#but they could be finalizing a proper season 14 finale ep

[br1ghtestlight]

bob's burgers writers/voice actors/animators trying to finish season 14 episodes now that the writers/actors strike is over

[rainbow-crane]

DCAS Episode 14 Spoilers Below

I've never been more infuriated with this show. Gabby? GABBY???? That's who you're gonna eliminate here?

So we can wrap up Ally's entire character arc in like a single confessional and have her leave Jake to be mauled by a bear (which, sidenote, why is it that every time they need us to root for their precious uwu gay boy man protag they have a woman w/ a ponytail leave them to die in like a comedically violent situation. That's 2 nickels ONC) and set her up to be a swing vote. Yeah ok sure whatever.

But we're gonna eliminate Gabby in suck an anticlimactic fucking way? We couldn't even go to the campfire first? We couldn't give it a proper buildup? Like up until the moment of you think it'll be Grett bc of Gabby's whole struggle with Evil Gabby and idk, the whole thing feels like a Gotcha elimination. Gabby didn't leave because it made sense, she was eliminated because they wanted some shock factor. Bullshit. Riya and Aiden (both already finalists) made it to the final 7 but Gabby places 8th twice in a row??? After all that setup??????

Also just. Did we really have to do a love arrow thing again. I don't mind Aleriya in concept but in practice it's just kind of meh. There are more interesting things we could be doing. Alec and Connor don't feel like they had enough of a bond for Connor to be as upset as Alec as he is. Also also, that speed-shark of plot convenience to save Alec's ass was stupid. I don't want to suffer through another episode of love triangle melodrama

And this is more me personally than it is a fault of the show but fuck it, I'm already complaining. A tiktok challenge? Really? I did not need to watch these characters twerking off the side of a boat to shitty tiktok sounds

Good thing about this episode uhhhhhhh. The scene with Jake and Connor at the end was fine. Jake being the best part of this ep tells me he's winning this season and their plan for his full redemption is actually to just tank everyone else around him so no one else looks like a viable winner

Anyways by process of elimination, now that Gabby is gone I'm rooting for Grett to win, if only bc everyone else left either isn't viable or is named Jake. Mayyyyyyybe they could get away with a Connor win but like, dude's a millionare, tf is he gonna do with 3 more million

[dorizardthewizard]

Galactik Football season 3 rewatch, eps 13-15

Episode 13:

Funny how the Pirates, who have the most motivation to find the contact, are the ones supporting an immediate evacuation whereas Brim Simbra is going for the “no need to panic people” route

Brim Simbra: He's right. Especially since many people will leave Paradisia right after the final anyway. The evacuation has to take place calmly.

Well fuck all the retail workers and support staff on Paradisia then. You guys are at more risk because we'll only announce a proper evacuation once all the visitors are gone <3

Again they missed their chance to have D'jok and Sinedd taunt each other at the start of the match, their roasts used to be hilarious

The way Mei is just watching them with her hands crossed sfdjhds girl, be ready!

Man I complain about Sinedd but D'jok's behaviour is annoying me more

Lol why did they just let the cat walk in, didn't they know about the incident at the start of the season?

Damn they really joker-ified Harris

Brim Simbra this wouldn't be a problem if you'd just ordered an evacuation

Luur came to watch the match in his football kit I guess

Damn, Galactik Football tournament finals can never go on without a disaster huh?

Why does it look like everyone has left the stadium already (that is a FUCK ton of people by the way, SEVERE danger of fatal crowd crushes. Which wouldn't be happening if you pre-emptively evacuated everyone, BRIM SIMBRA) but D'jok, Mei and Sinedd are still taking their time getting off the pitch?

I find it a bit hard to believe that D'jok's so far gone he'll literally just stand there as the stadium falls apart around him. In season 2 it was because he was in shock at least, and anyway this is all kind of a re-hash of the end of season 2 but worse

This is so funny they're just standing there 😭 Unbothered

I do love Sinedd saving D'jok and that his excuse is that he can't fight him if he's dead dsfjkdf it's hilarious

Seeing the flux effect on the 2D animation is so uncanny!

They seemed to be able to switch to using the flux for different purposes pretty quickly, like in football it mostly just gives them more power/speed/agility but they immediately have no problem channeling the Breath outwards and shooting it at stuff

It's a huge moment though, seeing them use the flux outside of football. If there were more seasons it could have been cool to see this as a can of worms opening and a debate around the potential loosening of the rules, with a balance between the benefits flux can bring vs the dangers

Sinedd you dumbass they would have left already, that's how evacuations work. Although I see him being too scared of losing them again to think rationally

TRAIN BRAWL! TRAIN BRAWL! Spider-man 2 eat your heart out

RIP Harvey, a real legend. And flux war veteran!

Of course she's a serpent lady

ooo look you can see the space jump gates! Cool little bit of background lore on how travel works in this universe

Where tf is Sinedd

Ahh Phoenix is going down with the ship, pretty cool moment

DAN DAN DAAAAAN

Episode 14:

Aww Thran and Ahito holding hands 😭😭

MARK JUST... DANGLING MICRO-ICE BY THE LEG?? It's kind of cute he's comforting him in his own way, although Micro-Ice's very valid reaction to all this is still played for laughs lmao

Ok so how sentient ARE the robots in this show? Sidney is obviously very sad about Harvey being gone, and we've seen the Technodroids have normal conversations before. But everyone's reaction whenever Sidney gets sad is just 😬😬😬 awkward LOL. Are robots like second class citizens in this universe? No one believes their emotions are as real as humans? But are they?? So many questions

Artegor coming over to help Aarch with unpacking sdhsdfjj and blaming himself for encouraging them to go to Paradisia 😭 Their hug 😭😭 Going feral over them

Wuh... in the middle of a good natured conversation he just,, throws the trophy? Why? It's so random 😂😂

So did Aarch and Artegor actually resolve their dispute, as dumb as it was? Oh it was just thrown in to have drama for a couple of episodes and now suddenly they're good? Ok sure

Aw Norata seems so much happier now, look at him excitedly showing off rare flowers

So these kids just.... use the flux? And NO ONE has noticed this yet? It's just... they were notified IMMEDIATELY that Rocket had used the flux to save Tia, how is this continuous use going undetected? I guess we already had that question considering Tia already knew how to use the flux in season 1, but with her you could at least make soooome sort of assumption of her being sheltered somehow as a daughter of diplomats. Maybe the flux society only noticed Rocket's flux use so quickly because they always make sure to track GF players really closely, but still if these kids are just chilling using it all the time, on GENESIS, it looks like the flux society are worryingly shit at their job lol

But that's the thing, season 3 introduces SO many crazy new concepts – new tournament, mixed flux teams, players moving to other teams, using flux outside of football, characters moving to different roles to shake up the status quo... so much interesting stuff but the execution just flubs it, especially with the character development.

Damn Tia's got gymnastics skills!

Oh so the last time we saw Sinedd, he was running back into a collapsing stadium to find his parents and we had no idea if he'd made it or not, and now the next time we see him he's just chilling walking with his team? I don't know much about direction in shows like this but I feel like we should have had a scene where he reunites with Mei at least before this??

Actually come to think of it, D'jok ends up on the Snow Kids' ship during the evacuation and we never get to see their reaction to him! Of course at first they all just want to survive and are obviously worried about him, but what about after? Was it awkward? Did they talk? TELL ME

Sinedd is a dick cutting Mei off like that but kind of sweet to see him refer to the Shadows as family

Wait have D'jok and Sonny interacted since Sonny got healed? I feel like we're sorely missing some father and son interactions here, and D'jok has been really needing it! And where's Maya in all this??

Mei is right to question the “parents” with how sketchy they're acting, but it's tough. Sinedd's finally got that part of himself back and there's no way he'll consider the idea of losing it again.

New flux society guy agreeing to move the date of the GFC, ooooor you could try and catch this guy? Useless mfers

Episode 15:

Show really doesn't give us any detail on how someone actually masters another flux. Like how does it work?

Oh Mei's getting sick now from the Smog, but how did Sinedd get over it? He did have symptoms of Smog poisoning in season 2 but I don't remember him ever getting cured like Artegor did? Aarch had to quit the Shadows because it had gone too far, is it actually something you can just overcome? Is it different for everyone? Is it down to overusing it? So many questions!

I like that Mei was just like. NOPE this is hurting me, even if I liked you I ain't staying! As she should.

Ooo Yuki's mastering the Elektras' flux!

Wait so everyone thinks team Paradisia are actually from the planet? Which iirc only became habitable not that long ago? I'm confused on the origins of these girls, how are they cyborgs? Do they have any lives and family outside of the team Lord Phoenix assembled? I mean they're not androids? I feel like since they're closely connected to a main character, they should have gotten some more backstory.

Oh so D'jok left team Paradisia already? Why exactly? He seemed all about winning with them. We don't even get a scene of him leaving them and their reaction??

What?? D'jok's just decided to do coaching all of a sudden? Because of one little encounter with kids playing football?? He was obsessed with winning tournaments like 5 minutes ago how did this change come about??? Like. I can SEE the vision and D'jok becoming a mentor figure is a fun idea but... we need to see the steps of getting there!

That Lightnings girl is so cute though

Mei says she only left temporarily but um... sis that was not the impression we got lol you disappeared abruptly and sent everyone heartfelt farewell messages

English dub goofs up again: D'jok says he'll never go back to the Snow Kids after what THEY did, but then goes on about how HE messed up and they'll never take him back. And again, what made him realise he was behaving poorly? You can't just set up a character's development, then suddenly show them once they've reached a conclusion. Was is the near-death experience? The fact Mei still wanted to help him despite how he'd acted? His loneliness finally catching up to him? I WANT ANSWERS

Mei: Don't you want to play for the cup? D'jok: We've done it, Mei. We've won twice! What's the point?

OK this is super interesting, I'm gonna link @millimononym 's post here about D'jok's potential arc (hope that's ok!) because I think it fits really well with this. For a guy obsessed with destiny, hitting his peak early could really mess with him. You could have such an interesting arc about this and accepting that life goes on and that our lives don't have to be defined by reaching some greater goal or purpose. It's about doing it with your friends and, if the show delved a little bit more in the whole post-flux war climate, it's also about being a symbol of hope for a planet that basically suffered the apocalypse. People joke about how the Snow Kids won three times in a row straight away, instead of doing the anime lose -> train to get better -> win scenario, but you could actually address this and use it to the story's advantage!

Aww Lun-Zia can't do it :( I can't remember what happens but it would be cool if she actually couldn't master the Breath, sometimes no matter how hard you try things just don't go the way you want

Wait so um... is no one questioning how the Paradisia girls still have their flux even though the planet is dead? And what are the girls even doing right now? They have no home and no Lord Phoenix, who took care of everything for them. And where did Nina-8 come from??

The Elektra's support of Yuki is so cute. Also kind of interesting lore that their planet is far from the other planets, and hence its residents find it very hard to connect to the flux, so much so it was assumed they didn't have one. A cool explanation for why the team hasn't shown up yet!

Oh she's been selected by the Wambas!! Of course they would want her on their team after seeing her play at Paradisia. Well that wrapped up nicely! Still, this confirms she was just some rando on the beach. And what was she up to before the tournament anyway? I wish we got to know more about her

Mark immediately has a crush on Nina-8 but somehow not Nikki-4 who looks just like her? XD

I don't mind Yuki staying with the Elektras actually, its the Elektra's first GFC and I can see her wanting to go further with them. And sometimes that's just life! Going on new adventures

[brilliantfantasticgeronimo]

Rogue thoughts and reactions--->

not taking many notes this time cause i wanted to Savour this one tbh and what a blast so far

rogue and doctor so far is like. rtd striking gold potentially here (i kno he didnt write this one i mean more like. in the long run. i could see fans going crazy over this Type of ship and spending sweet $$$$ on it lol).

ruby looking at this "scene" like it's a tv show………. live…….. honey u best believe in ghost stories hyper post-modern genre tv show seasons cause u are in one

cushy… wordsmiths-ing count…

"ruby: you know how i forget about a man?" with a woman? (shot)

the parallel of these guys "dishonoring" these ppl while the doc and ruby do kind of the same all the time sdkflj

mmm second time i see a triangle logo (it was there last ep on the door to the MEP area that lindsey and rickey ran into. camera held on suspiciously long on it…) (triangles…. three…. susan TRIAD???)

doctor this says you're single and available. oh another word. "very" available.

COME ON ACE WE HAVE WORK TO DO

"wow" boner dialogue

mention of gallifrey.... "i might take you one day" oh man. oh man………..

"random barren dimension" yes this is not an equivalent to a silent confinement analogue at all don't think about it too hard guys

"i lost everyone"

they're leaning on……………. oh yaz just broke a coffee mug somewhere

maybe the real enemy was fandom all along

THOSE TV SIGNALS BEAM OUT ACROSS THE STARS. TV SIGNALS. TV SIGNALS. TV ISNGALS TV

SIGNASLKDJASLKDJASKLJ1!!SKLFDJDSLKJFSDLK JF SHUT UPTJSDLFKSDJ (i die)

ok im enjoying The Concept a lot, as expected…….. but gotta say rogue does feel a bit two dimensional so far :/ (maybe even a bit cliche?) i feel jack in his first ep had more depth at first for example (bounty hunter but also lost his memory. doing amoral things but being swayed by the doctor at the end. etc). but there's time THERE'S TIME. DONT LE TME DOWN EPISODE PLEA SE. there's always a twist-

you people and your bridgetons. in my time this would all be a big ass downtown abbey reference

sad thing is this is def one episode i wont be able to watch with my homophobic parents at all oof lmao

this dialogue.... kinda thoschei acadamy years coded ngl

"tell me what your heart wants or i shall turn my back on your forever" defining 15 character dialogue……….

(commitment phobe doctor moment. my girl hastn changed at ALL) (btw intrigued by rogue's "i lost them" bc it could mean a lot right. it's the most delibarely ambiguous of pronouns dklfjsd like it could be a nonbinary character but could also be a couple characters? or maybe im reading it wrong sdlkjf)

play our games on a magnificent scale…………… games motif……….

"i thought i was interesting- but you??" exactly!!! doctor who>>>>>>>> bridgerton/all other tv shows. case made.

god i feel so stupid. i dint catch that twist at all TOT

wedding season finale. chuldur's know where it's at.

oh finally there's the scene from the trailers!!!!!!!!!

"how long do they live for?" oh he's gonna says A Thing "thats a long time to suffer" I WASN'T WRONG /GOES FERAL ( i knew the family of blood coding was leading somewhere…)

the doctor beatiing these cosplayers with his "i object" tv tropyness……….. the meta of it……… theory gang we're gonna make it yet i swear

ok yes this is sad poor ruby but like. but literally last month 14 killed/sacrificed donna w/o sm hesitation so sdklfjdsklfjsdklfj (yes im still like. HEY THAT WAS A SIGNIFICANT THING THAT HAPPENED. WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT IT.)

oh is rogue a chuldur as well? he feels too invested in the trolley problem of it all sdlkfj

im gonna say it.... i thought that resolution was kinda........ as the kids say..... weak sauce sfkdj

like oh nooo he got teleported oh noooo. like he's gonna be fine slkdfjsd didn't really hit that hard :/ should have had a proper death sacrifice thing.

"im sorry....." "....AAAANYWAY , it is what it is!!!! " my man is so broken holy shit. holy shit.

it's ok to be sad. !!!!! TOT

CONCLUSIONS!!

sdlkjf ya'll i really wanted this to harder but idk i didnt feel the depth or sensibility this called for was there tbh. but it was a blast!!! but … it missed a bit of that x factor thing. like some kind of universality to the romance w/ the rogue. i feel he was too sketched-in.... i was also a bit disappointed that ruby's friend was not her friend bc it meant her whole thing this ep of connecting to that woman was for nothing (and up until that point it was feeling very Important specially after the marti thing) (and speaking of, the chuldur's were kinda very sketched-in / surface-level as villains as well) … yeah. idk. kinda disappointing ngl (diodati > this i think). pretty fucking gay tho so that was nice.

[dontsh0vethesun]

OI! I want to know what your favourite episode(s) of criminal minds are and why. Please and thank you.

this ended up being longer than i meant but could have been so so so much longer because i am insufferable. it also lowkey began as just eps where emily looks smashin but then i thought of more things

right, so all time fave ep is probs s15 ep4 because it's FUNNY, it's nice, it's lovely and i love it. also:

wine drunk emily, emily and her doughnuts and her breath mints and the temily content etc also spencer is almost bearable in this ep

another is s3 episode 14 - the one where it's about that old case of rossi's (even though i don't like him) - i just seem to like when there's proper content on the characters outside of just them at work. ALSO, it is probably one of my favourite emily lewks that exists - the OUTFIT, the HAIR, absolutely top notch:

i also really like 'minimal loss' which is s4 ep 3 because it's just good and she gets beaten up so it's sad but like she has a lot of screen time

and then OBVIOUSLY every single episode including any content of the doyle arc because drama and emilycentric

honourable mention is season 3 ep 7 because she wears such a lesbian outfit like-

the episode 'demonology' - sad emily and her religious trauma, also the quote from 'the dead' by james joyce "i think he died for me" - two worlds collide bro bc i love that story and also her obvi AND:

another episode (idk which it is) that i like for the case and also for the line that the woman says to emily about her monster being dead "your monster's dead, i have to live with mine" because like emily is my baby and i love her and she's a trauma queen and it wasn't acknowledged.

i actually also really like the season 7 finale but especially the last line that emily speaks as the outro quote. it's when she leaves to go to london which obvs is sad but yknow 'i always heard every ending is also a new beginning, we just don't know it at the time, i like to believe that's true."

[kim-ruzek]

Do you think there's going to be a Burzek wedding before the show ends? (Side note: I haven't watched any CPD eps this season. I will eventually, but have been so bummed about JLS/Jay leaving, that it's made me need a distraction from the show.) I still enjoy Burzek, but I just want them to be drama free. I want them to be happy and married, and a family with Mak, and any possible other kids they have.

I do, actually. I'm probably being waaaay too optimistic and yet again putting too much faith in the writers, but I do. I mean if it happens it'll be in like season 14 or 15, probably, at the minimum. With how things are now, if I was the writer, I could happily make it be a season 12 event, but alas, I'm not the writer (although if I was the writer they would've been drama free for years and it would be their wedding on the 200th lol).

The reasons why is that the writing has gotten so much better, and Burzek is finally been written in a healthy way. It's actually made me like the current "drama" (them still not being together officially and Kim still pushing aside her trauma) because it finally is making sense. And I do believe that we're on the way to that being an actual possibility.

Whether or not they'll ever be truly drama free, I don't know, but I'm hoping it'll be drama they tackle together, instead of apart. But I've been burnt before by this show, so I'm trying not to expect too much from them. They might get burzek together but may never get them married, which I'll hate, but with this season being the first season in years where they make sense, I find it hard to have a proper read on the writers and the direction.

I'm sorry the JLS/Jay news bummed you out though! I wasn't really, since burzek is what drives me and jay had been annoying me, but with how the writing is going I am getting more sad because it's made me realise I've missed out on potentially liking the writing for his character again with him leaving. And I get needing a distraction, last year I took a break myself because of how it was making me feel!

Thank you for sending me this ask, it is much appreciated!! ����

[kepnerandavery]

Does anyone else want to challenge Krista Vernoff to a duel at dawn for the crimes she committed against humanity? I take everything she did to japril very personally, and I will take my hatred to my grave!

I have a strong feeling that she decided to delete the japriet scene in 13x01 that we only got to see in promo pics.

She tried to villainize April's character and distance her from all of the other characters in season 13.

She deliberately created a rift between japril (using the Minnick situation and the storyline about Catherine taking April under her wing).

She made japril's reunion in Montana seem like it meant nothing.

She made April tell Jackson that she wanted to move out of his house in season 14 and tried to make it seem like April was angry at him until Sarah requested for her demeanor in that scene to be changed.

She paired Jesse, Sarah's scene partner of 6 years, with Kelly, who's one of Sarah's closest friends from the cast.

She made Maggie save April in 14x23, and expected the fans to start liking her and ship jaggie (as if lol).

She had the audacity to title 14x24 (Sarah's final episode on Grey's at the time), as "All Of Me", which is the title of a song that was played in an iconic japril scene.

She made April date Matthew, who is a public enemy of the japril fandom. The least she could've done was bring in a new/decent guy for April. But she was like, "oh no, let's have her be with the person she left at the altar, and try to negate the years that April spent with Jackson."

She made April get married to Matthew in front of Jackson (which later ended up being a plot device for Jackson to realize his feelings for April, but I bet a thousand bucks that it wasn't intended to have a positive impact on japril in the future).

She made April give up her career as a trauma surgeon.

And the worst one of them all is the way Sasse have been directed in japril scenes after she became in charge of running the show.

The directors have tried to mess with most of the fundamental attributes of japril to make them seem platonic. You can clearly see that when you watch their scenes starting season 13. Jesse looks like he's holding himself back, and Sarah is trying to work with the direction to the best of her abilities. The only time they seemed like japril was in 13x16 (Kevin McKkid directed the ep so he probably didn't torture them with notes cause he's really nice). And Sarah and Jesse saved the rest of their scenes in season 16 (both before and after 13x16) with their subtle body language.

Then they tried to make japril seem platonic in 17x14, the episode that was supposed to give us closure. We all know that Krista wanted to keep April married to Matthew, and Sasse fought to change the script to leave a possibility for a japril endgame, plus they even improvised the japril handhold and hug.

And don't even get me started on the way April was treated by the other characters in 18x20. Only Amelia, Ben, and Bailey were polite to her (I'm not counting the Averys since they're practically April's family). Owen didn't even acknowledge her properly (I know that he was going through stuff, but in 12x24 April literally got stranded in Mere's house in the middle of a storm, and had to have a c-section without anesthesia because she went to look for his wedding ring, but she doesn't even get a proper hello?) The way Mere reacted to April's greeting is how Krista wants to treat Sarah (I said what I said). Even Ellen Pompeo has more class than Krista. Plus they cut one of April’s scenes with Catherine.

And then we find out that one version of their scene in 18x20 was cut. I bet you anything that the one that aired was also edited down to make it as short as it could be. Jesse didn't fly to LA from NY, and Sarah didn't make an entire film production halt their work in Canada, to shoot scenes of japril eulogizing Catherine (who's very much still alive), and having random convos with people about the hospital. The only substantial scene for japril, other than the one in the elevator, was April's scene with Amelia. Sasse must have expected so much more from that episode, just like we did. And that makes me so sad.

All of this for what? To take something away from two actors who loved working together, and break the hearts of millions of fans who found happiness in shipping this amazing couple? How sad do you have to be to actively try to ruin other people's happiness?

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. Now that I've said this, I feel a bit better 🥲

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep 14: So If You Put a Fraction Into a Duel Disk, the Card Explodes

We left on quite the cliffhanger last episode, so I’ll fill you in:

I did not get the haircut.

Like I seriously considered getting a Zigfried for a cool 3 or 4 minutes there, but then I decided to wait a couple of days and I basically forgot.

But, back to the arc finale, Seto has decided to walk, not run, to the Kaiba lab in order to fix the virus rapidly eating his entire company.

I just want to point out that Zigfried went through a LOT of work to get Seto Kiaba to go “uggggh” turn around, and pretend to calmly walk away. I’m used to Seto losing his nut kind of a lot and blowing things up but this season he’s like “be chill be chill be chill” so that the entire world doesn’t think he’s a spaz on TV.

And little aside about Seto’s design choices here, I fell down a hole of interior design videos, and can I just say: apparently these wood frame things on the wall are back in style? Good on you, 2002(3?) Seto Kaiba. Don’t think that current designers are painting them purple but...we’re halfway there to Yugioh fashion.

Meanwhile, Pharaoh decides to remind everyone that these stakes are hella low. The worst that happens is that Zigfried deletes the plane that Yugi needs to fly home...which would be an impressive virus.

Like it’s hard to tell if Yami even has a solid concept of “capitalism” and whether or not he cares about or understands the makeup of Seto’s company (which up till now has operated like a small country and not a business...which is a little more Pharaoh’s understanding. Either way...hard to tell if Yami would shed two tears for the loss of Kaiba corp.)

And, despite what I say in the caps, I feel like Leon and Zigfried are the first villains we’ve ever had that Yugi and Pharaoh didn’t unintentionally disclose that they are 2 people to. Zigfried and Leon are just...completely oblivious to how effed up Yugi’s bean is. They think that’s just a normal kid and lol no dudes...y’all got distracted by Seto Kabia but you have a literal Egyptian God just hovering around in the background and dating 3 people by accident.

Like when the show shelves the main storyline, it is very funny how it’s all “And we’re gonna put the Pharaoh crisis on hold--just put a pin in it. No one will notice this child is two nervous wrecks stitched together” and then Yugi and Yami just kinda hold it in and watch all patiently until it’s their turn to get off the bench.

(read more under the cut)

In the giant computer tower, Seto Kaiba shouts out a string of orders and numbers, admired the many sonar detector looking windows open on every monitor, and then sat down at his desk to like...check the firewall, I guess?

The virus is past the firewall. It’s um...it’s inside the firewall, pretty sure that was the point, but youknow, it’s a kid’s show so they’re just throwing out computer stuff that has no meaning to the writers of this show.

Mokuba thinks fondly of how Seto Kaiba has never screwed him over (which I mean...maybe not on purpose, ((except for that one time he did screw him over on purpose to get Gozaburo Kaiba to accidentally give Seto Kaiba the company, but you could say that was a grander scheme that he knew Mokuba would see through, which...)) but Seto certainly has screwed Mokuba over accidentally. At least once.)

And meanwhile, Yami fixes everything through card shenanigans.

So here’s the shenanigan this episode: I don’t go over cards here but this one requires a limited amount of explanation.

So every round the golden castle deletes half of Yugi’s cards. So he was like...I’ll just draw down to one card. They can’t delete half a card...so that means the card must delete one of the two cards on the field which means it must delete itself.

...which is like the closest Yugioh will probably ever get to abusing a glitch to do a speedrunning tactic like GDQ.

Anyway, like I stated in the title: there are no fractions allowed in Yugioh. If you do that to your priceless one-of-a-kind card you got from winning one of Pegasus’ murder tournies, it will irreparably bust the card.

I’m sure at least one of you will correct me with the proper way to insert a fraction into your duel disk. Cuz like...as I say multiple times so we never forget, I barely pay attention to this card game and I’m just flying by the seat of my pants.

I want to say Seto and Mokuba were in the hacker chairs for like...3 minutes maybe before they realized “oh...Yugi fixed it...” and walked the half a mile back to the duel arena.

and also, as I’m looking at Seto’s glasses here, I just realized...all of Kaiba’s team wears sunglasses all the time. Inside, outside, night, or day...

They haven’t outright said this...but what if those aren’t sunglasses?

Is Roland and that other Roland wearing fancy cyber glasses? They are, right? Because they wear them indoors?

Damn, they can’t take a piss without being on call with Kaiba Corp, can they?

Now the problem is...Yugi played all of his cards (he has two in front of him face down, but none in his deck) and after milling himself, this means he’s now basically a sitting duck for Leon to take the title of “King of Games.”

Leon insists that he defend whatever scraps are left of his card honor and not duel a person who is carrying no cards and Yugi was like “COME AT ME BRO THIS IS THE ONLY WAY I KNOW I’M ALIVE.”

He didn’t even have to do a horror on Leon, he just...played cards good? I skipped it, I’ll be honest, but overall Leon’s card honor was...saved? Maybe? I mean he also go destroyed when his competitor had not a single card in his duel disk so...

...Leon will have to work on his card honor off screen because he’s pretty well humiliated at this point.

But stumbling onto the playing field like he’s half dazed/daydrunk, Zigfried is like “You forgot I already won, bastards!”

Which is when we find out that Zigfried’s “delete all” virus failed to press “enter” and deleted basically nothing. Just like when my Mom attempts to send something in Gmail but doesn’t press “Send” and tells me that Google is down and broken.

Sorry my bro has informed me that he ALSO has had to help my Mother locate the “Send” button and I just...I know she absolutely did that but I’m in denial that this Riddle of the Sphinx has happened to her multiple times.

Honestly, the pep talk we get from Leon at the end to cheer up his bro was a whole lot of “we will pick ourselves up and we’ll do better next time. Together.” and sure you can translate that as “we’ll be honest next time” or you can translate that as “next time we will be not nearly as obvious about inserting a virus into their computer until it is done doing the job, bro.”

Just like Dartz, we didn’t really get a whole lot of retribution or closure when it comes to Zigfried. But, unlike Dartz, Zigfried didn’t do too much murder, so I guess this is fine. He tried to cheat in a card game...

...and I guess tried to delete Kaiba Corp but youknow...

...people let him have that. The police saw the ticket of “this man tried to delete Kaiba Corp” and they just...didn’t arrest him. The judge saw that ticket and didn’t put out a warrant. They just let Zigfried have this, almost like “better luck next time, ya?”

And then Roland clocked out for the day and went home, thus ending this arc.

Look at all these characters, most of which we never saw duel even one card.

We also got one shot of Mai for some reason although she was not in this arc.

AAAHHHH. Every time I’m like “the show is done screwing geography” we get another freakin geography spook!

But we went back to California in order to get a scene of these guys in an airport to get a flight to Japan...

which means Rex and Weevil just...were they shipped home by the Kaibas? Because way to ditch getting arrested by the American Government, hot damn. They are...literally terrorists who destroyed a Caltrain in a plot to kill everyone in the world so like...really surprised Rex and Weevil are in public...but maybe all the FBI were dead at the time so they just didn’t know?

Meanwhile, Duke has to go back to Death Valley and call a tow truck for his car, RIP.

I sure hope he got PTO during this stunt and isn’t going home to a pink slip.

I’m not sure of Dukes life or anything going on with Duke. I’m sure the thing about Serenity is him joking because we have all forgotten about that girl by this point...but also...is Duke...still living in the Tenderloin? The crime rate is very, very high and the ground isn’t solid, so it will liquefy if there’s an Earthquake, but it is one of the few places in the Bay Area that doesn’t light on fire every year. He has that going for him.

I just really hope Duke moves out of the Tenderloin one of these days, he needs a better life.

Meanwhile, Rebecca does one last crime.

This is like a post-epidemic reaction to a hug, but in 2002(3?).

I don’t think I’ll miss Rebecca too much. Wanted to like her more, but she was under-utilized, like most of the characters on Yugioh. Not even just talking girl characters here--most characters on Yugioh are super under-utilized, just Tristan Wallflowers doing nothing, but also being selectively OP as hell about very specific things they never, ever need to do.

Speaking of the devil:

Yugi...just saved his entire company...

But Mokuba is just has to make sure to make it seem like they owed Mokuba and not the other way around. Just in case.

So off they go on this massive plane. It’s probably more to do with the length of the trip as to why the plane is so big but also...

This plane is overcompensating.

But before we analyze that, lets close the book on Seto Kaiba’s very short therapy arc. Overall, it was a nice distraction, but I can see why people call it a filler arc, as it really doesn’t affect...anything going on in the major plotlines, which makes me think it could have been a movie or a game or something. But overall, it’s not bad, it’s just not what you’d expect if you were a Western audience.

Like I’m preaching to the choir, but typically, Western stories are entirely plot focused, and so our arcs always give or take away from that plot. But in a Eastern story arc, it may instead be character focused, where the climax is a character evolving or coming to some sort of cathartic realization, which this arc was, in a big way. We still had some plot, because this is a Shonen, but overall it was about characters, and specifically whether or not Leon and his bro would reconcile or change--which they did.

We did get to see a little more growth on Seto in that he...didn’t go bonkers and hallucinate during a card game. It’s been a while since we’ve had him not do that. Seto was very chill this arc, which makes sense, it was a very chill slice of life arc for everyone involved.

So, next we move on to the next one, which bro has informed me...is

still not Bakura.

According to Bro, the next arc didn’t even air in the Japanese version of the show? Like he’s got a lot of spicy Yugioh headcanons so he could be wrong (He did tell me that he thought that Zigfried was Seto Kaiba’s ex boyfriend when he saw this as a kid which...that sure is a way to interpret this arc, and it probably wasn’t just my little brother who went down that thought tube there...)

(Bro Note: To be fair, I didn’t watch much of this arc as a kid.)

But he says the next arc was originally a movie. But they released it in the States as episodes to be part of S5, just to put more episodes in there. Which, if he’s correct, makes it seem like we’re getting like the Mulan 2 experience kind of shoved in between this arc and the next

But um..

according to bro it has virtually no card games.

.......

I’m so used to only capping 10 minutes an episode, what?

Anyway, until then, here’s the link to read the rest of these from the start in chrono order:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

I’m kinda itching to do a Season Zero, it’s been a hot minute--so those take a little longer to do, especially since I need to go to a different site I haven’t...checked out yet...I’ll be back...eventually? I just know that at some point in Season Zero they fight it out with yo-yo’s and I want to see it.

[you-are-crazy-beautiful]

This is my thought process in regards to how Batwoman is going to go.

I don't think Kate is going to be a permanent fixture. I could be completely wrong, but to me, it seems more about giving the audience and characters closure, rather than her staying around. I think Kate coming back is crucial for the fans to see her recover and know she's going to be ok, and for the likes of Alice, Sophie, Jacob etc. to move forward.

I've seen some people say that Kate may become like an Oracle figure and training Ryan, but I honestly don't think that's necessary. We have Luke being the sort of Oracle figure helping Ryan, and Ryan is getting the hang of the whole caped crusader thing. If Kate does help her, I don't think it will be a long term thing. I think one of the main things that it boils down to me is that it would be weird to see kate being a side character after being the main, and I just can't envision what her role would be. This show could have multiple seasons to come, so I just can't envision Kate being around for all that time.

They could have easily had Wallis just replace Ruby and keep the mantle and continue the show like that, but casting Javicia and creating Ryan, implies to me that they're going in a new direction and not holding on to the past. The writers and cast have been very clear that Ryan is remaining as Batwoman.

In regards to the possible romances:

I hold my hands up as never having been a fan of Kate x Sophie. Partly because of Ruby, and Wallis's energy is great, so I'm sure I will like it a lot better this time, but I also don't think it was well developed or written in S1. For me they focused too much on Sophie and her crush on Batwoman and didn't get the balance right between Batwoman/Kate. There was also very little exploration of the Sophie x Batwoman dynamic before the relationship (fling?...) started and quickly ended. It's also very interesting to me how Sophie states that Kate is the love of her life (and she absolutely is so far), but in reality, they've never actually been in a proper relationship, it's more first love and the one that got away. So it could be really cool to explore how a love that you have wanted for so long and is so significant to you, might not live up to expectations in reality when you actually enter the relationship.

I want to say this is in no way me being an anti, it's just my personal take, I don't mean to offend anyone who ships them.

In contrast to the lack of development in S1, they seem to be very deliberately investing in Sophie x Ryan's dynamic, as seen in the amount of screen time they're getting, but also by Caroline saying they chose Sophie to find out Ryan is Batwoman because they wanted to add a new layer to that dynamic and move it forward.

They could of had Ryan and Sophie having little to do with each other, and it would have made sense. Yet, they have given them a history, which ties in nicely with Sophie learning Ryan is Batwoman and working to protect her.

Meagan also said that Ryan is the reason Sophie's questioning the Crows and her future with them. It wasn't something she had really considered before. They're pushing the other to be better. It's also worth noting the possible parallel of Sophie choosing the military over Kate and leaving the crows after Ryan has confronted her about them. It would show Sophie's growth as a character and standing up for herself and her beliefs.

That Wondercon panel really gave me life. Javicia was talking about how Ryan will have a main LI and that it will be someone who has earned her trust and developed over time. She legit said she already knows about the love story and that it's been in the recent scripts. I should also note that it isn't Angelique because right before this question Javicia said that the relationship isn't right for Ryan and that it's not healthy for her.

The BTS video that Meagan posted from 2x10 was in February, and from what Meagan and Wallis were talking about, it seems they are close to filming the finale (ep 18). The Wondercon panel was at the end of March (maybe ep 14/15? Idk how long an ep takes to film 😅), so to me, there is no other person that Ryan is developing a bond with that could be the LI at this point other than Sophie.

Meagan and Javicia's reaction to the question was also very informative 😂

It really would be the perfect storyline for Kate to come in, which will flare up Ryan's insecurities as she didn't think she was worthy of wearing the suit compared to Kate, just as she realises that Sophie has been protecting her against the crows, and discovers her feelings for Sophie, making her feel like she also can't live up to the love of Sophie's life.

I may be just projecting my own desires and hopes, but I just had to get it out 😜

[clemkesh]

Hello dear friends the time has come for me to once again recommend everyone go listen to Friends at the Table. What is Friends at the Table (f@tt)? “Friends at the Table is an actual play podcast focused on critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends.” If you’re a fan of TAZ you may have heard Griffin mention it as his personal favorite actual play podcast, so if you don’t take my rec, take Griffin’s. It slaps. It’s super diverse, fun, and compelling, and the care taken with the craft of storytelling throughout just warms my heart. The fact that every f@tt fan I know has a different favorite season is a testament to how great it is- what you like is just a matter of personal taste because it's all good as hell. 

Speaking of seasons, you might be wondering where you should start, because there’s a whole bunch of options! So here’s a brief intro into every season and the reasons you might wanna or not wanna start there.

Season 1: Autumn in Hieron- You could start at the very beginning, if you’re committed to consuming all the f@tt content or really like ghost pirates (who doesn’t?). Autumn is the first part of their Seasons of Hieron series, an ongoing high fantasy saga that features many of the same recurring playing characters. Autumn is definitely a good time, and a great place to start, since it is, ya know, the start, but the audio quality is pretty rough at certain points and it is definitely slower than later seasons. If you want to skip Autumn and still listen to later Hieron seasons, that’s a super valid option, and they have summary episodes that condense the action of the first season for what you will need to know for Seasons of Hieron moving forwards.

Season 2: Counter/Weight- This is where I started! Counter/Weight is the first of their sci-fi seasons, a cyberpunk mech adventure. Unlike Seasons of Hieron, while their sci-fi seasons all take place in the same universe, they take place thousands of years apart and have no repeating characters between them, so you don’t necessarily need to start here at the beginning. Counter/Weight also starts a little bit slow in my opinion, but once it takes off (they swap what game system they are playing with about ⅓ of the way through the season, and they’re much more comfortable with the second system), it TAKES OFF, MAN. Come cry with me about Orth Godlove, come laugh with me about Lazer Ted, and fuck capitalism. Guys, I cannot stress enough how good Counter/Weight is.

Edit- Important caveat, (thank you, @waveridden, for reminding me) C/W has a few they/them characters and the cast does not do a good job remembering their correct pronouns. In later seasons they absolutely improve and multiple cast members come out as trans, but fair warning that this is a definite problem during Counter/Weight. 

Season 2.5: Marielda- This is maybe the most common answer I’ve heard of where to start. Austin, the GM, designed Marielda as a sort of introductory mini-season to what makes Friends at the Table unique. It’s the story of a bunch of knowledge-brokers doing high-stakes heists in an industrial fantasy city. If you want to dip your toes into f@tt before diving in, this is the place to be. It’s a manageable 14 episodes, with two of those episodes being worldbuilding. It’s technically a prequel season to Seasons in Hieron but because it’s a prequel you don’t really need to be familiar with Hieron (Though you may occasionally be confused by a proper noun or two. When in doubt, those proper nouns are the names of gods in the Hieron pantheon. Especially if their name starts with “Sam”). Marielda slaps very hard. Join us, enthuse about TRAIN DAY, and bop to some clarinets. 

Season 3: Winter in Hieron- This is a good place to start if you want to hop on board right into the thick of Seasons of Hieron and prefer fantasy to sci-fi. I highly recommend listening to the summary eps of Autumn, but once you’ve done that you can dive right in. It’s very good. That’s a common theme, every season is very good. There’s some wonderful new characters in Winter and a lot of great worldbuilding. I hope you like moths.

Season 4: Twilight Mirage- The second of their sci-fi seasons, taking place in the same universe as Counter/Weight but way later so you don’t need to have listened to Counter/Weight though you may miss a reference. Where Counter/Weight is anti-capitalist cyberpunk, Twilight Mirage is utopian. It’s an interesting season philosophically (the GM was a philosophy major and it’s time for that to shine) and has a lot of very positive vibes, so start with Twilight Mirage if that sounds like your idea of a good time. 

Season 5: Spring in Hieron- Gonna be real this is the only one you almost definitely shouldn’t start with, since it’s the finale of Seasons of Hieron. But if for some reason you want to, you can listen to summary eps of Winter and Autumn and maybe be okay but like. I wouldn’t recommend it. It is a great season, you just probably shouldn’t start with it.

Season 6: Partizan- The third of their sci-fi seasons, and the one that is currently ongoing. Partizan explores sci-fi politics and revolutions and it features some of my favorite characters in the podcast. Start here if you want to listen along as new episodes are released and participate in the fan culture around that. Once again, you don’t need to have listened to Counter/Weight or Twilight Mirage, but you may miss a few nods. 

Bonus Season!: Bluff City- Bluff City was originally only available for Patreon supporters, but is currently available for free to all! Bluff City is a series of oneshots in wild and funky systems that all coexist in an alternate version of Atlantic City. It explores a lot of topics like crabs, wrestling, censorship, ghost hunting, and teen superheroes. The tone varies wildly from ep to ep based on what system they are playing but it’s always a party. If you just wanna commit to a one shot or two before deciding if you wanna get into f@tt, start here.

TLDR: You’re probably gonna want to start with Counter/Weight (cyberpunk mech season) or Marielda (shorter fantasy heist season), based on your genre preferences, but you could pick pretty much every season except Spring as a good starting point based on your personal taste.

[mysterylover123]

My Hero Academia Episode 86 “Let it Flow School Festival”

mysterylover123

The world needs My Hero Academia. Now more than ever.

AW! Gentle & LB feels!

Let’s play the thematic drinking game! Drink for Major Theme of “Doing things for other people” (2x for Deku and Gentle)

ITS HERE ITS HERE ITS HERE WHATRE THEY GONNA PLAY!?

YAS WEIRD FANS CHEER FOR MOMO SHE IS YOUR SUPREME GOD (WHATRE THEY GONNA PLAY WHATS IT GONNA BE?!)

LOL

Dammit its some song I don’t know. I was really hoping it’d be one of the OPs or EDs. Or like the new Electric Rock version of Might U, like YSR being like “This isn’t even my final form.” Oh well. A girl can dream. 

MAJOR THEME DRINKING GAME CONT W/ JIROU

x3! Doing stuff for others! OMG I love this series so much. 

You know, most of my family are music types like Jirou, so when I read this part in the manga, it made me tear up. It’s so freaking touching and interesting to think about. (Also is there a reason Jirou mom looks and acts like Momo?)

Yay Uraraka got to do something!

This. Right here. This is why we need/love MHA. Because helping an abused little girl smile is worth devoting 14 chapters/6 episodes of time to.

Though as much as I love seeing Eri smile, I’ll admit seeing Bakugou smiling so much this season/arc hits me too. In a similar way. Cause both Eri and Kacchan were kidnapped by villains and cried/traumatized by it, after all. (and Shoto was also abused by dad. Eri Shoto and Kacchan really need to start a “I was abused by assholes but then Deku saved me and made me happy again” club.)

Ah man i was hoping they’d come up with more stuff for Class B’s play! But oh well, who wants filler anyway.

The world needs BNHA.

YAS BAKUGOU. BE HAPPY FOR ONCE.

“You know what Miss Congeniality was missing?” Horikoshi apparently thought. “Martial arts, giant tanks and air dancing.”

And also more cute girlfriends cheering you on.

At first I thought this was supposed to be Kendo’s Commercial Fan, from the manga...but nope it’s just Monoma.

This little having  fun montage is so amazing and sweet. Todoroki’s serious Face sticking out of this standee is the icing on the cake.

OMG DEKU’S POOR ELBOW.

They need to double date.

Maybe triple with Nejire/Yuyu.

When Kaminari met Shinso. (Fans have taken to shipping them pretty intensely after a certain story arc, so it’s funny to see them meeting here.) 

Yep. Go on injecting that wholesomeness straight into my veins.

And with that the Culture Fest arc is a wrap! Wow, they didn’t pad that out with anything at all, did they? No filler, no slow pacing. Just shot straight through the entire arc. Now that it’s over, though, what’re they planning to do in the last 2 episodes of Season 4?! No way they can get through the Pro Hero Arc in just 2 episodes, short as it may be. Are they planning on doing filler?

Nope! the trailer says. Next episode we’re jumping right into that Pro Hero arc! Which either means we’ll drag out the first few chapters, or we’re gonna end season 4 (MANGA STUFF) right smack dab in the middle of EndeavorHawks vs High End. Um. OK. You do you I guess.

So that’s the end of the Culture Festival Arc! While I wish they’d picked a song I knew, gotta say it was fun to see. And to repeat as ever, that I love BNHA, and this arc is lovely. It’s great to spend some time on the MCs having fun, and emphasizing the importance of making Eri happy. 

I don’t mean to get “of the times”, but I gotta say right now I really wish we could have something like this...a small, contained event of fun. All the paranoia and fear floating around right now, with everything getting cancelled, reminds me of the atmosphere  these days...Villains, viruses, either way. Stuff gets cancelled and the world gets scared. And a little controlled event like this, like BNHA’s culture festival arc, with the proper security measures taken, could be just the ticket. Ah well. For now, we’ll have to content ourselves with watching BNHA, and letting it as always put that smile on our faces.

NEXT EP: THE PRO HERO ARC BEGINS APPARENTLY.

[naruhearts]

14x18 First Watch Thoughts: Mary Winchester the Mirror, TFW and Destiel

**FLAILS**

My thoughts are practically incoherent because I’m having BIG FEELS right now...VERY big feels re: TFW/Destiel narratives.

I am SUPER glad Berens was the one who penned Mary’s death!! The episode was just well-done all around from start to finish and intensely executed, with the proper solid balance of angst, emotional insight from the characters placed inside Mary’s cathartic contextual role, and the consistent reiteration of Mary as TFW’s overall Parental Catharsis in 14x18′s storytelling (and S12-14′s whole parental premise in conjunction with John Winchester’s ghost). 

Mary was portrayed as the singular contrasting foil to TFW’s individual and combined arcs. Absence was, obviously, a core theme, with Mary’s absence -- her death -- playing out as A. familial purpose (accountability and her death as the impetus to work together --> forgive each other, forgive yourself), B. self-purpose (self-realization via Jack: what did I do? Why did I do it? Why do we do things?), and C. romantic purpose on the Dean/Cas front. 

Let me explain C. -- well, WE BEEN KNEW. The metasphere wrote about this (my post x).

x

Dean was HEAVILY subtextually framed as the angry spouse undergoing a rough patch with Cas over Mary’s death  (the tension, juxtaposed by sad orchestral strings and soft lighting, Dean lashing out at Cas, romantic framing via Dean’s back turned to Cas, their interactions holding frustration yet still underpinned by certain tenderness etc *sighhhhh*) and Dean continuing down the route of giving Cas, not Sam, frosty shoulders -- emphasized by the romantic visual framing of space between them e.g. Sam preventing Cas from comforting Dean during Mary’s funeral, backs again facing each other, Dean and Cas interacting sparsely, Dean bitter and disengaged, Cas longing for forgiveness from Dean, Sam as the overt brother caught in the middle as he embodies the role of mediator and stable thinker for both of them etc -- just strengthens my belief that Destiel is going to experience another (hopefully) intense romance-coded confrontation as intense as the one they had in the cabin -- one that leads up to a lover’s make-up or some kind of emotional breakthrough/realization which has Cas happy enough to be taken by the Empty (remember, DEAN STILL DOESN’T KNOW ABOUT CAS’ DEAL. Cas’ life to save his son’s life, harking back to Dean’s own fatherly self-sacrificial deal by saying Yes to Michael. He is utterly unaware that he’ll lose Cas) and it’s a double punch here, because Dean will realize how stupid he is for not appreciating Cas -- more accurately, trying to be mutually transparent and honest with him (he has, though, and he’s made leaps and bounds) before it’s too late but failing (final regression before progression). He does appreciate Cas, and Cas means more to him than anyone could ever describe *points at his Mind!Bar 14x10* yet their love languages still don’t align. IT’S NEVER TOO LATE TO START ALL OVER AGAIN, DEAN! 14x19 is written by BL so I additionally hope the D/C subtext from this point onwards works in our favour!!

As I said in above and in my liveblog posts, a summary: 

The differences in Dean’s grieving are a COMPLETE visual comparison to 12x23, complete with overhead 📸 shots and differing funeral pyre scenes: when he grieved over Cas, he was alone, kneeling on the ground, and was blatantly numb/emotionally incapacitated – Dean mourned the loss of his lover. When he’s grieving Mary, Sam is by his side. Brothers mourning the loss of their mother. Romantic vs familial.

Overt romance-coded parallels with Sam/Rowena keeping constant contact just like Dean/Cas do both offscreen and onscreen

Sam telling Dean IT WASN’T JUST CAS and his own emotional pull in this ep as expressing accountability for TFW’s actions in general – besides internalizing/talking about the self-guilt, shame, and the inevitable pain of losing people despite saving people (also re: the 🔑 theme of doing the wrong, stupid thing for the right reasons) -- was character development on a marvelous scale. Dean was enlightened and began to admit it himself. Honest, open words. Dean and Cas should learn from him!!

 Cas was absolutely humanized, subsuming the Winchester Way of Bringing Family Back, and he additionally evoked honesty/an emotional justification while admitting his mistakes and again representing FAITH: faith in Jack narratively linked to FAITH IN HIMSELF and the season-long theme of believing there’s another way -- in believing that good things shall come. As he appropriately told Anael last episode -- loneliness is a construct misconstrued by her; not being in one’s physical presence doesn’t mean they aren’t there -- they are there. They are there for you. Narrative symmetry with 14x17′s presence of emotional acknowledgement despite physical absence re: God (and TFW; just because Cas wasn’t with the Winchesters did not mean he loved them any less) vs 14x18′s absence of full-frontal communication despite physical presence re: Dean and Cas/TFW (being physically present also entails being emotionally present through HONESTY). Berens interlinked the subtext. Negative spaces are being filled. And there’s also an Evil/dark dimension added to this Presence vs Absence commentary: Lucifer’s a visage in Jack’s mind, just like Sam. Jack’s soullessness has come to a psychological crux. He’s teeter-tottering – tried desperately to bring Mary back, and now he might have fucked up the natural order (if BTS pics of zombies in 14x20 is linked to this).  Furthermore:

(*clutches chest* There’s the heartbreaking spousal-coded visual narrative.)

Oh, Cas...Jack is BOTH good and evil. This is the intrinsic dualism of human nature. It’s what makes Jack human. And goodness involves badness. 

CAS: [Jack] was good for us. Indeed, we know he was. The unhealthily-codependent-abusive notion of family TFW used to possess (where their overarching parental issues -- Chuck’s absence, John’s abuse and Mary’s absence -- crippled their early formative growth, extending into decades) was deconstructed and rebuilt in healthier ways. Being a parent to Jack offset their true capabilities/qualities: FAITH (Cas), HOPE (Sam), and LOVE (Dean), alongside all the stickiness that came with his birth. By direct association, Cas learned (is learning) how to believe in himself. Sam learned (is learning) how to hope in himself. Dean learned (is learning) how to love himself. Mental/emotional release from their internal chains took place (will come to its final culmination in S15). In other words, Jack the Unifying TFW Mirror -- like Mary -- was the great interpersonal conduit for (a Jesus-figure-representation) honesty, appreciation (spending time with your loved ones), positive vs negative self-process, and self-awareness. Keep in mind that Jack has characteristically taken the place of Dean, Cas and Sam’s own dark arcs (Soulless!Sam, in particular) with what looks like a Godstiel mirror in 14x19 -- he’s literally becoming textualized as TFW’s mirror -- and, like his parents, he is going to make his independent (wayward) choices and question the primacy of human nature: good, evil, and the grey in-between. Will he listen to his head or his heart?  Most of all, Jack taught them that HuntingTM is filled with pain, horror, and death, but genuine purpose lies beyond it. The lives they live are also innumerably interlinked with joy and happiness. These positive things aren’t as sparse as they think: they have each other.

Mary Winchester is ⚰️ and resides in Heaven (her death successfully made me emotional and packed a deep personal punch; the black and white flashbacks interspersed throughout 14x18 relative to Mary’s influence on TFW was A++). She disappeared right when TFW’s arcs came together to display character progression. Her purpose – pushing TFW to engage in self-introspection, personal growth, and honesty with the Self and others – is done.

Mary, the Cas mirror, carved M.W. into the table with S.W and D.W. You know who should be next, right? CASTIEL W. (and Jack W.) (recall that in 14x17, Mary relayed to Dean that she treasured and enjoyed her time with him and Sam -- channeling Cas’ 14x12 farewell speech. Mary has always embodied LOVE, both romantic and familial, with the great virtue of honesty, and Dean, by proxy, has been telling his family he loves them. Again, who is the next family member he’ll say I LOVE YOU to? What do Dean and Cas WANT? Time to answer this question!!)

WE HAVE COME FULL CIRCLE. Narrative cyclism, y’all. Mary and John Winchester are finally at ✌️, and by so doing, TFW will experience emotional/personal/psychological ✌️ as they leave their past behind to create their own optimistic self-actualized future. THERE’LL BE GENUINE PEACE WHEN YOU ARE DONE.

TFW MUST TALK

I mean, I’ll probably reblog this with new thoughts during the next few days, but yes, ENDGAME’S UPON US, and all the extensive meta regarding Dabb Era Love and...Love, Unity, Family, Honesty, the centrality of interpersonal relationships and Reconciliation of the Past & Future since Season New Beginnings 12/13 over Season Who Am I 14 should be realized in the final two ANGST-filled eps. TL;DR a gigantic multilayered soup of character-positive/relationship growth-positive meta coming to fruition for the main plot.

Berens has killed us all. 14x18 is one of my favourite Emotion-centric episodes yet!

RATING: 10/10

Thank you for reading my sloppier-than-usual word-vomit!

[muthaz-rapapa]

Categorizing Precure by Hair Length (Civilian ver.)

Good god, I probably went over this a dozen times and more until I said “f*** it!” and wrote myself a set of rules to follow. I know everybody’s gonna have different thoughts on what counts as short or medium-length or even long hair and with appearances varying from one art to the other, it’s going to be tough to reach a consensus. 

But I needed something straightforward to go by to make this easier on myself. If you disagree, that’s fine. Again, I didn’t design these characters so I can’t make the final call on what’s accurate and what’s not. Even so, remember that at the end of the day, this was done for fun.

Here is the Cure version.

More comments below the cut.

Note: This will be continually updated as new additions come along.

**Length guidelines:

Short hair - Anywhere from above to just touching the very top of the shoulders.

Medium hair - Covers or reaches around the general shoulder area.

Long hair - Anything that extends below the shoulder area. (Regarding tied-up hair, if the ends already reach the shoulders, then I’m assuming the length goes beyond that when it’s let down)

Short:

Medium:

?? - Hikari, Love, Miyuki, Yayoi, Aoi, Hikaru (see below cut for comments)

Long:

?? - Mai, Yuni, Chiyu, Hinata (see below cut for comments)

Short - Hmmm, when I look at it this way, I don’t think I made too much of an error in judgement. At least for the short hairs, anyway.

A little note about Mana, though. The ends of her hair are curled (flared?) upwards so it’s questionable if she really belongs here or should be put in medium-length section instead. 

Going by this scan, when it’s completely down, Mana’s hair appears to just barely go a little past the top of her shoulders ...however, it’s still not enough to be counted as medium hair in my books so short-haired she stays.

Medium - Most of the girls I placed in this section are undetermined cases, largely because they always have their hair up so it’s hard to gauge the real length. In other words, a lot of guesswork was involved.

Fortunately, this is where their full body profiles come in very handy (check the wiki image galleries) so let’s go through them one by one:

Hikari - Originally was supposed to be in the long section but as I kept checking back to the screencaps on the wiki, I really can’t grasp the length of her braid. Ultimately I went with her Dress Up Collection Puzzlun card, the only official picture I could find with her hair down, and ruled it as medium. Oh so very close to being long but since I’m still not positively sure, she’ll stay here for now.

Komachi - Looks can be deceiving but don’t forget that Komachi’s hiding a short ponytail behind her back. Yea, her hair is weird but it’s actually an application of the short hair with tail trope.

Kurumi - She may look like she belongs among the long-hairs and I thought that, too, at first but it’s actually because Kurumi has very voluminous hair that’d make you think so. From the back, the ends of her hair is probably just a few cm short from being “long” but it’s so evenly cut out that I can tell it’s still within the shoulder area. Just my opinion, though.

Love - Ok, you cannot give me Love’s ziggy twintails and say that her pajama profile is the same person. Of course, maybe that art just isn’t drawn in consistence with how Love usually looks. Either way, she’s definitely not a short hair, that I have no doubt. But whether she’s a long hair or not, I’ll leave it up in the air for now.

Setsuna - My hair’s about the same length as hers so it was easy to make this call.

Erika - Hard to tell cuz Erika’s bending over here but definitely not a very long haired girl.

Miyuki - Googled it, didn’t help. Rewatched the ep where they went on a school trip (ep 13, btw), didn’t help much either. It’s difficult to determine because Miyuki is either moving around too much or slouching too much that you can’t really see where her shoulders are. I mean, you’d have to have a fair amount of hair to put it into twin buns like hers but as I’m not an expert on just how much hair is needed for that to be possible, I can’t really say anything besides “I dunno”.

Yayoi - Honestly, I’m not sure if she’s got short hair or a short neck. The fact that her hair is very poofy doesn’t help. But something tells me that if it were straight, it’ll probably reach a little further down her shoulders.

Nao - Also referenced the school field trip ep like I did with Miyuki. Couldn’t find a good angle to decide with certainty either but by the looks of it, Nao’s hair probably isn’t long enough to be considered long long.

Megumi - Ep 44 has Megumi wear her hair down in a low, loose sidetail. As you can see, it only goes a certain way past the top of her shoulder.

Towa - She has it styled in Ojou ringlets all the time and wears a headband on top of that. So maybe if she straightened them, they’d be longer? Even so, this is her usual look so we’re gonna stick with that.

Ha-chan - The ends of her hair is slightly curled in but in general, not extensively long.

Aoi - Another hard one. Like Nao, Aoi rarely lets her hair down from her high ponytail and the only pic I could find that showed most of it down (it’s being held back by a headband? Tiara?) is from ep 14 when she was forced to dress up formally. But still, doesn’t seem like her hair is in it’s natural state with how prim and proper she looks (yep, somebody definitely used hairspray on her). I dunno, what do you think? :/

Hana - Quite obvious, no further comments.

Hikaru - If Hikaru had ever let her hair down, then I must have missed it or something because I swear, even in her flashbacks, I’ve never seen her without her twin tails ever. That leaves her another mystery.

Long - After so much trouble with the medium-hairs, thankfully most of the girls in this section were no-brainers. The ones I’m having trouble with are:

Mai - Starting to have doubts after rechecking the wiki again cuz the length of her hair varies between the official profile pics and the anime screenshots. I also don’t think Mai letting all her hair down makes much of difference in length but exactly how long it really is still leaves me stumped.

Yuni - Those braids make it hard to tell but since this isn’t even her real form, I’m gonna go by how Yuni looks as a Rainbownian, which obviously shows she’s got enough hair to reach past her waist at least.

Chiyu & Hinata - So far at this point in the season, the only moments we got to see them with their hair down are in the transformation sequences. But not only are they moving really fast, their hair is also constantly flailing about that I really can’t measure how long they actually are. I even went frame by frame and I suppose these are the two best screencaps I got without the camera messing with the perception too much.

Not that it’s any better as we all know how animation can exaggerate things for aesthetic effects so yea...

Anyways, I’m sure we’ll get an episode later on where the Heal girls will have their hair down one way or another. In the meantime, I’ll leave them in this section for now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Update log:

4/8/20 - Post published.

[multimetaverse]

Did you see Josh tweeting about how people shouldn't be wishing Kira to not be redeemed when they did the same thing for Amber and TJ? I feel like that's not a fair comparison and I also feel like he spoiled that Kira is getting redeemed by talking about it? What do you think?

I did. Certainly no one should be attacking people who want her to be redeemed but for Josh or anyone else to compare her story to TJ or Amber’s is insulting our collective intelligence as audience members. TJ and Amber did have redemption arcs but when is Kira’s happening? In S4? She only has the finale left and she was only on set for one day, the same day all the other main and recurring kids were. We don’t need to pretend that the conclusion of her story won’t be rushed and unsatisfying; there just isn’t time for it to be otherwise. And what Kira has done, made a closeted gay kid feel insecure about his sexuality and use that to manipulate him, is really high up there on the list of bad things people have done on this show and the real life consequences of that kind of homophobia can be grave. Obviously the show will never delve into those potential consequences or use the word homophobia but it’s extremely justified if audience members don’t want to see her forgiven especially when she’s shown zero signs of growth or guilt or remorse for her actions. 

Amber was introduced in the pilot and TJ was introduced in 2x03 but Kira was only introduced a third of the way through the last season then disappeared for 6 eps and is going to disappear for another 5 eps and is only in 4 eps total. TJ’s third ep was the muffin scene and the set up for his learning disability and his fourth ep was the first swing set scene and the reveal of his dyscalculia. We learned a lot about him already in those first 4 eps and saw different sides of him. We’re three quarters through Kira’s story and we’ve seen nothing from her except pettiness and jealousy and manipulation and low key homophobia. After Buffy realizes TJ has been manipulating her in 2x17 she confronts him and calls him out for his behaviour and our last glimpse of TJ is of him looking remorseful, that at least would have been something to hang even a crappy redemption arc on but we didn’t even get that with Kira and times almost up.

It’s not like Terri didn’t know she wouldn’t be on screen much. Her screen time comes out of TJ’s and it’s clear that he couldn’t go beyond 3 minutes per ep before the original wedding and that he was only allowed to be in 9 eps in S3. If they truly had wanted or were able to give Kira more screen time they wouldn’t have cast a 14 year old to play her. That’s part of the reason why Molly and Luke and even Parker are all the same age as Josh, so they could all work roughly the same hours and take advantage of Josh being able to be on set longer than the younger kids. I’m not kidding when I say Kira is looking at very little screen time in the finale. All of the park scenes in 3x15 were filmed in one day, now imagine if Andi, Jonah, Amber, and Marty had all also had park scenes in that ep and you can see how her share of screen time drops. 

It’s likely that the, ‘’sometimes there’s a nice person inside trying to get out’,’ line Josh leaked from the finale is said to or about Kira but again we’ve never met nice Kira.  We got to know Amber over 24 eps and TJ over 18 and we’ve seen the nice person inside of them and we’ve seen them grow and learn and apologize. We need to see some glimpse of that for Kira if her plot isn’t going to be a total flop. If we get some 45 second apology from Kira to TJ and the word manipulation is used and she promises to be better and to be a supportive friend and it’s implied that she’ll spend time working to gain TJ and Cyrus and Buffy’s trust then that’s rushed and lame but somewhat reasonable. If they try to have her immediately accepted into the friend group and TJ and Cyrus and Buffy all just forgive her with nothing more than a brief apology despite doing nothing to earn their forgiveness or trust than that’s a horrible message to send to kids and Terri will deserve to be called out for it. 

I agree with you anon that he’s effectively revealed that she is getting an unsatisfying redemption of sorts and that’s why he’s inserted himself into this drama because he’s preemptively defending the show from a backlash he expects is coming despite him claiming that he’s not spoiling anything either way. I get the same energy from his tweet storm as I did from Terri’s extremely defensive ‘’queer baiting and censorship’’ post back in November. It’s never a good sign when artists make defensive posts instead of letting their work speak for them. The saddest thing is that the show did such a good job with TJ and Amber’s arcs and characters and they’ve dropped the ball with Kira’s. If Terri didn’t have the time or permission to really give Kira a proper arc than she shouldn’t have tried and if she just couldn’t pull it off then it’s for the best that the show is ending with S3. 

[i-am-fran]

My thoughts after ep 9.09

My thoughts on season 9 of #Suits ahead of the series finale:

So today I saw 9.09 and I think now is the right time to write a little piece about my thoughts and wishes and expectations. Why now? During the past 2 or 3 episode I have realized that I have very mixed feelings about this season. Before I start I’d like to remind you that this is how I feel about this seasons. There may be things you you agree with, other’S you don’t. I’d like to hear about them, but please be polite - it’s just an opinion. Also: While many things might sound negative, I still took the time to think and write about them. That’ how invested I am in this show. I wouldn’t bother doing that for a show I don’t enjoy watching. The thing is: The more I like a character, the harder I judge how they are developed. No hard feelings.

First, I have to admit that I had very high expectations after 8.16. I did not particularly like season 8, not because Mike and Rachel left and not because of the introduction of Alex and Samantha (who I think were both very refreshing additions to the cast), but because I felt that Harvey and Donna in particular seemed to be stuck in some kind of limbo in regards to character development for the first 14 episodes. The Kessler romance that somewhat triggered the “Darvey” romance felt rushed in the end of season 8, even though I had wanted for this to happen for so long.

9.01 started so promising and I really enjoyed the introduction of Faye. I loved the fun moments with Louis being Louis, just the way they happened in the early seasons. All in all, Louis is the one character I am most pleased with in regards to character and storyline. Everything seems seamlessly consistent with him.

Harvey I also really can’t complain about. His character development has stretched over the entirety of nine seasons and it is natural that now things are slowly winding down.

The character development I am most unhappy about is Donna. It seems to me that all season her sole purpose was to serve Harvey coffee. There were some sweet moments with Louis and some confrontations with Faye and the other partners, but let’s face it: The only storyline that she really had next to being Harvey’s sidekick was her Dad and Faye being unhappy about her relationship with Harvey, which was one of the subplots of “Cairo”. It reminded me a little of the early seasons when Donna barely had any other purpose than being Harvey’s know-it-all secretary, but not in a good way. It felt like Alex, Katrina and even Esther had more significant plots this season, though they were similar in their length regarding screen time.

However this isn’t the first time I am unhappy with Donna’s character development. Despite Donna being my favorite Suits character -hands down-  I’m still super irked about her unrealistic leap from secretary to COO. As a woman in a business where most my co-workers are men I hate to see when TV gets women’s hopes up in how this could happen. To me, it feels like Donna slept her way to her position without actually sleeping with her boss. The circumstances are -in my eyes- the same, which is why I hate it. This isn’t gender equality, because no secretary, be it male or female does get promoted to COO without taking a few more steps in between. This only happens in fairytales.  Donna has no qualification to be COO at all and I would have felt much differently about the situation if the plot would have been Donna taking her seed money to go to business school. Or some twist in the story with Donna revealing her MBA certificate saying “Actually, those Pilates classes I allegedly take every Friday afternoon were college courses. Here’s my degree. Promote me.” And the worst of it all: Donna changed. The way she spoke to people changed, the way she dressed changed and in the end she was a Jessica/Donna hybrid I could hardy recognize as the quirky secretary she used to be. For me part of her charm was the amount of power she had by just “working from Harvey’s desk”. But I’m rambling- this ship sailed long ago.

Back to season 9. I had hope, now that she was in a relationship with Harvey, we would get a more domestic side of her, get a glimpse of her private life. What’s with that reveal of an older sister that was neither here or there or in any way relevant to the plot? I don’t know about you, but Donna always gave me this ‘only-child’ vibe. Which is probably why her sister was explained away as “much older”. However, why did they cast a woman who is only 11 years older than Sarah Rafferty as her mom? While I think season 9 Donna is probably several years younger than Sarah because the seasons only appear to be spanning around 6 months or so (considering how long Sheila was pregnant, the time it took Rachel to get her postgraduate degree and so on) and one could argue that Donna’s mom is therefore some years older than the actress who portrays her it would still be the case that Donna’s mom had her in her early twenties at the latest. When would she have had a much older sister? At 16? Unnecessary plot hole/irregularity. Kudos however for explaining away how Donna’s parents seemed to be married when Harvey let them stay at his condo once, then were seemingly separated during the “god-awful dinner party” (some people argue it must have been Donna’s “loser” boyfriend, but why would have Harvey been there in that case?). Clarification finally came: They were separated but got back together. Brownie points for plot consistency.

Some casual outfits made an appearance, which was an important first step, but they still felt a little forced. I mean, what’s the thing in American TV shows to have the woman wearing PJs with perfectly coiffed hair, fake lashes and full make-up? In the season 2 scenes where Harvey and Mike visited Donna after she was fired she was not only dressed casually, her face and hair were noticeably dressed down as well. I would have liked that a lot to make it more realistic. And the jammies disappeared after episode 1. There are several morning scenes with Harvey and Donna were both are already fully dressed for work (apart from Donna being barefoot at some times (jeez, if I wore those heels I’d be barefoot the second I’d enter the apartment). I think it made those scenes more sterile and less domestic despite the sweet dialogues. I think I would have liked it better, if there was a little more slouching, touching, maybe a TV running, or one of them sitting on the crumpled bed. Less superhero, more normal, that’s what I would have liked. And what’s with the no-touching anyways? I would have understood if it was only the office scenes, because I do believe neither of the character’s to be big on PDA, especially at work. But at home? Politely sitting next to each other, no leaning in, no touching, no hugging. Just talking. Like old times. I would have liked to see more of them being a couple. Sure, there were some pretty intense romantic scenes like in Mike’s apartment and with Lily and the painting, but the small moments that surrounded those big Darvey scenes were pretty underwhelming. Well, at least Harvey’s bathrobe made an appearance in 9.09 so there is still hopes for some normalcy in 9.10. It’s not an issue of screen time. Even as a Darvey shipper I was aware s9 would not turn into the “Darvey show”, it’s the content of some of the small scenes that disappointed me. Okay, no more Donna or Darvey bashing. Did I mention I’m actually a Darvey shipper?

One more thing: Why is everyone in this show dying of heart attacks. I understand why Lily had to die in terms of the storyline. But a heart attack? What are the odds of both slim and fit parents dying untimely of a heart attack? Could the writers not think of other sudden causes of deaths? She could have an aneurysm, get hit by a car, been diagnosed with a fatal cancer without Harvey knowing and so on and so on. Also: In the very same episode Sutter also died: Cause: Heart attack! If that’s where the writer’s creativity is heading it’s probably best we are nearing the end. If this unfortunate accumulation of heart attack was created on purpose, I do not get the reason why. 

Another hope I had for s9: A Jessica cameo. My hope was for a small storyline that would be addressed in both Pearson and Suits in order to gain more attraction for the new show. Plus I love Jessica. With so many loose ends to tie up in 9.10 I doubt there will be time for a proper Jessica Pearson appearance other than being a guest to Louis wedding, if she appears at all. Can we please talk about the wedding? Why does Louis get a baby AND a wedding in one season? He was engaged twice before. Even Mike and Rachel technically had two wedding scenes (one in s5 and one in 7). At least it looks like we still get a Darvey proposal. While I agree with Sarah Rafferty that a big white wedding shouldn’t be the conclusion of her character, I had –albeit a small- hope that there would be unconventional quick nuptials somewhere around episode 6 or 7 instead of that almost proposal. Taking Harvey’s character development into context I would find that Harvey creating a family on his own more important than a Darvey wedding. We already know those two are endgame. And while I think another pregnancy would be cheesy and far too rushed in this short span of episodes I still hold out a little hope that there will be a moment shared between Harvey and Donna that alludes to the idea that they’ll go into the baby-making business soon. Maybe when Sheila goes into labour? Not sure that will als still happen in 9.10.

In order not to have to finish this little article on a  negative note: There are things I really really liked. Samantha’s storylines, Mike’s cameo in 9.09 (though he was such a douche in 9.05), the phone calls with Lily, the mock trial and Sheila’s change of heart about her career. Been glad we did not spend more than one ep on the Katrina/Brian romance. Thank you.

[oliverdant]

As recently as July, Arrow executive producer Marc Guggenheim changed up the plan for the series’ very final scene. Now it’s just a matter of somehow pulling it off.

During an Aug. 4 sit-down with TVLine at the Television Critics Association summer press tour, Guggenheim revealed that a month prior, a new way to end the Arrowverse flagship series’ eight-year run dawned on him.

“I came out of meditation one morning and I had the whole last scene — and it’s a brand-new scene,” he said.

The eighth episode of Arrow‘s 10-episode farewell run, airing Jan. 14, 2020, will serve as Part 4 of this season’s “Crisis on Infinite Earths” crossover event. The episode that follows is “not related to the crossover” and “very specific; we know exactly what happens in it,” Guggenheim told reporters after the show’s farewell panel. Episode 10 then will deliver “a proper series finale.”

If the show sticks with the newly conceived way to close said finale, it will take some doing to make it happen.

“There are a lot of logistical hurdles that have to be crossed in order to shoot that scene. It’s not like we can just film it tomorrow,” Guggenheim teased for TVLine.

The EP said he was not necessarily looking to change up the very final scene — but neither was he averse to the prospect.

“The thing that I’ve sort of always told myself about the finale was that I wouldn’t be so rigid about my plan that I wouldn’t leave myself open to other ideas,” he said. “Had I not left myself open, I wouldn’t have written the scene I wrote, which I really, really like.”

UPDATE: Guggenheim has tweeted that if this new final scene can’t overcome the logistics, he will share the script pages for what might have been:

Could this scene be logistically difficult because it will imply gathering long gone cast members? Or... Is it maybe that the scene will be shot in a difficult to reach location?

Go figure! 🤔