#but also the justified season 2 that exists in my head

[sprinklersart]

[thenationofzaun]

The Vander/Silco Shitshow - generic, juvenile, and gimmicky slop

So, I think that Vander/Silco flashback was terrible. Tropey, careless, juvenile, clichéd bullshit that stripped away everything that made their season 1 story nuanced and poignant, while simultaneously ripping open a fat plot hole because the team got careless and did not catch the discrepancy between the story they'd written in their heads and the visuals that ended up on screen in season 1. This is just going to be a long rant post detailing the reasons I absolutely despised this flashback. Obligatory disclaimer that this is just my (strongly held) opinion.

1) The timeline plot hole

No, I'm not misusing the term. So a plot hole is an inconsistency in a fictional narrative that cannot be explained away by any plausible in-universe justifications. There are many moments of weak writing in Arcane that may be contrived, rushed, weird, convenient, etc. but aren't plot holes.

This Vander/Silco situation however. Oh boy. If you all remember, Season 1 opened with the bridge massacre, also known as the Day of Ash. Vander is shown cracking enforcers' skulls. He looks like this.

The sisters, seemingly recognizing him, ask him where their parents are. He gestures to their corpses, the sisters cry, Vander has his "violence is not the answer" epiphany, drops the gauntlets very dramatically to underscore this massive turning point of character development for him, then picks the girls up and leaves the bridge.

In episode 3, we are shown a flashback. Vander is trying to kill Silco in the river. He looks like this.

Let's compare this to how he looked like on the Day of Ash.

Yeah. According to the visuals shown in Season 1, the falling out of Vander and Silco seems to have occured in the past before the Day of Ash, evidenced by how much younger Vander looks. Unless Silco is a time traveller who jumped forward to the future to throw a molotov at the riot because he just loves violent extremism that much, or Vander took the time to shave his beard and apply heavy duty anti-aging lotion on his face before hunting Silco down, there are no plausible in-universe explanations for this inconsistency. Not to mention, if Silco and Vander were really as close as brothers and the sisters knew Vander, then it's impossible they wouldn't have known who Silco was.

Yet, in Season 1, that's exactly what we see - not a single sliver of recognition between Silco and the girls, nothing to imply they knew of his existence before episode 3. Not a single conversation between Jinx and Silco implied that he knew, let alone was close to, her mother. Nothing from Vi throughout the entire first season indicated that she knew of his past friendships with her mother and Vander. They acted like total strangers to each other.

Many fans already caught this inconsistency during the three-year gap after writers' comments online implied Silco was involved in the Day of Ash. We had hoped the writers would catch on to this discrepancy too and either iron out the timeline if they want to do serious flashbacks, or just avoid calling attention to it completely by not doing flashbacks of their falling out. Alas.

2) Leonardo Dicaprio pointing meme

Death to the everybody-knows-everyone trope and lines that only exist to invoke the "Leonardo Dicaprio pointing" meme. Throw them into a fucking fire. Boring, mind-numbing, clichéd, overdone garbage. Not every character needs to have some kind of half-baked relation with each other. Not every major incident needs to be tied back to the main characters. Not every single detail needs to be overexplained and justified and again, somehow tied to a main character. They are unnecessary, and make the world feel so much more claustrophobic and smaller than it should be.

"The enforcers actually commited the Day of Ash massacre because SILCO threw a molotov. Vander actually tried to kill Silco because of VI AND JINX'S mother. She knew both Silco and Vander personally and TOLD THEM to help her raise her kids. VANDER named Vi."

Bullshit like this really fucks with immersion, because it becomes clear very quickly that the world is only occupied by a small handful of real characters while the thousands of other people in it are nothing more than inconsequential set dressing and wallpaper. The story and world no longer feel real, vast, and immersive. And these forced "connections" between main characters are so obviously manufactured to generate "OUGHHH" and Dicaprio pointing reactions. Idk about anyone else, but it takes me completely out of the story when I can obviously tell the writing is trying too hard to blow my mind.

The girls' mom waltzing up to Vander and Silco and just. Fucking telling them to help her with her kids lmfaoooooooo. (OUGHH and they both really ended up raising her kids WOAGH😱🤯). Jinx's mom saying choosing a name is stressful because her child will feel stuck with it (GASP and Powder ended up changing her name WOOOOWW😱). Vander coming up with Vi's fucking name. (OUGHHHH HE REALLY WAS MEANT TO BE FATHER ALL ALONG WOADGHHGHDHDH🤯🤯🤯).

Fucking kill me. Arcane Season 1 was surprisingly good precisely because they DIDN'T, for the most part, resort to tropey bullshit like this. It had, for the most part, originality. Uniqueness. In fact all the strongest aspects of Season 1, aspects I loved, were deliberate subversions of overdone clichés. For Season 2 to resort to this kind of writing reminiscent of Disney slop is insanely disappointing.

I'm waiting for a character to unironically say, "What are we, some kind of League of Legends?" in Act 3 now.

3) "Ohhhhh so THAT'S why he did that!!!!!!!!!"

Also death to overexplanations and giving justifications for things that never needed justifications. You know what I was never confused by while watching Season 1 of Arcane? Why Vander adopted the girls. Why Silco adopted Jinx. Why both came to care for their girls so much, they were willing to sacrifice so much for them. I thought the reasons for those things were very clear and poignant in the first season. I never needed an extra on-the-nose justification for the adoptions in the form of, "they wuved yo mama". It's not only redundant, it's also one of the most tired ass tropes in fiction. To me, Vander taking in the girls and Silco taking in Jinx are so much more powerful if they really were just random guys with no real connection to the girls' parents.

But I've already seen some positive reactions to this flashback with "Ohhhhh so THAT's why Silco/Vander cared for the girls so much, now I understand😯🤯😓" mf what exactly did you not understand before??

4) Character motivations

The motivations of both Vander and Silco are made downright bizarre by this flashback. So Silco was hellbent on murdering Vi last season, despite being close friends with her mom whose death he may feel guilty for? Literally despised her and wanted to kill her the entire time with no hesitation lol. So Vander had that aforementioned dramatic moment of character development, dropped the gauntlets, realized violence wasn't the answer, and carried the kids to safety... then doubled back to violently hunt down and murder Silco? But not before shaving his beard and applying youthful lotion of course. Can't kill your bro while looking crusty. Then he failed to kill Silco so he just... went back to the kids and pretended like nothing happened? Lol.

Silco being close to, let alone loving, the girls' parents makes no fucking sense for his character. Vander knowing them at least makes sense, but casual friends would have sufficed. "I was lowkey crushing (?????) on your mom and also named you" just cheapened the entire Vander/Vi and Silco/Jinx surrogate father dynamic. Vander's motivation for killing Silco being yet another fridged woman is also weak as fuck. First Viktor with Sky, and now Vander/Silco. They really should have left this one up to our imaginations if this was the boring tripe they came up with.

[paperclipninja]

Middle of the night GO thoughts after reflecting on a couple of comments that the 'you're being silly' scene is actually not just the adorable soft exchange I have been caught up in. I mean it is, but it also isn't.

And it got me thinking that the whole of season 2 is like this, almost the entire time we have two truths in play. The whole season is one of duality.

A few examples (there are many more woven throughout but just to illustrate the point):

Right off the bat, the opening scene, it's both ominous and hopeful. Aziraphale is restrained while angel Crowley full of abandon; one angel is aware of the danger of questioning, the other is naïve. Both are experiencing the same moment in rather different ways. It sets the tone of the season immediately and puts in motion this layered truth within the story.

The minisode with wee Morag and Elspeth, the entire graverobbing premise presents us with the dual truth that digging up the dead is bad but the selling of the bodies to the surgeon, thus contributing to saving lives, is good.

Aziraphale grapples with the duality here, justifying the actions of Elspeth by convincing himself that one truth is greater than the other. We also see that Crowley is far more able to recognise the complexity of multiple truths being valid depending on circumstance. This whole minisode feels like Neil showing his hand a little bit, the duality is so explicitly addressed, meanwhile we, the audience, are engaged in a larger unfolding story in which we are observing similar layered truths playing out in different ways.

Now the scene that made this whole thought process unravel, still one of my favourite scenes and will remain so, is the "smitten, I believe...you're being silly" exchange. It is both tender and awful.

Here we have Crowley, expressing his very real fear of JimGabriel, opening up to Aziraphale that he doesn't feel safe in the bookshop because of the constant fear he will wake up, and Aziraphale just looks at him with heart eyes and tells him he's being silly. This flags so loudly that we're watching two characters who are experiencing very different versions of their current reality, due to past experience, yes, but also, Aziraphale and Crowley each have their own idea about the right way to react to the current situation.

It's been pointed out by many before me, but the ball is another example of incredible juxtaposition and an extraordinary display of two truths existing at once. It is both incredibly romantic and an actual nightmare.

It is reflected, once again, in the way Aziraphale and Crowley are experiencing it, we know one character is caught up in the romance, the other in the horror show, but as a viewer, we are being tasked with holding both truths in our mind simultaneously. And both are true.

Aziraphale the entire season is both giddy in love and completely dismissive of Crowley. It is adorable and infuriating at the same time.

And yes, it is a reflection of the very duality the entire premise of Good Omens presents us with - that something can be good and bad at the same time, pure and corrupt, that the entire binary of Heaven and Hell/good and evil is flawed because those concepts can and do co-exist.

But the way it is seen in the interactions on a personal level this season is what has leapt out at me. It's why I think we see people falling into different interpretations of a lot of the scenes and moments, because they are more than that, they are observations. We are often observing two sides of the same coin, and both are true. The sheer genius of it and the way it is a mirror to the characters and the entire concept of the show we are observing is, quite frankly, mind boggling.

And it all comes to a head in the final fifteen™. There is so much duality in play here that it is no wonder there are hundreds of posts untangling bits of it and trying to extract the meaning from within the many layers. It's because we are given two truths in this final scene that are both heartbreaking.

Crowley loves Aziraphale and wants them to be together, free at last. Aziraphale loves Crowley and wants them to be together, free at last.

BUT

Aziraphale wants to use the system to keep them both safe. Crowley wants to escape the system to keep them both safe.

And then all the moments of duality between them throughout the season reach a critical juncture: Aziraphale in love but dismissive, Crowley understanding that Heaven = good is too simplistic and trying to compel Aziraphale to remember the lesson from Edinburgh ("when Heaven ends life here on Earth, it'll be just as dead as if Hell ended it"), Crowley trying to use the notion of romance to counter the nightmare with a desperate kiss.

It's a complete inversion of those two truths in the opening scene of the season, the entire scene is at the same time ominous and hopeful, but it is Aziraphale who largely being naïve and Crowley who is aware of the danger.

I mean, it was all spelled out for us really, this duality and the fact that those multiple truths in play were always going to come to a head. It was all there, wrapped up in this quote:

"What does your exactly mean, exactly? I feel like your exactly and my exactly are different exactlies".

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

This thoughts still cooking, so it might not make sense, but I think Thomas (Tomas?) Astruc is a very good case study on how being too attached to your own ideas can hinder your story telling.

I don't mean this in a "Thomas's original idea for the series was bad", but rather that he seems so attached to this concept that he can't stand other people having a differing view from him.

Chloe's the titular example here. Some people thought she deserved a redemption arc, and instead of just saying "nah, I don't think so" and continuing to write her the same way he had been, he had to prove them wrong, prove that his idea was the only correct one, and so turned her into the spawn of Satan and let her rule over Paris for some reason.

Instead of making Marinette less stalker-y, he wrote an entire episode poorly justifying it. And, imao, somewhat diminishing what PTSD actually is and does to people.

I'm not saying he has to make any change (though I think making Marinette less stalker-y would be a good change), but instead of 1.) sticking to his resolve or 2.) taking the criticism, he clung dearly onto this perception of his characters and his writing suffered because of how much he had to twist things to "prove" that his original assertions were right. And also that everyone who disagreed with him was wrong and didn't understand

idk if that makes sense, but the concepts been lingering in my head recently

It makes perfect sense! I've had similar thoughts. It's hard to say for sure, but Miraculous may be a case study in "kill your darlings". I'm not deep into the behind-the-scenes lore and I was not here in the early fandom, but I do know that, at some point, a much darker version of the show was pitched. That's why these exist (image source):

[Image description: two sketches styled like comic book covers. Both have the title "The Mini Menace Ladybug". The left cover shows Marinette's silhouette in a doorway. The door's glass and the glass of a nearby window are broken. In the foreground lies a hand holding a ladybug charm. The hand is limp and surrounded by blood, implying that someone is injured or dead. The right cover is Ladybug doing a spinning kick while looking angry.]

We also have this evidence of the darker original concept:

Jeremy Zag then proposed another project... which he was unable to sell to broadcasters... the project was called "Ladybug". No one was interested, as the project was aimed more at an adult audience... Sébastien had to make sure that the project could be broadcast on Disney and TF1.... Thomas wanted to make a series for adults, but at the time, it was very complicated to make a cartoon for adults. What's more, they didn't have enough money to take on such a project. Sébastien finally agreed, but there were some changes to be made, which Thomas accepted... In the end, Thomas Astruc's entire project was discarded, leaving only the love story between the two heroes and the city of Paris, where the story was to take place.

I've been aware of this darker origin story for a while due to Tumblr and, because of this knowledge, I have often had the thought, "are the writers trying to sneak elements from this darker version into canon?" Because that's the most likely explanation for what's going on here.

If I'm right, then I think that was a terrible move on their parts. They needed to let go of the story that they couldn't sell and embrace the story that they're being allowed to tell. It's why "kill you darlings" is such good advice. Many good stories have been ruined by writers clinging to an idea that ultimately doesn't work for some reason.

It's why the sitcom How I Met Your Mother has such a universally hated ending. The show was originally supposed to go for two seasons and so they wrote an ending that would fit the second season. The show ended up running for nine seasons and, by then, the ending didn't fit, but the writers kept it and left everyone with a bad taste in their mouths, which is not what any writer wants. That's why you have to do what's best for the story even if it means abandoning something that you really love.

This early version of canon may also be why the writers are so obsessed with Marinette. My understanding is that this concept had her mainly acting as a solo hero and, oh look! What is one of canon's biggest problems? Marinette being treated like a solo hero even though she has a partner and, later on, a team!

Not saying that this theory has to be true, just saying that it would explain some things. And if they're poisoning canon by trying to include elements from their darker original? Then it makes sense to assume that they're also doing it for smaller stuff. Like I'm pretty sure I've read that the head writer wanted Chat Blanc to be a lot darker originally, but no one would green light it, so we got an incredibly lackluster episode that spat in the face of the genres Miraculous' is trying to be part of while also falling to have the sort of impact we'd expect from an episode like that. It's a good example of a darling that really should have been killed. It just doesn't fit.

(Totally unrelated sidenote, but is your blog name from Tangled? Because that's what I immediately thought of and it made me smile!)

[incorrecttowerofgodquotes]

learning that Ehwa is best girl to you is interesting - I don't disagree but this is a great excuse to ask for some Ehwa propoganda

so.

justify yourself

You don’t know what you’ve wrought upon yourself

Part 1: Personality

Ehwa hits the great mix between confident and strong as well as naïve and compensating. Due to her status as the only Yeon daughter for the next eighty years, Ehwa obviously has a lot of burdens placed on her, something we see early on in the season. The struggles of trying to live up to her family’s expectations plus the complex she has about her “defective” powers means she puts on the front of a noble and strong headed woman so that her weaknesses can be covered up.

However, the thing is, Ehwa is never actually cruel. In Trustworthy room, the only people she tells off is Prince and Viole, and even then, she still attempts to get to know Viole. As the arcs progress, Ehwa gets nicer and nicer due to her emotional needs being met thanks to S&S. By Hell Train, she’s simply just a good person, meanwhile even now Endorsi still struggles with her temper and Yuri recently just committed genocide (not to say this makes them bad characters though).

I also really love Ehwa’s childish side. We know that Ehwa entered the tower at only age 14, and that her previous life in the Yeon family gave her very little support (aside from her “Mama”). Just like Khun, Ehwa is a person whose childhood was stolen from her, and thus her emotional growth was stunted. As she becomes closer with S&S, she stops maintaining appearances and starts acting more like a girl her age. It becomes especially pronounced when she meets Rak, as she really loves reptiles, and starts following him around.

Part 2: Powerset

While there are many cool abilities in ToG, one of my favs is the Yeon flame. The idea of a living flame existing inside someone, and the fact that it could take control when the user is put under enough stress is super cool.

This is shown to great effect in Ehwa’s fight against Angel, when her childhood trauma and current emotional disturbance causes the Yeon Flame to take front seat in controlling the body while Ehwa dissociates or something. She went from struggling against Angel, to no diffing her in an insane boost of power, especially since said power allows her to fly, something stated to be very difficult for Regulars as it requires extreme shinsu control. SIU himself even said that when Ehwa masters her power, she’ll have abilities that can put even Ran to shame (y’know, one of the most talented Khun family members)

Also, unlike some other powers, Ehwa’s undergoes development. At the beginning, Ehwa suffers from power incontinence, having it leak out when her emotional state becomes turbulent and uncontrollable when using it. When Horyang and Viole, the rocks of team S&S are gone, Ehwa starts worrying about hurting her other teammates. However, instead of being able to learn to control her powers from this fear, she instead learns due to her desire to protect them, allowing her to take out the parasite Beta had. Finally, when up against Angel, all the turbulent emotions she feels leads to an explosive rise in power, but only for a few minutes.

Ehwa still has a ways to go in mastering her power, and the moment when she’s able to utilize her full potential while being in control will certainly be an amazing scene

Part 3: Development

Ehwa starts off as very alone and without confidence in herself. This stems from an incident in her childhood, when she was about 4 or 5, when she accidentally burned one of her maids alive. The people around her, instead of consoling her, praised her for her talent, which led to a complex about her powers. She feels the need to be useful to her family and live up to their expectations, but she’s also afraid of hurting people close to her.

During Trustworthy Room, she starts off as very prickly due to the pressure she feels about passing the test. Yet even so, she still remains naïve in that she takes a drink from Prince as well as hoping to become good-natured acquaintances with Viole. Ultimately, she doesn’t get to do much and is then left with a team she had no real say in, but she still sticks with them anyways.

By the 21st floor, Ehwa has sort of gotten used to her position in S&S. She’s still very hotheaded, and tends to blow up when either Wangnan or Viole are involved. However, then we get a look at her deeper insecurities when she talks with Arkraptor. Ehwa calls herself defective, unable to control her own power and needing to rely on Viole to stop herself. The 10 Families promote division amongst themselves, so for Ehwa, relying on others is extremely difficult. But even so, Arkraptor consoles her by saying that whatever her trouble's are, they aren't any worse than what everyone else is going through. Her power incontinence is just a hurdle she can overcome, and until that happens, its perfectly fine for her to rely on Viole and her other teammates.

After the Flower of Zigena, Ehwa is left in a depressive state over the actions her family has taken. I pointed it out in a separate post, but Ehwa doesn't look like she's surprised her family was corrupt, but more that she was trying to avert her eyes from the truth. It’s only when Hwaryun points this out to her that Ehwa declares that she will accept the 10 Families mistakes and then fix them (Fun fact she never wears the Yeon flower and gems in her hair after this).

This is also when her relationship with Viole changes. At first, she saw him as just a bad person, which makes sense, he is part of a terrorist organization targeting her family after all. However, it’s through getting to know him and the sins that her family has committed that Ehwa realizes why someone like Viole is necessary. Her feelings evolve from just a simple crush to a genuine admiration of his courage and charity.

While Ehwa doesn’t have much focus during Workshop battle, we still see her growth in learning to control her powers in order to protect her friends. There’s also a nice line of set up from Quaetro about her powers that will be the basis for her character development in Hell Train. “Who would listen to someone who’s afraid of herself?”

In Hell Train, Ehwa is pitted against Angel, an illegitimate child of the 10 Families. Angel received no love in her childhood, not even from her mother, and was eventually given away because she had some talent. This contrasts with Ehwa, who was born with loads of talent and received a lot of doting as a kid. However, the doting Ehwa received ultimately ended up harming her due to the callous nature in which they praised and pushed their expectations on her.

During the beginning of their fight, Ehwa can barely stop Angel. As she’s running away, all she can think about is how so many people failed to teach her anything about her flame. She can’t believe that she was flame itself from the moment she was born, because to her, the destructive flame she possess is in conflict with her own kind nature.

It’s only when Angel kills Hongjo, someone who had been kind to Ehwa up until then and even attempted to protect her, that Ehwa comes to the realization of what those words really mean. Her rage overtakes her to the point that the Yeon flame has to take control, in the process losing her own self. As a defeated Angel watches Ehwa continue to use her flame, as the audience we’re meant to feel fear and sadness that Ehwa is losing herself like this. It’s no coincidence that this moment comes about in front of Bam, who had just previously lost his mind to the Thorn.

Ehwa is only able to regain her sense of self when Bero Bero crashes into and starts yelling at her. Bero tells her she needs to take responsibility for her power, responsibility that no one else in her family will take. As these words sink in, Ehwa is reminded of her “Mama”, a loving maternal figure who told her the same thing.

Ehwa’s character growth stops about here, mostly due to her exiting the story, however we still see her through the Name Hunt Station arc. At the beginning, Ehwa is removed from Team Sweet and Sour and placed with Bam, Wangnan recognizing her skill and believing she can keep herself alive as she stays with Bam. Ehwa is incensed by this, even running up to Bam and telling him to make Wangnan change his mind, and when Bam says otherwise it shocks her. Ehwa wants to stay with everyone, but due to the difference in abilities she can’t. She now has to take responsibility for protecting herself first and foremost.

This is her mentality when going into the fight against Karaka vs Yuri. She still wants to continue despite being badly injured cause if she didn’t, it meant she left Team S&S for nothing. However, she ends up getting put into a hostage situation, and at that moment instead of thinking about her own well being, she thinks about how to save Bam. She ultimately sacrifices herself, but she does so with a smile, telling Bam that it will be okay. She went from distrusting Viole due to his FUG ties to implicitly trusting Bam to keep moving on to protect more people.

As sweet as this moment is, it’s also the greatest tragedy to happen to Ehwa. Her removal from Team S&S and then her loss at NHS, makes it so that Prince and Arkraptor die, and she remains completely unaware. The family that accepted her as she was became broken all without her knowing. If Ehwa had been with them, there’s no doubt in my mind that at least one of them would have survived, her Yeon flame wouldn’t allow for anything else. Instead, her absence sealed their fates. The responsibility she had towards protecting them is now destroyed.

When Ehwa finally reenters the story, I have no doubt that her arc will focus heavily on the fallout of losing Prince and Arkraptor.

It’s also interesting that she was kidnapped by Revolution, the group whose goal it is to reform the Ten Great Families. If we wanna get wild, Ehwa might become the new Yeon Family Head candidate.

That’s about all I have to say aside from gushing about how pretty she is, but I’ll let that happen during the S2 anime.

[for-ships-that-never-sail]

So, here are my unsolicited opinions on season 3:

1. They mentioned that there was a Polin sex montage at some point… didn’t they? If that ever existed, they should’ve 100% put it in after their marriage because literally everything post wedding was just so angsty… I’m displeased with the fact that any time Polin would think back to their wedding night they’d just remember that for days they just slept apart and that’s just so heartbreaking 💔 I get that the angst was for a reason and all, but it still would’ve been nice to just see the addition of them being super intimate post-marriage but pre-epilogue… even just then cuddling and waking up in bed together all happy could’ve done it

2. They did Cressida waaaay too dirty, like why did you bother developing her character and thennnnnn ruin her life anyway?? Should’ve just let her stay a villain with no nuance like in the past if this is how you wanted it to end for her - and that could’ve also afforded some more screen time for Polin too - Why bother showing us her plight, and her frankly justifiable actions to try and take care of herself when no one else would, and then say haha sorry but for pen to win you have to lose and there’s just nothing else we can do about it 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’m sorry but there really could have been SO MUCH MORE to it, could’ve let Eloise or Pen be the bigger person and recognize where Cressida comes from and actually help her in some way idk man that one just did nottttt sit right with me at all

Other than those 2 issues I have with this season,

I do think everything else was well written and that the season was also impeccably and masterfully acted out 🙌🏼

🥺 The Portia and Pen storyline really tugged at my heartstrings and in the end so did Eloise and Pen’s storyline

It is a bit telling that somehow those side plots left a bigger impression on me than joyous Polin though. I was MUCH happier with the vibe of the first 4 episodes in that sense

At the end of part 1 my head was only POLIN - just an absolute brain rot - but at the end of part 2 all I remembered were the side plots like Portia and Eloise

Only a billion more rewatches will really help me form a final opinion on this full season I guess

But for now, other than the 2 things up top,

I am PLEASED and GRATEFUL to have seen this season of Bridgerton and the final Polin HEA 🙏🏼 🙌🏼🥹

[velvet-vox]

The paradoxical nature of Qilby: part 2

Going back to the end of the previous part where I declared Qilby an autism icon, it came to me the realisation that autism is really the only way to justify some of Qilby's actions and odd behaviour; as a big brother and autistic person myself I also would force the people I care about to engage in my interests, I understand on a subconscious level that what I am doing is wrong, but I just care about it so much that I need to share it with them at all costs.

(Even though I would never go as far as starting a war with another species just to force my race to go on a family trip with me).

And like, no offence to Yugo or the Elatrope council but it is my theory that all the Yugo haters have begun popping up due to some people head cannon that him and his family is inadvertently ableist, which (although I might agree considering their dynamic and who their mother is) I don't think it's completely warranted; as someone else pointed out if mental health and psycho analysis existed in the Krosmoz then Nox would have never come to be; if somebody explained what autism is to Yugo then maybe he would be more lenient on Qilby (or maybe not, after all he is his brother), Nora also doesn't know about autism but she is more accepting of Qilby's oddities even if she doesn't like them, and Qilby SURE AS HECK DOESN'T KNOW WHAT AUTISM IS.

Side note: Shinonome is not necessarily autistic, since my sister understands me perfectly and she isn't on the autism spectrum herself, but she clearly has inherited her more passive personality from her mother while Qilby has probably taken more from his father meaning that even if she was she probably wouldn't go about it in the boisterous manner of his twin.

However all of this is just a head canon and not the focus of this post. What I instead want to point out and analyse is the list-like approach of Qilby to anything and how that reflects the way many autistic people approach mostly every conflict in their life. Let me explain:

The way this list-like methodology works is entirely centered around a priority system, so basically Qilby schematizes in his head what he needs to do and say in which order and he has to follow it religiously in order to get anything done, so like on his to do list there is:

First: Confront Adamai and Grougal. Second: Get Rushu's army and alliance. Third: Confront Yugo and Phaeris and take them out. Fourth (interchangeable with third): Get the Dofus. Fifth: Go the Emrumb to get the children. And Sixth: Leave the planet.

And he has to do them in this order because this is the way that he has envisioned them.

This is also reflected in the way that he goes about science and space travel: he reaches a planet, discovers his species, analyses them, classifies them, compartmentalizes them, collects some, rinse and repeat in the next world.

And finally, I want to bring up his two most famous sentences of season 4 to showcase how this priority based thought process carries on to his speech pattern and family view.

"My dear Yugo, we are brothers, before being enemies"

See?

Qilby realises on his relationship list that Yugo is its enemy, but that before that he is its brother, that's what has the biggest priority for him in this moment and in general. But that's not even the most interesting part:

"Farewell Yugo. My brother, my king."

This phrase of course has been plastered all over the fanbase, but like.... did anybody ever think about how weird this sentence is? You would expect Qilby to say brother as his last word, as a final acceptance nod to the fact that deep down he does care about Yugo. But no. Instead he says:

"Good luck"(the situation's dramatic, so he's giving Yugo an encouragement as the first thing)

"My brother,"(Yugo is his demigod brother born from another Dofus)

"My king."(lastly, Yugo is also his king, as sentenced by Chibi in a previous life)

Qilby could have just called Yugo brother as his last word to show that he cares, but instead he decides to call him king, a title that means very little to him on their relationship chart, to show that he values him so much that he is going to use a term that means very little to him just to let Yugo know that he is willing to acknowledge the part of their brotherhood that he doesn't care about as a substitute acceptance nod to the aspect of their dynamic that he values the most.

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Nox analysis

Oropo analysis

[gmwsuperfan5467890]

Never Have I Ever Season 4: My Extensive Opinions on all the plots

I will go through various plots and characters (in no particular order) and give my opinion

Margot

I don’t like Margot. Her introduction this season was her being furious at Devi because she was mad that Ben ghosted her but Devi literally has a right to mad. Margot’s reaction was very unwarranted and a lot for the situation at hand, especially because she wasn’t giving Ben any of that energy she was giving Devi. She isn’t wondering why Ben ghosted Devi out of the blue? She isn’t thinking that this could be a potential red flag? She is still protecting him and doting on him?

This isn’t even the only time this happens. Every time Margot is on screen, they have to get her mad at Devi for some reason, which is usually a misunderstanding. Sometimes she is justified, for example when she finds Devi’s notebook and when Devi almost gets her suspended.But why was she mad at Devi when Ben brought the flowers to her house? Why did she not give the same energy to Ben? He was the one that brought the flowers.Then she admits that she is embarrassed of Ben after she spent 6 episodes fighting over him? Girl, what was the fighting even for??

It just makes me mad that her character got so much screen time and the conflict that she has with Devi is so repetitive. I just think about how her screentime could be given to other characters (cough, cough Aneesa) and that makes me even more mad.

Episode 1

Should be called “Never Have I Ever Risked it all for a man” This is not a criticism to the writing of the episode, this is more of a message to characters that don’t exist. Devi, Margot, stand up, please. No man is worth fighting for, no man is worth ruining your reputation for and no man is worth ruining your chances of getting into your dream university for and I’m saying that as someone who loves Ben as a character (for the most part).

Ben x Margot

Was very unnecessary. Ben stop dating girls to get over Devi challenge I beg of you.

Ethan

Also unnecessary but at least he got Devi to take her mind off of Ben.

Fabneesa

They had so much chemistry in their interactions together and they were trying to tell us last season that they don’t have any romantic chemistry?? Nah, sorry I don’t believe it. During the scene where Fabiola confided in Addison about her fight with Devi and Addison told her that she would make new friends in college, I was thinking about how Aneesa would get it since she is in the same friend group (tho props to Addison for listening to Fab and getting it in the end.)

Aneesa

I adore Aneesa so I was disappointed that she was barely in the season. I wish we could’ve gotten more information about where got recruited to.

Nalini

I adore her and I love how much she has grown. In seasons 1 and 2, she would have called Devi ‘stupid’ or used other harsh words without a second thought. Now she corrects her mistakes and is more gentle and comforting to Devi. I also really like Nalini’s relationship with Margot’s dad, they had chemistry.

Nirmala

Funny as always.

Kamala

I am glad that she took that job in Baltimore and I am so glad that she didn’t get married. I feel like a big part of her character is that she isn’t ready to get married and needs to figure out the timing of things in her own terms. I am also very happy that she is still with Mr Kulkarni.

Paxton

I was worried when he dropped out of university but the writers handled the plotline so well. The first thing they did was drill it into our heads that Paxton made the wrong choice and that he was running away from change. I adored his friendship with Devi and I really liked his relationship with Miss Thompson. I really like Miss Thompson’s personality and I like how she isn’t phased by his charm and holds him accountable for his actions. They are also bi4bi, I don’t make the rules.

Fabiola

Fabiola was right in applying to Princeton because she can apply anywhere she wants but wrong in not telling Devi at all. I definitely felt bad for her because you can tell that she adores Devi and would never want to hurt her. Luckily, it all worked out in the end.

Ben

He really needed someone to slap him in the first few episodes because what the hell was he thinking?? First, ghosting Devi after they slept together, dating Margot, refusing to speak to her and lying about it being Margot’s decision. I was ready to fight him. Luckily, he redeemed himself in the last few episodes.

Devi

I am a Devi stan first, person second, have always been from season 1. I am so proud of how much she’s grown and of how far she’s come. Most of all, I am so glad that she got her dream college, her dream boyfriend and started embracing her culture.

Benvi

The moments in the last few episodes were perfection. Ben defending Devi from the creep? Amazing. Them interacting with each other and everyone knowing that they’re in love? Spectacular. Them gazing at each other with heart eyes at graduation when you know season 1 Ben would have been so mad that Devi won valedictorian over him. The scene where he flies all the way from New York to confess his love for her and they run away holding hands and the scenes after that? The most romantic scenes on the show. Benvi is definitely one of the best slowburns in recent television.

[chaotic-autumn]

feeling absolutely feral about the moment Stede finally realizes he's in love with Ed, get ready for some Thoughts

i've mentioned before how much i love the reading of Stede's character as autistic (and just generally how neurodivergent coded he and ed are) and I think interpreting his character this way makes the payoff of this Epiphany moment even more powerful. (might make a separate post on rom com plot points in ofmd sometime because i am unhinged about that too)

And it's SO important to me that this moment isn't played for laughs, because I am so sick of "neurodivergent-coded people Not Understanding Stuff" being a punchline. It's NOT written like "oh haha you dummy, DUH it was so obvious" (i mean maybe it is a little but in an affectionate way), we have compelling narrative evidence to justify why Stede doesn't understand that he's falling in love (and that Ed loves him back). And that makes it so so beautiful and affecting when he finally gets it.

An important coping mechanism for ppl with social anxiety/who struggle with social interaction is to really analyze the logic and intention behind social customs/things people say/etc. And it can be such a big EUREKA! moment when you do figure out the subtext/purpose of an interaction. Like for me realizing that the goal of small talk isn't to learn how the other person feels about the weather, it's a way of saying "i am acknowledging your personhood by acknowledging that you have feelings about the weather, that this experience, though trivial, is shared" made small talk SO much more bearable for me. (i mean sometimes it's still excruciating but at least now i get that it's not Pointless)

ANYWAY, we see Stede doing this in Episode 5 when he's explaining aristocratic social life to Ed:

"...and dining is pageantry." (sorry for the mediocre screen grabs)

And we see that even though he understands it, he doesn't feel comfortable with it or fit into it naturally, and he empathizes with Ed's struggle to learn the unspoken language of high society. (eg. "That's diabolical"/"It is") In fact Stede's whole storyline in this episode is basically about how much he empathizes with Ed's experience of trying to fit in with the "upper crust", and finally being able to turn the tables on the people who were mean to Ed, the way he couldn't as a child when people were mean to him.

But there's a limit to the helpfulness of this! Because ultimately emotions aren't always rational, and it can be really hard to interpret/accept your own feelings. Especially when you can't refer to an existing experience of times you felt/dealt with similar feelings. And that is frustrating and can be painful, and that pain can lead to avoidance/redirecting that pain.

(personal example but like: I spent so much time as a teenager getting so mad at myself for how IRRATIONAL all my hurt feelings and intrusive thoughts were, and that just contributed to the negative self image spiral. And it felt like this endless and unbearable cycle so I just constantly tried to distract myself with schoolwork/tv/etc)

We see Stede having this reaction a little in Episode 2 with Nigel's "ghost" (ie. a representation/manifestation of his guilt and self-doubt):

And then the elder hits the nail right on the head right here:

Stede feels guilty about Nigel's death, but Mainly (like fundamentally to his character arc in this season) he feels guilty about leaving Mary and his kids. But that guilt hurts too much, he doesn't want to think about that AT ALL, so he thinks about Nigel instead.

Now obviously he hasn't met Ed yet at this point, but this gives us as an audience important insight into how he deals with intense or frightening feelings (by avoiding them). This episode is also a crucial part of establishing the depth of Stede's self-doubt, which contributes to him not seeing that Ed is falling in love with him. I think that is linked to Stede not recognizing his own feelings for Ed, because overall he's just blind to the possibility that love is what is happening on either side of the equation.

And ESPECIALLY in the context of the queer experience it can be even harder to interpret your feelings in the love and relationships department because there's less language to explain it & fewer examples of it to help you conceptualize that "it's love" is even a possibility. Stede has never loved anyone romantically before, so he has no point of reference for what it feels like. Presumably, until becoming a pirate he hasn't seen examples of queer romance, so he has no script for what that looks like to refer to either. Basically, until the "what does it feel like to be in love" scene, Stede has no context to help him understand ANYTHING he has gone through emotionally since meeting Ed.

It's also significant that Mary is the one who describes love to Stede. Not only because of the closure the scene brings to the narrative by absolving Stede's guilt over leaving her, but because her relationship with Doug is hetero. It's permissible, it's familiar, it's instantly recognizable. She never says "I'm in love with Doug", Stede just knows. When she describes what love feels like, she's describing the internal experience of something that Stede has witnessed throughout his life but never been able to empathize with. And in that moment it clicks for him -- he DOES empathize with what Mary is saying. That is EXACTLY how he feels about Ed. (Because despite stereotypes, it's not like people on the spectrum are incapable of empathy, it's just that it can be harder to achieve because it's harder to interpret/extrapolate other people's emotions)

All of a sudden everything just makes sense. He's seen love but never known what it felt like, he's felt love but not recognized it. But hearing Mary describe it finally helps him put those two things together. He is in love with Ed. All those things people do for love in books that he could never quite understand? He gets it now, he can see himself doing those things because he is in love with Ed. The excitement and fear and confusion and intensity that has overwhelmed him these past weeks? That was LOVE. FOR ED. mother. fucking. EUREKA!

and and and AND in a meta sense, the epiphany Stede has kind of mirrors the audience's reaction to the scene. All those little moments he's flashing back to? Those were signs. That he was falling in love with Ed. Of course that's what they were, because we KNOW what romantic love looks like. We know how writers and directors and actors depict it on screen. and it is (or at least can be) no different between two men than it would be between a man and a woman.

This moment even more than the kiss to me was vindication for all the queerbaiting I believed could be queer representation. for johnlock and destiel and everything else. I wasn't crazy for thinking this line or that moment could be meant to signal romantic love. Queer romance that is just as layered and angsty and joyful and central to the plot as straight romance can exist on TV. Queer stories that aren't just about the characters' queerness but don't ignore it either CAN get made. We will put neurodivergent, queer people of color on TV.

And that's how this show increased my faith in humanity and revived my passion for my chosen career. Thank u for coming to my ted talk.

TLDR; Stede couldn't recognize what love looked or felt like until Mary spelled it out for him, and the way the writing links this inextricably to the trauma of growing up queer and neurodivergent in an unaccepting world makes me want to cry

a disclaimer for all my autistic stede posts: i am not autistic, i am a very Social Anxiety & Depression ADHDer. if you are autistic pls lmk your thoughts and/or if something i've said is insensitive or just Not Right

[doberbutts]

Okay well I watched the first episode of Blood Origin and honestly my thoughts are:

I just don't understand why people are so resistant to changes/new plotlines/some lore breaking of *recent* franchises but gobble it up when it's older. People telling an untold portion of a common tale is well established in storytelling culture. The first example that springs to mind is Lancelot, who straight up does not exist in original Authorian legend and was a FRENCH invention when the myth spread. Nowadays, most casual enjoyers of King Author stuff don't bat an eye to Lancelot's presence. Lancelot, who comes to mind, because Sapkowski writes said Lancelot to be in love with Ciri, and we're totally cool with *that* but not with changes to Sapkowski's work.

It's really telling that there's such a bigoted negative reaction to this because honestly? The black people so far have been BLACK black, darker than me, darker than even my black family sometimes. I'm enjoying seeing melanin in fantasy don't mind me. And the hair on the sisters is excellent, I'm liking the costuming, and I *really* like Eile.

The accents are kind of all over the place. Both as individual characters but also as the actors themselves. Sometimes Fjall goes from generic American accent to some form of fake Irish to ????european???? and back and it's distracting and weird. HOWEVER I do like the Irish and Welsh accents in high born kingdoms, because too often those accents are for commoners and poverty only, and this sort of turns the trope on its head.

I'm not sure how much I like the pan-Asian vibe I'm getting from some of the props and architecture. Some things look vaguely Chinese while others solidly Arabic while others a weird fusion of Indian and Korean and it's just odd to me. At first I thought it was because of clan structures but then I saw that it's just sort of everywhere. I have 0% Asian in me so I'm not really a good authority to speak on it but it's a weird vibe, a little Orientalist to my eyes. I'll freely admit that I like the aesthetic since I was raised pretty pan-African but I recognize that most continentally grouped cultures don't love that and it's mainly the black diaspora that's embraced it because we don't really have much of a choice.

I STILL feel that doing away with this short-season "but the episodes are an hour long!" nonsense would help pacing so much. Literally every time I thought the episode was going to come to an end, it's been roughly at the 20-25 min mark, which a standard TV episode would have been ANYWAY. So there's not really much point to having this be 4 hour-long episodes when it could be done better as 12-15 20 minute episodes... which would be the eqivilant of a short season while 24-32 is a more "standard" season (instead of 8 hour-long episodes). It gives you more time to flesh the characters and plotlines out while also allowing you the chance to trim some of the long-and-boring content people get tired of watching.

I really do feel bitter that the witcher tags continue to be people making racist and misogynistic memes instead of a fandom happily discussing a pretty strong first episode that introduced a billion fantasy characters of color. It really sucks that black people in fantasy is received so poorly when my inner 10 year old is happy to see people who look more like me having fun with the genre. I long for the day when I can exist in a fandom space and happily discuss my favorite black characters without having to justify their existence every 2 seconds.

Oof that CGI is pretty rough though. Which surprises me because the S2 CGI was not this rough so idk what happened here. That monster in the first episode is, uh, bad. And the background in the weird magicky place is also pretty, uh, bad.

I don't understand why the first witcher being an elf would piss Geralt off except maybe because that means Jaskier knows more about witchers than Geralt does? All of Geralt's iterations- the books, the games, the show, the comics- are pretty chill with elves as long as they're pretty chill with him. He only pursues certain elves and elf-blooded mixed race people when they pose a direct threat to him or his loved ones. Same as humans. So I don't really get that line at all unless, as said, it was more a "wow Geralt's gunna be pissed that I know this story and he doesn't"

[itookyoudown]

so sorry to bother you with this but im watching justified for the first time and you seem like The Premier Tim Gutterson blog/the person to ask. so when Art calls Tim a powder keg, he also refers to him as an Iraq veteran, but Tim only ever mentions serving in Afghanistan (as far as I can remember). Do you think Art just conflates the two conflicts given the time period and made a mistake? Or could Tim have served in both and just never mentioned Iraq? Given the differences in perception between the conflicts, especially concerning civilians, I don’t think it’s completely out of line for Tim to not want to discuss it with his coworkers but idk. Art’s line just seems like such a fundamental Tim Line, but it also doesn’t line up. (so sorry to dump that in your lap, it’s just been bugging me for like three weeks now lol)

yo you could never bother me with a question about Justified or my best boy Tim Gutterson. that is why this blog even exists. this ask is a delight, for real. feel free to hop into my inbox any time.

honestly, you're absolutely justified (hehe) in being bugged about this and you're not alone!! i've had this exact topic of discussion lots of times with many different justies and i do believe some of the greatest Tim Gutterson stan minds around have played ball with this confusing information. i think there are three main ways to approach this issue:

(1) you can believe that Art made a mistake and is conflating Afghanistan with Iraq. this mistake is deliberate and meant to convey that Art doesn't know Tim on a personal level, only a professional one. on a deeper level, this could represent civilians meshing these two invasions and two countries together.

(2) you can think the writers themselves conflated Afghanistan with Iraq and/or made a mistake in the writer's room forgetting Tim's history and nobody noticed/corrected it because let's be real poor even Jacob Pitts spent all of season 1 lost on who his character was supposed to be because uh nobody told him.

(3) the writers didn't make a mistake with Art's line about Iraq, but they did make a mistake in not fully confirming all of Tim's service history. maybe Tim has talked about it and he revealed something specific about his stint(s) in Iraq and that's why Art defaults to talking about it in the heat of the moment.

considering we only have Tim himself confirm Afghanistan (he mentions the Taliban, Mark references Bagram, etc) it's totally fair to disregard Art's comment on Iraq and say Tim only served in Afghanistan.

however! considering the writer's room consistently dropped the ball on Boyd's military service…i do also think it's fair to believe that Tim served in both Afghanistan and Iraq and the writers just once again did a bad job integrating a veteran's service history and revealing it in the plot. also, Colt is a "double winner" and served in both. since Colt + Tim serve as narrative foils there is a poetic slant in making Tim a double winner too.

at the end of this ramble i will say this is one of those intriguing sticking points that i don't feel strongly about because i believe there's room for differing head canons to co-exist depending on writer needs when people are writing fanfiction or roleplaying. i regard this continuity error in the same vein as what the hell is up with frances' date of death.

did Tim serve only in Afghanistan?

or did Tim serve in Afghanistan and Iraq?

justie's choice!

[metawatts]

Bitch about the RWBY vs Ace Ops fight. Pretty please. 🥺

Oh this fight. This fight. Bane of my existence. And, also, I'll give the JLxRWBY movie props for proving one thing: Harriet would have soloed team rwby with EASE if the writers weren't afraid to let a girlboss win. (my evidence: Flash kicking Ruby, Weiss, Batman, and Superman around like footballs while possessed, especially Ruby and Weiss before they get their Heroic Speech Power-up, which is a lame way to do it but whatever)

My problems with this fight scene are numerous and varied but the thing that continues to stick in my craw is just all the convenience of it. Let's break it down:

Convenient Thing 1: Marrow doesn't use his semblance off the bat, which would freeze team rwby in place, even though we've been shown that it works on crowds, on Huntsmen, literally he'd have to do is point. He literally has the 'solve this without brawling' button and just doesn't press it, instead just whining about duking it out when he could stop it.

Convenient Thing 2: The Ace Ops and RWBY have spent the night fighting Grimm in Mantle, but aside from a Damsel In Distress aura flicker with Blake, they all go down in 2-4 hits while RWBY takes easily the same or more amount and doesn't. THe rules of aura are bullshit.

Convenient Thing 3: They keep making comments that attempt to justify the fact that the ace ops lost because of Emotions using the lines 'we're the best in atlas' 'you were, then you trained us', 'alright vine, don't hold back' 'are you telling me that or yourself' 'Marrow, cut the crap' 'I'm trying to arrest her, not kill her'. Ren later talks about 'something something friendship power' but that makes zero sense because if team rwby won via the power of friendship, then why were these all solo fights and one double battle? (also the latter lines imply that elm and marrow could and would have bodied WBY and Harriet did in fact completely knock Ruby around like a trashcan for most of the fight, but nah, team rwby wins because their name's on the brand)

Convenient Thing 4: this one's less convenient and more Straight Up Racis, but the DVD commentary goes that 'the ace ops didn't win because they didn't have Clover's semblance to cheese it', which is, well, not only convenient for team rwby, but also just another time where crwby was openly Horrific, in this case going, 'without their white guy leader the poc team can't accomplish anything', but the fndm tries to pretend they weren't (see also crwby going with their mouths 'ironwood losing his arm is a sign of losing his humanity' and the fndm just tries to. Pretend that isn't horrifically ableist. But that's a rant we all know).

Convenient Thing 5: if getting to Mantle is so important, and Ruby's head is hard enough to bust through the steel barricade Harriet dropped down, why waste time on a spectacle fight and not just have Ruby grab her teammates and bust out the window with her steel forehead? (also, the fact that she had the mass to break down a door in petal form really just shows that the 'rwby has no mass' bullshit in vol8 was completely pulled out of the writer's asses because they wrote themselves into a corner).

Conveninent Thing 6, which is actually the second half of 5: why is it that team rwby's big spectacle fight is in episode 12 of 13 against characters who were introduced in this season, and not, say, the big finale fight against an actual villain? it's so convenient for the writers to just toss a random cannon fodder 'surprise baddie' at team rwby to beat up so that they don't have to write actual plot interactions with team rwby vs the villains that they have history with. (ie. everything about the Cat in vol9 and Neo just straight up not being in her own finale fight)

Also, and I'd like to make this clear: the ace ops v rwby fight is BORING. Not even the Spectacle part of the Spectacle fight is good. Ruby v Harriet is just a blur of red blob vs gold lines with the occasional chance to make Harriet look comedic with how she has to spend the last bit of it tied up, literally loses by running into a wall, and makes an ahegao face as she passes out. Elm and Vine vs Blake and Yang is just watching Blake and Yang get ragdolled around until they smirk and suddenly Vine (who had spent most of the fight standing there) got ragdolled and Elm got the Funny humiliating defeat of 'landing funny, toe twitches, hahaha'.

Weiss and Marrow is just Yikes. Like yes lets continually have close ups on Marrow's tail getting burnt and him having to make silly poses to avoid impalement meanwhile the white Megacorp Cop Princess gets to constantly look graceful (they couldn't have had Marrow fight anyone else? Literally any of the others? They literally had the opening bit of the fight start with him clashing weapons with Blake before switching up, was the idea of Blake having to fight someone without being stitched to Yang's side too unbaity for crwby's wallet or-)

Also, the ending: team rwby did mostly use tricks to get an advantage, what with Ruby using Harriet's bolas against her, Blake and Yang setting up a bomb trap for Vine, Weiss taking advantage of Marrow's line of sight with his semblance, and... that's about it, but like, I'm not a 'power levels solve every fight' person, that's not fun, but the endings mostly still ended up being 'hit them harder' and the tricks only worked because the ace ops were all given the collective intelligence level of a salami sandwich in this fight just so the fight could happen instead of, say, Marrow using his fucking semblance from the get-go. Also, the fact that apparently aura breaks knock out the ace ops but in the same season Ironwood, Clover, and Winter all get broken auras but can still keep chatting and fighting is Something. Too convenient, throw the whole fight out.

Overall scores:

Story Context: 1/10

Fight Choreography: 3/10

Authorial Bullshit Intervention (Plot Armour): 10/10

Emotional Investment: 1/10

Deserved Outcome: 2/10

I hate this fight so much it is in my top 10 worst rwby fights (except for specifically seeing Elm put that warhammer to good use and Harriet's absolutely sick kicks)

[crypticbeliever123]

Someone who's watched the 2003 TMNT series recently as an adult please tell me, am I really the only one who thinks it's overrated?

Like it has to be nostalgia right?

Utrom Shredder stopped feeling like a real threat in season 2 partly because he stopped having as menacing a presence as season 1 and mostly because he lets Hun and Stockman get away with far too much. Like it's hard to take him seriously when he makes more threats than he carries out.

Karai was barely the Shredder at all even though she got the title sequence for a season and a half even as season 5 was hyping up the tengu Shredder who because he looked, acted, and sounded basically just like the old Shredder but give him mystic powers had the same danger feeling as Ch'rell, to me at least.

Plus I know I've read something about how the Justice Force existing in TMNT is justified by "if the audience can accept talking ninja turtles why not superheroes" but that just brings up the question of WHY THE FUCK DO THE TURTLES EVEN HIDE?! Like Dr. Dome has a see through skull and nobody bats an eye, but the humanoid turtles who interact with homeless folks on the regular who assume they're just REALLY into cosplay, would freak everyone out????

Plus it seems like the first few seasons really liked to save the animation budget with flashback recaps of previous events or felt the need to over explain things that have happened even when every character in the room ALREADY KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED. Casey and April's romance is bland and boring but at times I'd almost rather watch an entire series of them instead of hearing the turtles remind us of what we and the other characters in the room already know.

Season 2 also had the annoying habit of having multi-part episodes which is fine if you do one or two 2-parters per season but season 2 had if I recall the 5-part Fugitoid arc and then two separate 2-part arcs for the Triceraton invasion. I had this same issue with the og Justice League series where all but one episode was a multi-parter and just makes the story feel dragged out.

Then there's Stockman who keeps being revived and kept as a brain in a jar for evil science even though HE'S LITERALLY INCOMPETENT AND UNTRUSTWORTHY!!! Why tf do Ch'rell and Bishop keep him around, especially after he backstabbed Ch'rell in the climax of season 1 and caused an entire mutation outbreak in season 4? Just let the megalomaniacal moron rest in fucking peace already!

Also can we just talk about how Hun was the original simp? Like that man was so fucking devoted to Utrom Shredder that even in a dystopian realm where Ch'rell had fused him to Stockman and was literally going to execute him this purple dragon bitch still begged for his master to take him back! Like we get it, Hun, you want to ride the Shredder's alien dick. Good God that man was loyal not to a fault but beyond fault. Never seen a bigger simp in animation before or since I swear.

The turtles don't feel like teenagers except Mikey and it's mostly because of their voices. They all sound like adults.

The garbage man did not need to exist. Most disgusting fatphobic and ableist caricature of villainy I've ever laid eyes on and his episodes are just gross.

Master Splinter calling Yoshi his father in the season 3 finale felt like it came out of nowhere. And I don't recall him calling Yoshi that afterward either.

Splinter knowing Shredder was an Utrom was a stupid retcon and just causes problems like my guy you couldn't have bothered to tell your sons that cutting off the Shredder's head would be pointless? And the Guardians were already canonically in the know in season 1 and didn't think anything of it when Shredder's head came off like "well done Leonardo you definitely killed the Shredder and we have no reason to inspect the body or be concerned whatsoever". The foreshadowing for the Utroms is great in some aspects but it makes retcons and general writing like this feel so stupid.

And lastly and this might just be me but the humor just doesn't hit home for me. It's funny in a way but not always. And the dialogue feels forced or stilted at times. I just don't get the hype and I want to.

This isn't to hate on any fans. I'm just genuinely curious what y'all see in this show that I just don't. Like what you like but please tell me why so I can maybe see the merits of it myself.

Like the main good point I can see is Leo's trauma arc but that's so late in the series it's just...

[emperorcartagia]

thoughts about my oc/canon stuff under the cut.

so. aurellio and refa. aurellio was essentially born as a joke, saying "what if i made a centauri oc lmfao" and also, "what if, as a parallel to londo and adira, refa had his own dancer in a pre-canon timeline back home on centauri prime and they were both boys!" since yknow. refa is such an effective foil to londo i figured it would be a fun, kinda cute idea.

i also think it does narratively fit in well with b5. take londo, who isnt the best example but we see him commit all these horrible acts but we know about his love for adira, before we even see him start to reform or even start to really commit atrocities we know he has a heart. we find this out in the third episode. spectacularly done.

a better example of this would actually be bester, one of my other absolute favorite side villains. bester was never redeemed. bester, however, is given opportunities for the audience to see his heart. irt his family, his expectant lover, and his somewhat emotional reactions to the telepaths dying in season 5, though caused by him. we still hate him, he never gets redeemed, his love for the people in his life does still exist and doesnt excuse or justify his actions. it gives him a lot of depth that i also really enjoyed!

that is kind of what i'm trying to do with refa. aurellio is a late 20 something year old centauri who is majorly unaware of what refa is doing or does or will do in relation to his schemes to rise to power. i also think that in this pre-canon timeline (around 2253-2257) is when refa is doing little things to slowly climb to where we see him in the show. he always had a lot of power being the lord of his house so he didnt need to do much, but i think the ten or so years leading up to his appearance in the show was a slow, hands-off rise to power. so aurellio, who has no real relation to House Refa aside from being a patron, isnt involved or knowledgeable about house refa's politics.

i would get into the "refa is a good family man" headcanon i have but tldr: celes was his last wife because he chose her. he chose her because he genuinely loved her and he chose to have senna. his other wives and his other children operate moreso like londos wives and him did where there was no love and only obligation. so senna and celes get favored. senna cared enough about her father to throw rocks at londos head years later about it, so i think that they did have a good relationship. refa spoiled her, would do anything for her, which was strange for a noble centauri man to be so obsessed with his youngest daughter. maybe he knew she was always destined for greatness. weh. and well, when this baby is like "dad, i wanna be a ballerina" like most 3 year old girls want to be, he says "of course my love, let me find you the best teacher possible": enter aurellio. who he chooses. who senna also chooses.

so yknow. refa gets a boy toy as a treat. aurellio is almost a part of his family as a treat. they kinda sorta love each other, as a treat, and it also works with aurellio's unconventional relationships he has with his lesbian wife bestie and her twin, the actual love of his life. so like yay centauri polyamory.

i just feel like sometimes i have to justify doing what i'm doing with my oc/canon stuff bc 1. it's refa🤢 and 2. ive been in fandoms before that were hostile to me about liking villains And trying to expand on them and make them more than what the show gives us. im VERY satisfied with refa's character in the show. these headcanons arent filling a void that was missing because i dont think they needed to be expanded on in canon, i just like refa/the centauri/my centauri oc and expanding on centauri lore is fun. so 🤷‍♂️

if you wanna read my fic about aurellio and refa, here it is

i will also say i really do appreciate the kind words ive gotten about this because lol i was nervous about it due to previous experiences where stuff about not only my taste for the villains but also my ocs has gotten me harassed, vagued, made fun of to my face, etc. so thank you for being so kind 💫 i'm so happy aurellio is loved because i love him a lot as well.

[kajaono]

Why Netflix brought Sense8 back for a special and refuse to do so as well for others

Disclaimer: I love Fan campaigns, and I take part in many of them, this is only an analysis of the situation

When taking part in fan campaigns to save a show from cancellation I often here: „we brought Sense8 back, we can do so as well“

I think what people do not understand is how well Organized the Sense8 fandom was back then. Sense8 was one of Netflix first major shows, and one of Netflix first major shows with a lot of LGBTQ representation. Streaming was new and Netflix was growing like crazy, they were a single player on the market. Netflix did everything to make their show’s successful

The irony of the whole story is: Netflix themselves helped to build the Sense8 fandom. The promo campaign before season 1 dropped was insane. Posters everywhere, character trailers for every single one of the cluster, they even had trailers for sense8 in my German cinemas here. And! They even released season 1 on DVD. A nice white box set together with other shows (I need that box set so bad). They had social media accounts for the show. They send the casts on every major pride parade. Once season 1 was released Netflix continued to hype the show up. They didn’t just went quiet about it, like they do today.

Then Netflix announced a Christmas/New Year’s Eve special: To further hype the show up and to shorten the waiting time for season 2. it was again a major event.

When Season 2 finally dropped and was shortly cancelled after, the fandom was amazingly organized and HUGE! The fans already knew each other from conventions and prides. There were tumblr accounts only dedicated to the show, or single characters of the show

When Netflix cancelled the show they said: „the viewing numbers do not justify such high production costs“. But in the end the simple truth was that Netflix wanted to produce cheaper shows that were easily marketable. The show still had a lot of viewers, nevertheless

This is why it was so easy for the fans to gain 300.000 signs in five days on the Save Sense8-petition. In the end it was over half a million… in around two weeks! In just a few days they had bought the domain for savesense8.com and released a petition calendar: one month, everyday, one campaign.

Fans phoned Netflix. Send them Flipflops, letters, produced a whole music video in under a week and got an actor of the show involved, digged out every single mailing address they could find and wrote there. Netflix’s social media accounts was hardly usable anymore because the comment section was full of #savesense8 and I mean in an amount you can not imagine.

We were so loud that even the HEAD of Netflix wrote us a letter. And they even gave us a special mail address we should write to why we love Sense8.

So in under one month we got the show back. Because I think not even Netflix was prepared for such an outrage. It was new and unique.

And 2) the financial situation back then was completely different. The situation on the market was different. Prime just started producing their own shows, every other streaming service didn’t existed yet.

This is also why Shadowhunters got two specials right away because they were also amazingly organized, maybe even better then sense8. Look what they pulled off to get a season 3. if Netflix didn’t gave them their specials right away they would have gotten their special!

But most shows being cancelled today are small shows with really passionate fan bases but sadly not many viewers. I am all here for: „Netflix stop cancelling smaller shows, a successful company should have big and small shows“ but Netflix isn’t. And hence it is so complicated for small shows to get conclusion. Because 10M tweets are impressive but if you have a few thousand fans who tweet everyday that’s an achievable goal.

Look what sense8 had to pull off and we got a „we hear your voice, but sadly we can not bring back the show“ letter, half way through our campaign…

I really hate the whole situation honestly, but I have the feeling today major shows do not get canceled anymore, only the smaller shows that can not make enough noise to really bother Netflix…. I really hope that will change one day and Netflix will change their strategy

Until then we can not do anymore then support every small queer show and hope for the best

[lightpinkstuff]

Ohhh my god I'm so mad

Spoilers for the ending of durarara + rant

That was so cliche and disappointing. I had felt like there were too many new characters introduced in the second season, and the ending proves that I wasn't wrong. So many things feel unearned and/or unresolved. Some characters didn't change at all, some changed but not as much as they could have, and some changed but the progress they made feels weird.

Varona is probably the best case scenario, she's actually grown from the machine like personality she had in the beginning. I just wish she could have gone further than just having a crush on Shizuo.

Anri is fine ig, she had a lot of scenes that justify her development, but it's so dumb how it all boils down to "yes I like Mikado and that's how I will show my growth as a character".

Mikado and Masaomi are a very weird case. To me it feels like they both changed, but at the same time they didn't change at all? Especially Mikado, who at the beginning of the series seemed meek and clueless, and then we learnt he had created the Dollars and he had moved to Ikebukuro because he was bored of having an ordinary life. So in a way, all the wild shit he does later on is in line with his personality from the very beginning?

I'm so mad about Shinra and Celty, it was infuriating to watch how Shinra couldn't let her go even though he apparently knew exactly what she was thinking, AND that it's played like it's a good thing. Her feelings were completely disregarded. I wish he could have had an arc where he discovers that life can be meaningful without Celty because it was shown that he'd been obsessed with her for a looong time. Anyway, absolutely nothing changed. They're the same they were by the end of season 1.

And the matter with Celty bleeds into other characters as well. For some reason she wasn't allowed to keep her head? The only way she could be with Shinra was by not having her head?? And they gave her head to Shinra's dad's company in order to experiment on it??? And Sheiji is still as obsessed with it as ever, and Mika is still his replacement for it. "I view you as family" BS you haven't changed at all since the first episode of the first season.

And his sister Namie doesn't change at all either, she's still obsessed with him and that doesn't get resolved in the slightest.

Shizuo felt like he should have had a character arc, but it... didn't happen? Was it too subtle for me to notice? Either way, disappointing to see. In season 2 we were given 3 new female characters who needed to learn that they're not monsters (even though Anri was already having the exact same arc since season 1), meanwhile Shizuo was left as an afterthought, despite the fact that he's been called a monster this whole time. I guess it shows how strong willed and confident in himself he is, but it doesn't feel completed?

And speaking of monsters; Izaya. Well... he also didn't change at all. We saw the flashbacks and that one scene with Shinra talking about him to the orange haired girl with the glasses about how he's scared of being vunerable or whatever it was, but he himself did not change at all. I guess he had decided to stop running from Shizuo and seemed to have accepted his death? But the last scene he's in, he's running away again?? And he's still calling Shizuo a monster? What was the point?

Haruna could have been given a small arc about overcoming her feelings for that piece of shit teacher, but nah... It's not like it would have been cool to see her start to hate him for grooming her (because that's what it was) and for taking revenge on him. The last scene with the two of them could have been exactly the same ffs.

And there's still so many more characters that were introduced but were made to feel like plot devices, Aoba, Rocchi and Kasane, being the most important that come to mind. Masaomi's gf, whose name I can't remember, also fits into this category. She existed in the first season so that Masaomi would feel bad and to highlight how much of a POS Izaya is, and since then she's literally done nothing.

Honestly. It feels like there were a lot of interesting characters and relationship dynamics throughout the whole series, and suddenly at the end the show is saying "I'm too tired to properly resolve all of these and also sometimes being totally obsessed with someone is okay actually".

Dishonourable mention: Izaya's sisters did nothing for the plot, did not give us a new perspective into his character, and were bad fanservice (even though there was already plenty of fanservice without them), not only because of the boobs, but for the incest bait too.