuke opened to, it makes me think that there must be some kind of parallel there; the way she mentioned her own mother feels like maybe her mother, too, was a manipulative - or at the very least, dishonest - person.

I don't speculate a lot on Shinhye because frankly I don't think I know enough about her to really try to talk about her, but I do think that it's very likely there's some kind of connection between Shinhye and the Hirahras or Gun. To be clear, I don't believe she's working with Yui at all. I think it's more like... Alyssa isn't the only girl who has been trafficked by Gun. What's the likelihood that Shinae and Shinhye's mother was? Given her history, the gambling addiction that was so egregious her reputation haunted Shinae and chased her to a new neighborhood and school, was she seeking money somewhere else, somewhere more dangerous? Is that part of why they had to change their name? There's so many questions left about them, and I look forward to learning more about her, but, much like with Alyssa, I think it will take time and be dropped in little tidbits like this - things to read into and try to glean something from.

And maybe we'll see more of this duo in the future? It would feel a little weird to give them this one single run in, but I'm not entirely sure. Quimchee likes to keep us on our toes. After all, Minhyuk and Shinhye have also had only the one run in. Still, I think it would be interesting to watch, if Shinhye ever felt.... I want to say maybe compelled? to dig in more to Kousuke, ever feel a kind of kinship. I don't think she'll open up to him at all, but rather, maybe she'd keep going back because a. he's wealthy and there's more she can nick from him (assuming he doesn't realize she stole anything while in his apartment, if he even remembers any of this) and b. wanting to gather more intel.

Like I said though, she's hard to read so I don't want to cling too hard to any ideas and, instead, sit back and enjoy the show.

[natequarter]

hope you don't mind if i add on, because oh boy do i have more to say. i just rewatched the pandorica opens/the big bang, and it's striking on reflection the extent to which amy functions as a classic who companion taken seriously. what i mean is this. look at dodo chaplet's introduction:

STEVEN: This is no joyride, you know. You may never get home again. DODO: I don't care. STEVEN: What about your parents? DODO: I haven't got any. I live with me great aunt, and she won't care if she never sees me again.

she's an orphan; she's looked after by her great-aunt, who seems to have no great affection for her; as such she has no real ties to the world around her, and is quite easy to simply bring along. and this is a pretty bog standard classic who introduction format! young girl/woman, no real ties to earth, and, especially in the hartnell era, no family. vicki, too, is explicitly an orphan abandoned on a planet, with no ties to dido and no reason to stay. the same goes to a lesser extent for other companions in classic who: no family, no one who cares about them, and as such, no reason to stay. and this resembles amy very, very closely! her experience practically matches dodo's - no parents, and a (great-)aunt who, frankly, probably wouldn't care if she didn't see amy again.

DOCTOR: So what about your mum and dad, then? Are they upstairs? Thought we'd have woken them by now. AMELIA: I don't have a mum and dad. Just an aunt. DOCTOR: I don't even have an aunt. AMELIA: You're lucky. DOCTOR: I know. So, your aunt, where is she? AMELIA: She's out. DOCTOR: And she left you all alone?

thanks, amy's aunt! you don't sound neglectful at all! but the thing is, in classic who, it's pretty common for little things like family to never be mentioned at all. we know vicki has parents, or we wouldn't know she was an orphan in the first place, but we don't know their names. we know ace has a mother - but we learn nothing of her father. (she's one of the few characters whose mother actually gets even the vaguest of biography.) frankly, we don't even know if half the companions in classic who have parents; that we meet nyssa's father onscreen at all is unusual. compare that to rose, whose mother we meet right off the bat, or martha, whose family drama is pretty clearly laid out for all to see in her first episode. this isn't, by the way, a criticism of classic who - it's just an example of the show functioning differently to the revival. classic companions don't need fleshed out backstories, because family drama doesn't and can't drive the plot in the same way it does in the revival.

anyway, this is where amy comes in. amy has a very classic who style family tree. who are her parents? we don't know! she doesn't have them. we never meet them in the eleventh hour, and we never learn their names.

and the show takes that completely seriously.

DOCTOR: Remember that night you flew away with me? AMY: Of course I do. DOCTOR: And you asked me why I was taking you, and I told you there wasn't a reason. I was lying. AMY: What, so you did have a reason? DOCTOR: Your house. AMY: My house. DOCTOR: It was too big. Too many empty rooms. Does it ever bother you, Amy, that your life doesn't make any sense?

in the pandorica opens, we see the doctor not only notices amy's total lack of backstory, it actively troubles him. amy, like so many classic who companions, just has a blank slate for a past - and it's taken to its logical extreme, to the point that her parents, and then her boyfriend, were literally erased from time.

AMELIA: I don't have a mum and dad. Just an aunt.

when amy says she doesn't have parents, it's not a euphemism for them being dead. she's dead serious: they literally don't exist.

DOCTOR: Amy, your house was too big. That big, empty house, and just you. AMY: And Aunt Sharon. DOCTOR: Where were your mum and dad? Where was everybody who lived in that big house? AMY: I lost my Mum and Dad. DOCTOR: How? What happened to them? Where did they go?

series 5 asks: what if a classic who companion was a real person? what if a companion with no backstory functioned as a character with backstory? and then, of course, it answers those questions. amy's parents do exist, they do have names, and they're brought back. i think it's a fascinating way to approach a character.

amy is a metacommentary on the nature of doctor who companions in a lot of ways. she's a child of the wilderness years, literally. the doctor's disappearance and status as her raggedy man during her childhood, then his reappearance, are a metaphor for the revival of the show. she's a fairytale character. she and rory are, as with basically every young man/young woman human duo since ben and polly, a cracked mirror of ian and barbara's dynamic. and amy is the classic who companion ending... as a start for a character. what i mean by this is, a lot of classic who exits can be summarised as "female companion falls in love with a man and has to leave the tardis and get married". but for amy this is her starting point. she's not vicki or jo or leela leaving the tardis to settle down; she's already engaged, and roughly midway through her tenure she's married. amy's arc as a companion doesn't end with marrying and settling down; it falls right in the middle of her life. awesome.

anyway, i'd like to rudely interrupt an essay i can't find a conclusion to to add that, though dodo's introduction is most strikingly reminiscent of amy's, it was actually sarah i was thinking of when i hastily dashed off this post. functionally an orphan, lives alone with an emotionally distant aunt, seems to totally lack an actual past - ooh, yes, there are similarities. the reason i haven't mentioned sarah at all throughout this post is that her life outside of the doctor is so sparsely detailed that her being an orphan doesn't even come from the show, it comes from the eu, which doesn't really fit into an essay about the televised show.

amy, of course, isn't the only metacommentary on what it means to be a companion. clara has that in spades, too. but the extent to which amy's life tracks with the tropes of fairytales and how that maps onto being a companion fascinates me, and i just... really love amy. she's a fantastic, flawed character, and i haven't even touched on her experiences with mental illness and how they inform a lot of how she acts.

that was a lot of words. thanks for listening.

amy is a commentary on the nature of being a companion in many ways but "functionally an orphan, parents mysteriously never mentioned, raised by aunt" is a very specific thing to reference. anyway, over in classic who,